Welcome to the Now.

28SEP2011 – Advancing the film while I still have a camera. The back of my head feels like freshly mown velour; the inside contains high-speed footage of plant tendrils whipping outward in ever-widening circles and tender leaves unfolding from careful storage with tiny clicks, tracking the sunlight across the mottled sky like ancient satellite arrays hidden deep in the jungle. (Thank you, David Attenborough, but just once I wish you’d swear…)

Magic is dead. That’s just my opinion. That was always the divider for me; the left hand versus right hand trade off in fiction between dragons and death stars. “One was, one will be.”

Welcome to the Now.

Somewhere in the distance a herd of wild motorcycles gallops down some temporary straightaway, tearing the air with a mighty roar, passage granted by a sequence of swaying green orbs, aligned like tumblers in the lock of the night.

There’s a church outside my window. It’s just across the yard, beyond the dead limbs, rasping leaves and sprawling web of ivy that provides this area with soft green silence. And through the doors of that church comes the voice of a kindly man with a winning smile and purple robes, professing his love for strangers from the safety of a TV screen. Syndicated salvation, savior songs and collection plates have paid for his designer eyeglass frames, the lenses of which are barely thick enough to physically restrain his eyes, which appear capable of growing teeth and gnashing hard at your face like a rabid weasel were the laws of physics not there to prevent such a thing. In between songs of praise, jokes are told. I’m too far away to hear them.

Saturday night: Operation “Explore Massive Overgrown Graveyard” was a wash. Razor wire encircles barbed wire which tops wrought iron spikes guarding three sides of the city block it occupies; the black windows of residential living rooms stare back from the full four like a panopticon for the dead. Plenty of gaps in the fence, but not enough opportunity for an unobserved entrance and I can’t say I was properly dressed to wade through brush and bramble.

A good assassin is always pregnant with another version of himself. In the event of fatality or termination, this second self will tear free of its protective shell and finish the mission.

Now on a train to Coney Island, watching the jagged shapes and shadows of the landscape rush past the car window, each tooth ripping another chunk of flesh from the prone form of summer.

Sometimes I can almost feel what Brooklyn must have been like twenty years ago, or thirty, or even forty. Light flashes through the trellis of a bridge and the red brick tenements float past. Flashes of fire escapes, rooftop hideaways and rusted graffiti tags. The moment is a yellowed zoetrope of crumbling memories and faded dreams, like radio signals expanding outward into the blackness of space. That was. This is.

Nothing stands still.

Nothing. Stand still.

Nothing stands. Still.

Welcome to the now.

Stevie Wonder, Me, and The Death of The Fightin’ 88th

So, there I am at my favorite diner in the valley.

It’s a bright Saturday morning; I’m tucking into a stack of Silver Dollar pancakes smothered in blueberry syrup and a damn good cup of coffee, and enjoying the company of the man seated across the booth from me – one Stevland Hardaway Judkins, born May 13, 1950. You know him better as the genius who wrote ’Higher Ground’, released on his 1973 album ‘Innervisions’.

We were talking about this, that and the other thing and before long the conversation turned to dreams, so I told him about the time I dreamt I was being chased across the Gobi Desert by a vengeful Mariachi band…

I ran until I could run no more and when they finally ran me down, they marched around me in an ever-tightening circle, blowing their mighty trumpets as if to crumble the walls of Jericho.  I lay where I fell, battered by the force of the angry sound, balled into the fetal position and doing all I could to protect my head while they stomped ever closer.  Spikes of hot sunlight glinted off their polished golden instruments and the sequins of their exquisite costumes; their brown leather sandals kicked up mile-high plumes of hot dust and desert sand like explosions in an old war movie…

It was a dream within a dream.

I can see it now; the four of us, the only ones left from the Fightin’ 88th - Little Joe, Arizona Frank, Mikey-from-the-Bronx and me, the MoPic – running like Hell while the Devil took potshots at our unprotected backsides.  We dove as one for the relative safety of a foxhole, blown over the top of the uncoiled concertina wire by the force of a nearby explosion.

“Well,” gasped Little Joe a few moments later, ”Whadda’ we got left?”  We dumped out our bags. It didn’t look good. We had 40, maybe 45 rounds of pistol ammo between us, 23 rounds for a Thompson with a jammed feed, three hand grenades, two canteens of water and no rations to speak of.

Arizona patiently counted the ammo a second time.  “We’ll be fine,” he says looking at the rest of us with a bemused grin, ”so long as there’s only 39 of them left and none of us miss.”

As for me, I’ve got three frames left on this roll and a bagful of stuff that will probably never see the inside of a dark room.  I snap three quick portraits of the other men – something for grieving widows to frame and place on the mantle right next to the wedding photo.  Hurriedly, I jot my name and rank, the date, I.D. for each of the men, my serial number, press affiliation, and some final ironic observations about the brutality of war into my field notebook before stuffing it and the camera back into my old canvas bag, covering it with my pock-marked helmet and covering the whole thing with a pile of stones and a white handkerchief.  Hopefully one of our guys finds it. Looks I’ll have to accept that Pulitzer posthumously.

The eyes of the haunted stare back at me, their faces drawn.  It is silent for a moment, save for the boom of distant shelling.  The minds of the doomed men reach out to the friends and families they know they will never see again.

