Big Blow, off Maui

(12/2001)

It was dark and there was water in the streets and no lights on alongside of the road, and the trees were blown down everywhere. I had heard once we got off the plane at the Maui airport, heard tell, a storm was coming, it evidently had come—although not completely stretched out nor in its full bud. So I grabbed my wife’s hand and got into the escorted tourist van. And we were headed for our hotel within minutes; it was off the Western Harbor. The streets and everything was full of water, gutters filled to the rim, and cars splashing water as they drove by us— tossing water every-which-way, and just everywhere was water and the wind was picking up gradually—more and more to who knows when it would reach its zenith. A moon was scarcely seen overhead with dark faded clouds around it, some through it, and plenty of rough weather seemed to be brewing all around us.

When we got to the hotel all the lights were out, no street lights no any kind of lights but car headlights and very few of them, and the wind was still picking up, “Man,” I said to Rosa, “this is some storm fermenting.” Like a hurricane in the makings.

It was just as dark as an empty barrel with a lid on top of it—; anyhow we couldn’t even recognize our hotel when we came ahead of it, the driver had to shine his headlights on the sign out near the street on the green area, and point to it, and when we got out, he was gone like a flying fish.

As we walked to the back of the hotel, where there was kind of a plaza area with a pool in the middle of it, trees and all types of greenery were blowing in the wind, along with water from the sea and branches from the nearby hotels. And a few trees, bulky tall trees, by the pool were ripped out of the ground, roots and all; some birds lay dead here and there in the grass, a few pelicans, all kinds of birds evidently they were trying to escape the torrent winds and surge of flying water, some I saw being blown from out of the sky—like twisting kit out of control, back and forth to kingdom-come, a shrill and eerie night indeed. You had to look every-which-way, lest you get slapped with something, someplace on your body, and the vibrating thunder run through your body like ramparts being rapidly opened and closed—pounded against some granite, I could feel this heavy impulse from my heart to my throat.

Apparently, most everyone had gone inside one or the other parts of the doubled sectioned hotel we were at, the lower bottom floor of the first section was the one serving hot meals in a cafeteria style restaurant, Rosa and I were hungry, deliriously hungry. The other part that was opened was next to the restaurant, where the hotel desk was; where a clerk remained on duty—by candle light, to check people in or otherwise.

We talked to the hotel clerk, got our keys to our rooms, and we went and put our luggage in it, but there were no lights. And it now was raining hard—there was a grim unrelenting blackness starting to seep into the sky covering earth like a cloak, a sinister and ominous darkness seeping out from the sea; we then walked back out into the plaza area, I started to look out towards the sea, and to where they were serving the hot food, on the other side of the pool, glancing back and forth, one side to the other: sea to café, the sea and then the cafe, thinking: should we go eat or run back to our rooms, eat or run back to our rooms?

“Let’s see what they got left to eat,” I told Rosa “we ought to eat something before morning,” we had flown directly from Minnesota, to San Francisco, and then onward to Maui, with very little to eat, my hunger was overtaking my mind, perhaps even to the point of overlooking safety measures.

We were quite a ways on the other side, across from the plaza, to where the café was, and we ran, getting slapped with the wet and sometimes thick watery air, heavy blows of water from the sea being carried by the winds striking us all over our soaked bodies, as if being bombarded with shapeless ghouls (the hotel having been only a hundred yards from the beach).

When we got to the café, the floor was under an inch of water, somehow they produced some artificial lighting from overhanging gas lanterns. “We haven’t had a storm like this in a decade,” said some voice serving food behind a long row of tables, to a guest in front of me. The food looked like it was mostly picked over—under incandescent light fixtures, perhaps electrified by some generator. And the sign read “$25.00!” And under the sign was a note that read “No exceptions,” meaning I would guess: Take it or Leave it! Meaning, it would cost you $25.00-dollars apiece, skimpy as it was; and where the nearest café was other than this one—only God knew, so we took it. It was a rip-off, but we had no choice, starve or pull out fifty-bucks.

There we were standing up with our trays and dishes of food, bits and pieces of leftovers—so it appeared to me, looking out a glass window at the tall trees swaying, to and fro, looking as if they were going to be ripped out of the ground any minute, and a few smaller ones were already ripped up and out from its roots, laying here and there, around the pool. We looked about, there was no place to sit down, and so we continued to eat standing up. Another peeve I couldn’t do much about.

“If this storm would just take a break until we get settled in,” I commented to Rosa. She remained silent, there was really no response needed it was more a statement than a question.

As we finished our food and walked outside, I could see the tops of the trees rocking as if they were floating ships out at sea. And you could hear the hard twisting winds; whistling and clashing like titans at war—it was all deafening to your ears, branches breaking. I hung onto Rosa as if onto a little dinghy—took a couple of deep breaths then we ran like cabooses attached to a train, across the plaza to our hotel, and once through the doorway, to our room.

I could see Rosa’s hair was tied down somehow—towards the back of her head, tightly; I had to carry my hat in hand. She was right up close to me when we ran into our apartment building; the hallway was dark, drenched. We went up one flight of stairs, and once in our apartment, I had to let go of Rosa, and I heard a great thump, looked out the window, thought a wall from a building had cracked or crashed, or something had gotten wrecked, but it was a large, very large towering tree that had been ripped in two, struck by lightening I guess, and had fallen by the pool, and then I noticed lighting and thunder and there was no longer a moon to be seen—and now an eldritch dark mist had filled all the light spaces the hotel had once emanated.

My head felt tired, my neck stiff and then I rested on the bed, fully clothed, in case I had to get up quick, for whatever reason, but I fell to sleep quicker than a rabbit can jump over a fence, or dash under a fence, after a short tossing and turning and thinking. It wasn’t any good staying up anyhow and just worrying about something you can do nothing about (the hotel staff was not going to vacate the hotel, and told us to simply lock ourselves in our rooms and outwait the storm).

