We have stayed three days longer than intended. Once again I am reminded how difficult it is to escape the hold of this valley. Motowners are like the variety of tree ironically named Trees of Heaven. Once they take root they do not let go. They spread and swallow the land.
Our plan begins with golf at Wawona, a course at the southwestern tip of Yosemite National Park. It is a place of bountiful beauty that Jere and Patty have told us about. Our route takes us through Merced, a town smaller but strikingly similar to Modesto. In fact, it strikes me that all these valley towns are pretty much the same: Bakersfield, Fresno, Merced, Stockton, Modesto, Lodi and Sacramento. They are variations on a theme of commercial development with agricultural roots. The valley has been invaded by an army of Bay Area commuters. It is a boon to real estate but a nightmare to renters and working people who are rapidly abandoning their dreams of home ownership. Thousands of people prefer to drive up to two hundred miles a day rather than pay the high price of housing on their own turf.
As we turn east into the Sierra foothills, I am reminded of an ill-fated bicycle trip a good friend and I once took along this path. We set out for Yosemite from Turlock with packs on our backs and nothing but grit. We took no precautions such as tools, flashlights, spare tires or pumps. My compadre had neglected to sport underwear and developed a rash. I vividly remember watching him climb slowly up these rolling hills, pack swaying from side to side, as he tried to avoid contact with his seat. We slept in a cow pasture in pitch-black darkness not more than a mile from the nearest town. We made it as far as Mariposa, gateway to the national park, when a downpour of rain gave us an excuse to turn back. A flat tire in Merced allowed us to call for a ride home. It was a memorable journey despite the misfortunes and the fact that we never reached our destiny.
Our friendship was then as tight and secure as Wiz and I are now. It would end several years later. I was directing a play and recruited him as my set designer. He interrupted a rehearsal by moving set pieces on stage. When I expressed my displeasure he walked out. Within a week came the news that he had overturned his car on the freeway. He’d lost consciousness while driving, a victim of his own adventurous spirit. He was fortunate to survive but he lost control of the muscles and nerves that move the left eyelid. It was fixed in a closed position and there it would remain. He was a superb actor and a prince of a man though he would prefer the title of court jester. He took risks and that path constantly took him to the edge. When he pushed it too far he paid the price. He fell into an abyss. Some would say he jumped. The wonder is that he returned to carry on.
Would it have happened had I not chastised him for something so ultimately unimportant? Would it have happened if he had not walked out? No one can say. We would become friends again but we would never be brothers. We lost that sense of trust. I can only believe it is as it is supposed to be. I will remember this and hold on when it is my turn to take the fall. We all get a turn. Things do not happen at random. If I have learned anything on the journey it is this: There is a reason and a purpose to the events and experiences that cross our paths. We should not fear and avoid them, but rather embrace and learn from them.
We turn south at Mariposa and wind our way to Wawona. Throughout our journey we have been advised to take precautions and make reservations in advance but we prefer to take our chances. If it is meant to happen it will.
Am I a fatalist? Yes, I believe in fate. I believe in magic. I believe in karma. I believe in spirits and the soul. I believe there is infinitely more beyond our grasp than within it. Do we have a choice? Yes, we have a choice to deny it or embrace it. Deny it and you deny yourself. Embrace it and grow. Become the thing you are intended to be.
The first time I faced the charge of fatalism it was at the hand of a high school world geography teacher whom I respected. I had written what I considered an excellent essay on a subject that now escapes me. The paper came back with a grade of B and the comment: Isn’t this a bit fatalistic? It was the first time my work was criticized for the content of my theme rather than the quality of the work. It had a profound effect and sent me into a period of doubt. It would be years before I would allow myself to further explore the concept of fate. By deferring to authority I had delayed the journey of my soul.
At the entrance to Yosemite the ranger waves the fee with the statement: We’re not charging today. We have now visited two of America’s most popular national parks free of charge. This is how it should be and we accept it as a blessing.
Wawona is far from the glacier valley of Half Dome, Indian Caves, Yosemite Falls and El Capitan. It possesses a more placid beauty with tall redwood pines and open fields of tall grass and wildflowers nestled in a terrain where the gentle foothills begin their transformation to the high Sierra peaks. Wawona Lodge is a large white wooden structure of southern forties grace with its long row of elegant columns running the length of the structure and bordering its front porch. There are countless squirrels, ducks, swan and deer on its huge expanse of bright green lawn mixing with the boarders in soft white, blue and pink attire.
There is plenty of sunlight left in the day as we check in at a clubhouse that doubles as the village grocery store. We are invited to tee up whenever we like. Wiz and I are at the top of our games through the first four holes. There are curious warning signs at the first and third tees: The first tells the tale of a seven-year-old boy who lost his life to an antlered deer. The second warns of a rattlesnake without rattles. I surmise it is an effective means of keeping golfers out of the natural brush representing the rough.
The fifth hole takes my breath away. It is a long par four from an elevated tee, dropping steeply to a typically small and well-bunkered green. It is exceptionally narrow with tall redwoods on both sides. I try to control my tee shot, constricting the muscles of my arms and body and upsetting the natural rhythm of my swing. It sails off right into the woods. I am forced to take a drop, miss my next two shots on a downhill lie and end up with a triple bogey. Wiz is in a smooth and relaxed groove. He plays it like a champ, saving par with a short chip and putt.
As we walk to the next hole Wiz brings up our scores and makes a joke about the master’s fall. Suddenly, we have entered the world of competitive golf. He later says it was only meaningless patter, an expression of his sense of humor. He doesn’t seem to realize that expressions of humor often have a dark and serious side. The words we choose to let loose on the world are never without meaning. I have witnessed the cold harshness of his joking interactions with his girlfriend and watched nearly come to blows. It is a lesson he has yet to learn.
Wiz has the honor of shooting first at the next tee. He fires the ball into the tall grass. He refuses to take a mulligan. I step to the tee and send a three-iron sailing two hundred yards and slightly left of the target. It fades and settles gently on the center of the green. The gods of golf have spoken. I save par on the next hole with a nice sand wedge while Wiz continues to struggle. He drops seven strokes in two holes. The golf gods have delivered a stern lesson. Golf is a game of ultimate humility. Wiz will have his day. As I have often told him, though I have been his mentor, he will better me as a matter of course. It will happen but it will not happen on a day when he is brash and cocky. It will not happen when he raises the red flag of competition. It will not happen today.
We finish the round in good spirits and head off to Yosemite Valley as the sun sets in the west. Night has fallen by the time we arrive. We are surprised to find the village store still open and a nightlife happening. As I wander off to find an open restroom Wiz purchases a small flashlight, two pints of Sam Adams lager, a fifth of cognac and a couple of microwave Mexican food platters. He starts up a conversation with a wild-eyed teenager. The thought that runs through our minds is little short of absurd. We have been on the road too long.
We find a picnic table outside in front of the village snack bar and position ourselves to view the young ladies who seem everywhere on this scene. Except for the tamales, which are passable, the Mexican platters are by far the worst excuse for a meal we have taken on the journey. It doesn’t matter. The beer is great. We wander back toward the parking lot, scouting for a place to sleep, when I spot a couple of rangers approaching in the sparse light. I wonder aloud if it’s cool to have an open beer on the park grounds. Wiz replies: If he stops us we’ll have to kill him. It is a joke that will not seem funny as time rolls on.
I stay with Sally as Wiz take the flashlight and explores the surroundings. He spots a place to lay out our bags on the backside of park headquarters and off we go. Again he jokes: If they catch us we’ll just have to kill them. We settle down for the night and reflect on the journey behind us as well as the journey ahead. We are pleased. We had discussed crossing Tioga Pass during the night but fatigue and hunger have held us back. It is the path that has chosen us. Wiz observes that we could easily have come to hate each other by now. That is one of the dangers of the journey. We agree that our friendship is secure and count our blessings. It is the first time we have allowed ourselves to look back and reflect with satisfaction the distance we have traveled. Now we speak at length, retelling the stories and recounting our own versions on the events of the last two weeks. We finish off the liquor and settle in for sweet dreams and visions of tomorrow.
Tomorrow greets us at the crack of dawn with a world of beauty and grace. It seems frozen in time. We leave our empty bottles at the front of the building where they are sure to be spotted and discarded properly. Wiz does not want to risk being discovered carrying them to the nearest garbage can. I make a vow to balance our karma by picking up someone else’s trash down the line.
We can find no coffee and must be content with cans of coke from a vending machine. We set out for Tioga Pass but are soon overtaken by Yosemite’s mystical pull. We opt for a hike to Yosemite Falls and I recount the story of my first drunk. It was a sixth grade field trip and one of my friends turned me on to a strange wine concoction known as Bali Hai. Beneath the majesty of Yosemite Falls I fell as sick as I had ever been in my young life. I have always it seems been attracted to friends who were driven by risk and adventure.
It is early and we are alone in the splendor of John Muir’s valley. We linger longer than we should, long enough to collect our thoughts, becoming one with the animal and Indian spirits that still rule this sacred kingdom, and then we resume the journey.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
GRAND CANYON: TIOGA PASS
The highway that runs through Tioga Pass is a long two-lane road that cuts through the heart of Yosemite and climbs to an elevation of nearly 10,000 feet. The glare of the morning sun on a winding road makes the going tough, slow and treacherous. I remark off-hand that if for any reason the pass were closed it would cost us literally hundreds of miles and a full day’s travel. We are grateful we did not attempt the pass last night.
Soon enough the road opens up and the going is easy. We are about thirty miles from the village when we are flagged to a stop by a park ranger. He informs us that a fellow ranger has been shot during the night. Tioga Pass is closed until they find the shooter. He tells it might be an hour or two or it might be a few days. No one knows. We ask if there’s a place to wait it out and he directs us to the lodge at Wolf Creek. We thank him but before we can turn around he asks for the second time: Are you sure you don’t have a gun in the car? Not even a little one? Wiz has joked about carrying a gun and I give him a glance before answering: No, not even a little one.
We will hear several versions of the shooting but the one that sticks is: The ranger came upon a man walking down the road and stopped to ask him if he needed help. The man said no but inexplicably took off running into the woods. When the ranger followed, he fired two bullets from a 22-caliber pistol. That’s a little gun. The ranger is still alive and presumably will be able to identify the gunman.
It occurs to me that we are suspects and I begin to think about prophetic remarks, given and taken so lightly at the time. First there was Wiz with his: Well, we’ll just have to kill him. Then there was my comment about the closing of Tioga Pass. Wiz’s mind has begun to spin the same yarn. He tells me that the empty bottles we left at the park headquarters would collaborate our story. I tell him that if they decide to search Sally the first thing they would see upon opening the trunk would be the word Killer on the strap of my golf bag. It was a gift from my father and the inscription was his nickname from his fighting days. Never mind, it would a long time before they would allow us to leave this place.
At the Wolf Creek lodge we are greeted by a small gathering of stranded travelers waiting for the restaurant to open for breakfast. A line is forming when a lady emerges from inside to explain that the lodgers have first priority. We step aside and allow the lodgers to move to the front. As the hours drag on, the gathering of fellow travelers grows. They relate their varied stories of the shooting and speculate on the identity of the suspect. He could be miles away in the desolate country or he could have doubled back to find a car. He could be right here at Wolf Creek. He might be one of us. Suddenly all single men begin to look suspicious. Some make the difficult decision to turn back and replan their vacations. We are content for now to wait. We have a wonderful breakfast and enjoy the interchange with the waiters. They are surprisingly joyful and upbeat despite the chaos descending on them.
We pull our instruments from Sally and Wiz decides to give me a lesson on the trumpet. He teaches me a simple jazz scale. Before long the practice gives way to improvisational jazz and space music. The sounds are sweet to these ears and seem to blend with our rustic surroundings. We are joined on the rocks by two fellow travelers and invite them to play but they are content to listen.
A dark complexioned man with a large pack and a very noticeable limp draws all eyes as he walks into camp. He is an American Indian who is walking a trail that will take him from the Mexican border to Canada. A fire walking experience that left a large blister on his right foot has slowed his progress. He was detained for carrying a weapon in the park. It was a bow and arrow he carried for hunting. The local Indian group came to his defense and gave him shelter. Their defense was successful but he was unable to retrieve his bow. He wears a medicine pouch around his neck, army surplus pants, coat and boots. In the eyes of the predominantly white encampment he is suspect number one. Naturally he finds his way to our gathering on the rocks.
He is pleased to join us on guitar and shows an affinity for Jimi Hendrix. Between songs and interludes we exchange stories. Though he is on foot the rangers will not allow him to continue his journey until the shooter is caught. He has been through the desert. I ask him if has seen Don Juan. Without a smile he replies: I am Don Juan.
An elderly couple emerges from the cabin adjacent to our circle and the man is clearly incensed. He makes it to his car before he erupts. He explains that he and his wife were trying to meditate in their cabin when the noise of our trumpet session broke their concentration, disturbing their peace. Wiz wonders why they didn’t say something at the time. The woman explains that they anticipated how they would be greeted: A couple of old fogies. Don Juan offers to play them a song and that only infuriates the man: Now you’re being smart. He storms off to the lodge as we continue our discussion with the woman. We apologize but suggest that they should not presume us to be devoid of manners and common decency. Had they said something we would surely have stopped. They are not aware of what has transpired in the night. We make our peace but we have lost the feel for music. The mood has shifted.
I surmise that the old man is in grave danger. To feel such rage and to be unable even to conceive another way of diffusing it. What is the purpose of his meditation? The Zen masters would welcome the distraction of a practicing trumpet as a challenge to their practice of the meditative art. Embrace it and focus ever deeper on the center of your being. Or if you cannot, seek remedy. Do not allow your rage to envelop you. Do not give yourself to rage. Or if you must then embrace the rage and understand it as your own so that you may learn from it and find another way.
We pack away our instruments and begin to discuss our options. We study the atlas for an alternative route that might have escaped us. There is none. Wiz opens the Zen of Golf at random and reads a passage: Be still and take in the breadth and depth of your surroundings. The message is clear. I had been leaning the other way. The thought that keeps circling through my mind is one that I have not allowed myself to speak for fear of the power of the self fulfilling prophecy: If we don’t get out of California today, we will never get out.
Wiz suggests that we take our sand wedges, a couple of balls and shoot our way along the hiking trail to Luben’s Lake. The hike is about three miles. Wiz has only recently purchased his wedge at a second hand store in Motown. He is anxious to give it workout. It’s too bizarre to take a pass. Before we embark Don Juan offers us some sage. He explains that he offers it to all musicians that cross his path. I am pleased with the designation as a musician though it is not a title I claim. Who am I to deny the offering of Don Juan? As is his habit, Wiz gives him a CD of his girlfriend Rhonda’s album. It is a labor of love that he has produced. I offer some road kill jerky. It is the best I can do. It later occurs to me that I should have given him the manuscript of a recent play: The Ringed Women of the Sacred and Forbidden Forest. It is a Joseph Campbell inspired tale of a hero’s journey. Maybe it would have been presumptuous. Don Juan needs no lessons that I can deliver. Knowing we will never see him again, we bid him farewell. I believe we have formed a brotherhood and that he will remember and speak of us just as we will of him.
We begin the hike, laying down our balls at the foot of the trail. We each have two balls and are determined to play all the way to the lake. I am not aware that Wiz has stored away a third ball. The lower part of the trail is relatively wide and flat, allowing us to swing freely, blasting away at fifty to seventy yards a shot. As we cross a creek with shots over the water, the trail narrows, becoming rocky and climbing steeply. Soon we take on the characters of Dufus McGhee and Sivas MacDuff, Irish masters of the ancient and royal art. We begin to count strokes. I build a sizable lead but begin taking drops at the cost of a stroke, concerned that the rocky terrain will damage my wedge.
At some point we both hit into the woods. After a long search we decide to exchange roles. He looks for my ball and I look for his. Our reasoning is that since we have not focused on the other’s ball, we will be forced to employ a sixth sense. Within minutes we find both balls. Wiz loses one in the thick grass and I abandon the search when I discover water on the ground below. It is then he reveals his third ball. I am convinced that that is the reason he has lost a ball. I have advised many a beginning golfer not to carry an extra ball in his pocket, particularly when water is in play. It invites doubt and even the smallest measure of doubt can break down the golf swing. The gods of golf can smell a weakness and the water will draw the ball in like a magnet.
We are near the lake as a couple of amazed hikers as they descended the trail. Wiz is reluctant to give up his search. He is determined to play the same ball the length of the trail. It is hard to give up your goals. Finally we resume the climb and Wiz overtakes me by two strokes when the lake appears before us. We are observing etiquette and I am away. If my shot makes the lake through the trees, he will have two shots to win. I hit a beautiful shot that finds an opening and sails into the middle of the lake. Wiz plays a setup shot to position himself for the win. We agree that the next shot must enter the water on the fly rather than rolling in for his victory to be pure. He sets up, takes his backswing and lets loose a glorious, soaring shot deep into the lake. I shake his hand and congratulate him. We have played the game in its best tradition and I have discovered there is as much joy in playing well and falling short as there is in winning.
Wiz figures we have played some three thousand shots during the four hours it has taken us to hike the trail. It has been an adventure. We begin the descent, wedges tucked under our arms, with the same self-satisfied feeling one has after a round of golf well played. At some point Wiz breaks into a trot that gives way to a run and becomes a mad dash down the mountain. I stay with him about ten yards behind and find the going surprisingly easy, effortless and free of restraint. We are approaching the creek and I wonder what Wiz has in mind. I place myself in his hands. I follow his lead. He decides to fly through the maze with a blindfold. He accelerates, taking great leaping strides. It is an amazing sight, man becoming bird, but the log he has chosen to plant his foot gives way. Crack! The Wiz is down, sprawled out on a small boulder with one foot in the creek. I manage to pull up before I come down on top of him.
He looks up with an expression that tells me his ego is bruised more than his body. He was protected by blind faith and his natural relaxation at the moment of impact. That the log gave way is like the distraction of the trumpet scales. His fall is triumphant, a beautiful and inspired event, but my smile does nothing to comfort him. He proposes a deal and I agree: I will not mention his fall if he does not mention his victory in golf. I agree though I see only glory in both events. I admit I have not completely conquered my competitive spirit but I feel no shame in losing a round of golf and hope I never will.
We are back on the trail and like Castaneda and Don Juan in the desert of New Mexico we are soon trotting at a comfortable pace. We reach the lodge to discover that little has changed. The shooter is still at large. The authorities have evacuated a village down the road. We decide it is time to move on.
We wish Don Juan well, crank up Sally and head for the pass, hoping against hope that it will open before us. To my surprise the road is open for miles and miles, climbing to an elevation of 9,000 feet before we are pulled over at a lookout station by Fairview Dome and Tuolumne Meadows. The view is spectacular. It is a clear day and the sky calls to the imagination the blues of Maxfield Parrish. El Capitan towers in the distance. Surrounded by the enormous granite mountains that dominate this land, I cannot imagine a manhunt on this terrain. The hopelessness of the pursued is rivaled only by the hopelessness of the pursuers. We linger in the glory and the beauty and the majesty and the grace of mother earth, trying to communicate our gratitude with sweet sounds of music.
