August 27, 2007
journey
on the journey to self improvement
the first step
is self acceptance
Posted by matthew at 02:33 PM | Comments (1)
October 05, 2006
enchantme
we put borders on our drawings of the land (look at that map up there), we draw meridians on the seas, we create time zones and make edges where no edges exist. we fill the sky with contrails marking our aeronautic paths... and yet.. along these borders, there is a change in the land, in the air, in the people, a change that lingers along these artificial edges..
go to Four Corners and you can stand there and see it, feel it as you look to the north-west, the north-east, the south-west, the south-east... there's something about the land, the hills and the stones -- as they relate to people -- that speak differently. maybe it's a limitation of the stuckness of our perception, that our eyes invest the images they let in with our nature, and what we are seeing isn't the landscape, but the image on the inside surface of our retina -- and because of that we can only see the results of the linemaking of our race.
and when we're gone, i suspect the rocks and mountains will breathe easier and become one again..
we are line-makers and name-givers. we do this on the landscape, we do it to the distant stars -- what is a sign of the zodiac but line-making and name-giving? -- and we make edges in time in the same way, we cut and divide it and we pretend the edges are crisp. this is a convenient fiction.
look at what you are reading -- it's name-giving and line-making -- language and writing.
of course, perhaps we make our demarkations along edges that were already in existence, that the universe, or history, or geography as already delineated. perhaps so, sometimes.
is the border the thing that keeps two things apart, or does a border keep them together?
there are some borders that catch us unaware, we suddenly cross into new territory. across every border a new world awaits, a world even more wonderful, more terrible, with more and different joy, more and different pains, more and different sunrises and sunsets to enjoy. new music to dance new dances to, new clouds to count. new rains to bathe in. we cross a border and we carry our hearts with us. memories cross these borders sometimes. but love, love knows no border.
Posted by matthew at 06:23 PM | Comments (1)
July 06, 2006
Route 66
If you ever plan to motor west,
travel my way, take the highway that is best.
Get your kicks on Route sixty-six.
It winds from Chicago to LA,
more than two thousand miles all the way.
Get your kicks on Route sixty-six.
Now you go through Saint Louis, Joplin, Missouri
And Oklahoma City is mighty pretty.
You see Amarillo; Gallup, New Mexico;
Flagstaff Arizona; don't forget Winona; Kingman; Barstow; San Bernandino.
Won't you get hip to this timely tip,
When you make that California trip
Get your kicks on Route sixty-six.
Won't you get hip to this timely tip:
when you make that California trip
Get your kicks on Route sixty-six.
Get your kicks on Route sixty-six.
Get your kicks on Route sixty-six.
-- Bobby Troup
ain't nothin' better.. and she knows what i mean.
Posted by matthew at 02:11 AM
April 18, 2006
All the colors there to gather you up, and carry you up
My Kentucky grandmother gave me many secrets.
"Don't tell your momma, Daffodil," she laughed as she lifted sage embers toward the ceiling of her dirty house. The smoke swirled a silent cry toward some unknown place, some silent entity. "And Lord, child, don't tell your pop."
My younger sisters were oblivious to Gramma Aggie's instruction, or maybe they were just too small. They didn't know that sacred smoke carried intention, that the square tin under the sink held ceremonial herbs, held three carved figures.
"Here. Breathe it in, breathe the spirit of the owl."
Gramma Aggie handed me a tiny cedar owl. I held his beak to my mouth, sucked the air around him, around us, around the whole damn yard, felt all of Kentucky's bluegrass rise in my lungs until the owl's spirit lifted invisible wings along the ridges of my back.
"Gramma! I am an owl!" I spoke the truth, knew how to whistle, to warn others of impending prey, knew how to swoop from here to eternity, how to bless the earth with one dropped feather.
One afternoon we built a totem, just me and Gramma Aggie, while my sisters blew dishsoap bubbles from a broken plastic ring. My mom and dad sat in some local church, waited for salvation, my dad from poverty, my mom from her mixed up native heritage. I was an owl. I knew this even then.
"Daffodil, a totem is built from the sky down, not from the earth up. What can the earth offer the sky? The sky blankets us. She knows all our secrets. Nothing we can tell her but our thanks."
