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 Asgad. We now return to our chronoscopic illusion. * * * Owen sleeps late. It feels good to be able to sleep. Rising around nine, making coffee, he sits in the living room bay window in the morning sunshine. He walks up to the store for a paper and cream. The air is warm and the sun shines and he doesn’t have to waste this beautiful morning in a shop yard. He feels happy. Women walk the streets in short summery skirts and dresses, blousing in the warm wind. Many pretty ones out today, he thinks, must be the sun. Sunshine brings them out in droves. Sunshine calls them from their holes — the dainty ones, the short, perky ones with curly brown hair and big boobs, the tall ones, with legs running on forever, the ones built specifically for pleasure, the sun calls them to preen. Owen walks back to the flat with the paper and the cream enjoying the view, astatic to live in San Francisco, for today, at least. Though that feeling comes and goes. André’s awake, sitting in the living room bay, next to Iguana. They both bask in the sun. “Nice sun, huh?” “Killer.” “How you feeling this morning, dude?” “Feeling a might knappy.” “You look a little hung.” “Dude.” André says, wags his bedhead tuft of thick black hair. “Good coffee, though, that helps. Strong. Owen always makes it too weak.” “I prefer strong coffee, otherwise it’s like drinking brown water.” “Crayon-dipped coffee.” “No doubt.” They toast the coffee and sit in the sun quietly reading the San Francisco Chronicle. Owen likes the paper. Beats the hell out of most of the conservative newspapers. Loads off the wire, run in full, not in quips and quotes. Herb Caen. The Datebook section. So much happening in the world and right here in The City. A fine place to live. Feels like you sit atop the razor-blade-edge cutting the social fringe. World news happens around you. Wrath of the gods-type shit, he thinks, reading a story about Burma. Things that happen here matter. Not like the Middle West, where everything grand that happens, happens somewhere else. Unless it’s a big storm or a drought. Otherwise, the Middle West is quite dull. “I’m glad I left Nebraska,” Owen says to André. “Not much there, eh?” “No, not much. It’s quiet there, so if you have a full head and you need a hole to hide in, fine. But it’s no place to live if you’re looking for living.” “It’s referred to as ‘the Good Life’ state, right?” “My cohorts and I as we sat in the bar there night after night asked each other this question: “Is Nebraska dull?” “What was the answer?” “We never answered it. The question usually spurred debate, or nonsensical witticisms, drunken banter. It was a good joke, and we told it a lot. We all knew that Nebraska is dull as hell.” “What happened to those guys.” “They left the state, then moved back. I’ll probably move back there again someday. You can’t escape it. I go far, far away from Lincoln, then suddenly find myself back again. Every time I leave I vow never to come back, but I always end up finding my way back there again, and I hate it. It’s not where I belong, but it’s easy to live there, so when my head is full I return, write it down, then leave again.” “How’s your head now?” “Filling, nowhere near full. Shitload of stimulus here, though, I must say.” “Yes, if we have anything in San Francisco, it’s stimulus. You working today?” “This afternoon.” “You work a lot.” “I like to keep things moving along. I’m stuck now, and I need to break inertia. Working helps break inertia.” “Yeah, working is alright, as long as you don’t have to do it all the time.” * * * The Green Tortoise appears quiet when Owen pulls up on Rocinante. No screaming hoards of renters, or passengers, in this case. Just a bus parked on the pit, a couple cats, lazy in the sun, and a tall woman with light brown hair and a big nose, sunning herself. She looks like a skate punk. Baggy pants, flannel shirt, Chuck Taylors, she gives off the air of a thrasher. The scene looks almost idyllic. Picturesque. Owen smiles. “Is Wade in yet?” She looks down from the sky. “No.” “Think I should just go down and wait for him.” “If you want to.” Down in the shop, Owen acquaints himself. The shop is filled with stuff. Replacement parts, tool boxes, clothing, food, kitchen supplies, books, papers, a Safetykleen® solvent sink in the middle with two large rolling tool boxes on either side, belts and hoses hanging from the ceiling, a Playboy calendar suspended by a wire, a desk alive with clutter. Towards the rear of the shop, on the right-hand side, what seems to be the fabrication department, complete with drill press, grinders, a welder — everything but a metal lathe. Owen is impressed. “Better than I thought,” he mumbles. “Well good morning!” “Hello, Wade. You sound well this morning.” “Oh, hell, it’s a fantastic day. I love it when the sun is out.” “Doesn’t everybody?” “Well, in California, at least. So, you’re here to work, eh?” “You bet. I’m stoked. This place feels a helluva lot better than Whitey’s” “It’s a little less hectic. Only Fridays are a bitch. And today is Friday. We’ve got five buses going out and we need to go through three yet, so why don’t I show you around and then we can get to it.” “Sounds good.” Wade gives Owen a tour. The Green Tortoise exudes nothing but character. Built with multiple intentions, say that of a fortress and a club house, conceived in a system of organized disorganization. Something mediaeval — the system for survival in the nineties: have good things, but camouflage them so as to appear worthless. Maybe slap a strip or two of Duct Tape over it. Perhaps a dab of grease. A veil of dirt. Or spray paint. And presto! Instant junk baubles. Rocinante was camouflaged, and so was the Green Tortoise. They had a good stock of tires, chrome, Detroit Diesel parts galore, buried in the carcass of the old bus buried beneath the deck, off the kitchen. The tires stored in a cave-like lean-to, and the three-tier iron shelves run across the back with barbed-wire linings. The tiered shelves piled high with parts looked unstable, like a treefall. And indeed they are just a little unstable, rendering entrance from the rear painful and noisy and futile. The front, of course, is the Ma and Pa Kettle variety facade, with a stockade fence, lined with barbed-wire. Barbed-wire, self latching dead-bolts, iron bars and grillwork and mesh, security systems. Something Ma and Pa Kettle never conceived. The look is the same, save for the wartime defenses. In Bay View, all the storefronts and houses must be impenetrable, to make it through the night, and the Green Tortoise provides no exception. You might scuff yourself up on the barbed-wire and get into the yard, but once you did, what the hell was there to steal? Nothing. The tools are locked up tight, with the money and under the protection of the alarm system. Nothing’s assessable, save for a bunch of old bus parts. And bus parts don’t bring squat at the pawn shop. There was the pit. That glorious pit! It made things so much easier. “I like that pit,” Owen says, as they walk the yard. “It’s one of the last left in the city. They’re illegal to build anymore. Too dangerous. So just like the fucking government always does, they tried to remove the nasties and made a good idea illegal. But we’ve got one and I love it, too. It’s great.” A sandy-blonde sticks her head out the widow, and speaks. She has a beautiful British accent. “Wade, phone for you.” “Alright,” he says. He has a grand voice. Commanding, deep, yet softly-spoken. Owen likes him right off. “Well,” Wade says, looks at him, smiles a deep smile, “Ready to work?” “You bet.” “Alright. This is Sammy and she’s making the Grand Canyon run and we’ve got to change this tire. You think you can handle that?” “No problem.” “Cool. The jack is down in the yard, we’ve a burly impact wrench that I’ll bring up, but for now there’s a lug wrench in the front compartment there.” He says, points to an aluminum door in the lower-center of the bus. “I’ve got to take this call. Why don’t you get started. I’ll be right back.” Owen grabs the jack, finds the lug wrench, and crawls underneath the bus to find a suitable place to set the lift. The bus feels huge. Enormous. Gargantuan. He imagines the thing coming down on him, shudders. If he sucks his chest in, there is just enough room to move. If the bus were to fall off the jack, or even come down fast . . . the image gives him goose pimples, so he forgets about it and sets the jack on the frame neat the right-rear wheel, takes a vice-grip and tightens the oil cock and begins pumping the handle. The massive bus slowly lifts off the ground, creaking, groaning, hissing. Stopping before the tires fully leave the road, Owen crawls out and attempts to loosen the lug nuts, but he can’t with just the lug wrench. Can’t get enough leverage, he thinks, and looks for a cheater pole. Sure enough, he finds one, and goes back to pulling off the tire. “That’s what I like to see,” Wade says, coming up the drive to the street out front, where Owen removes the lugs, “Self-starter. That’s great. But you know, we have this gnarly impact wrench that pulls those suckers right off.” And he produces an impact wrench about the size of a small jack hammer. Owen has never seen such a tool. “That’s one thing I like about this place,” he says to Wade, “Everything’s big. I like things big.” “I can understand why. Here, let me show you. You take some of this red grease, this is good stuff, and you spray it into the male connector here, go ahead and be generous. And be sure you do this every time you use the air tools. Any of them.” Owen nods. “So, then you hook up the hose, this is your forward and reverse, you slap it on the nut and —” he hits the trigger and the wrench blows out a low chortle-blat mist of grease and spins the nut right off. “Fine tool,” Owen says. “Oh yeah, we like this around here. Have you ever worked on a Detroit Diesel?” “No. I’ve worked on a school bus, but never one of these.” “Let me show you.” He flips the hatch, lifts the cover and reveals a huge motor. Owen recognizes everything, but the proportion is different. Everything is there, yet upscaled. “Now that’s an engine.” “Oh, you’ll get to know this baby inside and out. You’ll dream Detroit Diesel. Well why don’t I work through this tire with you. And then I think I’ll put you on the yard. Have you go through and clean it. That’s the best way to get to know where everything is at.” Clean the yard. Clean the fucking yard. That’s always the first thing they ask of you — cleaning, the fucking grunt work. Always the same. “Fine. Well I’d best get on it.” “Yep. We’ve got a day ahead of us. Can you stay late?” “Yes. I work at the Kennel Klub at eight. Will we be done before then?” “Yeah. Sure. We ought to be finished by then. If not you can takeoff early. What do you do at the Kennel Klub?” “I’m a bouncer.” “I’ll bet you make a good bouncer.” “It’s a job I’ve done a long time now. I’ve worked in bars all over the country. I thought about writing a book about bartending and bouncing across America.” “You ought to. I think it sounds interesting.” “Maybe someday. I’m working on another book right now.” “What’s it about?” “I’m still getting it all worked out. I haven’t started writing it yet. Something about prophets, traveling and duct tape. Something like that.” “Sounds different.” “I don’t know. I’ve still got to figure out the narrator. I’ve got some images, but no story yet.” “Well let me know if you figure it out.” “Yes,” Owen says, pulling the tire off the bus, “When I figure out the story, I’ll let you know.” * * * Fred’s Dead! the showbill reads. Owen looks at it, waiting for Terry the little prissy boy to open the door. One of the original Jefferson Airplane light crew, Fred, died and the Kennel was the location chosen for the wake. The White Trash Debutantes headline. Owen has never seen the band, but remembers something André said. Something to the tune of ‘they suck’. Terry, the priss, opens the gate and lets him in without actually acknowledging his presence. Fuck him, Owen thinks, no don’t think that. Fucking him would only turn him on. Let it go. “Hey, Sam, what’s happening?” Owen says to the girl, sitting on the bleacher-style platform. “You look a little thin in the skin.” “I feel like shit.” “You should go home.” “I can’t. I need the money.” “I know how that goes. Well, at least you can sit in the ticket booth and keep warm.” “Not that warm. The little money window let’s a shitload of cold air in there.” “Cover it.” “I plan to. But you have to remove the cover to take the money.” “Just have them leave it by the window.” “Oh, yeah. That would work. That would work great,” she says, offering a lame smile. Even sick she looks cute, he thinks, beautiful smile. And he sets to pulling out the big black vinylized canvases, the stanchions and chains, taking them outside, hanging them, pulling the chains to meet the stanchions, hanging the guest list, the endless guest list. Six pages tonight, the longest he’s seen. Fred must have been a helluva guy. Harry pulls up in his old, gold El Camino, backing into a stall directly in front of the club. The bed of the truck is filled with paints cans, ladders, brushes and rollers. Harry must be a painter. “Hello there, Owen. How goes it this evening? Are you ready for the ‘Fred’s Dead wake?” “He must have been a helluva guy.” “Word up.” “How’s it going, Harry?” Owen says. He’s happy to see Harry. Harry is one of the few sane people he has met. One of the truly grounded. And in the city of the angst and macabre, well, finding one who isn’t completely crackers feels reassuring. “You coming to work dressed like that?” “No, no. I’m going to run home and shower and change. Think you can handle it?” “No problem.” “Cool. See you in an hour.” Yes, sanity is a rare commodity in this town. Here sanity gets you nowhere. Harry is nowhere, but he is sane. Not in the majority of neurotics, compulsives, egomaniacs and fortune hunters lining these streets by the thousands. Not like that at all. He’s a little screwed up — lived through his particular blend of hell, but he’s come out okay. I hope to emerge with half his sanity. A third. But I don’t think it will happen. Now is the time for gaining momentum. Now I find stability more difficult. Nearly impossible; totally unnecessary. Things are moving along quite well, indeed. Inertia weakens from one phase to the next and acceleration occurs. Rocking back and forth in the muck, nearer the speed of a traveler, very, very near the speed of light. And sanity means nothing at the speed of light. Sanity justifies mortality. Sanity is for the ones who aren’t going to make it. And rather then sit around sardonic, depraved and melancholy, they sit around rational, calm and quietly desperate. Subconsciously bitter. Spiritually broken. And hopelessly enraged at those who have a shot, for those labelled insane. The sociopaths, psychotics, multiple-personality chronics, and especially the schizophrenics and the bi-polars predominate their rage. Schizophrenics are usually on to something. Not all the time, but some of them are none too far off the mark. Often their understanding is fragmented and scrambled, but there’s a consistency with the method . The wholistic pathos. And the manic-depressives. Indeed, your well acquainted with that “disorder.” By far the most grand of the mental malignancies. Regal one minute, impoverished the next. All the best ones are bipolar at heart. If you’re chemically sensitive to the flux in human nature, and for that matter the flux of time and space, it hits you deep inside. You yank it out from inside, hold it in front of you and empathize with the whole of it, seek wisdom vicariously through absorbing the vibrations emitted. The trip resembles something ten times more vicious than the most horrific roller coaster. Truly death-defying. The theme park version pales in comparison. Bi-polars have it hard, because they experience the same highs and lows as the rest of the aforementioned, but they’re “sane” enough so as not to give themselves away. Not right off. Eventually they break, But Oh! The glory one draws from Fates attempting to break your spirit. Nothing feels better than rising to the call from a devastating blow. You rise to the top and then fall back to the bottom. It’s like sisyphus. You live in your hell as long as their spirit holds out, rolling your custom cut proverbial stone, always awaiting the top so you can watch it roll on down the hill, and when you tire of the game, you go off and die somewhere. Yet in death awaits the greatest challenge of all. The rites of immortality. Most people fail miserably, so they return to the phenomenal plane to try, try again. “What fresh hell is this?” Dante. He wasn’t too far off. Nietchtze. Again, Nietchtze. The boy commanded a strength of will stronger than the tides and more vast than the Tongass. Literally. The hardcore rhino-type. A big dog in the realm of the human-canine. Nietchtze was insane, of course. In all, three bands play that night. The first is a pop-rhumba sunshine band. It’s a huge band, sporting twelve members. They have four girls on stage, mostly for show. One is a beautiful, dark-haired, full-firm chested mulatto woman. Owen likes the look of these mulatto women. A little color, a heap of passion in their blood, and soul. Lots and lots of soul. This one in particular. Supposedly she’s a percussionist, one of three, but really, he thinks, they just put her up there because of her bounce. She has a fine bounce. It makes Owen tingle. Not many women make him tingle from a distance. Harry had made it back in plenty of time, and the night runs smooth. The crowd wails, mourning in high-spirits. The first band gets them going and then the next band, a new-age rock politics band takes the stage and pisses everybody off, bitching about the government. Government pisses everybody off. Owen watches the exit doors, taking it easy, enjoying the show. He sees April come in on the other side of the club. He hasn’t seen her for some time. She vaguely resembles the chick in the first band. Owen tingles, hopes she’ll come over and talk. The second band drones on, more concerned with clearly-spoken, politically-correct lyrics than the creation of music. Their show feels more like a lecture. He turns his head away from the stage and April is standing right there, smiling at him. Tingle, tingle, tingle. “Hi.” “Hello. Haven’t seen you for awhile.” “I was in Hawaii. I told you that.” “That’s right. You were going to go sell jewelry on the beach. How’d it go.” “Fine. I brought you something.” She takes his hand and tries to put a silver bracelet with a small chain connected to a pinky ring on his hand but it won’t fit. The ring fits, the bracelet will not.” “Damnit,” she says, breaking her cool. Owen grins. He has her. “It’s very nice. Did you make it for me?” She nods, embarrassed. “Maybe I can take it to someone and have it fit.” “I can do it. I’m just pissed off that I made it too small. I don’t remember you wrists being so large.” She takes his arm, examines his wrist. “Would you like to go to lunch with me sometime?” “Sure. I’d like that.” “How can I get ahold of you?” “Let me go to the bar and get a pen, I’ll give you my number. Do you want a drink?” “You don’t have to buy me a drink.” “I want to. Really.” “Okay. Captain Morgan’s® and seven.” She nods, and turns for the bar. Owen looks back up to the stage. The second band just finished their last song. Thank the gods. If I were, Fred, Owen thinks, I’d be pissed off at having these hokey bastards playing my wake. What a drag. The bands change equipment, April returns. “Here,” she says, hands him a drink. “So tell me about Hawaii. I’ll bet you had a blast.” “Oh, it was alright. Nothing much to do except lay on the beach and drink and sell jewelry. Once you seen one island you’ve seen them all.” “That’s not what I’ve