Rewriting Stella
Page 31
what might become were Al to ruminate…
219.
“Hey Stel, wake up.” “Wake up, sis.” “Sleepyhead!
You missed my fave important magic parts.”
“Oh, sorry. Oof. I guess I’m needing bed,
I drifted off when Robin Williams starts
to act out swank false dreams Al’d realize,”
said Stella, rising up from off the couch.
“Oh yeah, once cave betrayed reseals.” “Ugh. Guys,
I’m pooped. I gotta sleep.” Cade’s cushion slouch
suggested he and Mo would stay downstairs,
so Stella trudged up happily alone.
She liked to see them having good times. Pairs
in Stella’s view turned life from steady drone
to melody complex as Brahms or Liszt.
Plus, she now knew how her duo’d exist.
220.
Abu, a bit like ghost, swayed to and fro
atop his lanky legs as if the wind
could flip him either way, as it does clothes,
considering while Stella, hopeful, grinned.
This boy could have been raised where cuneiform
was not an ancient, dead, forgotten script,
and yet his look at school was uniform,
normalcy’s carbon copy: backpack zipped,
a woolen sweater frayed below his neck
its navy blue to contrast khaki shorts,
on which were several daubs of muddy fleck
from football falls. Stel thought she glimpsed a quartz
or milky pendant hung beneath his maw,
a necklace carved as crescent moon and claw.
221.
“Another post, Stel? You said you were tired,”
said Cade in morning coffee line down Haight,
at thin, long shop named Stanza. “I’m rewired
sometimes when night drags on and it gets late…
I’m sheets to wind in body, but my heart
can’t seem to slow down, I’ve no hope of sleep.”
“That’s when you gotta pull Top 40s chart,
pop records on, lay back, and chill, and steep.”
“We’re different, Cade. I used to read in bed
to calm myself and seed some better dreams.
But being here is jarring. Routines fed
my past life. Writing here’s a new regime
to clear my mind and conscience at day’s end.
Plus hey, it’s fun to play god with the pen.”
222.
“Cortado, please.” “And one quick brew for me.”
“Are these all pastries from that Mission Beach
Café? Hot damn! I’ll take croissants. Um… three?
You know, Stel, royal living’s within reach
when shiz French bakers worked for centuries
perfecting’s what’s mere add-on at the till.”
“Oh, wow. That’s good. My mouth’s adventuring
from here to Paris in that bite.” Life’s ill
was wholly remedied for seconds as
her inner epicurean took hold
and fixated on almond razzmatazz
that baker’d brewed with butter, sugars bold.
She’d once heard Chengdu jiānbing chef voice wish
to travel world. Too poor, he did in dish.
223.
They sat at coffee bar between those who
showed up with laptops to scroll Facebook feeds
(subconscious addict’s act one falls into,
distracting from want to accomplish deeds).
The art on wall reminded Cade of this:
“It’s all in Pressfield’s book, The War of Art,
the ways we try take our aim, and miss,
self-undermining of creative starts.”
“Hold on—you read?” asked Stel, who’d seen him just
use leisure time to study Busta Rhymes.
“Ha. Yes. We’ve all got many sides. We must,
to face the day, no? Single paradigms
make Jack the dullest boy. Well, ’cept Jack White.”
Stel found it pleasant man so quite forthright
224.
could harbor alter ego life to boot.
He took a moment to wax lyrical
on how the book explains all acts are moot
except The Work. What’s stratospherical
is only the result of clocking time,
of casting self as true professional
whose livelihood is squarely on the line
and therefore acts somewhat obsessional
to get The Work completed. Substitutes
do not exist but Working. Facebook and
email replies, and tweeting, phone, and news,
and cleaning, it’s like never-never land
escaping mandate set for self. You choose
to actively engage, or else you lose.
225.
“So why’d you get drip coffee, black? They’ve got
baristas with the talent of Mos Def.
Espresso? Fine. A capp? Great. But brewed pot…?
If coffee used the term I’d call them chefs!”
“Brew’s mostly for the moment I look down,
from charcoal surface back reflects my face.
In liquid mirror, everyone looks brown
regardless of their color, origin, race.
There’s something grounding in that image, it
transports me back through places where I’ve gone.
It gets me thinking.” “But it tastes like shit,
go Jay-Z cappuccino style!” “Ha. Wrong,”
said Stella, sipping, “mere acquired taste.”
“You cray. That acquisition effort’s waste.”
226.
They drank their chosen beverages a bit,
attentive to the funny swirling steams
that rose up mathematically to knit
the solid, fleeting plush forms of daydreams.
“You know, if you were small enough, this mug,
this tiny cup of hotness, would create
your local weather patterns. Thermal slug
sheds heat to air and porcelain at rates
so different so to make a tiny wind
among the closest molecules.” “You wack?”
asked Cade. “No, I’m just thinking. Disciplined
reflection can be better than Prozac.”
