WOLFGANG FISCHER was out there. Out there in every respect, and not just the hills.
He was over the hill at the time
this story begins, in that he was sixty-four–a year for every square on a
chessboard–and Wolfgang Fischer had seen his share of squares.
In childhood he had been a prodigy
as much as his namesakes. For the sake of convenience I will call him Fischer.
(If this reduction of his name gives you the feeling that he was not all there,
so be it. Even now I am not all here. I may seem to you now like a character in
this story, but I am not. I wasn’t there at all. I only tell you what I know.)
It was a remarkable coincidence that
even his name was an amalgam of two such famous prodigies–Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart and Bobby Fischer being at the top of the list—and although Fischer
himself said he did not believe in coincidences, generally the truth does run a
good bit stranger than fiction. Certainly Fischer had a genius for music, and
just as much of a genius for chess. But the truth is, I’m not sure anyone knows
exactly what Fischer’s actual genius was.
That he may have never found his
calling should come as no surprise. He believed in phones—and just about every
other popular modern gadget—even less than he believed in coincidences. Which
is to say well into the negatives. Even more of no surprise, he never found his
field. Every bit of property he owned was covered with trees.
One thing in which Fischer
absolutely believed was simultaneity. Awareness of multiple conditions
coexisting everywhere at all times was part of what made Fischer Fischer. That
there is no black and white was more and less certain seemed to him a cosmic
truth. Life and death were shades of gray–without gray matter nothing would be
understood–and Fischer was as gray as it got.
He was a recluse–and not only
because he was a wreck and he was loose. An atheist with Messianic
implications, he often felt persecuted for not believing in either the
corporations of religion or the religion of corporations. He was an old
testament to the freethinking, freewheeling 60s in his sixties, and the main
way he dealt with his lack of conformity was being absolutely certain not to
bury himself in his work. He preferred to stay on top of it. But I hesitate to
say exactly what his work was. These things get judged. It may have been he was
a toy maker. Certainly he looked liked Father Christmas. And he had the
presence for it. Long-limbed and towering, with his great bearded, gaunt,
Northman’s visage, he could easily have passed for Odin. Or Howard Hughes. Or
King Lear. Or Zarathustra.
Smoked salmon was his favorite dish.
To make ends meet, Fischer sometimes sold, but never smoked it. That was the
job of Cody and Heidi. He shared a parcel of land with them. Cody and Heidi
shared joint custody of their eighteen year-old daughter, by name Brandi, who
played video games, drove a red Lamborghini in and out of the hills and watched
TV religiously. Cody and Heidi were divorced, but lived in the same house. He
was forty-two. Smoked, but never sold. Heidi was thirty-eight and liked guns.
She handled Fischer’s salmon sales.
Everything was going along
swimmingly until Fischer had his accident. Really it should never have
happened. Just one of those freak things. He was riding his bike around between
the trees downhill, going a little too fast, and not wearing any shoes. Next
thing he knew, Fischer took a spill and wound up wounded. After that, he
couldn’t get around so well anymore. Right away his property started to look
like shit. And some thought it was just a coincidence, but the whole damn area
went to hell in a hand basket.
2
“Can someone please tell me what I’m
doing here?” Heidi saw Sorel in the eggs aisle.
At the end of the eggs aisle the big
guts were crossing by, pregnant with death and fear of life in bright blue and
bright orange cammo clothes purchased cheaply there at LowCost. It had been a
while since Heidi had seen Sorel, but unfortunately bumping into her at the
store provided neither the time nor space necessary to catch up.
“Whatever it is, I’m guessing you’re
going to have to break a few eggs.”
Some women came up behind Sorel and
expostulated. All four had known each other for years. The conversation in
which these two new women were engaged carried on unabated.
“That’s exactly it,” said Thea Lienz.
“Women’s liberation plus objectification of women by the corporate media equals
self-objectification being called
‘liberation.’ It’s ridiculous. I see girls with their asses hanging out of
their pants, showing off neon thongs and tramp stamp tattoos, totally convinced
they’re coming from a place of individual strength while they’re getting used
by the patriarchal system in ways they never dreamed.”
“Go Thea,” said Sorel. “You tell
it.”
Thea’s friend Sitar spoke up. “Well
now that gets me thinking how conquered people become bullies. They begin identifying
with their own oppressors, or at least oppression in general, as a mechanism of
self-defense, too late, in order to make sense of whatever happened. I mean,
just think about poverty and patriotism.”
“And of course the markets are
youth-driven,” Thea Lienz added, “because it’s so much easier to take a young
person’s money and harder to influence people after they have experience.”
“Oh but don’t you know?” Heidi’s
dead-pan would’ve thrown a different crowd. “You’re just jealous. You have to
act like such an uptight bitch
because I’m so young and so you’re
just so jealous.”
“LowCost
shoppers,” the in-store system brightly announced interrupting a soothing
sort of music no one shopping seemed to notice, “look for the GreenLight and find Extra Value savings. You can always go
to where the savings are…at LowCost! Thanks for shoppin’ with us!”
Sorel understood that Heidi was
echoing what she’d heard from Brandi at some point. “I mean, we know what the
problems are.” She was about to say something on living an uncluttered life,
and the disturbing shift in valuing that seminal ideal there in the Bargerville
area over time. (As a reflexologist she was in touch with the sole of Humbaba.
Her card said under her name “Life force is the Qi.”) But at that moment,
Sorel’s attention was caught when she saw beyond, standing in an aisle
intersection, a woman appearing at first glance like a mutual friend of Heidi’s
and hers named Moon, whom Sorel alone secretly knew to be pregnant. It was a
situation Sorel disliked, having to hide the information from her closer friend
Heidi, and her heart leaped in the split second she for no reason thought that
it was Moon up ahead. Surely Moon would unburden her of the secret by going
ahead and telling Heidi in the eggs aisle. But it wasn’t Moon. And in fact the
young woman did not even look a thing like her.
Heidi and both of the other women
turned to look as well. All saw as the young woman waited for a big gut to
waddle glumly by, then stood at a spot in the aisle where she paused, looked up
at one of the in-store cameras, looked away, took a deep breath, and suddenly
quivering with a helpless expression, crumbled backward and down so that she
collapsed on her side without cracking her head on the smooth hard tile.
Immediately someone screamed. But before
anyone could do anything, a man suddenly appeared with the look of a cop and
the manner of a priest. It was Roy Jorgens, Bargerville LowCost store manager.
