Chapter 3
Then, it was so matter of fact like taking sausage to bed, saying a proper good night for the wisdom of the mother-provider was similar to a pirate chief.
The let-down came in advanced picture book form, childhood crisis accelerated on seeing Kidd brain a member of his lusty crew but the upstart taking the beating was toothless and sore no arcanely romantic rake at all, more like a strange woman in the park with whom no one dared to speak.
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Page 70 FENCE LINE
That Captain Kidd scribbling of rock in the fields yellowed bristle of pages back of a farm where piratical breaking of land knocks clean holes in the soil, gypsy dancers vernal growth before a spy-glass hour moon.
And black print smudged on a thumb, a child's glossary of tales thick with terror before the faceless wretch crawls for grog, his peg-leg in step with one part of my brain Old Phew hardly any Smee from Peter Pan but the holocaust -- the raven in the tree eyeing the baby Treasure Island, that fledgling reason butchering both nostrils at the skunk cabbage whose nectar is the prize of cemeteries & wild reunion of the bees.
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Page 71 ADVERSARIES
He held his hands like plastic -- his vestments the finer calling of his trade, vocation as modern strummer of Nature's laws Engineer in brief -- wine glass in hand bestowing the more salient points of mawkish disbelief with cigarette to numb the spine.
The Reverend looked down on fire, caught papryus smoke in the bellows of his chest, made laundry of the Plumber's intellect -- tore savage parchment from the soft cheesecutter's contemporary breath.
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Page 72 BARGAINING UNIT
The man about to become a sparrow is shouting his head off wearing green trousers with red eyes framing mustier tweed, he lambasts the lad for not conducting his person properly in showing up for work in a white shirt.
The fact the future labour requires only lifting boxes to a shed is a fine point about as important as the man himself who has transformed himself into that sparrow where several would not span the breadth of a bigger man's hand or four could be had in the Biblical sense for less than a penny.
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Page 73 PALAIS ROYALE
The night cold as nuggets, dark as acorn, against your chest; snow falling like abandoned echoes releasing energy into the spyglass, umbrella moon.
A solitary figure trapping hapless sparrows not in a net but with his footprints doubling as dungeons against the sun -- here & there rusting eavestroughs ballooning into avenging shadows their harpsichord voices spun on dreams Dick Whittington once used to buy a cat.
And once Tom Thumb Upstaged Peter Pan by appearing under a petunia but this is not likely to happen soon.
The dawn, forlorn & grey, is a court muffin's handkerchief waved at a sailor far out at sea.
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Page 74 ALCATRAZ
White ibis/blue crane, the arch of wings in full sail over leafy barques a wise stork scanning water like the Disney character, conductor on his train with eye-glasses & stop watch.
Sift of wind, unseen hand exploring the pond the stork ungainly on a single leg the bird-man Jolly Roger a pirate burrowing in the muck add skull and cross bones upending frightened fingerlings the snout of the bandit a rifle shot away creasing the shallows.
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Page 75 WHEN LABOURING TO BREAK
Perhaps one is in prison -- fidgeting as time draws to a close -- a scrap of house tunic between the fingers or when labouring to break cuticles on swollen fingers pressing both hands against ears that refuse to hear the stop sound of rushing blood.
Then again, in the last hour before end time, before dawn's arrival and floodlit sky finds you -- knuckles clasping bars, pitiless bayonet-like with eyes swishing truncheons at all the getaway air your lungs will never take; wheezing in growing fear to the sound of footsteps, clank of keys and gallow's humour as they prepare to Skuttle your short life, wall up clouds of their own pestilence nakedly mask each firing squad gathering for its fighting chance.
page 76 THIS WAY TO THE SIXTIES: JOHN LENNON'S DEATH FIVE YEARS AFTER
It was a red letter day and all within a decade, the sixties.
Psychadelic and all because the Electric Circus opened up Walking Yonge Street in the December cold, aging "hippies", the word itself a joke, reminisced:
National Guardsmen, for one, doing post-mortems on their rifle butts, record covers carrying the first life- sized zippers and mashed up rubber dolls; Cher Bono getting up nerve and a career to name her child Chastity but walking off with a card.
