by Rick Boling
"Right," I said. I had forgotten about my website and Facebook page, neither of which interested me in the least. But I knew my agent employed a publicity service that kept them updated with my irregular schedule, which would explain how this oddball had known where to find me and where my next gig would be. However, the profile—also written by the publicist—was mostly bullshit hype and did not contain personal details such as my preference for Jack Daniel’s, bloody steak, and seared sea scallops. I was about to confront Heyoka with this fact when he continued.
"As for the rest of it, there's a little matter of your multiple run-ins with the law over the years, and the resulting news stories, which are also available on the Web for anyone who wishes to spend a little time searching. Plus, though you may not be aware of it, a few of your former, shall we say, groupies, have given interviews to various media outlets, detailing things like your favorite foods, your early heroin addiction, and your penchant for large quantities of a certain brand of Tennessee whiskey. You should Google yourself sometime. You'd be surprised how much is out there."
We bantered for a while, mostly about trivialities not available through the ubiquitous Google search engine, and by the time the food arrived I was convinced that this strange man really was a die-hard fan of mine.
I had not been able to afford the food at LeMusique, contenting myself with less expensive fare at a few local cafes in Lyon's market district. There was nothing to complain about in that pedestrian cuisine, however, it couldn't hold a candle to what we were served by Aurélie. At the peak of my career, I'd been much more popular in Europe than in the US, and I'd eaten at some of the most revered culinary destinations on that continent. Those now-distant memories came back to me as I carved into fork-tender, cannibal-rare steak, boat-fresh scallops seared golden brown, a potato dripping with sweet clarified butter, and straw-thin asparagus steamed to perfection. "The usual," for Heyoka, was a bowl of shelled mussels in white wine sauce over a bed of fluffy saffron rice, the aroma of which almost made me wish I'd opted for his choice.
Between bites, I asked him to tell me something about himself, and when he hesitated I reminded him that I, too, had a computer that connected to the Internet. "Well," he said, "If you want the whole story, you'll have to take me up on my offer. But … okay, a short version...
"I was born on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota and grew up in abject poverty. Early on, however, I had … let’s call it a revelation. Anyway, I realized I had a talent for mathematics, and by the time I reached middle school I had bypassed all my peers and was applying for admission to several prestigious universities. At age sixteen, I was offered a full scholarship to Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, with all travel and living expenses paid. That's not too far from here, by the way. Just north of Lake Geneva in Switzerland. After earning a doctorate in quantum mechanics, I returned to the states to accept a position at MIT as an adjunct professor of theoretical mathematics, where I began developing several unorthodox theories in particle physics—theories that baffled my peers and eventually earned me the nickname "Hey Joker." Unbeknownst to my detractors, this was a fairly accurate description of the Lakota Sioux meaning of Heyoka."
"Okay," I said when he didn't continue. "I give up. What does it mean?"
"Heyoka?" he said. "Heyoka is a spirit in Lakota Sioux mythology reputed to be a trickster. Historians unfamiliar with Native American spiritual beliefs often describe him as being evil or nefarious, but he’s really only a harmless clown who makes those he inhabits do things backward or unconventionally. The name was handed down to me from my ancestors seven generations removed, and it actually fits me quite well."
"So, you’re a tricky, unconventional, physicist clown?"
"Many of my fellow physicists would say so," he said, scraping up the last of his rice with a slice of garlic bread. "However, if you want to know the specific reasons why, you're going to have to spend some time with me at my home.”
Practicality and common sense were now joined by curiosity, and I made a decision to accept his hospitality. I might have been stupid to take up with a complete stranger on a moment’s notice, but given my current situation I didn’t have a hell of a lot to lose.
Our meal was capped off by an excellent Crème Brûlée, served in individual ramekins and caramelized at the table with a miniature propane torch expertly wielded by Aurélie. After Heyoka signed for what had to be a substantial bill, my worries about having to sleep in a hovel were somewhat allayed. However, when we reached the parking lot and a valet drove up in a scruffy looking, elderly Citroen, I began to wonder what I'd let myself in for. I had taken a step toward the curb when a young Asian fellow brushed past us and took possession of the odd little car. The next vehicle in line was of a make I didn't recognize, though I was reminded of a black Maserati I'd seen at an auto show years before.