A crowd gathered round as he held the woman in his arms, her auburn hair full
of lustrous bounce and shine draped over the store manager’s protectively
cradling arm, as his mouth neared hers, his moist lips parting….
“And the manager of the store
breathed life into the customer,” the local news said that night. “Talk about
great savings!”
Heidi flipped off the tube. “Those
idiots!”
Cody ambled into the kitchen. He was
wearing his usual bathrobe, looking by the shady aura of his bearing and
meticulous trim of facial hair like a warlock in Birkenstocks. It was 6:44 pm,
Saturday, September 22, the first day of fall. Cody had spent a good portion of
the day meditating cross-legged in the middle of his waterbed, which was itself
centered between four lava lamps, each aligned with the points of the compass.
The blue lava lamp, representing water and winter, was positioned north;
opposite it, the red lamp stood for fire and summer; to the east, purple for
air and spring (it was either that or orange, but the base on the orange lamp
somehow didn’t match the others); and on the west, green for earth and fall.
This was the position which Cody had faced off and on for several hours over
the course of the day, focusing his energy on a peaceful, bountiful season.
With the lights out and the lamps
on, a relaxed mind perceived simple beauty in the gently flowing wax. Heated by
the bulb inside the base beneath the glass teardrop lamp on top, the melting
wax in the water slowly rose from the bottom, reached the cooler water at the top,
and subsequently tumbled back down, to repeat the process. Rising and falling,
but never leaving—the lava lamp formed a replica of the planet’s own energy
flow—each ever-shifting formation completely unique, yet always in motion, part
of a whole out of which it comes and to which it returns, never to be seen again.
“Who’s an idiot?” he said.
Heidi resisted temptation. When they
were together she would have said something smartass automatically. But out of
love? Now she wondered.
“Oh, just something on the news.”
“What was it?”
He was doing it again.
As an acupuncturist, and an
electrician, Heidi understood energy flow blockage. She tried to change to
another channel, but the flat way she spoke betrayed the depth of her interest.
“Nothing. What have you been doing?”
“What was it in the news?”
“No. Drop it.”
“Come on, I’m just curious. What’s
the big secret?”
Now here came along Brandi, with the
suddenly deadened look on her face that said she realized she had just stepped
into the two of them going at it again.
“What big secret?” she said.
Heidi’s sigh of exasperation morphed
into a rising growl. “No big secret! I saw someone at LowCost this afternoon do
a thing where she, I don’t know, it looked like she scoped out a spot she
wanted in front of the cameras, and then did a really terrible fake faint, like a swoon—”
“A swoon?” Brandi interrupted.
“A swoon. And then that goofball
manager they have there now—what’s his name?—well anyway—Roy Jorgens! So Roy
Jorgens, he’s there in about two seconds, and he actually puts his mouth on her—”
“Gross!”
“—and this is supposed to be like, what,
artificial respiration? So she ‘comes to,’ and I swear, they must’ve put some
ringers there to start clapping, because they kept at it till a few other
people started clapping. Oh, it was so was idiotic. And now the local news is
covering it like it was a fucking miracle.”
“Well I can tell you why they’re
playing up the religion angle,” Cody chimed in.
Heidi looked over. “Oh please tell
me why. Even though you weren’t even there and I was talking to Brandi.”
“It’s because religion is a
commodity. And why wouldn’t you tell
me?”
Brandi grabbed a set of keys from
the counter. “You guys can argue by yourselves. I’ll be back tomorrow night.”
They both asked where she was going.
She told them up to Carata.
Carata.
Brandi had taken the fall off, her
first fall after high school, in order to more greatly facilitate her own
enterprise, with assurances to her parents (her mother, anyway) that she would
only be saving up for college, which she would start attending in the spring
term. Or maybe next fall at the latest.
“So are you going to be staying with
your friend?”
“Yes, Mom.” Brandi put some
eye-rolling in her tone on purpose as a joke. Kind of.
“And I have her number?”
“Yes, Mom.”
“Well it’s the first I’ve heard of this.”
Cody’s numb look swung around the room.
“Have fun. Give me a call if you
need anything. Or if you don’t.”
Brandi picked up a large duffle from
the floor at the end of the island counter.
“Love you,” Heidi said.
“Love you Mom, love you Dad.”
“I love you, sweetheart. You’re not
finding a place tonight or tomorrow, are you?”
“She’s just getting the lay of the
land.”
“I
was talking to her.”
“Relax, Dad. I’m not moving out
anytime soon.”
Cody grabbed some snacks and
shuffled back to his room—the one he’d built ten years before and rented now
for basically nothing (sometimes less than that) because times were tough,
Heidi was nice, their bedrooms were on the opposite side of the house and once
in a while he was useful. He shut the door to his room, feeling like a little
boy, conscious that the motions of his body not reflect that feeling as he set
down his goodies, turned on the music that happened to be ready—a Bach
harpsichord minuet—stretched out on his waterbed like Vishnu floating on a bed
of lotus, and closed his eyes, immobilized with every distinct prickling note,
each feeling like a long thin needle jammed into his skin, leaving him jabbed
and bristling like an acupunctured voodoo doll, while Heidi headed off to the
busted generator out back she was going to need to fire up soon, but so far
just couldn’t get to work.
3
It took Brandi the twenty winding
road minutes from out in the hills near Hawthorn back down into Radley to
unwind from her parents, and by then the highway was only a mile and half away,
putting her in radio reception.
“Turn
it down!” was the first thing she heard, and she knew immediately what it
was before the third word was even said. The high school had been required to
gather outside and look up into the camera shouting the line in unison for the
commercial. She was one of the students. In the TV ad she was in front, second
from the left. That was eight months ago, now. Yesterday and forever ago,
already.
“Don’t
get high,” the announcer said. “Turn
it down!” This followed with voice-over from another authoritative male
semblance informing, “This message
brought to you by the good folks at Regal Lager. Drink Regal Lager, Arbora’s
Best Beer!”
Beer. With the party next Friday,
Brandi was going to have to get her mom or her dad or someone to pick up a keg
soon.
Like her bright red Lamborghini
smoothly powering through the curves, Mist River meandered in a northerly flow
below to her left, while the rolling golden hills above bore the gnarled forms
of oaks, intricate and bent like giant patches of rotten broccoli.
Who had she not heard from yet?
