Number Nine: Chapter 3

DESTINY


FADE IN:

EXT. SLEEPY TIME MOTEL – NIGHT

The Beatles’ I’M SO TIRED (White Album) plays as a neon sign, featuring a blinking bear with a silly nightcap, flashes on and off.

I’m so tired, I haven’t slept a wink
I’m so tired, my mind is on the blink
I wonder should I get up and fix myself a drink
No, no, no…

REVOLUTION 9 (White Album) plays briefly.

The door of a motel room: number nine.

INT. SMALL MOTEL ROOM – NIGHT

I’M SO TIRED resumes as Jake sleeps in boxer shorts atop the single queen size bed. A bag with a Dairy Queen logo and a soda are on a side table. Candles are lit and light seeps in from the adjoining bathroom along with the sound of a SHOWER.

The shower stops and Jake struggles to awaken from deep sleep. Ruby emerges wrapped in a towel. Her hair is black. I’M SO TIRED fades into I WILL (White Album).

Who knows how long I’ve loved you
You know I love you still
Will I wait a lonely lifetime…

Seen through Jake’s eyes, slowly coming into focus, Ruby speaks as if from a distance.

RUBY
Do you believe in destiny?

Jake nods and the song answers for him.

If you want me to, I will …

Ruby lets the towel drop to the floor.



Somewhere around these parts (maybe on this same desolate road), James Dean took his final drive, sacrificing what remained of a promising career for a place amongst the legends of Hollywood lore. Ruby felt his anguish, his hunger for raw experience, his eagerness to take it to the edge (even if it meant diving into the abyss) and she pressed the pedal to the floor.

It felt good to get out of the city. It felt good to be going nowhere and getting there fast. For the moment, she had no worries except rounding the next corner and negotiating the next curve. She wanted to test the fates. She wanted to walk on the edge and not look back, like James Dean and Marilyn Monroe, like Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin, like Jimi Hendrix and Tupac Shakur, like River Phoenix and Kurt Kobain. After everything that had happened, after the sum total of her miserable life ended up in head on collision, she wanted to fly. She wanted to take the final step off the ledge of Grand Canyon. She wanted to test the fates.

Ruby believed in destiny as an anarchist believes in freedom, as a preacher believes in prayer or as a writer believes in words. She believed that James Dean was meant to die young and free on some desolate road, that a man was meant to set on the moon on July 20, 1969, that the Japanese were preordained to attack Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and that two planes were destined to crash into the twin towers on September 11, 2001. Ruby believed that it was possible to tap the source of future events. She believed that it was possible to prevent tragedies or to secure greatness by attending to signs and omens. She believed the gods were not unkind; that they provided signs and omens to those who paid attention. She was a student of the oracles: tarot, astrology, tealeaves and the I Ching. Her latest fixation was the study of numbers and to that end she carried the book Numerology for Idiots everywhere. Her working theory was that everything of importance – historically or personally, for good or for evil – was somehow connected to the number nine.

Ruby also believed in free will and found it no philosophical dilemma. What was the purpose of divining the future if you were powerless to alter it? She believed that those who possessed the knowledge and talent to foresee future events had the power to alter those events.

Rounding a curve, she skidded off the side of the road, kicking up dust, reminding herself of her own mortality. She lightened her foot on the pedal and smiled at the sight of a lone hitchhiker alongside the road. It was an enigmatic picture, like a desert coyote in midtown Manhattan. Was it a sign or an omen? She waved as she swept by but continued to watch him in the rearview mirror. When he did not look after her, she slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop. Throwing her into reverse, she eased back for a closer look, careful to maintain enough distance that she could dust him if she decided he was not worth the risk.

The universe had changed in the world of the hitchhiker. They once represented the spirit of freedom and adventure. Now they were mostly outlaws and desperados. Ruby was sympathetic but she was also mindful of the risk. The modern world gave birth to too many deranged individuals bent on sharing their pain. This was a different sort of hitchhiker. His features were distinctly Native American and he looked like the hull of a fishing trawler, coated with dirt and layers of sweat. She noticed that he was holding a book in his left hand and she took it as a positive sign.

“What are you reading?” she asked in a high pitched voice that was considered by some as sweet as cotton candy, by others as charming as a squeaky hinge.

“Peltier’s Prison Writings,” he replied.

She mulled it over. A reference to prison gave her pause but she had heard of Peltier, a Lakota Indian wrong imprisoned – or so they said.

“What page?”

He glanced down at the book, still open in his hand. “Page 27.”

Ruby smiled. She glanced at the dashboard clock. It read 8:01.

“Get in.”

In the world of numerology, the numbers 801 and twenty-seven converted to the number nine. In Ruby’s newfound creed, it was an undeniable sign of destiny. She was meant to be on this road at this particular moment in time and so was he. They were destined to come together in the mystical hour of twilight, at a pivotal time in each of their lives, to share the road ahead – for better or for worse.

“What’s your name, stranger?”

“Jake,” he replied.

“Just get out of prison?”

He laughed. “Sort of.”