“I took the liberty of having your equipment sent on ahead,” Heyoka said as the car slowed to a stop in front of us. “If anything is missing, we can pick it up tomorrow.”
I thought about commenting on his presumptuousness, but I couldn’t come up with a plausible reason to object, so I merely stood and watched while the doors of the low-slung sedan slid out and back to reveal an elegant interior of beige leather. After we were inside, the doors slipped back into place without a sound, and I sank into a seat that came alive, shaping itself to my body. Seat restraints of a semi-rigid, yet comfortably resilient, material emerged from behind and above, settling against me until I felt as if I had merged organically with the car.
We negotiated the narrow, lamp-lit streets of Old-Town Lyon, careful to avoid the few late-night pedestrians who straggled over damp cobblestones. A few minutes later we approached the Peripherique at the edge of town, and it was only then, when the car accelerated up the entrance ramp, that I realized there was no sound of an engine.
"What is this thing?" I asked, as we merged with the light traffic on the perimeter highway.
"Thing?" he said. "Oh, you mean the car. It's a little something I came up with myself. Runs on a small, closed-cycle nuclear fuel cell. Daimler made the body for me, based on a modified Maserati design, and the drive train—all except for the power supply—was assembled by a friend of mine who used to work for BMW." He passed his hand over something in the sunken dashboard, and I heard the strains of my own song, This Poor Boy's Still a Fool, emanating from a surround-sound system with reproduction of such pristine clarity it was like listening to myself play live. I was so absorbed by the realistic quality of the music, it didn't occur to me right away that the song had never been released and wasn't on any of my early albums or later CDs. I started to say something about this, but he preempted me.
"It’s a shame this one was never released," he said. "It's a nice little song, and I love the line, 'frozen paper words won't make tomorrow yesterday.'"
"Thank you," I said. "But I'd like to know where you got that recording? The song never appeared on any of my albums, and I'm almost positive I have the only copy of the master tape. Plus, this is obviously digital, and even though I did eventually digitize it, it's not available as an MP3 and wasn't included on any of my later CDs."
"Right," he said. "And what would you say if I told you I had a copy of Sunday Morning Sentinel as well?”
"I'd say you were full of shit if I didn't already know there was something weird going on here." Poor Boy had been written to serve as the B-side of Sunday Morning Sentinel, a song of tremendous promise that was never released due to one of the stupidest decisions I'd ever made in my life. I was about to ask how much more he knew when I noticed we were approaching the exit for my hotel. Before I could tell him to get in the right lane, he whipped around a long line of traffic and pulled onto the off ramp.
"The Hotel Orientale, right?" he said, as we turned a corner and entered the parking lot of my humble living quarters. To a foreigner, 'Hotel Orientale' might have sounded a little exotic, but in English the name was simply "Eastern
Hotel," Lyon's version of a Best Western. Not terrible digs, but nothing to write home about, even if I'd had a home to write to.
Heyoka waited in the car while I went up to the room and gathered my few belongings. Over the years, my once-extensive collection of travel accessories had, of necessity, dwindled to the bare essentials, so all I had to retrieve was my suitcase, toiletries, a hanging clothes bag, and a couple of bottles of Jack. I took a moment to refill my hip flask, then returned to the car and jammed my meager possessions into its small trunk. I was walking toward the office to settle up and check out, when Heyoka rolled down the window and said, “Don’t worry about that. It’s taken care of.” He offered no further explanation as I climbed back into the car, and I decided not to ask any questions until we were back on the highway.
We soon turned onto A42 and headed northeast toward a full moon that bathed the rolling countryside in a milky satin mist. I waited until the traffic thinned and we were moving along at a steady clip before raising my voice in order to be heard over the music. "So," I yelled, "are you going to explain all this, or what?"
