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Underground eXperts United File 554
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Underground eXperts United
Presents...
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[ Manouvers Far From The Front ] [ By Eric Chaet ]
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____________________________________________________________________
MANOUVERS FAR FROM THE FRONT
by Eric Chaet
Ben rides south on the Pacific Coast Highway - on a paved
out-cropping along low, rounded mountains of boulders & pines, waves of surf
against rocks below, gray ocean extending to the far horizon - with
2 kids with slicked-down hair, in a mammoth red tail-finned car. The 2
kids claim to be con men, driving their lawyer's car. Male
prostitutes! - who love one another. That one is the lawyer's lover, as
well. And that, therefore, the lawyer won't press charges.
They stop at Big Sur, at an up-scale tourist place, for coffee - &,
thru a picture-window, spy a herd of whales maybe half a mile out, spouting.
They take off, & pick up a smiling beach-comber, with no front teeth,
who rolls fat marijuana smokes he calls San Diego joints.
Supper in the restaurant of a big motel - swank fish plates & good
wine; at least, they tell Ben it's good wine - he has no way of knowing.
The hosts put it on their tab.
Then a fancy room, hot shower, view of the sea - thru a sliding
glass door.
Ben takes his guitar from its cardboard case.
"Hey! Can you play 'Me & Bobby McGee'?" the shorter of the 2 con
men asks.
Ben does.
Then he & the beach-comber leave their hosts in the room, & walk
along the private beach, by the ocean, listening to the crash of the
waves, watching stars.
When they return, they sleep in their bags, on the thick rug; the
drivers sleep together in bed.
Morning, the taller, dark-haired kid puts on a sport-jacket, & goes
to pay the tab. The others wait in the car.
The tall kid hustles into the car, panting, "Let's get out of
here!"
Screeching off 100 miles per hour.
"The woman at the desk wouldn't take the check!"
Let off outside San Luis Obispo, the beach-comber & Ben hitch together.
Balmy December day. Beach-comber requests "Catch the Wind." Ben sings,
while the beach-comber holds up a sign that says SOUTH.
A VW bus, full of dope-smokers, stops for them.
Ben settles in the midst of bright head-bands, long hair, grins,
giggles, smoke - a rolling box of cloud.
The van stops to let out one smoker after another thru L.A. - & south -
freeways, tens of thousands of cars, low white-washed buildings, & neon &
electric signs all the way - toward San Diego - til only the driver & Ben
are left.
Now Ben's sitting next to the driver - who says he's interested in
the occult, after years of duty in Vietnam - dropping acid by ocean,
sunset on Asian plateau. He says, "Life could be like the middle of a
sneeze."
They visit Joyous Duty Academy. Old men & women typing out lessons
in astrology, diet, & exercises - leading to transcendent states. In a
pink stucco building, surrounded by palms, overlooking the Pacific.
Everybody's gray or white haired.
The old guy in charge holds himself delicately erect. Faded rosey
cheeks. Half-listens to the driver's introduction, but immediately
turns & meets Ben's eyes, & says, "You should give up eating meat."
"Why?"
"Do any of the animals you eat eat meat?"
"Fish?"
"Hmm. Perhaps. At any rate, meat builds you up, then lets you down.
It doesn't give you perseverence."
"I'm going to need perseverence," Ben acknowledges.
The old guy nods. "And you must become a Christian."
"Whoa!" Ben says.
"WHY must he become a Christian?" the driver asks, assuming the
role of Ben's protector - also offended that it is Ben getting the
attention, rather than himself, the one who sought out the place & the
person.
"There isn't just one way for everyone, is there?"
"Look," Ben says. "I came in here cause my friend wanted to visit.
I'll think about what you're saying. But Jesus was no Christian, & he
never could've done what he did if he had been one. And I'm a great
admirer of that guy. One of the greatest critters ever lived. Phooey -
pardon me - I'm giving speeches again. I'll remember what you've said."
IN THE ARIZONA DESERT, Ben suggests turning north toward the Grand
Canyon. The driver turns the controls over to Ben, &, in the passenger
seat, sinks into gloomy contemplation, muttering, "Joyous Duty fogeys!"
