“Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee” —-Herman Melville, Moby Dick
Deep Ellum
Dallas, Texas
Combs in Blue Water
Lieutenant Sampson looked across the heavy table at the armored screens, blinking lights, heavy duty keyboards, growling speakers, all connected with a tangle of cables. Right in the middle was a paper map of the area, worn on the edges, stained by spilled coffee, and obscured by layers of pencil and Sharpie scribblings. No matter how high-tech the electronics can be, people like him still had an affinity for paper maps – they conveyed the situation in a way no digital scan could.
At times of extreme stress, Sampson’s mind would always go back to strange, seemingly random memories, usually of his childhood.
Today he felt himself siting in a rural barber shop, nervous. This was from a time that people cared what your hair looked like – it was a statement of where you stood in the world. Sampson was too young to understand this exactly, but he knew that this was something important and that he didn’t really have any control over how it came out.
His father sat in the barber’s chair, covered in a checkered drape and his face lathered with white foam. The barber scraped away with a huge, deadly razor, the beard beneath giving up with a rasping sound. Sampson worried that the barber would use that razor on him… the buzzing electric scissors were scary enough.
He looked into the huge mirror that covered the entire wall behind the barber chairs. This was the twin of another on the wall behind the folding chair he waited in. The two parallel mirrors bounced off each other, creating a series of copies of the room, each smaller and slightly darker that the one before, falling off into a cave of infinity. This confused and fascinated the child – How does this work? -When does it end? Why does it do that?
But of all the things in the room, what intrigued and confused Sampson the most were the glass cylinders of blue liquid along the ledge in front of the mirror. Black rubber combs bobbed in the mysterious fluid, like the were waiting for something…. But What?
When he and his dad entered the barber shop he saw one of the vessels up close. It had the mysterious label, “Sanitized For Your Protection.” This confused, confounded, and frightened the boy. What danger was he in that the blue liquid and black combs were protecting him from?
The Lieutenant shook his head and the half-century old memory dissolved like grains of sugar in hot tea. “It’s time,” he said to the other shadowy figures moving around the room.
He lifted a plastic shield that covered a round red button inside a yellow protective ring. Without hesitation he pushed the button sending tons and tons of screaming metal death through the air, raining fire and pain down on thousands of (mostly) unsuspecting human beings he didn’t know and would never meet.
After he received conformation of the successful launches, Lieutenant Sampson sat down to await the reports of how much destruction had been successfully dealt out. He tried to stir up the memory again, to retreat back into the past, into the quiet isolated barber shop.
But the memories would not come. They were gone, forgotten, probably forever.
“What disturbs and depresses young people is the hunt for happiness on the firm assumption that it must be met with in life. From this arises constantly deluded hope and so also dissatisfaction. Deceptive images of a vague happiness hover before us in our dreams, and we search in vain for their original. Much would have been gained if, through timely advice and instruction, young people could have had eradicated from their minds the erroneous notion that the world has a great deal to offer them.” ― Arthur Schopenhauer
“Sometimes when I look at you, I feel I’m gazing at a distant star. It’s dazzling, but the light is from tens of thousands of years ago. Maybe the star doesn’t even exist any more. Yet sometimes that light seems more real to me than anything.” ― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun
Birth II, by Arthur Williams, Dallas, Texas
The library sent me an email, a book I had reserved was in. It was a new(ish) novel, The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami. Over the decades I have read a good bit of Murakami and written a bit also. It’s a massive tome (and popular, so I won’t be able to renew it) but I’m going to read the thing, nevertheless. I’m happy because I had been scrambling for my next fiction book to read.
In honor of my new reading task, here’s a Murakami short story to read – it’s crackerjack (it seems familiar, I may have read it before, but I don’t think I’ve linked to it).
“You’re a classic case of Horney’s: the man who comforts himself not with what he achieves, but with what he dreams of achieving.” ― Luke Rhinehart, The Dice Man
Decatur, Texas
A Dice Morning
“Alexa, please turn off the alarm.”
The harsh electric squealing fell to sudden silence.
“Thank you Alexa.”
Frank always thanked his electronic assistant while knowing full well how ridiculous it was. Frank lay as still as possible, relishing an unexpected almost comfortable position. His long night of tossing and turning, feeling hurt in his various spots of arthritis, inflamed shoulder, twisted ankle, and the other bits of injury left from decades of slow decomposition. This resulted, finally, in a position where the relative lack of pain washed over him like a warm flood of soft water.
