From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Ancient Dreams, Dreamed- Magical Realism 101

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Ancient Dreams, Dreamed- Magical Realism 101

Introduction

The following sketches, and that is all they pretend to be, flash-colored sketches, are based, mainly, on stories told to me by my old friend Peter Paul Markin, although I have taken the usual liberties with the truth to “jazz” some of the stories up. I might add that these sketches are more or less in chronological order (although exact dates or time periods may be off slightly, like all misty remembrances), although he told them to me in helter-skelter order time over many years, some under, well, let’s just call them trying circumstances and be done with it.  I might add that occasionally he will speak in his own voice on stories that are either too fantastic for me to write with a straight face, or too deep for me to comprehend rightly.    

Markin and I first met long ago in the searching for the great American West 1960s good night the details of which are supplied in a few of the sketches from that period. This however, is not a “memoir” of that period, although we are both certified members in good standing of the generation of ’68, the generation who at one time promised to fight for a “newer world.” And lost, or retreated before that massive task. The literary universe is thick with, and frankly I am sick unto death of, memoirs from that period, great or small.

What these things pretend to be in earnest, using Markin as a lightning rod, are looks at the extreme variety of human experiences that our wicked old world has spewed forth. Given the very long and arduous human struggle to meet our immediate daily needs, they also underline the narrowness of human expression in facing the great tasks that confront us in living on this wicked old earth.  Josh Breslin- September 2012     

When Miss Cora Swayed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Postman_Always_Rings_Twice_(film)

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the 1946 film adaptation of James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice.

Yah, sometimes, and maybe more than sometimes, a frail, a frill, a twist, a dame, oh hell, let’s cut out the goofy stuff and just call her a woman and be done with it, will tie a guy’s insides up in knots so bad he doesn’t know what is what. Tie a guy up so bad he will go to the chair without a murmur, the electric chair for those not in the know or those not wound up in the love game with a big old knot very tightly squeezing him. That is he will not murmur if there is such a merciful chair in his locale, otherwise whatever way they cut the life out of a guy who has been so twisted up he couldn’t think straight enough to tie his own shoes, or hers.

Here’s the funny part and you know as well as I do that I do not mean funny, laughing funny, the guy will go to his great big reward smiling, okay half-smiling, just to have been around that frail, frill, twist. dame, oh hell, you know what I mean. Around her slightly shy, sly, come hither scents, around her, well, just around her. Or maybe just to be done with it, done with the speculation, the knots and all, six-two-and even he would go back for more, plenty more, and still have that smile, ah, half-smile as they lead him away. Yah, guys just like Frank.

Frank Jackman had it bad. [But you might as well fill in future signatures, the Peter Paul Markins, the Joshua Lawrence Breslins, and every corner boy who ever kicked his heels against some drugstore store front wall, name your name, just kids, mere boys, when they started getting twisted up in knots, girl knots, and a million, more or less, other guys too, just as easily as Frank, real easy]. Yah, Frank had it bad as a man could have from the minute Miss Cora walked through that café door from the back of the house, the door that separated the living quarters from the café, a cup of joe in her hand. Just an off-hand plain plank door, cheaply made and amateurishly hinged, that spoke of no returns.

She breezed, Frank thought later when he tried to explain it, explain everything that had happened and how to anyone who would listen, trade winds breezed in although this was the wrong coast for that, in her white summer frilly V-neck buttoned cotton blouse, white short shorts, tennis or beach ready, maybe just ready for whatever came along, with convenience pockets for a woman’s this-and-that, and showing plenty of well-turned, lightly-tanned bare leg, long legs at first glance, and the then de rigueur bandana holding back her hair, also white, the bandana that is. Yah, she came out of that crooked cheapjack door like some ill-favored Pacific wind now that he had the coast right, some Japan Current ready, ready for the next guy out. Jesus.  

I might as well tell you, just like he told it to me, incessantly told it to me like I was some father-confessor, and maybe I was, before he moved on, it didn’t have to finish up like the way it did. Or start that way either, for that matter. The way it did play out. Not at all. No way. He could have just turned around anytime he said but I just took that as so much wind talking, or maybe some too late regret. Sure there are always choices, for some people. Unless you had some Catholic/Calvinist/Shiva whirl pre-destination Mandela wheel working your fates, working your fates into damn overdrive like our boy Frank.

Listen up a little and see if Frank was just blowing smoke, or something. He was just a half-hobo, maybe less, bumming around and stumbling up and down the West Coast, too itchy to settle down after four years of hard World War II Pacific battle fights on bloody atolls, on bloody coral reefs, and knee-deep bloody islands with names even he couldn’t remember, or want to remember after Cora came on the horizon.  He was just stumbling, like he said, from one half-ass mechanic’s job (a skill he had picked in the Marines) in some flop garage here, another city day laborer’s job shoveling something there, and picking fruits, hot sun fruits, maybe vegetables depending on the crop rotation, like some bracero whenever things got really tough, or the hobo jungle welcome ran out, ran out with the running out of wines and stubbed cigarette butts. He mentioned something about freight yard tramp knives, and cuts and wounds. Tough, no holds barred stuff, once tramp, bum, hobo solidarities broke down, and that easy and often. Frank just kind of flashed that part of the story because he was in a hurry for me to get it straight about him and Cora and the hobo jungle stuff was just stuff, and so much train smoke and maybe a bad dream.

Hell, the way he was going, after some bracero fruit days with some bad hombre bosses standing over his sweat, the “skids” in Los Angeles, down by the tar pits and just off the old Southern Pacific line, were looking good, a good rest up. Real good after fourteen days running in some Imperial Valley fruit fields so he started heading south, south by the sea somewhere near Paseo Robles to catch some ocean sniff, and have himself washed clean by loud ocean sounds so he didn’t have to listen to the sounds coming from his head about getting off the road.

Here is where luck is kind of funny though, and maybe this is a place where it is laughing funny, because, for once, he had a few bucks, a few bracero fruit bucks, stuck in his socks. He was hungry, maybe not really food hungry, but that would do at the time for a reason, and once he hit the coast highway this Bayview Diner was staring him right in the face after the last truck ride had let him off a few hundred yards up the road. Some fugitive barbecued beef smell, or maybe strong onions getting a workout over some griddled stove top, reached him and turned him away from the gas station fill-up counter where he had planned, carefully planning to husband his dough to make the city of angels, to just fill up with a Coke and moon pie. But that smell got the better of him.  So he walked into that Bayview Diner, walked in with his eyes wide open. And then she walked through the damn door.                 

She may have been just another blonde, a very blonde frail, just serving them off the arm in some seaside hash joint as he found out later, but from second one when his eyes eyed her she was nothing but, well nothing but, a femme fatale. Frank femme fatale, fatal. Of course between eyeing, pillow-talk dreaming, and scheming up some “come on” line once she had her hooks into him, which was about thirty seconds after he laid eyes on her, he forgot, foolishly forgot, rule number one of the road, or even of being a man in go-go post-war America.

What he should have asked, and had in the past when he wasn’t this dame-addled, was a dish like this doing serving them off the arm in some rundown roadside café out in pacific coast Podunk when she could be sunning herself in some be-bop daddy paid-up hillside bungalow or scratching some other dame’s eyes out to get a plum role in a B Hollywood film courtesy of some lonely rich producer. Never for a minute, not even during those thirty seconds that he wasn’t hooked did he figure, like some cagey guy would figure, that she had a story hanging behind that bandana hair.      

And she did. Story number one was the “serve them off the platter” hubby short-ordering behind the grill in that tramp cafe. The guy who, to save dough, bought some wood down at the lumber yard and put up that crooked door that she had come through on first sight and who spent half his waking hours trying to figure how to short-change somebody, including his Cora. Story number two, and go figure,  said hubby didn’t care one way or the other about what she did, or didn’t do, as long as he had her around as a trophy to show the boys on card-playing in the back of the diner living rooms and Kiwanis drunk as a skunk nights. Story number three was that she had many round-heeled down-at- the-heels stories too long to tell Frank before hubby came along to pick her out of some Los Angles arroyo gutter. Story number four, the one that would in the end sent our boy Frankie smiling, sorry half-smiling, to his fate was she hated hubby, hell-broth murder hated her husband, and would be “grateful” in the right way to some guy who had the chutzpah to take her out of this misery. But those stories all came later, later when she didn’t need to use those hooks she had in him, didn’t need to use them at all.

Peter Paul Markin Interlude One:  “I swear, I swear on seven sealed bibles that I yelled, yelled from some womblike place, at the screen once I saw her coming through that door for him, for Frank,  to get the hell out of there at that moment. This dame was poison, no question. Frank stop looking at those long paid for legs and languid rented eyes for a minute and get the hell out of there to some safe hobo jungle. Hell, just walk out the diner, café or whatever it is door, run if you have too, get your hitchhike great blue-pink American West thumb out and head for it. There’s a hobo jungle just down the road near Santa Monica, get going, and tonight grab some stolid, fetid stews, and peace.”

