by Heidi King
I take a deep breath and look at myself. The moon is the mirror… it holds the sun. The order changed. Tuna changed the order. I don’t need to save the child first. . I want to crawl through… through the looking glass, and drink from the cup… I write the words -- with her blood on the mirror… The Holy Grail.
I stumble into the shower and hold onto my knees as I wash what was left of her down the drain.
Oscillate Wildly
By Mathew Hope
Travel, whether a year trek or a day trip, cannot be enjoyed if you think you can control all the variables. Women are like travel – variables. Put them together and you have constant variables.
Maria and I decided to take a bit of time for ourselves and play tourists in Boquete on our way up to visit Dr. Mike. He finally had invited Steve, Estrella, Maria and I to visit him and Usnavy. We dumped the car in the town center and walked the winding road up to his “castle,” stopping first at the garden known as “El Explorador.”
Imagine what Walt Disney would do if he were a gardener on acid. An antique telephone sits in a little hut in the garden. Pick it up and it’s Bach. What was junk has been collected and turned into art with little philosophical inspirations written on the side. The plants were sculpted like Edward Scissor Hands went to town. It was Maria who insisted we come here. She walked around like she was looking for something in particular. The first variable we hit was rain. We found shelter under a covered swing and Maria dug out the wine and cheese for our picnic. She kept digging around in her bag and after concluding that the object of her search was not to be found, she glared at me. The second variable was enough to spoil the mood. When I packed the wine and cheese, the only other thing I saw in the bag was dirty laundry. Like really dirty -- they were panties that met the arrival of the Red Sox five day home stay.
That was enough to cancel our picnic, and we headed to Dr. Mike’s house in silence. I, at least, tried to enjoy the beauty of walking among the coffee plantations and savoring the smell of burning pine coming from the fires in the small shacks of the Indian coffee pickers. The rain never really materialized. A fine mist they call bajareque drifted past Volcán Barú, leaving a dizzying double rainbow. This was appropriate for our walk – the winding road we were on was called Arco Iris, which is Spanish for ‘rainbow.’
Dr. Mike’s rented house really looked like a castle, complete with natural rock and turrets. Only when you get closer do you realize that the turrets were not nearly as large as a real castle, and the ‘rock’ was merely stylized cement. Dr. Mike, Usnavy, Steve and Estrella greeted us with hugs and handshakes.
I am sometimes reminded how little I know of Maria. I was told Colombians have a hierarchy or strata in their society that is not subjective. They actually have six levels, based on their incomes and tax bracket. Because Maria speaks impeccable English, sometimes with only a subtle accent, I always thought she was from money. Maybe a strata five at least. But her awe of this upper middle class faux house only contributed to the mystery that she was. I can recognize the self-creation of the enigmatic persona to hide a lack of depth. Anyone who has ever said ‘there’s so much you don’t know about me,’ is guilty of this. This is not Maria.
The girls eagerly jumped into the hot tub overlooking the valley of coffee farms. Dr. Mike took advantage of the moment to take Steve and I into his study. Inside, it was obvious that he had filled the book cases with books he had authored himself. The kinds of books I had only pretended to read in college.
Glenfiddich, Glenamarenge, Glenlivit, other Glens. They were all offered, and we tasted them all. When we loosened up a little, Dr. Mike asked me about Maria. I realized we had all come a long ways together. Steve, Dr. Mike and I had all begun our implausible relationships around the same time. We had that in common.
I confessed to them my frustration with Maria’s sudden mood swing over what appeared to be a bag of dirty laundry. I thought Dr. Mike would have insight.
“I have no idea. As men we can’t begin to guess the minds of women,” he said. A defeating thing for a former therapist to say. But he did offer advice in the form of a personal story.
Dr. Mike had married young, had one daughter, and then divorced. I never knew this about him. Back in the days when Dr. Mike was happily married, his wife would make brown bag lunches. Often his daughter helped her by dropping in little notes that always ended with, “I love you.”