Off the main highway, now, thick pines & aspen groves gradually pull
him out of it.
Sunset at the Grand Canyon. The new moon going down as tho into a pink
& turquoise shell at the horizon.
They buy gas, gulp canned beans, briefly visit with a man who has
several large wolves penned in cages made of chain-link fencing, sleep a few
hours in the van, & head for Albuquerque. Coyotes yip & sing - sounds like
complaints - thru the night.
The driver says, "I'm going to Houston to see my girl from before the
war.
She turned me away because I was too weird."
"Why are you going back to her now?"
"She wrote me a letter. She wants to be weird now, too."
Ben groans.
They split up at Albuquerque. Ben calls old friends, Fred &
Linda - Fred's a professor at the university in Albuquerque now - from a
phone booth in the midst of a dust storm. They have the flu, they say,
so can't offer Ben a floor to crash on.
Ben hitches a ride with 2 college girls who drive him across town,
complaining of the impossibility of finding good work, deadness of
Albuquerque, how hard it will be ever to leave - thru a blue mountain pass.
The wind has let up, where they let Ben off: arid red soil, by an
adobe post office facing the highway. Ben stands at the base of a cliff.
Two cars pass, & a lot of time. A cold wind - clear, tho - begins blowing
thru the valley, from the west. The 3rd car, an elegant Lincoln, stops for
Ben.
The driver, a small-boned, gracefully upright gentleman, explains as he
drives that he operates a tavern in Connecticut - a mafia meeting
place in a back room. He has been visiting relatives in California,
intends to swing thru Florida on his way home. He shows Ben a pistol,
in the glove compartment - Italian-made - that he's proud of. He says
he carries it when delivering bags of counterfeit money. That he was
supposed to make one particular delivery, but had the flu, & the 2 guys
who made the delivery without him were caught, & are now doing 10 years
in the penitentiary.
The driver stops & picks up a slovenly-looking hippie, with a red
bandana around his head, & a duffel bag. It is this hippie who is driving -
he asks if it's okay if he & Ben smoke a joint, & the host says okay, as
long
as they're careful not to hurt the velour seat-covers of the brand-new car -
while the tavern-operator sleeps in the back seat.
Thru mountain passes, scrubby plains, oil wells - like long-legged
insects, sucking - immense, apathetic cattle herds feeding at troughs -
New Mexico, Texas panhandle, Oklahoma....
As the hippie passes the joint, burning ash falls to the seat, &
burns a hole, about the size of a dime, before Ben discovers it, & puts it
out
with his thumb.
When the driver wakes, Ben, frightened at possible consequences,
explains to the owner of the car that they have had a little accident, &
damaged the velour seat-cover. The owner swallows the reality of it with a
silent grimace - & resumes driving.
IT'S COLD WHERE BEN GETS OUT, in Oklahoma City.
Ben walks to the bus station, shivering under the orange-tinted
streetlamps & in the freezing drizzle. In the plaster & tile electric
station, nearly deserted, Ben takes his guitar from the case, & begins
playing a longing raga - using one string for a rhythmic drone, another for
the long, slow, bending notes of the melody.
"You can't play that thing in here," says a beefy man in a business
suit.
"I can't?"
"Not that kind of music."
"What kind?"
"You got a ticket?"
"Not yet."
"Then you'll have to get out of here."
"Who is that man?" Ben asks the Black man behind the counter.
"Better do what he says, Partner. That's the man around here."
"How far to Highway 35?" Ben asks.
"Six miles" - pointing.
"Thanks."
Trudging with duffel bag & guitar in case back to Highway 44.Hitching
in the cold drizzle. Picked up by a friendly carpenter in an old van - 2 by
4's
scattered within. A four-mile ride.
Ben walks across a bridge - wet snow, now - hugging close to a low
cement wall, cars whizzing by, dangerously close.
On the other side of the bridge, tho, he gets an immediate ride
with a young civil servant - neat, friendly - veteran of war & university.
But the car almost immediately breaks down.
"I'll call my wife. She'll pick us up. You can stay with us tonight."
"That's good of you."
