The Bottle Mojo

 Mojo: Noun.

1. A magical or "good luck" item, or talisman. An object of power.

I Think it was about 1986.

I went to visit my mother, who at that time lived in a tiny village in the Trinity Alps called "Hyampom"

It was about 90 miles inland from Redding, Ca. 

About 9 hours from where I lived at the time.

There was not much there. A grocery store, that also served as a small cafe and bar, 

a post office, a school, and about 200 full time residents.

Suffice to say, again, there was not a lot to do there. 

Unless you liked to hike. There was as much of that as you could ever want, and at that time I was pretty young, and could hike a fair distance. 

Now, here is the thing. I am not particularly good at being idle, but like I said, there was nothing to do there, so in some ways, it forced you to relax. 

Lay in the hammock, carve sticks into little tiki's. drink beer, throw rocks into the river...There was nothing important. Nothing that needed your imediate attention. This was before internet, before cell phones. At that time, you could let it all go, because really, there was no other choice. 

My sister was also there. One morning we decided to hike down the river. Again, there was really nothing to do, so we loaded up a backpack with beer, and wadded of down stream. 

But,  just before we left, I decided to bring some crafting supplies with me. The idea being to make a necklace from things I found along the hike. so I brought an old shoe lace, that would serve as the main string, and I brought a spool of thick thread to tie things to the shoelace, which I in fact did. 

We would hike a bit, stick a few beers in the river to chill, enjoy, and move on. 

That evening when we returned home, I had a necklace made of the bits and baubles that I had gathered on our excursion. We were sitting on the porch when my sister produced a bottle of Jameson (my favorite Irish Whiskey) And we spent the evening drinking shots and talking about life. 

I hung my "necklace" around the neck of that bottle. It has become known as the bottle Mojo. and it has graced pretty much every bottle of Jameson in my house since. 

These are things that happen, and this is how traditions are made. It seemed important at the time, 

and still does. 

4th of July

The written word can be a powerful tool. 
It can inspire, or frighten, cause smiles, or sadness, or none of these, or some of these things, sometimes maybe all of them, all at once. 
It can justify, or condemn actions. It can be honesty or lies. Break hearts, begin (or end) love affairs...
Powerful.
Sometimes I don't know which stories I should put to print, and which should stay safely tucked away in my brain until such time that nature erases my grey matter hard drive and they disappear forever, little pops of transferring energy, gone into the ethers, a sad loss, or perhaps, a good riddance. 
Here is the thing. A tale told can be redacted, embellished, or denied, re-told and changed, made to suit the narrative of the time.
But once it is created in a tangible form, committed to print, it becomes "solid"
It is there, to be shared and scrutinized... 
Sometimes I wonder if I should be naming names in my tales. If I should ask permission, or forgiveness for making a memory into a solid thing, Especially now in this “everything goes on forever” digital age. 
I used to write in notebooks, actual ink on paper. Some of this writing I still have stored in boxes in my basement, some I have given away.
Some I have transcribed saved forever in the digital realm. 
Some I destroyed, hoping to wipe away all traces of the story, to dissolve the experience, only to find that it doesn’t always work out that way.
The stories I destroyed were not necessarily bad, just uncomfortable, or in some cases were just words that, at the time that match met paper, were in desperate need of being forgotten.

As if their written presence could destroy me.

But as I said, it doesn’t always work that way.
This was one of those times.

This was the 4th of July.

 The evening started out quiet. 
Too quiet, in fact. 
I had been calling around to see who was doing what, to see if anyone wanted to come over, or go out, but so far it seemed everyone who would go out, was already out. 
As luck, good or bad, would have it, I got a call from my friend Liz, who said she was hanging out at McCray, and invited me to join her. 
“The McCray” was the Hotel McCray, a dilapidated and mostly abandoned hotel perched up on beach hill at the intersection of third and Front Street in my hometown of Santa Cruz. It was rumored to be haunted. It was rumored to have been the inspiration for the Bates house in “Psycho”. It was rumored to have been built on ancient Indian burial ground. 
It was rumored to be evil.
It had many stories. 
This is one of them.

I hoped in my Datsun B210 and drove over.  It wasn't far, probably 8 or so blocks...
I parked out on the street in the front and walked around back to the entrance we used at the time. I met up with my friend Liz, and we hung out a bit, just shooting the breeze, wandering the halls of this abandoned place. At some point we were all in on room. This is where details might get a little fuzzy. There were some other people there, two or three, and one of them, I don’t remember who, said they had some tabs of acid. 
It seemed like a good idea at the time.
They said it was really strong, and I said, then just give me a half.
What could happen?
They handed me a tiny piece of paper, and I stuck it under my tongue...
It went that way around the room until it came to my friend Liz, who decided, to my surprise, to decline. She said she had been called into work, and couldn't afford to be out all night. 
It was too late for me at that point. I remember thinking, "fuck"
But it was only a half, right?
That was also the point that they told me they gave me a whole hit, because they said the squares were so small, they didn't really know how to divide it...
Fuck.
The thing is, Liz was the only one I knew there, at that point.

 Here is the other thing, back then Liz and I were supposed to be "Constants".
That meant that no matter how weird it got, no matter what the situations, no matter the time or distance, or problem, we were there for each other.  Midnight phone calls, arrangements to come get one of us who had gone too deep, went too far... its what we did. Sometimes I would get a call that simply said, "help" and I would know what to do. I would track her down and fix it. She did the same for me.
We knew each other, we found each other, and we saved each other.
Usually.
But now, she was leaving, and the acid was just starting to kick in. I remember saying I understood, and walking her out to the road, I gave her a hug, I asked her to stay, but she didn't. The truth was, I really didn't understand. I was in an altered state, and just reacted.  I remember going back inside. Then things started to get weird, really weird. I remember getting lost at one point. The McCray had gone through many adaptations. Hotels, residential homes, old folks homes. It was a maze of rooms and corridors, now all glowing and swirling with a light that I cannot fully describe. I remember standing in front of a lager window on the third floor, just leaning out and feeling the breeze, 

At least until I realized the widow was not open. 

The halls stretched on forever, every door seeming to have the same room number. Some locked, some open, In one room full of boxes, I found a "Boy Scouts" neck-kerchief. I tied it around my neck. It was a sign. it was purpose. I left that room, fully intent to do my best to do my duty, but there was no one to assist. There were distorted whispering voices that seemed to be everywhere, but belong to no one, I looked, but could not find the source

 I remember finding the grand stairway, and as I floated down, I saw that there was some sort of panic in the rest of the group. 

The mood changed suddenly. 

Someone told me to hide. I slipped into a closet of some sort, and closed the door. I assume it was a closet, I really do not know. 

I crouched down. The tiny room seemed to be breathing. 
I could hear something was happening, but could not see it. 
People were yelling.
I remember trying to be as small as I could. 
I was dust, 
I was a crack in the paint.
Maybe I was the paint?
My bones were wood, my skin, tobacco stained wallpaper...
I thought I might disappear entirely, maybe become the dark walls... but then the door opened.

There stood a man, 20 feet tall, wild eyed and clutching a large hunting knife. 
It was huge...maybe a machete, or a sword...
"What the fuck are you doing here?" he shouted, his voice had too much bass and reverb. 
"You're not supposed to be here! You need to get the fuck out of here!"
"Ok" I whispered" I was still trying to be paint.
"You have no idea what I am”, his eyes narrowed, "or what I could do,” he said, brandishing the giant blade.