heard.” “Oh, it’s true. We just sat on the beach. My brother lives there, I stayed with him, and all we did was hang out. It was dull.” “I’ve never heard Hawaii described like that.” “I’m glad to be back.” “It sounds that way.” She scribbles something on a matchbook. “Here. Here’s my number. Call me, and we’ll go out. I’m living with my grandmother in Richmond, so ask for Ally. That’s what she calls me.” “C’mere.” Owen can no longer resist. She is cute, this one. He swipes at her waist and she allows a playful pulling her in-between his legs. He doesn’t have to tug at all, she doesn’t resist; and then she’s close to him. He smells the moisture in her breathing, senses the softness of her skin, her warm lips, her firm, supple chest, her wanting him. He kisses her, she kisses back. It’s just a peck, though a peck with great intentions. She pulls away from him. “Your not going to get me that easy.” “I’m patient.” “And you’re going to call, right?” “Of course.” “Fine. See you soon,” she says, “I’ve got to meet some friends at another bar, but I wanted to come and give you that damn bracelet. Oh! That damn thing.” “Don’t worry about it.” “I’ll fix it, I swear.” “Okay. If you want. When’s a good time to call?” “Early evening.” “I’ll be in touch.” “You are so cute,” she says, pinches his cheek and scampers off with a fast farewell, and she is gone. Owen turns back to the stage and wonders if she was ever there at all, looks down and sees the proof: the phone number on the pack of matches. She had been there afterall. But it didn’t matter. Maybe he’d call her, maybe not. Fate would decree, and he would follow. So be it. On the stage a lady who appears to be about one-hundred years old walks to the center with a little old man. She’s wearing tails, a top hat, cane, and a thigh-high tight black showgirl tuxedo-type teddy. The old man wears a tuxedo with a thirties baggy-cut. Both move extremely slow. They are apparently guests from the theater of vaudeville. The White Trash Debutantes stand at the ready. They look hideous. They are white-trash-drag. They live up to their name. The aged duo finally make it centerstage, and the lights explode and the band drops into a dark shuffle and the aged couple begin an arthritic soft shoe. Owen finds the image stunning and hilarious. Eclectic. The old lady is singing a song to Fred. “You were sick in the head, Fred, “But now you’re dead. “We remember the days in the bus on the road when you’d wake up and drink acid washed down with a beer and we remember your laughter changing quickly to tears, and we remember your fanatic derangement for fear, and the morons who made you see red, “But you’re dead, Fred. “You’re dead, now, Fred. “You’re dead. “You weren’t very pretty, you weren’t very bright, and often it was you reeled from a fight, you didn’t want children, you liked to fly kites, you craved depravation, and cringed from white light. You were always the head who swore without dread of your desire to bed and the cosmos to tread and you sang that you’d piss on our graves. “But you’re dead now, Fred. “You’re dead. “You’re dead, Fred. “ Owen finds the whole scene festive and comic and grand. Pagans get old, too, he thinks. Nice to know an old pagan can still put on a show. Good to see an aged, wrinkled heathen still kicking to the licks of the party. The one party. The one party happening night after night in a billion bars around the world, he is thinking, when he sees the conflagration. Some little guy harasses a tall brunette at the bar. Helen is looking at him. She looks worried. Obviously, the little bastard means business. “Hey, babe, I can make you scream.” Rising from his stool, pissed at this scrawny macho-man for spoiling his evening, Owen walks over to the bar to put out a brush fire. “Hey, why you won’t talk to me. Hey, you’re a good-looking woman. Why won’t you give me a chance. I could make you happy, babe.” “Get out of my face.” “That’s no way to talk. C’mere. Hey, c’mon. No, I mean it. Turn around and talk to me you BITCH!” At that point Helen nods at Owen and Owen comes up from behind and locks the little dude in a full chicken-wing, taking both his arms up behind and above his head, Owen locks his hands behind the guys neck and hoists him into the air so fast that he doesn’t even know what hit him. The woman scampers off into the crowd. The little Italian dude is kicking and yelling — Owen spins around and hauls him outside, using the little dude’s face to open the door. Usually, he used their feet, but this one would have no part of it. He was out for blood. “I’LL KIIILLL YOU! YOU OVERGROWN BASTARD! NOBODY FUCKS WITH ANTONIO! NOBODY! DO YOU UNDERSTAND! NOBODY FUCKS WITH ANTONIO! I’M GOING TO KILL YOU! Unlocking his hands, he throws the pissed little bastard out a few feet in front of him, so he’ll be off balance. If he wants a piece he’ll have to regain his balance first, giving Owen yet another advantage. He’ll have to come at you now and you both know it. He’ll have to come back into arm’s reach. And you know he doesn’t want that Even as he thinks that, the little dork tries to get up into his face. Owen grabs him by the chest and throws him back eight or nine feet, and now he just wants scream. Harry is down from the front. “Go on back inside. I’ll take care of this dickhead.” “I can handle it.” “No, go inside. He’s pissed at you. Not at me. He’s just going to stay here and fight with you. Go sit down and have a drink. Relax, compadre’, I’ll take it. You did a fine job.” “Alright.” Inside, people pat him on the shoulder. The girl the little guy bothered thanks him. He feels like a prize pit-bull that just won a tittle bout. That’s the way it is when you’re a bouncer, he thinks, you live like a hailed, held thug. You’re paid to win. A paid guard dog. Period. Owen feels the adrenaline surge winding down. “Can I have a drink, Helen?” Helen beams at him. “What do you want?” “Anchor Steam® and a shot of Yukon Jack®” “Oh, my.” “Well, you know.” Owen shoots the shot, then takes the beer back over to the exit doors. So much happens so fast . . . and the best way to pass through is to go with it. Stay clear and cool. Resolute in action, unyielding in will, with white hot anger underneath and an ice cold surface. The anger looks like a laser emition — a thin, focused line, infinitely traveling, piercing all it intersects. Continuing on forever. Taking it easy, smoking a cigarette, uninterested in the band, Owen waits for the night to end. It’s fascinating how science excludes metaphysical and quantum considerations from the development of personality, from application to the human spirit. Hard science admits without a blink that laser light, sunlight, that any ray of light, travels in one vector, one magnitude or another on and on and on; yet scoff at the notion of a human spirit doing the same thing. Humans, more than any other animal, harness infinite quantities of qualitative energy. And this, more than physical composition, separates us from simple mammalian existence. Our will to strive for the grandiose Our desire to fly to the planets, despite our dependency on air and water and heat to survive. The composition of space lacks all three, yet we still try. And what we can’t reach ourselves, we reach via technology. We’ve all seen the outer-limits in our laser-animated dreams . . . but we need to be sure, so we figure out a way to make it there. We figure out ways to see deeper into the endless looking glass of the Universe, the big one liner. The big laser. And humans are the little lasers pulsating out our thin red lights across in the cosmos. Thing is, you don’t need to develop special scientific instruments to do that, one exists inside you. It’s called: the brain. The human brain exists, potentially, as the most powerful instrument known to man. It’s just that most people never use it for much of anything at all. Jello Biafra, the punk icon and a regular schmoe at the Kennel takes the stage with the White Trash Debutantes to sing Seasons in the Sun. He sounds pathetic. Owen had helped bring him to Lincoln once, when he wrote for the Great Red Shark. He had heard him speak, and thought well of his presentation. It was only since he had worked at the Kennel Klub had he come to loathe the man. Intelligent, yes. Articulate, sometimes. But he’s no god. Watching him on stage, making a fool out of himself, not even close to the lyrics, Owen loses all respect for Biafra. He already considers him a pain in the ass, because he never leaves after the club had closed, but after this admission of a complete lack of showmanship, well fuck the asshole. You know, the guy preaches understanding and intellect, yet shows neither characteristic in his personal life. So be it. Sing away, Jello, cling to your fame, however minor, while you can. They finish they song, Jello still taking bows as the house lights come up. Oh, he’ll be a sweet one tonight, Owen thinks, watching the crowd for drinks as they exit. He’ll want to bed down on the stage. “LET’S GO! LET’S GO! TIME TO FINISH YOUR DRINKS AND HEAD FOR THE DOOR. FINISH THEM UP! TAKE THE CONVERSATIONS OUTSIDE!” Harry yells, more vigorous than normal. He’s ready to be done with it as well. “Ready to get out of here?” “I’m ready for a fucking drink. What a night! Christ, what a bunch of dickheads. It’s amazing, you know,” he pauses, looks at him for understanding, Owen nods in sympathy. There’s that glint in Harry’s eye. Harry’s okay. “I’m ready, too, let’s get these drunks out so we can get drunk.” “Sounds fine by me. See you at the bar.” “LET’S MOVE IT! DRINK ’EM UP! LET’S GO! FINISH IT OUTSIDE!” “Why are you such an asshole?” says some drunk hippie chick. Fuck them all. “I’m not an asshole, I’m doing my job. And I’ll thank you to stop calling me names, considering you’re one of the reasons I have to yell. Now if you don’t mind, I have a job to do and that job requires that you finish your cocktail and head towards the door. Do you mind?” “A little.” “Well, nothing personal, but that’s the way it is.” “You talk pretty well for a big, blonde bouncer.” “Duh, well, golly gee, thanks. Now, if you please . . . “ and he motions toward the door. She flashes an indignant glance. “Alright, that’s it. Give me the drink,” he says and she slams it instantly and hands him an empty glass. “That’s better. Bye.” And Owen continues on throughout the building kicking out the drunks one by one until he reaches the guests of the band. Guests are the worst. By far the biggest hassle of the nightly herding. And these guest are no exception, but he manges to get them all out the door, save for one: Jello Biafra. “Jello, you need to be out of the building. Go and wait for them outside, or help them load out, but you can’t be in here or I can’t stop working. And frankly, I’m ready to be done with this. “Oh, go away,” he says, turns back to his conversation, “bouncers are such a pain in the ass.” “Get out of here now. Right now. You’re not the band, Jello. Go now.” “Pee-on,” he says, walks past him towards the front of the building. “Well, at least I’m not a mooch weasel,” Owen says, Biafra ignores him. Some icon, he thinks, some Enlightenend One, some High Priest of Harmful Matter. He is nothing. In fact, he’s sort of a wuss. A demagogue in a prophet’s haik. Owen walks out of the band room and back up to the bar. Harry’s behind the bar mixing his after-work chilled Krystal®. “What do you need, my friend.” “A Grand Gold marguerita.” “How the hell do you make that.” “I’ll make it. Permission to come behind the bar.” “Granted.” Owen walks around to the bar. The Bar. It’s in his blood, to bartend. He bartended his way through college — eight years of college — but they’ll have none of it here. Bartenders here are either gay or a female. Otherwise, you work the door or the floor. Owen grabs the tumbler, fills it with ice, adds two-and-a-half shots of Cuervo Gold®, one shot of Grand Mariner®, a half-shot of Rose’s® lime and a two-second pour of sweet and sour, squeezes the lime, caps the tumbler, shakes it, strains it over ice into a pound glass — and it’s nectar time. “Nectar of the gods.” “Let me try it.” Harry takes a drink. “Hey, that’s tasty. Make me one. Owen repeats the process, walks out from behind the bar to savor the cocktail. He looks at Harry. He looks tired. “You look tired.” “Dude, I’ve been up and working since six this morning.” “Long day. I know how it is.” “Well I got this job done today, so I can sleep in this morning.” “With this new job, I don’t have to work Saturdays or Sundays.” “That’s cool.” “Yeah, to hell with work.” “That’s it. That’s why we work in a bar.” “Yeah, but we both have day jobs.” “Don’t mean nothing. Day job is something to do. This is the place where you really see the way things work. Nothing is real during the day. People walk around in a daze, working in their offices, waiting for the day to end so they can go out and play. That’s when you really see what people are about, when they’re playing.” “When they’re drunk.” “Cheers. To human nature.” “To the nature of the drunk.” “And we’re the keepers of the party.” “To the keepers of the party.” “Would you drink a shot of Krystal® with me?” “Sure.” Harry gets up and goes behind the bar to make the shots. The rest of the crew sits around gabbing about one thing or another, nothing interesting. Harry comes back. “What shall we drink to next?” “I don’t know, Harry, what do you think? Mexico?” “Baja.” “To Baja.” They drink the shots. The chilled liquor tastes smooth, like water. No bite. “That’s damn good stuff.” “Oh, it’s the best.” “I should make the next shot.” “What’s it going to be?” “I don’t know. I’ll think of it when I get back there.” Owen starts to walk back behind the bar, but Terry, the greasy little queen, stops him. “What do you think you’re doing?” “I was going to make Harry and I a couple drinks.” “You need to get a bartender to make the drinks for you. No one but a bartender should be behind this bar. I’m a close friend of Janine’s and she wouldn’t like it at all if she knew you’d gotten behind the bar.” “I’ll bet she wouldn’t mind one bit, but whatever, I mean, I’ve only been a bartender for nine years. But I’m just a pup. Will you make them.” “No. I’m through working.” “I’ll make the fucking drinks,” Harry says, walks past Terry with a cold shoulder. Terry doesn’t try to stop him. “Well, I’ll be talking to Janine about this. And then you’ll be sorry.” “Whatever. Just go home to your boyfriend.” Terry stomps off to throw a temper-tantrum, Harry turns to Owen. “What’s it going to be?” “How about a Russian Qualude?” “How do you make it?” “We have Fragelico®, don’t we? And use that Krystal®. Get the tumbler, fill it with ice. Good. Now pour three shots of Vodka and two of the liqueur. That’ll do it. Now a couple splashes of cream. Shake it. Okay, now strain it over ice. Perfect.” Harry comes back around and sits down. “You’re toast.” “To the Mata Hari.” “The lousy bitch. Here’s to her.” They drink. “Now that’s a drink fitting of a toast to Mata Hari. That’s excellent.” “Thanks, but I didn’t make that one up. To hell with it . . . I should have cleaned his clock right then and there . . . if I didn’t need this damn job.” “Do worry about it. He’s just a raging queen. Probably takes it up the ass every night — he’s nothing to concern yourself with. The Mata Hari would laugh in his face.” “You know, Hemmingway is credited for the best lie of World War I, you know what that is?” “What, World War I?” “No, the lie.” “No, what is it.” “He had everybody in Europe believing that he had slept with the Mata Hari before she was executed. But in actuality, he didn’t get over to Europe until she’d been dead for a year. But everyone believed it anyway. I’ve always admired him for that. He was a helluva guy.” “Better than Fred?” “Loads.” “I’ll bet they didn’t throw a party for him when he died.” “Somebody did somewhere, I guarantee it. People still party in honor of Hemmingway. That’s most of what he was about, besides the misogyny. And the writing, of course. Let’s have another shot. I want to drink to Hemmingway. Your turn to choose.” “I’d say whiskey. What do you think?” “Whiskey sounds good. How about Bushmills®” “Terry’s gone, why don’t you go ahead.” “Alright.” Owen steps back behind the bar, pours the Irish whiskey into a tumbler, chills it, pours it out into two rocks glasses, walks back to his seat. “To the father of the American writer, Ernest Hemmingway, he set the pace, the bastard. Here’s to you. He’s out there somewhere, listening.” “You think?” “Yes, I do.” “Do you believe in reincarnation?” “Sure. Why wouldn’t I? I can remember many of my former shapes. I’ve been around for a long time.” Harry pauses, looks at him with that glint. Harry’s been around awhile, but he has a ways to go. But he knows. “Yes, I gathered you had an old spirit. You can see it in your eyes.” “I’m on my way out this time. This time I’m piercing the veil. I was close once, about a thousand years ago, but I fucked it up right near the end of the wrathful deities and came back as a woman. A woman of all things. Can you figure that? Damn wrathful deities. No sense of humor.” “Oh, it sounds to me like they’ve got nothing but a sense of humor.” “Yeah, you would. You ever been a woman? It sucks, I tell you. I’d rather be a shark, or a fucking sloth. Anything but a woman.” “I don’t know if I can remember being a woman.” “Well, when you come back as a woman you’ll find out this: it sucks. Hormones, menstruation, weak muscle structure and a mental framework more unfathomable than the Secret of Life itself. Worthless, I tell you.” “I’ll keep that in mind.” “What are you guys saying about women.” “We’re saying it sucks to be a woman.” “I don’t mind it,” says Helen, smiling as usual. Her spirit makes a good woman. “Well you can keep it,” says Owen, whose spirit much prefers manhood. “Thank you, I will.” “Should we drink another, Harry?” “One more and I need to go. I’m beat. Make something smooth.” “How about something fruity.” “No foo-foo’s.” “No this is called a Red Snapper. It tastes fruity, no bite, but it packs a punch.” “I’ll try it. I warn you, though, I’m not a big fruit drinker.” “No one ever said you drank fruits.” “Oh shut up and make the shot.” Taking the tumbler again, filling it with ice, Owen pours two shots of vodka, Stolichnya®, and three shots of peach schnapps, adds a three- second pour of cranberry juice, and a hint of grenadine for color. He shakes it, strains into the rocks glasses, comes back around from behind the bar. “To men,” he says, “and the women they can do without.” “Salude.” “If it weren’t for women, you two wouldn’t be here right now,” Helen says as they drink. Owen slams his shotglass down on the bar, empty, upside down. “See what I mean,” he says, “It’s just like a women to toss you into a mess you’d otherwise ignore.” “What mess?” “Life,” Owen says, hoisting on his leather jacket. “Life is the biggest mess of all.” * * * And now we pause for a note from the narrator: Life is not a mess. People make messes, not life. This is nothing new. Humans have done it for as long as they could throw a rock, or a shoot a burning stick from a bow, or flail a mongo-sized club. Humans tend to make the worst of a good thing. Perhaps it’s the mind-munching futility of constant impending doom, perhaps existential angst, a lack of education, bad karma, the lack of role models, social displacement, or maybe they’re just bored. Humans, once they ‘mature’, are not easily amused. They tend to lack an attention span of any decent magnitude. They need to be entertained by someone, like a toddler, since most are incapable of entertaining themselves. And if there is no one to entertain them, they instinctively begin to perform acts of idiocy. As a god, I find it a pity to witness such godlike potential going to waste. Wasted on television, wasted on working, wasted on drinking, wasted on marriage and children, squandered on petty