As I initially laid there, I started drifting off into some dream sleep, as the wind was hammering against the window, I had shut the curtains in case the glass broke: the rains lashed out like whips, clear and sharp against the windows, and sand was being tossed about, I could hear the stones inside the sand hitting the building we were in.

This evening had been like witnessing a storm blowing right out of hell—and it was stubborn like a donkey, yes indeed, a donkey from hell; Maui per se, had lost control, and the storm took charge. You couldn’t get out of the hotel—had you wanted to, until morning anyhow, and where would you go anyway. But it came out all right, in the morning, Maui was as if it had a simple nightmare, and had taken a sedative, and woke up sunshine-smiling.

No: 419/ 6-22-2009 (reedited, 8-22-2009; reedited a second time: 2-4-2012)

Dedicated to my sidekick, Rosa

Shadows Lights in Salt Lake City

(A chick Evens Story, 1969)

The moon was now up. The lighted sidewalk was behind her, a police officer of Salt Lake City was sitting in his car, he was watching the chopping shadows off her legs like leafless branches and finally, though not for long, and once out of the brightness of the arc lights along the street to a nearby grocery store, finally out of the moon’s light too, though not for long because he turned on his high beams headlights from his car, and so saved the distance between him and the store, which had no lights, giving her a new glow.

Now he could see a shaded down-glow of this figure, young lady, herself, as she walked—not so much hurryingly—but rather being swift along on the still-unescorted sidewalk, un-puzzled and (most of all, though he could not figure out way she was walking all alone not in haste, un-puzzled), his intuition was to stop her, avoid, evade potential harm (or was it something else: perhaps authority, perhaps the Old or New Testaments, something to do with them, or the Holy Mormon Book—who’s to say?)—then violate that prohibition, she dare violate that prohibition, those outsiders always do, that desert banning, that late and dark hour embargo for women folk; whatever, he was not going to allow that Midwestern city’s rendering—of: do as you please, attitude, it was different here. He would send her back to her hotel, or motel, wherever her beginnings were, retiring her to the sitting room at that domicile, before something happened, things happened to women walking alone after the moon was now up, even in a Godly city as, Salt Lake City; and this displeased him, it displeased the whole City, of Salt Lake City, perhaps the whole state of Utah—she didn’t evidently understand the police officer figured: it was not 1959, it was 1969.

Opening his door, then shutting the door behind him with a powerful slam, bang, jerk, he frightened the young lady—more so than the dark sidewalk—the lady was Chick Evens’ sister-in-law, whom he and his brother were at the motel waiting her arrival or return: Carol had gone for some items for her family, her husband and two kids (Sheryl and Sharla, two girls). But the police officer, didn’t want any woman or child to touch even the knob on a door, turn that knob nonetheless, open it, and leave the domicile from which they were inside of, without a male escort, so he told her in so many words, this was Salt Lake City, rules, if not simple gobbledygook—who’s to say, she didn’t have the by-laws of the city at hand, nor did he I’m sure.

And so she, Carol, thought: I am not eight years old. She didn’t say this of course, she thought this. And she also thought: had I been born a man, he would not have paid any attention even to the light posts, or the rising moon; he wouldn’t even have been here at this corner, all just because she was a woman alone.

Later on that evening both Chick Evens—the brother-in-law, and Carol’s husband, Chick’s brother, both were astonished at the happening, since back in Minnesota they had lived opposite such discourteous rules—they couldn’t anticipate how the police officer could enforce such a policy to a grown up, in a free country, called the United States of America, this was not Russia or China, or North Korea, or even Mexico, the neighbor.

He stood there watching Carol turnabout and head back to the motel, holding steady his half-awake eyes, trotting back step by step with her to the motel doors, up one step, down one step, closed door. And then into her room where her husband was, sat shirtsleeves from the heat, eyes tired, not at first even looking up, expecting the groceries, not the Biblical or Mormon phrase book quoted to him, she said, “What can I do, with this city, it has its own rules?”

#886 (3-16-2012)..

For Carol

Las Ciruelas

(A story out of Lima, Peru, March, 2012)

Las Ciruelas Street, being blind to the houses on the other side of the church, a squared neighborhood with a small park and the church in front of the white house, the house Chick Evens lived at, owned and lived in, was a quiet street except at certain hours and days, when the old lady from the apartment building next door brought out her seven dogs—to relieve themselves on the park’s grass—the park was next to the church, in which they chased and barked and become simply a nuisance to anything or anybody or creature within ten feet of them; or the bicycle man on the corner of his street, kitty-corner from his white house, was giving exercises lessons to a horde of neighborhood children in the park across the street from his house; or when someone had a wedding at the church, and a big ceremony was involved, or when a few blocks away the disco noises converged in a single night upon them, a sensation, numbness they all felt, fought in the courts, it being a three-story nightclub, its proprietors, old mayors retired from public service, or kicked out because of swindling the public and buying such elaborate businesses as these such nightclubs, and uncaring of the prayers and praises of the neighborhood church and its people, playing their music so loud, too loud for even the preacher to talk, of course this was detached from the lives within the houses of the street—Las Ciruelas, and for the most part they were not conscious of it and most of the time nearly imperturbable—but the nightclub was testy nonetheless, and an annoyance on the residence. As was the fish café behind the nightclub, that occasionally made noise, a business that was unlicensed, but nonetheless, overlooked by the municipality—and unsanctioned by the populist of Las Ciruelas Street and its surrounding church members.

The former tenant of the church, a priest where hung an air-mustiness in its beginnings—some ten-years earlier, a two room enclosure, Father P. Pedro Taschler K., had died in 2007, at the ripe old age of eighty-one. He had built his church into a grand place of worship to be sure. A well loved priest, man of the cloth, and during his last days, he was fearful of dying—why?