I believed him.

His eyes widened

"I could kill you!" he said. It seemed too calm...
I said something like, "please don't"
But like I said, it was a little fuzzy at this point.
I remember running...
The next thing I really remember, I was out in my car.
Just sitting there.
I sat there for what seemed a long time. Maybe hours. Maybe seconds.
I was trying to make sense of the whole thing, what to do next, but the acid was hitting hard. 
I needed to go somewhere. 
I knew I needed to not be here, but where? 
At that point I really had no idea where I was, or what was supposed to happen.
I was just in my car.
I knew the car was the way I got there, but where was "there"? And how did that all work?
I didn't know where "here" was, or where I was supposed to go.

Just then a City Transit Bus went by.
That triggered something.  
I remembered thinking that the busses went by my house on their way back to the bus yard, so it made sense that if I followed the bus, it would eventually go by my house.
So that’s what I did.
I don't know if it was minutes, or hours, blocks, or miles, but I followed that bus.
The whole time I was listening to "Rockin' Rockin' Leprechauns" by Jonathan Richman and the modern lovers on my tape player. it would play, I would rewind it, and play it again. It seemed important, like it was somehow the key to getting to wherever I was supposed to go. I have no idea how long this went on, but eventually the bus did actually did go by my house.
I pulled in next to the curb. I remember being so happy, because I was home, and all my friends would be there, everything was alright, and the night would only get better.
I made my way inside, but there was no one there. 
Just a note on the couch that said,
"Hey, we came by, hung out for a but, but then left"
I looked at the clock, it was 11:50

My friends, all of them, were here, but now they were gone.

Why were my friends gone?
Were they coming back?
Did I still have friends?
What should I do?
Why did they leave?
Apparently these last things I was saying out loud, too loud, because my housemate came out of her room

"What’s going on? She asked
"I don't know, “ I said. I was frantic. “I might be having a bad trip... I took some acid, I don't know how much...how do you know if you are having a bad trip?"
"I don't know" she said, "It has never happened to me"
"Good luck" she added, and went back to her room.
I sat down on the couch. T

he room was too big, but claustrophobicly small at the same time

I decided to call my sister. I thought she might know what to do. 
She mostly just messed with me, telling me I was in terrible trouble, but finally offered some advice.
That advice was to drink heavily.
But I had no booze, and currently, no way of getting any.
I sat trying to figure out what to do next.
I kept having to move further and further down the couch because the hair on my arm was growing so fast and it was taking up all the space between me and the arm of the couch, which might have been my arm to begin with. How was I supposed to know which arm was which?
I thought maybe I should write it all down.
If I could just keep track of it, it might make sense. I went and found a pen and opened my notebook to a blank page.
But, as I set pen to paper, I realized that it was already half covered in my own scribbling. At the top, in bold letters, "WRITE IT ALL DOWN" then, under that, my complaint about my arm hair. 
So, I thought. This all happened before I thought of writing it down, which was actually after I had written it down.
How do I know what happened when?
 I looked at the clock. 11:52

how could that be? I had been home for what seemed like hours. something wasn't right.
I watched it carefully, recording each sweep of the second hand...
11:53
11:54
11:55
11:56
11:57
11:58
11:59...
Then to my utter horror, the hands went backwards to 11:52...
I could almost hear the record scratch sound...
Time no longer counted.
Time no longer was moving as it should...
I suddenly realized I could be stuck here forever...

What if time had stopped passing?

What if time wasn't even a real thing?
Outside I could hear laughter, it echoed over and over, slowly fading out...
Who was out there, and what did they want?
I peered out the window, suddenly there was a series of explosions. These also echoed over and over.
What the fuck? Why are they blowing things up?
Then I realized, at probably a bad time, that it was the 4th of July. 
Still, why are people trying to blow up my house at two in the morning..?
I looked at the clock.
11:50...
Wait...did I just now get home?
Just then there was a knock at the door. I opened it to find my friend Kurt.
"Hey, Hey, Hey! What’s going on?"
"Get inside" I shouted, ducking and weaving, "Everyone is blowing up out there..."
He came inside, "what are you talking about?" he asked.
"Where were you?" I shouted, "You were supposed to be here! You were all supposed to be here! Why did you leave?"

Suddenly my housemate appeared. "What’s going on? She asked,
"I don't know, " I said, "I might be having a bad trip... I took some acid, I don't know how much...how do you know if you are having a bad trip?"
"I don't know" she said, "It has never happened to me"
"Good luck" she said, and went back into her room.
I asked Kurt, "did this already happen?" 
"Did what already happen" he asked, his head seeming to bob unnaturally on his unusually long neck.
His eyes were too big.
"Maybe we should go to Dennys" I said. "I need a milkshake...."
"What? What? No, it’s to late" 
I looked at the clock, it was 3:35am. That didn’t make sense...
"Maybe" he went on, "if you hadn't spent the last couple hours talking about the McCray, and your arm hair exploding... I'm going to bed man, I'm tired"
"Ok" I said, “but you have to promise me something"
"Ok" he said
"Promise me you will kill me in the morning, if this hasn't worn off"
"No" he said" "no. I can't do that"
"You have to promise me... Promise me you will kill me in the morning, if this hasn't worn off"
This went on for a while... maybe... it could have been minutes, or hours...
Finally he agreed, and then added, "Can I go to bed now?"
"Yes" I said "and kill me in the morning..."
"No"
"You have too" I said, "you promised"
(And again, it might have gone on for a while, or not at all )
"Fine, " he said finally, "Fine...I'll kill you" 

He went out to the porch, which was the other "Bedroom"
"Thank you" I said. "Thank you... kill me...You will kill me?"
"Oh my god. Yes I will kill you, now, go the fuck to sleep!"

I decided to stay up a bit and write down some observations. It was daunting, because some of it was already there, already on the page, in my writing. Sometimes in better detail than I was about to write.
At that time I was a smoker. And at that particular moment I was smoking a lot. I realized that every time I blew out the smoke, my pants would take on a three-dimensional sort of heavy tapestry quality, like thick exotic embossed drapes. I referred to this as my smoke/drape/pants. It figured heavily in the writing. Also, if I closed my eyes, I saw strange M.C. Escher like neon dragons folding in on themselves. Imploding, Exploding. Folding, over and over...
But none of this was good.
I know it sounds like it could be entertaining, but it was not.
It scared me. 
Because as far as I knew, it might never end
I don't know that I really slept at all. 
I am fairly certain I didn't.
But I do remember that Kurt and I got up at some point and went to breakfast with our friend Jeff.
The place Jeff recommended was not far from the house, and we decided to walk. I remember thinking, is this real? Is this real life? Bright light, too much sun, too much noise, too many things, stuff, too much trucks, cars, people, sounds...
Every thing was too loud, but at the same time I couldn’t hear anything but gibberish... 
We got to the breakfast place, and after a short wait (I think) we were seated.
I ordered coffee, or at least tried to, but I seem to remember saying it extremely slow, like a question.
The waitress blinked a few times and left.
I knew I needed food, I tried to read the menu but it made no sense. 
"Moist beets"
"900 eggs"
"Your own toast"
"The one"
I looked at it over and over. I didn't know what to do exactly. 
The waitress reappeared.
I tried to get it together, to somehow seem normal. It was a challenge
Finally, after the waitress stared at me for what seemed like way too long, I ordered, it was mostly guessing, and mumbling " uh, only two eggs, Bacon meat, and the toast I didn't bring."
She blinked way to many times, but then left, and soon enough we were served.
But the food tasted like metal dust, the water and coffee like chemicals...
I remember thinking, We were all fooled, we thought life was one thing, delicious food, savory drinks... but in reality life was noise and metal, trucks, battery acid and chemicals...
We ate this "breakfast", then walked home. I don't remember anything about that. I do know that after we got back to our house on River Street, Kurt had to leave. 