indulgences, the idea of truly becoming great finds itself scoffed at by most mortals. Ironically, many of those who desire to be great don’t have the gift of greatness. They work hard, and then some moron who has the gift comes along and walks away with the whole kit-and-kaboodle. Then they get bitter and get a day job. In fifty-thousand years of existence on this planet, we’ve learned nothing substantial. We’ve got a few theories here and there, but the big questions remain unanswered. Imagine that. Fifty-thousand years spent pondering and storing in our genes the essence of our pondering, in hopes that the next generation will make something useful out of it, and countless millennia later where are they? Nowhere. Still petty, still indulgent, still dangerous and unpredictable, still disenchanted, still pissed off about the whole mortality thing, not to mention the sexual frustration and the lack of purpose as a consequence of technology. Trial by survival no longer exists in the realm of the ‘civilized’ peoples. Only for the few who venture out to the fringe, those whose soul cries out for adventure and wisdom. The adventurous ones, the wily, they have a chance. The rest of them are screwed. And why? Because omniscience accepts only those who excel beyond the capacity of mortal understandings and tinkerings. The rest of them wind up in one of the worst of all possible hells: Business. Thank you for your attention. * * * You’re in link mind for mind with the station of the timeless ones, station K-T-H-O-R, thundering to you live from the Great Hall of Valhala in the temple of Asgard. We now return to our never-ending bedtime story. * * * Riding across the Golden Gate to a Sausilito micro-brewery, Betty riding with Ted, Carlos with Owen, tall and skinny, and Kara riding on the back of Rocinante, they move as a pack. Fast, furious and wild, playing dodge ‘em with the traffic. Swerving in and out, to and fro, Ted and Owen dare each other’s prowess, playing in the thin lanes between the cars, meandering through the jam at 40 miles-per-hour. Ted tries to keep the lead, but the aisles open and close. When that happens you have to find a wide space in the traffic and shift from one lane to another and sometimes the space isn’t right there. You need to look about fifty car-links ahead, picking and choosing your lanes, and always keeping an eye out for the morons who open their doors on the interstate. Ted is doing that, doing it well, when a delivery truck suddenly decides to switch lanes and closes off Ted’s aisle, Ted slows to switch, Owen and Kara shoot ahead, their lane open all the way to the end of the bridge. They break for the interstate, Ted coming up close behind him, the entrance to the tunnel is about a mile up the road. Owen allows Ted to even up with him. He’s going to gun her. She’s already in fifth, about thirty-five-hundred RPMs’s and she has the torque now. That’s when she’s strongest. Owen looks over at Ted, laid low on the Suzuki, Betty laid against his back, the cold ocean air whipping her hair straight back, she looks unhappy. Owen smiles a big, toothy grin at Ted, then opens her up full-throttle. There’s a roar. And they are alone. You find life a fond blur at one-hundred. Nothing on either side of the road matters, it’s a smudge, an elaborate doodle. You actually see the strands of time running across you body. You see them when you’re walking, but you’re not a part of it, they run through you, though the vibrations are faint. Distant. But not at one-hundred. They are still far off, but much of the static vanishes in to thin air, so to speak. See? See how easy it is to think at this speed. This is how fast you should move all the time. This feels normal. Normal, yes, with Kara on the back clutching your ribs tight, burying her head in your back. This is how things ought to be. But faster. Faster still. Until you reach the speed of light. That’s when things get really different. Kara taps him on the back and points to an exit on the left-hand side of the interstate. Owen clips over six lanes and takes the exit. “Jesus, we were really moving.” “Ah, not that fast.” “Of course, you know I wouldn’t let anybody but you do that with me on the back. Except you.” “Well, I’ll take that as a compliment. Where the hell is this brewery?” “I don’t know. Let’s pull off and wait for Ted and Betty.” They wait for a minute or so, then see Ted and Betty pulling off the exit. They pull up alongside Owen and Kara. “Hellfire!” Betty says, “We figured you’d be halfway to Yosemite by now! Ted and I we’re getting ready to fly by you, but we saw the fucking mounties. Didn’t you see that cop?” “I thought we passed a cop, but I knew there was no way across. I figured by the time he turned around I’d be off the interstate.” “Well you were right about that.” “That’s a hella fast-fucking bike, dude. I was trying like hell and I couldn’t catch you. Just don’t have as much power,” Ted admitted, and held his dignity, by not getting pissy. “That’s why she’s a ‘Special’.” “You let me ride her sometime.” “Sure. Now where the hell is this brewery,” Owen says, and the other Owen and Carlos pull up. “Jesus, you guys are out-of-your-fucking-heads. What the hell? Do you always have to drive like fucking Banhsee’s? Give ’em a brake.” “O, sometimes you talk like a granny.” “Just cause I’m not a speed monger, like you.” “Puss.” “Knappy-anus-lint-cloister.” “Ooo, that’s a bad one . . . let’s go have a beer.” “Knappy-anus-lint-cloister? Where the hell did you come up with that one?” “It just came out,” the tall, skinny Owen says, grinning. “Where the hell is the brewery, Ted.” “Just up the road.” “Well?” They drive up the road to the brewery, and it looks like a shopping mall. They all look at Ted, confused. “I know, I know, it’s in a mall. But the beer is killer.” “Better be.” “No, they have this shit like Old Fog Horn, the eight-percent shit. Eight or ten, something like that. It’s killer.” They dismount and walk into the brewery, a trendy Irish-pub-styled joint cut amid a well-groomed tapestry of a quaint Northern California suburban mall. The mall sits at the base of a mountain looking picturesque. The pub is crafted to look like it was handmade, but it is all too perfect. This thick wooden bar, the casks along the back wall behind the bar, shitloads of brass, thick wooden tables and chairs on one level, lighter, more functional tables and chairs on the lower level. Too many windows. That’s the biggest giveaway. Any true pub is dimly lit. Not this place. It’s more like a restaurant. A jazz band plays on the dance floor. The tables are full of suburbanites eating lunch. They look at Ted and Owen and the rest of them, then quickly look away and bury their face in their plate. They fear them, as usual. The reaction is not new. And though they are here only to sample the beer, everyone from the customers to the wait staff beholds them as though they’d come to rob the place. Suburbia. Phooey. “Let’s get our beer and sit out in the beer garden,” Betty says, “this place gives me the creeps.” “Dude,” Ted says to the bar tender, “Give me two pitchers of the Hi-octane beer you boys brew.” “We only serve one pitcher to a group. People get too drunk.” “But we’ve got six people here.” “One to a group.” “Oh, dude, that’s harsh. Alright. One of the good stuff and one amber. Can we do that?” “Of course.” The bartender gets the pitchers, Ted pays for them and they go outside and sit in the sun. They can’t hear the jazz band and the sun shines warms and bright and it is quiet in the open air garden. They sit on and around a picnic table, drinking, enjoying the peace and air away from the city. Something about the air in the city. It makes you tired. It makes you irritable, surly. And when you get out you have peace again and it feels so refreshing after the tense posture of Bay View, and even the Western Addition to not feel all the fucking noise. All the sorrow, the scamming the fucking and fighting and the junkies crying out for the one good fix and the little boys giving blowjobs on Broadway for twenty-bucks and the sleazy chicks in the jack-off parlors and the uptight bankers and business men, and the men who mean business, the mean ones. The ones who kill for sport. That’s the trend of the nineties, hunting humans for sport. And you don’t need to flee to the barren hills of Wyoming and sit in the cold waiting, per chance, your prey may pass along the path. No sir, you hit the cities, thick with morons, dull-minds, sociopaths, psychopath, telekinetics, pyromaniacs, anarchists, sado-masochists, old-clan pagans and witches, warlocks and the living dead, and there you find good hunting. And the only way to survive, is to give off the vibes of a hunter, a preying beast, and you pass, often, without a fight. But the shield is strong, and it wears you out, surviving. And all you want to do is drop off the face of the earth to a place where the scenery looks pleasant and things are clean and bright and not covered with graffiti. Something about the dirt in the air in the city. It drags you down. But for now it is sunny and warm and the city feels far, far away. “It’s nice to get out of the city.” “I like it.” “The beer is good, too.” “Yeah, and it’s warm.” “I wish it would stay like this.” “We’ll have to go about three to get back in time for Clairice’s party.” “We’ll be back in plenty of time.” “Should we get another pitcher?” “Sounds good to me.” “Who’s got money?” They all dip into their pockets and pool together enough for two pitchers. “We’ll drink these then head out,” Ted says, and Carlos gets up of the bench to go get the pitchers. “Cool.” A woman and her daughter stroll by on the interior sidewalk of the mall, running next to the beer garden. The girl has a puppy on a leash. “What a cute little puppy,” Kara says, the woman looks over at the group — the blackleather, long hair, unbroken spirits — smiles in passing, takes her daughters hand and quickens her step. She is nervous. “People are different out here.” “The meek,” says Ted, “huddled away in their plasticene world.” “It doesn’t feel real.” “It’s real enough.” “For the braindead.” “Oh, that’s not true,” Kara says, sounding like a female, “I think this place is cute.” “Cute. That’s for sure. But that doesn’t mean that it’s real.” “I get sick of ‘real’ sometimes,” Betty says, preening in the rampant sun. “I get sick of kicking drunks off my doorstep, of junkies hounding me for money every time I walk the street, I get sick of crackheads hidden in the shadows. Sometimes that doesn’t feel ‘real’ either.” “That’s as real as it gets in the City of the Weary Traveler.” “Well sometimes it’s too much.” “So move to Arcadia. Nice and quiet up there.” “Yeah, but then there’s nothing to do except drive down to San Francisco.” “You wouldn’t have to go that far. Move down to Millbrae, that’s a pretty idyllic town.” “I suppose.” “Well, that’s what people should do when they’re tired of the city. Move. But you know, some of them get older and stop having fun and expect everyone else to do the same, and that’s bullshit. When you’re done with the party, leave. Move to Millbrae, move to Big Sur, move to Ukiah, but don’t expect the rest of the city to get old with you. San Francisco’s not about getting old, it’s about staying young. People move to places like this to get old and die, and that’s all there is to it. They get tired of drinking, tired of going out all the time, tired of the ruckus, and instead of bitching about it, they leave, like the should, rather than hanging around pissing on everyone’s parade.” “Word up, Ted, pass me that pitcher,” says tall, skinny Owen. “I’ll say this for all these duds, though, they make good beer.” “Word up, Betty, here have another beer.” “I could sit here for a year,” Kara says, “I think this place is cute.” “You’d get over it,” Owen says. “You’d be back in the city in no time.” “Yeah, I guess so. I’d get sick of all this beauty.” “You’d just have to build your house right here by the brewery.” “The beer is good.” “This isn’t the only place with good beer. If I were going to build a house next to a brewery,” Ted says, draining his glass, “I’d go up the road and build next to Anderson Valley.” “That would be better than a mall.” “What time is it?” “About two-thirty.” “We should finish this last pitcher and head back.” “I’m in no hurry.” “You never are, Owen.” “I know. Isn’t it great?” “For you, maybe.” “Well that’s what counts.” Clouds blowing in from the ocean blanket the sun, and the moment fades. They hang at the bar gabbing for awhile, drinking off the pitchers, then decide to head back to the city. “I’ve got a pretty good head on.” “Me too.” “See, I told you the beer was killer. EEEEYOOOWW!” “LET’S TAKE THE INTERSTATE! NO PRISONERS!” Owen says, feeling the beer in his system. It was good beer. They mount the bikes and zip up the jackets and tuck it all inside to keep the air from getting in. The day deteriorates — clouds thickening up, greyish-white and puffy, looking like it might rain. They leave the mall like the heathens they are — howling war cries, riding wheelies, eyes tearing up from the wind. It’s a full-blown race back to the city. Ted is out for blood. He’s got the bike rapped out like a dirt track racer, screaming along the access road, Owen stays close behind him, letting him lead until they get onto the interstate. Then he’s history. Highway 101 flows heavy with traffic now, brimming with people bored with suburbia, ready to hang with the freaks in their twisted version of a theme park, otherwise known as San Francisco. Coming in for the show. Ted takes a left and Owen follows and when they hit the six-lane thoroughfare, they bolt. But now obstacles lay everywhere. They move along about sixty, dodging vehicles, moving with a touch of recklessness, tempting fate. Must be the good beer. Owen feels good, and he’s driving like mad to stay on Ted’s tail. There’s no room to pass. Outside the entrance to the tunnel the traffic stalls, backed-up. There are only the aisles now. Without slowing they hit the traffic jam, shooting into the thin lanes in-between the cars. In the tunnel, with all the tail lights shining, a continuous red line forms the edges of the lanes. There’s no place for the cars to move. Owen howls. Kara says nothing, but clings to his midsection. Owen focuses on the traffic. Watch your lane. At this speed it wouldn’t take much to throw you into the traffic. Suppose you could slow down, but that takes all the fun out of it. This keeps you clear and alert. Mentally intense. Intensity is important. Intensity pulls you through. Duration keeps you together, but without intensity, you just lay there and take it. Now you fight. You fight everything they believe in, dispelling all as propaganda. And a speed limit is one of those things. Waiting in line is one of those things. Acting mature is one of those things. Cowering before god and authority is one of those things. A strictly-ordered free society is one of those things. It all reeks of the oxymoronic. The stench of catastrophically-dysfunctional thinking. People who think great thoughts ought not to think them for others. They hear great thoughts and interpret them as they apply to an individual construction of reality — their own. They keep it to themselves, expressing it within the hypothetical realm of art. Art allows people to make their own decisions. Government does not. Art allows for drastic interpretation. Religion does not. Art grants asylum to entities outside the physical. Civilized society will have none of it. Government, Religion, Society — these institutions, rigid and clandestine, cannot compete with the resilience of Art and Anarchy. Their concrete-walled maze of conformity crumbles with decay from inertial stagnation. Seeing them here in lines, frustrated and docile, they look pathetic. And you want no part of that particular reality. They emerge from the tunnel. The clouds come in low and thick and full of moisture. It will rain soon. The torn-muscle-healed in his back tells him so. The traffic glut runs the entire span of the bridge. In a car, the same trip would have taken an hour, as compared to the half-hour it will take with a motorcycle. Given, of course, they return without incident. At the onset of the bridge, the aisles tighten up. Owen slows Rocinante, bringing her down to cruising speed. Only a few inches separate the handlebars from the either line of cars. The going gets tricky. “Jesus, it’s getting close.” “Oh, you’re still back there. I though I’d lost you in the tunnel.” “No, I was just hanging out back here, scared shitless.” “We’re all right.” “I know, but I was still scared.” “There is nothing to fear.” “Easy for you to say, Thor.” Owen laughs hearty, then decides to go back to driving. The lanes tighten up even more, and at one point Rocinante’s mirror clips the mirror of a delivery truck. Nothing breaks on either vehicle, so Owen doesn’t stop. He straightens the mirror and sees the driver shaking his head. Fuck him. What the hell does he know, Owen thinks, carefully navigating the remainder of the bridge, clipping nothing. Because all it takes is one slip, like that, and WHAM! Premature exit, stage left, to the twilight zone. Or, worse, much worse, a hospital bill. And, compared to a hospital bill, death is small change. Small change, indeed. You’d much rather take on a thousand wrathful deities, a million, than suffer the debt to the health care systems of America. You’d wish no fate like that on anyone. It’s easier to die. “Should we lose these guys and go to the Golden Cane and have a real drink,” Kara says as they near the toll-way. “It’s so nice to see you again, Owen. We never see each other since the fight. But it feels pleasant to ride shotgun. I’ve had a very nice day. Let’s go have a drink at the Golden Cane, then we’ll hit Clairice’s party. “Sounds fine to me Pancho.” “I’ll always be your Poncho Via, you know that. Don’t you?” “Yes, I know,” he says, but he knows deep down they’re both lying. * * * In her eyes shine the motives of a million whores: money. Plugging quarters in the slot to keep the window open, to keep an open channel — that’s what it’s about for men: plugging, channeling. Channeling frustrations out plugging. Plugging anything we can get our hands on. Locking on and driving the bitch home. Plug her, pass her on. That’s where whores come in. These little nymphos appear to get off guy-watching as they mutually masturbate, but it all boils down to a paycheck and an exhibitionist tendency. Nothing more. Taking care of business. It’s easier than actual sex. Sex can be complicated. Sex produces stress between people. It’s not worth the condoms, and the bullshit pillow talk, the performance anxiety, the perfunctory pleasing one another. Not worth it. Better to take care of it impersonally, plugging quarters in a slot, keeping your distance. You see the moist droplets of foamy jisim coating her labia, sans smell or taste . You can’t bury your head in her crotch and suck the jisim down. The glass takes care of that. But you can watch her. And you can look in her eyes, fixed and distant and tired, and focus on the act of taking care of business. That’s what she’s there for. Taking care of business. The meaning of life: taking care of business. You don’t have to talk, tell her she’s pretty, tell her you care for her. None of that. Nothing. She is a model. An hologram. A three-dimensional object of generalized lust. A idol of form. A sperm waitress. A means to an end. Feeling shaky, Owen wobbles out of the Market street cinema and over to Jones street, where his only real friend, Rocinante, awaits. She is there for him. The rest of them can go screw. She fires right up. Not feeling like going back to the flat, he drive towards the ocean. The ocean is another good friend who remains around long after his departure. The ocean is a pathway to a thousand other places. Owen feels depressed