The sound system, apparently reacting to my attempt at conversation, lowered in volume until it was no louder than elevator Muzak. "Of course," he said in the relative quiet. "The explanation, however, is complicated and will require some demonstrations I can only provide after we get to my place."
"And where, exactly, is your place?"
"In the foothills outside Saint-Genis-Pouilly, not far from Geneva. We should be there shortly."
The way I calculated it, Geneva was over ninety miles from Lyon, and we'd barely left the outskirts of town. Which meant that 'shortly' would be over an hour unless we were traveling unusually fast. I hadn't paid much attention to our immediate surroundings, and when I glanced out the side window into the shimmering yellow haze, I noticed things were moving by in a blur.
"How fast are we going, anyway?" I asked.
"Let's see," he said, looking straight ahead at a greenish iridescence that hovered in the air near the windshield. "Looks like about 180 kilometers an hour. So, maybe twenty-five minutes?"
I couldn't think of anything more to say, so I took a swig from my flask and relaxed into the embrace of the form-fitting seat as the sound of my own music rose again, filling the car like a live concert.
The Villa D’Ailleboust
Given the fancy car and expensive meal, I wasn’t surprised to find that Heyoka’s “place” turned out to be far from a hovel. However, by the time we wound our way up through several narrow passes in the heavily wooded hills, I had begun to wonder if we weren't headed for a primitive retreat with teepees for sleeping quarters. The few glimpses I caught of the moon through the canopy of tall conifers made it appear to grow larger with each mile traveled. And when we broke through the tree cover into a small ravine, the once silver-dollar-sized satellite had transformed into a pearlescent beach ball, illuminating everything from the glistening waters of a serpentine river to the jagged cliffs that rose on either side of the canyon.
The now-unpaved road was smooth for one that cut through such wild terrain; and, like a faithful old workhorse, the car seemed to follow it instinctively, with only an occasional nudge on the steering wheel from its unconcerned driver. By the time I had drained the last few drops from my flask, I could still see no signs of a house, or even a teepee. I was thinking about asking the typical kid’s question, “Are we there yet?” when we turned toward what appeared to be a collision course with the trunk of a fir tree. I held my breath as we swerved around it and headed up a steep, twisted driveway surrounded by more dense forest.
The Villa D'Ailleboust was announced by a carved wooden sign, under which stretched a gated entrance reminiscent of one that might have guarded a cattle ranch in the western US. The gate swung open to reveal an almost vertical climb that led to a sprawling, multi-level log structure perched atop a promontory studded with boulders and stunted scrub pine. Awash in the moon's soft yellow glow, the complex looked like something Disney might have designed to house a nostalgic reenactment of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.
We cruised to a stop at the glass-fronted entrance, and two strapping young men appeared to unload the trunk. Heyoka greeted each of these valets like friends, rather than servants, introducing them to me with brief descriptions and names I would not remember. A third—an Asian gentleman I recognized as the Citroen driver from back at the club—escorted us up a split-log stairway, into an enormous room with thirty-foot-high vaulted ceilings of knotty pine supported by thick beams of cedar. A majestic elk-horn chandelier hung from the apex, shedding subdued light on an assortment of rustic wooden furniture upholstered in woven fabric of typical Native American design. Across the back of the room, windows stretched from floor to ceiling, framing a moonlit silhouette of the distant Jura Mountains.
Despite the villa's backwoods appearance, it was clear that Heyoka had spared no expense in recreating an atmosphere both comfortable and decoratively familiar. And, had I not known where we were, I could easily have mistaken those mountains for the Colorado Rockies.
Being early September, the weather wasn't cold yet, but here in the higher elevations it was chilly at night, which explained the roaring fire that filled a random-stone fireplace. I was staring out at the magnificent mountain vista when Heyoka came up beside me and laid a hand on my back. "Whaddya think?" he said. "Sorta reminds me of home. Not you, though, I guess. What with that sand in your shoes and sunshine in your bones."