So I settled in on the couch to just ride it out. 
He never brought up killing me, for better or worse.
Even so, none of this was good.
At least time seemed to have regained control, seemingly moving only forward.
Then I got a phone call
It was one of my x-girlfriends. Apparently I had promised to take her to San Francisco for her birthday.
Which was today...
Which was now...
So I climbed into my Datsun b210 and drove across town to pick her up.

We jumped on highway 1 North towards San Francisco. 
As we were driving, huge sinkholes would open up in the road, sucking everything down into the depths.
The first time, I slammed on the breaks, not wanting to fall into the abyss.
We skidded to a stop...
"What the fuck!!" my friend asked
"I thought... I thought I saw something...something in the road..." 
"Holy shit! Like what?
I thought about it for a few seconds, but I didn't think I could really explain...
"Nothing..."
After that, I didn't stop.
I didn't slow down.
I just drove towards the abyss, and waited to be swallowed up, 
But thankfully, it never happened.
We went to San Francisco and drove around. She was more interested in Haight Street, "Mod" things, being in the "Mod scene" as she was at the time.
I was more interested in things most people didn't experience. I had heard of another party, some friends of mine from a band called "Spot 1019" were having a get together, and I convinced her to go there.  I don't remember a lot of it, but I do remember drinking Jeagermeister. 
This was 1985? Back before it was banned.
When it still contained the later to be banned ingredients.
We may have also partaken in some other substances, 
but we sipped it, like fine liquor.
It was good...at least I thought so.
We drank, we discussed life...
We met new people...
That’s as far as this part of the memory goes...

I assume we got home. 
I don't remember anything to the contrary...
But the whole thing stayed with me in a bad way.
Many years later I asked if she remembered that night, but she didn't. 
Not much, at least. Bits and pieces...
She said, "I think we did some kind of drugs, I think. Drank weird stuff"
That summed up those last few days.
So there it is. 
I suppose I should probably add, the original six, seven, or so pages that I wrote that night, I later burned...
I thought I could purge the memory. 
It scared me. 
It taunted me.
Sometimes I thought it's mere existence in the written form, Ink on paper, kept me from moving on, from being sane...
I thought that its destruction would heal me.
But it didn't.
It was a study of madness. 
Awful, confusing, disjointed, beautiful, honest...
But also bad scary madness. 

Still, 
There are times that I wish I still had them, those pages. 

But it turns out, the written word is a powerful thing.

Sometimes it won’t stay gone.
Even when it no longer exists.

 Addendum.

 I have been writing this story for years. Literally a few sentences and paragraphs at a time. 
It scarred me. 
It was written, deleted, re-written. 
Yeah, it scared me, and for some reason it still scares me.
Probably because I made a friend promise to kill me. 
Could be.
I finished it last night at about one in the morning, and today I got Chinese food. 
What was in my fortune Cookie?

Check, and mate.

 

 

 

Tree Tales

Nine stories about eight trees

Tree Tale No. 1. 
Prologue. 

"It's snowing!"
Mr. Sanchez looked up. "It's not snowing" he said, "please sit down"
"It is" the student insisted. One by one we filtered over to the window.
Then someone made the leap and opened the door. 

It was snowing. 

Not like movie snow. Not big flakes you could catch on your tongue, but rather big wet clumps of slush the borderd on hail. 

But we were 4th graders, so it was snow. 

Soon the yard was teaming. Students and teachers alike, building droopy snowmen, pelting each other with slush balls. Running, shouting, laughing. Thus began the great snow storm of 1974.
Soon the jubilation was replaced with concern. It didn't snow here. There was no protocol. The school buses didn't have snow chains. Parents were called, kids coralled by neighborhood. I ended up in the car with the neighbors from up the street. We made it to about a mile from our house when we came upon the first tree. A great madrone lay in a tangled heap, blocking the road. Other cars were there as well. That was it for driving. We gathered our things and began to walk. The snow was coming down heavier now. We got about 100 yards and had to climb over another tangled wreck of a downed tree. We made our way through, and then came upon the wires. This tree had taken out the power lines, which now lay in the road. We stared at them for eternal moments. Were they still live? Then came the sound.
Tic
Tic tic tic
Snap

Pop,  Pop, Pop, Pop,
We followed the sound up as the snapping and popping sounds increased in speed and volume.
A tree was coming down right on top of us!
We ran.
We jumped over the power lines, and ran.
We ran from the sound, ran until the sound stopped.
We slowed and looked back.
Were we had stood considering the downed power lines was now a kindling pile. We stood, breathing in the fridged air, looking at the mess of tree and broken branches.
It was oddly silent.
"Come on"
That was the mom. 

We walked on in the weird muffled snow scape until the sound came again.
Tic
Tic

Pop...
We would freeze and listen for the direction of the sound.
Then run like hell the other way.

Tree Tale No. 2. 
Not an earthquake

I was asleep when it started.
At least I think I was.
There was a sound, which I heard, so at that point, I was awake.
I was in bed, and the sound grew louder. Rustling, snapping.
Like the worlds biggest tumble weed a tumblin' by.
Then the house shook.
An almost gentle vibration, accompanied by a crackling whoosh. I jumped out of bed, pulled on my robe and went outside.
The light was wrong.
I looked up to see the giant acacia that had previously taken up much of the hillside above the living room was now laying on the roof. I began to panic. Was it going to crush the house? Push it off of its suggestion of a foundation and send it into the creek? I tried to absorb the scene, and it became clear what had occurred. It had come down and landed in another tree, taking that one along for the ride.
The good news was that the second tree had broken the fall enough so that when it landed it had lost most of its anger. What was left was resignation, a last gasp.
I went back inside and hurriedly got dressed.
"What happened?" My wife asked.
"uhh.., a tree, on the roof, big acacia, up on the hill, it's on the roof..."
I was getting dressed as I spoke.
"Oh my god! What, how bad? Is..."
"I don't know..."
   I went out and got our saw, too small for the job, but enough to get a feel for it. I went up the hill to the base of the tree, and then balance beamed my way onto the roof, cutting away branches as I went.
   I spent a good portion of the morning clearing away debris, and trying to avoid the poison oak that was untwined among the  branches, until i reached the top, fully expecting to look down through a big hole into the Attic, but there was almost no dicernable damage. 

I turned and regarded the remains of the tree.

that was when I saw that it was held almost like a cigarette in the skeletal fingers of the smaller oak tree. 

That was the only thing that had stopped it from crashing through the roof.

   I tried to contemplate all of the things that had to happen to create the scene before me. 

For the tree to fall where it did, and for the other tree to be there to catch it. 

Wind direction, rain and run off patterns, soil conditions...

A series of random events going back some 30 or 40 years to a forgetful squirrel, deciding that that particular spot was the best place to hide an acorn.

Tree Tale No. 3. 
Six seconds

I walked along slowly through the rain. 

