The Rules

On a bitter January evening with a hang nail moon hovering bright above the city of Boston, Ed walked passed the Church of Christian Science.  The church’s façade and dome was surreal and impressive and even at night it looked as if you might just fold it up, take it home, and later tape it to your wall. By the church that night, the long pool was empty, reflecting nothing, like a mirror in a dark room and Ed stood with hands in pockets right next to it about thirty feet away from the church.

In an alcove of the church, out in the frigid air, a heap stirred slowly. A shadow shifting weight in amorphous directions. Just as Ed noticed the shape a man in a long coat and hat appeared from round the corner and stopped in front of the alcove.

“You have to move on,” he said, “you can’t stay here.”

There was no response from the dark heap of shadows.

“You must move on.” The man said, in a slightly louder voice. “This is Private Property. You cannot sleep here.”

The shape made no sound, but shifted slightly, like a large plume of smoke hanging in still air. The cap-wearing man had an aura that shimmered in a bright red against the darkness, a thin line countered his crisp, angular shape. He took a step closer and said, “You have to move on away from here!” nearly yelling. Ed took five long strides and stopped just a few feet away from him.

“Excuse me, sir,” Ed said.

The man was startled and took a step to the side and looked at Ed suspiciously. His dark eyes caught the golden light of the lanterns illuminating the mall.

“Can’t you allow the man to pass the night on these steps?”

The official looked at the heap of shadows, then back to Ed.

“No. He can’t stay here. It’s private property.”

The man was not excited nor did he appear to glean any pleasure from his duty, but his resolve was apparent in the flatness of his voice, a flat determination. An official voice.

Ed contemplated the scene. He was well aware that this was the guy’s job, and with a job there are duties that must be performed. But this is a church of Christ, Jesus, a man who accepted everyone and preached compassion and Caritas; charity. A man who dwelled with lepers and beggars and surely did more than just sup with prostitutes. How can anyone not be welcome at the steps of a house devoted to Him?

“Is this not the house of God?” he said, “and are we not, all of us, His children?”

The official’s shoulders slumped ever so slightly. Ed watched his face. His eyes softened and went blank for an instant. His breath formed puffs of vapor that dissipated into the frigid air. He regained his composure and straightened his shoulders.

“That doesn’t matter,” he said, “he cannot stay here. I am on patrol and this is private property.” Then, he uttered the mantra of the sheep: “I don’t make the rules.”

Ed thought about saying, “Whose rules do you live by, the word of man, or the word of God?” when he noticed the heap of shadows was slowly moving away against the pale stone wall like an ink stain spreading across paper. The official let out another sigh and shrugged his shoulders. Ed walked away down the dark and empty plaza. He stopped at the Korean Store on the corner of Mass Ave and Hemenway. He bought a 40oz and sat on a bench in the Fenway watching the Boston skyline twinkle like jewels.

Gravity

Somewhere between Hemlock Road and Rathbone Street, it smelled like porridge. Ed pedaled his borrowed 14 year old bicycle slowly, steadily, scanning the trees that lined the road and trying to see through the desolation that permeated every beat up car, and smoke-belching bus and run-down house in his view.

He noticed the pot-hole in the street just in time, a spew of scratched stones and pebbles lay around it. He missed it by inches and the little stones jumped up from his back tire and fell to the ground behind him. Ed was wearing gloves with no tips, an old woolen blue cap on his head, his long corduroy jacket (the one his hilarious sister says is ‘puke green,’) and his dead buddy Richard’s old faithful brown boots keeping him warm in the wind and cold of this late February gray.

He turned up the steep hill that was River St. recalling when he was a child, and how his friend Danny’s dad would drive down the same steep street and look over his shoulder at the kids in the backseat, take his hands up and off the wheel and say, “You guys! The brakes don’t work…they don’t work!” He’d stomp on the floor over and over, staring back with frightened eyes, his hands gripping the wheel… “No brakes, No brakes!” he’d yell as they careened down the hill with the kids screaming as the street below and the big brick factory building came up closer and closer. Ed was breathing hard when he got to the top of the hill and looked back remembering the days of innocent bliss.

He cruised past a dilapidated city park with its rusted and peeling 20 year old playground. The jungle gym, old metal slide, dry grass and weeds with bare limbed trees; an 8 foot section of chain link fence bent and broken from some drunken escapade.

He turned in at a house that was like all the others, a tenement, with 3 floors, or stories, and most likely many, many tales to tell. It had aluminum siding and a narrow driveway with a strip of dried grass and gravel in between the strips of cracked concrete. This neighborhood was a home for immigrants. It once was Irish, Italian and Polish, and now it was mostly Mexican, Laotian, Dominican and Haitian.

In the back of the house there was an old rusted out Buick up on blocks with no doors or tires. Ed leaned the bike out of sight against a tall wooden fence on the other side of the house. The back door, as always, was open, the lock busted. He took the stairs two at a time up to the third floor. He knocked on the door twice. He knocked again a little harder, this time with three quick wraps. On the third one the door opened and a short, unshaven and weary looking dude wearing a white tank top, boxers and red and blue argyle socks looked up at him.

“Don’t you know how to use a fuckin phone?’ he said.

Ed smiled. “C’mon Tommy. Why call you when I know you never leave this fuckin place.”

Ed walked past him as he closed the door. Tommy slid two locks into place and turned a deadbolt.

“It was open, anyway.” Tommy said, “that bitch Marnie forgot to lock it.”

 “Yeah, well, I don’t want to walk in here all nonchalant and have you freak out and take a shot at me.”

Tommy went to the sink and poured a glass of water.

“What time is it?” he said.

“Around 4, I think. Sun’s going down. Not that there was much sun today. You get out?”

“Nah. I had a late one with Marnie. A late one that became a fuckin early one as in the bitch didn’t leave until noon. Which I guess makes it a late one. Whatever. She’s taking years off my life.” Ed knew it was more than a woman taking years off this guy’s life.

He walked into a big double living room with clothes and crap all over on the chairs, the couch, the coffee table, the love seat, and the floor. A big fish tank full of water but with no fish gurgled by a window. There was a tall Fichus tree in a corner with a bunch of sad looking spider plants on little tables and below the window sills. A guitar with only three strings leaned against a wall.

“Well,” Ed said, “you shoulda had Marnie cleanup a bit in between ripping your head off.”

“What?” Tommy said, from the other room.

“Nothin.” Ed said, and threw a dirty button down dress shirt and some socks off the love seat and sat down.

Tommy came in scratching his balls.

“What’d you say?”

“Nothing, man, forget it. You got it?”

“Yeah, yeah…give me a second to orient myself. I think I was sleeping when you knocked. And by the way, you kinda freaked me with that quick loud fuckin knockin, dude. Sounded like a cop.”

“A little paranoid, bro?” Ed said.  “Next time I will just walk in. Make sure you got the safety on that piece of yours. If you even know where it is.”

Tommy looked at him, smirking.

“Man…c’mon.” He reached underneath the fish tank and pulled out a Gloc .45 caliber pistol, black and mean looking. He ran a hand through his greasy hair and held it out in front of Ed.

