The Lost Soul of Savannah

In some ways, Casey Warren was destined to go down in the annals of American legends and myths like so many others, from Casey Jones, to Pecos Bill, or Johnny Appleseed. It was in Savannah, Georgia where it all began. For many years before the larger public had even heard of him, the people along the Georgia coast had known him well. Nobody seemed to actually know where he lived, but most folks had seen him more than once. He seemed a drifter who wandered the same paths over and over. He was often seen out along the marshes and savannas, gathering stalks of sweetgrass, and palmetto fronds. And he was well known among the weavers who peddled their wares in the city market.

These makers of baskets, carried on a tradition going back to their West African ancestors, of working with native materials to make vessels that held things. Useful things. And it was to these people, that Casey Warren brought his collected grasses, palmettos, pine needles, shells, knots and strands of cargo rope, and sun-bleached twigs. He gave these freely to these artists, as an homage, it seems. And they, in turn, revered him. Looked after him. Offered him food, and money, when they had some.

The demand for baskets among tourists trafficking the area, is what eventually led, in a word-of-mouth way, to a spreading awareness of Casey Warren, in places far away from Savannah, Georgia. The artists, and craftsmen peddling their wares, spoke of him. He became a part of their vernacular in the selling of their goods. Over time, a basket made of materials gathered by Casey Warren became something worth more than the others. Tourists, and collectors alike, asked about him. People came to Savannah just to drive around, in hopes they might catch sight of him. Few did, though many pretended they had.

Savannah is a city of parks, and had been since its inception. The nuclear city was laid out by planners long ago, to include a square in every ward. Today, many still stand. Little islands in the midst of buildings. Each resplendent with ornamental iron gates and fences, oaks with long dangling strands of Spanish moss, benches, and fountains. Statues. Each named after notables that included early settlers, or ancestors from Europe. Warren Park was named after Joseph Warren. And a story emerged, that Casey was some descendant of Joseph Warren. While this was founded on a few scant accounts that Casey had often been seen sitting on a bench in Warren Park, it turned out to be true.

Joseph Warren was a hero of the Revolutionary War. Even though he was an M.D., he volunteered into that cause. and was destined to be brought down by a bullet to the skull, in the Battle of Bunker Hill. It was a quick, albeit, untimely death, but the savage butchering of his body afterwards, with a shallow ditch as his final resting place, was what made him live on as a martyr.
Yet, while Casey was a true descendant of all that, it was something in his own past that was haunting him. But, he couldn't put his finger on what it was. And, that is what made Casey such a restless wanderer.

One day, Casey, with a sack of sweetgrass slung over his shoulder, entered the old brick marketplace looking for Osha, one of the basket makers there. He liked Osha. She was always nice to him. Osha sat on a large wooden crate with a basket on her lap, sewing twisted Palmetto spears in and out of the woven sweetgrass along its handle. She smiled up at him as he approached.
" Casey, Casey!" she said with a deep husky laugh, and the flash of her big white teeth. She was an aging woman whose great-grandparents had first come here from West Africa as slaves. Heavy cast iron rings anchored into the old bricks of the market place walls still remain as reminders of those dark days, when men, women, and children were chained and auctioned off. Wisps of silver gray hair now graced her round dark chocolate face. "Sit down, child. Sit down!" She was one of the few who understood Casey in some fundamental way. Knew of his uncertainties. His restless searching for something he could not quite describe. He sat and watched how easily her thick meaty fingers formed her art. She reminded him again to go visit Madam LaShaunda.
"I wouldn't know what to ask her." he replied.
"You don't need to ask her nothin', child. Madam LaShaunda will know what it is you are looking for. You tell her Osha sent you." Casey nodded, and turned to shuffle away. He thought of going to Wright Park. Of seeing Madam LaShaunda, as Osha had suggested. He had been putting it off for so long.

Wright Park is the small tree-lined square where Madam LaShaunda can most often be found, sitting in the shade of an old sprawling oak. There would be several dozens of small paintings strewn about on the ground all around her. She sold these to people passing by, and each tiny painting seemed to have a story that went with it. They all seemed to be miniature pastoral landscapes, dotted here and there with people. And to each person who stopped, she would offer a brief philosophical platitude, quite like those one might find in a fortune cookie. "May kind words keep you warm." "Something you lost will soon show up." "As the purse is emptied, the heart is filled."

