1969 and Then Some

by Robert Wintner

  I knew all about it.

  Jerry stands out for a crowning achievement: he didn’t wreck my Triumph. I drove his rig over a cliff. It’s amazing, what fits into a fleeting moment, and how two moments forty years apart were as one. Time slows down, making plenty of room for regrets, hopes and dreams, with a niggling caveat that nothing will stop this action from going down.

  The first such warp came in 1970, doing a hundred ten on a Daytona 500, the twin carb Triumph, slightly smaller than the Bonneville. You can’t help catching slower traffic at that speed. Okay, you keep your wits. Pass like you should. But a truck threw a pebble that grew into a rock and then a boulder till a megalithic asteroid was screaming toward Earth. It passed in a flash on a push to the opposite side as the truck flashed pass. I tried a harder push forty years later to get around an SUV but not to the inside because of the rocky cliff. It seems irresponsible for anyone to go one ten on a scooter doing LSD, even in 1970. But a young man can take psychedelics better than an aging rider can pull rabbits out of his ass on an intentional high side with a goose and a push. Now that was radical. And so it went, over the falls.

  Shit. Motherfuck.

  I must have shucked clear, deferring again to instinct. Bouncing down the slag until the old bones came to a stop in two piles: one a clutter of stone axes in chrome, the other a road warrior in denial.

  Then came the days and weeks slowing to hours and moments with far less passion. Tic. Toc.

  Recovery time can be productive and free of Pollyanna optimism. It can seek a better mode of consciousness. Would I make the same effort at self improvement if I were up and about, tempted by daily life and its blandly satisfying distraction? The attending physician’s nametag says Tsadik below the Hebrew letter called tsadik, צ, used for the ts sound. Tsadik is also a Hebrew word for persons of spiritual renown. How did I know that? Well, in fact I didn’t know that, but then I did.

  Tsadik watched me blink and said: intermittent coma.

  I take long naps in conformance to diagnosis. He may be wrong. My naps can be dreamy. I also doubt his skepticism on complete recovery. Physician, cover your ass. Isn’t that what they teach you in med school?

  Many agree that the puzzle parts may soon fit together. They chat like I’m not there, and when my wife does the wifely thing—not the wifely thing; come on—of bending from the opposite side of the bed to murmur lovely thoughts on improvement and eternal love, the doctor cops a tit shot, like I can’t see what he’s doing. Why would she come to the hospital in a loose blouse with no bra? Oh, you don’t have to be dead to be forgotten.

  But I can’t complain for lack of visitors. They’re comforting, even if a nuisance otherwise. The trouble is, I can’t tell coma from coherence. Self-tests help, but I’m clever enough to cheat and pass. That is, how could Betty Boop know of my accident and condition? How low are the odds that she called or found out? Why would she come see me? Well, I knew why, after all. It was the love all around us, maybe just the love in and out of us, but that counts.

  Betty was living in Utah but not as a Mormon, and not with a Mormon, at least not with a practicing Mormon. Not by a long shot. Her new man saw the light on that situation years ago. Besides, what was she supposed to do, share him with a few wives? If anything, she’d need a few husbands to soak up all the love she had to spare.

  Ha! I think maybe I should be a Mormon. You know what I mean? I think you do.

  I did.

  Betty apologized for visiting Hawaii a few years back and not calling. She wanted to call. What harm in old friends saying hello? But her date was so insanely jealous that she couldn’t call.

  I honestly think he’d never had what I showed him, and that made him insanely jealous, because he inferred that every one of my men had got the same treatment. The last thing he wanted was for me to call you. You know what I mean? Next thing you know I’d be telling him we were going to grab some lunch, just you and me.

  Jealous? Just you and me? We got it on forty years ago. Besides, all your men did get the same treatment.

  I know. It was a long time ago, but it sure feels like yesterday. Okay, like last week. Ha! And no, bubby, they didn’t all get the same treatment. Give yourself some credit. Okay? Gee, it’s good to hear your voice.

  Can you hear my voice?

  Why shouldn’t I hear your voice? They say you have a great chance to recover. I’ll come back and see you then. Okay?