Not so much walking as being pulled along by our 70 lb black lab.
The rain was coming down in a heavy drizzle. The air was heavy with the moisture, and the trees dripped with it. "Come on " I said to the dog, "do your thing so we can go sit by the fire "
Funny , before we got the dog, my wife asked what kind of dog I wanted. I told her I wanted a dog to do two things, lay by the fire, and bark at strangers. So far he mostly barked at the neighbors, the neigbors car, the neighbors cat, the wind, acorns...
He was currently sniffing furiosly at something in the dirt. "Come on " I said impatiently. That was when I heard the first loud pop, and then a groaning crack. The dog and I both looked up towards the sound.
Now, things began to happen fast, and at the same time, time slowed way down. In the next six seconds I saw and heard every detail in high definition.

1.
A twig fell and landed by my foot. leaves spiraled down. The trees above me dumped their collected rain drops...
2.
There was more popping, a groan, snapping of branches. I realized something huge was coming through the trees. The dog began an attempt to run, tugging at his leash as he and I both realized that what was coming through the trees. 

what was coming, was in fact, the trees.

3.
I turned and started to run as the sound got louder and louder. Crashing, snapping, a rickety thunder that seemed right on top of me. Then there was another sound, like a slinky being stretched,  and I saw the power pole in front of me bend as the power lines lost their gentle sway.
4. 

With a bright flash, he transformer two poles away emitted a loud "WHAM!" accenting the crashing thud filling the air behind me. There was a shower of sparks as the power lines were pulled free and whipped past me. I darted one way, then another, unable to do much other than keep moving.
5. 

The dog was running at full tilt as I struggled to keep up. Every stride twice as far as should have really been possible. The wet air smelled of ozone, and the power poles were rocking back and forth, pulling the remaining lines from lazy smiles to tight grimaces.
6. 

We rounded the corner into my driveway, and suddenly I was falling. 

I lost my grip on the leash as the dog bolted, and I instinctively raised my hands to cover my face. I landed on my side and rolled over and down the embankment on the side of the driveway.

I lay there for a moment, my head shrouded in the hood of my coat, my hands covering my face, and took a few ragged breaths.  On the backs of my hands I could feel the thorny vines of the blackberry and wild raspberry that grew on the hillside, so I was pretty sure I was alive. I rolled over enough to see where I was, then, climbed back up through the vines to our driveway.

Six.
Six seconds. 

That is approximately how long it took to go from tree falling, to me falling.
Six endless seconds.

Six moments.

Six forevers.
I stood in the driveway and blinked a few times, then walked into the house. I flipped the light switch a few times, momentarily puzzled as to why the light would not come on. My wife rushed up to me.
"Oh my god, what happened? There was an explosion, and the power went out, then the dog came running in, and oh my god look at you..."
I was soaked, muddy, and appeared to be sprouting leaves and twigs.
"A Tree fell, and... I fell..."
"Are you ok?"
"I'm ok?"
It came out as a question
I repeated the statement, this time as an answer.
"I'm ok"
It was only then that I decided to actually check. 

Limbs all moved in the right directions, seemingly in the right amounts, no pooling blood.
"I think I'm ok"
I let out a long slow breath.
"I think... I'm ok" I repeated.

Tree Tale No. 4. 
Paranoia

So here we are.
I know, you came here expecting the fourth story, the tale of another tree. 

But, I don't have that right now. 
Sure, there are more in here, tucked away. They are not going anywhere, and soon enough i'll reach in and pull one out like so much jack-o-lantern guts, sort the seeds from the pith, and hopefully end up with something entertaining.
But that is going to have to wait.
Today we are going to talk about today, about right now.
Today is about the unrelenting rain.
The wind.
The terror.
No, I'm not cold. 
I am shaking because I am terrified. Because time will not go fast enough.
It's curious how the clock seems to slow at these times. Like it goes in slow motion because it doesn't want me to miss anything.
Any snap, or gust or flicker of the lights.
Any click or pop.
It wants me to pay close attention to the thundering rain that just
will
not
stop.
It wants me aware.
It wants me to savor the copper taste of adrenalin. To feel the sudden contraction of my muscles as my soul tries desperatly to run, to be anywhere but here. To be nowhere. To be somewhere far away from this ticking time bomb. This clock with no numbers, This faceless machine with no point of reference to tell me if we are hours or minutes or seconds or years away from the disaster that looms in my mind. 

Just the tic tic tic that says we are heading toward it. In a car with a stuck accelerator and no breaks, and a blacked out windshield, so I can't tell if the cliff is million miles away,  or an inch. Or if it exists at all.

If it exists at all.
That's the thing.
No one want's to be told it is the end.
Ignorance is bliss right? To be blissfully unaware of your own lurking doom.
To not have to look into the blistering emptiness of the grim reaper and ask, "is it time?"
And to have him stare back with empty eye sockets and croak, 
"Maybe"

And that is the view from where I sit. I look out at the rain and wind and listen to the groaning, snapping trees and ask,
"is this it?"
And they sway back and forth. thier dance mocks me.
"Maybe"

The rain, the wind, the trees.
They whisper, "Go to sleep, and maybe, just maybe, we will wake you later with our branchs, stretched out like a boney fingers, smashing through the roof to caress your cheek"
"Maybe"

I try to lose myself in a movie or book or drawing or a glass too full of whiskey. Anything to shut them up.
But they talk anyway.
Like rude patrons at a movie theater.
"Hey, remember that time..."
"Shhhh..." I whisper
"Come on, you remember, you were there..."
"I do, but not now...shhh..."
"Yeah, remember, the trees, how they fall? Like you are a tree magnet! It's like they want to fall on you!"
"Stop it!" I snap, "They don't want anything. They don't think, They don't act."
"Yes, but they do fall. How many times has it been so far? six? ten?"
"I dont know...too many..?"
"Too many. yes, and how many more are there? all around, all... waiting..."
"I don't know. How about none? No more. no more, no more"
As if I can stop them through chanting negative incantations. "No more, no more, no more..."
But still they mock me.
"Maybe" 

Tree Tale No 5. 
Initials.

Madrones. 

They made up much of the forest I grew up in. They were towering figures as well as plucky underbrush. They were shade, they were firewood, they were the home of many a tree fort. They were fast growing and often mistaken for thier cousin, the Manzanita. They also fell with reguarity most winters. The problem with Madrones was thier shallow root system, and thier habit of competing with redwoods for sunlight. This caused them to be far to top heavy for there roots, and ultimately thier greed was thier demise. Next to our house was a property we called "the upper lot". 

It did not belong to us at the time, but it served as our playground for most of my childhood. Many years later my mother ended up buying it, and it became a play area of a different sort. I built a fire pit and seating area in one large redwood grove, decorated with Tiki's of all sizes, a fountain and lighting, and a short distance away, a tree fort like deck we called "the Crows Nest" in another redwood grove looking out over a slope in the property. So now this property hosted bbq's and Luaus, assorted get togethers, as well as serving as an overflow parking area for our numrous house parties. 

    On this property, near the road was a large Madrone. It wasn't large when when I was nine years old however. 

The year was 1973.

I had just received a new pocket knife and some fishing gear for my birthday. and I found myself busily carving a heart with the intials of my grade school crush into the bark of that tree, at a spot about three feet up where it split in two directions. I wasn't suppoused to carve anything into the trees, I had been explicitly told not to by my dad, because he said the bark was like the trees skin. 

But, well, I was nine. 