What innumerable follies could he have had that would bring on this fear: came to the mind of Mr. Evens, in his sleeping thoughts, awakening thoughts, thoughts he wished to annihilate, tedious intervening thoughts. At one point his image came between Evens and his readings, and cast an enchantment over him. He prayed it was not some surprised and hopeless fear he might have. The Priest’s face always had a godly sternness to it, for his belief, faith, so Evens had always imagined, could he be wrong? “I hoped he was not beginning to idle, or I.” Evens garbled.

As he was at the place for old folks, Evens visited him some on those last days, and months.

On one hand, he knew death was the best incitement to live, surely the Priest knew this too. And he knew, perhaps knew—that it was possible, but he didn’t believe it possible—that it was probable someone, somewhere in the far past might have wanted a solution to death, knowing time was his master, perhaps a king, why not? And he went to his wise men, this king, and asked for a remedy against death. Knowing tightly in his hands he held death—that it was nearing and he wanted the power over death: that being, life after the grave, don’t we all. So what would these wise men have done to appease the king? What would Evens have done to appease the king, having to come up with a remedy for death: when death was the grave, period?

Leaning his forehead against the cool glass of his bedroom window, looking over at the park, onto the entrance of the church, the dark entrance where the priest had walked in, and through a thousand times. “Yes,” he said: ‘the wise men would have told the king, what I would have told the king, at that time told the king, had I not believed in anything—or been an agnostic: that his soul will exist, be transformed after the grave, into the city of gods.’

“Alias!” the wise men had found the solution for the king, and saved their lives, yes, it could have been that way: I wonder if he, the priest had taken that into consideration those last days and months?

But the wise men must have known, had the sun kissed the earth, all that man had fought for, all the wisdom in the world, likened to all the stars in the heavens, earth would some day have perished, and someday the stars will have perished, and perhaps give birth to new ones, nothing lasts forever. But he didn’t tell the king that, and the king didn’t ask for that. And so he built himself a grand pyramid, one that would live forever, until that fatal kiss anyhow—just in case his wise men were lying to him.

As for Mr. Evens, ‘Be that as it may,’ he said, ‘providence has outlived chance, which to me is a cause that is imperceptible—lest I am to believe atoms can fly through space any-which-way, causing by chance the creation of life here and there and everywhere, and that is too far fetched (too hard to get a hold of) for my mind.

#887 (3-16-2012) jj

The Great Tower at Kura

The Great Tower at Kura

[4^th Millennium of Kura]

(Of the Planet Kura)

At the start of the 4^th Millennium B.C. [350-years before the Great Flood took place on Earth, on Planet Kura (which is located in the Dark Galaxy between Planet SSARG and Planet Toso, perhaps a little closer to Planet SSARG, at which time, prior to the invasion of the aliens, the so called super race, the planet was called Lihmain, changed by the Kuraine race, or the Empire of Kura), a civilization was being created out of the mud and dust of a Great Seabed, called the Sinister Sea] civilization was giving rise to a land called Slaug [a region of land, or territory], and the island empire called Citanala ruled the whole planet of tribal city-states, of which the city of Kura was the Capital, only subject to an global court, by Citanala, and its ruling body, whom were, a super race from some other galaxy.

There were no laws against moral actions at this time for civilization on Kura, or as one might declare, unmoral actions—all were relative. Economies were often—which was the norm—often, or often than not based on slavery for its labor and other desirable services. There was no discrimination, all were equal in the minds of the slave owners, masters—better-sweet you might say—slaves being: brown, white, black, yellow, red skin, it favored no one, and savagely dealt with each and everyone the same, as if to say, human life was a commodity at best, to the planet’s total, and complete sum, all combined tribal city-states.

death was simply a recycling of that commodity, to be found in most every corner of the world, often times ground into fertilizer or oil for the machines on the island Acropolis Citanala; consequently, free labor in a tribal city-states were of an immense value, which never existed before the Kuranits appeared.

In a way, this super acropolis government, gave organized the people of Kura, and gave them a tinge of democracy A mysterious people, a powerful and ingenious people, a subgroup from a higher order that no one dared to defy—who were they? Should you not yield to this alien power, it was without question, death. The Slaugs, from this region of the Sinister Sea, the sea that no longer existed, but was a sea at one time, had more slaves than any city-state on the planet. It was their Pompeii of sorts.

The original Kura people, from some unknown planet in the Universe, used what they called ‘Sacred Geometry.’

To stress this point, the Citanalalits, those who ruled Citanala, if they were aware of any religious dissenters [nonconformist] they were killed, butchered alive in front of citizens, I did say democracy was in this land but these were the rules of that kind of democracy, although open were the boarders to debauchery, and that is what the people wanted; buried alive in front of whoever wished to watch or open rebellion against Citanala, and thus a testament to those who wished to defy this democracy—of which crudity of this era was not much different than that of Earth’s earlier periods—this was the norm, and it was for the most part normal—the Capital City Citanala, call it “Rights with Responsibilities.” If you didn’t work, you didn’t eat, and the longer you didn’t work, you starved because there were no beggars on the streets, they were made into fertilizer: and as often said by the populist, better for the gardens.

Oh yes, as often it is, there were those folks that were seldom seen, that protested, and called it: evil-hidden, and perhaps it was, but they never gave morsel of free food to anyone.

But then one must remember, it was the norm, natural for people to act this way. Hundreds were put into huge burials, holes in the ground, where possible four-hundred could be thrown, tossed, cast in like diseased cattle, when too much sentiment, attitude, or opinions crept out, against the Acropolis, the Capital City of Citanala, and as witnessed to anything defilers of the laws and ideals of the Acropolis, it was put out by the abolitionist then and only then; the group that bore the Great Fret Bird Wings, yes this group was the Hidden Red Guards, the SS group, the CIA, or FBI, or KGB of the day, the Abolitionist of Kura, that worked for the Acropolis, the police of Slug. The emblem that went above their chest, or copper arm band, or brass ring was the same emblem of the Great Fret Bird Wings: such birds were scarce of Kura, but of course not on Planet SSARG.