But here is where fate works against some guys, hell, most guys. She turned around to do some dish rack thing or other with her lipstick-smeared coffee cup and then, slowly, turned back to look at Frank with those languid  eyes, what color who knows, it was the look not the color that doomed Frank and asked in a soft, kittenish voice  “Got a cigarette for a fresh out girl?” And wouldn’t you know, wouldn’t you just know that Frank, “flush” with bracero dough had bought a fresh deck of Luckies at the cigarette machine out at that filling station just adjacent to the diner and they were sitting right in his left shirt pocket for the entire world to see. For her to see. And wouldn’t you know too that Frank could see plain as day, plain as a man could see if he wanted to see, that bulging out of one of the convenience pockets of those long-legged white short shorts was the sharply-etched outline of a package of cigarettes. Yah, still he plucked a cigarette into her waiting lips, kind of gently, gently for rough-edged Frank, lit her up, and dated her up with his eyes. Gone, long-gone daddy gone, except for dreams, and that final half-smile.   

Peter Paul Markin Interlude Two: “I screamed again, some vapid man-child scream, some kicking at the womb thump too, but do you think Frank would listen, no not our boy. You don’t need to know all the details if you are over twenty-one, hell over twelve and can keep a secret. She used her sex every way she could, and a few ways that Frank, not unfamiliar with the world’s whorehouses in lonely ports-of-call, was kind of shocked at, but only shocked. He was hooked, hook, line and sinker. Frank knew, knew what she was, knew what she wanted, and knew what he wanted so there was no crying there.”

Here is what is strange, and while I am writing this even I think it is strange. She told Frank her whole life’s story, the too familiar father crawling up into her barely teenage bed, the run-aways, returns, girls’ JD homes, some more streets, a few whorehouse tricks, some street tricks, a little luck with a Hollywood producer until his wife, who controlled the dough, put a stop to it, some drugs, some L.A. gutters, and then a couple of years back some refuge from those mean streets via husband Manny’s Bayview Diner.

Even with all of that Frank still believed, believed somewhere from deep in his recessed mind, somewhere in his Oklahoma kid mud shack mind, that Cora was virginal. Some Madonna of the streets. Toward the end it was her scent, some slightly lilac scent, some lilac scent that combined with steamed vegetable sweat combined with sexual animal sweat combined with ancient Lydia MacAdams' bath soap fresh junior high school crush sweat drove him over the edge. Drove him to that smiling chair.           

He had to play with fire, and play with it to the end. Christ, just like his whole young stupid gummed up life he had to play with fire. And from that minute, the lit cigarette minute, although really from the minute that Frank saw those long legs protruding from those white shorts Manny was done for.

And once Frank had sealed his fate (and hers too) on that midnight  roaring rock sandy beach night when the ocean depths smashing against the shore drowned out the sound of their passion everybody from Monterrey to Santa Monica knew he was done for, or said they knew the score after the fact. Everybody who came within a mile of the Bayview Diner anyway. Everybody except Manny and maybe somewhere in his cheap- jack little heart he too knew he was done for when Cora, in her own sensible Cora way, persuaded him that he needed an A-One grease monkey to run the filling station.  

The way Frank told it even I knew, knew that everybody had to have figured things out. Any itinerant trucker who went out of his way to take the Coast highway with his goods on board  in order to get a full glance at Cora and try his “line” on her knew it (Manny encouraged it, he said it was good for business and harmless, and maybe it was with them). Knew it the minute he sat at his favorite corner stool and saw a monkey wrench-toting Frank come in for something and watch the Frank-Cora- and cigar-chomping Manny in his whites behind the grille dance play out. He kept his eyes and his line to himself on that run.

Damn, any dated –up teen-age joy-riding kids up from Malibu looking for the perfect wave at Roaring Rock (and maybe some midnight passion drowned out by the ocean roar too) knew the minute they came in and smelled that lilac something coming like something out of the eden garden from Cora. The girls knowing instinctively that Cora lilac scent was meant for more than some half-drunk old short order cook. One girl, with a friendly look Frank’s way, and maybe with her own Frank Roaring Rock thoughts, asked Cora, while ordering a Coke and hamburger, whether she was married to him. And her date, blushing, not for what his date had just said but because he, fully under the lilac scent karma, wished that he was alone just then so he could take a shot at Cora himself.  

Hell even the California Highway Patrol motorcycle cop who cruised the coast near the diner (and had his own not so secret eyes and desires for Cora) knew once Frank was installed  in one of the rooms over the garage that things didn’t add up, add up to Manny’s benefit. And, more importantly, that if anything happened, anything at all, anything requiring more than a Band-Aid, to one Manny DeVito for the next fifty years the cops knew the first door to knock at.

Look I am strictly a money guy, going after loot wherever I could and so I never got messed up with some screwy dame on a caper. That was later, spending time later. And maybe if I had gotten a whiff of that perfume things might have been different in my mind too but I told Frank right out why didn’t he and Cora take out a big old .44 in the middle of the diner and just shoot Manny straight out, and maybe while the cop was present too.  Then he /they could have at least put up an insanity or crime of passion defense. Not our boy though, no he had to play the angles, play Cora’s evil game.

These two amateurs gummed up the job every which way, gummed it so that even a detective novel writer would turn blush red with shame. Murder is, from guys that I know who specialize in such things, make a business out of taking guys out for dough, an art form and nothing for amateurs to mess around with.  They tried one thing, something with poison taken over a long time that couldn’t be traced but Manny was such a lush it didn’t take. Then they tried to get him drunk and drown him off of Roaring Rock but that night around two in the morning about sixty kids from down around Malibu decided to have a cook-out after their prom night. In the end they just did the old gag that the cops have been wise to since about 1906 and conked him, threw him in the car, drove to the Roaring Rock and pushed him and the car over the cliff. Jesus, double jesus.  

Peter Paul Interlude Three: “Frank, one last time, get out, get on the road, this ain’t gonna work. That poison thing was crazy. That drunk at the ocean thing was worst. The cops wouldn’t even have had to bother to knock at your door. Frank on this latest caper she’s setting you up. Who drove the car, who got the whiskey, who knew how to trip the brake lines, and who was big enough to carry Manny?  Why don’t you just paint a big target on your chest and be done with it. She just wants the diner for her own small dreams. You don’t count. Hell, I ain’t no squealer but she is probably talking to that skirt –crazy (her skirt) cop right now. Get out I say, get out.”  

If you want the details, want to see how she framed him but good and walked away with half the California legal system holding the door open for her, just look them up in the 1946 fall editions of the Los Angeles Gazette. They covered the story big time, and the trial too. That’s just the details though. I can give you the finish now and save your eyes, maybe. Frank, yah, Frank was just kind of smiling that smile, what did I call it, half-smile, all the way to the end. Do you need to know more?      

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Out In The Seals Rock Inn Night -Wasn’t That A Mighty Storm

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Out In The Seals Rock Inn Night -Wasn’t That A Mighty Storm

Funny he, Adam Evans, thought, a little sweaty and overheated from the turned too high thermostat put on earlier to ward off the open- eyed chill of the room, as he laid in his toss and turn early morning Seals Rock Inn, San Francisco bed, the rain poured down in buckets, literally buckets, at his unprotected door, the winds were howling against that same door, and the nearby sea was lashing up its fury, how many times the sea stormy night, the sea fury tempest day, the, well, the mighty storm anytime, had played a part in his life. He was under no circumstances, as he cleared his mind for a think back, a think back that was occupying his thoughts more and more of late, trying to work himself into a lather over some metaphorical essence between the storms that life had bestowed on him and the raging night storm within hearing distance. No way, too simple. Rather he was just joy searching for all those sea-driven times, times when a storm, a furious storm like this night or maybe just an average ordinary vanilla storm passing through and complete in an hour made him think of his relationship with his homeland the sea and with its time for reflection. And so on that toss and turn bed he thought.

He thought first and mainly about how early the sea came into his life, almost from birth down at those ragged edge of the sea slopes around Granitetown, the 1950s old time sea air country farm turned modern housing development of single three bedroom homes and duplexes for up and coming World War II veterans like his father with plenty of kids to house and some prospects, where he lived growing up and was tumbled into the sea early. Literally tumbled early to the sea as an errant older brother, aged maybe five, rolled him, maybe aged four, in a barrel, a tinny old trash barrel, down those ragged slopes that formed the outer perimeter of the housing development and gateway to the sea and he would up in about three feet of water crying to get out. Crying also that he had gotten his new trousers and jersey all wet and seaweedy and that he would catch hell (not the word he would have used then but appropriate) when he got home and Ma saw his condition. And Teflon older brother would get away scot-free and he, no snitch even then, would Velcro once again some mother trouble. And he did, although, damn age, he could not recall the penalty, maybe a few days without television.

And learned the power of the sea early when one winter storm night, maybe about fourth grade but in any case a situation that would, minimum, call for at least one no school day, Mother Nature played a dirty trick on her seaward brethren and tried to bring them home to her bosom all in one lashed-up swoop as the exploding high water, ignoring painfully constructed man-made seawalls, came right up to that home’s front door and the lot of them, two parents and three brothers, only reached higher ground in a split second before a big foam-flecked (aren’t they always foam-flecked like some angry man ranting to a rapt crowd when they come in that hard, fast and furious) wave crashed down on their home. A few nights spent in the gymnasium of his elementary school, Snug Harbor (jesus, what a name after that episode), and weeks of clean- up and smells of bleach to get rid of mold and other stuff taught him well the fickleness of old Mother.

