Fun Credit Vendetta

      John of Stallville, a young man of just twenty four years of age. Grew up there, and by dint of that, he had had little but the typical Stallvillian outlook upon the world- basically, that beyond the county line was nothing but a vast sea of un-navigable waters the boundaries of which were marked only by the stars at the end of the very much flat earth.

     John was small. His feelings were to face the wall. Outside the city wall, where everything else including the city wall was tall, tall, tall, John of Stallville paid little heed to customs, trades, tarriffs, or journeymen. Stallville was, for once and for all, after all,

a place for men to turn and face the wall. And by the hour of their demise, perhaps  they’d have figured out their preciously short existence. Or perhaps not. But small little Stallville was , if nothing else, a place to stall.

    Within this small world that was Stallville, after all, there were many who lacked

 the suitable preferences in abstract discussions of things such as: the price of eggs,

the price of corn, how much it costs to feed a duck for six months, what you need to get for your get-up-and-go, and much more. They rarely asked John what it all meant to him. After all, for being small, there was not much fun to be had at all, no, not at all.

    And that was the way it was when John was awakened one morning by his ringing phone. Answering it, he heard a strange woman’s voice.

     “John? John of Stallville? This is Narleen Nidugudiddi with the National Department of Fun in Washington D.C. I am calling you to tell you that your supply of Fun Credits has expired, has been revoked, you know what I mean? You no longer have sufficient Fun Credits to maintain any more fun in your life at this time, until you re-earn them. I am sorry to have to notify you like this- nobody likes hearing they can’t have fun anymore- but fun has its limits and the US taxpayer can only afford so much fun to go around anymore, if you know what I mean?”

     She had barely allowed him to get a word in edgewise. What was this, that his fun credits- what the heck was a Fun Credit? He had not even heard the concept. Apparently after he was 18 he did not open his Fun Credit Account like a normal boy, and he had become, after five years by federal waiver, ineligible to collect any longer what most American kids had grown up to feel was their birthright- free Fun Credits when they achieved 18 years of age. The statute of limitations had expired, and now, John of Stallville would face a future that was no fun at all.

   The fun train had passed John of Stallville by in the night. With no means to make his way through the tall trees outside the tall wall and no means to move from Stallville to anywhere else out there, across the wide prairie and the ocean of unnavigable waters at the edge of the starlit sea, John of Stallville would now pretend that having any Fun Credits did not matter anyway, because he was going to invent new ways of making fun for himself, without anyone’s oversight or contribution.

     The other residents of Stallville who were John’s own age had held on to their frames of reference for social interaction, and had made exchange of Fun Credits a kind of fantasy reality game, where credits got exchanged for sex, for liquor, for cars,  amphetamines, chrome wheels, for satin gowns and Gucci purses, and worse. Among those were few who counted John as a friend. Why? Because perhaps, growing up in his own little universe, there was no need for John to know more than those who wanted to know him. He never bothered to ask if this was Antisocial or not, and nobody said he was, either. That was just how things had worked out.

     Needless to say, by allowing his Fun Credits to expire, John would have little chance to explore relationships with the opposite sex. Oh, there were one or two girls who liked him or called him cute among their friends, but they never  thought to get too close to get to know him, and usually, walked alone home from school with their schoolbooks tucked into their arms, silently humming songs from the Top-40, and dreaming of owning a house.

     The voice at the other end of the phone was now calling him back to reality.

    “Mr John? Yes. I am sorry that we had to call you to inform you of it, but, from now on, your life will be selectively monitored and you will be placed on a list of those who might need reevaluation of Life Patterns. We will be informing you when our examinations will take place. In the meantime, don’t you dare try and have ANY FUN! This is your government, speaking.”

   When the line went dead, John held the phone in his hands for several minutes and stared at the tall trees the tall wall, the un-navigable sea at the edge of the starlit ocean, the little stone saint that sat in his parent’s garden and looked heavenward, and he made a vow.

    Nobody else is gonna have any fun if I can’t have any, either. And it begins now.

   Starters, he set his phone to reject all calls, and  started his car. He didn’t think much about the gas money, he was happy just tooling around with no particular place to go. Other kids had plenty of everything (including fun) but since John’s fun had been quite minimal, even before the loss of his Fun Credits for good, John’s attitude now was- they think they’re all so high and fine. They’ll see.

    He took a high school yearbook from his senior year and leafed through it. He selected five people who he had felt were some of these up and uppers- the five most popular and not necessarily studious kids, one of whom had been a particular thorn in his side. He took a blue felt tipped pen and defaced their faces in the rows of pictures, with a smirk, he gave them devil mustaches and horns, goatees, crossed out their eyes, drew stitches on their foreheads and Frankenstein bolts in their neck, drew Hitler mustaches and swastikas on their lapels, Injun arrows through their heads, and other nefarious, if cliché’d, vandalisms to their likenesses. This did not give any of his subjects any particular pain, but maybe the voodoo would help some.

     John not being naturally the bully sort, he went to the local neighborhood bar to take some advice from the bartender. “Yeh, my advice to you, kid, is just let it go, you know? If I had any Fun Credits myself (because now I am too old to apply anyway) I would probably just piss them away in a place like this. And how come you’re in here, anyway, at your age? This is an old-people dump. Most of the guys I see they’ve had years more of abuse than you, you’re just starting out, getting your feet wet. I can’t teach you how to become a bully, kid. It just… comes naturally to some people, that’s all.”

     John could see he was not quite the bullying kind, nor would his diminutive height give him any help there, either. But the five kids he picked from his yearbook lineup, at least one of them was the kind. And he didn’t really know how to become friends with that kid, after all, he’d been the one to point out he had a pimple on his forehead as big as a dime, in front of the entire health studies class in his sophomore year. Yeh, that kid.  The one with the bigass shoes and the cigarettes he stole off his mother and used to gain favors with the hall monitors.

    That kid’s name was Don Traxel. Traxel had a lot of moving around in his early life so when his parents got to Stallville and stayed stuck, he was not going to take their lives as an example. Once he got out of high school, he fled the Tall Wall and the Tall Trees and Stallville and struck out across the western prairies to the endless starlit sea and came to the end of the road, where he found a little town that welcomed him. They used him to paint the outside of the hardware store, the American Legion, and the two Banks. He had it good, still. A little apartment on the west end of Stallville, now, a couple of years back from his big wahoo out west, held Traxel’s car, its parts all decoupled and sitting in big glass jars all over the shelves. Meanwhile Don slept on the floor on a foam rubber pad.

     The difference to Don’s new life in Stallville after fleeing and returning, a few  hundred dollars richer in painter’s fees, and John’s, who had barely had the energy to punt, let alone paint, and whose little car meant a lot less than Don’s did but at least was in running condition, was not in wheels, but in women.

     Don Traxel had a harem of girls who all dreamed of one day buying a house with him.

The plan for John would be to mess up Don’s Fun Credits so that the girls not only would refuse to ride in his car (once he rebuilt it) but mess with their dreams of owning a mortgage with Don, when the storied fabled day of Princess Happiness fell upon them, as it should, for  all Good Girls.

    Where to start! Well, John knew that Don liked the minor league baseball team of Stallville, the Stallville Stallions, so much that he was now working as a bat boy and groundskeeper over at the Stallville Stadium. And if Don had Fun Credits, he would most likely spend them more often than not attending the Stallions games. When the out-of-town team buses pulled in, Don would have already spent the morning getting the outfield grass cut and the infield dirt watered down, and the lines re-chalked. His Fun Credits bought him seats at the ballpark- for his harem. Hell, his own seat was free, he worked for the team.