  I’m married. Didn’t you meet Rachel on the way in? Where did she go?

  No, I didn’t meet her. But I got an eyeful of her. How do I know where she went? Maybe she couldn’t stand up to the competition. Maybe she’s copping a quickie with the doctor. He’s a hunk. Now I could show him a treatment or two. You know what I mean? Hey, I’m joking. I don’t mean we’re going to get hot and heavy, you and me. That’s for sure. But we can get lunch, can’t we? Remember when we used to get lunch?

  I cannot remember lunch with Betty Boop, ever. She often took a taxi to the house near bedtime as a surprise and crawled in alongside just for fun. Or was it forty-five years ago? Maybe she wanted to see who else she might find there, so she could yell at me, because we weren’t getting married, so it was then or never on rough love with a possible ménage. But I digress. We had no lunch or frolic anytime other than dark. She was engaged with appearances to maintain. She had me confused with somebody else. It happens.

  Especially with Betty, she was so promiscuous. Then again, people tell stories of great times among friends—of when we all laughed and had such fun, and I can’t access a single frame. They look at me like I’m nuts. Maybe I am, but those stories are nearly always pointless and forgettable, so maybe I did forget. Good for me. But lunch with Betty? Never. It was late night academia, period. The end.

  You used to get so mad that a deli in the Midwest would have the chutzpa to sell cheese blintzes that tasted like day-old dreck. That’s what you said. You swore up and down that your mother’s were so much better. I got the cheese blintzes every time, just to get a rise out of you—that wasn’t too hard to do, if you know what I mean. I think you know what I mean. I thought they were delish.

  Betty Boop had great skills, chief among them a charm and fluid beauty classically framed and leading post-haste to everyman’s fantasy. She begged the question: is this actually happening to me? Well, of course it was, because life is full of extremes, good and bad. We know this truth to be self-evident, but a young man still feels blessed, as it were.

  I wanted to nestle and caress my private Boop while we waited recovery. It didn’t take long back then, but she made it weird with a little routine. On an exhale and a burp, like a gouty patrician after a feast, she’d lick her chops and say that was delish. She made a serene moment awkward with emphasis on her unusual tastes.

  I never heard of a deli in the Midwest serving cheese blintzes. My mother made them once and they were okay, if you like crepes with cheesy stuff inside and sour cream on top. I don’t.

  After four or five decades I can’t imagine Betty bending to the task again—then again, most people don’t forget how. We’d curved a bit in the spine and were both a tad rounded in the shoulders, so she wouldn’t have as far to go. Everybody gives in to gravity and gains weight. Everyone dries out—skin, hair, humor—but tender ministrations don’t change, and you can’t see rheumy eyes in the dark.

  Oh, Betty, you are the greatest . . .

  Wait a minute. That didn’t happen. I’m in a hospital room. It’s near dawn, judging by the slim light in the window that can’t outshine the inflammation of this place. My nurse is attractive in her way, though not like Betty Boop—black hair gone to charcoal with dark eyes, olive skin and a figure more blatantly curved. Her nametag says Marisol, like the flame in Spain. It couldn’t be, or seems unlikely. Marisol?

  “Yes.”

  Are you from Spain?

  “Yes.” She’s not surprised that I would guess Spain instead of Mexico. My pulse rises from seventy-eight to ninety-two, because sh
e’s pulled back my blanket and sheet as a mechanic might lift a hood on a vintage vehicle. With a washcloth she wipes the residue of Betty’s visit, which obviously did not happen but just as obviously was different than a dream. I wonder if this dark-skinned nurse named Marisol is a dream, and I know she’s not. She cleans my parts and must have put alcohol on the rag; so cold. Who could sleep through Betty Boop? Why would I dream that?

  Are you from Pamplona?

  She rinses the rag to finish the task, impressed by a debilitated man’s profusion. Not as young as he used to be, but he’s no dud on spermatozoa output. Surely she knows that some systems persist oppressively. Nurses are resigned to difficult truth. I wish she knew how much her care means to me. I wish she’d slow down and show more tenderness. Who could have foreseen that our glowing innocence creekside so far away and long ago would come to this?

