THE SPIRIT VISITATION
DECEMBER 25, 2011
So anyway, this is the last Island-Life entry for the year 2011, which started out badly, got fairly miserable and wretched towards the middle, veered wildly into the horrific as the months advanced and ended up with a number of people dying but with a number of positive developments as well.
The Solstice passed this week for those pagans among us and each celebrated the annual shifting of the light according to his and her wont. Toni of the KQED transmitter engineer's booth got together with a few of her sisters to sing in the new year and put aside all the old regrets, much as good Wiccans are wont to do down by Crab Cove. This time they put out a lookout for Eunice, but Wootie Kanootie's sometime wayward moose remained this time penned up with the herd underneath the Park Street Bridge in the corral there where it was safe and warm as the weather had gotten brisk latterly and all the forecasters predicting rain.
Eugene Gallipagus got himself stinking drunk in the Old Same Place Bar as part of his own personal celebration such that Padraic had to call a cab to haul the reeling man home past the DUI checkpoints. Although he had failed to bag his limit this year at the Annual Island Poodleshoot and BBQ, he was full of a story about he had a beautiful Russian Silverhair 15 pounder in his sights just before all hell broke loose and they all had been surrounded during a torrential downpour which had soaked everyone's powder. Indeed that was one which had gotten away from the man to his great regret.
As most folks know Hanukkah rolled around this year coterminously with the goyishe holiday about the startling Virgin who had to have lost all that upon giving birth, for children -- even tiny godlike things -- are known to be much larger than what entered in the first place. In any case Eugene celebrated the Festival of Light by getting good and plastered once again with Myron, even though it was already the third or fourth night and he is not in the slightest bit Jewish and Myron is normally a good boy.
So after the Jews in town started their 8 crazy nights, all the shiksas in town got together with their own bubbes and their sighing spouses to jollify for their own celebration even as all the retailers rubbed their hands and extended their hours to further torture their hapless employees with boisterous holiday glee. Even Ross, which here is sort of a clothier's version of the Monty Python cheese shop skit stocked its shelves in an unaccustomed manner for the duration. You could actually enter the men's department and find not just one, but two sizes of socks for a change, which many found to be a miracle.
Naturally, this sort of thing needed some celebratory juicing, so Eugene got good and soused with Frank Spats, the admin assistant for the buyer for Ross. That was on Friday. Getting to work on Saturday was a lead trailer for the certain hell that awaited that good Catholic boy and he failed to make the Midnight Mass.
Well, the Main Day, as most folks know and a few refuse to admit, happened on a Sunday, which found Eugene getting good and wrecked with The Man from Minot and a case of Fat Tire and then on to the Old Same Place Bar, where Achmed sat waiting patiently in his turban and his cab for the boy to be boosted out of there in what seemed to be fast becoming a tradition.
"Man, I had that puppy right in my sights," Eugene said. "He was big enough to win the prize. I coulda been a contender."
"Yeah, yeah," Achmed said. "You know what I think?"
"What you think?"
"I think you should celebrate Ramadan. It would be far, far healthier for you."
"No kiddin? You drink a lot for Ramadan?"
"O no meme sahib. We do not allow alcohol at any time! That is against the Koran!"
"Yeah well, they grow a lot of poppies over there where you grew up." Eugene said.
"The Prophet said nothing about poppies or opium." Achmed said.
Tradition. Everyone has their own and in this time of Holidays there are many. Mr. Howitzer stood in the foyer on Saturday evening while his employee, Robert Ratchet tried to explain that the report could not be done because the server had crashed.
"It's 5 o'clock, sir. On Saturday night."
"It is not night, sir. I look out there and I see trees and houses perfectly well," Mr. Howitzer said. "It is not night but afternoon, or evening at the worst perhaps. It is not night!" Mr. Howitzer rapped his walking stick upon the tiles.
"Woof!" said Eisenhower, his dog, expecting something to happen.
"Sir, it is difficult to obtain assistance right now. . . ".
"Difficult? I am difficult! I reserve that cheerful attribute for myself. Offer sufficient fee and things can be made to happen. Money changes everything. I wish to have my report in hand by morning and I will have it!"
"Sir, it is Christmas Eve. Sir."
"What of that!? This is the problem with America today. People do not wish to work. That is simple. Some people do not wish to work. Mark you, if every one of those on the unemployment rolls would simply start working the entire problem would be solved! Now see you!"
Mr. Howitzer rapped his stick again upon the tiles.
"Sir there is nothing I can do. The Server is down and . . . ".
"O for the sake of god be out of my sight. For you offend my eyes. I'll get someone capable to do the work. Until then, you can consider yourself let go. Begone!"
"Sir, I am only saying . . .".
"Dodd! Remove this man! Like you handled the pig. That pig you know. Ah!"