And later, childhood later, a few years after the winter storm later anyway, when he, bravo he, decided, yes, consciously decided that the impeding summer storm he could sense coming (he had developed a sense about weather, sea weather anyway, without the need for television prompts) would be no deterrent to his taking that somewhat water-logged log he eyed on the beach and using it to help him swim to China, or some such place, on the current. The China, or someplace being prompted, that day by episode 234 in the Velcro Ma wars that he had just lost another round in and was ready to chuck it all if he could just get away to make his fame and fortune . The subject of the dispute, a case of missing money from her purse (money missing and spent the night before on sweet roll crème-filled Twinkies, ditto cocoa rich chocolate cupcakes, and a few off-hand pieces of penny candy, mary janes , no, not that mary jane what would he have known of weeds, dopes, and such in those suburban dark ages, tootsie rolls, stuff like that, maybe adding up to a dollar, a big dollar just then with Pa just out of work and no dough rolling in and mortgages to pay, and hungry, not sweet tooth hungry kids to feed, and so every penny counted. Round to Ma, and adieu, no more burden son.

But enough of motivation, and enough of not having the sense that god gave geese because just then he let go of the log to do something, something forgotten. And with the sea picking up steam that log kept eluding his grasp as they, he and the log, headed to open water. And losing the log in the churning waters he, not a strong swimmer then (or now) almost drowned, and would have and fate changed, except for the screams of his panic beach-bound older brother (the rolling barrel older brother, thanks, he owed older brother one) seeing his plight sounded the alarm for help and some Madonna savior swimmer, beach-bound too, came and swooped him up before he went down for the third time. And later he yelling beach-bound and still full of water, yelling to his savior bother “Don’t tell Ma, jesus, don’t tell Ma.” And he didn’t.

Or that night, that funny night (funny night in retrospect, then and now retrospect) when he, his buddy since elementary school Will (and proper subject of some wild non-mighty storm tales) and his girl, Carrie he thought although it could have been Donna, Donna whom Will later married and divorced after about three weeks of marriage right after he caught her running around with about four different guys, and a couple of dykes to top things off, and who would wind up a very senior cadre, if cadre is the right word for those times and that feeling, in the summer of love in San Francisco, 1967 not fifteen blocks from this stormy night Seals Rock Inn, and she, she Terry Wallace, his mostly through high school flame, sat in Will’s father-bought high school car, a ’59 Dodge, “making out” (term of art for “doing the do,” “going all the way,” sex, hell, fucking) while the sea churned up around them at old Nippo Point Beach just up from home Granitetown and the police, spotting the storm blasted car and the fix, came and rescued them rescued them while they were in, ah, compromising positions (you figure it out, back seat car figure it out, or read the Karma Sutra, position number twenty- one, or just read it and dream figure your own position, he just laughed his thought laugh) because in the throes of love they had not realized that they were in a couple of feet of sea water and rising that had splashed over some poor man-made seawall built against Mother’s angers. And the cops, the cops snitching, snitching like they always do, snitching like crazy to Ma (and Pa too on all sides), talking about court and under-age, even when Donna, yah, that’s right, it had to be Donna, she was just that bold and sassy, offered to give them a piece, or maybe some head, if they would forget the whole matter. Mas and Pas didn’t and Will and he walked, walked alone all summer, and all summer heard Karma Sutra laughs from fogged up cars down at that broken Nippo Point seawall they claimed.

Or that day, that wind- swept, foam-flecked sea day (okay, enough of foam-flecked seas, enough of rough seas. big swirling rough seas, immense, beyond man-sized immense out in the deep blue deep all green gloss gone falling but almost tepidly to thankful womb shores, cluttered with jetsam and flotsam, logs, ancient memory logs, China-worthy logs, from hurt penny-pinched childhood, cigarette packages, maybe discarded from some white tee- shirted corner boy venture out in the submarine race night, lobster traps, useful for student ghetto table, every smashed and swirled thing, enough of wind, enough to fill a lifetime wind , a lifetime of sad blown winds, a lifetime of false trumpet winds, Miles Davis be-bop full-throated winds, if they, the winds could have “dug” be-bop instead of aimless fury), when his world fell apart, the day when Diana, his first wife, had left him, left him for good, for good after about seventeen mad bouts of irreconcilable differences and about sixteen almost reconciliations. Enough of almost reconciliations to fill a book, a book of how to, and how not to, his version, his final truth version, screw up the genteel, gentle, the broken, or better half-broken women (nah, woman, she ) from saddened youth spills, damnations, and mishaps without really trying.

Funny, although not humorously funny like his nymph tryst with Terry, or ironically funny like his bonding with the sea from birth, but kind of sad sack funny he and Diana had met, met in Harvard Square in the summer of love, 1967 (check it out on Wikipedia for the San Francisco version of that same year but basically it was the winds blowing the right way for once when make love not war, make something, make your dreams come true with sex, drugs, music had its minute, has its soon faded minute via self –imposed hubris and the death-dealing, fag-hating, nigger-hating, women-hating, self-hating bad guys with the guns and the dough leading, and still leading, a vicious counter-attack), she from Podunk Mid-West (Davenport out in the Iowas if you need to know) far from ocean waters, but thrilled by the prospect of meeting an ocean boy who actually had been there, to the ocean that is.

Oh yah, how they met in that Harvard Square good night for the curious, simplicity itself (his version), she was sitting about half way across the room, the cafeteria room, the old Hayes-Bickford lunch room just up from the old end of the red line Harvard Square subway stop (and no longer there, nor is the subway stop the end of the Red Line), if that name helps (and it did , did help that is, if you had any pretensions to some folkie literary career, some be-bop blessed poet life, or just wanted to rub elbows with what might be the next big thing after that folk minute expired of a British invasion of sexed-up moppets and wet dream bad boys and poetry died of T.S. Eliot and rarified air, or, maybe just a two in the morning coffee, hard pressed sudsy coffee, but coffee, enough to keep a seat in the place, after a tough night at the local gin mills, and hadn’t caught anybody’s attention, sitting by herself, writing furiously, on some yellow notepad, and she looked up.

He, just that moment looked up as well (although he had taken about six previous peeks in her direction but she ignored them with her furious pen), and smiled at her. And she gave him a whimsical, no, a melt smile, a smile to think about eternities over, about maybe chasing some windmills about, about, about walking right over and asking about the meaning of, well, that smile. And he did, and she did, she told him that is. And in the telling, told him, that she had half seen (her version) him peeking and wondered about it. And all this peeking, half peeking, got him a seat at her table, and her a cup of coffee and a couple of hours of where are you from, what do you like, what is the meaning of existence and what the hell are you writing so furiously about at two o’clock on Sunday morning. And one thing led to another and eventually the sea came in, although, damn age against he couldn’t for the life of him remember how that subject came up, except maybe something triggered when she mentioned Iowa, or something.

And what did she look like, for the male reader in need of such detail, especially since she was sitting alone writing furiously at two in the morning, maybe she was, ah, ah, a dog. Nah she was kind of slender, but not skinny, slender in that fresh as sweet cream Midwestern corn-fed way that started to happen after the womenfolk, not prairie fire pioneer women any longer, had been properly fed for a couple of generations after those hard Okie/Arkie western trek push on days of eating chalk dust and car smoke trailing dreams. With her long de riguer freshly- ironed brown hair pulled back from her face (otherwise she would have constantly had to interrupt her furious writing to keep it out of her face as she wrote). And a pleasing face, bright blue eyes, good nose, and nice lips, kissable lips. Nice legs from what he could see when he went over. But who was he kidding, it was that whimsical, no, melt smile, that smile that spoke of eternities, although what it spoke of at that two in the morning was gentle breezes, soft pillows, of that Midwestern what you see is what you get and what you get, well, you better hang on, and hang on tight, and be ready to take some adversity, to keep around that smile. But that was later, later really, when he figured it out better why he tossed and turned all that night (really morning) and that thought would not let him be.

And memory bank of their first time up in ocean’s kingdom, the next day actually she was so anxious to see the ocean, or maybe anxious to see it with him, they talked about it being that way too but let’s just memory call it her anxiety, the rugged cross salvation rocks that make up Perkins’s Cove in southern Maine, up there by Ogunquit. There are stories to be told of his own previous meetings with Mother Perkin’s but this is Diana’ s story and those stories, his stories, involved other women, other treacheries, other immense treacheries, and other delights too. That day thought she flipped out, flipped out at the immensity of it, of the majestic swells (and of her swaying, gently, but rhythmically to the rise and fall of each wave) of the closeness of a nature that she, she of wind- swept wheat oceans, of broken- back bracero wet back labor to bring in the crop, of fights against every form of injury, dust, bugs, fire, drought had not dreamed of. And as if under some mystic spell, or some cornfield mistake, she actually plunged fully-clothed (not having been told of the need for a swimsuit since the ocean itself was the play, the hugeness of it, the looking longingly back to primordial times of it, the reflection in the changings winds of it), in to the ocean at that spot where there was just enough room if the tide was right, just ebbing enough to create a sand bar to do so (today there is no problem getting down there as the Cove trustees have provided a helpful stairs, concrete-reinforced, against old time lumber steps breakaway and lost in some snarled sea) and promptly was almost carried out by a riptide.

