Ancient dreams, dreamed-No More Defeats- Magical Realism 101

Desperately clutching his new white flags, his new millennium embossed white flags, linen white, exchanged years ago for bloodied red ones. White flags proudly worn for a while now, he wipes his brow of the sweat accumulated from the fear he has been living with for the past few months. A fear that some old thought truce would not hold, that he would mercilessly be called to account. He, still rubber tire around the middle, he brown turning grey turning to white, he comfortable with an off-hand jabbing session and back room talk about old time exploits and when guys were really tough. And about how he could stand toe to toe with the best of them (forgetting to mention, “for a while”). Talk, all talk. But signs portended some danger, some confrontation, some one more beating, and maybe some real damage this time. To his almighty soul condition if nothing else.

His old time opponent, a few pounds heavily, a few tricks wiser after a fistful of fights, a more checkered record than when they first did battle where that big brawny young flash mopped the floor up with him, without a sweat, in two rounds had dusted off the old moth-eaten contract. The old option contract that called for a rematch at either party’s beck and call. No expiration date given. He could see the wheels working in that now slower opponent’s mind. His manager’s really. Hell, he had done the same thing himself on the way up. Use him for a dust mop and then back to the “bigs.” Damn that option, damn that contract, damn that Sam for making him sign the damn thing even though right after the previous match, brains egg-scrambled, he had yelled out rematch, anytime, anyway.

Nothing to do but get ready, get a little, a very little, of that rubber tire off the middle, and learn to back up to the ropes fast, jack lightning fast. Hell, he chuckled, that was the easy part. The big event came and his ancient arms folded, hard-folded against the rainless night, raining, he carefully turned right, left, careful of every move as the crowd comes forward. He eyed their murderous eyes, money in hand, “smart” money as always on the younger, faster man, more a matter of rounds than victories, but murderous eyes, aflame with an easy victory. Glory days be damned the guy in front of him looked plenty tough still.

After the ritualistic formalities were over the bell rang-go to it, boys. The first round begins. He holds his own, like he had always done in every fight (never knocked out in the first round, ever, a source of pride, drink in hand barroom, pride) a little wobbly, a little rubber tire around the middle wobbly, but moving in and out to avoid the bigger man’s still fearsome blows. Hell, after all these years the guy is not even that winded. A memory from the first match flashes before him. It was like a phalanx of something driving him to the ground, or about six corner boys from his youth, his sullen youth when six guys decided that he was, what? Mush? A fag? Stupid? Those guys didn’t know nothing .Second round he runs into a series of upper-cuts that drive him to the floor. He stagger on his knees and then up on the eight count. But he notices that the blows were not as fearsome as of old and his opponent shows just a hint of fatigue around his eyes. Another barrage. Down. Back up again on nine. Close. The bell rings. He has survived two rounds. Some “smart” money is not going to be happy this night, no way.


Third round. He faces another barrage, rights then lefts. He wobbles, knees akimbo, if that is possible and after this mauling it probably is. He hits the floor. Face down, stay down. You have proved your point, go collect your dough. Once again, as if on call, a distant muted echo hits his brain, his egg- scrambled brain, don’t give up the fight. He is ready this time though, smart, maybe not ring smart but life smart now. Tomorrow is another day. Hell, there are always other days. If not me then some young hungry guy, some barrio guy, some ghetto guy, hell, maybe both. His brain says… Out.

As he lays on the cooling board locker room gurney he remember old Sam, damn, money-fisted old Sam, and what he said before that last fight. Or was it some other guy. Well, some old guy, met, or guys like him, met long ago said going into the damn fight and I quote, he said struggle, struggle. Ya, it was easy for you to say, buddy. You didn’t have to go three rounds with the guy. Jesus he never let up even with those fatigued eyes. Give me those damn white flags, jesus.

Funny though he noticed as he was carried out to the locker room that white flags, or not, the crowd, not a crowd, no, a horde, a beastly horde, was sullen, not like the old days when they would sent up a Bronx cheer. This was no time to stick out with white flags (or bloodied red ones, for that matter).

Later, dressed, white flags placed in back pockets, he jumped out of the way of the hordes passing through the doors after the feature fight, the horde passing brushing him lightly, not aware, not apparently aware of the white flags. Good. What did that other guy, that old guy say, say, oh yes, struggle.

***********
Ancient dreams, dreams, Reflections In A Fierce Wind, Magical Realism 101

One more battle, one more, please, one more, one fight against the greed cowboy and Indians night, one more questing for the blue-pink great American night dream, and one more struggle against no dreams. He, maybe a little punch-drunk, maybe suffering egg-scrabbled brains after one too many fights, chained himself, well not really chained, but more like tied himself to the black wrought-iron fence in front of the big white house with his white handkerchief. Gone are retreat flags, sullen retreat and pondering armchair flags. Another guy, shaking the clotting snow off his old army jacket still useful against driving winds and off-hand city snows, did the same except he used some plastic hand-cuff-like stuff. A couple of women, bundled knowingly against all weathers just stood there, hard against that ebony-etched fence, if can you believe it, they just stood there. Others, milling around, disorderly in a way, started chanting after someone starts om-ing, om-ing out of Allen Ginsberg Howl nights, or at least Jack Kerouac Big Sur splashes. The scene was now complete, or almost complete. Now, for once he knew, knew for sure, that it wasn’t Ms. Cora whom he needed to worry about, and that his black and white television child dream was a different thing altogether. A ruse. And he had no longer to worry about flags, white or red. Just keep pushing against immorality. But who, just a child, could have known that back then.

Ancient dreams, dreamed-No More Retreats?- Magical Realism 101

Who knows when the ebb starts, that start to the be-bop king hell king slide down, the question of when the struggle for the top, for being top dog, for being top dog among you and yours, turns from kid (well young man anyway) great blue-pink cloud puff nights to sober star-filled wonders about immorality, your place in the sun, whether it will happen and whether you have enough wherewithal to stand the gaff, the grift, or just the drift toward the infinite. More importantly when the “this and that” of life, the ordinary muck, always present, always damn present from the cradle takes over.

Let’s put it like this, okay. That minute when you call an armed truce (no, a thousand times no don’t say surrender, please, be like Bob Marley, stand up, stand up, stand up for your rights, don’t give up the fight), to that thing that in 1960 got you running the streets, got you running into Park Street and massive scorn, or some hard stir time courtesy of Uncle Sam, or crushed beneath the May Day red tide. (Ya, Bob had it right, don’t give up the fight.) When you didn’t retire exactly but just kind of ran out of opponents who were ready to beat you down on their way up and of sparring partners, rubber tube around the middle just like you, who decided to take up gardening or whatever third-rate guys do when they move on, move uptown as you always said. But one last call calls. And this…

White truce flags neatly placed in right pocket. Well placed in that right hand pocket in order, right-handed man, pocket ready to call a, uh, strategic retreat from this day’s errands at the drop of that handkerchief, an orderly retreat but a retreat, one of many, nevertheless. Then folded aging arms showing the first signs of wear-down, unfolded. One more time, one more war-weary dastardly fight against the feckless oil-driven times.

This time a mismatch, a mismatch based a little on that rubber tire around the middle, a little greyness in the hair , a little white in the beard, a little ache here and a pain there, once brushed off , and forward in day but now, weeks ache, and months pains. The bigger opponent, mighty muscled, sleek, stealthy, lots of money backing him, the “smart” money, no question. But he had contracted for this one fight, take whatever comes and then, and then the joys of retreat and taking out those white flags again and normalcy.

The first round begins. He holds his own, a little wobbly, a little rubber tire around the middle wobbly, but moving in and out to avoid the bigger man’s fearsome blows. Hell the guy is not even winded. Damn it’s like a phalanx of something driving him to the ground, or about six corner boys from his youth, his sullen youth when six guys decided that he was, what? Mush? A fag? Stupid? Second round he runs into a series of upper-cuts that drive him to the floor. He stagger on his knees and then up on the eight count. Another barrage. Back up again on nine. Close. Then another. He wobbles, knees akimbo, if that is possible and after this mauling it probably is. Face down, stay down. A distant muted echo hits his brain, his egg- scrambled brain, don’t give up the fight. Nah, tomorrow is another day. Hell, there are always other days. If not me then some young hungry guy, some barrio guy, some ghetto guy, hell, maybe both. His brain says… Out. He ran right out of time, Christ.

Awake later, seven minutes, hours, eons later he takes out the proud white flags now red with his own blood. He clutches them in his weary hands. His handler, his woebegone handler, some ancient guy picked up on the cheap, a guy who looked pretty weather-beaten but what are you going to do when you make a match with no up-front dough, no real dough, and just a few fans who remember you from the old glory days, the days when, no kidding you could have been a contender. This old guy, met, or guys like him, met long ago said going into the damn fight and I quote, he said struggle, struggle. Ya, it’s easy for you to say, buddy. You didn’t have to go two rounds with the guy. Jesus he never worked up a sweat. Give me those damn white flags, jesus. And I want my option rematch just like the contract says. Jesus.

Ancient dreams, dreamed-Detour Redux- Magical Realism 101

Sweating, endless summer sweatings, overheated, brain-addled over heated against the next fix, and the next fix. And the next fix. Wondering around the red-tide beach, a beach filled, filled to the brim if you asked him, with fetid smells, nice word, fetid, fetid clamshell-seeking mud flat smell, and rightly named, and maybe mephitic gases too, gases of some same 1950s childhood seaside marshes some thirty years back, and other schemed wonderings. Always wonderings, eternal wonderings against the brain-heated reality. Wondering this day for the high tide that signified that he could prepare himself for a new fix, another sure thing to take the pain away, and to scrabble his fired-up brain further.

So he ambled, walked briskly really, these were not the times, and this was not the place to amble (he thought later when the brain had cooled down) away from ocean-flecked (or charred) beaches, ocean logs rolled in, ocean smells described, toward town, his new town. A slack city, a black and white city without color, or need, with a multitude of sinners, some brain-addled like him, some beyond brain-addled, but all waiting for that next fix, that next sure thing that would break them out for some important life work, or not. Like a sign. Signifying? Maybe just to whet the appetite for more fixes, more sure things to chase the hard-hearted day away.

