I remember in the desert coming out of the sand in some places were trees. Dead trees without leaves whose top branches could be seen black above the dunes like Dali. The wood would branch 90 degrees forming stick figures in the sand. Then this other time there was rain in the desert. A thunderstood really farther beyond the dunes. What I mean is I could see the lightning and hear the thunder. The sky was purple and there were white flashes of light in the yellow desert and it was beautiful. The flashing lit up the sky and the ground and I could see the mountains just a little further away. I remember just standing there waiting for the next flash of light so I could get another glimpse at the mountains.
On the way there was a part where the roads got really straight which was fairly strange for a kid from New Jersey like me. Pedro would be doing 120 or something but since we would go straight and there wasn’t anything but sand near the road I wouldn’t notice anything was funny. One time when Pedro stopped for gas he picked up a pack of gummy bears and I ate them heads first.
I guess I do remember a decent amount from the ride there.
Anyway we stopped when we got to this cluster of clay building which I think was supposed to be a village or something. We had to pass over one of those grates that keep cattle from crossing to get to it. “Where are we?”
“This is our country. Spanish was not the original language of our people, señor.” When he said that it reminded me of one time when I was a kid traveling with my dad. I was sitting in the back of a bus looking out the window and could see the sun above the dirt ground. I thought it was pretty cuz it was the sky blue and the ground yellow and the sun bright so I had to squint to see it all like van Gogh. The inside of the bus was really dark the same way cameras can’t film objects in front of light sources very well. I remember my dad sitting next to me talking to a friend of his who was across from me. The windows in the back of the bus were curved on top to fit the roof which was also curved and non-square and enveloped. The bus cradled and I could see the sun through the window and hear people around me speak in alien words. I was strange like that cuz I forgot my first language. (alien is mother)
Then my dad spoke English. “He can read fortunes you know.”
I looked at my dad. I thought it was odd what he said cuz usually he doesn’t compliment other people.
“He uses the palm of your hand.”
“Should I try?” It was my dad’s friend. He had a big smile that showed his teeth and his hair was dirty and curly.
“Ok.” It became brighter inside. I showed him my hand.
He held my hand and weighed it down. His hand was rough and I wanted to retract. My mom used to tell me my hands were soft like a surgeon’s and I should become a doctor but that was a long time ago.
“Do you see this line… it means you will live a long time.” I couldn’t see outside any more. I think we were in a village and there were houses and shops and people and cows and cars but outside I couldn’t see. “This line here…”
I can only remember inside.
“Means you will be rich.” Spices. I remember smelling spices. Life was full of them. And colors and gold. Red and green clothing. “Mmm, I know what you will become. Do you want to know?”
“What? Who am I?”
He looked at my hand again. “A businessman.”
#
Back in the desert, Pedro got out of the car and stepped onto the ground. He waved at me and I came down next to him. “What’s up?”
“Pedro has been told our ancestors came from this place. Farther up the mountain is the place where the village once used to be.” We started walking around the perimeter of the buildings. “Has anything come yet?”
“I guess…” I told Pedro about the fortuneteller. Pedro kept looking to my right behind me when I was talking to him. I noticed more wrinkles on his face. They made him look older.
Pedro didn’t give a reply to what I told him.
We walked past the buildings and came to a small cluster of walls. They looked like they might have formed houses a long time ago but now the walls seemed to have melted in the sun. Some sections were tall but soon curved off like Popsicle sticks to a lower elevation. I fell behind Pedro watching the walls. I fell behind Pedro as I watched the walls.
The walls reminded me of these images in my head of when I was really little, maybe around two. I called Pedro and he came and I told him about this one image of a white fresco wall on a street that was bright because it was white and reflected light. Behind the wall I could see the top of the house was born in. Two-story and white, I could see its wooden window shutters opened on each side of every window. The shutters had a rounded top and horizontal crosspieces that filled in the frame. They were dark brown against the white plaster wall.
In the courtyard I remembered a white canary in a golden cage next to willow tree.
Outside there were strange gray animals will long noses and big ears like Aloysius Snuffleupagus. I remember sitting on top of one with a grownup behind me. I was holding on and it moved me high above everyone else in the street. And I could see the dirt road and the houses and shops and people. The elephant’s skin was rough and wrinkled and held things between the cracks.
It was all one of the few memories I had of my early childhood. I remember one time I asked my mom about the elephants but she said they never happened.
This time Pedro's eyes opened up really wide when I talked about the elephant. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something when I said 'the elephant's skin was rough and wrinkled' but he held back.
We walked a little farther and the village changed. The ruins looked newer; there was some wooden furniture lying around and some of the buildings had roofs. There were these clusters of ashes on the ground between the walls in some places like fire pits and I walked towards one to see what it was. I lost Pedro again and then behind me I heard some movement.