Mr. Howitzer turned and ascended the marble staircase to his studio.
Mr. Ratchet stood there aghast and trembling until Dodd approached. Dodd had
dealt with Mr. Howitzer for quite a while and he knew his master's issues.
"I have just been fired, Dodd! On Christmas Eve on the day I am supposed to be off anyway!"
"It's all right," Dodd said. "I know the man. Just go home and enjoy your family. I will handle it."
"Thank you Dodd! God bless you! Thank you!"
Dodd sighed and heavily ascended the stairs. The pig to whom Mr. Howitzer referred was Hermano, who had been intended as the main course one memorable evening until the entire luau had imploded during an invasion of local raccoons, resulting in Hermano being sent back to the farm, there to while away his days in happy pig slop porcine happiness.
Mr. Howitzer had already locked himself in for the night into his studio with a bottle of South African port, and nothing more was to be done. The server would have to wait as well as the report and Mr. Ratchet's ultimate fate.
Dodd descended the staircase, which had been the model for a Fred Astaire scene with Ginger Rogers way back in the day and left the manse to attend to his own personal Holiday demands.
Alone in his studio, Mr. Howitzer fell asleep in his plush leather chair as the illegal fire crackled in the fireplace, this being a Bay Area Spare the Air day.
Sometime shortly before midnight, Mr. Howitzer suddenly awoke in his chair to the sound of someone coming into the room.
He looked at the clock on the mantel - 11:55pm. The door was locked but someone had just come in! In a panic he stood to go to the desk, but the man stood there between him and the drawer which held his loaded revolver.
"Who are you? What are you doing here!" shouted Mr. Howitzer.
The man lifted an old-fashioned kerosene lantern and as he did so, Mr. Howitzer heard a rattling of heavy chains.
"Good god, Jacob Burbage! It's you!" Mr. Howitzer exclaimed.
"No need to shout Harry," the figure said. "I may be dead but I can hear you well enough. Indeed, everyone in Hell can hear you nearly every day."
The figure standing their wore a business suit which had seen better days quite a while ago. It was torn at the shoulders and the elbows and his tie was wrinkled and stained as well. He was covered in dust from his tangled hair to his scuffed brown shoes, even his lined, careworn face, lean with deep eyesockets from which unhealthy yellow eyes looked at Mr. Howitzer by the light of the lamp. Shackles bound his arms to his ankles, however the chains were long enough to allow him relative freedom of movement. The chain that linked his ankles together was so long that he carried the loop behind his back and over his left shoulder.
"How is this possible? I went to your funeral. I saw you there in the casket wearing your Elk's club ring! In the name of god what . . .!"
"Oooooooooooooh!" Jacob Burbage wailed and the hairs on the back of Howitzer's neck stood up. "Oooooooooh do not speak that name! He cannot help you now, Howitzer! You must help yourself!"
"Ah, yes, quite right. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps is what I say. . .".
"Idiot!" Burbage thundered.
"Shhhhh! You'll wake the children . . .".
"Eh . . .". This brought the specter up short. "You HAVE no children!"
"I mean the neighbors. The property values are already bad enough around here . . . ".
"Oh shut up! You were always a fool in business as well as everything else. . .".
"Well I never liked you either . . .".
"In the name of Moloch be quiet! You have just one chance to save your miserable, parched soul this night or you too will be condemned for eternity to walk the earth in chains and visit numbskulls like you!"
"What's your plan, Burbage? I don't have all night you know."
"Oooooooooooooh . . ."!
"O for Pete's sake . . .".
"Oooooooooh! Your time is shorter than you think! I can see your end and it will be lugubrious and pathetic! Pathetic!"
"Really!? What's the way, if I may ask?"
"It shall be . . . lentil soup!"
"Lentil soup? I don't even like lentil soup . . .".
"Oooooooooooooo! Mark my words! You shall be visited this night by one Spirit of Christmas. And you had better pay attention!"
"Well that's the usual way the story . . . wait a minute! You said one Spirit? Just one?"
"Yes!"
"Why just one? Are there not usually three or four? I think I deserve more than just one!"
"Oooooooooooooo . . .! Cutbacks!"
"Cutbacks?"
"The salvation program has been cutback, just like all the others. Mostly because of pinchpennies like YOU! To tell you the truth, the Board decided you just are not worth the extra expense."
"Now really . . ."!
"This is what you get when you cut back government to nothing, Howitzer. Everything, and every body, goes to hell."
"Please don't tell me the Hereafter is run by a bunch of liberals. That really would be Hell . . .". Mr. Howitzer began to complain.
"Only you can save your soul now, Harry Howitzer. Oooooooooooooo!"
There was a flash and Jacob Burbage, his old business partner was gone, leaving behind a faint odor of sulfur.