  Where were you? I waited for you by the creek. An hour I waited. I missed you. Do you remember when we met?

  “Breakfast. You like oatmeal? It is good for you. You must eat. Then you get well. I will help you.”

  Isn’t it odd, that the memories lasting longest are those of the caregivers? I didn’t know decades ago that she was a caregiver. It couldn’t have worked with Marisol and me, but I loved her.

  And in a blinding realization I knew that it could have worked. The fuck. It did work, was working. Look at her. She cradles my head and spoons oatmeal into the mouth hole, loving me right back. I know that I will honor and obey her, till death do us part. See her catch the dribble and scrape it back up and into the hopper?

  We often and easily imagined old age in the 60s, because a wizened self comes to mind on psychedelics—the alternate plane extrapolates freely on hidden data, granting perceptions otherwise unattainable. Probability goes to 100% on whatever you like. You can be Uncle Wiggly walking a crooked mile. Storybook imagery is as accessible as refracted light sparkling though a prism. It wasn’t real, yet it survives that time.

  The boomers graduated. The boomers got married, divorced and remarried. Some had grandchildren, and all learned to love the senior discount and would not mind bankrupting Social Security. Fuck you; we paid.

  Marisol goes from the chin wipe to the rollover and ass wipe with the same wet rag. At least she got the order right. Was it a fresh rag? Well, the task is done. We adapt. What was once embarrassing becomes routine. But not Marisol; she’s one in a million. Then again, most of them were great, given half a chance. A young fellow can forget to give a chance. Not to worry. They’re here, waiting their turns. Now they’ll get a chance to be great.

  Who am I kidding? Maybe they won’t take the chance. Would they come to make fun? Please. Maybe after my nap would be best. Or would that be after my nap within a nap, in a few hours or days or a week or two?

  Denial is common in dreamtime. The subconscious grasps at a better truth. Dreamers pull out of a nosedive to level off and fly. A poor boy finds money in a pot with a rainbow sticking out. A dream can repair life, so that life can open and be good forever. So life can accept what will come, and be happy, no matter what.

  My father and Flojo the cat stood before a coffin to sum things up. Empty and full are phases of the same transition. Caterpillar sheds his skin to find the butterfly within. That’s a song. I know it. First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is.

  The most compelling transition is bodily failure. Dr. King said, Free at last. Free at last. But it’s a process.

  A dreamtime stiffy is not the dependable stiffy of youth. Coma is also called a persistent vegetative state, but vegetables don’t get stiffies. A man’s first response to death is often the piss, shit and stiffy series. What’s the diff between sleep and coma? Either one could be an attempt at bladder control, but a coma stiffy would have no romantic component—Boop came to me! I sleep, therefore I am.

  What month is this?

  Old Dad came around when Flojo died to take her along. He’d never mentioned cats when I was a kid. What got into him? Any shrink would tell you it was in me—but we share a common nature.

  A seasoned dreamer develops control—pulling out of a fall, quelling the monster with a fade out. And stay out! My script is also a work in progress. To whit:

  Here come Rianne, Rayanne and Rianan. Their buxom shape and graying visage may be a stereotype, and so is their singular warmth and fortitude. Who the hell is Rianan? She’s from a Fleetwood Mack lyric with some odd syllables for a chorus. Okay, she has an aging cosmic vibe.

  Hey, Rock ‘n Roll. You look great, but don’t lie to me. No smoke up the ass. Do you remember when I was skinny?

  Oh, Juanita, oh, Juanita

  Oh, Juanita I call your name

  Gee, it’s great to see you. It’s good to know you care. I was just realizing how lovable the caregivers come to be . . .

  Where are you going? Don’t say your needs were met, that you must be . . . Wait . . .

  Last night’s ride was different—I say last night; it could have been between brunch and siesta or Thanksgiving and Chanukah. Tsadik speculates on REM behavior disorder, a more precise name for sleepwalking, or physically acting out on a dream script.

  Marisol pressed, “How he can ride a motorcycle in a hospital? Is crazy.”