“See? The safety’s on. And it is loaded. I know what I’m doin, bro. If you been doin what I been doin for this long, then you’d understand. But you’re too busy writing poems and shit.”

“It’s honest man, can’t call it work, but it keeps me from becoming an old ball scratching Al Bundy like yourself.”

Tommy put the gun back under the tank and looked at Ed with a yellow tooth grin on his unshaven face.

“I like you, Ed. You’re fucking funny even without tryin.’

“You’re easy material to work with brother.”

Tommy laughed and went into the bedroom and after a few minutes came out.

“This what you looking for?” he said, and threw a little baggie at Ed, who caught it with his left hand.

“This looks like my cousin. My dear old faithful fuckin cousin. You know what his name is?”

Tommy sat on the clothes on the couch across from Ed.

“What?”

 “Charlie. Charlie Blow. Not related to Kurtis but even more entertaining.”

“Did you make that up, or what?” Tommy said. He leaned over and grabbed a pack of cigarettes from the floor.

“What you got to cut this up on?”

“How about my big white ass.” Tommy said, and got up with a sigh and walked into the bedroom. He came out holding a small mirror with a razor blade flat on the scratched surface and a quarter piece of a red and white straw. Ed took it.

“Thank you, my good man, you are good for something.”

Tommy lit a red and looked out the window.

“Man, the day is gone, like that. Not that I had anything to do.” The sun appeared beneath the grey overhanging clouds like a golden egg yoke dripping over the tenements across the park.

Ed untied the little piece of plastic wrap and gently shook it so two little white rocks came out on the mirror. He tied it back up and put the baggie in his jacket pocket. He pressed the flat wide side of the razor on the little blocks that crumbled easily.

“How is this?” he said, not looking up, slowly using the sharp edge of the razor to break up the remaining clumps.

“Sweetest shit you’ll find in Providence, bro.”

“Good. Cause in this town a man needs something to keep him from slitting his wrists.”

“Why you got this beef with providence, man, you’re from here.”

“That’s exactly why.” Ed said.

“So why the fuck are you here?’ Tommy said, blowing a big blast of smoke.

Ed looked at him, three neat lines like white scars on the mirror.

“Why am I here?” he said, and leaned over and pulled a line up through the straw into his nose. The cocaine did what it does and saturated his brain with that artificial, euphoric sensation that you know is way too good to be true and obviously can’t be good for you.

“I'm only here until I can figure a way to get the fuck out of here. That’s how it always is for me.”

“Did you think about what we talked about a few days ago? About taking that trip to Vermont?”

“Yeah…I’m still thinking about it.”

“Its easy money, bro. A couple-a-thou for a couple hours work.”

“I know, I know. I gotta try and borrow a car…I’m still thinking about it.”

Ed was not too sure about it. Transporting dope to people he didn’t know was not really his thing. He rarely did anything but smoke herb and drink anyway. He had met Tommy a year ago at a catering gig, and off and on he would pick up something from Tommy or hang with him after work, shooting stick and getting ripped. 

“Here you go bro,” Ed said, handing the mirror to Tommy with great care.

He bent down and did a line, then held it up. Ed got up and took it.

“Well you got until tomorrow to decide,” Tommy said. “Marnie might do it.”

Ed snorted another line feeling that perversely wonderful wild rush.

“You’re right man,” he said, wiping his nose, “this is pretty good shit.”

“I told you. I don’t know a lot about a lot, but I do know a lot about a little, man.”

“You’re a fuckin philosopher.”

“I know. My wisdom, and that shit,” he said, jutting out his chin, “sure as hell ain’t free. It’s 50, and that’s friend prices.”

“Is ones OK?” he said.

“Fuck off, asshole.”

Ed cut up another few lines and blew one, then handed the mirror back to Tommy.

He pulled a crumpled bill from his pocket and tossed it on the coffee table. Ed stared at the table cluttered with two full ashtrays, an herb pipe, newspapers and receipts and an open bag of potato chips. It looked like a painting.

Ten minutes later Ed coasted down the street past the beat up playground, where no children played, to River St. As gravity gripped him and the old bike he took his hands off the handle bars and went careening down the hill, memories rushing to greet him, in the back seat again, hurtling towards oblivion.

Sacrifices

“Hey Ed,” she said, standing near the sink in the small kitchen of the house perched on the hill right next to Narragansett Bay. “Can you hand me a rack for these water glasses?” Ellen was the “party leader,” although she didn’t know much about catering, but she was a good enough sort to not have it matter much. Ed put the empty green rack on the counter top and went back to drying the silverware.

The party was ostensibly over and the two other girls working the event were leaning against the counters in blue aprons chatting about their little ones and pleasantly bitching about the work they had to do, how much stuff they had to load into the truck, and who was working where, and when was the next party?

The few remaining guests were reclining in the living room by a fire.

A tall gentleman with a big mop of white hair came into the open-kitchen looking for red wine. Instead of doing the sensible thing and avoiding the whole situation, and partly due to his ingrained sense of hospitality, whether he was working or at home (this is when he had ‘a home’) Ed did the courteous thing and offered him a bottle from the host’s wine rack.

“I’m sure they wouldn’t mind,” Ed said.

“Well, they shouldn’t mind,” The white haired man said, “they’re rich enough.” Thanks for telling me something I didn’t know, buddy, Ed thought.

Ed selected a bottle he didn’t recognize, sensing from the label and the name that it was not the premium grape. Perfect for this guy.

“Let me take a look here,” the man said, and examined the label on the bottle.

He removed glasses from the breast pocket of his pink button down shirt.

“Never heard of it,” he said, and handed it to Ed.

Ed twisted the short blade of the wine key in a circle around the tip of the bottle slicing through the thin black plastic.

“I never knew how to do that,” he said, “I usually rip it off with my fingers.”

“It’s easy,” Ed said.

The cork came out of the bottle without a sound. Ed twisted it from the screw and lay it on the counter top, with the bottom of the cork up in the air, the classy way, the way he had been doing at various restaurant jobs for years.

“Mr. Martin,” Ed said, without knowing why, “I’m sure you don’t remember me, but I used to work at the Dunes Club.”

“Oh, really?” he said. “Forgive me for not recognizing you.”

“Oh no sir, I didn’t imagine you would. It was over ten years ago.”

Ellen and the girls hovered around the periphery observing the two men.

“Well,” he said, with a chuckle, “was I nice to you?”

“Sir, you were inexpressibly kind and courteous every single night.” Ed said, which was, of course, a complete lie, and the guy knew it. Years ago Ed worked as a busboy at the exclusive private club. One night a Hurricane was fast approaching. This man was eating dinner with his overly-medicated-under-weight-wife, 20 years his junior, and even as the windows were being boarded up and everyone everywhere was scurrying to batten down the hatches and evacuate the place, Mr. Martin refused to leave until he finished his dinner. Incredible, Ed mused, yet not incredibly unusual for the Old Money crowd.

Mr. Martin glanced at the girls leaning on the counter with their arms folded across their chests.  There was the slightest pause, a miniscule instant of awkward tension, a silence illuminating the two men’s different “classes” and roles: the gentleman, a guest at the party, Ed, a servant, working the party. He, a man of wealth and power and status, Ed, opening bottles of wine for idiots like him for a living.