He saved her, saved her good that day. Saved her with every ounce of energy he had to take her like some lonesome sailor saving his shipmate, save just to be saving, saving from the sea for a time anyway, or better, saving like the guy, that long gone daddy, who did or said some fool thing to his woman and she flipped out and make a death pact with old King Neptune (and wouldn’t you know want to bring him along for the ride) from that song Endless Sleep by Jody Reynolds. But get this, and get it from him straight just in case you might have heard it from her. That day she was so sexed-up, there is no other way to say it, and there shouldn’t be, what with the first look ocean swells and her swaying , and her getting dunked good (with wet clothes and a slight feverish chill), and her being so appreciative of him saving her (the way she put it, his version anyway, was that save, that unthinking save, meant that whatever might come that she knew, knew after one day, and knew she was not wrong, that he would not forsake her for some trivial) that she wanted to have sex with him right there, right in the cove. (In those days there was a little spot that he knew, a little spot off a rutted dirt path that was then not well known, was unmarked and was protected by rows of shrubbery so there was no problem about “doing the do” there and frankly that thought got him sexed-up too. Today there are so many touristas per square inch in high season and that old rutted path now paved so that the act would be impossible. It would have to wait hard winter and frozen asses, if that same scenario came up again.)

Here’s the thing thought she, Diana, from the sticks, new to Harvard Square summer of love and Boston college scene school didn’t take birth control pills or have any other form of protection that day, although she was fairly sexually experienced (some wheat field farmer and then the usual assortment of colleges guys, some honest ,some, well, one-night stands). And he, he not expecting to be a savior sailor that day carried no protection, hell condoms (and, truth, his circle, the guys anyway, and really the girls knowing what the guys expected, left it up to their partners to protect themselves. Barbarians, okay). So before they could hit the bushes, before they could lose themselves in the stormy throes of love he had to run (yes, he ran, so you know he was sexed-up too) up to Doc’s Drugstore (no longer there, since Doc passed away many years ago and his sons became lawyers and not pharmacists) on U.S.1 right in the center of Ogunquit. And red faced purchased their “rubbers” (and wouldn’t you know there was some young smirky I-know -what-you-are-up- to-right-now sales girl behind the counter when he paid for his purchase, jesus). So as the sun started blue –pink setting in the west and to the sound, the symphony really, of those swells clanging on those rugged cross rocks they made love for the first time, not beautiful sultry night pillow love in some high-end hotel (like later), or fearfully (fearful that her prudish dorm roommate would bust in on them) in her dorm room but fiercely, fiercely like those ocean waves crashing mercilessly to shore. The time for exotic, genteel, gentle love-makings (“making it,” out of some be-bop hipster lexicon their way of expressing that desire) would come later, later intermingled with the seventeen differences and sixteen almost reconciliations.

And funny too in that same sad sack love way they early on had vowed, secular vowed (no, not that Perkin’s Cove love day, sex is easier to agree to, to make and unmake, than vows, religious, secular, or blasphemous), that they would not, like their parents fight over every stupid thing.. That night in her dorm room after that full day of activity they stayed up half the night (hell with a little benny that wasn’t hard, and perhaps they stayed up all night, and although her roommate never showed that night they did not, his version, did not make love) remembering his Velcro Ma wars and, as she related that night and many night after, her Baptist father repent sinners weird wars. He related in detail his various wars, wars to the death that left him with no option, no he option except to leave the family house and strike it on his own, on his summer of love terms if possible, since he had sensed that wind that storm swell coming for a while and was as ready as any “hippie” (quaint term, although he did not, and never did, consider himself a hippie but rather traced his summer of love yearnings to beat times, to be-bop boys and girls with shaded eyes and existential desires) to run with the tide. She related in detail her devil father, with seven prayer books in all his hands on Sunday and a thwarted creep up to her room every other day, and of his bend bracero hatred short-changing the wages of the wetbacks who came via train smoke and dreams to bring in the crop (or have the complaisant county sheriff kick them out wage-less, or with so many deductions for cheap jack low rent shack barely held together against the fury of prairie winds room and board, food just shy of some Sally, Salvation Army, hand- out in some desolate back street town (and he knew of such foods, and of kindly thanks yous but that was give away food not sweated labor food) that it made the same thing. Justified of course by some chapter and verse about the heathens (Catholic heathens and he, the father , still fighting those 16^thcentury wars out on prairie America and, and, winning against hard luck ,move on to the next shack and hand-out worthy food harvest stop, endlessly, braceros), and their sorrows .

And they didn’t , didn’t act like their parents, their he and she parents, that summer of love, that overblown ,frantic , wind-changing summer of love, when they sensed that high tide rolling in, hell, more than sensed it, could taste it, taste in the their off-hand love bouts not reserved for downy billows (and he glad, glad as hell, that she, his little temptress she, had freely offered herself to him up on those rugged cross rocks so that he, when he needed a reason, easily coaxed her to some landlocked bushes, or some river, some up river ,Charles River, of course hide-out and she, slightly blushing, maybe, with the thought of it, followed along giggling like a schoolgirl),taste it is the sweet wines handmade in some friend experiment , hey try this (and experiment yogurts, ice cream, dough bread, and on and on, too) , taste it in the tea, ganga, herb, hemp smoke curling through their lungs and moment peace, or later, benny high to keep sleep from their eyes on the hitchhike road, or later too, sweet cousin cocaine, cheap, cheap as hell, and exotic to snuffed noses to take away the minute blues creeping in, taste it in the new way that their brethren (after all not everybody got caught up in the minute, some went jungle-fighting, some went wall street back-biting, some went plain old ordinary nine to five-routining, some went same old same, old love and marriage and here come X and Y with a baby carriage (and mortgages , and saving for junior’s college and ,and…)offered this and that, free, this and that help, this and that can I have this free, taste it in, well, if you don’t want to do that, hell, don’t and not face Ma, or kin, or professional wrath (or she father fire and brimstone), taste it out in those friendly streets, no not Milk Street, not Wall Street, not the Loop, but Commonwealth Avenue, Haight Street, Division Street, many Village streets, many Brattle streets, many Taos streets, Venice Beach streets, all the clots that make the connections, the oneness of it all, the grandness of it all, the free of it all.

And they, they made the kindness, the everyday kindness of it, the simple air-filled big balloon kindness of it like some Peter Max cartoonish figure, and when they filled that balloon with enough kindness and against the slut remarks of high Catholic Ma disapproving of heathens (see not all bigots were out in the prairie wheat field strung out on the lord and, wheat profits) and she Pa disapproving of hippie (never was , beat, beat, yes) they married , justice of the peace high wind Perkin’s Cove- consummated married she all garlanded up like some Botticelli doll model picture (his mistress, his whore, from what they had heard, and Diana blushed at that knowledge), flowered, flowing garment, free hair in the wind and he some black robe throw around , and feasting, feasting on those rugged cross rocks . Too much.

And for as long as they could see some new breeze blowing that they felt part of they were kind to each other (and others of course). Then the winds of change shifted, and like the tides the ebbs set in, maybe not obvious at first, maybe not that first series of defeats, that Loop madness in ’68, that first bust for some ill-gotten dope and some fool snitch to save his ass from stir turned on him, some brethren (he hated snitch, the very word snitch, from that time down in that rolling barrel slope in the water episode with his older brother, his older brother now name-etched in black marble in Washington along with other old neighborhood names), that first Connecticut highway hitchhike bust as they headed to D.C. for one more vain and futile attempt to stop the generation’s damn war, that several hour wait in Madison for some magnificent Volkswagen bus to stop and get them from point C to point D on their journey to this now very storm- driven San Francisco spot (a few blocks up over in North Beach the old beat blocks, Haight Street hippie having turned into a free-fire zone, that “no that is six dollars for those candles , not free brother” sea-change, and the decline of kindness, first casualty their own kindnesses, their own big balloon kindnesses more less frequently evoked, more tired from too much work, more sorry but I have a headache ,he too, and less thoughts about trysts in hidden bushes, or downy billows for that matter. Worse, worse still, he went his way, and she went hers, trying to make it (no longer their “making it” signal to chart love’s love time) in the world, hell, nine to five routining it but it was the kindnesses, those big ball kindnesses that went (and that they both spoke of, marriage counselor spoke of, missing), and seventeen differences, substantial differences, and sixteen almost reconciliations,, they grew older and apart, and…

She left him for another man, another non-sea driven man, a man who hated the outdoors, hated the thought of the ocean (he grew up in lobstertown Maine and had his fill of oceans, of fierce winds, of rubber hip boots, and of rugged cross rocks thank you, she told him of the other man) when she called it seventeen times is enough quits after they had spent a couple of months up in that storm-ravaged Maine cottage that he insisted they go to reconcile after the last difference bout where she, quote, was tired as hell of the sea, of the wind, of the stuff that the wind did to her sensitive skin ( big old sadness at that remark by him for he never said, kindness said, anything about that, or never said he could stop the ravages of time), and, and, tired of him playing out some old man of the seas, some man against nature thing with her in his train, unquote. Yah, she up and left him. Damn, and he had had thoughts of eternity, of always being around that smile, that quizzical smile, or the possibility of that smile, that he first latched onto that first Harvard Square night when he had smiled at her across the room, and she had smiled that smile right between his eyes at him.