—The Police of Slug, were always telling the people, saying: their government was for the people by the people—thus democracy was born, but not signifying exactly what people wanted per se [perhaps brain washed], and even though it was not considered as great of an achievement as they wanted, it was significant none the less in what they had.

There were other rules that were under question by the so called Anti-Abolitionist of Kura: the two that most provoked were by the women of Slug, where the man was allowed—and often took advantage of this law—allowed to pullback the hair of his mate, if she was resistant in making love, and should he die mysteriously one night by the wife’s rebellious behavior, she was to be buried alive with her mate. The third laws in question was that the Citanalalits, that super power race had the right to take at will, whomever they wished, be it: wife, daughter, son, whomever they wished for lustful intentions.

The city of Kura, was well known through out the lands, as “The City of the Great Tower,” which was on the edge of the Sinister Sea, yet during its existence, that was all dried up, perhaps dried up for centuries upon centuries, no one knew the cause or the whys behind it, it just was, always was. The Citanalalits had their acropolis on an island of the Great Deep, some five-hundred miles from the Great Tower of Kura.

This great tower was said to have been created by the supernatural force of the Citanalalits (their giant children), prior to some great upheaval that took place eons ago. The super race had left and come back after several centuries, perhaps to see what was left of the Tower, which was really a landmark, and of the populist of the orb, and decided to stay: no giants had survived as they knew of.

It was a location in the Black Galaxy where Siren the Great had visited with Rognat, and Tangor, visited I say, refueled and went on their way, it was within line of SSARG, Retina, and Toso. A place even King Nirut, had stopped to refuel: yet no one tried to assert their agenda on them in that, they feared for their lives should they speak against the government of Kura. The aliens were too powerful.

It was a desert now, a plateau and the Great Tower of Kura. It rested on the edge of a desert, what was no a desert, that wasn’t one at one time, indented with terrain that would someday make a great sea—if indeed that was still possible, should the boarders of the continents be split, between the Acropolis and the Great Tower that is. Not connecting, but there was a five-hundred mile gap between the two; it this would happen it would lower the Great Deep, and flood the old Sinister Sea.

But I’m ahead of my dream-story, ——Kura, the powerful and mighty economic city-state called: “The Great City Tower,” is where I wish to remain.

As I was about to say, in the middle of the city of Kura, in its very center, its nerve, otherwise known as its ‘navel,’ stood this nine-thousand foot tower—that pert near touched the clouds, two-thousand feet deep into the soil of the planet. Its circumference close to seven-thousand feet: yes, a deep rooted structure, with ten-thousand doors, and rooms, that was planted, pushed deep into the crust of the planet to secure for centuries. It was a marvel, a tribute to the planet, and now many so called visitors or tourists came to see the great tower, the one that existed before their time; the ancient site that no Slug or a thousand, or ten-thousand could build, that only the knowledge and might of the Acropolis super race could build.

It was the greatest of landmarks in the Universe, higher than the Pyramids of Egypt, stronger stone the walls of Stonehenge, more durable than the Sphinx, more marble than the Taj Ma Hal. Who could boast a mightier beacon such as this? Yet this symbol was not of hope or for one to look forward to, on behalf of Kura, rather the opposite, it was an encouragement to be subdued, should anyone thing otherwise, the tower was a reminder of the people who built it. Even Siren the Great, was impressed, when she had visited the landmark.

The City Fortress of Kura

Within this city-fortress, that spread out like the sun’s rays from the implanted tower, were 430,000-city inhabitants, of which 75,000 were-slaves who lived and ate and gossiped and tolerated the rules from the Acropolis that ruled from island on Great Deep, that is, employed slaves with no wages other than time to spend until they earned their freedom, thus joining the democracy, the democracy that said they had to be in a slave-status. All the people—as if it was a draft—new they had to serve two years in slavery upon their sixteenth-birthday. And if not, how could an economy grow prosperous—it was beyond their comprehension, it was an unanswerable question, and pleasing to the Acropolis Group if there every was an agreeable answered, which had there been, it wouldn’t have been allowed to have been pointed out anyhow. It was a question never brought up after its law was implanted into civilization. The only way to get out of it was to buy your way out before you got in. And should you commit any infractions during your servitude, your time could be extended. The government could use your time and services, or you could be auctioned off by the government to the populist for commodities needed. In essence, you did as you were told under this democratic-bondage [this was a government: for the people by the people, so it was said, but what was meant was free labor for economic purposes, instead of an army that would spoil and use up all ones resources on war trying to free its people, free labor for a two year period was better for the populace, and for the commanding army five hundred miles away, and all were the better for it, so the population and the Acropolis felt].

The Deity

There was, as you may have already come to this conclusion, no deity — to speak of in this order. The term for God, or deity, was never used, not after the Great Upheaval, not by the governing group from the Acropolis, not out loud in Kura for the most part. If there was a supernatural being, very little was known of him, and where he was?

If there was a secret society, it was taken out of the text that was found, that the philosopher, Shark the First found, that somehow might have fallen out of a crevice of the old Kura Tower, it was said, and loosely said, Shark hand found one, and evidently put back its clay and mortar and brick, back in place so no one would be the wiser in knowing that he had found a library in the tower that was forbidden to enter, that hand ten-thousand rooms.

No one saw Shark for the most part, a hermit sort of who traveled the lands of the Sinister Desert, and if they saw him nothing was said of the manuscript, and the Acropolis Group felt it was better left alone as long as he kept his mouth shut, lets he be provoked and start a religion of sorts that would take hold, as on Earth, and thus, wars fought over this and or that belief—all in the name of a deity now one has seen, or if seen, a few, this kind of destruction they predicted, would be worse than theirs. And if Shark had this secret society, and it wasn’t popular, and there was no talk about it, again, it was better left alone: why, because everyone would think they new the mind of God.

