Magnificent Vibration

by Rick Springfield

  The OSB is just riffing right now because, with the whole Universe to watch over, it sometimes helps to organize your thoughts.

  “How is it that the ascendant class of a world like Earth never seems to understand that their planet is alive and made of the same stuff they are? If I weren’t perfect, I’d be pissed off!”

  Bobby

  We wedge ourselves back into the mighty, midget motorcar, accompanied by our queasy hot-dog-filled stomachs. I think that haggis might have been the better choice for lunch. I mean, traditionally, the Scottish know how to whip up this meal of sheep entrails and other minced internal organs boiled inside the animal’s stomach bag, yes? Yummy!

  I gun the Scottish hamster, we jump onto the A82, and we’re on our way as we settle back for the three-hour-plus drive through some magnificently craggy, stunningly brutal, and highly alien countryside. We are all exhausted and finally both Alice and Lexington Vargas fall asleep. Unfortunately so do I, which is not a particularly good move if you’re the actual driver of the vehicle. Thank God for those yellow bumpy things between the lanes, because the rhythmic thump, thump, thump wakes me up every time. Yep, I fall asleep more than once. You try flying from L.A. to Glasgow while keeping an eye open for the possible Angel of Death. It’s a little taxing on the system, to put it mildly. At least I’m not dialing or texting. And we do make it to Inverness in one piece.

  As Alice and I take the stairs up to the law offices of McGivney, McGivney, and McGivney, Lexington Vargas quietly slips away from this civilized quarter and out into a world that only he knows how to navigate. When Alice notices he’s missing, I tell her he’s gone to get “the lay of the land,” and when she asks me what I mean by that, I say I don’t know; it’s all he told me. That he’ll be back in a while. She frowns and sighs but accepts it as some “L.V. thing” and asks no more questions. We get down to the business of her inheritance once we are introduced and settled.

  After some extremely polite document-signing at McGivney, McGivney, and McGivney, as well as several increasingly embarrassing “I’m sorry, could you repeat that, please?” from us because of our untrained ear and the younger McGivney’s heavy Highland brogue, we get directions to 5 Holm Dell Park, Alice’s new house. And just like that, she’s a homeowner. It took me a lot more blood, sweat, and tears of torment dubbing crap movies like the staggeringly awful Ghost Banana Hitman to get my house, and even then it was snatched away from me as suddenly as if I were the proverbial Job. But I’m happy for Alice, and she is giddy with the reality of what, up until now, has appeared to be something of an abstract lark, a secondary reason to come to this cold, beautiful, and forbidding place.

  Alice’s “vow of poverty” notwithstanding, I pay her modest lawyer’s bill with my ass-helmet of a credit card and wonder why it isn’t bursting into flames as Miss McGivney (yep, the secretary’s in the family, too) hands it back to me after she’s run it. Unbelievably, the transaction goes through with no red flags, no over-the-limit messages, and no fraud early warnings screaming at her to call the cops! I momentarily wonder if Arthur’s hand is in this deception and if, like an irresponsible parent, he/she is encouraging me to live beyond my means.

  Brand-spanking-new house keys in hand, we reboard the Kia and wait for L.V., who eventually joins us and gives me the curt nod that any down-with-it, hardcore homeboy like me understands to mean, “I got the goods, man. Let’s blow this taco stand.” Alice regards him but says nothing.

  I somehow manage to maneuver the subcompact sedan through the maze of streets that eventually lead us to 5 Holm Dell Park. The house is a charming (yes, I said “charming,” which is not a word I would normally use, but it leaps out at me as we enter this place), fairly old (and by that I mean “ancient” in American terms), two-bedroom (“Hey, looks like one of us will be sleeping on the couch again”), quite cozy (okay, tiny) cottage (or “house,” but it has the general appearance of something you would call a “cottage”) backed up against trees that I believe should be referred to as a “wood” in this part of the world if I’m not confusing the Scottish with the English (which I understand is a huge friggin’ faux pas). We wander through the interior of Alice’s new digs, the three of us, in a kind of jet-lagged daze. Merikh is momentarily forgotten, phone calls to Arthur on the back burner, along with whatever greater purpose may have brought us here. We are all sleep-deprived and completely enervated, and I feel like we’re adolescents left alone in the house with Mom and Dad gone off to Miami for the weekend.