Staci was coming, Autumn would be there. Maybe Phoebe. No loss if Phoebe didn’t
come. The last time Brandi saw her, which was at Mark’s playing ping-pong,
Phoebe criticized her mom’s friend and Autumn’s mom, Sorel, for wearing tank
tops without shaving. “I hope all my mom’s friends at least bother to shave their armpits!” she brayed, and Brandi had had to mask the resentment she
felt for being on the receiving end of this insult-by-proxy.
Ordinarily anyone driving from
Hawthorn up to Egeria would be looking at an hour and a half. Brandi managed to
shave off a good fifteen minutes, passing an ad on a billboard ten minutes shy
of the county’s biggest city that read
Looking for Answers?
Find THEM ALL
at THE MALL!
A lot of her mom’s friends didn’t
even wear bras. And look what happened to them. Folded down, straight down like dog teats.
She herself was thinking about getting a boob job. Just a little enhancement.
From B cup to maybe a C. What her parents didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.
Everybody was doing it. It’s not like she didn’t have her own money. Not to
mention the little fact that it was her
body. Still, she wasn’t sure. But there was no point talking about it with them. It’s not like she could even tell her dad about the exotic
dancer she was getting for the party. Actually, her dancer wouldn’t be showing
up until ten anyway, and her dad would just be holed up in his cave anyway, as
always.
This thought occurred as she came up
on Thrusters on the outskirts of town. On the opposite side of the narrowing
highway, towering pulp mill smoke stacks, eerily lit, spumed waste into the
darkening sky. It had been only a few days earlier that she reserved her dancer
by phone, and now driving past the building (she’d never really noticed it before),
Brandi was incredibly glad not to have had to set foot inside. No, she didn’t
need to go see Flo in the flesh after all.
She did need to see India. They had met
at a party over the summer at Autumn’s, and hit it off well enough that she
thought about potentially setting India up as her university-area distributor.
The poor yield for the last couple of years on the outdoor crop—poorest she’d
ever seen—demanded extra high sales of the indoor. And even that yield had been
taking a beating. With scarcity rose demand. Yes, the price was right for the
right clientele, but the whole economy was suffering. No one could afford to
get busted anymore.
True, India was only sixteen, but
she was a really smart, responsible sixteen, and able to live on her own. She
wouldn’t have to do much, and she could put by a lot of money in a short time.
Sometime in the evening, Brandi would give India the pitch. It was something
she’d never done before, and she got a bit of a thrill considering it.
She was leaving Egeria now, the wide
sweep of mudflats preceding Humbaba Bay wafting sufficiently to ensure her
window be up, just as some crappy car was edging up on her left. “Fuck you,
asshole,” she said. “Don’t even try
to box me in!” This she said aloud, firm and determined, as the rear end of a
semi up ahead grew steadily larger.
The crappy car speeded up. They were
doing 66 in a 55.
70. 71. 72.
At 75 miles per hour in the span of
a few seconds, Brandi’s Lamborghini slipped in front of the crapmobile. It had
gone needlessly fast in the attempt to pass, as if to provoke a reaction from
the better car. The guy driving behind was honking his horn and flipping Brandi
off. “Fuck you, bitch!” Brandi said, examining the rear-view mirror intently as
she jabbed her middle finger up where he’d have to see it. She kept him
boxed-in behind her with the semi on the right for a bit, to teach a good
lesson, before jetting ahead, still flipping the asshole the bird and keeping
her eyes peeled for cop hiding spots. The turnoff was only a half a mile off.
“Fuck you, bitch,” she pronounced
with a triumphant note of finality as she took the exit into Carata, having
won, and promptly never thought about the incident ever again.
Hell in a hand basket. Brandi had
not grown up seeing her parents drive like that. Nor had she actually grown
up. She did not consider her actions in
the slightest and took not a particle of responsibility for them. It was just
the new norm.
Nor was it beyond the pale for a sixteen
year-old girl to be living on her own. India’s being bright enough to test out
of school early coincided perfectly with her dad Brad’s inability to support
himself, much less her as well. The school didn’t have any funding, and was
turning into a dump anyway. Her mom she hadn’t seen since she was three.
Soon after arriving, Brandi got
India to accompany her to the Carata LowCost to pick up dinner. India wanted to
go to the Co-op, but Brandi said she couldn’t stand how all the cashiers smell
like Nag Champa incense. “Reminds me too much of my dad.”
“At least you have a dad.”
“Your dad isn’t dead, is he?”
“No. He’s not dead.” India’s leaden
voice betrayed her disappointment in her dad, Brad. Ten years ago he had been
working at a coffee house comedy club in Radley. That wasn’t far removed from
her own duties in the ticket booth and behind the concessions counter at Carata
Theater. Now he was sitting in a tree. To save it. That was his career. Had
been for the last four months. Right around the time he changed his name to
Bard. She didn’t dare tell Brandi the truth.
They had paused at the magazines,
taking in the covers and flipping through a few before picking up some chicken
orange at the deli and a couple of salads in plastic containers that they smashed
loudly in the waste basket back at India’s laughing about boys they’d seen and
what pathetic idiots they all were, and as the hour grew late they switched to
the subject of housing, which was ostensibly the reason for Brandi’s visit. It
didn’t take long for India to feel pressured. Her natural inclination was to
resist being pushed. The way Brandi was acting, she reminded India of her
brother.
Ten minutes after she had that
thought, who should come up rapping at her door but Kyle. This she discovered with
the flinging wide of the door, without having bothered to ascertain the
identity of the late-hour visitor.
“These apartment doors need to come
with little spy-holes so you can see who’s out there,” he said.
“You came over at eleven o’clock to
criticize my door?” India fell back to the sofa and pulled a pillow to her
middle.
“I saw your lights on.” Kyle’s
somewhat unintentionally visceral reaction on seeing Brandi as he came in
provoked a curled lip and half-lidded eyes from her. They had been watching TV.
After a pregnant pause, Brandi said in a low swift tone to India that she was
going outside on the balcony for a break, which was understood as the best way
to get her overly-protective brother’s visit over with as soon as possible.
“Come on out when you’re done,” Brandi said, but before she could slide the
glass door shut, Kyle shot out, “She’s too young. So are you.”
The door thumped shut.
“Thanks a lot for coming over and
insulting my friends.”
“I wanted to tell you that I’m
moving down tomorrow.”
“Oh.”
Kyle had been working weekends at
the recycling plant outside Radley off and on for a few months. At twenty-two,
he had an A.A. degree from College of Egeria and a year and a half of
experience with some less-than-thrilling jobs. Moving the ninety minutes south
from Carata back to the area where he spent most of his youth would put him in
reach of other opportunities, though. The kind Brandi looked down on as shit
work, no doubt. It was important to him that his sister not feel abandoned. Yet
again. He wanted her to know that he was still watching out for her.