Little Joe suddenly grabs the radio, twisting the crank on the front like a man possessed.  Arizona slowly reaches over and points out, yet again, the gaping bullet hole in the face plate that prevents it from working.  Disgusted, Joe casts it aside.  “This is it,” he fumes.

“I reckon yo’ right about that.”  Arizona speaks slower than a sunset.

“No way!  We’ll get out of this! Right? I’m supposed to get married!” That’s Mikey-from-the-Bronx, dumb kid, still green.  Brand new to the unit, barely 17, lied about his age to impress his old man, killed his first Kraut about an hour ago.

The explosions creep closer, slamming into the ground like a giant’s footsteps… closer, closer still… I jump with each blast, as dirt and debris rain down around our heads.  They’re zeroing in on us… better this way, I guess.  Faster.  A mighty pressure builds in my chest, and try as I might I cannot breathe… we’re not gonna make it out of here, not this time.  We’d pushed our luck taking out that machine gun nest.

Suddenly the air is filled with the Doppler scream of an incoming round.  This is it.  Without thinking, I light up a smoke and jam my fingers into my ears – I don’t know where I’m going next, but there’s no sense in showing up deaf… I close my eyes, shouting to be heard above the banshee wail of the mortar shell.., louder, louder!  “It’s been a hell of run, gentlemen!”

I awoke with a start to discover my own hands clutching my pillow tight against my face and my alarm clock beeping like a dump truck in reverse.

Stevie clapped his hands and laughed with delight, swaying back and forth the way you imagine he might.

We called for more coffee, and continued to talk as the morning sun shone brightly.

 

 

Shimmer Man

(Story originally appeared in Tastes Like Chicken, issue 9, 2005)

The year was 2046.

My parents took me to a fancy restaurant for my birthday; a giant wedge-shaped thing perched on a series of curved, reinforced stilts 200 feet above a forest of deep and infinite green. The sun singed the treetops with an inaudible hiss as it slid below the horizon and a sweet breeze, pumped in from somewhere overhead, made the candles of my birthday cake flicker and sway softly. The light in my mother’s eyes danced and waved like fire. I was nine years old.

As the waiter set the cake down on the table and everyone drew a breath to sing “Happy Birthday”, suddenly there came a terrible pain in my skull, and I screamed like a wild thing. Throwing an arm across my face, I flailed and lashed blindly at the jungle of comforting hands tangled up in mine. My father seized me in his strong arms but was unable to prevent me from flinging myself out of my chair and onto the floor, taking the table cloth and the contents of the table with me. I felt as if the sides of my head were going to burst out like dammed waters, and I could imagine a boiling wave of bloody red breaking like the tide, spilling across the floor.

As I rolled around howling like a wounded animal and nearly blinded by pain, I saw something through my tears. Beyond the enormous picture windows which framed the off-season balcony was a sight unlike anything I had ever beheld– a stack of twinkling lights in the shape of a man, leaning casually against the railing and admiring the view. Those one-hundred-thousand colors I would never learn a name for stood out against the fading twilight, changing and shifting without pattern, without end or beginning. “Shimmer Man,” said my writhing brain. And as I continued to gape in painful amazement, I swear it turned to face me and even waved hello. The knives of pain subsided, and the twinkling lights began to fade.

The year is 2079.

It took the former United States almost 50 years to get it fully functional.

Despite the hundreds who lost their lives before the keel was ever laid, despite two serious on-board fires, despite a near-total fuel contamination which resulted in the jettisoning of a billion-dollar experiment, the Space Orbiting Platform “Promise” was christened on schedule and became a rallying point for post-war citizens. It was our symbol of the pride we thought we’d lost forever.

Nothing lasts forever, except nothing and forever.

When the main stabilizers went offline 72 hours ago, the ship began to slide, drawn ever closer to the Earth’s atmosphere. The captain of the broken Promise gave the order to evacuate the research vessel’s full compliment: giant robotic arms managed to deploy the twin 770-foot life pods before the Earth’s gravitational pull played “she-loves-me-not” with chunks of the mighty ship, dissecting indiscriminately, sending flaming red petals skipping across the sky. It was a horrifying sight, visible from anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere, and covered by every network in every country around the world, simultaneously.

The first life pod was struck by debris from the initial explosion and destroyed immediately. The survivors never had a chance, and the pieces burned up on re-entry. The second managed an emergency crash landing in the North Atlantic Ocean, vanishing under the waves in the time it takes to read this sentence.

The floatation system failed. Two hundred people died, and two survived.

The Promise came down hard. A lot of people wanted to know why, and they wanted to know yesterday. So I admit, I was in a bit of a hurry. And maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention to what I was doing. We were nosing in and around the engine room of the lifeboat, this once-colossal wreck that lay twisted on the ocean floor. Me and Perfect Tommy, my by-the-book dive partner of five years, noting different instrument readings and keeping our eyes peeled for the Engineering Officer’s electronic logbook, which might shed some light on what happened up there. The “black box” system on board the Promise was designed to store reports in triplicate. Two of them were lost forever; the last was here. Somewhere. That’s why we get paid the big bucks.