  The place is fully furnished in the eminently timeless “old grandma” style, with daring hints of Highland tchotchkes in the many nooks and crannies. It’s appealingly quaint, but the whole place smells musty and needs a good cleaning as well as a serious airing-out. No one’s going to do that right now, so Alice lights the gas fire in the living room—her living room—as we all huddle into the warmth and just stare through the blue-yellow flames, amazed that we have actually made this journey together.

  “What do we do now?” asks Alice.

  “Wait?” suggests L.V.

  “For what?” Alice again.

  No one replies, because no one has an answer for that.

  There is an unexpressed, shared feeling that something will happen here: that we have somehow been summoned to this rough-hewn place, but none of us has even an inkling as to what that might be. We are the blind sheep looking for our shepherd.

  What we have opened ourselves up to by coming here is both exhilarating and daunting. It’s a very scary feeling. Is it a waste of time, or something truly transformative? Again, no clue. We will have to wait and see. The brief phone calls with Arthur still do not sit well in the rational areas of my brain. Were they something real and a part of this universe we’re living in, or were they just our fertile imaginations struggling to create meaning in our pointless lives? I think we are either three very deluded fuckers, or we are all Moses. Or is there something in between that I’m missing?

  “We probably should get some sleep,” I say. It’s only four in the afternoon but my scratchy eyeballs are screaming at me to close their eyelids and give them a break. I don’t even want to try to figure out what time it is back home.

  There are nods of assent, but nobody moves. We feel like we’re all alone on this Earth right now. No one (we hope) knows we’re here, and the “why” is so big that it can’t fit in this small room with us right now. So none of us is willing to further broach that subject.

  “Well, I for one am not coming all this way to miss out on a possible Loch Ness Monster sighting,” I say, tempering the comment with a chuckle. But, secretly, I mean it. Or at least the kid in me does.

  Alice laughs.

  “Maybe that’s the whole point of this journey. To fulfill your childhood fantasy.”

  She smiles at me.

  “What’s a Lock whatever-you-said monster?” asks L.V.

  “Loch Ness Monster.”

  “Lock-nuts monster?”

  “You’ve never heard of the Loch Ness Monster?” I ask incredulously.

  “I don’t know what you’re saying,” is his staggeringly uninformed (to me) reply.

  “Dude! It’s the most famous monster in the world!” I assure him.

  “Frankenstein is the most famous monster in the world,” he answers deadpan.

  “I mean real monster,” I reply, and I may be pushing the envelope on the meaning of the term “real” here.

  “What is that? Some white-boy folklore thing?” he asks with a smirk.

  “We are going out on the Loch tomorrow, and five bucks says you will see for yourself whether it’s folklore or not,” I challenge him, pretty sure it’s a bet I’ll lose.

  “What?” laughs Alice. “That’s crazy.”

  “I’ll have to take your word for it,” answers Lexington Vargas. “I’m not a water guy. You know how I’m not an airplane guy? Well, I’m twice as much not a boat guy.”

  “I don’t think my hands could deal with the pain,” I tell him a
s he scowls at me amiably.

  After some rooting-around in the kitchen, I make my way back to the fireplace gathering with three fairly clean but water-spotted glasses and a bottle of newly breached port.

  “What the heck is ‘port,’ anyway?” I ask, sitting down on the hearth and filling the tumblers. It’s blood-red and seems to have more body and weight than wine as it flows from the thick neck of the bottle.

  “I don’t know if either of you is up for a nightcap, but I’m pretty certain I could use one,” I say, smiling, as I raise my glass in a toast.

  Lexington Vargas picks his glass up and tips it to mine with a hail-fellow-well-met nod of his sizeable head. Alice hesitates, and then with a shrug joins the group. We clink in salute to whatever is to come.