They wait half an hour, shivering by the phone booth. Ben gives the
driver
a sweater, from his bag, to wear.
The wife arrives, checks Ben out. Her faces becomes a hatchet with
eyes. Ben sees that she is calculating the cost of her husband picking up a
stray.
"Climb in," she tells them, seething.
She drives up a nearby motel driveway, brakes. Takes a check-book from
her
purse, & writes.
"Here," she says, handing Ben a check for $15. "You can stay in the
motel
tonight. There's no room in our house - sorry."
Ben gets out, holding the check by one corner, as the car takes off.
He looks at the check, looks thru the glass doors into the dry & warm
lobby
of the motel, sighs, tears up the check, & throws the pieces
into a trash barrel placed nearby for such a contingency - swallowing his
disappointment with a silent grimace - (he grunts as he recognizes
the reaction of the tavern-operator to the hole in the velour
seat-cover) - & walks back to the highway.
He walks the two miles to Highway 35.
Behind a billboard, he takes off his jeans, puts on all the
underwear in the bag, tighter pants, then the jeans, on top, again.
Then he puts on all his socks, shirts, sweater, & coat.
No cars...truck drivers signaling their helplessness...no room to
stop, too slippery, against insurance regulations...they can't stop or
explain,
to verify what must therefore remain speculation...most
avoiding Ben's eyes.
Ben walks some more, ducks into a cafe'. There he gulps eggs, potatoes,
toast, & pours coffee down. Gloomily picks 2 dollars out of
the wallet, pays.
Back among big wet flakes, another half hour. Oklahoma City -
buildings all one-storey high - going on & on, horizontal - gas station
after deserted gas station, orange lamp after orange lamp - reflecting on
wet asphalt.
Trudging, muttering. To next cafe'. Again, shoveling in food, pouring
coffee down after, steeling self to pay, steeling self to go
out & on.
Falling asleep, standing, under a lamp, on road shoulder - &
immediately waking with a start, while tilting, falling toward planet
Earth...staggering...bracing himself....
Ride with a 16-year-old with a crew-cut & buck teeth, delivering
100 pounds of Mexican grass from Tucson to Wichita - stashed beneath
pick-up floor, he says. Says he gets $1,000. Weaving with fatigue.
Ben spiraling into dreaming in back of truck. School daze:
Graduate school, student deferment from military draft. U.S.
troops plus troops of the U.S.-chosen South Vietnamese puppet
government, versus troops of the communist North Vietnamese government -
civilians on every side caught in the cross-fire....
Anita Van Plassen, fresh & confident, movie star-attractive, long
blond hair, a little lip-stick, a little perfume, a little eye-brow
pencil, subtly shaking her ass when she walked - untroubled - NOT
blue-jean hippie or resentful political - learning to write poetry....
The day after the bombing escalation on Hanoi - Ben's outburst at
the seminar - an eruption out of long frustration, this student life was
still not life - & how would he ever achieve anything without
contributing to what he hated?
"What the hell are we doing here? Don't you know what our government
is
doing in Vietnam?"
Then the teasing of one of the other students - a young woman: "So
serious!"
And the relieved tittering laughter of most of the class, including
the professor.
Anita watched Ben: he'd stood up, & stalked out of the room.
Just when so many, as tho suddenly, driven by the mad cruelty of
what was going on - after ignoring it & the protests for years - Ben & a
handful of students, plus an occasional elder, picketing in front of the
post office- more & more people were joining the protest
demonstrations....
Anita knocked on the door of Ben's shabby, unkempt apartment, came
in & didn't leave, tho, What did she want? She said that she was
engaged to a marine. They were to be married at the end of the term,
when she would join him at the base in North Carolina. Eventually, Ben
prepared & shared canned stew with her. While he washed dishes, she
asked him, "Don't you want to touch me?"
Ben awkwardly undressed her & himself, finishing in bed - how
shabby the sheet & covers were, he noticed - by the window over-looking
the parking-lot - heart pounding, wondering how to go about it -
beneficiary, rather than victim - for a change - of the ideas steering
the hormones of the females of his generation....
She visited every evening.