P.T.’s voice, punctuated by carefully measured gulps of air, came over the Divelink. “Coffee, our window’s up.” Hiss. “Mark position, let’s go.” We use short sentences to preserve energy and air. “Roger.” Hiss. “Mark position.” I removed a luminous wax marker from my sleeve bag and carefully scribed my initials, the time, and a few symbols on the bulkhead in our team-specific color, to show that this space had been checked. “Head for the Bouncer.” Hiss. “Right behind you.” Hiss. “Just want to wave a light in that corner.” Hiss.

“Leave it, kid.” Hiss. “We’ll be here awhile.” Hiss. “Check it later.” But he was out the door, and headed for the Bouncer. He’d probably noticed our mixture running low. He’s good on details.

The remote-operated Bouncer is a combination decontamination station and hyperbaric chamber; it was also our slow boat to the surface. Decom first, depressurise on the way back up. There are formulas to be followed to prevent the dreaded bends.

When high-pressure gases in the air come in contact with water, they dissolve into the water. That’s how carbonated drinks are made– exposing water to high-pressure carbon dioxide gas, and dissolving the gas into water. Surface too quickly, and it’s like uncorking a bottle of champagne. Only really painful, and a lot more fatal. To avoid this, we have to rise slow or make intermittent decompression stops on the way up so the gas can come out on its own. The only solution is to enter a pressurized chamber in which the air pressure matches the pressure at depth (breathing 100% oxygen on the way to the chamber also helps). Then, the pressure is released slowly. But to get to the chamber you have to be “clean”. After all, contaminate the chamber, and we’re all screwed.

P.T. turned to make sure I’d followed him, and I saw his face light up with a smile behind his visor. “Bet I whip your ass in checkers again.” Hiss.

“Sure you will, you cheatin’ bastard.” Hiss. Hearing the sound of your best friend’s digitized laughter in your ears when you’re a mile underwater is a strange experience.

The hatch of the Bouncer is controlled by a gamma-specific fluorometer, which takes a reading from every diver working this wreck before allowing them access. The water passing through a cell in the chamber is exposed to an ultra-violet light from a shielded source. Some molecules absorb the energy from this radiation and give back this energy by emitting a light, which is then read by a super-sensitive detector and transmitted to the Bouncer’s brain. The amount of fluorescent light produced depends on the amount of gamma detected, so a high reading above background in an already hot environment like this means I show up hot. And if I show up too hot, the door won’t open, essentially protecting the rest of the crew, and our only hyperbaric chamber from whatever threat might be present until I can be safely cleaned. If the chamber gets contaminated, you lose eight divers to the bends instead of one to gamma poisoning.

Like I said, that’s why we get paid the big bucks.

P.T. eased the bulk of his suit into the chamber, gave me a thumbs-up, and closed the door. The chamber is only big enough for one diver at a time, and the decon cycle takes about five minutes. As I waited my turn, I nervously eyed the rapidly falling needle that registered the amount of good air available (if you can call this shit “air”). Suddenly, I noticed flashing lights on my BUG. Tiny digital words scrolling across the screen made my blood run cold: my suit was losing pressure! As I was leaving Engineering, I must have snagged my suit on something– I couldn’t tell what, or where, or how bad. Looking up and around me, I could see a tiny stream of silvery bubbles colliding with the overhead, coming from somewhere behind my left shoulder.

“A diver need not worry about having his body contaminated, unless the diving suit or helmet physically leaks.” That’s what the rule books say. Unfortunately, I’ve got some urgent little lights flashing on and off on my BUG that say otherwise. The Bathymetric Underwater Gauge on my forearm provides me with critical information, like updated water temperature, present depth, estimated amount of nitrogen, and in this case, a plus-or-minus-10 reading of gamma in my immediate vicinity. Those numbers are rising. Slowly. I’m hot and getting hotter, fast. At this rate, I won’t be able to get into the Bouncer!

I glance up at the stream of bubbles over my shoulder again. They’ve gotten more pronounced.

“If a leak does occur, the dive must be terminated.” Rules are rules. I tried to remain calm. Water is a very dense material, and acts as an excellent shielding material to protect me from gamma. Because I’m immersed in water, I can control the amount of significant shielding maintained between me and the source by increasing the relative distance. Simple. The water itself is not radioactive– the only radiation that can be detected in the water comes from particles suspended in the water. Gamma and neutron radiation are not particles– they’re pure energy without mass, and must be shielded by material that has a great deal of mass, such as water, concrete, or lead. Of these forms of radiation, gamma is the ionizing radiation source from which the diver will receive the majority of his accumulated dose. Since water is such a great shield to ionizing radiation, I work in an environment which protects me from radiation. Pretty smart, huh?

Unless, as previously mentioned, I happen to tear my suit. And that’s just the beginning of my problems.

At these depths, wreck divers face nitrogen narcosis, high partial pressures of carbon dioxide and physiological mechanisms that experts have yet to understand, which can either lead directly to or contribute substantially to certain death. With the increased use of breathing media other than air over the years, there’s been a dramatic increase in fatalities caused by oxygen toxicity. Central Nervous System Toxicity (CNS) is a real motherfucker. Breathing oxygen at very high pO2s for a short period of time means problems arrive that much quicker. We’re talking visual disturbances, pronounced ringing in the ears, dizziness, mood swings, and convulsions and comas. Oh, yeah. And hallucinations.