He, uneasily, roamed among them, trying to hear through the mumble, through the deceptions, through the glassy-eyed stare, the never-ending glassy-eyed stare. And heard shouts about this and that, about the next sure thing maybe, against the coming of the new day, hell, about heaven and heaven’s blessed, and about heaven’s luck, and about the next journey. Ya, that next journey, like maybe there were ten or eleven, hell, twelve gates to the city. Jesus, the brain-addled confusion was starting to kick in, kick in with a thud, as he thought he heard some high white note trumpet blowing some sweet Gabriel blow. But that couldn’t be right because he could clearly see the trumpeter and trumpet although the high white note had turned to air ashes in the hubbub of whiskeys ordered, pizzas consumed, and coffees (no teas here, not among the brain-addled) sipped and slurped, constant milling chatter, chatter beyond that, all inchoate.

Then he started to work, his mumbo-jumbo work, eyes left, eyes, right, eyes up in heaven’s door, looking for that right combination that would fix him, fix him until the next fix, jesus, will it ever end. Of course he had his maw this day, a few shillings (nice touch he thought), and desire, word desire, number desire, word-number desire, number-word desire, and then silence. He had hit the fix line, the line of no return as he heard, heard in his head at least, the mandela turn once more. And then he heard bells, laugh bells at first, then diminished, and then silent. The waiting began, and the crowd hushed, or merely mingle talked in low places, before the great yawl, before nature’s spin turned.

About eight visions then came to him, one after the other like some childhood parade, all in colors, all in order, all with determined looks. He did not believe in colors, or numbers, or words, just then just mandela fixes, and release. And as the four winds blew across that city just that afternoon and those eight (or was it nine or ten he had never thought to get an accurate count, and didn’t think that he needed to) visions blew this way and that he knew, knew for certain that he was doomed, doomed to repeat that eight -visioned scene over and over. That thought, for just that minute made him think, made him realize that the abyss was not such a bad place. At least the fix-dreaming would be over, and the number worry, the word worry, the color worry would be over. And maybe he could cool off his tormented brain.

Later lashed against the high end double seawall, some unknown, unnamed shoreline below, bearded, slightly graying against the forlorn time, a vision in white linen not enough to keep the wolves of time away, the wolves of feckless childhood petty larceny times reappear, reappear with a vengeance against the super-rational night sky and big globs of ancient hurts fester against some unknown enemy, unnamed, always unnamed, or hiding out in a canyon under an assumed name. Then night, the promise of night, a night run up some seawall-laden streets, some Grenada night, maybe Spanish, maybe Moroccan or maybe a desolate sky boom night, and thoughts of finite, sweet flinty finite haunt his dreams, haunt his sleep. A ring cries out in that abyss night. Wrong number, brother. Ya, wrong number, as usual.

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- “Down And Out In America-Part I”

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Bob Dylan performing one of his later classics, Dignity.

Dignity by Bob Dylan

Lyrics

Fat man lookin’ in a blade of steel
Thin man lookin’ at his last meal
Hollow man lookin’ in a cottonfield
For dignity

Wise man lookin’ in a blade of grass
Young man lookin’ in the shadows that pass
Poor man lookin’ through painted glass
For dignity

Somebody got murdered on New Year’s Eve
Somebody said dignity was the first to leave
I went into the city, went into the town
Went into the land of the midnight sun

Searchin’ high, searchin’ low
Searchin’ everywhere I know
Askin’ the cops wherever I go
Have you seen dignity?

Blind man breakin’ out of a trance
Puts both his hands in the pockets of chance
Hopin’ to find one circumstance
Of dignity

I went to the wedding of Mary Lou
She said, “I don’t want nobody see me talkin’ to you”
Said she could get killed if she told me what she knew
About dignity

I went down where the vultures feed
I would’ve gone deeper, but there wasn’t any need
Heard the tongues of angels and the tongues of men
Wasn’t any difference to me

Chilly wind sharp as a razor blade
House on fire, debts unpaid
Gonna stand at the window, gonna ask the maid
Have you seen dignity?

Drinkin’ man listens to the voice he hears
In a crowded room full of covered-up mirrors
Lookin’ into the lost forgotten years
For dignity

Met Prince Phillip at the home of the blues
Said he’d give me information if his name wasn’t used
He wanted money up front, said he was abused
By dignity

Footprints runnin’ ’cross the silver sand
Steps goin’ down into tattoo land
I met the sons of darkness and the sons of light
In the bordertowns of despair

Got no place to fade, got no coat
I’m on the rollin’ river in a jerkin’ boat
Tryin’ to read a note somebody wrote
About dignity

Sick man lookin’ for the doctor’s cure
Lookin’ at his hands for the lines that were
And into every masterpiece of literature
For dignity

Englishman stranded in the blackheart wind
Combin’ his hair back, his future looks thin
Bites the bullet and he looks within
For dignity

Someone showed me a picture and I just laughed
Dignity never been photographed
I went into the red, went into the black
Into the valley of dry bone dreams

So many roads, so much at stake
So many dead ends, I’m at the edge of the lake
Sometimes I wonder what it’s gonna take
To find dignity

Copyright © 1991 by Special Rider Music

Joshua Lawrence Breslin comment:

Walking down Route 5 west out of Moline, quarter in his pocket, holes in his shoes, patched up, make due patched until sunnier days, by some cardboard graham cracker package cut-out a while back when he had time, endless time to cut-out the moon if he needed to, just outside of Gary, Indiana. Damn that was weeks ago, and heading west to those sunnier days and getting out of north and Midwest winter were not get closer, damn not any closer. Hell, he had only himself to blame, no, get that negative thought of his head because if the dwelt (dwelled ?) on it he could not push forward and get himself straight, get himself clean in some California wash baptism ocean foam-flecked sea.

Stopping for a moment adjusting that damn two-bit cardboard once again he began to reflect on just how he had gotten here, jesus, he had the time for figuring that out on this lonesome Moline road. A road filled with families, farm families from the look of them, prosperous, farm prosperous just now with farm prices rising (fact known through courtesy of a ride a couple of rides back from some Farmer Brown, at one time up against it to the banks but now flush with that prices rising gloat look), heading to some Jimmy Jack’s Diner for the daily special (meat loaf, pot roast, steak, prime rib, for the really prosperous) and decidedly not interested in picking up any obviously non-Moline, non- Midwestern, hell, maybe for all they know some illegal wetback bracero.

He had that look with his leather-beaten skin now tanned beyond golden day tans and more like some tex-mex broiled sun picking farm product (cucumbers, tomatoes, broccoli, who knows) and in fact he had spent a few back-breaking bracero-like days stooped over some sting bean field to earn enough dough to move west from stalled Ohio a while back. And then had been bracero short-changed by the farm straw boss for half his pay for
room and board. A laugh, room, a dormitory for twenty snoring, stinking winos or their brethren, food, some slops not fit for the sty, but he hard-up needed the money, needed to get sanity west, and needed not to be billy-clubbed by no straw boss. And so he took the dough, took his ass out of the broiled fields and headed west from Cincinnati. No, he would get no Moline escape that day from the corn-fed sedan and van traffic that he saw pass him by, pass him by with that sullen, permanent look of scorn, the scorn of those just up the ladder from cardboard-packed make due shoes.

Nor would he get, unless he was very lucky get, a worthwhile ride, from the usually friendly cross state (or country) professional truckers, who more times than not, used to like having the company to spill their guts into the wind to. Or explain their latest theory about how the government, the wife, the kids, anybody, was screwing them over, royally, always royally. And, despite his own hard luck just then, self-imposed or not, he always half-nodded in agreement that the room for righteous guys in this wicked old world was getting small, and getting smaller fast.

But see the company lawyers, probably, or maybe the insurance agents, were putting a serious crimp into old blue-eyed good old boy hankering to tell their untold stories to wayward young guys, looking kind of hippie-like or not, ever since the roads got more dangerous for everybody. So unless some local trucker had not heard the news, or was in a fuck-you mood toward his boss, or was so lonesome that he needed some rider to take his mind off the road as he headed across state to some forlorn grain silo he was stuck in Moline for a while. Maybe for a while in the pokey too if he stayed here, solo quarter in his pocket, too long. It had happened more than once, although not in Moline. A couple of times in Connecticut and Arizona but he had been forewarned, and, damn, when he thought about it, up in his home state of Maine, not twenty-five miles from home Olde Saco. Jesus.

Again stopping to readjust that cardboard square holding the dust and debris of the road from boring a bigger hole in his white (kind of white anyway) socks he ready did want to try to think about how he got on this road, this exact Moline road he had not been on since he had hitchhiked in search of the great blue-pink American West night with fair Angelica, back in, what was it 1969, and they had been forced to shack up in some non-descript motel he thought was further up the road because it had rained for something like five days straight. And fair Angelica, thrilled by the road and jail-break from Muncie, Indiana (via a Steubenville, Ohio truck-stop diner) still was enough t of a bedazzled young woman not to see the romance in five day rains.

Maybe that was the start of it, the long road down the slippery-slope of this praying for some relief hunger madness. Not the Angelica part (although that ended with her going back to Muncie after some California time, and a few years later, a return to Hollywood, well, to not stardom but some celebrity. He wondered where she is now out in the American night. And he wonder if she would smile, or cry, if she saw her ex-beau, looking bracero-hungry, out on the road. Cry, cry a million tears, probably, that was the way she was, plain-spoken Mid-west girl what you see is what you get, and what you got was worth getting, although mist-bedazzled non-bracero hungry ex-beau could quite see through the “high purpose” search for the American dream night then.

If that was not the start of it, then, no question, the break with Joyell, and with civilized society (as she, Joyell, put it) definitely had been. When he, looking for some quick change, fast dough, with no heavy lifting, and plenty of time to think about the next search dream, started dealing a little dope (nothing heavy at first, a little weed, grass, mary jane, whatever you call it in your neck of the woods, some peyote buttons, in season,(in search west season, a little speed for the frantic work ahead) to friends, and their friends, and then their friends, and then somebody’s friends, and then to strangers, and their friends.

And of course when he got caught up in laying around waiting for search for the next dream, then you short weight, just a little, because well because they are strangers, and their friends. At first. The some deal goes south and you owe the patron some dough and he won’t take manana for an answer. And so you “borrow” a C-note until next week when the ship comes in, and when it doesn’t borrow a couple of C-notes to cover that original C-note, and expenses. And so on, and so on.