Nights, she was a "dorm-mother," making sure younger girls didn't
sneak out!
Semester's end, dusk: they're walking - Anita perfumed, soft sweater,
short skirt, nylons - toying with his finger-tips - along
tree-lined streets. Squirrel scurries by, acorn in mouth. Anita wanted
Ben to ask her to marry him, she let him know. Her mother had called
from Kuwait, where her father was a petrochemical engineer: they'd be
meeting her at the Washington D.C. airport, 24 hours after her last
exam, then accompanying her to North Carolina.
But, Ben said, he didn't want to marry anyone.
It didn't occur to him to say that he couldn't see how he would
provide even for himself - something obvious, apparently, to everyone
else - you just did the most profitable thing along the lines of your
aptitudes - advertising, marketing, public relations - that someone
would pay you to do - so that she took it as a refusal of herself.
So - speculation without verification - she married the marine?
DROPPED OFF, WICHITA, CHRISTMAS MORNING. Windy deserted streets -
Ben's not sure, yet - stupefied - if he's still dreaming, or awake.
Cold, blowing, stores all shut down, not a car, not a person: he'll
look for the bus station.
A hat blows up the street toward him - wide-brimmed, gray felt -
the kind business-men wear - out of the cold blue northern blizzard,
vortices of huge wet flakes bursting out of the dark. Ben grabs the
battered old hat - a gift, not from a person - out of the coldest,
darkest night - & pulls it down over his ears.
He finds the bus station, buys a ticket - not much left in the
wallet - he's made the $2,000 he saved, from a year of junior college
teaching by the air-port in Cleveland, last more than 2 years - no rent
to pay: sleeping outside...but it's coming to an end. He climbs onto a
departing bus. As soon as he stashes his gear in the overhead rack, he
sleeps.
And wakes - it feels as tho it's the next instant - as the bus
pulls off the highway. He takes his duffel bag & guitar down from the
rack overhead, gets off the bus, & begins walking - gusts of snow - like
a drowsy horse along a familiar path - at Osage.
The long-houses of the Osage tribe & the recitation of the history
of creation to each new baby - plus the bear, buffalo, & deer - not part
of the memories or education of the current inhabitants....
"What's THIS for, for instance?! This has nothing to do with
anything!" Professor Proudsugar had furiously insisted - in his little
office, behind his paper-littered desk, shelves of books - books about books
-
on every wall, up to the ceiling. "Get rid of this stuff about
the Osage!"
And add about a hundred more foot-noted references from reputable
sources, Proudsugar told Ben - that is, from the authors of books about
books, like himself.
"I'll do it before the next time you see me," Ben told him - determined
that they should never meet again.
Finally sure that the necessity of continuing on with grad school
to avoid getting drafted was over - Ben was nearly beyond the age when
he could be drafted, & the war was nearly lost & done - & that proceding
with the academic life would only postpone his truly higher, necessary
education.
Tho the problem of how he would make a living - til that moment
suppressed by fellowship money, on which it was possible to subsist, but
not to save, & by the near-certainty of being hired as an assistant
professor immediately upon being awarded his doctorate, at a starting
wage better than that earned by most youths - became suddenly urgent
again, like a tooth-ache.
A little, gritty, European-American, country-music town - canned
foods, news from Washington & New York, entertainment from Nashville &
L.A. A corporate colony - with a state university - academic orthodoxy
from Harvard & Yale & Georgetown & Stanford & Oxford - famous for its
football team. Growing as tho from an asphalt bud, off the edge of the
interstate highway.
Auto-supply store at the edge of town - like the beginning of a
mnemonic - supermarket, bridge over river - listen to the water run! -
its current shone under a lamp. No people, no cars. Organ-pipe factory,
pool hall, cafe' - with the giant plastic chicken on the flat roof.
Thru the plate glass, a few booths, a long counter with stools - napkin
holder, red plastic ketchup bottle, & yellow plastic mustard bottle in
front of each stool - coffee-maker, mirrors, cash-register. And up the
hill, among the peak-roofed houses, trees, curbs, some parked cars,
street-lamps - & waving, naked branches - & their shadows.
