The Deadbeat Club Ch. 02

What one can't bring to it, one can never find within it.

After a few minutes, the two lovers appeared alone with their thoughts at poolside. As their passion subsided, they were once again left, each to deal with their own persecutor within.

Observing this rite of passage, I found myself thirsty. I brought the wine to my lips, but then checked myself and set it down again. It wasn't wine I was thirsty for…I walked to the sink, placed my mouth to the tap and drank the cool water it emitted.

"…one of the soldiers pierced His side, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water…he testifies so that you may also believe."

I saw myself as a child, sitting and listening to a passage in Sunday School.

It was getting late. I looked up at the evening sky and saw a crescent moon that appeared to smirk sideways at me. I could have sworn that only a few nights before I was here alone with Monica and it was full.

Then, before leaving the two exhausted performers, I leaned my head from the opened glass doorway and admonished:

"Ok you two, in the future don't forget to use protection."

Without raising her head, Monica lifted her hand in a one-finger salute.

Part VI: Station to Station

"He knew me unlike anyone I've ever known. We could communicate without speaking, as if we had a special wavelength, just our own."

It was spring. As they say, love was in the air and the flowers were blooming. Life all around was blossoming…as I listened to a tale of death.

"The worst part was the last few days. He complained constantly of his thirst. But the pneumonia and sweats it brought on just wouldn't allow him to hydrate."

Dolores spoke softly, her gloved hands shaking as she brought the cup of coffee to her lips.

After a few weeks of illness, Mo had passed away over the Easter weekend.

'Perhaps, April is the cruellest month,' I thought.

"We had tried 12 doctors in as many years, but none could relieve his agony," Dolores relayed, tearfully.

The coffee shop was quite warm, and I asked her if she wanted to remove her gloves. She declined, complaining that the skin on her hands was worn and dried from gardening. She had been trying to plant new seeds in the dried soil behind her home. The effort had left her palms chafed and caused her hands to bleed. She had applied a lotion and thought it best to keep them covered.

"I brought in the hospice care in the last two weeks when the pneumonia came on. Between the pneumonia and the final collapse of his body, he could hardly breathe," she explained. Then the stooped woman, wiped her eyes and blew her nose.

I found it difficult to listen to a friend's final agony. But this was the least I could do to pay my final respects.

"Sister Veronica Mary came from the hospice and did more to relieve his pain than any doctor. She prayed with him and wiped his forehead when the sweats got bad. Sometimes in the last day or two he'd fall into a delerium and think she was his mother…which was strange because he was an orphan," she reminisced, somewhat absently. As she did so, she stared off into space…reliving the final days of her marriage.

"It's a shame," I offered, "that the prayers went unanswered."

"Oh, but they didn't," the woman responded, staring into her coffee.

"How's that?"

"In the last days, he prayed for only one thing—freedom."

After finishing our final words, Dolores rose and left me alone with my thoughts and coffee.

As she walked from the shop she seemed to carry the weight of the world on her stooped shoulders.

But I wondered if her burden was actually one of earth…or wood.

Part VII: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll

I received the following email from Tracy shortly before Halloween:

"From: Tracy J

Sent: Friday, October 27^th, 2005

To: Edmund Diamond

CC:

Ed,

Thought I'd better fill you in on the latest. Pretty incredible.

I went down to the coffee shop yesterday afternoon to meet Sofia. She's usually there during her afternoon break.

When I got there I saw her sitting with some guy that looked like a stockbroker or lawyer or something. He was bald, three-piece suit, and one of these real educated looking guys.

It pissed me off that she'd be fooling around with some other guy. I mean, I know she's married an all, and, maybe who am I to talk, but this was different. How many guys does one bitch need?

So, I walked up to the table and sat down—not waiting for any invite. As I turned to this little, high-fallutin schmuck, who is it but—Jeremiah!

I nearly fell off my chair. He was dressed better than me! What hair he had was all slicked back along the side of his head. Would have sworn he was from Blackhawk or something.

"What the hell happened to you?" I asked him.