A park ranger about our age breaks from our station to join us. He is a musician. We talk, he plays a song and he repeats the news of the hour. It might be a matter of minutes or it might be days. We are no more than twenty or thirty miles from conquering the pass and resuming our eastward journey but it is it not to be. We are not defeated but we turn back, resolved that our path has been chosen for us. I am grateful that we are in agreement. He later confesses that he has been visited by the same haunting thought that has trailed me since our detainment at Wolf Creek: Though it runs counter to the philosophy of the journey, we must get out of California tonight.
Soon enough the road opens up and the going is easy. We are about thirty miles from the village when we are flagged to a stop by a park ranger. He informs us that a fellow ranger has been shot during the night. Tioga Pass is closed until they find the shooter. He tells it might be an hour or two or it might be a few days. No one knows. We ask if there’s a place to wait it out and he directs us to the lodge at Wolf Creek. We thank him but before we can turn around he asks for the second time: Are you sure you don’t have a gun in the car? Not even a little one? Wiz has joked about carrying a gun and I give him a glance before answering: No, not even a little one.
We will hear several versions of the shooting but the one that sticks is: The ranger came upon a man walking down the road and stopped to ask him if he needed help. The man said no but inexplicably took off running into the woods. When the ranger followed, he fired two bullets from a 22-caliber pistol. That’s a little gun. The ranger is still alive and presumably will be able to identify the gunman.
It occurs to me that we are suspects and I begin to think about prophetic remarks, given and taken so lightly at the time. First there was Wiz with his: Well, we’ll just have to kill him. Then there was my comment about the closing of Tioga Pass. Wiz’s mind has begun to spin the same yarn. He tells me that the empty bottles we left at the park headquarters would collaborate our story. I tell him that if they decide to search Sally the first thing they would see upon opening the trunk would be the word Killer on the strap of my golf bag. It was a gift from my father and the inscription was his nickname from his fighting days. Never mind, it would a long time before they would allow us to leave this place.
At the Wolf Creek lodge we are greeted by a small gathering of stranded travelers waiting for the restaurant to open for breakfast. A line is forming when a lady emerges from inside to explain that the lodgers have first priority. We step aside and allow the lodgers to move to the front. As the hours drag on, the gathering of fellow travelers grows. They relate their varied stories of the shooting and speculate on the identity of the suspect. He could be miles away in the desolate country or he could have doubled back to find a car. He could be right here at Wolf Creek. He might be one of us. Suddenly all single men begin to look suspicious. Some make the difficult decision to turn back and replan their vacations. We are content for now to wait. We have a wonderful breakfast and enjoy the interchange with the waiters. They are surprisingly joyful and upbeat despite the chaos descending on them.
We pull our instruments from Sally and Wiz decides to give me a lesson on the trumpet. He teaches me a simple jazz scale. Before long the practice gives way to improvisational jazz and space music. The sounds are sweet to these ears and seem to blend with our rustic surroundings. We are joined on the rocks by two fellow travelers and invite them to play but they are content to listen.
A dark complexioned man with a large pack and a very noticeable limp draws all eyes as he walks into camp. He is an American Indian who is walking a trail that will take him from the Mexican border to Canada. A fire walking experience that left a large blister on his right foot has slowed his progress. He was detained for carrying a weapon in the park. It was a bow and arrow he carried for hunting. The local Indian group came to his defense and gave him shelter. Their defense was successful but he was unable to retrieve his bow. He wears a medicine pouch around his neck, army surplus pants, coat and boots. In the eyes of the predominantly white encampment he is suspect number one. Naturally he finds his way to our gathering on the rocks.
He is pleased to join us on guitar and shows an affinity for Jimi Hendrix. Between songs and interludes we exchange stories. Though he is on foot the rangers will not allow him to continue his journey until the shooter is caught. He has been through the desert. I ask him if has seen Don Juan. Without a smile he replies: I am Don Juan.
An elderly couple emerges from the cabin adjacent to our circle and the man is clearly incensed. He makes it to his car before he erupts. He explains that he and his wife were trying to meditate in their cabin when the noise of our trumpet session broke their concentration, disturbing their peace. Wiz wonders why they didn’t say something at the time. The woman explains that they anticipated how they would be greeted: A couple of old fogies. Don Juan offers to play them a song and that only infuriates the man: Now you’re being smart. He storms off to the lodge as we continue our discussion with the woman. We apologize but suggest that they should not presume us to be devoid of manners and common decency. Had they said something we would surely have stopped. They are not aware of what has transpired in the night. We make our peace but we have lost the feel for music. The mood has shifted.
I surmise that the old man is in grave danger. To feel such rage and to be unable even to conceive another way of diffusing it. What is the purpose of his meditation? The Zen masters would welcome the distraction of a practicing trumpet as a challenge to their practice of the meditative art. Embrace it and focus ever deeper on the center of your being. Or if you cannot, seek remedy. Do not allow your rage to envelop you. Do not give yourself to rage. Or if you must then embrace the rage and understand it as your own so that you may learn from it and find another way.
We pack away our instruments and begin to discuss our options. We study the atlas for an alternative route that might have escaped us. There is none. Wiz opens the Zen of Golf at random and reads a passage: Be still and take in the breadth and depth of your surroundings. The message is clear. I had been leaning the other way. The thought that keeps circling through my mind is one that I have not allowed myself to speak for fear of the power of the self fulfilling prophecy: If we don’t get out of California today, we will never get out.
Wiz suggests that we take our sand wedges, a couple of balls and shoot our way along the hiking trail to Luben’s Lake. The hike is about three miles. Wiz has only recently purchased his wedge at a second hand store in Motown. He is anxious to give it workout. It’s too bizarre to take a pass. Before we embark Don Juan offers us some sage. He explains that he offers it to all musicians that cross his path. I am pleased with the designation as a musician though it is not a title I claim. Who am I to deny the offering of Don Juan? As is his habit, Wiz gives him a CD of his girlfriend Rhonda’s album. It is a labor of love that he has produced. I offer some road kill jerky. It is the best I can do. It later occurs to me that I should have given him the manuscript of a recent play: The Ringed Women of the Sacred and Forbidden Forest. It is a Joseph Campbell inspired tale of a hero’s journey. Maybe it would have been presumptuous. Don Juan needs no lessons that I can deliver. Knowing we will never see him again, we bid him farewell. I believe we have formed a brotherhood and that he will remember and speak of us just as we will of him.
We begin the hike, laying down our balls at the foot of the trail. We each have two balls and are determined to play all the way to the lake. I am not aware that Wiz has stored away a third ball. The lower part of the trail is relatively wide and flat, allowing us to swing freely, blasting away at fifty to seventy yards a shot. As we cross a creek with shots over the water, the trail narrows, becoming rocky and climbing steeply. Soon we take on the characters of Dufus McGhee and Sivas MacDuff, Irish masters of the ancient and royal art. We begin to count strokes. I build a sizable lead but begin taking drops at the cost of a stroke, concerned that the rocky terrain will damage my wedge.
At some point we both hit into the woods. After a long search we decide to exchange roles. He looks for my ball and I look for his. Our reasoning is that since we have not focused on the other’s ball, we will be forced to employ a sixth sense. Within minutes we find both balls. Wiz loses one in the thick grass and I abandon the search when I discover water on the ground below. It is then he reveals his third ball. I am convinced that that is the reason he has lost a ball. I have advised many a beginning golfer not to carry an extra ball in his pocket, particularly when water is in play. It invites doubt and even the smallest measure of doubt can break down the golf swing. The gods of golf can smell a weakness and the water will draw the ball in like a magnet.
We are near the lake as a couple of amazed hikers as they descended the trail. Wiz is reluctant to give up his search. He is determined to play the same ball the length of the trail. It is hard to give up your goals. Finally we resume the climb and Wiz overtakes me by two strokes when the lake appears before us. We are observing etiquette and I am away. If my shot makes the lake through the trees, he will have two shots to win. I hit a beautiful shot that finds an opening and sails into the middle of the lake. Wiz plays a setup shot to position himself for the win. We agree that the next shot must enter the water on the fly rather than rolling in for his victory to be pure. He sets up, takes his backswing and lets loose a glorious, soaring shot deep into the lake. I shake his hand and congratulate him. We have played the game in its best tradition and I have discovered there is as much joy in playing well and falling short as there is in winning.
Wiz figures we have played some three thousand shots during the four hours it has taken us to hike the trail. It has been an adventure. We begin the descent, wedges tucked under our arms, with the same self-satisfied feeling one has after a round of golf well played. At some point Wiz breaks into a trot that gives way to a run and becomes a mad dash down the mountain. I stay with him about ten yards behind and find the going surprisingly easy, effortless and free of restraint. We are approaching the creek and I wonder what Wiz has in mind. I place myself in his hands. I follow his lead. He decides to fly through the maze with a blindfold. He accelerates, taking great leaping strides. It is an amazing sight, man becoming bird, but the log he has chosen to plant his foot gives way. Crack! The Wiz is down, sprawled out on a small boulder with one foot in the creek. I manage to pull up before I come down on top of him.
He looks up with an expression that tells me his ego is bruised more than his body. He was protected by blind faith and his natural relaxation at the moment of impact. That the log gave way is like the distraction of the trumpet scales. His fall is triumphant, a beautiful and inspired event, but my smile does nothing to comfort him. He proposes a deal and I agree: I will not mention his fall if he does not mention his victory in golf. I agree though I see only glory in both events. I admit I have not completely conquered my competitive spirit but I feel no shame in losing a round of golf and hope I never will.
We are back on the trail and like Castaneda and Don Juan in the desert of New Mexico we are soon trotting at a comfortable pace. We reach the lodge to discover that little has changed. The shooter is still at large. The authorities have evacuated a village down the road. We decide it is time to move on.
We wish Don Juan well, crank up Sally and head for the pass, hoping against hope that it will open before us. To my surprise the road is open for miles and miles, climbing to an elevation of 9,000 feet before we are pulled over at a lookout station by Fairview Dome and Tuolumne Meadows. The view is spectacular. It is a clear day and the sky calls to the imagination the blues of Maxfield Parrish. El Capitan towers in the distance. Surrounded by the enormous granite mountains that dominate this land, I cannot imagine a manhunt on this terrain. The hopelessness of the pursued is rivaled only by the hopelessness of the pursuers. We linger in the glory and the beauty and the majesty and the grace of mother earth, trying to communicate our gratitude with sweet sounds of music.
A park ranger about our age breaks from our station to join us. He is a musician. We talk, he plays a song and he repeats the news of the hour. It might be a matter of minutes or it might be days. We are no more than twenty or thirty miles from conquering the pass and resuming our eastward journey but it is it not to be. We are not defeated but we turn back, resolved that our path has been chosen for us. I am grateful that we are in agreement. He later confesses that he has been visited by the same haunting thought that has trailed me since our detainment at Wolf Creek: Though it runs counter to the philosophy of the journey, we must get out of California tonight.
GRAND CANYON: SKY OF A MILLION STARS
We retrace our path down Tioga Pass into the foothills, a sense of urgency crawling over us. It is a strange feeling moving once again toward the setting sun. The grade grows steeper, the road narrows and winds around the mountains of purple hued bushes as we reach Groveland where the mountains yield gradually to rolling hills. Groveland is the home to one of my favorite golf course: Pine Mountain Golf and Country Club. It is laid out around a lake, using the natural lay of the land, where elevated tees and greens are the rule and the greens are as slick and smooth as pool tables, with slope and undulations to challenge the finest putter.
It is a course I have walked once and never will again. The grade is too steep and the beauty far too great for labor. The golf at Pine Mountain has long since given way to the country club. The privatization of such places of beauty is a process that began at the peak of golf’s popularity. It will run its course but probably not here in my lifetime. I’ve never felt comfortable in the company of the privileged class and they’ve never seemed comfortable in mine. People are people so I suppose it is a failing I must some day learn to conquer.
The sun has lowered in the western sky by the time we reach the turn around near Chinese Camp. It was here in the land of Joaquin Murrieta that the indentured Chinese nationals were stationed when they were called upon to cut their way through the granite mountains of the high Sierras to pave the way for the westward migration. Anyone who has traveled these mountain roads cannot but be awed by their accomplishment. It is comparable to any of the Seven Wonders of the World. To us it brings a startling reality that we are now no more than forty miles from where we began thirty-six hours ago. We might have walked as far. Wiz suggests that we return to Motown just for the look on the faces of friends and family members. I am too driven to take the bait, not completely sure he is joking.
We’ve got to get out of this place.
We begin again the ascent to the high Sierras, Sonora Pass to the Devil’s Gate. The darkness brings a fresh chill as we roll into Sonora, dead tired but not beaten. We pull up at a restaurant on the far side of town. It is surprisingly nice with its white tablecloths, folded linen napkins and spacious dining room. The waitress is about the age of Wiz’s mom. She’s a country music fan and assumes we are the same when we tell her we live in Nashville. We order steak and enjoy the most gratifying meal of our journey. We are no longer in a hurry. We gulp down as much coffee as we can hold and engage the waitress in a discussion of her favorite country music stars. We leave her a healthy tip, including one of Wiz’s CDs, hitting the highway fresh and renewed.
It is late and there is no moon. The sky is without clouds. We crawl to the top of Sonora Pass and there we are compelled to stop. I have been in these mountains a thousand nights but never have I seen a sky so closes and so teeming with stars and shining planets bursting with cosmic energy. It is the sky of a million stars. The power is so immense that it tempts my soul to walk the stairway to heaven. The sky sings to us in a chorus of infinite voices. I know now the wonder of the muses and the graces in perfect harmony. Breathless, mesmerized, enthralled, there are no words. This glorious view is the reason there is music in the universe of humankind. There are no words.
We can’t stay long. We must embrace the moment with all our beings. This image must last a lifetime. Linger too long in this heavenly perfection and we will never return to our earthly stations. We will wonder like blind men in the valley of desolation. We will find no peace or consolation. Linger too long and we will go over the edge. We are ready for such a final destiny. It is not our time. It is a moment of inspiration, not of attainment. Our journey remains before us.
We descend with all the caution and respect the mountain commands. It is the pinnacle of danger yet our spirits are light and free. We have been to the mountaintop and seen the playground of the gods. Now my human drive returns to press on. We come to a fork known as the Devil’s Gate and veer south still on the California side of the Sierras. We enter a strange land where the human spirit is not welcome. It is a land of military installations, one after another without end. It is a land without hope and a land where death reigns. We press onward with the high of Sonora Pass sill fresh in our minds, still holding us in its arms and pushing back despair.
Wiz soon falls asleep. He senses that I will soon need relief at the wheel. At any other time on our journey I would pull over and rest. Driving these mountain roads, twisting and turning and the relentless climb, has sapped my strength and clouded my vision. The road now appears as if in a tunnel, its periphery blurred beyond recognition. There is a fog where there is no fog. There is a cloud on a cloudless horizon.
Finally we turn east and head toward Highway 6 across Nevada. If it were daylight we would be able to see the granite peaks of Tioga Pass. As it is I am too tired to think or to appreciate the irony. Wiz is awakened by the change in direction and senses the disparity between my spirits and the state of my physical being. He takes the wheel and we drive on through the night.
I am unable to sleep or rest. I am beyond fatigue. I am in a state of suspended consciousness where no thoughts or visions outside the moment are allowed. The road now seems heartless, cold and unforgiving. Wiz is driving Sally hard. She seems to be flying as we hit a long series of pronounced undulations in the road. They are too small to be described as hills but too large to be called bumps. Wiz wonders at a strange sound like scraping metal that follows the passing of each rise. He is far-gone. I explain that Sally is hitting bottom on each landing and he slows down. It is an eternity before we reach the state line. We are at last free to exchange our fears of never escaping the grip of California. The high plains are barren and strange but we have finally made it to Nevada. Within a few miles we pull over and fall into a deep, deep sleep.
I dream of dark places where only rattlesnakes, lizards and scorpions thrive, where faces appear and submerge in shades of gray. I am lost and unsettled.
We awake at dawn, the chill of the night still with us in the morning light. It is a bold new world. It is astonishing how radically the land changes on the Nevada side of the Sierras. Each state is so distinctive, their boundaries laid more by nature than by political divide. Nevada is a desolate state, a land of sage and coyotes, a land of crow and vultures on the barren highland plains. Having escaped California we must now traverse the desperate stretch of highway before us.
Our first destiny is Boulder Colorado. Our path will take us through Nevada and Utah. It is something of a mirror image of our westward journey, beginning on Highway 6 and crossing over to the north in St. Louis Missouri. The paths intersect at only one point: Eli Nevada. The town that first appeared to us as an oasis in a land of desperation now appears as a crossroad where the highways converge in all directions. It is a fitting place for a round of golf.
We pay a visit to the local Burger King for coffee and breakfast. The pickup in front of us bizarrely has the number 666 on its license plate. I can’t imagine being so immune to humanity’s obsession with numbers and symbolism that you would be willing to drive a vehicle with the mark of the beast. It is a company truck and a curiosity. Is it an omen, a warning or a sign? We don’t know what to make of it.
An attractive young Hispanic woman at the Burger King is unusually friendly. She notices the instruments in the back of the car and delivers extra sugar and cream with a smile. I admit I enjoy sharing the image of traveling musicians with the Wiz, who suggests facetiously that this might not be such a bad place to settle down. It leads me to wonder what life would be like in a place like this. It leads me to wonder why anyone would choose this place over all the places of beauty we have witnessed on our journey. Heaven is where the heart is and I suppose that even Eli could be heaven with the right person and the right state of mind. Still, I can think of no attraction but the promise of employment.
There is a convention of golfers at a large local motel. The sign out front reads: Welcome Golfers! That is a sign we know what to do with. We stop for gas and Wiz opens the hood to give the engine a quick check. He finds a problem. The bolt that holds the alternator in place is broken. Left unattended it will drain the battery and leave us stranded by the roadside. It is only a matter of when. The man at the station is unable to deal with it and gives us directions to a shop on the outside of town. We decide to let it ride for now. It is early in the day so there is plenty of time.
We look up the local golf course and sign on for nine holes. It is a flat course with few trees and the ground is nearly as hard as stone off its grass fairways. We hit a bucket of balls on the practice range and I begin to realize how weary I am. This will be a round about balance, the first principle of Zen golf.