I straddled a hunk of cedar, started at the top, painted a cloud with a face, a turtle below it, an eagle's scowl, the crooked antlers of imaginary antelope, drew a mouth, a paw, a tail. I painted with cheap primary colors my gramma bought at the K-Mart. Gramma Aggie stood on the back porch chain smoking cheap generic cigarettes, a chipped mug full of Schlitz always in one hand.
"Daffodil! Remember to give them life. I'm too old. Only a young person can give them life. That's why I taught you this." I nodded, slid along my horizontal totem, kissed each animal awake. Bubbles floated above me. My sisters laughed. My gramma hoisted the totem with a rope and a prayer, cigarette anchored in her mouth, and my painted beauties took flight.
I remembered all of this many years later, the day I sat shotgun through Oklahoma, my left hand in Matt Frito's hair. It seems like a lifetime ago, another existence, though it happened last November. Seems like another person saw the sign for the World's Largest Totem Pole, yet another read it out loud, and those two unknown fools turned around, followed a dust-covered Oklahoma promise into the darkness.
A man named Ed Galloway built a totem that touched the sky, built it the way I did, by words from outside sources, by youthful ignorance, built it with primary colors torn from his bastard imagination. He built it between the years of 1937 and 1948. He planted it in Oklahoma, on the back of a tired concrete turtle. Matt Frito and I saw his totem in the dark, in the dark night of dark thoughts on a lonely Oklahoma road, the night before we entered the underworld part of our journey.
We captured Ed's totem in a camera, caught it murky, soft and delicate, as if it would crush to forgotten dust. I stood in the cold, my green skirt swirling around me, Matt Frito on my left, offering protection from the quiet road. I couldn't see the animals. I tried. I couldn't see the colors, either, only the height of the damn thing transcended the night. I tried to tell Matt Frito about my Gramma Aggie, about my own totem, but the words disappeared between my heart and my open mouth. We were too young then, too new, and I worried he wouldn't see the world through my eyes. I think I should have been an owl that day, held his hand tight, let him fly above Oklahoma for hours, let him see the painted farmlands below us. We slammed the doors of the car, let the wheels point us toward Texas.
Life is hard, tall, like a totem. It's full of mysterious animals, beings ready to eat your soul, beings ready to accept your kiss of life. I want to be an owl again, to feel Kentucky soil in my line of sight, to run my fingers through an architect's hair. I want to build another totem.
Posted by daffodil at 09:23 PM | Comments (1)
March 26, 2006
Allyn T Ross
i picked him up on the ramp outside of gallup. i saw a white-beared denim-jacketed guy standing on the ramp with his thumb out standing next to the road as i was about to mash the accellerator. instead i moved my foot to the left and pressed the break. he ran to get to the car, the doors were locked and i struggeled with the controls while he waited. i hoped he wasn't thinking i was tricking him, that i was going to give it the gas and split and leave him tasting gravel.
i figured out the locks and he put his kit in the back seat and jumped into the front seat. i never picked up hitchhikers in this car, never picked them up but twice before, and one of them was a girl.
i didn't know it, but i had just met a man who had uncompromising principles and no expectations. kinda like a person who lives in heaven. he lives on less than three dollars a day, and only works for herb.
Posted by matthew at 09:27 PM | Comments (1)
February 03, 2006
the truth
Posted by matthew at 06:58 PM | Comments (4)
January 27, 2006
karma quest -- day 6.3
we're driving down route 465 or something and just humming through the tailings of the ozarks and this barn went flying past, something written on the side of it. we blew on by, chattering about snacks and dinner and this and that. we had just barely escaped the moebius-strip of the ring road around Branson (Mike Oscar), a city that is arranged in a perfect replica of a sitting device made by the Bemis Manufacturing Corporation (seriously, click the link!) (sometime, when the karma tanks are full to bursting, i'll be able to gather my wits and stablize my intestines enough to tell the story of Branson)... so we breezed past this barn and then i noticed the karmometer was spinning up fast.
i watched it spin until it stopped on "farma" (that's farm karma, in case your karmometer calibrating days are hazy memories), so we slowed the truck down and turned around until the reading was at it's maximum.
without comment, i present the image daffodil captured of the barn:
....well, i'm sorry, i have to comment.