Mr. Martin smiled weakly, and Ed was surprised he didn’t retort with something clever and witty, some Ivy League bullshit.

Instead, Mr. Martin smiled, a thin-lipped grin, that was almost one of concession. Ed handed him one of the upturned wine-globes drying on a towel on the counter and poured the cheap wine in.

The girls resumed bustling around with Tupperware containers and conducting all the necessary business to wind up one of those parties. Ed stared into the guy’s long blue blood face and waited. It was obvious the man wanted to talk.

He took a sip of the wine.

“What are you doing with yourself now, young man?” he said.

“This,” Ed replied, holding up the bottle. Mr. Martin leaned his big long red face to one side, almost into his shoulder, like a long necked bird.

“I mean, what else are you doing?”

“I’m a writer.” Ed said. It was the truth, and also an irritating response, because at times like this, it was a pure qualifier, something that people, most people and most people like this guy especially require in order to proceed in a conversation. A memory from Oxford flashed through Ed’s mind: Ed had just returned on one of his many post-student visits and was at a party of artists and scholars. People asked him, innocently, what he did for a living, and he answered, just as honestly, “Nothing. I live to live.” This answer was hard for most to swallow but one young lady found Ed compelling and he spent two weeks on her houseboat on the Cherwell River needing no definitions or qualifiers whatsoever.

“Oh yes, really?” Mr. Martin said, “A writer? What are you writing?”

Ed didn’t even hesitate, as he usually did, when faced with that most difficult of questions. Writing was his life not his livelihood, and to describe it was truly beyond him at this point in his life.

“I’m writing an amalgam of autobiographical travel stories that are impressions which incorporate philosophical observations and spiritual ruminations that express my own subjective human experience.”

“Hmm…” Mr. Martin said, his lips pressed together, little spots of red wine collected on either end, a perplexed look on his Yankee face.

“I am writing a novel,” he said.

“Oh yeah? Cool.” Ed said, he didn’t care. These were the guys that ruled the world. He had problems with them. Yes, them. The Elites, the Right Wingers who care more about the bottom line than the millions subsisting beneath the poverty line. Ed often wondered if this type of guy is this really the best America has to offer? Selfish, materialistic, greedy business guys who sold their souls? Shit, Ed had been on his way to becoming one of them. Get rich! That’s the American Dream, right? Focus all your energy on climbing that ladder to success, no matter that the rungs are made of real people, flesh and bone. In the meantime neglecting the magic and mystery of a creatively lived life because you’ve got to get more shit you don’t need? This was not for Ed. He didn’t know what he wanted but he knew what he didn’t and that is a good place to start even though this goes against conventional wisdom.

So this guy in his spare time is writing a novel, Ed thought, who gives a fuck? But then, all of a sudden, the animosity disappeared, and Ed’s haphazardly cultivated blend of Buddhist and Christian compassion unconsciously asserted itself. What’s the point? Ed thought. This guy will know the earth beetles someday just like the rest of us.

So Ed obliged him. “Do you have a writing schedule?” he asked.

The man said he gets up at 6 am and writes for two hours. It’s hard for him, he said. Of course its hard, Ed thought. Writing, like farming, seems romantic until you actually do it.

“How old are you?” Mr. Martin said.

“Twenty-seven.”

“Are you prepared to make sacrifices in order to further your writing?”

Ed stared into the side of his face, cause not once did the man look him in the eye, and

picked up the bottle from the counter.

“Do you think I’m doing this for fun?” he said.

Mr. Martin looked around blankly. That was it, the rapport was over. They both said “good luck” at the same time and shook hands.

“I hope to see you again,” the man said, staring at something truly beyond Ed. Ed poured him some more wine and handed him the bottle. Yeah right, he thought, maybe in hell; his secular humanist’s love and compassion vanishing as quickly as it appeared.

The girls were already packing the crates into the mini van parked outside. Ed picked up a heavy bin full of empty plates, sterno burners, cutting boards and left over food bound for the dumpster. “Ellen,” he said, “does this go in your car?” He lugged a few more heavy things out and said goodbye to the girls and got in his car. He drove up route 2 to 95 and back to Providence to his little garret on Fox Point with two choice bottles left over from the party in his knapsack on the passenger seat.

Le Premier Jardin

It was the first week in April in Northern Michigan and large swaths of snow still covered parts of the field, especially near the steep bank that led up to Swede Road. In its shadow the snow was still nearly a foot deep, but most of the acreage was clear, with the variety of grasses, weeds, alfalfa and other invasives lying flat along the slowing softening earth. Yet those resilient plants were already sending new roots down and in no time the field would once again be a field, full of thigh high alfalfa, Kentucky blue grass, Timothy and vetch; then later in the spring the menagerie of flowers would erupt in their Monet musical symmetry of colors and perfumes.

Ed Slattery sat up on the hill and looked east to Bass Lake feeling that new, yet familiar, sensation of simply being outside after an arduous winter. Just one month before he was standing on snowshoes right in the middle of the lake, the water frozen solid and over a foot thick. Coyote tracks as erratic as his thoughts shooting every which way through the deep snow. The lake always seemed prehistoric, old, and untouched, as it was, generally, with only a handful of houses surrounding it, and very rarely was there anyone out there, in winter or in summer. In the warm months you might find the occasional fisherman in a Jon boat with a quiet trolling motor trying to bag a large mouth or some perch or bluegill. And usually there was just Old Julius Kolarik’s ice shanty squatting there for most of the long winter. 

Ed sat on the cold hard ground looking at the lovely deep blue water surrounded by giant cedars. He recalled the wonderfully liberating feeling of pushing his canoe from the spongy bank, hopping in the vessel as it coasted silently on the still water.

“Old Grandfather Turtle,” Ed said, “are you awake yet?” This past summer Ed took his canoe out many times. The lake was almost a half mile from the road and he stashed the 17 foot vessel in the Tolkien cedar swamp where strange creatures made even stranger noises. Ed loved to be on the water and watch the menagerie of wildlife existing in their peculiar existential bliss: tribes of mergansers with their punk rock hair-do’s, the multitude of fish flitting below the surface, pike, bass, an occasional trout, each one a piece of solid muscle and determination with a tiny dinosaur brain guiding it with eons of instincts and memories. Sometimes at twilight Ed would lie back in the canoe and listen for the loon, that solitary creature whose plaintive and haunting call besmirched the poor bird’s name forever. The bald eagle was his spirit animal, appearing overhead in its silent grace at so many random times, synchronizing exactly with Ed’s many Satoris.

One morning just after dawn, Ed paddled out slowly over the lily pads and water lilies towards the old beaver damn when he struck something hard. It was a large snapping turtle, its grey gnarled shell about two and a half feet long and over one foot wide. It didn’t move, it was just there, like a rock that has been in the same place for a thousand years. Ed circled around for a better look but of course Old Grandfather had descended to the safety of the mucky lake bottom.  Ed took a deep diaphragmatic breath, got up, reached his arms above his head and exhaled slowly lowering his torso down to touch his toes. He did a few jumping jacks and high kicks and walked down the hill to the piece of land he designated the site for his first garden.