On the other hand, there were rumors of course, of a God long ago before the so called super beings appeared, but then, there are always such things, such roomers, but as the police would remind the people: “Out of sight out of mind: you see the Great Tower of Kura, you don’t see a deity do you? Where is he, why does he not show his face?” Had you asked Shark he would have had an answer, not saying he believed in one or not, but he’d have an answer, and it would have been, “If he showed up, you’d faint, or be disintegrate by his appearance, it is best you don’t wish for something you can’t control.”

And so, there was not a God or a Devil or for that matter politicians, not even a military—just two-hundred super beings that controlled this whole world.

Narn the Cobbler

Narn was but a child when he witnessed the Great Tower, and placed within his camp, for at that time it was not a city, rather a military camp, this was of course, before the Capital City of Kura was as large as it was this day, Narn was now 115-years old, a cobbler by trade. The military camp was back then, governed by the Acropolis Aliens and the Tower needed some repairs. He was the only one ever allowed inside the tower perhaps that is how that loose brick became loose for Shark I.

The tower was brought built by the giants who were the children of the Citanalalits sons of the supernatural beings, whom were destroyed after the tower was built. They were fed by the surrounding inhabitants.

Fed sows and cows and every living beast and thing available until the tower was in place. The Great Upheaval destroyed them, but not the Tower.

The giants of the day had at times become so hungry, they ate the populist, man, woman and child, whom could not bring them food quick enough. Some were so huge; they reached as high as six-hundred feet tall, others on the lower scale, measured as did their fathers, seven to thirteen feet tall, a few reached seventeen feet tall

But whatever their fate would be, the great structure was made without one chip, nor was it capable of rusting or becoming salt eaten from the great sea that lay beyond their reach, and was to fill this gully, to become one day a desert, that did after the upheaval become a desert.

And so this once military site became a city in the makings.

As time went on the military camp grew into the city of Kura, so Narn grew old, yet not necessary weak, or feeble but like all of his race, old age occurred between 200 and 250 years, so at 175-years of age which now were are now up to date, he was but not an old, old, man but past his prime, and still working on the Tower, inside the tower, its beams, rafters, things of wood. It was even somewhat common for those outside of the city to live to the age of 350-years.

It would not be for a time yet, when this no Godless world would have change in attitude, and inherit a deity.

Narn, had inherited from his father the only, and I say only in the highest regards, the only house that was allowed to be attached onto the Great Tower. None other, no other permanent fixture was ever connected to the tower, only this one room shack of a house, made of brick, stone and wood, one door out, and one door leading into the tower, and two guards at the front door of the shack to enforce the rule of no entry. It measured two-hundred square feet, small in every respect. Norn’s father had helped him built the house, and was allowed to use it while helping his son with caring supplies for the tower, lumber and nails and so forth, but not allowed inside the tower, never. Should he enter it, there would be a death-warrant for him, and henceforth, more fertilizer for the gardens of Kura.

Much knowledge was buried with the forefathers of this world, and all the annuals of it was placed within several sections of the Tower, Norm played a risk, he took out many of these documents and allowed Shark to read them, then placed them back. And now one for forty-years was the wiser. They talked about “The Age of Terror,” dealing with the Giants; about “The Golden Age,” when a God came down and talked to the people, the “Lost Age,” when the world was full of primitives. And now it talked of their age, “The Age of the Tower of Kura,” of the two-hundred super beings, who they were. And they were a group of angelic renegades, those who were assigned to the planet to watch over it, to insure no harm came to its population, but they had violated it, and during the upheaval, ran to another planet, in the Milky Way, when thrown off that planet, came back here, of which only fifty was left of that two hundred and acquired another one hundred and fifty from the moon planet of Cibara, near planet SSARG.

So yes, out of the “The Age of Terror,” and war and a Great Tower, a civilization was born, one that reckoned to slavery for two years, but none the less, a city was born. And as the city grew, neighbors from all around the globe came to see the Great Tower of Kura, and the little house that became a world pilgrimage site, and souvenirs were created of the Great Tower, and interest grew of what the tower kept, dangerous the people were becoming, the Acropolis had built more than a landmark, but a god. And would the super power have to dethrone the kings and generals of Kura to keep their secret within the confines of those great tower walls? Norn was now zigzagging throughout the rooms of the tower, taking notes, giving them to Shark I, and his son, Shark the II, writing them down for posterity sake. And the leaders of the Acropolis dare not start a revolution, and kill Norn if indeed they could prove he was doing this.

And then after his death, and his father’s death, and Shark I’s death, Shark II, proclaimed he found old manuscripts in the great cliffs along the Sinister Desert Walls, in a cave, and he started a group, and the supernatural beings on the island, that held their Acropolis, came to challenge the scriptures.

The Great War

And then came the great war, and everyone somehow, was looking for the God, the scriptures talked about, the one they never knew, the one they pushed aside so long ago, it became a legend, the one they now said:

“Yes, I did hear of Him.”

The one they were forbidden to talk about, they all knew him now, they must have, they were praying to Him to rid their lives of this entity that ruled the Acropolis—entities that is. Some were praying to the Tower God, while others were rapping and killing at will: one thing lead to another and another, as if the world was coming to an end, and doing what they always wanted to do, but in fear of reprisal, held off. And the supernatural beings would not stop it this time, they knew if they did, if they tried, they’d have to kill all of them because they had found a cause, a God that had not shown his face yet…I say yet, because their decision would be fatal, any which way they moved. In fear of something, these great ancient warriors, destroyed the tower, sank the island into the Great Deep, and this supernatural race, was no more. They had left the same way they had arrived, as if out of nowhere, unless they became invisible, but they destroyed all the records destroyable.

The Milky Way Galaxy

Still, Cold Pale Eyes

(Arallets’ Revenge on the Grey Planet)

Early evening, an hour or two before twilight, the heat wave dropped from the “Grey Planet,” in the Dark Galaxy. Tangor lay in his bunk within his spacecraft watching and listening to the landing and the glare of the back engines as they descended, Arallets was the pilot, the rains loud fury that had been a moment before and it drumming fierce echoing had come to a halt. They had landed in a grave and barren area, where the Jawbone People lived, Arallets wanted her revenge for her mother’s death, and she wanted genocide, to bring turmoil to the whole Jawbone race, and then eradicate them, one and all. She looked at her lover, her travel mate, Tangor with: still, cold, pale eyes—

“It’s inherent,” she said, “possible atavistic, in the genes, I can’t wait for revenge forever, or any longer!”

