THE THIRD YEAR
God will forgive me. It's His job.Heinrich Heine's dying words, they say.
and the simple secret of the plot...
414-431
castle medical center
432
return to paradise
433-435
436-437
tales from the year of the dragon
Vanity plays lurid tricks with our memory, and the truth of every passion wants some pretence to make it live.Joseph Conrad: Lord Jim
the dragon arrives
438-443
444-449
450-453
in like a lamb
454-457
458-462
last month of fifty-something
463-468
469-473
474-478
479-481
doorstep of the seventh
482-484
485-488
414
The last day of the Second Year and the first day of the Third Year were routine, ordinary days, the first spent mainly at the mall since the weather was dismal and the second an on-campus day. Aside from meeting Kory K at lunchtime on Friday, I didn't talk to anyone. The amusing Rudnick book finished, I moved on to Julie Garwood's Prince Charming, a standard inheritance-kidnapping-smoldering lust yarn that's entertaining enough.Cainer warned about the tendency to create a crisis when days are routine and ordinary. Uh-huh, I know that method of dealing with boredom well. But warning noted.
Of course, "cheap fiction" is a safer way to deal with it, and there's a certain deja vu to these quiet hours in the secluded grove with dashing heroes and beautiful heroines. Hot Delhi afternoons, torrentially rainy ones in Mussoorie, tucked away in the make-believe world of novels. One part of me feels guilty, as though I should be doing something with the time, but when I'm feeling bored and lazy it's, like I said, safer than creating a crisis.
In this wave of genealogy, another cousin discovered me and supplied this information:
Your grandparents were William Levi "Bill" Vanderburg and Elizabeth Ruth "Lizzie" (Gustin) Elder. She was born in 1873 and was the daughter of Lafayette Gustin of Indiana. [She was widowed, with a son, when she married Uncle Bill, and she was his 3rd wife.]
Gay also said: "we share the same great-grandparents (Julius Abiel Vanderburg and Leah Adaline Blalock)."
Cousin Tanya said she didn't want her father to see my childhood tale since he holds my father in such high regard. I told her perhaps her Dad might know more of stormy father-son relationships than she suspects and that I doubt he would think less highly of my father, but perhaps of me. But I don't blame her for protecting him. I'd feel delighted to discover an outspoken rogue in the family, but don't expect the others to feel that way.
A paternal grandfather who had three wives, a maternal grandmother who had seven husbands. Strange tree.
414a
Alicia slowly slid her hand over his slim, muscular chest, relishing every moment of those firm, sensuous curves. Across his brown, flat belly her hand moved, pausing a moment to tease the circle of his bellybutton. Then behind the waistband of his Calvin's her hand moved, and down, down, through the soft curly dark hair.And she remembered what a terribly long time it had been since she'd had a Vienna Sausage sandwich. On wheat. Mustard on one slice, mayonnaise on the other, two crispy green lettuce leaves over the sausages. Her mother would slice the sausages in half, but Alicia liked them round, intact, full.
[Hey, it would be an amusing difference if one of these heroes wasn't hung like a stallion.]
415
He was some distance away when I first spotted him, young, tall, brown, shirtless. As he moved slowly toward me I could see he had a long-sleeved shirt tied around his waist by the sleeves, Tomita-san style, and was carrying a very beat-up skateboard. And he was digging in the trash cans. A new ragpicker, a cute young new ragpicker. When he reached the one nearest me, he found a plate lunch box in a tied white plastic bag, was carefully opening the bag when one of the cleaning army approached and scowled. I smiled, watching the encounter, and the lad noticed me but didn't react.He took the plate lunch box and sat at the far end of the planter box I was sitting on, his back to me, eating, with his fingers, what looked like some beef and rice. Then he strolled away but soon came back and sat beside me, asked, "howzit going?" He asked if I'd seen the 3-D T. Rex movie and I said, no, I'd like to but it's too expensive. He agreed it was too much money but said how much he hoped to see it. I told him he shouldn't have much difficulty finding someone to take him. He grinned, thought a moment, and said, "maybe not too difficult." "Just find a crazy old man like me," I said, "but one with money. If I had the money I'd take you to the movies." A bigger grin.
His right arm was covered in colorful tattoos. I asked if he had any on his legs, which were concealed by cut-off Levi's, and he pulled up one pants leg to show me one on his ankle, said it had been painful getting it. I sympathized, said I could imagine so, and touched my earring, said that I'd like a small tattoo but the hole in my earlobe was as far as I could go. "It looks good," he said.
He got up to leave and I gave him the standard farewell usually reserved for the Sleeptalker, "take care of yourself." And he rolled off across the parking lot on his battered skateboard.
Oh yes, if I'd had a twenty in my pocket, it would have been off to Waikiki to the movies. Kory K and I were talking on Friday about the future days when those Social Security checks roll in. If I make it, I'll be the biggest pushover in town.
Everything closes on campus at five on Saturdays so I had gone to the mall for lack of anything better to do when pockets are empty. The sparse crowd and the Whore on very active duty suggested there was little chance of finding the seven quarters I needed for another bottle of Colt, but I'd had two bottles in the afternoon, completing the Anniversary Celebration, so didn't really care if I found money for another, probably wouldn't have bought it if I had. As it turned out, I did find five quarters, mainly because the Whore gave up fairly early and left the field open until Bla's very late arrival on the scene.
I was, for no reason I could think of, feeling very, very tired and if I'd had a place to do it, I would have curled up and gone to sleep by eight o'clock. But then I reminded myself that two years and a few days ago, I would have been sitting alone in my dinky Waikiki apartment, missing the chance of sweet encounters with barechested brown lads carrying skateboards.
415a
"He was married to Martha Ruth PROTZ on 22 Sep 1939 in Lewisville, Arkansas." says The Vanderburg Page about my father.So I'm either a bastard, or very premature. 22 Sep 1939 to 12 Apr 1940 surely ain't nine months. Like mother, like daughter.
Always did wonder if that man really was my father. Now it looks as if I might have less reason to fear falling into a Freudian cliche and instead can wonder if Albert Sr. was the one who did the dastardly deed or if he was just being gallant and rescuing a maiden in distress.
I must admit, it's a bit disconcerting to discover such information from the Web. I had to jump up from the computer and rush outside to smoke a couple of cigarettes before calming down.
416
Francis Vanderburg and Maria Christina Lydecker (married 25 November 1795)begat
Francis Vanderburg (2nd) & Elizabeth Perry
begat
Julius A. Vanderburg (b. 25 September 1825) & Adaline Blalock
begat
William Levi Vanderburg (17 Oct 1849 - 15 May 1921) & Elizabeth Gustin (Lizzie) Elder (married 29 May 1897)
begat
Albert Lester Vanderburg (28 Nov 1914 - 22 Feb 1987) & Martha Ruth Protz
begat
me.
On Sunday afternoon, a good friend brought the subject up, and several times insisted that it "makes no difference" that my parents shacked up and I was at their wedding, incognito. This is true. Right now, it makes no difference at all to me. But it does take my memory banks of childhood and turn them upside down, wipes out all the interpretations I thought existed and causes them to be re-examined.
Knowing my mother as well as I do, she was guilty about it all her life (and I still don't know when, or if, she died). And knowing her penchant for hideously cheap fiction (True Story and Modern Romance magazines) I can just imagine her, every time she looked at me, feeling guilty anew). Yikes. Poor, silly woman. Little wonder she was such a hysteric about me.
I do not have any problem with two human beings who have sex and create a baby without the "sanctity" of marriage. I do have something of a problem with hypocrites, and I am quite convinced now that both of my parents were pretty extreme examples of that nonsense. C'est la vie, c'est la Karma.
It's my fault. I should have known better than to get born to those two, and I've known that for a very long time. May the gods grant me the wisdom to choose better next time.
Monday Mall Game. I saw T. Rex again. He was sitting on his skateboard, so engrossed in watching the demos of Dreamcast games he didn't even notice me walk by. He had his shirt on, alas.
A shower. One companion was interesting, but not interested. A second was interested, but not interesting. I was too wrapped up in thoughts of T. Rex.
I'd hoped I'd get my Colt financing in pocket before the Whore came on the scene. Alas, thanks to Bla's diligent roaming, I was still short two quarters, but then scored a stroller minutes after the Whore appeared. Right under his nose, which made it even sweeter.
Hail, hail, the gang's all here. That dreary Charlie Chan, doing his Mandrax stroll. A relative newcomer, the Creeper, who walks even more slowly than Charlie, glazed look in his eyes, searching for I know not what, glacially pacing the mall. The Sunday Amateur, guarding a bus stop in case a cart was abandoned there. Mutt and Jeff back again, after a long absence, with the same schtick. Her berating him for not buying her something to eat from McD's, him accusing her of just wanting to endlessly spend his money, him going to get her something, her running off so he has to go look for her. She called me "the movie star" and "Mister President", at one point was following me through Sears almost shrieking "Mister President, Mister President." The woman is seriously schizoid. In a quieter moment, she said something to me, several sentences, and it made absolutely no sense whatever, could have been a direct quote from a psychiatric casebook.
A crowded mall, filled with dentists, thanks to the ADA Convention. Not much use so far as shopping carts and strollers are concerned, but lawdy did they abandon food. After the fourth plate lunch box, from which I ate only the bits I most liked, I told myself, "That's it. You will ignore all plate lunch boxes from this moment on." Chopsticks Express is very much better than Patti's Chinese Kitchen.
The dentists surely do like ice cream. Never saw so many people walking around licking ice cream cones. Made me quite eager to have some of the stuff. And they share my appreciation for Gloria Jean's chilled coffee concoctions. Bastids drank it to the last drop, alas.
Eric Francis writes: We "believe in" people, we believe in the story of our love. And, very dependably, we believe in sacrifice -- a very religious theme. What if your religion of love shifted to one based on faith and natural processes -- like the seasons, for instance -- rather than any of this other stuff?
Strange thoughts.
417
Tuesday Mall Game. Although it began as quite a beautiful day, Tuesday soon turned gray and drizzly. I fled Manoa and went to the mall.By noontime I was feeling quite disgusted. I don't mind losing out in the Quarter Hunt, but there's no need to rub it in by making me witness the lost quarters, even if it's Bla getting them, and far, far worse when some utter amateur grabs one just because he happened to walk past at the right moment. I was about to quit in disgust, took a break, and went downtown.
When I returned to the mall, a cart was waiting. Nice omen. The mob of dentists was joined by a mob of sweet young things. One of those Japanese training ships is in port. They contribute nothing to the carts, the strollers, even the abandoned food. Just plain eye candy. No complaint.
It turned out just fine. Financing for two Colts, FIVE boxes of lengthy snipes, half a large pizza for dinner (thankfully not from California Pizza Kitchen) with a large cup of Kona Coffee. Alas, I missed all the excitement, was upstairs when someone went whacko, threw the ashtray lids off trash bins and tossed trash onto the sidewalks. I got back down to the affected area just after the culprit had vamoosed. From the description being shouted out to the security army, it sounded horribly like T. Rex. If it was T. Rex, I'm glad I wasn't there, would undoubtedly have tried to calm him. (I do fall for borderline psychos, no doubt about it ... like to like, and etc.). I'm also glad he got away.
And it's my half-birthday. Sun opposed to Natal Sun. Happy half-birthday to me.
418
Wednesday, according to Cainer: Today, you need to find out something. You have a suspicion that needs to be fully confirmed or refuted. Forget what you think you know and allow yourself to be shown.I don't know what he was talking about. Nothing happened on Wednesday which fits the slot.
Early evening, after a successful afternoon Mall Game, I was sitting at the bus stop. A young fellow sat on the ledge beside me and asked if I was going back up to the university. I wondered how he knew, but said yes, and that led to some chat about the new express bus. He asked if I knew the name of the orange flower in the lei he was wearing. I didn't. He complained about the intense fragrance of the lei but was aware of all the traditions about discarding a lei, so was keeping it to give to a young woman he knew. The bus came, he sat sideways on the seat in front of me and launched into the story of the young woman, how she kept calling him all the time and seemed to want more than just friendship. He wanted to keep her as a friend, but nothing more, said he liked both men and women but in this case it would be easier if he were just gay and she were only his friend. I was surprised and amused by such candor. Eventually he mentioned he'd noticed me a lot on campus. I didn't ask if he preferred older men.
I've known about the sub-genre in romance fiction of the murder mystery, detective story blended with the standard lusty romps but haven't read any. One turned up earlier in the week, utterly unmemorable, and then I found Sue Grafton's M is for Malice. The woman is writing a book for each letter of the alphabet and her O is for Outlaw just appeared in the mall's bookstore window. She has a knack for really awful metaphor, often combines several prime examples in one paragraph, and I wonder if she is doing it deliberately or if that's just the way she thinks and writes.