     John’s detective work- which consisted of going to two weeks worth of Stallions games, paid for with His Own Money, and finding out where Don’s harem was most likely to sit. He discovered there was a block of seats near first base that Don liked to reserve for them. If he could break the streak, by buying up all those tickets for a couple weeks, the girls would get tired of going to the games and getting turned away, because the seats belonged to John. And once Don saw those seats empty ten days in a row – he might find other ways to waste his Fun Credits.

    It was easy getting the seats, really. It turned out that the guy in the Stallions ticket office who was Don’s connection really despised Don, and in fact, had been angling to have him dismissed for a few weeks now. Only a decision by the Vice President however, stood in the way. The Vice President had gone off on a trip to the Baseball Association offices in Buffalo, New York, however, and was not available to hire fire, request,or recommend.

     And so it was an easy thing for John to buy the whole block of seats, usually five in one row, the front row at first base, for a full ten days. John didn’t even blink about the dint on his own pocketbook, since his rent was paid, and his Mom supplied a lot of the food he ended up eating, anyway.

   And so, the experiment began. John himself bought his own single seat a few rows back beneath the overhanging upper deck, near the tall steel strut support that reinforced that upper deck, to the left of the empty girl’s seats.

   The first night, he watched John when he came out to drag the infield with the grounds crew. The usual flip and wave of the backwards-brimmed ball cap John gave his chicky-wickies was missing. In fact, by the time the work was done, he noticed that John had a very red face and was a lot sweatier than the rest of the fellows hauling the drag maul. He was probably wondering what to say when he would get on the phone after the game and call one- or all- his girls and find out why they didn’t come. Didn’t they know that this weeks series with the Portsmouth Ploughs was going to make or break the Stallions season?

    John was pretty happy knowing he’d begun making someone else uncomfortable. Soon it would get to be a habit.

     After getting Don Traxel into a funk, and actually, Don Traxel did soon lose his job- John moved on to the others on his list. Amelia Dalton, the most popular girl in school, who had done some rather hideous things to John in the fifth grade, would be the next pick for payback. Amelia had long brown hair she liked to dye the top white and walk around two-toned. Some years she would dye a white stripe in the middle of the brown, but she preferred looking like a paintbrush mostly. She had a nice father and mother, who were embarrassed when they learned the hideous thing Amelia had done to John, right there in the hallway at lunchtime. At least John felt they were good enough to spare.

    Amelia’s popularity stemmed from her knowing many of the rock and roll stars who came to play at the Stallville Theater, the only game in town, actually, for any distance between Stallville and Colackima, the only nearest other town. Colackima was a little smaller and the trains never stopped there anymore, the town was too few in petticoats, and the little engines didn’t like the water tower. Only wild goats and stolen cars came to Colackima, and in Colackima, the grade school crossing guard was the entire police force.  Amelia liked to meet with them take their pictures, interview them for the high school paper, and once she was out of high school, she had talked the man who ran the newspaper into giving her a job writing a column about the rock stars who stopped in Stallville to play the Stallville Theater.

     It just so happened that Amelia’s dreams of one day driving in her car all the way to the edge of the flat earth to the shining city by the edge of the sunset, starlit sea, and maybe leaving all memory of Stallville behind- would be  the usual rite of passage for the typical Stallville youth. Once their Fun Credits kicked in, and they’d found some suitable college to hide out in for a few more years, it was Off to LA, Off to Cancun, Off to Dubai, Prague, Paris, wherever their Stallville-stunted minds could- grabbed hold of by wild, searing, youthful exuberant imagination. When it could reach out, break free and find expression for itself. For few they were, those who dared fly. Most only dreamed of flying.

    She wanted to be an actress. She had been drama queen of the Drama Club, and that was where John encountered her, when he got to high school, a year behind her. Remembering the hideous act, and feeling full of himself, he had managed a bad practical joke at her expense. In her mind, they must have been even, but for John , now the fun was only beginning.

     He knew that she liked a certain guy in a certain band and that the certain band was certain to be playing the Stallville Theater soon… He had a friend *”who shall not be named”* living in Colackima, and that friend knew the certain guy in the certain band.

In fact he was a roadie with the certain band. The certain band that was certain to be playing the Stallville Theater soon was certainly talented, but John thought that his friend, actually, was more talented than anyone in the band.  He gave the friend a call. Sure. That could be very easily done.

    What it was that John wanted done was for the certain guy from the certain band, when they played the Stallville Theater, to do a real put on for Amelia. Lead her in and on and to the very verge if need be, only to – leave her wanting for more at the end. John called Amelia and offered her backstage passes (with comp tickets, if there was any trouble with the Theater)- and soon, Amelia was standing at the stage door, gathering her wits for the moment she could be in the presence of… a certain guy in a certain band who was playing at the Stallville Theater that very night.

     It was now time to put Amelia through the test. John went to the Stallville Theater with his picture phone. He ended up hanging out backstage, too, part of the time next to Amelia, and later, after the show, he snapped a picture of her leaving with the certain rock star and- would post it to his Antisocial Network.

     It was all over for Amelia the next morning, though, by mid afternoon she had recovered, and written a scathing review of a certain band that had passed through town the night before and a certain lead singer who was a creep and a douchebagsexistpig and a male chauvinist to boot, and there were better bands out there than that certain band that had passed through the Stallville Theater the night before.

    As a byproduct of helping to crush Amelia’s crush on the certain lead singer, John watched as the effect of Amelia’s column and scathing review of a certain band sent their fortunes downhill on a very certain curve.

     It was coming clear to John that. with all this blood of other people’s fun on his hands, could be leading him toward a guilty conscience. He needed to confess- and there was only one church in town, the spiritual last resort of all Stalvillians,- the New Secular Church of the Flat Earth, Life Force Lottery and Bingo.

     He was sure he would find more than a couple of his next victims there. Because Betsy Bolonski and Rachel Radozicz were both members.

     They grew up in the shadow of the old oak tree outside the church, on Sundays they had held hands on the swings, and been taught their Sunday Lessons by a tall grey woman, whose name was Mrs. Trotz. Mrs. Trotz’s Sunday School class usually revolved about lessons on the Flat Earth which we all share, and all the sea serpents that live on the far side of the infinite starlit sea. These mysteries, and more, were the founding tenets.

     And, John believed in a great deal of it, himself.

     On the Sunday morning John showed up at the New Secular Church of the Flat Earth, Life Force Lottery and Bingo, it was a sunshiney day. Birds were singing outside in the tall trees. The whole congregation looked to the apse, where the minister stoked the fire dedicated to the God of War and asked for God to Bless the Government in its war on Everything Bad for Everyone...

    So that John knew, even, that he too knew not everything could be 100 % Good and nothing could be 100 % bad, there is always a little bit of yin in the yang an a little yang in the yin. Such was not, however, the opinion of the minister.
    The two girls, old high school friends, every Sunday could be seen flogging their children and husbands to the Church, where their families shared a row in the pews, the Bolonskis on one side of the aisle, the Radoziczs on the other. Keeping an eye on everyone else in the church, too, for they guarded the Holy Lottery Ball from thieves and idolaters, and Betsy actually was the church treasurer.