and the oceans always makes him feel better, so he drives up Clay and over to Folsom and head out towards the Pacific. The sun shines, but the air is very cold. Golden Gate park looks packed. It would be pleasant to go sit in the park, but not amidst these hoards. It’s kind of like Central Park. Beautiful landscapes, rolling hills hiding prehistoric dwellings, stands of spruce and oak ripe with strung out forest nymphs, blighted from the human presence. Humans steal the beauty from anything they touch. It’s not always intentional, albeit inevitable. Humans fail to interact without scarring her work. As he cruises by the North entrance, he sees the throngs of cars lined up and moving slow through the park. He continues west, towards the Pacific. The beach is crowded as well, but with the open sky and water it doesn’t make him feel claustrophobic, like the park. He turns left on the Great Highway and makes his way down south looking towards the beach, staring out to sea, searching for an uncrowded spot. Maybe it’s the all the people. Maybe that’s why I can’t think. Too much static. Too many numbed minds blaring out their stupidity to the gods. The gods take the phone off the hook. Who wants to listen? Who wants to sit on the other end of the line and hear blaring static? Pressing questions concerning love or dinner plans. Dinner plans bore the gods. So does begging forgiveness. That’s a bad one. And they have to listen hard unless you yell. Yelling gets you nowhere. So you communicate at night and early in the morning, when the static wanes. Late night. Yes, that’s when the signal is most clear. And if you enlist the efforts of others with like minds, sometimes the signal talks back, which make the gathering a success. A good party, if you will. Clairice’s was not one of those gatherings. Friendly, quaint, but certainly not prophetic. The highlight was the ride home, with both Andre’s and Carlos riding on Rocinante. Drunk as hell at bar closing, with cops everywhere, Carlos hanging on to the touring seat, semi-asquat on the rack, howling. Even André howls. Our complete lack of responsibility reminds us of our youth. Our deviance keeps us young. Young like the child’s mind. And within the child’s minds lies the key to immortality. Ah! the land Immortal. To walk amid the gardens, smelling roses ever blooming, listening to the music of the spheres, bantering truths like coffee talk gossip, drinking nectar, and you never get to drunk and each sip tastes like the first, where you run like a god and nobody cares. Sheer bliss. To reside in the perpetual, in the infinite, the ethereal, the timeless, that is our quest. That is what we came here for. * * * “Dudes, I’m moving out at the end of the month.” “You’re shitting me.” “Nope. Betty and I are getting a place together over in Lower Haight. I’ve lived here long enough. It’s time to move on.” “So you’re going to shack up with Betty? Dude, that’s crazy. You’ll hate it.” “We’ve been talking about it” “Have you found a place?” “No. But we’re going to start looking this week.” “Well, if you’re moving, we’re not going to be able to afford this place.” “You can find another roommate.” “I don’t want to go through that shit,” André says. “You always go through three or four before you find on that you can get along with. It’s a fucking hassle” “You and I can find a place together, Andre,” says tall, skinny Owen. “Something cheaper, eh?” “No doubt.” Owen sits there, stunned. “Well that’s fucking great dude. I just get moved in and now it’s going to bust all to hell.” “You can find other roommates.” “Maybe. Maybe not. Like André says, it’s a hassle.” “Well, Carlos is heading out at the end of the month. I figure we’ll have a going away party for him and get thrown out. The timing is perfect. I’m just over this shit, you know. I want a nice place with a decent kitchen and wood and copper-bottomed pans, maybe a little atrium. I’m tired of living in a fucking clubhouse. I need peace and quiet.” “Ted, you are so full of shit sometimes it amazes me.” “I’m fucking serious. There’s always so much drinking going on around here I never get any playing in. I can’t concentrate.” “Ted, you motivate most of the partying. When you’re not here, things are pretty quiet.” “Fuck that.” “It’s true.” “Well this is fucking killer. Every time I get settled to start saving money to get the hell out of here, something happens, and I have to start over. Killer. Prima. To hell with it. I’m going to go find a place down in the Tenderloin by myself. Maybe then I’ll be able to get some work done.” “Oh yeah, you’ll find something.” “So were going to have a party.” “The last of the Scott Street parties.” “I don’t think the neighbors have forgiven us for the last party.” “Fuck the neighbors. Let’s have some fun.” “A party.” “A blowout.” “Well, I suppose it’s best we go out kicking.” “Hellfire!” “And this month’s rent?” “Landlord’s got our security deposit. He’ll be happy to get rid of us.” “So we’re set.” “Except for the bills.” “Nothing’s in our name, so that doesn’t matter too much.” “I feel sorry for Jerry. He’s going to get screwed on the phone bill.” “That’s life in the big city, dude.” * * * Raining in the big city today. You don’t see too much rain out here, these days, mostly mist. But this is a storm. A straight down, don’t-give-a-shit-about-nothing torrential downpour. One of the last mornings having coffee and looking out this bay window. You could have learned to live here, quite well. Indeed. But now, in a week, you’re out on the street and starting from square one, again. You need someplace free so you can save the money. You need to find a place to pitch that damn hi-tech tent of yours. You’re just screwing around. You’ll never get out of here unless you adopt the traveling attitude again. You’ve dropped it and taken on the city. You will never win. Take on traveling. That’s something you know, something you have a shot at. This place is killing your spirit. You’ve never quite healed from your arrival. But none of that matters. Things will get worse if you stay. You need to get somewhere and heal and write all this shit down. Yes, and then there’s the writing. Hard to even worry about the writing right now. Too busy surviving. But the writing. The images here overpower. They make excellent fodder for story-telling. They tell themselves. But where’s the rub. Where runs the woven silver fiber holding it all together. There’s a theme somewhere, but it’s elusive — needs more time, more input. More travel. Travel. Yes, that’s right. That’s what you were doing when you left Lincoln, traveling. But you’re not now. Now you’re stuck in the sludge of the San Francisco. But travel. Can you remember what it felt like? Freedom of movement. Freedom of place. Freedom from people, from time and from space. Freedom from all except the eloquent grace of a day well travelled. Freedom to pass the day on a street corner. The freedom of joblessness. It’s all in travel. You remember now. Remember what you came here for? A vacation, wasn’t it? Some vacation. Yeah, remember that? You were to stay a month, maybe a month-and-a-half tops. What’s it been? Five months? My, how things move along. You need to move along, too. Otherwise, well, let’s not start thinking ugly thoughts. There’s enough of that already. This is the time for flight. This is the time for thinking happy thoughts. And finding a place to set up that tent. * * * “We can’t work in the yard today, obviously,” Wade says, eating his breakfast at the cluttered desk in the Green Tortoise shop, “But we’ve got a special project just for you. I talked to Gardner about you this weekend. He wants to meet you. He’s in Europe, but he’ll be back in three weeks. We were talking, as I said, so let me finish this quick and I’ll take you over and show you what we’ve got in mind.” “Sounds good.” “It’ll be a helluva project. I hope you like a good challenge.” “More than anyone.” “That’s what I figured. Get your coat and let me show you what we’ve got.” Wade dons a burly pair of coveralls and they walk up the stairs and out into the rain. They run down the block past an oil company warehouse to a plain, white-faced warehouse. The upper face of the building is comprised of windows. Several of the panes are broken. The place looks old, unused. Wade unlocks the white, steel door in the center of the building and they walk into an office space cluttered with miscellaneous filing cabinets, desks, armchairs, general disarray and cobwebs. “We bought this place two years ago and have never really used it for much other than storage. We want to make use of it, but it needs work.” “I’ll say.” “In here,” Wade says, walking out the office in the actual warehouse, “we’ve got a nasty pile of crap.” And he’s not kidding. The place looks littered with industrial odds and ends. Six rows of wooden twelve-foot, closed-back shelves take up the space behind the office. The remainder of the space is filled with bus engines, scrap iron, scaffolding, palates, an old city bus, massive crates of cables and hoses, old tires, and on and on. There is hardly room to move and the thirty foot walls and lofty ceiling are covered with a thick, black-smoke grease. The air smells stale and oily. “Yes, sir,” Wade says, looking around, looking at Owen’s expression, “this place is a mess. And you know what we want to do? Clear all of this crap out, sort through and keep what we need, wash the walls with a high pressure washer, fix that exhaust fan, run pneumatics, and turn it into an inside workshop for days such as these. Think you’re up to it?” “I’m up for anything.” “I don’t expect you to do it alone. I’ll send people over to help you when you need it. Just let me know. When the weather gets nice we’re going to pull that old bus out and strip it. That’ll be a good one for you. Great way to learn about the buses. But for now, I think you have enough to keep you busy.” “Why don’t you come around with a spray can and mark what you want to toss.” “Alright. For now, why don’t you work on the shelves. We’re going to reorder everything, so just go ahead and strip them. I’ll come back and mark stuff out there, but not right away. This ought to keep you busy.” “I’ll get on it.” “That’s a good man.” Wade smiles at him and leaves the warehouse and Owen is alone with the room full of crap. Some of the crap is valuable, much of it is not. He always lands the really dirty jobs that no one wants to touch. He is offered them and accepts them with a grin. He is a man-of-steel, or so he tells himself, and men-of-steel always get the job done. Or die trying. Perhaps it’s the testosterone, Owen thinks, standing there amidst one of the greatest piles of clutter he has ever seen. He draws a deep breath, holds it, lets it out easy, then claps his hands together, and begins stripping junk off the shelves, resigned to working like hell to blow this town and get moving. The man-of-steel. Ironman. Thor. The indestructible. We are the nature that give men strength. We goad men to action with our greatness. We make the little men fight, yet without us there would be no great battles. Great Battles. Is that an oxy moron? The ironmen stand locked in the combat immortal. We stand chained to the earth with our shoulders held back, unaware of the weight. Indifferent to the steady gnaw of physical mortality. The chains rust and give way before we bend. That is the nature of the ‘strong’ man, of the stoic. Indifference. It’s the fastest way to travel. Emotions cloud the oracle. Indifference keeps the channel clear. Intuition works well only if the channel is clear. Distance is necessary. Distance from society is the first step to the transcendental. Society is cathartic; catharsis clouds the channel. To wrap one’s self in steel. An alloy. Lightweight and indestructible. Creating the crave for isolation, building a fortress around you , attaining serenity and lumiosity. The external exists in wrathful chaos. Bitter, frightened, pissed off. You must have the armor. The barrage is too intense to withstand without protection. Armor. Shields. Chain mail. These notions, carefully layered over the elusive expanse of the hypersensitive psyche make a man indestructible, in spirit. An armored aura. And armor, and the man-of-steel go hand in hand. * * * “Are you going to go see Field Trip tonight?” “I don’t know, dude, I’m beat. I’ve been cleaning a warehouse all day.” “Oh, but it’s going to be a killer show,” André says, handing him a beer, I’ll put you on the guest list so all you need to do is show up. Papa Wheelie’s opening up for them. It’ll be a good time.” “I suppose a beer or two would be nice.” “Ken will be there and he’s got the Kind, so we’ll just kick back and get ripped.” “I’ve got a few of those asthma pills I’ve been saving for just such an occasion, you want one or two?” “Two would be nice.” “Two, that’s what I take. Two.” “You care for a nip from the pipe?” “I’ve been waiting all day. What time we head out?” “About nine.” “Oh, then I’ve got time to take a shower.” “You’ve got lots of time. The bar is over on thirty-fourth. Just look for Ted’s bike. I’ll make sure you’re on the guest list.” “Well, when there’s a show you want to see at the Kennel, just let me know.” “Think you could swing the King Missle show on Friday?” “No problem.” “Cool.” “Hey, I’m going to hit the shower.” “I’ve got to split. I’ll see you out there.” In the shower, Owen relaxes, for just a moment. He is tired, but driven. Ever driven. He washes his legs and arms, soaping them well, scrubbing the skin raw of the thick black grease covering him. He is filthy. Worse than Whitey’s. Yet another dirty job. Oh! For the day you will work no more dirty jobs. The day you return to the mental. The day you return to intellectual pursuits, rather than physical. Washing your groin, chest and underarms, you wish you had a woman. A woman to bathe with. A woman to wash your down and massage your weary muscles. But there is no such woman. Most women don’t give, they take. That is their nature. The same axiom applies to men. No one is innocent here. No one is to blame, specifically, but as an instinctual creature of an often violent and erratic species, equipped with a mental capabilities far beyond mundane comprehension, presumed innocence seems innately hypocritical. Still, the benefit-of-The-Doubt we extend time and time again, deny ourselves and place faith with another person. You will never have that faith. No expectations, no let downs. Eliminates trust. Trust only in yourself. If you trust only in yourself, the only person who can fail you, is you. Makes things easier. But most people will never come to know such simplicity. Humans: One-hundred-thousand years later, and still stupid. Go figure. Owen wonders if humans will ever learn anything, turns the shower off. It was a good shower. He feels anxious, like something is about to happen. Out in the front room he hears voices, but none he recognizes. Opening the bathroom door, towel around his waist, Owen finds himself face to face with a girl sticking a six pack in the refrigerator. She smiles, he smiles back. “André said we could hang out here until we hit the bar.” “That’s sounds fine to me. Excuse me a moment.” “No problem, Thor.” She gives him another smile, he smiles, nods, walks down the hall to his room. He enjoys all the people coming and going. Very festive, indeed. Never a dull moment. Fun ad nauseum. In cervesa veritas. Bacchus! Where are you when I need you? Owen pulls on his long underwear, dons cutoffs over that, a black shirt and wool sweater, goes out into the living room to meet the guests. There are four, two men, two women, chatting about music and smoking pot. The two women, a blonde and a brunette, both emit that radiant Northern California fecundity. He can smell the pheromones. “Owen, good to see you again.” “Ken. It’s been a couple weeks.” “I’ve been busy.” “I know the feeling. Are you coming for the moving out party?” “Wouldn’t miss it for the world. It should be a scorcher, eh?” “I don’t see why not. What are they going to do? Evict us?” They both have a good laugh. “Have you met Mike and Vicky? I think you met Pam at one of the parties,” Ken says, points to the girl Owen met outside the bathroom. “I remember Pam,” Owen says, not remembering. “Mike, Vicky, pleasure to meet you. I saw you two at the Meat Puppets, right?” They nod, hand him a joint. “We just got in,” Mike says, holding his breath. Owen smokes, hands the joint to Ken. They talk for an hour about the music scene, who’s playing where, who’s breaking up, who’s coming together, who got arrested: small talk. Two guys show up rambunctious and ready to raise hell and start passing around a crystal meth pipe. Owen hits the pipe two or three times and suddenly he can no longer stay in the flat. He excuses himself from the gathering, sees that Ken will lock the place up and bolts for Rocinante. He needs the oxygen. Firing her up, he realizes her headlight is out. He slaps it lightly, it kicks in, but as soon as he’s off the curb it flickers out. Rocinante has no headlight. Things are getting interesting, he thinks, exhilarated by the challenge of darkness. No fear. Immerse yourself in shadow. Watch for Johnny Law. You can make it if your thinking is clear. It feels clear, but very fast. To fast to understand. But the idea now is to be a ghost. Not to think. Become immaterial. That’s it. You no longer exist now. You are a specter in the world of the living dead. The bar is across town, but you can use the side streets. They won’t be looking for you on the sidestreets. Market street will be risky but just pay attention. See any cops? Good. Then hit it — across the street and back into the shadows. Oh, you’ve really hit upon a good one now. A good test , indeed. You’re going to go to the bar and drink and drink and then at two in the morning pilot this beast back across town in the dark. Maybe you should just take the freeway. The freeway in pitch black, that would be even better than this. That would be one to remember. * * * Indeed, one to remember, if you make it home in one piece. If you fail to cross the line. Close always, bet never breaking the seal. Touch the veil, pierce it perhaps, though never take the dive. The trees black, night abounding, trailing through the shadows like sludge. Thicker, yet with no mass. The cars nasty aside the street. The bike runs smooth, on instruments. Rocinante. Beautiful Rocinante. You speak her name and the heavens take to crooning. Their song steady, monolithic, serene. Rocinante! My mantra! Shadow lights the veil. Now pierce it. Then suck. Owen no sooner parks the bike than a cop drives by and gives him the staredown, but he hadn’t seen the lack of headlights. He drives-by. “Made it one way,” he says to himself, “going back will be no problem.” He walks down the sidewalk to the door of the bar. “I need to see ID,” says the surly old hag at the door. She looks very near death — yellow-grey skin and tribblesque wig — very near the threshold. Owen takes out his drivers license and shows it to her. “Alaska,” she says, hacks, “What are you doing down here?” “Working here for awhile.” “Had to get out of the cold, eh? Come get some city living?” “Something like that.” “Heh. Cover’s three dollars.” “I’m supposed to be on the guest list.” She runs bony finger down the guest list. “I have an Owen on here, but he’s already checked off.” “Yeah, that’s my roommate.” “Well, they only have one on here.” “Hey, wait, he’s okay,” André says, hustling up to the front. “Sorry, dude, I forgot.” “He’s your last added guest. Frank’s going to have a fit if you guys don’t make your guarantee.” Hack, hack. “We’ll make it. Don’t worry. Come on in, dude, let me buy you a beer. I actually scored some money from the band today, can you believe it? What are you drinking?” “Beck’s® dark.” André orders the beer. “Dude, you look a little knapped.” “One of your buddies showed up with