Number Nine: Chapter 10

METAMORPHOSIS


FADE IN:

EXT. DESERT HIGHWAY – ARIEL VIEW – NIGHT

Ruby and Jake driving down a two-lane highway, top down, hair flying in the wind.

The Beatles’ OB-LA-DI, OB-LA-DA plays in the foreground.

Obladi oblada life goes on bra
Lala how the life goes on…

Fade in GLASS ONION over. Fade OB-LA-DI to background.

I told you about strawberry fields
You know the place where nothing is real
Well here’s another place you can go…

CLOSE UP of a rabbit, big brown eyes in the light. It dashes across the road. Ruby slams on the brakes but cannot avoid hitting it. Jake and Ruby stand over the corpse in a pool of light.

Fade in OB-LA-DI over. Fade GLASS ONION to background.

EXT. DESERT HIGHWAY – NIGHT

CLOSE UP of Jake driving and Ruby staring blankly into the night.

Fade in GLASS ONION. Fade out OB-LA-DI.

Standing on the cast iron shore – yeah
Lady Madonna trying to make ends meet – yeah
Looking through a glass onion.
Oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah…



A balancing act on the edge of obscurity, one small step for a man, one giant leap for evolution, a high wire of Dante’s dilemma, gateway to beyond beyond, the precipice of abandon, a black hole of extermination, metamorphosis and rebirth.

Dreams are the other side of finite.

Ruby awakened in the dark of night, jumped out of bed and announced, “Get dressed, lover. There’s a full moon rising on a highway of dreams and we’ve got three hundred miles of asphalt to lay!”

Jake was ready. He would not need sleep for another twenty-four hours minimum. He joined her in the shower and was dressed and waiting by the time she emerged in full black-leather beauty: black leather pants and jacket, ankle high boots with metal tips and one-inch spikes, with a ruby red silk blouse tied to expose her slender white midsection. She shook the water out of her hair and completed a portrait in the mirror with black teardrop shades.

“Who loves you, darling?” she purred.

“I do,” replied Jake in the confines of his mind.

She was a reptile, he thought, shedding her skin like others changed underwear. She was the star of her own movie and he liked it that way. Jake was not a man who coveted attention. He preferred to watch from edge until the time was ripe to act.

“I’ve got a fistful of dollars and a solid plan,” she announced. “We head south, cross the border at Nogales, two weeks of Margaritas to let the heat subside, then we make a beeline to New Orleans. How does that sound?”

Jake was stunned. It was as a good plan as any and Ruby had every right to follow her own instincts. The problem was he could not go south. He sat down on the bed and let the river wash over him.

Ruby was shaken. She was not a woman to second-guess her decisions but Jake was her guardian spirit, her guide and protector. If Jake was not on board it was a problem. They were a team, joined at the hip for the length of the dance. Surely by now he understood. She cocked her head and thought twice. Maybe she was being presumptuous. Maybe saving her life twice in a span of days was enough for any man. She understood the rules. She was the driver and he was the ride. But after all that had happened the least she could do was listen to him.

“What is it, baby?”

“I can’t go south,” he said. “In the other world, I traveled the four directions. I saw a great upheaval to the west, battle lines and an army of protest. I saw a great silence to the north, as if waiting, biding time. To the east, I saw masks of deception, people in power talking in rhymes and riddles, smoke and mirrors. To the south, I saw death, walking corpses, the cries of women and children.

“It is the one way I can’t go. It isn’t my time to die.”

Ruby sat beside him on the bed and let the river wash over them both. She believed him as a child believes her mother, as a believer believes the prophet. She would find another way. She grabbed a newspaper, spread it on the floor, marked the four directions, and spun a bottle at its center. North, said destiny. North.

“North?” questioned Ruby. “What’s north?”

“The Canyon,” answered Jake.

The moon was nearing its fullness, casting an eerie luminescence over the desert landscape. Jake knew this land well. It was the land of his people, home of his ancestors, hunting grounds of the Apache, Arapaho, Navaho, Hopi and Paiute.

He had wandered this land for as long as he could walk and Grand Canyon was the solar plexus of it all. The offspring of Pluto’s seed and Persephone’s fall, it was a door to the other side of light, the dark matter of scientific wonder. It made small children of giant men. It was a place of intense power, where the heartbeat of the continent could clearly be heard.

No one could look into the Grand without sensing the majesty of Mother Earth.

Jake knew the canyon from the eyes of the crow to the trails of the wild burros. He knew where the wind currents ran, as faithfully as the Colorado River below, and where an unsuspecting off-the-path tourist could be swept into the bottomless chasm.

Music blaring from the radio, the wind running through them like a first winter’s morning, they kicked up their heels and drove as if it was the road to nowhere – no worries, no cares, no remorse or guilt. None of the self-inflicted wounds we embrace to make us feel as if we are alive. They needed no more than the air in their lungs and the spirit of the open sky to know that the pulse of life pounded within them like a dozen metal drums in Jackson Square. It was all they could do not to pull over and make love on the side of the road.

The Canyon was pulling them forward, singing an impetuous song, sending out a magnetic ray of life, as bright as destiny, itself.

“Canyon is number nine,” said Ruby.

The canyon was the pull of infinite death and only the brave at heart could receive its blessing. Only those who could stand on the precipice and stare into its depths, its soul of darkness, its mad temptation, could behold its sacred light.

The Canyon is number nine.

“Shit!” said Ruby with a glance at the flashing light streaking over them like laser daggers. “Fucking cops,” she announced.

Too late to run and nowhere to go, she pulled over and assumed the posture: a helpless woman, sexy beyond dreams but clueless beyond credibility. The officer remained in his car, running the plates and talking to an unseen force.