“But you don’t pop SSRIs.” “No inked
prescription keeps my coffee black,” Stel winked.
227.
“Whatevs. I haven’t thought ’bout beverage norms
in rap. Bacardi, Hennessey, and shots
are standards. Cristal clearly outperforms
Courvoisier… what do folks drink on yachts?”
Stel smiled, and didn’t know. Cade pivoted,
“Back on that thermal thing, the place that Joe
suggested’s snuggle-cold. I’m riveted
to see if something sparks with Tee.” “I know!”
“Those coasts in Mendocino he suggests
are likely covered up, inbound fogs stay
around there.” “No fun. Think he’ll take requests
to change it up?” “He might.” “When’s Groundhog Day?”
“Last month. Why, Stel?” “I heard there might be snow,
which I’ve not seen, if cold hangs in Tahoe.”
228.
Stel pulled her cell phone out for blizzard of
her own devising, starting campaign to
pump up a Tahoe winter trip and shove
the coast aside. Highlighting plan’s gains through
a quick-recorded Snapchat snap and chat
on group thread on WhatsApp, she waited for
her audience feedback. A thermostat
in screenshot weather forecast she’d sent bore
a ‘forty-five but sunny’ near the lake,
compared to ‘fifty-one but rainy’ in
Gualala, Jenner, and Fort Bragg. “Let’s take
a chance of sunburn over raisin skin!”
she wrote as caption. Answers came back quick:
group trusted Stel that mountains made best pick.
CHAPTER 25
229.
At crack of dawn, assembled via Lyft,
the Opposition and its caravan
met near Patricia’s Green to stow and shift
its baggage and its riders. Spared a van’s
unnecessary rental by enough
new members interested and bringing cars,
they got a mole instead: Darla had bluffed
way in with pseudonym, and drove. “If ours
is first to get there, we’ll leave front door cracked
for you, with key back in the lockbox, ’cause
the hot tub’s where it’s at, and that’s a fact.”
The thing Joe hinted is that grocery was
a run for someone else to do for brews.
He’d picked up house, so others split the booze.
230.
The drive bore Stel through California’s heart,
north of the city m.A.A.d and suburbs Bay,
and skirted edge of vineyard-lord ramparts,
where royalty in Napa’s DNA
fuels wino feudalism, workers picked
the grapes that Parker’d rate once barreled oak
turned taste just so, their wages capped quite strict:
their retail price Baroque, the workers broke.
That land passed quickly, bypassed to the east
with climb to delta region levees saved.
Like Dujiangyan, to tame aquatic beast
of local nature, infrastructure slaved.
Past Sac-town rose the foothills of the chain,
Sierras of Nevada mountain skein.
231.
The highway climbed toward something called ‘the pass’,
that sounded like a hassle if it snowed.
They got there uneventfully, Stel asked
what hubbub was, why place was so forebode.
“When storms whip through, they’ll dump both snow and ice
right here, and cops will check you’ve put on chains
if you’re not four-wheel drive. It’s rolling dice
if so much falls they close it till it drains.
And even when it’s fine there’s vehicles
out in the shoulders messing with a tire:
they’ve not used slip-on chains. It’s miracles
and puppy dogs today that none require
that extra grip. Look right, there’s Donner Pass—”
Stel gazed at snowed-in cannibals’ crevasse.
232.
The highway wound both up and down, they’d moved
from altitudes where oaks and buckeyes shined
then cedars, firs, and dogwoods. Pines had proved
superiority at timberline.
Then all the sudden, as with peaks, road fell
below the isoclines that oxygen
decided were too high to really fill—
in ways, the highway had outfoxed the hen,
allowing human passengers with ease
to cross a mountain pass that, times past, killed.
“It’s this geography that guarantees
you’ll lose the game,” said Darla who’d distilled
decision points on Oregon’s long Trail,
(the game) that always made her players fail.
233.
Descent from mountains’ heights down toward the lake
for which ‘Tahoe’ was shorthand was a ride
that took good choice of gear for engine brake
and showed why California’s countryside
inspired some enlightened greats like Muir
and Ansel Adams and Chouinard. When they
got through the valley corridor and steered
right to encircle lake, Stel could survey
sheer beauty stretched before her: everywhere
surrounding water body was some peak
in snowcap hat, alone and solitaire,
its guarding only due to its physique.
Volcano’s buckling yielded sentry range,
a circumstance that none could prearrange.
234.
Stel wondered how long such a gorgeous source
of water’d pooled here for the ponderings
of wily engineers who’d quick endorse
a plan to make electrons, somber things
with hydropower. Here, capacity
would hardly be constraint, the snowpack melt
each year renewed supplies. Rapacity
was not her normal lens, and so she felt
a little guilty jumping to the thought.
