Lawn-Bowling with the Muse.

Nine

2009-01-22T21:46:00.000-08:00

Pair bonding is the natural state of most higher life forms, lives entwined and destinies drawn together such that the halves are made whole only when together, able to draw strength, love, humor, and happiness from each other. It is, unless, of course, you are an amoeba, coelenterate or any other silly, budding organism that lives its solitary life in an endless quest for food until the arrival of some arbitrary yet fateful day upon which you vomit forth your offspring. There are theories that these critters live boring, solitary lives, and there are also theories that my friend Chuck is one of these critters. Fortuitously, I am not. Nor is Beth. Thus, we found each other, realized the mutual benefit we would surely share with one another not to mention the fact that in doing so neither one of us would some day have to reproduce by budding, and from that a relationship was born wherein we found wholeness in each other’s presence and complemented our individual uniqueness by sharing in a joined pathway. That, I figure, is the basic premise of marriage. “Mawwage, mawwage is a sakwed institution.” True words; thank you Rob Reiner.
Unless of course, you are a male lion and in your mating and territorial prime, for if so then you apparently rate your own harem. For that matter, the same thing applies if you’re a highland gorilla, a walrus, a sea lion, or a devout Mormon. And in spite of Beth, her infectious smile, her oh-so-evil hair tosses, her come-hither looks reserved only for me, and her must-follow-that giggle, I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why anyone would want more than one mate. Thus we come back to the concept of the pair bond.
I don’t think I’ll bore you with all of the ugly details that accompany our blessed event together, nor will I bother you with my awkward, fumbled, breathless proposal and her matter-of-fact “of course I’ll marry you, Silly,” (much) but I will offer one piece of sage advice that anyone considering a bond for life with another biped ungulate should heed. Two words, in fact: wedding coordinator. Yep, that’s what it’s all about, at least I still think it’s necessary if you are to really enjoy yourself. And that was our goal, enjoyment, so we hired a coordinator, outlined our fiesta/luau idea, wrote a check and went about our business while Jamie, the coordinator went to work, planning and organizing our wedding.
We began preparations in mid-summer, just after sharing another triathlon together, this one being the Vineman Half Ironman in the wine country north of San Francisco, and just after I proposed at the finish line, thus the breathlessness (and the sweat). She said yes matter-of-factly like I explained, but what I didn’t include was that she then burst into tears and promptly threw up on my sneakers. I’m still thinking the vomit was mostly due to her state of exhaustion following the five-plus-hour race. At least I hope so. Anyhow, I danced and shouted while the crowd thundered in applause until I got an ass-kicking charley horse in my left leg and curled up in pain on the ground next to my wretching wife. Amidst it all, we giggled, and for once, Josh the Toad felt like Josh the Prince. The crowd kept cheering, and it was nice. She eventually stopped vomiting, and then we kissed. It tasted much like one might expect, but I didn’t care all that much. Then we went back to the hotel, cleaned up, and got drunk—there’s a stretch. The wine country was a good setting for things, a preternaturally beautiful land in the sprawling mounds and ridges and valleys of Northern California, where large estates of endless rows of green, uniform vines are punctuated by brooks, stands of trees and vinters’ chalets. All that and you don’t have to put up with arrogant Frenchmen since, after all, this is America and not Bourdeaux. What could be better?
What? I’ll tell you what; being in this setting and having the girl of your dreams say yes to your marriage proposal. The vomit was an unexpected bonus.
Planning began in earnest immediately upon our arrival back in San Diego. Of course, the evening of the proposal Beth spent an inordinate amount of time on the phone, calling her parents, my parents, her girlfriends, her cousins, her aunts, her work friends, her neighbors, her hairdresser, her animal spirit guide, and anyone else she thought might be even remotely interested.
Therein lies lesson one of “How To Marry A Woman.” Specifically, nobody shall be overlooked, no matter how obscurely related to your betrothed. And, therein lies lesson two of “How To Marry A Woman.” The man shall get drunk while said female participates in said behavior. Thus, an entire bottle of La Crema Chardonnay bit the dust along with three Bohemia beers. I’d be lying if I didn’t credit the goofy, giggly, phone-obsessed blonde with half the bottle of vino. The cerveza? All me, baby, all me.
Anyhow, like I was saying, our legitimate planning began as soon as we got home. Ordinarily, you might think that the long drive home along Interstate 5 through the San Juaquin Valley would have provided ample opportunity to discuss plans, wants, desires, etc, for the lovely sprawling expanses of Lemoore and Bakersfield don’t exactly provide for much awe-inspired gawking, the sickly-orange hue of the agro-smog notwithstanding. No sir, no time was spent discussing plans on that ten hour drive home, not since we were armed with a cell phone that could plug into the cigarette lighter. That meant that ten hours worth of people could still be called, including (I swear) kindergarten teachers, adolescent orthodontists, the gynecologist (?), the local cable guy (?!), and a host of other seemingly random people. It went something like this.
“Hello, Mrs. Jackson hi, this is Beth, you might remember me from eighth grade civics I just got engaged to be married I thought you might want to know okay, bye.” And so on and so forth the silliness went on and on as the miles droned by. In only one case was the same litany interrupted, just after the third run-on sentence. The interjected sentences, sans run-on, went something like this; “To a man. Yes, a live man….” For whatever reason I passed the time by humming the entire score to Pirates of Penzance. Apparently Rodgers and Hammerstein represent a primitive survival response inherently nestled deep within the male psyche.
Go figure.
Nonetheless, we eventually made it back to San Diego late that night, and in the days and weeks that followed, we got down to the serious business of conducting God’s Work, namely that of deciding upon invitation stationary, menus, dresses, flower arrangements, etc. So much for the remainder of the triathlon season, and as grumpy as I tried to be, I couldn’t help but melt every time she found something new that she wanted for the wedding or reception and turned to ask my opinion with tears of joy in her eyes and the paint brush of excited color on her cheeks. Typically male, I invariably melted, looked at the ground and shuffled my feet awkwardly like a four-year-old. “Anything you want, Sweetie,” I would always answer. Somehow I was both humbled and awestruck by her glow during that time, and as the time approached I knew that my decision to ask for hand had been right.
Now, I need to tell you about Jamie if for no other reason than humoristic relief during this stupid tragedy. This woman, this machine of planning, organization, arrangements, accoutriments, and accessories was a beast of burden and a task master combined. Locked within her stout, five-foot-two frame was a woman possessed. As I would later learn, she had once been jilted, left waiting at the altar, and somehow over the years managed to rationalize the loss as more a function of a supposedly poorly planned wedding rather than a shit-fer-brains of a fiance. Thus, she developed into the Supreme Wedding Warrior, or SW2 as I quickly took to calling her.
Beth poo-poos the idea, accusing me of “typical male insensitivity.” (Please note: I have again shifted to the present tense, as I feel more comfortable telling of Her as if she’s still with me, because, in effect, she is and always shall be. That, I figure, is my curse and perhaps my salvation.
On the contrary, I explain, a nomiker such as this bestowed is done so borne from an appreciation of the warrior spirit. I further say that SW2 is Jamie’s callsign of sorts, my label for a fellow member of the caste, the band of brothers (and sister) who live by the sword. In Jamie’s case, the sword is apparently easily supplanted by the stationary catalogue, the list of available florists, and the wedding cake artistes. God bless her. She attacks our blessed event with a zeal often only seen in desperate battles against hopelessly over-powering enemies. Hey, we all exorcise our demons in our own way, and in hers, she is intent on defeating the demons of her betrayal so many years ago. Apparently. I am not one to pass judgement.
That hogwash aside, Jamie is a short woman, like I’ve already said. But I repeat myself. In spite of my description as stout, she isn’t large, rotund or otherwise over-weight. On the contrary, her indomitable will and indefatigable spirit are contrasted starkly by her diminuative stature. Short, yes, but also tiny in every sense save her pie hole, for this woman lacks a volume knob. She might be small in stature, but her spirit soars, as evidenced by her Fran Drescher-esque nasally caterwaul, a cattle call of hers that announces her presence like fingernails across a chalkboard. “Jaaash, I need a check from you, NOW!” Yes’m, three bags full.

Ours was a military wedding in the sense that we did it at the Point Loma Naval Base, home of San Diego’s submarine fleet, and, more importantly, the locale where the officers’ club faces southeast from the very tip of Point Loma, looking down across the bay at Coronado and over towards downtown San Diego, North Park, National City, Lemon Grove and Chula Vista. Most days it’s smoggy and not very enchanting, but that day—OUR day—it was clear as a bell thanks to a week of relentless rain that had us worrying right down to the wire, but that cleared as a gift from nature two days prior revealing the most lovely view, including a distant vista of Cuyamaca Mountain in the background lightly dusted in the her first snow of the year’s young winter.
Imagine this, then, if you will. You are at our wedding, where the groom and his party are dressed in formal Navy winter attire—which the Navy ironically calls “blue” but always looked black to me—and the bride and her party are in white and perrywinkle (one learns these colors when one gets married, you know), there are tropical flowers, orchids and lilies and hibiscus, everywhere, it’s 65 degrees out in perfect low-angle January sunshine, there’s not a cloud in the azure sky, sailboats are drifting noiselessly past on their way out the channel towards the Los Coronados Islands off the coast, and there are mountains in the background with snow on them. Wow. Please let me say that again. Wow.
And therein lies the concept of life partner. California, I’ve heard, has an automatic six-month cooling off period before a divorce decree is granted. I suppose that’s a deterrent of sorts, intended to dissuade the pretty and the plastic who live in the Los Angeles basin from frivolous marriages and rapid-fire divorces. “Honest, Your Honor, I simply have to dissolve this marriage on the grounds of irreconsileable differences. The problem? Oh, well, he only drives a 5-series Beemer….”
By way of comparison, those of us of substance who live in the other parts of the Golden State, tend (or at least I hope so) to get married out of love and the intrinsic understanding that when you meet “him” or “her” you know that you have met the one person that was meant for you. Now, lest you misunderstand, I’m not an advocate of predetermination. On the contrary, our life experiences shape us into the individuals that we are, every bit as much if not more than our genetic coding, and that’s where the subtle brilliance of “someone for everyone” comes into play, for without our unique makeup and characteristics, then just anyone would do. That would be terribly sad and not particularly romantic.
(Not to mention that, if that were true, I easily could have ended up marrying Felcher, or, worse, Chuck. And that’s wrong on so many levels….)
Rather, I firmly believe that we are all endowed with a certain set of parameters that make us ideally suited for companionship with one and only one person at any given stage in our development or, more succinctly, in this particular incarnation of life. Lucky for me that’s Beth. Racing and climbing aside, I think there was one particular event when I began to gain insight into the beauty of her soul and the wholesome, giving nature that defined her spirit. Climbing, you see, is a team effort. Not a team sport whereby you use martial tactics to move balls or pucks whilst engaging in pseudo warfare with other members of differing tribes festooned in alternative warrior garb. No, climbing is a team effort in the truest sense, wherein your physical safety and quite probably your life is placed willingly into the hands of your partner, your belayer, who must shoulder the responsibility of providing anchor and brake and safety net while you climb the rock, the wall, or the mountain. In that sense, I guess, it’s not unlike or too far removed from marriage.
Climbing the jagged faced chasm of life is dangerous and fraught with peril, after all, but oh-so-easily mitigated with a partnership borne out of love, respect, friendship and trust. Yeah, okay. Whatever. I’ll stop now before I get too goddamned sappy.
At the same time, however, climbing tends to lend itself to a strange, intrinsic sense of giving and an unspoken need to take care of others. There’s a high degree of empathy that is engendered by the act of climbing because everybody shares in the same fears and the same risks. Sure, some climbers are far more skilled than others, thus the fear paradigms are individually set for any given climb, but the root truth is that all climbers begin with the same meager skill sets and all climbers evolved through the same learning experience and pathway. Thus, no matter how rad or bitchin’ or gnarly or tieeght a climber might be, they all share the same sense of custodianship for their fellow climbers. You need only spend one day in Yosemite when a big wall climb goes wrong to watch the local community come together to aid the comrades who are in harms way on the route.
Still, a lot of the time, those noble characteristics stay diffused when away from the rock. In that sense, climbing has a disenfranchised air to it, often appealing to the fringe elements, people with pink mohawks and/or intense shyness alike. Climbers might freely share their custodianship with one another, but they tend to withdraw from the marks and the drones of mainstream society. So, why am I even bothering to tell you this, particularly since the vast majority of you are probably not climbers nor will ever become climbers? I guess it’s because I want you to understand just what it was/is/shall always be about Beth that sold me on this girl. Believe it or not, there are other females of the species in the world who most likely enjoy Kiss, Hard Core Punk, Free Form Jazz, burritos and doughnuts, and goofy tall Jewish kids from Texas. Trust me, mathematical probability bears this theory out. Still, Beth’s ability to care so much about so many around her was truly astounding.
I realized that and recognized that I needed to be with this person forever—for ever, a big concept—at, of all places, a Padres game at Jack Murphy/Quallcom Stadium, a seemingly insignificant event that, for some reason, sparked the insight in my miniscule brain that, in turn, lead to the understanding that I simply had to marry this girl.
The game? Nothing special. Pad’s versus the Mariners. Descent seats along the first base line. Fish tacos (yes, they serve those at San Diego’s baseball stadium) and beer. Hawaiian shirt and Chuck Tailors. Stunning blonde and nerdy Yid. I don’t remember the score. Mostly we laughed, sang, ate, drank and enjoyed the eternal sunshine of San Diego. Just after the seventh inning stretch, we both decide (shift themes por favor…I’m working on it, but it’s going to be a hard habit to brake, lame-ass Chicago song notwithstanding) to take a walk around the stadium for mutual bladder relief and to “go walkabout.” In a rare twist of typical ballpark reality, the line was at the nearest men’s room, and Beth offers me a quick peck on the cheek before she mozies over the empty ladie’s room.
“Remember, Sweet Josh, if you’re not going to make it through the line, you are a man.”
“What does that mean?”
“The world is your urinal.” She giggles, pinches my ass and skips over the ladie’s room.
“Sweet Josh?” asks/chuckles the gentleman behind me, a portly fellow wearing an old-school, well weathered brown Padre’s ballcap from the 70s.
I look back to meet his smile and inwardly remember that members of the warrior caste general eschew being called “sweet” or “cute.” We prefer descriptives like “fierce” and “shit-hot.” Ass pinching? That’s right out…unless it’s Beth pinching Josh’s ass, which this fortuitously was. I don’t mind and I smile back at the guy “I’m gonna marry that girl. I figure ‘sweet’ is a small price to pay.”
“Fair enough,” he says with an approving grin. “Good choice too, she’s a real looker.”
“Yeah, even a nimrod can get lucky. Me, that is…I’m the nimrod, not her. ‘Cause then I probably wouldn’t want to marry her and I definitely wouldn’t take to being called sweet at a ballpark or having my ass pinched. Um, you know what I mean?” Christ, warriors don’t gush either, at least they’re not supposed to. “Nice hat, by the way.”
“Thanks, got it during the ’76 season. It was a gift from my wife.” He smiles knowingly.
“You’ll like being married kid.”
“I know I will. Enjoy the game, Mister.”
So, I pee. And I wash my hands. And I exchange a manly, goodbye nod with Mr. 1976 Ugly Brown But Oh, So Cool Padres Hat. And I go back outside to find Beth. She isn’t there. I look left and right of the immediate are of the two bathrooms and I wait dutifully outside of the ladies room for a good five minutes, thinking perhaps that she had to take a hutch, giggling inwardly at the general annoyance of crapping at a ballpark. Still, after the time went by, there is no Beth. I return down the aisle within view of our seats, and still no Beth. Now, mind you, we have been an item and quite serious for months. I harbor no concerns of her ditching me at the park or running off with some rabidly muscled meat head. In stead, I’m thinking bad thoughts like injury, sickness, or God-only-knows what else. I get slightly alarmed but lapse into typical Naval Aviator problem solving mode and set a course around the mezzanine to see if I can find her. I do, and the sight is both a relief and somewhat puzzling.
Beth is holding a small child, a girl , whom she is holding against her chest while rocking gently from side-to-side and singing a James Taylor song.
“Madeline,” she says sweetly to the little girl who, I’ve only just noticed, is crying softly, “this is my boyfriend Josh. He’s going to help us find your parents.” And then she winks at me and goes back to singing James Taylor quietly. The implicit message as Little Madeline sniffles and holds her hand out to me is: “OK, sweatheart, please go find this child’s parents. I’ll stay with her and comfort her.” Madeline, obviously, is lost. How she came to be in Beth’s arms I can readily imagine. A young child, perhaps four or five, frantically running about Petco’s mezzanine, crying pitifully for her Mommy, when the World’s Nicest, Most-Caring Person notices and takes the first and most subtly important action—she comforts the girl first and waits for her fool companion to come and find them, which she knows he surely will.
I stare at her briefly in wonderment. This kindness of the spirit is a rare quality in a cynical, hard world, and one fortunate enough to be blessed with the affection of just such a person had best hold onto them. I make a mental note—shop for a ring soon. Little Madeline, meanwhile, is crying softly, barely at all, and she’s humming along with Beth, who is now gently singing “It Ain’t Easy Being Green.” It isn’t, you know. I brush the child’s curly red hair away from her eyes.
“Madeline? Hi, I’m Josh. I’m pleased to meet you. Can you tell me your last name or where you last saw your mommy and daddy?”
She shakes her head shyly at me: noooo.
“Madeline,” I try again, “it’s important that I know so I can go find them.”
“Momma said I’m not s’pposed to talk with strangers.”
“But he’s not a stranger, Madeline,” Beth says. “I introduced you to him properly, so now you know him. And, besides, nobody with ears as big as his can possibly be mean, right?” She winks at me. Madeline looks at me judgingly. And Josh the Eternal Fool does the only thing he can to placate the terror of a small child. I reach up, pull both ears—mine, not hers—to their full extension, make a monkey face, and start grunting and hopping in little circles. It works.
“You’re funny,” the little girl says.
“…Looking,” the older girl adds.
“Whadya say, Maddie? What’s your last name?” I stop the silly monkey dance but I keep holding my ears at full, Dumboesque extension.
“My poppa calls me Maddie. Momma doesn’t like it. My last name is Rosenbloom.” And then she suddenly remembers that all little girls, regardless of race or creed, are required by physics, nature, and God to do two things above all others, namely flirt and then remember to be shy. She does the first with a beautiful little smile that’s a reflection of what is sure to become a man-melter later in life, and then she burries her head in Beth’s shoulder, obligating to the second requirement. Beth winks at me.
“Back in a flash,” I say as I meander away doing my monkey-man act. If a crying child is a glimpse into the truest nature of sorrow, then a laughing one is reassurance that humanity might survive in spite of itself.
Out of sight, I revert to Naval Aviator mode, specifically that of problem solver. It’s funny, but we are taught many things aside from flying, tactics, and war-fighting. There’s a subtle yet evident undertone within the ever-present facet of continuing education in Naval Aviation to teach compartmentalization and problem solving. And it’s one of the few things I tend to be good at. I spot a cop jabber-jawing at the customer service kiosk. I walk up, present my military identification, introduce myself, and explain the problem. I also ask the customer service representative to check to see if a Mr. or Mrs. Rosenbloom have reported a missing little girl named Madeline, about five years old with curly red hair, Oshkosh B’Gosh blue jeans, and a Tony Gwynne replica jersey. I grab a slip of paper, scribble the officer’s name and badge number on it along with my cell phone number, and signal for the officer to follow me.
When he and I find Beth and Madeline again, we are amusedly shocked. In front of the northern mezzanine Jamba Juice kiosk, a gorgeous blonde and a cute little red-head are playing Hokey-Pokey with each other, putting their feet in, taking them out, and, of course, shaking them all about.
“Monkey!” she laughs, pointing at me as we walk up.
The cop looks at me suspiciously with a slightly raised eyebrow. “Hey, what can I say? Chicks dig me….” He laughs and talks into his shoulder-mounted walkie talkie. Beth and Madeline finish with their dance and start singing the ABC song together while we wait for the Rosenblooms, who are apparently being escorted to our area by another cop. They arrive about five minutes later, Mrs. Rosenbloom’s faced streaked with dried tears. This ordeal cannot have been much fun. She runs over to Maddie, who, in turn runs to her and then drags her back to Beth. The women are talking, laughing, and I notice that Beth has her arm in Mrs. Rosenbloom’s arm reassuringly. Maddie tells them that she and her new best friend Beth sang songs and she wasn’t frightened anymore. I’m watching the whole thing in wonderment. Aside from everything else, the female of the species is also apparently endowed with the gift of run-on speech from birth.
Mr. Rosenbloom introduces himself to me as Dan. His relief is evident. Being men, we recognize the harsh reality of a cold, cruel world, and as the cop coldly recites child abduction statistics, Dan and I look at each other dudishly and nod knowingly. Disaster averted, all is well, lesson learned. I get a big hug from Madeline, Beth gets a kiss, the Rosenblooms thank us again, and we go our separate ways. As the two parents walk hand-in-hand with their daughter, I distinctly hear the little one singing to them a song she leanred from her new friend Beth. “I, want to rock and roll all night, and party e-ver-y day…”
I stare at Beth. This was a rare insight, I realize, into the kindness of an even rarer soul who understands that everyone needs someone sometimes, whether climbing a granite face, lost in a stadium full of adults, or while navigating the perilous waters of a hard adult world. Beth is a keeper, and I know it. The Kiss? That’s just style baby, pure style.

Jamie, back to Jamie. Why? Reassurance, justification for a decision well made. The wedding, as I’ve told you, was terrific. We got a Protestant Minister and a Reformed Jewish Rabbi to conduct a joint ceremony. The minister was female and hysterical. I’ve often thought that there’s not much that separates a carnival showman from a conman from a zealous member of the clothe. In this case, the minister also added comedian to the witch’s brew. The rabbi was good too, but nothing special; kinda like a koogle that doesn’t have enough cinnamon. It’s a Yid thing.
Together, however, they made a good ceremony grand. We combined the best of both traditions and backgrounds, I stomped a glass, and while all my relatives shouted “Le Chi’am,” (or however the shit that’s spelled) Beth’s bridesmaids and my groomsmen all produced Viking helmets complete with horns, plopped them on their heads, and shouted “Bonsai!” Surreal? I don’t know about that, but it was most certainly silly. I’m good with silly…silly works for me. Thus, the ceremony ended and the fiesta began. That’s where Field Marshall Jamie went to work. Her assistant ushered the revelers off to the Officers’ Club to begin the wholesale imbibery while she ushered us off to the tip of Point Loma to have our photographs taken. While we went through every conceivable permutation of pose, smile, light angle, etc, Jamie directed the entire event while simultaneously cell-phoning remote party/reception directions to her assistant back at the O’ Club.
“Dahlingk, I don’t care if the caterer says that he’s running out of New Zealand muscles. We paid him for 100 pounds of them, and he’d better either produce the goods or drive his lil’ fanny down to Point Loma Seafoods to get some more…on his own dime…pronto…most ricky tick…capiche?” And so on and so forth.
Yet through it all, while our mouths froze into perma grins and our backs got sore from poses and sun angles and roll after endless roll of film, the Supreme Wedding Warrior managed to somehow produce a small plate of brie and crackers and a bottle of ’95 Vinter’s Reserve La Crema Chardonnay, properly chilled of course. We photographed, the photographer fretted about tiny shadows and whatnot, SW2 relayed party directions via cell phone, yet she still managed to think about us and our food needs. Granted, this woman was a marriage professional and such activity was in her credo. Still, the cold efficiency of it all appealed to the military strongman wannabe in me. Beth, apparently, saw a whole different side.
After what seemed like an eternity of clicking shutters, Jamie and the photographer drove us over to the O’ Club while Jamie explained the mechanics of the Bride/Groom arrival. There are rules to these things, you know. Apparently I didn’t. Being the Big Dumb Male, I share in certain advantages in life like bright plumage, muscles, and the ability to pee standing up when camping in the woods, but I was obviously denied the ability to understand the intrinsic universal constant of Proper Wedding Reception Etiquette. Fortuitous indeed, then, it was that I had at my disposal the Reigning Mistress of Wedding Ceremony Decorum, the SW2. Jamie ‘spalined everything.
And it went well. We all entered in order, Viking helmets and all. We drank, we danced, we made merry. Mostly we got drunk and our respective families thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Somewhere towards the end of the evening, Beth and I snuck off for a little heavy petting in smoochville. I’d like to think that I had particularly turned her on while I dragged her garter off with my teeth, but the run my incisors put in her expensive Frederick’s of Hollywood “CFM” stockings probably put the kibosh on that. Truthfully, I’m fairly certain that Beth was in love with me and wanted some time alone to share a few tender moments with her new husband. I didn’t mind, so off we crept into a dark corner of the Officers’ Club. Giggling and fumbling our way towards the darkened back corner of the management office, we clumsily stumbled over furniture while tickling and groping our way inside. I managed to pin her up against the wall and began to nibble at the base of her neck when she hissed at me. Granted, odd noises are bound to emminate from those about to enter into the throws of passion, but hissing is right out. I stopped.
“Shhh, Josh.”
“Wha….”
“Shhhh!” One more h in the shush for emphasis.
Somewhere in the back office complex was the sound of someone crying. I heard it distinctly. Beth grabbed my hand and led me and my erect penis out of the corner to investigate. Girls, apparently, aren’t embarrassed by public erections. Good for them.
Rounding the corner into the caterer’s office, I first noticed an open window with lots of moonlight streaming through along with a light Pacific breeze. The air was cool and crisp and the room had a delicate blue hue to it in the light reflecting from the moon’s fullness on the horizon. Sitting at a desk chair by that window was Jamie, softly sobbing, her tiny shoulders jerking up and down with each sob.
Beth placed a tentative hand on my wrist, gave me a sorrowful look with large wet eyes and went over to our wedding coordinator and stooped beside her.
“Jamie, Sweatheart,” she said sweetly while lightly draping a gowned arm around the smaller woman’s shoulders. “Shhh, Honey, it’s going to be alright.” Beth looked at me with one tear streaming down her face.
I stood there—Big Dumb Male sans Really Big Belt Buckle—not knowing what the hell to do. Typical. Nothing to fight or beat off, so the male of the species stands in befuddled confusion. This is where the sabertooth tiger jumps us from behind and drags our lifeless corpse off to provide dinner for the kittens, but in my case I just got to stand there. Jamie wept and Beth held her. Whatever it was Beth knew, specifically as I was educated later, Beth instinctively knew that Jamie’s façade wasn’t quite enough in any of her multitudinous weddings to keep the emotion and the memories at bay. The SW2 façade was just that, a put-on face meant to hide the pain still lurking inside her. And my wife, my Beth, knew all that without words and immediately went to share that pain in the hopes that by taking some herself she might lessen that of the woman before us, a person whom we really barely knew beyond the superficial confines of our client/consultant relationship. Beth knew, Beth shared and Beth ached with her…on her wedding night, when dancing and fun and merrymaking were happening one floor down in honor of her. In stead, she chose to spend close to an hour with this suddenly small, sobbing woman. I got shooed out of the room early on, so I returned to the party.
I vaguely remembering fielding various questions about Beth’s whereabouts, and mostly I seem to remember telling people that she was talking with an old friend. Somehow in retrospect that doesn’t seem too far from the truth, for Beth was a rare soul with a rare gift to befriend people at merely a glance. How she could share so much of herself so freely without concern for her own emotional protection in an age of cynical protectionism was/is/will always be beyond my meager, pitiful comprehension. She was something I could only aspire to—a glimpse of divine, altruistic love. Yet somehow and for some strange reason she chose me, me, the tall, skinny, boring turd in a sea of shining diamonds. She saw something in me and selected me to be her mate, and while I entertained the wedding guests and drank shots and laughed and joked, my wife sat upstairs in a darkened room and quietly comforted a soul in need, and I realized more than ever that I loved that woman beyond life itself for if she was my soul-mate, then I might be saved from an eternity of mediocrity and self-induced hell. Love filled me up beyond my capacity for words; it was amazing, and when I saw the two of them come back downstairs, I beamed at Beth with wet eyes. She cocked her lovely head slightly to the side and smiled subtly back at me.
I walked over to them at the base of the stairs and noticed they were hand in hand.
Beth and Jamie hugged long and deeply, and Beth whispered something in her ear. Jamie looked at me, the façade torn down and the emotional vulnerabilities laid bare. I did what a gentleman is supposed to do; more importantly, I did what I was learning to do courtesy of my lovely wife. I was learning to empathize. I leaned down, hugged and kissed her lightly on the check. She hugged back and whispered to me “Dalingk, thank you. You take care of this girl, you hear me? She’s a catch. Oh, by the way, did anyone say anything about the boner you walked downstairs with?”
We both laughed. Beth hadn’t heard the last line and looked quizzically, a slight smile on her angelic face. Was it my imagination, or was there a preternatural glow to her?
“I’m going now, kids. You’re wedding is my best work ever. Be good to each other, because, you know, you are good for each other.”
“Thank you, Jamie,” we both said.
“And, Dalingk, I sure hope that check clears!” My SW2 was back. As she turned to leave, I did what manhood and piggishness demanded of me: I smacked her hard on the ass. She giggled, and Beth’s hand found its way into mine while we looked out past the driveway towards the moonlit silohoutted mass of Point Loma.
“I love you,” Beth said.
“Thank you,” I responded, and we let the moment linger a bit longer before turning in to rejoin the party.