So, I may or may not be seeing what I think I see ahead of me at the end of Passageway 4– a stack of twinkling lights in the shape of a man, leaning casually against the bulkhead, staring back at me: a hundred thousand colors I’ll never have the chance to learn the names for, changing and shimmering without pattern, without end or beginning… I shake my head several times to get rid of the vision. Must be ambient light passing through the stream of bubbles, casting a shadow, my eyes playing tricks on me, something. But I can’t shake it away, and I can’t tell myself I’m not seeing what I think I’m seeing.

The great thing about the Divelink communication Voice Recognition Chip is that it isn’t triggered by bubbles or ambient noise. The mouthpiece is a patented silicon rubber speaking cavity, and doesn’t require any straps. The automatic gain and squelch controls leave my hands free while I’m working, and it’s good to a range of 4,500 feet. Furthermore, the system is equipped with an emergency signal that alerts other divers (and the surface!) when a diver is in distress. I’ve had conversations with multi-billion-dollar company heads, sitting safe in their polished offices while I’m surveying a wreck, offering an on-scene, real-time cost estimate as to how much it will cost to salvage their ruined high-tech chunk of shit sitting on the ocean floor.

My words are automatically picked up by the surface unit, relayed through a wireless transmitter, and sent anywhere in the world as streaming audio. In this case, my dying words. Somewhere above me in a Shoreside Control Facility crammed with radio equipment and laptop computers, I imagine my raspy voice floating out of the speakers, filling the crowded room with the sound of a broken riddle.

“…so beautiful….”

“Beautiful?” Big Bobby Keegan grins broadly at the gathered logistics team and keys the mic. “Hey, Coffee! Who the hell ya got down there with you?” Schoolboy titters flash like fish in the water from a group of hardened men who work hard, play hard, and live like kings the world over.

“Cut the crap, Bobby,” barks Cappy. “Play back his last transmission. What the hell’s he talking about?”

The looped playback of my voice crackles over the speakers. “…so beautiful… (crack) …so beautiful… (crack) …so beautiful… (crack) …so beautiful… (crack).”

“Good Christ, he’s hallucinating! How long has he been down there?”

“About 45 minutes, doing an engine room survey with…” checks the roster, “Perfect Tommy.” Checks another gauge. “…who is… in the Bouncer.”

“How much good air does Coffee have left?” Cappy looks straight to Big Bobby for an answer, who checks the dancing LED readouts in a hurry as his grin dissolves like sunset.

“Maybe, uh, five minutes.”

“Maybe?!? Shit! How far is the Assist Team from his position?”

“Far end of the ship, about five minutes away, but they can’t do anything for him, Cappy.”

“Why?!?”

“Coffee’s hot. And he’s getting hotter.”

“Rad! Talk to me!”

During all nuclear diving projects, our dive crew is under the omnipotent control of the senior radiation protection technician, Rad Man. Rad is responsible for the radiation protection of each diver, plus the entire crew. He’s a short, fat bastard with more chins than a Chinese phone book, and total authority on the project– any doubt about conditions, the first sign of trouble, and Rad pulls the plug: all the budgeting issues, scheduling delays, and pissed-off stockholders in the world don’t make a fucking lick of difference. Rad’s word is final law.

Rad checks the numbers, frowning, hesitating. “At present… he’s still ALARA.” As Low As Reasonably Achievable.

Cappy takes a deep breath. “Plain English, Rad. Give me something good.”

Rad looks up from his instruments and returns the deep breath. “He’s got a bad suit tear. If we don’t get him out in the next few minutes, he’ll–”

Cappy pointed a finger in Rad’s face. “I distinctly remember using the word ‘good’ in that sentence.”

Cappy turned to another man. “Can P.T. still get to him?”

“Negative, Cap. Tommy’s already in the chamber, with another two minutes in his cycle. We’d lose two trying to save one.”

“Well, we can’t just leave him there! Think of something, damnit!” He keys up the mic again, and tries to find a smile among the cracks in his voice.

“Hey, down there! You doing okay, Coffee? We’re working on something. We’ll get you back. We’ll get you clean, and you can return to the surface. Don’t forget, you still owe me $500 from that bar in Singapore, remember? Don’t make me come down there and get it myself, over!” His voice is shaky with laughter, but his eyes are far from twinkling. He snaps the mic off again.

In the silence, the drops of sweat forming on his bald head are the only sound.

He snatches up the mic again.

“Coffee? You listenin’?”

Static.

“Coffee? Come on back, brother. Don’t you give up on me, over!”

I can hear the chatter from my Divelink’s cushioned earbuds– a tinny voice from the world far above me, somewhere in the warm, glittering sunlight. A world I know I’ll never see again. According to the BUG I just ran out of breathable air. I can feel it already– that shortness of breath, combined with a burning throat and chest associated with Pulmonary Oxygen Toxicity. Damage to the cell lining of the lungs, the lung walls, the formation of fluid in the lungs. The simple act of breathing becomes steadily more painful. In order to conserve my energy, I kneel down to think. Assess.

What do I have going for me? The surface team will try to come up with something. The Assist Team always carry pony bottles of air, maybe it’ll be enough. Too far… I could… maybe I could… what if I… nothing. Nothing’s coming.