Despite intense competition, the mall game did indeed proceed well, a two Colt day and once again an ample supply of food. Someone abandoned a multi-cheese pizza from Papa John's with only two slices missing, so it was pizza for dinner again. And then, oh joy, an almost full cup of mocha milkshake from Gloria Jean's. Those chilled coffee concoctions are the only liquids I'm sometimes tempted to spend beer money on, especially the malt mocha chiller.
I still needed two quarters at sundown, was about to give up and rest content with one Colt for the evening and was making one last trip to top up the snipes supply when I spotted a bunch of coins sitting on a payphone. Almost a dollar. It's wonderful there are so many absent-minded people in this world.
419
Thursday was one of those days when I didn't speak to anyone.I wanted to speak to the Lei Boy again, but didn't see him, on campus or off. I wanted to shower with the The Horse again, as I had on Wednesday, but there were too many people around.
Ah. I did speak very briefly with The Snorer. He asked me to tell the Sleeptalker he wanted to talk with him if I saw him. I wondered why he wanted to talk to him, but didn't ask. I'd like to talk with him, too. I'd just like to see him.
I hadn't intended to stay at the mall all day but I went down there in the early morning and then noticed heavy dark clouds rolling in over the mountains. Soon those beautiful clunks of earth were almost hidden behind a gray mist of falling rain. Not a particularly appealing invitation to return to the UH campus, nestled at the foot of those veiled mountains.
So I stayed at the mall. I found an almost full pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes, filtered. Nostalgia. The very first pack of cigarettes I bought were Lucky Strikes. No filter. I was fourteen. A pack lasted me a week. And not many weeks after I began spending my earnings as a stockboy at Woolworth's in Lawton, Oklahoma, to buy those packs, my mother spotted some tobacco crumbs in a shirt pocket. Damn, that woman was obsessive. She inspected my shirt pockets??!!
She was more than obsessive. She was a sneak. The first diary I kept was when we were living in Darmstadt, Germany. Naturally, she read it. I took great care to put it in my desk drawer in such a way that I could tell if anyone had disturbed the drawer's contents. And of course, she was busted, but I never said anything. I switched to code. Must have driven her crazy trying to figure out what I was writing. Yep, was a silly game. But she had the advantage. She was my MOTHER. I was supposed to love, honor, and obey, etc. etc. I didn't do any of them, and I still don't. I feel sorry for her, but she had a much better life than she earned.
All that from a pack of Lucky Strikes ...
The Quarter Game was also a bitch. By sunset I was beginning to wonder if I'd have even one bottle of Colt for the day. Then I walked past a bench which had an empty supermarket plastic bag on it and a 40 oz. "2000" cup from McD's sitting next to it. I looked into the cup, saw liquid of just the right color, picked it up and sniffed. Yep, surely was malt liquor, probably Colt. No sign of the bottle, or of the person who had emptied it into a paper cup from McD's. I don't like drinking beer in the mall since it's a legitimate reason to get exiled from the place, but okay, I might have emptied the cup. Might have, I say, hiding behind the Bill of Rights.
Then, as has been his fortunate habit of late, the Whore left the premises and I soon had the quarters for my very own bottle of Colt, left the mall, stopped by 7-Eleven and spent those quarters, finished the Sue Grafton book while enjoying my second beer of the day. Errr, well what might have been my second beer of the day.
I misjudged Grafton. She's a writer of detective stories, not the romance-cum-detective genre at all. She's not Mickey Spillane, although she'd probably like to be. What the hell, she makes a good living writing decent detective stories and still has the rest of the alphabet after "O" to carry on with. So I'm jealous.
419a
Ryan, in his kind report on our meeting, didn't mention the lollipops.Alas, the lollipops are [almost] no more.
The rental strollers at the mall have a tall metal pole attached to the back left corner. Originally, about half had just a plain pole and the other half also had a circular sign at the top. I called them "poles" and "lollipops" and they were perfect for noting at a glance whether a stroller had been returned to the corral since my last check. A corral with three poles and three lollipops in a row; check for quarters; ignore corral until another pole or lollipop was added; perfectly efficient system.
But for some unknown reason, a man arrived with a supply of plain poles and replaced all the lollipops. Booo, hisss!
Only one poor lollipop survived the massacre, must have been out in circulation at the time.
420
Ms. Virginia Slims on campus! She has an unusual habit, tucks the little slip of paper wrapper inside the top lid of the cigarette box, a tell-tale clue of the box's origin. And on Sunday morning, outside Manoa Garden, there was an almost-full box of the things, paper tucked inside the lid. Spooky.The Mall Game was drastically altered by one of the periodic "Sidewalk Sales", running Friday through Sunday. Some of the shops put so many tables and racks out on the sidewalk there is barely room to walk through, much less push a shopping cart. This increases the number of abandoned carts, since many people apparently don't want to bother trying to get through the crush more than once. It also increases the physical exercise involved in the Quarter Hunt, since it is often easier to go a long way around to a satellite corral rather than struggle back to the supermarket with a cart. The large crowd, especially on Saturday, also meant far more strollers in circulation and a sharp increase in the number of coins found dropped on the sidewalks. I don't usually count pennies until the supply gets so low I have to be concerned about the seven-cent tax money on a bottle of malt liquor, but I was amused by the unusually large number I found on Saturday: twenty-two pennies.
It would have been a two-Colt day but I'd used my last teabag on Saturday morning, so as soon as one-Colt financing was in place and I found the five additional quarters needed for tea purchase, I went immediately to buy it. No need to leave myself open to the temptation to spend the money on a second bottle of beer and then berate myself on Sunday morning when I had no tea to drink and a slight hangover from the unnecessary second beer. As it happened, by the end of the evening, I was only one quarter short of a second bottle anyway. Sunday's nightcap assured.
Friday's main meal had been a delicious chicken and cheese salad from the restaurant at Neiman-Marcus. Had they added a little avocado to it, I'd definitely rate it as the finest salad I've ever eaten. Friday would also have been a two-Colt day but I had to leave early, still short two quarters which I shamelessly begged for and thus had not only a beer before going to the theatre but also a nightcap afterwards.
Helen R. and I went to see the student production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the Kennedy Theatre, the first time I have been in there. Nice place, decent production visually, but seriously marred by most of the actors speaking the lines too quickly, rendering them incomprehensible. Still, I love that play and enjoyed this production more than the recent film version which was a major disappointment.
I found another inconsequential murder mystery and a (more interesting) recent copy of The Economist, reading for Friday and Saturday. The magazine included an obituary of the art-dealer, Leo Castelli, bringing back, again, memories of his infamous telephone call to me. "You beetch!" he said. I was so flattered. Tempest in a teacup over an article I had written about his stars Jasper Johns and Bob Rauschenberg. He never forgave me, but I admired him and what he did for those artists whose work he championed.
I took a break from the Mall Game in mid-afternoon on Saturday and went down to the State Library in quest of more reading material. Someone had donated a large batch of Danielle Steel's books to the "honor collection", so I took her Vanished, next in line for inconsequential reading.
A cloud over an otherwise amusing Saturday. Rumor has it, although no one knows for sure, that Rocky is in jail on a drug bust. I hope it isn't true. I'd really miss hearing him ask, "where's the beer?"
421
When these guys fall off the wagon, they fall HARD. Conrad, who has been without the sauce for at least three months, was raving drunk at the mall before noontime. As usual, when in his cups, he didn't recognize me. I'm not complaining.The Old Guitarist, who for quite some time has been sober and clean and like a totally different person, staggered over to me. I really had to think for a moment. I knew I knew him, but it took me longer than it should have to recognize him. "I'm a dollar short of a beer," he slurred. I gave him the dollar. Not a chance in hell I'm going to do the "is this the best thing for him?" trip. Not a chance. Someone stole his bicycle and that was his "reason" for going back on the bottle. Okay.
Within minutes of reaching the mall, I had nightcap financing in pocket, not surprising since I only needed a quarter. I was well on my way to a second beer when I gave up four of them to the O.G. He's a sweet old man, I would have given him the quarters even if it had zapped the nightcap.
Sundays at the mall are so absurd I should discipline myself, set aside a twenty each month. Two Sunday beers each week without going near the mall.
Maybe that's what Cainer was talking about for the weekend. Maybe.
I saw the Big Local Dude for the first time in many weeks, asked him if he'd heard any news of Rocky. He said he'd heard Rocky was in jail for "D&D" [drunk and disorderly]. "That would be much better than a drug bust," I said. He agreed, said it was only what he'd heard, though, and that Rocky was "not careful enough with the pakalolo". Then, with a big grin, he asked, "so how's your crazy boyfriend doing?" I certainly blushed inwardly, if not outwardly, said I hadn't seen him in a long time and told the BLD what I knew of the Sleeptalker's life at the moment. "A good thing," he said, "he was headed for inside, too, the crazy way he was acting."
The "Sidewalk Sale" wasn't quite the fever pitch activity it had been on Saturday, but the mall was still very crowded, I was feeling a little weary of crowds and decided I would leave the very moment I had financing for a second beer in hand, even (especially after giving away four quarters) considered leaving with only the nightcap funds. But I stuck it out and, shortly after sunset, had the two-beer money in pocket.
The Whore and his former buddy aren't speaking (again), but the Whore seems to have picked up a new one and I saw them leaving the mall together in the late afternoon. Earlier the Whore had been dashing around with a large box of Twinkies in his hand. I thought there was absolutely nothing he could have done to make his image more absurd than it already is. Then, as I was sitting on a planter ledge near the supermarket for a smoke break, he walked up to me, handed me the box and said, "I'm stuffed, can't eat anymore." Two Twinkies still in the box. I ate them.
It's ridiculous how we form opinions of people because they remind us of someone else. I understood in that moment why I dislike the Whore so much. It hasn't anything to do with quarters. There are very, very few people in this life, past or present, whom I really dislike. And the Whore reminds me of one of them.
422
Cainer writes: What you now want and need to do is manifest 'holiday attitude' in an all too familiar scenario.Back on target! All day I've been thinking, I really want a vacation from the Mall Game. But it's still 11-12 days before the Fabled Pension Check arrives. [deep sigh]
Yes, I did think that throughout Monday.
Man does not live by French fries alone. Maybe not, but I guess he can survive one day on them. McD's "super size" gambit is so helpful, encouraging people to buy more than they can eat. And after days when the food supply was so abundant, it strangely turned to famine on Monday and leftover fries was about all there was until I found four big bread rolls on campus when I returned there. Bread and potatoes. Oh well, it's not starvation.
But I am weary of the mall game, despite a most excellent one, judged by results, on Monday. I found a fine new winter shirt, heavy hand-loomed cotton. It is both heavier weight and bulkier than the cotton flannel one I have been using (bought from Goodwill store last winter), but when I read the label I knew there was no question which of the two would remain in my backpack. "Made in Nepal".
$5.25 ... not bad at all for the Quarter Hunt on a Monday.
And especially since that devilish novel by Ms. Steel had me so engrossed with its plot that I had stayed up past midnight reading it and spent most of the morning in the park finishing it. I don't especially admire her as a writer, am puzzled why she is apparently so very successful, but I shall have a look at more of her work. Any writer who can grab and demand my attention like that is worth further investigation.
I just feel so certain I could write a book as well as that, though. Why in heaven's name (or hell's, for that matter) don't I do it?
[Note: Tales 423-425 have vanished into the infinite.]
426
"Don't you mind living on the street?" asked the Ferret. "No," I said, "been doing it for two years now." "Ahhhh," said he, his usual end-of-conversation signal.I've been seeing him for at least a year. I don't know where he sleeps, but he turns up on campus very early every morning to use the microwave, heats water and dumps a packet or two of instant ramen into it for breakfast. Has lately taken to sipping green tea as well, told me in another "lengthy" exchange like the above that green tea was healthier. He very rarely uses the libraries, and I've never seen him on a computer. Once in awhile I see him at the mall, usually eating. I teased him once about how he was always eating or about to eat whenever I saw him, and he took it quite seriously, explained that he eats small meals seven or eight times a day because it's healthier. I wouldn't call two packets of instant ramen for breakfast a small meal, but if he's satisfied with his efforts to live a "healthier" life, more power to him. Funny fellow.
Sunday looked like it was going to be a humdinger of a Mall Game. Mr. Cane, the Japanese-tourist-looking old man, was there at dawn, digging in the trash already. He's added a cane to his props, thus the nickname. He's a pest when it comes to the snipe hunt but doesn't go after quarters. Madame Tojo, who does however, arrived on the scene around 9:30 and started prowling the parking lot, giving me a nasty look every time I passed her. At one point, Bla and I crossed paths just as she walked by. Bla looked at her, looked at me and gave a subtle roll of his eyes. Quite. I nodded. Silly old woman. I didn't see her score any quarters at all. And all the other Sunday amateurs were there, Uncle Remus sitting outside the supermarket by the corrals, Hayseed guarding a bus stop, Charlie Chan doing his usual mandrax shuffle.