He knocks at Connor's door. It swings open.
"BEN? GREAT HAT! COME ON IN! Come on in! Out of the blizzard,
man - 'fore the wolves paralyze you with their howling, then pick your
bones at leisure, sipping tea & commenting on the latest Paris fashions
wolves disguise themselves thereby!" Connor slams the door & throws
himself against it.
"How d'ye be, man?" he asks.
"Oh, I've been better, I've been worse. I could use some sleep.
But I've got no complaints, I swear."
"The seeker's vow! Bed, couch, or floor - help yourself."
"Thanks. Why do you talk so strange, Connor?"
"I? Talk strange? Why - once I was going to be a priest, & stand
in ceremonial robes & fumes & incense, & speak out words of God. But
now I speak nothing but the vulgar words of men who fuck their wives &
others men's wives, & give up even thinking of anything holy or free, in
order to buy whatever they can that's packaged & encouraged, & costs
only every day of whatever is left of their lives.
"Such a come-down. Other day, I spoke with a man - a CHAIR man -
who spends his time putting footnotes on pages of Shakespeare's holy wit! I
thought my tongue would tear loose & fall out. No such luck.
Pity, too - don't you think?"
"That your tongue didn't fall out?"
"Ah, no - that I must spend my days speaking with men who cavil &
damn with faint praise & hare-brained theories no one dares prune away,
for fear they'd arouse enmity, & their own damn theories - the basis of
their status, security, & pay - would meet like fate. I'd soar, if I
could, with Shakespeare in the clouds. I'd've made some priest."
"Why did you give it up?"
"I thought I'd never have anyone to talk to but priests. Word is
God - says Greek John, at least; Hebrew Matt tells a different tale....
In the beginning there was the Word, the Logos - & the Word was God....
So there's no use trying to talk to God. You'd be talking to your own
words, swallowing your tail... or trail....
"Who'd hear my chants & speeches? Other priests - who'd say them
back to me. That would be...stag-nation. In-dig-nation: I was sure
I'd start to hate God & the words. So I sewed up collar, cassock, &
beads - tucked my censer beneath my cloak - & dashed from the church I'd
learned to love - as tho it were aflame. And it WAS aflame - dusty,
dreary flames - boring flames, that licked up holy statues like devils'
tongues. Ghastly flames."
Ben stretches out, in the bag, on the couch.
Connor continues: "Why do I talk strange? You wander vagrant off
the streets & that's your question? Should we speak as all those do who
aim to be each other & not themselves? Who hate & fear how words might
reveal their subtle subterfuge - & only say the ones they calculate will
leave them free to collaborate with what they all agree should not be
spoken of - no need to challenge, to invite wrath - just leave them,
secretly, free - to leave the victims & those who speak of what's being
done to them behind - only let THEM weasel thru, & thrive. God DAMN!
"Why did you look so apart & angry & stunned, prowling the halls of
the U - & now, the streets of this most wicked & glorious land? You ARE
strange, angry, stunned - you carry it in your face & stride, you
manifest it in what you do & withhold yourself from doing.
"I'm a stranger in this world, so I talk strange. My talk's my
gladness. I rearrange my BRAIN! When I listen to what passes for talk,
I'm so oppresed, I must die at once, or over-talk - loud & strange -
those flames licking up dusty walls, while people sit & sit & sit & sit!
"Hmm. I guess I'm still a priest. When did you last confess?"
Ben laughs. "Do you pray?"
"A couple of times I've managed, I think. Caught up in words, &
gone where flames don't lick. Treading air. A good feeling. Makes you
strong. You can walk thru flames long after, & not singe. Sleep, now."
Dream: Seething student protests. Martial law - someone's
threatened to blow something up. National Guard called in - truck-loads
of farm-boys with rifles, defending the American Way of Life - as
characterized for them & their parents by history books & teachers
(who'd learned it the same way), & by those who funded & produced brief
newspaper & television & radio network news reports. Since the Osage
were forced out, & the railroad & refrigerated cars & roads & trucks
connected the farms - with harvesters from Chicago - & the houses &
stores of the town, with the cities.