Or that time later with Sarah, jesus has it been twenty years now, as the winter seas once again bore down their fury when they, at her insistence she from coastline Oregon near Coos Bay, had moved to water’s edge Marblehead outside of Boston away from city crowds and city concerns and city madnesses and city doubts and too city delights, and the seas came up over a painfully constructed double seawall (watched over time turn from single storm blasted sea wall), damn double seawalls and still not enough, and almost touched the top of their front door steps. And they seeking shelter again in a make-shift home school like he in in kid time and spending obligatory weeks with bleach and mop buckets. She, Sarah she, too eventually calling it quits, although not over another man, or over his man and nature obsession, or over that breeched double sea-wall but just her calling it Sarah quits. Just like the way she came in to that meeting, the Park Street church meeting, some pressing urgent meeting to stop another generation’s war and they connected like the passing air that night they met, both on the hurt rebound, and both clingy, clingy as hell, and both without a word shortly thereafter, maybe a couple of days not more than a week, deciding quickly to stay together for a time, not kid foolish eternity time, an indeterminate time. And she brought forth a rebirth of kindness in him (she was organically kind, needed no winds of time shift, no big world- historic motion motive to do that) and of shared funny times, mature now (ragged bushes, and up river hide-aways just a laugh and tingle memory), although rugged cross rock still travelled, mature travelled and no fair maiden rescues. And he sorry, end of youth, end of mystery awe, end of mad adventure sorry, strangely more than Diana sorry, when she left.

Or that Maine time a few years back when, alone to clear some troubled thoughts after the end of his last marriage (and last marriage), a sudden winter storm came up the coast of Maine and he was stranded in his Thoreau-like lean-to shack not build for heavy gales but summer frolic for a couple of days when Mile Road the sole road in or out, drowned smothered flooded marshland on both sides and so no escape except for the boat-worthy , was cut off sunken under five feet of water, he short of supplies and house fuel not having heard any forecast, his life-long sea trouble radar apparently failing him or maybe unadorned hubris from his quick decision to head north against all cautions after he gathered himself together post-court battle, and he finally knew what it was like to be totally dependent on happenstance, to siren call Mother Nature, on others, and, in the end on his own devises.

Or tonight, the winds blasting away against the open air door to his room, rain splashing down the wind -battered door seeping into the room a little, torrents of rain, torrents of thoughts, momentarily left to his own devises, left to his own thoughts. Just then he thought, that no, no he had been wrong, he really had been searching for that metaphor, that metaphor, that mighty storm metaphor, that would sum up his life.

Ancient Dreams, Dreamed-To The Tune Of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl

Ancient Dreams, Dreamed-To The Tune Of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl     

Peter Paul Markin, North Adamsville Class Of 1964 and thus already past sixty-four, comment:

Many of my fellows from the Generation of '68 (a. k. a. baby-boomers) will be, if you can believe this, turning sixty-four this year. So be it.

*******

Ancient dreams, dreamed.

Yah, sometimes, and maybe more than sometimes, a frail, a frill, a twist, a dame, oh hell, let’s cut out the goofy stuff from youthful reading too many Raymond Chandler Philip Marlowe tough guy detective stories, or chasing after Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade for that matter, and far too many Saturday afternoon double-feature matinees at the old Strand Theater uptown woman monikers, and just call her a woman, and be done with it. Such women (frail, etc., okay) will tie a guy’s insides up in knots so bad he doesn’t know what is what, and not just guys who did not know what was what but guys who had been around a bit, had tasted the fruits, hell, knew the score, or thought they did. Tie up a guy so bad he will go to the chair, you know the big step off jolt chair, the ‘lectric chair, kind of smiling, okay maybe just half-smiling thinking about that scent he could smell even in that last dingy cellblock although he had not smelled that smell in the flesh in years.

Frank, Frank Corbett (but read: future Markins and a million, more or less, other guys) had it bad as a man could have from the minute Ms. Cora (excuse the anachronism) walked through the door in her white summer blouse, shorts, and the then de rigueur bandana holding back her hair, also white on that hot summer day, no breeze to be had except hers, in 1946. She may have been just another blonde, very blonde, (and a real blonde, always a question in the back of every guy’s mind as he would find out to his satisfaction once they hit the satin sheets) frail serving them off the arm in some seaside hash joint but from second one she was nothing but, well nothing but, a femme fatale to our boy, our boy Frank with the big hungry eyes. I, Peter Paul Markin, swear, I swear on seven sealed bibles that I yelled, yelled through the womb or from some toddler’s crib maybe, how would I know, all I know is that I did, at the movie screen that year for him to get the hell out of there at that moment. But do you think he would listen, no not our boy. He had to play with fire, and play with it to the end. Play his hand out right up to the big step-off smile, half-smile whether I had yelled or not. And hence my own Frank troubles from that day forward:    

Nose flattened cold against the frozen, snow falling front window “the projects” apartment, a place built on “wait on better times, get a leg up, don’t get left behind in the dawning American streets paved with gold dreams” but for now just a hang your hat dwelling, small, too small for three growing boys with hearty appetites and desires to match even then, warm, free-flow oil spigot warm, no hint of madness, or crazes only of sadness, brother kinship sadness, sadness and not understanding of time marching, relentlessly marching as he, that older brother he, went off to foreign places, foreign elementary school reading, ‘riting, ‘rithmetic places and, he, the nose flattened against the window brother, is left to ponder his own place in those kind of places, those foreign-sounding places, when his time comes. If he has a time, has the time for the time of his time, in this red scare (but what knows he of big red scare Cold War doing heard on some gloomy radio and later seen on some gloomy black and white small television, only brother scares), cold war, cold nose, dust particles floating aimlessly in the clogging still air night.

More.  A cloudless day, a cloudless blasted eternal, infernal Korean War day, talk of peace, merciless truce peace and talk of uncles, cold war, cold feet, cold bite, coming home in the air, hot, hot end of June day laying, face up on freshly mown grass near fellowship carved-out fields, fields for slides and swings, diamonded baseball, no, friendlier softball fields the houses are too close, mixed in with thoughts of gimps, glues, cooper-plated portraits of wildly-maned horses, of sweet shaded elms, starting, now that he too, that nose-flattened brother, has been to foreign places, strange boxed rooms filled with the wax and wane of learning, simple learning, in the time of his time, to find his own place in the sun but wondering, constantly wondering, what means this, what means that, and why all the changes, slow changes, fast changes, blip changes, but changes.

Nighttime fears, red-flagged Stalin-named fears, red bomb aimed right at his head unnamed shelter blast fears, named, vaguely named, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg hated stalinite jews killed fears [laughing thoughts fifty years later of Allan’s one million Trotskyites mushrooming on American negro streets, sorry brother, off by almost a million], jews killed our catholic lord fears, and what did they do wrong to get the chair, the ‘lectric chair just like Frank, did they cause somebody like Cora to be killed, anyway fears against the cubed glass glistening flagless flag-pole rattling dark asphalt school yard night. Alone, and, and, alone with fears, and avoidance, clean, clear stand alone avoidance of old times sailors, tars, sailors’ homes AND deaths in barely readable fine- marked granite-grey lonely seaside graveyards looking out on ocean homelands and lost booty. Dead, and the idea of dead, the mystery of dead, and of sea sailor dead on mains, later stream thoughts of bitch proctoresses, some unnamed faraway crush teacher who crossed my path and such, in lonely what did he do wrong anyway prison cells, smoking, reading, writing of the mystery of why dinosaurs die and other laments. Dead.

Endless walks, endless one way sea street water rat-infested fear seawall walks, rocks, shells, ocean water-logged debris strewn every which way, fetid marsh smells, swaying grasses in light breezes to the right, mephitic swamps oozing mud splat stinks to the left making hard the way, the path, the symbolic life path okay, to uptown drug stores, some forgotten chain-name drug store, passing perfumes, lacquers, counter drugs, ailments cured, hurts fixed and all under a dollar, trinkets ten cents baubles, gee-gads, strictly gee-gads, grabbing, two-handed grabbing, heist-stolen valentines, a metaphor in the making for future conned hearts without the valentines, ribbon and bow ruby-red valentine night bushel, signed, hot blood-signed, weary-feet signed, if only she, about five candidates she, later called two blondes, two brunettes, and a red-head, sticks all, no womanly shape to tear a boy-man up, would give a look his way, his look, his newly acquired state of the minute Elvis-imitation look, on endless sea streets, the white-flecked splash inside his head would be quiet. Man emerging out of the ooze, and hope.

Still more. Walks, endless waiting bus stop, old late, forever late, story of a young boy’s life late, diesel-fueled, choking fumed non-stop bus stop walks, no golden age car for jet moves in American Dream wide-fin, high tech automatic drive nights, walks, walks up crooked cheap, low-rent, fifty-years not fix rutted pavement streets, deeply gouged, one-lane snow-drift hassles, you get the picture, pass trees are green, coded, secretly coded even fifty rutted street years later, endless trees are green super-secret-coded except for face blush waiting, waiting against boyish infinite time, infinite first blush of innocent manhood, boyhood times, gone now. For what? For one look, one look, and not a quick no-nonsense, no dice look, no time for ragamuffin boys either that would elude him, elude him forever. Such is life in lowly spots, lowly, lowly spots. And no dance, no coded trees are green dance, either, no high school confidential (hell elementary school either, man), handy man, breathless, Jerry Lee freak-out, at least no potato sack stick dance with coded name trees are green brunette. That will come, brother, that will come. But when?