Ocho

2008-11-09T16:58:00.001-08:00

The afternoon of rage when I ended up in Joshua Tree rather than Arcadia turned strangely surreal. While I’d like to tell you about vision quests, spirit guides, alien abductions, profound rapture and such, I cannot—at least not yet. Coyotes make their other-worldy presence known only at far odder times in one’s life, you know. I suppose I’m fortunate that I drew Hiram from the spirit guide hiring pool, for Moishe the Banana Slug or Sol the Lichen wouldn’t have proven nearly so psycho-therapeutic in the months to come, emphasis on “psycho.”

I sat, I grieved, I raged at the world around me until a strange but nonetheless profound thing happened. (Profound to you not so much, but to me? Well, I am, after all, the person who counts in this story. No, wait, that’s not true either. What the shit ever. I’m rambling again, but that’s not too abnormal nor is it unexpected.) But I’ll get to that in a moment.

Again, like I’ve told you, I was/am/always shall be enthralled with California. The state has geographic diversity unheard of in any other state of the country, and I don’t say that lightly. I’ve been to many if not most of the lower 48, and in spite of the desert beauty of Nevada’s Clan Alpine mountains, the surreal, luxuriant alpine lushness of Arizona’s Sedona rift valley, the rolling green hills and quaint red barns of the Pennsylvania Dutch country, the sprawling, white-picket-fenced horse ranches of the Bluegrass or the sheer mountainous elegance of costal Washington state, no other state has so much to offer as California.

Oh, and for whatever the shit it’s worth, I really don’t give two squirts of piss about Texas in reference to this rant.

For the uneducated, unenlightened who have never experienced nature’s grace in all her glory in the Golden State, I highly recommend reading Caught Inside by Dan Duane, in which he provides an eloquent, detailed history of California’s coastal geology and early settlement. That’s a good starting point, but still one must explore for oneself.

Start at the bottom. Make the drive from Yuma, Arizona, across the expanse of the southern American Sonoran Desert to San Diego. After crossing the red iron rocks and eroded sandstone monoliths of the Yuma range, you will descend into Pilot Knob Mesa, upon which ancient alluvial run-off of long-ago withered waters will lead you to the remnants of the detritus that once ran forth from the great inland sea a million-zillion years ago. There you will find the Sand Hills, perfectly white sand dunes that are home to some sort of endangered desert tortoise that plagued many a Navy training flight, countless off-roaders (apparently NOT plagued by Greenpeace and the like) and also substituted for Tatooine in Star Wars. As you pass that, you will quickly cross the ocotillo-bespotted Holtville flats (seemingly dead and dry but, in reality, amazingly diverse in terms of their animal inhabitants, goofy coyote animal spirit guides included) and proceed to the Coachella Valley—a fertile plain fed by the desalinated waters of the Salton Sea to the immediate north, itself an accidental “whoopsie” that resulted from Los Angeles’ insatiable thirst and man’s insatiable hunger for financial advancement. Here you will find waving fields of alfalfa, corn, lettuce, oranges and a sizeable portion of the nation’s produce. Like the sign says that welcomes you to the valley, this is the place “where the sun spends the winter.” And it smells like it. Agrismog sucks, incidentally, but the region is still quite compelling in an otherworldly sort of way given the stark surrounds that are defined by the Chocolate and In-Koh-Pa Mountains. Imagine stark white desert punctuated by fields of alternating shades of green, gently waving in the heat wind generated by the convection-generated roasting oven that has proven perfect for agriculture and farming in the odd, semi-surreal darkness of night (when the temperatures drop to a manageable 90 degrees or so). Odd, for sure, but oddly alluring.

Trust me on this one.

As you leave the valley, you pass one of my many home-away-from-homes—Naval Air Facility El Centro (winter home of the Navy’s Blue Angels and site of many special warfare aviation training detachments)—and then you’ll progress up the back side of the Jacumba Mountains after passing through the rising sandstone erosion of the Anza Borrego desert. Yet again, countless centuries and eons ago, water flowed freely, twisting and turning down from the mountains above in sinuey, erosive torrents, carving a landscape that looks oddly familiar, as if it’s a large-scale reproduction of the creased, leathery hands of an aged New England fisherman. Nooks, cracks and draws spread vascularly from central arroyos as the constructs stream from the high ground to the low, sandy terrain below. And even here, life abounds as small oases spring forth where ground water bubbles up from below and melt/rain water collects from above. Date Palms, Queen Palms, leafy Ocotillo, coyotes, rabbits and Yaqui bats abound.
Somewhere up those surrounding mountains, you’ll transition across climactic moisture boundaries and in Pine Valley at roughly 5,000 feet above sea level, you will depart the scrubby chaparral for thick pine forests. If you were to venture north along Sunrise Highway, you’d find yourself atop Cuyamaca or Laguna mountains, at almost 7,000 feet, often shrouded in clouds or covered in snow.

In fact, people often ask why I love California so much, particularly given That Which Happened. My response is always the same, and refers directly to Laguna and Cuyamaca; “Because, on a warm Spring day, I can stand on a beach where it’s sunny and 75 and look at snow covered mountains in the background.”

Match that Texas? …I thought not.

Black bear live up here, as do deer and, in certain, sheltered areas, antelope. The air is crisp and free from the particulate hell of the Los Angeles basin to the north. Mountain bikers, goats, eagles and starry nights that seem more like projections from planetariums than the mystical reality of nature abound up here. A long, lung scorching bike ride up Sunrise Highway through Cuyamaca Meadows over Laguna Summit and back down to Pine Valley is hardly a match for a single night spent atop Stonewall mountain with the love of one’s life, a cozy set of adjoining down sleeping bags and a bottle of cheap red wine.

Leave behind the esoteric dreamy memories of past experiences, however, and continue down the hard reality of life and Interstate 8. Somewhere near the urban sprawl of Alpine, you’ll start your descent into San Diego proper, which is still blessed by vistas with mountains and forested valleys (and $500,000+, 50-year-old fixer-upper houses) until at last you pass through Mission Valley along side the San Diego River to Ocean Beach, and my/our home. And that is only Southern California, and a cursory glance at best.

I won’t belabor the point, but go north from there and you’ll encounter the quaint small townishness and surf Mecca of North County San Diego. Ignore Orange, Riverside and LA Counties and you’re in the Chocolate, San Gabriel and Santa Barbara mountains, far above the smog and plastic of Los Angeles in forests still filled with black bears and deer. West towards Point Conception lies the sprawling beauty of the Tejon Ranch, where alpine vistas descend to rolling, deciduously-forested meadows and eventually pass into the Central Coastal region of hilly wonderment and vineyards, north past Gaviota and Lompoc, all the way past Pismo Beach of Bugs Bunny fame and Santa Maria. You make the cut northwest of Gaviota and enter the Central Coast proper—guarded stoically and eternally by the fog-shrouded ethereal mysticism of Moro Rock--up, up the Southern Central Range to the rocky cliffsides of San Simeon, Carmel, Monterey and Half Moon Bay. Pause briefly in San Francisco, eat some fresh Ahi and squid and head north past Mount Tamalpais, past the rolling vineyards of the parallel valleys of Alexander, Sonoma and Napa and into the high country of the Northern Coastal Range, where the flora begins to resemble a cool climate rain forest and the black bears grow large and fat on berries and bee honey. North still lie the fog-shrouded seal sanctuaries near Stinson Beach and Ft Ross until you eventually lose yourself in the temperate rain forested expanses of the Lost Coast north of Arcata where the demarcation from California and Oregon are blurred by vistas of sheer cliffs, powerful waves, pods of orcas, the Trinity Alps and Torrey Pines.

…And still I’ve only taken you “coastal” on this journey of the mind. Inland, you go through several other equally distinct regions, each equally stunning. It goes on and on, and I am quite certain that nothing else within the lower 48 offers as much diversity, stunning beauty and decisive lack of really big belt buckles. Oh and lest I forget, mid-state (west to east) at the northern border with Oregon, you’ll find one of most humorous towns in the lower 48. As Steve Poltz likes to say in his song, nothing is quite as funny or quite as inspiring as the final three signs along Intersate 5, traveling up through the San Joaquin Valley, through Redding, past the hollowed-out, alien-infested (or so the rasta-natives say) majesty of Shasta, towards the Klammath border with Oregon. A tiny town separates the two states, buried deeply in the forests of the Eastern Cascades—a town that invokes hysterical laughter no matter how many times you make the drive or the flight (to Fairchild Air Force Base in your trusty H-60 Seahawk). Like Poltz quips, herein lies a tiny town of dubious but prophetic nomenclature, as the street sign says, “Weed, next three exits.”

In this particular case, on this particular day I didn’t have the luxury or the entertainment factor of weed—the town or the pastime. I had loathing and violence. Not very nice and not very fun, but the reality of my existence nonetheless. I had irrational thoughts—thoughts about hurting myself, about killing myself even, and these were thoughts that I had shared with no one since It happened. The alarming part to the rational quarters of my muddled brain was that these thoughts were growing in frequency and severity. I couldn’t stop them. Somewhere in the recesses of my right lobe, Robbie was waiving his noodly, metallic arms and bellowing forth a warning: “Danger, Joshua Green, danger!”

I knew that there was no way I could join Beth, thanks to my Jewish heritage and our definitive lack of an afterlife, although I supposed now that it could be argued that eternal paradise for a Jew was freedom for the remainder of eternity from one’s mother.

You can figure out damnation.

Nonetheless, I was not destined to join Her—Beth—and I knew it. My reasoning in stead was freedom from the pain, the agony that was with me like a terminal disease, only this one was slowly devouring the remnants of my soul. The loss of one’s soul mate, it seemed, left little in which to take solace and laid bare the inner dragon and its attendant demons that only the care and affection of a life partner can quell and quiet. In that person’s absence, it seemed, those monsters were free to run amok and reek havoc within one’s psyche. Fuckers. Suicide, I knew, was at best a temporary solution to a permanent problem, but what else was there?

Psychoanalysts are jackasses, incidentally.

I was still too caring and too responsible to plant an aircraft, for that would mean taking three more people to their graves with me. That wasn’t an option, yet I was strangely attuned to that fact that a suicide would still affect others, namely my family, hers, and our shared friends. Still, at that point, those issues mattered little even if the possible death of my crewmen did.
I didn’t have the answer, but I had plenty of desperation.

So, I raged, I hated, I lamented and I unwittingly drove on to Joshua Tree, somehow drawn by a force or an echo, perhaps, of a love still viscerally real to me. This place, it seemed, still had vibrations of our courtship, the residual energy that Beth bequeathed to all around her. What a gift she had; she was infectious, both to people, places and even a toad like me. And after three hours, I ended up in Hidden Valley, sitting upon a rock, high above my car, gazing through the tears towards the west where the sun danced with a shadowy partner across the massifs of San Antonio and San Gorgonio. And I sat there with my head cocked to the side, entranced, mesmerized, tears drying and choked throat slowly opening. A strange but nonetheless funny site it must have been, the tall skinny kid in a Hawaiian shirt, cut off shorts and Chuck Tailor high tops sitting atop a Paleolithic rock of house-sized proportions, staring slack-jawed at two mountains distant in the West while the sun sank behind him.

Said one cactus to another “Hey Leroy, you see that crazy-ass white boy sitting on that rock?”

“Yup.”

“Whaddya think he’s doing?”

“Dunno, Pierre.”

“Sure looks silly.”

“Yup.”

“And sad.”

“Yup.”

“Let’s watch. This might be good.”

“Yup.”

Nope, sorry to disappoint you fellahs, no melodrama…just me, sitting there mesmorized.
A disappointed clucking sound from the left revealed a profoundly consternated looking coyote staring back with distinctive disapprobation. Alliteration and shit in my semi-lucid hallucinogenic state, I figure(d). True to form, the coyote lost interest and began licking its balls. I didn’t think there was any food nearby, so I quietly cleared my throat as disarmingly as possible. The coyote didn’t jump or start in fear, as one might reasonable expect. Quite the contrary, I was quite sure in the dusky gloom that the scruffy bastard (said out of mutual respect of course; many props Hiram) looked at me as if to ponder my intentions, its dogish eyebrows furrowed suspiciously, caught mid nut-lick. I continued to watch. The dog stopped slurping, sniffed the air slowly with its sandy brown snout high in the air, and then it snapped its head to look directly at the two imagined insulting cacti. Then it looked back at me with a decided quizzical expression of bemused puzzlement. I’m not making this shit up, I swear (why I feel compelled to swear I don’t know; you can go fuck yourself for all I care).

I shrugged my shoulders as if to say “yeah, what-the-fuck-ever, poochie” and I continued my self-absorbed yet somewhat aware descent into myself, not fully noticing the clucking sound yet again as the creature moved off into the shadows.

Night fell.

As I fell deeper into the spell of the dancing lights and the scarlet and ochre whisps of shadow and shading that defined the spurs and fingers of the San Gabriel Mountains, I noticed within an itch, a tingling that, at that moment, was indistinguishable for what it would grow to become, but was nonetheless noticeable enough that steadily I grew restless and uneasy not unlike hunger creeping up on you in the late morning. And in that moment the pain of It was not necessarily forgotten but was most certainly lessened somehow. Hope perhaps? Life maybe? I couldn’t tell at the time, but as I gazed upon the glory of nature all around me, swirling like a warm, protective shawl, I somehow felt her presence with me, reassuring me and imploring me to search deeply, to gain insight and discover myself again. Life was meant to be experienced and lived through love and interaction, not hellish self-withdrawl and denial. Self-imposed penance for nothing done wrong would not redeem happiness I heard Beth plead in my swimming head.

Live, she said quiety.

Live.

It was as simple as that.

Death or pain ceased to be answers, and in that instant, my life was saved even if I didn’t have presence or sense enough to realize it. Until then I had been on a steady downward spiral, lead by the tail slide of my soul, for if it was to become nothing short of black, then surely one’s life force couldn’t be too far behind. My mortality had been fast approaching like a runaway freight train, yet an out-of-cotnrol emotionally inspired trip to the high desert had thrown the life ring that I needed, even if I couldn’t quite grasp that moment at the time.

The coyote barked/yelped somewhere in the distant inky darkness. Oddly enough, it sounded approving.

I slept on the rocks that night, returning to my car only for a jacket, a headlamp and a Mexican blanket that I always kept in my trunk for “just in case” situations. There was no way I could have ever guessed this to be the just in case for which the goodies would come in handy. Dinner was a Powerbar and a small jug of Gatoraide; all the highly processed complex carbs and electrolytes that a desperate person needs. It was cold that night, or so I remember, but I seemed to notice little of it. In stead, I stared at the stars and the vast Milky Way until finally falling into asleep. I say into because as near as I can remember now, I had the distinct impression of falling up and away from the rocks, swept into the massive collection of stars and gasses above me, far removed from the fragility of my wrecked body down below on the sandstone. I felt the rock melt away from beneath me, and I experienced the lucid understanding that my body had transcended my willful ability to control it. As the stars swept about me, their visage changed and somehow transmuted into dirty blonde hair; hair that I remembered all too well and missed with palpable agony. I dreamed of Beth, but wasn’t sad For Once; it was good. In a strangely funny way, life in the Navy made me a lucid dreamer, a defense mechanism I suppose so that one could remain alert to man-overboards or alert launches which always seemed to happen in the wee hours of the early, early morning while at sea. Thus, I knew I was dreaming, and I knew that the images I was experiencing were little more than manifestations of my subconscious mind’s attempt to reconcile the polar spectrum of emotions that I was reeling from every hour of every day. To come to terms with one’s suffering and to eschew suicide in favor of sanity and forward progress must certainly be monumental achievements in times of duress and extreme crisis, and my mind must have been busily coming to terms with the events of the day.

Weed? Who needs weed when one is jacked on raw emotion? In stead, I saw images of Beth, always framed by the sun, always radiant, and always smiling at me. I bore witness to our years together, our shared vision, our bond. I saw images and scenes of the life we lived and the things we experienced, and I knew that I had to relive as many of them as I could in order to grieve and move forward. And, in the midst of all that, I heard her sweet voice imploring me to do so.

“Go, Silly Josh,” she said from deep within. “Go and do what you need to do to let go of the pain. That’s not how you should remember us. Not pain. Now, wake up and go.”

And shortly thereafter, the sun peaked above the Chocolate Mountains to the east and I opened my eyes slowly. I awoke that Saturday renewed in the slightest sense but, more accurately, driven to see and hear and feel some things that needed to be revisited. This, it seemed, was to be my salvation, not so much in a frenzy of self-hatred and misery, but rather in a renewed emphasis that one must remember and appreciate in order to regain momentum, inertia and, most importantly, freedom with wisdom.

In that hazy moment between the waking and sleeping world I caught one more glimpse of my dear Beth. She was smiling. I got up and shook the cold away from my limbs and away from my soul. It was a start.

Chuck Tailors might not be state-of-the-art athletic shoes anymore, but something about the archless, flat soles makes them well suited to rock climbing, and I downclimed from the rock and made for my car, a spectacle to behold for sure. Tall, goofy kid in shorts, a Marmot 3-layer Gore Tex mountaineering jacket, a bright orange rayon Hawaiian shirt and baggy khaki cargo shorts stumbling down from a rock with an armful of stuff, traipsing towards his car in one helluva hurry. I hopped in, rubbed the goobers from my eyes and started out of the park. The cacti, I’m sure, were curious and most likely slightly frustrated that they were deeply rooted to the earth, for surely whatever the goon would do next would be worth watching; and they couldn’t.

Damned shame, I suppose.

Out of the park, I stopped briefly for coffee and little chocolate doughnuts in town—my testament to the preternatural brilliance of John Belushi—and off towards Interstate 10 I raced. The 10 lead me a long way, past San Dimas, past Ontario, into LA and then eventually to Santa Monica. From there I took a right hand turn onto US1 and drove up into Malibu, past the cliffsides of Ventura County, through Oxnard and the cloned architecture of Santa Barbara to Gaviota. Approaching the southern reach of Point Conception I took a turn northwards and cut inland towards Lompoc, where the rocky seaside gave way to the wooded rolling hills of California’s Central Coast, a land where the fog is a daily occurrence and the vineyards stretch for miles upon miles. Moro Rock, Pismo Beach and Santa Maria. I raced northwards, driven while driving and stopping only for gas and fast food. The Southern Coastal Range was my destination and my target. Somewhere near Solvang I managed a brief call to my buddy Felcher, a fellow pilot from my squadron who was on duty that day. He asked where I was and said that I missed a great party the night prior in Ocean Beach. I corrected him briefly—he missed a helluva party in J Tree. Could he clear some unofficial leave through the Commanding Officer? We wouldn’t be flying the next week and I needed to get away. He paused and said sure. The CO and XO would understand, and if not, their wives would and that would be enough.

“Josh?”

“Yeah, Felch?”

“Umm, are you okay? I mean, where the hell are you going and what’s going on? You’re, um, not planning on doing something stupid are you?”

“No dude, no I’m not. Don’t worry. I had an epiphany last night, and I need start something to get past this. Trust me, bud.”

“Okay, call us alright? Call me if you need anything.”

“You got it Felcher. I will. I’ll be back by the end of the week.”

“Josh?”

“Yeah, Felch?”

“What’s an epiphany?”

“That’s what you get for going to Boat School in stead of a real college.” I snickered, then I laughed. It felt good for a change; well, at least as close to “good” as I could remember.

And with that I hung up the cell phone and sped off towards the rolling ranches east of the Hearst Estate, just south of Fort Hunter Liggett. I was bound for Lake San Antonio. I called Chuck to let him in on my plan. Four hours on the road were starting to make me question my intentions just a bit.

“Sounds like a plan, Tex,” he said. “Stick with it. Find what you need, Pal.”

Chuck was good for things like that; I was assured that he wouldn’t go all rational on me, trying to convince me to forgo my wild-hair-up-my-arse trip in lieu of “talking it out,” nor would he do something immensely stupid like calling my parents; “Hi, Mr. And Mrs. Green? Yeah, this is your son’s friend Chuck. I thought you should know that Josh is, at present, speeding north along Interstate 5 looking to have a smash-up derby with his soul somewhere north of Paso Robles. But don’t worry, he’ll be fine; after all, he drives a station wagon. But, can I have first dibs on his stuff if he checks out?”

I chuckled, because the sight of my mother spontaneously combusting yet somehow managing to beat the holy hell out of my pop was funnier than a wet willie. I hung up the cell and hit the gas.

Wildflower. What a hoot, and I’m talking about the fauna not the flora. To understand the sublimely hysterical goofiness of Wildflower, one must attend the festival, slog it out through one of the three races that weekend, listen to the reggae, and drink and party with abandon, not necessarily in that order. It was (is) the Woodstock of triathlon, complete with free love, halucenogenics, alcohol, rain, mud, and nudity—lots of nudity. Oh, did I mention that the festival also includes a series of triathlons? Now, nearing the year mark of our courtship, Beth and I have decided to ditch work, take vacation time together, pack her truck with bikes, camping gear and booze, and lite off for all points north, specifically Lake San Antonio and the Wildflower Triathlons Festival. It is early May in Southern California and we are definitively in love, using the word with reckless abandon and thinking about a future together. On this day, however, we are anticipating the nation’s best four-day, outdoor party and the three triathlons that accompany it every year.