USED COWS?
i've been so tempted to call Melvin to find out just what is it, a used cow, but i just can't decide whether to try him on his cell, in the house, or in the barn.... i will say this: if you are looking for used cows & bulls, i can vouch for two things: Melvin keeps a tidy spread, and you can get all the farma you can use there.
Posted by matthew at 06:47 PM | Comments (8)
January 21, 2006
karma quest -- day 13
driving north along 430, the car is humming in front of me, jean shepherd is speaking from the bose, he died just before we began the twenty-first century, but his voice is encoded in ones and zeros in my ipod, he's telling stories, narrating america, narrating our culture, narrating his soul. the wheel is perfect in my hands, thick and round, firm and warm, and the tires are making speed-limit love to the long dark road that winds through the sheep fields, between the cliff and the red mesas.
"valley of the gods road" is the little sign on the shoulder to my right, a sign about the height of my hand and as long as my arm. i breeze past the sign and glance at the one-lane gravel road that drops away steeply from the highway and twists behind a finger-to-the-sky mesa. a rough road, recently gravelled, dusty and bumpy, the kind of road without bridges that dips down through the occasional streams that find their way to that big river with a spanish name. a rough road, and the car i'm driving today is low slung and fast...four-wheel drive, yeah, but the guy who owns it is trying to keep it nice.
i wisk past the sign and around the bend, on the lookout for monument valley. it's around here somewhere, and i scan the horizon for the familiar towers, the mittens, the red buttes and mesas that so captured geo. herriman.
there's a little voice whispering in my ear, a voice i've begun to learn to hear on this trip -- before our karma collection began it was a tiny 'way-off-in-the-distance whisper, but it's closer now, louder -- and it's saying, "that sign said 'valley of the gods road' ...don't you think it's silly to drive three thousand miles to see monument valley and pass by a road with that name?"
my right foot moves over to the brake and i check the mirrors. i haven't seen a moving car or truck in twenty minutes. i pull a k-turn on the narrow highway and go back, hang a right on the gravel road and tilt down into a world of old and deep magic.
on the bose, shepherd is telling a story broadcast on August 29, 1963, of something that happened three days after i turned four, about a bus trip he took down to washington, dc, about what he saw and heard there, about the family of man.
about a dream in america.
Posted by matthew at 09:35 AM | Comments (3)
January 19, 2006
eGuru
we took a short flight last night, the flight was brief but we gained a lot of altitude then descended again, tracing the path of a parabola. i was sitting across the aisle from a guy wearing an orange saffron suit, he had black wavy hair shot with gray and he had a laptop and a cell phone. he must've had special permission on the plane because his phone rang and he answered it, 'hey Goo." he said. he knew who was on the other end of the line without looking at the display on his phone.
there was a pause and then he said, "Zen; baby. let it go. just be, baby." then he listened for a while, and said, "yeah" a few times. then he said, "emptiness. be filled with emptiness"
it was apparent to me that he was a guru of gurus, a guru to whom other gurus turned in times of need or forgetfullness for a consultation.
before he clicked his phone closed he goes, "yeah, the usual charge. you don't think nirvannah is free, do you?"
Posted by matthew at 07:06 AM | Comments (10)
December 04, 2005
karma quest -- day 3, redux
Sparky dialed my cell phone a couple of days ago, the night the moon hid from the sun.
"Daffodil, we have a problem."
I could hear him blow smoke in my ear. He took his time. I wondered how he lit his cigar, how the embers existed without air. Sparky. Must be something about his name, I thought. When he spoke again, his words were careful, deliberate, slow, colored with black tar and administrative capability.
"Daffodil, your travel buddy is filing abbreviated reports. Let me quote: Daffodil and i stopped at the Saleem Restaurant (where Garlic is King) and happily paid homage to his majesty. v. good karma there, we took a couple of pounds back to the truck in a doggy bag.
"What the hell is that? I need cold, hard facts. A couple of pounds? Karma is measured by the milligram. It's an expensive drug. How can I determine the street value of a 'couple pounds?'"
I looked at my feet. Moon dust covered my toes, and I tried to suck in air to answer. The moon wouldn't let me, I stood breathless in the shadows, phone at my ear, could only expel, exhale.