  “I don’t know what’s going to happen or if anything is, but whatever is coming down the pike, I hope it comes soon because I’m running out of paid vacation days and my credit card is in traction,” I announce and wish I hadn’t. Both Alice and L.V. seem disappointed with my toast. So I say what I meant to say in the first place.

  “You both have become my friends, and I couldn’t imagine going on this wild ride with anyone else. Here’s to a positive outcome!” I say, not knowing of what I speak.

  “I love you,” I toast to them both but dare not look at Alice as I utter these heartfelt words disguised as bonhomie. We tap our glasses and down the slightly cherry-cough-syrup-flavored and exceedingly sweet salute.

  “It tastes like communion wine,” says Alice. “But not as good.” She smiles as the warmth envelops her tired frame.

  “The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for you, preserve your soul and body unto everlasting life,” I say from the dark recesses of my memory.

  Alice gives me a quick, sharp look.

  “Just reciting a little liturgy from a long time ago,” I say. So many communions with my mother that I never understood and that were never explained to the young boy I was. Nor did I seek any explanation once I became a man. Who’s to blame? The teacher or the young scholar?

  Her look turns softer as she regards me, understanding that I mean no offense to her years under the veil. I think at this point she feels as lost as I do.

  We drain our glasses and I refill them. We are all beyond tired but are reluctant to leave one another’s company. We are three vagabond orphans with no ties to home. There is nothing we pine for that would cause us to wish we were anywhere but where we are right now. And I can’t think of any other people I would rather be sitting by the fire with than Alice and Lexington Vargas. I have a suspicion that both of them share my view.

  We bed down eventually, exhausted, excited, and a little afraid. Sleep comes. And I dream. I dream of the Loch Ness Monster. He is male and carries a gift in his dark blood.

  Merikh

  Someone else has found his way to 5 Holm Dell Park. A raw wind blows off the wintry lake and pushes its way into this old town, as a figure stands motionless, across from the darkened house. He feels no cold. No enmity. No indecision. He is merely watching. More has been revealed to him, the one they know as Merikh, and although he is unsure of when or where or even what the outcome may be, he understands that he may soon have to be ready.

  Bobby

  I surface slowly from my dream with an uneasy feeling. It’s still night, and in my jet lag I have no idea what time it is, but I am heavy with an emotion I can’t quite name. It feels like guilt and depression, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why I’m feeling this. I haven’t had a dream about the Loch Ness Monster since I was a boy and they always used to excite me, leave me breathless. Now I just feel sad. I turn over in the creaky, complaining bed and try to shake the sensation.

  Since meeting Alice and getting involved in whatever the hell this journey is, my spirits have been pretty high. Considering where they were, it’s been a godsend. Okay, that’s an odd choice of words . . . considering. My eyes are gradually adjusting to the lightless bedroom and I think about getting up to pee. Holy shit! Somebody’s in my room. I can see a dark form standing in the corner just away from the door. I’m freaking. It’s a ghost! Crap! These old British houses are crawling with ’em. Some crazy old lady who murdered the hapless family that lived here centuries ago, then tucked them all into bed and read stories to the dead children until they found her days later, insane, frothing at the mouth and eating the bloody flesh off her own fingers. She was publicly beheaded in the town square and now the ghost of her body is looking for the ghost of her severed head that was probably stuck on a pike in the center of the village . . . stop, stop, STOP!!! This is not helping. Jesus, it just moved! It’s really not a coat or a shadow or something. I want to call out for Lexington Vargas to come and save me but that will only reveal my location to the wraith, and if I open my mouth to scream the ghost will enter my body through that offending orifice and steal my soul. I read that somewhere in Tales from the Crypt when I was an impressionable dickweed. Hoping it is benevolent and only looking for its head, I slooowly reach up and fumble, trying to locate the switch through the ruffles of the Grandma-designed bedside lamp. I find it and the room explodes with light.

  “Alice?” I croak in surprise.

  She is standing in the corner shivering, wearing a way-too-thin-for-this-climate nightdress. Her eyes grow owl-big as they adjust to the sudden intrusion of light.

  “I don’t know why I’m here,” she says, and she seems so fragile.