"Nothing happened to me," he answered…but kinda full of himself, like. I really wanted to knock the s—t out of him.

"So, how'd you get all cleaned up and all?"

"I'm back on my medicine," was all he said. Then he placed his hand on Sofia's. Couldn't believe that. Thought she hated the creep.

Later she told me she'd met him at the shop a week or so before—after he got on his meds—and got to actually like the little perv. (How it all got started—who knows?)

"My problem started in Nam," he told me, his head held kinda up in the air. It was like he was looking down on me or something.

"After the experience I had there, I began to find myself absorbed in rituals to protect myself. I must have had a chemical inclination, too. But then when I got back to the states, I seemed to become consumed with my fears and my rituals. I lost it all, friends, family, jobs. I found myself alone, without comfort or home. Might as well have stayed in the Asian jungles, I guess."

Couldn't believe what I was hearing. His diction was exact. He was calm and confident as anyone I ever saw. And Sofia stroked his hand while he spoke. As if—well, you figure it out for yourself. F—ing tramp! That's all I can say for her. And with this nut job!

"Well, I give you props for serving in Nam," I said. I was trying to be polite. Really.

Then he launched into a tirade:

"Don't! Was the worst thing I could have done—to serve. Like this futile war today, no fighting can save us, only diplomacy. We're not making the world free, we're enslaving it. Rather than beinging a solution, we're the problem!

"We enslave women by not giving them the right to their bodies…

"We hold back the poor from our borders, preventing them from feeding their families…

"We are an evil nation, and God will judge us…"

Then he shifted around in his seat and looked out the window toward that old, ramshackle car of his.

"I'll be right back," he said, jumping up from the table.

"Where are you going?" asked Sofia. Her eyes following his every move—the horny bitch.

"To my car. I am going to get my medals and throw them in the garbage canister outside—where they belong!"

Then he stormed from the shop, crossing the street to his Chevy like someone on a mission from God, or something.

I turned to Sofia:

"Why?" I asked.

She held her hands about a foot apart and started laughing.

I wanted to kill her at that point. What a total slut!

Just then tires squealed and there was a thud. I thought two cars must have hit. People in the shop and outside screamed and ran toward the street.

Sofia and I followed. She kept moaning, "No, no, no…"

Out in the street the car was sitting, partially side ways. The front of the hood had a deep dent in it and some splattered blood. About ten feet away lay Jeremiah. He was in a lump, curled in a half fetal position.

"He never looked," the driver was saying. "Just ran out in front of me. I swear!"

Jeremiah was dead. I'd seen it in action myself. I knew death when I saw it.

Sofia ran to him and knelt beside him crying and trying to hold what was left of him.

"Too late," I said.

"No, no, no…" she kept whispering. Maybe she was really in love with him. It would be like her—the whole thing was just weird enough.

The air was still and it was all silent, like—we were all in shock. Then the ground shook. A typical Bay Area tremor. But it was strong enough to cause a crack to form in the plate glass window of the coffee shop. It broke and fell out of the pane, smashing onto the pavement.

As the first police cars started arriving, a gust of wind started up. Some leaves whirled around.

But Jeremiah never moved. He just lay there in a heap, like the sack of shit he was.

Maybe I should, but I have no sorrow for the guy. You won't hear me crying for him.

Never liked him.

Just thought you should know.

Tracy"

***********

"From: Edmund Diamond

Sent: Friday, October 27^th, 2005

To: Tracy J

CC:

Hi Tracy:

A quote for Jeremiah:

'The visions of your prophets

Were false and worthless;

…The oracles they gave you

Were false and misleading.'

Maybe the Bible is unerring in its truth.

No lamentations here, either.

Take care,

Ed."

Part VIII: In the Wee Small Hours

I spent most of the following day consoling Sofia over her loss. I tried to tell her that no prophet could lead her to God—and besides, Jeremiah was a prophet in name only.

"But he was brilliant. You never heard the real 'him' speak," she rhapsodized.

"Well, based on what Tracy told me, it sounded like he was a jukebox full of clichés," I said, forgetting my audience. "I think I learned more from him when he was off the medication."