"Sorry," I whispered. "Sorry."
I sent Sparky a detailed report of our time at Saleem's - charts of the karmic value of each menu choice, full of arrows and boxes and underlined totals, all done to three decimal places. I even signed my name in aurora moon shine, the special phosphorescent glittery kind you can only find at Mare Cognitum, the sector where all the inhabitants drink absinthe and spit out your future.
"Good work, Daffodil. Carry on." Sparky coughed in the distance, and I could hear him rustle my papers into a neat pile, heard him spit, as he hung up the phone.
Ha! I thought. I only passed along the industrial notes, the parts that added to some quantitative bottom line. I didn't tell him the secrets, the ways we stole karma from the mist. It doesn't rain here, on this rolling hill of rock and scar. Maybe Sparky doesn't understand the virtue of weather.
I closed my eyes, brought back the Third Day, the day we separated the waters from the land, remembered the drops from the sky, the way they hit our car, bounced off the new blacktop running through a quiet city.
I summoned the Parking Genie, and a space opened along a side street. Matt laughed at my genie prayer, but I shook my head and gave him a warning glance with my right eye. Don't diss the genie, man. My left eye remained hidden, my own dark side of crater and mystery.
We walked in the rain, under rows of neon gods beckoning us to try, to enter. The city moved slowly, a concrete snake, small groups of travelers snuck from striped canopy to beer-stained foyer, tried to zigzag the rain. We walked through it, let it fall on our shoulders. Sparky didn't tell us how to be, how to be together, a man, a woman, on some quest for a tasteless substance. The tap of my cowboy boots match his gait, and we laughed in surprise. I didn't have to rush. He didn't have to linger. His hand swallowed mine, my right side to his left, half his face hidden like the moon. I watched him watch the space between the drops around us, the left side of his mouth turned up in smile.
Saleem Restaurant almost looked closed, the windows tinted and calm. A young woman in black gave us a square table with a candle, a center table, the middle of the room, a place where karma swirled and gathered from the corners, but she didn't know that. We ordered wine. We ordered food. We ate and drank and told stories, the same story, shared it back and forth, an old story we forgot we held in common. We didn't see King Garlic. He waited behind the red brocade drapes hiding the kitchen.
A caustic woman in maroon and wrinkles grabbed my arm as I pushed the door open to the Ladies Room. I stared into her eyes, smiled, breathed garlic, accepted the garlic she exhaled on me.
"You look so happy," she said. "This must be a special occasion."
I tried to crane my neck around the wooden separator hiding the bathroom door. I wanted to see the table, the food, the man with the raccoon eyes and restful expression, the man who talked about moon politics.
"It's our first meal together."
She let me go, nodded her head, and I felt her karma drain into mine, into my purse, my boots, rain into my aqua dress, seep into my body, fill old spaces.
"It's what between us that generates the karma." He said this as we let the rain meet our ground, drove into midnight.
Posted by at 01:36 PM | Comments (6)
December 03, 2005
karma quest -- day 24
'the truth is --' i started to say and then stopped, the water continuing to flow over me, splashing at my feet.
why is it that we think of the truth as something that is fixed in the past? isn't something that's true, isn't it always true? can anything change from being false to true? or true to false? our knowledge of the truth can change; our understanding of the truth can change, but the truth, by definition, doesn't mutate.so, if one dinosaur turned to his mate one day and said in dinosaur talk, "you know honey, some day there will be apartment buildings right here where we are standing, and a newstand on the corner with a short fat guy named Jerry who smokes cigars and carries a hip flask on cold mornings." and she would say, "shush your silly talk and come back to the nest for a while, i have plans for you..."
we'll leave them to their interlude, but stand on the point: what the dinosaur said, or chriped or growled, might, in fact, be the truth. truth that is not always necessarily scientifically provable -- not provable in the one-way linear structure of time we inhabit now.
so, things are either true or they are not.
and if they are true, they are always true.
get this: apart from language, everything is true. that is, everything we percieve, the light, the shadows, the scents, the colors and textures, all the ways the universe calls to us, it calls with truth, with reality, with actuality. only in our thoughts -- specifically in our linguistic thoughts -- and in the words we speak and hear does anything other than the truth exist.
i think.
and i am using language to communicate it.