We play well on a course that is as simple and uninspired as a landfill. The holes are so similar that we get lost in the middle of the round and tee off on the wrong hole. It is not until we are walking to our balls that we realize we have played this hole before. Ironically, it is my best drive of the day, a scorching 300 yards down the right side of the fairway. No matter that it is lost on the scorecard, we right our selves and allow a twosome to play through. They appear to be businessmen, one of whom is a very large man with an extra long, graphite shaft driver with an oversized head. It is designed for maximum distance. I admit I find these new drivers bothersome. I understand the role of technology in golf. I have no real desire to go back to the days of wooden shafts, the knobby and the baffle but there is something unsavory about a club that allows a man to simulate the power of a professional golfer. They do not encourage the beauty of the swing. The extended shaft forces a flat trajectory that generally carries a hitch in the backswing. It is an ugly swing and the golfer who gets caught up in the power game will soon be lost.
The large man hits a solid drive down the middle and struts off with a satisfied grin, without a word in response to our compliments. He has demonstrated his superior manhood. I answer in their wake with a rocket down the middle. They look back with a silent acknowledgement: It is not the club so much as the golfer. The skinny guy with a persimmons wood has out-driven the beast. My momentary flirtation with the power game as well as a competitive challenge has a predictable impact. I have forgotten the day’s lesson and the principle of balance, focus, and finding the center. We finish the round, grinding against the wind and head out once again for the highway.
It is close to five o’clock and we decide to check out the shop outside of town for repair work. As before, Wiz takes the lead. He is teaching me a lot about making connections with people of all kinds. When dealing with mechanics it is advantageous to have a background of knowledge and a working vocabulary. He never begins with business. He makes small talk as if he only stopped here for a little human interaction. The manager explains that this is the first day in some time that the wind had settled down. He talks on about the Midwest where a relentless storm has overloaded the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers to record depths. Here in Eli the winds whip the dry land into a dust bowl.
It is closing time and the manager passes on an offer to go golfing. Wiz inquires about a good course and the manager is familiar with one. It is clear he has taken a liking to Wiz. He asks a mechanic if he’d be willing to put in some overtime to help us out and the mechanic agrees. Turns out it’s a tricky job but the man is up to it. It takes about a half an hour and the charge is very reasonable. Wiz leaves a couple of CD’s and all is well.
We head out across Utah with its towering rock monuments. They resemble Stonehenge or some ancient carvings. Utah has no particular attraction to us. We drive straight through and watch the land undergo changes in texture, in color and feel. We observe the appearance of crows in groups of five and seven. It seems they have mastered this territory and seem to rule over it. It is a place for silent contemplation, communion with the spirit world and oneness with the earth.
We reach Colorado by nightfall and drive on to Glenwood Springs. There we give up the push to reach Boulder and settle in for the night. We check in to a motel, shower and shake the road from our bones. For the first time in weeks it seems we have a little time to kill. I watch a little baseball on TV. The Giants are in first in their division. The other division leaders are Philadelphia, Toronto and the White Sox. The Yanks and the Rangers are hanging tough. Baseball is a game I love as much as I do golf. I sometimes wonder how far I might have gone if my path led in that direction. I suppose I could never have hit the curveball.
I have a surge of energy and suggest we hit the streets. Wiz is reluctant but agrees at my urging. We stop at the liquor store down the road and pick up a fifth of brandy, a couple of ales and two samplers of Mescal con Dos Gusanos. Somewhere we will consume the worms. We check out a place that advertises live music but there is none to be found. Nothing is happening in this town. We take it as a sign. We don’t need action enough to go looking for it. We have dinner at a 24-hour restaurant, head back to the motel, click on the tube and try to make a dent in our fresh stash of booze. One hit of brandy, half an ale and we’re both out for the night. The spirit is willing but the body is in need of rest. So be it.
We are awakened in the morning by a knock at the door. It startles us. Our plans for an early start are gone. It’s closing in on half past ten and the maid wants to finish her rounds. We plead for time and she gives us a little. We are not in a mood to hurry. We click the tube back on and go through our morning routines, which include my running over to the office for coffee, doughnuts and a newspaper. When I return a movie called Buffy the Vampire Slayer is playing. It’s a kick in the ass. Wiz rearranges the packing in Sally while we extend our stay beyond checkout time. The maid will have to wait. Buffy has captured our attention and we stay to the finish, Paul Ruben’s death scene milked to the hilt. We burst into fits of laughter. It’s a great feeling.
Whatever divinity rules over us, it is smiling upon us today. It’s a great day for driving, for sitting in the sun, for laughing and playing music, for singing or just being alive. We are last car to leave the lot. The maid gives a smile. She thinks we must be high. We have a good breakfast and hit the road, bound for glory and a place called Boulder in the shadow of the Great Rocky Mountains.
Beyond Grand Junction there is a stretch of highway that extols the meeting of the Rockies and the Colorado River. To the first roaming tribes of North American hunters or the first European explorers this land must have seemed a Mecca, the promised land, the land of the gods and goddesses, a landed of blessed enchantment. Now it is a tourist Mecca. The smell of avarice is rich and bittersweet like pure natural chocolate. Vail is down the road and Aspen is due south. Somewhere around Grand Junction the highway is under construction and the remains of deer and wildlife are common along the side of the road. There is a sign warning that the eagle lands on this strip of highway. I wonder what in god’s creation would lead the great bird of the North American continent to land on a busy interstate? Is this their sacred land? Is it a protest of human encroachment? It occurs to me that tourism is to the natural inhabitants of the land what the invasion of the Jesuits was to the Native Americans. Though it promises the blessings of prosperity what it brings is ruin. In the end nothing will be spared the onslaught.
We resist the temptation to mingle with the wealthy, driving past the first roadside golf course, beautifully manicured and fitted at the base of the Rockies in this narrow interstate valley. I confide to Wiz that I know their kind and I know they don’t want our kind around. He is not convinced. We approach a second course and my resistance weakens. Wiz wants to check it out. What have we got to lose? I have to admit he’s right so we pull off the highway and enter tourist land. It is a maze of social activity. Summer vacation condos are the center of it all with a bar at its base overlooking the golf course. Outside the yuppie adolescents are playing mud volleyball to the tune of rock and roll. There is something very odd and almost humorous about this crowd’s willingness to get down and dirty. Some are less adapted than others. They take the pose and look the part but are willing to go no further than a step in any direction. Their less restrained comrades are in it from head to toe, the mud people of Gypsum.
They are of the same make as we are. The only thing that separates us from them is their parents’ bank accounts. We are of the working class and there is no mistaking their fear of us. They believe we want what they have. We do not. We desire something of far greater worth. We want what they desire and what money cannot attain. We want freedom, peace and wisdom. We have more in common than they realize.
Or first stop is the driving range where a lesson is in progress. They may be among the worst golfers I have seen. The lesson is the antithesis of Zen. It is all nuts and bolts. Keep the left arm straight, right elbow in, shoulder under the chin, head down. It is the golf of restraint. Avoid errors and all will be well. A left hander stands apart from the crowd and strikes a contrast, sending shots that rise and soar like a glider and land like a ball of cotton. He is a Zen golfer. They take no notice of him. He is not one of them but he is adapted to their presence. It is a private lesson. We are given directions to the clubhouse.
We arrive and I know at a glance the cost will exceed our comfort level. It smells of it. We engage a uniformed employee outside the clubhouse in conversation. It is her job to take care of the carts and customers. Se gives us the information we need. The tee times are booked and the price is high but it includes mandatory carts. Walking is not allowed. We politely explain our conviction that walking is a part of the game. She’s sure we’re right but she is not a golfer.
It seems clear that this is not our kind of place. We hang a while, have a beer and observe the yuppie gathering. It is not our kind of place. We return to Sally and give her a crank but she stutters and stalls. At length Wiz pulls the air filter and she struggles but turns over. It turns out the combination of thin air and low octane gas has deprived her of required oxygen. She is choking. I promise her a jump in octane at the first opportunity and we go our way with a vague longing to return to where we belong. We need to be welcome. We seek a place with familiar signs and warm memories and a place that feels something like home. We want to be surrounded by our kind of people.
It is a course I have walked once and never will again. The grade is too steep and the beauty far too great for labor. The golf at Pine Mountain has long since given way to the country club. The privatization of such places of beauty is a process that began at the peak of golf’s popularity. It will run its course but probably not here in my lifetime. I’ve never felt comfortable in the company of the privileged class and they’ve never seemed comfortable in mine. People are people so I suppose it is a failing I must some day learn to conquer.
The sun has lowered in the western sky by the time we reach the turn around near Chinese Camp. It was here in the land of Joaquin Murrieta that the indentured Chinese nationals were stationed when they were called upon to cut their way through the granite mountains of the high Sierras to pave the way for the westward migration. Anyone who has traveled these mountain roads cannot but be awed by their accomplishment. It is comparable to any of the Seven Wonders of the World. To us it brings a startling reality that we are now no more than forty miles from where we began thirty-six hours ago. We might have walked as far. Wiz suggests that we return to Motown just for the look on the faces of friends and family members. I am too driven to take the bait, not completely sure he is joking.
We’ve got to get out of this place.
We begin again the ascent to the high Sierras, Sonora Pass to the Devil’s Gate. The darkness brings a fresh chill as we roll into Sonora, dead tired but not beaten. We pull up at a restaurant on the far side of town. It is surprisingly nice with its white tablecloths, folded linen napkins and spacious dining room. The waitress is about the age of Wiz’s mom. She’s a country music fan and assumes we are the same when we tell her we live in Nashville. We order steak and enjoy the most gratifying meal of our journey. We are no longer in a hurry. We gulp down as much coffee as we can hold and engage the waitress in a discussion of her favorite country music stars. We leave her a healthy tip, including one of Wiz’s CDs, hitting the highway fresh and renewed.
It is late and there is no moon. The sky is without clouds. We crawl to the top of Sonora Pass and there we are compelled to stop. I have been in these mountains a thousand nights but never have I seen a sky so closes and so teeming with stars and shining planets bursting with cosmic energy. It is the sky of a million stars. The power is so immense that it tempts my soul to walk the stairway to heaven. The sky sings to us in a chorus of infinite voices. I know now the wonder of the muses and the graces in perfect harmony. Breathless, mesmerized, enthralled, there are no words. This glorious view is the reason there is music in the universe of humankind. There are no words.
We can’t stay long. We must embrace the moment with all our beings. This image must last a lifetime. Linger too long in this heavenly perfection and we will never return to our earthly stations. We will wonder like blind men in the valley of desolation. We will find no peace or consolation. Linger too long and we will go over the edge. We are ready for such a final destiny. It is not our time. It is a moment of inspiration, not of attainment. Our journey remains before us.
We descend with all the caution and respect the mountain commands. It is the pinnacle of danger yet our spirits are light and free. We have been to the mountaintop and seen the playground of the gods. Now my human drive returns to press on. We come to a fork known as the Devil’s Gate and veer south still on the California side of the Sierras. We enter a strange land where the human spirit is not welcome. It is a land of military installations, one after another without end. It is a land without hope and a land where death reigns. We press onward with the high of Sonora Pass sill fresh in our minds, still holding us in its arms and pushing back despair.
Wiz soon falls asleep. He senses that I will soon need relief at the wheel. At any other time on our journey I would pull over and rest. Driving these mountain roads, twisting and turning and the relentless climb, has sapped my strength and clouded my vision. The road now appears as if in a tunnel, its periphery blurred beyond recognition. There is a fog where there is no fog. There is a cloud on a cloudless horizon.
Finally we turn east and head toward Highway 6 across Nevada. If it were daylight we would be able to see the granite peaks of Tioga Pass. As it is I am too tired to think or to appreciate the irony. Wiz is awakened by the change in direction and senses the disparity between my spirits and the state of my physical being. He takes the wheel and we drive on through the night.
I am unable to sleep or rest. I am beyond fatigue. I am in a state of suspended consciousness where no thoughts or visions outside the moment are allowed. The road now seems heartless, cold and unforgiving. Wiz is driving Sally hard. She seems to be flying as we hit a long series of pronounced undulations in the road. They are too small to be described as hills but too large to be called bumps. Wiz wonders at a strange sound like scraping metal that follows the passing of each rise. He is far-gone. I explain that Sally is hitting bottom on each landing and he slows down. It is an eternity before we reach the state line. We are at last free to exchange our fears of never escaping the grip of California. The high plains are barren and strange but we have finally made it to Nevada. Within a few miles we pull over and fall into a deep, deep sleep.
I dream of dark places where only rattlesnakes, lizards and scorpions thrive, where faces appear and submerge in shades of gray. I am lost and unsettled.
We awake at dawn, the chill of the night still with us in the morning light. It is a bold new world. It is astonishing how radically the land changes on the Nevada side of the Sierras. Each state is so distinctive, their boundaries laid more by nature than by political divide. Nevada is a desolate state, a land of sage and coyotes, a land of crow and vultures on the barren highland plains. Having escaped California we must now traverse the desperate stretch of highway before us.
Our first destiny is Boulder Colorado. Our path will take us through Nevada and Utah. It is something of a mirror image of our westward journey, beginning on Highway 6 and crossing over to the north in St. Louis Missouri. The paths intersect at only one point: Eli Nevada. The town that first appeared to us as an oasis in a land of desperation now appears as a crossroad where the highways converge in all directions. It is a fitting place for a round of golf.
We pay a visit to the local Burger King for coffee and breakfast. The pickup in front of us bizarrely has the number 666 on its license plate. I can’t imagine being so immune to humanity’s obsession with numbers and symbolism that you would be willing to drive a vehicle with the mark of the beast. It is a company truck and a curiosity. Is it an omen, a warning or a sign? We don’t know what to make of it.
An attractive young Hispanic woman at the Burger King is unusually friendly. She notices the instruments in the back of the car and delivers extra sugar and cream with a smile. I admit I enjoy sharing the image of traveling musicians with the Wiz, who suggests facetiously that this might not be such a bad place to settle down. It leads me to wonder what life would be like in a place like this. It leads me to wonder why anyone would choose this place over all the places of beauty we have witnessed on our journey. Heaven is where the heart is and I suppose that even Eli could be heaven with the right person and the right state of mind. Still, I can think of no attraction but the promise of employment.
There is a convention of golfers at a large local motel. The sign out front reads: Welcome Golfers! That is a sign we know what to do with. We stop for gas and Wiz opens the hood to give the engine a quick check. He finds a problem. The bolt that holds the alternator in place is broken. Left unattended it will drain the battery and leave us stranded by the roadside. It is only a matter of when. The man at the station is unable to deal with it and gives us directions to a shop on the outside of town. We decide to let it ride for now. It is early in the day so there is plenty of time.
We look up the local golf course and sign on for nine holes. It is a flat course with few trees and the ground is nearly as hard as stone off its grass fairways. We hit a bucket of balls on the practice range and I begin to realize how weary I am. This will be a round about balance, the first principle of Zen golf.
We play well on a course that is as simple and uninspired as a landfill. The holes are so similar that we get lost in the middle of the round and tee off on the wrong hole. It is not until we are walking to our balls that we realize we have played this hole before. Ironically, it is my best drive of the day, a scorching 300 yards down the right side of the fairway. No matter that it is lost on the scorecard, we right our selves and allow a twosome to play through. They appear to be businessmen, one of whom is a very large man with an extra long, graphite shaft driver with an oversized head. It is designed for maximum distance. I admit I find these new drivers bothersome. I understand the role of technology in golf. I have no real desire to go back to the days of wooden shafts, the knobby and the baffle but there is something unsavory about a club that allows a man to simulate the power of a professional golfer. They do not encourage the beauty of the swing. The extended shaft forces a flat trajectory that generally carries a hitch in the backswing. It is an ugly swing and the golfer who gets caught up in the power game will soon be lost.
The large man hits a solid drive down the middle and struts off with a satisfied grin, without a word in response to our compliments. He has demonstrated his superior manhood. I answer in their wake with a rocket down the middle. They look back with a silent acknowledgement: It is not the club so much as the golfer. The skinny guy with a persimmons wood has out-driven the beast. My momentary flirtation with the power game as well as a competitive challenge has a predictable impact. I have forgotten the day’s lesson and the principle of balance, focus, and finding the center. We finish the round, grinding against the wind and head out once again for the highway.
It is close to five o’clock and we decide to check out the shop outside of town for repair work. As before, Wiz takes the lead. He is teaching me a lot about making connections with people of all kinds. When dealing with mechanics it is advantageous to have a background of knowledge and a working vocabulary. He never begins with business. He makes small talk as if he only stopped here for a little human interaction. The manager explains that this is the first day in some time that the wind had settled down. He talks on about the Midwest where a relentless storm has overloaded the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers to record depths. Here in Eli the winds whip the dry land into a dust bowl.
It is closing time and the manager passes on an offer to go golfing. Wiz inquires about a good course and the manager is familiar with one. It is clear he has taken a liking to Wiz. He asks a mechanic if he’d be willing to put in some overtime to help us out and the mechanic agrees. Turns out it’s a tricky job but the man is up to it. It takes about a half an hour and the charge is very reasonable. Wiz leaves a couple of CD’s and all is well.
We head out across Utah with its towering rock monuments. They resemble Stonehenge or some ancient carvings. Utah has no particular attraction to us. We drive straight through and watch the land undergo changes in texture, in color and feel. We observe the appearance of crows in groups of five and seven. It seems they have mastered this territory and seem to rule over it. It is a place for silent contemplation, communion with the spirit world and oneness with the earth.
We reach Colorado by nightfall and drive on to Glenwood Springs. There we give up the push to reach Boulder and settle in for the night. We check in to a motel, shower and shake the road from our bones. For the first time in weeks it seems we have a little time to kill. I watch a little baseball on TV. The Giants are in first in their division. The other division leaders are Philadelphia, Toronto and the White Sox. The Yanks and the Rangers are hanging tough. Baseball is a game I love as much as I do golf. I sometimes wonder how far I might have gone if my path led in that direction. I suppose I could never have hit the curveball.
I have a surge of energy and suggest we hit the streets. Wiz is reluctant but agrees at my urging. We stop at the liquor store down the road and pick up a fifth of brandy, a couple of ales and two samplers of Mescal con Dos Gusanos. Somewhere we will consume the worms. We check out a place that advertises live music but there is none to be found. Nothing is happening in this town. We take it as a sign. We don’t need action enough to go looking for it. We have dinner at a 24-hour restaurant, head back to the motel, click on the tube and try to make a dent in our fresh stash of booze. One hit of brandy, half an ale and we’re both out for the night. The spirit is willing but the body is in need of rest. So be it.
We are awakened in the morning by a knock at the door. It startles us. Our plans for an early start are gone. It’s closing in on half past ten and the maid wants to finish her rounds. We plead for time and she gives us a little. We are not in a mood to hurry. We click the tube back on and go through our morning routines, which include my running over to the office for coffee, doughnuts and a newspaper. When I return a movie called Buffy the Vampire Slayer is playing. It’s a kick in the ass. Wiz rearranges the packing in Sally while we extend our stay beyond checkout time. The maid will have to wait. Buffy has captured our attention and we stay to the finish, Paul Ruben’s death scene milked to the hilt. We burst into fits of laughter. It’s a great feeling.
