for mortal humans to overcome the slow-consciousness mindless fuck ups of man, ready to spring forth an ex-communication from the human race, for the reformation.
No point in glorifying a drug guru, say the skeptics, asleep at the wheel, taking handouts from the wheeler-dealers on Capitol Hill, the gravitators and gawkers, rubbing noses and who-you-know in the bathrooms, snorting and sniffing, and up in smoke. The tobacco lads smuggling in Havana gold, puffing in good-old-boy parlors, with only shapely women erupting out of cakes dressed like Eve.
Tim did it for us, talked nonsense and made sense, too far ahead of normal minds to comprehend the gibberish. Got to freeze that brain, bring it back again when mankind catches up.
Oh, we tripped and hallucinated and came back and had flashbacks and then continued working, and grew old and died, and that was that. On the threshold: We saw the light, felt the vibrations, the energy, the universal oneness that normally would have passed us by, had we not been there, there on the line, marching and meditating and searching, there beside some of these fellows who felt and explored and went for more and dedicated their lives to blowing minds, carrying on with the cosmic joke. The buffoon, the fool, not just fading away.
What was this all about? The natural rhythms, the hopes and dreams, the schemes? Another day, another dollar mentality: Hop off that train.
Now we hear that 20 per cent escaped the green memes, thinking we are leaping ahead with the techno-revolutions only to be fooled by the fact that we all have to not-demonize the others and only 2 per cent, perhaps, have leapt to the second tier. Two per cent, according to Ken Wilber, have gone beyond the reconciliation and acceptance and in-house bickering about who is right and who is wrong. And the wheel of fortune keeps on spinning as we start to wake up a little.
The hobo hopped on in another era. This was fitting for the post-war, post-Eisenhower years’ blacklists, McCarthy had the magic spell, the hell-on-wheels Hoover FBI control, the ruining of lives. We read about it all.
I, Jesse, the ex-S.D.S. man, the student advocate, free speech and all the rest. What happened to all those years, fighting and chanting and smoking and singing and reflecting?
It’s come undone: an illusion, the sold-out cop out, continuing above ground on the way to achieving, busy-ness, the ideal life lived in bliss, plentifully content, at whose expense? The “Marin prosperity consciousness,” being hip, being cool, knowing all the right moves, getting an endorsement from Coke. These are the golden years, the expected results of living life to the fullest, buying into the party line, or being so independent that community is only a word in the dictionary, with the me-first and I’ll-get-mine mentality as God.
So where does this leave me, an expatriate in Vienna, looking back and forth from what-path-is-this-and-how-did-I-get-here?
I can’t believe this has all been thoughts, lost time. Oh no, stuck in Lodi again. Yes, drifting on, Jess, my man, the talking voices inside, again haunting me across the seas.
Visions of past and present reflect and reverberate across time, and now the last twenty minutes of warm water spraying on my back take me back again to the importance of this very moment. I reach for a towel. My skin seems likes it’s been lifted and thrown in the dirty clothes bin. The dead cells have gone down the drain with the Drano, the washing away of my sins, the wasted time, wasted years.
Now the door bell rings, and it’s also six bells on the old antique Seth Thomas, so I know this time is accurate, reminding me of where I am supposed to be and what I am supposed to be doing now, and with whom.
Now I hear a loud knock at the door.
This must be the cinema scene where he comes to the door with only a towel draped around his waist, his biceps flexing and his long straight black hair flowing, past old Hollywood stars like Valentino, Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, and Humphrey Bogart, maybe. Or McQueen, Connery, Delon, Eastwood, Pacino, Hoffman, Cage, Cruise, Arnie S., Redford, Newman, Mastroianni, Belmondo, Douglas (2), Curtis, Hudson, Kinski, DeNiro, Depardieu, Portier, Nicholson . . . And now perhaps Pitt, Clooney, Depp, Bloom, DiCaprio . . .
Water dripping, making a dew-line from the bathroom to the front doorhandle. It turns easily, sliding with wet fervor. I open the door, and there are those large blue eyes, innocent and misty, refreshing yet cautious.
She says hello.
The words shatter the thoughts. I wrestle with the pregnant pause, struck by the little figure standing before me. She says, “Hi, Jess, aren’t you going to ask me in? Oh, you aren’t dressed! I can wait out here while you get dressed. Boy, was it hot today! How are you?” She gives me a bussi/kiss, on the lips:quick, crisp and meaningful, and then proceeds to walk past me, not once looking at my almost-nude body, and sits down in the living room.
“I’ll be just a minute. The time slipped by. I lost track of time. I was going to be ready when you came, but you know me, a little space-cadet.”
“How are you? You look good. Is that a new dress? It’s so nice and cute on you.” I think to myself how beautiful she looks. She is every bit nicer than that woman that I was salivating over. I do know her a little, too, which makes it a bit easier to break the ice. I mean, she knows me somewhat already, my idiosyncrasies and all. I don’t have to bother to introduce myself and then get slapped in the face. All that anticipation and expectation in meeting someone new, getting carried away in fantasies and all.
Let’s see, what was I doing?
I’ll just dry off and put on these socks and underwear. I’ll parade by her on the way to the bedroom. “Hello again, see my new Jockeys? I’m still a size thirty-two. I have to get my Body Glove shirt. Oh, I missed my workout at Gold’s gym today. I was pressing three hundred already. I’ll have to practice for my triathlon that’s coming up.”
“Ha, ha, I’ll bet you couldn’t do thirty push-ups right now!” I knew she was right.
“I’ll bet I can. In fact, here I go: You count.”
Anna is over me in a second as I ready myself on the hardwood floor. I am fit, but I am not really confident that the magic thirty will be reached, though that isn’t so much for a forties-something-year old man, I think to myself.
Suddenly I hear, “One, two, three, push those beef cakes all the way down now, six, ten, come on now, flex those muscles, watch that nose of yours, watch out, the sweat is spraying everywhere, fifteen.”
I begin to huff and puff, but I’m grateful to reach twenty. She says she has a surprise for me if I reach thirty. I am not quite so sure, as I hear, “Twenty-five, twenty-six, let’s go, fatty! OK, soldier, work it on out now, or you got KP duty at 21:00 in the mess hall,” she belts out, like a real sergeant. At twenty-eight, I call it a day, or rather I collapse in all humiliation at the feet of my honey. “That’s a good try, J. I knew you could almost do it. Not bad for an old man. You ought to lay off those Sacher Tortes! No, just kidding. That was pretty good. I don’t know if I could do twenty of the woman push-ups.”
I nod, huffing and puffing, but not blowing the house down, and head for the showers, or was it the bedroom? I just had a shower, didn’t I? And now the sweat from this and the hot shower bring beads to my newly-thinning hairline. I laugh to myself at how much fun that was. I like a challenge, and besides, I do need to work out a bit, not that this little session would make me look like Arnold: Austria’s – and now California’s – answer to Hercules.
Let’s see, where was I? Looking for some nearby Levis and a cool summer sport shirt. Oh there’s the one with the tropical birds and the purple and black background. That feels appropriate right now. What was Anna wearing? Did I notice everything about her? Something was different. The hair, of course. She must have washed it and cut it some. The split ends were getting a little tiresome, probably. OK, here I go. I find myself humming, “Just singing in the rain, getting soaking wet,” as I ease on into the living room, where she is reading my latest Vanity Fair. I give her a peck on the neck and make a loud sound.
This scares her and she looks up, frightened at first and then laughing a nervous laugh. “Oh, don’t you look the Jamaican,