I took a break and went to campus for awhile after having a shower and sitting in the park to put a new hem in the frayed legs of my Banana Republic chinos. When I returned to the mall, none of the regular quarter hunters were on the scene and they didn't appear all day. Maybe they've reached the point of thinking it's not worth the effort against the Sunday Amateurs. It isn't, if all of us regulars are there, but with the field to myself, I did quite well.
T. Rex isn't borderline psycho, he's over the line. But he's a sweetheart nonetheless. He was definitely on some drug which made him a little difficult to understand and he thoroughly astounded me by saying he wanted to have sex and was quite explicit about what he wanted. I'm not sure why but I thought it would be dishonorable to take advantage of his drugged condition, even if by invitation. So I hugged him and said I'd love to do that with him someday but I was still feeling weak from having been ill and just didn't feel up to it. He gave me one of his wacky little grins and said, "okay, but I won't stop asking." I hope he doesn't.
My excuse wasn't really a lie. The tiredness, apparently a classic symptom of bronchitis, was still lingering although all the others, except for the cough, were gone. How annoying to turn into, even temporarily, one of those awful old men I scorn ... light a cigarette, puff, hack hack, cough cough, puff, etc. etc. Twice during the night I left my bench and went out to the corner of the walk at the hacienda so I could have a good long cough session without disturbing my sleeping companions.
The final week of October, the dreaded Halloween weekend looming ahead. Already the nuisance of it has begun. There's a company here which runs a mobile amusement park, setting up temporary carnivals complete with ferris wheel, spinning rides, and such. And for the first time they are doing one at UH for Halloween. Although it doesn't open for business until Friday, they started setting up on Sunday, near the secluded grove. I don't think it will be very "secluded" until All Saint's Day arrives, and even that day will no doubt be polluted by the awful beeping sound of vehicles backing-up, removing all the junk they were busy installing. It's always something ...
427
On the down escalator at the mall, I spotted two shopping carts in the parking lot. One was, astoundingly, just sitting there in the open, directly across from the supermarket. The other was lurking behind a van which probably concealed it from the sidewalk. As I quickly headed toward the unhidden one, the Gypsy Boy moved in and grabbed it. I said "congratulations" and smiled as I walked past him, got the hidden one and returned it. Rare to see the Gypsy Boy and Cat at the mall."You can't just go for the easy ones," I told him, after greeting Cat who gave me his usual disinterested look, but let me scratch his head with a finger. The Gypsy Boy laughed, said he didn't want to let the cart sit there for "some of those other guys". Then he said something about how there seemed to be an increase in the "crazies" hanging out at the mall.
I agreed. Without saying anything which would identify T. Rex, I told him about the unusual invitation I'd had on Sunday evening. "He must have been doing Ectasy," said the Gypsy Boy, "it makes some people lose all inhibition." Hmmmm. One evening when the Sleeptalker was slightly drunk and even more affectionate than usual, I teased him, asked what would make him horny. "Ecstacy," he said. I want to try that stuff, but only when I'm utterly alone with no one else within miles.
A little later, I was sitting on a planter ledge and T. Rex walked over, skateboard, as always, under his arm. With a rather sheepish look on his face, he said, "I'm sorry I was so overboard last night." I assured him there was no need for an apology, that I regretted later I'd declined his invitation because I'd really like to see him naked. He laughed and said I could do that anytime, but he only liked to have sex with "guys" when he was "stoned". I chickened out. It was drizzling rain. Otherwise I would have asked him to cross over to the park and have a shower with me since, yes, I surely would like to see him naked. But then maybe he's the final clue to the puzzle.
Cainer writes: You are seeing the potential for success in an area of life where it normally eludes you. Surely, it cannot be this easy can it? Oh yes it can. Just trust a simple truth.
What if the truth is, I just want the shared moments talking with fascinating young men?
If so, there was another treat in store. I've already mentioned Ryan Ozawa's class project, and he talks about it, too, in his journal. I was walking past the Sears entrance at the mall when a young man spoke to me from behind. I thought he was another aspiring evangelist, but he was such a sweetie, such a teddy bear of a fellow, I was quite willing to listen to him talk about Jesus. Ha! Turned out, he was one of Ryan's classmates and I had been nabbed as an official "interviewee".
I told him later I would be writing about him, asked if I should use a nickname or his real name. He said "real name", but then he doesn't know me or the Tales, so I shall exercise my right of discretion and call him Teddy.
The project has been split into subdivisions and his assigned field of interest is job discrimination against the homeless. Having not actively sought a job since leaving the Land of the Homeowners, I could give no direct personal report, but it wasn't difficult to imagine, say, walking into the Human Resources office at Bank of Hawaii, backpack on back, slippers on feet, and applying for a job I was well qualified to do and had the resume to support my believing so ... and wonder if I'd encounter "discrimination". But the other side of the coin is, as I know from so many direct examples, employers are not unwise to be cautious.
How long did the Sleeptalker last in the kitchen at Gordon Biersch? How long did Rocky? Can you take a man who has lived for two years without worrying about the clock, about being here or there at any given time, without being forced to sit anywhere if he doesn't feel like sitting there, and put him at an office desk and expect him to remain there for a long enough period of time to justify the expense of hiring him?
There are, no doubt, many homeless men who wish they could find a job and return to "normal" life. "On track," as Teddy put it. I am sure there are, and I am equally sure they encounter "discrimination" from Human Resources personnel. (I hate that "H.R." crap ... "Employment Office" is so much more direct and meaningful.)
But "on track"? As I told Teddy, I am "on track" now. I was "off track" when I was sitting in a downtown Honolulu office seven hours (or more) a day from Monday through Friday to get money to pay for a dinky little apartment in Waikiki.
Pass the hemlock, please.
Teddy is a sweetheart. So is T. Rex. I'm a lucky man.
428
Teddy had kindly given me his change, putting the bankroll near the two-brew limit. I have to say "brew" now instead of "Colt" because something's going on with that. The only store I've come across which still carries Colt wanted $2.69 for it. Maybe the other stores are resisting an attempt to eliminate the $1.99 ceiling. Hurricane tried that, too, and now can't be found anywhere. So it has been back to Mickey's or even St. Ides. There isn't that much difference between these cheapo brews anyway.I told Teddy I would toast his health with the first beer I had and after leaving him, returned to campus and did just that. I had begun Come to Grief by Dick Francis the prior evening and read a little but spent more time just thinking about the exchanges with the Gypsy Boy, T. Rex and Teddy.
I especially liked T. Rex's laugh when I'd told him the main reason I had declined his invitation was because I felt I'd be taking advantage of him. "I want people to take advantage of me when I'm stoned," he'd said. Why on earth was I so innocent and naive in my youth. And I liked, too, the way Teddy set up the interview, very formally showing me his student ID card and his journalism class nametag. With such a happy atmosphere about him there could not have been any reason for suspicion, not from me anyway.
There's never been a time in my life so filled with people I'm happy to see, from the one side of earnest young college students like the Cherub and Teddy to the other of not-as-tough-as-they'd-like-you-to-believe street boys like the Sleeptalker, Mondo and Rocky. And the old-timers, like the Big Local Dude, the Old Guitarist, the Snorer. Quite a cast of characters.
To top it off, Dame Fortune must have grinned when I returned to Sinclair Library just as Teddy was leaving.
Returning to the mall in the early evening I was much surprised to find the Whore absent. A few days earlier he had that awful hair cut off. The odd thing is, his huge potbelly looked even larger as a result of the short hair, I suppose due to the absence of the hairdo's visual distraction. He had been spending less time on the scene, but Monday was the first day in many weeks when he didn't put in an appearance at all.
The shoppers were not abundant and neither were quarters or food or even, alas, Gloria Jean's coffee. I was sitting on a bench counting my coin stash, realized I had enough for a nightcap but only if I gave up the quarter needed for the next morning's senior coffee. I'd used the last McD's cert on Sunday, so my daily overhead requirement had to include 36 cents again unless I wanted to wait until getting to campus to have my first dose of caffeine. I was pondering the situation, thinking the supermarket would still be open for two hours and I'd surely find another quarter, when a lady stopped, handed me a dollar bill, saying, "here's a dollar you didn't know you had." Sweetheart!
Maybe I should sit pondering my coin supply more often.
429
Hallucinating is a fine antidote for boredom, especially nice when it comes free-of-charge, no artificial stimulants required. I was sitting on a planter ledge outside the supermarket watching the people walk by and fell into an alternate-reality bubble where I could clearly imagine what a young man looked like naked. There was no way to verify my visions, of course, without walking up to one and saying, "excuse me, I'd just like to know if my x-ray vision is working accurately." There was one exhibit I surely would have liked to verify, but for the most part they were moderately equipped and not outstanding physical specimens, so I guess it wasn't just wishful thinking anyway.Fortunately, it only worked when they were quite near me because the Gypsy Boy and Cat arrived. Not that I'd mind seeing a vision of him naked, but Spot soon turned up. Spare me that vision, please! I had waved to the Gypsy Boy as he arrived but didn't go over to chat with him because I wasn't in the mood to be a listening post for Spot. With that guy it is never a question of conversation, just listen-suppress yawn-listen, repeat.
My x-ray vision, alas, went away when I got up to stroll. I wished later I could call it up at will when the inevitable happened and I crossed paths with the Snorer and his new sidekick. The Snorer, a mainland black fellow probably in his late 30s or early 40s, almost always has a young local lad as a buddy. Whether the buddy relationship includes more than just hanging out together, I don't know, but the Sleeptalker told me sex was optional, not obligatory. The Sleeptalker is too much of a loner and too emotionally volatile to be anyone's buddy for an extended time, so it had never worked out with him and the Snorer, sexually or otherwise.
But the latest sidekick has been around for a couple of months. He and the Snorer stay in the beach park all day and sleep there. I've seen the lad from a distance many times. He's probably still in his teens, classic slim brown body which looks too wonderful clad in just shorts. Too wonderful, even from a distance. So I've avoided going near them, only chat with the Snorer in the shower house or if he walks over to talk to me. But there they were in the mall together as I was stashing my bottle of Mickey's in my backpack. I was glad they just greeted me and continued walking. The lad's smile was enough to melt me into a puddle anyway. Ahhhh, my beautiful wickedness.
It was a very, very slow day. I hadn't expected Tuesday to come close to matching the magic of Monday, so I wasn't disappointed, but even so it was a dull one. The mountains were shrouded in the grey veil of falling rain so it made no sense to return to campus, and the drizzle occasionally drifted down to the mall as well. By sunset I had exactly, to the penny, funds for one brew and the next morning's senior coffee. Since I didn't even have the seven cents tax for a second brew, the daunting goal of NINE quarters loomed and I had no hope whatever of finding them, rested content with the thought that whatever did show up would make Wednesday's game easier. One stroller, after I'd finished my nightcap and was preparing to head on down to the hacienda, started the next game off with a fifty cent advance. What a lousy hunt, and it would have been even worse had the Whore not fallen asleep on a bench shortly after arriving on the scene. He didn't miss much.
Now all I have to figure out is how to turn that x-ray hallucination on-and-off at will. Who cares if it's accurate or not?
430
In the usual hawaii.test banter, it was announced that Wednesday had been "cancelled". My mind seems to have taken it quite seriously because I had difficulty all day remembering it was Wednesday.Despite all the practice, some months are just more difficult than others when it comes to waiting for the Fabled Pension Check and this is a tough one, as always for no real reason. The bronchial congestion (I could hear the wheezing inside my chest once I put earplugs in to sleep) worsened when the sinuses started their act, drip dripping all night. I gave up and borrowed ten dollars to buy some extra-strength sinus tablets and was grateful when I settled down to sleep Wednesday night able to breathe freely for the first time in days. "Alcohol should be avoided while taking this product," said the labeling. I ignored it.
Helen R. had the day off and asked if I'd like to meet in Waikiki and see "Fight Game". Definitely! I wasn't, to tell the truth, all that keen on the film itself after what I'd read about it, but let's face it, watching Brad Pitt for a couple of hours is an activity I place at the top of my list of excellent things to do. There's one all-too-brief shot of him naked, only half of his butt showing. I'd love to have a photo of that. Otherwise, as I've said before, he seems to be very nervous about letting himself look too beautiful in films, and it must have been difficult for him, making "Meet Joe Black". Aside from the pleasure of watching him, even with such a tough guy image, the film was strangely weird. Helen and I agreed on that. And there are few films in my memory with as bizarre a twist at the end.