City square, any-town America, his American city square, filled with no  trespassing- police take notice signs meant his eyes, his sneak-thief eyes on the hunt for trinkets, the first in a long line of trinkets to dazzle some forlorn damsel, not so different from Frank, Frank from the movies when he got his wanting habits on, his chaste wanting habits which would build to those lust wants that drove Frank to the big step,   no standing either, no standing in front of low-slung granite buildings everywhere, bank vault exterior solid buildings, granite steps leading to granite doors leading to granite gee-gad counters, hated, no name hated, low-head hated, waiting slyly, standing back on heels, going in furtively, coming out ditto, presto coming out with a gold nugget jewel, no carats, fools’ gold didn’t you know that was your station, no russkie Sputnik panel glitter for his efforts such is the way of young lumped-up crime, no value, no look for value, just grab, grab hard, grab fast, grab to get yours before the getting is over, or before the dark, dark night comes, the dark pitched-night when the world no longer is young, and dreamed dreams make no more sense that this bodily theft. Those damn trinket thefts would do him in, if he was not careful.

First interlude: A bridge too far, an unarched, unsteeled, unspanned, unnerved bridge too far. One speed bicycle boy, Schwinn maybe, or low-sling English racer that was all the rage, dungarees before they became jeans and sleek, rolled up against dog bites and geared meshes, churning through endless heated, sweated, no handkerchief streets, names, all the parts of ships, names, all the seven seas, names, all the fishes of the seas, names, all the fauna of the sea, names. Twelve-year old hard churned miles to go before sleep, searching for the wombic home, for the old friends, the old drifter, grifter, midnight shifter petty larceny friends, that’s all it was, petty and maybe larceny, hard against the named ships, hard against the named seas, hard against the named fishes, hard against the named fauna, hard against the unnamed angst, hard against those changes that kind of hit one sideways all at once like some mack the knife smack devilish thing.

Then back to business, back to trinket worries (and sprouting up like no tomorrow, underarms stenches, daily lathers, acrid mouth, unkempt, cow-licked hair sans Wild Root solutions worries before he even got out the door). Si, lindo, lindos, beautiful, beautifuls, not some spanish exotic though, maybe later, just some junior league dream fuss though, some future cheerleader football dame though (smelling of Raymond Chandler influences and Bogie growls), some sweated night pastry crust and he, too slip-shot, too, well, just too lonely, too lonesome, too long-toothed before his time to do more than endless walks along endless atlantic streets to summon up the courage to glance, glance right at windows, non-exotic atlantic cheerleader windows. Such is the new decade a-borning, a-borning but not for him, no jack swagger, or bobby goof as they run the table on old tricky dick or some tired imitation of him. Me, I’ll take exotics, or lindos, if they every cross my path, my lonely only path.

Moving on. Sweated dust bowl nights, not the sweated exotic atlantic cheerleader glance nights but something else, something not endless walked about, something done, or with the promise of done, for something inside, for some sense of worth in the this moldy white tee shirt, mildewy white shorts, who knows what diseased sneakers, Chuck Taylor sneakers, pushing the red-faced Irish winds, harder, harder around the oval, watch tick in hand, looking, looking I guess for immortality, immortality even then. Later, in bobby darin times or percy faith times, who knows, sitting, sitting high against the lion-guarded pyramid statute front door dream, common dreams, common tokyo dreams, all gone asunder, all gone asunder, on this curious fact, no wind, Irish or otherwise. Stopped short. Who would have figured that one?

Main street walked, main street public telephone booth cheap talk walked searching for some Diana, greek goddess, wandering wholesale on the atlantic streets. Diana, blonde Diana, cashmere-sweatered, white tennis –shoed Diana, million later Dianas although not with tennis shoes, really gym shoes fit for old ladies to do their rant, their lonely rant against the wind. Seeking, or rather courage-seeking, nickel and dime courage as it turns out; nickel and dime courage when home provided no sanctuary for snuggle-eared delights. Maybe a date, a small-time after school soda split sitting at the counter Doc’s drugstore date, or slice of pizza and a coke date at Balducci’s with a few nickels juke-boxed in playing our song, our future song, a Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall song, and dreams of I Want To Wanted sifting the hot afternoon air, maybe just a swirl at midnight drift, maybe a view of local lore car parked submarine races and mysteries unfurled, ah, to dream, no more than to dream, walking down friendly aisles, arm and arm along with myriad other arm and arm walkers on senior errands. No way, no way and then red-face, alas, red-faced no known even forty years later. Wow.

Multi-colored jacket worn, red and black, black and red, some combination reflecting old time glories, or promises of glory, cigarette, Winston small-filtered, natch, no romantic Bogie tobacco-lipped unfiltered blends, hanging from off the lip at some jagged angle, a cup of coffee, if coffee was the drink, in hand, a glad hand either way, look right, look left, a gentle nod, a hard stare, a gentle snarl if such a thing is possible beyond the page. Move out the act onto Boston fresh-mown streets. Finally, that one minute, no, not fifteen, not fifteen at all, and not necessary of the fame game, local fame, always local fame but fame, and then the abyss on non-fame, non- recognition and no more snarls, gentle or otherwise. A tough life lesson learned, very tough. And not yet twenty.

Drunk, whisky drunk, whisky rotgut whisky drunk, in some bayside, altantic bayside, not childhood atlantic bayside though, no way, no shawlie way, bar. Name, nameless, no legion. Some staggered midnight vista street, legs weak from lack of work, brain weak, push on, push on, find some fellaheen relieve for that unsatisfied bulge, that gnawing at the brain or really at the root of the thing. A topsy-turvy time, murder, death, the death of death, the death of fame, murder, killing murder, and then resolve, wrong resolve and henceforth the only out, war, war to the finish, although who could have known that then. Who could have known that Tet, Lyndon, Bobby, Hubert, tricky dick war-circus all hell broke loose thing then, or wanted to.

Shaved-head, close anyway, too close to distinguish that head and ten-thousand, no on hundred-thousand other heads, all shave-headed. I fall down to the earth, spitting mud-flecked red clay, spitting, dust, spitting, spitting out the stars over Alabama that portent no good, no earthy good. Except this-if this is not murder, if this is not to slay, then what is? And the die is cast, not truthfully cast, not pure warrior in the night cast but cast. Wild dreams, senseless wild dreams follow, follow in succession. The days of rage, rage against the light, and then the glimmer of the light.

Second interlude: The great Mandela cries, cries to the high heavens, for revenge against the son’s hurt, now that the son has found his way, a strange way but a way. And a certain swagger comes to his feet in the high heaven black Madonna of a night. No cigarette hanging off the lip now, not Winston filter-tipped seductions, no need, and no rest except the rest of waiting, waiting on the days to pass until the next coming, and the next coming after that. Ah, sweet Mandela, turn for me, turn for me and mine just a little. Free at last but with a very, very sneaking feeling that this is a road less traveled for a reason, and not for ancient robert frost to guide you… Just look at blooded Kent State, or better, blooded Jackson State. Christ.

Return. Bloodless bloodied streets, may day tear down the government days, tears, tear-gas exploding, people running this way and that coming out of a half-induced daze, a crazed half-induced daze that mere good- will, mere righteousness would right the wrongs of this wicked old world. But stop. Out of the bloodless fury, out of the miscalculated night a strange bird, no peace dove and no flame-flecked phoenix but a bird, maybe the owl of Minerva comes a better sense that this new world a-bornin’ will take some doing, some serious doing. More serious that some wispy-bearded, pony-tailed beat, beat down, beat around, beat up young stalwart acting in god’s place can even dream of.

Chill chilly nights south of the border, endless Kennebunkports, Bar Harbors, Calais, Monktons, Peggy’s Coves, Charlottetowns, Montreals, Ann Arbors, Neolas, Denvers by moonlight, Boulders echos, Dinosaurs dies, salted lakes, Winnemuccas’ flats, golden-gated bridges, malibus, Joshua Trees, pueblos, embarcaderos, and flies. Enough to last a life-time, thank you. Enough of Bunsen burners, Coleman stoves, wrapped blankets, second-hand sweated army sleeping bags, and minute pegged pup tents too. And enough too of granolas, oatmeals, desiccated stews, oregano weed, mushroomed delights, peyote seeds, and the shamanic ghosts dancing off against apache (no, not helicopters, real injuns) ancient cavern walls. And enough of short-wave radio beam tricky dick slaughters south of the border in deep fall nights. Enough, okay.

Third Interlude: He said struggle. He said push back. He said stay with your people. He said it would not be easy. He said you have lost the strand that bound you to your people. He said you must find that strand. He said that strand will lead you away from you acting in god’s place ways. He said look for a sign. He said the sign would be this-when your enemies part ways and let you through then you will enter the golden age. He said it would not be easy. He said it again and again. He said struggle. He said it in 1848, he said it in 1917, he said it in 1973. Whee, an old guy, huh.