  “That’s just it,” murmured Tsadik. “He can’t!” The verdict is final, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that I can.

  Tread marks on the walls? Sheetrock gouged in the corners where I laid it over to get around? All night I rode, many laps around the room, a side run down the hall, a jaunt through the burn unit and radiology, up the stairs to the ICU and up again to the children’s trauma unit, where the tykes watched, longing to join in.

  It feels like the fix is on.

  I need a nap, coming right up.

  A little voice calls, Sleep, my friend.

  It fades beneath the snoring of the fellow I’ve become.

  Time Has Come Today

  THE CHAMBERS BROTHERS said it best:

  Mmuhh . . . Mmmmuuuuhhhh!

  We laughed out loud. We’d hardly anticipated that Chambers Brothers’ gut moan could be both prelude to a rock classic and our wakening moments in decades to come. Nothing new there: aging people wake up slow. Drudgery and fatigue take more time as I sit up forty and fifty years later, taking inventory on aches, daze, hangover and too much meat hanging up in the lower G.I. like tampons in a P-trap.

  Damn.

  Why did I do that?

  I’ll tell you why: it’s because a rib-eye medium rare is tough to turn down after a long day in the saddle and a mountain pass to pucker the butthole on any rider on any scooter of any size. Turn down? Hell, it made perfect sense, like sundown at the end of a day. A sizzling rib-eye seemed fuckinay righteous after the sweeps and twisties at the heart of the Bitterroot range, the scent of it blending with heart-thumping vistas and a searing stretch of interstate over the top and down the backside at 11% grade. That’s four lanes posted at seventy with brake failure warning signs every half mile giving distance to the next runaway bailout—gravel beds and drifts to bog a big rig to a dead stop without rolling it over, maybe.

  The uphill rigs chugged about thirty, requiring the breakneck speeds downhill to make up for lost time and put these bennies to use—get outta my fuckin’ way! The eight-mile drop to the flats was a white-knuck motherfucker with headers and fluky gusts that felt much different than French kids with pillows. Bouncers grabbed your lapels, shook you up and shoved you out the door if you came up on a big rig too close or you didn't. The slow lane averaged about seventy but got thick with traffic, and the passing lane ran eighty to one oh five.

  Of course the slow lane wasn’t too thick, and anybody could hang out with Ma ‘n Pa Kettle, trudging along, covering miles slow and steady. I took a break with them for a minute or two, till it got too slow—till the younger guys pealed around a curve too far out front to ever catch.

  Finally rolling in to Tony’s ranch at the hot springs, kicking the stand
out and leaning a ticking rig over felt like a pattern. Day’s end and relief was a feeling of well-being, looking forward to a joint and a hot soak and a few beers and feasting with friends, road brothers in a daily reunion of the wholly alive. Hmm. Didn’t die. Well done.

  I would get through this and set motorcycling aside just like Old Mom predicted on the way to the airport that sad day long ago—set it aside with gratitude, all things considered.

  I didn’t want to drag my sorry ass off the thing, so I reached for composure, coordination and a lively step, like a man in the morning on a walk in the basil. Making the ranch and easing in and showering out and pounding enough beer, ibuprofen and reefer to trade one buzz for another and calm the wobbles made sense with a sizzling piece of red meat and a puddle of ketchup front and center—not something a man dove into by choice but rather fell into by sheer, raw momentum no less than gravity accumulated on that long stretch down. Top that with some sipping grade tequila to take the edges off just as so many edges had been beautifully honed, and available insights didn’t only include the meaning of life but tapped into some impressive pleasure centers too, from which additional profound meaning could be drawn. That would be meaning on the spiritual plane beyond rationale or logic or the well-worn 20% of the human brain most often used—in most cases carelessly. That feeling was rare and needed savoring and development. It went beyond omniscience or presumption.

  In those golden moments of perspective—those moments earned by whatever time was necessary to hone those edges—a person could see and know. Whatever was questioned could be known, not so much by way of an answer that seemed to fit in the conventional sense but by transcendence. We had arrived. That was not to say that it didn’t mean shit, but as a matter of fact in that time and place . . .