I was happy to have seen it.
Rocky is back! Just before leaving for Waikiki, I ran into him at the mall with a tall young dude I'd never seen before. They seemed to be intently on some errand, so we just exchanged a few words and Rocky said, in response to my noting it had been a long time without seeing him, "I've been away." Okay. I'll no doubt hear the details whenever he's ready to tell me.
I was happy to have seen him, too.
And to have seen Teddy in Hamilton Library on Thursday. Such a sweetheart. He makes me feel happy just spending a few minutes in his company.
431
Colt is back! Both the Vietnamese shop and Puck's Alley had it again. I had just finished popping the lid on my second one, drank half of it, and stopped into Sinclair to check email.Kory K said he was feeling all "touchy-feelie".
Uh-oh. I knew those code words from earlier in the week when I'd been talking to Kory K about this mysterious drug Ecstasy. I'd even asked him to get me some, if he could, because I don't like talking to young people about some drug I've never tried myself. And there aren't many in that category. Cocaine, I know. Crack cocaine, okay, never tried it. Or Ecstasy.
Well, Kory K is a sweetheart, a Big Island lad with the proverbial heart of gold, and if he wanted me to stop down and visit, I really didn't have any choice.
So I walked downhill from campus, in light drizzle, to Kory K's apartment building. Kory K is the only person I know with the balls to have his name on his bell-ringing-directory, but he, too, like so many, has that stupid system where the doorbell and the damned telephone are on the same line. Luckily, Kory K wasn't on the phone, so he answered the doorbell and I was soon on my way upstairs in his very, very slow elevator.
Kory K was naked, except for some nylon-like black gym shorts I'd seen before. Smeared across his back was the discolored smudge of the fungus attack he'd gotten from the ocean off Hilo [remind me never to go in the water off the Big Island].
"Shall I rub some ointment on that?" I asked Kory K.
He seductively ran his right hand up his thigh and across his crotch and said, "yes, that would be wonderful", handing me a tube of cream.
He went back to his futon in front of the television set, which was showing some scenes of two naked women in a shower, soaping each other up. I squeezed a little of the ointment out of the tube and started to rub it across Kory K's fungus-infected broad back. I noticed how, as I gently rubbed his back, Kory K's butt kept up a slow up-and-down rhythm. "Ah," I thought to myself, "must be that touchie-feelie feeling."
How, I wondered, would I get Kory K to roll over on his back, check it out, would there be a hardened rod shape in the front of those black shorts?
431a
Tale 430: Fantasia on a Theme of Kory K's Fungus was indirectly inspired by Ryan who kindly set up a search machine for the Tales. Kory K complained that the number of references to him was too low, so I thought I'd be nice and boost the count a little. I doubt he'll ever catch up with the Sleeptalker, though, unless he gives up all this nonsense about having girlfriends.I left campus for the beach in the late morning to have a shower, the intention being to return to the laundromat near the lower campus and do laundry. But the thought of sitting in that place while clothes tumbled was just too dull, so I decided to endure dirty clothes and sit in the secluded grove with a brew instead. The carnival has a huge trailer-sized generator with a hum that can be heard over a quarter of the campus but aside from that wasn't too disturbing on the last day before it opens.
Finishing The Echo by Minette Walters, I went back to Dick Francis again, this time his Banker. The Walters book was, I suppose, a "psychological mystery", nicely constructed although with such a complex weave of threads that it was slow getting off the ground while all the background was established. The central character was an old homeless dude found dead in someone's garage. He had called himself Billy Blake and it took me longer than it should have to make the connection to William. Tyger, tyger ...
Books, beer, sunshine. Cute guys, sweet guys. October wasn't a bad month, at all.
432
Where to begin, where to begin? It's always best to begin from the beginning. This Tale, though, begins before the beginning, so to speak.The last thing I wrote was:
Date: Wed, 3 Nov 1999 17:14:16 -1000 (HST)
Had a vision, one of many many many brought on by hideous fever and not nearly as beautiful as most of them. Lying in a hospital bed under oxygen tent, tubes stuck in my arms, probably trying to get some nutrition into me which I haven't done much of in five days. I managed to eat one of the power-bar type things and was much irked when the fever element stayed in deep sweats mode since I'd chosen that particular bar for its 30% DMR Potassium content.
Charming young security guard asked earlier if I was okay. Probably should have told him, no I was dying, and he would have called a ambulance to take me off to an emergency room.
Jesus came to chat. Nice man. Fascinating to hear what he's been doing these two thousand years. That was special. I didn't open my eyes, but I wasn't asleep.
I have no idea what happened in the next three days. On Saturday night, I went to the hacienda. I had earlier in the day received word from Nohoboy that he had finally persuaded an exceptionally wealthy man to accept me as part of his global team. Six bank accounts were being opened in my name with generous letters of credit, one of which included a credit card with a limit of one million dollars. At the hacienda, I am told, I left a full bottle of beer, told the Sleeptalker and Mondo I was going to New York City and took a bus to the airport.
If you have not already noticed, these Tales will be a mixture of what actually happened and what was, for me, too real to be called hallucination, perhaps better understood as alternate realities. I do notmyself know in all cases which is which.
Evidently I collapsed at the airport and was taken first to the St. Francis hospital and then, because they thought I was a psycho case as well as being seriously ill, was transferred to Castle Medical Center. The only thing I recall from the early days there was a doctor saying, "Its beginning to migrate to other areas of the chest." "It" was pneumonia which had already infested the lungs and heart.
A kidney temporarily failed but mercifully regained its function before they began dialysis. The list of ailments includes respiratory failure, which prompted a tracheotomy (I assume), and was topped off by a heart attack. Slices were carved in my chest, as I can see from the scars, and I am told I had tubes running into my chest and mouth. Again mercifully, I remember none of that. They contacted my mother to get permission to pull the plug, since Hawaii law requires the mother's consent. She gave it, bless her. The sweetest thing she has ever done for me.
"We almost lost you twice," said an assisting nurse to me weeks later.
I think I know one of those moments. I was juggling three realities. In one, I was a younger man on a train heading north up the Mississippi valley. In the second, I was also young, on the same train, but heading south. In the third, I was me, but in limbo with no points of reference at all. I had already discovered I could halt one of these "dreams" by saying "stop, exit, quit, End-of-File!" and I stopped both train scenarios, but it didn't work on the third.
They didn't have to pull the plug.
432b
They discovered very early that I have an extraordinarily high resistance to drugs and were pumping morphine and some other heavy-duty painkiller directly into my veins. When I became aware enough to know it was morphine, I begged them to stop. They said there was nothing to worry about and my favorite nurse (despite paranoia which I'll get to) said "Lots of people here would be happy to be getting it. Relax and enjoy." She was absolutely right.I've never had morphine before and my prejudice was based solely on Marianne Faithful and the Stones doing "Sister Morphine". I want a copy of that.
"Would you like a valium?" Magic words! Yes. Still my drug of choice and once it was written on my chart as approved by the doctor, I could ask for it. Didn't die, but went to heaven. I missed that luxury when I left the critical ward.
The view from my window is surely one of the finest on the island. The mountains are lush green, with no human interference at all and the area between the Center and the mountains is also untouched.
A nightly event was the arrival of a sleek white trapezoidal hovercraft which almost floated in from behind the mountain, set down (with brilliant red light streaming from its underside) at various spots. Ramps were lowered at either end and cars were loaded or unloaded before it rose and departed again behind the mountain. I learned it was a secret Japanese spacecraft, making regular trips between Earth and the Moon.
Keep in mind that I was utterly flat on my back, immobile ...
My first assignment for the wealthy benefactor was to work with George Lucas in testing some new vehicles he planned to use in the next Star Wars. Kory K, in his sole appearance in this saga, was driving one of them and I was in the other. They were very small and our mission was to drive them at high speed around a circular tunnel in opposite directions, coming as close as possible to collision but avoiding it at the last minute. On the third pass, I narrowly missed Kory but crashed into three unexpected vehicles which were being driven by three young ladies from the Viet Cong. As an apology for the crash, they completely restored my bottom teeth.
The second assignment, for which I was paid a combined fee with the Lucas task, was to play Bugs Bunny in a Playstation commercial for Sony. It was apparently very successful when shown in Japan and I was told more than 30,000 viewers had called after its first showing to ask when it could be seen again. My reward: $1,076,000 with a first residual check of $100,000.
The other reward was an invitation to join the Emperor of Japan and three children on a trip to the Moon in that beautiful spaceship.
432c
The dark side of morphine ...Death.
I thought both President and Mrs. Clinton had been killed. Although I have no great liking for either of them, I was astounded that television news continued to treat them so irreverantly.
I thought Aunty Genoa Keawe was dead from injuries suffered when two punks attacked her to get her purse. It was shocking that so beloved a person could suffer such a fate.
I thought my Mother was dead. Even though I'd been told a friend had spoken with her, and I imagined I'd had a card from her, I thought she died just before Christmas.
Worst of all, I thought my middle nephew was dead, Jonathan, the one I took around the world and who lived with me in Waikiki. I could not dwell on it or speak of it without tears, thinking I'd never have the chance to see him again.
And there were the worst attacks of paranoia I have ever experienced, going on for weeks. Ironically, my favorite nurse was the main "enemy", but I never let her know it. I believed I had written down the passwords for five of those bank accounts and that she had found the paper in my wallet and was withdrawing money from one of them.
Beside the bed was a device with a little computer-like screen. It was, as I heard repeatedly, merely monitoring my IV input, but I thought I could make contact using it, even with my banks. So I changed all the passwords, secreting a note of them in a pocket. She found that, too. I gave up, grateful she wasn't being too greedy, but still continued to fret over it.
I thought my net account had been hacked before I went into the hospital and then thought the hackers had broken into the hospital system and I saw messages on the little screen like, "Wasn't that oxygen great? Enjoy, it won't last long." More enjoyably, if equally improbably, I thought Michael Wise had hacked the system, too, and was sending me amusing messages.
And one evening, after I had begged again for them to stop the morphine, they made me think it would soon run out, I fell asleep, woke and saw two huge jars, red and black, and was certain one of them was morphine and that two of the nurses were conspiring to kill me with an overdose.
One of my favorite Aunties was working as a volunteer in the hospital and I told her about the attempted murder. "I'm not going to listen to this," she said and walked out.
There were two exotic, African-looking puppets hanging on the walls in the waiting area, one of them just outside my room. But they were alive. The one by me was male and an artist. His face was skeletal with two jaws full of teeth, and his legs were totally flat, covered in gold leaf. He would turn and keep an eye on whatever the nurses were doing to me and often when they left would roll his eyes and clack both jaws at me. The female had a second head growing out of the side of her neck, and would change into elaborate headdresses, one of tinsel and twinkling lights being especially elegant. And most improbably, they had a child who was dressed as a snowman and would sit immobile on the nurses' counter for hours at a time. But it was the male who contributed most to my paranoia about the nurses' activities and their evil intentions.
It was ironic that I was not caring at all if I died, yet at the same time was worrying about being murdered in my sleep.
432d
Although the imagined deaths, the moments of paranoia and fear were grim, much more than I've managed to convey in this Tale, most of the morphine adventure was just that, an adventure and an enjoyable, challenging and exciting one. There was none more so than the fourth and final assignment for the wealthy benefactor.He sponsored a number of hospitals, including Castle, and he wanted me to visit some of them and report on conditions there. This took me (finally) to New York City as the jumping off point. As with all the travels, there was no sense of actually making a journey. I just arrived there. I had taken the subway into the city and was trying to find my way to the surface to get a taxi. That favorite Auntie who had been a worker at Castle appeared again, this time as a bag lady, or more accurately, a shopping cart lady. Her cart was stacked high with sheets and blankets and I met her outside a Warner Bros. store which was closed for renovation. There were, though, two young female workers in the store and Auntie kept going in to ask them for things. I was expecting them to get really annoyed with us both, but she seemed to charm them into cups of coffee and even borrowed a cellular phone and wanted me to talk to someone. I refused. After awhile I said I had to be on my way and she loaded me down with blankets which I had to carry until safely out of sight so she wouldn't see me discard them.
On the way to Africa, we touched down at Lindisfarne. It was a tiny airport with just one large shed as a terminal/hanger. The place was a classic cargo cult site, filled with Hawaiian artifacts from floor to ceiling. I gave them all the Hawaiian music I had with me which had them in near ecstasy.
There were two visits to a hospital somewhere in Africa. A meeting of tribal chiefs was going on and I was much surprised to see the puppet-man-artist from Castle. He was one of the chiefs and appeared to be quite a controversial figure, although I understood very little of what was going on. I also saw no sign whatever of a hospital. For the first time, two nurses from Castle showed up, trying to persuade me to return. They plagued me throughout the rest of these adventures, always following me.