Greyhound bus station men’s wash room stinking to high heaven of seven hundred pees, six hundred laved washings, five hundred wayward unnamed, unnamable smells, mainly rank. Out the door, walk the streets, walk the streets until, until noon, until five, until lights out. Plan, plan, plan, plain paper bag in hand holding, well, holding life, plan for the next minute, no, the next ten seconds until the deadly impulses subside. Then look, look hard, for safe harbors, lonely desolate un-peopled bridges, some gerald ford-bored antic newspaper-strewn bench against the clotted hobo night snores. Desolation row, no way home.

A smoky sunless bar, urban style right in the middle of high Harvard civilization, belting out some misty time Hank Williams tune, maybe Cold, Cold Heart from father home times. Order another deadened drink, slightly benny-addled, then in walks a vision. A million times in walks a vision, but in white this time. Signifying? Signifying adventure, dream one-night stands, lost walks in loaded woods, endless stretch beaches, moonless nights, serious caresses, and maybe, just maybe some cosmic connection to wear away the days, the long days ahead. Yah, that seems right, right against the oil-beggared time, right.

Lashed against the high end double seawall, bearded, slightly graying against the forlorn time, a vision in white not enough to keep the wolves of time away, the wolves of feckless petty larceny times reappear, reappear with a vengeance against the super-rational night sky and big globs of ancient hurts fester against some unknown enemy, unnamed, or hiding out in a canyon under an assumed name. Then night, the promise of night, a night run up some seawall laden streets, some Grenada night or maybe Lebanon sky boom night, and thoughts of finite, sweet flinty finite haunt his dreams, haunt his sleep. Wrong number, brother. Yah, wrong number, as usual.

Fourth Interlude: White truce flags neatly placed in right pocket. Folded aging arms showing the first signs of wear-down, unfolded. One more time, one more war-weary dastardly fight against Persian Gulf oil-driven time, against a bigger opponent, and then the joys of retreat and taking out those white flags again and normalcy. The first round begins. He holds his own, a little wobbly. Second round he runs into a series of upper-cuts that drive him to the floor. Out. Awake later, seven minutes, hours, eons later he takes out the white flags now red with his own blood. He clutches them in his weary hands. The other guy he said struggle, struggle. Yah, easy for you to say.

Desperately clutching his new white flags, his 9/11 white flags, exchanged years ago for bloodied red ones, white flags proudly worn for a while now, he wipes his brow of the sweat accumulated from the fear he has been living with for the past few months. Now ancient arms folded, hard-folded against the rainless night, raining, he carefully turns right, left, careful of every move as the crowd comes forward. Not a crowd, no, a horde, a beastly horde, and this is no time to stick out with white flags (or red, for that matter). He jumps out of the way, the horde passes brushing him lightly, not aware, not apparently aware of the white flags. Good. What did that other guy say, oh yes, struggle.

One more battle, one more, please one more, one fight against the greed party night. He chains himself, well not really chains, but more like ties himself to the black wrought-iron fence in front of the big white house with his white handkerchief. Another guy does the same, except he uses some plastic hand-cuff-like stuff. A couple of women just stand there, hard against that ebony fence, can you believe it, just stand there. More, milling around, disorderly in a way, someone starts om-ing, om-ing out of Allen Ginsberg Howl nights, or at least Jack Kerouac Big Sur splashes. The scene is complete, or almost complete. Now, for once he knows, knows for sure, that it wasn’t Ms. Cora (now no anachronism) whom he needed to worry about, and that his child dream was a different thing altogether. But who, just a child, could have known that then.

From The Archives-Proposed Massachusetts Peace Walk Route-Thursday October 27th to Monday October 31st –“Stop The Wars Against Mother Nature”

Proposed Massachusetts Peace Walk Route-Thursday October 27^th to Monday October 31^st –“Stop The Wars Against Mother Nature”    

****Day One- Thursday October 27^th (Portsmouth to Hampton 15.6 miles

Walkers stay at Pat Scanlon’s house in York after finish of Maine portion of Peace Walk on the night of Wednesday October 26^th and are shuttled to Prescott Park. Possible support and sleep arrangements from Portsmouth which was the host for the last day of the Maine walk in 2015   

Meet at Prescott Park in Portsmouth at 8:30 AM to walk through downtown Portsmouth to MacDonald’s on Route 1 (left on Marcy to Court Street, left on Pleasant, Congress, right on Junkins pass City Hall to right on South, left onto Lafayette Road) to pick up Route One South (Lafayette Road). 3.2 miles

Continue on Route One (Lafayette Road) from MacDonald’s to Lago’s Ice Cream about 3 miles

Continue on Route One Lago’s Ice Cream to Junction of NH 111 USA about 3.3 miles for lunch stop shopping mall on left (also place for car forwarding parking)    

Continue on Route One from Junction of 111 to Junction of Route 27 (gazebo on right past Lamie’s) 3 miles

Continue on Route One from Junction of 27 (gazebo on right past Lamie’s) for three miles to take left for about a mile on Exeter Road. Sleeping arrangements, supper and program in Hampton still need contacts and work 

****Day Two Friday Oct 28^th (Hampton to House Of Peace High Street Ipswich) about 16.6 miles

Meet at entrance to Seabrook Power Plant for short rally/vigil (need updated information on how to get there- where we are permitted to stand, etc. at the facility)

Start walking from Exeter Road (on Route I) to Dunkin Donuts 3.9 miles

Dunkin Donuts (Route I) to Newburyport Rotary past downtown- Stop for lunch 3.4 miles

Shuttle from Rotary about three miles and start walking again to Intersection Route 1 & 133 Rowley Agawam Diner) 3miles

Intersection Route 1 and 133 Rowley to I High Street, Ipswich 4 miles  

Sleeping arrangements at House Of Peace, program and supper at UCC Church Ipswich  

****Day Three Saturday October 29^th Ipswich to Salem about 14 miles

Meet at 9:00 AM at 1 High Street to walk down North Main Street to Route 1A to Hamilton Town Hall (3.7 miles)

Continue on Route 1A- Hamilton Town Hall to Mall/Wenham Lake Wenham (3.2. miles)-Stop for lunch 

Continue down Route 1A from Wenham Lake, Wenham to Beverley Train Depot, Beverly (3.5 miles) (or UCC Church a couple of streets over)

Continue of Route I A Beverley Train Depot to Salem Old Town Hall (3 miles)

Sleeping arrangement, supper and program in Salem could change finishing point

****Day Four Sunday Oct 30^th -Salem Old Town Hall to Revere Beach (13 miles)

Salem Old Town Hall back to Route IA To Route 114 to Preston Beach 450 Atlantic Avenue via Lafayette Avenue Maple to Humphrey Street to Rockaway to Atlantic Avenue (3.5 miles)

Preston Beach follow Atlantic Avenue to Ocean Street Lynn to Nahant Rotary (3.5 miles) Stop for Lunch 

Nahant Rotary to Point of Pines via the left side of road on Lynnway to Point of Pines exit and parking lot 2.8 miles

Point of Pines to Revere Beach Parkway 

Sleeping arrangements, supper and program TBA (could be in area but being close to Boston other possibilities might come up. Also use of public transportation-MBTA comes into play if necessary) 

****Day Five Monday October 31^st -Revere Beach To Boston Common via  Cambridge Friends’ Meeting House and walk through college Cambridge (16 miles)

Meet at Revere Beach Parkway location by 7AM for shuttle to GE plant rally/vigil for one hour as workers arrive at work ((need to update where we can stand for rally/vigil and shift start times.

Shuttle back to Revere Beach Parkway to continue walk-Revere Beach Parkway to park past Wellington Circle  on Route 16  3.4 miles

Park to Cambridge Friends’ Meeting House via Route 16, cut to Davis Square (Hammond Street) to Mass Ave to Cambridge Common to 5 Longfellow

Cambridge Friends to Mass Ave Harvard Square, Central Square, MIT over Mass Ave Bridge onto Storrow Drive walkway to Hatch Shell over Fiedler Bridge to Boston Public Gardens to Park Street Boston Common for vigil/rally

Sleeping arrangements if necessary, supper and program by shuttle at Friends’ Meeting House, 5 Longfellow Road, Cambridge or Friends’ Meeting House Beacon Hill   

Frank Jackman’s Bernie Sanders “Stump Speech To All Who Will Listen Whatever Front He Finds Himself On In The Coming Months-Bernie Vision 2020 Boston from the heart and here today to testify, to give my reasons for supporting the Senator:

Frank Jackman’s Bernie Sanders “Stump Speech To All Who Will Listen Whatever Front He Finds Himself On In The Coming Months-Bernie Vision 2020 Boston from the heart and here today to testify, to give my reasons for supporting the Senator:

Recently I wrote and have begun doing a stump speech wherever people gather for political purposes giving my personal reasons for supporting Senator Sanders presidential candidacy. I have dubbed that speech ‘the defense of the republic” oration where my motivation centrally was the need to get rid of the current president as a matter of elementary hygiene and to avoid a now brewing cold civil war from turning hot. There I played to the Senator’s and my long time struggles in defense of the international progressive agenda against the endless wars, for social justice and the struggle against want which hold many people back for no purpose, sometimes as voices in the wilderness, sometimes with many at our respective backs.  