But, Madam LaShaunda also had a reputation as a genuine seer. A fortune teller in some deeper sense. One who knew things about you that not even you knew. Many came to her for a sitting; a reading. And her price was modest. She turned her head to one side and smiled as she saw Casey Warren making his way toward her. Casey came to a fumbling, hesitant halt as he approached. Madam LaShaunda beckoned to him with her hand.
"Come Casey. Come and sit. I knew you would come to see me one day." Casey sat quietly down on the bench next to her. He turned to look into her eyes.
"I don't know why I am here," he stammered.
"Would you like for Madam LaShaunda to tell you?" she replied softly. He nodded, his head slumping toward his chest in helplessness.
"Close your eyes, Casey Warren," she said, as she reached to cup Casey's face in her dark brown wrinkled hands. Her fingertips seemed to move gently in small caressing circles on his temples, as though feeling for a connection to Casey's mind. His soul. "Madam LaShaunda goes for a walk now. Inside you." she said softly. "Along the halls.... And up and down the stairs.... Through many rooms....Memories, like pieces of a puzzle lie here and there....A small blue feather, with a white tip....do you remember it, Casey?" Casey's head nodded in her hands.
"Yes, the feather. I kept it on my dresser top."
"Yes," Madam LaShaunda replied. "It's lying there next to your baseball, and your glove." Casey nodded again. "There is a picture of a fishing boat on the wall above it," she added.
"A boat?" Casey mumbled.
"A green fishing boat. Your father's boat," Madam LaShaunda continued.
"I was just...," Casey stammered.
"Shhh," Madam LaShaunda said in a soft exhaled breath. "You were just 12 then." Casey nodded silently. "And you were so scared when you fell off the bow, and into the sea."
"Yes, yes," Casey said, his voice trembling. "It was dark. Everything was black. I swam, and swam." He fell silent again.
"And then what happened, Casey?" Madam LaShaunda said in a soft whisper.
"And then, I was there lying on the beach. I was so cold. I remember it was just morning."
"No, Casey. There is no memory of that, "Madam LaShaunda said softly. Her hands seemed to tighten slightly on his face.
" There was nothing after that night. There was but one brief image of your mother. And then there was only darkness," she whispered.
"You mean, I died?" Casey sobbed.
"Yes. You died that night Casey. Only your soul made it to the shore. It has been wandering lost now, all these years. Not knowing where to go. Madame LaShaunda can take you there, if you are ready. I know you are tired."
Casey nodded. The feeling of her hands on his face faded. Madam LaShaunda smiled, as she gazed at her out-stretched empty hands. Casey Warren was gone.
Madam LaShaunda walked wearily home, carrying the memory of Casey Warren in her mind. She shook her head sadly. She remembered that day when Casey's body was found along the beach, bloated and entangled in seaweed.
"He was just a boy," she said to herself. She fed her cat, and walked into her drawing room. She sat and painted another small picture. It was of a young boy swimming happily, alongside his father's green fishing boat at sunset. Casey Warren was never again to be seen around Savannah, or out along the beach gathering grasses. Madam LaShaunda gave the painting to Osha as a gift.


......

The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of

Jackson sat on the couch bent over a large burlap bag draped across his lap. He found it in the alley while walking home. He was fascinated by it. It's hairy coarseness. The crude weave. The fading large stenciled red emblem across one side. And the way it smelled. It smelled like itself, and some places it had been. A cargo bag of some kind. Far away places. The sea itself, being one of those. He examined a torn hole in one corner of the bag. He pulled on the unraveling strands of jute there, and this is how the dress first began to emerge.

He methodically pulled and separated a single jute string from it's matrix of warp and weft. He held it up and looked at it's dangling form. A tight succession of small slaloms. A zig-zag without points. Like cornrows in a young woman's hair. Warp and weft give themselves to each other this way. Shape themselves around each other, form and cling to one another this way. Form little embracing intersections in a vast fabric. Holding on to one another to be part of something, that is, in turn, holding onto something else. In this case, a burlap bag from some place far away, that sometimes smelled like coffee, sometimes like the sidewlk after a rain, or a nameless flower.

Jackson examined this single strand. It was, itself, a strand of interwoven strands. Now useless, and dangling in his hand. And so, he forced it back through the coarse weave into some other part of the fabric, where it hung down over the burlap bag, no longer part of the structure of the bag, but an embellishment of some obscure meaning. A decoration for something not found yet. Or, someone.

His pace seemed to quicken. Pulling strings here, putting them there. Hardly taking the time to pause, to see what he was doing. Eventually, feeling very tired, he leaned back into the soft cushion of the couch. His eyelids blinked slowly, and then drooped. His hands limply let go of the bag. It slid down off his knees onto the floor. He began to fall asleep. His body listed slowly to one side like a sinking ship.. His head, softly sank into the throw pillow at the end of the couch. And this is how the dream came about.