Just then he got tired of thinking about those busted deals, those busted dreams, and the hard fact that in the end he had to hit the road west one dark night, one dark night midnight creep after taking about eighty dollars from Joyell’s pocketbook, and putting some distance between him and her. Some no return distance from the look of it. He started to tear up as he thought about that and did not hear the brakes of a fully-loaded Andersen Grain Company hiss as the truck came to a stop and the big burly driver called out, “Hey, I’m Memphis Slim and I’m heading to Denver and if you don’t’ mind me talking your ear off I could use the company.” He put his rucksack over this shoulder and climbed on board. Yes, he could listen, listen to eternity, to some poor snook talk his ear off heading west.

Ancient dreams, dreamed-The New Course - Magical Realism 101

The great Mandela cried, cried to the high heavens, for revenge against the son’s hurt, now that the son had found his way, a strange way but a way. Freed from prisons and placed in solitary barred, steel-barred root rooms to wager his personal bet, bet of his life, on freedom. Freed from manacle shackled past get aheads, go aheads, keep your head down to get ahead, eyes straight forward, no lefts or rights, hell, no, meet some nice working class girl, find some forty years, a pension and a gold watch, and produce, produce what. And prison freed from now sour bourgeois dreams, bobby (kennedy) dreams, okay, okay but that is what they were and one need not be a Marxist (or marxist) to know that road led to perdition and without even trying.

Ya, and that road, that bobby road, represented the character flaw, that certain tilting to the winds instead of against them like some old baby boy donkey ride Sancho Panza and his pal and all the windmills in Holland or Palm Springs could not change that. Ya, free, prison free and his dream hair grows a little longer each day and his dream beard begins to be bushy like some old time Old Testament archangel avenger of hurts, his own first and the other hurts. And like some righteous John Brown, just to name a name, a Calvinist avenger name, blown out of Kansas prairie fires and set smack daub in Harpers Ferry hellholes he cultivates that long flow hair and beard, dreamed.

But a dame, pardon me, 1971 women’s consciousness-raising and righteous too, a woman always comes with it, the dream hair and beard. One hard night, one tossed night some apparition out of a Puritan dream, all quakerly and severe, he saw some Croton-on-the-Hudson vision. A woman passed momentarily in fierce struggles, fierce outside the walls struggle, not noticed, not noticed until that night, not pretty, not blonde, not, well, not everywoman, but fierce, fierce in about six difference ways and maybe, just maybe capable of fierce loves.

Another hard night, tossed too, a free-form dream of Chicago, hog butcher to the world, wheat fields and wholesomeness just beyond in now no longer John Brown-like prairies. A daughter, some brown-eyed, brown-haired, brown-skinned semite butcher’s, kosher butcher, maybe, daughter, who spoke of spirit dreams, and wrote blue-eyed poems and of goyim sillies, and he was happy, happy that she wrote of fierce blue-eyes just when he had been ready to throw in the towel. And then that certain character flaw, that fidget, that endless fidget, neither left or right, came in as he tried to have the whole world. Imagine that, imagine some fierce blue-eyed boy could shake all that, and forget those blue-eyed words in that blue-eyed poem. And shake (and forget) to endless sorrows. Hell, damn, hell.

This last time, the last restless night, came one out of hell Manhattan and one thousand and one anxieties, neuroses, and her own father time hurts. No righteous Hudson puritan or Midwestern semite daughter she. No, princess semite she. What a pair they will be. Remind me to tell you sometime how they met, dream met, in some snowy do-good cabin/assembly hall build to curse the darkness of one thousand wars and one hundred fights against those damn wars. And for a minute she, he, they were happy, happy in each other’s vagrant landless company. Then certain madnesses came forth. And short dope snorts, and peyote dream buttons, all mixed in sometimes blank, sometimes the door of perception but I just cribbed that, not the perceptions the thought, okay.

What a ride, lord, what a ride, and lusts and screams and crazed rants were just a little part of it before that damn fidget, what, redhead, blonde, dirty blonde, path crossed his way.

And fame, local lore fame, built out of impossible combinations of minute fortitude, hour righteousness, and day of reckoning, day of reckoning and passing with flying colors. And a certain swagger came to his feet in the high heaven black Madonna of a night. But no such feeling can (or, truth, should), last too long and in that Black Madonna night he began to fidget, fidget just a little. Some fidget ignited by refused dreams of white picket fences, dogs, and two point three kids (exactly two point three he never tired of saying as she, the Black Madonna, reddened at the thought). And he, he made for great leaps, and straw dogs. Hell it could have been easy, very easy but she couldn’t see it that way, and he didn’t except when he needed her refuge, lovingly or just shelter.


And on those shelter days no cigarette hanging off the lip now (she would not allow it see, not cool and it aggravated her condition, whichever one it was at the time. So no Winston filter-tipped seductions, no need, and no rest except the rest of waiting, waiting on the days to pass until the next coming, and the next coming after that.

Ah, sweet Mandela, turn for me, turn for me and mine just a little. He cursed the darkness on those days, and the light too, for he had made that leap that he only heard about in his head when he had had a few dreams and was feeling warrior king brave to take on all comers, tricky dick, vance packard, spiro agnew, hell even sparring a norman mailer now that they were on the same side (or at least he thought they were on the same side, same side advertising for themselves and their heroics, their armies of the night collective moment). And dreams of being right, ha.

Then one day some news came from above, no, hell no, not that above, the above of mundane chain-of-command drop down and let you know freedom day was near. Anti-climactic, anticlimactic for a man who expected to grow old in stir, and kind of dug it (excuse beat reversion memory of Harvard Square leavings when he thought this world would be some literary break-out and not righteous avenger of hurts, did I said his own first of all. If he didn’t, he lied).

Free at last but with a very, very sneaking feeling that this was a road less traveled for a reason, and no ancient robert frost blasted two roads to guide one… Just look at blooded Kent State, or better, blooded Jackson State. Christ.

Ancient dreams, dreamed-An Unexplained Interlude - Magical Realism 101

Twenty come and gone, dead. Old new uniform, resplendent college joe uniform complete with white-socked penniless loafers, gone, passed on to some Goodwill basket and mercifully back to all- weather, all-season patterned, usually, brown though, flannel shirts (yes, summers too, despite whacked out metabolisms that are out of synch, sweating, okay, perspiring, but we have been through that all before and the writer will just continue to write, write through rums sweats and wine sweats and whiskey neat sweats, gone are the slugfest whiskey working-class brave beer chaser days, and the quarters too, and take his chances, black chinos and, as if to put paid to those who wondered at the change and made surly comments about beat-ness, beatitude and the such, moccasins, comfortable, soft-feel moccasins, in a sea of penniless (mainly) white-socked loafers. Topped off, and gladly, since junior high Frankie Larkin king hell king of the junior league corner boy night times, remind me to tell you sometime about that mad man and his mad escapades but not now because we are discussing somber moods, midnight sunglasses to keep the rubes, the cheerleaders, and the plain nosy at bay.

New uniform too. Drunk, whisky high-shelf drunk, when in the chips, whisky back alley low shelf liquor store rotgut whisky drunk, when on the bum, drunk in some atlantic bayside bar, complete with mushrooming arrivisite boats of all sizes and descriptions although most look as seaworthy as the Titanic, looking at delicious nubile sights all dressed, or rather undressed in bikinis, halters and shorts, or any cool and look-able combination which I am too weary, too eye-candy weary to fully describe just now, for a while anyway.

Or some Southie hard week’s work done and quarters clinking gents only bar (ladies by invitation and accompaniment only so mostly manly rough-house and steady-handed drinking ) no adornments, nothing but hard stools and wet mahogany countertops with pickled eggs and other strange jerky things to work up hard thirsts, as if the thirst that I (and not just I) came in that unadorned, unpainted door (squeaky too) to quench needed aphrodisiac drunk, with beer chasers (just plunk down the extra quarter and bang).

Or some mondaytuesday wednesdaythrursday hangover drunk night spent neon-lighted in Kenmore Square chick-heavy dives like Skirt-Chaser’s Pub, High Heaven Angel Cafe, or Come And Get It Brother, If You Can Club (don’t look those google names up but I don’t need to draw you, you of all people, a diagram that here were meat market-worthy establishments filling the night with bare flesh, plenty is the hope, up from nowhere hope, high-end whiskeys (in the chips or don’t bother), and early morning romps along the Charles.

Drunk and no memories of old time North Adamsville, Irish town, faux Little Dublin town, Irish granite city old time quarries and sweat town, back in the day old time Wasp city of presidents but not lately town, simple storefront father and older brother bars used simply to get a few quick ones before home and bed, or after some convenient excuse softball games until one in the morning (or maybe two depending on blue law local rules for public houses versus cafes versus, hell, bowling alleys and brothels) And no memories of the first time Uncle Jim set me up for an underage wink, wink drink and the first few tastes went down hard, and I almost threw up and then the beer chaser (clink those quarters, please), settled me, and sleep, head on countertop sleep. And the shawlies howled at the moon for days (and secretly wink, wink proclaimed manhood, poor Uncle Jim’s sister there will be hell to pay before that young lad is done, no question) and then some midnight scandal between Miss Molly somebody and a very married (and child heavy) Mister Midnight Rider somebody took all of their attention away from some half-arsed (no sic here) teenage boy trying to quickly to raise manhood’s bar. That scene, that Uncle Jim who was held in bad odor for other misdemeanors by the shawlies on his own hook, would be filed for future reference and sixteen forms of comparison with their own sparkling white just gone to confession (daily confession it seems now that I think of it, why?) jimmies and kathies.

And damn if they were not right, maybe not future reference right but right on the basics the named bars, Joe’s, Jim’s, Irish Pub, Dublin Grille, Café, Club, to infinity, Artie’s Bayside Club, The Sea ‘n Surf (and six forms of cuddle up dancing, drunk as a skunk, but cutting a figure, and best, walking out midnight doors, hand in hand with some foxy red-headed twist out for just the night and heading to some small town home in the morning, some dark-eyed, black-haired beauty with dancing eyes and loose morals who was slumming just then looking for ocean-aired adventure and not kansas hayseeds and she, yes, she, and I quote, hit pay dirt, or some skinny brunette with a hollow leg who just wanted to walk along the adjacent beach but who for one more hollow leg drink, some gin and tonic thing, could be persuaded to watch the “submarine races”), The Shakers (strictly high-end WASP Philly girls looking for shanty irish thrills before marrying some third cousin stockbroker and bliss).