I told them it was time for a little fun, and that I was taking a few days off and planned to stay at the Playboy Hotel (?) in Waikiki, not return to Castle. They followed, so I took a large suite for all of us. After some fierce arguments, I "fired" both of them and had a little respite. But only a brief one. A delightful young man, undoubtedly inspired by the Sleeptalker, climbed up on my lanai (balcony) one evening and the stay in Waikiki consequently became one of the most delightful episodes of the adventure.
Back to work and off to inspect a hospital in New Mexico. This was such a complex adventure it is difficult to remember everything in correct sequence. Much of my time was spent in the basement of a Pizza Hut which was somehow connected to the hospital and was the ward for long-term-care patients which included the prototype of CP3O, whom we called The First CP. He was, of course, alive, but had none of the outer shell which the final Star Wars figure had. He was also something of a sex maniac and had his eye on me but I was saved. Someone had given me a dazzling Star Wars bicycle and The First CP fell in love with it. I gave it to him and woke the next morning to find a touching farewell note with profuse thanks for my gift.
Another part of that adventure involved a nearby church, an old Spanish mission, which had many valuable artifacts. The priest was very concerned about theft since there were known gangs of young people in the area, apt to steal from anyone or any place. I suggested that the missions in the area should combine resources and establish a museum where all the valuable items could be under better security. During our discussion, word came that a young lady had been killed and her grandmother's jewelry stolen. A benefit was to be organized for the family and I promised to try and get Willie K to come and play for it.
Willie did appear but not until my next stop, an underground hospital in South Carolina, where both he and Makana showed up to do a gig in the aircraft hanger. Florida Mark made his sole appearance there, too, playing the organ. Because everyone was so concerned about the possible disasters which might accompany the arrival of the year 2000, I went to the main center of the hospital, opened the door and asked the group there what they planned to do if the End was coming. By way of answer, they went back to doing what they had been doing.
Of all the adventures, that moment remains at the top of the list for me. Yes, the answer is to go on doing what you were doing, and to hope that's truly the proper path for your life at that time.
433
"Time to get up!" Ooops. I haven't heard that in a very long time. The internal clock just isn't set to wake up, especially when it's still more than an hour before the first hint of dawn. I'll have to work on that.So, after almost three months of mattresses, sheets, blankets, pillows, how does a bench at the hacienda feel? Narrow and hard. Emphasis on hard. I need a lot more padding on these bones. I expected to add "cold" to that list, but it wasn't cold at all. Mother Nature is being extremely sweet about my return to life-as-we-knew-it. Clear, sunny skies, almost no wind at all during the day, remaining clear and windless at night making for an unusually comfy, if too short, sleep time.
There were only four of us there and I've never seen the other three before. No sign of the boys, either there or at the mall earlier. The Whore was busy making his rounds and I waved a greeting to the Duchess but the usual gang was also absent from the mall, maybe because it was Sunday. I had a couple of beers at the Cove Bar, watching most of the first half of the Superbowl game, but otherwise just sat around watching people walk by before going downtown and then to the hacienda as soon as it was dark. An uneventful first day back, but that was fine with me.
Those bus steps surely are steep, and the backpack, although lighter than it has ever been, seems very heavy. Lots of adjustments to make, none more delightful than forcing myself not to stare as the parade of sweet young men passes by at UH Manoa and especially when one of them sits down at the terminal across from me. How is a person supposed to write under such conditions?
434
There it was. That unmistakable Waianae strut, a few feet ahead of me on the walk leading up to the hacienda on Monday night. Yep, the Sleeptalker.Everyone else has first asked "where have you been?!".
Not him. "Are you still going to UH?" "Are you still playing Seventh Circle?" And in parting, "Okay, Albert."
I remember every word. So it wasn't quite the reunion I would have preferred. He was with two young men I hadn't seen before and at the hacienda three more Social Horrors were waiting, including both of the Rossini's. I had been at the mall until it got dark enough to head for the bench because I was very, very tired, just wanted to stretch out, no matter how hard it was. With that mob, I thought we'd be in for a most unquiet evening, but they decided to go off somewhere and by the time the Sleeptalker and one of the young men returned I was sound asleep and wasn't awakened by their arrival. I did wake up in time to watch the Sleeptalker get up. He looks so sweet first thing in the morning.
Totally unexplainable. As I said to a friend, must be something from a previous life. I can't think of any other explanation for why I am so smitten (and we are talking about a year and a half now) with a 24 year old local boy with whom I have almost nothing in common. But I do know he will need me again sometime, so I wait patiently. Those are the moments that matter, as I pondered while I waited to fall asleep on that hard bench.
And despite my pleasure in watching not just him but all the other sweet young things in town, I have to admit that my sexual desire is nil, and has been since entering the hospital. I was told that hope was stirred one afternoon when a very cute young fellow came into the room and I watched him with my eyes. Oh, he was a sweetie, that got through the morphine haze. But sex? No, that drive seems to be on major idle, and I have absolutely no complaints about it.
About that time in the hospital, there's a far more realistic, if altogether too flattering, account in Ryan's journal at "first time I saw him". I only vaguely recall that visit, although I remember I was worried later that I might have offended him.
There was a complaint from a reader about how short the previous tale was. Hey, if nothing happened, what I am supposed to do? Make up an exciting life? That might be a better idea, make the New York Times Best Seller list.
Truth is, I fell into quite a pit on Monday afternoon. I went to Manoa Garden, drank a Budweiser, and then sat in the secluded grove and felt bewildered. I was all alone, nothing to do, no one expected home at such-and-such a time, a blank. It stayed that way all afternoon until, as I said, I was just waiting until it was dark enough to head to the bench.
Tuesday morning I had to go to an interview about getting food stamps, which I seem to have passed with flying colors, as they say. I was given the "credit card" but have to wait until a letter of formal authorization arrives before I can use it. I wondered when I arrived if I was the only person who went to apply for food stamps using a taxi (I had no idea where the place was), but when I left there were two taxis discharging passengers who certainly looked like they were there for the same reason. Life is strange in this best of all possible countries.
Then I returned to campus, sat in the grove for awhile, went again to the Garden and drank a Budweiser and went downtown where I ended up at Gordon Biersch drinking their excellent Marzen brew and enjoying the panorama of Honolulu Harbor and the multitude of memories associated with that particular spot.
So my life was saved for some reason. Like enjoying a brew and memories.
435
Still no sign of Rocky, but the Social Horror Club was in full swing on Tuesday night (or more accurately, early Wednesday morning). I got to the hacienda about an hour after sunset, had the place to myself for awhile before the Bicycle Man arrived and quietly settled down. Two older men who seem to be new regulars then came in, chatted for awhile and were joined by a woman who said a few things before they all quieted down.But probably a bit after midnight the Social Horrors arrived. Four of them. One, a rather cute young fellow, immediately took the bench in front of me. He was wearing thick white corduroy trousers and a tee shirt, leading me to suspect he's more of a "tourist" than a new regular member of the Club. The Sleeptalker gave me a poke and said "Albert, my man" as he headed for another bench. Two others stayed on an outside bench and were having a heated discussion which got louder as the "focking this" and "focking that" became more frequent.
The woman said she had to work in the morning and asked them to be quiet. The volume dropped for a bit, then increased again. She repeated her protest. Same result. Finally she yelled, "shut up!" Gasoline on a fire to the Sleeptalker who jumped up and started shouting at her, even though she hadn't been talking to him. He was obviously zonked, probably on something more potent than alcohol. He lay back down again but soon afterwards must have been set off by something in the continuing conversation outside, jumped up again, went and found what looked like a steel rod and began waving it around saying he was going to "keel" Rossini. "That's the bottom line. I'm going to keel him." What a weird love-hate relationship those two have.
It's the worst tantrum I've seen him throw and I knew better than to get involved. Japanese children are real champs when it comes to throwing tantrums and almost all of the parents just stand and wait for the steam to run out, the only solution with the Sleeptalker, too. He finally did shut up and disappeared, probably to the place he often sleeps in somewhere behind the hacienda. Looked at my watch, it was just after three o'clock.
Happy though I am to see him, I wouldn't mind if he found somewhere else to sleep when with the Horrors but that's not likely as long as the weather remains as mild as it has been this week.
Despite the frequently interrupted sleep, the internal alarm clock is valiantly trying to adjust itself and woke me up at five o'clock. Too early, I muttered, make it half an hour later. The Bicycle Man is helping. He's very quiet but makes just enough noise getting up at five-thirty to wake me, too, especially when I'm just dozing for that extra half hour. The lad in the corduroy trousers was awakened by one of the Horrors who had moved in from outside; the other Horror had evidently left and there was no sign of the Sleeptalker. Ah, the sweet life at the hacienda ...
I saw the Cherub who said he had gone several times to the cloisters looking for me but there had been no one there at all, and he wondered if they'd finally started chasing people away. It might be because of the continuing construction work there, but considering how crowded it was getting I couldn't much blame them for putting an end to it. A pity, if so. Every alternative is welcome.
And I had the longest conversation I've ever had with the Ferret who was very interested in the hospital experience and vowed to get a pneumonia shot this fall. Not a bad idea.
436
The poor Sleeptalker. All alone, already asleep on the bench when I got to the hacienda, still asleep when I woke up. He hates being alone and I felt sorry for him even though I know he asked for it, as always. Nothing to be done about it, but it did make for a wonderfully quiet night since everyone else there is just interested in a place to sleep.I saw Jon Yamasato, ex Pure Heart, at Sinclair Library in the afternoon, told him how sad I was to hear of the group's break-up and how I hoped he wouldn't give up on the music business. He has such a casual, laidback style of singing, the potential of being the Perry Como of the local scene (and I mean that as a compliment). He said he would be doing an occasional solo gig, so I'll keep an eye out.
Ryan admitted in his journal that he hadn't known who Pure Heart was! Yikes. When I was a teenager watching my parents and other older folks showing such disdain for the music I most liked, I wondered if I'd be the same way when I got old. Apparently not. Although some new genres like rap and hip-hop escape me, I discovered during more watching of VH-1 than usual that I'm still captured by a lot of the younger musicians. The Back Street Boys are charming and I especially like their new track about being lonely; Savage Garden's "I Knew I Loved You Before I Met You" sticks in my mind (as does the image of the singer's beautiful blue eyes); and the Foo Fighters current video is a delight.
VH-1 also did a lengthy survey of the "top 100 greatest hits" of rock. What an exercise in nostalgia. Despite a few weird choices (like Patsy Cline's "Crazy" [rock???]), I couldn't disagree with most of them even though I didn't and still don't like some of the batch. I can live happily without ever hearing a Bee Gees record again but, okay, they did deserve to be included. No disagreement with the number one choice of the Stones' "Satisfaction" although my favorite track by them remains "Brown Sugar" which placed in the mid twenties. It was an amusing trip through my life, all those songs (from Elvis and Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly onwards) and the memories associated with them.
As soon as I was conscious in the hospital I would demand that they turned the television off. They seemed to think everyone would want the infernal box on all the time and were evidently puzzled by my preferring to just lay there and think (not to mention enjoy my morphine dreams). But while I was staying with friends on the North Shore I sampled more television than usual, enjoyed A&E's "Biography" series especially. It was very annoying, though, when they inserted the tale of a serial killer in the midst of movie stars and shipping magnates. Do we really need to glorify such human aberrations?
The worst thing about that wretched invention remains the overwhelming avalanche of commercials, made even more irksome now by the constant "dotcom" references. As I said to Ryan, oh for the days when no one had ever heard of "dotcom" and we snuck onto the legendary Internet via back doors at UH.
Meanwhile, the adjustments continue. The internal alarm is still stuck on 5 a.m. but I'll eventually get it to idle for an additional half hour. Perhaps the biggest hassle, getting used to my upper plastic teeth, is getting steadily better. The gums shrank so much while in the hospital that the damned things won't stay in without assistance. I first tried some adhesive pads but they have an annoying minty taste and, even worse, turn to mush upon contact with alcohol. Afraid I'm definitely the wrong "market segment" for those things. Fixodent works much better. In the commercial for the stuff, the man spreads a thin ribbon all around the dentures. Not! Sheez, try getting the things out again with that much gook. Three little dabs in the front work just fine and the feeling of being constantly on the verge of nausea is finally going away. I still wait until lunchtime to put the things in, though.
And I still end up spending a lot of time just sitting and wondering what to do. Volume Eight of the Robert Jordan saga is in the shops, so I guess I'll part with $7.99 and resume my habit of reading (which I haven't done since leaving the hospital).
And I guess I'll eventually return to the point where I could sit and do nothing without wondering what to do.