     In this case, John thought, maybe no fun for these two means no Bingo tomorrow night!

     Monday Night Bingo at the New Secular Church of the Flat Earth, Life Force Lottery and Bingo really brought ‘em in. They came from miles around, even Colackima, and on two wheels, four wheels, eight, ten, twelve, and eighteen wheels.  

     Stallvillehad a way to bring the Interstate Commerce its way after all, its just that… Once a trucker to Stallville did stroll, troll, or crawl, he’d soon find that in Stallville it was all stall after stall.

    When it’d get going again, of course, as after the Monday Night Bingo, and the Monday night load out and return of the Holy Lottery Ball to its Holy Sepulchre Repository in the back room of the Church Office, by Betsy and Rachel. John realized that it was the Sacred Lottery Ball that he had to apprehend. Once the Monday Night Bingo was over…

On Monday night he came, bought a ticket to a Bingo Card, came close once or twice, but didn’t get a big payout, since one of the Girls (Betsy, actually) called “Bingo!” at the same time he did, and in a tie like that, the payout was shared. He only won 40 Food Credits. He didn’t need Food Credits. But once the girls had rolled away the Holy and Sacred Lottery Ball (he had been hiding behind a curtain and a potted plant) he snuck into the office, grabbed the Sacred, Holy Lottery Ball, and hid it, in his parent’s garage, inside of a box of Christmas ornaments.

     Of course, nobody would miss the Sacred Lottery Ball until next Sunday, and with that Sunday, Betsy and Rachel’s fun was quite derailed, as well.

     So the score was now John 4, Them 1. He needed one more cranky-pants prank to be- in some satisfactorily existential way- even with the Others, the ones he couldn’t leave, because he never manufactured enough inner imagination within himself to either Leave or Be Satisfied, living as a Stallvillian, on the edge of the wide plain  just over the mountains from the endless starlit sea and  the end of the Flat Earth.

      The last victim, most especially, was perhaps the least deserving of any of small John of Stallville’s Fun Credit Vendetta.

     That would be Thorney Henderson, a little guy who, despite his nickname “Thorney” was one of the kindest, meekest, and guiltless young men one could meet. If John had been a model student, Thorney had been even more a winner.
     Thorney knew the Encyclopedia Britannica backwards, forwards, side to side, and inside out. With that command of the knowledge pool of Earthling Concerns, he managed to do very well at Jeopardy, at age twenty, and come home with –not only 2,000 more Fun Credits,

than he had when he left Stallville in his small coupe- but Thorney Henderson was about to get a very thick thorn in his side.

     That would be John, who, while small, was still hoping to make his presence known as tall, to all.

     John made a promise he would get one half of those Fun Credits, somehow, by hook or crook, crook, mostly. He decided he would get Thorney reported to the Cullers.

     The Cullers could come for anyone, at any time, but usually only for those who had maxed out their Food Credits five straight times. The Government had decided that three chances was too few, and that five chances was more fair to the financially challenged, of whom there were millions, living on the land of the great prairie over the mountain from the ever-evening starlit sea, by the tall wall, and the tall trees.

     When the Cullers came a’Culling, a woe-cry would go up, the women would set to wailing, even the wolves wailed with the babies and the hideous sounds filled the Stallvillian night and echoed out across the tall dark trees at the woods on the other side of the Tall Wall.

   The Cullers took the marked-for-processing away, in thickly armored and well guarded old panel trucks with a Government seal on the side. The Culled would be granted a last two wishes, then the Government would politely, kindly, and gently, remove their life force with an electronic probe, and send it into the Great Circuits that lived inside the Tall Wall whose force-field kept Stallville- and the Whole USA!- free from invaders.

     John would get Thorney culled.

He watched Thorney for a week or more as he went grocery shopping or spent his Fun Credits at McDonald’s or the movies. He started going through the trash outside Thorney’s house, knowing that sometimes the Littlest Clue could help someone get a real bead on someone else…

    He discovered the Trojan Horse and the Achilles Heel to Thorney. Thorney, despite his youth, his intelligence, and his luck at quiz shows,  was a blooming alcoholic. His garbage would be filled each morning with a quart bottle of Tequila, and Thorney was apparently indulging in quantities that staggered the mind. He was never seen raging, or staggering shirtless down the sidewalk, but Thorney loved the stuff, he ate maguey worms like they were gummi worms, and with relish. John decided the best way to get Thorney’s Fun Credits was to get him to swap for a carfull of cases of tequila. The price was high- fully half of the 2000 Fun Credits that Thorney had won on Jeopardy, and that would leave Thorney with not a lot beyond, because, he had been spending  Fun Credits since he won the game show at a furious rate as well.

     Because the balance on his Fun Credits dropped at such a rapid rate, the watchers in the Government Bureau of Fun put a little red tick on Thorney’s Lifestyle ReEvaluation score sheet. The little red tick was noted in the office of the Department of Cullers, and one night, the little black trucks showed up in front of Thorney’s home, and Thorney disappeared into the night and fog, and the Great Circuits in the Tall Wall along the edge of the town of Stallville by the tall trees near the great lain leading to the mountains beyond which stood the shiny city and the endless starlit sea.

     John finally had enough Fun Credits, but how could he spend them? Since there was no record of him having his own Fun Credit Account, and Thorney’s account had already been vaporized, John was left holding a cat without its skin, a fish without its spine. The entire episode in his life- this had all taken only a matter of weeks, after all, from his day at the Stallions Stadium to the evening of the Cullers coming for Thorney. He decided to exchange the 1000 Fun Credits to his friend in the certain band in exchange for the right to travel on the road with them. It did not matter that the certain band was a failure. John knew he was a failure, now, too, because there is no winning for losing, when you set out to send real people down the tubes. Facing the wall, small John of Stallville knew his life was very small. Someday, he might even fall, after all.

      And that fall was not long in coming. Tormented, eventually, by the knowledge that Thorney’s culling had been a permanent removal of a very valuable (in the big picture) element of future Stallville culture- the boy who now would never complete graduate studies, receive a teaching credential, and come back to mold small minds in the Stallville Unified School District- John’s guilt began to take manifest form. He slunk away from others, hid more often behind his own small walls and even refused to walk to the corner bar after sundown for a nightcap, lest he show his face, and lest his angst be writ in scarlet letters across his forehead.

    He needed to confess. Wasn’t that what he was about to do, when he got distracted by the thought of the Sacred Lottery Ball ? And there it was, after all, anyway, up in the attic storage, under a wad of tinsel in the Christmas ornament box his parents would always turn to around the last week of November… 

    He knew what needed to be done. He tossed the Holy Lottery Ball into the backseat of his coupe and drove to the New Secular Church of the Flat Earth, Life Force Lottery and Bingo, in high gear, and when he got to the edge of the parking lot, wouldn’t you know it, but, the car seemed to take on a life of its own, as it bucked through the juniper bushes outside and crushed down the hollow plywood front doors, and landed- smack dab- in the midst of the Bingo crowd, improvising with a shoebox for the Bingo buttons.