The Bouncer won’t let me in. I’m out of air. The nearest Assist Team is probably 50 yards away. That’s nothing if ship’s in orbit. But when that 50 yards is pitch-fucking-black and twisted like a snake with a broken back… they’ll never make it in time. I’m too weighted with gear and too far down to attempt an emergency ascent. In desperation, I refrain from swallowing. Typically, this action seals the glottis and allows pressure to build in the lungs. “Always exhale before trying to inhale,” says the rule book. I’m hoping beyond hope there might be just a few more breaths in there somewhere, and I fight down panic, forcing myself to keep my lungs at mid-volume. Hoping. Waiting. But the doubt creeps in.

I’m done.

And so I raise my eyes again to the shimmering apparition before me, telling myself again that it isn’t real. It can’t be.

I haven’t seen the Shimmer Man since I was nine years old, but I’d recognize it anywhere. For a thousand nights after that first encounter, I tried in vain to recreate what I had seen with my colored pencils and pens, hiding under a blanket in my room till all hours with a flashlight, but without success. Every time I had a headache, no matter how slight, I looked around for the Shimmer Man, but I never saw him again. Why here? And why now?

Nitrogen narcosis. High partial pressures of carbon dioxide. Pulmonary Oxygen Toxicity. Central Nervous System Toxicity. Gamma radiation poisoning. Sure and sudden death. Drowning. The tremendous pressure of the ocean. A host of problems seeking me out, as I cower in this darkened wreck full of dead bodies on the cold sea floor. That’s why I get paid the big bucks.

And then I can hear the sound of Perfect Tommy’s digitized laugh. “Bet I whip your ass in checkers again.” Hiss. “Sure you will, cheatin’ bastard.” Hiss. I see all the weekends spent at his house on the beach, playing with his kids, and keeping my eyes off his wife. Like any good friend would do.

I stopped focusing on the grim facts and concentrated instead on the glowing apparition before me. “…let go… return to surface….” This thing, this creature of light is speaking to me in soft broken phrases, but the meaning is crystal clear. It’s time to go.

First, I have to purge my suit.

Of course, there’s no way I’ll be able to follow the Shimmer Man to where ever it is we’re supposed to go with all this equipment on. Ignoring the flashing depth gauges, and struggling against the depleted heliox for every breath, I reach up and begin to open the top-mounted helium double exhaust valve on my DESCO 9 Commercial Diving Helmet, and begin working my face free of the chin button, which allows me to regulate my exhaust and control my buoyancy without using my hands.

My heart is pounding, and all I can think about is the water that’s going to rush in and the terrible pressure that will shove the last breath of life from my lungs.

“What the hell’s he doing?!?”

“I can’t tell! He’s just… kneeling in… Passageway 4… outside Engineering near the Bouncer shaft. He’s just staring at a blank bulkhead, I don’t– oh, Jesus….”

“What?!?” Cappy’s face is contorted, the face of calm control is gone.

“He’s trying to take off his helmet.”

Cappy snatched up the mic again. “Coffee!” he shouted into the mic. “Do not take your fucking rig off, Coffee! You hear me?!? Whatever you’re seeing isn’t real! Get it together, son! We can get you out of there! Hang on!” He slams a hand down on a large red button on the console before him, and throughout the cramped quarters of the dive pod, a blaring klaxon wailed.

“Goddamnit, where’s the Bouncer?!?”

“On the way down, 30 seconds!”

A second flashing red light appears on a control panel, and sirens begin to wail. The pressure in my suit begins to drop rapidly.

“Assist Team! Move on Coffee now! Move it!” Cappy’s anguished voice fills the SCF, and desperation grips him in the pit of his stomach.

“Coffee! It’s Tommy!” P.T.’s voice, wrapped in warm echoes, comes to me. He’s safe and sound in the Bouncer. Such beautiful children, a loving wife. He’s fine. He’ll be fine. Looks like we won’t get that last game, though. Pity. “Hang on, man! We’ll get you out of there! Wait! Wait for me, Coffee, please! Wait! What the hell are you doing?!? Wait! Coffee–” The water is absolute cold, and pounds against my head, turning it inside out with blows from a giant hammer. And there is nothing else.

The Shimmer Man smiles at me with infinite patience, one hand extended and waiting for mine. As I turn around, I see the jagged lights of the Assist Team moving as fast as they can down the darkened passageway, skidding to a halt when they see that my lack of a head will more than likely prevent any resuscitative efforts. The bright beams twirl like fingertips in red paint, stirring infinite patterns. I feel bad for them, having to find me this way. “It’s okay, guys. I’m fine. I’m here.” I want to reassure them. I can see them gesturing to each other, and I know they’re talking to the Shoreside Control Facility, delivering the news. They’re going to take it hard. But it will pass. Everything does.

The Shimmer Man smiles at me again with infinite patience, one hand extended and waiting for mine. And there is nothing else.

Letter to a friend

(Letter to my good friend @GoFrankGo)

Frankly (Mr. Shankly!),

Sorry I missed your call on Sunday.  It’s been a rough weekend:

Friday night, I ate some takeout Chinese and washed it down with a Red Bull while watching “Venture Bros.”  As one does.  (Fuck, I have GOT to stop eating like I’m 20…) You’re right.  In fact, everyone who has ever recommended “Venture Bros.” to me was right about that show.