437
"You're the most interesting man I've ever talked to." Poor fellow. Seventy-five years old and I get the top billing?I was sitting on a planter ledge at the mall waiting until it was sensibly late enough to embark on my planned afternoon and evening in Waikiki when the man sat down beside me and asked, "have you seen my wife?" Odd beginning. I said, "she could be anywhere in this place." He and his wife were visiting from the mainland and after a bit of chat about the islands he asked if I'd answer questions for a survey he was doing. Oh well, I'm a natural when it comes to skewing surveys, so why not.
Did I belong to an organized religion? No, but I added the usual disclaimer that I had been baptized as a Roman Catholic so as not to appear a total heathen (or candidate for submersion). Who did I think Jesus Christ was? A great teacher. Did I think he would come again? Yes, but not like it says in the New Testament, clouds of glory and all that. He may even have come again already, I added, deciding not to tell him Jesus had told me himself that he had returned many times and that the clouds of glory scenario was hype he had never claimed.
Had I read the Bible? Yes, several times. All the way through?! It's remarkable how so many of these evangelical types seem amazed that someone would read the Bible all the way through. How could any thinking man not read a book which has had such massive influence on civilization? And if reading it when quite young, not go back in later years for a second look in case something was missed? Where else to find out what to do if my goat falls in a neighbor's well? (No, I didn't say any of that).
Did I think there was a revival of interest in God and religion? No, I don't see any suggestion such a thing is happening. He said Christians were "closer to God" than other people and I disagreed, said Hindus probably get that award since religion is so interwoven with their everyday lives.
What if I died and got to the gates of heaven and they wouldn't let me in? I told him about Heine's dying words. "God will forgive me. It's his job." I haven't done anything all that bad in this life and if the Christian model is correct, then not believing in it isn't my fault. Grace just hasn't found me. I didn't confuse the man further by telling him I've always thought the Christian notion of "heaven" to be rather boring anyway, but did say I thought it utterly unreasonable that a man was given only one chance and then was condemned to eternal punishment if he failed. I do try to tread lightly with Believers. After all, as I see it, anyone who believes in any god or gods is in better shape than I am.
After that rather entertaining interlude I set off for Waikiki and Duke's, continuing my promised-to-myself tour of all my favorite watering holes. And none is more favorite than Duke's. I have to admit, though, that nice as it is to be known and loudly greeted, sometimes I wish I could slip into such places anonymously, a sentiment echoed later at the Regent's Lobby Bar.
Whoever is in charge of "human resources" at Duke's certainly knows their job. There's a new bartender trainee who is the cat's meow. He's still working at the little side bar and I couldn't get up from the main bar and move over there without insulting one of my favorite bartenders, so I gazed adoringly from a distance, hoping the new recruit soon moves to the main bar. That would require a whole re-think of pension check allocations.
I stayed too long but resisted the temptation to order an eight-dollar cheeseburger and more sensibly went to have a Jumbo Jack before continuing on to the Regent. Genoa is not only still alive, she was in top form and one of her hugs makes not being anonymous worth it.
But was the Waikiki expedition really worth forty dollars?
438
The Year of the Dragon, my fifth one despite thinking twelve years ago it would probably be the last dragon I'd see.I celebrated on the Eve by lingering on campus to see a band whose name I've already forgotten playing at Manoa Garden. They have an unusual line-up for a local band with three horns in addition to the guitars, drums and keyboard. The gig began with two instrumental numbers while a young lady, who was instantly under suspicion for wearing a cat-ears headband, did what I assume she considered "interpretative dancing". I thought of leaving. But she was better at singing than dancing so when she joined in on the third number I settled back and enjoyed the rest of the first set.
"You say what?!" asked the Sleeptalker in his best nocturnal voice, rousing me from my post-5am doze. He was missing for two nights but arrived at the hacienda after I'd fallen asleep on New Year's night. Talking in his sleep is certainly one of the most charming things about him, and it was a pleasure to hear it again. I had noticed someone sleeping on the bench at my head earlier but hadn't realized it was him. That bench has usually been taken by another young man who is very quiet when awake but seems to suffer heavy nightmares and often groans or moans in his sleep, so I thought it was probably him despite the different trousers. But it was The Man, and he sat up when I was packing to leave. I waved at him, he grinned, and lay back down, rocking himself back to sleep
The day had been a quiet one. I made a trip downtown to pick up mail, which included the food stamp authorization letter, stopped by the State Library to get a book and chose a three-novels-in-one-volume epic by James Hogan, a British sci-fi writer I've never read before. Back then to campus, stopping by the supermarket to use the food stamp card for the first time. They don't sell milk in any size smaller than a quart and after downing one of those, there isn't much desire to add a beer. I guess that's not a Bad Thing.
So I sat in the grove with a huge turkey+cheese sandwich, a small container of cottage cheese and the quart of milk and stuffed myself while reading the first of the three novels. The birds are very happy I got food stamps, too. And the Dragon arrived with an alcohol-free day.
The book was well-written and postulated an interesting alternative history with man originating on a planet which orbited where the asteroid belt is now. Earth's moon was originally a satellite of that planet and when the advanced civilization there had a horrendous war and blew the planet up, the moon was sent hurtling toward the sun and was captured by Earth's gravity. The few survivors managed to repair a ship and make it to earth. The missing link. Nice idea.
And the price of the book ($0) was a much more sensible idea than plunking down eight pictures of George for the Jordan volume. Three of the Fabled Pension Checks accumulated while I was in hospital and I broke into the third one on Friday, muttering to myself "this can't go on". Oh well, when I have it I spend it and when I don't have it I manage to keep going.
It's a pity you can't use that food stamps card at McD's, though.
439
Quiet days, quiet nights. The fine weather continues, making afternoons in the secluded grove a pleasure and likewise nights on the bench without shivering. Anyone who chose early February for a Hawaii vacation definitely timed it right this year.The Horror Club quarrel seems to be a more serious one than usual and the Sleeptalker has remained on his own, arriving quietly at the hacienda after I've fallen asleep. Tuesday morning I woke to see him doing his jiggling, rocking motion. He must have surfaced early and was busy putting himself back to sleep. It's a little strange to be sleeping so near him every night but having no contact, and I'd welcome the chance to sit down with him over a beer and find out what he has been up to and what he's doing. I have to keep reminding myself: leave him alone unless he doesn't want to be left alone.
And reminding myself what a pleasure it is to be spending the nights a few feet away from him.
I finished the second Hogan book on Sunday and the third on Monday so another trip to the State Library's "honor books" collection is on the calendar. This book fell apart as I was reading it, so no need to worry about being "honorable" by returning it. Hogan certainly has a fertile imagination. One of the ideas he put forth was that religion and mysticism were deliberately introduced on Earth to keep man in a state of retarded scientific growth since the species was known to be so aggressive. The advanced civilization which achieved that even had a plan in place to surround the solar system with artificially-generated black holes which would prevent man from spreading his neurotic ways beyond the immediate neighborhood. Interesting stuff.
Back in the days when I was still working downtown I'd usually notice an elegant, white-haired lady get on the bus each morning. She must be in her late sixties or early seventies and doesn't seem to have changed at all in the years I've been seeing her. Now she is evidently working in the McCully area and once again shares the same bus in the mornings. She doesn't have a large wardrobe but everything she wears is absolutely first class. A lady with most excellent taste. I'm happy to be seeing her again. Being in the vicinity of the Sleeptalker may satisfy one of my inner needs, but sharing space with a woman who has aged so gracefully definitely satisfies another need, a boost of faith in mankind, so to speak.
440
Sitting in the secluded grove with some roast beef, potato salad and a bottle of Colt, I was feeling a bit irked by one of the books I'd chosen earlier at the State Library. Ann Rule appears to have picked Capote as a role model, writing thinly-fictionalized accounts of actual crimes, but I fear she has absolutely none of Truman's style and Dead by Sunset reads like a police blotter or a hastily written summary for a possible film script. Oh well, it kills the time.Nice expression, that, as I pondered when in the hospital bed. Killing time. How many of us are criminals under that classification?
So whenever finding myself in the position of killing time, I usually fall instead into pondering this and that, which inevitably gets around to the Sleeptalker. And I considered the fact that the young man has absolutely no clue about how I see our friendship. Oh he knows I lust for his body (or have in the past, anyway) and he probably sees that as the basic foundation. From my own experience, that perception would make the entire thing very suspect, and he probably sees it that way, too, although I think he spends very little time in introspection. I could, of course, be utterly wrong about that. I don't really know him, I just want to. And I, spending altogether too much time introspectively, understand completely how bizarre it is that hardly an hour goes by without me thinking about him.
When I walked into the State Library, I remembered what fun it was that day long ago when I went down there just to get him and take him back to campus.
Now the State Library has gotten very miserly with their allowed internet access time and one is only supposed to use a terminal for fifteen minutes. Utter absurdity. They should welcome young people stopping in and using the terminals. It surely is better than having them out on the streets smoking crack or whatever. My generation is so stupid, especially those who managed to live through the Sixties without being touched by what was happening in that decade, and that seems to include most librarians.
440a
That wish slip certainly got a quick reply.The Sleeptalker showed up much earlier than usual at the hacienda, so we chatted for awhile. As usual, his narrative was very disjointed and he would return to a subject later with a one-liner which revealed more of a story.
Reading between the lines, it would appear that whatever he was doing in Waianae was too successful and brought in money faster than he could adjust to it. I can easily sympathize with his position. He went off on a jaunt to Vegas with Rossini which, I would guess, ended both his job and exhausted his money supply but not before he had rented a storage locker and bought a cellular phone which now, of course, he can't afford to keep activated.
So it's back to wanting a job because he needs money. "Why?" I asked. He needs to do laundry, he needs shoes. "What did you do with the shoes you've been wearing?" They were quite handsome shoes, I thought, low-cut Nikes. He threw them away because he wanted to wear slippers and there wasn't enough room in his bag for the shoes. But any job he'd be likely to get would need shoes. Sigh.
He was eager to talk about his recent early morning tantrum. It appears I was indirectly to blame for the first outburst that morning. Until I told him, he had no idea he talks in his sleep. So when that woman shouted "shut up!" to the two fellows on the outside benches, he woke up, assumed he had been talking in his sleep and that the demand was addressed to him. He was surprised to learn that wasn't the case at all.
He said he had been doing a "bad drug" with Rossini & Company, then went off on his own. More likely, judging from past experience, they abandoned him when he started to be too outrageous. Then he thought Rossini was after him, trying to kill him, and once he settled back down that morning he dreamed or hallucinated that Rossini had been killed in a auto accident but had returned as a ghost vampire and was still after the Sleeptalker. Shades of morphine madness.
"That's why I'm so thin," he said, pulling up his tee shirt and showing me his delightful belly and chest. Although it's certainly whiter than I've ever seen it, I can't say he looks any thinner than usual, but I didn't say so. Rossini had arrived and was sucking blood from his neck, which is why he went for the rod and was ready to kill.
He had then staggered way off to Walmart and had settled on a bench there for the rest of the night. Another man was sleeping on a nearby bench. The Sleeptalker evidently had a wet dream, woke and thought the man had molested him and jumped up ready to fight, only to see the man still sound asleep. He had felt even sillier about it when they both woke up in the morning and the man bought him breakfast.
I told him he really shouldn't do such junk drugs, that he is bound to end up in serious trouble. He hates being alone so much, but if he hangs out with Rossini he gets offered the drugs and won't refuse even though he knows the end result will be back to solitude. And he had gone to the park to join the Snorer's regular gathering there but some local fellow had somehow offended him, so he didn't want to go back there again, although the Snorer is one of the better sources of job news.
In short, a mess.
Maybe one reason I am so attracted to him is that we both lead such charmed lives. It's miraculous that he has survived on the streets for eight years without getting locked up or worse, given his volatile temperament.
But no doubt about it. When I woke earlier and saw he had taken off his tee shirt and was laying there on his back asleep, another reason for the attraction was quite clear.
He is, indeed, adorable.
441
They did warn me in the hospital that it would be two or three months before I got back to "normal strength". Almost to the point of one elapsed month, I can believe it. Although there has certainly been a lot of progress, there are still plenty of indications "normal strength" hasn't been reached. The chest is still very tender to the touch and subject to internal pains as well, especially if I walk too far without taking a rest break. And too far includes the distance from Hamilton Library on one side of the campus to the bus stop on the other side. At least once I get to the bus, I can manage those entry steps with a little less difficulty than when first returning to town.But I still find myself getting impatient now and then, especially when, as on Tuesday, the weather shifted to muggy greyness and the higher humidity made physical effort even more tiring. Churlish to complain, I reminded myself, after such an unusually long spell of clear, sunny skies. But I complained nonetheless, more at my body than at the weather. Patience has never been one of my strong points and never less so than when the body is concerned, no matter how valid its excuse.