Jake was suddenly aware of his appearance. He was dead tired, hungry, and his skin was crawling with microscopic multitudes. He was in no mood for idle conversation yet he recognized the obligation of his good fortune. Here was a strikingly attractive woman – even if she did have green hair – and he for all appearances was a bum.

“Got a last name, pilgrim?”

“Jones.”

Ruby was working the numbers in her mind. In numerology, each letter has an assigned number:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
A B C D E F G H I
J K L M N O P Q R
S T U V W X Y Z

“Jake is nine,” she said. “Oh, my God, Jones is nine! Jesus,” she said, staring into Jake’s tired eyes, “you’re a triple nine!” She checked the math, scribbling in her book to confirm what she already knew. His first name totaled nine, his last name nine, and all multiples of nine break down to nine. It is one of great mysteries of theoretical-phenomenological mathematics. In numerology, of course, while multiples of eleven are power numbers, multiples of nine are destiny: completion, climax, culmination, epiphany, and rebirth.

Ruby Daulton was also nine and, since all multiples of nine are nine, Jake Jones and Ruby Daulton combined were nine. Nines were everywhere! Nines were wild!

Jake had encountered numerology before but not so much as a religion as a curiosity. There were many ways to see the future and he had had a hand at many of them: crying for a vision, sun dance, sweat lodge, tossing stones, and gazing into the eyes of a crow. He had the gift of prophetic dreams. He had seen much of the future and much of the past but he had never seen what he wanted to see. He had not found the answer to the proverbial question: How do I get back home?

Ruby examined him with new eyes, seeing beyond the filth and grime that disguised his true being. She liked what she saw. Everything was good. Everything was right. Here in the middle of absolute nowhere, the sun setting in a western sky, she may have finally found the first genuinely good man in her life. In the oracle of Ruby’s creed, destiny had cast its stone, the fates had planted their magic seeds, all was right on heaven and earth, and theirs was a meeting of celestial divination.

“Let’s get you a shower,” she said, throwing her in gear and burning down the highway, headed for the next town and the first motel they came across. Her car’s name was Sadie Mae: Sadie = eleven, Mae = eleven, Sadie Mae = 22: pure power.

Jake was speechless. Never had he made such an impression on a woman and never had a woman made such an impression on him. He had an acute need for solid food, sleep and cleansing but, for a while, she was all that occupied his mind. Even at the speed of sound, Ruby was all he could see. All he could hear was: Number nine, number nine, number nine... She went on and on about probability, random chance and the oracles of divination, but all he could hear was: Number nine, number nine, number nine...

“It doesn’t matter what you believe,” she said. “You could chart the stars, have your palms read, consult Tarot, or toss the I Ching sticks, it all leads to the same conclusion: It’s destiny.”

Jake was suddenly overcome with undeniable fatigue and allowed himself to drift until he arrived in that grey area where dream and reality are one. He thought of something a spirit guide once told him:

“In a world soft as butterflies, as violent as the raging sea, there’s no such thing as random chance.”

Sacred spiral, helter-skelter, forces of the ancients, flight through the windows of perception to the world within and beyond, held by slender threads of time and space, at one with the Great Spirit, past and future, all and the void, weightless, senseless and breathless in the infinite chain of matter and mystery. The world was turning at last.

Ruby saw the neon light of a Sleepy Time Motel and knew she had arrived. She checked in under the names Jake and Ruby Jones, insisted on cabin #9 and paid cash. The desk clerk gave her a wink. She shook Jake awake, handed him the key, and explained that she was off to grab some burgers.

“Don’t forget to shower,” she said over her shoulder.

Jake stared after her until he found his bearings and remembered where he was and how he came to be there. The key in his hand read: number nine. He became aware of a foul odor that was emanating from his own body. Entering the motel room, he stumbled into the shower and let the cool water cleanse him, washing away the numerous gritty layers of sweat-solidified waste.

Who was this wild woman who spoke of destiny and challenged his imagination? Where was she headed and what was she running from? Was it destiny or random chance? In a world as soft as butterflies, as violent as a raging sea, was there any difference?

He collapsed on the bed and fell through the vortex back into the world of dreams. He saw Ruby in a red dress on a stage of amber light. Men with eyes wide open gaped as she let the dress slip from her shoulders. Who was she and what was she running from? He heard music and the sound of running water. He saw light from above and struggled to reach it. He saw her face like a diamond in a sea of common stones. He heard music, sweet and soft.

For if I ever saw you
I didn’t catch your name
But it never really mattered
I will always feel the same …

Ruby emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a towel. Through the haze of his awakening, he could see that she had dyed her hair black. Who was she? What was she running from? It no longer mattered. In a life of hardship, in a universe full of darkness, she was the most beautiful woman he had ever encountered. She was an enchantress and a saint.

“Do you believe in destiny?” she asked.

He nodded and let the music answer.

If you want me to, I will …

Ruby let the towel drop to the floor.

Love you forever and forever
Love you with all my heart
Love you whenever we’re together
Love you when we’re apart …