  I’m in shock. I was more prepared for the headless ghost of the crazy lady. Alice is totally unexpected. I push the covers back and sit up on the edge of the bed, looking for some kind of answer for her. I say softly,

  “Well . . . you’re here to claim your inheritance and because we believe we were somehow . . . called here.”

  “No. I mean, I don’t know why I’m here in your room,” is her answer. My heart is beating so loud that I’m sure she can hear it. She moves to me and I rise to take her willowy frame in my arms. She buries her face in my “Loch Ness Lives” T-shirt (which has a very snappy drawing of my favorite monster beneath the caption) that I’m wearing for the occasion. The occasion of being at Loch Ness, I mean, not the occasion of Alice appearing unannounced in my room.

  “Can you just hold me?” she asks.

  “Here?” I’m cold now, too.

  “In bed,” are the words she says to me. I step aside and let her enter Woody’s playground, but Woody will be a good boy, hang tough, mind his fucking manners, and not screw this moment up.

  I climb in after her and she snuggles into me for warmth and comfort, without the “modesty sheet,” as I pull the thick covers over both of us.

  My heart is a hammer in my chest. I have to say it. I can’t stop myself as Woody steps up to the podium, taps the microphone, and says “Hello? Is this thing on?” I take a deep breath and inhale her. She is beautiful. I tell her from my soul:

  “I want you.”

  “I know,” she says.

  That pregnant phrase hangs in the chilly, still night air.

  “Thank you for not pushing me,” she adds and kisses me on the cheek. Woody asks why the cheek again. “We do have other parts of our anatomy that are smooch-worthy, y’know.”

  I ignore him and hold this incredible human being close to me until her steady, rhythmic breathing tells me she is asleep.

  We don’t know it, but this is the last restful night we will ever spend together.

  Merikh

  When morning breaks, chill and bright, Merikh is standing on the shore of the great Loch, communing. His long sleek hair trails behind him in the wind like some ritual headdress as spirit voices come and go through the ether and across the surface of the dark and ancient water.

  Now he understands why he is here.

  Bobby

  I blast through the front door of 5 Holm Dell Park at a serious clip, head for the much needed bathroom, and enter without knocking, thinking Alice is still asleep in my bed just as I left her more than an hour ag
o. Lexington Vargas, God bless him, has taken the couch again even though, as I see while I sprint by, he is almost bent double, trying to fit his full frame on the small country sofa. I have had a staggeringly productive morning on my walk around this town, but apparently the Scots don’t believe in public bathrooms, or at least I couldn’t find any on my travels and had to hold it all the way back home. Woody is howling as I burst into the “privy” (the local term) just as Alice is stepping out of her bath. She gasps in surprise and clutches the towel to her breasts as the door swings open and I roar in.

  “Oh, shit! Sorry. Oh my God!” I can’t believe she’s standing there naked. I back out, pulling the door shut with more apologies and professions of ignorance and “What an idiot I am for not knocking, sorry, sorry. I thought you were still asleep . . .”

  She smiles warmly as I slam it into reverse.

  “It’s okay, Tio,” she says through the closing door, and I lean against the outside wall struggling to catch my breath, such is the intensity of the sight I just stumbled in on.

  Her face rosy and flushed from the heat of the bath, the tips of her hair wet at her slender neck, her skin dripping and unblemished, and a large, brilliantly executed half-sleeve tattoo that is totally unexpected. So surprising is the ink on her right arm that it burns itself into my brain as I walk out to the kitchen trying to push the image of her naked body from my reptile brain. The symbols on her skin were both beautiful and bleak. Complex and intertwined images that seemed to be centered around a death’s-head skull with a cross on its forehead. She fills my senses. All of her. All of me. But first I must pee! I make my way out to the back garden so I can do a little watering, which has now become exceedingly difficult because Woody also caught sight of the stunning and naked Alice-of-the-Cloth and he is refusing to go flaccid, the little bastard. The male of the species simply cannot take a whiz with an erection. So I hang outside with my great Loch Ness news and wait for the Woodman to relax his crack so I can take a leak. Eventually he does and I do. I wait for Alice, with trepidation, in the kitchen.