to you.
now you might say, what about David Copperfield, the magician -- he fools people without using language, what about that? what about special effects in movies, they aren't the truth, and they aren't using language... how do you reconcile that mister brainiac?
well, actually, things like that, dramatic performances, the fun house, even buildings that are designed to look like something they are not, they are actually emitting only truths, but they are crafted in such a way that we misinterpret the truth that we witness and instead we perceive an impossibility, or a fallacy, or some devious trick of the filmmaker or the architect or the stage designer or the makeup man. they aren't trifling with the truth, they are seducing the way your mind interprets it. and these dissemblers are everywhere, you can make a very good living indeed if you are willing to play in that cesspool, there's lucre to be had there in spades.
the towel was warm, well-woven. it felt good in my hands, on my head when i dried my hair, the cotton absorbing the water, the air evaporation-cool on my skin, the sunlight diffuse, reflected from the sky to the north barely warming me.
and the question is, and i hope it's not a scarey one: do you want to know the truth?
Posted by matthew at 11:03 AM | Comments (3)
December 01, 2005
karma quest -- day 0
i set out early hoping to make good time. the tanks were empty and the truck was light. Sparky was busy promoting the Sheboygan Project ...he's pushing hard for the go-ahead, in his way. the Wisconsin Aerospace Authority has a lock on it if it goes ahead -- quote: Wisconsin has a unique opportunity to participate in that because of the launch window that's off of Spaceport Sheboygan. unquote.
Spaceport Sheboygan
we have launch windows
off of which we offer Wisconsin
the unique opportunity
to participate in
because of the no-fly zone
over Lake Michigan
Sparky gave me a giant rubber band to drop off up there if my trip takes me that way. we strapped it to the tanks on the back of the truck. i told him i didn't know there was a no-fly zone over Lake Michigan. he just smiled at me, he cocked his cigar between his teeth then he said, "have you ever been in Wisconsin in the summer?"
i told him no.
he said, "well, if there's one thing they need over there, it's a no-fly zone. they're terrible in August."
i said huh?
"the flies."
sometimes he gets that way.
i got in the truck and drove out the gate -- well i tried to, but the rubber band was too big, it caught on the overpass, so i had to get out and repack it, folding it into long loops insead of just coiling it up in a spiral. once it was stowed away properly i was able to clear the gate and start the trip.
as soon as i got gas that is. so i stopped at the station and filled it with high-test, checked the pressure in the tires and changed the air freshener, and hit the road, looking for karma wherever i could find it.
well, first i had to pick up Daffodil that is. so i stopped by her place and got her stuff and stowed it away and buckled in and at last we were off!
almost -- first we had to stop at a rest stop in order to ..well, rest. but as soon as we were finished getting our resting done, we started away in search of the karma you can only dream about.
"let's stop for some snacks," she said.
"good idea!"
"let's stop in Bloomery." she said.
"where's that?"
Posted by matthew at 09:55 PM | Comments (8)
November 24, 2005
karma quest -- day 3.2
we got a telegram from Sparky asking for an update on our progress, he seemed a little bugged that we haven't been in closer touch.
i told him not to worry, we've been collecting all kinds of good stuff, the tanks are getting full -- pressurized even -- route 66 is the absolute mother lode of karma, of all kinds. i told him that we've run into a temporal anomaly out here, we're filing reports as fast as we can, but it's clear that they're being slowed down by the aether on the way back to headquarters in the sea of tranquility. we also noticed that some back-blogging has started to occur around here, as of last july... weird.
we're not really sure of the source of the anomaly... but we're studying on it.
Posted by matthew at 10:38 PM | Comments (4)
November 22, 2005
karma quest -- day 3
Daffodil and i stopped at the Saleem Restaurant (where Garlic is King) and happily paid homage to his majesty. v. good karma there, we took a couple of pounds back to the truck in a doggy bag.
Later, we played Blog Jeopardy:
The answer is iTunes, potato chips, & lip balm.
And the question?
Posted by matthew at 12:21 AM | Comments (11)
November 18, 2005
is it just me?
Posted by matthew at 11:20 PM | Comments (8)
where's waldo?
