picking it up

While Stoney Jake was in the other room sorting out his end of the transaction, he left Bob and me in the TV room, with his girlfriend, Jenny, and a couple other women, who had been alternating bong hits and snorts of ketamine, and now reposed in a collective stupor on a couch across the table.

I crept around, a commando on a covert operation, trying to kill enemies quietly from the shadows, and, failing that, running for my virtual life on the video console, while Bob picked up a guitar that had been leaning against the table. By the time I died, he had it tuned. I left the console on the reload screen, which had no soundtrack, and, listening to Bob, eyed Jenny and her friends.

Bob was quietly finger-picking through a progression of chords, bobbing his head, his eyes far away. It sounded nice, mellow, familiar.

One of the girls, the gothic one, who had seemed unconscious, slouched there on the couch between Jenny and the other, nodded her head as Stoney Jake came back into the room holding something under his shirt.

“What is that?” She sat up, staring at Bob’s picking hand, and groped on the table for a pack of cigarettes, “What you’re playing, what song is that?”

Bob smiled at her, and, as he kept playing, he said, “That depends.”

“It could be – ” and, continuing to play while gazing into her eyes, sang,

Dear Prudence, won’t you come out and play?
Dear Prudence, greet the brand new day, eh?
The sun is out. The sky is blue. It’s beautiful
And so are you, Dear Prudence –

Then he stopped singing, and, changing the rhythm slightly, said, “Or it could be – ”

A chuva chovendo conversa ribeira.
Das águas de Março o fim da canseira.
O pé, o chão; a marcha estradeira.
Passarinho na mão pedra de atiradeira,

He grinned, muttered “if the singer could sing Portuguese,” then sang the bridge, in English, with different chords,

A truckload of bricks in the soft morning light,
The sound of a shot in the dead of the night.
Um passo, uma ponte, um sapo, uma rã.
Um belo horizonte, uma febre terçã.

Then the bossa nova changed back to the original even picking, and he stopped. We all clapped. Stoney Jake just stared for a moment.

“Ooh! I love that song – um, the second one,” Jenny said, her eyes shining, “Dear Prudence, too, but – da-da-da da-da-dah, da-duh da duh dah!” She hummed the rest of the bridge.

Stoney Jake shook his head, packed the bong and passed it to Bob, then, exclaiming “No way!” got up and left the room.

Bob was exhaling smoke, and his fingers were creeping back to the guitar, when Stoney Jake came back in holding a record cover in each hand.

“I’d never’ve put those two songs together in a million years,” he exclaimed. “Amazing!” He packed the bong and passed it to me. While I operated that device, he continued, gesturing with the albums as he spoke.

“Says here, the Beatles recorded it in 1968 and Jobim in 1973; I wonder if Paul and Antonio know? I’m gonna play them back to back.” But he did not go for the stereo.

Bob was now playing what sounded to me like the song from the GE “Soft White” light bulb commercial. When I whistled the tune, the goth girl looked up and said, “Hey, I know that one too!. That’s Pachelbel’s Canon in D. I had to learn that on piano when I was a kid.” Jenny and Jake nodded, perhaps agreeing with her.

But Bob smiled again, both nodding and shaking his head.

“It’s the famous communist propaganda anthem,” he announced, and sang over my whistle,

Somewhere over the rainbow, somewhere high,
there’s a land that I heard of once in a lullaby.

He ended with a jangling flourish, and set the guitar aside to more laughter and applause.

“That’s nothing. All music is like that. There are only three or four different songs, structurally, in just about all of pop music.”

He passed Stoney Jake a wad of paper, and picked up the parcel we had come here to acquire, causing it to disappear somewhere about his person. He kept talking while Stoney Jake counted. “Including such ready examples as Babe I’m Gonna Stray Cat Strut You, and (It’s a Wonderful Night for) Riders on the Moondance.” Jenny snickered.

Then he looked at his watch and stood up. “It’s a shame we have to hurry on to the reception, or I’d play you a quick refrain from the classic protest ballad For What It’s Worth, You Can’t Always Get the Wind on the Wild Side to Cry Mary.” We all stared at him.

“Thanks a lot Jake! Jenny; ladies,” he added with another flashing smile, and nodded gravely at Jenny’s inquisitive friend, “It’s always a pleasure.”

I thanked them, too, and we left.

kicking it around

“There he is,” Catherine stopped briefly, looking meaningfully at Sheila, Bev and Aleph, and then pointedly back into the center of the quad, where several young men and two girls moved in curious choreography while kicking a beanbag back and forth, before resuming her stride and her lilt, “playing hackey-sack with that girl, who looks like you.”

Sheila and Bev giggled, glancing furtively at Aleph, who smiled, just a little.

They all watched the game – particularly that girl and he, who almost seemed to glow – silently for the few moments it took them to traverse the westward length of the quadrangle toward the dining hall. As they passed, three of the players – two boys and a girl – broke from the circle and also headed toward the dining hall, while that girl and he, and another boy, kept dancing around under that arcing bag.