    The impact with the final row of pews was fatal. Just as Betsy Bolonski yelled “Bingo!” the car had come breaking through the wall like Moby Dick on a steroid rampage, its antenna whipping about like an abandoned harpoon, a pair of folding chairs and a card table scrunched up into the windshield had pounded right through and taken John’s head off, in just a short second. There had been no time at all to contemplate one’s purpose…

     All the Bingo players stood up, yelling, screaming, panicked, At least half the older women were. The other half, strong, calm, quiet, manly men, rose as one and with a great deal of force and pressure, they managed to maneuver the car back out of the building, and dragged it to the front lawn, where they laid John out spreadeagled, and the minister said a few final words of Last Rite, and John’s soul crossed the tall wall and the tall trees, soared out over the wide prairie, over the mountains, and off across the starlit sea to the land that Lies Beyond Us.

    

Read this story and more in As I Was Telling You While Sleeping, a collection of short stories available at

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/308624

     

Hard Morning on the Prairie

     The village was waking up, slowly. Maybe the dance the day before had been a little too much for the old folks- but me and Teardrop Star were up early anyway, trying to make a game of checking on the ponies. The ponies were all kept by the river, where we knew no enemies could approach but to come right through the village first.

     I don’t know how it happened, except that, one minute Teardrop Star was there beside me, we had tied a long rope from a tree back toward one of the council tents. But then he was gone. I never heard it. He was just gone. I hadn’t heard it, but somehow, the enemy had come and stifled him, and dragged him off.

     At least, that was what he told me, in the aftermath. It must have been Wakan Tanka kept me from learning where he went- but anyway, soon I would have a lot worse problems.

      Not long after Teardrop Star was gone (and I spent some minutes walking up and down the grassy bank of the river, calling for him) I heard it. It was as it often was, whether it was soldiers coming or it was enemy warriors. You heard the thunder of their ponies first, then their whooping.

      The enemy came on the village, fast, and they weren’t using coup sticks, they were using real whips, arrows, tomahawks, lances, clubs, one might have even had a pistol.

They were on us! Because I was there I began screaming and soon men came from their lodges, the alarm had been raised, men and their wives were making provision to melt into the prairie where the enemy was waiting.

     There were more of them riding now through the village, hurling lances almost at random, jumping off if they found someone to attack, stopping where they could to do whatever damage they could. A spear fell by my feet.

      I saw Spotted Dog’s mother beaten with a dogwood club by an enemy warrior. The eyes in his head went white and rolled up when she took a stone maize crusher and swung it with full force into his forehead, and he fell. To my left, his jaw clenched tight with anger, Bear Wolf, the strongest of the young man hunters of our village, had pulled one of the enemy off his horse, and was twisting his braids around in his left hand, a knife in his right. The enemy fell, again.

    On my right, I was lucky enough to look up just in time.

     He was riding right for me. It was an enemy old man. He had few teeth, but he had all his war and spirit decorations on, and he was heading straight my way, a lance in his hand. I could swear that I was unaware of aything other than cold stark paralysed fear.

     But he came on- and as the point of his lance came near, I picked up the spear lying on the ground, and when he came charging at me with his lance, mine was just long enough to get to him, bfore he could jab his into me. I stepped to the left as I punched its tip into his ribcage.

     I did not want to die. I did not want to kill. But he was enemy, and it was our village, and these were my people, and I took the lance and drove it straight deep into his chest. He looked at me with no sense of surprise, more an understanding- you are no longer the child. You are doing what I would have asked my own son to, if I were young and I were you. There was a glint of acceptance as well as respect as he fell, thick like a stone from the pony. He stared up from the dust, toward the stars.

    When the old man fell from his pony, I grabbed up the reins and jumped upon it. I rode to the side of the village where my parents had their tent, and brought them that pony, and tied it outside the tent. I went back to the body of the old man and took his necklaces. I did not want his scalp. What use would I have for it? I did not care to clutter my own lodge with this unwanted reminder, I had killed a man.

      Teardrop Star reappeared in the afternoon and I told him. He said I should be proud that I had done what was right. I did not feel it was right. The old man had lived his long life, and they were attacking us, but the look he gave me when he was dying made me feel that the entire war with the enemy- - was not really the way of the Wakan Tanka.But enemies are Indians too. And all men come through the Wakan Tanka and return there.

     I was too confused, I almost began to cry, though I could not and did not let Teardrop Star see.

     Later that evening when the village had a chance to repair the tents, patch whatever wounds there were- nobody on our side died, luckily- the elders all called a council. They called on me to tell my story. When I finished, the old chief who was even more respected than Bear Wolf handed me the pipe and told me to smoke with him, Bear Wolf, and the other big men and warriors. I sat with my eyes on my lap, and passed the pipe when it was offered, afte breathing in a breath and praying to White Buffalo Woman for the old enemy I had lain down.

Summer Baseball Thinking

     Halfway through the baseball season now, the All-Star break upon us. Time to take stock of our favorite teams and consider the prospects for their postseason runs...

     The San Francisco Giants end the second half in fairly good shape, albeit on a down note of 1-5 finishing road trip. Just before the fatal encounter with Washington and Pittsburgh, the Giants had shut down the Dodgers three days in a row and held the Reds to another shutout, and a week before, Matt Cain pitched a perfect game, the very first in Giants history (128 years of it).  The pitching this year has been good, if struggling with one lame wing.
 
     The lame wing belongs to the team's ace Tim Lincecum, who took a nosedive this spring with a 3-10 record. The surprise of the year for the Giants is that their wunderfreak Cy Young winner of three years back is now learning the facts of entropy, and arms lose velocity as they age, and that he isn't fooling people with the change-up like he was when things began. They are figuring him out. I like him but he needs to make adjustments and make new strategies. He should make a book on all the batters and how they've dealt with him, and vice versa, and work it, the way Greg Maddux did, and do more to finesse people than just slam fastballs past them.

     The other big surprise was the resurgence of Barry Zito, after three years, finally earning the top dollar the Giants paid for his contract. At 7-6 Zito has kept the team afloat- especially in the opening weeks of the season- and has been more reliable than any time int he last two seasons.

     Their off-season trades for Melky Cabrera and Jose Pagan paid off well. Cabrera is hitting at the top of the NL on as many days as not and while there have not been home runs, the team's offense looks better than it did last year. A half game behind the faltering Dodgers for first, they caught the Dodgers and may well pass them up and take hold of first by the end of August. If.
 
     There have been disappointments amongst the surprises. Aubrey Huff freaked out about his bad year last year and wore it on his sleeve into this year, and went down due to anxiety attacks. It could be a great cause of anxiety to have such frustrating declines in batting average and making outs in key RBI situations. Brian Wilson went down, but in my opinion, that was not such a bad thing.

     I have been no fan of Wilson's pitching, even as I enjoy his personality. A closer is supposed to go in and shut down the opponents. Not let them keep going! The Giants "torture" is all on Wilson Seven years ago when he came up I was cringing every time they'd bring in Wilson. You never knew if you were going to get a save or a blow. He's still like that. He improved over a couple of years and in 2010 he was passable, more saves than not, but only just. You want a guy who can bring you 1-2-3 outs. Like Sergio Romo is able to do. I would not mind seeing that scenario play out, Romo replacing Wilson as the Beard closer..

     The Giants bad week on the road won't affect their renewed vigor after the break. Four Giants were voted to the starting team, in no small part due to Giants fans stuffing the ballot boxes. As for that, I say, about time. All those generations past, spent watching the East Coast teams pack the ballot boxes with Yankees, Braves, Phillies, Red Sox players - I like seeing Giants on the All-Star team. The Giants Nation grew and picked up new fans in all those other baseball towns around America. No Giants fans are a presence in the foreign stadiums. The Giants have a vibe no other team has this year, even if they (still) don't yet have that one BAT.