The high humidity and lack of breeze made the air-conditioning at Hamilton Library welcome, most unusual in February. But I did make the trip downhill to the supermarket and sat in the secluded grove enjoying French pate, crackers and olives with a [gulp] quart of milk. "This can't go on," I once again told myself, watching the food stamps balance dwindle, but as I did with the accumulated pension checks, I continue to spoil myself. Premium cigarettes, beer in bars, European lunches. No, it can't go on, but it is fun while it lasts, especially buying food I really savor but haven't been able to afford in the last three years or more.
And I kept on reading that fact-based murder mystery. Unless a book is very, very awful I do have the habit of finishing the thing even while thinking how glad I'll be when it's over. A volume of three long tales by Flannery O'Connor, along with Jane Eyre, and Great Expectations, taunted me from the fifty-cent cart at Hamilton, but I already have a Chaim Potok novel in the backpack, and one I've not read, so I smile at the cart and say I've read you all at least twice.
I stayed on campus until after sunset, chuckling at a new list of guidelines to the use of UH computer equipment which appeared at Sinclair Library. One paragraph says email should only be used for exchange of academic information. Either they don't know, or prefer to ignore, the fact that email has become an integrated part of social life for many of the students. It doesn't take overly keen observational powers to see that on campus, watching the students pounding away on the email terminals. Guidelines written by human ostriches, lost in the 19th century.
Then I went to Brew Moon to spend a couple of hours (and yet again, too much money) listening to Shawn. At least it will be the last time this month when I spend too much money; the pockets are approaching empty. I told Shawn during the break that he'd almost lost me in the first set. I get bored with extended improvisation, no matter how superb technically, and I was reminded of the Five Spot on Manhattan's Lower East Side where, in the early sixties, I would sit pretending to be interested in the respected jazz musicians of the time while I was actually just wishing I could hear a song without all the "noodling". Shawn ended the first set, though, with a solid, rocking "gonna get lost in rock 'n roll and slip away" which thoroughly regained my attention.
And that attention was firmly gripped when an incredibly beautiful young man walked into the bar, the finest example of "tall, dark and handsome" I've ever seen. Enrique Iglesias could move over and yield the "sexiest man in the world" title if the two of them were placed side by side (preferably with me in the middle). This one was with a rather mousie, flat-chested young lady with straggly blonde hair and they joined another couple at a table near enough to my bar seat to afford an excellent view. Yes, incredibly beautiful.
I left just after ten while Shawn was chugging through Paul Simon's "Me and Julio" and headed to the hacienda. The Sleeptalker arrived shortly after I did and asked where I'd been, so I suppose he had been there earlier looking for me. He also asked for a cigarette for the first time, so I guess his pockets must be getting empty, too. Being on his own is clearly wearing him down. I've rarely seen him look so wasted, and when we got up together in the morning he rather plaintively asked where I was going. I said to McD's for coffee. "And then?" "To UH," I said. If that exchange had occurred when I still had pension checks in my pocket, I would have taken him along with me, but as always, he seems to have an instinctive knack for avoiding me when I have money in my pocket and turning to me when I'm broke. This time it is probably just as well since there's really nothing I can do to help him.
442
nothing I can do to help him ...True, but it does weigh heavily and I end up getting depressed on his behalf. As I said to a friend on Thursday, "feel free to say deja vu". Definitely been here before. The Sleeptalker didn't show up at the hacienda on Thursday night, though, so I was spared reinforcement of the weight. So many young men like him living on the street, too. I guess I should be grateful he's the only one who has so captured my attention.
I had made my usual trip downhill to buy food for lunch and sat in the secluded grove with broccoli quiche, potato salad and the quart of milk which seems to have replaced Colt as the mid-day beverage. And I finished that Ann Rule book, wasn't surprised to see in the little biographical sketch at the end that she was once a Seattle policewoman. I did say it read like a police blotter. I won't be picking up any more of her books. By the time I waded through this one, I couldn't have cared less if the main suspect had committed the murder.
Routine repeated on Friday with lunch in the secluded grove. I'd bought a ham on rye sandwich from the supermarket deli and was surprised to discover the birds were totally disinterested in rye bread. Tough luck, then, I wasn't going to open my package of breakfast-intended cookies just to share them with picky feathered critters.
Chaim Potok's The Gift of Asher Lev became the reading material. I read the first Asher Lev book years ago and remember nothing about it except that I'd admired it. I'll no doubt feel the same way about this one although it's probably not a very good choice for the time and mood. I'm already saturated with something akin to melancholy and the book is utterly drenched in it. But maybe an overdose will cure me.
A reader said he thought some people had expected different results from my months in the hospital. Perhaps I did, too. Even though I was eager to return to the life I had been leading, I find myself at the same time a little irked that it has been so easy, on one level, and so difficult on another. Easy to step back into the routine, back to the friendships which are as unchanged as the depressing dilemma over the Sleeptalker. Difficult to regain the ability to do nothing without feeling concerned about it, to shake the idea that I should be doing something. Sez who? No answer.
If that voice is so concerned about it, perhaps it should turn its attention to "what".
443
We say there is no good, there is no bad, there is just experience, and within each experience there is a lesson.A new kid on the block, or on the bench. I'm flattered that these youngsters seem to view me as being "safe" and pick a bench next to mine from all the available options, but it does make me feel a little guilty when the thoughts they inspire are a long way from "safe". Still, as the Sleeptalker knows well, thoughts do no harm.
I thought at first the new angelic-looking lad was a "tourist" but then noticed he had stashed what looked like a fully-packed backpack under the bench, so maybe not. He's far too young to be on the streets and too trusting, as well. He left a tee shirt draped over the back of the bench and the backpack under it and wandered off somewhere. I've never heard of anyone having something stolen at the hacienda, but it's not a chance I'd take.
I wondered, not for the first time, how parents could allow such a young, innocent-looking child to be living on the street but I did get a different perspective on that question from the Sleeptalker. Considering what a brat he can sometimes be now, I imagine he must have been quite a terror at sixteen, no matter how angelic looking. A single mother with younger children in the house can be forgiven, I guess, for kicking the oldest one out of the nest. She was so eager to get him out she even encouraged him to stay with a family friend, a single man who turned out to be gay and was constantly on the make for the Sleeptalker. Even after being told about it, his mother still wanted him to stay there. He was probably better off on the street rather than being afraid to fall asleep.
The new lad was visible through the back slats of the bench without seeing his face so I could watch him unnoticed. He was dressed very neatly in tan corduroy trousers and a black tee shirt, new-looking shoes, and was quite meticulous about how he arranged the trousers as he sat there. When I later got a look at his face, I guessed he must be sixteen or seventeen. A delightful new neighbor.
The Sleeptalker, though, has been absent. He complained of being cold when last there and despite the extremely mild weather, I can well imagine sleeping with bare feet, light cotton trousers and a tee shirt would indeed be uncomfortably cold. So he has probably returned to the shelter.
The one missing member of the Mall Gang finally appeared on Sunday morning at McDonald's ... "Bla". Maybe he has been in the hospital, too, because he was quite transformed. A short haircut, neatly trimmed beard, and better clothes than he usually has make him look ten years younger. It was good to see him.
I had finished the Potok book on Saturday morning. One quoted critic said it was "little short of a masterpiece" but I didn't find it "little short" at all. A fine, thought-provoking novel. Unfortunately the freebie collection at the State Library rarely offers such quality options and making the trip down there to return the book, I picked up Jonathan Kellerman's Survival of the Fittest, a multiple murder mystery hardly in the same class as the Potok but entertaining diversion with lunch in the secluded grove.
I'm not doing all that badly with the foodstamps card. Middle of February and I'm still using up the January allotment, but when it evens out and I'm left with the usual monthly benefit I'll certainly have to go easier on the deli options and the European imports.
After lunch I went to the mall to hear Jon Yamasato at the Mai Tai Bar. They offer four beers only, two "local" brews at five dollars a glass and two "domestics" (Bud Light being one of them) at four dollars. Yikes. Fortunately there are numerous places within good hearing distance where one can sit for free and enjoy the music, the option I picked. But sitting there watching folks guzzle beer made me thirsty for one, so I yielded later and had a bottle of Mickey's. It just made me sleepy and I headed off to the hacienda shortly after sunset.
Four one dollar bills in my pocket. Ah, what a choice. The terribly sensible one of converting them to quarters and doing laundry. The less sensible options of two bottles of malt liquor or a pack of cigarettes. Or, of course, just leaving them in the pocket and continuing to enjoy the debate over what to do with them ...
443a
The new fellow isn't as young as I first thought. He has such an innocent, boyish face that it was misleading, but after a better look at him, I'd guess late teens or early twenties. So his parents are off the hook.When I got to the hacienda on Sunday evening, there was his backpack stashed under the bench, a black tee shirt and black shorts draped over the back of the bench. As usual after an alcohol-free day, I had a hard time getting to sleep and he still hadn't arrived when I did finally drift off.
I was thinking about what to call him, but couldn't come up with an appropriate name. Sitting at the bus stop next morning waiting for the bus to the mall, I decided on "Angelo".
Shortly before one in the morning, Angelo showed up. With the Sleeptalker.
I guess that's one solution. If all your regular buddies abandon you, latch onto a newcomer. The Sleeptalker was, alas, obviously zonked again and was listening to a walkman radio which I assume was Angelo's. And he was singing along to the music. Among his many charms, a fine singing voice is absent and I doubt it would have been appreciated at that hour even if he could sing. Angelo settled down quietly, though, and after ten minutes or so the Sleeptalker also gave it up and lay down on the bench in front of me.
I know the syndrome too well, having to make sure the whole world knows you are stoned and oh so happy. Poor fellow. I've seen plenty of people who wrecked themselves and their lives with drug abuse but I've been spared having someone I really care about take that path. My luck may have run out.
But it certainly was an appropriate beginning to Valentine's Day 2000, sandwiched in between two such sweet-looking young men.
444
Four-four-four.I spent Valentine's afternoon in the grove with a bottle of Colt (yep, there went two of those four dollar bills) and The Copper Beech by Maeve Binchy, a nicely done weaving together of tales from a small Irish village. Then I headed down to Starbucks near Border's for a Pure Heart gig.
I'd almost forgotten how much fun it is to watch those guys, especially Lopaka Colon who seems to put forth more energy in an hour than I could in a month. The new configuration, with Guy Cruz on guitar and vocals, didn't at all disappoint and I especially liked their stylish cover of "Starry Starry Night". They easily retain top spot on my list of favorite local groups.
When I got to the hacienda, the Two Old Regulars and The Woman had all settled down, always welcome since she inevitably wakes me up if I've fallen asleep before her arrival. She doesn't chat for long but does it very loudly. No sign of Angelo or the Sleeptalker, but a young (I think Vietnamese) lad with a bicycle arrived and took the bench behind me, so when Angelo did arrive later he took the one at my head. No Sleeptalker. It's funny how the place has divided: the older folks, except me, on one side, with me and the youngsters on the other.
I could have slept a lot longer but dragged myself off the bench when the internal alarm woke me up at 5:25. Finally getting that thing adjusted!
It's back to snipe hunting and I hadn't spent much time on it the day before so had to start my day with a walk through the mall before heading to McD's for coffee. A lucky walk, found enough smokes to get me through the morning.
When I went in the hospital, I had a plastic bag laden with the stash from recent mall hunts, a heavy little packet of coins which is now beginning to feel very lightweight. No matter, I bought some instant "coffee bags" so when the McD's financing runs out, I can just head straight to campus and make my own. Can't say I prefer it that way, but I did ask for it. And I'm not up to pushing back shopping carts yet, either (although I haven't spotted any carts or strollers at all when walking through the place lately).
Helen R had the day off and suggested we see a film. So after a morning on campus spent mostly on-line, I went to meet her in Waikiki to see Leonardo in "The Beach". Something about that lad keeps him just off kilter from being "my type" but he was fun to watch running around bare-chested in what was really a rather silly movie.
Afterwards I hung around smoking outside the "Las Vegas Fashions" shop while Helen shopped for boots, and it was fun, too, watching the tourists running around the streets of Waikiki, some of them bare-chested as well. Then we had a late lunch/early dinner at a new Mexican restaurant which served up quite tastey cheese enchiladas.
Another week. And not off to a bad start.