“I’m glad you’re excited about your
job,” she said.
“I wish you’d let me know before you
go signing any leases. I know you’re pretty jazzed about maybe moving in
somewhere together.”
“Actually, she’s thinking about
buying one of those old Victorians up for sale on the hill. We’d be sharing a
whole huge house together and she’d be renting a room to only me.”
“Buying? How much on the rent?”
“How should I know? She hasn’t even
decided if she wants to yet.”
“That’s what you’re doing tomorrow?”
“Duh.” She saw the hurt look flash
across his face. “Sorry.”
“All right.” Kyle started jingling
his keys. “Well, I better scoot.”
“Call me with your new phone
number.”
“I will. And India, I mean it about
that stuff. You’re too young. You are.”
“What’s old enough? Eighteen?”
“Twenty-one. Same as drinking.”
“At eighteen you’re old enough to
get drafted.”
“But not old enough to drink a draft
beer, that’s right.”
India closed her eyes and shook her
head. “I swear, I probably wouldn’t even want to, but now I’m tempted just
because of everything you say.”
“Well, don’t do that.”
She opened the door. He stepped out.
“Good night, Kyle,” she said, and shut it.
4
The gray sluggish vapor hanging over
Mist River Monday morning seemed to muffle the slam of Kyle’s car door. It was
a day and half later, and there had been time to let the dust settle. Ablaze
with new life in his old haunts, Kyle’s spirits ran high on a morning jog,
puffing along a trail that wound among the grim, limb-strewn giants. Rust duff
littered the gray cradle of the winding trail, periodically interrupted by
oddly bulging roots rising out of and probing back down into the ground.
So close, yet so far away, the
redwoods all this time. Rolling patches of sorrel, brightest of greens caught
in slanting rays of sun, bore muted purple undersides and crisp stems tart to
the taste. Along the sides of the trees, insular strips of redwood bark rose
like the deep-grooved corduroy of the gods, twisting gently around, hundreds of
feet high in interwoven braids, whole trees resembling giant straightened
torcs, the twisted strands of which mated earth with sky.
Kyle stood on a stump at a
switchback in the trail which zig-zagged up the hill and looked out over a
hushed green gulley, fern-lush hillsides somehow hinting and suggestive.
Awk,
awk. Some ravens carried on their business. Further off, small-sounding
birds communicated in quick, twittering chirps. Great reddish drapes of poison
oak clung at redwood bases, groping tendrils climbing, winding ever higher, in
some cases even strangling the tree to death. On closer inspection, Kyle
noticed these cases were in fact unnaturally many. Trash, too, appeared in view
only a few feet away. A bunch of empty beer cans and the torn cardboard they
came from. Kyle hopped back down onto the trail, watching out for tick brush,
mindful of Lyme disease.
That was when he got to thinking
about his dad, living alone in a tree. A one-man Swiss family. A tree man, a
holy man. What a load of crap. His dad had gotten a little press now, and the
attention this brought Kyle irked him because most of it was positive and he
felt obligated to play along out of politeness when actually, yes, Kyle
absolutely supported forest preservation, just not with his dad sitting in a
tree. “Bard.” Total steaming load.
All those people who thought it was
so great, courageous even, they
weren’t there with Kyle growing up. They weren’t there for all the failed
dreams crashing down around. The daily verbal diarrhea. It was easier for his
dad to think of himself as a martyred warrior for something else than it was
for him to face the battles of his own life. These days he videotaped
himself—posturing, self-absorbed—not because he felt more real in a tree, but
because he couldn’t feel real unless he was on TV. He showed some of it to Kyle
one time. They had some snacks right there, made a little picnic out of it. For
half an hour Kyle got to watch his dad acting like a cross between Travis Bickle
and Euell Gibbons.
But Bard had taken to affecting a
soothing voice of peace. All told, big picture, he had in fact overcome quite a
good bit of his assholeness, old Bard did. Kyle had to give his dad credit for
that. At least if only for trying. But that soothing peace voice of his had a
nasty way of cracking, giving way to furious spumes of frustration before
returning to the soft mask that passed for love.
Kyle passed some mushrooms along the
brushy slope that ran along the trail. In the moist dark duff beneath hanging
huckleberry boughs, weird mushrooms of sickly hues grew. Some of a warped waxy
yellow rose doubled over, exposing slit undersides like dirty brown gills. Deadly
red buttons also dotted the moss. Around the bend, a Rubik’s cube lay busted in
bits. Kyle thought of a guy he knew at College of Egeria who was always trying
to copy the secret of the sterile moves from a solution manual.
Kyle’s mind wandering in the forest
of his past impelled him to Madrani early that afternoon. A fog hung over the
river and threaded through the mountains gray against the green. He thought
about the last time he’d been to Madrani. It had to be at least four years. He
graduated from the high school there in town when he was seventeen and moved up
north that fall. Then his dad moved to Radley, and he remembered only one time
coming into town when he needed to gas up. Four years ago. The rest of the
time, when he had to come down, he just stayed on the highway and avoided the
Avenue.
Madrani Market looked a little
different. Not much. He grabbed a few things, thinking about that weird old
Mrs. Hutle as he eyed through the window his old high school across the street.
A guy in line in front of him was
talking to the cashier—she was about Kyle’s age, kind of hot—and his first take
was that the guy was something of a loud asshole. Gradually the guy edged off
to the side, still blabbing while the cashier rang up Kyle’s stuff.
The guy, Kyle noticed, was kind of
sticking around. At first he figured it was to talk to the cashier. Then he
realized the guy was looking at him.
“Hey,” the guy finally said, “is
your name Kyle?”
“Yeah,” he answered vaguely,
accepting his change from the cashier as he turned. “Do I know you?”
“Used to. I’m Rick Ruesh. We used to
hang out around here back in sixth and seventh grade. You would’ve known me as
Ricky back then.”
“Ricky—that’s right! Hey, how are
you?”
“I’m good. Man, you’ve changed.”
“So have you. Wow. Good to see you.”
Each had become in the other’s eyes
as unmemorable as the town itself to a tourist. Kyle, who had felt old at the
time he used to mess with Ricky in the woods, had reached the limit of that
feeling and only recently began again to feel young. This, ultimately, was what
prompted his move back. It was for him an oddly daring thing to do.