They moved in concert.

“Well, at least that’s not his heart they’re kicking around,” Sheila quipped as they left the quad.

They laughed, Bev and Catherine and Sheila, while Aleph quietly said, “Oh.” She paused, glancing back, her slight smile lingering.

“Yes, it is.”

rage against the mayonnaise

this is not the mayonnaise*

1000 blank white cards

i have some blank white cards
not nearly a thousand though

they aren't blank or white either
just a portion of several decks'

generation cards that started
blank and white and were used

in the game (which use involves
becoming marked in certain ways

that leave a card neither white
nor blank, but a blank white card

nonetheless) copied and given
unto my care for future seeding.

this one, if you recall your robert
lewis stevenson, is an ill omen.

being there: 1100

[Epilogue]
a momentary expression of surprise on his face, as when you hear someone call out "head's up" to look up and find yourself in the path of some projectile toy which you must catch or evade, was immediately replaced by a joyful smile and loud guffaws: "quod erat demonstrandum."

still laughing he stood, picked up the teapot from an adjacent and unaffected table, and, righting his teacup, filled and passed it to me, before resuming his seat in the pool of tepid tea under the same dripping table edge and picking at the cooling wax in what had been my cup.

he wiped it with a handkerchief before refilling it and smiling at me from behind the rim as he sipped and breathed the steam.

being there: 1011

[Eleven]
when he said that the vibrations of the voice of the yoga instructor were part and parcel of the here and now, there and then when she spoke, and my hearing and decoding of them and cascade of thoughts part and parcel of my being there at that time, and further that my continuing wrath, my fantastic outburst and my premature conclusion were also parts of my being during the many places that i have been over the intervening period, i threw my chamomile and hibiscus tea at his face, but clumsily, so that instead of arcing unimpeded from my hand, the cup struck a large candle on the tabletop between us, unconstrained tea extinguishing the flame even as the candle toppled spilling its reservoir of wax, along with the splashing tea into his lap and finally knocking over his teacup so that his chamomile and hibiscus tea flowed along the table to the edge, where it pooled before pouring onto his trousers.

continue>

being there: 1010

[ X ]
i also didn't meet my guru for quite some time.

eventually i did, and when he had run the class six cataract of my recriminating anger at the silent absence, at the frustrated need to talk and not having him to hear and speak wisdom back, and my roiling wrath at his so constant poise, and he still failed to take me to bed in the palpable availability of my post cathartic state, i told him about my conclusion.

continue>

being there: 1001

[Nein]
pissed off i got back into the commuter flow, making better progress for a raging emotional posture now freed from the suppressing preemptive guilt of the imminent yoga class, which appeared to positively prevent other pedestrians from impeding my path as i stalked to the aforementioned workspace.

i didn't go back to yoga, though i practiced a routine of positions i had learned regularly in the godawful morning.

continue>

being there: 1000

[Eight]
how twisted.

if we have to imagine these exotic bucolic locales in order to be able to begin relaxing, how are we ever going to be able to learn to be openly aware of all the possibilities of being here now?

and that constant condescending reminder! if i'm trying to be here now the last things i need are words being spoken, and the self-conscious cascades of thought they kick off.

crazy pointless mystical hazing i concluded, somewhat prematurely, and shelved the issue.

continue>

being there: 111

[Seven]
well then stop talking already bitch, somewhat righteously and with impeccable timing, and certainly above the preapproved decibel level, floated through my awareness of being here now.

when it was followed by no awareness of the other fifteen people gasping in horror, i was fairly sure i hadn't said it aloud, but my composure was ruined anyway, breath short and shallow. as she rang the bell to tell us we could stop being seated here in lotus position while thoughts of exotic vacation danced in and were snatched away from our minds, and could start preparing our awareness for her next directive, i muttered "'sits bones' my ass" with a snort and got up and left, which did cause some rustling.

continue>

being there: 110

[Six]
the yoga instructor murmured good morning to everyone like a hushing elementary school administrator, moved slowly among us as though to be sure to get her damper around every echoing surface before some "brash brad" should walk in exclaiming good mornings: her yoga studio, her mood. or the highway, one must assume.

not very many brads in seven am yoga; those who are, generally sleepy and abashed more than brash.

she beamed insipidly, and after some spin-up started off with a guided visualization in lotus, leading us through postcard landscapes of natural beauty and tranquility and then back into our sleepy and sore bodies in our poor postures on a padded floor in some basement studio under a bar and a palm reader in the gentrified fringe of the city at seven fifteen before work, with the admonishment that we should try to keep our attention fixed on being here now.

continue>

being there: 101

[Five]
brushed and pretty in the mirror i smiled and assured myself of my impervious mood, my unflappable poise, and it lasted to the street.