Names, nameless, no legion. Girls and gin get it, no gin no girl, no girl no gin, get it and no bliss and no dreams, no endless night dreams of dainty curves and longing caresses, get it. Endless dreams and endless longings. And whiskey, whiskey with fewer beer chasers.

And the 24/7/365 years fell down drunk. Then some staggered midnight vista street, some 1967 staggered midnight, no dough having spent the last quarters on some fruitless pina colada senorita no go, walking drunken streets cabs stopping for quick jack roller fares, or funny, real jack rollers coming up empty and mad, maybe killing mad. Walking, legs weak from lack of work and hour on hour of stool-sitting and stewing over pina colada no gos, brain weak, maybe wet, push on, push on, find some fellaheen relieve for that unsatisfied bulge, that gnawing at the brain or really at the root of the thing. A topsy-turvy time, murder, death, the death of death, the death of fame, murder, killing murder, and then resolve, wrong resolve and henceforth the only out, war, war to the finish although who could have known that then. Who could have known that tet, lyndon, bobby, Hubert, tricky dick war-circus thing then. And not drunk, get it.

Ancient dreams, dreamed-A New World A-Borning - Magical Realism 101

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Barry McGuire performing his generation of ’68 classic, Eve Of Destruction.

CD Review

1965: The Beat Goes On, various artists, 1988; Classic Rock 1965, various artists, 1987: Classic Rock 1965: Blow Your Mind, various artists, 1990: 1965:Shakin’ All Over, various artists, 1989, Time-Life Music.

North Adamsville teenage hometown mucks break-out, crying to be broken out of, desperately crying to be broken out of, aided and abetted by break-out musical sensibilities where the message and the messenger were at one. And who were trying to break out of, desperately trying to break-out of the piddle paddle language and the paddle piddle beaten note formulae that had been solid gold guaranteed to thrill, thrill to the marrow, every red-blooded generation of ’68 parent. The kids, well, the kids fell asleep, fell transistor blazing asleep in the cool night dreaming of adventure car hop hostesses, james dean shadow boys, and seaside lore pillowed back seat fogged window noche siestas.

Only at that moment, just that confused and unformed moment, break-out worthy or not, maybe unformed or not, others were trail-blazing after all we were, truth, clueless as to how far that music would take us, and how many acid-etched Dixie cup magic elixirs would have to be consumed before the music died, died of old age, old age at five or ten, and hubris, queen of the downfall night. And we danced, hampton beach surf danced, high building new york city tenement danced, iowa cornfield danced, some tulsa good night two-step danced, rockymountainhigh danced, taos caverns ancient flame shadow ghost-danced, and slipped in oblivion big sur danced, and danced, and died of old age and hubris at five or ten.

That break-out by the way, maybe not so much the physical break-out as getting mentally de-rutted, you know box out get ahead, go ahead, don’t make many waves, maybe a couple of faux waves for laughs, nothing serious and not taken so, just kid’s stuff done since kids eternity, get schooled, get married, get white picket fence housed, make fewer waves, have two point three kids, make fewer waves, have them do likewise and fade into that tepid splash apologetic wave of some long ago, ancient battered to smithereens clam shell stone cold night at Adamsville beach edge. So, yes, maybe not physical far break-out but far psychic break-out from small town, really small neighborhood, irish neighborhood, and ever those don’t air your dirty linen in public grapevine tap-tapping before the larcenies, adulteries, christ, using the lord’s name in vain, and you know what and whose lord, and worst, not church-going non-scared sacred heart parish show-ups that had the “shawlies” in a stew, gone done.

Gone, strangely gone, that minute anyway gone, as well was last year’s beat, really faux-beat style- which played to the rubes (and inflamed the ”shawlies”) AND fit very nicely, very nicely indeed, with midnight Harvard Square journey haunts, but that was last year, and big cloud puff imitation james dean shadow teen angst and alienation was the style. So gone also, like I said, this minute gone, were those all-weather, all-season (ya, summer too) brown-checkered flannel shirts, those mandatory, Frankie Larkin mandatory, king hell king of the schoolboy beat, ah faux-beat night, black chinos, uncuffed, of course, and those hades-bent work boots, clodhoppers really, although not gone, gone gone, those midnight sunglasses to protect against angst, alienation and barbs.

New age aborning new look. New minute look, so be forewarned. Multi-colored schoolboy jock, okay, okay, faux-jock, jacket worn, raider red and black, black and red, some combination reflecting old time glories, or promises of glory, won by default for long running service and not for glory, not for glory but for slows, but keep that between us, plaid shirt, all the possible shades of plaid if they exist purchased in the bargain center, pre-Wal-Mart night by frugal Ma but for once she hit it right, slacks, with cuffs, thank you, and loafers (sans pennies). Ya, strictly a college guy and no more mister nobody from nowhere but a guy who fit in, and he did, all the girls, all the blue-eyed, blond eight-million people weary Long Island transplants, all the dark-eyed senoritas tired of their own backwater small town grapevine whispers, all the Philly somebodies from somewhere out of a John O’Hara high society novel, were crazy to “check out” this specimen, this talk all night rap, rap irish boyo. And most importantly, most importantly for this boyos, check out or not, they were all not North Adamsville and shames, hidden desires and blunt candid-less-ness Irish girls.

New inner look too, cool, not beat cool but joe college cool, disaffected, looking off to far reaches and not suffering fools gladly cool, learned at Humphrey Bogart’s knee and perfected by some cat on a hot tin roof Paul Newman puffing madly to forget lost dreams of youth but who knew, although the newspapers were full of warning, hell we were going to live forever, cigarette, Winston or Marlboro, filtered, natch, just in case, just in case we were not going to live forever, not by mortality but by bomb boom boom in the cold war night. Yes, cool man jack cigarette, hanging from off the lip at some jagged angle, drawn deeply in and circles and smoke dreams created. More, amused girls also puffing to prove some equality, and some reflected man cool in that sexed-up, sex- maddened free time.

And get this, a cup of coffee, if coffee was the drink, black, black against all advise, black since late schoolboy Hayes-Bickford Harvard Square drowses searching for that next word, and the next break-out, literary, political, hell, even social, in hand, a glad hand either way, look right, look left, a gentle nod, a hard stare, a gentle snarl if such a thing is possible beyond the page. But mainly a look, a look of cool distain, of remove, of next please in the never-ending look game. Soon wearied of, very wearied, although not of looks, and glances.

One’s act, fitfully, artlessly but rightly was thereafter moved onto Boston fresh streets, and a little fame. Joe College minute gone, vanished like so much train smoke, and bad dreams. Dressed in blue flannel shirt, blue denim, moccasins and midnight, eternal midnight sunglasses, and dressed, ah, in freedom but no one saw that. Finally, that one minute, no not fifteen, not fifteen at all, and not necessarily of the fame game, local fame, always local fame but fame. And then the music stopped, the crowds thinned out, the hardened Long Island transplants kept looking at guys in multi-colored jackets (although not always red and black), the Philly girls turned inward to their own crowd and began to dream of stockbroker mansions and riviera suntans, and the dark-eyed senoritas only knew of one night remembrances, and lust. Then sunk in the abyss of non-fame, non- recognition and not seen snarls, gentle or otherwise. A tough life lesson learned, very tough. And not yet twenty.

And all this very big build-up to “sell” this compilation to those who want to know what music drove us on, how the music and the break-out meshed and how, frankly, we kept this side of paradise before the veil came down and we, one by one, got further schooled, got white picket fence housed and were satisfied, just a little too satisfied, to watch tepid apologetic waves hit the stone cold shore. But also for just one minute knew deep down in our collective spines, and it was collective from Beatles-crazed British invasion teenage be-bopper throngs trying to storm heaven when they touched down at some trembling New York airport to sweet-bitter summers of love rollicking in city commons to the great rural tribal gathering before the storm burst Woodstock Nation gluing to the Stones-etched Altamont flame-out crash and the ebb, what it was like for women and men to play rock and roll music for keeps. Ya.

Ancient dreams, dreamed-An Explained Interlude - Magical Realism 101

Shaved-head, close anyway, too close to distinguish that head, mine, or rather private soldier government- issue mine on loan after drafted 1969 drafted purgatories and anguishes, go, not go, go, not go, not go, go, jail, not jail, go, from the ten-thousand, no one hundred-thousand other heads, all shave-headed. No way that close-cropped head, or those ten thousand, no, one hundred thousand others , would survive the Harvard Square (square is right), Village, burned-over Haight-Ashbury night as anything but soldier tourists looking at long-haired freaks smoking dope in some impromptu Kasbah or some vagrant common lawn.

But that wistful thought is so much ancient history, so much bad karma, ghost danced against ancient painted cavern-etched shamanic bad karmic night, as the certitude, the absolute certitude, after only three, hell one for truth but three, on more, half-humid, half ground frozen (and I know, know from close observation just minutes ago after having “done ten” that half frozen) southern winter days (Georgia, hell-bent segregated Georgia places like Albany and Augusta, if not Atlanta) that go, no go, jail, not jail was decided the wrong way and that life from here on in would get quirky (nice way to put it, right, put it just short of facing phantom firing squads).

Start. Four in the morning madness but this time not falling into too much to dream sweet good night but cursing some stoolie “orderlie” who has just kicked off my blanket cover and yelled, yelled if you can believe that, right in my ear that if I was not up before he turned his head to yell at some other shaved head across from my bunk that I would be “doing ten (or was it one hundred, or one thousand)” in front of the whole company of fellow raw recruits on some sweet red clay Georgia earth, frozen okay, when the sun came up. Naturally the trap was set as he could turn his ugly government-issue head bunk away before I could even uncover that frizzy green blanket and so I was to be parlayed, relayed, surveyed and displayed before a motley of bleary eyed raws and done. An example, a horribly example of slovenliness that would get some rolling hills hayseed Ohio farm boy too scared to say yessir or no sir, some Kentucky un-shoed hills and hollows (ya, I know hollas) toothless illiterate dragged from mother womb coal veins, or some jet black ebony angel New York City street corner boy caught up in the court system, some petty larceny count to his credit, and warned, judge-warned, into the service, killed for lack of speed. Yes, that go, no go thing went the wrong way, way wrong, as I sensed those phantom firing squads closing in.