After a few minutes bullshitting
outside with Rick, Kyle went back in and picked up some beer. His treat. Then
he drove the two of them down to the bottom of the hill outside the north end
of town and they cracked a couple open on the trail.
Rick explained how when he was
thirteen his dad got a job down south. His parents split up just before he
graduated. Trying to finish up high school while having to live with his dad
got to be so bad he quit, and never did get his diploma. He followed his mom
back to Bargerville and lived with her for a couple of years. Kyle was up north
by then going to College of Egeria.
After Rick drained his beer, he
underhanded it like a softball pitcher, sending it whistling over the quiet
tangle of fallen trees and duff-blanketed debris into a clump of fern. Kyle
still had half his brew and planned from the get-go to pack the empty back.
“Hey look!” Rick brightened up.
“That old rope swing tree. Remember when—holy shit, there’s a fuckin’ rope on it,
man!”
The rope swing tree was an old
madrone arching like a crooked finger from the side of a leafy hill. If the
tree wasn’t dead it was dying. Over the years it had taken a beating. Still, it
hadn’t fallen over yet, just sank progressively lower. Someone had put a rope
on it not too long ago. The branch hadn’t grown around the rope where it was
tied on at all. Rick tried his weight on it, hanging onto the stick at the
bottom, prepared to land on his feet in case it snapped as he went creaking
out, low whoops coming from him making hollow echoes through the sheltering
shadows.
“Hey,” he called out, legs sprinting
in the air ten feet over the ground, “so what the fuck is it you do now,
anyway?”
“I’ve been working for awhile now
sort of out of Radley Recycling. There’s a guy there who lines me up with
people who have property, mostly, and want old metal removed to get it off
their hands and recycled and to help the wildlife not get torn up on it. A lot
of barbed wire. Plus I fix the fencing as much as they want. I get these little
maps they draw up and I go around on a four-wheeler—”
“Shit, man! You get paid to fart
around on a four-wheeler? Fuckin’ sign me on, man. Shit, you should come over
to my trailer tonight.”
“Well actually I haven’t really even
finished unpacking. I only just moved down yesterday.”
“From where?”
“Carata.”
“You said you’d been doing that
four-wheeler shit for awhile.”
“Well I have, sort of part-time. I
used to have to commute. It sucked. That’s why I moved down.”
“And now you’re a full-time
four-wheeler farter-arounder? Fuckin’ sign me
on.”
Kyle took a swig. “So you don’t do
anything, or you’re looking for work, or what?”
Rick gave him a look, hanging. “Who
says I don’t do anything? Fuck you! I work my ass off!” He swung up onto the
hill, face flushed from the exertion of hanging on at arm’s length so long. He
came up beside Kyle, who had walked to the base of the madrone by this time,
held the stick on the rope before him and said, “Let’s see you do it.”
“No, I’m good.”
“Come on, fuckin’ go for it, man.
Let’s just see you do it.”
“I said I don’t want to.”
Rick looked at Kyle as though he
were trying to think of something to say.
“So you’re what, too fuckin’ mature?” he finally said. “Too much of a fuckin’ college-boy now, is
that it? You think I’m down here all the time swingin’ like a kid all day? I’ve
haven’t even seen this swing in about seven hundred fuckin’ years, man,
seriously.”
“All right, all right, all right,
gimme the rope.”
“You sure you want to do this?”
“Give me the goddam rope.”
“Hey, no skin off my back.” Rick
handed Kyle the rope. Kyle grabbed onto the stick with both hands at arm’s
length, gave a tug for no good reason, having already seen it work, then softly
launched himself over the stick-thick duff far enough below to potentially
cause serious bodily harm if he fell. Conceivably death.
In twisting as he reached the limit
of the arc, he saw Rick crack the cap off a beer left in the pack and flick the
cap with a snap of the fingers behind an ear, flashing a great big shit-eating
grin. The cap hovered through the air like a mini UFO for an incredible
distance until it hit a redwood, where it stayed stuck in the soft bark. This
Kyle saw at the apex of his arc. Leaving the swing fluttering behind him, he
unloaded an informal negative sanction against Rick’s littering in the form of
a sarcastic remark.
“Wow, that’s some really terrific
trick you got there.”
“Seen a guy from Norway do that one.
He could send one damn-near across the football field. Sideways, of course.”
“No way.”
“Norway.
It’s like the capital of Asia or somethin’.”
“Europe, Rick.”
“What?”
Kyle didn’t bother trying to explain
that Norway was not the capital of Asia. Spying a rock, he tried to hit a burl
high up a redwood which bulged out looking like a huge, grotesque face. Rick
had a go as well, but neither could hit it. Right about the time Kyle realized
he might not want to throw out his arm, he recognized where they had wandered.
“The car graveyard,” he called back
to Rick, who was still searching around for the perfect rock.
Remains of old cars spilled down a
hill in an overgrown and slightly surreal heap. Some of them must have dated
back to the 1930s. Suddenly Kyle remembered seriously wanting to make an actual
working robot out of the varied wreckage. Musing on this, happy with the
feeling of tapping into a part of his life seemingly long-forgotten, he
imagined skeletal drivers behind the surreal wheels, and noticed that,
incredibly, there was still some glass to crack with a stick or a well-whipped
rock. They were behind the old gas station now. It had long ago turned into a
duplex, and Kyle had no wish for the further destruction of the junk on general
principle, much less alerting the town of their shenanigans with a gawdawful
racket.
The pit had been their fort, a sort
of home base for them which Kyle had found when he was ten. Standing now over
the edge and looking down inside, it was hard to believe they had spent the
night in there once with some friends. What seemed big then looked small now.
Years of duff piled high inside, the edges sloped and worn away. Rick jumped
down in.
“Holy shit! The pit! Right fuckin’
on! Beer me, bro.”
Kyle finished his first, tossed Rick
a third and cracked a second for himself. At Rick’s rate, he didn’t count on
having to carry the last one back to the car full.
“Seriously, buddy,” Rick
warmheartedly assured after they shot another ten minutes of shit, “you come
over to my place tonight and I’ll give you a welcome home feast, man.”
Kyle was actually touched. He felt a
closeness—or the desire for it—on returning to the area and looked forward to
enjoying people’s company. There wasn’t really that much left for him to do
before work on Wednesday anyway, and he would have all day tomorrow to do
whatever.
“Sure, man,” he said nodding. “Wow,
that would be great. I appreciate that.”
