AUGUST 12, 2018
NIGHTS, WHEN IT IS WARM
IMAGE
So anyway. The furry mimosa, gone hairy with its coat of saprophytic moss, is full in bloom. All the glads have erupted at once a few weeks ago and now all of them that have not bent over with the weight stand much subdued with muted wilts that used to be something and now all stand like silent meditating monks remembering past glories. The prevailing winds have returned although the air is still butter-soft and the shadows flow like syrups. It is late summertime and the stores are all filled with Back-to-School displays.
Pedro has managed to tune in to a faint channel that brings in the latest from his favorite Lutheran televanelist Pastor Rotschue, who appears after a #metoo contretemps and ouster from the airwaves found himself a sort of online home for his folksy point of view.
Pedro is glad that the voice that kept him company for many years out on the bounding main remains present in some form, albeit subdued. Yet a fisherman's lot is one that does not pause any more than the ocean stops for even one emotional second for any one man or group of men. The basement of the ocean is littered with the carcasses of ships that longed in vain for some sort of pause amidst the storm. Life indeed is harsh and its ending inexorable.
When Pedro returns each day from his work, and mounts the rise to the house, the roses of Almeida waft effulgent, driving away all salt scents of the sea.
Life is brutal and short, but then, there are roses raised and managed by your wife. There is that.
And there are the chickens and their eggs cultivated by that same wife, and defended from rats and raccoons, so all things are not matters of decay and evil.
Down the Snoffish Valley road Pahrump, Jose and Mancini carefully tend a 30 gallon bin perched on the edges of the flexible flyer wagon Mancini had rescued from the old Household. The bin is piled high with horse manure they had gotten from the Dickerson Ranch down the way and they were hauling it back as part of the project to make a subsistence garden bigger and better than the one they had on the Island.
As they trundled past Mr. Gruffman's place, the old fellow stood at the gate entrance to his property and swore a blue streak at the sight of our motley crew shoving and pulling a couple hundred pounds of equine excrement.
"Holy s--t!" said Mr. Gruffman.
"Got that right. And it's good s--t too!" said Mancini.
When they trundled past the cottage rented by Missy Moonbeam, she asked them what this was and when they told her, she exclaimed, "Cool beans! That is real Organic!"
Heartened by that encouragement they toiled on, pushing and pulling and steadying the flexible flyer wagon that carried so much horse poop.
Transporting the heavy bin took them a couple hours of hot, sweaty work but when they arrive at the new Household, they dumped it with ceremony next to the area planned for expansion while Andre played the harmonica. Tomatos, squash, beans, peas and green onions are thriving so far. Life is good when you got good s--t. Even better when it was free.
Then the boys settled down with a gallon of 99 cent wine Mancini had found somewhere, for no matter how hoity toity the environs, there is always cheep wine to be found somewhere if you look hard enough.
Ernest, who had both legs broken by the Angry Elf gang before he moved to Marin, takes his evening walk with a cane to breath in the air, listen to the birds and pause at the top of the hill, feeling much of life has passed him by. He'll never become a rock 'n roll star or an airline pilot or an astronaut and the window closed long ago on possible fame on the stage or on screen.
But that is all right. He is resigned as two hummingbirds dart by, pause to investigate and then dart away again. It could be worse. In fact it HAS been worse, much worse than living in confusing Marin. For a while it was quite horrible, in fact. But for now he is done with knee operations and taking opoids for the pain and no one has tried to kill him for at least two years. One has to learn to appreciate the small things.
Three young deer come hopping down the middle of the road and pause to stare at him not twenty feet away and then they go skipping off, not afraid but careful just the same. The shadow of a heron passing overhead crosses the road. Now Ernest is one of three Chinese figurines ascending a lapis lazuli mountain and being written aboutby a Irish poet. And his eyes, his glittering eyes are ancient and gay.
The buckeyes are going sere, putting all their energies into producing poisonous fruit and the light is soft with the redolence of late summer. The neighbor's nectarine tree now hangs heavy with promise, still small and hard, but getting there. Blackberry bushes along the lanes of Silvan Acres bow down with red and black clusters. The bean vines are producing like mad and the first squashes appear on tables. Yellow crookneck, acorn, zucchini. The tomato plants look ready to make a march on Washington DC so as to pelt those people with vigorous sense.