Le Premier Jardin. He had brought some tools and pink twine and a bunch of green bamboo stakes. He grabbed a few and paced out 10 feet by 15 placing the stakes at each corner of the rectangle. A good size for a first garden. He had two shovels and a rake. Hi-tech. He didn’t care. He wanted to do it this way. The old way, the original way. Plus he didn’t have a Roto-tiller. The land had not been touched by plow or tractor in over thirty years. The field had last been used as a pasture for his grandfather’s cattle. Ed remembered coming to the farm in the summers for a week or two with his family and seeing the huge bovines, wide eyed, curious, skittish and relentlessly hungry. The cows were exotic stuff for a city kid born and bred in Providence where the only wildlife were pigeons and black rats, along with the multitude of two-legged monsters you had to be on the lookout for. The cows would mob up to the electric fence where Ed and his brother would feed them hay. His brother Dennis’ mop of blond hair looked appealing one time, and ol’ bessie took a chunk right off his head causing Ed to laugh ridiculously.

Ed cut into it the earth with a long handled shovel, its wood cracked and blade rusty. He took it along with some other tools from the woodshed of the farm. With each thrust into the earth, he listened to the pleasant sound of the blade piercing the warming earth. Ed planted his heel on it and pushed it in, leaned the handle back to loosen the ground. He worked slowly, getting a feel for it, moving along the edges of his staked out rectangle. The soil was dark and rich and flecked with bits of white and organisms and worms just waking up. Ed had consulted his Rodale to learn how to prepare a garden bed. It needed to be turned over, weeded, fertilized with good organic chicken dung and later planted with all sort of wonderful seeds and starters: spinach, beets, kale, potatoes, broccoli, cabbage, onions, hot peppers, green beans and heirloom tomatoes and whatever else. The day before Ed was a kid in a candy store talking with the friendly guy at McGough’s Feed and Seed, picking out different varieties and discussing gardening methods. It was a whole new area of interest for Ed, and he did not miss the irony of him choosing to garden now, while as a child he was famous for avoiding any “yard work” to the dismay of his father.

The sun was brilliant and still seemed very distant, with the cool April air flushing through the woods and pastures blown in from Lake Michigan. Ed quickly built up a sweat and stopped to catch his breath. He looked around and up in the sky a red tailed hawk flew over head and called out. Ed watched it as it circled and let out a high pitched call. The sound was so ethereal and strange, yet deeply familiar. How much ingrained memory dwells in us from years and eons past. Genetic memory, spiritual memory. Listening to the hawk’s call gave Ed a similar sensation to what felt while swimming in the lake. In the water he felt at home, normal and natural, and free. It was as if a new part of him opened, a part of him that had been around forever, but rarely tapped. His human consciousness was silenced while the instincts of body, breath and soul fused together immersed in the mother blue.

The hawk circled two more times, let out one more magical scream and disappeared to the north. Ed kept going around the edges of the garden, loosening clods of earth. After making an outer edge he did the same on the inner edge. The cut grass ran deep, sometimes running down a foot, and made it very hard to loosen the earth. Ed got on his knees and pulled one clump up and shook it hard with both hands, dirt flying everywhere, until he held only the scraggly roots of the cut crass and the top layer of green. He tossed it to the edge of the field. A pitchfork would be nice, he thought, got to get one. Surrounded by fields and the hardwoods to the north, Bass Lake and the cedar swamp to the east, Ed knew without feeling, felt without actually knowing, that he was truly home.

A car went by and Ed looked up and raised his arm in a wave. It was the only car to pass by in an hour. Ed continued loosening the earth with his shovel and then shaking out each clod to keep the good humus laden soil where it belonged. The scent of it brought other strangely familiar sensations. Kneeling in the earth, the mother, the Gaia, Ed began to grow new roots, shooting down and digging in. He experienced a new feeling of doing productive work, work that was for a real and tangible goal, not just to pay bills or buy the latest gadget. Pure physical work that was for survival and sustenance.

A few hours later decided to call it quits. His lower back was sore and his arms and shoulders as well. The sun was lowering in the west over the big hill and the damned cherry orchards that never should have been planted, and the cool breeze was picking up and whipping through the trees and the dry weeds already rising like Lazarus from the earth. Ed ate a handful of snow from the bank near the road and grabbed his tools and the few bamboo stakes and walked back up the hill to his ’76 Mercedes. He loaded them in the trunk and took a beer out of the small cooler that held a six pack of Molson Golden nestled in ice. He cracked it and sat on the hood looking over at the lake and then down the hill to the beginnings of his new garden. The outer half of the rectangle was chocolate brown earth, while the remaining middle was a patch of grass and weeds waiting to be dug up the next day. His hands were caked with dirt. The earth was now a part of him. He felt it. The scent of fragrant humus, the pleasant ache in his muscles, and the slaking of a thirst with cold beer suffused Ed’s manic brain with a rare calm and quiet. The aching rush and slow soughing of the large bare limbs of the sugar maples and beech and oak swaying high in the breeze behind him. Ed looked over his shoulder at the farmhouse that was once his grandparents, and just beyond it to the large blood red barn looking like it was built a thousand years before, just when Grandfather Turtle was born. Ed scanned the acreage and down over the hill past the wild apple orchard and the cedar swamp to the stippling waters of Bass Lake. It was his dream to one day have a small cottage on the slope, to bring food from the soil, have animals and a woman and children to surround him and nourish him, like the land and the sky above. He drained his beer and popped another, got in the car and fired up the diesel. He took off down the road coasting in neutral with the engine sputtering and shaking and the sun sending its residual golden afternoon light from behind the hunchbacked hills.

A Waste

Ed put Knut Hamsun’s book Hunger in his bag and got up from the bench in Kennedy Plaza and walked a few blocks down Westminster St. In front of the big Baptist Church, its spire pointing higher than most mortals dare to dream, a man was lying on the pavement next to a wooden bench. Ed crossed the street and walked over him. The man was bleeding from his head and a pool of dark blood formed a dread halo around his dome. The man moaned and turned on his side, struggling to get up. Two guys stood a few feet away.

“What happened?” Ed said.

“He fell off the bench.” One guy said.

“Man is he fucked up.” The other guy said.

“I told him to get home. But he didn’t want to go.” The first guy said.

“How far would he get anyway? Look at him.” The other guy said.

The bell in the church tower rang, a doleful, strange tolling at a time like this. The man on the ground, like a beetle trapped on its back, struggled to get up. He lifted his head just inches from the brick pavement. Thick blood oozed down his face and hung there, dripping from a few strands of hair.

Ed crouched down next to him.

“Ok, man,” he said, “stay lying down. You’re head is badly wounded.”