It had not seemed long, yet the evening had gone, and it was past twilight, with the jawbone from one of the bulls she had killed on Planet Toso, she picked it up and walked within the dark grey of the night. Tangor had wanted her to let go of her hatred, her revenge, it was still eating at her though. Like a perinea fish gnawing at her soul, a snapping turtle chewing at the main artery of her heart, so she had told him these past few years. Of course it was, he told himself; he always thought it was there!

The Jawbone tribe was now camping, some crossing over the desert looking for animals in the dusty lowlands, where she was. Tangor, in the spacecraft had turned the light switch off so they’d not be the wiser. Arallets knew the tribe, its location, was walking fast to it. She also knew there were less than a hundred of them total to their race, and most likely not all would be there, and she, like her mother when she first had went to the Planet SSARG, she was at her prime.

There seemed to be a ‘V’ in this unfenced straggling desert, one that went into the sandy desert—where she heard voice hunting the stray dogs for food, the other that went into a more rough and broken stone area, she did not hesitate, she went towards the fire, the rough area, the smell of the fire, was of a dirty bucolic taste, and she could see dotted flames a mile off—several fires evidently within a small area, and as she went to either side of it, it vanished, thus, she figured it was within an enclosure.

Behind her beyond, some twenty miles behind her, was the spacecraft, beyond that where hills, no longer in sight, she now was already slowing down, nearing the camp.

She could hear again, the voices of the Jawbone People, as she carried her jawbone of the Great Bull of Toso, the lower part, weighing some fifty to seventy pounds. And there was a man standing by the central fire, the largest of the several fires, and she seemed to recognize him, as if she had second sight, the man who took revenge for her mother’s beating, a terrible beating at that.

Self-sufficient and violent he looked; born in a primitive land with no rules, shouting at some kids. She hid among the ridges of the natural enclosure, and waited for sunset to arrive, and then she’d make her move, when everyone was just waking, half drowsy, and when the hunters just coming back from the hunt were tired; hence, she would be rested and fed, and ready for battle, she took out some meat and bread she had from the spacecraft, and nibbled on it.

This was something more that she had missed, while contemplating her revenge: kids, “I didn’t see them,” she said to herself, and she knew this was something that hadn’t happened yet, but they’d get in the way, and she’d have to make up her mind if it was all, or some: some meant she’d put her life in harms way to avoid killing the kids, more so than ‘all’; for this reason, it would have to be all or none, it was all.

It was daybreak, the heat wave started: with still, cold, pale eyes, raising her voice, making wild hand gestures, she rapidly dropped down into the camp, subdued the guard with a blow of the jawbone— the one who had killed her mother, the one who had led the group to kill her mother he was on his knees before her, as if he had been waiting for her arrival, knowing someday, somewhere she’d show up, convulsively gripping her cloak before she went onto her rampage: looking up into her dark eyes ablaze, hoping she had passion, suddenly she laughed: “You’re sorry, but it’s too late, and sorry don’t do a damn bit of good…” her soul was stirred, she was flanked on either side—but it didn’t matter to her, she’d take them out like swatting flies, so she told herself, then he let out a brief passionate cry, said: “I know I am guilty,” all were silent, “and I know you can kill many of us, perhaps all of us, we took advantage of your mother’s age, and her weakened condition, it was wrong, but if you kill us all, we will no longer be a people, you will break the balance of this land…kill me alone!”

And he looked at her great strength and the jawbone, and he knew she might by luck wipe out her race, several hunters were out of the camp, there was for sure, the weaker and older and all of the children available, along with several fighting young men, even though she detested his effort, she listened, for her anger was going to make her reckless, and she sensed it but she needed hate to kill like a wild beast and she had driven herself to this edge:

“take my life, let the rest of us live, we are not the hungry wolves you think we are, it was I who stirred the people, just I…!” he pleaded,

she looked at them as if she was the Black Devil, all she could think was: I came on a road of death for my enemies, and she wanted her pound of flesh, her thousand pounds of flesh, or ten-thousand pounds, all the more the better, but a voice came to her mind, it was that of her grandmother’s, Jokaneen: ‘Agree with him, save the tribe, and draw up your great jawbone, and your legend, like Siren’s will be born for a thousand years, but leave a reminder!”

And she nodded her head, as to agree with the man on his knees that she would take his life, along with one other exception, and with a dash caught at his head, his pale eyes went ablaze and then blank, and his head like an acorn fell of its stem and into the fire, and her revenge was near final—but not compete.

The Next day, just before Tangor and Arallets were to lift off, to begin their journey back to Earth’s solar system, how orderly and ordinary everything seemed, as Tangor looked at Arallets, knowing she didn’t kill everyone as she said she would, what did she do besides killing the main culprit, and wounding a guard? Her name, and her mother’s name and her grandmother’s name were famous characters, always acting inappropriate for the norm—she had to have done something else to appease her soul’s revenge.

“I wonder what the pack you made with those Jawbones was,” he muttered—it was a statement-question, and he waited impatiently.

“The children were sulking with their mothers, sisters with their brothers, and I wasn’t going to spend the night there, and they were waiting for me to compete my revenge, unknowing what was on my mind, what could replace this anger inside of me, but I had agreed to it, they were worried, after I tore off the head of their clansman. And they all drove together to the fire, a crowd and asked, ‘What can we do to pacify you?’