That night, I had dreams where I was dying of thirst even though I was drinking as much as physically possible – a sure sign that my body wasn’t happy with the choice I’d made.  (I have those dreams when I eat pepperoni or sausage on pizza, too.  Mmmm, sausage and mushrooms.… )  In these dreams, I’m drinking from the garden hose on full stream, or pounding gallon jugs of ice water straight from the fridge but nothing’s coming out.  Woke up the next morning and I was sore all over, like I was coming down with something.  Showered, went back to bed for a few hours.  Can’t nap too late, though…

Oddly enough, Katie Orlando was in town this weekend with her boyfriend to shoot the Cherry Blossom festival. My plan was to leave a few hours early to say hello (she being only the fourth TLC postboard persona I’d have met!), then head over to Dupont Circle to meet up with Cass (see also: Special Lady) for fancy salads, and then take in a Bach Concert at the Kennedy Center. Eventually: I got up, dragged on clean clothes (NOT feeling like doing any of the above now), packed my faithful bag, and headed for the bus stop.

Fucking tourists. Seems I can never get away from them. They swarmed me in Hilton Head, South Carolina; they clogged the streets of Juneau, Alaska; and now they fuck up my chi each Spring when the blossoms bloom in Disco Charlie.  They clog the Metro, make a mess of the escalators and generally get in the way.  As I get sicker, I grow… angrier.

Short story long, I missed out on seeing Katie but she lives in New York; no worries, we’ll have time to say hello later.  Waited for Cass for almost an hour before she shows up and tells me she was waiting at the other entrance to DuPont Circle – and, her new cellphone’s not working. Google phone can’t get a T-Mobile signal in D.C.?  Who’dve thought it?

We ate our fancy salads and relished every bit — no, wait.  I’m lying.  Because, oh yeah, the salads sucked.  Now, I’m a member of the clean plate club.  All the time.  That’s just how I roll.  And when I tell you my favorite fantasy is taking shelter in an empty hotel in the middle of hurricane season with nothing to do but write (and I’ve got the keys for the bar, the pool, and access to a generous supply of fresh fish, steamed veggies, fresh oranges and brown rice) well, you come to understand what sort of sick, salad-humping son of a bitch I really am.

So when I say I couldn’t finish this salad — well, let’s just not repeat that sentence.

Cass was still hungry (her salad sucked, too! A word to the wise: SweetGreen? SweetFail.  I mean… look at the menu! It’s vegetable PrØn!  How could they fuck it up!?)

…so we ducked into a Subway. She ate half a sub, stashed the rest in my bag. Offered me some, but at this point I couldn’t imagine ever eating again. (I had a feeling of perfect balance, and the following thought occured: “Never eat again!  Why not?  It’s like being a character in a Tom Robbins novel and deciding not to age anymore.”)

On to the Kennedy Center!

Wait!  Go back!  When Special Lady told me we were gonna catch a Bach mass for twenty bucks, I, in my present state of physical delusion, assumed that my attire of camouflage shorts, a clean polo shirt and my beat-to-shit hiking shoes were perfectly AOK for the occasion. What the hell do I know from the Kennedy Center? (What the hell do I know from a mass??) We show up, and of course everyone is wearing suits. Yeah, I looked like a painted turd.  But fuck it, we paid for our tickets so we took our seats.  I slumped down extra low to hide my poor fashion sense from Jesus.

Catholic masses… wait, aren’t those–?  Long as fuck?  Yes.

I experienced a specific mental meme,  a soundbite from a skit starring a Catholic priest who “really thought the world of a GOOD LONG MASS!” (*fist punched into palm for enthusiasm and emphasis*. Might be an old episode of ‘Father Ted’?)  Now, I own recordings by Vivaldi, Wagner, and Mozart, and my first favorite song ever was the Pachebel Canon in D Minor.  So I’m not a culture buffoon.  But this was about the most boring goddamn thing I’d ever seen!  No plot, just grovelling. “Oh, Lord, please forgive us!  We’re not worthy!  Just you!  Only you are worthy!  You’re number one!  We’re number two!  Please let us into your special club!”

Just then, Special Lady (dressed in suitable jeans, top and a shawl — making me look even shittier, thanks) writes on her program and slides it over: WHY ARE THEY SINGING ABOUT CHEESE AND RICE?  I try not to laugh, makes my head hurt, can’t help it.  She’s wearing a mischievous grin, her bright eyes sparkling. I’m feeling like smeared death… sore limbs, and a raging headache, and the chairs are built for tiny beings, not 6′ 4″ motherfuckers like myself.  So we start passing notes back and forth. Hilarity ensues.  We are comedic geniuses the likes of which the world has never seen.

Then she writes: IF THERE’S AN INTERMISSION, LET’S BAIL. I slide her a low-five… aw, yeah. Dig this girl…

We slip out, she finished her sandwich and we discuss an important new opera called “The Cheese and The Rice” on the way to the Metro.  She performs a few scenes for me, in falsetto, at the top of her lungs.  More tourists.  Back to her place, finally.  I’m sore, shivering, and I’ve got a headache strong enough to make a horse squint. I crawl under the covers and I’m out…

Next morning, her godawful rooster alarm wakes me up at zero-dark. She has to go to work, but tells me I can sleep in late, shower, and catch a cab to the Metro.  No worries. I’ll make up the bed.