And Time Ticks On

     The pathway to the little watch repairman’s cottage wound its way off a sidestreet. The dusty, muggy heat of a Delhi spring day lent a melancholy aspect to the mood of the approaching proprietor.

     Pandit Chaghandipore had held the deed to the cottage for over half a century, inherited from his father, a watchmaker and repairman himself. Pandit (his real name was Olema) had learned the trade by his father’s knee. In his seventeenth year, however, he had taken off to the wilds to live with the sadhus. He had eschewed material gain (at least, he did while still a young man) and had returned, to take up the family business.

    

     That, he felt, was needed, was because his father’s ailing health, and the knowledge thateven while he felt the lure of the mystic and love of God pulling at him, he could never turn from his father and mother in their time of need- of what charity would that prove, to live as an ungrateful son, in the company of monks? So he could not be a total or a “true”, “pure” renunciate, in this way.

     Over time, as well, he knew he could not speak any philosphy to the world which did not involve a compromise, or a balance, between his spiritual nature, and the material neccesity of existence. He refused, for example, to wander the world with nothing but an alms bowl. For to insist on living on the good will of others was to invite sloth and non-contriibution to society. This would only reinforce the bad karma of parasitism. He would rather earn his rice and beans than expect others to provide for him. In this he was only being practical- in ways his sanyassin brethren could little relate to.

 

     After a number of years in the shop, he began holding discussions after hours with various customers, who had come in with their troublesome timepieces, noticed the devotional photographs and paintings on his shop walls, and began making comments regarding them, asking questions, and leaving, with both their watches repaired, and the feeling that… Olema knew what was what about life. He might not have a family, nor wealth- his shop made just enough to keep afloat, and to set a side a small sum each month in a savings account- but Olema always made them feel, how should we say, but,

a little bit lighter, whatever their daily concerns, when they left.

    These discussion groups grew until Olema had a number of “regulars” coming every Wednesday night. Usually he would pick some line of scripture, whethter from the Ramayana, the Koran, the Bible, or even the Zendavesta, and the idea would be picked up and walked around the circle, so that each attendee was able to speak at length as to their own interpretation. For Olema felt that every unique individual had their own ideation of what constituted God- or what was not, or whether or not there even was a God. All ideas were welcomed in the groups. Usually debates were civil, and usually, everyone who came to the discussions, again, left feeling at the least like their own opinions had at least recieved an airing, whether or not a majority agreed.

    From this, then, grew Olema’s reputation, so that within a decade’s time, he had been unofficially given the moniker of “Pandit” or “Learned One” within his community, and as the discussion groups grew so then did the demands upon his shop, and so did the idea that Pandit Chaghandipore was perhaps “the best guru in the Province.” That, in a land of thousands of gurus per square mile! But he did not complain. He saw reputation for what it was- fleeting, and of no consequence other than it did allow him to keep working, both on ideas (for the varied input from the discussion attendees assured a wide variety, no less) and at the watch repairs- for now, people had begun to make excuses to bring him watches, when what they really wanted was a piece of his wisdom.

     For his own part, Olema began to enjoy the work, the fine detail and demands on his memory he flet were excellent challenges. Once in a while there might be a really problematic issue, but in those instances, he would advise the customer to save  for a new watch, and he apologized, letting them know that he never claimed to be able to fix every watch that came his way, only to attempt his best. Then there were cases where people had really messed up on their own, and what he was being asked to do was just not possible, because the delicate mechanisms had been ruptured beond anyone’s repair.

     Somehow, it was this honesty in acceptance that some things were repairable, others not, which led his customers (at first it was his customers, but as his patience became legendary, later, it was his disciples)- to spread his reputation beyond the little store on Chandi Chowk, and out into the suburbs and hinterlands. There really were times when he preferred, perhaps, to be back in the forests, his mind fixed on the ineffable, perhaps with a chillum and a pot of chai, and another sadhu to help explain whatever quandary he held at present.

     But now the words he had spoken had come to be passed along from mouth to mouth. Sometimes, a customer would come in with a perfectly good watch, only in order to ask a philosophical question. It was not in his nature to discount anyone’s motives, nor to toy with these types, when it was well within his power to send one or two home with a real put down. Put downs, he felt, were hardly in keeping with the life of a philosopher, nor one’s proper demeanor.

    

     And it was on this muggy day in the monsoon season that Olema was to have a rendezvous with fate, in some sense, unwittingly, as all such rendezvous manage to occur.

    The bell rang in the shop and he looked up. A memsahib stood there, her hair tied up in a kosher bun, holding in her hands a mud-encrusted timepiece. He smiled, nodded, and she placed it on his counter top. The woman was not much older than her early thirties, and he thought little more than “well, here is another customer to serve.”

    As he examined the watch, and brought a little emery file out from his tools drawer and began ticking the mud away from the face, she began explaining the crisis to him.

Her thick Welsh accent did not deter him, he could let her speak while he made his assessments without interruption.

    “My husband and I have just arrived here two days ago. We were headed out to see the Taj Mahal- wonderful place, I must say- and while we were on our way, riding in one of those little rickshaws, the clasp came undone, and my watch fell into the street. I asked the driver to halt, and, as he did so, a swarm of beggars fell upon the watch as it lie in the wet muddy street. My husband immediately got down and engaged in some struggle, resulting in his loss of fifty rupees in order to regain our possession. Anyway, at least he did not have to fisticuff his way out of that hideous mob and regain his seat- after the exchange of the money they all ran off together…

   

     “But my watch was all wet and muddy, so I tucked it into some tissues and left it until this morning. I have read reviews of your shop, and so, I decided to bring it by. Something tells me that you have the skill to repair not only the clasp, but perhaps, you might test the machinery and let me know if there’s damage or not.”

  

      She stood smiling as she waited. Olema had taken all the big mud off with his emery board, and now, only residue remained, and he could tell that this watch was perhaps one of the fanciest he had yet worked on. Having it in his care would be an honor, and with all these diamonds! My word, he would need to place it in the safe, when he was not in the process of deeper examination.

   

     “Yes, Memsahib, I can see this is a most fine piece of equipment here. And most valuable. We do have onsite a facility which we can safely say will keep it secure, and I cannot give you any deeper estimate of a cost at the moment, until I am able to take off the rear cover and ascertain what if anything is wrong with the gears the crystal and all. Meanwhile, feel free to wait here-“ (he indicated a chaise on which she was to rest her tourist bottom) and give me a few minutes, could you?”

  

      Her smile never wavered as she sat herself down, and looked around at the little shop’s walls. Olema enjoyed the various styles of devotional art and displayed a true eclectic’s eye for variety. There were Greek and Russian Orthodox icons, Roman Catholic novena cards, Hindu manifestations of Ganesh, Shiva, Vishnu, Rama and Krishna, an entire section made up of nothing but “guru-bhajan wallet photos”, and a number of hand-painted, brush-and-ink Buddha life scenes. She was fascinated. Never had she experienced such ecumenical variety in one place and this piqued her curiosity.

   

      “This is such a fascinating collection of religious photographs and paintings and all.