After a few minutes Frank looked to his side. On a small nightstand was a pad of paper, a pair of white dice, and a shallow ceramic plate. He was in the habit, every evening, to make a numbered list, from two to twelve, of eleven things he might want to do the next day. In the center of the list, say, five, six, seven, eight… the most common rolled numbers, he would list ordinary tasks or amusements- a trip to the library or grocery store, for example. But at the ends he would put more more adventuresome and difficult items, and by the number two and the number twelve (the least likely numbers) he would always list things that shook him to his core.
Today’s list:
2 write and send email, quitting my job (which I hate anyway) 3 post a nasty, threatening, anonymous comment on work electronic bulletin board 4 go out and buy new television at Wal-Mart (they are on sale) 5 go for a long walk 6 vacuum living room 7 make coffee and breakfast 8 buy 25 bucks worth of tools at Harbor Freight (get free gift) 9 Start watching Netflix series about the Parkway Serial Killer 10 Pick one Item off my Amazon Wish List and buy it 11 Buy everything on my Amazon Wish List 12 drive to Springfield and murder my boss
With a grimace and a light quick groan, Frank moved out of his painless cold lethargy, forced his legs over the edge and winced his feet onto the cold floor, feeling the thick dry calluses on his soles against the tile. He reached out, cupped the dice, shook them in his closed fist, and rolled them into the plate.
“Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Goldfish Pond, Dallas Arboretum
From my blog (I called it an “Online Journal” then), The Daily Epiphany, Tuesday, September 08, and Saturday, September 12, 1998
Tuesday, September 08, 1998
Houdini toad
….. After work, I drove to pick up Lee at Nick’s piano lessons and took him home to get ready for soccer practice. I went over to feed K’Nex and Mortimer (pronounced More-Timer) and while I was shaking the live crickets into the aquarium I noticed there was only one toad.
We have had an escape.
I have absolutely no idea how the little bugger managed to get out. I cleaned their little world yesterday and am absolutely sure I put both back in. The lid is held down securely with suction cups and was tight today. Usually they can’t climb the glass of the big cage, but they are always trying, so I suppose he could have made it to the top and somehow jimmied open the clear plastic locking feeding gate.
At any rate, he’s out. So we have the attractive proposition of having a small, colorful, poisonous toad loose in the house somewhere. We are mostly worried that the giant killer dog might find the toad. I’m not sure exactly how toxic these guys are; I hope a moose-sized Labrador Retriever Mix might have a chance of surviving a meal.
I have devised a trap. At first I thought about using some crickets as bait, but on reflection I think that the toad will be more desperate for water than for food (there are plenty of bugs hidden in a house). I’ve set out a plastic box with a plate of distilled water in plain view. We’ll keep the dog in the back bedroom for awhile. Hopefully, tomorrow I find a lil’ green dude sitting in the plate of water.
If not, well, we’ll have to assume he’s escaped the house entirely, met some untimely end, or been abducted by aliens (which to me seems the most likely way he escaped in the first place). We haven’t mentioned anything to Nick or Lee so we’ll be able to sneak off to the pet store and purchase a replacement….
Oh, yeah, if you happen to know us, DO NOT mention this to Nick or Lee or any of their friends. For obvious reasons.
…I hope I can find one that looks enough like the old to fool the kids. Actually, that’ll be easy; green toad, red belly, black spots… they all look alike.
Candy is pretty freaked out at the thought of having an amphibian loose in our happy home. I’m freaked out ’cause I can’t figure out how he did it.
A little green escape artist.
Saturday, September 12, 1998
A runaway returns
….. I had a lot of trouble sleeping last night. Tossing and turning and turning and tossing, I ended up on the couch in the TV room. I kept hearing a noise from the window. A tapping, or maybe a melodious scraping sound coming from the window. My exhaustion muddled mind imagined all sorts of horrible possibilities for this sound; when I’d turn on the lights, there would be nothing there.
Finally I realized that what I was hearing was simply the sound of raindrops hitting the glass. It has been almost four months since it has rained at our house, I had forgotten the sound completely.
Today I was out of sorts, headachy and tired. We ran some errands in the morning (soccer games canceled because of muddy fields) and Candy dropped me off at home while she took the boys to a church carnival. I made an omelet and was sitting on the couch eating, watching “Planet of the Apes” and generally trying to imitate a vegetable when a movement in the kitchen caught my eye.
There he was, hopping across the tile floor, heading out of the kitchen, our missing toad. I guess he’s been hiding behind the cabinets or something; luckily I was there to see him make his run. He was hopping pretty well, seemed no worse for wear for his few days on the lam. I scooped him up before the Giant Killer Dog woke up and deposited him back into the aquarium.