In the dream, he was driving down from British Columbia, and crossing into Washington state along the coast at sunrise. He pulled off at a scenic overlook. A steep and rocky bluff looking down on ocean waves crashing onto large boulders far below. There were some six or seven sea lions lolling about along the water's edge. Suddenly, he saw a woman standing on a small outcropping of rock, some ten feet or so, directly below him.

He called to her, but she didn't seem to hear him. Suddenly, and yet, as in slow motion, she leaned out over her perch, and, raising her arms up into the air, fell into a swan dive. He scrambled frantically over the guard rail, and down to the small ledge she had been standing on. She had disappeared into the surf, by then.

Without thought, he too, fell headlong into the sea. Beneath the surface of the water, he saw her disappearing through a cavernous opening of an encrusted rocky reef. He swam after her. There was the biting sting of sharp corals and barnacles cutting his skin as he struggled through the hole in the rock. His lungs felt close to bursting. He swam out the other side, his head beginning to spin, in the absence of air. He frantically flailed his way up toward the surface. Gasping and choking, he burst into the sky, looking all around. She was nowhere to be seen. He stared up to the sky, astonished that it was night. A starless night.
"Oh, my God," he sobbed. "Have I come up on the other side? Have I died?"

Jackson sat abruptly up on the couch. His skin was clammy wet. A shiver ran through him. He ran back through his dream, as though in shock. She jumped. He jumped. Maybe he died. Maybe, she died too. With that final thought, a sense of sadness and remorse came over him. He cupped his head in his hands, leaned forward, and stared at the floor. Trying to make sense of this. His eyes fell on the burlap sack. For, the first time, he saw what it was meant to be. A dress. A dress for her. He bent down and picked it up. It lay limply in his arms. It was her. He sat about the task of bringing her back to life. Thread by thread. He worked feverishly on the floor 'til morning. Fitting her dress.

Later that day, he bought several yards of white satin, to make a liner. He pinned the dress to the wall, and worked on little details. Long dangling strings on one side, almost to the floor. Short fuzzy fringe on the other side, at what he guessed to be mid-thigh. He kept re-visioning the dream in still-frame snapshots in his mind. How tall she was. How shaped. Her hair blown out by the wind, as she fell. Her wet dress clinging to her, as she disappeared through the hole in the rock. Glancing back at him once, before evaporating into thin air. These were the images that formed the dress.

Jackson spent several restless days, pacing about the city, hoping to see her. That didn't make sense, but neither did the dream. And the dress, made no sense, whatsoever. Every glance he took around the cityscape, had a hole in it, that was shaped like her. A ghost is the mindful, carved absence of someone. And her ghost was everywhere he looked. And, it was especially there on the wall in his living room, as he sat down wearily each night on the couch, and stared at the dress.

But then, this day came. it was on a Wednesday, he told me. He had spent the day on a bench in Central Park, watching countless people strolling, running, roller skating, biking, past him. None of them were her. And so, he walked home again, almost hopeless. But still, he kept telling himself that, 'The heart has reasons, that reason does not know.' Something he read in a book once. And that made some kind of nonsensical sense to him. He had even torn that page out of the library book and stuck it on his refrigerator door. Something Paul Valere had written.

Jackson paused at the bottom of the big stone steps leading up into his apartment building. He took one last look up and down the street. There was nothing to see but the absence of her. Then, grasping the black, thickly painted iron railing, he made his way up to the door. Doors are mystical things. You are either on one side of a door or the other every moment of your day. And, for Jackson that day, as he turned the big brass knob, and took one step in, he somehow re-entered his dream.

She was there. Standing in front of a wall of small brass mailboxes, fidgeting for a key. She had on a raincoat, and her hair was soaking wet, hanging from her head like heavy black icicles. Wet wisps clung to her pale face in places. She was opening his mailbox. Shuffling through the envelopes. She held one up and looked at it. She turned to him and held it out to him. "It's from me." she said. He opened it. The paper, unfolded, said simply, "It's OK." He reached out for her hand. "Will you come up to my apartment? There's something I want to show you." She nodded yes.