The days are hot, breezy with Santa Ana winds, The nights are cool and Venus and Mars face off against one another, Venus to the East, Mars to the West. Soon, the Perseids will flash through the sky, natural fireworks.
abused and accused and maligned
In Silvan Acres, and indeed throughout Marin County, life passes through a funnel of obstacles and while everything backs up, there is nothing to do but wait. Indeed, much of Life is just like that, if you think about it. There is tremendous effort and activity and then you come to a line that is commanded by one single underpaid, overworked, highly stressed-out, abused and accused and maligned woman with bedraggled dreds doing what she has been told to do for a paycheck that is not really that much behind a sordid counter she has to keep clean herself with a bottle of lysol and a dwindling roll of obnoxiously named Bounty paper towels.
You must wait; that is your fate.
Well, there are Rednecks and they act violently
The various members of the Household are still getting used to life moving at a slower pace in a place where not every store has what you need and every store is miles apart and many people speak a completely different language from Standard English and people never act like someone is about to kill them. Well, there are Rednecks and they act violently and over the top the way Rednecks do everywhere from the Valley to Peoria to Germany. Rednecks are the same all over the world by way of their self-limited perceptions and no doubt you will find Rednecks in India and China and Bulgaria who would be comfortable in the Heartland which so often votes against its own best interests because people are too often persuaded by the likes of Bible salesmen that the moral issues presented by the Adversary are the package that is delivered instead of the reality of what is there, plain for all to see.
The Adversary, of course, is not known for speaking the truth.
everything you need can be found within walking distance
For one thing, in getting used to the dispersed nature of Marin everyone has obtained bicycles and now everyone cycles like mad everywhere to get basic things done. The Island, being what it is, must have everything it needs on its bounded soil, and being a small Island, everything you need can be found within walking distance or a short bus ride. Every store is jam packed with everything you could want in the universe, but Marin stores have so little foot traffic, each store must specialize.
Martini has welded together a bicycle contraption that uses a metal bar stool for a seat, lawn mower risers for handlebars, sprockets from old car gears, and a chain that was once a serpentine belt for a Toyota Rav4. With a tubular frame made from plumber's pipe, the thing is as heavy as hell, but he managed to find a starter motor for a Yamaha motorcycle to help get him over White's Hill with the help of a few more gears and belts and tinkering.
Everyone else obtained somewhat normal bicycles from connections in the East Bay because prices for things in Marin are ape-shit despite the fact that wages in the County are low as can be.
What is the stars, he wonders
These nights Denby steps out from his quarters, which do not resemble the Lunatic Asylum where he once paid a tidy sum of rent, and looks at the stars. What is the stars, he wonders, wondering as other have wondered in ages past. The night air is cool and the heat of the day is banished, but not the thoughts of someone who has survived many fights. There on the deck of the relocated Household in Silvan Acres, he realized no one had tried to kill him for at least two years.
This is something. And not everyone enjoys this discovery.
A last hummingbird arrived, chirping, at the feeder hanging from the eaves before the light departed the world, the bird darted off, and all was silent. Soon the Perseids would arrive in their glory. Such a different experience from the brawling East Bay: no one tries to kill you and hummingbirds arrive at dusk. Quite a different experience.
Why was he alive and not so many others?
He had survived, but now had time to wonder why. Why was he alive and not so many others? To what purpose was his life now? Women he had known in his past life arose like phantasms in the night, elusive and accusatory. For each of them he held a fond memory and a little regret things had not progressed. Now here he was in the backwater of Silvan Acres just below the landing where the coastal train used to pass and hearing the sound of the ghost train travelling towards the coast or maybe it is the real train echoing across the water as people stand waiting to go on to their destinies on their respective platforms. And one figure steps forward to take his hand. . . .
The night is warm and we are still alive; the world is still there and there is no need to hurry. The trains drive through the night, further than dreams, and now after wandering far, suffering much, learning the cities of man and their foreign ways, he is home. Home at last. Always, he returns home.
The sound of the train horn keened from Oaktown across the estuary and wended its way through the fog-shrouded Northbay's well-matriculated hills and slid over the sleeping bulk of Princess Tamalpais following the old, forgotten railbeds that once led along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard to the coast, as it also traversed the estuary to cross the Island and the old Beltline property, and die between the Edwardian house-rows while the living locomotive click-clacked in front of the shadow-shuttered Jack London Waterfront, trundling past the Ohlone burial mounds to an unknown destination.