I was under the impression that people here in India are rather sectarian and separatist…”

     

     “Ah, but, Memsahib, we are a different bird than the common Indian, in this shop.

I hold spiritual discussion groups upstairs here – in fact, one will be this evening at 7 PM.

I must invite you – if you feel that this is your cup of tea that is.” He gave a little bow, and then, took her watch back to his work table, where he flicked on a desk lamp and put on his jeweler’s cup.

     

     He prised off the back of the watch, and saw that there was no real harm done. Everything seemed to be exactly in order, and so, really, what really all it needed was a good cleaning- the diamond settings alone would take an hour or more to get the crud from their nooks and crannies. The face itself had received no abuse, all this really meant was an exterior cleaning. She probably had not even checked it for accuracy since it fell, he thought to himself. He would replace the battery, however, so that it would be closer to true.

      

     “I have read some Zen Buddhism and I feel near to that way of life” she told him. “Will I be welcome in this discussion?”

   

      “Memsahib, all philosophy is welcome in my groups. We do not see evil in anyone, we only hope to find common ground and to leave each meeting with a sense more of what people deeply feel and hold as truth. No more, no less. You and your husband will be most welcome.”

  

      “Now, for your watch, here, we feel that we can have it all set right and all it really will need will be a cleaning, and if you agree to, a new fresh battery will be provided at no extra cost…” He did, however, want to get something from the woman for the cleaning, and the jam jars full of batteries he kept ready for any occasion were never a big expense – friends of his on the Chowk dealt in such things wholesale and supplied him with plenty.

   

     Please return in one hour, and I will have you watch sparkling fresh and shiny as the day… as the day…”

    She finished his sentence for him. “As the day my husband set it upon my wrist. Yes, thank you, Mr…”

   “Chaghandipore, Memsahib.” He took a business card from a little holder on the counter top, and handed it to her. She placed the card in her purse, and gave a modified curtsy, as she turned for the door.

   

     “Thank you, Mr. Chaghandipore- I shall return this evening.”

     When she left, he began his cleaning, using paintbrushes and wire brushes to clean the nooks and crannies. He took his time, making sure there would not be a single grain of dirt to defile the shining diamond frame. He buffed the case so that the glass shone, and when he was done, placed it into a snap-case with a velvet mount. Good as the day it went on her wrist, yes, Memsahib would be pleased.

      He opened the safe and locked it away. She would be back in the evening, so there would be a lot of time- and many locals calling-in the hours between. He did not wish to tempt anyone with the idea that this fantastic rarity might be –perish the thought!- for sale. Meanwhile, he would go upstairs, make the refreshments for the night’s meeting, and listen for the shop bell.

     Olema fancied himself a good cook, and so for this evening, he baked a tray of samosas, one of ginger cookies, and a large pot of kir. Several of the regulars were so fond of his kir they often took home a jar of it “for the kiddies”, although he knew, perhaps from their girth, that it was themselves they would indulge. He had four other customers come in, which interrupted the baking and the boiling and the cooling and the

jarring, but these were all set-asides, and work that he could tackle at his leisure.

    Tonight he wanted to deal with the current crisis of philosophy, “Existentialism and Nihilism- a Modern Solution, or a Quandary?” The debate would no doubt be dominated by the young men who felt the fashionable French philosophies, as well as the critical politics, were the wave of the future. He looked into his library, but he had no such books as Sarte nor Camus nor even Nietzsche. He had read, Nietzsche, of course, but much younger, and the idea of a post-moral superman, he also rejected, primarily due to its Nazi compulsions.

****

     Mrs. Abbryggdd had a hard time convincing her husband that she told him she would  absolutely go all by herself if he did not accompany her. As an English martinet from a sometime ecclesial family, he insisted such  a smatter of latter-day philosophy such as would be on the discussion board that night at Olema’s Philosophy Wednesdays.

     So it was only by a stealthy manipulation of Lord Abbryggdd’s emotions, ego, and British Raj tourist too much that he could but no longer withstand the nagging. He went, dressed in his pinstripes, white puttee,s and Dan Porter hat.

     They sat in the little room with four other individuals and six other empty chairs., waiting for Olema,  as he was finishing the making of tea and biscuits in the tiny kitchen just of the main salon. Music played over a radio-cassette boombox on a little table by the door, which also held two incense burners, fully ablaze.

     The music was Ali Akbar Khan’s. A sarod, a flute, a tabla, and violins. The two English minded their own while, as the four Indians – nor related, and of both genders- went on speaking to each other about the last week’s meeting. Would Olema be leading them into dangerous territory with tonight’s lecture? Some of the time, Olema knew that at least one of the audience would create a statement which so fully dominated the continuance of the dictating the “dichotomy of the week”, but newcomers always brought their own naivete and unspoiled perspectives. He would welcome having the English here.

     The lecture on Existentialism and Nihilism was one of the most interesting roundrobins Genevieve Abbryggdd had ever been invited to hear, and it would also prove to be the most divisive thing in her marriage in due time. After stating the point, people began with their own inputs. The young Indian woman in her twenties wanted to know if tantra and sexual yoga could be considered in the discussion, but it was overruled.

      “I would like to begin by asking which side of the argument you feel you want to take- which is more inclined to your way of thinking and you feel it is appropriate to live.

To an existentialist at least, there is an object to life, the purpose of which is to live it.

For the nihilist, there can be nothing got from life for nothing matters anyway, we are all doomed and for a menaing of –what” The nihilist motto is “to hell with it”, and the existentialist’s is “I hope I am doing enough.”

     The little man in the red fez and  kamiz said he absolutely didn’t care. He said that the arguments were moot. “All they are are examples of attitudes, not ways of life.

     “If nihilism was worth anything then where is the manifesto, where is the pinnacle of Nihilist thought, where have been their schools? They do not create, they destroy. Since nothing matters there is no reason to be, to do. For the existentialist, it is to do, or to die.

I can hardly see how we can make a long enough discussion over what is so obviously a cut and dried matter.”

    The little man took a sip from his teacup, cut a biscuit with his molars, and sat back in his seat, satisfied.

   

     The second Indian woman who had come dressed in nurse’s whites and silently meditated while the others had waited for the Pandit to fishih in the kitchen, opened her eyes and said this:

    “ What we are is what we are. If we do believe that to be is to be then I too say there is no use, no sense, no place for nihilism. Even if I were to consider the words of the Buddha that all is maya and a trap to attachment, I could not countenance the wanton disregard for the inner being, the ultimate degradation of all which is upright in the interior of the soul, which is this “nihilism’. How many good institutions could be founded from such nonsense? I should’t think any.”

     “Very well, Kamala.I tend to agree” said Pandit, sipping on the tea in his cup, smiling at the English, and looking out his window to the darkening sky over the western city.

  

     “I believe that such philosophies- the debauchees, the bacchanals, the infusions of Saint Anthony’s fire, all the rest, these are cyclical things which happen in societies once people have more time on their hands than they have work to do. Rarely were Indians out of work, because, there is always work for someone to do. Out caste system is really to blame for too much. But now I believe we have had a real new start. To be new. Even in our oldness.”

    “Hear, hear,” said the little man in the red fez and  kamiz,  resting his chin in his hands, listening, thinking, interested, disinterested.

       When the discussion was over- and they went on in such a fashion for the better part of another two hours- Lord and Lady Abbryggdd tipped their hats to Olema, the Lord collected another business card, and they hailed their rickshaw in silence. She knew that he was thinking, and that there was something brewing under his twitching mustache (it always did mean a storm was brewing) and she steeled herself for what would come when they were back behind closed doors.