"I wonder how he did that echo effect with his voice". Mr. Howitzer said to himself. He went to his desk, made sure the pistol was there, then left the study to go to his bedroom. He hesitated a moment and then returned to the study to fetch the bottle of port. Down the hall he had another mental revision and returned for the pistol. So with pistol and bottle he returned to his bedroom. He set down the pistol, snapped back two slugs of port in quick succession, then snapped back two more.
He started to feel more courageous and, pointing his head up at
the ceiling, said loudly, "I just want you to know I don't care about the
god damned curtains!" Then he wondered who he might really be talking to,
so he downed a couple more shots of port and, looking down between his feet
said, "I don't care about the curtains! That was Scrooge! He turned out
to be a damned liberal in the end anyway!"
"Who the devil are you talking to, if I may ask, with all due respect,"
a voice said.
Howitzer grabbed the pistol. "I'll fix you!"
"I doubt that." The voice came from a figure near the window.
Mr. Howitzer gasped. His pistol had turned into a brightly colored macaw in his hand. Which reached around and bit the meat of his thumb.
Mr. Howitzer shrieked and the bird flew over to the figure who stepped forward into the light. The bird landed on his shoulder. He wore black horn-rim glasses, a funereal-looking black suit, had a lean look to his face, and seemed to be barely thirty years of age.
"So you are the Spirit of Christmas Future, I take it," Mr. Howitzer said. He sucked his injured thumb.
"Well, no. I do deal in futures, but not yours. I am not the spirit of anything in particular."
"You are an angel?"
"No."
"You are a devil?"
"No."
"What are you?"
"I am an accountant."
"An accountant. They sent me an accountant. And this is about my soul."
"That's right."
"I do not understand. Who or what are you?"
"I work for the Temporal Salvation Agency. The Spirits are all out handling more valuable merchandise right now. People with souls worth saving. Wounded soldiers. A couple Stateswomen who really need it. Children of course are always more valuable than old geezers like you. As for you, your soul is seriously in arrears. You have not paid anything into your account for years and years."
"I cannot believe I got sent an accountant. . .".
"They thought you would understand. A man like you. Someone who believes you cannot spend beyond your means. Someone who insists on a balanced budget, no matter what the real cost happens to be at the end of the day. We only want to be fair. "Fair" is a word you types often use when you really mean hard and mean-spirited, but we really do mean fair."
"Fair. . .".
"Believe me, Mr. Howitzer, I cannot tell a lie. That is simply not possible."
"What do you want me to do?"
"You . . . its really what you want to do for yourself, you see."
"Give me a few suggestions".
"You could start by fixing up the place on Otis so that it is more habitable, patch up that burn hole in the porch . . .".
"There is a hole in the porch? How did it get there? Who is responsible . . .".
"Don't ask. It was Javier's fiftieth birthday and things did not go well. Fortunately no one died. In addition to fixing up the place (as well as being happy for your tenants no one died during that incident) you could lower the obscene rents there and in a few more places . . .".
"Never!"
"You could also pay the bail to get Andre, your chief leaseholder there, out of jail."
"That miserable punk is in jail? He probably deserves it."
"He does not. As for most of those who have a run-in with Officer Popinjay. You could have some sympathy for a boy who is spending a cold night on Christmas in a jail cell with no blanket."
"What did he do to get in there?"
"O Howitzer, it does not matter. He cussed out Officer Popinjay."
"Well, he deserves it. For one, he is disreputable, for another he has tattoos and that looks back on the neighborhood, and for another, malefactors must be punished."
"I guess you are not going to lower the obscene rents . . .".
"Not on my soul . . .". Mr. Howitzer said, before he quite realized what he was saying.
"You probably do not think so much of the Occupy Movement either."
"They . . . they interfere with business. They all need to get a job! Simple as that."
"Yes, well I can see how people protesting high unemployment and their own unemployed status would be best off changing that condition," the accountant said dryly. "That logic certainly fits together nicely. And as for Andre in jail?"
"Why should I pay the debts of a man who needs to pay his own way out of his situation? He's a malefactor and he needs to pay for it. Learn his lesson the hard way. It will stick."
"All malefactors should be punished?"
"Of course."
"I agree. I am an accountant after all. Good evening, Mr. Howitzer."
"That's it? That's all? No more visits? No jolly man in a red suit?"
"No, that's it. That's all we could afford."
"No creepy Mr. Death and visits to the graveyard or Tiny Tim or peeping in on weeping parents?"
The accountant laughed. "No, there will be no Mr. Death. Not like that for you. This is all we could afford."
"Cutbacks."
"That's right. Cutbacks." The bird croaked the word as well.
Mr. Howitzer awoke in his own bed holding a banana in a bandaged hand. The following week passed pretty much as usual until New Year's Eve.