“Hey, you got it. I mean, you’re
like family, you know? Like the long-lost brother I never even had. Straight
up, man, you ever need any help, let’s just say I fuckin’ know some people.”
Rick gave Kyle his address outside
the south end of Madrani, hurled his empty with a full motion of his body that
sent him staggering down onto the duff and simultaneously emitted an enormous
belch that seemed reversed from its course through his lower intestines. But he
popped back up quite quickly, holding out a hand as Kyle leaned down, grabbing
onto the one low branch near the pit for support. “Fuckin’ do it, baby!” Rick
said as Kyle pulled him upwards at the wrist. With Rick’s feet scrambling
unnecessarily at the sloped edge for purchase, Kyle assured him, “You’re up,
Rick.”
But once he was pulled out of the
hole, Kyle noticed an odd look seemed fixed on Rick’s face. Without a word of explanation,
suddenly sullen, Rick weaved his way up the hill past the car graveyard, pausing
only to grab a big rock and bash out a driver’s side window vent on the nearest
car (which took a few tries), then continued on up to the back of the duplex
area until he was lost from sight, and Kyle could no longer hear the messy
crashing of his passage through the brush.
Figuring all of this was a bit of a
put-on largely attributable to a few quick brews, Kyle walked the way back to
his car somewhat perplexed, but glad to spend a little bit time in the woods of
Madrani again alone.
5
The look in the man’s eyes standing
in the head shop said, “Hi, I’m Neal, and I’m a narc.” The head shop was Holy
Smokes, and it was set up in Bargerville a little over eight years earlier, not
long after the strange destructive incident in town so many of its citizens
would like to have forgotten. But the evidence was clear. They were all stoned.
Had been then, still were now. That’s why it was up to Neal. Neal would weed
them out. Weed them out of sight.
This was Neal’s mission. A higher
power commanded him. Habitually he rolled on the balls of his feet, vigilant,
always vigilant, swinging the keys which he kept on a long white string all the
way around his outstretched index finger one way, tightly, and then swinging
the keys on the long white string all the way, tightly, around in the other. It
was an open secret that Neal was a narc. An open secret to everyone but Neal.
Just look at them walking, he
thought, staring out the window of the customerless store into the busy, busy
afternoon street. Look at them walking. In their clothes. With their hair.
Goddam scum.
And oh but what Neal wouldn’t do—how
he’d like to—oh ho ho, don’t get him started. If it was up to Neal the Narc, he’d be lighting them, torching them up
right on the street, right in broad daylight. All of them. On fire. Oh, how he
would dearly love for that to be. Those freaks. Just jam the gun right through
the side of the head completely. Then pull the trigger.
Blam.
The door banged shut. It was a
customer.
Neal snapped out of his reverie.
“Right on dude groovy,” he said. “Lay it on me my man if you need anything.”
Clenching his keys tightly, Neal
slid behind the counter. This could be it, as he well knew. Oh, too well. The
very bong sale that could bring the entire area crashing down. He himself had
nothing left. It’d be worth his sacrificing himself to see everyone dying in
flames—a-haaa!
The customer touched something.
Neal’s heart began to race. His hand
eased under a shelf, dancing lightly, so soundless, on the butt and trigger of
the clean powerful pistol resting on its side, pointing at the customer.
“How much for the dream-catchers?”
“Right on dude it should say at the
bottom—is there anything else sort of groovy I might…be able to…interest you
in?”
“Just looking.”
Oh I bet you are, Neal thought. Just
looking for a bullet right in your face. One little pull of this trigger and
down you go. No more. Bye-bye. Dead, you fuck. I murdered you.
“Okay, far out, lay it on me if you
need anything.”
A minute later the customer left.
Neal quickly slipped from behind the
counter and nosed up to the window.
Chickenshit, Neal thought. That’s
right, you walk away, but don’t you think I don’t see you. Don’t you think for
one second.
There was more than one out there,
standing by a car parked in one of the spaces out front. They were looking at
him. He quickly inspected the window. Yes, everything appeared to be in proper
order with the window. Very good. He moved on, sliding slowly back to the
counter where they couldn’t see him.
Very interesting. But why were they
looking at him? What did they want? Were they onto him? What were they doing?
Was the customer actually not a customer, but actually only pretending to be
one, secretly, in order to check up on him? Were they all from…the department?
They did not look pleased. Maybe he should’ve been more aggressive.
Oh shit they were coming back. There
were two of them now. Quick, quick, he had to act cool.
“Dig it you’re back that’s far out,”
he said as the first customer came in now with a second. “We’ve got the really
primo good stuff here. Tie-dye shirts are really groovy.”
The second customer inspected one of
the dream-catchers, muttered something to the first, and took the dream-catcher
over to the counter.
“Dig it,” Neal said, “that’s a
really right on one. Will there be…anything else?”
“Just the dream-catcher.”
“Oh. I can dig that. That’ll be six
dollars.”
“Great,” the second customer said,
placing the money on the counter. “I thought that was a nine. Thank you.”
“Yeah, all right.” Neal took the
money. Underneath a five and a one there was a piece of paper folded over which
he opened as he watched the customers leave the store. The message printed in
small font read
Recipient has passed Level
Four examination.
Recipient may resume
preparedness for Code Requirements.
At the bottom of the message were
the words
Your Bargerville LowCost
Proud Supporter of Turn it Down
Shrimp Sale .99c/lb
Always Believe in LowCost
Memorizing the information of the
message which he had received, Neal quickly wadded up the note, inconspicuously
shoved it into his mouth and calmly chewed.
Kyle went ahead and did his shopping
at LowCost in Bargerville almost against his will. In Carata he shopped at the
Co-op. Here he didn’t know what was where anymore, and out of grim convenience
went with the chain. Right about the time he was unpacking, the idea of dining
out with his old seventh grade buddy in his trailer had lost a good bit of its
luster. But, he had said he would.
In the twelve minutes it took to
drive from Radley back to Madrani, the sun had slipped behind the mountains and
cast an orange glow against the growing shadows. Leaving the highway to cross
Madrani Bridge over Mist River, Kyle took the Avenue to (here he had to reverse
the directions) the second left hand dirt road from the south end of town after
the big pullout.
When he turned in, the gnarled
branches hung so thickly overhead they formed a tunnel-like canopy along a
narrow grade up that eventually leveled out before hitting a hairpin turn. An abundance
of brush lined the dimly-lit road terminating some fifty yards down at a small
weed-choked pullout and a roughly oval-shaped trailer peeling plastic that had
once been red but had long ago faded to a pale kidney.