Life moved on, and so did I. 

But here is the thing, I moved back to that house in 1995, and I wondered if the tree was still there, and the initials with it? 

I found the tree, but in the 20 years of my absence, the tree had grown, and the spot with those intials had moved a good 25 feet up. I was a little disappointed. If I remembered correctly it was an amazing carving, Grand initials like calligraphy in a perfect heart, with a realistic arrow peircing it.  

But, now the way the tree bent and twisted made using a ladder risky, and without tree climbing gear, I would never know. 

Then came the winter of 2016. 

There was a storm. It had been raining for days, and the power was out. We were listening to the radio by candle light when we heard and felt the dreaded rumble, crash, and thud. It was close enough that the house shook from the impact. I put on my coat and hat and, grabbing a flashlight, went outside for a peek, but in the dark and the rain, I couldn't see anything. 

The next day the rain stopped, and the sun came out briefly. 

   I went out to look around, and found that it was the "initial" tree that had fallen, Unfortunatly taking out most of the "Crows Nest". 

It was sad, but still, I couldn't help but wonder. 

I climbed up and walked the tree like a balance beam, until I came to the split in the tree. 

There in the bark was a tiny, scraggly, possibly vaguely heart shaped scar, which may or may not have been my carving. 

It wouldn't even give me that in trade for the Crows Nest. 

I wondered if it held a grudge.

Tree Tale No. 6. 
Also not an earthquake.

I was in the bathroom when it happened.

I had just gotten out of bed, went into the kitchen and put on the coffee, and then was in the bathroom.

then there was the sound.

At first I thought it was an airplane. A low sound at first, then louder.

Then louder.

Then I could feel it. 

It was too loud. 

There was a vibration that turned into shaking, then a cocophany of scraping and snapping sounds, and finally, a resounding thud.

I realized it was probably a tree.

A tree that had fallen somewhere very close to the house.

I hurriedly got dressed, and went outside. I went out to the road, but there was nothing. I looked around my property, but no sign of any trees being out of place. I looked at my roof, but there was nothing. I was confused. Surely to have made the racket I had heard, and felt,  it had to be close.  I went back down to the front deck, and thats when I saw it. hanging between mine and the neighbors house was the huge olive tree that had once stood in the neighbors back yard. it was mostly caught by the fact that it was to big to fitt in the gap. luck for me, there was very little damage. The neighbor and I spent the day cutting into smaller and smaller pieces, until it was just a memory. A memory that unfortuneatly came flooding back when ever I heard an airplane pass over my house. 

Tree Tale No. 7
Out on a limb.

In 2010 I opened a little store in old downtown Felton. A quirky little shop selling Ukuleles, Tiki stuff and an assortment of curios. It was in the middle of town, and actually right next to the town center, the "Community Deck" an area with seating and tables surrounding a very large, very tall, old growth redwood tree. This tree served as the town Christmast tree, (complete with a tree lighting ceremony, featuring carols, "Santa" and hot cocoa ) as well as a sort of land mark and meeting area. For 8 years, my shop window framed the view, highlighted by that tree. In February of 2018, Ironically the same year my store would eventually close its doors, I was sitting behind the counter of my shop eating take away fried rice from "chopsticks",  a little restaurant that was just a few doors up. as I fished about in the takeaway box, I heard what I thought was a car crash on the street out front. I put down my lunch and went to the door to take a look. 

People were shouting, milling about.

Then I saw it. The giant redwood had shed a huge limb, the kind of branch they called a "widow maker" 

Probably 9 inches in diamiter, and a good 15 feet long. It had fallen, taking out part of the deck, and now lay craddled on the crushed hood of an unlucky pick-up truck. 

No one was hurt, and the deck was quickly repaired. 

But in the time my shop had left,  I always looked up when walking to get lunch.

Tree Tale No. 8
You can run, but apperently you can't hide.

I moved from Felton, California to Utah in the summer of 2018. Away from the Forest, and the mudslides, and the Falling trees. I miss the Forest, although I am only a short drive to the Uinta mountains, and the enormous aspin groves. The wind in Utah is far more extreme, but where I live, there is not much to catch it, so the danger of trees falling on you is slight. The trees here are used to the strong winds for the most part, and they shed thier leaves in the winter, unlike the redwoods in California.  I had been in Utah just over a year before it found me. 

It was fourth of July, 2019. 

We had gone on a day trip out into the desert first, to the ruins of Silver City, a once huge mining complex in north west Utah. Then to Dripping rock falls, a place where underground springs form a dripping curtain over some shallow creekside caves. The weather was fairly nice, just enough breeze to keep us cool in the summer heat. when we arrived home, we went to let the dogs in from the back yard. but the scene was not right. there was debris everywhere, and one of the only trees that was near our house on the acre of land was laying across the shattered remains of our back deck. I carefully made my way out, and was greeted by the sight of a large branch sprouting from the roof over the family room.

I looked at the mess, and although I was glad I was not home at the time, I wondered. 

How did they find me?

Tree Tale No. 9
The Death tree

I wasn't there. 

I was 80 miles north when it happened, but I find the connection interesting. 

When I moved back to the house I grew up in back in 1995, there was the remains a large tree that lay across the creek and partially on the shoulder on the road leading up to the house. When I say big, it was probably 4 or 5 feet across. An older second growth redwood that had spent its life on the hillside across the creek, until a storm brought it down. 

My mom always refered to it as "The Death Tree"

I had often heard of redwood branches being referred to as "Widow Makers",  but this was new.

One day as we were driving past, I asked my mom. "So why do you call that the death tree?"

she looked at me quizzically 

"Didn't I tell you? That was the tree that killed our renter. Fell on her as she was driving home, Crushed her car, Killed her instantly they say..."

"Wait" I said, "Our renter?"

"Yeah," she said, "that was part of why I moved back, I didn't want to deal with getting another renter..."

Our renter, killed by a tree. 

Someone who lived in my house.

Someone I never knew, but still, connected to me.

What are the odds?

What are the odds that one person would have so many run-ins with falling trees?

Apparently, 100%.

The Monarch

It was a Fleeting thought at first...

My phone made a chime that I recognized. It was my daughter. 

I picked it up off the counter and clicked on the messages icon, then just stood there in the kitchen looking at the text. 

 I read it a couple times because, at first, I wasn’t sure I understood it. 

I took a sip of my coffee and stared at the question written on my phone: 

"How do I preserve a monarch butterfly?" 

 

I wasn’t exactly sure how to answer because, to be honest I wasn’t really sure what she was asking.

 I could imagine it, sure…a small movie in my mind. 

  There was the butterfly, perhaps warming itself on a sunlit wall, or sitting on a twig, It’s wings slowly flapping, or on a stalk of milkweed, a vibrant vision in orange and black. 

   But again, the question, what did she mean, to preserve it?

I took a sip of my coffee...

    Suddenly, I was transported back to my childhood, sitting in a school classroom, surrounded by the scent of formaldehyde and the interrupted whisper of stagnate insect wings. 

    We had made killing jars, preserving butterflies and other insects as a science projects.  I was literally in a class called “Insects“ where our whole school year revolved around catching, preserving and cataloging examples of the various crawlies that inhabited the world around us, and this being in the forest of Northern California there were many…

 Lace wings, grasshoppers, hundreds of different kinds of moths, beetles, and many, many, butterflies. 