****

    “ That was the most… the silliest… the ….  Oh, bother!” sniffed Stokely Abbryggdd, when they returned to the hotel that night. Lady Abbryggdd ordered a dinner up from room service, and as she ate (by herself- Stokely was too incensed and fuming) she considered that it might well have gone like that- for Stokely. She would have to wait until his Anglican Presbyterianed down a little bit.

     “I thought it was eclectically elucidating” she giggled. “I never get that sort of thing back home! Back home, it’s all workaday garden variety garden clubs and that sort. If you have no taste for the metaphysical, Stokely, I am afraid you will be asking yourself a lot more question s about the universe than you will ever get answers for.”

     “What the deuce is that supposed to mean?” he snorted. “All that is a lot of piggle-wiggle and bacon on the side.I just mean that, for myself, of course, there’s no need to ask that many questions. Things just are. What is not is not. And that, is rather simple, for me.”

     “Well, obviously, Stokely, I guess you just did not get to eat enough mushrooms, or something, back in the day. Those times were very good for some of us. Just because one person can’t handle a bad trip, that does not mean nobody else can, or even that they have them. And you would be a lot less of an atheist, if you had,” she sniffed back.

      “Hallucinogens? Bah! Food and fodder for little boys with big heads. I never saw anything in that Leary bunch. Belong on an Indian reservation, or something.”

     “Well, I am going then again, next week.”

     “What? Why? We are scheduled to be in Pondicherry next week! The subset are going to be expecting you.”

     “I have a right to my mind and my own time, Stokely”, she reminded him. Their prenuptial agreement did not state that Lady Abbrggdd need be at all and every of the clan’s traditional social register rituals. Especially here in the former Raj, where they still held a little interest,, at the least, on behalf of the natives.

     “Then I shall go by myself! I will not be showed up or not show up or be seat in any way in a bad light for our Indian retinue, whom we still pay good wages and who still regard us as honorable and honest!”

    Lord Stokely Abbryggdd had come to India to research his great grandfather, a contemporary of Robert Clive, one of the original Raj East Indian nabobs of the 19^th Century, that period of English imperial zenith and sunset. The family had lost their seat in Parliament, which had been theirs for generations, they had lost their lands and the castle (Keep Abbryggdd, in Gwldyr); they had been hounded pillar to post whenever Blimps wanted to make bones about one or another celebrity who had gone native, gone to ground, or gone to pound, in India… The Abbryggdd family was Welsh to the bone, and by coming to India to look after the trail of old Lord Percy Abbryggdd I, he would satisfy the curiousity Stokely’s father (Percy Abbrggdd; Jr.) had stoked in him at the earliest age.

    

     To return to India and ask again, why, the reputation he had earned in India was enough to get their entire line blackballed and eschewed the royal favor for the generations to come. The more they learned about Percy, who had not only gone native, but helped to arm the Sepoy and Gurkha against the Mahouts, and the Touts, the Louts, and the Redcoats, the more they realized how well-loved he actually was in India- by the Indians, mind you, not his own nation.

     And now all this bother that Genevieve puts me up against about this wise man she sees. Or what she sees in him, I do not know.

     But that night Stokely had on his mind getting to Pondicherry and observing the state of decay inevitable- of the old family home there, the mansion built with East India Company and Royal Treasury money. There were always new papers surfacing, new clues that could one day clear the good name of Abbryggdd back in the Home Realms.

There would be the inevitable toddy festival, as would what happened every time one of the expatriates came to Pondicherry, all their servants take the afternoon off and the entire grounds go on an afternoon jag of bhang and toddy… the air would be thick with hashish and incense, and of course, there would be music.

      And Stokely, of course, in whose honor it was being held, would have to hold his own without Genevieve at his side. He should not fare so badly. He had been through the toddy festival five times already, and to tell the truth, he liked it more each time. Genevieve apparently had enough after only  her first two.

****

    When Stokely took off the morning of his scheduled train to Pondicherry, Genevieve got up and let the windows and breeze in. She felt the air, the soft turbid droll which is Delhi in early June. She made her way, at a reasonable hour, to Pandit Chaghandipore’s shop. Making small talk, she soon moved herself into such a position that she was eye to eye with Olema, looking deeply at him, taking his hand in her own.

       Lady Abbryggdd leaned over Olema, closely.

      Her pearls hung down over her ample and zafdig decolletage. The scent of her English perfume (Bain Water) in Olema’s nostrils. Mingling with the perfume, the thicksmoke of the incense and her realization that now, here, in Olema’s salon, was (and would be the only) time she could have a man other than Stokely. The stocking she chose for that evening were the oldest and rankest of the lot she had brought along- the remainder of which were recent indeed.

     By her standards. It would be even better to enjoy India with no underpants at all, since the weather was hot enough, anyway. She wasn’t just yet aware that the India of 1980 was not the India of 980, and a woman without underwear in this society would be a tinderbox for the average single Hindu male. For his mind, for his attention, for his affections. Such a woman would definitely be a catch! Which was why, the rickshaw they had driven the afternoon the mob stole her watch and dropped it in the mud, had been followed by just this type of Indian, in a score. Lord had driven them off, yes, but she could tell the “liberal west”had a long way to go in this part of the world.  Muslim piety and Hindu asceticism had made good sure of that.

   

      As though all the “Kama Sutra” monuments of Khajuraho were really only a blip in time, and had existed for a patient moment, and then the world had just gone back to being hung up about being naked, and about sex, all over again. For an Englishwoman of her generation to relate to the prudity of the average Indian was not yet comprehensible. Someday it might be, but not now, while Mrs Abbryggdd held Olema by  the hand, and guided it beneath her skirts, he struggled to free himself form his own clothing, bottom end first.

    Soon, she had off all his clothes, and as they kissed, she implored him to take her.

        

      No, the India of 800 years ago was not the India of today, but Mrs. Abbryggdd felt assured that she could bring Olema to the modern one by the time she was done this afternoon. The Pandit did not resist. He fumbled around and found his way into her.

****

     Afterward, she left him behind with a small envelope, with a great deal of cash in it.

     Olema felt torn in two directions. On one hand, he felt he was not a prostitute, and if she  were offering this money in return for the favor of his sexual indulgence, it would mean she could never really uphold the role of a chela, or even, a regular attendee. Just that the personal relationship had occurred made that a non possibility. That she would return to England soon, when Stokely returned from Pondicherry, was a certainty.

     There would therefore be no gossip among Pandit’s sewing circle (which was larger, after all, than the four that had showed up to the evening the Abbryggdds attended)- and at that, Olema chuckled. He also thought of how funny it was, this little thing, about gurus and memsahib chelas and sanyassins and saddhus- they seemed to be symbiotic, and the sexual involvement had to be either the absolute most chaste, or the most profligate and promiscuous libertine, to qualify as being of integrity, and not corrupted, but either way, men were just men, after all.  

****  

     He put the money in his bank. Perhaps it might make a big help for his young nephew, who was studying the sitar, and also, western instruments like guitar. If  he did not spend it himself, but used it to better the life of someone else, then there had been no prostitution of himself at all. Besides, the sort of amusement offered by a delicensed woman  like Lady Abbryggdd – perhaps it made every Pandit a little more worldly, a little more believable, a little more honest in the eyes of the average Indian.