Home for me had always been the two-dimensional landscape of Florida, although I had long ago tired of sandy beaches and boring, flat terrain. I’d fallen in love with mountains while touring the western US and vacationing in the Carolinas, and why I always ended up back in the Sunshine State remained a mystery. At one point my pigeon-like proclivity had to do with friends and family; however, my folks were long dead and I'd lost touch with most of my childhood friends. For more than twenty years, I'd made the road my home, hopping from hotel to hotel, with an occasional longer stay in a rented apartment when the gigs dried up. Royalties from my early albums and later CD compilations provided a meager, but fairly steady income, and on a few rare occasions a new artist would cover one of my songs on an MP3, adding a little extra bread to my dwindling cash flow. I'd even had one of my tunes included in a couple of hip-hop remixes.
I let Heyoka steer me away from the windows to a couch in front of the fireplace, where I was presented with a tall glass of whiskey by my new Asian friend, whom Heyoka addressed as Fred. This was one name I decided I should commit to memory, if only for the fact that he was the provider of my favorite beverage. I took a long drink and sank back into the cushions, breathing in the aroma of cedar and other earthy smells that permeated the atmosphere. I still had many questions, but before I could sort out my thoughts, Heyoka spoke up.
“I really do appreciate your agreeing to spend some time with me,” he said, walking to the fireplace to stab at the logs with a poker. “And despite what I suspect you have interpreted as a mysterious reluctance on my part to explain my reasons for the invitation, I can assure you there's nothing sinister about them. I do have somewhat of an ulterior motive, though it's nothing that need concern you. It's just that it's a little too complicated for a decent explanation tonight. In fact, like I said, it's going to take a few demonstrations and a good bit of convincing for you to even begin to understand.”
The agitated fire flared up, releasing a wave of warmth that rolled over my skin like invisible fog. When Heyoka was satisfied with the adjustment of the logs, he stepped away from the fireplace and reached to retrieve something from a nearby shelf. “Since it’s already pretty late,” he said, “about all I can manage tonight is a brief preview.” He sat down on an identical couch opposite me and slid the thing across the coffee table between us. I was about to set my glass down, when Fred approached and whisked it from my hand, I hoped in order to refill it. “Go ahead,” Heyoka said when I looked at the rectangular object. �
�It’s something I think you will find fascinating.”
The flat, black object looked like an oversized iPad, though there were no visible controls. Its surface felt cold like steel when I picked it up, but it weighed almost nothing. I looked at Heyoka for a clue as to what I should do next, but all he did was smile. And when I glanced down at the device again, I was staring at a 3D image that covered the surface from edge to edge. It wasn’t a hologram because it didn’t protrude above the surface; however, the image had such depth and color saturation, it seemed as if I were looking through a window at something happening in real time.
The scene was familiar, though I couldn’t quite place the location: a pavilion or bandstand, with a crowd of thousands sitting on green benches in front of it. And then, while I was wracking my brain to remember, the camera, or whatever was providing the view, started to zoom in. The sensation was one of traveling forward into the scene, coming closer and closer to the bandstand until I could make out an orchestra surrounded by dozens of American flags. In front, center stage, stood a small boy, dressed in a red-white-and-blue Uncle-Sam costume, his mouth open, obviously frozen in mid-note of a song.
“Fourth of July, 1951,” said Heyoka. “Little Richard Voniossi makes his first major personal appearance in front of seven thousand cheering patriots at Williams Park in St. Petersburg, Florida.”
I was dumbstruck. Not only was this an event I had long forgotten, but as it came back to me, I remembered that the only photos I’d ever seen of it were black-and-white shots taken by local newspapers. Tears welled up in my eyes as I recalled that day and the incredible lady who convinced me I could wow the huge crowd with my powerful soprano voice: Mrs. Henderson—Carol—the music teacher who had given me my first taste of applause. Before then, I had only performed as a soloist with the youth choir. And back in those days, applause in church was strictly forbidden. From the day of that performance forward, my desire for applause became an addiction.