"What!?!! How dare you!"

I knew I was in trouble now…

"You of all people…" she continued: "…with your hack stories, and cynical, unfunny jokes. You couldn't fill half his shoes."

"Or his drawers—at least, so I hear," I said, striving to lighten the mood.

Sofia's attitude changed somewhat; she smiled, mischievously.

"You're jealous," she said.

I could see she was about to breeze through all the stages of the Kubler-Ross grief cycle, winding up at a new one just beyond 'Acceptance,' called 'Flirtation.'

"Sorry, sweetheart, I'm not in the market today."

"You used to be—all the time," she smiled. Then she glanced downward like coquettes do when they want to exaggerate their licentious intent.

Sofia brought her eyes back up into mine and brushed her hair back, showing off the huge diamond on her finger.

"Are you afraid of Sonny? Don't be. He'll never know—or care."

"Yeah, but maybe I will. Ever think about that?"

"Have you suddenly become too moral for me," she said, the sarcasm dripping from her lips, as many things tended to do.

"No. Not too moral—too lazy. After a certain age, it's kind of hard to picture yourself running around behind other men's backs. It's like buying a Ferrari during a mid-life crisis. To you it may seem pretty adventurous, but to everyone else it's embarrassing to watch. It's a pathetic attempt at youth or love or something—maybe, self-glorification."

"As a lover you were fun. As a philosopher you're a bore," Sofia mused absently, while she fussed with her hair and admired her reflection in one of the large glass windows of the shop.

"Got to go," she said. She rose gathering her purse and jacket, then leaned over and placed her lips to mine. She smelt of some soft, flowery scent.

As Sofia leaned into the kiss her hand lightly gripped my thigh and slid upward. I felt her tongue slip through my lips and search out mine. Her hand likewise found what it was looking for and delivered an affectionate squeeze.

Sofia giggled into our kiss. She was pleased to find me responsive to her coquetry.

"Do you remember how to use it?" she teased.

"How does one forget?"

"Ask Sonny," she quipped, then turned and exited.

I watched her bounce and jiggle out to her car. She was all sexed up with no where to go. I was positive our non-encounter would be re-fashioned in her mind to be a lewd rendezvous in which I tried to force myself on her. As always, she will have tried to resist. Ah! But I will have been too strong—her chastity violated, once again!

I went back to my place. It was getting dark.

Once home, I opened some of the windows of my small townhome. Out of the back window, I could see into a small opening of the tiny wooded area left of the natural reserve, now called, "The Preserve." A family of deer was grazing contentedly.

After pouring a few shots and a boilermaker chaser, I went to the bedroom to slip into my sweats. I no longer wore pajamas nor slept naked like I did when I was younger. I liked it cool in the house. I slept better that way.

When I turned on the light to the bedroom, I observed the four-posted bed, draped with a burgundy comforter that was undisturbed and appeared faded. But I could see that it wasn't faded but lightly covered in dust.

I brushed my hand over it several times, but the dust clung to the quilt like maggots to a carcass.

I retired to the TV room and put some music on. Then I shut out the lights.

"Now it's dark…"

My affinity for the dark had come with age. It was synonymous with my affinity for anonymity. When I was young I longed for fame. Genius and fame. They were my secret desideratum. But now I realized what an illusory pleasure that would have been—even if I'd been granted either.

In the dark, the music and drink took me back to my imagination and memories. In the dark, my memory and fantasy blended to form little stories that brought me my greatest pleasure in life. In the dark, I could paint these interesting vignettes, like Neolithic man painted on the walls of his cave. No doubt, he too, in the dark. Perhaps only a dim firelight to assist him.

The oracles of the past supposedly lived in caves and drank potions to see the future. Some inhaled underground gasses to engender their hallucinogenic state. Through the dark and their altered capacity they were delivered fantastic visions and tales.

When the night trails into the "wee, small hours," sometimes it takes all of these resources to re-create the memories of the past and visions of the future that warm and protect you…and that can simultaneously camouflage those that would otherwise haunt you.