Pictures for Nicole

Nicole commented on one of my posts, that she thought I should post some backyard shots. (I think she was thinking, "Oh, help! I want to see the green of summer, some place shady!" After all, she is in Egypt in the middle of a heat wave!) So, here are a few shots from a back yard in Tennessee. However, it is hot as hell here, too, actually. I just saw on the news, that this last month of June, was the hottest June in recorded history, WORLD WIDE! So, even though there are shady trees all around here, you still feel like you are sitting down in a crock pot, slowly simmering. And, if you lay out in the sun? You will be nuked, and edible in about five minutes. With that said, here's some shots from the back yard.It was a shallow bowl I picked up in Mexico. Made of iron, and quick to rust. I liked the idea of its aging just like me. I sat it on a patio table. It rusted in the rains. I threw some fragments of glass into the evolving scene. Hate to break the aesthetic of the moment, but I had locked my keys in the truck. That's where the glass came from. The rear window. I like process, so much more than product. (Click on photo to enlarge.)

It is a small oddity, but I like looking at it. A tired rusty chain upon a rock, and the remaining spout of a rusty iron tea pot, wishing it could still whistle?

Call me morbid, if you wish; but, I like to look at these dead roses after Spring..

Bumble bees are bumbling around on the butterfly bush, while the butterflies seem to be still sleeping last night off.

Four O'Clocks at two in the afternoon. Sill curled up in their beauty sleep.

And who can forget this guy? Or, girl? " Wah, wah, wah! Feed me! I wanna get out of this damn nest!"

The red birds nested last year, too. They were much more secretive. I only even glimpsed the babies a time or two And, then they were gone. It was nice, though, that they chose my place to be for awhile.

I found this old rusty dairy milk can while out walking a field. There had been a dairy there, long ago. The bottom of the can was rusted out. I placed it out in the rock garden. So, there it sits. Strange stalks of orange pods soon came to visit.

My Windmill. Last year, I had to tie the blades down with baling wire to keep them from spinning. A mother Robin had nested between the blades, and I couldn't bear the thought of the nest of eggs, or baby Robins being cut to pieces by the sudden winds of a spring storm.

A sad, dead Pine. You might think it might have withered in the recurrent droughts here. Or, hit by lightning, perhaps. But, no. This one died, because my next-door-neighbors weren't using their heads. I still mourn this tree.

A lamp post at sunset. The light will come on automatically when the sun slips away. There are many nights, I want to shoot it out, with a rifle, so as to be alone with total darkness.


A volunteer 'weed' tree I allowed to live next to my back porch, even though its roots are probably strangling my rain gutter's French sewer. It's a yin-yang 'thanng'.

...


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Whatever Fiona Wants

This is the point at which chance takes over. The minute you start slowly walking backward along the shoulder of the highway, with your thumb out. I try to make my intentions obvious. The backpack, and bedroll. The 150 ' coil of florescent purple perlon rope, and my climbing boots, slung over my shoulder. A sling of caribiners around my waist. I've thumbed this stretch of road from Chicago to Baraboo, Wisconsin a number of times. It's always a new experience. You never know who is going to pull up and give you a ride. Nor what can happen along the way.

That's the way it was that night, when a pristine, fjord blue, '65 Chrysler pulled over. The couple looked back over their shoulders at me, as I opened the rear door, and tossed my back pack onto the seat. One quick look at them as I climbed in, made me wonder just what I was about to get myself into. He was husky and broad shouldered. And a deep, foreign sounding voice. And bald. And as for the woman, she looked like a post card from a back street in the French Riviera. It was the bronze skin. And the hair. A silky platinum page boy, of sorts. Except the way it came down around her neck in jagged edges. As though it had been abruptly lopped off with a pair of dull scissors, or a kitchen knife. But, her hair, her taut high cheekbones, her dangling silver teardrop earrings; all these were simply a decorative frame for the real work of art. Her lips. Full and pouting. Vicious red. The kind of lips that might leave their signature all over a man's body. All this, I took in with a glance.

In a matter of a few moments it seemed we were barreling down the road at 90 miles per hour. It was quiet and smooth, like flying.
"I suppose you are headed to Devil's Lake," he said, glancing up at me in the rear view mirror.
"Yeh," I answered. "Meeting up with some people on the bluffs."
"We live on the other side of the lake," she said, turning to look at me. An awkward silence followed as I found myself stunned once again, by her face.
"That must be nice," I replied. She nodded.
"Yes. We sit out on the deck, and watch the climbers on the bluffs with binoculars. We've got an extra room, if you'd like to stay."
It was in that moment, there was the sudden wailing of a siren behind us, and blue lights were flashing around the interior of the car like strobes. Phillipe, as it turned out his name was, slowed the Chrysler down as we eased over toward the shoulder. Fiona, as it turned out her name was, reached for a black purse on the floor at her feet. She turned quickly toward me.
"Here," she said. "Sit on this." A chrome plated Magnum with a polished mahogany handle dropped onto my lap. I heard the trooper's car door slam, and quckly stuffed the gun under me. My heart was pounding. I was deep into something, but didn't know what. And there was a flash of fear running through me, that if I squirmed, I might trigger the gun, and blow my own ass off, or something worse.