At peek of light, no food in stomach, no eyes, no open eyes, and in bare tee-shirt, white government-issued and two sizes two big just then, I fall down to the earth, spitting mud-flecked red clay, spitting dust, spitting, spitting out the stars over Alabama (oops Georgia, all these southern red clays seem so very much the same, or would on further inspection) that portent no good, no earthy good. Cold, cold cold as only a day time hot winter place can be night cold.
And I do “ten.” And then that ten, or the cold red clay doing of that ten, started a mental civil war between one government-issued private soldier and one warring government. Of such incidents great wars, and great struggles against war, swarm the earth, although the latter less frequently than one would suspect. Or hope.

Then those DNA-etched righteous furies kick-assed with my brain, those old time grandmother Catholic Worker stop the goddam wars and stop them now (exactly quoting Irish “shawlie” grandma wisdom, or else) reared their pug ugly (ur-government-issued ugly) head. And that shave-headed (as if shave-headed-ness had exposed on its surface for all the world to see as if written out longhand all the quaint, if shadow, last night I had the strangest dream, stop the war madness covered up by long-haired no thoughts and no risks ancient thoughts) red clay foam-flecked private soldier dreamed of crusades and leading great crusades, and marching men back into barracks and locking doors against the killing fields. And arguing with sneer-snickering (remembering only no sir or yes sir) Ohio farm boys, Kentucky rednecks hell-bent on tunnel-rat-dom like some great cosmic chain held them together, and black as night New York City street-wise (well, half-wise)corner boys this-if this is not murder, if this is not to slay, then what is? Come and face the phantom firing squads too, come cry out to high heaven against the madness, the madness of men, and madnesses stopped by men, by little no no siring men.

The die is cast, not as usual truthfully cast, not pure warrior in the frozen ground red clay night, not massive warrior-king leading home swords turned into plowshare armies, but solitary avenging angel cast, but cast. Dreams of running away to elysian fields (or mudded Woodstock farm mires), dreams of lost love (of girls left behind and of secret betrayals), dreams of not doing this or that youth-desired thing keep rearing back and certain character flaws, certain wise guy, small town corner boy (unknown to black knight New York City corner boys all wide-eyed) know-it-all cut corners character flaws stream in the hot, humid, footsore march.
But in the end the drum beat beat his beat, and fate.

Wild dreams, senseless wild dreams follow, follow in succession, day and night. Time has no measure, no measure at all and calendars only form fear for burning red eyes. Angels rage at hell’s door to no avail. Rant, mere rant against the barb wired fix. Sweats, real human sweats, ever present sweats in small airless rooms. Rooms not picked by man, or fit. The days of rage, rage against the light, and then the glimmer of the light. Fame, maybe unearned nickel and dime fame, as poster boy for break-out soldiers crying against the high hellish anguished night and murders, murders called by their right name. Then phantom firing squads turn to dust, ashes really, and free.

Ancient dreams, dreamed-A New World A-Borning - Magical Realism 101

North Adamsville teenage hometown mucks break-out, crying to be broken out of, desperately crying to be broken out of, aided and abetted by break-out musical sensibilities where the message and the messenger were at one. And who were trying to break out of, desperately trying to break-out of the piddle paddle language and the paddle piddle beaten note formulae that had been solid gold guaranteed to thrill, thrill to the marrow, every red-blooded generation of ’68 parent. The kids, well, the kids fell asleep, fell transistor blazing asleep in the cool night dreaming of adventure car hop hostesses, james dean shadow boys, and seaside lore pillowed back seat fogged window noche siestas.

Only at that moment, just that confused and unformed moment, break-out worthy or not, maybe unformed or not, others were trail-blazing after all we were, truth, clueless as to how far that music would take us, and how many acid-etched Dixie cup magic elixirs would have to be consumed before the music died, died of old age, old age at five or ten, and hubris, queen of the downfall night. And we danced, hampton beach surf danced, high building new york city tenement danced, iowa cornfield danced, some tulsa good night two-step danced, rockymountainhigh danced, taos caverns ancient flame shadow ghost-danced, and slipped in oblivion big sur danced, and danced, and died of old age and hubris at five or ten.

That break-out by the way, maybe not so much the physical break-out as getting mentally de-rutted, you know box out get ahead, go ahead, don’t make many waves, maybe a couple of faux waves for laughs, nothing serious and not taken so, just kid’s stuff done since kids eternity, get schooled, get married, get white picket fence housed, make fewer waves, have two point three kids, make fewer waves, have them do likewise and fade into that tepid splash apologetic wave of some long ago, ancient battered to smithereens clam shell stone cold night at Adamsville beach edge. So, yes, maybe not physical far break-out but far psychic break-out from small town, really small neighborhood, irish neighborhood, and ever those don’t air your dirty linen in public grapevine tap-tapping before the larcenies, adulteries, christ, using the lord’s name in vain , and you know what and whose lord, and worst, not church-going non-scared sacred heart parish show-ups that had the “shawlies” in a stew, gone done.

Gone, strangely gone, that minute anyway gone, as well was last year’s beat, really faux-beat style- which played to the rubes (and inflamed the ”shawlies”) AND fit very nicely, very nicely indeed, with midnight Harvard Square journey haunts, but that was last year, and big cloud puff imitation james dean shadow teen angst and alienation was the style. So gone also, like I said, this minute gone, were those all-weather, all-season (ya, summer too) brown-checkered flannel shirts, those mandatory, Frankie Larkin mandatory, king hell king of the schoolboy beat, ah faux-beat night, black chinos, uncuffed, of course, and those hades-bent work boots, clodhoppers really, although not gone, gone gone, those midnight sunglasses to protect against angst, alienation and barbs.

New age aborning new look. New minute look, so be forewarned. Multi-colored schoolboy jock, okay, okay, faux-jock, jacket worn, raider red and black, black and red, some combination reflecting old time glories, or promises of glory, won by default for long running service and not for glory, not for glory but for slows, but keep that between us, plaid shirt, all the possible shades of plaid if they exist purchased in the bargain center, pre-Wal-mart night by frugal Ma but for once she hit it right, slacks, with cuffs, thank you, and loafers (sans pennies). Ya, strictly a college guy and no more mister nobody from nowhere but a guy who fit in, and he did, all the girls, all the blue-eyed, blond eight-million people weary Long Island transplants, all the dark-eyed senoritas tired of their own backwater small town grapevine whispers, all the Philly somebodies from somewhere out of a John O’Hara high society novel, were crazy to “check out” this specimen, this talk all night rap,rap irish boyo. And most importantly, most importantly for this boyos, check out or not, they were all not North Adamsville and shames, hidden desires and blunt candid-less-ness Irish girls.

New inner look too, cool, not beat cool but joe college cool, disaffected, looking off to far reaches and not suffering fools gladly cool, learned at Humphrey Bogart’s knee and perfected by some cat on a hot tin roof Paul Newman puffing madly to forget lost dreams of youth but who knew, although the newspapers were full of warning, hell we were going to live forever, cigarette, Winston or Marlboro, filtered, natch, just in case, just in case we were not going to live forever, not by mortality but by bomb boom boom in the cold war night. Yes, cool man jack cigarette, hanging from off the lip at some jagged angle, drawn deeply in and circles and smoke dreams created. More, amused girls also puffing to prove some equality, and some reflected man cool in that sexed-up, sex- maddened free time.

And get this, a cup of coffee, if coffee was the drink, black, black against all advise, black since late schoolboy Hayes-Bickford Harvard Square drowses searching for that next word, and the next break-out, literary, political, hell, even social, in hand, a glad hand either way, look right, look left, a gentle nod, a hard stare, a gentle snarl if such a thing is possible beyond the page. But mainly a look, a look of cool distain, of remove, of next please in the never-ending look game. Soon wearied of, very wearied, although not of looks, and glances.

One’s act, fitfully, artlessly but rightly was thereafter moved onto Boston fresh streets, and a little fame. Joe College minute gone, vanished like so much train smoke, and bad dreams. Dressed in blue flannel shirt, blue denim, mocassins and midnight, eternal midnight sunglasses, and dressed, ah, in freedom but no one saw that. Finally, that one minute, no not fifteen, not fifteen at all, and not necessarily of the fame game, local fame, always local fame but fame. And then the music stopped, the crowds thinned out, the hardened Long Island transplants kept looking at guys in multi-colored jackets (although not always red and black), the Philly girls turned inward to their own crowd and began to dream of stockbroker mansions and rivera suntans, and the dark-eyed senoritas only knew of one night remembrances, and lust. Then sunk in the abyss of non-fame, non- recognition and not seen snarls, gentle or otherwise. A tough life lesson learned, very tough. And not yet twenty.

Ancient dreams, dreamed-Last Chance To Glance- Magical Realism 101

Main street walked, a brand new just off the assembly line wild dream 1964 Mustang just passed by (dark green, complete with sally, sassy blonde-haired sally from down the street, with big breasts and no brains, according to shawlie grapevine lore, but still with that green devil of a mustang paid for by some smitten man out for her midnight romp of local manhood, or men-hood according to Frankie Larkin school boy corner boy lore, and he should know). Cursed no car night shade walked, no dough for car walked, no dough for nothing walked, poor Pa out of work again. Out of work as the ships that keep North Adamsville afloat are now being built in more exotic locales, foreign places like Taiwan and Malta, wherever that is, and so he, unskilled, last hired, first fired, and built for hills and hollows coalmine childhoods and no waterlogged ocean belts, has no dough to spare. Nada.

So I walked, and only dreamed of cars, not some big deal car like Sally’s Mustang or the “boss” ’57 Chevy of my dreams (nothing but a girl magnet car, and choices too, take a number, girls), and the stuff of hard corner boy chieftain Billy Bradley’s reality but just something to get around in, something to make the girls raise their heads when I pass by, and not keep them pavement-bound while I flannel-shirted in all climes, black chinos un-cuffed in all climes, Chuck Taylor sneakers in all weathers, and midnight faux- beatnik sunglasses at all hours pass them walking by (by my lonesome, except when Frankie decides he has had enough of main squeeze Joann, or corners).