As soon as he stepped out of his
car, immediately unsure, an oddly mottled dog came rushing over in a vicious
blur growling so savagely Kyle was certain he would have to fend the thing off
before he could even get back in, but the loud report of a gun caused the dog
to veer suddenly away, ears back, tail firmly tucked.
“Butcher! Shut the fuck up!” A hand
with a gun was sticking out of a tiny window in the trailer. “You Rick’s
friend?” a voice yelled out.
“Yeah,” Kyle called. “He said for me
to come over.” This he hoped was the right thing to say.
The gun hand hesitated. Then waved
him in. “All right. Come on. Butcher you back off! Butcher back! Come on around
the side. He won’t hurt ya.”
Reluctant but strangely compelled,
Kyle proceeded forward.
A couple of broken lawn chairs
adorned the unwhipped weeds. Some warped corrugated metal, cinder blocks and
cracked white plastic tubing, too. Beer cans galore. Soiled cloth strewn in a
bit of brush. The door at the side of the trailer swung open. There appeared in
the aperture the bulbous body and spidery limbs of a tottering fat guy in
cruddy underwear. His bleary haggard face evinced sudden pain, ashen visage
creasing into a pattern of fleshy lines worn through long habit into deep
grooves which added to the man’s generally infirm and prematurely aged
condition. He sank backward onto a small couch with a well-worn pillow on one
side. A radio was on.
“You’re
listening to the King—King KANG!—Arbora, Newbook, Glynville—”
“I’m Big Bill,” the aged man
managed, wheezing like a teapot as he turned the radio off. The bathrobe he
pulled over his lap mercifully covered the stained, ill-fitting shorts which
went so well with his matching dingy white tank top, but served little purpose
in hiding a paunch so ponderous it might have been a conjoined twin. “Go ahead
and shut that door, would ya?” he wheezed. “Butcher ain’t allowed in here no
more.”
The place stank of stale smoke and
more. Big Bill lit a cigarette. Kyle played the sport and went ahead and shut
the door, noticing as he did the big flag filling the wall space to his left
opposite the couch. The red of the flag had turned pink in a permanent patch
from the sun, and the white had turned a uniform yellow. Underneath the flag
was a tiny TV, like a headstone in a pile of empty beer cans and cigarette
butts.
“Rick ain’t here. He’s usually down
at that old rope swing in the forest. When he’s not on active duty.”
“He’s in the military?”
“Sure, you could say that. Check
this out.” Handing Kyle butt-first the pistol he had fired, he praised its
qualities and offered a price. Kyle politely declined. Big Bill went about
praising its qualities some more. When Kyle could get a word in through the
constant wheezing stream he said, “Well I really better get going.”
“Hey, you got any money?”
“No, I really don’t.” He patted his
pockets. “Sorry.”
“Well I ain’t lookin’ for no fuckin’
handouts.” Here his face seized suddenly up. Big Bill seemed frozen in pain.
Lower back, evidently. After a few moments Kyle felt he should say something.
“You okay there?” He gave it another
moment. Big Bill’s tortured grimace faded.
“Before you go, look at this,” he
croaked. The guy was a mess. The place was a dump. Somehow though, Kyle got the
impression the guy used to be a lot more normal and kind of hid inside his own
slobby aura like it was an invisible emergency backup trailer. “Take a look at
this.”
Big Bill presented Kyle with a
velvet-lined case containing a shining silver gun.
“Ain’t she a beauty? This one I hate to lose.”
“Ain’t she a beauty? This one I hate to lose.”
“Why do you have to?”
“Shit man, it’s hot.”
“Well then I don’t want it.”
“Well then you don’t get it. Them
handles are solid silver. That gun right there’s worth more than the fuckin’
Shire.”
Suddenly Butcher started barking.
“Shit!” Big Bill croaked, smoke in
his eyes as he hurriedly closed the case with the silver gun and hid it. “See
who that is.”
Through a hole in the eclectic array
of crap, Kyle spied a smudged window. A cloud of dust billowed behind a junker
bearing down. A horn honked twice.
“Oh okay, shit, it’s just fuckin’
Justine.”
“Well, tell Rick I came by.”
“Hold on. Hand me that socket wrench
set right there.”
Kyle surveyed the junk scattered
around.
“Just right there. I’m fuckin’
lookin’ right at it. It’s right there.”
There it was all right, blended
indistinguishably into the junk like a little sea creature in a coral reef.
Kyle went ahead and grabbed it and handed it over just as the rickety door to
the tiny trailer sprang open, and in streamed Justine—not exactly dishy—with a
glum four-member brood of children in attendance, each bearing disparate
items—pottery, some nice platters, a bowling trophy cup. As these things were
all paraded past, filling space in the trailer where there was none,
effectively unconcerned by and oblivious to the presence of an outsider, Kyle held
his curiosity in check, springing nimbly out as the last solemn urchin traipsed
in.
The brown station wagon with the
panels peeling off was parked close behind him. It took about a seventy-five
point turn for Kyle to get out of there, with Butcher barking under the
driver’s side window the whole time, muffled mutterings sounding like
“dumbfuck” and “fuckin’ dumbass” spilling from the trailer with occasional
brays of laughter—one in particular when Kyle thought he heard a sharp metallic
pinging sound. When he finally got back to his place, his suspicion was
confirmed. He had lost a hubcap, probably as he was pulling out of the ditch.
But when he went back to get it the next day, there was no sign of it, and the
trailer was gone.
6
Cody needed to get out more. He knew
that. Had for a long time and didn’t need to be reminded one bit. Some sunlight
managing to make it through the clouds felt good on his face as he shut the
door, and the cool musty tinge to the air smelled like fall. “Jerry!” he called
out. “Jerry, come!”
Jerry Garcia scrambled around the
side of the house in sloppy bounds, but slowed up on seeing Cody in the
wetsuit. Cody was wearing his hiking boots, too, and had the backpack slipped
on with a towel, goggles, snorkel-like tubing and some goodies inside.
“It’s all right boy,” he said. “You
ready to go to the cauldron?” Jerry Garcia wiggled. “Let’s go.”
The cauldron was what Cody and Heidi
called (before Brandi was even born) a natural depression formed under a
waterfall in the creek running through their property a short hike away. They
used to go down there to achieve inspiration, among other things. But for all
the time he spent trying now, Cody couldn’t remember the last time he really
felt inspired.