a crystal meth pipe — I don’t know which one — then I drove over here without a headlight. I’m a little wired. This beer tastes great, thanks.” “No doubt. We’re all out back in the Gazebo. Come on back.” The beer garden sports a tropical theme, lit with plastic festivity lanterns, laced with palms and vines and other tropical icons. It looks okay. Owen still feels like being outside. Inside, now, would be far too confining. He needs to see the sky, feel the breeze, smell the salt in the air from the ocean. He wants it all. They all sit around underneath the thatched roof of the gazebo, looking sullen. No one says anything when Owen walks up. Ted is there, and Betty, Cami and Terry and Kara. They all look tired. Ken and his clan walk into the beer garden, see the group and come over. “Boy, you guys look lame.” “Beat to hell, Ken,” Ted says, “You got any smoke?” “It just so happens,” he says and everyone’s face lights up. The change nears drastic. Ken looks around. “Funny what a little pot can do for a gathering.” Everyone laughs, Ken takes out his pipe, loads it, passes it around. There is laughter and conversation. “Fine effort, Ken.” “No problem.” “I suppose we should go play,” says Betty, she looks distant. “That’s what we came here to do, right? Play?” “Relax. We’re set up.” “How long?” “Ten minutes.” “Hellfire! Make it five.” “Alright, alright. You guys are right not allowing women in your band,” Ted says to Terry. “Never let a woman in the band.” “Gee, Ted,” Kara says, “the band you’re in has a majority of women.” “I know. And I pay for it every day.” “Oh, poor Ted,” Betty says, “and you’re so easy to work with.” “Keep it up,” Andre says, “That tension is good for the show.” “Bullshit. Tension fucks it up.” “Depends on what you make of it.” “Bugger the tension. Let’s go play.” Ted, Cami and Betty excuse themselves and head for the stage, bickering. “I feel better now.” “No doubt. Maybe now we can just relax.” “I can’t, I have to play.” “Oh, easy, Terry. Have a beer. You guys will kick ass.” “Maybe just one.” André goes up to get Terry a beer, Owen turns to Kara, in the process of being quiet. Extremely rare for her. “What’s up there, hon. You look tired.” She looks up at him, her eyes lacking their normal sheen. “Didn’t get my disco nap,” she says. She doesn’t feel like talking. The band fires-up and Owen seizes the moment to excuse himself and head for the bar. He doesn’t really feel like talking, either. Too much adrenaline tonight. Amperage. Too much on your mind. The travel, dwellings for the next month and writing. You need to start writing. If you don’t start soon you’re going to burst. This story, these images. But in what context. Who’s going to tell the story? What’s the catch? You grow weary of these people, of musicians. What a pain in the ass. When they’re playing, everything’s fine. But get them away from the stage and there’s just no dealing with them. Writers are crazy, sociopathic, despondent , bipolar— but musicians, there’s no reaching them. A musician couldn’t tell the story. The rock opera, perhaps, but stories are best left to writers. Musicians, like actors, should save it for the stage. The stage exists for purposes of reenactment. This happens here and now, the writing absorbed and synthesized, unbridled. It leaves you dizzy, the drama unfolding before you, suckling every ounce. Osmosis. It sends you reeling. If you could record it word for word, right now, as it reveals itself, fresh and unaddled, undilute, it would be perfect. But there’s so much information. Encapsulated in a single moment might be a thousand years of thought come to term. Things are just like that. If you’re sensitive to the avatar thought of the moment, you pick up on it. And right now is a lull. Right now the images wane and wont for consideration. Right now the lone author breathes a sigh of relief and hammers away, sifting through a thousand images and holding only the most poignant as evidence of the common understanding of immortality, and what notions one needs to attain it. Simple. It’s all very simple. And if you pick only the best images, and write them very carefully, taking each moment unto itself, treating each as an entity, and listen to the voice from deep within the labrynth of the unconscious mind, the moments bond and avatar — presto! The birth of yet another immortal. Simple, right? But you need to get through the story, first. And live to tell about it. That’s what’s important right now, living to tell the story. Nothing else matters. * * * Wailing home on highway 101, blackness reigning, blackness enveloping the road, the hillsides, the immense blackness of Rocinante’s front end — that’s the bitch, not even able to see the front tire. The sparse, scattered tail lights from the traffic note the lay of road, but other than that, it’s all instruments. And you need to move fast. As fast as possible. The faster the better. The less time spent on the road, the less time for law enforcement. Law enforcement, at this particular moment, would not be a good thing. Bugger it. Steady as she wails. It would be easy to freak now, at 60, when you can’t see a damn thing except a tail light fifty yards up the highway. Your senses deprived, you’re only a step away from death. All around you is black and all you hear is the whine of the engine and the wail of the wind. Switched over to instruments. Sometimes it’s all you have to go by. Humans rely far too much on the five physical senses. They rank low on the metasensual totem. There exist senses beyond the physical plane that render sight, sound, hearing, touch and taste, mundane. Obsolete. Guaranteed. Telekinesis, psychokinesis, the mind’s eye, the pineal gland, karma, Fate, omniscience, these dimensions wheedle above and beyond reality. These sensory apparatus assail the norm in the perpetual. Things are not always what they seem. Guaranteed. And right now things seem very, very black. Yet the blackness is a mirage. A mere lack of sunlight. Fell st. drawing near, riding smooth on instruments, the highway isolated, adrenaline surging, sobering as hell, making it back poses no problem. And you are at peace with Death, for the moment. You have that going for you. * * * On the way to work, opposite from the way he’d come home the night before, Owen marvels at the way everything seems normal. There, across the median on the other side of 101, last night, the mystics had come through crystal clear. Now the voice was quiet and there was only work and finding a place to live. The writing would have to wait. Owen winds on down into Bay View, over to the Green Tortoise. Wade is out front, already hard at work on a newer-looking cross-country bus. “Morning, Owen.” “Wade. You’re hard at it.” “Monday morning, same old shit. I’ve marked all the stuff you should trash over in the warehouse. Why don’t you start over there for now and if we get swamped we’ll pull you over.” “Sounds good. Say,” Owen says matter-of-factly, pausing for effect, as if he’s reconsidering the proposal once more, “have you ever considered having someone sleep in the warehouse at night, having someone there to keep an eye on it?” “As a matter-of-fact, Gardner sleeps there when he’s around. Why? You looking for a place?” “My roomies are splitting up. I need a place for about a month and then I’m heading for Europe.” “Europe, eh. Well, I don’t think Gardner would mind if you stayed in his room until he gets back. After that, well, I don’t care if you pitch a tent for a couple weeks. We have several employees living here already. They come and go. Gardner makes a habit of letting people live here. When you moving in?” “One week.” “Alright. Well, why don’t you get started and I’ll come over and show you what’s what.” “Thanks a lot, Wade.” “No problem,” he says and smiles. Owen enjoys seeing him smile those burley, heartfelt smiles. He runs down into the shop for the key to the warehouse then walks over, past the lubricant warehouse, over to the white, plain-faced warehouse that is his new home. He opens the door. What a mess. Owen enters and begins sorting through the rubbish of work. “Soon I will live at work,” he says, smiles to himself. “But it could be worse. Things could get a lot worse.” * * * Whip it away! The Nazarene’s play, the Muslim’s dismay, the Catholic’s dull nay, the guilt-ridden who say, we live only to pay for deeds-done-in-days of forefathers and foremothers. A running-tab before our birth. Hammer the way! Devour those who feign. Crush crystalline bays from granite terrains, will pantheon danes from malachite veins, ’tis a god’s true forte’ in this drama portrayed, to reveal a true path to the other. A vignette beyond our Earth. So bugger your pride! Resign to confide, artist draftings denied, under common Man’s guide of labor derived thoughts that abide with methodology tried, with known theorems vied, with profit implied — for it matters not to those in the lot of immortality’s plot if a deity slain shows distaste or disdain for surroundings they’ve lain, for atrocities vain in the realm of the plain, or the power for which they druther. A requiem mocked in mirth. So stay with thy ride! Keep your child-eyes wide, hearing songs in the tide, divided, entwined, with the gods will you dine, taste the food, drink the wine, pure omniscience be thine, incarnation divine, the esoteric sublime, availed over time as you excel from one life to another. Nirvana’s better than net worth. And there’s far-less risk of bankruptcy. * * * You’re in link mind for mind with the station that bore Siddartha, Elvis and Einstein, station K-T-H-O-R, thundering to you live from the Great Hall of Valhala in the temple of Asgad. We now conclude “Duct-taped Boots and Jesus suits.” * * * Not much happening at the Golden Cane, for a Wednesday afternoon late. Outside the weather is warm. It is summer in San Francisco. “It stay like this for about three weeks, then it gets shitty again,” Kara says sipping her martini. Owen stares out the window, looking far away. “Did you hear what I said?” “Yes.” “Well?” “I need someone to handle my affairs while I’m in Europe. I need an agent to sell what I write. I need someone I trust.” “I’ll be your agent.” “It’s going to mean a lot of work, if you really intend to do it.” “I’d be honored to do it. I think you’ll be a great writer someday. I don’t think this first book was you best work. I think they’ll get better.” “Well, I hope so. That is the idea afterall. I’m working on another one now, but it’s not quite ready yet.” “I’m looking forward to reading it.” “I have to write it yet.” “You will.” “And you’ll take care of things here, right? You’ll be my U.S. office, eh?” “Of course.” “That means if I call and need help, you’ll help me out.” “If there’s any way possible.” “That’s all I can ask,” Owen says, sipping at the snifter of Grand Mariner®. “It’s going to be a long weekend.” “How’s that?” “Friday’s are busy at the Tortoise, work Friday night, Saturday night is the moving-out-goodbye-Carlos party and Sunday we move.” “Have you found a place yet? “I’m moving into the Green Tortoise. Going to watch the warehouse. I’ve always wanted a warehouse flat in San Francisco, and now I have one. It’s free, but it’s in Bay View. Go figure.” “You can’t beat the cost. It’ll be good for you. I’ve noticed you’ve been getting lazy. You’ve taken on a different aire. I think you’re becoming a slacker.” “I’ve taken an interest in the slack life-style. Hell yes! I think it’s a fine life-style. I’m bored-as-hell with working. I came here for a vacation, not to work myself into the ground. I think I’m more tired now than when I showed up.” “You were beat-to-hell when you showed up.” “Yeah, but at least my karma was good.” “I don’t know about that either.” “Easy now.” “You need to get out of this city.” “I know.” “It’s shuffled you off to Bay View.” “My que to skidoo.” “What’s next?” “Amsterdam. I think I’ll start in Amsterdam and work my way down to Spain.” “Amsterdam,” she says, snickers, “Oh, you’ll do well in Amsterdam.” “I’m curious about Amsterdam. Smoking hashish in the bars, women for sale, heart of decadence, sounds like an interesting place.” “Oh, you’ll do well in Amsterdam,” Kara says, finishes her martini and orders another. “You’ll have to write me.” “I’m sure I’ll be in touch.” * * * Friday arrived in no time at all. Some work, a little sleep, a few beers, and suddenly it was Friday. End of the week, another week wasted working — end of the month, end of the Scott St. resistance. It disbanded now to pursue separate interests, like so many resistances in the past. But before that happened there would be a party. But now twilight’s reign failed as dawn let there be light, Owen sat watching the exchange from the bay window in the living room. He’d had view for mere two months, but he would still miss it. Waking-up easy, preparing for the long weekend, Dire Straits in the tape deck, hot coffee in his stainless steel travel mug, he sat in the big orange-plush easy chair, smoking, watching the sunrise out of that damned beautiful bay window. It was a fine sunrise, but he was not yet awake enough to enjoy it. “He sticks to his guns, he takes the road as it comes, it takes the shine off his shoes. He says it’s a shame, you know it may be a game, but I won’t play to lose.” Dire Straits in the morning, forever, he thinks, raises his travel mug in toast to the tape deck. No one else in the flat is awake yet. It is his favorite time: time to himself. Time to prepare. Time to think, time to calculate the amount of energy it would take to propel oneself around to the other side of the planet. To Amsterdam. It is not beyond your grasp. Just say the word aloud. Pick a day, buy a ticket, split. You’ll have to sell Rocinante, but a sacrifice is necessary. Always some sacrifice. There’s a bill for everything and it’s best to at least make a payment. On the Karmic level, however, selling your bike is no great sacrifice. A modest payment, indeed, for the bill which you accrue moment by moment. The cost of an avatar. The price one pays for greatness. Don’t let anyone fool you with candied notions of grandeur. The weight of greatness hangs like an anchor on the great man undiscovered. The drain inherent to lofty comprehension when living in the city. The monk is a great man, yet he chooses to remain disassociated from the shit. Living in the shit is the real test. The mountain tops — the Himilayas , the Alps, the Sierra Nevadas, the Rockies, Kilimonjaro, Kracatoa, Olympus, Pike’s Peak — there for the one’s who couldn’t take it. Designed for respite. Created for escape. Conceived in the early eons for sanctuary, so one might flee the shit. The shit: the hovel of the common men. The mere mortal in passing. A sanctorium of insecurity and fear. A sanitarium for the weak willed, that’s the shit. And when you can no longer bear the weight of the pile you head for the highest peak. The farthest point away from the dullards who berate and cajole. To hell with them. Their agitation bores you. You might sweep a thousand away with the bat of an eyelash. Destroy them on a whim. And you could do it, too. If your resolution to action was pure. Pure resolution towards action, towards the perpetual ascent of enlightenment, towards the immortal essence of spirit, stomped out like the baby steps one takes in becoming a god. Simple, right? * * * “Eh, bro — Big Man! You seen me, why you don’t let me slide? You know I make no trouble. I be looking for me brudder, man! Let me pass! You watch — I be out in five minutes. I drink one beer.” “You pay one cover.” “Me not interested in this band, man. This be a white boy band. Music got no soul, man. I’ll be drinking one beer and looking for me friend and den I leave.” “One beer, dude. I’ll be looking for you out the exit.” “You see, brudder. I’ll be out.” “Let him through, Tam, he’s got five minutes.” Owen turns back to the small Rastafarian, “If it were crowded I couldn’t let you do it.” “You’re a good man, Big Man.” “I do my best.” The Rasta smiles at him, the toothy-white grin of a Jamaican sunshine scammer. “I’ll be looking for you.” “You see, man, there be no trouble.” And he disappears into the club. “So you find a place?” says Harry, coming out from the club with a couple drinks. “Yes, as a matter-of-fact, I did. I’m going to live down in Bay View in a warehouse.” “In Bay View? Man, you’re crazy. They shoot white boys for fun down there.” “It’s not that bad.” “I can think of better places.” “It’s free.” “That’s as good a place as any.” “I’m going to keep an eye on it at night. And the place isn’t too bad during the day and if some little crackhead breaks in, I’ll take care of it. I take care of it here, what’s the difference?” “You got a point there.” “Dude on crack breaks into your place, he’s nervous. Hella nervous. He’s a crackhead.” “Yeah, they’re pretty nervous.” “I think it’s the life-style. You let me have the exit tonight?” “Why, you want to see the show?” “I like King Missle. Yeah, I wouldn’t mind. If you don’t mind taking front.” “No big deal. You take your share.” “Cool. Give me a holler if you get swamped.” “We’ll be alright.” The bar is only half-full, but it’s early yet and nobody likes to show up early and stand there paying too much for beer. The idea is to get your head on before you come to the bar. The Rasta is there, talking to a slinky babe, slowly drinking his beer. Owen sits down on the stool by the exit door, lights a cigarette. With any luck, it will be a good show. He could use a good show. Perhaps April will show. Perhaps. Perhaps Heather. It didn’t really matter, but it wouldn’t suck. Pleasant it would be, he thinks, working, always working, to have just a morsel that felt good. Something tingling, feeling warm and cuddly. The leather, the hard looks, the decadence, die Dreckarbeit und Dreckleben, it sucks you down. It makes pleasant, simple, clean living impossible. Clean and simple have nothing to do with it. Sink or swim — nothing personal. Es macht nicht! Owen smiles, knowing nothing really matters anyway. Nothing. Not this bar, not the dizzy tenders who work it, not the distributors who stock it, not the patrons who feed it, not the minstrels who tear it up. It is fodder. It bears fruit for naught. Nothing more, nothing less than indulgent folly. But it sure beats the hell out of walking the path of the clean and sober. Clean gets you nowhere. You lived clean for a long time and it got you nowhere. It got you here: to never-never land. That’s what you got for playing fair: a warehouse watch in a ghetto. That’s the reward for speaking the truth. Or was it that the truth was never spoken. That folly, guised in the haiks of wisdom and knowledge, faired nothing more than mere lessons to be learned. Mere luminated images. Images not nearly so pleasant as those first idyllic whims tossed your way like prime rib to a starving mongrel. You chomp away, thinking travel always prevails a prime experience, that it’s always pure and innocent and now you’re here and things aren’t really innocent anymore. No sir, things are downright ugly. Cultivating Tobacco Road. Seedy decadence pure-hearted. The only way to live. What do sober, reality-mined humans have to look forward to? Fear of Death. And their only saving grace is to work until they drop, so that their children might hold a few scrimpings more than they. This, you come to realize, holds no great motivation for living. Fools! Ignorant mortals! You work yourself to death for your offspring and the great irony of it is that you fail to bestow upon your child the most important gift a parent-mentor provides: A zest for living. A sacred zeal savored. The relentless quest to retain purity and wonder and focus, laughing like hell while standing nose to nose with the sneering countenance of death. There is a gift worth giving. But children are out of the question. Who in their right mind would bring a child unto this dying dunghill. If you