One day Dr. Mike’s daughter gave him a brown bag with some of her most precious possessions: a dinosaur eraser, a couple of pennies, and a stick of gum. She asked him to hold onto these things “for a while.” The bag sat on the counter and one day, instead of grabbing his brown bag lunch, Dr. Mike took the bag his daughter had left for him.
When he went to open his lunch that day, he saw the junk, carelessly tossed it, and went to a restaurant with the other professors. But that night, when he saw his daughter’s eyes, when she asked for her things back, he knew her things were not garbage but gold. They were treasure. And she had entrusted her treasure to the one she trusted the most.
He went back to the university and ended up digging through the big dumpster at the back of the psychology building with the janitor (who understood Dr. Mike’s plight since he had two children of his own). Dr. Mike returned the treasure to his daughter and a few days later he was entrusted with them again. This went on for weeks. Each time he held onto her knickknacks, she asked for them back, until the day came when she did not ask.
Dr. Mike said he hid them away on the top shelf of his home office, and they were the only things he would risk his life to save in the event of a fire. After his divorce, he put them in a safety deposit box, and when his daughter, now 20, gets married, it will be part of his wedding gift to her.
We don’t know what can be important to people or why. As men we just need to be the best listeners we can.
Dr. Mike continued the tour of his home and lit candles in iron-wrought candle holders -- candle holders like I had seen once at an art show, that I had imagined buying for my imaginary loft in Brooklyn.
The girls joined us, steam drifting off their bodies from the hot tub. More scotch. The candles burned brightly and melted down quickly. The soft yellow light played on Maria’s face. Her red streaks flitted, intertwined and disappeared among her dark black tresses.
Miles Davis but then Tom Waits. Then the Gorrilaz. Tom Waits sort of fit. The Gorrilaz blew my mind, then cozied right in. Here we played billiards, not pool, with both kinds of balls in a separate room with the red felt, not the green.
I sensed the drifting smells of rooms in the distance, rooms that were never even hinted at except by my curiosity. Some of the distant rooms echoing at me from lonely dark corridors smelled like Christmas candles, and others had the faint tint of the chlorine from a pool. Hardwood floors. Knotted oak. The draft from a cellar – a wine cellar. Vaulted ceilings. Humidors. Fuck, like I even smoke cigars. Glowing lights under an outdoor pool. Leaves floating on the surface. Ornate Turkish tapestries. Cedar in the library. You can’t even find these hardcover books in Panama. Leather. A fireplace with ages of soot.
Maria danced, first with Estrella, who bounced and gyrated, and then disappeared with Steve. And then Maria danced for herself, with her skirt floating back and forth in the wind like Stevie Nicks in a Fleetwood Mac song. Then she danced for everyone, and finally she danced for my ego-centric intuitiveness. She looked at me. And danced for me. The way she tugged at her bottom lip. The way food fell from her mouth when she laughed. I loved her. I had loved her for a while but this night I was proud that she loved me.
Close your eyes and listen. Imagine you are there and she is thinking of you as she dances. What is she telling you? Feel a little of how I felt that warm evening.
I looked out at the trees around the pool. I could hear the leaves of the banana trees rustling against the door. Plants with large white bells like hanging heads waved back and forth. “It’s like they’re waving to you,” Dr. Mike said. “Beck
oning for you to follow them into the unconscious. Like there’s something there for you -- waiting.”
Dr. Mike poured me more scotch and that was it. My memories of this night are like the shy glances of little girl hiding behind the doors, arches and alcoves of my brain
I woke up in the dead of night with a bad headache. I looked over and Maria was not in her bed – although this kind of thing annoyed me, it was not uncommon. There was nothing in my bathroom medicine chest, so I wandered through the house. I went upstairs. Dr. Mike’s bedroom door was open, so I went in quietly. He was not there either. I found some Tylenol and took it. After putting it back, I noticed something that meant little to me at the time. A clear vial with the words ‘Essence of Brugmansia.’ But I was a little more concerned with Maria.