Phillipe was as cool as ice, as he reached into his jacket pocket for his wallet. The trooper examined his credentials, as he leaned forward and shined his light about the car's interior. He ran it around the back seat, looking at my gear, and then up to my face.
"You know its against the law to hitchhike on a state highway?" he said. Before I could think of what to say, Fiona leaned over Phillipe, and told the officer that I was her cousin, and that we were going up to the lake. He looked at her for a long moment, and I could tell that he, too, was falling into the spell of her gaze. He disappeared back to his car, and returned with a pink slip and a warning. We continued on down the highway at a more reasonable speed. The trooper followed along behind us for awhile, then turned off into the night.
I reached for the gun beneath me, noticing for the first time the pearl inlay in the handle. The letter, "F" in curvaceous script, like Fiona's body.
"Here," I said, leaning forward to return it to Fiona. She turned and took it.
"I love it when my gun is nice and warm." she smiled, running her fingers along the barrel.
"Do you always go around with a gun?" I asked. I realized too late that no matter how she answered, I was likely to be scared.
"Not always," she replied. "Sometimes, I am taking a shower."

I sat quietly for the next few minutes, retracing the course of night to the present moment. Phillipe was spinning the radio dial, settling in on jazz muzak at a low volume. Nice. Fiona seemed to be caressing the Magnum on her lap with a small embroidered white kerchief. At least, my prints on the gun were being erased. So I eliminated the possibility that I was about to be framed for some murder of someone she had recently shot. So, I was running scenarios in my mind, that kept getting scarier and scarier. Maybe she is erasing my prints because whenever they finish with me, there would be no sign left whatsoever, that I existed. Maybe, they are cannibals. Besides, anyone who lives along a body of water called Devil's Lake, could be, at least, latently satanic.

Those were scary thoughts. So, I tried to run some more encouraging scenarios. Maybe she is a nymphomaniac that Phillipe can't keep up with, so they pick up guys like me all the time. To help out, sorta. Fiona suddenly turned in her seat, and looked back at me.
"So, do you want to come over, or not?" Well, that clenched it. I was having visions of Fiona on top of me. Her Magnum resting heavily on the pillow next to my head. Yelling, "Yes, yes! Faster, dammit!"

Their house along the lake was charming. A foundation of large weathered boulders, upon which sat a cabin. Phillipe turned the car off, and the headlights. And we got out silently under a big moon that was painting the lake silver. I followed the two of them up the thickly mulched path to the house. I couldn't help but look her up and down. She had legs that wouldn't quit, and a walk to go with it. She had one arm raised, running her fingers through her hair, tossling it about. Shaking her head to and fro. Then suddenly she yanked her hair right off her head. It was a wig. Fiona was bald.

I was more in love with her than ever now. We sat out on the deck, looking out on the lake. And the bluffs I like to climb across the way, looked a ghostly bony white. I could hear Phillipe's distant voice, singing in the shower.
"So, how long have you been bald?" I asked. She didn't look at me. She just stared out at the water, the moon's silver blade slicing through the obsidian blackness of the lake's surface.
"Since forever," she said flatly. "It was a genetic thing. I was born without a single hair on my body, whatsoever. That is why, I became a wig-maker, like my mother was. So, tonight I was a blonde."
"I think being bald makes your neck look longer," I said. She turned to look at me.
"Is that a compliment?" I nodded, getting tongue-tied again. I was going to tell her that she looked like something beautiful from outer space, but then Phillipe strolled onto the deck. He was still dripping with water, and with a white towel tied around his hairy belly.

"What have you done with your wig, my love?" he said to Fiona.
"I threw it on the couch, my darling," she said. "I was so tired when we got home." This is how they were talking to each other.
"My darling...my love...my sweet..," and so on. This is the point at which I am beginning to feel like I'm in a low-budget bad movie. But, I was so into my role, as the hitchhiker victim who has the hots for Fiona, that I was moving through it like it was real. I had to keep telling myself,
"I'm here for the money. It's a talking part, even if I do get killed." But, Fiona was so real. And, I wanted her so much.