444a
As I was still unpacking for the night, the maybe-Vietnamese Bicycle Lad arrived and, as usual, very quietly settled down, again on the bench behind me. There's a calm, peaceful feeling about him, a welcome new neighbor. Some time after I'd fallen asleep, voices from outside woke me. Angelo and the Sleeptalker. Angelo was holding it down but the Sleeptalker never thinks about other people's comfort so his voice came through loud and clear. Angelo moved inside and took the bench at my head.The Sleeptalker lay down on the bench in front of me. He was wearing the shoes he had supposedly "thrown away". Thinking about that, and remembering how he had raised his tee shirt to show me how thin he'd become because of Rossini sucking his blood, I realized he's existing somewhere between the boundaries of drug-induced fantasy and reality. He's always had a tendency in that direction, mixing up the Seventh Circle game with "real" life and I guess the drugs are taking him even further. He didn't stay long, soon got up and wandered off, not returning. Angelo must be too tame a buddy.
Before departing campus I got nabbed for another survey. This time it was a young Japanese woman, a Business Admin student, who was asking questions about coffee consumption. The only answer I gave which seemed to greatly surprise her was when she asked if I ever considered whether I should support local business by drinking, for example, Lion coffee rather than Starbucks. I said no. "Never?!" she asked. Nope. "Buying local" is an idea which doesn't get much support from me. If they can fly stuff in and sell it cheaper than locally-produced equivalents, then something is wrong with local pricing. (I pay a premium price for "Maui Cookies", not because they're local but because they're good cookies and they come in packaging small enough to easily carry around.) Besides, Lion doesn't make instant "coffee bags" and if they did, the price would no doubt be higher than "imported" Maxwell House bags ... and to my taste, Lion coffee isn't special enough to justify spending more for it.
We say there is no good, there is no bad, there is just experience, and within each experience there is a lesson.
That came from the "Merging With Siva" series I get as emails from a Hindu ashram on Kauai. When the cycle finishes, they start again from the beginning and this must be my fourth time through it, but that hadn't caught my attention before. And I've been thinking about it since I did notice. I can't agree with it. It seems to me that there is indeed "good" and there is "evil", no matter how much definitions of the two may differ. While the sentiment in this case may be noble, it's not that far away from Beyond Good and Evil and there lies the path to uncertain ground.
445
... wish that I could see you once again across the room ...If VH-1 did a top one hundred ballads survey, I'd definitely put Graham Nash's "Simple Man" at the top of my list. Every now and then the mind starts to play it and a reel of memories projects back to all the people the song fits. Not sure I'm such a "simple" man, but I am a lucky one.
The current love continues to be a dilemma, though. Alas, that walkman radio is apparently his, so there's nothing to do but hope the batteries soon run out of juice. He appeared at the hacienda and settled on an outside bench, "singing" along with the radio. I dug out earplugs. Imagine this, I said, deliberately blocking out the Sleeptalker. And I grumbled to myself about what a pest he is being while at the same time feeling sorry for the lad, all alone with nothing to do but sing along with the radio. Eventually he moved inside and took the bench at my head, mercifully putting the radio away in the small backpack he (unusually) had with him. Angelo arrived later and took the bench behind me, empty since the Bicycle Boy hadn't shown up. Nor had one of the Old Regulars or The Woman. I wondered where else they found to sleep since I wouldn't mind having an alternative, too.
I'm definitely not back to "normal" form. A shopping cart, complete with its quarter, was waiting at the mall, but all the way on the far side of the place. I was about to get on a bus to the hacienda, stopped and debated for a moment and said, "nope, I just can't wheel that thing way back to the supermarket." Bad news. I must shape up.
Maybe on the coming Monday when it will be an offline day, thanks to George and Abe, I can summon up enthusiasm to play the mall game again.
I finished the Binchy book with lunch on Wednesday, would very much like to read more of her work. The Irish village which was the setting of this one was so small she could tell the story of almost every inhabitant from their point of view and the weaving together of the tales told the larger story of the community through four or five decades. A gentle, charming novel.
Ireland is one place I really should have visited.
Susan Elizabeth Phillips' Hot Shot is in the backpack, but since the State Library will close for three days, in honor of George and Abe, I suppose I should plan another trip down there to further stock up.
The winter stuff in the backpack has got to go. It's just too warm.
I'm not complaining.
446
Enough is enough. Monday afternoon to Thursday evening. Yes, it was time for some beer. So I bought one with those two remaining dollar bills and sat in the secluded grove enjoying both the beer and my reading. Hot Shot is more than I bargained for. I just wanted some cheap fiction. Cheap music may be potent, as Noel Coward said, but so is cheap fiction, at least when it comes to escaping the minute-to-minute problem of existing. Hot Shot isn't as cheap as I'd expected. But then, it's not Potok either.I got an email from a complete stranger on Thursday, a reader of the Tales who doesn't feel like a stranger, knowing me too well from reading the things. I wonder. Do they really tale who I am?
I prattle on about the details of life as an aging man living on the streets of Honolulu (a far more exotic locale than I could have hoped to end my life in), I tell who slept on the bench behind me, who on the bench in front. I speak of this and that, of meeting Ryan at lunchtime today as we waited for different buses, of meeting Teddy at Hamilton Library earlier in the week (although I haven't yet told of either).
But I'm not sure I am really telling the story of this so-called life at all.
I was ridiculously delighted on Thursday when I looked in at Seventh Circle and found the Sleeptalker there. He greeted me. Our lives in that computer game are so much closer than they are in "reality", although that hasn't always been the case. There were moments when we were very close, physically and, I'd like to think, spiritually.
And then I kicked myself and said don't be silly. It didn't mean anything. But it did, and still does.
My son, the Sleeptalker. I worry about him, I want better things for him, I treasure every moment of closeness, and I rail at myself for my own times of impatience and lack of understanding.
What more can an old man hope for than a treasured friendship with a young man on the threshold of a life?
And I smile as I think of all those millions I had in my time of morphine madness, how I might have used them to help him. And I know it wouldn't have helped at all, that it is far better those millions vanished into the non-existence they always had.
And I go on thinking about nonsense like "good" and "evil" and why those moments of final exit weren't really it. Why not?
It doesn't make sense.
447
Holiday weekend. Full Moon weekend.In his general message, Jonathan Cainer asked: Does the Moon still have an influence on us, even in this modern age? Of course. Just ask anyone who works in the fishing industry - or for the emergency services - or with the Samaritans. Ask a publican, an obstetrician or a speed cop.
He could have added a street person or an observer of street people. We exist on such a thin ledge between "sanity" and madness, it doesn't take much to nudge us over.
And he cautioned: Weekends are times when more people go out 'on the prowl'. With a Full Moon to encourage them, they become even more prone to outbursts of passion - of one kind or another.
Tell me about it.
Take it easy tonight and tomorrow. Avoid bats, broomsticks, graveyards... and most importantly of all, lapses of judgement!
Uh-huh, and any places where street people hang out.
The weather looked threatening on Friday afternoon. As it turned out, only a few dribbles fell from the sky, but I left campus in the late afternoon and went to the mall. I only needed a quarter for Saturday morning's senior coffee so thought I'd look for a cart to return and, if I got lucky, four more. My cigarette lighter is running on empty and it would be useful to replace it. I got the coffee quarter but that was it. There's a fierce new competitor who stands outside the supermarket. Stands. Ready to pounce. I only got the one quarter because he was busy retrieving another cart when one was abandoned very near me.
One of the stroller corrals was completely empty so I wandered through the mall a few times hoping to find an abandoned stroller, but no luck with that either. Each time I returned to the supermarket area, the Pouncer was still there. He was holding a large coffee cup, the kind they sell at the supermarket, but he never drank from it. Just a prop, I guess, although why he bothers is a mystery.
I had considered going to the Aloha Tower Marketplace because Harold Kama was supposed to be there as part of a compilation CD release party, but with the occasional sky dribbles and feeling quite tired from my unaccustomed mall wanderings, I decided just to head for the bench. This despite what seemed like an omen, when the sound system at the mall played Harold's "Stars and Moon Slack Key" just at the time when I should have gotten a bus to the Tower. Too tired to listen to messages from The Infinite.
An hour or so of sleep and then the Sleeptalker arrived. Talk about full moon madness ... he was in full swing, constantly laughing, a horrible sound edged in desperation. He woke everyone up, including me, giving me a bare-chested hug. Such soft skin. He wanted me to go drinking with him. I declined, so he asked Angelo who was crazy enough to go with him. I watched them get on a bus to Waikiki. The Sleeptalker evidently has money again. Just as well I don't know how.
A smoke and back to sleep, knowing I'd be awakened again in a few hours. Yep, just after one, they returned. Angelo settled down immediately. I guess he hadn't been a suitable drinking companion because the Sleeptalker was ranting away at him. Several people told him to shut up or to chill out. Finally I said, "go to sleep, don't be a brat."
"Don't you call me a brat. Don't you call my brother and sisters brats!"
"Who said anything about your brother and sisters?" Another key word, evidently. Someone must have called them brats in the past. Probably a neighbor. And if brother and sisters are anything like the Sleeptalker, probably with justification. I don't think I have ever been as unaware as the Sleeptalker, poor fellow.
He ranted on at me for awhile. I ignored him. Then he disappeared to his place around the back of the hacienda and the rest of the night was mercifully peaceful. I slept later than usual and was sitting at the bus stop waiting for mall-bound transport when a garbage truck arrived at the hacienda. The Sleeptalker came running around from the back, still shirtless. He must have had a rather chilly night but was no doubt sufficiently stoked with drugs and booze that he didn't feel it.
I do wish he'd find somewhere else to hang out, barechested hugs or not.
At the mall in the morning, Bla had a walkman and was dancing to the music. Fool moon madness, uh-huh.
448
Dame Fortune in a joking mood. I'd found a dime and some pennies on campus so once again only needed a quarter for Sunday morning's senior coffee. Since everything closes on campus at five on Saturday, I headed to the mall in search of one cart. No joy. Even though the Pouncer was absent and the Whore was busy talking with someone, not a cart or stroller turned up. So I was prepared to wait until I got to campus for my morning jolt of caffeine. But I stopped at the mall to wash and shave, found the entertainment section of the weekend edition of USA Today and sat to have a look at it. A man walked over, said he had to catch a bus and asked if I'd like a coffee. McD's new bigger small coffee, at that. Sure!Last week McD's, without mention or notice, started giving out bigger cups of coffee, what used to be their "medium" size for small. Now their senior coffee is the same size as it has always been at Jack-in-the-Box, even if a dime more expensive.
So I drank my gift coffee and took it back for a refill. Then I was wandering through the mall on a tobacco search and the Queen Mum walked up with a large coffee cup in her hand, asked me if I'd like it. Ha! I thanked her but patted my stomach and said I'd just had two cups, couldn't drink anymore. Such a sweet old lady, she is.
I only wish Dame Fortune had matched the coffee joke with an abandoned cigarette lighter. Everytime I use the running-on-empty one I have, I wonder if it will be the last flame seen from it. Four carts, please, Dame F.!
I'd prepared in advance, stuffed earplugs in before settling down to sleep, figuring the Sleeptalker was bound to arrive and make noise. As it turned out, he was surprisingly subdued but in full motormouth mode. He left me alone, but woke Angelo who was on the bench at my head. The Sleeptalker was chatting a mile-a-minute, punctuated now and then with a rather endearing little giggle which was just the opposite of his maniacal laugh the night before. I adjusted the earplugs to further block the sound and went back to sleep while he was still yakking away. No sign of him in the morning, so he'd probably gone around to his spot in the back. Someone once accused him of thinking he was too good to sleep with the rest of us, but I suspect it's more a case of his enjoying bending the rules. He did the same thing at the cloisters, too, climbing a fence to get to a spot where he shouldn't have gone. Oddly, later in the night Angelo moved over to the bench behind me.
That moon was so beautiful in the pre-dawn hour as I sat at the bus stop and looked back to see it hanging over the hacienda. Beautiful building, beautiful moon.
449
Mme de Crécy said the story of the free coffee bonanza had reminded her that I lead a "charmed life". Can't disagree with that. The ultimate proof was that three-day period before entering the hospital, wandering around in fevered dementia. It's incredible I managed to get to the park and back to the hacienda each night (even if I didn't make it to campus and get online), equally incredible I didn't ditch the backpack at some point. And then that final heroic journey to the airport ... yes, a charmed life.Sunday brought the treasures of a hot shower, laundry, fried chicken for dinner and a chance to see "Don't Look Back" which I'd only seen once, many years ago. Even though by that time I'd been telling, for at least three years, anyone who would listen that Bob Dylan was THE genius of my generation, I was not all that impressed by the Albert Hall concert in '65. That was probably the result of being with a bunch of people who were more interested in the luxury of sitting in box seats with champagne flowing than in listening to Dylan's strange lyrics. Oddly, I repeated that experience some years later at a solo Joan Baez concert but we'd had more exotic refreshments earlier. I wasn't that impressed with her, either.
The film certainly shows what a brutal young man Dylan could be, and I suspect,