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 16thcentury 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.