where there were people, so i couldn't really concentrate on poise and grace so well with all the zigzagging briefcase suits, the hulking delivery people, and general glut of commuters in my space, but had to focus to navigate and avoid the bikers and the joggers and the people letting their dog piss on the dead tree killed by apartment dog piss in its miserable square of sodbare dirt cut out of the sidewalk.

continue>

being there: 100

[Fore]
the alarm screams into my harried dreams, creeping into the scenes at the seams like light splashing around the brilliant lining of a darkened screen, and i thump it good without even registering light and then it screams again.

i come to in the shower, a skein of steam streaming from my face, jaw clenched, grinding my teeth like a freezing meth freak who has to pee in some fugal unconscious beat, the rhythm entwined with a line or some nonsense rhyme i woke up with looping in my mind, a drivel of self-pity at my petty tribulations: early mornin' capitalism blues! mama wanna get a new pair of shoes!

counting breaths i try to stop: no good to be chanting mantras over and over again with that kind of resonance and such manifesting force in the jaw without even realizing it. brushing, my teeth hurt from, or perhaps anticipating, the grind, and one ear pops.

continue>

being there: 11

[Three]
that's where i am. i don't have a therapist myself (funny how a parent shrink can so depreciate the value of a paid confidant with a lexicon of norms and deviation), and i don't consult the clergy.

but i have a guru, sometimes, sort of, and i go to yoga classes in the godawful early morning before humping along to earn my daily coffee at my perfectly unisex and depersonal workstation distinguished only by my own oils and dead cells caked curiously on some and not others of the keys and a photo, pinned among the pending paperwork on the corkboard, holding an image of me appearing happy and at ease so convincingly that i could believe it but for remembering in my more honest moments how i seethed under the lens, my mug and my instant messenger and my modular unisex clerical tasks.

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being there: 10

[Two]
we never went to mass, i must confess though it has been at least one lifetime since my last confession.

a lifetime of miraculous righteousness of twining shining rage and the occasional set of charred pylons reaching from one bank toward the far shore indicating a connection now no more, and perhaps outright war. a lifetime with no salvific vision, and less faith in the authority of anyone to confer absolution, or to judge; anyone but me.

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being there: 01

[One]
my mother was a therapist, my father a motivational guru; my older brother died under his comrades' guns in kuwait or south iraq in ninety-one, my sister handles snakes, has children, takes the occasional sleeping pill and bakes.

it's probably their fault first, of course, the mass of rage i am.

but then my righteousness itself also must have come of their collective ministrations, or is else a freak occurrence: golden delicious miraculously hanging among the undifferentiated bug-eaten fruit of the seed-grown apple tree.

we don't talk much nowadays: dad holding forth in a mocked up knock-off ashram on a rich friend's farm in some godforsaken dustbowl state; mom's manhattan practice and summers on the cape; and of course sister, in the sticks, near some scenic lakes, with children and snakes.

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being there: 00

[Zero]
i am a mass of rage because of everybody else but me.

i buzz with righteous indignation like the aura of the bodhisattva, hair bucking in knots of untapped power, at any opportunity, like all righteous folks must, though i haven't met too many others.

but I feel the maroon robe billowing as my righteous wrath writhes and try to learn to hesitate to strike, having burnt earth and bridges before: they know not what they do, and although clumsy, they are so fragile.

continue>

comes the extraterrestrial diaspora

when the extraterrestrial diaspora came there were two basic classes of emigrant, those without a eugenic plan and those with one, but the classes can be meaningfully broken down further.

those of the former class had no eugenic plan as a result of either ideology or incompetence. on the ideology end of the scale were those with faith in the haphazard fruitful multiplication that has driven human history and culture so effectively through the past, some higher power ideologies, and some ideologies of abhorrence at the implications of eugenics; these latter, the anti-eugenic ideologues, might be said to cross the line into the class of those with a eugenic plan in recognition that the antithesis is nevertheless a proposition concerning the thesis, but let them lie amongst the ideologues of the haphazard fruitful multipliers.

on the incompetence end, those who simply rashly fled, or those so clouded by other ideas or ideologies that future generations did not receive any consideration: gangs, communes, many an eloping set of lovers, much of what might be considered the professional military class and culture of humans, and organizations united around worldviews not encompassing eugenics.

among these groups, in the class lacking a eugenic plan, evolution continued to happen. that is, population growth was limited by resources, and individuals regularly – somewhat more frequently, now that much of the cosmic ray buffer of terra’s atmosphere no longer prevented genetic pointshifts, than through terrestrial history – mutated, sometimes producing beneficial traits which became normative in the population.

The Russian Dance

Once I was making love to a girl when this song –

you are taken aback. Ah, I see! Okay.

I say “to a girl” not because she was younger than the age of consent, nor to distinguish the gender of such a supposed child, nor even because I believe that all women should be referred to in a diminutive fashion, but because I am an old man reminiscing of a time when I was younger and with a younger lover of an age, if I were to encounter her today, toward which I should feel fatherly more than randy.