A blind man stood in the middle of the intersection of Park Street and Santa Clara. He held an orchestra baton in one hand and what looked like a long horn in the other. Because he was blind, no one could see him and the cars passed through the intersection as the light changed, narrowly whispering past his hips as he stood there. Because it was New Years Eve, the sidewalks and street were thronged with traffic.
From someone's window somewhere the sound of a slow oompah with timpani drifted on the air.
Susan and Lynette came down the way on their bicycles, stopped in the alley that goes to the post office on Park Avenue, and chained up their bikes. Lynette unstrapped a tureen of lentil soup from the back of her bike and the two went up the way, laughing and chatting to one another. They paused at the light across from the Slut Hut Coffeeshop and several people joined them while waiting for the light to change, including a fashionably dressed woman leading a Pomeranian on a leash. The Pom sat obediently.
The blind man gestured with his baton. Still, no one noticed him.
The light changed and the blind man waved his baton to usher the pedestrians into the crosswalk, where, he gestured again as Eugene Gallipagus, nursing a hangover from the week's festivities, holidays, and all whatnot, sipped a hot cup of coffee with bleary eyes in his pickup truck heading down Park Street.
Mr. Howitzer stepped out of a property he had been inspecting over on Park Avenue, a place where tenants had been complaining about a strong electrical smell for no apparent reason for a while, and rounded the corner of the Firestation there to head up Park Street from the opposition direction as the blind man beckoned him with the baton.
Behind him, in the building he had just left, a tenant plugged an electrical cord into another, smaller electrical cord and then plugged that into a 2000 watt space heater of late 1970's vintage. When it went, it went all along the suddenly superheated electrical cords to the outlet, which Mr. Howitzer's nonunion electrician had fitted with a bogus three pole fixture without hooking up the ground. That fixture blew up with a most spectacular flash. Everyone in the place ran out and smoke billowed from a half-open window.
A laughing couple came down from Yumi Ya, which is on the second floor there. They carried a warm doggie box of unagi, Kobe beef bento, and lobster roll.
The Man from Minot, finishing up a foundation stabilization job came towards them carrying a couple 6 foot 3 by 4 boards over his shoulder.
A knot of friends stood in the doorway of Juanitas, talking and laughing.
Mr. Howitzer's macaw, which had escaped a few years ago from its cage, flew in front of Eugene's windshield, startling him into dropping the coffee in his lap just as he approached the light. Eugene screamed, loud enough for the Man from Minot to hear. The Man from Minot half turned to look at Eugene who slammed on his brakes short of the crosswalk.
The couple quickly ducked beneath the boards which had nearly hit them in the face, but lost the bento box which broke open and scattered across the pavement.
The blind man waved his baton. The oompah music played on the air, almost as if he had direction.
The Pomeranian, seeing Kobe gold scattered there, broke loose from his leash and dashed for the vittles, tangling up Lynette's legs as she stepped forward. She spun, the blind man twirled, the tureen, the fatal tureen loaded with lentil soup, went flying into the air; up up it went, almost as if levitated by magic. But then gravity held sway and the thing came crashing down to shatter into a thousand pieces of lentil and soup and ceramic -- ten feet in front of Mr. Howitzer.
It was this sight, right in front of Juanitas, which caused Jose and Javier coming out of the place after paying for their goat barbacoa to pause with the door open.
The blind man raised the trumpet to his lips and blew.
A gust of wind whipped through Juanita's to snatch up Javier's ten dollar bill and carry it out the door between the people gathered there right past Jose's nose and down the sidewalk.
Jose, eye's lighting up, ran after the sawbuck.
Mr. Howitzer, having seen the tureen break apart had paused to cross over the street to the other side - hah! lentil soup indeed!
So, after successfully avoiding the fatal lentil soup, he now saw Jose and the ten spot and, as fire sirens started up somewhere, the spirit of capitalist competition got into him. It could be no other way with Mr. Howitzer. The strongest and the fittest get the prize. With Jose racing after the money from one side Mr. Howitzer ran from the other, figuring he would use his walking stick if necessary when he got there.
The blind man puffed lightly on his horn and the ten spot danced coquettishly into the street, performing a little jete and a pirouette right in front of the two men. Mr. Howitzer thrust his stick at Jose, saving his life in fact, as he, the champion of property and capital, the somewhat successful business man and chief owner of the property management firm of Howitzer and Burbage, stepped right out there into the street to seize what was his due.
Right in front of the oncoming firetruck.
As the blind man took his bow to invisible applause, the long howl of the throughpassing train ululated across the fateful grasses of the Buena Vista flats as the locomotive wended its way blindly past the shuttered doors of the Jack London Waterfront, as it headed off on its own holiday journey to parts unknown and to meet its own destiny.
That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great New Year's.