As the script went, they were moving diamonds in the padded lining of Fiona's wigs. Mostly, we were improvising our way through some vague and sketchy plot. The director just kept telling us to 'make it real'. So, I turned to Phillipe, and hit him over the head with a cheezy Hollywood wine bottle. It shattered all over the place, and Phillipe took a dive. He fell to the floor, muttering something like,
"Was that in the script?" That line was erased in the final edit, and over-dubbed with Phillipe saying, "You son of a bitch!" I grabbed Fiona by the wrist.

The next scene was why the film was NR-17. It was the scene where I was on the bed licking the tattoo that was wrapped around Fiona's ankle. It was of a black lizard with a long tail that curled up around her leg, turning neon blue as it found its way to her calf. The film ended with Fiona's painted nails curling around the Magnum nestled into her pillow. Then fade to black, with sounds of moaning. And then, me shouting,
I'm cumming!" And then the sound of the gunshot. And that was a wrap. The End! So, I wound up getting the girl, but then, she kills me off. Oh, well! It was good money at the time, and the sex was great! And Fiona, in fact, got a number of outstanding reviews for her stunning performance as a homicidal nymphomaniac. And one reviewer even gave me a plug, saying that I "showed great discipline, stamina, and perseverance in the final climactic scene."

THE END

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In the Milky Way, Before Dawn

In my 3rd year in college, I lucked out with a part-time gig as a security officer at a nearby hospital. I worked the midnight to 4am shift. It was perfect. Mostly, I sat at a desk by the front door, and did my home work. I also had some brief adventures, with several nurses. I was fairly buff in those days, and they seemed to want to examine me. But, this story isn't about the hospital. This is just trying to say how I wound up every night at 4:15am at a certain all night diner. I always stopped there on my way back to the dormitory after work.

The diner, a limping artifact of the fifties, was called, the Milky Way. It got its reputation back then as a be-bop joint with a dance floor, juke box, and, its out-of-this-world milk shakes and malts. It was the teen scene. But, that was back then. The place looks like a real dump now, but still had some of its glow, that kept it alive. Like the pitiful tattered charm of Cinderella after midnight, with one shoe. Especially, so late in the night, two hours before the dawn. There was never more than two or three people in the place at that hour. And, most always, the same two or three. And, they were all nut cases. Just like me.

Back in the corner booth sat the usual gothic couple draped in black, and almost blending into the shadowy wall. At first glance, all one could see was two hollow pale white faces staring back. I shrugged a silent nod their way. Like me, they were regulars here in the dead of night. Then there was Trixie, behind the counter. In her seventies now, she recalls the early days of the Milky Way, and the changing scene.
There were the preppies, and the be-boppers first, and then there were the hoods in black slacks and wife beater undershirts, the greasers, and the charmers. Those were the patrons of The Milky Way then. Later, a wave of hippies and folk singers dominated the scene, and after that, the flash flux of new wave and punk. And now, it's a motley crew that comes to the Milky Way. She calls them 'the poor, lost, misfits.'

So there I was, one of the pre-morning misfits, sitting down in a booth, and taking out my notepad. Halo appeared out of nowhere, and slid a cup of coffee in front of me. You could never hear her coming, because she was always barefooted. She had an ankle-length tie dyed gown on, and a plastic flower in her hair. She had come to the Milky Way some fifteen years ago, a disenchanted, wandering teen flower child. And she never left. And I have never, in all the years I have known her, seen her wearing shoes. I thought of her as Trixie's protege. Whenever Trixie lays down her last dish cloth, Halo will become the new Trixie. Mostly now, it's Halo that takes care of most of us misfit customers, anyway. Trixie is getting too athritic now. She is present now in the way that many other iconic fixtures in the diner are present. A symbol of constancy amidst a world of change. A living model of 'going with the flow'.

So, Halo places her palms down on my table and leans forward and tells me in a 'private' voice kind of way, that she is going to read her new poem to everyone tonight. She added that she was waiting for Oliver to get here. Oliver was her biggest fan. I was hoping for Oliver to show up, too. Then he could tell me the next part of the story that he has been telling me for the last six nights. Whether to call it a story, or a messianic delusion, I'm not sure. But last time we talked, he told me that I was all a part of his plan. And so was Trixie and Halo. He wasn't sure about the kids back in the corner, but added that he was trying to work something out.