Whatever divinity rules over us, it is smiling upon us today. It’s a great day for driving, for sitting in the sun, for laughing and playing music, for singing or just being alive. We are last car to leave the lot. The maid gives a smile. She thinks we must be high. We have a good breakfast and hit the road, bound for glory and a place called Boulder in the shadow of the Great Rocky Mountains.
Beyond Grand Junction there is a stretch of highway that extols the meeting of the Rockies and the Colorado River. To the first roaming tribes of North American hunters or the first European explorers this land must have seemed a Mecca, the promised land, the land of the gods and goddesses, a landed of blessed enchantment. Now it is a tourist Mecca. The smell of avarice is rich and bittersweet like pure natural chocolate. Vail is down the road and Aspen is due south. Somewhere around Grand Junction the highway is under construction and the remains of deer and wildlife are common along the side of the road. There is a sign warning that the eagle lands on this strip of highway. I wonder what in god’s creation would lead the great bird of the North American continent to land on a busy interstate? Is this their sacred land? Is it a protest of human encroachment? It occurs to me that tourism is to the natural inhabitants of the land what the invasion of the Jesuits was to the Native Americans. Though it promises the blessings of prosperity what it brings is ruin. In the end nothing will be spared the onslaught.
We resist the temptation to mingle with the wealthy, driving past the first roadside golf course, beautifully manicured and fitted at the base of the Rockies in this narrow interstate valley. I confide to Wiz that I know their kind and I know they don’t want our kind around. He is not convinced. We approach a second course and my resistance weakens. Wiz wants to check it out. What have we got to lose? I have to admit he’s right so we pull off the highway and enter tourist land. It is a maze of social activity. Summer vacation condos are the center of it all with a bar at its base overlooking the golf course. Outside the yuppie adolescents are playing mud volleyball to the tune of rock and roll. There is something very odd and almost humorous about this crowd’s willingness to get down and dirty. Some are less adapted than others. They take the pose and look the part but are willing to go no further than a step in any direction. Their less restrained comrades are in it from head to toe, the mud people of Gypsum.
They are of the same make as we are. The only thing that separates us from them is their parents’ bank accounts. We are of the working class and there is no mistaking their fear of us. They believe we want what they have. We do not. We desire something of far greater worth. We want what they desire and what money cannot attain. We want freedom, peace and wisdom. We have more in common than they realize.
Or first stop is the driving range where a lesson is in progress. They may be among the worst golfers I have seen. The lesson is the antithesis of Zen. It is all nuts and bolts. Keep the left arm straight, right elbow in, shoulder under the chin, head down. It is the golf of restraint. Avoid errors and all will be well. A left hander stands apart from the crowd and strikes a contrast, sending shots that rise and soar like a glider and land like a ball of cotton. He is a Zen golfer. They take no notice of him. He is not one of them but he is adapted to their presence. It is a private lesson. We are given directions to the clubhouse.
We arrive and I know at a glance the cost will exceed our comfort level. It smells of it. We engage a uniformed employee outside the clubhouse in conversation. It is her job to take care of the carts and customers. Se gives us the information we need. The tee times are booked and the price is high but it includes mandatory carts. Walking is not allowed. We politely explain our conviction that walking is a part of the game. She’s sure we’re right but she is not a golfer.
It seems clear that this is not our kind of place. We hang a while, have a beer and observe the yuppie gathering. It is not our kind of place. We return to Sally and give her a crank but she stutters and stalls. At length Wiz pulls the air filter and she struggles but turns over. It turns out the combination of thin air and low octane gas has deprived her of required oxygen. She is choking. I promise her a jump in octane at the first opportunity and we go our way with a vague longing to return to where we belong. We need to be welcome. We seek a place with familiar signs and warm memories and a place that feels something like home. We want to be surrounded by our kind of people.
GRAND CANYON: BOULDER, COLORADO
The last time I came through Boulder I was eighteen, a draft fugitive and traveling by thumb. Had I known my draft status at the time I might not have enjoyed it so much. I’d just completed my first season of summer theater and linked up with a fellow actor who was returning to his home in York, Pennsylvania, on Chesapeake Bay.
We’d lost a loved one that memorable summer. She was stage-managing our production of Man of La Mancha when she walked out of the theater and was struck by a speeding car. She never regained consciousness. I still remember the smile she wore that fateful day. The charm and love of live she personified filled my soul with a warm and tender feeling that I did not completely understand. She possessed the beauty of innocence. My friend had dated her while I had only dreamed. We both mourned her passing. It was my first encounter with the shadow of death.
My buddy Jay had hitchhiked across country a few times. For some reason he despised the southern route with a passion. Having seen Easy Rider I never asked why. Though the summer was coming to an end and the fall was coming on, we took the northern route across interstate 80 through Reno, Winnemucca, Salt Lake City, Cheyenne, Omaha, Chicago and Cleveland. Our first night out we were stranded for seventeen hours on the exit ramp for Mustang Ranch just east of Reno. Some fool or sadistic bastard picked us up in Reno and dumped us there. He invited us in but we didn’t have that kind of cash so we waited alongside the narrow two-lane highway until we finally realized that no one was going to pick up a couple of guys outside a whorehouse. We decided to walk. The problem was he wanted to walk back toward Reno and I wanted to go forward. It was something I felt by instinct and retain today: Never turn back. The adventure lies ahead.
We started out walking our separate ways, a sizeable chip on both our shoulders, when he finally relented and caught up to me. Within half an hour a trucker picked us up. In those days that alone was something of a miracle. There was a hierarchy of expectations when it came to getting a ride: Volkswagen busses were top of the mark; big-rig trucks were rock bottom. It was against company policy. In all my days of hitching that was only time a trucker ever offered a ride.
He let us off in Winnemucca where we spent a long while reading the notes of desperation scribbled and scratched on the road sign. We were more fortunate than the scribes. A guy with a camper shell on the back of his pickup asked us if either of us could drive a standard transmission. He was headed for Ohio and wanted us to take the wheel. We told him we could, no problem. He rode a while and then we pulled over so he could climb in the camper and sleep. We got off the interstate and sailed down the highway at an average speed between sixty-five and seventy, sleeping in shifts. I was driving when we were forced to pass up a couple of fellow hitchers in the Cowboy State of Wyoming. We could see their spirits rise as the checked us out. We were brethren spirits but all we could do was shrug and gesture as they waved frantically and threw their signs and bags in the road as we drove on by. It seems they’d been there a while.
Like the stalled travelers on the loneliest road in America, the experience left me weak and pondering. We should have stopped but it wasn’t our place. More than likely we’d have joined them in despair when our sleeping proprietor awoke. Who can tell what might have been? It was a crossroad and we made our choice.
We crossed the Mississippi River at night and made it to Chesapeake Bay the next day. The entire crossing took only two and a half days, including the long wait at Mustang Ranch. I spent a week at Jay’s parents home. He was their only child and they were grateful for his return. I was treated as a valued member of the family. I remember clearly the most prized possession of their home: A framed photograph of Jay’s father with John Wayne, both in navy uniforms, on the mantel of their fireplace. They were working class people with basic values and a wandering son they did not understand. I connected with them and respected their ways though I was only a passing stranger.
It was not my place and they were not my people.
I headed north to New Hampshire where I fell in love with autumn. Colors more beautiful than any I have seen outside the realm of imagining. Hills covered with trees and trees covered with leaves of every color. Colors blending harmoniously in a way that reminded me of the French Impressionists. I spent two weeks communing with nature, staying at the college living quarters of a woman I had known since grade school though we had never shared time outside the classroom. I felt like Thoreau must have felt at Walden. As the northern chill set in, I left with a promise to myself that I would someday return. Twenty-two years later, though I have not kept that promise, I have returned often in my mind and in my heart.
On the return journey I was invited to join a theater company in Lincoln, Nebraska, but the strings that tied me to home were too powerful. I held an invitation to audition at the famed Guthrie Theater in Minnesota but the road was too long and cold. I moved on and fell in love with a place called Boulder where the people were open and kind to wandering strangers and seemed enlightened to young adventurous eyes. I spent only a day and a night there, sleeping in the dormitory lounge at the University of Colorado but I left its mark.
I returned home to Motown, kicking up my heels alongside the road to the amusement of passersby and discovered that I was already a month late in reporting for my physical to be drafted into the military. I had written a radical application for conscientious objector status, believing that it would not be approved in any case because my family was not the church going kind. My oldest brother had already distinguished himself in the family’s eyes by refusing to step forward at the induction ceremony. He was a convicted draft resister. I had read a book called 4F and decided my best shot was to starve myself so that I would be under the standard weight requirement. I had done so.
When I reported to the center they instructed us all to hold our clothing in our hands as we were weighed. I could not be sure if that was the usual procedure but it put me just over the limit. It was as if they knew who I was and what I intended. In the infamous bend-over room I heard a doctor comment that I was awfully skinny. Someone replied that I was above the guideline. When it was all over we were assembled in a holding room where we waited until our names were called for a final conference. I was the last to be called though all the others were in alphabetical order. I entered a smaller room and the man in charge called all of his associates into the room. I was clearly being given special attention. I was naïve enough that I did not know why I was being singled out.
“Look at this guy,” the man in charge began. “Does he look like he could make it through basic training?”
“Depends how much he wants it,” another said.
“He doesn’t want it,” said a third.
I nodded in agreement and looked around the room. They seemed to be enjoying this interplay. Finally, the man in charge confides:
“Alright, you may get a 1-A in the mail but don’t worry. You won’t be inducted.”
I don’t know why but I believed him. Maybe they figured I’d be more trouble than I was worth. Maybe they figured I really was a conscientious objector. Maybe they knew that Nixon was about to call off the draft. Or maybe they were just playing with me. I do know that I would not have gone under any circumstances and as it turned out I was never called. In some strange way I almost resented it. I wanted to take a stand. I wanted to join the army of resistance but it was not my destiny. That distinction would belong to my brother John and I will forever honor him for it.
That was my first journey. It was filled with wonders and its many crossroads had the power to change the course of my life. That I made the choices I did has led me to the place I now stand. I have returned to a place of beauty and one that has lived only in my memories for over two decades.
We drive into town, our separate memories preoccupying our minds in silence. Wiz has more recent memories and we follow his lead. We stop at a gas station near the university and I press the clerk about what’s happening in town while Wiz attends to Sally. The clerk knows nothing about golf. She doesn’t know about the Colorado Shakespeare Festival where I once applied for a position. She doesn’t know about jazz clubs. But when I ask about the poetry scene her eyes light up. She tells me where it’s happening and when. She says the Allen Ginsberg is in town, teaching a class at the Institute. Wiz locates the nearest public course through the phone book and our plan takes form. First we will golf in the shadow of the Rockies, then we will explore jazz poetry on the streets of Boulder and finally we will check out the scene at the poetry café the clerk has recommended.
The golf course is striking, more for its surroundings than for its layout. It is the new breed of course, a centerpiece for a housing development. It is long, well contoured and beautifully manicured. The greens are smooth, slick and sloping. We’re paired with an older couple, good and solid people. The man uses an iron off the tee and rarely sends it airborne. We later learn he is recovering from back surgery. His wife is a beginning golfer but she has a better swing than her husband. With a little guidance (hit down to go up) they could both be good golfers. As it is they enjoy the round despite their games.
The Wiz and I are playing our normal games. We are having a little difficulty with the read and the speed of the greens. On the sixth hole, out of the blue, I nail a three wood off the tee and stiff an eight iron to within ten feet of the pin. My putt is true to the center of the cup. I look up with a smile and immediately recall from the expression on Wiz’s face the bargain we struck back in Glenwood Springs. After the next birdie we swallow the worm! Only in this case, we swallow two worms each: Dos Gusanos.
We have placed our mescal samplers in our golf bags in preparation for this occasion. We tee off on the next hole, a three par to an elevated green and linger at the tee to allow our playing partners to move ahead. We are all but certain they would not approve. We whip them out quickly and put them down, mine in one swallow, the Wiz in two. I am amazed at how well I play under the influence of the worm. The world opens before my eyes. Don Juan, howling in the breeze, hovers over my shoulder. Suddenly our partners, unaware of our adventure, are like family to us. On the ninth hole we share stories and confidences and part with a heartfelt well wishing.
Boulder is a magical place. Our spirits are soaring as we head downtown, primed for jazz, laughter, music and poetry. Wiz points us to the square at the beginning of the pedestrian walk where neither cars nor bad tidings are allowed. We find a place to park and walk to the street where the scene is unfolding. There on the corner we come upon a couple of bongo players and a gypsy dancer. Within a sliver of a moment I know her. I have always known her. She is the dream I have always dreamed. She is the love I have always held within my heart. She is the queen of the gypsies. She is the woman I fell in love with a thousand years ago in a house of mystery. She is the woman I followed to Nashville.
I pull out my pen and begin writing, looking up only to take in the inspiration that comes with each breath. Wiz joins the musical feast, charging the dance of the gypsy with fresh muse like the first star of a clear moonless night, like the first scent of evergreen, like the first taste of ocean air, like the first glimpse of Grand Canyon. The enchanted circle grows. The words flow faster than I am able to write them down. I capture and hold them. They are as illusive as a gypsy’s love.
The music fades to silence. The mood is satisfaction. The dance gives way to the dream of glory and yields to waking motion. The players converse as actors do between scenes at rehearsal. They shake hands with Wiz. He has passed the audition. My words finally run dry as if the motion itself carried them and when the motion ceased the words emptied in its wake. I join the player circle on the corner of the square and Wiz introduces me. He tells them I am a poet of the streets and suggests that I join them in revelry. It seems to cause a split.
One of the percussionists is reluctant and skeptical which he communicates with a scowl and a sarcastic wit. He doesn’t want to share the stage. The gypsy dancer has already encroached on their territory and stolen his thunder as gypsies are inclined to do. He has not conceded to welcome Wiz with his magic flute yet already he is being asked to make room for a street poet. It is an art form he does not recognize.
I can only be amused. I have had some difficulty accepting the art of poetry myself. I have no need to recite my words on the streets. I am satisfied to have committed them to paper.
The other man is wiser. He strikes a contrasting chord with a smile that spreads good tidings to match the mood of celebration. He welcomes all artists of the street. He has recognized the enchantment of the moment and answers with a recitation of a poem he has committed to memory. It is a piece by Blake as I recall. The words rise and hang in the air like a lingering melody of strings. It is inviting and yet foreboding. It is the standard by which my words will be judged. I smile and understand. I like his style and manner. I have as yet made no decision: to read or not to read.
The next round of music and dance begins. I imagine myself a surfer waiting to catch a wave. It must be the right wave. Just as each wave requires a different style of surfing, each rhythm calls for its own style of word jazz. I don’t do country or folk, rock and roll or Irish jigs. Give me jazz or space jam.
I wait and listen but mostly I watch the dancer and the dance. Her eyes are mystical and divine forces guide her movement. Finally the spirit moves within and I spot a wave I can ride.
The karmic debt is mounting with each tick of the karmic clock
With each breath of unholy air each thump of collective shock…
The rhythm and the movement accelerates and transitions like the wind before a storm, carrying me like a dream of mystic flight among the clouds of a starlit night.
Speak no more of troubled times and days of mourning
And dawns of no tomorrow
Hear no more the winds of darkness unloading tears of sorrow
Heaven lives upon this earth what more could heaven be?
Hell is a room without doors in heaven we are free
Free to choose the darkness or the light
Free to love or hate and choose the battle we will fight
My love is my heaven here and now
Speak no more of bring me down and suffer me your truth
I love therefore I am the truth and love is my master
The dancer moves to a higher plain and touches me at the core and center of my being, like the hand of a goddess. I am moved beyond words but offer up the only gratitude I have to give: my words, my poetry.
Esmeralda on the Streets of Boulder
Spinning with the core and center of life
Her eyes dancing with fire rage desire
Her soul tempting ecstasy
Forces of an ancient peyote wind howl
Move this precious jewel beyond words
Beyond passion beyond the edge of reason
The body as an instrument of faith finely tuned
To raise the lightning rod that dwells
Within the secret soul of self
Blast me with the fuel or your undaunted devotion pure
And unpolluted by the hand of social righteousness
Fear not the wagging tongues and bulging eyes of those
Who cannot walk the streets with open shirts and hearts
You are the wind the blessed child of mother earth
The chosen of the nameless flock who follow their noses
To the maze of mindless wonder and dumbstruck awe
To settle in the circle of their own waste
Content and comfortably numb
You are the object of their desires
They dream of you and pray to meet you in another life
Dance and let the masses dream
Sweet nectar of life be yours and mine
And ours to embrace
What are words to their inspiration when the inspiration is itself inspired? They linger and hesitate as if awaiting her sacred blessing. They rise like smoke and scatter with the first breeze. They have hit their mark. They have spoken to the moment with honesty and truth. They recall the essence of the oral tradition. This is the method of the troubadour and the street poet, immediate and engaging, inspired by the unfolding of events. What greater tribute to the gift of a gypsy dancer than this?
Alas she speaks. More gratifying than eloquence, more pleasing than poetry, as if awakening from a dream, in an airy distant voice, she solves the moment’s mystery: Wow, that’s beautiful! Sweet satisfaction is mine. Sweet love of innocence is born again. Her simple words have filled my heart with joy. I have paid tribute to her grace and she has embraced my song of praise.
Her name is Rain Forest. From this time forward she will also answer to the name Esmeralda. She asks if she may have my words and stops me as I start to tear the page from my notebook. She borrows my pen and copies them in her own hand. She asks me how I pronounce Esmeralda. I do so and explain it is from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. It is one of her favorite stories along with Cyrano de Bergerac. She is a romantic and so am I. We are pleased there are still some of us left in this world. We do not speak of ordinary things, our lives and our living. We know enough already. When we shake hands there is an electrical charge that seals our bond forever.
If it is true that our lives are built on prior lives then I have surely known her in another existence. Maybe I was Cyrano to her Roxanne. Maybe I was the poet suitor never to win the love of Esmeralda. There are far stranger things in this world than our dreams allow. Tonight was her debut on the streets of Boulder. Her legend is born.
She thanks me for the poem and I thank her for the inspiration. She thanks me again in the poetry of dance. This time she dances for me. My eyes are riveted to her untrained body in flowing, writhing, floating and sensual motion. She has tapped an ancient muse. She has transformed her perfect body into universal spirit. When her eyes meet mine there is a pull of energy so strong it renders me helpless. I am grateful to be sitting. Were I standing, her power would surely knock me to the ground, leaving me breathless at her command.
The time comes for her to move on, like a mermaid in an ocean mist, vanishing into the streets of Boulder. She has a return date with the wiser of the bongo players. The other has departed. I wish her well and watch her turn and walk away. She does not look back. It is unlikely we will ever see each other again but her image is burned into my consciousness. The moment is perfect and eternal.
Wiz and I linger, enjoying the company of strangers and basking in the afterglow. They play a little longer. My words are spent for now but my spirit is renewed. We make a clean break and wander down the pedestrian walkway, Wiz playing as we go, polishing his chops on a silver flute.