The man opened his eyes revealing two black orbs. What did he see? What could he see through the obscurity of pain and drunkenness and whatever else he might be on? He opened his mouth and made a horrific noise. It was a primal sound, a sound of extreme exertion. But this man’s Will was drunk and asleep in a corner in his soul, Ed thought. There were scratches and blood on his arms, and a bluish bruise above his right temple. The pool of dark red spread out slowly forming an abstract shape. The man lost all strength and his head hit the bricks hard. He closed his eyes and his nostrils were filled with a yellow mucus that made breathing difficult.

“Did somebody call the paramedics?” Ed said. The two guys stood there like monkeys. They shrugged as if on cue.

In the span of a few minutes a few hundred people have walked by, it being Providence and Providence being a city and it being lunch hour on a weekday. Crouched next to the fallen man Ed did not notice the blatant stares of the passersby, their expressions of fascination and fear, and the quick automatic, inner denial that city dwellers must exercise to be able to exist amongst such daily suffering and pain.

A woman stopped and crouched down next to Ed and started to speak to the injured man.

“I’m a nurse,” she said, and getting no response, she looked at Ed.

“How long has he been like this?”

“I just got here a minute ago,” Ed said. The nurse looked up at the two monkeys.

“How long has he been like this?” she said. The one guy says, “Man, I dunno, 5 minutes; he’s been on the bottle and he fell off the top of the bench.” He pointed to the bench proudly. She looked at the man on the ground. He sensed her, but could not see her and he reached out a thin arm in desperation.

“You cannot touch me,” she said, in a firm authoritative tone. “You must stay lying down. You are seriously hurt.” The man somehow managed to grab her wrist. She struggled to get out of his grip as his eyes opened suddenly and he lifted his head a few inches off the ground and let out another primal scream. Ed saw the tendons bulging in his neck and spit sliding out of his mouth and down his cheek. “You cannot touch me!” The nurse said loudly, and twisted out of his grip as his head fell to the brick pavement and its pillow of blood.

An ambulance pulled up and two EMT’s got out slowly. The nurse stood up and looked at the man with a strange expression of pity and resignation. She is a nurse, Ed thought. She deals with this kind of tragedy every day. She walked away without a word, probably already late to work, disappearing into the unceasing crowd.

There was a small group now gathered around the man. Nothing attracts people more than the red and blue flashing lights, urban colors of tragedy and misery, what people love best to watch.

One EMT walked towards the man putting rubber gloves on his hands.

“Oh, it’s him.” He said, over his shoulder. “What the fuck. Hey, Jerome, it’s this guy again.”

The two monkeys were still standing there, where else did they have to go?

“I told him to go home.” The one guy said.

“He’s always getting too fucked up.” The other guy said.

The man on the ground woke up again. He struggled with his arms, waving them around feebly and he again raised his wounded head from the bricks. Spit is stuck to his lips, blood is dripping from his head, and mucus and snot are running out of his nose. He opened his mouth and instead of a scream out came only a weak and raspy whimper that dissolves instantly into raspy breathing, silence and air. 

The EMT’s unload the stretcher.

“What a fuckin waste.” The first EMT said.

“Yeah, you’re right.” The other EMT said, “a fucking waste of our time.”

Ed watched as they lifted the man’s wracked form onto the stretcher.  His arms strained as they strapped him down but his strength was nearly gone. The crowd broke up. “Show’s over, assholes!” Ed felt like yelling. He looked at the odd shaped pool of dark blood on the brick pavement. The ambulance pulled away from the curb with lights still flashing. Ed saw an ant crawling towards the pool of blood. It stopped at the edge with its little antennae twitching, turned around quickly and hurried away.

Crescent Lake

 Ed wore the Stop and Shop freezer jacket that Cleve had given him before he left Rhode Island and headed back West. It was heavy and he knew it, not one mile into the hike. He could have left it hanging from a tree or a rock near the trail but he didn’t think of it. Mind muddy on such a clear sunny day. Mairead led the way up the steep trail that got steeper at each turn. It was a narrow path and layered with loose stones and surrounded on both sides by the prehistoric-like foliage found everywhere in the Olympic Mountains. They started out briskly and Ed was glad to be out, away from the city, and away from the horrific past two months spent in RI, grieving over his lost brother-in-law and best friend, trying to help his sister survive and make sense of a tragic, sudden death of which no sense can readily be made.

Mairead was flushed and ecstatic as usual. She had a water bottle, a bag of trail mix and not much else. Ed just carried his mortal coil and the heavy residue of confusion that lingers after a stupefying disappearance of someone you knew and loved. He followed her up through the massive majestic trees. It was an old growth forest. Ed could feel the years and the strength of those beautiful trees, all around them rising like giants into a blue sky with polka dot clouds. They came upon a large tree had fallen across the path and the park service people had cut the piece of it that obstructed the path. Ed looked down the thick trunk that stretched out down the mountain. He looked up and saw an almost equally large piece stuck to the side of the mountain. He imagined the force of the wind that was needed to uproot it and he laid his hand on the rough bark, closed his eyes and took a few deep Ugai breaths.

They carried on, and up, crossing little waterfalls and up further following the switchbacks. The higher they went the more switch backs there were. It was steep and hard going. Ed was breathing heavy and his thigh muscles were burning. The sun was high in the sky and right above them, though most of the trail was shaded by the green wispy arms of the mammoth pines and maples, and the spots of sun that broke the canopy dappled the trail like gold coins. Ed took the lead and started taking the steep parts in a run. It was exhilarating and immediately erased all thoughts from his mind. How great it is that pure physical exertion can completely dissolve any thoughts from the brain. After a while Ed reached a clearing with patches of snow covering parts of it. He sat on a stone and waited for Mairead. She had climbed the peak three weeks previous and had invited him out to her cabin to spend and savor a few days of Wild Bliss.

“What’s this with the snow?” Ed said, as she emerged from the trial and crouched down next to him sipping from the bottle.

“Whatcha mean? It’s a mountain.”

They walked across the clearing and there was a break in the trees with a clear view of Vancouver Sound and Victoria Island far in the distance. They ate some trail mix and rested a bit then Mairead stood up.

 “Time to get goin, I think,” she said, “We’ve got a ways to go.”

As they climbed higher the trail was covered with more and more snow. There were some tracks in it already, which made it both easier and more difficult. Ed tried placing his boots in the foot prints, but that took away the natural necessary rhythm in his step. He tried clomping straight on ignoring them, but he invariably slipped into one of the indentations. The air was cold and became colder the higher they hiked and the trees thinned out and the switchbacks were even more frequent than down below. They reached a ridge and walked along the narrow path with the mountain dropping steeply off.  The trail was very narrow and the drop was 2000 feet through interspersed trees and Mammoth sized boulders. Ed didn’t look down and focused on his steps, the feel of his foot as it touched the ground. He found he could feel if it was a good hold or not, better than trying to see. They walked on the ridge awhile in the thin shadows of the highest pines that ran along the spine of the mountain. They emerged after some time through the bush and onto a rocky outcropping. The wind was blowing in great gusts from Canada and Ed thought of that Joni Mitchell song, then realized the line was “The winds blew in from Africa, last night I couldn’t sleep...”