And not something, some car not girl, too complicated, mechanically complicated, either so that I would have to spent my time and no dough down the street at Stewball Stu’s homegrown garage waiting on his lordship to fix some silly thing in about one second like tightening something loose with the flick of a wrench, endlessly talk about his latest conquests (plural is correct, girl conquests, of course, what else could Stu talk about, and for real, I know because they, the girls, and not dogs either, talk about it at school, and giggle, giggle that giggle that means more than tender smooches, jesus), smell his stinking whiskey breathe (rotgut Johnny Walker something but not top shelf but more live Adams River streaked water, and his oil stained, oil-stained everything (clothes, tee-shirt, kitchen table, Christ, how can a guy live like that. Some girl magnet, who knows how or why but they take numbers to ride the curve with Stu, but that is just me being jealous because a couple of times I got his “left-overs.” So thanks, Stu, for the favors.

But see Pa out of work means no telephone, and no dough to put in a telephone or keep it at the ready that is how close to the vest we have to play it when Pa gets his slip, not even a cheapjack two-party line that they, AT&T, practically give away. So this night I am not just walking, Main Street walking for the hell of it, but to rub a few dimes together and find the nearest public telephone to do my talking into. What it’s about, the talking, I will get to in a minute but let me tell you that this nearest phone is located right next to the Minute Motel. Come on, don’t you get it, that is not the real name of the place but do I have to draw you a picture? This is strictly for the “high society” crowd that does their business by the hour, or less. Day and night it seems, there are always cars pulling in and out. Not ‘57 Chevies, those and their Billy Bradley corner boy owners are down at Adamsville Beach or a t Squaw Rock down across from the far end of the beach watching the “submarine races” at midnight for free but more old guy cars. Buicks and Pontiacs. And seeing the traffic going and out of that joint, and why, what goes on, only makes my “job” for this evening that much harder.

See I have been walking this night for a while, a couple of hours, trying to get up enough courage to call this Diana, a girl classmate for a date. Diana, a greek goddess wholesale (although I don’t think she is greek or wholesale but I have her headed that way, that pedestal way), on this atlantic ocean strictly from hunger working class town means streets is who has me walking (and truth to tell kind of muttering to myself, she was that kind of girl). Naturally, Diana is not her real name just like that hotel, motel, no tell was not really called the Minute Motel, I don’t want any trouble okay, and I will tell you why as I get along with what I want to talk to her about. Don’t worry it won’t be long.

This Diana and I have been talking, hard and kind of deep talking in school about world issues, music, poets, crazed poets like mad monk Allen Ginsburg and not so crazed T.S. Eliot (we read Wasteland together in class, wow). Hard talking about the big break-out we know is coming, about how things are going to be totally different for us when our time comes with no Pa out of work and always no dough, or not enough, and we want to be part of it. (See, she told me in confidence, her Pa was on the chopping block down at the shipyards too so she knows about no dough, and sniffed dreams too.) So I take her seriously, and she, I think, takes me seriously although she never has had anything good to say about Frankie, Frankie Larkin, my corner boy, but that is because he tried to give her a tumble, I think, and she knew he was always ball and chain to Joann, or corners. That part isn’t important anyway. What is important is that I dream of her, no, I’d better say she disturbs my sleep and be closer to the truth.

And here is why. Diana, blonde, naturally blonde, Diana, fills out a cashmere-sweater nicely thank you, white tennis –shoed like every other girl in town but showing off some very nice, well-turned legs, thank you. So you can see where she might disturb my sleep because usually I go for girls who want to be part of the great breakout, just like me, but who well, since I am trying to keep my emotions in check before I make this call are only “cute,” at best. Although they too wear those white tennis shoes while reading their James Joyce or Albert Camus (ya, it’s that kind of crowd I run with over in Harvard Square when I have had my fill of North Adamsville squares, excepting Diana). See I am making this call, this midnight big time call to ask Diana to go on over to the Square with me, just as friends, see.

Right now as you can sense I bet I am only talking to stall, stall having to do this call, cold call really, because I don’t know that much about her personally and my intelligence network (Sunday night corner boy guys hanging around the boys’ lav on Monday morning speaking of conquests, and other lies) has run cold to the ground. All I really know about her is that she wants to break-out and that is good enough for me, and good enough to disturb my sleep lately until I play my hand out.

So I am seeking this public telephone, or rather courage-seeking, nickel and dime courage as it turns out; nickel and dime courage when due to no fault of my own (or Pa’s really when I thought about it) home provided no sanctuary for snuggle-eared delights. Maybe a date, maybe just a swirl at midnight drift, maybe a view of local lore submarine races, ah, to dream, no more than to dream, walking down friendly aisles, arm and arm along with myriad other arm and arm walkers on high school senior errands. Diana

I drop the dime in ring, ring, ring. Hi, Diana, hi spiel, and then, and then nothingness. No way, no way, damn intelligence no way, see she has a boyfriend, a college guy, probably all done up in plaid shirts, slacks, be serious, slack, and pennied loafers, and that is where her dream break-out was running. And then dead of night red-face right away, sorry, I didn’t know, alas, red-faced the next day, red faced until parted june freedom fly-out.

And red-faced even forty years later. Wow.

Ancient dreams, dreamed-The Slows Don’t Knows- Magical Realism 101

Sweated dust bowl nights, maybe dog day July or August, as my memory’s eye keeps returning to sweated scenes those months inevitably play their assigned sullen-producing role. After all who would, metabolism whacked out or not, temperature climes hard-wired genetically fixed or not, sweat (really perspire but we will not hang the writer on that, okay) in say January or early February in cold northern hemisphere artic winds drift. But let’s just call it sweated, hand the guy a towel or handkerchief and let him run himself silly this moonless dank night (something more was needed, something more of a handkerchief, than that old railroad man’s rusted red one found in some abandoned track siding on another sweated night, that time working his furrowed eyebrow to freedom roads, freedom roads before his time, before his generation’s on the road time, and certainly before magical mystery tour yellow brick road search for the great multi-hued America West nights time, and finding them, for a while).

The night part is easy, a little cooler time for our sweated boy, but the dust bowl part stands in need of explanation. Simple explanation really, for those who have been around a track. No, not tout track, bet your life on the next sure thing and happiness track, a running Olympic track and field track. A boyhood North Adamsville Hollis Field track which doubled as kickass practice football tract come fall. But year round a running track. Oh, I forgot, and this will tell you sometime about the damn place, five laps to a mile. Aficionados will laugh, so laugh knowing that in all the English –speaking world, at least in the 1961 English- speaking world, there are four laps to a mile. But there is more, more afterthought description. Said track was deeply rutted, summerfallwinterspring, from the lowest contract bidder surface materials scattered, generations scattered, on the pathway. And in all seasons, except the mucks, dry and dusty at the human step, and hence dust bowl. But enough of sweats, mop-moist red handkerchiefs, heavy breathe exhaustions, and dust. This was fun.

No, not the fun of innocent watching (and hoping) shaded windows for visions of irish maidens, ready with prepared notes (a spiel, okay) , frequently revised, and waiting for just that one moment that would bring forth the sweated exotic atlantic cheerleader glance nights but something else fun.

Something not endless walked about, something done, or with the promise of done, for something inside, and for the free spirit rant hammering my brain inside. At least at first after winning a couple of local races against slow (as it turned out) sullen corner boys full of mother’s corn beef, cold misbegotten cheapjack knickerbocker beer, cigarette smoke, unfiltered camels naturally, and larcenies, great and small. Strictly amateur stuff you see, done, done under coercion, truth, to keep a place in corner boy society, or else. Or else endless running, running the gauntlet, every time that corner came into view and some punk (inside I said punk, not for public disclosure even now, just in case, okay), some beef-fed, beer- bloated, cancerous- smoked felon in the making decided to impress some off-hand girl hanging off his off-hand arm (or better, sitting all dolled-up, cashmere sweater-wearing and worthy in his felon’s goods car, a ’57 Chevy maybe).

He had to laugh, laugh out loud (and it was okay since the closest houses surrounding the field, ah, the dust bowl, were not within earshot and he could have disclaimed the Gettysburg Address in high octave and no one would have heard) that his corner boy fears, and desires, had driven him to this fun. This sweated, dank, summer night fun. And to gather in a sense of worth out of it. It was laughable, really laughable. Especially (and here the night proved an ally too) the absurd notion that there would be some sense of worth in the moldy white tee- shirt, mildewy white shorts, who knows what diseased sneakers, Chuck Taylor sneakers, he was wearing. All kind of, well, as Billy Bradley, king hell king of the North Adamsville hard corner boy night and nobody, I mean nobody, disputed that title, used to say, kind of faggoty-looking, or girlish.

But there he was night after night once the weather got too hot to face the blistering hot and foot-burying sands down at daytime Adamsville Beach, daytime girls noticing his appearance too and probably thinking kind of, just like Billy king hell king thinking, yes, kind of faggoty, and knowing, marrow bone knowing, not girlish.

There he was pushing the night away and the red-faced Irish winds, harder, harder around the oval, watch tick in hand, looking, looking I guess for immortality, immortality even then.

Later, in bobby darin times or percy faith times, who knows, call it jack kennedy time if you like, but sometime before the third British invasion and before jack death, sitting, sitting high against the lion-guarded pyramid statute front door dream, common dreams, common hero dreams, all gone asunder, all gone asunder, on this curious fact, no wind, Irish or otherwise propelled him forward. No champion dusted field sweeper of all before him, maybe genetically hard-wired that way too although he always favored being poorly coached as excuse better. And hence he, dream champion on sweated July (or maybe August like I said before) dust bowl nights lived with the slows, the anaerobic slows, and was left with only desire, wet clothes and one minute good feels when he hit his practice strides. And many years later he felt that same good feeling whenever he logged more than one jogged mile. Who would have figured that one?

Ancient dreams, dreamed-The Women Question -Redux- Magical Realism 101

Lindo, lindos Spanish is the loving tongue and has been for a while now against the harsh light of English faux forked loving tongues but that is not what I mean, me a man now well-versed in pocas palabras, okay. And English forked tongues too. But then, the time I am talking about then, 1960 then, holy hell’s fool, muttering a mile a minute as if to stop would break the spell, and break any chance for, well, happiness, kiddish happiness. Muttering that mile a minute for Irish girls don’t go nears (same parish even, Sacred Heart, Christ, no double christ), don’t even think about nears (same parish or not), or half-irish nears either (heathens like me, as my very, very Irish grandfather would say, giving his sonny boy, me, a dispensation for some mother‘s fault, but of that later).