Posted by matthew at 10:46 PM | Comments (5)
November 12, 2005
karma quest -- day 2
it is night. i step out onto the empty street in the VV. the clock on the bank says 1:45. the clock on the bank says 41°. the clock on the bank says 1:45. i walk to the corner. the street is silent. a guy on a cell phone is standing by his car in front of a bar in the middle of the block.
i hesitate, then cross the street. open the door to the bar. the smoke is thicker than fog. the place is packed. there is a live band playing highway to hell, their amps turned up to eleven. frankly, they're not doing a bad job of it, not bad at all. i make my way through the thick of the crowd to the back of the bar, near the band. plenty of seats there, it's too loud to order a thing.
the walls are painted with pink fluorescent paint. a guy with a GIT-R-DONE t-shirt stands with his back to me. the band finishes the song and unplugs their instruments. good timing i say to the bartender. she asks me what i want, a bud, i tell her.
the jukebox comes on, redneck woman (not a high-class whore) is playing. the bartenders are singing along, they know all the songs by heart.
on the television over the bar there is a 1982 david carradine movie on, he is a new york detective tracking down quetzicotl, a flying prehistoric monster (god) that has made a nest for it's brood in the top of the chrysler building. i can't look at carridine without thinking of kwai chang caine, and wonder at the choice of that name, cain, condemned to roam the earth, looking for peace, deathless.
save a horse, ride a cowboy comes on the jukebox and the bartenders are gyrating their hips as they sing along. a roundhead next to me orders two jaegermeister bombers, and i order one. he is trying to chat up the bartender, kitty she tells him her name is, counting out his change, a five and five ones, and she walks away, singing the chorus.
there is a waitress there, one, and she is cleaning up the debris of the night, slowly, she moves in slow time... she never speeds her pace, but never slows it either. she punctuates her efforts with long sips of her ginger ale. her hair is carefully done, ironed. her jeans are too tight now, and when she looks across the bar into her reflection in the mirror with her lips pursed on the straw in her plastic cup, her eyes have the sadness of the ages in them.
it's not what i am used to, but the karma is strong here, of a certain kind, and i tap a few kiloliters. i figure they won't miss it, and if they do, they might be grateful.
on the television, the shadow of a giant dragon sweeps across manhattan, while the detectives squat on the rivers edge around the remains of it's latest victim. the special effects are cheesy, laughable by today's standards.i wonder if shaolin carradine will show the dragon and the tiger seared into his forearms. i wonder if he will say something he learned from master kan, something like:
From the crane we learn grace and self-control. The snake teaches us suppleness and rhythmic endurance. The praying mantis teaches us speed and patience. And from the tiger we learn tenacity and power. And from the dragon we learn to ride the wind. All creatures, the low and the high, are one with nature.
but he doesn't, not this time, and i leave my card under my change and walk out into darkness. i got what i needed tonight. tomorrow will be a beautiful day, a wonderful day, a day like no other since the beginning of days, a day like no other will be until the end of all days.
just as every day is.
Posted by matthew at 03:27 AM | Comments (3)
November 11, 2005
karma quest -- day 1
10.00 am -- We calibrated our instruments, filled the truck and left Sector Victor Alpha with empty karma tanks and high hopes. Stopped off for cigars and some consultation at the Farm, then headed west.
12.20 pm -- crossed into Whiskey Victor Sector and saw the first sign of good karma: an swedish make vehicle from a decade ago. On the rear bumper, a sticker, said:
I BELIEVE IN DRAGONS,
GOOD MEN, AND
OTHER MYTHICAL CREATURES.
Daffodil told me that was good for a couple ounces of quality mid-grade karma. We stored it in tank one.
1:15 pm -- Crossed into the Mike Delta region, briefly.
5:27 pm -- Back in Whisky Victor, full-on the highway, passing the town of Nitro (two towns over is the town of Hurricane ...don't you think it would be fun to do the play-by-play at the high school football game between Nitro High and Hurricane High?) there was a sign there on the road, just before the exit.
It said:
GAS | FOOD
and underneath the GAS sign was a Chevron logo.
underneath the FOOD sign was a 7-11 logo.
there's no cuisine i can think of that can quite compare with a slim-jim and a box of cracker jacks, and maybe a couple glazed donuts, eaten standing up next to the trash can in front of the 7-11 just off the exit ramp in Nitro, Whiskey Victor. Daffodil recommended against taking the exit; we are trying to avoid karmic degradation as much as possible, and the needle on the CRM-114 was buried in the red.