Everywhere we go he is greeted with smiles and compliments. They offer money, ask him to stay and play, and thank him for a moment of surreal enchantment. The Wiz is in his element. This city loves his chosen instrument and he is a master in the garb of an apprentice. Here the people recognize his gift and applaud his talent.
He speaks of the flute in relation to the cities where he has plied his trade. For all its jazz and mystique, New Orleans does not embrace the sound. Though he can render it mournfully and draw tears from an angel, New Orleans is too dark for such a heavenly voice. It is a muse one would not expect in the company of voodoo queens and vampires. The jazzman flautist would starve in the Big Easy but here he would thrive.
Nashville is a strange town for the wizard of the flute. It is a city of music and musicians of all stripes find their way to its confines. In the taverns and bars some of the best jazz, rock and folk you will ever hear plays through the night but country is where the money is and country rarely embraces the flute.
We stroll down the enchanted boulevard, pausing here and there to breathe in the shops and enclaves of street entertainers. There is a strong presence of jazz, rhythm and blues. Rockers with acoustic guitars stand alone, gathering contributions in open cases. Fiddlers draw a crowd. I make a note: There are no poets on the streets of Boulder, not even here in this sanctuary of free expression. A juggler draws the largest gathering and performs to thunderous applause.
In the land of enchantment the fool is always treasured.
A woman in conservative dress and style approaches Wiz with exuberance before she draws back. Wiz beckons her and she returns. She confides that she is in love with the flute. She is a devoted follower of Ian Anderson who performs under the name of Jethro Tull. Wiz has long sworn off the style he believes is addictive to the point that it excludes all others but now he plays the patented chops that Anderson made famous. The woman is overjoyed and offers money. Wiz refuses and offers a CD with the explanation: Write to the address on the back and I’ll send you one of my own. She thanks him and we move on. His following grows and another soul is made lighter for his passing. The karma of jazz.
We grab a couple of falafels and sit before a Blues Brother trio on break between sets. The bench where we are seated has an overhang that prevents us from seeing the upper halves of their bodies. We speak of music, art, the street scene and finally, the shoes of the three musicians. They are well suited to their style but poorly matched to their feet. We realize at length that they are not prepared to play another set. Their gig is up. With a tip of the hat, we head over to the poetry café.
It is on a corner a couple of blocks from the pedestrian mall on the main drag. It’s a happening joint divided into two sections. The smaller features a plywood stage, sparsely lit, and a crowded audience area jammed with a few dozen cool blue punksters. We scope the punk rock scene and gather that poetry is not on the menu. We walk over to the larger section, at least double in size, where postcards, greeting cards and a cappuccino bar are featured. There are a few empty tables in the front. It strikes as too cool in a very stylish way. I’ve been known to collect a few postcards in tribute to the heroes and heroines of my upbringing. You can tell a lot about a community by the postcards they stock. This one has a fine collection of American Indians: Geronimo, Sarah Winnemucca, an unknown Lakota warrior and a variety of tribal shamans. It also has more traditional figures of American culture: Bessie Smith, Marilyn Monroe, Mark Twain and Andy Warhol. One features William Burroughs and Alan Ginsberg at the Democratic National Convention circa 1968.
As we browse the shop a petit woman appears to be stuck at the counter trying to carry a large square metal object out to her car. The opening is barely wide enough to squeeze it through at great peril to her seemingly delicate hands. Always a gentleman and quick on the draw, Wiz instinctively moves to help her. It triggers an immediate and forceful reprimand. Wiz steps back and with mouths agape we watch her struggle onward with her task. At the door she turns back to announce: There’s nothing I hate more than that.
It’s all I can do not to reply: How about serial killers? Instead I look to Wiz with a shrug. He shrugs back, apparently unaffected.
I select a handful of postcards and take them to the counter where a tall woman informs me they do not accept plastic. I pay cash for the cards and a latte on the side. I ask for change for the postage stamp machine and she directs me to the Quick Stop market. I realize that this is not a friendly place. What’s wrong here? Suddenly and without warning we’re being treated like lepers at a costume ball, like California tourists in Oregon, like some sub-species of a lesser god. Are they tourist weary in a tourist shop? They’ll take our money but they won’t say thanks? Come again?
We sit at the corner table in the front of the shop. I choose a magnificent wooden chair carved into the image of a grizzly bear. I generally prefer a less conspicuous perch but the rudeness of the shopkeepers emboldens me. It doesn’t matter. Here I could sit yoga style on the tabletop and no one would acknowledge my presence. I’m scoping the scene, taking it all in when the reality of the place hits me like a jolt of whiskey on a December morn. The taller woman is braless, mother earth style with a strong sexual appeal but she seems purposely detached and aloof. My vantage point allows me to take it all in and I begin to write while Wiz heads outside to create a new scene.
Slick circle of feminist dreams
She practiced too long at being hip before the mirror cracked
Her sixties dress clean lean and hanging from sharpened nipples by a thread
Don’t look she said with a scowl that would freeze a mother’s smile
Cool baby blue back off I can take you before the shock settles
And leave you breathless like a slow dance that grinds and grooves
So long it steals the light from romance
Bend baby bend shake it down and clutch the inner beast
Your soul is mine to rise or bury like an old machine
Rust and fade to dust
Smile baby blue whose eyes were meant to shine
The morning light not ground the midnight high
There is no life but this we swim together and dance the mating cry
There is no view but this we share as we walk a lonely path
Rise to the call of human kindness spare your tortured brand
I see you dancing naked under blue moon sight
In thundering rain beneath heaven star light
I see your perfect being unleashed in dreams of passion
And raw untempered desire
I see your hunger filled in rhapsodic tides
Your soul lost in the great divide
I see your body open like a broken dam
Whitewater crash again and again
I see your love and tender mercy hidden in the root and core
Emerging with Eros' raging fire radiating in sultry light
Awakening in the long lost night
You and I are lovers from a million lives before this hallowed crossing
I greet you with a kiss and praise eternal beauty
Awaken and steal the breath of moonlight
This wine will last forever
In the end I do not understand the divisive attitudes of the oppressed. The feminist left can at times appear as bigoted as the white supremacists of the old south or the rednecks on the south side of Boston or the country clubbers of Pine Mountain. Geography has no hold on bigotry. We are meant to be allies. If I open the door in courtesy open my mind, do not slam it in my face. The crimes of our culture on the individual level are as pebbles to the mountain. This discrimination and division will set back the cause. It is a strange phenomenon. It feeds the religious right who would neither open the door of courtesy nor the door of opportunity. When it all comes down, know who your friends are. It is too easy to alienate. Build the alliance and thrive! In the hour of need pray that we all find a way to forgive without judgment so that we can stand as one against the tide of oppression. Our differences are of little consequence yet the breach of trust, betrayals large and small, will so widen the gap between us that they will appear as vast and unapproachable as Grand Canyon under moonlight. When will we find the way?
I finish my scribe as a wild and writhing dancer appears before me life a vision from the dark side of a liquid dream. The gig is on. I write.
Shake it baby grind and lust the pining light
Jazz be yours in major key and chase us through the night
Snake and groove the heavens to divine the pulsing
Heat of all and ever force of life life life
Jazz be yours and couple with the fire of desire
Tap the cave dwellers and stir them to rejoice
The lava flows in mounting waves of madness
Joy and love of nature’s boundless womb
Jazz be yours and glide on streams of wanton dreams
Down and down again sinking without care
A whirlwind to the depths of ancient core desire
Sweet blue fame of gone and over edge of sane
And pain and Mary Jane in mourning
Make heat and lusty love in waterfalls of time
Jazz be yours embrace it squeeze it
And hold on for dear life
We head out across the pedestrian mall our spirits rising. The Wiz is playing as we move and I am reading verse and prose as the spirit moves me. Wiz discovers a sign that we are on the right path. There beneath the bench where we sat to the blues trio that never played are a pair of shiny patent leather shoes. They must have been left behind by one of the three musicians. They must have heard our musings and left them as an offering in lieu of their set. It seems mystical as the Wiz tries them on: a perfect fit.
We resume our stroll toward Sally with an open mind. A university student waves a five spot and asks Wiz to play before their table outside a beer joint. Wiz refuses the money but plays for his and their entertainment. We end up inside where we are engaged in conversation by another student who informs us that Boulder is a doomed city. He explains that it lies on a flood plain. It is only a matter of time before it is swept away.
I imagine being a Californian escaping the great earthquake, a Floridian or Carolinian escaping a hurricane or an inhabitant of tornado alley escaping the ruins only to be swept away on the flood plain of Colorado. Go where your bliss informs you and take your chances. There is no escape. There is no sanctuary.
He is a student of literature but he doesn’t write. He doesn’t believe he has the talent. His favorite writer is Charles Dickens and his favorite novel A Tale of Two Cities. His outward appearance is that of a typical football and Friday night college student like the elitists of Vanderbilt in Nashville. Inwardly he has world of though to offer a planet in desperate need but he lacks the confidence to deliver his message. I want to tell that of course he can write. If he can speak he can write. If he can think he can write. But no one on earth can deliver the lesson that he must learn for himself.
It is near midnight and we are content with our Boulder experience. It has renewed a bond and a sense of security. It is a place that welcomes us. We are grateful but we decide to move on. We get to within a block of Sally when a corner of activity inspires Wiz to a last improvisational performance. The enchanting sound attracts a raggedy man with wild eyes and a guitar who praises him to the heavens. He asks if he may play a few riffs on Wiz’s magnificent instrument. Wiz consents and the raggedy man plays. He asks Wiz to join him for a few songs down the road at the square. We are back to where we began. They set up a plastic bubble, the waiting station for public transportation, and commence to play. It turns out the man is a gifted Irish Indian Mexican flamenco guitarist looking to make a comeback on the local scene. He had started an Irish folk group that ran its course and broke apart despite its success. He’ looking to start again and wants Wiz to join him.
My muse is still burning and I let the music take me where it will. Writing without thought or car is a rare and special blessing. Ride it when it come and let it flow. The moment will not last forever.
City of a thousand wet dreams and visions of tomorrow
Police siren at the crack of midnight Don Juan on guitar
Soul of the magic flute scorching the Boulder skyline
City of holy sounds wise prophets and gypsy dancers
City that moves in harmony to the beat of higher minds
That cracks the upper maze and grounds angels in mid flight
Scream the stream of consciousness coyote on the run
Black crow perched on sacred ground
Thunderbird on native winds transcending the heights
Touching my secret soul with the wind of timeless sage
The music like the flight of butterflies emerges from the air
Showers me with blessings letting go without care
The rare and precious jewels for which the mind of man is meant
Muses of the gods the goddess of content
Lore of the ancient tribe of troubadours
Treatise of the philosophic mind
Rhyme of the first poet
Breath of the first wind
Beauty is in the being rising from the void
Feeding the depths of spirit nourishing harmonics
Inspiring the core wisdom of the universal soul:
We are one with all and all is one within
It seems hours have passed in minutes. The wild man has made his case for the Wiz to stay and join him in his venture. It is a crossroad and he is tempted but in the end like me he cannot shake the journey’s chosen end. We will return to Nashville. He offers a CD and asks the man to write him at the Alabama address. His message is clear: Get it together and Wiz may join him. We shake hands and I have the sense that their reunion will never happen. He needs more than a musician. He needs the man that Wiz is. It is a strangely solemn parting.
Our minds are full with thoughts and memories of all we have experienced on the journey as we drive down the highway heading east to Kansas City. No more than a few miles out of town Wiz wants to turn back. The ghost of Mustang, Nevada clouds my mind. I was prepared to stay the night. I even suggested it. Now it is too late. Don’t turn back. You can never go back. What more did we have to learn? How could we better the experience we have already enjoyed? It is time to let go. We have departed for a reason. To turn back now would fly in the face of all the journey means. Believe in the path and go forth.
Wiz finally concedes. With the ghost of regret riding with us now, we drive on. Boulder has been all we could anticipate and more. It is a place that calls us back and I have no doubt that each of us in time will return.
If ever I am stranded by the roadside abandoned
Here will I return to greet the setting of the sun
If ever I am fallen like October leaves of brown
Here will I be planted upon this sacred ground
And when the chill wind suffers me to groan
Here will I return to find paradise alone
For I will wander distant lands and glory at the sights
But never will I leave behind the wonder of this night
We’d lost a loved one that memorable summer. She was stage-managing our production of Man of La Mancha when she walked out of the theater and was struck by a speeding car. She never regained consciousness. I still remember the smile she wore that fateful day. The charm and love of live she personified filled my soul with a warm and tender feeling that I did not completely understand. She possessed the beauty of innocence. My friend had dated her while I had only dreamed. We both mourned her passing. It was my first encounter with the shadow of death.
My buddy Jay had hitchhiked across country a few times. For some reason he despised the southern route with a passion. Having seen Easy Rider I never asked why. Though the summer was coming to an end and the fall was coming on, we took the northern route across interstate 80 through Reno, Winnemucca, Salt Lake City, Cheyenne, Omaha, Chicago and Cleveland. Our first night out we were stranded for seventeen hours on the exit ramp for Mustang Ranch just east of Reno. Some fool or sadistic bastard picked us up in Reno and dumped us there. He invited us in but we didn’t have that kind of cash so we waited alongside the narrow two-lane highway until we finally realized that no one was going to pick up a couple of guys outside a whorehouse. We decided to walk. The problem was he wanted to walk back toward Reno and I wanted to go forward. It was something I felt by instinct and retain today: Never turn back. The adventure lies ahead.
We started out walking our separate ways, a sizeable chip on both our shoulders, when he finally relented and caught up to me. Within half an hour a trucker picked us up. In those days that alone was something of a miracle. There was a hierarchy of expectations when it came to getting a ride: Volkswagen busses were top of the mark; big-rig trucks were rock bottom. It was against company policy. In all my days of hitching that was only time a trucker ever offered a ride.
He let us off in Winnemucca where we spent a long while reading the notes of desperation scribbled and scratched on the road sign. We were more fortunate than the scribes. A guy with a camper shell on the back of his pickup asked us if either of us could drive a standard transmission. He was headed for Ohio and wanted us to take the wheel. We told him we could, no problem. He rode a while and then we pulled over so he could climb in the camper and sleep. We got off the interstate and sailed down the highway at an average speed between sixty-five and seventy, sleeping in shifts. I was driving when we were forced to pass up a couple of fellow hitchers in the Cowboy State of Wyoming. We could see their spirits rise as the checked us out. We were brethren spirits but all we could do was shrug and gesture as they waved frantically and threw their signs and bags in the road as we drove on by. It seems they’d been there a while.
Like the stalled travelers on the loneliest road in America, the experience left me weak and pondering. We should have stopped but it wasn’t our place. More than likely we’d have joined them in despair when our sleeping proprietor awoke. Who can tell what might have been? It was a crossroad and we made our choice.
We crossed the Mississippi River at night and made it to Chesapeake Bay the next day. The entire crossing took only two and a half days, including the long wait at Mustang Ranch. I spent a week at Jay’s parents home. He was their only child and they were grateful for his return. I was treated as a valued member of the family. I remember clearly the most prized possession of their home: A framed photograph of Jay’s father with John Wayne, both in navy uniforms, on the mantel of their fireplace. They were working class people with basic values and a wandering son they did not understand. I connected with them and respected their ways though I was only a passing stranger.
It was not my place and they were not my people.
I headed north to New Hampshire where I fell in love with autumn. Colors more beautiful than any I have seen outside the realm of imagining. Hills covered with trees and trees covered with leaves of every color. Colors blending harmoniously in a way that reminded me of the French Impressionists. I spent two weeks communing with nature, staying at the college living quarters of a woman I had known since grade school though we had never shared time outside the classroom. I felt like Thoreau must have felt at Walden. As the northern chill set in, I left with a promise to myself that I would someday return. Twenty-two years later, though I have not kept that promise, I have returned often in my mind and in my heart.
On the return journey I was invited to join a theater company in Lincoln, Nebraska, but the strings that tied me to home were too powerful. I held an invitation to audition at the famed Guthrie Theater in Minnesota but the road was too long and cold. I moved on and fell in love with a place called Boulder where the people were open and kind to wandering strangers and seemed enlightened to young adventurous eyes. I spent only a day and a night there, sleeping in the dormitory lounge at the University of Colorado but I left its mark.
I returned home to Motown, kicking up my heels alongside the road to the amusement of passersby and discovered that I was already a month late in reporting for my physical to be drafted into the military. I had written a radical application for conscientious objector status, believing that it would not be approved in any case because my family was not the church going kind. My oldest brother had already distinguished himself in the family’s eyes by refusing to step forward at the induction ceremony. He was a convicted draft resister. I had read a book called 4F and decided my best shot was to starve myself so that I would be under the standard weight requirement. I had done so.
When I reported to the center they instructed us all to hold our clothing in our hands as we were weighed. I could not be sure if that was the usual procedure but it put me just over the limit. It was as if they knew who I was and what I intended. In the infamous bend-over room I heard a doctor comment that I was awfully skinny. Someone replied that I was above the guideline. When it was all over we were assembled in a holding room where we waited until our names were called for a final conference. I was the last to be called though all the others were in alphabetical order. I entered a smaller room and the man in charge called all of his associates into the room. I was clearly being given special attention. I was naïve enough that I did not know why I was being singled out.
“Look at this guy,” the man in charge began. “Does he look like he could make it through basic training?”
“Depends how much he wants it,” another said.
“He doesn’t want it,” said a third.
I nodded in agreement and looked around the room. They seemed to be enjoying this interplay. Finally, the man in charge confides:
“Alright, you may get a 1-A in the mail but don’t worry. You won’t be inducted.”
I don’t know why but I believed him. Maybe they figured I’d be more trouble than I was worth. Maybe they figured I really was a conscientious objector. Maybe they knew that Nixon was about to call off the draft. Or maybe they were just playing with me. I do know that I would not have gone under any circumstances and as it turned out I was never called. In some strange way I almost resented it. I wanted to take a stand. I wanted to join the army of resistance but it was not my destiny. That distinction would belong to my brother John and I will forever honor him for it.
That was my first journey. It was filled with wonders and its many crossroads had the power to change the course of my life. That I made the choices I did has led me to the place I now stand. I have returned to a place of beauty and one that has lived only in my memories for over two decades.
We drive into town, our separate memories preoccupying our minds in silence. Wiz has more recent memories and we follow his lead. We stop at a gas station near the university and I press the clerk about what’s happening in town while Wiz attends to Sally. The clerk knows nothing about golf. She doesn’t know about the Colorado Shakespeare Festival where I once applied for a position. She doesn’t know about jazz clubs. But when I ask about the poetry scene her eyes light up. She tells me where it’s happening and when. She says the Allen Ginsberg is in town, teaching a class at the Institute. Wiz locates the nearest public course through the phone book and our plan takes form. First we will golf in the shadow of the Rockies, then we will explore jazz poetry on the streets of Boulder and finally we will check out the scene at the poetry café the clerk has recommended.