Wildflower is an anachronistic triathlon of sorts since it’s character flies on the face of standard triathlon conventions, yet one must have a fair working knowledge of the “tri geek” set in order to understand the duplicitous nature of this race. Triathletes are, without fail, type A personalities, often given to fits of obsessive/compulsive exercise addiction such that their lives typically revolve secondarily around swimming, biking, running, and eating. Primarily, they focus on gear and toys and toys and gear, and therein lies the tragic comedy of triathlon, for no $500 hydrophobic wetsuit, no $4,000 steep angled, feather light bicycle (yes, you read that price correctly…wait for this…), no $1,000 set of extraordinarily aerodynamic bicycle wheels, no $150 set of racing flats, and no $150 pair of high speed, low drag designer sport sun glasses will make one any faster without the appropriate levels of dedication and endless hours of high quality, high intensity training in the pool, in the saddle, or on one’s feet. But that doesn’t deter us, you know, and we still willing spend sizable chunks of our yearly disposable income on the latest goodies in the hopes that by shaving one one-thousandth of a second off of our total race time will win us that most holy of holies, the elusive Ironman Hawaii age group qualifiers’ entry.

For those of you unfamiliar with the silly sport of triathlon, the “World Series” of sorts takes place every October in the laval fields of Kailua Kona, on the Big Island of Hawaii, where Madam Pele blows the hot, steamy mukluks into the faces of the hapless but oh-so-fortunate competitors. This race is where you might recall watching Julie Moss drag her limp body across the finish line in the early 1980s on the Wide World of Sports. This is the Mecca of the sport, where every triathlete no matter how much he or she denies it, secretly hopes to get some day. And this is where a limited field of less than 1,500 are allowed to compete, most securing their coveted entrance by winning first through third place in their age group at a limited number of qualifying races held throughout the preceding year. I won’t even bother to go into detail about the $300 mandatory entrance fee after you get a slot or the $1200 mandatory travel package that aspiring Hawaii Ironmen are forced to purchase.

Also, triathlons come in various shapes, sizes and flavors, from the uber silly of the Ironman distance—2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run—to the Half IM, to the Olympic distance—1.5 kilometer swim, 40 kilometer bike, 10 kilometer run—to the various shorter sprint distances. The Wildflower race that we are headed to, it just so happens, is a Half IM distance, and at the time that I’m sharing with you, is still a Hawaii qualifier, meaning that the top three male and female athletes in each age group will win slots to go to The Show. More importantly, it also means that the race organizers pay a sizeable bribe/royalty in order to ensure that they maintain their qualifier status. Did I also mention that triathlon has become a business? Lawyers and accountants, it seems, are in fact intent on ruining the world. Nontheless, Wildflower also has two other races, an Olympic and a Sprint distance mountain bike race. Whichever one chooses, however, will prove to be the race of one’s lifetime, for the swim is in Lake San Antonio, a preternaturally cold glacial lake high in the Southern Coastal Range, the bike course rolls through several thousand feet of elevation differential in the hills and valleys that are dotted with picturesque stands of deciduous trees and rolling dales of vineyards, and the run often varies on and off road, trail and foot path on equally daunting hills but also equally breathtaking. In short, it’s a real nut-busting ass kicker with a killer view.

But, that still isn’t the good part. Lake San Antonio’s nearest metropolitan neighbor is the quaint burg of Paso Robles, where my father almost shot a man when he was in the California National Guard in the early 60s, but that’s another story for another time. When I say quaint, I mean small. When I say small, I mean tiny. The nearest town of reasonable size is San Louis Obispo, about 45 minutes to the south, also and incidentally the home of Calinornia Polytechnic Institute. CalPoly, in turn and not unexpectedly, is the home of 20,000 or so college students, for in spite of their seeming random behavior patterns, young professionally-oriented adults do at least tend to congregate wherever colleges are located, even those that are nearby annual triathlon festivals. The two activities it seems—higher education and obsessive altheticism—can actually exist in the same part of the time space continuum, as opposed to tequila and bourbon, which should never actually be mixed in a drink together. Trust me. Anyhow, I digress, so please allow me to get back to the significant fact that CalPoly is essentially co-located with the race festival. That’s where the Woodstock factor comes into play.

Gidee-up.

CalPoly, for whatever reasons and via whatever means, somehow became intimately tied to Wildflower over the years, with a large part of the student body providing volunteer services in support of the races held the first weekend in May. What began as one of America’s most ass-kicking races eventually transmuted into one helluva blow out party, complete with lots of recreational drug use, copius amounts of fermented hop and barley beverages, loud reggae music everywhere, and scantily clad (if clad at all) college students serving water, fluid replacement drinks and carbohydrates for a couple thousand tri-geeks over the course of two days. Add to that the fact that there’s no hotel accommodations and that the race participants and volunteers alike have to camp out in a large state park and you essentially get a huge reefer party with a small ass-whoopin’ triathlon or three. It’s a hoot.

And, therein lies the rub, my friends, for any participant of any of the three Wildflower races has to choose whether or not he/she is there to race or to party. There is a gifted minority who have the ability to do both and so choose that path, god bless them. Beth and I are realists, however, thus we joke in her truck headed north past Santa Maria that we’re going to a blow-out party in the Central Coast mountains. Oh yeah, we’re also gonna do the Conitnental United States’ hardest Half Ironman race. Well, at least we hope to, providing our hangovers from the first night’s partying aren’t too overwhelming. Did I mention that sandwiched nicely between our two ridiculously expensive tri-bikes in the back of her sport utility vehicle is a large, white cooler filled with ice, a case of Tecate and a dozen limes? Food? That’s why God invented Power Bars.

It’s all about the beer.

We are laughing, enjoying one another, and almost forgetting that we’ll soon enduring gobs of pain for seven to eight hours when we race in two days. For now, we’re in the truck driving north through some beautiful countryside, passing pastures, rolling hills, lush forests, vineyards and quaint country towns. We stop for gas in San Louis Obispo, where it’s hot, damned hot, and that doesn’t make us too confident in the events two days hence. We buy two 2.5 gallon jugs of water and four large plastic bottles of Gatoraide. …And another sixer of beer, just in case. San Louis Obispo is strangely deserted, and we remember then that the better part of the student body has already staked out a large, bohemian camp ground just south of the race staging area. They are already no doubt loaded and naked, not necessarily in that order. We sincerely hope to join them soon.

North past San Louis Obispo, we drive through a fairly tight canyon with steep cliffs on either side of the highway. Amazingly, deciduous trees and conifers grow out from the cliffsides and abruptly make 90 degree turns, reaching longingly for the sunlight that manages to peek into the valley. At the northern end, we drive up to the top of a large box canyon and crest out into another landscape of rolling hills and wild grasses. In the sunlight, it’s positively dreamy, as if the smooth, gentle lines of the hills call to you to come run through the grass and to take a restful afternoon nap underneath a nice shade tree. We fall silent after many hours of conversation, giggling and singing along with Brother Bob on the CD player, to look about us as we continue north for the final half hour of the trip. Beth breaks the silence first.

“Cute Josh?”

“Yeah?”

“Is this what Lake San Antonio is going to be like?” This is her first year doing the race; it’s my second.

“Yeah, Sweetie, actually it is. Nice isn’t it,” I say as I turn, smile and squeeze her hand.

“Oh my. We should move here some day.”

Oh my indeed, but the latter we’ll never have the opportunity to do. I don’t know that yet.
Passing Paso Robles (that sounds like the perfect title for a Country Western song), we find clouds, lots of them in fact. As we turn off towards Lake Nacimiento—our lake’s neighbor to the south—it begins to rain. This is an El Nino year after all, wherein the earth, nature, and the currents of the Pacific have deliberately conspired to pee on us every single weekend along the Pacific Seaboard. That makes for fine skiing in the mountains, but it makes for lousy traithling (Triathle; verb; transitive; to participate in a profoundly silly but nonetheless fun sport). Our descent into the park is no less breathtaking in spite of the rain and atmospheric gloominess. If anything, the filtered, muted light somehow magnifies the zillions of wild flowers dotting the hillsides as far as the eye can see. It’s a palate of nature’s colors and it’s on display just for us.

“Oh, how pretty,” she says.

“Thus the name, I’m assuming. Reminds me of Texas in the spring,” I say.

“Really?”

“Yup, just no big belt buckles.”

“Wha…?”

“Nevermind, Sweetie.”

We enter the park after waiting in a brief line, stake out our camp ground, set up my tent (it’s stopped raining but it’s still cloudy although the temperature is quite nice at 65 degrees), and then we head for race registration and bike check in with a fortuitous stop at the beer tent first. We’re smart, college-educated professionals, you know, and we’ve remembered to bring spare water bottles on our bikes, which we have to take for safety checks and rack check-in. The bikes, not the bottles. The latter are filled with Arrogant Bastard Ale, and after we’re done we head off to cop our buzz and get into the groove of the weekend. Peter Tosh is blaring from the loudspeakers spaced all around the check-in/vendor area and college kids are running around everywhere, caked in mud and grinning like stoned college kids, which of course, they are.

“Josh, it’s a damned shame you’re in the Navy.”

“Yeah, you know, it’s times like this I realize that. Still a rule is a rule.”

We check in the bikes, get our race packets, and refill our beer bottles. The sun finally begins to break through the clouds and we stake out some ground on the lawn that sits amidst the vendor tents. Sublime is blaring through the speakers, we’re buzzed as hell, we’re at Wildflower, and we’re in love. This is good.

The race proves to be better two days later. Prior to that the park gradually fills up with other racers. Amazingly, some come equipped with tents like us—climbers/hikers/outdoor enthusiasts posing as triathletes we figure—mutually inclusive hobbies methinks. Some come in large recreational vehicles that are little more than rolling, motorized hotel rooms. They are the ones who tend to have the $4,000 + bicycles and the nifty, high zoot gear. They also look to be in the midst of mid-life crises. Still, if this experience provides respite, relief, or entertainment, then who the hell are we to judge? Dance and enjoy; come one, come all.

Others still come in cars with little more than their race gear and a Mexican blanket to spread on the ground. We’re fortunate indeed that the people who select the camp spots next to us are of the latter variety. We build a fire that night and share the Tecate. One of our campsite neighbors turns out to be a television producer from LA, and has brought a cooler of cold fruit, cheese, fresh bread and crackers. He shares that with us. Another neighbor is a musician/triathlete from the San Fransisco Bay Area, and she’s brought a 12-string guitar, upon which she plays Simon and Garfunkle songs for us while singing and entertaining requests. I answer that I’d like to hear the theme from “Shaft.” Beth pinches me and we all laugh. “That Shaft is one bad mother fu…” the producer laughs. “Shut your mouth,” we answer. “Just talking about Shaft.” It’s Wildflower, I’m with Beth. What could be better? It’s me, her, and Julio down on the school yard and then some.

The race is on Saturday, two days later. It’s typical. We’re rushed getting to T1 to set up our gear, and we quickly slather on sunscreen before donning our wetsuits while shivering in the early morning, semi-high altitude air. Beth and I are hungover, which would normally be a harbinger of bad tiding in the coming six to eight hours of pain. Given our surroundings and environment, all we can do is smile at each other while we adjust our bikes, readjust our wetsuits and waddle down to the lake’s edge. We start in separate waves but not before sharing a long, toungie kiss after the national anthem is played by the Paso Robles Senior High School Marching Band, and we actually get a round of applause from the crowd of athletes and well-wishers alike. I blush and Beth bows to the crowd, at least as best she can bow in her Quintana Roo LongJane wetsuit. Then she reaches around and pinches my rubber-clad ass.

“I love you,” I say, grinning like a teenage idiot encased in a full body condom.

“I know that, Silly,” she giggles back.

I’m going to marry this girl, this woman, and I know it every time I see her smile. I waddle into the water grinning like a Chessire Cat, waiting for my wave to start. I don’t even notice that the lake’s water is a weenie-shrinking 62 degrees. A half hour later, Beth’s wave begins the race. Our swims are good and we progress through the bike course, separate from one another but together in spirit and together with all of the other racers. I find the TV producer 35 miles into it, along side the road with a flat. I stop to see if he’s okay.

“Sure, Josh,” he says.

“Do you need me to help you with the flat tire?”

“Oh that? No, but thanks. I was just looking as that hillside. Have you ever seen so many flowers in your life?” he asks.

“You’re right.” I pause and share the moment, the energy. We’re both smiling. Then I wish him a good race and tell him that I’m looking forward to another night to drunken abandon at our communal camp site. He smiles as I remount my bike and continue towards the run transition. It’s Wildflower and it’s like this.

Remember what I said about scantily clad college students? Well, what I didn’t mention to Beth when I asked if she’d come up and race with me is that there’s something of a tradition at the eight mile aid station on the run course. All of the aid stations on the bike and run are hosted/supported by the CalPoly students, but Mile 8 is famous for its fleshiness. The kids running the water station do so stark-ass naked. It’s a hoot. What makes it even better is that the approach to the Mile 8 station is the large pasture you hit after clawing your way up a particularly steep embankment. The pasture, while part of the state park, is also grazing land for all of the local cattle herds. On this particular day, the herd’s bull is standing beside the run trail, grunting loudly and no doubt wondering what in the name of all that is spotted and uddered are these silly, spindly humans doing running so hell bent towards those goofy naked young ones. My writer’s mind can’t help but laugh. I make a mental note to remember to ask Beth what she thought of this part of the course after we’re finished, showered, and happily rehydrating with Tecate later that day. I take a paper cup of orange colored fluid replacement drink from a butt-ass naked red head girl.

“Keep going,” she implores and bounces. “You’ve only got five more miles.”

I laugh and choke on the fluid. Beth will be pleased; there are male students here too, equally clad. Or not.

Many hours later we are both lounging in the central lawn amidst the vendors, the food stands, and the other athletes, all equally festooned with silly grins, for those like us who have just finished the Wildflower long course are proud, excited, and stoned out of our gourds on endorphins, whereas the other doing the short course or the mountain bike triathlon tomorrow are nervous but nonetheless feeding off of our positive energy. It also helps that we’ve been throwing back beers. Beth finished her first Wildflower in a record pace that has become her best half-ironman time to date. She’s positively beaming. My race went well too, although nowhere near as impressive as Beth’s. We finished in 5 hours 52 minutes and 5 hours 17 minutes, her and me, respectively. We’ve already showered at the camp grounds, and now we’re pulling fuzzy fleece pull-overs from our backpacks to stave-off the evening chill as the sun sets behind the flower-covered and tree-dotted hills across the lake while the cool sounds of Common Sense set the one-love, one-peace, one-great-race tone in the background. We’re grinning and holding hands and thankful—oh so thankful—to be here together at this moment in time, sharing such a wonderful, positive experience.

“Hi,” the ranger at the entrance booth said as I pulled up that afternoon. “Park entrance fee is $5.00, $10.00 if you’d like to camp over night.”

I fished out the ten-spot and handed it through. “Is the mini-mart open?” I asked, knowing that I’d need to get some food and drink.

“Yup, down by the lake. You know the way?”

“Yes,” I trailed off a bit.

“Yes, I do. How crowded is it in there?” The road into the Lake San Antonio Park winds around to the right from the entrance booths and gets lost in the trees before passing three campgrounds before descended to the lake and the lower sites.

“Well, lessee,” he said. “It’s Friday, so that usually means that some of the CalPoly kids show up, but I haven’t seen any yet. So, basically, aside from you and me and a couple of trout fishermen, that’s about it.”

“Good, thanks, Ranger.”

“You’re welcome. Have a nice stay.”

I drove on after waiving. Nice stay? Maybe, although I doubt it more and more as the echoes and vibrations of events past become resoundingly real and thunderously loud in my head as soon as I started descending the hill down to the lake and the lower campground, and, as it was, the central area of Wildflower. The sun seemed a bit lower on the horizon, a bit more opaque as the moisture-laden atmosphere cooled and the Central Coast fog rolled in from the West. I got down to the bottom, selected a camp site close enough to the mini mart so as to minimize my walk for vittles but far enough so as to not be intruded upon by the lights and the caretakers, and I walked to the lawn and sat. The vibrations were severe, pounding noises deep within my chest that made it hard to breath and were hard to distinguish from the languid beating of my wounded heart. I briefly thought that perhaps this wasn’t a good idea, coming to this place where love was more than realized, where a lifestyle together with my soul mate had been forged. I noticed that my breathing was labored, I was sweating, and I was shivering.
And then a familiar thing happened that soothed the lump in my throat and eased the stinging in my eyes. I looked out across the lake towards the gently rolling hill on the other side, and, much to my surprise given the time of year, I saw them. Thousands upon thousands of wild flowers blowing in the late afternoon breeze. The hills were awash in subdued, sublimely intoxicating color. Nature, it seemed, grieved for winter’s harshness by decorating her splendor with the hope of life and rebirth. Nature knew more and knew better than I did, and I realized that.
Maybe, then, that’s what drew me back. I sat, lost in thought, for the next two hours while the sun slowly sank into the Pacific, far beyond the hills bordering my western side. The vibrations were still there, but not quite so violently making their presence known. Perhaps, I thought, there’s a way to learn to live with them, to move in kind and use them to help me make it through.

Hope.

The edges of the map might be marked with warnings, but the edges need not be limiting factors. Hope, then, is quite possibly born from the ashes of the experience of life. Even if that experience is a horror visited upon a body, or so I thought as I got up, walked to the mini mart for a can of Dintey Moore Beef Stew, a box of Pop Tarts and a six pack of Tecate. But, it seemed, nature also had a devilishly deviant sense of humor as if to help keep me grounded. Tecate yes, limes no--this, I guessed, was going to be an odd path to journey upon. That’s insightful, and shit, you know.

Yeah, something like that.

Sieben

2008-10-27T20:39:00.000-07:00

“Just step up.”
I pause.
The bright, high desert sun is beating down upon me.
My heart is racing within me.
“Common. Just step up.”
I think about it, but doubtfully so.
“Joshua Green!” It was more of a command, but with a slight hint of a girlish giggle that somehow manages to bounce lightly off of the granite and sandstone rock walls around me. “Take your right foot, put it on that little jib lip and just step up.”
I start and then pause again, which isn’t helping because blood is rushing to my forearms to help my fingers maintain their death crimp on two miniscule, almost invisible projections of granite rock that wouldn’t even be visible from more than five feet away. I’m inches away and my mind stalwartly refuses to believe that either one offers enough purchase to help support my weight while I “just step up” to the next equally and stupidly small foot hold. God bless Boreal and their proprietary rubber soled climbing shoes. They’re sticky. My fingers, not so much.
Presenttly, I’m about two thirds of my way up a climb sardonically called Road Rash in Joshua Tree National Monument. Joshua Tree is a breathtakingly beautiful park located in the high desert of Southern California’s Mojave, located somwhere north and east of the sprawling hellish, shallow expanse of the LA Basin. To the south, the Chocolate Mountains separate it (and me and my shaky forearms) from the upper Morongo Valley and the Salton Sea flats that lead down to Palm Springs. To the west are the mountain resorts of Big Bear and Arrowhead, where the desert gives up its aridity to the fragrant pine forests of the San Gabriel Mountains. To the north and east, the world effectively ends, turning sandy, brown, ugly and eventually leading to Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico or Texas.
Nuff said.
I’ve heard tell, but have yet to confirm, that the earth turns green again somewhere near the fabled, rumored land known as Arkan-sauce, although I remain skeptical.
But Joshua Tree is strangely beautiful. Large clumps of granite rocks that look like huge piles of boulders form interesting citadels of shade in the surrounding desert, where enormous and ancient Joshua Tree cacti point their middle fingers upwards towards the heavens as if to say “Thanks, God. Thanks a shit-ton for making these goofy-ass bipeds come climb rocks in my scenic wonderland. We need these polluting undulates like we need property developers and/or rectal polyps, but then I repeat myself.”
God doesn’t often listen to Joshua Tree cacti, at least I don’t think so.
The climb I’m pausing on is a mere 5.9 rating—a low intermediate rating in the parlance of rock climbers and nothing worthy of so much trepidation and hesitation. I’m normally a solid mid-range 5.10 climber in the gym, but as any rock nerd will tell you, the gym, like all man-made artificial realities, is a piss poor substitute for the real world. The cacti, meantime, like Beth, are mocking me. In this case, Road Rash is so named because of the quality of granite that forms the building-sized Paleolithic boulder that the climb is on. All climbs are named—an honor generally bestowed upon the first person to standardize the route—and many if not most have simple, adolescent names that reek of youthful exuberance and the hubris of young adulthood. Names like Poo-In-Your-Britches, Ass Whooper, Lurking Fear and Butt Munch come to mind. Thus, Road Rash is a more subtle reference to the possibilities offered therein. You can easily hike up the back side of Road Rash to set your anchor atop. You can then simply toss the rope back down, hike down and around, and set about to climbing the Rash while your partner belays from below. It’s a simple top rope problem. No, really, that’s what the guide book says. Guide books never lie.
Mostly.
The problem, it seems, is that 100 million years of nature haven’t yet managed to dull the infinitesimally small and countless crystalline granules of the granite extrusion that eons of water flow eroded to look like a large boulder. The silly bitch has the texture of rough grit sandpaper. While that makes for good friction against the sticky rubber soles of climbing shoes, it also makes for not-so-good friction against one’s exposed skin should one slip and tumble down. The danger on this climb is not from death due to falling or cranial avulsion or anything quite so easy and/or pleasant. Rather, it’s the excruciating flaying of one’s flesh while scraping and grinding against the wall as the belayer’s anchor catches. Granite when polished makes for grand countertops, but it enjoys its revenge against us for such an inglorious use by shredding the skin off of goof-ball climbers. Thus the climb’s name: Road Rash. The cacti watch with their eternal patience, no doubt hoping the goofy kid, namely me, puts on a good show.
I pause again. Beth at least, doesn’t want my blood. At least I hope not. She’s impatient, but she won’t say or show it. God bless her. She—like all climbers of merit—secretly cheers for others in the hopes that they will not only send the climb (send—verb, transitive: climber parlance for kicking rock ass and, more importantly, not flaying the flesh from oneself) but will also prove the line up the route, thus providing the visual cues as to where to go when it is her turn, clues known in climbing lingo as “beta” (beta—noun: climber parlance for “you go first and see if this silly thing makes you bleed”). I’m doing a poor job providing said beta, but my forearms are looking rather Popey-esque. Neato.
“You’re doing great, Josh. Take your time and step up when you’re ready. I’ve got you.”
Thanks, my love. Do you, by chance have a new set of forearms for your man? Now I’m looking around in desperation. There’s a philosophy in outdoor climbing that you have to develop trust in your shoes. Whereas the rock gym provides man-made, plastic and appliqué-textured walls upon which to schmear one’s shoes, the great outdoors provides an endless variety of conglomerates, granites and other crystallized stone alloys upon which high tech, modern rock shoes/boots/slippers gain incredible purchase. A skilled climber, in fact, can virtually dance up most 5.10a climbs and less without so much as the occasional balancing hand hold. Tragically, I am no such climber, and as I ponder my next step up (it’s all in the feet, you know) while my forearms and calves prepare to rip free from their confining tendons and ligaments such that they might bludgeon me to death in their utter frustration at my lack of spinal fortitude, I look around in even more desperation.
I know that large cacti 100 yards to the left is positively convulsing in laughter, at me rather than with me, I might add. I also notice a rather conspicuous coyote, looking equally bemused and apparently rolling its beady eyes at the stupid biped. Great, the flora and fauna are all friggin’ critics, it seems.
I’m hoping to find a nice hidden ledge upon which to rest for a spell. That’s the silly thing about granite rock. The crystals somehow align themselves so as to form a natural camouflage of sorts. It’s almost as if about a zillion years ago nature said to herself, “Self, someday there will be this horridly dorky critter named Mankind who will do stupid things like bungee jumping and rock climbing and NASCAR Racing and Really Big Belt Buckle Wearing. Therefore it’s my duty if not altogether my holy responsibility to design things such as tensile breaking points, gnarly, sharp granite, redneck alcoholism and lightening to take care of such problems lest this foolish creature destroy my lovely planet.” I always thought that she was a bitch, even if I envy her sardonically dark sense of humor.
No ledges though. And, much to my chagrin and annoyance, a spry, lithe little climb monkey has mounted the rock base beside Beth and proceeds to free climb the rock as if he’s dancing his way across a ballroom floor. Granted I’m a hefty 175 pounds—positively gargantuan by sport climbing standards—but this little elfin prick weighs a buck twenty at best. And he’s free soloing, which means he’s got no ropes, no anchors, no belays. And he zooms right up to the point that’s taken me over 30 minutes to haul my lame ass up to, huffing and puffing. He’s not breathing, the freakish little rock vampire, his blonde locks flowing down from his oh-so-chic poneytail. In a little over a minute he’s equal to me.
“Gutentagen.” How ever the shit you spell “hi” in Kraut.
Great, I think, the master race.
“You are delaying too long, meun freund. Just stepenze oop.”
And with that, he deftly dances his way up and over the next lip about ten feet above me and disappears high above. This is, no doubt, Lil’ Rock Hitler’s warm-up for the 5.14b he’s going to try to redpoint later (redpoint—noun: climbing parlance for “don’t even think about it Josh”). And suddenly I become enraged. My pituitary and adrenal go to work and I lunge forward and upwards with a newfound strength that propels me towards his imagined foot, which I imaginatively grab and hurl him to his death below. In stead I find the next hidden ledge, this one a generous one inch deep and haul myself up another five feet.
“See, Honey,” she giggles from below, “all you had to do was just step up.”
Did she call me “Honey?” Dunno, because as quickly as it hit me, the adrenaline goes away and suddenly I’m shaky again.
“Hey Josh?”
“Yeah, Beth? Just taking another little breather.”
“Did you talk to Gunther?”
“Wha?…”
“That guy who just sent beside you?”
“Oh, him.” My arms are resting and my calves are starting to shake now.
“Yeah, the German guy. Gosh, he was sure cute.”
Sonofabitch. Surge number deuce and suddenly I’m positively sprinting my way up the rest of Road Rage. Either I climb this bitch, I fall and skin myself silly, or I catch the prick and grind his uber-mensch face into the granite. And then I’m on top, chest heaving, forearms pumping and belayer hysterically giggling down below.
“Off belay,” she laughs, and I laugh too. It worked.
Okay, let’s consider the score. She asked me to a long weekend at Joshua Tree, just the two of us in a two person tent. She called me Honey. She used jealousy as a means to get something she wanted, namely me off this stinking route, presumably so that she can climb some before we return to Hidden Valley Campground, our tent and, most importantly, our cooler of Tecate beer. Hmmm, this could prove to be a promising start to a glorious weekend. Now I’ve just got to down hike off of this pig of a rock with legs made of warm jello. Nice. But Beth waits below, and that’s motivation enough.