By the end of the decade they were asking questions.
We had landed on the moon per schedule but who would have believed in the efficacy of Rock or the efficency of napham before Vietnam? Frosted hair. Body paint. The sixties produced a lot of it. With one bullet, the Beatles, the secular saviours, were breaking up. Before they had finished reuniting the world. Before the history of music could be written.
Before John Lennon, did we dare trust ourselves, World leaders, gurus?
That was the meaning of the assassination.
Page 77 History won't budge an inch for neophytes, The Clockwork Orange was instructive but didn't go far enough. Frodo wouldn't live in Yorkville today if given a chance.
Now for the most poignant mental lapse of the Candle carriers, mourners and mock biers with frozen flowers. Simply the reminder half the population didn't share his vision. Veterans grumbled. The press paid more attention to this solitary event than Armistice Day. Schoolchildren tittered. What was that? The so-called generation gap seemed poised on that comment. Then John's comment the Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ Donovan didn't survive tunes like Epistle to Dippy. Lennon won't survive the Elvis Beatle syndrome. The lights are going out on the sixties, The eighties are austere. Cherry cokes are the memory of a laugh. The Purple Onion only causes perplexion like Charlie Brown's Great Pumpkin.
Forget about words like "catalyst". Lennon was the conflageration. Graffiti after him has renewed licence.
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Page 78 POGROM
There is an unhurried resemblance to pain, here, this Fiddler on the Roof commodity, potables, fine oaken chest for one and furs; but wait, the Czarist police are busting up the place -- a program is having its desired effect on our emotions, the wine cellar smashed as tears are falling like bloody heaps in the red snow, cuttersleds carting off the sundry feelings we've invested in, a relationship already staledated two years old.
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Page 79 BRAGGADOCIO
Chess playing Death -- no, the reverse Death sitting decked out and self-satisfied in black no mandatory top hat but a shroud shouldering a cowl.
There stereotypes end -- appearances have to be kept up tho' hardly any cinematic gnarled fingers of Baron Samedi fame rather pudgy digitals reflecting gentile prosperity (after all, Winners do take all his fellow satanists bank on it).
Of course, such things are fictitious. Death plays no favourites (and waits for no man when rivalling Time). Still, parlour games are one indulgence. Hardly comforting to know human beings function at one purpose when this Hallow of Hallows puts on the smirk.
Dalliance with the victim is the upshot -- the chess motif again. Sift thru the chicken bones a mite -- let the chump stir the rubble of his dreams. Something of gallow's humour or gangster largesse.
Page 80 Offer a stiff drink (brandy will do), one last cigarette. Then, too, for beaten gladiators toiling bravely the apparent rewards accelerate. Truckloads of flowers at the funeral, for instance. Preferential treatment for the guise or mercy must be kept up.
All lies in appearances. Prepare the feast. Sit the guest of honour on a splendid cushion, then serve up dish after sumptious dish. Dining splendidly on one's own children unbeknownst is a favourite -- maddens the victim no end. Brief success turning to bitter sawdust is the supreme moment of ecstasy. Serves precisely as metaphoric extension of all earthly reward as illusionary. (A delicious ruse borrowed shamelessly from fellow representatives on Earth --the Sicilian Mafia.) Further spin-offs centre about the Absurd But spare us juvenile intrigue with petty omens like a bird loose in the house. Rather, a swift check-mate served up in the best Grandmaster tradition is more a propos.
Therein lies the jest. Workaholics and their polar opposites, the dead lazy. effortlessly come around. When realization hits home all distinctions blur. No difference. Sharp laughter unceremoniously greets even the self-composed.
Page 81 Especially intriguing are the ambitious. Endless quirks really. Concerted mockery recreates further patterns of futility. Basic strategy remains unchanged, though. Disguise is paramount.
Dress her in robes of tarter gray, implant a slight smile, then beckon from around each corner. Create a maze, but attractive-like with flower pots. Faint knockings behind every door. A cooling breeze overhead. Genuine affability like an open air Swiss cottage in a summer meadow. The greater the false hope, the greater the final squirming. Funny stuff, for even Death at one remote corner of his being partakes in occasional mirth (why not, with his monopoly intact on everything else).