Smoking dope - one deep inhalation each - & listening to records in
a dark room, with Connor & Barry (drafted upon graduation, fled to
Canada, long unemployed - an unwelcome, unpatriotic emigrant, collecting
welfare - American degree useless - disowned by family - finally got a
job sacking groceries, when last heard from), sitting cross-legged
around flickering candle.
When Ben wakes, Connor gives him food. Ben eats, & Connor drinks black
tea.
"You have any dope, Connor?" Ben asks.
"'Fraid not."
"Beer?"
"Beer? Mead? Was there not a neolithic revolution, when man
learned the potency of barley & hops, for making beer? Did not man
cease from his eternal wandering, settle, & raise crops of grain, &
share them with dogs & sheep & cattle & goats from then on? Why - in my
native land - I'm known as a very Falstaff in these matters. Lead me to
the suds & toss me in! I'll not cry for help, I warrant ye!"
"Aha, Sir John - & what IS your native land, where you are so well
& fondly known?"
"Alas, lad, I've never found the land I'm native to, except to
glimpse & be amazed. But we are on our way to do such glimpsing now.
Out of the way! Out with the mugs of beer - with which we'll pray!"
They take a 6-pack to the park where an old hook-&-ladder
fire-truck has been retired - the university students are gone for
Christmas break, & it's cold & night, so there's no one around - & climb
the truck, & drink in the midst of swings, see-saws, merry-go-rounds -
all still - & swirling snow-flakes.
"It seems," Connor says, "that in so sitting on this fire-fighting
truck, dashing thru a universe of flaming stars - & children's toys -
leisurely, calm, reclined, quaffing heartily - fuckin' cold, tho - passing
an
evening undoing a shitty black empty aching tightness such as
your lordship will recognize, that we...I'm...cut out for such. You
know what I mean? I'm happy & I'm functioning. Am I not functioning?"
"You are, Sir John. Like the truest fire-truck in town."
"Aye. And if you believe that, Ben" - Connor lifts a finger - "then
you're
caught in the chain. Aye, caught in the chain that
stretches out from land to land, & time to time. And you are the most
remote & recent link. Men seek to grasp the chain, to hold it in their
terrible blue falling down thru heeby-jeebies & despair. A chain of
friends. Are we not friends?"
"Damn tootin'."
"Aha, then you see? You're caught. You're a link in the chain.
You'll not get anywhere linking onto me. There's no way for you to
climb. You've just caught hold....
"Why, I once sought a man out, Ben, as you did me - for which,
THANK YOU!" Connor is suddenly addressing the sky. Then, back to Ben:
"His name - you'd not know it. He listened, he spoke, he linked me to a
chain that stopped my fall, & held me.
"D'ye feel its power? It'll do your career no good - the power. But
you
can hold it when you feel you're going to fall. You're linked
now. Aye - but you'll get nowhere thus. I'm only a link on the chain
with the power that holds - it doesn't heave you up to where you're
bound to go.
"So you're obliged to attach to something there. Someone, somehow,
sometime, somewhere. And how? I'll not help ye. I know how to use words -
that's only one way, tho - one part - & maybe it only works for
me - & maybe, oh, certainly, it's not enough...."
"Better than nothing," Ben encourages him.
Connor, encouraged, continues. "But you are a link, & I am a
link - we're on the chain. If I vanish in an instant, I'll still be the
link. Just as you are the link for me - even if you should vanish in an
instant."
"You ARE a fuckin' priest."
"Priest? Oh, yes, believe it. Priest of the chain. And I preach
to you what you have found to link yourself thereto - your Woody Guthrie
& Ravi Shankar & Beethoven & folk songs. Your anger when you were a
student walking thru the halls. Your coming to me & saying 'Let's drink
beer.' I preach the strength of links & the linking of strengths, & the
strength of yourself as a link. I think. Maybe this is just hot air?"
"No. Could be better news, tho. I could use some heaving up.
Chain...I don't know - I'm not real fond of chains. But not just hot air.
Tho
hot air would be useful just now, too, for that matter."
"If I come to you," Connor says, "in another form, & beg you to come
drink
beer with me - will you?"