One would think that the American punk rock movement of the early to mid-1980s was predicated on anger, angst and hatred. All I wanted was a Pepsi and such. As opposed to the music genre’s origin in post-60’s England where the thematic message was one of arrogance combined with obnoxious anti-social behavior festooned with really skinny neck ties, the American movement that came of age during the first Reagan Administration (ironically enough, the same time as me) seemed far more angry and aggressive than it’s oh-so-gitchy-anti-establishment roots. It’s simple, really. Compare the Sex Pitsols with anything by Black Flag, the Dead Kennedys or the Meatmen. Sure, Sid might have had that whole self-mutilation, kill the chica thingy going, but can anything he and the lads did really compare with “We’re The Meatmen And You Suck?” What did John Rocker possibly have on T. Boone? Did the entirety of the Buzzcocks lineup weigh-up to the same beefy standard of Hank? Nope.
Don’t get me started.
More importantly, don’t get me wrong. I’m not goofing on the ancestral roots of the seminal musical genre of the 1980s. For the record, the Big Hair Metal movement was not seminal. Semenal perhaps. Glitzy and glammy definitely, but not seminal. Winger will fall into obscurity as will, with any luck, EnoughZEnough. Bad Religion, Husker Du, the Ramones and Oingo Boingo, however, endure. Thank the powers that be for that. Yes, we’ve already hashed through my monotonous lifestyle and upbringing, and yes, we’ previously discussed my nonsensical ravings on Kiss, Rollins and my musical meanderings. Frankly I don’t expect any of you to agree with me or, more importantly, to understand. This is MY story after all. If you don’t like it, suck up the amount you’ve read, chalk it up to the opportunity cost of doing something else with your time other than rotting in front of the idiot box, and put the story down. Go ahead. Better yet, you could do yourself a favor and listen to the brilliance of “Chemical Warfare” or “Clean Sheets.” Think about the sublime message contained in one sentence, so much said with such profound economy: “Clean sheets mean a lot, for a guy who sleeps on the floor.” Get it? Read it again, slam back a quadruple uber super mega late, throw down a machaca burrito or two and listen anything by Descendants or Fear or Mojo Nixon or the Beatfarmers.
Nevertheless, the object lesson contained herein is that the American Punk Rock movement is/was not about violence. The latter was a byproduct of tight-assed, no-hair-having, swastika-wearing goons who glommed onto the subject matter. The material itself was not about hate or violence, self-hatred maybe but not about hurting others.
For a while, a long while, you know, I was all about violence, both internal and external. It occurred none too long after IT happened. For that period of time, violence consumed my soul, my essence and my purpose of being. Kind words and deeds by benevolent strangers on Fiesta Island notwithstanding, most of my time was spent, either waking, sleeping or breathing in a constant state of rage. Most of the time it was silent, a pent-up aggression that led to countless waking fantasies that included torture, beatings and occasionally evisceration. I was able to focus that inward violence, and my work productivity soared. It’s amazing what you can accomplish when appropriately motivated and when you have nothing to go home to.
Unfortunately, sometimes my anger took the form of naked, raw, out-in-the-open rage that seethed forth until I had to let it out. I always felt it coming, mind you, and I was typically astute enough to hop in the car immediately in order to drive somewhere to vent. Mostly I spent my wad in the car, screaming until I was horse and often banging the steering wheel until the entire column shook with each blow. In retrospect, I cannot fathom how I didn’t have an accident or lite-off my airbag. There’s a nice endorsement for my car, my coping mechanisms not so much.
More often than not, the rage hit on my way home from Arcadia. It’s funny, really, because I would have thought myself completely spent after another Friday night sitting beside her headstone, carrying on conversation with and declaring my love for someone far beyond my reach. Like darkness oddly seeping and oozing from an open door into a lit room, I could often feel the rage flood into my soul as I realized that I would never again hear her lovely, girlish voice nor ever again feel the brush of her soft blonde hair against my cheek as she hugged me goodbye every morning before I went to work.
The dragon would growl, roar, recoil and attack. It would typically build, gradually at first and then faster and more chaotically until I inevitably found myself somewhere at the side of the road in the middle of the night, lost on a side street off of Interstate 15 in the Inland Empire screaming, physically screaming, standing beside my car until I thought for sure my head would explode or my heart would rupture. I screamed and I screamed and I screamed. And it would always end the same too. Me huddled at the side of my car, engine still running and radio still blaring some sort of fast tempo’ed American Punk Rock. The coyotes that always seemed to linger just beyond the edge of ambient light, I’m sure, wondered who the insane biped was who was shrieking into the darkness of the night and pounding his foreheard into the dirt, for they, or it, were/was always there, staring with odd intensity as I played out my weekly passion. And there I would kneel, worshiping at the altar of angry, violent realization of lives lost, until at last my thoughts would return to the living and I would hear her voice telling me how foolish the goofy Jewish kid from Texas must look, Ramones blaring “Somebody Put Something In My Drink” while his forehead oozed blood. “Get up, Sweet Josh,” she’d implore within my aching head. “You’re very sweet, but this is foolish. My husband should not be sitting in expensive dirt on the side of the frontage road off of I15 at 3 a.m. on a Friday night.” I never listened to her in those moments.
As always, though, the sobs eventually slowed and finally stopped. Empty, no more gas in the tear tanks. And then I would begin the long drive home to Ocean Beach, hoping that I didn’t get pulled over by the California Highway Patrol for drunk driving (which I wasn’t) or for wholesale self-pity (guilty as charged). The violent thoughts, however, remained.
Thus, it came to pass that during a rare daytime rage that on-set while I was driving to Arcadia rather than from, I kept driving. I got on the 60 to the 210 until I joined the 10, upon which I drove east until I passed the huge windmill power farm and made the offramp up, past the Morongo Valley up and into Joshua Tree. And somehow, the rage, the violence and the profound sadness subsided as I watched the shadows of the boulder cities grow long in the setting sun of the high desert sky. In the distance, little points of light became visible as camp fires lit in Hidden Valley and the other sanctioned fire-safe areas. The multiliths of the San Gabriels to the west grew into large, dark masses with a hint of ochre in the sky behind them. And the rage subsided. Joshua Tree, it seemed, was a place of peace, a place that her ghost and I could both enjoy. It was truly sublime, and the tiniest inkling of hope crept into my tabernacle of hatred, and for a moment the hatred subsided. But I was still without her, and while Joshua Tree had soothed the fire within, the park nonetheless reminded me of what had been, the promises of love and friendship, and the stark loneliness of the high dessert took me back to that trip where I had bested Road Rash and forged memories with my soul mate. Memories and experience, after all, are the only things that we truly posses.

Five hours later it’s night time and Beth and I are sitting around a fire we’ve built in the approved fire pit that the National Park Service provides for campers. Now, if only the NPS would also provide kegerators full of Dos XX Lager. Still, we’ve got a lot for a last minute camping trip to Joshua Tree. The park is frequented nearly all year long, save for the hottest months of late summer. People come from all over the country, but mostly from California, Arizona and Nevada to climb, to hike, to mountain bike or perhaps to simply get away from things for a while in order to commune with Nature as a means to get in touch with oneself. Me? I’m hoping to get more in touch with Beth.
Now, lest you brand me a dog, a maggot or a player merely in quest of a quick piece of ass, I need to qualify a few things about myself. You see, in spite of all of my prior ramblings about normalcy and the Really Big Belt Buckle/neo-punk doldrums of Josh’s life, I was never—never ever—a player. I was by most standards a late bloomer, not really dating until midway through high school, and even then favoring the outcast girls. While they were the antithesis of pure punk, I nonetheless dug the goth girlies with a passion. Something about pasty pale, morose girls dressed in black and festooned with far too much black eyeliner finally piqued my curiosity in the fairer and, in this case, significantly more neurotic sex. Even then, however, I was anything but a player. Sex happened (as it often does at that age), and it was awkward and foolish and messy (as it often is). There wasn’t nearly as much animal passion as I had been lead to expect after years spent watching late night soft core pornography on Cinemax. I dabbled in it from my junior year of high school onwards, but more as an occasional pastime rather than an adolescent obsession. It’s often said that it’s better to be lucky rather than good; tragically I was neither. Player? Not on your or my life.
College? Yeah, I dabbled in “it” there too, but I seemed to spend more time draining the keg and sleeping off the after effects in-stead of chasing skirts. Flight school? That is, ostensibly, a target rich environment, yet I was busy immersing myself in things like the Federal Aviation Regulations Part 91, or Vertical S-1 instrument patterns rather than partaking of Pensacola’s seemingly endless supply of southern belles all searching for Navy husbands. Whereas “An Officer and a Gentleman” might have been geographically misplaced, the cliché of Navy town girls hunting for aviator husbands was still true. Fortuitously, I was skilled at avoiding them. Besides, P’cola is in reality the other LA—Lower Alabama—and the girls there, much like those in Texas, were into Really Big Belt Buckles. I was into Hawaiian shirts. The two don’t readily mix except in fission/fusion explosions often resulting in bar room brawls.
That’s another story.
Anyhow, I finished my purgatory sentence there and moved to Southern California—the Green ancestral homeland. What I found shocked, amazed and delighted me. Here the women were natural, deeply tanned, definitively athletic and eschewed anything relating to line dancing, mullet tossing or Really Big Belt Buckles. Still, I was anything but a player, much to Chuck’s eternal disappointment. I was loath to “jump on the grenade” on his behalf when we went out hunting in pairs. How does one explain at the end of the date, when one’s partner has hooked up and departed, that one was really only talking to the other girl in order for the guy friend to hook-up with chica nombre dos? One doesn’t when you’re Josh Green, although on a rare occasion I was surprised to be told “it’s okay, I don’t mind, can I spend the night with you anyway?”
Okay, I might not have been a player, but I wasn’t daft. Sex is still nifty no matter what, and it’s even better when it’s with somebody other than myself.

But I digress. Like I was saying, at this point it’s not my goal necessarily to hook up and have sex with Beth. The stirring in my naughty bits aside, I am as content to hold her hand as I am to kiss, and both seem to elicit the same response down under. In stead, I’m simply looking for an excuse to get a little closer to her, to establish This and Something Special and perhaps even Exclusive, although to tell the truth, I’ve been exclusively hers since that first evening at the rock gym. Great, she’s turned me into a sap. Love, perhaps?
Our campground is fairly nice as far as Joshua Tree campgrounds go. By that I mean that there’s a paucity of large-fanged tarantulas, which I always figure to be a plus on most dates, and to this point nothing has exploded nor have any flesh eating zombies tried to feast on our brains—also things that benefit dating decorum. So I figure I’ve got that going for me. In addition to that, we’ve managed to snag a Hidden Valley camp site that has a fire pit and a fresh water spigot. Fires, by the way, are typically disallowed at J Tree, no doubt due to the extensive lobbying by the cacti and the gila monsters. But, since we were intuitive enough to play hookie from work and come to J Tree on a Wednesday rather than the weekend, we’ve found ourselves alone in the beautiful desolation of the high desert. Hidden Valley is mostly ours tonight, and in the distance we can see the camp fires of a few other mid-week climbers, all no doubt delighted by their/our collective decision to ditch work in favor of the grandeur of nature. Remember what I said before about California? It’s all true. Texas not so much.
I’ve brought with us a large cooler, lots of camping gear, a pair cold weather North Face sleeping bags for the two of us, one tent (an important point when one is on a camping date), food, a case of Mexican beer, a couple of Mexican blankets, two Crazy Creek camping chairs that can also be used as bivy pads under the sleeping bags and a portable stereo including several Kiss and Bob Marley CDs. What I didn’t bring were condoms (remember, I’m not a player but I am a realist), Cheeze Whiz (contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t have a purpose in every occasion) or extra sleeping bag pads.
That last point might seem somewhat obscure, particularly compared to the sublime nuances of Cheeze Whiz, so please allow me to explain. The thing is, it’s generally thought that a person camping in cool or cold weather should have no less than two inches of padding between their sleeping bag and the ground. The issue isn’t one of cushion; rather, it’s one of insulation, for without a sufficient amount it gets bone-numbingly cold at night even in a 0 degree sleeping bag. And therein lies my brilliance, or so I think. It’s going to get very cold tonight at Joshua Tree, perhaps as low as 30 degrees. I didn’t bring enough insulating pads for both of us, but I did bring those blankets which I plan to spread on the floor of the SINGLE tent I brought, after which I intend to suggest we put our sleeping bags so close that we’ll be touching in order to share our warmth. See? I’m not a player, but I am a devious, sneaky little bastard.
I put a CD in, Kiss’ “Smashes, Thrashes and Hits” (one has to pack judiciously when being devious), I pop us a couple of Dos XX Lagers and I cut two slices of lime while Beth cooks the weenies that she’s skewered on two sticks over the fire. The first song, humorously enough, is “Let’s Put the X in Sex.” I blush and it’s good that it’s dark.
“Hmm. Interesting choice in music, Josh.” She’s grinning in the fire-light’s dancing rhythm and blushing too, but I can’t see the latter. I hear a coyote howl in the distance as I look up to see Beth’s award winning smile.
“What?”
“The Kiss, I mean. Is one of those for me?” she points in the fire’s glow at the two beers that I’m holding.
“Nope.”
“What?”
“Actually, I was going to put these out on a rock over there to satisfy Quetsapoochie—the ancient tarantula god—so that we won’t be bothered by creepy crawlies in our sleep tonight. Well, that and I figured on double fisting for a while or at least until you get my weenie cooked.”
“Okay, Flyboy, I’ll cook your weenie alright, but I also guarantee that it’ll be all shriveled and blackened. Not much good between two buns, you know.”
“Whoa. That’s a pretty convincing argument Beth.” I hand her a beer.
“Quetsapoochie?” she smiles as she takes it.
“Yeah, well, that’s my poetic license again. ‘Sides, it sounded good on the spur of the moment, donchathink?”
“Something like that.” She says warmly. “Now about this song….”
“I thought you liked Kiss.” The coyote howled again.
“Oh, I do, but I’m curious about your choice in music, Josh. Incidentally, I don’t think the wildlife approves.”
I take a drag on my beer. Hopefully this sounds convincing. “I had to pack lightly and couldn’t bring a ton of CDs. This seemed a good choice.”
“Uh-hu. I might believe that. But I don’t.” The coyote howled yet again. “She most certainly doesn’t.”
She smiled again and I blushed again. Paul wailed his innuendo. Vinnie Vincent wailed the guitar (this was post-Ace Kiss, you know). Thanks guys.
“Nice try, though, Flyboy. How about this in stead? Let’s play ‘Let’s put the T in Tequila?’”
And with that she produced a small bottle of Sauza and a shaker of salt from her backpack. “You cut the limes and then we’ll do a couple of shots, but we’d better hurry before your weenie shrinks. ‘Sides, this should help us warm up.”
Trust me. Believe me. There isn’t anything shrinking on me at present. And I’m positively on fire.
Two shots go down quickly and we chase with our Dos XX. Joshua Tree incidentally sits at about four and-a-half thousand feet above sea level. The air is arguably rarified here, but I think I can make a safe and fairly convincing argument that the ozone and pheremones that Beth and I are oozing are displacing more than enough oxygen to help speed the liquor on its way. She pours another shot, cuts a slice of lime and sprinkles some salt on her hand.
“Come here Josh.” I kneel in front of her. She holds her hand to my mouth. “Suck.” It’s a command that I obey. My naughty bits feel heavy. “Drink.” Another command as she lifts the shot glass to my mouth. The fire in my gut hardly matches what’s down below. “Suck.” God bless this woman; she puts the lime backwards in her mouth and leans into me. Again, I do as commanded and her tongue pushes the lime into my mouth following closely behind. For a very brief second I enjoy the beauty of the moment, our mouths locked together, her hands pulling my head to hers while her fingers run through my hair. And then she somehow knocks the lime slice down the back of my throat and I choke. Literally. And hack and cough and probably turn a bright shade of crimson although it’s hard to see in the fire’s glow.
At least she has sense enough to whack me hard on the back, and I spit up the lime slice, which lands in the nape of her fleece pullover somewhere in the region of her breasts. She’s laughing hardily and I can’t help but join her. The coyote, I swear, is also laughing in the distance.
The other reason I was never a player? I’m a clutz and a goon. This entire scene is sooo Josh the Toad.
“You’re weenie’s on fire, Josh,” She laughs.
It’s still not the only thing on fire. Trust me. “Yeah, well, you got your boobies wrapped about my lime, Beth.”
“So it is. So it is,” she giggles. “Maybe if you’re a good boy I’ll let you go a huntin’ later. In the meantime, let’s eat that weenie.”
Somehow, someway, in that moment I miraculously manage to not spontaneously combust, melt into a gelatinous puddle of goo and/or explode. I’m not a player, but I’m playing well enough. Perhaps sincerity has something to do with it.

APIS6

2008-10-22T20:35:00.000-07:00

Flash forward with me, back to the closer-to-now rather than the pleasant summer dream time of evenings past with a beautiful woman who would habitually alternatively either call me Tex, Cutie or by my given name.
It—she—was a reality that was defined by the lightness of being and happiness of the soul. She was a warm ray of sunlight, a vibrant flower bloom, a brilliant sunset in the ocean-sky as the sun leaves the day behind on a warm summer beach. She was the green flash; all elusive but enthralling while briefly experienced. It was short lived period in my life. Way too short, and while it had profound impact and the ripples in the pond that it started have yet to fully spread from shore to shore, I nonetheless cannot linger too much there lest the emotions overwhelm my defenses and the tempestuous waves of horrific cataclysm set the gunwales of my meager defenses awash. I nearly foundered last time, and it’s my hope to serve Her memory by being brave and strong and able to cope with all things living having taken to heart the lessons that she so lovingly and selflessly imparted on me during our existence together.
Yeah, whatever. Something the fuck like that. Wine is fine, liquor might be quicker, but a bullet to the forehead stops the pain permanently.
I’ve thought about it, believe me I have.
Regardless, I cannot stay there. I’ve said that; I’m repeating. I know the all-too-familiar sound of my mantra of these past months. It’s a survival issue, you see.
Thus, we find ourselves somewhere else, although still in San Diego. It’s closer to now, farther from then. I’m back at work, slowly rebuilding. I’m racing again, and training, and seeking the solace of endorphins and the emancipation of pain. Am I really living? I doubted it then as much as I do now, but it was a start, and all things must begin somewhere, even the Rebuilding Aftewards.
Beth would have wanted that.
So, I buy new running shoes and take intricate care of my bike. I run, swim, bike, lift, and, most importantly, consciously remember to breathe in each moment of every day. Baby steps and shit.

I am on my bike. I am in the water. My soul might have been drowning, but my cognitive abilities remain acutely aware of everything around me, as if in my death throws I was granted preternatural omnipresence and clarity. Here are my thoughts from that time.

The edges of the map of the human condition are, unfortunately, marked with a simple, ominous warning:

Here there be idiots.

Tragically, there are many, so many of us who fall prey to that bitter, cynical law, and I’ve been no exception. Efforts to the contrary be damned, I find that my behavior has often been less than what is expected of me by nature, by my friends and by myself. One can easily play the nobility of loss such that you ostensibly become the better person, forged anew in the crucible of agony. It’s never quite so romantic, however, and time, if anything, serves only to remind us that we are a faulted critter indeed. It’s a sad, sad testament to the frailty of humanity that the weaknesses of the soul that can spread like cracks in a windshield. I discovered how stark things can be on this day even if the storm had already passed.
It was Thursday and Memorial Day Weekend was fast approaching. I decided to start it a wee bit early since I still wasn’t back on the flight schedule per the Flight Surgeon’s suggestion to my Commanding Officer, my CO. I couldn’t blame Fist, the doc, really, since he was charged with the heavy task to being both doctor and psychologist to our squadron. If he said I wasn’t ready to strap-on an airplane, then he was most likely right. After all, it wasn’t just my ass and a $20 million aircraft if my distraction caused me to put it in the water, since my heart-sick distraction would also take three other people to the bottom. Major trauma equates to no flying.
What else is an aviator to do? Play hooky, that’s what. So I thought to strap on my bicycle in stead. The race season was in its infancy for the year and the events of the past year had left me bedraggled, beleaguered and bereft of the fitness—emotional and physical—that I was accustomed to. I had lofty goals that included at the very least my first Ironman and an Eastern Sierra summit or two.

Mere survival? Notsomuch.
I took advantage of the leeway offered me by the CO and afforded me by my band of brothers and sisters; my squadron. I took a personal day, slept in, showered lazily and savored a bagel and a steaming mug of the sacred juice before donning my Coolmax and Spandex. It was warm and sunny—a grand day indeed to spin the gears and knock the dust off my bike, my quads and my rattled sense of reality alike.
I headed out of Ocean Beach along Sunset Cliffs Boulevard, across the San Diego River bridge, pausing only briefly to look at the fog swirling like a gray, opaque wall not even 500 feet from me, threatening to engulf my corporal presence in the same cold, wet funk that pervaded my soul.

“No, don’t linger here,” I thought. “Keep charging ahead. It’s the only way through.”

Typical aviator’s stubborn resolve. I blazed through the traffic, pumping and spinning, turned right onto Ingraham Drive and started around Mission Bay towards Fiesta Island, into the bright sun light.
Here it was warm for a change and the air pollution courtesy of Los Angeles was casting a strangely alluring hue over the city, whose downtown was plainly visible to the immediate south and towards the ocean too, which lay to the west of the bay. In short, it was a perfect day for ditching work, ditching the burden of Everything Else, and for seeking the solace of a Softride Powerwing 650 triathlon bike in resplendent banana yellow. I felt noticeably lighter until, that is, I turned onto Fiesta Island—a man-made garbage heap turned overnight beach bonfire spot in the middle of Mission Bay—and cruised along the rough pavement to the second hidden cove beyond the screaming of the seagulls and the screaming of the Jet Skis alike.
I noticed as I rode along that people with recreational vehicles and campers and station wagons were beginning to stake out and claim portions of the shoreline in preparation for the coming long weekend. Fiesta Island allows bonfires and overnight camping. In fact, the entrance road closes at sunset, sequestering the campers and rabble-rousers who take keen advantage of that fact and turn the Island into a festive albeit debaucherous testament to pagan drinking and screwing rituals that somehow have grown to accompany America’s holiday in supposed tribute to its fallen heroes.

Some things are best not understood fully, you know.

Families were gathering with cars, personal watercraft, tents, food, and music every 50 yards or so. What caught my attention, however, was a single car parked inconspicuously between two widely spaced family tribal units. As I rode by, I noticed the car’s apparent owner: a very large woman, sitting on a beach towel in the sand beside the car’s open door. She was sitting Indian style with a hunched back and a down-turned head, and every so often she would languidly throw a dog toy of some sort into the water for her chocolate lab to fetch. What really struck me in the brief instant was the combination of her posture, indicative of utter defeat, combined with her gaze, which was pointed about a thousand yards beyond her feet, through the sand and deep into the earth. She was extremely obese, so much so that health problems were a “when” rather than an “if,” but the most striking and halting aspect of the scene before me was the look of profound sadness and loneliness on her face.

She was fat. It was Memorial Day Weekend. She was alone—most likely again.

And that’s what got me. Out of the sun and back to the darkness.
Her dog didn’t seem to mind so much, though, as dogs never judge based on looks, further proof that they are in fact a far nobler species than we. It charged repeatedly into the water, retrieved the fetch toy, and returned it to her with a wagging tail, an ear-to-floppy-ear grin and plenty of gratuitous licking and furious body wiggling. It was happy yet she still sat there staring through her feet and the sand into the depths of inner space.

She was fat. It was Memorial Day Weekend. She was alone—most definitely again.

Mind you, I noticed this in a rather short space of time as I approached, slowed briefly and rode by. Time compression, the phenomena is called. Still, somehow I managed to take it all in, perhaps thanks to my heightened senses at the time. I don’t know. Several hundred yards later I slowed, stopped and straddled my bike while I thought about what I had just seen as several things occurred to me. I shivered in the cold of my heart.

First, in spite of all of the injustices and prejudices that still exist in this land, I think that none are as simply mean spirited as our institutional ostracizing of the obese. Nothing is worse in our fluffy, silicon and collagen implanted society than being fat, except being fat in SoCal where the fluffy silicon and collagen implanted live in droves, gorging themselves upon the utter shallowness of pop culture and nearly impossible unnatural standards of so-called physical beauty.