Down below was Crescent Lake, flat and blue and long curving into the shape that gave it its name. The sun was shining brightly as they sat on the pebbly ground and took in the view. Ed could hear the logging trucks rumbling below and barely see them down along the road that contoured the lake. They ate some more of the mix and drank from the canteen. Ed got up and stretched. He and Mairead were the kind of friends who didn’t need to chatter all the time, close enough to just be together, in nature together, without talking to fill the empty space. They went on the hike the for the magical experience that is the Mother Gaia. To be there, to be, to open their pores to all that the ancient, undeveloped earth has to offer. Ed’s legs felt good and sore and the air was so clean and fresh he gulped it into his lungs. He walked along the ridge to some large rocks that jutted out over the steep drop. Ed climbed out onto one and lay on it peering down over the edge. They were very, very high, and soon to get higher, but the surrounding mountains were green from the base up to the summits where most of them wore wizards caps of snow. They formed a ring around the lake and reminded Ed of Valdez, Alaska, and his errant mushroom-trip-hike up The Goat Trail, getting stranded in the thick brush, looking at mountains just like these, a brown bear somewhere nearby snuffling for him.

Mairead called to him and he climbed back carefully to the ridge where she was seated. She offered Ed a small green glass pipe. He took it and sat down next to her.

“Do you have fire, my dear?” he asked.

“Whatcha think? I brought all the essentials.” She handed him the lighter and smiled. It took a few attempts to light the bowl in the wind, but it sparked and Ed took a long pull and handed it back to Mairead. Good Northwest Kind Bud: home grown and good for you. He exhaled and watched the smoke as it was grabbed instantly in the grip of the furious wind and carried away to the other side of the earth.

Mairead’s eyes were watery and red.

“Do you want to see the lookout tower?” she said.

“Sure.”

They walked further down the ridge into the trees again and after a few minutes they stood on a precipice looking at a small sturdy wooden cabin built on top of a huge rock. It wasn’t actually a tower, but it was an old forest-fire look-out station. The kind made famous by Kerouac and Snyder and many other look-outs you never heard of who alerted people about big time fires in years past. They went in it and through the windows they could see in all directions. Mairead pointed to a gnarly, leafless tree perched on a huge rock.

“That’s the tree in the picture.” She said.

Earlier that day, back in Seattle, she had shown Ed a picture of three bikes hanging form a tree that was up on her refrigerator.

“That’s the tree?” he said, “did they ride up this fucking mountain, on their bikes?” Mairead grinned.

“They rode down it too, of course.” she said.

“Crazy Motherfuckers. That’s fucking incredible.”

Her bike messenger buddies a few weeks before had come up and done their thing and Mairead got the photographic evidence.

The wind was strong and cold on the unsheltered precipice and came blowing in from the Pacific Ocean. Ed climbed the tree and sat there and looked out over the water that was golden and bright beneath distant gray mountains contemplating British Columbia and wondering if one day he would make it up there.

He hopped down and Mairead leaned against the structure and looked at her watch.

“Probably time to start heading down,” she said.

They walked along the ridge through the trees and out to the clearing and took a last look then started down the trail. Things were, as they are wont to get, a little different. Ed was well stoned, completely present and simultaneously elevated onto another semi weird, yet purely natural plane of consciousness. The steep drop appeared steeper and the narrow trail seemed a bit thinner than on the way up. Remember gravity, Ed thought, then he realized that gravity would surely not forget him. He felt a mixed sense of fear and calm, exhilaration and utter peace. He knew he could walk down the trail and he would not fall so he started skipping and taking long leaps. Mairead was behind him and he worried about her for a second, then realized that worrying wouldn’t help her at all. It is true that worry is a negative prayer.

Ed made it to the clearing where they had stopped earlier to rest in a very short time. He was breathing hard and walked around the puddles and clumps of snow and in the mud staring up at the trees. Ed stretched out, did some jumping jacks and looked out again to the north and distant Canada that felt so close he just might be able to reach out and grab it. Mairead followed soon after and they started down again. It took them exactly half the time to descend as it did to go up. When the trail leveled off and Ed started to recognize trees, he looked back and laughed, feeling a great release, a great comfort. Mairead caught up with him and they stepped on the dirt road that led back to the cabin. A little robin hopped in front of them, called out, looking right at them. The little bird guided them the entire way, keeping about 10 paces in front of them, stopping occasionally and looking back at them as if to say “Are you guys coming, are you coming?”

Back at the cabin they sat on the deck and the sun had already gone down behind the mountains yet produced a golden glow that spread across the sky. They drank a few Fat Tires and smoked another victory bowl. Ed imagined the city of Seattle with its lights and wheels and smoke and noise. Looking out across the placid lake he saw a shape, an eagle, barely visible, circling in slow gyres far out across the water above the trees. Ed watched the grey swirling clouds and the golden light deepening in color by the moment. 

Mairead came out on the deck and fired up the grill.

“Do you want steak or brats or both?” she said, smiling.

Extend a Hand

“I would like to one day see snow,” he said, standing where he always stands, on the side of the one sandy road that runs through the center of the only town on Caye Caulker, an island 18 miles off the coast of Belize.

Ed first met him as he was passing by, a tourist in a town full of tourists, not full of really, but made up of many various travelers-slash-vacationers looking for water, sun, and a mellow good time on the Caribbean Sea.

He was not a large man, but possessed the presence of a peaceful giant. He wore a black tank top, a grey knit cap on his head, filled with hidden dreadlocks, a gray curly grandpa’s beard on his chin. His skin was very dark, and his eyes, the same, and yellow, and they never seemed to blink. He wore brown leather sandals and tan pants rolled up at his calves. Ed walked past and noticed he held a file in his hand and on a small table beside him was a beautifully carved wooden shark.

In a town that is supported by tourists, white tourists, a town where most residents are of African descent, or from some part of central America, there exists a simmering tension, a racial tension, a tension that Ed, being aware and concerned about such things, may have noticed to an extreme degree; but it exists nonetheless there on Caye Caulker and many other locations where wealthy foreigners mingle with, and are sometimes the life blood of, poor locals. For two days Ed had been dealing with this, as he wandered around Belize with the intention of going to Guatemala and studying Spanish, leaving his half-finished book in a basement in his brother Dennis’ house in Providence. Ed felt the anger in the eyes from the hoods on the street crouching on the curbs. Their eyes spoke more than any diatribe could, eyes that projected an almost hereditary hate, and resentment. And sometimes from a restaurateur, or a shopkeeper, or a woman selling hand made jewelry up by the bar at the end of the island, Ed would get a blast of this hostile energy. Again, Ed was in-tune to these vibrations, and may have been better off to be ignorant to them as most people choose to be who go to a foreign country and snap pictures of cute black babies and beat-up fishing boats and palm trees.

One can sense a deeply sullen, reluctant tolerance, accepting the presence of the white tourist as a necessity for survival, but definitely not usually interested in or eager to engage in anything personal or any interaction beyond the simple transaction of goods and services. The skin of a person means so much, and racism and racial skepticism is prevalent every where you go on this planet. Ed understood it, of course, but refused to accept it. If you wound a person, any person, they will bleed the same color blood. The earth beetles devour every one no matter what shade of skin.