What I mean is this girl sitting next to me, this 1960 eighth- grade girl, Irish or half-Irish (Irish by surname but mix is the name of the game in golden age America, in Jacks’ America being born and to call Irish is the beginning of wisdom and eight hundred year tyrannies by bloody English forebears don’t hurt either the big question though, the dispensating grandfather high on high mass incense question is she “one of us”), sitting next to me in art class. She has to be Irish or half Irish, no question, because in the Little Dublin section of old North Adamsville everybody is one or the other, or else. But that question out of the way (and I thought of several scenarios, several genealogical scenarios to entice her to talk) she disturbs my sleep although to her I do not exist, have not existed, will not exist, ever.

And whatever glory she would go on to, or I, that would always be the case because I came last year, 1959 last year in case you forgot, from over in the Adamsville projects. Or I had not lived in North Adamsville all that long and had not started out with her at North Adamsville Junior High School (like that was a reason, but it was, such are the ways of junior high social pecking disorder learned if at no other place then at the weekly “no dance” school dance, and it smarts). Or guys who were smugly smart-assed (learned from Frankie Larkin, Peter’s brother, who, as it turned out later I found out she loathed because he would not give her a “tumble.” Or I was too catholic church damn blasphemous laughing at splashed holy water, high on high mass incense, and muttered, exhaustively muttered stations of the cross.

Or, refreshed continuing or, she preferred (as it turned out later) football guys and not half-artists, half -bookish nerds, half- mad poets, although I didn’t know it, the half-mad poet blood curse part, and definitely not some bay rum- trumped cowlick- haired be-bop stumble bum flannel-shirted (even in summer), wearing black chinos (handed down from ancient brotherhood brothers in hard family progressions because , because my friends, they were still wearable even in 1950s change your style with your mood America, daily if possible, good aged America touted golden age, America wanted to beat beatnik, faux beatnik, if the real story be told.

Beautiful, beautifuls, beatitude, beat, beat up, beat around (around the bush I guess) beautiful streets walked eternally walked searching beauty, she was not beautiful, not spanish exotic beautiful or at least not later class picture for remembrance looked beautiful but she was, she was, well, siting right there next to me, and she was, well, spunky, and alive and distantly noblesse if anyone, male or female, in our crowded little one-size-fits-all two by four town, Adamsville to name signify it, later working class to social signify it, would name the damn thing but then just project boys and proper across the tracks (right side tracks) girls fond of football players, class leader-ness, and cheerleader jumps would not do.

Disturbed sleep, yes, walked streets, yes, worn-out sneakers (or shoes, forgotten buster brown Thom McAn shoes), yes, fussed dreams yes, endlessly walked streets with head prepared notes just in case the winds passed by and we were caught on the same sidewalk. Things like that happen you know, and did happen, but I averted my eyes, crossed the street, and revised my prepared notes, just in future case. And she passed, passed like the wind, and sweet schoolgirl fragrance, or some scented soap, and no sorrow and no remembrance, and no talk at school about how we just kind of missed each other and what were you doing just then, and such of revised notes.

And without a murmur, without as much as a by your leave (quaint expression), she graduated from eighth grade (see our system was different then and eight led to ninth grade high school crushed invisibleness and misspoken dreams). And I with her. And she to football player reflected glory and me to nerdish road running, mad poet existence, stealing out in the North Adamsville night to hide, hide my flannel face, my black chinos, my eternal be-bop midnight sunglasses in early morning subway trains headed toward Harvard Square and a new day borning, and me, crazy to be there but still longing, although no longer lonely streets wandering (or revising notes either) to see if she was made of anything more than stuffed straw, and spunk.

So I, too slip-shot, too, well, just too lonely, too lonesome, too long-toothed before my time to do more than endless walks along endless atlantic streets to summon up the courage to glance, glance right at windows, non-exotic atlantic cheerleader windows. Those lonely glance streets beckoned, I swear they beckoned, even in passé corridors anonymously passed even though in a right world any god child should have been able to call on ancient school memories to nod that simple nod that men nod to each other without qualm or qualification, even in lonely Harvard Square Hayes-Bickford four in the morning beyond desire, or distracted dream night.

Later Spanish-style exotics would line up, line up if you can believe that, with no averted eyes and maybe, hopefully maybe, some exotic-tinged dreams in need of sharing but that is later and so some fluff Irish no nonsense closed streets femme, hankering for her gridiron goliath (nice, right) filled my anguished night. And I too silly to tumble, to tumble to dancing Spanish-eyed senoritas with lust in their hearts and a couple of James Joyce something books on their laps. Jesus, are you crazy.

Such is the new decade a-borning, a-borning but not for me, no jack swagger or reflected glory of jack swagger kick ass cuba , or trying to, kick ass vietnam, kick ass boom-boom soviet union, or bobby goof, sending missiles or dreams to jim crow Mississippi, as they run the table on old tricky dick or some tired imitation of him. Me, I’ll take exotics, or lindos, and grab each and every one as if my life depended on it, and it did, if they every cross my path, my lonely only path. I will sort out the other stuff the remembrance stuff, the right and wrong way stuff, and that faint, ever faint fragrance every woman, including halfback-addled irish (all irish I checked, grandpa proud checked) demons girls sitting next to me in eighth grade art class emits on passing means streets. That last one passed just now on sun-filled forsaken early morning streets will disturb my sleep this night.

Ancient dreams, dreamed-The Long Road Home-Redux- Magical Realism 101

A bridge too far, an un-arched, un-steeled (or is it un-ironed), unsparing (no question on that one), unnerved bridge too far. A divided heart metaphor, perhaps, an overused metaphor, maybe, but sometimes that dividing line, dividing lines really, represented by a childhood bridge’s span is the only way to describe what is what. And more importantly is the only way to describe physically, hero of this saga, although hero is maybe just too large a word evoking greek gods, hubris and serious testing of fates, the bicycle boy’s dilemma.

One speed bicycle boy, handed-down Schwinn diamond blue red bicycle boy with pedal foot-slammed brakes to guide against crashes, stray dogs, swerving autos making diagonal rather than right hand- cornered turns and absent-minded pedestrians carelessly crossing in designated crosswalks just when he gathered speed, one speed, pushed on toward that divided bridge and the latest version of his the point of no return test.

Wearing a Fruit of The Loom tee-shirt, white, with a trace outline of wetness showing for all the world, all the looking world, to see up under arms. Hell it is summer and humid already, maybe a dog day July or probably August, they, the days and months, all rolling together and he has made this trip before in such weathers, in fact all weathers except hard northern winter gale snow squalls. And dungarees, faded from hundred times washed hand-me-down whirlpool washing machine use of older brothers in hardscrabble no work for father, or not much work, and mother wish working her stale life away in some franchise donut shop, serving coffee and off the arm to working class customers going to and fro working spots and leaving, leaving working class-sized tips, meaning not much, not much at all. Except wish dreams, and work damns.

Dungarees, faded or not, rolled up against dog bites, no question anymore since last summer, he Schwinn bicycle boy, had actually been bitten once by a stray alert dog who came out of some foggy mist seaside house without warning and without provocation, and rolled up guarded against geared meshes of cloth and metal, but you knew that, or you knew that your mother warned you against such a fate if you left the world unrolled, oh well, ya ma dismissal, at least one hundred times.

Yak, now bicycle boy, we no longer need to identify him as Schwinn, or wearing white tee-shirts or faded dungarees bicycle boy, is up to speed, safely past dog house and moving along friendlier shore roads this riding across seaside town day to get that eternally thankful breeze blowing off Adamsville Bay. Now churning through endless tar pit heated, sweated, beads of sweat coming off the manhole cover to match, did I say match, no to trump, his own heat and underarm circle wetness, no handkerchief, damn of all days to forget a handkerchief, streets. No railroad man’s soiled sweated, stink handkerchief, red, solid red, found in some forgotten railroad track siding when he made another leap to break out of the hard-edged 1950s be-bop night and day dream of freedom, and track smoke.

Street names passing, all the parts of ships, taffrails, captains walks, quarterdecks, sextant-blasted wheelhouses, galleys, even the planks, a special place where treasure , and betrayal, fight it out for tribal loyalties or some stick, stick signifying simply youth, not stick-in-the-mudness, not yet anyway, maiden’s blushed kiss, stolen treasure worthy of more than railroad handkerchief, red, solid red, wipe. Bicycle boy laughed to himself as he rode, thinking of backlogged thoughts in sunnier (and less humid) times. And some stray blushed kiss that would not let him be, would disturb his sleep on more than one night.

Street names, all the seven seas, atlantic, pacific, indian, artic, coral, china, ah he forgot the order, not a good sign, must be the humid-numbing weather, for a boy who could make a joke, and make stick (remember stick signifying youth only) maidens unashamed of blushed kisses laugh at the thought, of knowing enough geography and knowing exactly where to find the place on the map to call himself the Prince of Lvov once. And know too that he wished to “discover” all those seas, and their names not just from maps, if only, if only he could get out of the stinking projects. The stinking born in projects from which he at one time, although not now course did believe could ever be escaped from (and he later realized that maybe, just maybe he couldn’t). And funny he had gotten out or better had moved out, or his family had with him in tow, and still he was wishing about those seas even if he had forgotten the order of the names, and half-forgotten prince lvov kisses that had turned to ashes. And he still wished about getting out of that stinking project, ya, getting the stink blown off his back from that low-rent scene.

Street names, all the fishes of the seas, tetra, halibut, cod, of course, grown and harvested just some miles, not bicycle miles but automobile miles, a few miles down the road, mackerel, holy or not, he laughed to himself at that, scrod, pickled herring, jesus, who could eat that, oil-soaked sardines, ditto, red scrupper, macko some shark, infinite sea oceans names to go with seven seas and adventures, hardly wait to get out of town adventures but just now needing, desperately needing to get back to back born places, to get some familiar ground under his feet, to take the curse off that stink that has clouded his mind, the one to match the low-tide mephitic stinks down by the shore that he was then passing. And fetid swollen river swamps and reedy mud-caked straw wind marshes breezing that life-saving sea breeze too.