     Stokely Abbryggdd’s return from Pondicherry was met by a very different Lady Abbryggdd than he had left behind, of course, in more ways than Stokely could know. The trip had been something of a success- while once again, the retainers the Abbryggdd clan had left behind with orders to research and collect any documents, writings, watercolors, etchings, indeed, whatever the old nabob had left intestate mislaid around India somewhere- they had once again failed to turn up new works or papers of any sort since 1947. Stokely began to question the sense of always traveling to India after all that.

What if it all left somehow for Pakistan? They had not even considered it, how daft of them.

     So when he drew himself back into Delhi and the arms of the new Genevieve, he welcomed her avid attentions. She was certainly adding on more than she generally would, which was to say, rarely if but out of some wifely duty. But now Genevieve was being… friendly.

     This enough would be enough, perhaps, to soothe the irritated fur of the lion, but she threw herself upon him sexually in a manner that she had not since they first met, when they were in their mid twenties. And now he responded, with a vaguely detached, curious, and altogether observant point of view. Indeed, there was nothing he could take for granted about Lady Abbryggdd any longer- not after that night’s performance.

     So the Lord Abbryggdd declared the trip to have been a success, in one fashion at least, and he returned to England and the jolly’o’s and old chaps and nick it while you cans and walked tall- a peacock, if a somewhat bewildered one. And soon she was taking herself to gynecologist’s appointments. And soon enough, their might be an heir!

An actual male heir for Lord Abbryggdd! That might fight on, in that dogged Welsh manner, for the manor and the manner born, to never say die, my goodness.

   “Have you thought of a name for the little blighter?” He asked, nine months after the return from India, after the afterbirth had been swabbed, the birth certificate left blank for the fortnight, the babe swaddled and in and out of all the relative’s arms.

     “I will call him Guru.” She answered. “Because he will be a guru. He will be a wise and a patient man, both as a child, and as a boy, and as a man. IT will be the world that remembers him, whether or not he cares to remember having come, at the end of his road, or not. But I know he will be bright and intelligent, like his father.”

       Stokely beamed. He held the little blighter,tickled, and the little boy smiled and cooed and made sounds that one might call baby laughs, explosions of pleasure not yet fashioned into any one tongue of expression and a national or a racial language. Guru, he thought, yes, that might be a good name. Set you off from all those gadabout laddies, the run of the mill, the sawdust from the mill. Set you out a fine man, we shall.

     The little boy’s eyes twinkled and laughed up at Stokely. He barely noticed the boy’s eyebrows... thick, pondering, and black.

[author's note: This story was originally posted in two parts, this is a consolidation of both]
for the full story as well as others see https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/308624

3-23-74

     The Dead were playing at the Cow Palace soon- it was now March of 1974. I had no ticket, but figured that I would get one when I got up there. After looking at the situation in the refrigerator (one slice of ham for a sandwich was about all there was in ready-made food- the side of bacon from the construction contractor last Christmas was still basically untouched)- I made one, stuck it in the pocket of my surplus field jacket, and hitchiked up there.

     I ran into Donohue in line. He had also come up from Pacifica via Geneva Avenue, and we were both pretty jazzed to be catching the Dead again. Inside, there was a real change in the way things looked up on stage. It seemed there were now hundreds, literally, of speakers lined up in tall stacks behind the band. Well, there had also been a lot of them at that concert at Kezar, but now, we were talking twice as many and stacked twice as high.

     This then was the premiere of the famous Wall of Sound- a PA system unparalleled, unrivaled, and heretofore, unprecedented in the annals of music history. Each stack of speakers was set for one instrument, one only, with the exception of the bass, which got four. (Or two, but separated into four channels.) The midrange vocals were hanging in a configuration a lot like a rounded halfdome set on its side, at the center of the stage, and hanging from a scaffold. There was Keith’s grand piano, and everyone had those Macintosh power amps with the little glowing blue dials. I think there was even an oscilloscope hooked up to Lesh’s amp stack. In any case, it was a marvelous impression all that gear made, and the sound- when it happened- was absolutely spectacular.

     The PA had been tuned for the hall, this would be its first shakedown cruise, but in general, the way they worked was they would acoustically test each hall while setting up, and figure out the exactly best angles for the different columns. The propaganda they sent us through the Dead Heads newletters said this was so that {“each seat and each person in the hall could have a pristine field of hearing up to 100 yards”}*

     There was no opening band- from the start, when they came out playing US Blues, one got the feeling this would be a very, very special night. Kevin dropped half a hit of acid he had got from one of the ‘Bini Brothers back on the coast that day, I had just a few joints in my pocket, but I had a lovely time. Acid was never that neccesary for a good Dead show experience, it just happened I was not in the mood for it that night.

     Kevin, however, by the end of the night, had been through some Stygian nightmares.

     The center of the hall made a good place to begin the show, and I was there for most of it.

Once the second set began, (with a long “Playing in the Band-Uncle Johns Band-Morning Dew-and back out again” sandwich), I was really feeling upbeat. Getting to the midpoint of Morning Dew, everything so quiet, you might have heard a pin drop. I listened to audience tapes of the night  later with Scott Wiseman and discovered that my clapping along (in time, and rather loud!) seemed to dominate that part of the tape. 

Oh well, I said, I’m not in this world to help you make pristine Dead tapes, I am at a Dead show to party!

     Kev went for a walk back into the area behind the arena and ran into a guy he said looked “just like Ramblin’ Jack Elliot’. Ramblin’ Jack had blown our minds, discovering one little song on a tape in Charlie’s collection,  his “912 Greens” song about the folks down in New Orleans he met one year, and his line:

     Did you ever stand and shiver-

     Just because you were looking at a river…

     Well, we did learn later, it actually had been Ramblin Jack. And the song was truly iconic for both of us, opening us up to all kinds of hopeful future situations…

     While Kevin was out there in the lobby beginning to feel like he was Dante exploring the outer regions of the circles of Hell, I was in the arena, toward the back, beginning to get my own snapshots from Hades. 

A young woman about my age, perhaps a year or two older, was dancing barefooted in front of me. 

I noticed there was a broken quart beer bottle right there underneath her feet, and I tried pulling her away, toward where she wouldn’t need step on any of the shards. She kept pulling back from me and going on with her dancing. After three or four such attempts and screaming each time into her ear “There’s broken glass down there!” I finally gave up. There’s only so much you can do, for people unwilling (or too high) to receive help, I suppose.

     Kevin and I linked up again right at the end of the show, and we hitched ourselves a lift back down the coast highway to the Marine Boulevard house. The driver looked a lot like Jerry Garcia, himself, but he was a welder and lived farther down the coastside from us, and Moss Beach was no trouble. The spooky rocks and cliffs of Devil’s slide in the dark, let us know were were, indeed, exiting Hades and coming back to more familiar territory.

     Debbie, Suzanne and a Half Moon Bay kid named Mike Watson were up at the house, wide awake, drunk, and offering us more. I had a little of the beer,  smoked what was left of my pot, and Watson wandered off into one of the corners and puked. I guess it had been a good party! In the morning I got up, showered and hitchiked back over the hill.

 *{more or less. I no longer have the document to express it in exact terms}

[excerpted from No Backstage Passes In Heaven (an autobiographical memoir)]