Conceivably the amicable divorce wasn’t
such a great idea. Nine years now. Half of Brandi’s life. He’d gone over so
many times his and Heidi’s history. The death of them affected everything he
saw. Rotting trees toppled on the property, porous innards torn by claws and
snuffling snouts in search of bugs, had dropped like executed lovers. He would
not have been surprised to find he suffered from sort of clinical depression. Doctors
and drug companies like to make money. Not that anyone gave a shit. Everyone
else was too hung up on not knowing they were clinically depressed as well.
Passing through a gulley, a noise in
the tall dry grass on an embankment above caused Cody to stop. It suddenly
sounded quiet when his rubbery wetsuit wasn’t in motion. Something big in the
grass was moving—sure enough, one of his neighbor’s cows got through the fence
again.
Cody was about to push some
boundaries of his own. Time to break on through. He never did this kind of shit
anymore. This was where it was at.
In fact, it was. Although you
wouldn’t know from a distance. So wrapped up in his thoughts was Cody, he
almost went right past the cauldron.
The creek was way down, but a little
trickle left fed a pool below, sheltered by the boulders of a small ravine and
overarching branches of oak and madrone above. Cody carefully picked his way
among rocks and roots until he reached the cauldron bubbling below.
He sat down on a rock at the
cauldron’s edge, taking what he needed from his pack and setting the rest off
to the side. The hiking boots were old. They could get wet. The water was cold.
A month ago he would have smothered in the wetsuit. Today it felt nice.
One end of the four-foot length of
half-inch diameter flexible tubing he securely wedged at the edge of the
cauldron among some rocks; the other end he had fitted with a snorkel
mouthpiece. Goggles on, he leaned back, keeping his legs bent at the knees on
either side of what looked like a raised mound of rock, when actually the water
had worn away the channels in which his legs rested. His dunked-back body
gently bobbed as he listened to the dark mystery of the trickle feeding the
cauldron at the other edge.
Eyes closed, Cody relaxed,
concentrating on his breathing. Deep breath in; hold; deep breath out.
I need to get laid, Cody thought.
Yeah,
that’s it. I better think about something else. Cold shower, cold shower—fuck,
I’m in a cold shower right now. Bath anyway. Rube a doob tube. Tanks for the
memories. What’s the name of that one? Altered States. Who was it starred in that one? John Hurt. Was it John Hurt? No, not
John. William. John Williams? No, William Hurt. Hurt so good. No, no, get that
out—Something in the way she moves, Something in the way—
Jerry Garcia was barking. Cody
pulled his head out.
“Jerry, shut up! Quiet, boy!”
He went back down.
I’m goin’ in, he thought.
I
can’t stop thinking about Gloria Swanson. I know that sounds crazy but every
time I watch “Sunset Boulevard” I fall in love with her all over again. She’s
so incredibly beautiful. God, so incredibly hot I can’t believe it. That mouth.
So beautiful, absolutely unique. Confident, yet vulnerable. An animal sneer
with classical perfection. Those eyes. The way she moves her body, so
expressive. Her face. God, I wish we were together. Why can’t I have Gloria
Swanson? Intelligent, and funny and needing my attention. If only we could
ardently desire each other. I would do anything to tango with her right on her
oh-so freshly waxed floor. She was ahead of her time. She would have probably
been in her early fifties. But she was so youthful, so full of life. I just
look at her and I love her. Holy shit! What the fuck was that?
Something had suddenly hit the rock
between his legs with incredible force. Big chunks of crumbling rock barely
missed his head from a good seven or eight feet up at the top of the waterfall.
Cody pulled himself out of the cauldron, Jerry Garcia’s uncharacteristically
shrill barks filling the air. But Cody didn’t notice. He was looking at the
marks in the mud on either side of where his legs had been. All the thoughts on
human evolution being linked with early ancestors stumbling on naturally
mind-altering substances and the subsequent awareness of higher beings shining
in the sky descending down among them and shaping human development were never
netted from the stream. It was hard to tell. There wasn’t that much mud. The
bed of the creek was mostly rock. But the prints were wide and deep, and looked
like whatever it was had claws. Not like a bear or a cougar. More like those of
a lizard. Like a really big iguana.
Whatever it was, it damn sure wasn’t
Jerry Garcia, Cody thought, taking into conscious consideration now the frantic
barking of the dog further down the creek and ten feet up along the embankment.
Apparently, whatever it was had gone around the bend.
“Jerry Garcia!” Cody called. A
rustling sound around the bend, as of rocks rolling and tumbling about due to
something large scrambling around down there, coincided with increased fervor
from the dog.
Instinctively Cody determined not to
bother with his things. Instead he grabbed a fist-sized rock, and quietly as
possible, slipped back up the slope out of the ravine. Only when he was up in
the high grass with his rock-fist cocked back, ready to throw, did he call
again, “Come on Jerry, let’s go!”
But Jerry Garcia wasn’t having any
of it. He barked along the embankment until he was lost from view.
Cody froze mid-step. He almost
followed after, then turned around decisively and ran back to the house to get
a gun. Clomping nightmarishly slow uphill in the heavy suit with hiking boots,
he regretted not having gotten out more often.
Several times he heard what he
thought were sounds of being stalked by something big in the brush, but he made
it back to the house with a racing heart, rushed inside, grabbed a gun, raced back
out and saw Jerry Garcia coming up the hill. Not, Cody thought, with his
customary bound. And when he went back later that afternoon with a rifle to get
his things, he found the neighbor’s cow. What was left.
Most of it had been devoured....
DRIFTING ROOM After an alien abduction accidentally lands Sam Hain in a
parallel universe version of his redwood county home, his only hope of
getting back is finding the pale little almond-eyed being with the
bulbous head who accidentally landed with him and fled into the forest,
while, unknown to Sam, it’s his own blood coming into contact with the
biosphere that’s causing the bugs to grow so big. CODY AND HEIDI When
aging genius Wolfgang Fischer wounds his foot, the entire redwood land
suffers blight. Crops don’t grow right, people act dehumanized, and
corporatization ensues as Southern Humbaba County comes under attack by
the National Armed Resistance to Growers in this Hippie Grail myth.
REDWOODLAND Joe Longhair’s stories give the inspiration for Redwoodland,
the world’s largest amusement park and forest preserve of the future.
When he finally takes two tickets, Joe finds juicy romance where
visitors pass by train through real redwoods, and danger beyond his
wildest dreams among the talking burls, automated Bigfeet, and
animatronic Hippies.
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