    In fact I remember once we went on a field trip to a place called out on the coast called "Ano Nuevo", to see the great Monarch butterfly migration. They covered the dense eucalyptus trees in all directions, literally a foot thick. I remember walking down a leafy path marveling at the hundreds of thousands of Monarch butterflies covering the trees. 

It was really an amazing sight, an entire forest of undulating orange and black.

 I don’t remember exactly when, but at some point, I realized the path wasn’t leafy; we were literally walking on thousands of dead monarch butterflies… 

  There was a strict rule, we weren’t allowed to touch them… we could look at them, and apparently we can walk on them, but for some reason, we were still only allowed to catch and kill them if it was elsewhere.

  Memories flooded my mind: Collecting specimins... the cold weight of the glass jar, the delicate touch required to handle the insects, the toxic scent, a mixture of bleach and ammonia…chloramine gas, also known as “Mustard Gas”, which was literally used in World War One to dispose of “the enemy”,  but now to preserve an idea of beauty…

 I remember mix of fascination and unease, sometimes even pity, as I gazed at the preserved creatures. 

These were different times. 

    We stuck pins through insects, We stuffed animals with cotton, we dissected frogs and worms, fetal pigs…We collected skulls and bones and horns… Some still do…museums are filled with the lifeless husks of things we found beautiful. 

   There was certainly a time when it seemed to make sense to kill something in order to save it… But I feel, perhaps gratefully, that that time has passed.

   So I wondered, How do we keep beauty forever?. Our ways of preserving memories have changed so much in my very lifetime. We’ve gone from glass jars and pins to digital media where we can document, and literally scan every detail, record every moment… back then when I was young, most of us couldn’t even afford cameras, so most of our documenting was done in scraps and bits, souvenirs and memorabilia, but over the years things changed and to be honest, I’m not even sure if people still stick bugs with pins anymore in order to somehow try and keep them, To document that moment of the world in a somehow tangible form. 

     But maybe not just document it, but to keep it there, at that time and place seemingly forever?

 I literally thought about my life and all the moments that I have pinned to the walls of my memory or that I have stuck in a killing jar in order to try to keep them so that they somehow won’t go away… and I wondered, which is worse? To never have it? or lose its memory?

     But the moment passed, and I returned to the present. And with those thoughts in mind, I asked a question:

“why do you want to preserve a monarch butterfly?”

“ Oh“ she said “I found it dead, in the windowsill, but it was so pretty. I thought I wanted to figure out how to save it”  

My daughter waited for my response, but I was again lost in thought, the monarch butterfly forgotten, a fleeting thought, its fate uncertain, but mine fairly plain. 

     You can only preserve beauty as long as you can remember it, and after that, what else is there?

 

 

Shake it.

 This happened years ago, 2016... but it still resonates when I am feeling down, so I thought I would post it.

It is easy sometimes to fall into a space where we think what we do is of little importance. Many years ago, I wrote a silly song... some words on paper, a few simple chords. I played it at shows, put it out on a CD. Then, out of the blue I recived this letter...

"Tiki King,

I want to thank you for your inspiration and your song ‘Shake It’.

Yeah, right now your probably thinking …. Huh? Who is this guy? And why is he taking me away from my Gin Sling?

I could say a fan and leave it at that – but I won’t … sit back, take a sip off your Gin Sling as I continue my tale.

Over the past few years I’ve had a couple of strokes that screwed up my left side, my speech and cognitive well-being. My wife and therapist ganged up on me said I should start music therapy. Along the way I was dragged, kicking and screaming, to everything from Bluegrass festivals to Ukulele festivals. As you probably have guessed – they thought the ukulele would be best. I told my wife okay but I get to pick the uke. I picked one that I figured she wouldn’t like. Lanikai’s Sailor Jerry Ukulele. Unfortunately, she liked it and I started my music therapy.

I started teaching myself to play from books, the internet and local jam sessions; but my heart wasn’t in it … until I found your website. Tiki, cocktails and ukes. Did I mention, one of my past lives was behind the sticks as a bartender specializing in craft and classic cocktails?

“Shake It” was my kind of song so I worked hard to not only play it but sing it as well.

It’s been less than a year and I play my uke every day. Every daily session starts off with “Shake It”. It is almost my anthem. When my coordination is off or I’m struggling with my fluency … out comes the uke and “Shake It.”

Due to my cognitive problems it was hard to remember things much less memorize something. About four months ago I was at a ukulele festival and my wife signed me up for open mike. And I had ”Shake It” on my iPhone. By the time I was done folks in the audience were singing the ‘shake it’ in the chorus with me. When I sat down I decided that if I can only memorize one song, it would be “Shake It”.

Which I did.

I can now play close to a dozen songs from memory and when I sing I have near normal fluency. My speaking fluency has improved greatly and I’m not as self-conscious about my disabilities.

And “Shake It” was a large part of my taking those steps towards recovery.

Thank you very much from a grateful fan,

Cheers,

PS My wife has family in San Francisco and we plan on a trip out there in 2017. Visiting your shop and thanking you in person is on my bucket list."

So there you have it. Do you matter? I guess sometimes you do.

Dirt

It comes back to me almost like a dream, or like an explosion happening in slow motion, time slows down to a trickle, so that each detail is in sharp glittering relief.

A balloon of memory that expands and envelopes me.

    My dad and I were on a camping trip, or maybe coming home from one, I don't remember those specifics. We had ridden about a hundred miles so far, and we were stopped on the side of the road.

A "Leak stop" as we called it.

My dad had walked off the side of the road and down the dirt shoulder into a ravine, while I busied myself picking at the debris in the dirt on the side of the road. Examining bottle caps, pull tabs, chips of glass, garbage, Assorted bits that had been tossed or lost by passing cars over the years. 

  My little mental diversion was interrupted by my dads voice as he called up from the ravine.
"Hey," He yelled, his voice slightly muffled by the bushes, "you gotta see this!"

I straitened up and stretched, and then walked down to where he was, which was in a sort of tunnel made of blackberry bushes. My mind raced with ideas of what he might of found. An animal skeleton, or an old wrecked car, maybe a cache of antique bottles. "What is it?" I asked excitedly.  

He made a sweeping gesture with his arms, "Check it out."

That was years ago, and I had pretty much forgotten about it, until this day. 

This day was September 5th, 1981, and I was out with my best friend Linda, and her boyfriend, who was also my good friend, Eric.

We had been picnicking out in a field by UCSC, and as we were packing up, Eric said that he knew of some caves nearby, and we decided to go and check them out.

    The first one that we went to was pretty easy. It had a big entrance, and sort of natural steps leading down into it. The main room was big, and had a mostly level floor. We wandered around in that first one for a while, looking at what others had left behind on their visits, which, since it was close to the college, was mostly beer cans and graffiti. After about a half an hour, Eric suggested that we go to another cave that he knew of further down the valley. We agreed and climbed our way back out in to the daylight. We walked down the hill, and picked up a trail down by the creek. After about a half a mile, Eric stopped and pointed up the hillside.
"It's up there," He said, "Not many people know about this one, it's a little harder to find, and not as easy to get into."
Linda and I nodded, and followed Eric up the hill to a grove of redwoods.
"This is it." Eric said. I looked down to where he was pointing and saw a slightly oval hole at the base of one of the trees. The hole was at best two feet in diameter, and descended almost straight down into darkness.  I looked first at Linda, and then to Eric. "It's easier than it looks." Eric assured us.  Linda put her backpack on the ground and sat next to it. "I think I'll wait out here." She said.
I looked again at the hole.  "All right," said, "Let's do it." 