In the living room, Dr. Mike was talking quietly with Estrella. I could sense it was personal. My head still pounded, so I slipped away and passed out again. In the morning Maria still hadn’t returned. No one knew where she had gone. The clothes she wore from the previous night were still there and honestly, I was worried.
I walked down the short way around the Arco Iris loop and had a strange hunch. I walked past another one of Boquete’s famous gardens, Mi Jardín es su Jardín. It was early. I am not really even sure if it was open yet to the public. But I did find her there, in a tiny chapel guarded by the Virgin Mary. She was lying in a small pew. She was in a daze, staring at a picture of The Last Supper. It didn’t even seem like she knew it was me when I found her there.
I sat down in the pew behind her and gave her a moment. “What happened?” I asked finally.
“I got caught masturbating with Grover,” she whispered.
I realized then that she had been dreaming… she was still dreaming, and maybe sleepwalking since she left Dr. Mike’s house. I decided not to wake her.
“It was Grover. My Grover puppet from Sesame Street. Grover’s nose is really hard see... I didn’t really know what I was doing. I’d just slip my hand inside him and he’d talk to me. He’d talk to me down here. I’d bury his nose as deep as I could get it. Sometimes it went pretty far.”
“Who caught you?” I asked.
She shook her head as if clearing a thought.
“Who caught you masturbating?”
“My family’s Catholic,” she muttered. “My father...” she began without finishing.
“What happened?”
“Punishment,” she said. She remained silent for a moment, and then changed the subject. “Never feel guilt. Never let them make you feel guilt. That is their power. If they control the right to forgive you, they have even more power.”
She pointed at the painting. “Look at Mary Magdalena next to Jesus at The Last Supper. They got it wrong. Look at the deep red streaks of blood flowing from his crown of thorns. An open mouth screaming out a muted cry. For what? His eyes lost in the distance. He sees out over the hills of Golgotha, past the ruined temple and the hills of Jerusalem and into the future where maybe someone, one day, might discover and understand.”
My heart was pounding. I was feeling claustrophobic in the little chapel. I picked Maria up, put my arm under her shoulder and slowly walked back to the road. We decided to walk back to Dr. Mike’s house. Half way up the winding road she turned to me as if she recognized me for the first time.
“Matt,” she said. “If you knew me, really knew me, you wouldn’t want to fuck me anymore.”
There are variables in a travel. Sometimes you have to know when to just enjoy the ride or cut your losses and plan for another day. The weather is a variable. There are people that are variables. When you have fallen in love with them, all is cloudy when they oscillate wildly.
Black Alice
By María Concepción
I grow more powerful in my lucid dreaming and in my attempt to break the paralysis he seems to have cast over me. At a certain point, I learned to fly. It allows me to completely maneuver in my physical surroundings while exploring the deep corners of my unconscious.
I stole Mat’s keys to get what I need from his car and I go back to El Explorador. I have to take a chance climbing over the fence. This is the last day of the full moon. I find the swing seat and take a few of the drops. I spread my legs and insert the syringe into my vagina. I leave it there as I fall asleep, looking at my palm.
I am Black Alice and I go down the dark hole.
I walk past the rioting painters that gutted the old TV and moved in. They are incestuous exhibitionists, they multiply, and they bar people from changing the channel.
There is the sewing machine that is blackened by years of caked blood. “Soy remendidor de corazones rotos . . . Cómo está el tuyo?” it taunts. It knows there is always a hole in your heart, and that you are always dumping shit into it, trying to fill it. It offers to repair you. I dump my bloody underwear. Shekinah’s last attempt to break through… there. “Fix that fucker.”
I ease out the syringe in full view of the moon. Mat, we don’t have full synchronicity… now we will. I bury the blood under the light of the moon.
I fall deeper into the hole-- into the cave. I see the moon on my hand ignite into the Grail. But I am still in the garden.
I go to the hanging artwork that promised God’s greatest miracle. I turn to face what was on the other side. It is a mirror. I see Shekinah reflected back. I remind myself that this is a dream, and I am in control. She has a muddy face and salty white streaks under her eyes. I know then it is her.