(My Beth was beautiful—stunningly so in every neo-classic sense of physical standards. And it was all natural, all her. But it was that which defined the facets of her inner diamond that showed the true fire within that shone so brightly in her. It’d be romantic indeed to presume that so many of the glam pop-culture elite of the LA Basin would have stood in awe of such light, but that ultimately gives those fuckers far too much credit wherein self and situational awareness are concerned. Fools, all of them.)

Second, I came to the clear conclusion that we as a nation are the loneliest people on the planet, a strange paradox given our undisputed lead in instantaneous communications technologies and voluminous information exchange.

Combine the two, I rationed, and life—those of others and not just mine—must be pretty bleak in spite of our best efforts to convince ourselves of otherwise. We construct vast walls and chasms to separate us from each other emotionally and intellectually, and then we develop artificial means to re-establish communications provided, of course, that those communications are conducted only at our convenience and only to our liking. I stared at her a little bit longer and then sped away on my bike, intent on putting the scene behind me that I might get on with my day and not be overwhelmed by the vast consequences of my realization. More darkness I most certainly did not need, I figured.

“No, don’t linger here. Keep charging through. It’s the only way to survive.” But the thought persisted, punctuated only by the dragon’s growl deep within.

Hollow. And empty. I stopped again.

My thoughts returned to her and to even more self-recriminations as if that was possible at the time. My chest was heaving but it wasn’t due to oxygen debt. I personified the nation’s problems, and I knew it.

We (I) are alone among a sea of people.

Herein lay the rub. While this may seem an esoteric, obtuse argument to champion, I was seeing it every day in every facet of my life, particularly given my heightened sense of societal loneliness. How quaint. Lost within, I still retained the ability to note that society was lost without. Irony is a bitch.

It’s not that we, America, lack the basic resources to be involved, active, and satisfied by our interactions with those around us. On the contrary, like I’ve already mentioned, we have perhaps the most well developed tools at our disposal than any other culture on earth. Digital wireless technology. Satellite communications. Pagers. Personal Digital Assistants. Email. Voicemail. Snailmail. Bit-streaming music and pornography over the office local area network. Ours is a culture rich in the basic resources and necessities of communications, much less the advanced aspects that only the richest, most powerful nation of earth can have. So why then do we use those devices to shut ourselves out and off from the world and, more importantly, the people around us?

It’s a paradox of advancement, I suppose. Then again maybe we’re all just pricks. I wasn’t sure, and my chest was heaving harder and my eyes were stinging. I could still faintly see her in the distance.

Need proof about our isolation? I had been recognizing the symptoms of our shared selective isolationism as each day passed. As I sat in my car and burned dead dinosaurs in tribute to CalTrans and the ever-present quest for more lanes, I took the time to take stock of my surroundings. I looked around at the people in the other cars, and bear in mind that is not a task to be taken lightly since seemingly innocent eye contact on Interstate 5 can easily be a prelude to violence. Nevertheless, I bravely looked around at the other people and I noticed that without fail everybody was either talking on a cell phone pretending to be interested to the disembodied voice on the other end of the line; or they were staring blankly into inner space, unaware of and disenfranchised from their surroundings. Of course, there were always a small number who would make better use of their time, digging fingers deeply into their noses in quest of mucoid treasures (I never understood the curiosity that drove them to look at the treasures they recovered), but I tended to discount them since they were the people no doubt listening to Billy Ray Cyrus on the car radio and watching Jerry Springer on the idiot box at home.
The selective isolationism, I figured, didn’t end when they got out of their cars either. How many people were walking from the parking lot, cell phone strapped to one ear or PDA firmly grasped in hand? No eye contact with passers-by. No “hellos” or “good days” for anyone. It was as if we sought and/or created technologies that delivered us from the need to interact with society at large. Meanwhile, we steadily retreated/retreat into a land of cyber-reality where we could effectively shut out the real world and interpersonal interaction in favor of introversion, down cast eyes, and isolation from one another.

Now, lest you misunderstand, I wasn’t advocating the abandonment of technology. I harbored no intentions of moving to a powerless cabin in Montana, nor did I own large amounts of ammonium nitrate and blasting caps. I freely admit that I enjoyed web surfing yet I still enjoyed the sublime barbarism of reading a book (gasp!). I owned a cell phone which, incidentally also had games on it that were ideal for playing while on the crapper. Some people read whilst taking a shit; I play Tetras.

But that is more than you need to know.

The point of my observation was that our quantum advancements in technology have only made it that much more critical to seek out and foster communications with the outside world. I feared that humanity was in grave danger of becoming Bill Gates’ Boys From Brazil—shut indoors, strapped to our DSL-equipped computers with no physical links to the outside world save opening the front door for our on-line orders from HomeGrocer.com, Housecalls.com, OnlinePlumber.com, Hookersonthenet.com, etc….. We should not allow these tools of the modern age to supplant our basic human needs to talk to those of the same species—in person. We have to interact with people and, yes, we have to look up and say hello. Unfortunately it seemed that we were doing that less and less, and in my despair I feared that humanity was terminally ill with morasmus, dying due to profound sadness.

Anyhow, I slowed my breathing and got things under control. It was a scene that I was becoming accustomed to repeating throughout the day when little things—a smell, a sound, a thought or memory—would open the door and the dragon would escape. I thought back to the lady faintly still in sight behind me. Should one be audacious and brash enough, I figured, to be overweight or suffer from some sort of physical malady or difference, than the world surely becomes a much smaller and lonelier place. What a sad, sad testament to human advancement. My father had always been an avid science fiction fan and was an ardent believer in the utopian perfection of the world of Star Trek, where there was no war, no hunger, no unhappiness. At that moment, I knew better. Our future was not Star Trek, it was Blade Runner.

Three weeks came and went. Summer took over from spring. I began flying again, finally cleared but still under the close scrutiny of other senior pilots. I wasn’t getting much better, but I was becoming quite adept at hiding the grief, the rage and the shock. People lauded me for getting on with life. They didn’t know that my Friday nights were spent sitting beside a gravestone at Forest Lawn in Arcadia, 100 miles north, talking with a ghost.

But my days were spent coping or at least pretending to. And, I even managed to ride my bike, run my shoes worn-through and swim countless laps across the La Jolla Cove. Thus, on an otherwise un-noteworthy Saturday afternoon I hopped on my resplendent banana yellow bike again and rode to Fiesta Island, opting for a shorter sprint workout rather than my usual leisurely spin up the coast. The island was deserted, and I enjoyed pushing big gears in my aero bars, savoring the burning in my quads and my lungs, lost within like the rest of our pathetic society. How utterly fucking quaint.

I rounded the corner to the hidden cove on the east side and there she was again. It suddenly flooded back. The dragon was loose and reeking havoc in an instant. I wobbled, momentarily lost my balance, caught my front wheel in the sand beside the asphalt and tumbled over my bars into the sand.

I lay there dazed momentarily until I realized that I was okay and not simply awaiting the onset of the pain associated with broken bones or dislocated joints. I sat up, and I looked at her. She was there again, but she was up and moving, playing with her dog and showing a hint of a smile. Did she steal a glance in my direction? No, she kept playing fetch with the lab. Or did she?

At first, I thought she was happier because it wasn’t a holiday weekend and there were no visceral reminders of her aloneness. Yes, I figured, that might have something to do with it. But there was also something else, namely that the dog didn’t give a shit. He romped to and fro, tail wagging and tongue hanging out. He was having fun with the human he loved, and he loved her because she was his human, his pack mate and his companion. He loved her regardless of her physical limitations and he didn’t require her to log onto an instant messenger to make contact. His contact was a stick, the bay and a furiously wagging tail. She smiled back, no mistaking the facial expression. He—the dog—was her link to life. “Hello, how are you” she was saying in her soul, courtesy of real interaction and not via the filters of technology, facades and/or defense mechanisms.

I stared dumbly, sitting in the sand having just taken what should have been a horridly painful bicycle accident. Sometimes pain can be mitigated by experience.

I once read a book by Dean Koontz where he postulated through the eyes of his main character that dog rather than man was surely made in God’s image. It suddenly seemed pretty damned close to the truth. And then the dog ran up to me, the goofy, damaged-goods sitting in the sand with a busted helmet, skinned knees and elbows, and the dumbfounded look on his face. He sniffed only for a moment, judged me no threat and ran over to coat my skinned knees with gentle licks.

“Ohmygosh,” she said as she puffed up a moment later. “You’re a bloody mess. Are you okay?”

I kept staring at the dog, and then I looked up. Hello. How are you? “Uh, yeah, I think I’m fine; just caught my wheel in the sand and endo-ed. Thanks.”

“Well, you don’t look fine, Silly. Does it hurt? I’ve got a first aid kit in my trunk. Why don’t you wait here a minute while I get some Bactine.”

I couldn’t answer because she shuffled off to her car. The dog stayed by me, licking, whining just a bit and wagging like only a lab can do. I scratched him between his chocolate ears. And then the stinging commenced.

She returned. “Here, let me help you.” And she did. Bactine, by the way, hurts, whether you’re a kid or an adult; it’s just that adult sensibilities allow one to appreciate the latter ramifications of staff infections. I only winced a tiny bit.

“You’re very kind.”

“Chester likes you.” She motioned towards the lab that was grinning and creating a half a sand angel with his tail. “That’s a good sign of character, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have noticed you.”

“He’s got good taste in bloody bikers then.” I giggled just a bit.

“Sorry, uhm, does it hurt much?” She was using some gauze to clean off the excess Bactine, blood and sand from my right knee.

“Only when I breathe.” I smiled back. Hello. How are you? Me? Yes, I’m fine. “You’re awfully cavalier for a guy who just face planted into the sand, you know. My name is Callie, by the way.”

“Hi Callie, mother of Chester, I’m Josh. I’m bleeding.”

“Yup, you sure are. Hold this gauze on your knee. Do you do this often?”

“Bleed? Well, I try not to, but I find it a good way to meet new dogs.” Chester, being a typically intelligent lab, wagged even harder (as if that was possible) and licked me in the face.

“Well, Josh, you seem like you’ll be okay. Can I give you a ride home or anything?” She was nice and her voice, it sounded like…. No.

“Uuhmmm, no thanks, Callie. As long as my bike is okay I’ll limp my way home. I only live down in Ocean Beach.”

“OB? That’s five miles away, Silly Josh. Throw the bike in the trunk and you, me and Chester will go for a ride.” Silly Josh was a jolt to the heart that she must have recognized given her stiffening posture and immediate unease. I thought to disarm the situation and set her at ease, but bleeding more wasn’t the appropriate response. I accepted Callie’s gracious offer.

“Well, okay. Thanks.”

And with that, I staggered to my feet and picked up my mangled bike. A quick shake of excess sand and I followed Callie to her car. Chester stayed between us, eyeing my not-so-resplendent banana yellow bike with doggie suspicion. Surely, he figured, this was the thing that hurt Momma’s new friend. That can’t be good in a dog’s sensibilities.

We loaded the bike into the trunk of the sport ute and she drove me off Fiesta Island, towards home. During that brief ride Callie and I spoke and laughed and shared a stolen bit of human interaction. It was disarming and, well, nice. She was, it turned out, an attorney working for a local biotech firm. She had lived in San Diego since graduation from law school and Chester was her family. They lived in North Pacific Beach, up the hill towards La Jolla, in a house that she purchased with stock options.

She learned a little bit of me. Mostly I sat and listened and bled a bit and flapped my arms a bit from the stinging. Chester barked at passing cars. We pulled up to my bungalow.

“722 Naranganset?” She said. “This is a familiar address.”

I paused. She couldn’t have known Beth. God, I hoped not, as the color drained from the day.

“Isn’t this where that gal who worked at Immunogenetics lived before she was…” she saw my face.

“Beth, Beth Green.” I breathed heavily and composed myself. “My wife. I was wondering if maybe you knew each other, working up on Torrey Pines and all.” Torrey Pines was the heart of San Diego’s biotech district.

“God, Josh, no I didn’t. I mean I didn’t know her but I knew of her, and I didn’t mean to, well, uhm, you know.”

“It’s okay, Callie. It still hurts if I dwell on it.” Actually it hurt every second of every minute of every day. “Mentioning it just let the door to open a bit more than I usually allow, that’s all. Nothing to be sorry for.”

She didn’t look like she believed me. In fact, she looked terribly sad, but for me rather than herself.

“Callie, it’s OKAY. Look, you just gave a complete, bloody stranger a ride home in your nice truck. And you got to torture him with Bactine while your trusty dog barked at his bike. Take the day for what it has been—fun for the two of you and funny at my expense after my crash. You earned a fair bit of karmic credit today too.”

Another pause, but her face brightened a bit. Chester woofed in approval.

“Okay, Josh the Bleeder, that’s fair enough.”

I thanked her again and we got out (me gingerly) and unloaded my bike. Chester got a well-deserved rub between the ears. I looked at her in wonderment. Here was a tremendously obese woman who had been arbitrarily ostracized by society and had suffered horridly at its arrogant fickleness, yet she hadn’t succumbed at all to the pain inflicted upon her. She could still find the power to give aid to a goofy-ass bloody stranger in need and she could still empathize with the pain of others. She was far advanced compared to the rest of us.

“Alright, Josh, if you’ll be okay. Hey, Chester and I go to Fiesta Island most Saturday mornings. Please stop by and say hi next time you go riding by. Just be sure it’s a proper stop.”

“Deal! Count on it, Callie. Thanks again.” And then I did something wholly uncharacteristic for me—I leaned forward and gave her a long hug. It felt strangely good. I lingered for only a moment and released her. She beamed back.

“Okay, then, see you sometime on the Island of Bloody Knees.”

And with that, she got back in her truck, whistled to Chester who barked once and hopped in beside her and drove off with a wave. I stared, knees stinging and scabbing but chest no longer heaving. The color returned to the day, and I thought about the sublime powers of simple interaction.

There might be idiots, but there are also human beings left here, and that makes all the difference. Hello. How are you? Me? I’m fine thank you. It was nice talking to you, friend.

The sun warmed my back, even if only for a short while.

Five

2008-10-06T21:38:00.000-07:00

APIS5

Be the change you wish to see in the world.

Gandhi

How and or where could I tell of my beginnings without painting the landscape of the life that grew to define my own in so many ways beyond those planned and or anticipated?
Wow, there’s a thought. I’ll leave it for now, though.
Let’s speak in stead of an inner light that shone forth on the world around her as a measure of true balance with her own environment held in sublime balance with that which she valued in not only her life, but in the lives of those around her.
Lacking both ability and resolve within, I’ll fall back on her strength to allow this part of the tale, in stead relying on her potency of engagement and intensity of living that I can still feel coursing within me from time to varied time, not only allowing me to keep the dragon at bay, but also sometimes empowering me to fight him back into his cave. Her love, her presence were like that. I’m talking about an inner light that is so rarely encountered in our cynical world, a strength that was never used for self but, in stead, was given freely to all around her, particularly me. It’s emboldened with that strength, then, that I feel able to tell you some about her As She Was rather than What Befell Her. That part will come later. For now, I feel warm and, armed with a smile that today she still empowers, I ask you to join me on this briefest of detours in order to share the beauty of a soul more noble, more intricately crafted than any master artist could endeavor to paint. Beauty’s name was and continues to be Beth.
Beth’s story begins the same year as mine, only in Arcadia, California, where things remained until collegiate education and Other Things Involving Josh stole her away to Ocean Beach/San Diego.
Along came Beth, or something like that.
In the photos her mother has shared with me over these precious years, I’ve seen many black and white artistic images shot of Beth’s mother holding a tiny baby with tow blonde hair, stunning light eyes always open and taking in the world around her, and hands up stretched as if trying to embrace the very essence of the world around her. Beth was engaged from her very beginning, her mother and father often told (tell) me, remaining quiet at birth, but looking very seriously around her with wide opened, clear eyes as the mid-wife handed her down to her mother’s chest. Beth didn’t utter a sound, in stead reaching out two impossibly tiny, chubby hands to touch her mother’s face. It was a moment, they both agreed, that they first glimpsed an inner light that shone forth as if provided by a higher power manifested deep within the soul of their only daughter.
Neither of Beth’s’ parents, mind you, were (or even are, given What Transpired) particularly religious. Still, as they’ve oft recounted with undiminished love, adoration and, perhaps most touchingly, admiration, Beth was touched by something far beyond herself even at an early age. Not many of us can lay similar claims.
Let’s forward a brief period of time. Early one morning Beth’s father came to her room to kiss her in her crib before leaving for work. A tiny toddler with white blonde hair looked up at him in the morning sunlight and, in a small child’s voice, very distinctly said “I saw butterflies outside” while she smiled all gummy and partially toothed and reached her small arms for her father to pick her up. As he still recounts with fondness and a smile that burns through the thickest glaciated ice: “And so it began, the talking was like a switch that turned on in Beth’s soul, and after that she never let up.”
I saw butterflies outside.
Not Dada, Poppa or any other such nonsense. My Beth, their Beth, was engaged in the world about her from the very beginning. Experience was the essence of living, part of her being from her earliest times on this rock. Wow. By way of comparison, I’m sure I wailed mournfully at birth and probably said little more than Mamma in the beginning. But, again, this part isn’t about me.
Now, lest you assume otherwise, I’m not trying to impart the image that the clouds parted, rays of celestially divine sunlight bathed her, and angels and cherubs sang for Beth. Not at all. By normal conventions, there were standard issues of childhood and adolescence including bed wetting, tantrums, scabby knees, power struggles, and whatnot. Rather, Beth possessed from the earliest a keen insight into how the very act of living affected others, and she attempted to act upon it in order to improve the conditions of those within her sphere of influence.
Her mother told me that around the age of three, Beth asked her rather solemnly one night as she lay down to bed “Mommy, if I have Teddy, who do the bears have to keep them warm at night?” Cute, quaint and all that, I know. Still, when you magnify that over the course of her life, such that it was, that degree of empathy and sentiment echoed in that one tiny question became a blueprint for a soul that was most at home when engaged with others, seeking to share her power with theirs, particularly when they, whoever “they” were, needed it.
Some of us muddle through life in a semi-catatonic state of semi-lucid engagement and/or higher degrees of self-absorption. We shuffle along in life barely engaged within the context of realization of ourselves, yet alone those around us. Beth? Nope. Who do the teddy bears have as teddy bears? That about sums it up, but the catalyst or seminal event that defined her will be told shortly.
On a humorous side note, there was apparently a development with the introduction of her adult set of teeth that beset upon her a lisp as she stood upon the threshold of puberty. Already a head taller than the other kids, her father still laughingly insists that Beth entered a brief period of chrysalis awkwardness. “It lasted less than a year. She lisped her s’es, and she briefly seemed to be all elbows and kneecaps, toe head notwithstanding. Then, Josh, one morning she staggered into the kitchen for breakfast, and there were boobs on her chest (I tend to blush on her behalf when he tells this part of the story), her legs were shaped like a woman’s and her lisp had given way from something akin to Cindy Brady into something that you’d, uhm, well, hear on late night cable television.
“I remember staring at her slack-jawed, wondering how this barely pre-teen had shed her cocoon seemingly overnight when, all of the sudden, this stunningly beautiful blonde looked out the bay window over the sink while grabbing my arm: ‘Look, Daddy, there are butterflies outside this morning.’
“Butterflies indeed.”
He was long over tearing up at that story, in stead remembering things as they were that day with obvious warm fondness. His voice trailed off, lost deep in thought and memories with a faint, dreamy smile on his face. I can never muster such resolve, however, and even now as I type this I feel a lump in spite of the strength she provides...
Butterflies indeed.
That children grow up all too fast while their parents lag behind is a reality of life, I’m certain. I had so hoped to experience that with her. Still, there was something indefinable in Beth’s nature from her earliest that hinted at an old soul, already rich with experiences and wisdom far beyond her years.
“When she was eight,” her mother told me once, “Beth was very late returning from playing in the neighborhood one afternoon. Needless to say I was a nervous wreck and was all but demanding that we call the FBI, the Coast Guard and Interpol to begin an immediate search.
“While her father and I tried to hold ourselves together, the front door opened, and Little Blondie walked in carrying a box that seemed twice her size.
“I ran to her, crying and beset with anger only to be shushed away by Beth with this truly remarkable seriousness. I was too instantly taken back to realize that the box had three small puppies in it. Beth was imploring me in a lispy whisper to be quiet, lest I wake them. I stood there incredulously, not quite knowing what to do, so I knelt down to ask what had happened.
“She gingerly set the box down and took my hand, her little ones trembling as she obviously worked for all she was worth to keep from crying.”
“I found them,” Beth said, seeming so very small at that moment, her mother said. “There were two others, but Momma, they were dead.” Her little chest was heaving but even still she was trying to be brave, looking down at the small, snoring puppies. “They were in the dirt field behind Mr. Nakamura’s house. I dug a small hole and put them in there, but these three were still breathing, so I went to Mr. Nakamura and asked him for a box.” (Note, I doubt she even bothered to tell the kind old neighbor what she wanted the box for, yet he gave it to the block’s Little Blondie. She was known for asking neighbors for odd things, never for herself, and, thus, the neighborhood knew to indulge her requests.)
“I put them in the box and slowly walked home. Momma, their eyes aren’t open yet, and they cry a lot. They’re scared and cold and hungry.”
Her mother paused, a tear streaming down her cheek as she relayed the story, years, mind you, Before. “Momma, I don’t know where their mommy is, I couldn’t find her. I looked and looked and looked. They were crying, and I had to stop looking, Momma. I knew I needed to bring them home. I couldn’t find their mommy.”
This is the point where the resolve of an old soul apparently broke down and a small girl began to cry, still holding her mother’s hand tightly but looking with such sorrow at the small pups as to break even the most stoic heart.
“I couldn’t find their mommy and the other two were dead. I took the box and walked home, Momma. I couldn’t find their mommy….” She broke down into quiet hysterics, by now clutching tightly to her mother’s neck and sobbing into her hair.
Again, how many eight year olds do things like that? Get a box from a neighbor, burry the dead puppies, ensure the remaining ones’ safety and then look for what must have been several hours for the mother dog, presumably dead—that much you and I and Beth’s mother could easily figure out, but Beth’s eight year old mind only knew that they little puppies needed their mother, and she was determined to find her. Only she didn’t.
Again, an off track aside. I remember hearing this story for the first time, the weight of young Beth’s actions sinking in but the outcome nonetheless hanging in the air above our heads while Beth’s mom trailed off, lost in the flood of memories.
“What? What happened?” I asked breathlessly, also clutching her mom’s hand as if equally young and in terrible need of adult reassurance.
“Oh, that!” Mrs. Johannsen laughed, suddenly breaking the breathless stillness. “Well, poor little Bethy cried so quietly—she was afraid to wake the puppies—but we managed to call the ASPCA. Unfortunately, they told me a female yellow lab mix was found several blocks away, hit by a car. I didn’t tell Beth that part. In stead, her father and I assured her that the ASPCA would continue to search for the mommy. In the meantime, we took Beth and the pups to the local vet, who pronounced them healthy and gave us explicit instructions about caring for three week old puppies.” She trailed off again while she sipped at a steaming mug of chamomile tea and stared at, apropos to Everything, butterflies in her purple trumpet vines outside.
I sat breathlessly again. “And?”
“And.”
“Ohmygosh, tell me what happened for the love of pete!?”
She laughed and mussed my hair, what little the Navy allowed me to have. “You are cute, Josh. I see what she sees in you.”
Dare I say I needed closure? Do Naval Aviators need such nonsense? When puppies and the loves of their misbegotten lives are at stake, you betcha they do. “What-happened-to-the-puppies?”
She threw her head back laughing, her sandy brown hair swaying gently while she patted my hands in hers. “Oh, you are too much, Joshy. We nursed all three back to health and adopted out two of them when they were eight weeks old.”
“You kept one?”
“Yes, a little girl that Beth named Butterfly.”
“Oh,” I said with a knowing pause, “naturally.”
“She was with us—mainly Beth—until her final year in high school. Butterfly loved that girl fiercely and slept with her every night.”
“Dogs are like that. Dog is God spelled backwards for a reason,” I said.
She hesitated with a smile on her face while my observation sunk in. “Indeed. That’s such a sweet thought, Josh. You are a sweetie; she’s right.”
“I am not. Aviators are not sweet,” I said with mock indignation.
“What then, what are you? Oh, here, have another cookie….”
“Fierce?” I slurred my soft ‘c’ due to a mouthful of oatmeal chocolate chip.
“Riiiight, fierce, then. Here, have some milk. Anyhow, Butterfly got very sick when Beth was 17, and we had to put her down. It was a horrid experience, but she was so strong on behalf of that dog. My gosh, we took Butterfly to the vet that last morning and Beth actually rocked and sang to her while the doctor administered the shot.”
I said nothing, staring slackjawed with a mouthful of cookie. I didn’t have pets growing up, but the image of that event was clear as day in my mind’s eye.
“Sweetie? You’re gonna drool on yourself, and that’s hardly a way for a fierce aviator to behave.”