We climbed down. deep into the earth. twisting our way down, spiriling deeper and deeper. It was tricky in spots, but we went and explored for a good hour or so. Sometimes crawing, sometimes slithering, sometimes walking. We were on our way back out when things went wrong. Eric went first. He climbed up and out, then called down to me. 

"I'm out," He said, "Come on up!" I started the climb. I got about half way up when I found that somehow the shaft seemed gotten smaller, and my hips were pinned against the walls. I pulled, but my hips wouldn't budge. Panic sparked in the pit of my stomach and exploded into my chest. I started to feel like it was getting hard to breath. "Shit," I yelled, "SHIT!" I pulled at the walls, but I couldn't move. "Help!" I yelled up the shaft, "I'm stuck!"

"Hold on!" Eric yelled back, “I’ll come down."

I tried to relax, but had a hard time. There wasn't really any light, but I closed my eyes anyway, and concentrated on breathing. After a minute, Eric made it down to where I was and shined the light in my face.

"Dude," He said, "You gotta turn around."

Then my mind replayed the climb down when we had first come in.  
I was at "the keyhole". a spot where you had to twist in a sort of circle as you passed through...
I lowered myself back down a bit and found the shelf with my foot, then turned around, and I was free. I climbed up a few feet and looked up at Eric. "Thanks." I said, "I..." But I couldn't finish.  The yellow beam from Eric’s pen light revealed a scene I had somehow missed on the way in.  

It was like the ravine, so many years ago with my Dad.

"Check it out." My Dad had said, making a sweeping gesture with his arms.

They were everywhere.  Spinning, climbing, hanging.
That time in the ravine they were shiny black and yellow.
Here, deep in the earth, they were dull and gray.  
Spiders.  Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands.  
Here in the cave, the wall was a vibrating grey carpet.
 I screamed. 

That was the last of the caves that day.

I got home that evening just as the day was fading to dusk. I walked up the path to the front door, and as I looked in the window, time began to slow. I could see my mother was at the kitchen table with her head in her hands, My moms friend Lou looked out the window and met my gaze. Her face so blank, it seemed to be pulling the expression from mine.

Something wasn't right.

I went into the house and my mother was on the phone now. Lou began to speak, but it was disjointed, rambling...

“Your father” she said, “there was an accident. The hospital called, your mom is talking to them. They have to…She’s talking to them now…we’re not sure”

It made no sense.

An accident? Why would the hospital call? Why wouldn’t my dad just be here calling the insurance company?

My mom hung up the phone, and was sobbing hysterically.

“They want to know if he has a mustache” she wailed. “They asked if he had a mustache…they said his license,.. He doesn’t…oh god…they can’t tell…” she looked at me. ” We, we might have to go to the hospital, they wouldn’t tell me how he is, will you come to the hospital with me?”

I tried to console her.

“I think he’s clean shaven on his license. Maybe they think…Maybe they are not sure it’s him?”

I shook my head

“He’s fine mom, probably just broke his leg or something.”

I went to my room and changed clothes. I figured on wearing a black suit to visit him in the hospital. I thought it would be ironic.

When I came out my mom was on the phone again, but at least now she wasn’t crying.

Ok, I thought. Good. He’s Ok.

There was a knock at the door, and I answered it.  It was our next door neighbor. We walked out on the deck.  “I’m sorry” he said. “I didn’t… I mean…We were on a ride, all of us, we were riding”

“It’s Ok,” I said.” What happened? How is he?”
He stared at me. It was like he was trying to figure out the question.

“Didn’t they...Didn’t they call you? Someone should have called you…”

“Well, moms talking to someone now. But they just told us he was in an accident. I don’t think it’s that bad, I mean…”

He looked at me shaking his head. ”No...No... He’s dead, He…He died”

His expression made it almost a question.

“No…no” I reassured him, shaking my head “No, no, he’s just…”

Inside the house there was a scream, and then a strange wailing.  I ran inside and watched as my mother sort of slid to the floor and landed in a heap sobbing. The phone dangled by its cord, slowly twisting back and forth. Lou was draped over her and they were rocking slowly.

It might have been a scene from a movie.
But it wasn't.

I went back out on the deck, my neighbor was gone.
I stood there for some time.

I wasn’t really even thinking. Just standing there on the deck, listening to the repetitive sound of my mother crying, and waiting for the next thing to happen.
I tried to grasp that. The next thing?
Was I suppoused to do something?
Do I just wait? What should I do?
I needed to fix it somehow. I asked God to trade us. It made sense. Take me, and bring him back.
I would happiy disolve if he would come riding up the driveway.
I waited.

After a while I saew some lights on the road. A car slowly drove up and parked on the road across from our house. In the dim light I could make out that it was a Sheriffs car.

A figure got out, and I walked up the driveway to meet him.

“Is this the Baron residence?” he asked.

“Yeah” I said, ‘is this about my dad?”

The sheriff looked at the ground. “Maybe we should go inside” he said.

“We already know” I told him, “the hospital called us. I think it was the hospital.” I shrugged “anyway, we already know. He’s dead”

We were both looking towards the house

“Mmm…” he said, patting his leg.

“You don’t need to do anything” I told him.

“Hmm?” he asked.

“You don’t need to do anything. You came to tell us, and we know. You’re done, if you want.”

“Mmm…” he said again.
I don’t think either of us knew exactly what was supposed to happen next.
He patted his leg again.

He had one job this evening, an important message to deliver. He had probably been rehearsing it all the way up here, all along the drive. Saying our names. Repeating the message. He had no doubt been trained on exactly how to deliver it, and deal with the emotions that come with it.

 Now a 17 year old kid taken that from him, and I don’t think he had brought anything else.

“Really,” I said, “We know...You’re done if you want.”

“Mmm…” he said again.  “Well, Ok.” He walked back over to the cruiser. “I’m sorry...” he said.

“I know” I said, “thanks”

I don’t remember much else about that night. At least not details. Lots of phone calls made and received, a lot of crying.

A lot of crying.

At some point it was the next day, and then the next.
Time passed on its own accord. It was out of my hands.

One evening somewhere in there I saw my neighbor again.

“So what happened?” I asked Him, “I mean everything, tell me everything. What...what happened exactly?”

“We were riding up skyline” he began.

I knew the place. Hwy 35. My dad and I had spent a lot of summer afternoons up there, twisting through the mountain roads.

“Your dad was out in front," he said "We were on the big curves up by page mill road. Like I said, he was up front by a ways.  I came around the corner, and it was like an explosion, there were parts everywhere, there was stuff sliding on the road, stuff everywhere. Your dad was lying on the side of the road, I pulled over and ran to where he was, but he died right there”

“Did he say anything? what did he say?”

my neighbor took a deep breath. “ No....he kind of made some sounds, and, and kind of shook, and that was it”

That was it.

That, was it.

My dad was riding a late 60’s Kawasaki 500 two stroke. It was set up as a café racer, with drop bars and a small fairing.

It was fast.

Really fast.

Once out on a camping trip, we rode out through Yosemite, over the pass and out to Mono Lake, then got on highway 167. 

15 miles of straight, flat, empty road.

He swatted my leg. “Should we open it up?” he shouted.

“Sure” I shouted back.