"How will I know you in another form?"
"By the feeling, the grasping of link for link. I don't know. Don't
you feel the power of the chain? Don't you feel that you link with
something & something links with you?"
"Yes, we're friends."
"Friends. Yes. That's good. That's important. Friends. But more.
Friends pull out what's strongest in one another. They share their
strength. That's why.... Maybe real enemies do the same thing? Shall we
walk in the blizzard?"
"Delighted."
They walk up-hill, among the houses, in many of which are up-stairs
rooms ordinarily inhabited by renting students - windows all dark.
"Brr! Fuckin' cold!" Connor shouts, beating his shoulders with his
gloved hands. "Most abominable fuckin' cold!" He stops & shakes a fist
at the sky. "Cold, damn it, cold! What d'ye think we are - gods? Go a
little easy, for Chrissake!
"I'm no good at winter," he tells Ben. "I get demoralized, frazzled,
wish I could hibernate. Feel like I'm dead & walking around like a zombie,
out of touch with everything living. Begin almost to relish grading papers
& making out checks to the phone company. Cancer in boots."
"Where shall we go?"
"Aha, the question's posed. I feel better already. How about up
by the pond?"
"Okay."
They climb up hill awkwardly, slipping & sliding, ice & snow-drifts,
lifting legs high. At the top, they descend into a sunken circle of
smooth-surfaced & sparkling moon-light.
"Let's walk around the pond," Connor says.
It's the pond where Ben used to go, alone, stoned, to forget about
the pointless exercise of preparing his doctoral dissertation, the war
in Asia, the draft, the general unwillingness to know what was
happening, & his own inability to to figure out what he could do to
change the situation &, at the same time, to find a way of earning a
living that wouldn't be self-betrayal - & to watch the sun-light or
moon-light on the ripples of the water, & the hypnotic wavering
reflections of the full-crowned trees on the opposite shore,
occasionally broken into by the surfacing of the tortoise.
"Okay," he says, suddenly, briefly, very sober. "You really down?"
"Down & out. At least I was. You know, sometimes I feel like I
was dead most of my life - & that I'm finding my way to life. And, all
of a sudden, I go dead again. And ain't a thing on Earth I can do about
it."
"I don't exactly...," Ben begins.
But Connor goes on: "When I was a kid, I knew I never wanted to be a
pen-pusher, or work on a conveyor belt, or anything regular, or normal. I
wanted every moment to be full-up, you know? Yeah, you know. Life was
supposed to be FULL.
"But my moments were empty. I was waiting to learn to fill them. But
I never seemed to find a clue. Til I started praying. Then that stopped
working. And...the damn, damn, damn war."
"It was bad before the war, too," Ben says. "It was so bad, that the
war broke out."
"Then getting drunk worked sometimes," Connor says, not hearing Ben,
"and later, getting stoned - & fucking, of course - if the girl & I weren't
performing some evil deception, the seed of which was planted in our
childhoods - some drama we needed to act out that satisfied nothing of our
own real needs.... I'm getting off the track."
"Off the track is where we're going, right now," Ben says.
"Hmm," Connor says. "The feeling, the excitement - what the hell do
you
call it? - the abundance - 3 dimensions & wonder - it comes, it goes.
It doesn't last. And I find myself going dead again. And it's goddamned
fucking unbearable after finally getting thru to life."
They walk along silently.
Ben hops & side-steps, & stops to admire patterns left by his boots in
the
snow.
"Hey! Hey!" Connor yells, & leaps & side-steps in the opposite
direction. They begin staggering & leaping in huge star patterns in the
snow.
"My strength returns!" Connor shouts. "I propose a walk across the
water."
"Think it'll hold us?"
"It's fuckin' cold enough. A man of faith," Connor says, lifting a
finger & both brows, "on a fuckin' cold night, grasping tightly to the
wondrous chain, may walk across the water. Observe."
And Connor dashes for the pond, lifting knees high over the surface of
the snow, plowing thru, shouting, "Yippee!"
Ben dashing after him.
In the snow on the ice over the pond, they stomp figure 8's, huge
blossoms, & stars - scampering in the eerie white light.
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