I'm sure that both oracles and cavemen must have known these things too…

The next morning as I approached the entrance of "The Preserve," I had to slow down to pass the carcass of a deer who must have been hit the night before.

Part IX: Visions of Johanna

Joan and Monica had lived together only a short time before I found Joan alone one day at the coffee shop, staring out one of the windows. The sunny day belied the sadness you could read in her face. Every wrinkle of her fifty years was showing…her flesh appeared almost damaged, like a burn victim's.

"She left me," Joan stated dryly, before I could even ask the question to which she was providing an answer.

"You knew she would, didn't you?"

Joan shook her head negatively and tears welled in her eyes. It was the first time she had shown a woman's pain since I had known her.

"I'm sure Monica gave you what she could," I said. "She just never had that much to offer…inside, I mean."

I was feeling very knowing and caring at this point of our conversation. I felt that I had always known what would happen. After all, I knew human nature very well. I wrote about it.

"What happened? She go back to the fireman?"

Joan shook her head, 'No.'

"Left me for a younger one."

"Monica? A young guy? "I thought this over a minute. "Well, I guess I'm not surprised."

"No!" Joan glared at me. "A younger woman! She'll never go back to men after me."

Suddenly, I felt very humble and very stupid. Like most 'artists'—or 'artistes'—I was in way over my head when it came to human nature.

None of us really have the nature to be creators; we're designed to be creatures. We are lowly and limited. Our imaginations are way too simple to understand all of heaven and earth…much less, each other.

"How did it happen?"

Joan waved me off. Her tears were rolling steadily now. She sensed my question was more voyeuristic than sympathetic.

I acknowledged her judgment and dropped my question.

Anyone who has felt the pain of being left behind like Joan had been—and that strandedness of feeling it will never happen for them again—could feel nothing but pangs of empathy for the wounded soul in front of them.

I did. And it felt unusual. I had nothing to say. I knew that words—the tools I so admired—were fairly impotent in the face of real, human pain.

I reached out and held Joan's hand. She didn't refuse it. We sat in silence while she cried. Some people around us stared at the strange couple before them and the unusual show of emotion, but we ignored them.

In short order, they would turn their heads and look away. It appeared that they found it awkward and embarrassing to look upon an open display of pain and naked desolation.

Perhaps, it reflected the hidden secret of all their lives, all our lives…that we must all try to "…face bravely the fact that many people must live and die alone…"even in Canaan.

I asked Joan if she'd like me to take her home.

She smiled, teary-eyed: "I don't really have a home now, but I'm storing my things at a friend's."

We drove over to her temporary shelter. Inside were boxes of her clothes and—just stuff—I'm not sure how else to describe all the knick-knacks, pictures, and loose odds and ends of furniture.

Joan groomed dogs, so I expected a lot of dog replicas and pictures. Instead there were images, paintings, figurines and books about dolphins. Boxes were full of this dolphin-alia and I had to look at her questioningly:

"Clearly, there's more going on here than a passing interest."

"Since I was a kid I've been fascinated with them. They have a keen intelligence. They save drowning victims; they're kind. And they look for nothing in return," she said smiling—and with a glow in her eyes I'd never seen before. "They should be the ones ruling the world. Not us."

She held up a large picture of three dolphins leaping from the water, toward the viewer.

"These three speak to me…"

That got my attention. I wasn't sure just how serious she was.

"In three-point harmony…or individually?"

She looked at me seriously:

"No. I'm serious. They speak to me—individually—from time to time. They advise me, guide me. I trust them."

I could only imagine just how isolated a girl like Joan must have been growing up. I could see how she might reach for advisors she could trust that looked unlike anyone she was rejected by daily.

"Did they advise you to pursue Monica?"

"Yes. I guess that wasn't such good advice. Or, maybe, I let them down."

"Or, maybe, they've let you down."

Hoping I hadn't overstepped my bounds, I retreated:

"Then again, maybe not. Maybe something better will come out of this for you, something they knew was on just the other side of Monica. Rainbows may be beautiful, but it's where they lead us to that's important. No?"