Conversation courtesy of Jesus of Bastardeth

Back to sleep, in and out of dreams. Head throbbing. (At one point, you texted me. Or maybe it was Jesus trying to sneak in a little self-promotion. You can’t blame the man, everybody has bills to pay.) Back to sleep, more dreams.

Wake up weak with a squinteriffic headache. It’s almost 3 p.m. Shower, dress, and lock up. Check iPhone app for local cab companies while standing in the driveway. Seven numbers appear, three of which are limo service and airport shuttles. Read: expensive. Two numbers don’t even answer. The last picks up: “Yeah? Naw, we don’t pick up there no more. You gotta call someone else.”  He gives me a number, hangs up.  In my feverish, fucked up condition I hope I’ve got it right.  Dialed it.  A Hindu voice answers.  “We don’t pick up there.  You gotta call someone else.”  I dialed the third number.  The sun is beating down, I’m shivering, and my head is SCREAMING.  Cars are whipping past carrying bored expressions and bad sunglasses.  Seems folks’re already sick of sunlight around here.  The last number is a winner.  They’ll be here in ten, and they take plastic.

Get to the Metro station. There’s a guy with a dazed look on his face, standing with his face pressed against the chain link fence, headphones in, his toneless voice rapping along: “Tryin’ ta get her pregnant, tryin’ to get her pregnant…” His eyes are dark and dead.  I’m shredding my taxi receipt into tiny pieces because it has my card number on it, and I throw it into a trashcan that reeks of piss. Everyone looks mean, cheap, like someone pissed in their Cheerios a long time ago and they’ve just kept eating it. I’m still not a fan of the ghetto, I don’t care how much we stand to learn from its residents.

Remember those tourists?  And remember that part about Chinese food and Red Bull being the last thing I’ve eaten all weekend?  I almost lost my temper and starting shouting at some tourists who were wide-eyed as amazed deer that the doors on a Metro car don’t bounce open when they encounter your arm or leg.  “Goodness!”  But I bite my tongue, ever polite.  Off the train now, walking faster and faster, dodging and moving through gaps in the crowd. Muttering, swearing.  Moments from losing it.  Don’t wanna be in a crowd if I do.  Through the Metro, up the escalator (“The RIGHT side is for standing, people!”) and get to the top, spot a cab.  Give the intersection of my neighborly hood, and asked if he took plastic.  He shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t know how to work the machine..?”  Try another cab.  He is apparently certified to work the machine.  I pile in.  The cab is clean, and smells of incense. “Nice weather, yes?”  I agree wordlessly, staring out the window, thinking thunderclouds.

I get home, check the mail, unpack, toss my dirty clothes in the laundry basket, gun a handful of ibuprofen and some other stuff Cass had given me before diving under the covers, trying to wish away the intense brain pain.  Sleep, and more weird dreams…

In this one, I wake up in my first-ever bedroom, which was haunted.  I know there are visitors downstairs, and I’m supposed to go see them.  But I have to get dressed.  I can’t turn on any of the light switches (sure sign that I’m dreaming) so I use my cellphone camera for light.  As one does.  I put on a black shirt, black slacks and black dress shoes.  I look like I’m ready for Vegas.  Or a Miami funeral.  I go downstairs and suddenly I’m in a cab.  And we’re driving  - have been driving for quite some time, actually. Eventually, I speak to the driver.  “Say, man. We’ve been at this for awhile, and, like, I don’t remember telling you where I wanted to go..? So how’s about we go a little further for scenery’s sake, and then you drop me off at where ever it was that you picked me up?”

Suddenly, I’m walking under a clear night sky.  The weather is perfect.  The stars are bright and plentiful, like when you’re out at sea, or in a country with minimal light pollution.  I’m aware that I’m walking ahead of a great multitude of people, and they’re waiting for me to do something, but it’s dark and I can’t see them.  The stars are huge and perfect…

Woke up at midnight. Headache and soreness gone. Wrote this letter to pass the time, which may explain the typos.

That’s why I missed your call.

TWM

I Didn’t Know What to Call It, So I Did.

09NOV08 – Pieces of madness from last night’s dream.  Our Hero, locked inside a dusty voodoo mansion crowded with dying candles, unpurposed flowers and empty bottles.  Chalk drawings and macabre masks, scattered alters and borrowed bones.  “Be careful what gets into your heads, Little Ones, for it may never come out again.”

And so I hid my eyes beneath a threadbare blanket while various horrors took place around me.  I didn’t see any of it and don’t remember it, understanding somehow that if I peeked or acknowledged what was happening on the other side of that blanket, I’d be instantly set upon by angry men with long knives and a language barrier incapable of interpreting my cries for mercy.

“You can gaze upon the lords, but looking at the shogun will make you blind, and the emperor cannot be seen at all.” This is important, somehow.

Sitting in a coffee house listening to Also Spake Zarathustra and attempting to write up to that triumphant sound.  (It’s probably gonna take more than a shitty netbook and a $4.95 coffee, but I think we can all agree that it’s good to dream.)