Experience in China’d left a scar,
ex post blame for precluded gigawatts
made Stel police her voice, lest chance words mar.
She breathed, and witnessed lovely nature for
intrinsic value held, and poise restored.
235.
In dream she woke to sunlight, ventured out
to see the road trip canyon. Bounded rise
of mountain arc ’round basin awed, the route
escaping farmland valley hid from eyes.
From stance on bound’ry crest she watched the flood
turn tawny cut-straw plains to inland sea.
Her feet gave way as nude cliff made from mud
eroded, void of roots’ fast guarantee
that ground stay grounded. Somehow currents swept
her quick from shore. At sea, her panic swelled:
She’d grown up thinking water’s to be schlepped,
not massive ’nough to buoy bodies. Held
by crushing, clashing currents, flailing for
her life, she sank beneath the rapids’ roar.
236.
The verse took partial shape in mind before
it curled to letters pencil lead could etch.
It started as an image that implored
its audience to savor grandeur’s sketch.
With regal air of old daguerreotype,
the panorama seared on mind’s eye screen.
True sunshine there had no compare on Skype
or Shutterstock-like versions of the scene.
Such things were seen by human eyes alone,
experiences photographs kept boxed.
Stel knew that digital had stolen throne,
through IG feeds as fake as views Xeroxed.
In person, optic treasures were hers, seen
indelibly as light prints mercury.
237.
That pencil, too, was still a few hours hence.
She’d reach for it in rented bedside drawer
in use of literature for self-defense
and coup d’etat both. Followers would store
her stories’ words alongside own lived views.
Life outlook stems from miscellany kept.
And so to be creator of new news
neared Stella to a childhood refund meant
to soothe regretful soul she’d studied so.
The goblins on her shoulders, on her back
kept her at books until eyes bloodied. Throw
all youth toward cramming, spawn amnesiac.
Like canvas or a page, it left a space
imagined better lives could go replace.
238.
Between the riding and the writing, Stel
accompanied the troops to grocery store
where she avoided overwhelming tell
that she was overwhelmed. Coterie’s chore
to think through food and beverage kind of fit
the fact that rich man in the hot tub soaked.
She so remarked to Cade. “He’s blind to it?”
“Yeah, probably. When you’re in bath suds cloaked
>
it’s elementary to think of next
big business venture capitalists fund.”
“No joke.” It seemed apparent how wealth flexed
to multiply itself while system dunned
remaining have-nots, telling them they ought
to save more of the cash they’d never got.
239.
With Flying Dog, Rogue, Sudwerk, Twenty-First
Amendment in possession, they arrived.
In kitchen where they stored it, Fendi purse
lay there in place conspicuous, contrived.
Cade translated for Stel, “That bag right there
with taxes costs ’bout ten weeks minimum
wage if you’re working full-time.” “Tee is heir
apparent to Joe’s fortunes?” “Winnin’ some
already, far as I can tell.” He placed
the precious object elsewhere, cracked a beer,
explained, “So it won’t accidentally baste
in cocktail juice and lose its value here.”
“Oh, hey Stel!” shouted voice from outside, “Be
a dear and mix me something for the heat!”
240.
“Mimosa or Paloma, Vieux Carré,
a Rob Roy, Aviation, Daiquiri,
Old Fashioned, Gimlet, Boulevardier
Negroni, Sazerac, or Dark Stormy,
Mint Julep, Margarita, Martini,
a Moscow Mule, Manhattan, Mojito,
a Bloody Mary, Gibson, G&T,
White Russian, Rusty Nail, or Sour Pisco?
Perhaps Hot Toddy, Vesper, Whiskey Smash,
a Clover Club or Scofflaw, Sidecar, Pimm’s
Cup, Cosmopolitan, or shall I mash
them all together following my whims?”
Bar speech she’d hoped would tease was dry. Blandly
oblivious reply: “Long Island Tea!”
241.
Stel flipped to page in barman’s book on shelf
describing how to balance sours and sweets
to so mixologize. “Whew! I myself
would never drink this.” “Yeah, it overheats
the liver and the brain right proper quick,”
said Benny, putting beers up in the fridge,
“it’s yoozh a well drink with a whopper kick,
like nectar to fraternity swarms’ midge.”
Stel followed recipe, resisted her
desire to strike back at the demanding
yet clueless benefactor. “It occur
to you as Oppo we should be ranting
about the supposition that we do
the chores, as poor folks?” “Yes, and clearly to
242.
you, too, Benita.” “Yet, you make his drink.”
“I won’t blame him for rudeness he can’t know.”
“Can’t know? You’re joking.” “Do you ever think