Sigh. You know, I could go on and on about that conversation. But I won’t. Suffice it that I learned more about my wife-to-be that afternoon than I could have anticipated, all the while falling more in love with her as each parent shared a story with me. Somewhere years ago I read some poem about something called the Rainbow Bridge where all dogs wait in heaven for their humans to arrive. Butterfly met Beth there, that much I’m sure, and that provides profound comfort such that I can hardly articulate.
On an afternoon in the late 1980s, when Beth was an aspiring but still as of yet undecided undergraduate in college, Beth was driving along Interstate 5 in San Diego, heading north to her Cardiff-by-the-Sea apartment presumably after a long day of classes and studying. She witnessed a fender bender not far in front of her and pulled over to provide assistance. Whereas these events are every day occurrences in Southern California’s meandering Interstate system, it is nonetheless rare when a witness pulls over to render and/or offer assistance. Then again, Beth was rare in and of herself.
The person who was hit from behind was an elderly lady, and Beth initially went to offer assistance to the lady, only to be met by a stream of obscenities. Beth calmed her down, assuring the lady that she was a witness and was there to offer her testimony once the Highway Patrol arrived. The old lady calmed and thanked Beth, but continued to make rude remarks about the man who had hit her from behind. It was then that Beth turned her attention to the car behind. Something didn’t look right, and Beth felt the compelling need to walk over.
So she did. Once beside the driver’s window, she saw a young man, possibly in his early 30s, shaking and twitching without control but with a steady pattern that seemed far stranger than what little Beth knew of Parkinson’s, much less inebriation.
“I’m. I’m. I’m not drunk,” the man said, shakily handing a card to Beth through his open window, tears welling in his eyes.
Beth took the card and read: Hello. My name is Stephen Blankenship, and I have Huntington’s Disease. I am not drunk. Huntington’s is a progressive neurological disease that affects movement, speech and cognitive ability. If I’ve given you this card, please alert medical responders and call the San Diego Chapter of the Huntington’s Disease Society of America at (800) 473-4014. Thank you.
She looked down at Stephen and saw that he was quietly, patiently crying even as the twitching increased in intensity. The suffering of his soul, his adult sense of self was palpable. Beth placed her hand under his chin and brushed his tears away.
“Are you alright, Stephen?” she asked.
“I’m n-n-n-n-ot drunk,” he said, unable to look up at her while he cried. “I d-d-d-d-din’t hit her on purpose.”
“I know, Stephen, I know. It’s alright. My name is Beth, and I’m a biology student, and I know a little bit about HD. I’ll show the police your card and explain things.” Beth wasn’t, you know, at least not before that one seminal moment. In that moment, though, she experienced something particularly rare in our world of disaffected disinterest; she found her calling. Stephen, she told me years and years later, was a good looking man, one whom she figured was in the prime of his life when this horrid affliction made its presence known to him. His shame, his pain cut her to the quick, and in those moments before the police arrived, Beth heard and heeded her calling. “You’re going to be okay, Stephen. I’m with you.”
“Th-th-th-thank you. I won’t get to drive any m-m-more,” he said as the tears stopped even when the tremors did not. “I’m not independent any m-m-more.”
“Look, Stephen,” said later told me she said, wanting nothing more than to ease his anguish even as she was then unable to ease his suffering. “The wildflowers beside the road. There are butterflies. They’re lovely, Stephen. I want to you look at them, and I’ll tell you about their genus and species while we wait for the police and Huntington’s Society. I’m not leaving.”

Butterflies indeed. Neither she nor obviously I know what became of Stephen Blankenship. I have to assume with sadness that he left us years ago, and I hope that Butterfly was able to greet him to, wherever/whatever happens After. But, in that event, Beth took her life’s direction and focused it into something keenly unique. Within four more semesters, she had finished her undergraduate studies in molecular biology, carrying 24-27 credit hours. Her focus was laser sharp and defined with a sense of urgency punctuated only by sport climbing, cycling and volunteering at HDSA events in San Diego. The rest of her career I’ve either told you about or soon will. For now, I hope you understand a little more of her soul, and her sublime ability and, perhaps more importantly, willingness to engage with the world around her.
Beth stayed active with HDSA long after she met me, and, yet again, taught me to give of myself to others in need in order to learn more about myself. She was eventually voted the chapter sponsorship director and continued her affiliation until she, well, until she went to be with her dog. And, I suppose, Stephen Blankenship, who I hope greeted her with a smile and a big margarita.
For once I can say this, to tell this with warmth and light rather than cold smoke and dragon’s breath. Why? Beth. It’s really that simple.
Butterflies indeed.

Quatro

2008-09-29T20:16:00.000-07:00

APIS4
A simple twist of fate. A puppy’s whiskers. A warm ray of sun on a cold winter day. The happy, endorphin buzz from a tasty mug of good coffee. The feeling of no stress at the start of the work week. On old song long since not heard yet heard again on the radio.
A beautifully captivating girl seen first at a silly triathlon and then again, seemingly randomly, at a rock climbing gym a short while later. And she remembers your name. And she smiles at you with a smile from her soul. And you’re not dreaming or dwelling in your usual fantasy world.
A simple twist of fate, Dylan said.
A simple twist of fate?, I ask. Perhaps. Whatever the case, it is profoundly auspicious and not to be taken lightly.
So I don’t.
I overcome my goofy self-consciousness and senseless fears, and I formulate a plan to pursue her. It’s—she’s not an occurrence to be taken lightly, and I realize that from the start of the second encounter. Self-doubt, loathing, fear, humility, whatever, need not be heard, for this is one worth the effort and, more compellingly, worth the effort to quash doubts and concerns.
Sometimes you do have to simply “just do it.” So I do, or at least I plan to with all of the earnest sincerity that I can muster. (For whatever it’s worth, it still makes me smile, for no singular human interaction during my brief but oddball tempestuous lifetime has ever, EVER, touched, moved, frightened, intrigued and utterly captivated me quite as much as those first two meetings. Even now the memory makes me smile. Even now; even in spite of everything.)
Of course, I miss the first opportunity, too busy being tongue tied and too busy getting jerked off the ground. Consider it me doing my part to validate the laws of physics. Rest assured, they are still safe.
So, I wait, I plot, and I work up to the eventual third encounter with Beth the Enchantress. Of course that means that for the first time in my life I actually care about the quality of my haircuts; much to the relief of my dentist, I floss regularly; I ensure my socks match…one another much less my outfits; and, I earnestly, seriously and desperately practice my lines in front of the mirror. Mind you, that’s not something I would normally advertise, specifically that Josh the Dork spends no less that 10 minutes every evening trying out gitchy lines in the mirror as a meager attempt to rehearse how not to blow it with Beth the Intoxicating. In this case, however, it’s worth mentioning if for no other reason than to emphasize the seriousness of the task at hand and the commitment with which I strive. Didn’t that sound pontificous?
Pontificous. Adj. Yet another stupid word made up by Josh Green as a result of his over-zealous use of poetic license.
“Hi, Beth.” Simple voice.
“Hello, Beth.” Low, resonating voice.
“Hey there, Beth.” Sultry voice (yeah…right; Josh the Toad and sultry are matter, anti-matter).
“Good evening, Beth.” Formal voice. Is it possible to be more than matter, anti-matter?
“Beth…I hear ya callin’” Oh dear God. I’ve even managed to gross myself out. For the record, my apologies to the boys in the band.
Now, you have to imagine Mr. Average Lanky Goof Ball (with the requisite big ears) standing in front of his bathroom mirror, clad in a rayon Hawaiian shirt (is there any other kind, really?), torn Bermuda shorts and Blue Converse Chuck Tailors, reciting these silly-ass lines to himself while striking GQ poses and trying to look as debonair as humanly possible. And failing. Hanging around in a buffalo stance would certainly be better, but the problem is that I—Joshua Green, college graduate, military aviator, Lieutenant, United States Navy, Josh the Nothing, Josh the Boring—am as uncouth, unsophisticated and un-debonair as they come. I am, quite plainly, “no-phisticated.”
And this exercise in futility is exactly that; futile. I’ve never been good at closing the transaction, and my awkward forays into Coitus-ville have always involved no small amount of initiative and aggressiveness on the part of my former female partners. Lucky for me, them not so much. Mass quantities of alcohol help too.
Anyhow, if it is a simple twist of fate that brought us together, then who the hell am I to ignore the possibilities? Methinks I shall simply have to suck it up and talk to her, pick-up lines and self-confidence be damned. Carpe chica, or so Chuck would say.
“Why hello, Beth. I was hoping I’d see you here again.” Honest voice, so sincere it’ll never work. But maybe….

One week later it does.
“Hiya Josh. How’s your package?” She giggles and only the on rush of blood to my cheeks manages to overcome the bleary, head swimming feeling that overtakes me as I breathe-in her presence. In addition to wit and beauty and grace, Beth also proves herself to have compassion as she notices my neon-tomato-red cheeks. “I, um, mean after that fall, well, I mean can you really fall up? Well,…you know what I mean. How are Lil’ Gene and Lil’ Paul.”
“Living quite contentedly right beside Lil’ Ace, I assure you.” I smile back. Brain to body—ATA BOY!
Her two friends look on quizzically. She’s obviously spoken about the Troll she met at the rock gym, but she doesn’t seem to have said anything bad. Perhaps there was something mentioned about the prince potential of the toad she met. They are sizing me up, I can tell, ensuring that the Big Eared King of Monotony is good enough for their friend. It’s a nice testament to the care they have for Beth, their friend, but, I think, it probably spells a quick demise for me. I am, after all, about as distinctive as a wart on one’s palm.
“Hi. I’m Josh, Joshua Green.” I offer a hand, albeit covered in climbing chalk and lacking previously referenced wart. “It’s nice to meet you.” Simple, and hopefully to the point.
“Oh, sorry,” Beth says. “Josh, this is Tanya and Jesse.”
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
They’re smiling, so that must be good, at least I hope it is. I don’t think I smell.
“Are you climbing alone tonight, Josh?” Beth places a hand delicately on my arm.
Brain to body—STEADY, LADS, STEA-DY.
“You’re more than welcome to join us. Right girls?”
“Yeah sure.” They’re smiling too. Either they approve thus far or they’re setting me up for a mega fall of epic proportions. I try not to focus on the latter even if it is the more likely proposition.
“Okay. I mean, I was, um, waiting for Chuck, but I suppose there’s no harm in climbing with y’all for a while.”
“Y’all?” the one named Tanya mocks with feigned shock.
“Er, um, I, uh, sorta grew up in Texas.” I stammer, adding with slight hysterics: “But I’m not proud of it.”
“Well, it’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Tanya answers while the other two chuckle and fasten their climbing harnesses. Have I mentioned before that Petzl harnesses squeeze all the right girly parts in all the right places? “It’s just that you don’t have any discernable accent, and the ‘y’all’ seems somewhat out of place.”
“Oh, well, my parental units—I like to call them that—are native Californians and used to beat the poo out of me whenever I spoke with a Texas accent.”
“Really?” All three recoil in sincere shock and disapproval.
“No, not really.” I’m blushing again, embarrassed because in my haste to make simple jest, I forgot that Californians are an enlightened breed and don’t typically beat their children. “I was just teasing. Nope, they’re just old hippies and they were intent on keeping me from succumbing to the South. It’s a silly story, really…all about transactional analysis, carob and Neil Diamond.”
They look quizzically. I think it funny, though, then again carob usually is providing you’re not being forced to eat it.
“So basically, you’re a nice young man who comes from Hippie stock but loves Kiss. Hmmm, interesting.” Jesse the brunette is grinning while she pulls on her climbing shoes. I start to answer but realize that; a) I’m not wearing a Kiss shirt tonight, and 2) I never mentioned Kiss to them. Then I realize that Beth must have said something about Josh the Possibly Mentionable. She realizes that I realize and it’s her turn to blush. Maybe, just possibly maybe.
“Common then, Tex, let’s get to climbing,” Jesse says as she takes me by one arm and Tanya takes me by the other and they lead me to the first wall. “You’re first up the rope.” Beth is smiling again, and that makes everything okay. I rope-in call “on belay” and start dancing up the wall, my heart as light as my feet.
“Hey Jess.” The voice comes from below while I’m locked off on a moderate sloper trying to calm the pump in my left forearm before I tackle a series of small crimpers.
“Yeah, Tanya?”
“Beth’s right.”
“About what?”
“He does have a cute ass.”
“And the harness is squeezing his package.”
“Mmmmm.”
What happens next is classic Josh the Goon. Beth’s shush comes out as a wicked hiss while I miss the crimp, take a sliding step off of the varnished jib and fall, slamming noodle first into the wall three feet down as the rope stretches, with an audible creaking only slightly less disturbing than the hollow sound of my head bouncing off the wall. Aaron the manager breaks-in on the pounding Nine Inch Nails and bellows on the PA: “Gooood evening, climb monkeys. Please note on the front 5.8 that our friend Wile E Coyote has come back for a return engagement tonight.”
Everyone laughs. I look down at the ladies. Beth is blushing for both of us while Tanya hands Jesse a one dollar bill. “See, I told you he’d fall.” Poof…Josh the Possible Maybe Prince turns right back into a toad, with a growing red welt on his noodle to boot.

Later that night after several successful successive climbs and fortuitous time alone with Beth to make small talk, share stolen glances and savor the occasional “incidental” brush up against each other, the four of us are at Old Town Mexican Café enjoying fajitas and drinking Patron Anjejo margaritas. Chuck never showed, and while I’d normally welcome his gregarious presence as a pressure relief valve of sorts lest I blow a tension gasket, things seem to being going well in spite of myself. The conversation is flowing easily although the initial tension as we sat down at the table was awkward. It is a four top in server parlance, and we’re not initially sure who should sit next to whom. Tanya protectively pulls Beth down beside her while Jesse sits next to me. I just crawl back into my numbing shelter of my familiar, uncomfortable skin and hope for the best.
And like any good Texas lad, I immediately wave over the server before the tension becomes any more apparent and place an order for all of us.
“Hi. We’d like four custom margi’s, por favor. Patron Anie, Grand Marnier, fresh lime juice—not the mix—over ice with salt. Oh, and chips and roasted corn salsa also please.”
“Jeez Josh, you seem to know Mr. Tequila fairly well.” Beth is smiling and the other two casually glance at their menus. A subtle raised eyebrow from Friend A to Friend B, perhaps? Is he an alcy, they’re thinking. And I know it; fortunately, I’m not and my mastery of my own non-emotional habits is something of an issue of pride, so I have neither issue nor hesitation with my response. I return fire.
“It’s a Texas thing, really. …Well, that and I go to Estero Beach for the volley- ball tourney every year. I learned between the two of them.”
“Did you go to school in Texas?”
“Yup, even got all three years of junior high school Texas history to prove it.”
“No, silly, did you go to college there?”
Jesse interrupts. “Wait a minute, Tex. You telling us that all three years in middle school were spent studying the history of Texas? Is there that much to it?”
It’s a fair question and still a sore subject with my parents. Granted, the history of the largest southern state is colorful and varied, but to forgo civics and American history in favor of the travails of Stephen F. Austin really is pointless and wasted by comparison. Unless, of course, you’re wearing a really big belt buckle. I don’t think the girls will quite understand. “No, not really. It’s a communal self-esteem issue of sorts, in Texas. Or a lack thereof. But I can proudly say that my crowning achievement of my sophomore year of high school, when I was finally allowed to study U.S. history, was learning that Ben Franklin wrote the Declaration of Independence”
“What? Ben Franklin? Don’t you mean Thomas Jefferson?”
“Are you serious?” Tanya asks while Beth looks with equal amazement.
I just smile while I allow the thought to hang on the air for a moment. Then I raise an eyebrow ever so slightly. The margaritas arrive and still nothing is said until I throw a curve ball.
“Did you know that tequila is a liquor derived from the distillation of the agave cactus, which is primarily indigenous to parts of central Baja California? The crop has been in decline for a number of years, and there’s some evidence to support the theory that a long-term drought combined with global warming has killed off most of the pollinating critters that support the plant’s reproductive capabilities. In essence, the agaves are dying for lack of love.” I draw it out. “Anyhow, when making tequila, an albuminous extract called aguamiel is produced by processing a flowering agave, which only happens once every ten years or so; the flower, that is, not the aguamiel processing.”
“Albuminous?…” Jesse.
“Shh. Pay attention, this is serious.” I continue with a moderate frown even if I am chortling inside. The girls are rapt. “The aguamiel is mixed with fermented agave juice, which the Aztecs called pulque—they also invented modern chocolate, you know--and then the mixture is re-fermented and double distilled to produced basic white tequila like Patron Silver. Certain production runs are drawn off and casked in oak barrels often previously used for sherry or port, thus aging the tequila and imparting upon it the characteristics of the particular alcohol that had been in the barrels before. Y’all with me?”
“Uh-huh,” all three nod.
“The process is not too far removed from how different single malt scotches are casked, although there’s obviously no peating in tequila production. Less scrupulous tequila makers will occasionally mix fermented cane syrup with their white tequilas, which is little more than a gimmicky way to impart more color to basic white tequila. Personally I think it adds a flavor akin to filtering the stuff through a used gym sock. And that’s why I won’t touch Jose, but that’s a different issue. Anyhow, older tequilas aged up to ten to fifteen years are re-casked, gaining more character and depth to their flavors while also growing ever darker. Thus the Patron Anjejo. You can even find some tequilas that are so old, so noble that it would be a crime to mix them in drinks. You sip them in a snifter, perhaps with a splash of spring water again not unlike a fine single malt or cognac. Oh, and yes, I know who wrote the Declaration, and yes, I’m messing with your heads although what I just said about tequila is true. Mostly.”
A long, heavy five count punctuates the moment. I crack a slight smile. Beth lobs a chip at my head. The laughter commences.
“Okay, smarty….” Jesse laughs.
“So you did study something in Texas, although I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t learn all of that shpiel in junior high there too?” Beth adds.
“Well, perhaps, but mostly I read it from the Sauza placard above the bar behind y’all.” They look back and then turn back towards me. A volley of chips flies at my head. I think I might be returning from toad exile. “Yeah, I went to school—to college, in Texas too. UT Austin.”
“Whadya major in?” Beth.
“Besides bullshitting?” Tanya.
“And falling?” Jesse.
“And Kiss?” Beth again.
“Anthropology.” Me.
A silent, perplexed pause met only by my sincere smile.
“Wow,” says Beth. “What do you do with that, in the real world I mean.”
“Well, aside from messing with the minds of women I hardly know….”
“Oh puh-lease,” Jesse interrupts, “it’s not as if we haven’t seen your naughty bits from below.” She’s referring to the climbing harness again. I blush. Beth blushes. We all laugh. It’s good, mostly because I think the laughing is with me rather than at me.
“Seriously, Josh, what do you do with an anthro degree?”
I pause and grow slightly uncomfortable. I’ve always harbored a secret, terribly arrogant pride in the fact that I’m a Navy pilot and an officer. Perhaps there’s some plebian part of me that enjoys the elitism of being part of something that very few are able to achieve. Maybe I harbor a deeply repressed dilettante; I’m not sure and I sincerely hope not. Personally, I think it’d be much more fun to harbor a future military strong man or global potentate, but the odds on that aren’t too good. And I know I secretly relish my role as a member of the warrior caste even if it’s not the most politically correct thing to be part of. All of that aside, San Diego is like Norfolk or Pensacola or Jacksonville. It’s a Navy town, and unfortunately, we tend to make asses of ourselves, not exactly endearing ourselves to the local populace. Also, San Diego is a high tech center, full of highly educated, intellectually endowed and financially successful biotech and communications scientists and engineers. By way of comparison, my accomplishments are relatively minor and some would even argue—none too far from the truth—that military aviators are little more than the living embodiment of the Peter Pan Syndrome. Basically, we’re a bunch of eternal children who want to play with toys for a living. Thus, in the typical crowd here I’m the goon. My toad factor increases as I pause a moment longer. “I’m in the Navy, um, a pilot?” I offer with a rising inflection as if I’m silently asking “is that okay,” which I am.
“Oh. Well, there’s nothing wrong with that but I thought all you jet guys lived in Lemoore,” Beth answers.
“Yeah, what’s wrong with being in the Navy? My brother’s an Army Ranger,” Jesse adds.
“He’s got a cute ass in climbing gear too.” Tanya smiles.
“Stay away from my baby brother, tramp.”
“And a nice package too.”
“Skeez.”
“Why, you tryin’ to keep him all to yourself trailer trash girly?”
Everyone laughs. I’m still nervous. “What are you ashamed of, Josh?” Beth. My discomfort is apparently that evident.
“Well, sometimes you don’t know what type of reaction you’ll get here, being in the Navy and all.” The same old story as everything else in my life…discomfort within my own skin.
“How so?”
“I guess it’s because I came in right after Tailhook, and that tends to color my impressions of how I think others will automatically judge me. White, male, Naval Aviator, rapist, pig, fascist right-winger. You know….”
“And your thoughts about Tailhook are what?” Jesse is fishing and the test is being conducted once again.
I answer truthfully: “It was bullshit. It was something good that degenerated over many years, and groupthink lead a bunch of self-righteous pricks to commit crimes under the premise that they’d get away with it. Fortunately, they didn’t.” I pass, judging by the looks on Tanya’s and Jesse’s face. Beth looks relieved. “Anyhow, I admit that I was a ‘Topgun’ junky in high school, and any pilot who says differently is lying. I like what I do, though even if my degree has nothing to do with it.”
“What do you fly, Josh?”
“Yeah, are you a jet Topgun guy, Tex?”
“Nope. Just a humble helicopter pilot; kinda the blue collar of the aviation world. I fly out of North Island Naval Air Station. I do search and rescue.” Mostly combat search and rescue and submarine hunting and, if necessary, killing, but I choose to quit while I’m apparently ahead.
“That sounds fulfilling, Josh.” Beth says. A second round of margaritas shows up. “Do you think you’ll stay in for a career?”
“No, I doubt it. I like it enough, but it’s a ‘for now’ sort of thing. Some day I’ll have to decide what I want to be when I grow up.”
“An anthropologist?”
“Maybe, yeah, maybe I can go to Baja and study the impact of indigenous peoples on the cultural significance of the agave plant.”
“Or you could study bullshit.” We’re all smiling, and I suddenly realize that there’s no more protectiveness hovering about Beth courtesy of Jesse and Tanya. I think I passed the test.

By the time we roll out of the Café it’s well past eleven, so I offer to walk the three to their car. It’s a thinly guised veil to get a bit closer to Beth before the evening’s sojourn takes us down separate paths, but I offer nonetheless. Never-you-mind the fact that there’s nothing but tourists around us still enjoying the late night Mexican markets of Old Town and the only danger to the three—as if they couldn’t knock the crap out of any would-be attacker—is from the occasional falling meteorite. It’s San Diego. How bad could it be? But I offer anyhow. Much to my relief, they accept and Jesse and Tanya take station a discreet six or seven feet in front of us. They are graciously pretending to engage one another in conversion. I’m uncomfortable. For whatever reasons, group encounters are easier to act the clown with, whereas the single one-versus-one engagement is hard for me, very hard indeed. I want to tell her that I’m intoxicated with her and that I really, really want to see her again. In stead, my tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth. Nice, the Toad-meter pegs in the red. Fortuitously, Beth is far more comfortable with herself and shows her compassion.
“I don’t bite, Josh.” It’s an offer. “Much.” It’s a soft tease, and I feel a distinct stirring in my naughty bits. The tease works. Whoa-boy.
“Oh, um, sorry. I was trying to figure out what to say so that I don’t blow it. Not that I’m blowing it. Not that there’s any ‘it’ involved. Well, um, at least I don’t think I was blowing it; I just wanted to make sure that I said the right thing. You know….”
“Josh?”
“Yes?”
“You’re babbling.”
I deflate.
“It’s cute.” She reaches over and squeezes my hand. Brain to blood—SAVE SOME FOR ME! SAVE SOME FOR ME!
“Thanks. I, um, had a really good time tonight, Beth.”
“I hope so. How often do you Navy airplane jocks get to spend an evening with three gorgeous women who aren’t hookers?”
Pregnant pause. Brain to self—WHAT THE?!
“I’m teasing again, Tex.”
“Oh, sorry? Aww jeez. Okay, I’m walking you to your car after spending this totally incredible, spontaneous evening with you and your really cool friends. I mean that by the way. Well, mostly. And I’m walking beside you blushing like I’m five years old and I can’t even figure out how to ask you….”
“Yes.” A statement from her, not a question.
“Huh?”
“Yes, I’d love to see you again. Tanya and Jess are options…you’re choice.” She’s beaming. The world is okay by me right now at this moment in time. “Here’re my numbers, home and cell. I wrote them down while we were in the restaurant. Please call me, Josh. I mean it.”
“Deal,” I manage. I’m dizzy. “Is two hours from now too soon?”
“Nope.” We’ve reached their car, and the other two are inside. “Oh, I should warn you, Josh.”
“What?” She’s close and her breath is making steam in the cool San Diego night air.
“I’ve got something to confess to.”
“Oh dear God, please don’t tell me that you’re really a man or leaving for a convent in the morning or both.”
“No, silly.” She’s giggling while she grabs two handfuls of my sweatshirt and pulls me down to her. “I’ve got another bet I didn’t tell you about. I need something from you to win.”
“What, anything?” I’m almost mumbling.
“Tongue, cutie, tongue.” And she kisses me deeply. And I kiss back. And a simple twist of fate turns into something extraordinary. She lingers a moment longer after our lips part; close, close enough in fact for me to feel the warmth of her breath on my skin. “Call me, fly boy.”
And with that, she winks, smiles and turns abruptly towards the car, raising her hands in a two thumbs up gesture to the other two who are pressed against their windows like children looking into a candy store. They erupt into laughter and Jesse obviously and plainly hands Tanya some sort of dollar bill. Beth hops in, blows me a kiss, the other two wave vigorously and the car drives off. Forget for a moment that I’m standing in the street and it’s night and it’s cold. I’m standing, savoring the lingering moment before it slips from present into past, from experience into memory.
And I’ve got a boner.
All in all, it’s a damn fine evening.