Just a few strands of crystalline fiber sticking out the physical access port.  I pinch one gossamer thread between the thumb and index finger of my left hand and pull it outward, inserting it carefully into my eye, feeling nothing as the mechanism within squirms toward and copulates with my optic nerve…

First there is a mountain,
then there is no mountain,
then there is.

My hands fall limp into my lap, and my thoughts begin walking around on their own:

Quote in memory: “I don’t give a stack of tits what anyone says about rehashed ideas.  If you can scour the graveyard of rock n’ roll and build something new from the rusted hulks you find there you’re onto something good, because it’s harder to create than it is to destroy.”

In-flight moment: “Yeah, like a moist toilette is gonna do it.  As if breathing in that faint antiseptic steam is gonna chase away the bleary eyes, the stiff shoulders, the compacted spine, and the terrible suspicion that someone slathered the dregs of a deep fat fryer across my sleeping face, dabbing the brush in my mouth for good measure.  Still, the Sky Ninja’s got enough shit to worry about; slamming, shuffling, stumbling, sorting and smiling.  Not only does a Sky Ninja have to look their best at all times, but they have to serve you hot coffee in high turbulence, make change for a $50, and still be able to herd your panicking, cattle-stampeding ass off this burning dick in the event that shit suddenly goes sideways.  So thank you, Sky Ninja.  This pre-moistened towelette will do just fine.”

July 21, 2006:  The assassin in freefall, his parachute failed.  Got to make his bones regardless; draws both pistols and does his best to draw a bead while plummeting ever closer to the ground.  Target exits the building, maybe twenty paces to the waiting limo. “If I can’t take him out with a bullet, maybe I can break him with my fall.” Target looks up at the last second.  Look on the target’s face was priceless.  Never saw it comming.

Found in journal: “And in those final moments, when our entire lives flash before our eyes, we will concentrate upon this instant in futility, as though we could lift the needle from the record and pause the song, as though we could skip this unpleasant paragraph and leave the story incomplete.  But when you die, make sure all you gotta do is die, and that Jeff Goldblum is doing tai chi.”

The minutes keep on walking; a colorful and irreplaceable parade of precious cruelties and unspeakable magic broken into short intervals.  And sometimes, people throw candy…

In the park, near a statue:

Robber barons use
their ill-gotten wealth to
create public zen.

Speak all languages: the planet’s personal mediator, sitting at an intersection of life and death, watching armies march in all directions.  Turn your cell phone off, and ignore every text the End Man sends you, as the sky grows dark with circling birds.

The next day was Sunday.  I sat in a cafe watching the snowflakes tumble down fast and fat as the waitress brings me coffee.  A man with a Mohawk cooked my breakfast.

“The rest is easy, because Henry Miller made it look easy.”

I live for the moments when the music and the mood unite, when the planets groan into position like a clock of immeasurable proportion and suddenly I’m walking down the street with my head on fire, trailing tongues of trickling blue.  Suddenly, time grinds to a squeaking halt.  And not just around me, or on this block, or in this city state, but in all places, and at all times: fish frozen in the rivers, birds halted in mid-flight, sunlight with the parking brake on, and the light of distant stars idling like cars at an intersection.

I understood long ago that I will never die.  That’s right.  I… will… never… die… I will grow old, and I will eventually shit my last, but the ‘me’ that makes up ‘me’ will be recycled.  I’ll be back again.  I am not, as the man said, ” a beautiful and unique snowflake.”  My thoughts have been thought before, and will occur to others again.  I get it.  And I’m okay with that.

That’s the lowest form of truth, the baseline.  We are born, we live, and we die.  Everything takes place in this dimension, and on this planet.  Nobody really knows anything, and everything will surprise you if you let it.  Nothing lasts forever, except nothing and forever, and in the end, there are no odds to beat.

Either it will or it won’t,

One Night In The Bergman

02MAY07 – The Bergman, late Saturday morning. This is the same bar where the Birdman of Alcatraz made his first kill, as I understand it. The only thing red here tonight is the glass of wine in my left hand, and the cherry of a fresh cigarette caught tenderly between my lips. Yes, I’m a little drunk. Make a big deal of it, why doncha? Someone’s playing ‘Devil Went Down to Georgia’ on the stereo, and for once the song makes sense.

Hard to believe the largest part of the last ten years will be over soon. We fought, we argued, we did our best. It couldn’t have been all that bad – nobody died and nobody went to jail.

The snow is raging something fierce out there tonight; white wind whipping and driving, digging at me. Jesus, I haven’t had anything that determined to take my clothes off in awhile!

Not in the mood to think on it though. Trying hard to envision white paper. Yes, accept the situation. Tonight is a beautiful woman, the kind with with long curling tresses and eyes that draw you in so deep you can’t see the knife until it’s too late. One of those soft, mad nights that begs to go on a little longer. Yet, in all of history, there’s not been one person afforded that honor; not Morrison, not Wilde, not Parker, not Hendrix, not Elvis, not Hicks.., shit, not even Thompson – no matter how wild their nights, how powerful their drugs, how sweet the wine, how loud the music, how willing the women, none of them could stop the clock. They just didn’t hit the wall hard enough.

Death is Nature’s Bartender: “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”

TWM