The golf course is striking, more for its surroundings than for its layout. It is the new breed of course, a centerpiece for a housing development. It is long, well contoured and beautifully manicured. The greens are smooth, slick and sloping. We’re paired with an older couple, good and solid people. The man uses an iron off the tee and rarely sends it airborne. We later learn he is recovering from back surgery. His wife is a beginning golfer but she has a better swing than her husband. With a little guidance (hit down to go up) they could both be good golfers. As it is they enjoy the round despite their games.
The Wiz and I are playing our normal games. We are having a little difficulty with the read and the speed of the greens. On the sixth hole, out of the blue, I nail a three wood off the tee and stiff an eight iron to within ten feet of the pin. My putt is true to the center of the cup. I look up with a smile and immediately recall from the expression on Wiz’s face the bargain we struck back in Glenwood Springs. After the next birdie we swallow the worm! Only in this case, we swallow two worms each: Dos Gusanos.
We have placed our mescal samplers in our golf bags in preparation for this occasion. We tee off on the next hole, a three par to an elevated green and linger at the tee to allow our playing partners to move ahead. We are all but certain they would not approve. We whip them out quickly and put them down, mine in one swallow, the Wiz in two. I am amazed at how well I play under the influence of the worm. The world opens before my eyes. Don Juan, howling in the breeze, hovers over my shoulder. Suddenly our partners, unaware of our adventure, are like family to us. On the ninth hole we share stories and confidences and part with a heartfelt well wishing.
Boulder is a magical place. Our spirits are soaring as we head downtown, primed for jazz, laughter, music and poetry. Wiz points us to the square at the beginning of the pedestrian walk where neither cars nor bad tidings are allowed. We find a place to park and walk to the street where the scene is unfolding. There on the corner we come upon a couple of bongo players and a gypsy dancer. Within a sliver of a moment I know her. I have always known her. She is the dream I have always dreamed. She is the love I have always held within my heart. She is the queen of the gypsies. She is the woman I fell in love with a thousand years ago in a house of mystery. She is the woman I followed to Nashville.
I pull out my pen and begin writing, looking up only to take in the inspiration that comes with each breath. Wiz joins the musical feast, charging the dance of the gypsy with fresh muse like the first star of a clear moonless night, like the first scent of evergreen, like the first taste of ocean air, like the first glimpse of Grand Canyon. The enchanted circle grows. The words flow faster than I am able to write them down. I capture and hold them. They are as illusive as a gypsy’s love.
The music fades to silence. The mood is satisfaction. The dance gives way to the dream of glory and yields to waking motion. The players converse as actors do between scenes at rehearsal. They shake hands with Wiz. He has passed the audition. My words finally run dry as if the motion itself carried them and when the motion ceased the words emptied in its wake. I join the player circle on the corner of the square and Wiz introduces me. He tells them I am a poet of the streets and suggests that I join them in revelry. It seems to cause a split.
One of the percussionists is reluctant and skeptical which he communicates with a scowl and a sarcastic wit. He doesn’t want to share the stage. The gypsy dancer has already encroached on their territory and stolen his thunder as gypsies are inclined to do. He has not conceded to welcome Wiz with his magic flute yet already he is being asked to make room for a street poet. It is an art form he does not recognize.
I can only be amused. I have had some difficulty accepting the art of poetry myself. I have no need to recite my words on the streets. I am satisfied to have committed them to paper.
The other man is wiser. He strikes a contrasting chord with a smile that spreads good tidings to match the mood of celebration. He welcomes all artists of the street. He has recognized the enchantment of the moment and answers with a recitation of a poem he has committed to memory. It is a piece by Blake as I recall. The words rise and hang in the air like a lingering melody of strings. It is inviting and yet foreboding. It is the standard by which my words will be judged. I smile and understand. I like his style and manner. I have as yet made no decision: to read or not to read.
The next round of music and dance begins. I imagine myself a surfer waiting to catch a wave. It must be the right wave. Just as each wave requires a different style of surfing, each rhythm calls for its own style of word jazz. I don’t do country or folk, rock and roll or Irish jigs. Give me jazz or space jam.
I wait and listen but mostly I watch the dancer and the dance. Her eyes are mystical and divine forces guide her movement. Finally the spirit moves within and I spot a wave I can ride.
The karmic debt is mounting with each tick of the karmic clock
With each breath of unholy air each thump of collective shock…
The rhythm and the movement accelerates and transitions like the wind before a storm, carrying me like a dream of mystic flight among the clouds of a starlit night.
Speak no more of troubled times and days of mourning
And dawns of no tomorrow
Hear no more the winds of darkness unloading tears of sorrow
Heaven lives upon this earth what more could heaven be?
Hell is a room without doors in heaven we are free
Free to choose the darkness or the light
Free to love or hate and choose the battle we will fight
My love is my heaven here and now
Speak no more of bring me down and suffer me your truth
I love therefore I am the truth and love is my master
The dancer moves to a higher plain and touches me at the core and center of my being, like the hand of a goddess. I am moved beyond words but offer up the only gratitude I have to give: my words, my poetry.
Esmeralda on the Streets of Boulder
Spinning with the core and center of life
Her eyes dancing with fire rage desire
Her soul tempting ecstasy
Forces of an ancient peyote wind howl
Move this precious jewel beyond words
Beyond passion beyond the edge of reason
The body as an instrument of faith finely tuned
To raise the lightning rod that dwells
Within the secret soul of self
Blast me with the fuel or your undaunted devotion pure
And unpolluted by the hand of social righteousness
Fear not the wagging tongues and bulging eyes of those
Who cannot walk the streets with open shirts and hearts
You are the wind the blessed child of mother earth
The chosen of the nameless flock who follow their noses
To the maze of mindless wonder and dumbstruck awe
To settle in the circle of their own waste
Content and comfortably numb
You are the object of their desires
They dream of you and pray to meet you in another life
Dance and let the masses dream
Sweet nectar of life be yours and mine
And ours to embrace
What are words to their inspiration when the inspiration is itself inspired? They linger and hesitate as if awaiting her sacred blessing. They rise like smoke and scatter with the first breeze. They have hit their mark. They have spoken to the moment with honesty and truth. They recall the essence of the oral tradition. This is the method of the troubadour and the street poet, immediate and engaging, inspired by the unfolding of events. What greater tribute to the gift of a gypsy dancer than this?
Alas she speaks. More gratifying than eloquence, more pleasing than poetry, as if awakening from a dream, in an airy distant voice, she solves the moment’s mystery: Wow, that’s beautiful! Sweet satisfaction is mine. Sweet love of innocence is born again. Her simple words have filled my heart with joy. I have paid tribute to her grace and she has embraced my song of praise.
Her name is Rain Forest. From this time forward she will also answer to the name Esmeralda. She asks if she may have my words and stops me as I start to tear the page from my notebook. She borrows my pen and copies them in her own hand. She asks me how I pronounce Esmeralda. I do so and explain it is from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. It is one of her favorite stories along with Cyrano de Bergerac. She is a romantic and so am I. We are pleased there are still some of us left in this world. We do not speak of ordinary things, our lives and our living. We know enough already. When we shake hands there is an electrical charge that seals our bond forever.
If it is true that our lives are built on prior lives then I have surely known her in another existence. Maybe I was Cyrano to her Roxanne. Maybe I was the poet suitor never to win the love of Esmeralda. There are far stranger things in this world than our dreams allow. Tonight was her debut on the streets of Boulder. Her legend is born.
She thanks me for the poem and I thank her for the inspiration. She thanks me again in the poetry of dance. This time she dances for me. My eyes are riveted to her untrained body in flowing, writhing, floating and sensual motion. She has tapped an ancient muse. She has transformed her perfect body into universal spirit. When her eyes meet mine there is a pull of energy so strong it renders me helpless. I am grateful to be sitting. Were I standing, her power would surely knock me to the ground, leaving me breathless at her command.
The time comes for her to move on, like a mermaid in an ocean mist, vanishing into the streets of Boulder. She has a return date with the wiser of the bongo players. The other has departed. I wish her well and watch her turn and walk away. She does not look back. It is unlikely we will ever see each other again but her image is burned into my consciousness. The moment is perfect and eternal.
Wiz and I linger, enjoying the company of strangers and basking in the afterglow. They play a little longer. My words are spent for now but my spirit is renewed. We make a clean break and wander down the pedestrian walkway, Wiz playing as we go, polishing his chops on a silver flute.
Everywhere we go he is greeted with smiles and compliments. They offer money, ask him to stay and play, and thank him for a moment of surreal enchantment. The Wiz is in his element. This city loves his chosen instrument and he is a master in the garb of an apprentice. Here the people recognize his gift and applaud his talent.
He speaks of the flute in relation to the cities where he has plied his trade. For all its jazz and mystique, New Orleans does not embrace the sound. Though he can render it mournfully and draw tears from an angel, New Orleans is too dark for such a heavenly voice. It is a muse one would not expect in the company of voodoo queens and vampires. The jazzman flautist would starve in the Big Easy but here he would thrive.
Nashville is a strange town for the wizard of the flute. It is a city of music and musicians of all stripes find their way to its confines. In the taverns and bars some of the best jazz, rock and folk you will ever hear plays through the night but country is where the money is and country rarely embraces the flute.
We stroll down the enchanted boulevard, pausing here and there to breathe in the shops and enclaves of street entertainers. There is a strong presence of jazz, rhythm and blues. Rockers with acoustic guitars stand alone, gathering contributions in open cases. Fiddlers draw a crowd. I make a note: There are no poets on the streets of Boulder, not even here in this sanctuary of free expression. A juggler draws the largest gathering and performs to thunderous applause.
In the land of enchantment the fool is always treasured.
A woman in conservative dress and style approaches Wiz with exuberance before she draws back. Wiz beckons her and she returns. She confides that she is in love with the flute. She is a devoted follower of Ian Anderson who performs under the name of Jethro Tull. Wiz has long sworn off the style he believes is addictive to the point that it excludes all others but now he plays the patented chops that Anderson made famous. The woman is overjoyed and offers money. Wiz refuses and offers a CD with the explanation: Write to the address on the back and I’ll send you one of my own. She thanks him and we move on. His following grows and another soul is made lighter for his passing. The karma of jazz.
We grab a couple of falafels and sit before a Blues Brother trio on break between sets. The bench where we are seated has an overhang that prevents us from seeing the upper halves of their bodies. We speak of music, art, the street scene and finally, the shoes of the three musicians. They are well suited to their style but poorly matched to their feet. We realize at length that they are not prepared to play another set. Their gig is up. With a tip of the hat, we head over to the poetry café.
It is on a corner a couple of blocks from the pedestrian mall on the main drag. It’s a happening joint divided into two sections. The smaller features a plywood stage, sparsely lit, and a crowded audience area jammed with a few dozen cool blue punksters. We scope the punk rock scene and gather that poetry is not on the menu. We walk over to the larger section, at least double in size, where postcards, greeting cards and a cappuccino bar are featured. There are a few empty tables in the front. It strikes as too cool in a very stylish way. I’ve been known to collect a few postcards in tribute to the heroes and heroines of my upbringing. You can tell a lot about a community by the postcards they stock. This one has a fine collection of American Indians: Geronimo, Sarah Winnemucca, an unknown Lakota warrior and a variety of tribal shamans. It also has more traditional figures of American culture: Bessie Smith, Marilyn Monroe, Mark Twain and Andy Warhol. One features William Burroughs and Alan Ginsberg at the Democratic National Convention circa 1968.
As we browse the shop a petit woman appears to be stuck at the counter trying to carry a large square metal object out to her car. The opening is barely wide enough to squeeze it through at great peril to her seemingly delicate hands. Always a gentleman and quick on the draw, Wiz instinctively moves to help her. It triggers an immediate and forceful reprimand. Wiz steps back and with mouths agape we watch her struggle onward with her task. At the door she turns back to announce: There’s nothing I hate more than that.
It’s all I can do not to reply: How about serial killers? Instead I look to Wiz with a shrug. He shrugs back, apparently unaffected.
I select a handful of postcards and take them to the counter where a tall woman informs me they do not accept plastic. I pay cash for the cards and a latte on the side. I ask for change for the postage stamp machine and she directs me to the Quick Stop market. I realize that this is not a friendly place. What’s wrong here? Suddenly and without warning we’re being treated like lepers at a costume ball, like California tourists in Oregon, like some sub-species of a lesser god. Are they tourist weary in a tourist shop? They’ll take our money but they won’t say thanks? Come again?
We sit at the corner table in the front of the shop. I choose a magnificent wooden chair carved into the image of a grizzly bear. I generally prefer a less conspicuous perch but the rudeness of the shopkeepers emboldens me. It doesn’t matter. Here I could sit yoga style on the tabletop and no one would acknowledge my presence. I’m scoping the scene, taking it all in when the reality of the place hits me like a jolt of whiskey on a December morn. The taller woman is braless, mother earth style with a strong sexual appeal but she seems purposely detached and aloof. My vantage point allows me to take it all in and I begin to write while Wiz heads outside to create a new scene.
Slick circle of feminist dreams
She practiced too long at being hip before the mirror cracked
Her sixties dress clean lean and hanging from sharpened nipples by a thread
Don’t look she said with a scowl that would freeze a mother’s smile
Cool baby blue back off I can take you before the shock settles
And leave you breathless like a slow dance that grinds and grooves
So long it steals the light from romance
Bend baby bend shake it down and clutch the inner beast
Your soul is mine to rise or bury like an old machine
Rust and fade to dust
Smile baby blue whose eyes were meant to shine
The morning light not ground the midnight high
There is no life but this we swim together and dance the mating cry
There is no view but this we share as we walk a lonely path
Rise to the call of human kindness spare your tortured brand
I see you dancing naked under blue moon sight
In thundering rain beneath heaven star light
I see your perfect being unleashed in dreams of passion
And raw untempered desire
I see your hunger filled in rhapsodic tides
Your soul lost in the great divide
I see your body open like a broken dam
Whitewater crash again and again
I see your love and tender mercy hidden in the root and core
Emerging with Eros' raging fire radiating in sultry light
Awakening in the long lost night
You and I are lovers from a million lives before this hallowed crossing
I greet you with a kiss and praise eternal beauty
Awaken and steal the breath of moonlight
This wine will last forever
In the end I do not understand the divisive attitudes of the oppressed. The feminist left can at times appear as bigoted as the white supremacists of the old south or the rednecks on the south side of Boston or the country clubbers of Pine Mountain. Geography has no hold on bigotry. We are meant to be allies. If I open the door in courtesy open my mind, do not slam it in my face. The crimes of our culture on the individual level are as pebbles to the mountain. This discrimination and division will set back the cause. It is a strange phenomenon. It feeds the religious right who would neither open the door of courtesy nor the door of opportunity. When it all comes down, know who your friends are. It is too easy to alienate. Build the alliance and thrive! In the hour of need pray that we all find a way to forgive without judgment so that we can stand as one against the tide of oppression. Our differences are of little consequence yet the breach of trust, betrayals large and small, will so widen the gap between us that they will appear as vast and unapproachable as Grand Canyon under moonlight. When will we find the way?
I finish my scribe as a wild and writhing dancer appears before me life a vision from the dark side of a liquid dream. The gig is on. I write.
Shake it baby grind and lust the pining light
Jazz be yours in major key and chase us through the night
Snake and groove the heavens to divine the pulsing
Heat of all and ever force of life life life
Jazz be yours and couple with the fire of desire
Tap the cave dwellers and stir them to rejoice
The lava flows in mounting waves of madness
Joy and love of nature’s boundless womb
Jazz be yours and glide on streams of wanton dreams
Down and down again sinking without care
A whirlwind to the depths of ancient core desire
Sweet blue fame of gone and over edge of sane
And pain and Mary Jane in mourning
Make heat and lusty love in waterfalls of time
Jazz be yours embrace it squeeze it
And hold on for dear life
We head out across the pedestrian mall our spirits rising. The Wiz is playing as we move and I am reading verse and prose as the spirit moves me. Wiz discovers a sign that we are on the right path. There beneath the bench where we sat to the blues trio that never played are a pair of shiny patent leather shoes. They must have been left behind by one of the three musicians. They must have heard our musings and left them as an offering in lieu of their set. It seems mystical as the Wiz tries them on: a perfect fit.
We resume our stroll toward Sally with an open mind. A university student waves a five spot and asks Wiz to play before their table outside a beer joint. Wiz refuses the money but plays for his and their entertainment. We end up inside where we are engaged in conversation by another student who informs us that Boulder is a doomed city. He explains that it lies on a flood plain. It is only a matter of time before it is swept away.
I imagine being a Californian escaping the great earthquake, a Floridian or Carolinian escaping a hurricane or an inhabitant of tornado alley escaping the ruins only to be swept away on the flood plain of Colorado. Go where your bliss informs you and take your chances. There is no escape. There is no sanctuary.
He is a student of literature but he doesn’t write. He doesn’t believe he has the talent. His favorite writer is Charles Dickens and his favorite novel A Tale of Two Cities. His outward appearance is that of a typical football and Friday night college student like the elitists of Vanderbilt in Nashville. Inwardly he has world of though to offer a planet in desperate need but he lacks the confidence to deliver his message. I want to tell that of course he can write. If he can speak he can write. If he can think he can write. But no one on earth can deliver the lesson that he must learn for himself.
It is near midnight and we are content with our Boulder experience. It has renewed a bond and a sense of security. It is a place that welcomes us. We are grateful but we decide to move on. We get to within a block of Sally when a corner of activity inspires Wiz to a last improvisational performance. The enchanting sound attracts a raggedy man with wild eyes and a guitar who praises him to the heavens. He asks if he may play a few riffs on Wiz’s magnificent instrument. Wiz consents and the raggedy man plays. He asks Wiz to join him for a few songs down the road at the square. We are back to where we began. They set up a plastic bubble, the waiting station for public transportation, and commence to play. It turns out the man is a gifted Irish Indian Mexican flamenco guitarist looking to make a comeback on the local scene. He had started an Irish folk group that ran its course and broke apart despite its success. He’ looking to start again and wants Wiz to join him.
My muse is still burning and I let the music take me where it will. Writing without thought or car is a rare and special blessing. Ride it when it come and let it flow. The moment will not last forever.