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Page 82 DRESS REHEARSAL
"The universe is expanding". There's cause for reflection and bound to do wonders for "who am I" queries.
At this late moment on the Celestial Clock, man isn't sure if he's stumbled into a Black Hole or just the debris from the Big Bang Theory.
Many of the earth's residents desperately want to be E.T.'s -- travellers with carte blanche passports welcomed in any galaxy. Therein lies the ultimate twist to "getting away".
Alas, what if we're alone?
What if the universe expands so much it forgets there's an inhabited world and obscures the planet from our collective vision? Sobering stuff. Meanwhile, on a spaceship earth preparations are underway. Preparation to abandon the planet. Preparations to forget life is a serious matter. Preparations to drown protracted speculations about existence's intensity. E.T. mania is carrying the day. People adorn stuffed, life-sized dolls of imagined creatures on the dashboards of their cars. Children queque up for hours to get gingerbread designed from scary, monster dough. Everywhere, the question on everyone's lips is "how many of'em are there"? When will contact be made? Will they want to throw in their lot with mankind or "take over"? After all, it's our Arc. No one seriously wants reminders of Von Daniken's chariots riding again or the genetic mumble about intergalactic breeding. Going to bed with E.T. is too much. It's the Outer Limits. Propriety still has some hold even if Marian Engel did slip up and get it on with a bear. At least
Page 83 that was recognizable earth life. Darth is too much of a transition even if it's only a One Night Stand.
E.T. is just like Bambi. He wants to go home. And alone. He's not interested in sex. Too many other myriad problems are floating in his adorable, gelatin head. Surely earth women can relate to that. Surely, if the universe is expanding, then it's because of intrigue in high places. Because cosmic particles are hammering out new definitions. Anyone of a thousand theories. Star Wars can stuff it. We want "peaceful" contact and on our terms. Ask Orson Welles. Or H.G.Wells. Time machines are old hat and another invasion in Newark is too much to absorb. With NYC across the river, they've already got all the action they can handle. We like our extraterrestial life tailormade and preferably in our own image. We're prepared to accept them if they conform to stiff criteria. They have to be like us and prepared to cooperate. Seeing eye dogs help the blind, horses were good draft animals for centuries. We might even want to decorate it like the Hindoos do elephants; make it into a "religious" procession such as a Roman Triumph. It would be the same for outer space visitors. No mutants or Roving Intelligences allowed. Earth is "off limits" to marauding predators -- we'll fight at the suggestion they're here on "reconnoitering missions" as a prelude to Conquest or the Bermuda Triangle is one of their many "staging areas" or dress rehearsal sites.
Earth for humankind carries more immediacy than "Canada for the Canadians". If they are "out there", they'd better behave.
Page 84 Hollywood's got it all figured out. There's no shortage or scenarios. Life support systems will be rushed wherever there is a sighting with artillery back-up. The Pentagon is in control. The Moonies have asked to be informed. Crackpots the world over await deliverance. The Earth has big plans for the visitation. Contact would displace Ihe Copernician revolution as "a first" in blockbuster events: edge out Columbus' hat trick, even erase Caesar's Gaelic campaigns. Such things are no longer "relatable". Every school kid can fathom "aliens" even if he can't decline a Latin noun or understand the causes of the Renaissance. Unveiling the first spaceship would cap the evolutionary quest for Enlightenment or realization of a greater Oneness. The universal thirst for knowledge would be satisfied. Still, our trek to the stars would turn in on itself if they got here first. Something like the Seminoles arriving in Paris in the 13th century overland from Nice or finding an orangutan piloted the Viking ship, Sutton Hoo, into Vineland. It's barely credible and has to be remade into "tangible" dialogue. No sapient, red puddles or Dryads need apply. Fuel up the Crematoria. Break out the electric cattle prods. They may be common as blades of grass in a meadow but it's our show. Orange Pekoe intellects will naturally be suspect. Benign intelligence better be the order of the day. Earth is a "closed shop". Everything Koltur. Everything above board. No renegade "interpretations". When will the Juggernaut be? Human nature is nothing to toy with.