bring a child into the world the first thing you say to them is “Gee, I’m sorry I got you into all this.” Because, in general, life is a drag. One big whorling, snaring, snapping, flippant, stick-it-up-your-ass drag. More often than not, at least, and you must break it before it breaks you. What makes it all worthwhile, of course, are those brief moments of Heathen pleasure. Drinking, dancing, playing, creating, painting, smoking, jacking-off, making love, eating — feasting, living in the wild, watching the sun set into the ocean breaking on the shore, admiring a beautiful woman, thinking your way to grandeur, these moments make the shit a little easier. The idea, then, would be to eliminate as much shit as possible. “Owen?” Focus on the fun. “Owen?” Focus on what you can’t see, but what you know, which is this: society kills passion, enlightenment proves crucial to success, and reality exists only in dreamstate. “Owen?” It’s April. Owen comes back from a great distance. “Where were you?” she says, walks into his body and hugs him. “You are sooo cute, I could just hug you forever.” She feels warm, makes him tingle. He hugs her back. Through the thin cotton T-shirt he feels the press of her breasts, firm, not too large. Tingling, indeed. She’s a looker, this one. Worth the wait. Worthy of pursuit. Prime choice for the kill. “You staying for the show?” “No, I just stopped by. We’re going downtown.” “Your friends don’t like this place, eh?” “Sundays are fun. But rock doesn’t really flip my cookies, you know?” “King Missle puts on a different brand of show.” “I come here to see you, my beautiful Viking,” she says, Owen blushes. “Oh my god, he still blushes. Alright, look, I’m going to get out of here, otherwise I’ll never leave. You are so cute. Call me. You still have my number, right?” “I’ll call.” She bounces off, leaving him horny. Thanks a lot, he thinks, wonders if he will actually call. Things get complicated when you call. Complications are an inconvenience. He would not call. As much as he might like to call on her, to crawl on her, it was never worth the heartache and the small talk. Small talk bores him dreadfully, near the point of anger, so he avoids it as one avoids a gypsy’s curse. It simplifies traveling. Owen lights another smoke as the band takes the stage. King Missle. Probably the most unique band the 90s has birthed thus far. Hands down. And it’s largely due to their front man. A meekish waif of a man with a thin moustache, pronounced adam’s apple, pallored complexion, and bright, dry-witted eyes, cleft-chin, wearing a black felt derby bowler, he takes microphone in hand and begins to tell stories as the keyboard chortles in with light carousel music. Dry-witted stories, obscure, darkly humorous — yet not without a certain harmony and meter opposite the childlike organ and grunge guitar. Ah-yes, meter. Breath and pause, accent , hanging syllable — the foundations of storytelling. The bass player rolls in a smooth melody on a small keyboard stage right. The tune evokes the innocent. The front man hangs on the microphone stand. “Once there once was a boy who was very happy most of the time. The boy knew there were a few things missing from his life but he didn’t know what they were. One day his family took him to an Italian restaurant. He was intrigued by all the exotic-sounding names of the food. He asked about the lasagna, because it sounded delicious. He ate the lasagna and it was delicious. The boy know then that one of the things that had been missing in his life was no longer missing.” The front man is a storyteller from the old school. Not many from the old school. He holds the gift between his lips like a bauble one swallows, then regurgitates, in order to deceive the federales. He’s a soul smuggler. A torchbearer from the days when nomad storytellers made their way from camp to camp, spreading the songs of myths and legends. He knows how to take you out of the bar and drop you where he wants you. Spellbinder. Yarnspinner. The bass guitar player looks like a lumberjack, yet with delicate mannerisms, large close-set soft brown eyes, and sensitive tenor vibrato. Excellent. The guitar player resembles the iconoclastic metal head — a great pile of brown hair, billygoat beard, face pudgy from beer, grinding away on his axe, with one vital difference: he knows how to play. He sports control, exudes finesse. The drummer resembles an activist from the seventies, who’s kicked away ten years playing covers in the clubs with Bluegrass rock bands. He sports an afro, with brown tortoiseshell glasses, thin lanky arms and torso, formally-trained in traditional style. A studio man. Together they produce the eclectic visions from the various fringes of counterculture, like a killer punch at a garbage can party. A garbage can brimming with liquor and fruit. Wicked, this punch, like so many devotees. The nihilists, stoics, intellects, hippies, the decadent pagans, the Hedonists, the outlaw monks who start revolutions, the whacked-out mathematical physics freaks, the computer pirates, the anarchists. Indeed, we are all anarchists here, in spirit. Anarchy is the answer to the question of governmental reform. Killer punch. Social reformation through education and anarchy: the way things ought to be. “On the morning of the day of the apocalypse, Willy woke up and made himself bacon and eggs and rye toast. He didn’t usually eat bacon, but since today was a such special day, he figured, why not? Like most people these days Willy had trouble keeping his food down, but that didn’t stop Willy from eating, he enjoyed food too much. Willy went outside. He loved to breath fresh air, but he went outside anyway. He decided to head across the street to his good friend Bob’s house. But when Willy got there he discovered that Bob, in utter despair, had shot himself in the head. “Some people have no patience whatsoever’, Willy proclaimed ‘Well, I’m not killing myself. I’m sticking it out. Today is a special day — the last day of planet Earth, and I’m going to enjoy myself. Maybe today I won’t go to the healthspa, maybe I’ll just sit here and drink all of Bob’s beer and wait for his wife to come home and maybe we’ll go out dancing, yeah! That’s it, dancing! I’m going to go home and get changed. “Willy ran out into the street not noticing the run away steam roller that flattened him flatter than a pancake in less than one second. “The world would have to end without Willy.” Behind the stories the music whangs on bouncing between playful melodic and distorted grind. It’s a good show. They can reproduce their music outside the studio. The front man is truly mesmerizing. The conflicting styles breed a unique blend of rock and literature. “I wish I had a story to tell. I wish I knew the story of the cardboard man, or the talking film cannister, or the spoon that moved. I wish I knew the one about the wise Guru and the Honest Lizard. I wish I knew about the dog who dressed like a cat, the mule that walked like a rock, or the tornado, who swam like a statue of Carmen Miranda. I wish I knew all these stories, or had the information to make them up. I wish I could sit on soft pillows and drink molten lava. I wish I could make love to the sky. I wish I could eat the corn of joy and sorrow. I wish the sky was green and my body was bright blue. I wish I could talk sideways and backwards. I wish I could drive the tractor of innocence and return to the life I never knew. I wish I could drink chocolate syrup honey. I wish I had that fax number. I wish nothing could mean something, and that everybody could have everything. Some wishes come true. Some of these wishes will come true. Others are destined to be dreams deferred, shriveling up like grapes with suntans. But all is not lost. No, all is not lost. Not yet. “I wish I had three eyes. But of course, I have three eyes. I have clairvoyant paranoia, precognitive dissonance, and many other ways of seeing at my disposal. I have a garbage disposal, dinner plans, and dog biscuits. I have many, many options and a strong sense that freedom lies within where I shall never find it. Freedom is lost, failure is just around the corner and the only thing that consoles me anymore is the sound of my own voice, and the fact that I don’t cut myself shaving as often as I used to. But then again, I don’t shave as often as I used to, either.” André emerges from the crowd, hands Owen a plastic cup. “Dude thanks for the tickets.” “Hey, it’s payback. Thanks for the drink.” “Killer aren’t they?” “I think so. You been here from the start?” “Yeah, we’re all standing over on the other side of the bar. I just thought I’d come over and say thanks.” “No problem, my friend.” “Lots of babes here tonight,” he says. His eyes are glazed. “Maybe get lucky tonight, eh?” “Maybe so.” “I’m going to go watch the show, see if I can’t do some scamming on the onions. Enjoy the show.” “Thanks for the drink.” André tips his beer, walks back into crowd. “‘Spare the goats and spoil the lambs!’ screamed the Farm Man. ‘It’s raining fireballs and boulders and radioactive debris. “‘Run for your lives and kill your wives!’” Cried the Preacher ‘It’s the end of the Christian Era.’ “‘You’ll never make it, no need to fake it,’” giggled the Anti-Christ, ‘Just put on an Otis Redding record and start the dance.’ “‘Open up the windows and let the fresh air out,’ said the television to the shackled children, ‘this is the Way to Salvation.’” And if a band is really good, the bar becomes a church. The Church of Passion and Performance, the Doctrine of Rock, the hail of the 13th generation — a generation cursed and healed through roots rock and world beat. Deranged with technology, bloated with disposable culture, addled with processed food, besieged with cancer causing agents, cleansed through music. Our booming hippy-baby parents knew nothing, as passes the accurst case from generation to generation, like a plague. The sixties were naive and optimistic attempts to thwart ‘the system’. It failed miserably. In the seventies ‘the movement’ collapsed beneath the heavy cloak of disco and candy-ass pop psychology. Then came the eighties. The eighties. Knabbing infamy as one of the most indulgent decades experienced in the white-boy chronicles of the United States. High-tech greed prevailed. The hippies were slain by the thousands and laid out side by side on the sidewalks of Wallstreet in offering to the great god Dollar. The offering beseeched forgiveness, and was, of course, approved. Junkbonds, Saving and Loan scandals, high brow corruption ran unchecked. This trend continues, of course, from generation to generation, like a plague, like a curse, like the stench of an unwanted limb, stiff with gangrene. And now the Yuppies have sucked the dollar dry, have grown weary of making money, of spending other people’s money to build more buildings in which to ply financial piracy, they turn their sights on the morals of the working class. They cram inquisitionesque red-hot pokers — the War on Drugs, social services, the constipated, near violent attempt to force the revitalization of the ‘All-American Family’, desensitization to censorship in the guise of the Byzantine politically correct, higher taxes, stiffer prison terms, boot camps for ‘nonviolent offenders’, healthcare reform, balancing the budget, GOD— straight up the hemorrhitic anus of those who can’t afford a good lawyer, doctor, psychiatrist, with little-to-no empathy for the suffering they create in the name of “making them better people.” Hogslop. The prisons swell with the ‘nonviolent offenders’ in the land of milk and honey, while the white-collar hoodlums pursue and plunder their own brand of despeciation. A unique blend of democracy and despotism. The Classic Platonian Republic. And you know what happened to the first Republic. It bloated, floundered, and died. These white-collar’s, they are dangerous , indeed, likes the ancient Greeks. Dangerous to themselves and others. Bright-eyed, semi-educated, extremely vicious. Nothing to banter with casually. Shadow boxing bears bitter spoils. They must be dealt with by trial of fire. A stout casualty in our rite of passage, killing them as they killed those before us. The must feel the raw power of the spirit they seek to maim. They must not be allowed to breed — the same judgement they cast, sentenced upon them. They are deadly, these white-collar’s. These clandestine hounds of maladjusted social order. These political swine. In light of the oncoming slaughter, the hippies run for the hills. The smart ones flee the country. Those remaining trade away palsied beliefs for a modicum of wealth. Trading peace for disposable materialism. Trading love for money. Trading Volkswagon’s for BMW’s. They make us ill, for we were forged in the light of optimism and blackened by fatigue and disenchantment over time. We revel in the decay of our elders. To hell with them all. To hell with love and joy and peace. We inherit a dungheap of bureaucracy and malicious insensitivity to life-styles other than that of the ‘common man’ abiding by the social contract unsigned, than that of the clean and sobering Christians brimming with guilt and dogma and icons, icons, icons. We loathe their meager rumblings for all inherited social ills, the behemoth besieged. We despise vain attempts to remember “when GOD blessed America.” Snapping at our napes with a few totem fables and a long-haired outcast hammered to a pole, they scream: “DOWN ON YOUR KNEES, SCUM! AND PRAY! BEHOLD THIS IDOL, THIS ONE TRUE IDOL, AND THANK HIM FOR DYING FOR YOU! HE DIED FOR YOU! NOW GIVE HIM PRAISE! HE SPILT BLOOD FOR YOU! NOW GIVE HIM GLORY! HE IS A-NUMBER ONE! YOU CAN NEVER BE BETTER! NOW WORSHIP HIS NAME!! SAY IT! SAY IT! SAY IT OR WE SEND YOU TO THE RACK. WORSHIP HIM NOW! Who wants to worship a relic? There have been loads of prophets who’ve died for the people who followed them. Why praise just one? All prophets deserve praise. It sucks to be a prophet. All prophets have followers. Without the followers , prophets would be nonexistent. Jesus wasn’t the first, nor was he the last. He was a ”one-in-a-million.” According to current population estimates, that would put the prophet count at right around five thousand. Give or take a thousand. And shouldn’t they all be praised for carrying the weighted destiny of the human species on their backs like a common pack mule? Shouldn’t they be granted a mere pittance of gratitude? Torture seems a bit strong. Respect, if nothing else, but why hatred and scorn? Why putrid disgust? Because of that little quip: “Thou shalt have no other god before me!” What about that? Does this not rationalize the foundation for the vanities of insecurity and fear bonding the civilized world? When THE LORD fears the emergence of his better? This quip, and other such commandments, script nothing more than the tantrums of a jealous god, nothing more than the rantings of the deistic infantile; further, and most ironic, nothing more the ranting of his followers. Jesus never wrote a word. Jesus was way coo Yes, way cool indeed. A mighty prophet worthy of respect. It’s the droning Christian dogma, propagated, diluted in large by the western churches, we could live without. Sorry, boys and girls, we, the 13th generation, don’t buy a word of it. Save it for the meek. We seek the Church of Passion and Performance. New prophets emerging weekly. The show winds on, the band churning out bitterly humorous allegory, the crowd on the balls of their feet, dancing. The bartenders a fleeting blur, lights and sound slashing out in furor, nearing the point of total sensory overload, as usual. Owen yawns. Another night at the Bacchanal. Albeit, a good show. Better than most. He wants to drink. To sit down and do some serious drinking. Perhaps a binge. No, he thinks, as the band winds it up with the song “Take stuff from work,” bingeing will bring nothing but trouble. I just need to hold out for a few weeks, and then go to Amsterdam and open up the gates for the flood. And there will be a flood. As the bands closes the show, the house lights come up and the church vanishes, leaving only the pungent mist of smoke and sweat hanging in the air like a shroud, like a veil . . . “I need a drink, what about you, Owen, you need a drink?” Harry says, coming over from the front door as Owen shoo’s the last of the drunken mystics out the exit. Once again, the club goes from church to black-on-white box. “You must be a mind-reader. Maybe you should give up bouncing and go to work for the circus.” “I wouldn’t like all the travel. I used to love travel, but I just got tired of it. Now I stay here and let other people tell me stories. Besides, I’ve got my own personal freak show right here.” “Damn straight. More freaks here than anywhere. It’s good that you listen to the stories, though. Most people don’t want to here it. Most people are comfortable with where they are and don’t want to be told there is someplace more fascinating. Most people glaze over around we nomadic freaks of nature” “There’s always someplace more fascinating, and only the nomads have the will to make the journey. The only problem is that it becomes routine once they move there, and loses some of the luster. Then they move on. Everywhere I’ve been I’ve gotten tired of the place, except for San Francisco. That’s why I stay here, because it never gets boring.” “There’s a routine to it.” “Yeah, but it’s the routine of the spontaneous.” “Spontaneity can be a real pain in the ass.” “There are worse pains. What are you drinking?” “Tonight, I believe, tequila sounds like the liquor o’ choice. A Grand Gold Marguarita.” “You want to make it?” “May I?” “Be my guest. Make two.” Owen goes back behind the bar, enjoys the feel. He misses bartending. Taking the tumbler, ice and two glasses, he makes the drinks then comes back around the bar and sits down. The drink tastes good. Damn good. Nectar. “A toast to the nomads!” “Here, here,” says Harry, they clink the drinks. “I’m out of here in a month. It’s time to go.” “Where you heading?” “Europe. Start in Amsterdam and make my way down to Spain. I’m thinking Barcelona for the ’92 Olympics. I’ve got a buddy who knows a guy with a contract to cater the athletes. Maybe that will work out, maybe I’ll find a job teaching English, we’ll see. I can do anything, so it doesn’t really matter.” “That’s the attitude.” “It’s gotten me this far. In my profession it’s crucial.” “What’s your profession?” “Oh, you know, adventurer, writer, Lord of Thunder, Master of Oak.” “God, huh.” “It’s a bitch of a road, but someone needs to walk the path and keep the torches lit. I made a promise to a traveling companion once. We were near-death from a carbon monoxide poisoning we’d received from his micro-bus, coming down through Montana. We crossed-over into South Dakota, realized we didn’t feel so hot. Carbon monoxide gas comes on slow in low concentrates. He had this leak in the exhaust, coming in through the heater and it was cold in Montana so we’d had the windows up and when we crossed the state line we suddenly felt dizzy and nauseous. And it wasn’t just because we were in South Dakota. Incidentally, that was the day before I found Rocinante, my bike.” “Rocinante?” “Don Quixote’s horse.” “Oh. Windmills in the desert and all that.” “You know it. So we had this little flask of apricot brandy, and we saw this rest area so we stopped, got out of the car and then realized we’d been poisoned. It was an odd feeling. Sort of like tripping, but it didn’t feel pleasant. Everything became extremely clear and precise and ironic. It was the nausea that made it unpleasant. Images became grainy and you could feel the moment flowing over you. See it, like a film held close to your face and run at high speed, but it needed tracking and the edges were showing. The film edges showed things you don’t normally notice. But they were showing, and caught a brief glimpse of death. There was a large