City of a thousand wet dreams and visions of tomorrow
Police siren at the crack of midnight Don Juan on guitar
Soul of the magic flute scorching the Boulder skyline
City of holy sounds wise prophets and gypsy dancers
City that moves in harmony to the beat of higher minds
That cracks the upper maze and grounds angels in mid flight
Scream the stream of consciousness coyote on the run
Black crow perched on sacred ground
Thunderbird on native winds transcending the heights
Touching my secret soul with the wind of timeless sage
The music like the flight of butterflies emerges from the air
Showers me with blessings letting go without care
The rare and precious jewels for which the mind of man is meant
Muses of the gods the goddess of content
Lore of the ancient tribe of troubadours
Treatise of the philosophic mind
Rhyme of the first poet
Breath of the first wind
Beauty is in the being rising from the void
Feeding the depths of spirit nourishing harmonics
Inspiring the core wisdom of the universal soul:
We are one with all and all is one within
It seems hours have passed in minutes. The wild man has made his case for the Wiz to stay and join him in his venture. It is a crossroad and he is tempted but in the end like me he cannot shake the journey’s chosen end. We will return to Nashville. He offers a CD and asks the man to write him at the Alabama address. His message is clear: Get it together and Wiz may join him. We shake hands and I have the sense that their reunion will never happen. He needs more than a musician. He needs the man that Wiz is. It is a strangely solemn parting.
Our minds are full with thoughts and memories of all we have experienced on the journey as we drive down the highway heading east to Kansas City. No more than a few miles out of town Wiz wants to turn back. The ghost of Mustang, Nevada clouds my mind. I was prepared to stay the night. I even suggested it. Now it is too late. Don’t turn back. You can never go back. What more did we have to learn? How could we better the experience we have already enjoyed? It is time to let go. We have departed for a reason. To turn back now would fly in the face of all the journey means. Believe in the path and go forth.
Wiz finally concedes. With the ghost of regret riding with us now, we drive on. Boulder has been all we could anticipate and more. It is a place that calls us back and I have no doubt that each of us in time will return.
If ever I am stranded by the roadside abandoned
Here will I return to greet the setting of the sun
If ever I am fallen like October leaves of brown
Here will I be planted upon this sacred ground
And when the chill wind suffers me to groan
Here will I return to find paradise alone
For I will wander distant lands and glory at the sights
But never will I leave behind the wonder of this night
GRAND CANYON: KANSAS HIGHWAY BLUES
We drive as long and far as our eyes will allow us, finally pulling up at a trucker’s all-night diner somewhere on the outskirts of Limon, Colorado, where Wiz goes in to fill up with coffee and a bite to eat. I catch some needed sleep in the car. My mind is swimming in a sweet and swirling torrent of dream. Esmeralda is with me. Though I have left temptation behind, she remains implanted in my heart and mind.
Is it wrong I wonder? Can a man betray his loved one in dreams? I have no heart to stop the passion that runs through my veins and fills me with sweet pleasure. This is not my dream alone. It is too powerful. It is the dance of the temptress and gypsy magic. It is positive proof that we live our lives both as physical and spiritual beings. In our imaginations we are not confined. We are free to wander and roam wherever the spirit takes us. It is more than a sensual feast. Our bodies blend and mold together, joining in a rhythm only our hearts can keep. Love among the stars, at heaven’s gate, before the eyes of the gods, a muse of celestial poets, gardens of delight at the sweet and tender mercy of Eros. It is the twenty-four hour wet dream in the sanctuary of liquid desire.
She dances by firelight in a gypsy caravan, bidding me come with her eyes. She lays her body down by a river of moonlit waters and opens to my embrace. She leads me to a forest of starlight and reveals to me her soul. She pulls me to her breasts, soft and charged with radiant energy. She locks me in her fold. Our legs and arms entwined, our bodies as one, we are capable of flight, no longer physical but embodied light.
Wiz emerges from the all-night diner ready to take the wheel. He senses my distance and allows me to roam in dreamland while he drives deep into the night. The highway is flat and straight and I am caught between sleep and awake. I am unable or unwilling to let go of the dream that has captured me. Eyes closed and I am submerged, sinking ever deeper, aware but unafraid of drowning. Eyes open and I return to the here and now but fail to find balance. Each time I go down it is harder to return, harder to pry the lids apart, harder to gain focus, harder to hang on to the world above.
Finally I let go. It is not mine to control. Let it run its course. Let it take me where it will. I will not fight back. I will not struggle against the dream that chooses me. Lit be. Let it have its way with me. It is not fro a man to turn away his destiny though it may cost him his life. There are forces at work that will not be denied. To do so would be perilous. It would plant a seed of unrest that would haunt me down the road.
We reach Kansas in the morning. Wiz has lost his caffeine high and hands the keys to me. The long night’s journey has rested me enough to drive although I am not completely myself. I am entranced in a state of awareness. The world has once again transformed. There is a sky of endless clouds, huge white billowy formations that roll over the land. It is world of dreams. Never have I seen such a sky. It seems to cover all of Kansas, moving westward from the floods of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers.
The dream takes on a new dimension. No longer confined to darkness it summons me in daylight and dances in the corners of my mind. I need only call her name and she appears before me. As the miles roll on and the clouds begin to reveal scattered glimpses of blue sky above, I am aware of another presence in the dream. It is another gypsy dancer, the one I fell in love with so many years ago, the one that uprooted me from my home in California, and the one whom I followed to Nashville. I glance in the rearview mirror and I’m startled to see a whirling red light.
A Kansas highway patrolman pulls us over and informs me that I’ve been traveling at 73 miles per hour. The road is desolate and the land is wide with sparse traffic. The speed limit is sixty-five. I’ve been lost in another world, unaware of his presence behind me, and I suspect that my lack of awareness more than my speed has led to his action. A 1965 Mustang with California plates and a driver that has been too long on the road is suspect enough. He asks for license and registration and I scramble to find them. In my haste I hand him the original registration, which is over ten years old. He walks back to his patrol car to check out my vehicle as I locate the updated registration. I hand to him with an apology on his return. He smiles and tells me he’s going to let me off with a warning but he advises me to keep my attention on the road. It is a warning in more ways than one.
Wiz has awakened to this scene and surmises the true nature of the event: Your wife just reached out from Nashville to give you a slap. I don’t doubt it. We had lived apart for twenty years yet in some strange way we were always connected, joined in spirit and in dreams. I call for her forgiveness and feel it is received. But forgiveness must be without judgment and it will be another thousand miles before the truth of what has happened on this open highway in Kansas will be revealed. I have no sense of guilt and I will not be found guilty. To dream is not a crime, no matter what form it takes. I have not betrayed my love but I have forgotten for a time its source. I have discovered what I have always known within: that it is possible to love again. It is always possible.
The closer we get to Nashville on the eastward swing of our journey, the more my thoughts will turn to her. My love for her survived a canyon of time and a thousand rude awakenings. I knew the first time I saw her in her layered gypsy dress, a bandana wrapped around her almost childlike face, that she was the woman of my dreams. She was innocence and wisdom and her eyes sparkled with anticipation of the life that would unfold before her. She was mystery and mysticism, reading palms and communing with the stars. She was spirituality and sensuality and her voice carried angels on its wings. She was a dancer and a musician whose talent shined like the sky of a million stars at Sonora Pass.
In the days of our youth she was beyond my reach. She was bonded to another man, the mother of a small child, and I was not ready for the life she would lead. My love remained within my heart. Later, when I went to New York to make my mark as an actor and playwright, I would dream of her. It was as if she called me from the distance of a continent and I answered in devotion. I returned to the central valley of California dead broke and struggling for a new way of life but all I could think about was her. My friend and roommate at the time was adept at reading the hearts of men. He revealed to her my affection though I had never revealed it to him.
It happened one night in the back yard of a mutual acquaintance. Beneath the eyes of heaven we touched. I wondered then as I wonder now how many of us are blessed to know such a sensation. To reveal the contents of the heart and to know in an instant the meaning of love. All this and so much more that a thousand words could not begin to describe it. All this in an embrace. She was my first true love and she became an obsession. We began a relationship of agony and ecstasy, of passion and jealousy, of joy and suffering.
Maybe it was too soon for love. We were young and neither of us was prepared for what love entails. We were still hungry for adventure. The world was wide open and teeming with excitement to commit to another’s dreams and ambitions.
It ended as suddenly as it began. Jealousy reared its bloody fangs. She had promised her love but she had never forsworn her freedom. The final scene was dark and foreboding. For years I would refer to it as the incubus. My accusation of betrayal struck so deeply that she threw herself at me in rage. I recoiled in remorse but the damage was done. Not long after she called to say goodbye. She was leaving the valley, bound for glory and adventure somewhere in Oregon. We parted as friends and for years thereafter I sent her a trail of love letters, hoping without cause or reason to win back her love. Eighteen years later my hope was realized.
Her travels had taken her from Oregon to Idaho to Nashville in pursuit of a dream. Her daughter had grown from a beautiful child to a mature young artist. She had gone through several frustrating relationships. She had come to the realization that she was attracted to men who abused her. They were broken spirits in need of nurturing and incapable of returning the love and support she gave them.
I had undergone many changes as well. Two fruitless relationships and a handful of brief affairs left me wondering if it all wasn’t a waste of time. Having received my degree in psychology and speech pathology I got a job in the public schools and there I remained for the past ten years. My life was secure. I had found a sacred circle of friends and was close to my family. I was alone but I was not lonely. I had decided not to settle for less than love. I discovered that a man could find contentment and meaning in life without ever finding his soul mate. I was respected by my peers and felt no animosity toward anyone in the world.
It was then that she came calling. It was not entirely unexpected. I had seen her a number of times over the years. I was her way to travel periodically and she would generally look me up when her path brought her back to the valley. On those occasions we had rekindled the old flame. Each time she left feeling a little empty when she left. The last time we had a fight over what I perceived as her selfishness. On a three-day weekend I had driven her to Idaho to rescue her belongings from an unknown fate. When we arrived I was no longer a lover but only a friend. She made visits to former lovers and former haunts, leaving me to my own thoughts. She began to speak fondly of the man she left behind in Nashville. I had not realized how deeply she could still wound me. When we parted company I promised myself that I would never welcome her again.
When she called I was polite but guarded. I was not certain I wanted to see her. I was certain that I did not want to repeat the romantic sojourns of the past. I found her waiting on the steps of my porch at two in the morning. Something about her was different. She had changed. I had changed. We talked through the night and sealed our newfound bond several evenings later. We made love like angels caught between heaven and earth. It was a night to remember. It was a union of spirits. We jumped the broom in Nashville at Christmas and married officially the following April in Lake Tahoe. The truth for all the romance is: she needed a marriage certificate to get health insurance.
From that moment everything changed. By all accounts the first year was a struggle, a battle of opposing wills. I was perplexed. I had moved two thousand miles from home and was very nearly abandoned there. The best that could be said was that we survived. Though we parted on good terms, I could not be certain what would greet me when I came home from this journey: a loving wife or a nightmare of opposition. She was invited on this homeward journey but opted to remain behind. She said I needed the space and she was more than right. I’d spoken to her only twice since I left. I wanted to live the moment and for the most part that is what I have done.
We pull over at a Kansas visitor’s welcome center, grabbing a cup of coffee and a pamphlet on golf in the Jayhawk state. We pick out a course in Lawrence near Topeka. It is billed as one of the best public courses in the state. It is a long and lonely drive, Wiz sleeping and dreams drifting in and our of consciousness as if driven by a will of their own. The greenery born of fresh and bountiful rain overshadows the traditional amber sea of grain. The crows are with us everywhere.
We reach Lawrence and find our way to the course with plenty of time for a late round. Laid out on rolling Kansas hills, the course is pleasing to the eye with plush evenly cut grass, elevated tees, thick rough and pine lining the fairways. I step out of Sally and feel as though I’ve set a record for tumbling in a high speed dryer. Wiz comments that I look like five hundred miles of hard road. Thanks a lot. I feel much worse. We check in at the clubhouse and sign up for nine. By the time we pull out our clubs we’re due on the first tee. I duff my drive and comment to the starter that I’m a bit road weary. He knows the feeling. He’s a navy man and recalls his first round after a long stint at sea. The ground wouldn’t stop moving.
It is several holes before I realize it’s not bound to get better soon. My spirit is down and trending downward. I haven’t the heart for laughter and camaraderie despite the beauty of the course and the friendly nature of the guys we’re playing with. I am far-gone and goner still. Wiz who is play a good round begins to wear on me with his teasing commentary and attempted humor. On the seventh tee he tosses me a pink tee. It is a running joke with us. I refuse to use yellow or pink tees but with my amber vision shades I can’t tell the difference. This time it draws no smile or laughter, just a worn out shrug as I toss it aside. His response startles me. With a look of downtrodden sincerity he announces: You hate me. I begin to rethink my state of being.
I had forgotten. I am not alone on the course. I am not alone in my struggle. Wiz has tried in vain to pick me up and I have returned nothing but grief. Wiz nails a three wood that sails right into the trees. I step up and hit the best drive of my round down the center. When he has trouble finding his ball I welcome the opportunity to make my peace by helping him to locate it. A load is lifted from my shoulders, leaving only the fatigue buried deep in my bones. I finish well, hitting the last two greens in regulation.
As we walk off the ninth green it occurs to me that our scores are close. I make inquiry and learn that he has bettered me by two strokes. The gods of golf have spoken. Wiz is gracious in victory, making excuses for my game. But there are no excuses in golf. I have been delivered a harsh lesson and one that will require pondering. For the second time on the journey, Wiz has defeated his mentor fair and square. He refused to acknowledge the first at Tioga Pass and now he refuses to gloat. He could easily have stumbled and fallen short. The road has been as rough on him as it has been on me. I’m proud of his accomplishment, proud of how he carries it and proud that he has not allowed the attitude of his playing partner to ruin his game.
I am also a little ashamed of my own conduct through the middle holes of the round: hanging my head, cursing myself, refusing attempts at encouragement, wallowing in self pity. There is no excuse. Regardless the circumstances, a bad round happens as a matter of course in the game of golf. There is a right way and a wrong way to handle it. I chose the wrong way, seeking excuses and finding blame in inanimate objects. The right way is to ask yourself what the round is teaching you. Had I asked I might have realized that I was in need of grounding. I had been swimming in a sea of dreams for the better part of twenty-four hours and could not feel the earth beneath my moccasins.
We head on to Kansas City with our thoughts surrounding the game behind us. We are in desperate need of nourishment and take the first inviting off ramp in search of a quiet homespun meal. There is nothing to be found. Our choices are between a pizza parlor with a karaoke stage and a Chinese restaurant. A rowdy man in front of the pizza parlor makes our choice for us. It is a wise choice. We are the only customers. The atmosphere is peaceful except for an explosive telephone conversation in Chinese by the woman at the cash register. The waitress explains: In laws. Over tea and wanton soup I believe the lesson of the round was: Accept adversity.
On our way back to Sally, we encounter another disturbance of the peace: a shouting match in the parking lot that has all the signs of a fight. We decide Kansas City is not our kind of town but we are too tired to move on. We stop at the first motel where a Persian man with a couple of missing teeth informs us: No vacancy. We find the next Motel 6 with a TV bolted to the wall and settle in for a long night’s sleep.
The first words from my mouth upon awakening in the morning are: Welcome adversity. Wiz nods in agreement. He had no comment the night before but the night has settled the issue. We are ready to resume the journey and anxious to leave this town behind.
Next stop: St. Louis.
Is it wrong I wonder? Can a man betray his loved one in dreams? I have no heart to stop the passion that runs through my veins and fills me with sweet pleasure. This is not my dream alone. It is too powerful. It is the dance of the temptress and gypsy magic. It is positive proof that we live our lives both as physical and spiritual beings. In our imaginations we are not confined. We are free to wander and roam wherever the spirit takes us. It is more than a sensual feast. Our bodies blend and mold together, joining in a rhythm only our hearts can keep. Love among the stars, at heaven’s gate, before the eyes of the gods, a muse of celestial poets, gardens of delight at the sweet and tender mercy of Eros. It is the twenty-four hour wet dream in the sanctuary of liquid desire.
She dances by firelight in a gypsy caravan, bidding me come with her eyes. She lays her body down by a river of moonlit waters and opens to my embrace. She leads me to a forest of starlight and reveals to me her soul. She pulls me to her breasts, soft and charged with radiant energy. She locks me in her fold. Our legs and arms entwined, our bodies as one, we are capable of flight, no longer physical but embodied light.
Wiz emerges from the all-night diner ready to take the wheel. He senses my distance and allows me to roam in dreamland while he drives deep into the night. The highway is flat and straight and I am caught between sleep and awake. I am unable or unwilling to let go of the dream that has captured me. Eyes closed and I am submerged, sinking ever deeper, aware but unafraid of drowning. Eyes open and I return to the here and now but fail to find balance. Each time I go down it is harder to return, harder to pry the lids apart, harder to gain focus, harder to hang on to the world above.
Finally I let go. It is not mine to control. Let it run its course. Let it take me where it will. I will not fight back. I will not struggle against the dream that chooses me. Lit be. Let it have its way with me. It is not fro a man to turn away his destiny though it may cost him his life. There are forces at work that will not be denied. To do so would be perilous. It would plant a seed of unrest that would haunt me down the road.
We reach Kansas in the morning. Wiz has lost his caffeine high and hands the keys to me. The long night’s journey has rested me enough to drive although I am not completely myself. I am entranced in a state of awareness. The world has once again transformed. There is a sky of endless clouds, huge white billowy formations that roll over the land. It is world of dreams. Never have I seen such a sky. It seems to cover all of Kansas, moving westward from the floods of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers.
The dream takes on a new dimension. No longer confined to darkness it summons me in daylight and dances in the corners of my mind. I need only call her name and she appears before me. As the miles roll on and the clouds begin to reveal scattered glimpses of blue sky above, I am aware of another presence in the dream. It is another gypsy dancer, the one I fell in love with so many years ago, the one that uprooted me from my home in California, and the one whom I followed to Nashville. I glance in the rearview mirror and I’m startled to see a whirling red light.
A Kansas highway patrolman pulls us over and informs me that I’ve been traveling at 73 miles per hour. The road is desolate and the land is wide with sparse traffic. The speed limit is sixty-five. I’ve been lost in another world, unaware of his presence behind me, and I suspect that my lack of awareness more than my speed has led to his action. A 1965 Mustang with California plates and a driver that has been too long on the road is suspect enough. He asks for license and registration and I scramble to find them. In my haste I hand him the original registration, which is over ten years old. He walks back to his patrol car to check out my vehicle as I locate the updated registration. I hand to him with an apology on his return. He smiles and tells me he’s going to let me off with a warning but he advises me to keep my attention on the road. It is a warning in more ways than one.
Wiz has awakened to this scene and surmises the true nature of the event: Your wife just reached out from Nashville to give you a slap. I don’t doubt it. We had lived apart for twenty years yet in some strange way we were always connected, joined in spirit and in dreams. I call for her forgiveness and feel it is received. But forgiveness must be without judgment and it will be another thousand miles before the truth of what has happened on this open highway in Kansas will be revealed. I have no sense of guilt and I will not be found guilty. To dream is not a crime, no matter what form it takes. I have not betrayed my love but I have forgotten for a time its source. I have discovered what I have always known within: that it is possible to love again. It is always possible.