As Oliver stumbled through the diner door, he was his usual bumbling hulk with a bulging brown breifcase. Physically, a giant of a man, but in pants and coat two sizes too large. An intellectual giant, too. It was he that told me of ancient walls in Egyptian tombs whose cryptic hierogylphics were transparencies, of a sort. They could only be understood by overlaying them on the cryptic hieiroglyphics on the other side of the wall. When you put them together, that's when you understand the secret. And the plan. So, it was this big crumpled mass of brown fabric that sat limply down in the booth. Halo promptly appeared with three ashtrays, and sat them on the table, as Oliver pulled two packs of Gitanes from his coat, and placed them on the table, next to the ashtrays. This same ballet took place every night.

Halo stepped nervously out into the middle of the diner's linoleum floor.
"Tonight I would like to read to you, my new poem. I call it, "Some Night Like This"'. Oliver and I both clapped, and nodded assuredly. And I think I heard the kids back in the corner snapping their fingers.

There was an awkward silence as Halo seemed to be gathering her composure and fidgeting with her pieces of paper. And then, it was as though something came over her. She began reading like a croaking Elizabethan on her death bed.

"My teeth were cold....and cracking
In their sweaters.....their muffled chatter...
Came softly stammered...through blue lips....
Some reliving...of some night...just like this...
just like this....just like this."

When Halo suddenly collapsed to the floor in a dead faint, I thought it was real. I jumped up about the time she suddenly stood up and bowed. I was stunned for a long moment. I think Oliver was too. There was just this big silence, except for some finger snapping from the distant corner. Oliver stood, and walked over to Halo. He hugged her, and took her hand. He led her back to our booth. "Halo, my sweet," he said, leaning forward across the table and clasping her hands in his. "You manifest the despair so well, my love. And now, is the moment of your birth. As I predicted in my notes from three weeks ago, you were destined to be one of the twenty chosen in the final days."

"But...chosen for what?" Halo asked anxiously. Oliver pulled Halo's hands up to his mouth, and kissed them. "To bear the last hope for this life," he said solemnly. "The One."
"The One?" she repeated timidly. He nodded, and turned to me.
"And, you are the father." I nodded. I didn't really have a clue what he was talking about. But, if the plan involved crawling into the sack with Halo, I was all for it.

Oliver is dead now. He overdosed on anti-depressants. Halo and I have a little boy. His name is Juan. On his twelfth birthday we told him, "If you are going to be god, you gotta get your act together." Unfortunately, he went astray. As for Halo and I, we try to be happy, anyway. And we visit Oliver's gravestone every Sunday morning.

To Each His Own

It is easy to be hypnotized by fire....There is the smoldering of the dry grass beneath the sticks.....There is the big breath you take....A... deep... drawn... breath.....There is the careful pursing of the lips.....The calculated... blowing stream...of your own warm breath... into the smoke.....The red glow in the middle of the cold night....The flash of yellow....The flicker of blue....And then there is just the fire....And you.....

Jacob stared sleepy-eyed on a full belly, at the flickering fingers of the fire, and the glowing red embers beneath them that pulsed like a beating heart. He ran a small stick lazily around in the hot ashes, watching as a small plume of smoke drifted up from the stick's end, the bark blackening first, and then igniting. A fire stick. A torch. He held it up against the night. A magic wand to wave about, painting the black sky with streaking red comets, and lightening bolts, and little red sparks the night swallowed.

Jacob was a boy. An almost man. Trying to be more responsible. Trying to help his father. And yet, so much of him didn't want to grow up. But, his big brother was dead. Shot in the head. His brother's baby, too. Dead. And so, it was his time to get real.

"Pa, was down by the creek, I remember that much," Jacob wrote down in his diary. "I could hear the scraping of the pot we used for dinner, on the pebbles of the creek bed. And pa splashing up the water." And I remember thinking I should go down there and help him clean up. I started walking toward the creek, waving my flaming stick around, pretending to be holding the night at bay. I shouted to my pa that I was coming. And that was when I heard the shot. It was the sharp crisp blam of a 22 rifle. I knew right away, it was Ephriam."

Jacob fell to the ground, his heart pounding. The shot had come from behind the house. It echoed twice down the valley, and then there was only silence. "Pa? Pa?!" he called out. There was no answer. He crawled the first few yards, then stood, and ran toward the creek. Somehow, he already knew what he was going to find. His father, face down in the water. A ribbon of blood flowing downstream.

This had been going on for some time now. It started when Jacob's brother eloped with Ephriam 's daughter, Lilah. Ephriam couldn't cope with that idea. They had always kept to themselves back in Harris Hollow. His Lilah had been abducted by an outsider, Jacob's brother. And, when they had a baby together, Ephriam couldn't take it anymore. He snapped. He killed Jacob's brother in his sleep, and then he drowned Lilah's baby in the creek. And now, Jacob's father lay dead in the water, as well.