picture of Christ en route to the crucifixion on display in the lobby, which was abandoned. The rest area had been built in the eighties, was quite comfortable — well lit, clean, you know the type. So we hit the bathrooms and pissed and the tile and the mirror and urinals in the bathroom were all quite clear, but the edges were showing. We had looked at ourselves in the mirror, looked quite green with our edges showing. “We went out into the lobby, where we sat and drank apricot brandy and decided that we were Brothers in the Revolution, and we should make a pact to never give up the torch of Ways of the Immortals. The powers, the magik, the old stories and songs — we were to carry those with us always, and tell anyone who would listen. We were two of the people who existed to care for the immortality of all the gods and goddess throughout time. Caretakers to the Pantheon: They appear in human form, from time to time, taking turns and reminding those who look carefully that magik still exists, that things are not as they seem, that the mighty gods are the living legends of immortal men. Incarnates. Jesus wasn’t the only damn prophet. Though his followers like to beat you with his name over and over again. Jesus gets plenty of attention. Look at the number of caretakers it takes to keep his name shining. Like that picture on the wall. The actors portraying Jesus and the gang were snow-white. Their robes were fresh and clean and pressed, unsoiled. Only Jesus bled. Even the wrap across his groin was unsoiled. All in all, the picture looked as authentic as a five dollar Rolodex®. So we drank the brandy, and promised then and there to not give up our chosen paths. I split off from him two days later, have never seen him since, but I know he’s out there, in one form or another, as I am, telling the old stories about the days when certain men broke free of the pack and became the crux of myths and legends. Real myths and legends, as distinguished from cheesy actors and pop-icons. Stout-hearted men with brains and style and fortitude. You don’t see many men, nor women, like that. So when you find one, you want to make sure you give them a reassuring pat to let them know they’re not alone. The lonely, the despondent, the overeducated, the hermetic geniuses, they are not alone with the weight of the world. I was an adventuring writer then, remain one today, will do so tomorrow. It is my nature. It’s what I’m supposed to be doing. “I know this because my brain tells me so.” “So be it. Here’s to the Gods among us.” “Every damn one of them.” “All they want is a little respect.” “Doesn’t everybody?” “Anyone with passion.” “But most passionate people don’t get respect.” “See the problem?” “Tough road, dude.” “The only road worth taking: my own. When people tell you you’re nuts because you can’t write your own critical theory, what they are, in fact, saying is that they have given-up looking. If you try to light their torch, they glaze over. They’ve let their brain go to mush. They might as well lemming away with the rest, and await death. Because they no longer contain the one element that makes any given man a god: desire.” “But some with desire lack the ability.” “There always have been, always will be frustrated deities in the making. Adolescents in the Pantheon. Our temple never remains stagnant. They pass through, knowing who they are, but lacking the tools to communicate their message. To exodus, if you will. They pass through a life or two, or a thousand, and WHAM! They learn. Finally, they learn. It took me many lifetimes to learn. I was a molten-stone hot-head for thousands of years. Finally, I am learning peace. Learning peace this time around. Indeed. That is what’s held me back for so long. When I pass through I fight the wrathful deities rather than fear them. The trick is neither fight nor fear, but focus. Focus, clear and bright. Anger is the result of a lack of focus. To get angry and lose-your-temper is to loose the clear crystalline sheath of your spirit which acts as a link to the divine. Damage the sheath, damage the link. Upon death, I would pass through the peaceful deities, make it to the realm of the wrathful deities, and rather than quiver with fear I grabbed at them. I raged. I figured it was the best way out, to confront them head on. It took them quite off guard. Then they circled up and beat the crap out of me and sent me back to try again. I let every ounce of energy fly, but I flung it at them rather than focusing on myself.” “Damn deities.” “Vicious bastards, aren’t they? No matter. It was my fault, not theirs. We couldn’t live without them.” “I could live without them.” “Nah, then it wouldn’t be any fun. They’re simply saying this: “MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS!” “I guess that’s not bad advice. You have another drink?” “One more, then I need to go. It’s going to be a long weekend.” “They’re never long enough. Hell, this one’s almost over.” “Mine’s just getting started,” Owen says, walks around to the bar, sets himself up with a dark beer and a snifter of Grand Mariner®. He sets Harry up with a beer and a shot of Krystal®, chilled, shaken in glass, not metal. Metal bruises good vodka, like it bruises blood cells, muscle tissue, mineral agates, and just about anything else it touches . . . bruises it like love bruises one’s spirit. Owen thinks about love, scoffs, and walks back around bar. “Love is for suckers,” he says. “Where did that come from?” “Something I was thinking.” “I was in love once.” “What happened?” “I got over it.” “Good for you.” “Never again. Not soon anyway,” Harry says, flashing scorn. “Shall we drink to misogyny?” “To women! Let them rot.” “Here, here!” And they drink to the bitter irony of hormones. “It’s nearly three,” Harry says. “I suppose we should get out of here.” “Why you got someplace to be?” “No.” “Then to hell with it. Let’s get drunk.” “A shot, perhaps?” “What’ll we have?” “Yukon Jack? Or Jagermeister. Yes, definitely a shot of Jager. You get this one.” “Bastard,” says Harry, getting up from his stool slow, sluffing off back behind the bar to the cooler. Opening the door, removing the bottle, green and rectangular, he pours two large shots, comes back around and sits down. The rest of the crew banters on about roller blading, or some drivel. Owen and Harry sit on the other side of the bar. “To the party,” he toasts, “may it never end.” “And may the cops never knock on your door.” “I’ll drink to that.” “When you go to Europe, send me some rocks.” “What kind?” “Just any particular stone you come across. You see it and you say to yourself ‘Harry would like that’. I have stones from all over the world, but not many from Spain. So send me a few.” “I think I could manage that.” “I have to hand it to you. I couldn’t do what you’re doing. Not anymore. I’m tired of living out of a backpack.” “It’s not so bad. I have everything I need: clothes, music, books, paper, tools — the rest I keep in my head. I want to stay light. Makes moving easier. Need to keep moving. Stop moving, stop traveling, I start to age. You age slower at traveling speed. That’s one of the main reasons people travel.” “A little adventure is good for the spirit.” “Vital.” “Make sure and send me the stones of your travels” “Will do. One more shot?” “Why the hell not.” “Jager?” “Krystal. Your turn.” Owen makes the shots. “To the revolution,” he says, returning to the stool and lifting the shot glass. Harry raises his and they drink. “Yes sir, that ought to do it. Be paying for this in the morning, eh?” “Probably so. I can sleep in, though, so it doesn’t matter.” “I’ll be sleeping in. Speaking of sleep, I feel as though I might do quite well with a brief respite.” “You mean you’re going to pass-out.” “Something like that. Need some air nonetheless. See you Sunday. Oh! We’re having a moving out party tomorrow.” “Working.” “That’s a drag. Tell you how it goes. Later.” “Via condios.” Owen turns the latch, opens the gate and heads out into the blackness. The streetlights are out. Only the lights from the 7-Eleven break the sticky blue-sapphire night. Owen feels drunk. He walks up the street, shoulders back, head up, looking dead forward — with only a slight wavering. He holds his liquor well. If living in Nebraska taught him anything, it’s how to keep reign on a drunk. Never appear drunk, that’s the game he played. Intensity and duration. And he faired pretty well with party games. At an after-bars acid party once, in the house of a friend’s, they’d had a fruit punch cocktail spiked to the gills . There was this punch, and good pot and the acid and many pagans in full swing. It was an excellent party. But there had been this loudmouthed know-it-all running around being a smart-ass with every breath he drew. We were all down the in the basement. He had his girlfriend hanging on his arm. She was okay. Do her in a pinch, maybe sooner, but this guy’s wandering around and he wanders down into the basement and begins to ply us with his wise-ass allegories, none of which were very original — in general making an ass out of himself. He’s standing there with his glass of punch, half-full of fruit. Real fruit. “I got this much fruit.” he’d said, attempting to brag “How much you got?” Without looking at your glass, never breaking your stare, you’d scoffed and tipped your glass towards him and it was so full of fruit that a grape rolled out of the glass and onto the desk. It was a chance that it happened, but you smiled anyway and his girlfriend broke out laughing , along with the rest of the room and his face had paled and stopped talking so much. You’d broken his spirit with a scoff and a full glass of fruit. He would always be half-a-man and he knew it and you knew it and his girlfriend looked at you different now, and he’d led her away while she continued laughing hysterically. Things like that happened all the time. Otherwise you’d think nothing of it. It’s unavoidable. The bright lights of the 7-Eleven blind Owen for a moment as he walks through the door. The three Vietnamese boys behind the counter take little notice. Owen turns towards the cooler near the rear of the store, considers a soda, decides on a Calistoga® sparkling juice and a turkey with swiss. He feels the eyes of the clerk scanning for any furtive move. Owen turns and walks to the counter. “A pack of Camels® and a Club International, if you don’t mind.” The clerk walks over to the rack, goes through four or five magazines before he gets it right. Bringing it back to the register, looking at the cover, slightly smirking, the clerk rings it up. The two men behind him snicker. Owen ignores them, pays the cashier, walks back out into the night. Fluidity, in the night, where he belongs. Walking past the rows of unlit Victorians Owen feels happy. Food, juice, a healthy buzz, a couple bong hits and a fresh skin mag and everything is fine and dandy. For the moment. Only the red light above the stereo is lit and the flat is dark and quiet. There’s a small pile of ganja on the tray. Owen sticks a Pink Floyd cassette in the deck, sits back with the juice in one hand and the bong in the other and breathes a heavy sigh. Damn long day. The smoke tastes piney as he exhales, watching the smoke dissipate, wishing that he might up and drift off right along with it. Perhaps call the whole thing off. Return to Baja and wrinkle in the sun. No, that accomplishs nothing. Going to stick it out and ride the bitch until she crashes. It’ll be messy, but it’s the only way to make progress. To continue learning. Higher education, if you will. And you will. You have no choice. “One of these days, I’m going to cut you into little pieces . . .” The path to greatness run on through the forests littered with the bodies of those who found themselves in the torrential wake of an avatar. For a prophet to rise, for any human to phoenix, there needs to be something offered for homage. Always the sacrifice, always the need for fuel. No such thing as a closed system. Not yet. It’s simple physics. An engine sucks oil from the Earth in wide array of sweet crude oil-based mediums: petrol, lubricants, diesel, asphalt, rubberized carbon — concrete jungles suck sand, gravel and fired-lime, iron-ores, trees, trace minerals, quartz — the civilized world at work, in the process of slowly sucking nature dry to suit its needs. Feeding on an organism other than itself. Laying the rough places flat and the jagged places plane. Building the kingdoms of the gods on earth, only to watch them fall. Thus reads the destiny of the human race. Society versus Nature. Neither nature nor society constitute closed systems. They interact with one another, like an engine and fuel, with some elements resisting change. Classic Clausian entropy. S = k lnP + c — that’s entropy in a mathematical nutshell. The ‘k’ is a fixed variable, the ‘P’ is the potentiality to occur. And then there’s the ‘c’. The ‘c’ stands for an arbitrary constant. An arbitrary constant. The One Consistent Whim. Clausius first spoke of entropy as the transformational-elements unavailable for work within a system; more specifically, the measure of disorder within any system. Elements resisting change. Entropy always increases. That is to say, a system moves towards entropy before it moves away. We march like the doomed towards entropy, and the only possibility for survival is the arbitrary constant. The machine dies momentarily, without the arrival of a whim or caprice that sets entropy on its abstract ear. Incarnates, prophets, they fall under the arbitrary constant category. ‘Great cities’ collapse like playing-card houses in the wrath of the raped and pillaged, in the wrath of the adiabatic. And there was once One Spirit, and from it all spirits were cleaved. There was once a Great Order, and from that spawned Chaotic entropy. An avatar collects those spirits gleaned in an attempt to heal the once-pure Qualitative Ideal. To nexus the heart of the One Spirit. An avatar sucks them back up and sets them on fire, despite their resistance to change. This, too, is inevitable. This is perpetual motion: the arrival of the Arbitrary Constant, the revival of Quality, the infamous resurrection, Buddha holding a lotus flower out to the masses, Allah waving a sword at the frenzied throngs, Shiva stroking his beard and laughing like hell in the face of adversity, Nietchtze on a raging ode to the Ubermensch, Einstein dabbling in the meta-atomic, Gibbons pacing the room, stopping only to write, Hegel on a drunk, Bacchus on a binge, Plato taking it up the ass, Bes calling for the dance, Osiris calling everybody home. The calendars within the pyramids cease at the year two thousand. After that, entropy reigns. And the only survivors, on the first day after the Apocalypse ,will be those who know the truth. Which means this, of course: we are goners. If we fail to knock ourselves out with a bioengineered viral nightmare, we’ll starve ourselves silly through constant breeding. If we fail at mass murder, we’ll shoot each other one-by-one. If we fail to cease desecrating the planet, we receive desecration, an evolutionary communion, a baptism of fire, a rite of passage on to the next level of enlightenment. The planet’s climate changes in 9, 745, 615 years! Forward! Behold the extraterrestrial! Human spirits suffer in the celestial petting zoo called planet Earth. Tally-ho! Off into the cosmos. This truly suits the needs of the spirit. The tape ends, Owen feels dizzy, drunk. He is tired. Picking up the magazine, he heads for his makeshift bedroom. The room vanishes forever on Sunday. The bare-white incandescent bulb exposes the complete disarray. Some of Tim’s garbage still festers, seemingly breeding. Sitting down on the bed, flipping through the pages, feeling too tired to masturbate, he decides to save it for morning. He, turns off the light, lays down on the bed and sleeps instantly. The sleep runs deep and black and very near the great escarpment of the unconscious. He sleeps, sans dreaming. Yet the wicked find no reverie. The righteous sleep like babes swaddlin’ and suckling the silken breast. The wicked lay back and suck the leather teat, and love it. They never get enough. And they never drain the sonofabitch. If purity truly exists in a sunshine-up-your-skirt wonderland vacuum of happiness and innocence, then why is it so selfish with the resources? Why the waning with age? Should it not be coddled, cradled and cherished? Should it not be praised without hesitation? People speak of happiness as though it were some disease. Mature humans loathe the terminally happy, harbor no respect for those who choose to retain childhood naivete’. Odd, it is, the lack of respect paid to any ‘mature’ human who pursues the child’s mind. Labeled ‘irresponsible’, the learned society seeks to purge it from your being. Mature, adult-minded women show vehement disgust. They prefer serial killers. The Nightstalker, for example. The guy has women lining up outside the prison, thinking he’s cute, wanting to ask him out for dinner, a movie, maybe a hatchet job later. That’s a real man, eh, the distant , the aloof, the deadly, — that’s what makes them wet. Jeffery Dahmer, they send him money. Women love a man who kills, and eats what he kills. It’s genetic. The child’s mind leaves them clammy. Though you’d never get them to admit it outloud. And it’s all because of that worthless piece of biblical drivel, ”when I was a child I spake as a child, I behaved as a child, I played as a child, but when I became a man I put away childish things.” What royal brouhaha projectile vomits from the mouths of the dead-to-the-world, from the numb minds of mature men and women. They might-as-well-be dead. They are useless. Shot their wad — maybe at sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, perhaps at age ten — but that sucker’s blown, that spirit cries for release to try, try again. Defunct, indeed, yet not beyond repair. Entropy is reversible. With the inclusion of the arbitrary constant. From this variable Maxwell gleaned the ‘Demon Box’ , Merton fashioned Chaos and Order, Durkheim conceived anomie, Nietchtze sculpted his Ubermensch, Marx’ produced weltanschuang, Wilde’s Solome’ , Miller’s ‘Colossus and Maroussi’, Hemmingway’s ‘The Sun Also Rises’, the ‘I Ching’, the ‘Tibetan book of the Dead’, Einstein’s Relativity, The Doctrine of Maya, the Dreaming Green Ants of the Australian Aborigine, they all sprang from the well of the adiabatic whim. These rare gems of knowledge lie along the path unavailable for work, unavailable for mass consumption. Until something comes along persuading them to reverse their valence. At which point the idea avatars, and becomes a legend. Indeed, a theorem! So runs the road to immortality. Oh! the splendor of the incarnate rising, full and grand, like an bleached-bone-white harvest moon. The brilliant cynosure of dimensions in eclipse — truly, a moment to behold . The deity ascending from the mud, excaliburesque, roaring to the pantheon: “I AM MORE THAN A MAN! I LIVE BEYOND THE REALM OF MORTAL WAYS! I OFFER YOU A SOLUTION TO THE GREAT RIDDLE! HEAR ME OUT! LET ME CHARM YOU WITH MY STORIES! LET ME DAZZLE YOU WITH CHARISMA! LET ME SWAY MASSES WITH SUBLIME WIT AND DRAMATIC REFRAIN! I EXIST INCARNATE! I TRAVELED TO THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DIMENSION AND GORGED ON THE EPICUREAN WINE IN APOGEE! ALLOW ME A SEAT AT THE TABLE OF THE GODS! “DECREE ME IMMORTAL!” Yes, a stunning sight, indeed. Egocentric, often quiet vain, extremely stubborn, but well-intentioned. It’s not fun to be a god. It is, in fact, quite stressful — weight of the world and all that. And in the end, what? Decapitation? Hanging? Ostracization? Something cruel. Mortals hold the number one spot for cruelty. Love you as long as you perform, like a trained grizzly, and when you’re tired from feeding them, standing before the masses naked, bleeding, beseeching their mercy, they rush you