“You can imagine what they were thinking, minds full of terror. Figuring it would be all over soon, perhaps I’d go back on my word and not let them live: crying, and at that moment an idea come to my brain, it made its way through my head like a door opening up, and a message was inside and it came out floating out: and I grabbed it, and then I grabbed a stone knife from a young man, and I cut everyone’s thumbs and big toes off, they could not conceal this, and they’ll remember this for a thousand years, realize a sad end came to them because of one man, and they’ll fear my name, and my return for decades.”

Tangor gave her a grave expression, “I wish I’d had thought of that, they’ll realize, the great gift in such small things that are taken too often for granted. Kiss me,” he told her. “How complimentary to your legend,” he added after the kiss.

—oh, she had a temper, and perhaps it was done out of spite, but a seventy pound bull’s jawbone would scare the devil back down to his hole though Tangor. Then Tangor looked at his watch, pushed a button, and said “We’re off!”

#888 (3-23-2012)

Last OF the Cadaverous Planets

The House between the Andes and Pacific

My house in Lima, faces the east and west, the front and the back that is; the east side being of the Andes, and the west, the beginning of the Pacific Ocean—nearly facing Easter Island, and should you turn a little north, you’re headed for Japan.

Reading on top of my roof, which is really a platform area, with a table and umbrella extended towards the moon, a big umbrella, I’ve written four books there, some 1650-pages, or nearly 400,000-words, there about.

The roofs of all the houses in between, its width, the sun, coming up over the roof of my house, will shine on my face and pert near wake you up, if you try to go to sleep, that is, if you choose to read, the sun will be getting in your way, stronger as the day goes on to twilight, which you can watch descend over the pacific, all you need to do is turn 180 degrees, you may have to move the large umbrella, at its strongest point.

You take a late shower, look out the little window in the shower area you will be next to the rainbow colored twilight. Breakfast under the umbrella on the roof, you will see sunrise coming over the Andes.

When its winter in Lima, it is summer in Minnesota, my birth place: maybe that’s a good thing, I don’t know. I go to Huancayo, the rainy season there has stopped, and that’s four-hundred miles, deep in a valley 10,500-feet above sea level: June, July and August are the season you get the most sun, and warm winds, especially if you like to fly kites, get there in August: if you like to party, drink, anytime will do. It just takes more stamina to live in the Andes, it makes you tired, more quickly, but it is no more dangerous there, than spending a long chilly, foggy winter in Lima.

In the Mantaro Valley, which is really the Huancayo Region, the angry weather starts back up in December, that is when you want to drop back down to Lima.

No: 889/3-24-2012

Big Ace and Dan




If you have lived in cities, in this case let’s say St. Paul, Minnesota, in the early ‘60s, and gone out to Como Park, you have seen or could have seen, in those small cages with those iron bars, sitting in a corner, a huge and grotesque ape. Strong, large, ugly and hairy, skin droopy faced ape. A true monster, if it was walking about freely. In its fullness, there was an ugly common perverted beauty in this ape.
When children seen it, they stepped back, griped their father’s hand, freighted and fascinated at the same time. The father in turn, would put on an air of repugnance, pert near a show—for various reasons, and the wife, or even single women in general—I might add, more often than not, seemed to be comparing the ape with… you got it, their mates.
In any case, had you lived in my neighborhood in the earlier years of my life, a citizen of Cayuga Street, called ‘Donkeyland,’ by the local police, there would be no vagueness to look upon, in comparison to the ape in the cage. It was likened to Ace, Big Ace. He was also, often called, Big Bopper, and we can add to that, his real name, his true name, Jerry S.
Sitting with the guys in the neighborhood on a hot summer’s day, on the church steps that is, after a long weekend drinking with his buddies, he was a sight for sour eyes.
Yes indeed, as the ape sat in his corner, the beast in the neighborhood sobered up, sitting in his corner—; there was a similarity, and let’s add an ‘s’ to that.
Big Ace, never having a job for the better part of his life, was tall and the ugliest thing in the neighborhood, no teeth, sunken in cheeks; his bulk, immense, his neck thick, his arms long. He was not dirty, but everything about him was uncommon to the eye. He was for the most part, taken care of by his family until they passed on, in his forties or fifties. There was something sensitive, simple and even kind about him, strong as an ox and just as dumb, six-foot-six, two-hundred and twenty pounds, if not more at different periods of his life; a best friend to many of us in the neighborhood, during different stages of our formative years.
He bought us all our liquor; he was ten-years older than us. And in spite of his debasement—not working at all, he was still proud of his ability to offer us younger folks a service: booze; buying booze for us with our money, which he drank his sum, and then some.
A few times, when a few older guys got to be twenty-one, the booze buying age, and we didn’t need Big Ace all the time, and he was told to put in his share of money in buying the booze he’d drink, he’d get mad, say, “I’ll have nothing to do with you-all.”
Up along Jackson Street, in the evening he’d go find old friends he once had—his own age, and drink with them or to the saloon and trouble the people there for a drink. And after drinking unbelievable quantities of beer, stagger off home to his mother and father’s house, where he lived until they passed on.
Big Ace was not a man of courage, or a coward. A thing had happened to him, which made him leave the neighborhood for a long while, abandon the neighborhood, but most everyone then was of drinking age. We all kind of felt he might hate women, or fear them. He didn’t call them “Bitches,” but he avoided them. For a long while no attention was paid to this trait of his. And he thus found a girlfriend, or one he thought liked him. But someone else like Mary as much who thought the same thing, instinctively the man felt in him a growing resentment of not only the girl but the other man, as a result, he had the courage to resent, and one night when the other man, Dan, walked through the streets to Mary’s apartment, Big Ace was there, but so was the neighborhood gang. Dan, known as Crazy Dan, had an instinct to pay Mary homage that night, and Big Ace was with her, or at least physically, surely not mentally. And Mr. Eye was there, the in-between man.
Everyone laughed unpleasantly at the situation, between Mary and Big Ace and Crazy Dan, both men about ready to fight one another over her, but Dan of course being the weaker of the two. The woman, Mary was somewhat tall, not real slender, blue eyes and dirt-yellowish hair—more plainly looking than anything else. Dan and Big Ace both chased the woman with a love as absorbing as a camel in heat—apparently she liked the attention or power, she allowed it, foolishly. Dan was a little fat man, he ran home got his shot gun and was going to shoot Big Ace.
In all of the Cayuga Street Neighborhood, there are better people to tell this end part of the story than I, ugly as it gets, and I have never told this story until now, Mr. Eye, who in fact, had nothing to do with the fight or Mary, I mean he was, or had not been a suitor, got in the middle of all this, walked about under their heated arguments, trying to calm them both down, and got shot with that shotgun. God forbid, he died.
That evening Dan tried to escape, get out of Minnesota. Down the highway he went. It was then the police picked him up.
I met Dan years later, after he got out of prison. He was working at a park, said to me—after I spotted him—“Please don’t hate me, or tell anyone where I work.”
The man looked hideous, shapeless, he even had his face changed somewhat, yet I notice him, and he had noticed I had: leering face, staring about as if he was consumed with my curiosity, as if he wanted me to guess, and I guessed right. Something in his eyes, his staring eyes told him that I had nothing to say about him bad, and he was right.