I turned around and saw this old man trying to get through a door in a broken wall. He reminded me of my grandfather. I took his hand and helped him through it. He was having problems because the archway had this bottom part you had to walk over. But when he stepped through he started resisting me and pulled me back towards him. The door was closing. He was mumbling something. I bent down to hear him better. He said, ‘Take its hand, it’s not through yet.’ I didn’t understand. Then I saw it. But only for a second. There was a wafer, a blue shape but the door shut and it was gone. The old man fell to his knees. He stopped moving.
I don't know; it was all weird. I was kinda in shock sadness. Like when the atom bombs falling all over the world for the second time in A Canticle for Liebowitz. I stepped back from the old man and ran downhill. I really really hated when stuff happens. I wished Pedro hadn't brought me to the desert.
I couldn’t find Pedro though. I ran out of the village and into some dunes. It made me think of the Little Prince when he meets the pilot and a scorpion or snake or something. I was out in the desert sand and there were a lot of colors. I was looking at it but I wasn’t seeing it like I was focusing on the air in between. There was a lot of sand. Walking was strange because no matter which path I took the desert was all the same. Even the past. (safe path == stagnation) It made me feel the shock sadness again. Then I focused again on the sand. I felt weird again like the sand was sending light at me, pinging me, looking at me. There was some kind of vibration back and forth for a while until it occurred to me that we were not separate. I don’t remember too much else of what I was thinking. I remember the wind started blowing and the sand was gray and white and orange and blue but I said that already encapsulated within the ‘there were a lot of colors’ remark. I was thinking about Mustardseed again and about how I was part of the sand. I was everywhere. She (sun) is everywhere.
I was glad Pedro brought me out here.
Then there was a hand on my shoulder. It was Pedro of course. "Shall we go?"
I nodded my head. We walked back to the truck with grains of sand in our shoes.
Chapter 19
Pedro me drove to the next real town before leaving me. It was out of the desert so it took a while to get to. I wanted to tell Pedro about the last stuff that happened in the desert but I also kinda wanted to keep it to myself. Pedro didn't force the issue.
When we got there Pedro parked the truck and we went down this cobblestone street. Pedro stopped in front of some bar that had a neon ‘BEER’ sign on the window.
“Let us head in for a drink, si?”
There were a couple stools empty at the end of the bar. I followed Pedro as he headed back in that direction.
“Ah, this one Pedro likes, señor.” He turned his head towards me and smiled. There was a girl at the end in a green skirt that had really long legs. Pedro sat down next to her and I sat down next to Pedro. Pedro looked at the bartender. “Three margaritas, my friend.”
The bartender placed out three coasters in front of us. They all said ‘Loaves and Fishes’. I remembered that from before. I guess it was the name of the bar we were in.
“This is where Pedro belongs, señor. The smoke from cigarette, the watered down alcohol, the jukebox music, the women… here is where Pedro can make the miracles.” Pedro smiled at me and the bartender came over and gave us the three drinks. He turned towards the girl on the other side and started talking to her. “Here, a drink for the beautiful señorita?”
I don’t remember what else he said. I wasn’t really paying attention to it. I had lifted my drink up off the counter and was looking at the coaster again. It kinda bothered me that the name was the same from before. I’d draw the coaster for you but I don’t exactly remember what it looked like. I remember there was a long tube which I guess was supposed to be a bun that had a fish head on one end. I couldn’t make out the colors very well because the lighting in the bar was bad.
I looked over at Pedro and could see his arm around the girl. I couldn’t see her face but her hair was long and straight. For a second I thought I saw someone looking at me from the other side of the room sitting at one of the tables but then a waitress walked in front of me and I couldn’t see anything anymore.
I took a sip from my drink and started watching a TV hung behind the counter next to a bunch of whiskey bottles. There was some kind of cartoon on. I remember thinking the drawings were really odd. They weren’t 2D. The background looked like it was drawn as texture maps pasted on to a 3D Studio MAX scene.
Then I looked over at where Pedro was supposed to be but I didn’t see him anywhere. I think I said out loud, “Where’d Pedro go?”
There was just some cash sitting next to where his empty drink glasses were. He wasn't sitting at any of the tables either. The bar was kinda noisy in the front but where I was it was just me. I really wished Pedro was still there. Now I was just in the back of some bar that was emptying out with a half empty margarita that didn’t have any salt left on the rim. I remembered thinking about how I first met Pedro after the ice cream truck burned and he made those funny hand gestures at me. And then when we left he gave me a wad of fake money. ‘We’… Mustardseed was there too.
Where the hell did she go?
Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Or maybe out of sight out of mind. No, that's not right. I was thinking how weird it all is. How I keep thinking about her.
When I was a kid I remember stuff like that happening to me. In high school one time I fell in love with this one girl in my class. I was shy and they didn’t have email back then so I ended up writing her a letter anonymous. I wrote that she should write to the one she liked and maybe it would be me. Of course I never did get a letter from her.