Picked up some more good karma at a rest stop, standing next to a guy talking about delivering fuel cells to Chalie Alpha, talking about his dog Lady, talking about the weather in El Paso, standing facing the wall, staring at the tile.
7:15 pm -- Passed into Kilo Yankee. drove the truck past Big Bone Lick State Park ...a place named by somebody with a particular sense of humor.
8:27 pm -- minus 0.5° Celsius; dark. We entered India November, swapping stories back and forth, actually the same story, kind of like the dollar bill that goes from toll booth to toll booth, north to south, then south to north again.
p.s. i've been leaving calling cards from lettersfromthemoon wherever i stop. if you find one, let me know. (thanks Cleavis!)
Posted by matthew at 01:54 AM | Comments (5)
November 02, 2005
karma manager, anagram maker
Sparky called me into his office today, he said we needed to talk. so i put down the fine chronometer i was working on, put away my sledgehammer, took off my apron and went up the long flight of stairs to his office.
"There's something i want to ask you to do," he said, "if you don't want to do it, i understand."
"ok." i said.
"Of course, if you say no i will cut out your intestines with a chain saw," he said.
you always know where you stand with Sparky, you gotta give him that.
He smiled. "this next phase -- beaver moon -- is coming, and i want to ask you to take care of something for me." His eyes darted over to the corner of his office at an orange and white box with a word written across it: Husqvarna. i studied the picture on the box.
"sure, anything Sparky, you know i am a team player."
He lit his fat cigar from the lighter he keeps on his desk, a pewter skull, and he took a deep drag on it. Sparky inhales his cigars.
"We've neglected something for years, here in the lab, and I got some bad news from Sam this morning." He held his cigar out in front of him, turned crosswise between us, and rolled it in his fingers. He looked up at the ceiling. i knew this was just a show for me, he never does anything he hasn't thought through completely... but he wanted me to think he was having some internal debate about whether or not to tell me the next part. i just waited. i know better than to interrupt his performances.
He leaned forward, "I'm not proud to tell you this," he said, "but our supply of Karma is completely exhausted. we're done. we're out of it. the tanks are dry. zero." I snuck a quick look over on his shelf where i knew he kept a bottle of vintage Karma from Balaclava, an 1854. it was still there, unopened.
He leaned back in his chair, his eyebrows riding high on his forehead, and stuck the cigar back in his face. it had the diameter of the handle of a louisville slugger. He looked at me, his eyes lidded, inscrutable.
"...and we didn't have insurance?" i probably shouldn't have asked him, but i always like taking my shots at Sparky when he has to take them standing up. He shook his head.
"Rich let it expire." He spit a fleck of tobacco off to his left. Rich had been our last Karma Manager, one day last summer he turned up missing and nobody has seen him since. there are two theories about it -- one that he stole half the Karma on the moon and won the lottery, the other that he fell in a crevasse trying to escape a dream that all the Karma in the tanks had evaporated when he left a valve open. Sparky never replaced him -- this was the first time i had heard him even mention Rich's name since then.
"and you want me to.... what?" I said.
"I want you to go get some. the best you can, we need it to be good, we need a lot of it -- all you can find, and we need it soon. you have until the next new moon. the truck is in the shop, we're fitting it with high-compression tanks, new shocks and tires, changing all the belts and fluids, checking the seals.
(it's customary on the moon to take seals along on any long excursion, they bring luck, they're good company, and it's fun to watch them barking and balancing balls on their nose in the rest stops.)
I looked at the box again.
"sounds fantastic!! when do i leave?"
"Next week," he said. "pack your massage oil and your pastels. I don't want you to miss a single opportunity." He smiled but his eyes glittered and i couldn't miss his meaning.
"Sparky," I said, "i'll need help, it takes two people to fill those tanks."
"Yeah. Daffodil is going with you. She volunteered. Just like you did." He blew some smoke in my direction. I was just sitting there, looking at the
"you got some packing to do, boy, get the hell out of my office."
Posted by matthew at 08:05 PM | Comments (11)