The closer we get to Nashville on the eastward swing of our journey, the more my thoughts will turn to her. My love for her survived a canyon of time and a thousand rude awakenings. I knew the first time I saw her in her layered gypsy dress, a bandana wrapped around her almost childlike face, that she was the woman of my dreams. She was innocence and wisdom and her eyes sparkled with anticipation of the life that would unfold before her. She was mystery and mysticism, reading palms and communing with the stars. She was spirituality and sensuality and her voice carried angels on its wings. She was a dancer and a musician whose talent shined like the sky of a million stars at Sonora Pass.
In the days of our youth she was beyond my reach. She was bonded to another man, the mother of a small child, and I was not ready for the life she would lead. My love remained within my heart. Later, when I went to New York to make my mark as an actor and playwright, I would dream of her. It was as if she called me from the distance of a continent and I answered in devotion. I returned to the central valley of California dead broke and struggling for a new way of life but all I could think about was her. My friend and roommate at the time was adept at reading the hearts of men. He revealed to her my affection though I had never revealed it to him.
It happened one night in the back yard of a mutual acquaintance. Beneath the eyes of heaven we touched. I wondered then as I wonder now how many of us are blessed to know such a sensation. To reveal the contents of the heart and to know in an instant the meaning of love. All this and so much more that a thousand words could not begin to describe it. All this in an embrace. She was my first true love and she became an obsession. We began a relationship of agony and ecstasy, of passion and jealousy, of joy and suffering.
Maybe it was too soon for love. We were young and neither of us was prepared for what love entails. We were still hungry for adventure. The world was wide open and teeming with excitement to commit to another’s dreams and ambitions.
It ended as suddenly as it began. Jealousy reared its bloody fangs. She had promised her love but she had never forsworn her freedom. The final scene was dark and foreboding. For years I would refer to it as the incubus. My accusation of betrayal struck so deeply that she threw herself at me in rage. I recoiled in remorse but the damage was done. Not long after she called to say goodbye. She was leaving the valley, bound for glory and adventure somewhere in Oregon. We parted as friends and for years thereafter I sent her a trail of love letters, hoping without cause or reason to win back her love. Eighteen years later my hope was realized.
Her travels had taken her from Oregon to Idaho to Nashville in pursuit of a dream. Her daughter had grown from a beautiful child to a mature young artist. She had gone through several frustrating relationships. She had come to the realization that she was attracted to men who abused her. They were broken spirits in need of nurturing and incapable of returning the love and support she gave them.
I had undergone many changes as well. Two fruitless relationships and a handful of brief affairs left me wondering if it all wasn’t a waste of time. Having received my degree in psychology and speech pathology I got a job in the public schools and there I remained for the past ten years. My life was secure. I had found a sacred circle of friends and was close to my family. I was alone but I was not lonely. I had decided not to settle for less than love. I discovered that a man could find contentment and meaning in life without ever finding his soul mate. I was respected by my peers and felt no animosity toward anyone in the world.
It was then that she came calling. It was not entirely unexpected. I had seen her a number of times over the years. I was her way to travel periodically and she would generally look me up when her path brought her back to the valley. On those occasions we had rekindled the old flame. Each time she left feeling a little empty when she left. The last time we had a fight over what I perceived as her selfishness. On a three-day weekend I had driven her to Idaho to rescue her belongings from an unknown fate. When we arrived I was no longer a lover but only a friend. She made visits to former lovers and former haunts, leaving me to my own thoughts. She began to speak fondly of the man she left behind in Nashville. I had not realized how deeply she could still wound me. When we parted company I promised myself that I would never welcome her again.
When she called I was polite but guarded. I was not certain I wanted to see her. I was certain that I did not want to repeat the romantic sojourns of the past. I found her waiting on the steps of my porch at two in the morning. Something about her was different. She had changed. I had changed. We talked through the night and sealed our newfound bond several evenings later. We made love like angels caught between heaven and earth. It was a night to remember. It was a union of spirits. We jumped the broom in Nashville at Christmas and married officially the following April in Lake Tahoe. The truth for all the romance is: she needed a marriage certificate to get health insurance.
From that moment everything changed. By all accounts the first year was a struggle, a battle of opposing wills. I was perplexed. I had moved two thousand miles from home and was very nearly abandoned there. The best that could be said was that we survived. Though we parted on good terms, I could not be certain what would greet me when I came home from this journey: a loving wife or a nightmare of opposition. She was invited on this homeward journey but opted to remain behind. She said I needed the space and she was more than right. I’d spoken to her only twice since I left. I wanted to live the moment and for the most part that is what I have done.
We pull over at a Kansas visitor’s welcome center, grabbing a cup of coffee and a pamphlet on golf in the Jayhawk state. We pick out a course in Lawrence near Topeka. It is billed as one of the best public courses in the state. It is a long and lonely drive, Wiz sleeping and dreams drifting in and our of consciousness as if driven by a will of their own. The greenery born of fresh and bountiful rain overshadows the traditional amber sea of grain. The crows are with us everywhere.
We reach Lawrence and find our way to the course with plenty of time for a late round. Laid out on rolling Kansas hills, the course is pleasing to the eye with plush evenly cut grass, elevated tees, thick rough and pine lining the fairways. I step out of Sally and feel as though I’ve set a record for tumbling in a high speed dryer. Wiz comments that I look like five hundred miles of hard road. Thanks a lot. I feel much worse. We check in at the clubhouse and sign up for nine. By the time we pull out our clubs we’re due on the first tee. I duff my drive and comment to the starter that I’m a bit road weary. He knows the feeling. He’s a navy man and recalls his first round after a long stint at sea. The ground wouldn’t stop moving.
It is several holes before I realize it’s not bound to get better soon. My spirit is down and trending downward. I haven’t the heart for laughter and camaraderie despite the beauty of the course and the friendly nature of the guys we’re playing with. I am far-gone and goner still. Wiz who is play a good round begins to wear on me with his teasing commentary and attempted humor. On the seventh tee he tosses me a pink tee. It is a running joke with us. I refuse to use yellow or pink tees but with my amber vision shades I can’t tell the difference. This time it draws no smile or laughter, just a worn out shrug as I toss it aside. His response startles me. With a look of downtrodden sincerity he announces: You hate me. I begin to rethink my state of being.
I had forgotten. I am not alone on the course. I am not alone in my struggle. Wiz has tried in vain to pick me up and I have returned nothing but grief. Wiz nails a three wood that sails right into the trees. I step up and hit the best drive of my round down the center. When he has trouble finding his ball I welcome the opportunity to make my peace by helping him to locate it. A load is lifted from my shoulders, leaving only the fatigue buried deep in my bones. I finish well, hitting the last two greens in regulation.
As we walk off the ninth green it occurs to me that our scores are close. I make inquiry and learn that he has bettered me by two strokes. The gods of golf have spoken. Wiz is gracious in victory, making excuses for my game. But there are no excuses in golf. I have been delivered a harsh lesson and one that will require pondering. For the second time on the journey, Wiz has defeated his mentor fair and square. He refused to acknowledge the first at Tioga Pass and now he refuses to gloat. He could easily have stumbled and fallen short. The road has been as rough on him as it has been on me. I’m proud of his accomplishment, proud of how he carries it and proud that he has not allowed the attitude of his playing partner to ruin his game.
I am also a little ashamed of my own conduct through the middle holes of the round: hanging my head, cursing myself, refusing attempts at encouragement, wallowing in self pity. There is no excuse. Regardless the circumstances, a bad round happens as a matter of course in the game of golf. There is a right way and a wrong way to handle it. I chose the wrong way, seeking excuses and finding blame in inanimate objects. The right way is to ask yourself what the round is teaching you. Had I asked I might have realized that I was in need of grounding. I had been swimming in a sea of dreams for the better part of twenty-four hours and could not feel the earth beneath my moccasins.
We head on to Kansas City with our thoughts surrounding the game behind us. We are in desperate need of nourishment and take the first inviting off ramp in search of a quiet homespun meal. There is nothing to be found. Our choices are between a pizza parlor with a karaoke stage and a Chinese restaurant. A rowdy man in front of the pizza parlor makes our choice for us. It is a wise choice. We are the only customers. The atmosphere is peaceful except for an explosive telephone conversation in Chinese by the woman at the cash register. The waitress explains: In laws. Over tea and wanton soup I believe the lesson of the round was: Accept adversity.
On our way back to Sally, we encounter another disturbance of the peace: a shouting match in the parking lot that has all the signs of a fight. We decide Kansas City is not our kind of town but we are too tired to move on. We stop at the first motel where a Persian man with a couple of missing teeth informs us: No vacancy. We find the next Motel 6 with a TV bolted to the wall and settle in for a long night’s sleep.
The first words from my mouth upon awakening in the morning are: Welcome adversity. Wiz nods in agreement. He had no comment the night before but the night has settled the issue. We are ready to resume the journey and anxious to leave this town behind.
Next stop: St. Louis.
GRAND CANYON: THE HEARTLAND
In the middle of Missouri, equidistant between Kansas City and St. Louis lies the heartland city of Columbia. From the interstate it draws us in for a magical round of golf. For me it is a chance at redemption, not to avenge my loss but to make amends for my transgressions. For us, it is a landmark round, a line in the sand we have chosen to honor: By our calculations, the sixth hole will be the 200th of our journey.
Wiz made it a goal soon after our visit to Grand Canyon, the same day we played three rounds on the road and drew the laughter of Don Juan. Incredibly, we have averaged nine holes a day. We are not aware that it will be the last round of the journey but it is gratifying to have reached this marker. It would have mattered little had we not but as it is it is a cause for celebration.
It is a weekday and the course is far enough from the center of town that we are virtually alone on the course. There is no one but us and a few devoted locals on the putting green. I take care of the green fees while Wiz scopes a row of clubs against the clubhouse wall. He lays his hands on a Ping two-iron on sale for fifteen dollars. He asks my advice and I say: Buy it. I believe it is worth far more. It’s in perfect condition and matches the five-iron Wiz found on a driving range. It is as if it was left there, like the jazz shoes on the streets of Boulder, for the Wiz to find. Some folks choose a club; Wiz allows a club to choose him.
We later learn from a local that the club was brand new. It’s former owner put it up for sale after one round. He will someday learn: It is not the club but the hand that grips it.
The acting club pro takes us out to the first tee to give us a rundown on the course. He is as friendly and easy going as an Autumnal breeze. In all my days of golf I cannot remember such personal and friendly treatment at any course at any price. It is a breath of fresh Missouri air and the course itself is a gem. It is an imaginative nine-hole layout surrounded by deep forest, with running water, gullies, hills and dales, and tall trees of hickory and oak with sprawling branches that jut out into the fairway.
We tee off and I am immediately gratified. My game has returned to me. The gods of golf forgive the repentant when the repentance is sincere. I par the first hole and hit a beautiful draw down the middle of the dogleg left second. Wiz bogies the first and fades a well-struck tee shot off the second, his ball bounding down a twenty-foot embankment. I give his lie a look and offer: Looks like a two-iron to me. It is a steep uphill shot that will have to carry a creek and a grandfather tree some thirty feet high and thirty feet wide. Wiz whips out his new two-iron and rips a masterpiece. It sails overhead, clears the creek and the grandfather tree to settle just short of an elevated green. By my reckoning it has covered a solid two hundred and twenty yards of earth. It is his best shot in one hundred and ninety six holes. At an average of six shots a hole that comes out to around 1,200 shots. Inspired by his majesty, I spike my wedge to the stick and drill it home for birdie while the Wiz saves par.
At this point a high school kid, stocky in build and quiet in demeanor, approaches us with an air of intensity. We offer him a choice: Play through or join us. Somewhat to my surprise, he opts to join us. We play on, matching shot for shot, stroke for stroke, Wiz and I on a Zen golf high, the kid on a ride of quiet desperation. We try in our separate ways to loosen the kid up and lead him to the other side of golf. He has too much tension and is far too worried about technique but he has a feel for the game and a strong desire to master it. He has yet to learn to let the game master him. The game is the real teacher and it yields its secrets only to those who give themselves to the game.
We finally reach the sixth tee, our landmark hole, and the kid has the honor. It is a long par four with the forest to the right. He pulls out his high-tech driver with the oversized metal head and the super-graphite shaft and nails one long and lean to the left side of the fairway. Nice shot. He smiles. It is as much expression of emotion as his temperament will allow. I pull out the old reliable Big Mama, my faithful persimmons driver, give it a waggle and summon the gods for a blessing on the journey. I give myself to the game, call on my inner strength, the heightened awareness of the fourth and sixth chakras, and let it go.
She sails like a shooting star into the distant horizon. Like an eagle catching an updraft, she finds a second wind, rises and sails again. I tell myself: Savor the moment. Wiz lets one loose that fades into the woods. So be it. The moment is beautiful. We finish the round walking on thin air and good vibes, breathing in the smell of green, enjoying the hillside surroundings, the plush rich vegetation and the blessings of the round.
On the ninth tee, the kid finally opens up. Through the first eight holes he has said no more than a dozen words. I tell him I hope to see him on the tour someday. He cracks another smile. It seems I’ve tapped his dream. He replies: I hope so. Having broken the ice, I ask him if he’s a baseball fan. Sure he is. I get the feeling he’s never met anyone who wasn’t. I ask: St. Louis or Kansas City? His brow furrows. It’s seems to be a serious matter. He explains: Well, I’ve always liked George Brett. He’s a KC man. I reply: Sure hall of famer, five years after he retires.
By god, I think I’ve made the kid’s day. He struggles a bit on the ninth. He’s not used to all this talk during a round of golf. But he keeps his cool, that Kansas-Missouri temperament. Maybe he will make it to the tour one day. I hope so.
We finish up and the kid waits to replace the pin.
“Good luck,” say I.
“Happy golfing,” says Wiz.
“Same to you,” he replies as he heads off to the putting green. His day is not finished without a little more practice and maybe another round.
They grow them strong here in the heartland, sturdy and constant as the sun in July, quiet and solid souls. We hang out a while, basking in the glory. We drink a beer and watch the locals move slowly through the day. The lady at the desk is watching the president on TV. We ask about the flood. She shrugs: It’s still there. So it is.
Onward to St. Louie and the Great Flood of 1993.
Wiz made it a goal soon after our visit to Grand Canyon, the same day we played three rounds on the road and drew the laughter of Don Juan. Incredibly, we have averaged nine holes a day. We are not aware that it will be the last round of the journey but it is gratifying to have reached this marker. It would have mattered little had we not but as it is it is a cause for celebration.
It is a weekday and the course is far enough from the center of town that we are virtually alone on the course. There is no one but us and a few devoted locals on the putting green. I take care of the green fees while Wiz scopes a row of clubs against the clubhouse wall. He lays his hands on a Ping two-iron on sale for fifteen dollars. He asks my advice and I say: Buy it. I believe it is worth far more. It’s in perfect condition and matches the five-iron Wiz found on a driving range. It is as if it was left there, like the jazz shoes on the streets of Boulder, for the Wiz to find. Some folks choose a club; Wiz allows a club to choose him.
We later learn from a local that the club was brand new. It’s former owner put it up for sale after one round. He will someday learn: It is not the club but the hand that grips it.
The acting club pro takes us out to the first tee to give us a rundown on the course. He is as friendly and easy going as an Autumnal breeze. In all my days of golf I cannot remember such personal and friendly treatment at any course at any price. It is a breath of fresh Missouri air and the course itself is a gem. It is an imaginative nine-hole layout surrounded by deep forest, with running water, gullies, hills and dales, and tall trees of hickory and oak with sprawling branches that jut out into the fairway.
We tee off and I am immediately gratified. My game has returned to me. The gods of golf forgive the repentant when the repentance is sincere. I par the first hole and hit a beautiful draw down the middle of the dogleg left second. Wiz bogies the first and fades a well-struck tee shot off the second, his ball bounding down a twenty-foot embankment. I give his lie a look and offer: Looks like a two-iron to me. It is a steep uphill shot that will have to carry a creek and a grandfather tree some thirty feet high and thirty feet wide. Wiz whips out his new two-iron and rips a masterpiece. It sails overhead, clears the creek and the grandfather tree to settle just short of an elevated green. By my reckoning it has covered a solid two hundred and twenty yards of earth. It is his best shot in one hundred and ninety six holes. At an average of six shots a hole that comes out to around 1,200 shots. Inspired by his majesty, I spike my wedge to the stick and drill it home for birdie while the Wiz saves par.
At this point a high school kid, stocky in build and quiet in demeanor, approaches us with an air of intensity. We offer him a choice: Play through or join us. Somewhat to my surprise, he opts to join us. We play on, matching shot for shot, stroke for stroke, Wiz and I on a Zen golf high, the kid on a ride of quiet desperation. We try in our separate ways to loosen the kid up and lead him to the other side of golf. He has too much tension and is far too worried about technique but he has a feel for the game and a strong desire to master it. He has yet to learn to let the game master him. The game is the real teacher and it yields its secrets only to those who give themselves to the game.
We finally reach the sixth tee, our landmark hole, and the kid has the honor. It is a long par four with the forest to the right. He pulls out his high-tech driver with the oversized metal head and the super-graphite shaft and nails one long and lean to the left side of the fairway. Nice shot. He smiles. It is as much expression of emotion as his temperament will allow. I pull out the old reliable Big Mama, my faithful persimmons driver, give it a waggle and summon the gods for a blessing on the journey. I give myself to the game, call on my inner strength, the heightened awareness of the fourth and sixth chakras, and let it go.
She sails like a shooting star into the distant horizon. Like an eagle catching an updraft, she finds a second wind, rises and sails again. I tell myself: Savor the moment. Wiz lets one loose that fades into the woods. So be it. The moment is beautiful. We finish the round walking on thin air and good vibes, breathing in the smell of green, enjoying the hillside surroundings, the plush rich vegetation and the blessings of the round.
On the ninth tee, the kid finally opens up. Through the first eight holes he has said no more than a dozen words. I tell him I hope to see him on the tour someday. He cracks another smile. It seems I’ve tapped his dream. He replies: I hope so. Having broken the ice, I ask him if he’s a baseball fan. Sure he is. I get the feeling he’s never met anyone who wasn’t. I ask: St. Louis or Kansas City? His brow furrows. It’s seems to be a serious matter. He explains: Well, I’ve always liked George Brett. He’s a KC man. I reply: Sure hall of famer, five years after he retires.
By god, I think I’ve made the kid’s day. He struggles a bit on the ninth. He’s not used to all this talk during a round of golf. But he keeps his cool, that Kansas-Missouri temperament. Maybe he will make it to the tour one day. I hope so.
We finish up and the kid waits to replace the pin.
“Good luck,” say I.
“Happy golfing,” says Wiz.
“Same to you,” he replies as he heads off to the putting green. His day is not finished without a little more practice and maybe another round.
They grow them strong here in the heartland, sturdy and constant as the sun in July, quiet and solid souls. We hang out a while, basking in the glory. We drink a beer and watch the locals move slowly through the day. The lady at the desk is watching the president on TV. We ask about the flood. She shrugs: It’s still there. So it is.
Onward to St. Louie and the Great Flood of 1993.
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