“Shit,” said Ruby, “Guido tipped them off. I should have killed the bastard!”

Jake glanced over his shoulder and remained perfectly still, perfectly calm. Ruby had her way of dealing with the law. Jake had his.

“Good evening, officer,” Ruby purred.

“License and registration,” said the officer, stealing a glance at Ruby’s endowment and keeping an eye on Jake for any signs of danger.

“Is this your vehicle, m’am?” he asked, staring at her phony license.

“Why, yes, officer. Why?”

“Just doing my job, Miss…Whitney.”

“Of course, officer.”

“Headed for the Canyon, are you?”

“Yes we are, officer.”

“That’s fine, Miss Whitney, just slow it down and have a nice day.”

Arizona’s finest got back in his cruiser, turned around, and drove back the way he came. Something was rotten. It was not how the script read.

Jake looked at Ruby. Ruby stared into the rearview mirror.

“That’s fucked up,” said Ruby.

“Let’s go,” said Jake.

The Canyon beckoned. They drove on, Jake a blank slate, impenetrable, while Ruby’s mind churned like the internal workings of an industrial symphony. Why wasn’t she behind bars? Who tipped them off? Someone in Phoenix? Who wanted her? Was it Tony or Guido or both? How did they track her? Someone in Phoenix? She wasn’t speeding. How did they know?

She would later learn, in a short phone conversation, that she was off the hook. They were railroading someone else. Tony found another stooge. He wanted to deal with Ruby himself. For now, it was a mystery.

There was only one way into the Canyon and one way out. She drove on as if driving itself would reveal the key that would release her. One way in and one way out. Not even Jake could save her this time. Or could he? This was Jake’s choice and he was determined to go the Canyon. Every instinct told her they were on the wrong course. They should turn around and get the hell out. Even then there was no assurance that Lazerri’s boys wouldn’t be waiting for them. She wondered if it wasn’t yet another test of faith. This time it was her faith in the man who sat beside her.

They pulled up to the gate and drove straight through. No one from the park was there to take their money or check their ID’s. Jake directed her to an overnight parking lot.

“Are you worried?” he asked.

“No, baby,” replied Ruby. “I’m all out of worry. Just point me to the edge and I’ll follow you over.”

“You’d do it,” said Jake.

“Baby,” replied Ruby, “I’d follow you anywhere.”

Jake looked at her as if he had never seen her before, as if he had never held her in his arms and tasted her lips, as if he had never been lost in the electrical storm their bodies unleashed in an undeserving world, as if he had never known her most singular mystery.

“I believe you would,” he said.

Ruby felt warm and undiscovered. If this was not love, it would do. If she never knew love again, it would do. If nothing else, in a life filled with sorrow and misfortune it would serve to answer the mystery of love. What more could she ask of him?

Jake pulled a small flask from his pack and Ruby followed him down to a place by the ledge, at the edge of the world by the canyon of infinite awe.

“Wow!” said Ruby. She was a singer, a dancer, not a poet. She stood before the most powerful signature of a divine force any man or any woman could ever witness and all she could think to say is “Wow!”

They sat in the light of a three quarter moon and watched the canyon transform. Jake drank from the flask and passed it to Ruby. It was mescal, a medicinal from the desert tribes that aided the seer’s vision, bringing a blessing of second sight. They watched the river below bulge and shrivel as the canyon inhabitants struggled and thrived, indifferent to the external world. Clouds seemed to spring from her bowels, growing and spreading until it reached the ledge below their feet. They saw a thousand pairs of eyes watching them as they watched.

The dark philosopher said: If you gaze into the abyss too long, the abyss will gaze into you. The philosopher of light said: If you gaze into the mystery it will enter your soul and you will never be alone.

The clouds began their retreat with the first light of day and the sounds of awakening canyon life emerged. They rode the winds like hawks hunting and ran with the wild coyote. They scurried under brush and slithered like snakes and lizards in the rocks.

The canyon exploded in light and a symphony of creation, destruction and rebirth, erupted all around them. The philosopher said: She’s coming alive.

“The canyon is where the crow becomes the hawk, the hawk becomes the eagle, the eagle becomes the thunderbird, and all god’s creatures learn to dream,” said Jake.

“I understand,” said Ruby.

“We are all related,” said Jake.

“I understand.”

They sat in silence until the sun bathed them in its warmth. Jake folded her in his arms and they rose to breathe it in, the magnitude and the beauty forming an imprint on their minds that would last beyond their lives.

Jake had seen the canyon many times and every time he considered flight as he did now. Ruby grasped his hand in readiness. She knew. She understood.

“Let’s go,” said Jake finally.

It was not time to fly. It was time to drive. It was not time to bid this world goodbye; it was time to greet the new day and the next adventure.

Ruby sighed, not knowing if she was disappointed or relieved.

A crow emerged from the canyon and cawed. Ruby looked into its eyes and cawed back. The canyon crow entered her soul and promised she would never be alone.


EXT. GRAND CANYON – ARIEL VIEW – SUNRISE

Fade in GLASS ONION.

I told you about the fool on the hill
I tell you man he living there still
Well here’s another place you can be
Listen to me.
Fixing a hole in the ocean
Trying to make a dove-tail joint – yeah
Looking through a glass onion.

Fade GRAND CANYON. Fade GLASS ONION.

EXT. TWO-LANE HIGHWAY – ARIEL VIEW –MORNING

Ruby and Jake drive.

Fade in A LONG AND WINDING ROAD (The Beatles).

The long and winding road
That leads to your door
Will never disappear
I’ve seen that road before
It always leads me here
Lead me to your door…

Fade WINDING ROAD.