I hear the tick tock tick tock of a metronome.
The moon burns red, glowing in the shifting bajareque. It licks everything and leaves a wet stink. Red dancing fire now and crying blood.
It is Shekinah’s tears falling out of the mirror, drip, drip, drip, splattering onto the ground.
I know what will come next and I have to leave. I can fly now. Usnavy, the real shaman, gave me the wings to fly, and I fly around Arco Iris to the chapel in Mi Jardín es su Jardín, along the path of the Holy Goddesses. And I know I will see them there in the number 13, the ones who held the body of Christ. The women.
The chapel is in the likeness of a grotto, similar to the natural cave at The Lost and Found. When I arrive, they are all waiting for me. Steve is there, standing with a bloody spear. I see Estrella, with her cup blazing with light. Usnavy and her polished stone. Mat is wearing a crown and seated on a throne – he is wounded with blood between his legs. Only Dr. Mike has no symbol. He has his drum, and he bangs it like he is running the whole show. I know where I have to go. I take my clothes off and open my legs on the altar. I know that this is the wedding of Cana. I heal Mat and we fuck on the altar. Dr. Mike brought the alabaster jar and afterwards we all drink the Holy Communion. We smile. We know this is why we have me. When the lost gather… they are found.
I am ecstatic… I am almost there. Now, as Tuna says, to partake of communion, to drink from the cup in reality before the salvation… then I can save the child.
And like a sign, Mat comes in reality. There is no toothy grin. No fedora. Just Mat, and I am saved. I save myself, and I will save Shekinah.
I am not alone.
The Holy Grail
By Mathew Hope
The twilight walk back to Dr. Mike’s house was surreal. María stopped at each statue of the Virgin Mary and had eyes that seemed to ask for help. At Dr. Mike’s house everyone was gathered around the kitchen table, staring at us.
“Well?” Dr. Mike asked. “Tell us what you dreamed.”
Maria sat down, looked briefly at her hand, and then closed her eyes. “I was in the garden of El Exlorador and saw Shekinah. But before I lost control I flew. I flew to a cave where I met all of you there. Steve, you were carrying a spear that was dripping…”
“…blood.” He finished for her.
“And I was carrying a cup,” Estrella shouted in Spanish. “And Matt, you were sitting on a throne.”
I looked down at the symbol on my hand, and I too remembered this odd dream – so unlike any
dream I had ever had. The lucid dreams made sense to me. The events at the blue rock rituals were definitely surreal but can be attributed to the mushrooms we took. But this betrayed my agnostic world view. This betrayed all logic and reason, everything I thought I knew about the world and my existence.
Dr. Mike stood up and almost shouted. “Do you see what we have done everybody? Our lucid dreaming, shared in ritual, has tapped into our collective unconscious. We have bridged the gap together. We have connected psychically!”
The others giggled over every detail, trying to see who remembered what. They called it the wedding of Cana.
I had to leave and clear my head. I apologized to Maria, and asked Steve to take her home. I don’t know why, but I needed advice and I didn’t know who to turn to. In the end, I dropped by an internet café and emailed Patrick, one of the owners of The Lost and Found.
When I got back to The Lost and Found that night, no one was there. On the bed I share with Maria was a note:
Dear Mat,
Maybe you are far from your unconscious today.
Maybe you see I am distant.
Mat I am afraid. I am afraid that if you knew what happened to me you wouldn’t have said that you loved me. There are things in my unconscious Mat. Dark things. So dark that they have been repressed into symbols and I am too afraid to let them out alone. I need friends, Mat. I need you. I love you.
I am at Tuna’s cave. Please come.
I guessed from everyone else’s absence that they would be there as well. I crossed the river in the dark and already I could hear chanting coming from the cave. Although I don’t know a stitch of Latin, the chanting was familiar to me. They had lit torches to light my way. As I approached I could see they were wearing their ceremonial robes from the ritual at the blue rock. I didn’t want to take another step. They couldn’t possibly think to reenact the dream literally?