Street names, all the fauna of the sea, seaweed, algae, sea salad, sea cucumbers, see sea, all mixed up, all washed rumble tumble to shore in rushing torrid, churned-up waves crashing aimlessly but relentlessly to shore. But not today, today no crashing waves to help along the slight lip sweat-forming wheels churning boy, a displaced boy(no need to speak of bicycles anymore either) except for that tepid splashed flat pancake of a wave that also heads aimlessly to the waiting shore million year stones waiting to turn to sand , to wash them clean a while. He laughed at that too, washed clean alright. Not him, never him.

Names.

Twelve-years old, almost thirteen, hard-churned boy numberless miles to go before sleep, after the bridge battle, which way home or the sea. Which way, find the hidden quest route to Chinese splendor or buried treasure beneath those stones, at least in his mind, and go back to old time haunts, and small age memories of, okay, stick maidens, blushed kisses (this time his) and “going to the plank.” Ah, memory, memory-etched memory be good (and do not disturb goodnight sleeps, for once).

Searching, ever searching for the wombic home, is there such a word, and should he say it, should he write it, or should he even think it in his sin-heavy world. Searching for the certainties (silly childhood certainties he knew, but could do nothing about except search), for the old haunts (secret mirror caves, seaside rest graveyards before those sea breeze marsh grasses , and dank cellars filled with stolen kisses, and small wave booty trinkets, but don’t tell), for the plank, for the seaside graveyards with the dusted, rotting bones of ancient mariners, tars all, who filled the seven seas with their desires, their venom, and their hubris. He knew there was such a word as that, that hubris, because he had looked it up, and had actually, personally seen it in action more than once, although the acts seen had nothing, nothing in this wicked old world, to do with greek godly things. With titanic struggles to roll rocks up hills, to right wrongs against the powerful misbegotten night, to challenge god things, and fates. He didn’t laugh at that word though, but turned red first with anger, anger that he would duck things rather churn up waves, and offend no gods. No sir.

Searching, once again for other Schwinn travel friends (de riguer Schwinn, logo-conscious), for the old friends, the old drifter, grifter, midnight shifter petty larceny friends, the heist boys, the “clip” artist boys snatching penny candy, valentine may day boxes of candy, onyx rings with diamonds in the center, five and dime trinkets, anything that fit into speak of love (not lvov), faded dungaree pockets, and didn’t bulge too much , that’s all it was, petty and maybe larceny, but it had cemented them together for “eternity,” boyhood projects eternity broken when he wrong-crossed that bridge span, and didn’t turn back.

Ya, bicycle boy this day is searching, searching hard against the named ships, hard against the named seas, hard against the named fishes, hard against the named fauna, searching see.

And searching hard too against the unnamed angst, hard against those unnamed, maybe unnamable, changes that kind of hit one sideways all at once like some mack the knife smack devilish thing and no bridge can stop that, not on this hot humid day, and maybe not ever but he would have to see about that, see about that it as it came along.

Out In The Be-Bop 1970s Night- A Slice Of Life Snapshot Of The Push For The Great 1960s Breakout

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam) performing Where Do The Children Play?


Some films, especially coming of age films of either the political or social kind, do not age well. That is the fate of the early 1970s cult classic of sorts, Harold and Maude. This was a film that some friends of mine in Cambridge would queue up for on a weekly basis, and gladly, at one particular theater that played the film and only that film for about a year. See, that was the time of the great attempted late 1960s break-out (and extending through, roughly, the mid-1970s) from the confines of bourgeois society and the tracked career path by all kinds of people and teen angst and alienated Harold (played by Bud Cort) seemed a kindred spirit. And was then. Maude (played by Ruth Gordon), needless to say, was everybody’s grandmother dream, if only compared to harsh grindstone, shoulder to the wheel, don’t’ do this or that, and by the way your hair is too long, mother reality. And if you like slightly zany (no, not weird) little old ladies in tennis sneakers. And you should.

The premise of the film certainly had appeal, teen angst, big time teen angst by the distraught Harold trying to, against his stiff middle class background and his monster mother’s well-laid plans for his future, fight for his place in the world (or in the next world in his faux fascination with death and funerals) and old age angst (happy angst, if that is not an oxymoron) by the bubbly Maude. By the end of the film old Ruth is able to bring Bud around to seeing that life, his life, is worth living, and living, warts and all, aches and pains once gingerly shrugged off and all . Well, ho hum for that premise now, now that some of us are approaching old Maude’s age.

What is false here, maybe not as false as some things we have learned along the way in this wicked old world but false nevertheless, is Maude’s aged sage wisdom. The truth, the bitter truth, is that the wisdom we acquired was not done in old age but picked up in our youth and we have been living off that, chipping away at the edges, ever since. What still holds up, and holds well, is the sound track music of Cat Stevens’ (now Yusuf Islam) great songs like Wild World and Where Do The Children Play? Wordsworth had it right- “to be young was very heaven.”
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Where Do The Children Play? Lyrics

Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam)


Well I think it's fine, building jumbo planes.
Or taking a ride on a cosmic train.
Switch on summer from a slot machine.
Yes, get what you want to if you want, 'cause you can get anything.

I know we've come a long way,
We're changing day to day,
But tell me, where do the children play?

Well you roll on roads over fresh green grass.
For your lorry loads pumping petrol gas.
And you make them long, and you make them tough.
But they just go on and on, and it seems that you can't get off.

Oh, I know we've come a long way,
We're changing day to day,
But tell me, where do the children play?

Well you've cracked the sky, scrapers fill the air.
But will you keep on building higher
'til there's no more room up there?
Will you make us laugh, will you make us cry?
Will you tell us when to live, will you tell us when to die?

I know we've come a long way,
We're changing day to day,
But tell me, where do the children play?

Ancient dreams, dreamed-Those Old Homesick Blues- Magical Realism 101

“Good luck, and don’t forget us, Peter Paul,” yelled John “Swifty” Sweeney as the last of the Markin household goods were placed in the moving van for the trip across town to their new digs in North Adamsville. “Don’t worry Swifty I’ll be back in a couple of days. No way as I going to leave my friends here in the projects. I didn’t want to move so I’ll be back just like nothing happened,” yelled Peter Paul right back. And that simple statement, kind of, for the moment at least, put Peter Paul’s, and his best friend Swifty’s world back in order.

Peter spoke the truth when he said that he didn’t want to move, move even from the projects that he had been moaning and groaning to get out of for years, once he realized that there was no cache, no respect and no percentage in being from that far down on the totem pole once he escaped to North Adamsville. The taste, taint, touch of the projects followed like some low-tide mud flat fetid clam swamp.

His parents had, in that hard-scramble both working crumby jobs 1950s “golden age” gathered enough dough together to get a midget house in North Adamsville where his mother, Delores, had grown up and where his grandparents had always lived. But when push came to shove and moving day arrived he went “on strike.” Tears streaming down his face he refused, utterly refused, to help load things up in boxes and crates and it was all that he could do to compose in his bravado “farewell” to his friend.

And so a few days later, boxes and crates settled in the house, unpacked mainly, although as always with moves it takes time to get everything new set up, Peter Paul got out his old Schwinn one-speed bicycle with the patented foot brake petal and started out across town to the projects like some stray lemming back to the sea, and back to the only life that he had known in his long twelve, almost thirteen years of life. He rode like the wind through the town hardly containing himself, his thoughts, and his energies to be back with the old tribe, the guys (mainly) who made project life at least bearable. And number one, numero uno, in that universe was Swifty (and had been for a while now that Billie Bradley, king hell king of the Adamsville projects night, junior division, had “stepped-up” to robbing gas stations with older guys and Peter Paul had backed off, backed way off from that scene)

Sure enough as Peter Paul headed up Captain’s Walk the central hang-out place there was Swifty hanging out with Bennie Bopper, a guy from school, a goof in a lot of ways but a guy to keep company with until something better turned up, AND Theresa Green, Peter Paul’s old crush flame goddess save-the-last-dance-for-me sitting very close, very, very close to Swifty. Peter Paul flushed and then yelled out, “She’s your girl now, I guess, Swifty.” And already feminine female Theresa soft-whispered back, “No sir, Peter Paul I am just keeping Swifty company, Benny’s my honey now, now that you’re gone.” Peter Paul flushed again, flushed that Theresa, who did not say word one when he told her his family was moving across town and flushed that Benny Bopper took his place. Although now that he had “new” eyes he could see where a girl like Theresa might go for Benny on the rebound. Good old Swifty, no way.

So that day, a week later, and a couple of weeks and a couple more times after that Peter Paul would show up and he and Swifty and Benny’s Theresa (with or without Benny) would cut up old torches. And on those days Peter Paul was happy, happy for the smells, sounds and sights of the old neighborhood, the old blessed projects.

Then one day a couple of months later Peter Paul mounted his trusty bike for another trip “home.” Damn that it would have to be a windy day, a windy day when he decided, not exactly knowing the best route, that if he travelled along the shoreline he would probably make good enough time and maybe cut across some of that wind. Now for those who must know the exact route this effort required going over the high-span Squaw River Bridge, the bridge that separated North Adamsville from Adamsville proper. Not a big bridge not a Brooklyn Bridge, Golden Gate concoction, far from it. But almost as if there was some mystery pull (or push, for that matter) to it that bridge seemed a bridge too far, an un-arched, un-steeled, un-spanned, un-nerved bridge too far.

See Peter knew that the die was cast that day, or at least he did when he had time to reflect on it later. Knew one- speed bicycle boy, dungarees rolled up against dog bites and geared meshes, churning through endless heated, sweated, no handkerchief streets, names, all the parts of ships, names, all the seven seas, names, all the fishes of the seas, names, all the fauna of the sea, names that the old home was past. That once twelve-years old, now thirteen, bicycle boy had hard churned miles to go before sleep, searching for the wombic home, for the old friends, the old drifter, grifter, midnight shifter petty larceny friends, that’s all it was, petty and maybe larceny, hard against the named ships, hard against the named seas, hard against the named fishes, hard against the named fauna, hard against the unnamed angst, hard against those changes that kind of hit one sideways all at once like some mack the knife smack devilish thing had to move on. End of story.