One unspoken truth which is common to both the Senator’s and my sense of the world, probably a hallmark of our generation, the remnants of the Generation of ’68 is a serious desire to NOT discuss, not to profile our individual lives, what makes us tick, what gets us on the picket lines, the rally points, the march routes. The background of our staying close to our roots all these years. With the partial exception of his kick-off campaign speech at Brooklyn College back in March he has held to that position although I have noticed he has lightened up a little of late. At some point, probably the point where I decided to write that first stump speech, I took it upon myself to get more personal, to tell why I have stayed so close to my roots in the social struggles of my lifetime. I might mention that I repeatedly have told whoever would listen in the Sanders campaign apparatus to have him concentrate on his compelling American story to better link up with the electorate in this the time when bearing one’s soul is fit for discussion, is part of the political landscape.

One thing that struck me, the key thing, that struck me about the Senator’s Brooklyn speech is toward the end, probably kicking and screaming at his advisers all the time, was when told the crowd “he knew where he came from,” knew he came from down in the dust of society. A father who immigrated to this country just in front of the Nazi onslaught which would take most of his family into the concentration camps and death, a man with no money in his pocket but an overweening desire to make it in America. The Senator grew up in that three- and one-half room rent-controlled apartment in Brooklyn and that was that. No that was not that for here is the very personal link between the Senator and me. His mother like many post- World War II mothers dreamed of having her own single-family home before she passed away at an early age. It never happened. I grew up in and came of age  the Germantown projects in Quincy. My mother too in our desperate projects housing had the single family home dream which never happened for her either.

That’s the joiner but there is more. The Senator spoke of never having enough for extras, for having something like a quarter weekly allowance as a kid (against Trump’s massive allowance). Never being hungry or on the streets, nor was my family but always being ground down by the terrible struggle for necessities, for curbing the basic wants which in the richest society in the world should have been fulfilled as part of the social contract. I could go on but let me finish with this example. My father a Marine veteran of World War II had been a coalminer down in Appalachia, down in the hills and hollows of legendary Hazard, Kentucky before the war, a hillbilly who did not get pass the tenth grade. He was stationed at the Naval Depot in Hingham before he was discharged, met my mother and that was that. He stayed North always being the last hired and first fired as long as I could remember.           

My frantic young mother, totally unprepared for motherhood, did the best she could. That best she could when my father was unemployed, and no work was to be had. When there was work come each Friday paycheck she would put out white envelopes with the bill to be paid listed on the front. I don’t ever remember her being able to do any better that giving each collector enough to keep the wolves from the door. I could tell things were really bad when she would send me, maybe I was ten or eleven over to the projects office to pay the rent, pay something anyway, she was too embarrassed to go herself. Yes, Senator Sanders knows that story too well, a variation anyway and we have to stop that wanting habits hunger, and right now too. He knows where he came from as do I and have stayed close to the roots. I am proud to stand beside him.    

    

From The Archives- Proposed Massachusetts Peace Walk Route-Thursday October 27th to Monday October 31st –“Stop The Wars Against Mother Nature”

Proposed Massachusetts Peace Walk Route-Thursday October 27^th to Monday October 31^st –“Stop The Wars Against Mother Nature”    

****Day One- Thursday October 27^th (Portsmouth to Hampton 15.6 miles

Walkers stay at Pat Scanlon’s house in York after finish of Maine portion of Peace Walk on the night of Wednesday October 26^th and are shuttled to Prescott Park. Possible support and sleep arrangements from Portsmouth which was the host for the last day of the Maine walk in 2015   

Meet at Prescott Park in Portsmouth at 8:30 AM to walk through downtown Portsmouth to MacDonald’s on Route (left on Marcy to Court Street, left on Pleasant, Congress, right on Junkins pass City Hall to right on South, left onto Lafayette Road) to pick up Route One South (Lafayette Road) to first break at Wilson Road. 3.2 miles

Continue on Route One (Lafayette Road) from MacDonald’s to Lago’s Ice Cream about 3 miles

Continue on Route One Lago’s Ice Cream to Junction of NH 111 USA about 3.3 miles for lunch stop shopping mall on left (also place for car forwarding parking)    

Continue on Route One from Junction of 111 to Junction of Route 27 (gazebo on right past Lamie’s) 3 miles

Continue on Route One from Junction of 27 (gazebo on right past Lamie’s) for three miles to take left for about a mile on Exeter Road. Sleeping arrangements, supper and program in Hampton still need contacts and work. Right now walkers will be shuttled back to the Friends’ Meeting  House in Dover   

****Day Two Friday Oct 28^th (Hampton to House Of Peace High Street Ipswich) about 16.6 miles

Shuttle from Dover Friends’ Meeting House to meet at 9:00 AM at entrance to Seabrook Power Plant for short rally/vigil (need updated information on how to get there- where we are permitted to stand, etc. at the facility)

Start walking from Exeter Road (on Route I) to Dunkin Donuts 3.9 miles

Dunkin Donuts (Route I) to Newburyport Rotary past downtown- Stop for lunch 3.4 miles

Shuttle from Rotary about three miles and start walking again to Intersection Route 1 & 133 Rowley Agawam Diner) 3miles

Intersection Route 1 and 133 Rowley to I High Street, Ipswich 4 miles  

Sleeping arrangements at House Of Peace, program and supper at UCC Church Ipswich  

****Day Three Saturday October 29^th Ipswich to Salem about 14 miles

Meet at 9:00 AM at 1 High Street to walk down North Main Street to Route 1A to Hamilton Town Hall (3.7 miles)

Continue on Route 1A- Hamilton Town Hall to Mall/Wenham Lake Wenham (3.2. miles)-Stop for lunch 

Continue down Route 1A from Wenham Lake, Wenham to Beverley UCC Church (3.5 miles).

Continue UCC Church to Salem Old Town Hall (3 miles). Shuttle back to UCC Church for sleeping arrangement, supper and program.

****Day Four Sunday Oct 30^th -Salem Old Town Hall to Revere Beach (13 miles)

Shuttle from UCC to Salem Old Town Hall back to Route IA To Route 114 to Preston Beach 450 Atlantic Avenue via Lafayette Avenue Maple to Humphrey Street to Rockaway to Atlantic Avenue (3.5 miles)

Preston Beach follow Atlantic Avenue to Ocean Street Lynn to Nahant Rotary (3.5 miles) Stop for Lunch 

Nahant Rotary to Point of Pines via the left side of road on Lynnway to Point of Pines exit and parking lot 2.8 miles

Point of Pines to Revere Beach Parkway 

Sleeping arrangements, supper and program TBA (Right now shuttle to Cambridge Friends’ Meeting House for sleeping arrangements, supper and program could be in area but being close to Boston other possibilities might come up. Also use of public transportation-MBTA comes into play if necessary) 

****Day Five Monday October 31^st –Shuttle to Revere Beach Parkway rotary  To Boston Common via  Cambridge Friends’ Meeting House and walk through college Cambridge (16 miles)

Shuttle back to Meet at Revere Beach Parkway rotatory by 7AM for shuttle to GE plant rally/vigil for one hour as workers arrive at work ((need to update where we can stand for rally/vigil and shift start times).

Shuttle back to Revere Beach Parkway from GE plant to continue walk-Revere Beach Parkway to park past Wellington Circle  on Route 16  3.4 miles

Mystic Park to Cambridge Friends’ Meeting House via Route 16, cut to Davis Square (Hammond Street) to Mass Ave to Cambridge Common to 5 Longfellow for lunch.

Cambridge Friends to Mass Ave Harvard Square, Central Square, MIT over Mass Ave Bridge onto Storrow Drive walkway to Hatch Shell over Fiedler Bridge to Boston Public Gardens to Park Street Boston Common for vigil/rally

Sleeping arrangements if necessary, supper and program at Friends’ Meeting House, Beacon Hill.   

From The Archives-Feel The Bern

Okay, Okay It’s The 350^th Anniversary of Rembrandt’s (You Know The Dutch Painter With the Funny Last Name That Nobody Remembers Anyway) So Happy, Happy Birthday Brother

By Sam Lowell

By rights fellow writer here and budding amateur art critic (she insists I put that “amateur in) should be all over this short piece since she is much more involved in this aspect of human culture than I am theses days. Except Dutch painters (Flemish too or whatever they call the Netherlands painters at the art museum near you) leave her cold, do nothing for her despite their oversized place in the art world, at least in art books and generic museums.

Frankly I kind of shared her opinion about these dark color aficionados and their proper prosperous bourgeois subjects, their families, their towns and their inclinations toward showing family life from their home furnishings to their larder (those fish and fowl paintings still give me the willies). Two things changed my mind. One was that after some hiatus from museum-going I started up again and after having it up to my neck with every possible painting of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the death of Christ, the martyrdoms of the apostles and kindred and the whoredom of subjects like Mary Magdalene from the Middle Ages it was like a breath of fresh air to see even some hoary old bastard of bourgeois, his funky wife, and the general mayhem of urban Dutch society.

The other, strangely, was the theft many years ago of a famous Rembrandt self-portrait (among other stolen treasures taken during that heist) at the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum in Boston which made me wonder why they had taken that painting. An example as shown here -a masterpiece of composition, lighting, and warts and all approach. So Happy Birthday Rembrandt and I hope they get that painting back to fill up that wall at the Gardner again.