And then this other time I met a girl and didn’t hear anything from her for months. Then one morning I had this premonition she would contact me and I kinda thought I was just acting mental again but later in day I got a letter from her. I was violently happy like my chest was going to explode.
But even that stuff never lasted very long.
#
I figured I should get out of the bar and walk outside and maybe find somewhere to sleep. I didn’t very far; I ran into an outdoor restaurant somewhere and just sat down for a while. I remember seeing these posters on telephone poles saying how many people AIDS had killed on the way there. I think they were in protest of some parade that was supposed to be going on later. I think the point might have been that we’ve been saturated with dead and are now conditioned to ignore it and have nice parades. I guess it made me kinda sad. I remember once Job told me he met this HIV positive guy that went around with a thumbtack and prick people's hands while shaking them to spread the disease.
I’m very frail sometimes like I’m a crystal and everything is humming close to the frequency that’ll shatter me but I can’t hear it, only feel it sometimes. I wanna hear what it my frequency sounds like but then there’s the shattering and I’m afraid of it. You always get into traps like that when you think linearly.
I won’t tell you the name of the café cuz I think I’ve said too much already and I’m also afraid of what will happen when it all reverberates back at me like Karma.
I sat down and it was dark and I could see the lit cigarettes of the people around me. I remember putting my hand on my chin and feeling stubble and thinking that maybe I should shave more often. I was facing the street and the table was at my front left and the other chair was also at my left; it wasn’t exactly across from me. There was a girl giggling somewhere behind me and I heard people talking in front of me somewhere in the street. I kinda wished I was reading a book or something. I didn’t know whom I could read though. There aren’t many decent contemporary writers. There was a flash of light from to my right. I guess someone took a picture and then I had an afterimage in front of me. Or in my eyes at least. It looked like one of those fractal triangles made out of triangles and I couldn’t match it to the buildings in front of me which was weird cuz usually your able to match up that stuff with what’s in front of you.
I was getting kinda sleepy and a waiter still hadn't come up to me but then looked over and I know this is corny and everything but she was right there with her head on the table. At first I thought it was just cuz my eyes were readjusting to the dark but she didn’t go away. I just didn’t know what to do and she was sitting there with her hair dark and her arms tucked under her head on the table. Then she awoke and sat up and blinked through her rubber eyes.
She looked at me and smiled. “Boo.”
It was Mustardseed.
“How are you doing?” She smiled at me and reached her hand across and touched my arm.
As usual I didn’t know what to say. I guess Lot would say something like ‘my mortal soul is bedazzled by thy immortal beauty and thus am dumbstruck by my love.’ I couldn't say anything so maybe it was true.
“What took you so long?” It was dark all around but I could see her in the light that filtered through the windows from inside the restaurant. When she smiled you could see her cheeks and she didn’t have dimples but her cheeks were round. “I’ve been waiting here forever. Are you ok?”
But she was just there all of the sudden. In front of me. “I’m ok.”
“You don’t look so ok. Where’s your friend Pedro?”
“I don’t know. I was with him and then he left. How… where have you been?” At least I was talking halfway legibly.
She didn’t answer my question though. I thought she was acting a bit strange. I don’t remember her being so… conversational. But I couldn't say or do anything. I felt like when I saw Björk in concert with an angel outfit with fireworks shooting off behind her. My face just had this acid smile mask on it for the entire show. My body reacted all chemically without my mind really being there. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
She stood up and took my hand and I got up after her. "Ok."
“You must be tired. Let’s get you to bed.” I think that might have been what she said but I’m not sure but anyway we left the restaurant and started walking down the street.
Then she asked me, "What have you been up to?"
"Lots of stuff." I started telling her about everything that happened after I last saw her. I could recurs and repeat everything I said up to now but I think it would be rather dull. Or maybe if I had organized the book as a set of functions instead of one big text I could just call the functions again without having to actually type it over. I guess that's why people keep telling me to make my procedures small.
Anyway the only thing important I think was when I was telling her about the concert hall.
“And Pedro said told me it was Pacobell.”
“Pacobell?”
“Ya, Pacobell.” I guessed maybe she didn’t know it either.
She laughed at me. “No silly, it’s Pachelbel. Pachelbel.”
"Pachelbel? Really? That's weird."
#
And then back at the hotel. We were sitting on the bed next to each other. We didn't say anything to each other but she wasn't trying to lean against me or anything. I was thinking about how I've been here before. There was a TV on next to us but I think the volume was off or something cuz I couldn't hear anything from it besides that high pitched hum all electron guns make.
From the bed we could see out a window to another window across the street. It wasn't all that pretty. There was a white with green letters neon sign out there too. I don't remember what it said though.
I looked over at Mustardseed. She was still looking out through he window.
I put my hand on her side and felt the nylon and the cotton and the underneath. Her torso expanded and brushed against me as her chest breathed in air. I slipped through the cloth and touched her skin with fingertips spread human. Outside I could hear trucks pass by and inside her shirt slid up with my wandering hands.
Circular Motion Page 19