and tear you to shreds. Gods die grizzly deaths. Jesus wasn’t the only one they tortured. They torture all gods. And when you’ve left the body and fled to the spirit world, they raise the body and hang it from a pole in the center square so everybody gets a good look at what happens to people who don’t quite fit in . . . but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t make a bit of difference. It’s too late. Let them split your skull like a ripe guava, let them bust your gut and snap your spine and hobble your ankles, hollow out your middle ear with a dull knife so that you might hear better in the next life, pack your haggard flesh in a crystalline casket, stuffed and painted, and charge two dollars for the viewing — that’s what they ought to do to Madonna, something like that, and she’ll be getting it. She’s racking up one hell of a tab. They’re likely to lop out her groin and save it for posterity, like a retired team jersey, like a relic, like Cuthbert’s hair, and John Ball’s head, like the body of Jesus, entombed in the Vatican, mortals save these things . Mortal children collect bugs and worms, mortal adults collect the dead bodies of saints and superstars. To dissect or not to dissect — they’ve preserved the brain of Einstein, maybe someday science will learn how to hook it up. Maybe they already have. And what will Albert say when they drag him back from bliss and ply him with questions of stratospheric bathos? He will look at them, shaking formaldehyde from a ventricle, and gurgle: “It’s all showbusiness. Life is too important to be taken seriously. Relax. Have a good time. Have a good time all the time.” You’d tell them, Albert, I know you would. Waking at noon, feeling unrested, hungover, Owen gets out of bed, showers and grabs a cup of coffee. In the living room, André watches Television. “Where is everybody?” “Owen’s over at a buddy’s house, Ted is with Betty.” “Are we going to clean the flat first?” “I don’t see why. We’re going to trash it anyway. Fuck it. We’ll clean tomorrow. Maybe straighten up the living room, I don’t know. Going to give a shitload away tonight. Try to get rid of most of it. I wouldn’t worry about it.” “I’m not.” “Dude, what are we going to do about the bills? Gas, phone and electric are all like six-hundred dollars, rent is twelve-hundred, that’s a cool three grand.” “Do you have any money?” “No.” “Does Ted?” “Not really.” “Owen?” “A little. I doubt anything thing more than a couple hundred.” “That’s about what I’m good for, a couple hundred.” “So we should blow it off.” “Nothing’s in my name.” “No, me either.” “Well, we let the landlord keep the security deposit for rent and blow off the utilities.” “They’re so fucking stupid. This bitch from the gas company called this morning, you know, and she wants the entire amount right now. No exceptions. That’s just plain crazy. I don’t think they realize that most people don’t have shit.” “Oh they just figure that everybody’s rich in America.” “Fucking cities of gold, you know.” “Land o’ milk and honey.” “And milking money,” grins at his pun, “Care for a bonger with your coffee?” “Love one,” Owen says, and André loads the glass bong, hands it to him. The sun looks bright and full in the sky and the air feels warm coming in through the bay windows. It’s Indian summer in San Francisco. “Dude, we’re going to have a party,” André says, there’s a gleam in his eyes, like those of a titillated child. “We just had one a while back.” “That was just a gathering. We kept things quiet, relatively speaking. But this sonofabitch is going to rage. I can feel it. Party’s going to be a blowout.” “Good, I could use a party.” “It’s best when you don’t care about the place getting trashed.” “Yeah, I guess we can do what we want. What’s the landlord going to do? Kick us out?” They both laugh at the irony, André loads another round as Owen lights a cigarette. “What you got going today?,” he asks, as André hands him the bong. “Not much. Going to hangout here and save my energy. How about you?” “Thought I might go cruise around for an hour or two, take in the sun.” “Get it while it’s here.” “That’s the idea.” “You need anything while I’m out?” “Nah. I’m going to run up to Sam’s, eat a cheesesteak, grab some beer and smokes and a newspaper. I need to have some reason to get out of the house.” “Well, I think I’ll go take an afternoon cruise to wake up. I feel like hell.” “What’d you drink last night?” “Little bit of everything. Got drunk with Harry down at the Kennel Klub after King Missle. Sampling, shooting, slamming, until three or so. Quite a night. My head’s running off at the mouth, you know the story.” “Well, you best get healed up. You’ll want to be at your best tonight. It’s going to be a good one.” “Don’t worry, I’ll be there. Hedonists rate their members on intensity and duration. Intensity is the fun part. Duration is the bitch. Duration is what knocks most of them down.” “Just can’t take the fun.” “That’s it,” Owen says, getting up from the low-lying orange-plush chair, grabbing his leather jacket from the floor. “I’ll be back in a couple hours with some whiskey.” “Whiskey. Yeah, we’ll be needing some of that.” “Adios.” “Later, dude.” Owen boards Rocinante, rides of into the city, awrithe with weekend hobnobs out enjoying the weather. He rides down Fulton to Van Ness, takes a left and cruises on up to Broadway. Down the street, through the tunnel and presto! Chinatown. With the whores asleep and the junkies strung out down in Golden Gate park, the sidewalks abound with Chinese-Americans hard at work, and flabby Caucasian tourists floundering about, awestruck, as usual. They stroll in their tourist-like manner, horrified and giddy over the burlesque theaters, video parlors, live sex shows, strolling past them wishing they had the guts to go inside. Owen parks the bike, walks inside. What is it that draws you to them? The indelible laizze faire attitude? The sexual simplicity. Yes, that’s it. Simplicity. Plug the quarter, watch her masturbate. No commitments, just quarters. And when the little window closes, and everything turns black, she is gone. No explaining yourself away, no contact, no talk, no diseases acquired, simply the mutual release. Taking care of business. Good ones today, a couple cuties. That makes it easy. Almost pleasurable. If it weren’t for the fucking glass. This one works for sure. Tight little tits, black eyes, raven hair, flat stomach, tan all over, yes she works quite well. Plug, plug, plug, plug. Fifteen seconds per quarter. The honeyed-muse beheld through shuttered lens. It’s almost as good as being there. Plug, plug-plug. Hey, sister, if things were different maybe we could get together. Sister working for the cause. If it were the old days, I’d smash this glass and take you with me. And only a man bigger than me could halt the escapade. Dropping you, drawing my broadsword, we’d fight for possession. Fight to the death over some lame whore. How many men have died fighting over women? Millions? And they ask for equality. Why would they want it? Men drop their pants at the sight of a beautiful woman — women live off their sexuality. Some of them couldn’t compete if all things were equal. They cry out for a matriarchal society, and yet they refuse to fight for it . . . just as men have fought for it for ten-thousand years. Women want to enter the arena on their own terms. They want to spawn their own critical theories, without allowing the three-thousand-year incubation period. That’s not equality. That’s just being spoiled. Endurance is one of the Great Tests of critical theory. Sex, on the other hand, sells immediately. And this one sports the wares quite well. She looks you in the eyes and turns your knees to Jell-O®, and your hips to custard pudding. Juicy, she looks, grinding her groin against the glass — males require only image — very good, indeed. She knows this game. She understands the pursuits of Pan. She knows of the release portal slipped in-between the whorling moments of orgasm. She is a guide to that portal. Sex is release, not enlightenment. Within orgasm one sees the distant lights of the city, yet it fails to reveal directions. Can’t get there from here. Let me take you to the hills above the forest. Behold! Can’t you see them. It’s out there, but you can’t get there from here. Here, baby, let me help you with that. Can’t you see them, illuminating the skyline? Lay back. Relax. Don’t be frustrated. Sexual frustration lies at the root of social conflict. Let it all out. You are not alone. We are not alone. We stand together in perfect isolation. You are there, I am here, the wall between us translucent, but solid. Forever lonely, but we have the happiness of knowing another’s loneliness. Embrace it. Loneliness is not a phase. Loneliness exists as a genuine condition. Maniacally grand beliefs addled with understones of utter despair, that’s a loner for you. Keep it up, baby, we always have each other. We are of the oldest professions, you and I. We are simpatico. Take it in your hand. Knead it. We bond, you and I, on the threshold docks of Nirvana, the one Great Emptiness. But you can’t get there from here. Feel me feeling you, our spirits mingling — plug, plug, plug — I show you the wonders of nature, the mysteries of the cosmos, the nihilism within omniscience, the electrochemical exchange of flesh, the pulsating magnetism of the female form — my swinging groin the pendulum in your hypnosis, through my portal you espy vast emptiness of immortality dazzled in the brilliance of a thousand avatars. Give it all to me now, then go back the way you came. Give it over. Let it fly, then depart. For this is not your final destination. You can’t get there from here. Owen leaves the parlor feeling sweaty, flustered, as usual. He returns to find Rocinante ticketed. Taking the ticket from in-between the seat and the gas tank, he throws it to the street. “Bastards,” he mutters, fires up the bike, heads up the alley and turns left onto Broadway, begins the journey back to Scott Street. He feels better. Less frustrated, less hungover. Almost ready to party. Needing air, ocean air, he circles down around fisherman’s wharf, then up the steep incline and over to the cliffs. Things seem different at the cliffs. It’s Saturday, and the place booms with locals and tourists alike. Owen ignores them all, parks the bike and walks through a small grove cliffside, sits down. The breeze coming in off the ocean blows cool and salty and invigorating. Owen smiles, tries to relax, tries to stop thinking, just for a moment. Hoping for a brief interlude of peace, but the thoughts keep coming. Out here, however, he casts them off to the wind and the ocean. He wonts for clarity, peace-of-mind. Just a hint of satisfaction. But you aren’t going to get it. Those who find satisfaction become slow and old. Anghst breeds youth, and don’t you forget it. Endorphins, testosterone, adrenaline keep you young. Absolute rage. And maintaining serenity within the rage, that is the key to controlling power. Calm within the hurricane. The eyes of a thousand waterspouts pose no threat to the wrath of an angry god. They enhance the display. But if you let it out in little bits everyday, if you don’t let it build to the blasting point where the core melts down and you spread your wings like some gargantuan pterodactyl and whip them all away to the next dimension. Yet this exhibits the beauty of rage: the climax. It’s the aftermath that sucks — but that’s power for you: grand epiphany, frenzied brawl, then canyonous depression. Power shows you the golden genitals of the divine, then yanks your eyes from their sockets because of what you saw. Power says this: If you want it, pillage. Pluck it from the trees. No one gives it to you. But never tell a soul. How does one deny the desire to pillage? It runs in the blood of the human predator. If we deny violence, we deny a fundamental tool of procreation. You must not deny the inherent rage, you must shift it to a more esoteric plane. Use it for something constructive, something creative. We were born from fire and ice and mud, and so shall we return unless we, as a species, learn to transcend the physical realm. That’s all there is to it. Simple, right? Toss it to the wind, cast it off into the depths of the ocean, leave it writhing on a mountain top, or bury it alive in the mantle near the molten core, but get it off your back. You can’t deny rage, just release it in surges. By far more damaging the junkies curse, the rage of frustrated mortals. Psychotropic addiction arises from passively nihilistic response to the futility of civilization. Civilization, by and large, appears to be a failure. Humans feel most satisfied in nomadic families and tribes and communities. There’s nothing human about technocratic politics, save for the pseudosympathetic image created by propaganda management strategists. Politics is about deception, and telling people only what the philosopher kings think they ought to know. Plato said that, and twenty-five-hundred years later deception runs rampant in society’s ‘Republic of Noble Living’. Noble, according to the actions of supposedly civil men, means this: Fuck them when they’re not looking, and kick them when they’re down. Keep them down. And if they cry out for the nobility to which you aspire, lock them up for life. Just keep smiling, and with calm and rational and well-fashioned words proclaim your actions speak for the good of Mankind. And always ask for GOD’S blessing. Politicians perform this acrobatic lie, then stand around, scratching their butts and wondering why people are so pissed-off, why children turn to handguns, why sociopathic serial killers pop-up like garden-variety dandelions, why psychotropic recreation is so popular, why politics is not. Is it any wonder? From the day that every child stands up, stretches rubbery arms and legs to sky, gleefully smirks and says “Look at Me! I am human!” from that day forward they despise the endless flow of orders issued amid sporadic bouts of love and affection. Hatred of authority is as natural as moving one’s bowels. No one likes being told how to behave. People fight until they lose the will to struggle, at which point they cease fighting. They are broken. But there exist those who never give up. More than the brain-dead demographic number crunchers might believe. And the more authority attempts ultimate behavioral control via law enforcement, Oedipal religions, unedifying academic institutions and standard practices of disinformational ballyhoo, the more those with great spirits turn and fight. Authority breeds hatred. It requires it for existence. Sans scapegoat, authority fails to perpetuate, to gentrify. Thus authority, struggling for job security, selects one demographic segment of morality, perhaps several, and proceeds to convince another strata that this segment threatens their ‘acceptable-way-of-life’ . They convince one strata that the solution to the ‘crisis’ lies in jailing or rehabilitating another sect . ‘The War on Drugs,’ works as a battering ram for politically-motivated genocide. Eliminate the right to privacy in a fanatic attempt to protect people from themselves, and what are you doing? Removing an individual’s right to live-out the life they choose. Authority, whether by chance or by choice, fails to realize the karmic implications of their actions. Never fuck with Fate, unless you desire Fate to fuck with you. Just ask any world leader. And when the dialogues go beyond the rhetorical, when the politicians and clergy follow you home and start tearing through your abode in search of any modicum of vice, when the government starts telling you how to raise your children, when they go beyond suggesting and start enforcing whatever whimsical morality they find “useful and productive,” when it’s no longer reasonable to discuss drug issues or some other controversial ilk in public without fear of legal persecution, when cops obtain warrants based on anonymous phone calls, when children turn their parents over to the authorities, when they start building boot camps for ‘nonviolent’ offenders, when government begins to monitor your every move in the interests of ‘national security’ , when they look you in the eye and smile and say “trust but verify,” then, my friends, by definition we reside under classic fascist rule. Don’t let them fool you with Bonbon referendums, idiot light amendments, and grade-school rationale. These notions hold no water in the spiritual realm. They have nothing to do with ‘GOD’S Will’ . Their logic pertains specifically to how much money they exhort, how much power they usurp. Regardless whatever some may claim, there is no way to separate churches and states. States, in fact — further, Nations! Nations arise according to their agreements with this god or that . . . or so they instruct the masses. That’s just the way humans get things done. And every time someone asks them about these hypocrisies, they lie. They know they are lying, and others know they are lying, but they lie anyway. Lying, it seems, has become standard operational procedure. And they wonder why rage dominates social prowess in the clandestine circles of the young. Is it any wonder? Is it any wonder that nihilism is the fastest growing religion, exceeding both the Nations of Islam and the Roman Catholic church? Is it any wonder that hundreds of humans die from the climax of a mortar blast, or the shredding viciousness of a hollow point rifle slug? Is it any wonder that children kill for the fun of it? Is it any wonder that simple love becomes extinct, impossible and inconceivable? Is it any wonder that people scoff when the word ‘peace’ enters the conversation? Is it any wonder that violent crime has become both pastime and spectator sport? Is it any wonder that businesses brim with personnel suffering from anxiety, depression and chronic fatigue? Under the frigid fluorescent guise of rationality civilization daily denies its tribal roots. And what is the standard recommendation to those who break from the strain of urban cacophony and freak from stale indifference to rural strife? Go to McDonald’s®, then Disneyland®, and forget about it. “Forget about it,” Owen says outloud to the surf breaking on the boulders beached deep in red clay and shale. “Yeah, that’s it. Just forget about it. Let it slide. Let the anger work its way deeper into the chasm, let it fester, then let it blow. Let it blow with the orgasmic thrust of a thousand volcanoes. That’ll wake them up.” Rising from the cliff’s edge, he walks back to Rocinante. The sun sets into the ocean, again, looking bold and brazen. He doesn’t feel any better. The voice won’t leave him be, but he attempts to shut it out for the time and starts looking towards the party. Owen’s guts squirm. Sometimes a party is the only thing that helps. It doesn’t solve anything, but it keeps you going. Sometimes, when the liquor flows and the posturing ceases and the joints just keep coming by and the acid works its way through the vast series of dendrites housed within the human skull, sometimes the path, often obscured, makes itself known. Sometimes it’s all you have to go on. * * *
In the shadowed corridors of creativity, where the flicker of neon meets the hum of circuitry, Kevin M. Cowan weaves his tapestry—a symphony of words and wires, echoing through the digital abyss. His stories, like whispered secrets, unravel in the moonlit haze, each sentence a note in a haunting melody that lingers long after the final chord fades. As a technologist, he dances with the ghosts of innovation, crafting realms where the mechanical heart beats in time with the human soul. In this noir-lit zine of existence, Cowan's work is a haunting reflection, a mirror held up to the darkened alleyways of the mind, where art and technology converge in an eternal, enigmatic embrace.
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