Something Had Ended

The old man came back to Donkeyland as, one evening he was coming home from work, he had got thinking: as a boy, growing up in the neighborhood was a trip, a great adventure. He tightly held his hands onto the steering wheel of the car, excited he could scarcely speak as he drove down Cayuga Street. His old mouth twitched nervously.
What a life the old man had led since he left the neighborhood, in 1968, it was now 2000, and thirty-two years had passed. He had been around the world.
He knew, the day he left his neighborhood, Donkeyland would disappear once and for all, and it had disappeared once on that train, after closing his eyes and leaning back in the car seat of the train—his eyes had stayed that way for a long while and when he opened them, Donkeyland, and the whole of Minnesota, and entire Midwest had disappeared. When he woke up and stimulate himself—he knew his life there had become but a setting, a backdrop, and the background on which to spread the dreams of his manhood.

He began to think of the time, long ago when he was a young fellow living in the neighborhood, how on such days he’d spend his time wandering about. He was thinking how it affected his whole life, and how a spirit of protest awoke in him, saying: ‘…that’s what I was, what about it, eh? What about it all? I was not the worse of the lot, perhaps not the better part either. Not always up to devilment, but not always up to good. I told them all, you’ll see…oh, not out loud.”
He was in a sad distracted mood and was affected by the nostalgia of the moment. Remembering how it was.
Evens was different than most of the boys—he knew that, not in that he would stand about, listening and occasionally when addressed, saying a few words—but different in that he always had the power to be a part of and yet distinctly apart from the life about him.
In the late evenings his grandfather would sit in the sofa chair, or old sofa couch on the porch and smoke a pipe, silent as he always was at that hour, look out the screened-in-windows, talk to himself, he had a great vigor. Evens could see him at different times as he roamed the streets with the neighborhood boys—see him pacing the porch in the summer evenings.
More often than not he dismissed everything from his mind—how he did it he never knew. Perhaps he couldn’t hate anything, and not being able to understand so many things, he just forgets them; his grandfather being one of those forgetful things, whose nature was always so belligerent towards him—on the whole he was victorious though, so he felt. As often he felt too, the talk of the neighborhood seldom interested him, and he’d slip away. Go up into his room with his thoughts, being alone, write his poetry. As he got older drink him self drunk. He felt it was good to be drunk in those days. If anything it taught him something in his later years—he could now think straight. He wanted to learn things, you see, things he never could understand, that’s why he had to leave the neighborhood, that’s why he did it.

This is Evens’ story. It will, however be necessary to talk a little on his neighborhood so that you will get into the spirit of it: into reading the other sketches pertaining to Donkeyland that is, and on Evens himself.


In the old days Cayuga Street was a notorious neighborhood—known as ‘Donkeyland,’ by the St. Paul Minnesota Police Department. Whomever lived within its boundaries, were aware of the gripping sounds of the Structural Steel Company (where most of the neighborhood kids worked at one time or another, once they hit adulthood), and the Railroad behind it—with its squealing steel on steel, and whistle blowing, and the screeching of cars that raced up and down Cayuga Street, as if it was a drag-strip. The fires going on in the empty lot—called Indians Hill, and the drunken behavior of the boys. All in all it was a constant noisy active neighborhood, with its share of peculiar happenings.
Then one year, there were no more steel items, like beams and so forth produced; the steel workers became laid off, and the yard was stacked with idle steal items. And in due time, all the steel that had been left, was carried away. The big mill had all its machinery then taken out soon after; removed, along with what belts, and tables, pallets, and paints, iron and lumber that were piled here and there. Everything that made a steel mill a steel mill was gone.

Ten-years later there was nothing left, the houses on Cayuga Street all gone, the railroad that had made all those weird noises, stood deserted, as did the empty lot, and now everything that was something at one time, was covered with plain old dirt. A highway was over the head of Cayuga Street— where Mississippi Street crosses it, north and south.
“There’s our old neighborhood,” Chick Evens said, driving up and down Cayuga Street, talking to himself. “There it is,” he said (in reflection and dismay). “I can remember when we played softball over in that there field, drank so much, we couldn’t walk straight, and on that there hill beyond the field we had a number of fights—Indian’s Hill, right there…right where I’m pointing,” said Chick Evens to a ghost, as he looked at and then point to what would soon be a parking lot, with no cars, just a black asphalt turnaround.
His ghost, had been left to nurture the old spirits left in Donkeyland, the old Gang, the voice of his mind told him—how noble.
“It seems more like a castle in ruins now; that is all there is,” Chick Evens mumbled out loud. Then he drove down Jackson Street, alongside Oakland Cemetery his eyes heavy likened to a slab of driftwood (it was the summer of 2000, and something had ended, he had not been back to his old neighborhood in thirty-two years: ‘…what a life his this old neighborhood and led,’ he told himself, ‘it has created a legacy…’).