He twisted the throttle, and the bike leapt forward. I was crouched in, peaking over his shoulder at the speedometer. 70, 80, 90, 100, 110,

I tucked in and held on. The bike was making a whining howl that I could feel in my teeth

It was as much a feeling as it was a sound. 

To be honest, at some point it stopped being fun, and I just held on and waited for it to be over.

120? I don't really know. Whatever it was, it was fast.

He was probably going fast that day up on skyline.

Then out of the blue comes a Honda 750 touring bike, also going too fast around a blind curve in the wrong lane. They hit head on, and just explode.

And that was that.

I called my job at the summer camp where I was working and told them that my dad had been killed in an accident, and I would not be at work for a few days.

My boss said, “Whatever. Look, if you don’t want to work, why don’t you just quit?”

So I did.

We made funeral arrangements. 

There was a viewing, which I didn't go to, and I talked my mother out of going as well.

Most of us did not want to remember him that way.

 I think his mother and sister went, but I don’t think anyone else did.

I remember before that, when we were making the arrangements, and the “up-selling” began.
When all was said and done, the funeral director probably thought I was a heartless bastard of a son.

We had already bought a cemetery plot, but they wanted to sell us a concrete vault.

“No” I said, “He wanted to be in the ground”

“Ah, yes, I understand." the director said, nodding."But the safety and security offered by a solid concrete liner, is not only peace of mind…”

“No” I repeated, shaking my head “He wanted to be in the ground”

 “Yes, and in many places a vault or liner is required by law, and even if it is not required, the protection it offers from the elements is…”

My mom was doe eyed. 

“Maybe we should think about it…” she said blankly

I held her hand, and shook my head, “We don’t need it, the guys at the cemetery said we don’t”

“Very well.” The director said. It was a resigned sigh. He seemed peeved.

“Have you decided on a Casket?” he asked.

“No,” My mom said. “But I know he wanted something simple”

That was the truth. 

He had said it himself. I would have built his casket if I had the time.

Funny thing is, in fact, he actually built the coffin for my grandfather. 

Simple pine box, stained dark.

“Something simple” I repeated

“Ahh, I am sure we have just the thing. Right this way”

He led us through the door that opened into the show room.

“I’ll let you take a look around,” He said ”…and I’ll be back in a moment. take your time.”

He gestured around the room with his hand, “Please”

Caskets were situated around the room on satin covered risers.

The waist level were the most expensive, sparkling gold, bronze or brushed chrome, glossy polished exotic wood, all spilling out heaps of quilted satin and lace pillows...

Small easels held signs touting the features.

“Beauty and security”

“Weather proof”

“Ultimate protection”

“Strong and durable”

“Lasting peace of mind”

“Luxury”

Knee level were a bit less dramatic.

Floor level looked like fancy painted cardboard

I could not see him in any of them.

Neither did my mom. “I don’t know...” she kept repeating

When the funeral director returned, I asked the dreaded question.

“Don’t you have anything…Simple?”

The director got the peeved look again.

“Well, I suppose…but a man of his social standing deserves quality, take this one for example. I am sure he would have wanted something more like....” He gestured towards a gaudy box that looked like a rosewood Cadillac with no wheels.

No.

My dad did not even own a suit. When he wasn’t on his motorcycle, He drove a 52 ford pick up with more rust than paint.
And he loved it.

I took the director aside, out of my mothers hearing.

I looked him in the eye. “My father is dead." i told him "We are going to bury him. Deep underground. deep in the earth.  He is going to decompose, and the coffin with him. He is going into the dirt, and returning to the earth. What he would want...and what WE want...is something simple”

The director did his best to gain composure, and not show the disgust he was obviously feeling.

He lead us to the back of the room.

I had overlooked it completely in the flash and glitz.

“We do have this…economy model.” He drawled, his expression was board dismissal, and he did his best to make it seem undesirable.

It was a simple pine box. Dark stain, slightly domed lid, nice simple fixtures.

It had no easel, no luxury features.

My mother smiled

“Perfect” I said.

The funeral was on a Wednesday.

I have never seen so many people at a funeral. Friends and family, people he had made art or stained glass for, co-workers, motorcycle friends, local people who just knew him from his many years at Safeway. They spread out in all directions through the cemetery.

My cousin, a Mormon deacon, read the eulogy.

None of us were Mormons, but it didn’t matter

When it was over, they lowered the casket. The caretaker stepped on a lever, and It disappeared slowly into the AstroTurf lined hole.

His mother stood beside the hole and mouthed a silent prayer, and then she picked up a handful of dirt and threw it down onto the coffin.

What the hell? I thought.  I had never seen that before, and wondered about it, but did not know who to ask.

When she left. Everyone followed, back to our house to get drunk.

I stayed behind with my friend Matt. The cemetery workers came, but seemed hesitant to start shoveling with us there, so we wandered down to the gazebo and stayed until the caretakers patted down the last shovel full of fresh earth. 

Then we went to the party.

We made a bit of a stir, because Matt gave me a ride home on his Motorcycle.

Half the family was proud, the other half shocked.

You never know.

You do what you do, but you just never know.

I have gone back to the day he died many times.

As if I can change it, or find something I am missing to make it all make sense.

But it’s always the same.

I close my eyes, and I’m there.

I arrive as the two motorcycles collide.

I am in the road as they both pass through me, meeting in the middle

An explosion happening in slow motion so that each detail is in sharp relief.

A balloon of debris that expands and envelops me.
A swarm of angry bees made of tiny flying motorcycle parts

At first in silent slow motion, then chaos

Then I am walking along the dirt shoulder, over bottle caps and pull-tabs, chips of glass and other assorted bits that had been tossed or lost by passing cars over the years.

He is laying on the side of the road, cradled in my neighbors arms.
No one notices me.

In their point in time I am in a cave about 25 miles south, as the crow flies.

Deep underground.

In the earth.

In the dirt.

But here, now, I drop down on one knee and lean in close enough to feel his breath.

He looks confused

He is the only one who can see me.

I close my eyes and concentrate on blocking out the chaos.

Because this time he will tell me something

This time he will whisper the secret.

This time it will all make sense.

But he just makes a few garbled sounds, shakes, and then is gone.

I open my eyes, and I am back to wherever I started.

No time has really has passed.
A mere blink.
A fraction of a second.

An eternity.

I swallow the shudder, and go back to living.

Because,
There is always next time.

Epilogue:

I still remember the last time we spoke. It is almost as though it were only a moment ago. 

We passed each other in the Laundry Room. He was going to bed to catch a few hours sleep before his ride that day, I was going out to meet friends.

 "Going to Bed?" I asked.

"Yeah," He said.

 It's funny, I can still remember His sleepy Smile. 

"I'll see You later." I said. 

I thought maybe I should have said good night, but it was morning.

He nodded, "Yeah," He said, "I'll see You later."

And that was that.

 Now, I close my eyes, and I’m there.

I arrive in the middle of the road, as do the two motorcycles.

Then I am walking along the dirt shoulder. 

My father is laying on the side of the road, cradled in my neighbors arms. I drop down on one knee and lean in close enough to feel his breath.

I close my eyes and concentrate on blocking out the chaos.

Then I open my eyes an look at him

He looks confused, like he is the only one who can see me. He make a strange gurgling noise

I shake my head slowly, and hold my finger to my lips

"Shhhhh" I say. I know what I need to do, but I just never want to say good bye

He looks oddley serene

I smile slightly.

"Good night, dad" 

And that is that.