"So, I pulled pa up out of the creek," Jacob wrote, " And I don't know how long I was beating on his chest, and slapping him around. I tried to stop the blood coming from the hole in his head, but I couldn't help but know he was dead before he even heard that rifle crack. That was the sound of Ephriam's rifle. I heard it once before, and I will never forget it. It was in the middle of the night, when he shot my brother in the next room."

Jacob dragged his father's body up onto a gravel bar, and draped it in a horse blanket, and sat there for awhile beside him. He looked up into the mouth of the hollow, and the fireflies were going about their business. And there was a sound of two owls exchanging calls. Making plans. Something came over Jacob in that moment. Something big.

"I thought about taking my pa's rifle, and his revolver, too. But, for some reason, I just stood up and started walking up the hillside, and into the woods. I knew how to get to Harris Hollow. But, what would happen, when I got there, I wasn't sure. I just knew this had to stop."

Jacob stood in the clearing and took a deep breath, as he stared at Ephriam's shack. Morning was just breaking, and there was a low and heavy fog up and down the length of the hollow. And there was a thin curling smoke winding up from Ephriam's shack. He was up. He had a fire going already. Maybe anticipating already, what Jacob might do. Maybe loading two buckshot shells into his shotgun. Jacob walked steadily toward the shack. He could see Ephriam in the doorway. He could see the gun. "Get the hell off my property," Ephriam shouted. Jacob kept walking. "I'm gonna blow yer head off, boy." Jacob kept walking. He called to Ephriam.
"Ephriam, do you think I am afraid to die? Is that what you think Ephriam?" Jacob kept walking. Ephriam stepped down from the porch, lifting the 12 gauge to his shoulder.
"I ain't got no problem with you, Jacob. Go on home." Jacob kept walking. In a final lunge, he was on to Ephriam. He grabbed the barrel of the gun, and straight-armed Ephriam back. As Ephriam fell, he yanked the gun free.

"So, Ephriam was on his back. He was holding his hands out, like have mercy on my soul. I put my foot down on his chest, and broke his gun open. Two fat red buckshot shells ready to go. I slammed the gun shut, and aimed it at his head."

Jacob stood over Ephriam, and stared down at him. He lowered the barrel to Ephriam's mouth. "You ain't too good at killin' when somebody is looking at you, are you, Ephriam? My brother died in his sleep. That baby died, face down in the creek. And my pa died doing dishes.
"Oh, Jesus, help me," Ephriam sputtered, his eyes full of fear.
"Ain't no use in you tryin' to talk God out of this, Ephriam," Jacob answered calmly. "It was God that sent me here to kill you. Let me just ask you something, Ephriam. Are you afraid to die?" Ephriam squirmed in the dirt. His whole body frantically nodding yes. Jacob broke the 12 gauge down again, and pulled the two shells out of their chambers. He knelt down to Ephriam and pushed them into his mouth. "If you are still around here in the morning, I will blow your head off, do you get that?" Ephriam nodded frantically again, and Jacob turned to walk away. He paused, and looked back at Ephriam, still trembling on the ground. "I mean it Ephriam. If I ever catch sight of you again, it will be your last day on this earth. And your first day in hell." He turned away and disappeared into the woods.

"I don't know," Jacob wrote in his diary. "I coulda blown his head off then and there. And there'd be no one who'd blame me for it. For now, its enough to just run him out of that hollow. Back there in those woods, he could pretend to rule life and death. He could be the cruel emperor of Harris Hollow. Outside that world, he is less than nothing. A pathetic creature to be pitied only by the foolish, to be squashed by the others. I didn't kill him, but I ran him out into a living hell. He has it coming. Nevertheless, if I do see him again, I will be true to my promise, and do the deed myself. There is still a part of me that would like to see his head flying off and dropping to the ground."

Jacob buried his father in that patch out behind the house, next to his brother, and his brother's baby. Ephriam was never to be seen again. There was news a few days later that he was killed out walking along the highway. It was a hit and run.

" The truck that ran him down sounded a lot like the truck I saw Lilah in," Jacob wrote at the end of his tale. "A red truck, with a bashed in front grill. My brother's widow, Ephriam's daughter, Lilah, had decided to find her own peace, get her own closure, her own way. To each his own, I guess"

The last of the glowing embers fade....The air is cool, and moist....You breathe the night in....You let the night go....You breathe the night in....You let the night go....The air stirs softly....The air caresses your skin....The sky is turning pink.... A dusty beam of sunlight finds you....You awaken.....

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