That day Ed was ambling down the sandy street, digging the slow and easy Caribe pace, actually recognizing that his walk had become slower, without places to go, on an island without cars, and in a part of the world where the heat and isolation have made people take things a little easier, mon. The man nods to Ed and nods back, nearly passing him by, when he is hit the realization he wants to meet this man, to know his fellow man, to reach out and transcend those very real barriers that exist between people. Ed walks over to him and says, “How are you?”

“Good, mon.” he says, in a deep baritone voice. Then, looking down at the shark that is his livelihood, he says, “You like that, mon? I can make anything you want.” Ed looks closer at the carved shark and sees it is not yet finished. Wood shavings are on the table and below on the sandy floor.

“Yeah?” Ed says, “This is excellent work.” He picks up the shark. It is exquisitely done. An exact proportionate wooden carving of that amazing aquatic beast. The wood is dark brown with strains of a lighter, tan color. He found out later it comes from the Ziracote tree. The shark stood on the point of its two fins and the lower point of its tail. The dorsal fin and tale are sharp, and the slight curve of its body is sublime and captured the exact shape of a shark in motion.

“This is incredible” Ed says, as the man looks on silently.

Ed puts it down and reaches out his hand, “I’m Ed.”

The man takes his hand, and they shake in one of the many versions of the global human hand shake, slapping the palm together, thumbs up, and then easing into the traditional white western clasp where the hands are horizontal.

“I’m Rolan, mon.” he says, and brings his hand in a fist to his heart, “Respect, mon, respect.”

He exudes a peace and a calm, his eyes are steady, deep and dark and unblinking. He was probably around 50 years old, but fit and emanating a vibrant vitality that stems from more than physical strength.

“How did you learn to do this?” Ed says.

“I was a fishermon, for nearly terty years. I always live on the sea anyway, so I know the creatures very well.”

“You are from here?” Ed says.

“Yes, mon, me whole life.”

“It is very beautiful here, and peaceful.”

“Yes mon. Jah Blessings, mon.”

“Where I come from right now, it is very cold, and snowing.”

Rolan nods his head and looks at the sandy ground.

“I would like to one day see snow,” he says.

Ed feels good to be standing beneath the blazing sun, speaking with this peaceful, gentle and wise man, in the warm Caribbean air, with people passing by, tourists in shorts and hats and shades, little local children playing, and stray dogs strutting around shitting or trying to hump each other.

“I got many otta t’ings, over d’ere, mon” he says, motioning behind him to a larger table, that was in a sort of little store, just in the front of a restaurant called Rasta Pasta.

“Oh yeah?” Ed says, not really interested in those things, but more in speaking with him. He walks over and into the shop. In the restaurant he sees a man holding a toddler high above his head. The child is laughing and the man is smiling. On a table there are other wooden carvings, a duck, a fish, a pelican, its wings spread as if drying in the wind, and other necklaces and bracelets and things made out shells and stones.

Ed comes out and walks over to Rolan. He is standing still, the metal file in his hand.

“That’s really great work.” Ed says, and he nods. “It was good to meet you, I’m gonna wander on down now.”

“Yes, mon.” he says, and they shake hands again in the same manner.

“Respect, mon, respect,” Rolan says.

Ed walks on down the sandy road, his nerves a bit jumpy, just as pleased to have met Rolan as he is slightly troubled by the obvious dynamic that exists between tourists and locals. He thinks how ideally it would be great to simply meet the man and have no consideration of buy this or buy that. But he knows everyone needs to make a living, and is satisfied with having a more personal interaction with a man who Ed knew was deep and soulful and a natural born artist.

Walking down the sandy road, thinking, and slowly discovering, as he would more and more during his stay on the island and in other parts of Belize, that he did not particularly enjoy being in the tourist, or in any category. He turned down a little lane off the sandy road that lead to the beach, and seeing the green water stretch out and wide under a line of 4 or 5 palm trees, leaning out over the water, as if they were reaching for the sea, Ed is relieved of these analytical and self conscious thoughts. A pelican coasts by with wings straight out and its beak a sword pointing down at the sea. He drops into the blue water appearing instantly and tilting his large beak back, a fish thrown up in the air, and swiftly swallowed by a bird that doesn’t miss.

Moral Currency

It was after midnight and Ed lay on his bed reading Sarum, a monster of a novel that spans 1000 years of history of Salisbury Plain and Stonehenge and was definitely not on any class syllabus. A half eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich was on the bed, and a tall glass of Penthouse Ice Tea on the floor. There was a knock at the door and he got up, opened it and his friend Perry stood there in only a pair of orange and white polka dot boxers.

“Hey Ed,” he whispered, “can I come in for a second?’

“Of course, come in.”

Ed closed the door and sat down on the edge of the bed. Perry sat on the desk near the window and put his feet on the old wooden chair. Ed’s room was small, only about 6 feet wide and ten feet long. Standard size for a prison cell, hospital room or a dorm room, of which it was the latter. A closet and a little white sink completed the accommodations. Perry lived four doors down the hall in his own miniscule room in the Freshman Dorm they had sarcastically dubbed, “The Center of the Universe.”

Perry hunched over with his elbows on his knees with his forehead resting in his open hand.

“What’s going on, man?” Ed said.

“Oh bro,” Perry said, not looking up. “I’ve got a situation down the hall…”

His long blond hair fell over his Roman face.

“C’mon, what the hell’s going on, man?” Ed said, taking the last bite of his sandwich.

“Well, you know that girl Shirley I met in Western Civ? Um… I took her up to Thayer St. and we got a bite to eat and now she’s over and you know…”

Ed burst out laughing.

“Are you kidding me?” he said, leaning back on the bed. “You’ve known her for what, a week?”

 “I know, man” Perry said, “She is not messing around…”

“Obviously.” Ed said. “Can I ask you something? Why the fuck are you in here with me right now?”

Perry grinned, a little shy.

“Well, she’s getting into it, and me too, but…I don’t know, I’m not sure, plus, I don’t got anything…I don’t got any…protection.”

Perry brushed his long blond locks from his face and looked at Ed who was already smiling. He laughed again.

“You have got to be shittin me.” Ed said. “Why didn’t you just come out and say it. Love is love, even for a night, right? Look behind you, man, right behind you there, in the stein.”

Perry turned around. “What..?” he said.

“Right there in the stein, you see it? The gold thing.” Ed said, getting up, “I’ll get it.”

He reached over Perry’s shoulder and took something out of a glass beer stein half filled with coins.

“Here you go, my man.” He said, handing the small object to Perry, “and that’s not Christmas chocolate neither.”

Perry took it in his hand and looked at what appeared to be a gold coin the size of one of the old silver dollars.

“That’s what you’re looking for, right?” Ed said, sitting back down on the bed.

Perry stared at the strange object.

“If that’s not what you’re looking for, my man, you may be in need of some serious help.”

Perry sat there staring at the “gold coin.” He was a moral person, 18 years old and no prude. Perry valued sex as an act of love, even though this was most unusual for young men his age. He was one of those rare ones, a person who could get any girl he desired, and who had plenty of attention, solicited sometimes, but mostly not. His exotic Italian looks, his brains and a tender singing voice is what the girls loved about him. But he was a true romantic, longing for spiritual as well as physical intimacy with a woman.