Three

2008-08-18T20:04:00.000-07:00

APIS3
Serendipity, I think, is the oddest of allies in life, lending itself subtly and often unknowingly in the most dramatic of ways that only become apparent after years of experiences have lead you to the bolt-to-the-brain crystal clarity of hindsight. While there are some of passionate religious fervor who might champion divine intervention or others who subscribe to new age philosophies proffering karma, predetermination or high colonics, I tend to think that things simply occur, at times randomly and at other times with order and meaning, the latter typically being more a function of subconscious influence combined with ample caffeine intake. I do not particularly subscribe to chaos theory, yet I do wonder how the proverbial moth farting in China effects the air mass in Canada, how the whale coming in the waters of Chile influences the halibut harvest in the Grand Banks, and how the minutest of decisions somehow sets us on a path that leads to entirely new venues and opportunities that might have otherwise been denied to us.
Social, biological and physical science, it seems, are rife with examples of serendipitous discoveries whereby physicists, biologists and a whole host of other “ists” have stumbled across seemingly random strings of data and recombinant metrics that have lead to some of mankind’s greatest discoveries. Hell, if not for a pint or five at the local pub, Watson and Crick might never have extrapolated the idea and imagery of the double helix; had he been a slob, Archimedes might have not figured so much about displacement as he did about early forms of deodorant; if Albert had devoted sections of his noodle to important social behaviors like shoe-tying, hair-combing, and/or address memorization we might not have born witness to his theorem of relativity, anti-matter and time travel.
But serendipity goes well beyond that. Take modern religion as an example of random happenstance juxtaposed against the sheer magnitude and impact that “discoveries” can make. Were Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Buddha and Mohammed visited by God for real or were they tripping on hallucinogenic shrooms? While that question might and/or will get me marked for death in the Bible Belt or the Middle East, it nonetheless exposes the greater, macro impact that tiny occurrences can have on mankind. From Fulton’s steam engine-turned-space shuttle to the shot heard round the world-turned-globalized economy, events and actions more often than not have impact far exceeding their original intent and design.
Thus, it was in the winter of 1968 that my 30-something, ex-beatnik parents selected for a belated buy-in to the age of Aquarius; the self-aggrandized, self-aware philosophy of Youngian Transactional Analysis as their primary strategy to rear the young blob growing in my mother’s belly. Had they any knowledge of what they were creating with that simple decision to adhere to pop/counter pop culture, they most likely would have in stead moved in a far different vector, joining the John Birch Society or some other such nonsense. In stead they decided that it would most likely be much more fun and practical to raise their only offspring in a loving, open household where one would be expected to behave like a small adult, for that was what their chosen philosophy admonished them to regard their child as.
…And that, friends, is most likely why, now in my mid-30s, I am fond of public flatulence, nose picking, ear wax flicking and practical jokery. In spite of their best interests, the moth farted in China, the whale blew its load in the South Pacific, and my parents begat a geek.
Neato.
I was to be raised in a paradigm whereby I would surely comprehend the value of sharing my emotions, I would communicate expressively; and, I would weigh all options with practicality, prudence and sensitivity. In essence, I think they were trying to conceive and raise a small Jewish Alan Alda. And, oddly, I’m fairly certain today that they had no premonitions what-so-ever that they would, in stead, produce a died-in-wool meat eating, boorish military officer. Serendipity? Stupidity? Happenstance? Rebellion? Who the shit knows; it matters little at all I s’pose.
Don’t get me wrong, however, for I wasn’t to be raised in an Orwellian nightmare of cold science and operant conditioning. Rather, my parents doted over me, lavishing me with love and affection. It was their methodology that provides such amusement many years later.
“I love you for yourself,” my mother would often proclaim. “You are an insightful human being with meaning, value and purpose. Your opinion is valued as much as anyone else’s and you should be justifiably proud of your intellectual accomplishments and the intangible contributions you make to society at large.”
Can you believe that I still remember that hogwash? Well, check this, Homie….
I was, of course, six at the time, and therefore by definition far more interested in the cupcake I was about to smear all over my face and clothes then in her assurances. But hell, praise is praise. Love takes many different forms.
“Now here’s some carob candy…run along and play with your educational building blocks in the enlightenment room.”
You see, this wasn’t misguided within the context of their shared vision and their odd micro-culture. Rather, it was a sincere attempt to equip a little boy with the requisite skills he would surely need to succeed in a world that had only recently survived a horrific war in Southeast Asia, a series of global economic recessions, a 30-year conflict in the Middle East, the catastrophic end of a presidency and a really honkin’ hangover after 10 years of ‘ludes and shrooms. My folks weren’t so much interested in creating the prototypical post-Aquarian man child as they were in providing me with the skills I’d need to wade into the muddied waters of adulthood in the confused 1970s. It just so happened that having come of age as West Coast Liberals, they were certain that a well-defined strategy of self-affirmation and emotional openness was as healthy to a boy’s upbringing as snails, boogers, candy and soda pop.
“…And be sure to listen to ‘Johnathan Livingston Seagull’ on the record player while you’re playing” she called from the other room as I tromped off to build fighter jets with my Legos. “We’ll discuss Neil Diamond’s treatment of individualism at dinner, Sweetheart.”
Can I please mention again that I was six?
So it was that my folks, earnestly engaged in the full-time task of rearing a future group counselor, artist or Peacecorps volunteer, decided that they needed a change of venue in which to set about their task. California, Orange County to be exact, was fast becoming a throbbing mass of cars, pollution and plastic people, and when I started quoting Chico and the Man and constantly pointed to the surfers at the beach, squealing with delight as they caught tubes, my folks decided that there had to be a better place.
Thus came Texas.
Ah yes, friends, we have returned to the underlying boogey-issue of the Great State of Texas.
Whereas I’ve already regaled you with my observations on California and my painful sense of bland normalcy, there is perhaps some value in sharing with you the details of my formative years, growing up immersed in the gaudy pop-culture of the 70s and 80s in one of the most contradictory parts of our nation, a land unto itself in terms of its collective misguided senses of self-importance, faux nationalism and really big belt buckles.
Some time shortly after the nation’s bicentennial hangover wore off, my parents opted to move to the burgeoning metropolis of Houston, which at that time as the indigenous population proudly exclaimed to any and all who would listen—which by default was really only their own internal population for nobody else cared (nor do they today)—that the gulf coast city was the fourth largest in the country, having just displaced Philadelphia. Whoopie shit to most of us, but profoundly important stuff for a state that proclaimed more to be a state of mind than a state of the union. More like a state of indigestion—and really big belt buckles.
In late 1976, we left our cozy bungalow in Huntington Beach and moved into a planned community that was being built on the outskirts of town in an area that was largely farm land and ranches slowly converting to and being assimilated by the bacterial growth rate of an area largely bloated with the Nuevo Riche of the oil industry’s nefarious infrastructure of strip malls, car dealerships and tract home developments. The nation had recently weathered the second storm of OPEC-inspired insanity and the oil found under the Edward’s Aquifer was plentiful and provided for expansive growth in a state that had rabidly proclaimed its “specialness” to nobody in particular for 131 years. Newly armed with loads of cash, large Caddies and, of course, really big belt buckles, the Great State of Texas proclaimed its importance to all who would listen to, invest in, and move to the land of the lone star…really big belt buckles not necessarily required but highly encouraged.
Now, if you are two displaced ex-beatniks raising your only son to be a self-aware small adult who can effectively share his feelings, cry and discuss the multi-dimensional symbolic depth of cubist art, what better place to move than a growing community of intellectuals. Unfortunately, they didn’t go to Portland,…they moved to Houston.
(See the First Corollary to the Law of Serendipity, namely that the latter exists in a tense but nonetheless palpable co-reality with abject foolishness.)
My first memories were not so much of the many day drive across the barren wastes of New Mexico and West Texas, but rather of the foundation slabs and freshly framed houses-to-be that were our new neighborhood, a fortuitous find indeed for a young lad of seven since it was a place suitably equipped for hours of hide-and-seek, romping and getting exceedingly filthy. If I was so brave as to venture five or six blocks over—a tremendous distance when you are barely over three feet tall—I could find cattle pastures filled with the strangest looking cows, festooned disproportionately long, horizontal horns and fleshy humps on their backs. They always snorted in obvious disgust as they returned my incredulous gaze, I remember, having snuck off to the pastures to gaze upon them many a time. And there were bizarre, skinny white ducks walking the pastures with them.
The land was as flat as anything I could imagine and elicited images of Schoolhouse Rock on Saturday mornings, teaching me among many things, that Columbus discovered that the world was round (followed, of course, by the obligatory lecture from my mother about the oppressive subjugation of the indigenous peoples of this continent—“now Sweetheart, I know you like singing along with ‘Conjunction Junction,’ but I just want to make sure you understand that Columbus was a colonial, bourgeois anti-Semite who brutally tortured and slaughtered the native inhabitants of this land…now be a good boy and drink the rest of your soy juice”).
In fact it was so flat that further in the distance I could spot a myriad of odd looking metal devices plunging shafts up and down incessantly into the ground, almost like those silly plastic birds that eternally dip their beaks into the colored water vases in novelty stores. Little did my seven-year-old-mind comprehend that those same devices were called E-C-O-N-O-M-Y. Nor could I imagine that in nine year’s time, they would be called B-A-N-K-R-U-P-T-C-Y.
Also burned into my memory are images of playing with toadstools in the dark, moist shadowy areas under trees, kicking apart ant hills and watching their furious industry to rebuild and, oddly enough, of coyotes. Ours was a neighborhood that was bounded by one large road to the east, Buffalo Bayou to the north and expanses of undeveloped ranch land in every other direction. As surely as I can clearly remember, there was always a moderately sized coyote present when Young Josh went wandering and exploring. It didn’t make sense then, but, then again, given our relocation from the perpetual Southern California tanned lifestyle to that of All Things Texas, how odd could it have seemed at the time to a seven-year-old mind? Trust me, though, for it will make sense later.
Nevertheless, as we resettled into a comfortable existence, our little neighborhood took shape and became a world unto itself in which I played and muddied myself in and around throughout my childhood. Ours was a townhouse development of cedar angles and modern architecture that was in stark contrast to the expensive detached traditional brick and siding houses sprouting forth around us. While our five square block enclave among the Nuevo Riche was by no means anything less than solid middle class, we lived in sometimes tense opposition with the oil execs who littered their houses with exotic cars and expensive toys. We were often referred to as the “projects” or “those apartment people” by the rich folks surrounding us.
Yet that seemed to matter little if any at all to my parents and our neighbors, who had their modern, tropically landscaped townhouse development all to themselves, free from the pre-yuppie trappings of the oil-supported tomfoolery on our periphery. Ours was a group of similar souls, aging beatniks and artisans who worked as suits only to earn a living in order to support their communal existentialism…and to buy their funny smelling cigarettes. Again, the memories of olfactory reality linger even today and still make me laugh as I recall the constancy of their awkwardness whenever Young Josh asked why their cigarettes smelled so funny.
Whereas our extended neighbors drove Mercedes, Porsches, and other exotics and favored more “genteel” substances like cocaine and diazepam, my extended neighborhood family drove Volvos, Mazdas and VW vans…and stuck with the ganja. There were no big belt buckles inside the perimeter, at least not until 1980 and the emergent scourge of the Urban Cowboy pestilence fell upon all like a plague.
Unfortunately, nor were there any other children in our reggae artisan utopia. I was it, and the dozens of self-aware, transactionally fulfilled ex-beats in the hood effectively and affectionately adopted this fine little adult that the Greens were raising. Little Josh Green—me—was a sensitive little man who could converse with adults, always said please and thank you and rarely misbehaved. He—er, I—also liked Legos, model airplanes, snails and throwing dirt clods at Porsches. But let’s not get bogged down in the details.
“Mr. Thomas,” I would ask the neighbor across the courtyard in my pre-pubescent high pitched seven-year-old voice while shuffling my little Chuck Taylors at his doorstep, “my mother has advised me, um, that I…that I, um, need to ask your persimmon to, um, pick a flower from your…from your garden, and, um, not to pick the one with five leaves.”
Very self-aware indeed, aware enough, in fact, to quickly figure out the scam in order to do typical boy things having earned the trust of the adults, for when they weren’t looking, I was busy digging earth worms from people’s yards, looking under toadstools in the side alleys, kicking over ant hills, etc…. After all, a seven-year-old is just that and no amount of Warm Fuzzies, Cold Pricklies or carob candy can alter that which is in the genetic code and intrinsically rooted in the ancient racial memories of little filthy creatures supposedly made from snips, snails and such. Runny noses, skinned knees and dirty clothes happen at that age. They just do.
Some time around 1981, however, a bad thing happened in our Nirvanna-esque community. Young Josh Green, soon to be a teenager, discovered Kiss. Now, let’s get this clear, I’m not talking about the pseudo glam, pastel-wearing disco Kiss that immediately proceeded the non-makeup/take it off for MTV period. In stead, I’m talking about “Alive” and “Hotter Than Hell” and, of course, the Phantom of the Park. I was all about the Talisman, the blood spitting and the fire and the fury. Kiss represented everything that my artisan upbringing wasn’t.
“No Mom, I don’t want to make a ceramic flower valise after school. I’m going to my room to dress in black, grow my hair and listen to Gene Simmons,” I’d exclaim to her horror, shock and eternal disappointment. “Oh, and did I mention that they’re all Jewish?”
I dearly loved zingers like that. …Still do, in fact….
Kiss was the antithesis of everything Nuevo Riche (and hippy). Whereas the kids living in the oil-bought houses down the road wore Polo or Izod, played tennis every weekend and prepared themselves for their eventual entry into the moneyed elite of Houston, I tore the knees out of my jeans, insisted on nothing but black t-shirts and moped around, secure in my angst and morbidity, fulfilled as a non-materialistic member of the Kiss Army (and thoroughly enjoying the music by the way). I suppose had I lived in the northeast or LA I would have found punk rock, but in the squishy heat and humidity of Houston, Kiss had to suffice.
And it made things all the more fun that they were nice young Jewish boys who had broken their mothers’ hearts by an order of magnitude that I could only hope to aspire to. (Herein lies an interesting aside to my diatribe [about nothing in particular, as if you hadn’t figured that out by now], for whereas my parents subscribed to their early evolutionary form of New Ageism or Post Hippieism—whichever description you prefer—they nonetheless fully expected me to fulfill my Jewish-ly obligation as a dutiful son, that being to become a doctor or dentist. The contradictory irony is staggering to those who really understand. Trust me.)
Thus began my rebellious phase. Unfortunately, being of morose, monotonous potential, or lack thereof, my rebellion was mainly limited to my imagination and my silent protest to the activities going on around me. I didn’t smoke nor did I do drugs or drink. In fact, I never returned my parents’ Volvo with anything less than a full tank of gas and clean windshields. In occasional spasmatic fits of rebellious mischief I would reprogram the Volvo’s radio to the various Mexican radio stations that Houston had, but my Mother would usually steal my thunder with patronizingly sweet gratitude.
“Thank, you, Joshua. I never before realized how vibrant and colorful Hispanic music is. Perhaps we can listen to some after dinner tonight and then discuss it over hot carob cocoa.”
Great, how ‘bout I cut my toenails with my teeth instead. Or my wrists.
Thus, my rebellion was internalized, delusions of black grandeur of sorts. In my mind, I was a heavy metal warrior with long hair, a dangerous person of mystery and power who could easily sway the babes from their neatly trimmed, madras wearing uber-boyfriends while simultaneously kicking said Hitler Youths’ asses. In reality, I was a loner nerd, tall, skinny and be-zitted, who wore a grand total of five different Kiss t-shirts and rarely allowed myself to be known outside of a small group of like-minded teenagers. I can’t exactly say it was painful, at least no more so than anyone else’s teenage years, but it was definitely boring and lonely.
BUT, I knew “Strutter,” “Detroit Rock City” and “Love Gun” (I generally eschewed Beth…too sappy but oh-so-soon-to-be-ironic). I could easily lose myself in the power and the passion of the superficiality of male-oriented metal while vicariously enjoying the rock god status afforded to the four guys in gaudy, boorish makeup. Funny thing, you know, considering that any of item of their costumes taken by itself would have evoked nothing less than horror and revulsion in my teenage mind. Platform shoes? Makeup on dudes? Yuck. Girly and weak. Put them all together and throw in some blood gurgling for effect, however, and you’ve got the grand high poo-bah of all that is cool.
Interestingly (to me at least), another manifestation of my self-stylized rebellion was my stalwart refusal to participate in main stream sports. Granted, I was way too skinny, too gawky and too uncoordinated to do anything cool like football, baseball or basketball, known in the South as “the lesser three,” the “big three” being NASCAR, huntin’, and fishin’. Likewise, I was unable even to realistically participate in the lesser “girl” sports like tennis, volleyball or track and field. In stead, I selected swimming, a sport that didn’t really require interaction with others since you competed in physically separated lanes and participated in team dynamics only in so much as the points you accrued counted towards the total team win. Fortuitously, long, lanky goof balls lend well to the 200 meter free and the 200 individual medley, and I was adequately good at both, never a contender for state championships but good enough to consistently pull my weight for the school. I was even awarded a letter my junior year, but I wasn’t interested in ever wearing it. My money went towards video games for my Commodore 64 and for more Kiss tapes, not for a stupid lime green leather and felt letterman’s jacket. Gene and Paul approved, I was sure.

So, you wonder, how/what/where does this relate to serendipity? I hate to disappoint you, friends, but this has little if anything to do with really big belt buckles, nor shall I insult the shit-ass state of Texas any more. Here’s how it all works….
Swimming, it seemed, drew me inevitably to the truly masochistic sport of triathlon in college. And triathlon, in turn, became a full-on obsession that I pursued well afterwards, eventually motivating me to settle in San Diego after completing undergrad at UT and Navy flight school in order to be closer to the Multisports Mecca of sorts. In spite of the subsidence of my silent rage rebellion, I nonetheless embodied the spirit of angst and the nebulous concept of discomfort in one’s own skin. What better way, then, to torture one’s soul than to torture one’s body with a tumultuous water and sweat logged conflagration of wet suits, really expensive bikes and running flats. Again, we come back to my dissertation on Henry Rollins and the strength of one’s physical decomposition. See? My ravings make sense in some warped sense. Stay with me, gang, for it only gets better. And weirder.
It’s hard indeed for the uninitiated to understand the monumental tribute to the capacity to endure absurd amounts of pain and to pay absurd amounts of money for the privilege of competing in a triathlon, but as a grown-up too tall, too skinny goof ball it seemed to fit well. And, more succinctly, it fit me.
(Parenthetical interruptions, by the way, seem far more acceptable as I pen this than, say, the nuisance of the literary footnote, in case you were wondering. On that note, I shall continue. What you are about to encounter is an intentional shift tense. While writing this foolishness and, more importantly, while immersed in the intensity of the emotions that it evoked, I found for a while at least that referring to Her in the present was far easier than formally recognizing that she was in the past. Damn. It’s still hard to cope with, but I’m working on it. Just bear with me; I promise it’ll make sense.)

Thus in the spirit of the general goofiness of my inane obsession with triathlon, today it’s early, very early indeed on a gloomy and foggy San Diego morning and I’m getting mentally steeled to enter the harbor at Shelter Island to start my age group in the San Diego International Triathlon. I never like the start of these silly things since 1) they always start at stupid-early hours; and b) it’s always cold in the mornings in San Diego regardless of the time of year. Incidentally, it’s July, 1995, and my wet suit isn’t offering much respite from the weenie shrinking temperature. I’m shivering, half due to cold and half to nervous anticipation of the race yet to start. That, by the way, is part of the sublime brilliance of the sport of triathlon, for what other sport literally offers one a taste of one’s own mortality considering that you can die in the first part of the event? Neato. Most importantly, I’m loving this shit. It’s so “me.”
Anyhow, I’m half in the water, having just watched the pro wave lunge forward, clawing over each other as Mike Pigg takes an early but not unexpected lead. Mike rocks, bald noodle and all, but I’m still freezing my nuts off. So, like any good wet suit wearer I think warm, fluid thoughts, sing a little song—“Let’s Put the X in Sex”—and commence to peeing in my rubber body condom for a bit of warmth. I must look noticeably relieved and I must be singing a bit louder than “to myself” volume, for a comely, shapely young blonde in a Quintana Roo FullJane wet suit standing five feet to my left, also up to her thighs in the frigid water looks over and smiles.
“Me too,” she says shyly but openly, “although I prefer Beth…for calming myself down, you know.”
She smiles.
I stare back blankly, goof ball extraordinaire that I am.
Beautiful, even in the wee hours of a cold July morning, encased in neoprene, head covered in a bright pink swim cap, goggles dangling from her shapely neck and magic marker denoting race number 958 on her cap, I think. Beautiful. Stunning.
Brain to mouth—SMILE DAMMIT!
Mouth to brain—quit targeting above your means!
Brain to mouth—GET BENT AND SAY SOMETHING COOL!
Mouth to brain—cool?
Brain to mouth—YES COOL, YOU DORK, AND MAKE IT QUICK!
Mouth to brain—okay.
“Umm, er, yeah…um…Beth?” I stammer, wondering how stupid my pastel blue swim cap looks with my size ten ears sticking out from the sides of my size 7 head.
Brain to mouth—YOU SUCK!
“Kiss.” She smiles back. “You were singing Kiss. I’m a big fan.”
“Oh, umm, er, yeah.”
Brain to mouth—CORRECTION, YOU SUCK ASS!
“Ahh, the blue caps are swimming out to the bouy,” she says. “You’re gonna miss your wave’s start.”
“Huh?”
Brain to mouth—GAWD…YOU SUCK VARSITY ASS!
Bang! The starting gun goes off for the Men’s 25-30 age group and I alternatively look back and forth between her and my wave, charging forth in the water, elbows and feet flying (did you know triathlon was a contact sport?).
“Go!” she says with a devilish grin, “Shoo!”
I charge into the water, arms flailing and spirit crushed. Another opportunity blown. Gene and Paul would most certainly not approve.
Funny thing, self loathing, for it motivates in the extreme, and before I know it I’ve exited the water in the top quarter of my age group, and I progress smoothly and efficiently through Transition One, shedding the wet suit and donning my biking gear. I run my red and blue triathlon rocket bike through the chutes to the mounting area and hop on, filled with excitement, energy and a feeling of strength. …And I promptly fall over on my side--a typical condition when you’ve just swum 1500 meters at a sprint pace, raced through a 1 minute 20 second transition and hopped aboard a bike expecting your vestibular system to work, providing the much needed balance and equilibrium. That’s in a perfect world, though; and in this case you’ve got the balance and coordination of a drunken four-year-old. Thus you fall on your ass in front of a laughing crowd of onlookers.
Brain to body—YOU PEOPLE SUCK! I QUIT!
Ahh,…triathlon. And the fundamental stupidity of Being Josh.
Three weeks later I am at Solid Rock indoor climbing gym. I’m on belay for my friend Chuck, who’s not only trying to muscle his way up a 5.10b pitch but also outweighs me by something like forty or fifty pounds. I’m a fair to less than average rock climber but usually a good belayer. Usually.
Then again, I also harbor secret desires to become a world class alpinist, complete with corporate sponsorship, big equipment endorsements and, of course, all of the free Power Bars that I can scarf. That’s not an accurate reflection of reality either…unfortunately. And Chuck knows it.
“Hey, Shit-fer-brains,” he yells while pinching a crimp in his left man-paw and locking out on a nice jug with his right hand, “you ain’t gonna get your fantasy sponsorship by flying in the Navy. Now get back on belay, Barney.”
(Barney. Adj. A common Southern California expression describing one prone to behavior characterized by goonish stupidity and spasmatic fits of unrealistic expectations. See also Josh Green.)
Thanks. I need these moments of forced reality-grounding lest I get too caught up in my pleasant fantasy world(s). Of course, Chuck is a San Diego County Fire Fighter, as has been for 10 years, as long as I’ve been in the Navy. And that, by definition, means that he makes more money than God and works about ten days a month. Dangerous job? Not hardly…he’s assigned to the Rancho Santa Fe fire house, which means that he’s more likely to respond to a critical manicure accident than a real fire. When last he told me, he scored something like $140 big ones last year, overtime included of course (it’s hard drinking Starbucks and eating croissants, you know). I on the other hand, regularly subsist on cold government coffee and cheesy-crackers while working in indentured servitude for the Navy. I fly, and that’s cool, although it’d be much cooler without the “free” trips to the big gray boat, AKA USS Aircraft Carrier. Again, I’d much rather be a sponsored climber, or a sponsored triathlete, or a world-class snowboarder, or independently wealthy, or a member of Kiss’ latest incarnation. But I’m not. I am, however, on belay.
“D-I-P-S-H-I-T!” he bellows. “Pay attention before I fall off this faux rock and smite thee with my ample ass!”
“Oh…sorry.” I return to belay. Kinda.
Because, out of nowhere She walks by.
“Oh, hi. It’s you.” She’s even cuter in her climbing garb than in a wetsuit, believe it or not. Funny thing, climbing pants and harnesses. They squeeze all the right parts in all the right places.
Brain to Mouth—SECOND CHANCE, BOY.
“Hi, nice to see you again. How was your race?” I’m possessed, I swear, because under normal Josh-circumstances I’d have blown snot, thrown up or shit myself by now.
Brain to Mouth—THAT’S MY BOY!
“It’s nice to see you too. I didn’t know you climbed here.” She’s entrancingly pretty and I’m deep, deep in a state. “How often do you come here?”
“Oh shit! FALLING!” And with that, Chuck launches off of the overhang he was on. My GriGri belay device fortuitously and quickly locks off so that he can’t fall to the ground. Unfortunately, there is still a finite amount of rope separating us and the GriGri provides little more than an anchor to the quick draw above that makes the fulcrum to this physics experiment. Chuck does indeed come to a stop after a brief, seven foot fall, but in doing so yanks me off the ground by about seven feet. Now the equation is balanced even if my ego is most certainly not. I always hated physics.
The pounding base line of the techno-crap music blaring in the gym stops briefly for Aaron, the gym’s owner, to come on the PA to announce magnanimously: “And on the 5.10 on the back wall, you will all see Wiley Coyote and Road Runner.” Everyone laughs. Chuck and I manage to cling to the wall, he high, me low, and I down climb until I can clip into a low anchor and then lower him to the ground.
Everyone continues to laugh, including Chuck. I don’t. She doesn’t—blessed girl obviously compassionate for the unfortunate goon before her.
“By the way,” she starts and I cringe waiting for the death blow, “I really like that Kiss Army ’86 shirt you’ve got on. I saw them in Tampa that year. Had to sneak outa my folks house. I was still in high school.”
She giggles. I stare back, dumbfounded.
Brain to Mouth—FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY; SPEAK, TALK, SAY SOMETHING!
I stammer, and then my balls start to hurt thanks to my gravity induced rocket ride. “Umm, thanks. I was in high school too.”
Brain to Mouth—THAT WAS FUCKING BRILLIANT YOU TWIT.
“Maybe I’ll see you around here again. I hope so.” Her smile is intoxicating.
Mouth to Brain—YOU’RE NOT DRUNK, YOU’RE JUST STUPID. SAY SOMETHING.
“Yeah, umm, maybe.”
“My name is Beth, by the way.”
“I’m Josh.” Beth…how ironic. (See? I wasn’t lying.)
“Nice to meet you Josh. I’m gonna go get dinner now. I’ll see you around. Nice shirt, again.”
“Thanks, Beth. I’ll see you around.” I sincerely, fervently, desperately hope so.
She smiles again and then turns with that uber cute hair flip that only those truly amazing girls can do. I damn-near swoon. For the record, men don’t swoon, so this feeling is not to be taken for granted.
“Well done, Romeo,” Chuck laughs as he unclips and loosens his climbing harness. “How’s your sack?
“You know, I’ve always thought your Kiss fetish was way stupid, but it just might have paid off.”
I absent mindedly touch the shirt. My balls still hurt, but I’m smiling. And I’m certain—positive even—that Gene and Paul are too. Their balls, however? I don’t know, nor do I care.
Serendipity and shit, ya know.