“C’mon, Ed.” He said. “I’m just not sure. But she’s in there man and she sure is ready. It’s crazy. We were only in there for a few minutes before she had her hands down my pants.” Perry smiled. “She is one live wire.”

“Like a lot of the others around here,” Ed said, “that’s what the Catholics do to these girls. Make them repress the most natural impulse, force it deep down in a cave of denial, so when they’re out of the nest it all comes bubbling up. You lucky bastard.”

“C’mon, man. I won’t disagree with you,” Perry said, “but I’m not sure about this. I mean I don’t even know her yet. It might be a little fast.”

Ed thought for a moment. He was no Casanova and not a womanizer by any means, and he was also raised in the Catholic Church. But long before he started his first semester he had already begun to see the hypocrisy and futility in many of the Church’s rules. Being at a Catholic College further exposed the inanity of the purported values force fed by the religion. This was obvious to Ed by the way the students around him were getting flat out hammered and the girls and guys were hooking up like crazy. He considered if this was one of those times, and if this girl Shirley was coming out of her repressed-shell. He wondered if it even mattered. It’s got to happen sometime. Might as well be with a good guy like Perry.

“Well.” He said, “you’ve gotta decide if its time or not,” he said. “You, and her, I guess. But it seems to me she’s already decided. I, as your friend and colleague in life, support the use of that gold coin to the utmost, either now or later. So keep it, I got more.”

Perry sat on the desk staring down at the cold coin, his blond hair tucked behind both ears.

“But let me tell you one thing,’ Ed said, “and I’m serious man.” Perry looked at him.

“You won’t even feel that motherfucker it is so goddamn thin!’ Ed laughed, and Perry smiled.

“Where’d you get this, anyway?” he said.

“Aha, you’ll never know my friend.” Ed said, “I got a bag of tricks and kicks you don’t even know about, bro.”

 “You sure do,” Perry said, “of that I have no doubt.” He got off the desk and walked towards the door.

“Thanks, man.” he said.

Ed opened the door.

“No problem. Anytime.” he said, “Oh, by the way, I like those trunks: Hot.”

They shook hands and hugged. Perry tiptoed down the hallway like the elf he was and stopped in front of his door. He held up the cold coin, winked, and disappeared into his room.

Ed closed the door and sat on the edge of the bed. He took a sip of the Penthouse Ice Tea that was already warm. Funny shit, he thought. Then he suddenly felt quite alone. He looked around his room. The faucet in the little white sink dripped silently on a yellow rust mark that had been at the drain for years. Ed finished off the tea and put the glass back on the floor, lay down and opened up the book.

“That lucky son of a bitch,” he muttered. “Lucky bastard.” He said, a little louder, and began to read.

Carpe Noctem

It was some time after 2 AM and they lay stuck together in the hot space of the bottom bunk in a crowded room in a youth hostel in Amsterdam.

“I wish we had some privacy,” Jelena whispered. Ed, being always awake and committed to the sanctity of impulse and unrestricted desire, also inspired by a stiff prick, her warm breasts and the wetness of her mouth, suggested they go get a hotel room. Life is short, right?

“Don’t worry, I’ll pay,” he said. She didn’t need him to repeat it. They got up and quietly gathered their bags and packs in the middle of the dark, stale sweaty room with 14 people snoring and sleeping and dreaming a reality.

They tumbled down the stairs into the 24 hour bar and Jelena told the plump matron in French that they’d be back in a couple of days. Would she mind storing their bags? The old portly lady smiled over her coffee and paper and said OK. They put them behind the bar and back near the kitchen in a spare room.

“Au revoir, ma cherie.” The matron said, as they flew open the door into the cool, damp night air.

They caught a cab and Ed asked the cabby to drive into the city centre. They cruised the streets of Amsterdam passing figures clothed in shadows, beneath bumblebee lanterns, over vaulted bridges passing old churches and the occasional modern building. There were many people out strolling and rolling in the cold wet wee hours of a random weekday in April. Jelena leaned her head on Ed’s shoulder and he held her fair hair in his fingers, staring at the lights on the water, the lights on the street flashing by, intoxicated by the sweet spontaneity and exhilaration of acting according to the promptings of his own true heart.

On one narrow street, with tall gabled buildings side to side, Ed spied a hotel; there were no guidebooks or maps this trip. He asked the silent cabby to stop. Jelena paid him the fare and they gathered their gear and sauntered into the lobby. Ed was immediately shocked by the grand marble and well-lit cleanliness of the place. There was one there more shocked than he. A man with an alabaster face and teeth made of brass stood stiffly behind the marble countertop in a pressed grey suit. He saw them, held the pose, like an actor at the end of a performance, holding the moment, stretching it, looking down at the two voyageurs with insolent curiosity. They sauntered up and Ed leaned his old corduroy elbow on the marble and asked him the price of a room.

It was far higher than he was, willing to pay, but with a momentary reaffirmation of his reckless determination to live freely and spend carelessly, he began filling out the form. Half way down, pondering what address a man can put down when he has no permanent home, it occurred to him that he might be able to easily find a cheaper spot for them to get hot and have some fun. Jelena stood by him, a practical woman, observing all this silently, a tired little monster, with blond hair mussed and tangled, leather jacket crumpled, her hand on hip. She tossed him a look that said, “Let’s get outta here.”

Ed looks at the man with the countenance of stone. “Sir, this is a lovely hotel,” he said in a very affected British accent, “but I think we’ll try somewhere else. Sorry, cheers.” The man looked down over his long disdainful lip with his blank ball baring eyes as Ed and Jelena spun like in a waltz grabbing their gear and out the door. On the street, who is fortuitously leaning on the hood of a cab smoking a fag? The same cabby. He grinned, said nothing, their late-night chauffeur, and put the bags back into the boot. This time Ed politely asked him if he’s knows a more affordable spot.

“I think I know the place for you and your friend,” he said.

He takes them back across the main bridge to The Hotel Ibis, a tall high rise that was just a few blocks from the hostel. The price of the room was just barely half of the alabaster suite. Ed scribbles Perry’s Oxford address on the form, figuring that will do. They rode up the lift feeling that effortlessly smooth and serendipitous flow that happens sometimes when you are on the road. There is a splendid view from between the curtains of the old church and plaza, and the canal below rippled with golden ribbons of lantern light. Ed rolls an index finger sized spliff and watched Jelena as she gazed out at the scene. This girl from Bosnia, a student of philosophy, whom he knew back in Boston many years before, and only on two occasions, once at a restaurant and the next up on her rooftop in Jamaica Plain fucking beneath a harvest moon. But it was Now that meant everything to both of them. Ed slides up behind her, kisses her neck, inhaling the sweet scent of traveling, the blended aromas of trains, busses, roadsides, the scent of wet wool, tobacco, sweat, coffee, leather, hope, and adventure, the strong smell of long weary roads and magic meetings.

The sky is slightly brightening in the east. Ed closes the curtains, curls his arm around her waist and guides her to the king size bed.