Yeah, so I've been delinquent.

2008-08-18T20:03:00.000-07:00

Had a lot going on. Time to start anew.

Part Dos

2008-05-23T21:37:00.000-07:00

I am a big fan of Henry Rollins, incidentally. Not that you care. Not that he cares, more importantly. I state that for nobody in particular, least of all myself. Nonetheless, I dig the guy, for a bunch of reasons not the least of which being our apparent shared penchant for Kiss—mine all the time and his supposedly accidental and occasional at best. Mostly, though, I appreciate what he somehow managed to communicate to a too-tall, too-skinny, too-awkward youth growing up among the moneyed Hitler youth of Houston.

I hearken back to the halcyon days of Black Flag, when he helped me find a voice for my white middle-class mediocrity agony. I raged with him. I heard the message that materialism was bad in spite of my cravings for bigger, faster cars, niftier stuff, better clothes, and, most compellingly, a more “complete” Josh in the glamed-out plasticized pop culture sense. Men on horses, German import cars and little cloth alligators. At least I knew I was wrong. I was self-aware, and in spite of my parent’s best efforts when I was younger, that’s no small achievement at the hormonally-blurred ripe age of 16. Flash forward to my mid to late twenties, and via the Rollins Band, I knew that shallowness and selfishness still lurked in the dark recesses of the human experience (darkness, ironically as it would eventually seem, that drew my focus only inwards at the expense of outward wariness). It was something he helped me be on guard for, something I fought against.

I’ve liked his writing for years. I’ve thoroughly enjoy his self-deprecating style, the introspection, the inward journey into the depths of the psyche. His works are often simple journals, glimpses into his professional struggles, a 36-inch flat screen television view into the price extracted to achieve one’s art. Television? How ironic. TV party tonight be damned, at least I had the option, the leisure to turn it off every time it became too intense. But that was—is—the brilliance in his written word. Mr. Rollins takes you on a delightfully blackened bleak journey to the deepest depths of your own pain, your own misgivings and your own self-doubt, yet he graciously allows to you draw back and save yourself before it becomes too overwhelming and drowns you.

How sophisticatedly ironic and shit, dontcha know….

I’ve sincerely enjoyed his spoken word shows, for no matter how deeply invoking or painful his other art might be, at least he allows us to share in his humanity, his humility and his humor. The bottom line, according to me and perhaps him, is that if we cannot laugh at ourselves than we are little better than roaches infesting this planetrock. Christ, I laugh at myself all the damned time. Why the shit not? Whatever, I’m getting off on a tangent. Well, not getting off exactly, per say. Crap—you know what the hell I mean (and if you don’t I highly suggest you think less and drink more).

Anyhow, I too share the love for the iron, although instead of plates provided by Standard or Olympic, I find solace, redemption and cleansing in the beautiful agony of 4,000 meters of triceps and lateralis dorsai burning pain, hours upon hours of riding the Popsicle stick saddle of my human powered steed and miles upon miles pounded into my lower spine borne upon my feet. The pain, the sweat and the discipline don’t lie. Henry was right. You are the only thing that won’t let you down as long as you are willing to pay the physical price of suffering to achieve enlightenment. Iron or integrated indexed shifting and titanium components. It doesn’t matter, for he spoke the gospel of the universal truth of the crucible of self-flagellation and the resultant transcendental purity it affords. Trust in your physical being; tear it down and it will come back stronger and better. Again, sumthin’ like that.

I’ve been to his concerts. I’ve obviously read his books. I’ve listened to his interviews. I’ve seen the shows. I’ve paid attention. And, most importantly, I’ve never asked him to spit on me.

That said, I don’t necessarily agree with him regarding the state of American art, be it written, sung or simply presented. Let us look at music.
The Boss is the Boss, point blank. The Nuge may be the Nuge, but he never wrote anything as compelling, as soul-wrenching as “Nebraska.” For all his right wing, bow hurling, little furry bunny eating hooyah, Nugent can’t reach deep inside our guts and pull out our humanity, still beating, to show it to us before our disbelieving eyes. Bruce can. And so can C,S,N and Y. And James Taylor. And Public Enemy. The thing is that there is a defined demarcation plane between art and fluff. Brittany Aguilara? In Backstreet Synch? The latter. Lots of others, both known and anonymously living in artistic self-denial embody the former. The fact is that Paul Schaefer is the World’s Most Dangerous band (leader). Stevie Wonder can funk it out with the best of them. Bootsie Collins is, in fact, from space. John Coltrane may very well embody the spirit of the Lord. And Sheryl Crow can rule my world any day. Slayer? Durst? One need not throw angry, violent riffs to be in touch with the soul of one’s art. They might be there, but that’s not necessarily the defining criteria for ascending to the pinnacle of art.

Jackson Pollock took randomness to insightful new levels in his day, Frank Lloyd Wright transcended mere geometric proportion, but I also see the wonder in the taggers who can so easily mask their names in wonderfully complex constructs sprayed onto the side of Pacific box cars. I can comprehend the sheer magnitude and profound importance of the underpaid schlub copy-editing for the local pulp rag. Art exists in every level, every facet of life.

That said I’ve got to agree on one particular subject with Henry. While the Kiss Army might seem anachronistic to the uninformed, it only takes a cursory exploration of the phenomena that is Kiss to explain an art that helped define a genre and is still as viable, as energetic today as it was in 1977. Think about the deeper ramifications, free yourself from the banal messages of “Love Gun” or “Detroit Rock City” or “Destroyer” or “Dynasty.” It’s not about packaging, no matter how much the industry machine would like us to believe that. It’s about some Jewish guys breaking their mothers’ hearts on an entirely different order of magnitude. God, Allah, Buddha, the Great Spirit bless ‘em. I whish I had that fortitude and that gumption.

And that’s where Henry’s message to me comes in. I live my life for the things that I think define “right.” At least I do now, and I’ve “been there, done that,“ so blow me if you don’t agree. Whatever.

I try to do right by others, to avoid doing wrong, harm or inflicting pain. Pain is a crucible reserved for the self, not something to be wielded against others. Who the hell am I to pass judgment on others such that I’d hurt them? My body is my one and only possession and therefore mine to do with what I please. But others? I think not.

Where then, does evil fit in to my warped view of the world? Well, I can say with certainty that evil cannot be found anywhere in the glass of Balvenie that I have gently melting beside me. Nor can it be found in the fish taco that I have preternaturally craved since my forced “relocation/reallocation” to a uniquely disenfranchising plane of existence an agonizingly lengthy but chronologically short time ago. (Confusing? Try being me some time…it gets worse.) I liked my beach bungalow, and I can say with fair certainty yet again that there was no evil there either. Evil, it seems, rests in the hearts and minds of a minor few humans. Hawthorne, Melville, and Poe can get fucked for all eternity for all I care; mankind is essentially good in spite of New Coke, the Spice Girls, Pokeman and Other Occurrences. We don’t need heroic sacrifices to prove anything differently, for in every culture throughout time there have existed basic rules that define how one plays kindly with the other kiddies in the sand box. Break the rules, and you’re right out. It’s that simple. The problem is those rare, powerful few who suffer from megalomania, delusions of grandeur or simple meanness and cruelty. These are the same creeps, mind you, who beat their children, abuse animals, engage in genocide or participate in aberrant behavior, and murder Innocent Women in parking lots. It’s not about corporations trying to take over the globe, nor is it about secret conspiracies of a select few to rule the earth. Evil is easy to identify in others. But, at the same time, it’s also harder to identify in others.

Fortuitously, providence and evolution have provided the means with which to gain clarity of vision, the ability to accurately survey the world around us and take stock of the good and the bad. Emancipate your self from mental slavery, Brother Bob told us—a lesson that I’ve taken to heart since first hearing his gospel in a dingy bar in Gainesville, Florida many years ago. I listened, and more importantly, I heard. But it was a lesson I lost over time. Perhaps it’s time for everyone else to do the same. Maybe it’s time I once again pay attention too.

And that’s where I get back to Henry. I listened, I heard, and I understood. Or, at least, I am trying to understand, and that’s all-important, all-consuming. There was once a time when I provided safe harbor for hatred and evil, when not-so-long-ago I lost the one who defined me, who was more to me than I. “A crushed larynx” the coroner’s report said, “strangulation following forcible coitus”—rape. I dwelled in the land of hatred; I subscribed to its tenants whole-heartedly. My word was consumed by darkness and hatred and putrid evil. A dragon that lived deep within for years and decades suddenly made its presence known and every day became a battle of will and force against the ultimate powers of evil that lay within me, the seed having been planted and nurtured darkly by the singular action of one anonymous person who stole Her from me. Shit. I understood murder, Nazism, race hatred—the whole gambit of the darker side of human existence that stood in stark contrast to the essential good of mankind, the things that She taught me to appreciate and foster.

Fuck. Fuckers.

The accused were never caught, or at least haven’t been to this day, and I lived in a waking nightmare state where I hoped sincerely to be able to exact my revenge. Death and suffering at my hand. (Him or me; in retrospect, I don’t know.) Slow, bloody and painful. That’s how the movies portray it. Stalwartly and stoically strong, the hard jaw line betraying only a hint of the power yet to be unleashed upon the wrongdoers. That’s how the movies portray it, dammit. …Except at night, for it was in those dark hours that my gawd-awful normality came upon me like a tsunami in the tidal flats, overwhelming my every defense and driving home the harsh reality that I had been graced with far more than I deserved in her, and I would never be able to exact a measure of revenge. Emancipation from the mental slavery of others is one thing, but the emancipation from the bonds of self-hatred and self-recrimination are another thing entirely.

Henry and the iron at that time were the on-ramp to my salvation. They were the means with which I sought the ability to rise forth every day from bed to face a cruel, cruel world. And it worked, well…for a time. No offense intended to Henry, but I’ve realized of late, that absolution and forgiveness are hard to come by in a cold, cold world, particularly from oneself. Especially for oneself.

Mostly for oneself.

Part Uno

2008-05-23T21:09:00.000-07:00

Let’s you and I begin the begin, shall we?
Me

To assume the responsibility of writing the Great American Novel is not only an awesome responsibility, but also poses the distinct risk of disappointing more than a few people while dangerously flirting with the probability of demagoguery. Good thing I don’t care. Of course, a wee bit of single malt over ice combined with an MSG-infused meal of highly processed, over-cooked meat-stuff, seasoned with a sardonic sense of reality, a smattering of disconnected antipathy, and a sprinkling of sleep-deprivation all combine to help stack the odds in my favor even if I am lacking a plan, a plot, a list of characters and, of course, a book deal. But then again, he who plans early plans twice, and I don’t like to sweat the details. Let us then consider this a journey into one man’s depraved, slightly drunken mind and see where exactly it takes us. Who knows? Maybe we’ll enjoy the journey, or perhaps you’ll chuck it, toss the book and defer to the intrinsic brilliance and social commentary of Jerry Springer in stead.

Yet again, good thing I don’t care. I don’t write for you. While I’d very much like to assert that I don’t write this for you, I know in my heart that is simply not true. Why tell a story if you don’t want others to partake of it, to share some measure of the experiences you describe? Writers who maintain anything else are daffy egocents. Incidentally, I might be an egocent, but I assure you that I’m not daffy. No, truth be told, I’d like you to share some of your valued time with me. I’d like to tell you a story, my story, and while it isn’t always happy or easy, there’s a net sum in the positive column that I’ve arrived upon after no small amount of tumult. I’ve learned some stuff, while other aspects are still being processed by my brain housing group even today. Still, I’d like to share two things with you. The first is a rare soul who was named Beth. She wouldn’t want me to hold her to myself, and to that end I sincerely hope I’ve honored her appropriately by sharing her beauty with you. The second is a sequence or series of lessons that I have spent the past how-ever-long learning in her absence. I would be remiss, selfish and, yes, daffy if I didn’t offer that which I’ve become as a result of Things That Have Transpired. I write for me; that much is the honest truth. That you elect to partake in this torrid, sometimes nonsensical diatribe is something that I wonder about, yet I sincerely hope you’ll share this journey with me. As some have said, I might be as deep as the children’s end (maybe they’re right), yet I nonetheless think there’s something to be gained by sharing This with you, something that Beth no doubt approves of. Thank you, but enter at risk to your sensibilities or, at the very least, your time well spent.

So, where to begin? I suppose two of my good friends—both also writers intent on penning the Great American Novel—would have a well-scripted plan to lead you into an exquisitely developed plot line that, through an intricately woven tapestry of character development and heart-wrenching drama, would snatch your attention and convince you to follow them on their journeys to the fabled lands of intellectual enlightenment and empathetic awareness. Felcher and Toots (yes, those are actually names, not in the proper sense; but we’ll get to that in a bit) of course are of that nature, preternaturally anal retentive and meticulous planners who are, as I spew forth this dribble, no doubt plotting, scripting, drafting, designing and creating.

In a more formal sense, Maugham once suggested the perfect sequence and/or convergence of activities that were required of a good novel’s ending while, at the same time, offering the humble disclaimer that Larry would prove to be normal in appearance yet sublimely unique within the context of his time. I harbor no such delusional vision of literary grandeur. I offer not the sacred confluence to define my ending that Mr. Maugham suggested, nor do I even so much as dare to suggest that my main character will prove to be anything more than supremely normal. In that sense, then, I suppose that the only meager similarity I share with Mr. Maugham is that I too begin this story with trepidation and fear, but therein the similarity ends. Others plan, slave and skillfully craft their stories. At least that’s what I’ve heard.

Not me, no sir.

I prefer in stead to take a healthy swig from the glass and step forth into the abyss of my goofy mind. That and I am not a well-accessorized, well-coiffed, well-educated member of the literary intelligentsia. Most importantly, I just don’t care all that much. In the annals of American literature, there have been well nigh enough self-stylized masters of the art, so I presume nothing in that stead. I am a miscreant, plain and simple. So tag along if you’ve got the fortitude, inclination and nothing better to do.

And yet again, we come to the same stupid question. If I am to tell a story, where am I going to take you? Into my own sordid life I suppose. Call me asshole; just don’t call me Ishmael. I am, to eloquently summarize, plane white bread, the antithesis of everything that has flavor or colour. In a different world, I’d probably make the perfect CIA agent—so unassuming and nondescript that nobody would notice as I blended into the background, able to pilfer secrets and do the whiz bang spy shit with ease. Unfortunately, I take the nondescript thing to an entirely new order of magnitude to such extent that I am so plain that I stick out like a cowlick on a freshly woken head of bushy black hair. I am the annoying hangnail that’s too small to bite off but so annoyingly “there” that I drive you crazy. I am neither tall nor short, neither smart nor dumb, neither heavy nor light, neither ugly nor handsome. Six-foot-something, one hundred seventy five, neither skinny nor heavy, accomplishments and education of no particular distinction; I simply am, and it hurts. Were I to be a super hero of some sort, either DC or Marvel Universe, I would surely be imbued with the super power of being able to dazzle and stun people with my overwhelming mediocrity. Call me Wonder Bread Man, champion of all that is bland, tasteless and lacking nutritional value. Hooray for me.

What-the-fuck-ever.

I am technically of Central and Eastern European descent, third generation American. I am the only human offspring of two loving, attentive parents who are both still alive and quietly disappointed in me for never achieving my full potential, whatever the shit that is. They are, of course, far too decent to ever say words to that effect. Regardless, having reached my mid-thirties, I have attained a degree of comfortable detent with my professional life and my finances, living in relative comfort but never destined for wealth, fortune or fame. I make my car payments and I can buy new blue jeans whenever I wish, yet I am still slave to droll industry, mired in the mindless dribble that keeps me codependent on my unappreciative place of employment. It’s the paradox of modern life I suppose, save those few annoyingly blessed trust fund children and/or those depraved souls willing to take vows of poverty in quest of their art. I have no art, brother; I have a mortgage though.

Nope. No such luck for me since I am also Jewish, which is a religion that exists in a seemingly conflicted reality offering the casual observer both the Humorous and the Tragic at the same time. In fact, I often laugh whenever I hear or read the monosyllabic words some inbred white supremist talk of the Great Jewish Conspiracy. Never have I unearthed any such beast, for if it did exist I would at least use that power for evil in order to pilfer millions and ensconce myself into the pornography industry. Maybe then I’d actually get laid with somebody other than myself. But, no, I am not that fortuitously endowed (double entendre intended), and I am subject to the same monotonous existence that afflicts most of Western Society. I wake, I work, I eat, I sleep—and then I repeat the cycle day in, day out. Judaism provided little more than a sub cultural framework for deeply buried racial memories of guilt and neuroses, and little else. God was someone that I obtusely believed in out of obligation rather than passion, kept at arms length to satisfy the most basic requirements of my pre-selected formalized religious indoctrination courtesy of Sunday morning reeducation camps as a child and such. God was there, but not close, not until adulthood, that is. God is now close, very close, but only in the context of utter resentment and enmity.

Ahh…and so it begins, as the truth of my motivation seeps upwards. In the background, I hear the spine-chilling creak of a door opening, and I smell the putrid smoke seeping out from the chamber beyond. Not yet, sister, not yet. Let’s focus first on beginnings, simple and humble as they might be. Excitement and colour were visited on me briefly, but it’s not yet time to discuss them. I promise to share that with you as the alcohol hubris builds the ramparts and fortifies the bulwarks enough to fight-off the beast long enough to share the tale with you, just not quite yet.

Currently, I’m living my final days in this particular life in a modest bungalow in Ocean Beach, California. By “modest” I mean that it is roughly 900 square feet, built in the 1930s, badly in need of repair and worth about $450,000. I paid $200,000 for it when I moved here nearly ten years ago. It’s a nice place by SoCal standards, for me a refuge from the intrusions of the world where I can walk along Sunset Cliffs and watch the sun sink into the vast Pacific every night, and where I can open the windows and enjoy the fresh air blowing off the water every afternoon, shooing away the agony of days spent confined in a self-imposed prison of servitude to the system and, more compellingly, servitude to What Happened. It’s home and it was once very comfortable for me. It is roughly square in shape, non-descript in color and equipped with a small but well-appointed kitchen including a side-by-side refrigerator, a four burner gas cook top, a matching in-wall range, and a dishwasher, which is rare in these goofy old houses. I’ve got a single bedroom and one-and-a-half bathrooms. The house has a nice family room/dining room and, perhaps most importantly, it’s got the world’s smallest pool in a back yard equipped with two small but healthy and prolific lemon and orange trees. It is my own personal piece of the Southern California real estate delusion and my own personal provision for Pleasant Valley Sundays…at least it was.

Down the street, within strolling distance are two of my favorite things in the neighborhood, a great “mom and pop” coffee house who’s proprietor knows me by name (it helps that I go there almost every morning for a steaming cup of Jamaican Blue, Tanzanian Peaberry or Kona Gold), and a local Central American grocery that makes the best lobster burritos north of Ensanada. The cliffs? What else can I say…if you’ve never seen the coastline of California, either north or south (but not the LA basin), then you have no idea that nature and physics could have conspired to create such awe-inspiring magnificence. Sunset Cliffs, located half way down the windward side of Point Loma and providing natural shelter for San Diego Bay, is a gentle promontory that has heather and ice-plant covered steep meadows descending to rocky cliffs below. A favorite of local surfers, hikers and trail runners, the Cliffs are slowly succumbing to the relentless assault of the Pacific, retreating towards my house and many others. It’s a shame only in the sense that the view will be lost over time—the incursion of man and the impact of real estate capitalism not so much.

Up the hill from my bungalow are larger houses of the half million dollar plus variety with commanding views of the ocean and, on clear days, San Clemente and Santa Catalina Islands. Wind swept Torrey pines dot the lots and street corners. This place is as close to heaven as I could have imagined once. My wife loved it dearly, eschewing the purchase of a new, affordable home in one of the many, anonymous inland cookie cutter developments in order to keep living in this wondrous place. To her it was paradise, small house, small pool, green cliffs and all. I used to think the same.

So, it is here that I live my abnormally normal life. It is here where things changed as profoundly as they possibly could have; it is where I changed and became Something Else Entirely.

One of the amazing things that living in California offers, however, is that I can, as often as I choose, get on the highways and travel to an amazing variety of diverse geography. Believe me; that has proven to be a blessing of immense meaning. California is naturally therapeutic for me at least. It’s a sublime comment on the sheer magnificence of this state to stand on a warm beach in the spring and gaze on snow covered peaks in the background. Thus, I travel as much as my work and my finances allow, visiting several favorite locations including the wine country, the Eastern Sierra, Mammoth Lakes, Tahoe, Shasta, the Anza Borrego Desert and the Central Coast, always alone. Remove the LA basin, and you’d most likely have the most culturally complete, geographically diverse and aesthetically gratifying place on this continent. Those are mighty lofty words, I realize, but I defer to what I said earlier. I don’t care. I make those comments for myself.

Well…mostly for myself.

Truth be told, I also say them in large part for the belligerent benefit of the citizenry of the unequivocally dumbest, most self-absorbed state in the Union; Texas. Having grown up there, I can attest to the stupidity that permeates that godforsaken dust bowl of dirt, hills, swamps and dumb-ass belt buckles. Eat shit Texas…secede already. Ha.

Memories of that place begin somewhere in time, buried in the recesses of a childhood neuro network that provides glimpses of sight and sound and color far more than tangible, effective memory. The landscape of my backwards vision is pocked with the scars and craters of exploded landmines as far as Texas is concerned. Memories of pain and alienation blown apart on the field of my memories. But, as SGT Ross warned, where as most of the mines are inert, some remain decidedly ert. Texas in terms of attitude and culture, I will discuss at a later point. For now, what I remember is mostly flat and plowed. Dirt clods for miles on the southwest side of town that would eventually be encircled by loop upon loop of concentric super highways. At that time, however, it was little more than pasture land with sporadic developments of planned communities and ubiquitous strip centers. In between was land, and lots of it, some of it speckled with trees, some of it without, most of it with fields of cattle, and all of it utterly barren-flat. This much I remember of East Texas just north of the Gulf Coast. Harris County had nothing of aesthetic merit, and in an odd sense, I think it provided the colourless pallet upon which my psyche and image were crafted.

Nothingness begets nothingness.

California would have held the promise of surf and mountains and nature to a young boy who was painfully aware of his awkwardness within his own skin. Texas only made it worse.

Fuck.

It starts here.

2008-05-23T20:56:00.000-07:00

Lacking the motivation to seek yet more representation, lacking the conviction in myself to begin another tale, lacking the motivation to do something more proactive and productive, and lacking any other original thoughts, I thought I'd start this little gig to at least get the story Somewhere.

Story? A Promise In Sorrow. Begun in 2001, finished three years later. My first complete attempt at a manuscript. Is it good? Frankly, I don't know. But, perhaps by placing it here rather than simply on a magnetic portion of my hard-drive, I can finish its gestation and move on to other projects.

So, that's the objective. Read it in pieces as I post. Feel free to shred it. They're only words, and when we start fearing words then we have truly surrendered to the darkness.

Allsalami-ilike'em,
Scott