We had to come clean with the kids, had to tell the truth about why there were now three fire bellied toads in there. They weren’t upset at our deception, only happy that we now have three toads.
“Of all ghosts the ghosts of our old loves are the worst.”
― Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Memoirs Of Sherlock Holmes
Window Reflection, Dallas Public Library
From my blog (I called it an “Online Journal” then), The Daily Epiphany, Thursday, March 28, 2002
Walking at night
I worked late each day this week to build up enough time to leave early today. I’ll take a day of vacation tomorrow – the kids are out of school for Good Friday. We’ll try to get in a camping trip – taking along one of Nick’s friends and meeting another family with three kids at the campsite – a couple of kids from Nick’s soccer team and some extra brothers and sisters. We didn’t want to drive very far so we decided to go back to Bonham, a small State Park (only twenty or so campsites) that we visited back in October.
The drive out and setting up the camp was uneventful – I’ve finally figured out how to hook up the new popup, work the hitch without an hour or so of cussing and struggling.
We set up and started a big campfire. I showed a kid how to write his name in the air with a glowing stick – shove the end in the fire, down in the red glowing coals (the hottest part) and then flick it around in the dark night of the woods. I know I’ll regret that – kids can’t resist messing with a campfire – they don’t need any encouragement.
As everyone settled down for the night, I left the smells of the campfire to go walking along the road that circles the small lake in the park. One of my favorite things to do when camping is a long walk in the dark. I like to let my eyes get used to the dark and let my ears get used to the subtle sounds of the nocturnal forest. Most of the road was closed to vehicles – metal gates locked across the tarmac (I don’t know why) but I can walk around a gate. With the full moon mostly out, surrounded by a ghostly ring (storms are predicted) and only a few clouds skidding past – it was a nice bright flashlightless stroll. The peaceful quiet was broken by an SUV that roared off the highway spitting gravel and sped around the dark roads for one circuit before squealing back out of the park. Otherwise, it was quiet with branches waving against the sky, slightly rustling as the dark shadow of an owl flew out.
As I reached the far side of the lake, a spot where some low, swampy woods border an open pasture beyond the fence that marks the park boundary a dark shape shuffled across the road ahead of me. I’m not sure what kind of animal it was. A skunk? It looked sort of like a skunk but after I walked past something splashed into the lake with a loud sploosh so maybe it was a beaver or a muskrat or even a nutria.
If I had brought a flashlight I could have shined it on the creature and figured out for sure what it was. I sort of like not knowing, though.
Cedars Open Studios
1805 Clarence Street
Dallas, Texas
From my blog (I called it an “Online Journal” then), The Daily Epiphany, Sunday, August 23, 1998
hold the chicken
I had big plans for today. I wanted to get up extra early and go bike riding downtown. I wanted to spend several hours writing. I wanted to start on the garage enclosure project. I didn’t do any of that.
It was tough pulling myself out of bed. Tired and sore, I flopped around the house, getting nothing done. I couldn’t even get up enough energy to scrub out K’nex and Mortimer’s (pronounced More-Timer) aquarium, and I feel bad about that. They do seem to perk up when I clean their little world.
Before I even knew what hit me, it was early afternoon and the kids had a birthday party to go to. Our Sunday volleyball games were scheduled for today too, so the plan was for me to make a token appearance at the birthday party (held at KidsQuest, a local park) and then head out to our friend’s house with some food.
When I showed up, though, the kids had other plans. There is a little triangle of dense woods and it was insisted by the under-ten set that I take them all on a hike through the trees. So I did. Rambling down the rough trails with a dozen little ones. The copse is usually thick and green, cool and humid, but the summer drought has taken its toll. The trees have lost most of their leaves and what is left is droopy and thin, the trails are wide and dry-packed.
We looped around through the faux wilderness for awhile and then I returned them all to the party and slipped off during the Opening of the Gifts.
It was fun to play volleyball again, we haven’t been able to get it in for several weeks. It was too hot, of course, and there was no breeze, and with the school year here, we all had to go home early, so we didn’t play as many games as usual. That’s fine, maybe I’ll be able to type this week, the last time I hurt my hands and arms enough to pain me for ten days.
Now it’s late, the TV’s on. I was going to write an entry about how I didn’t get anything done today, but I guess, looking back, I actually did something. Still, I sit here, the specter of the upcoming work week bearing down, I wish I had more time.
…. Right there, I took a pause, Five Easy Pieces is on the tube, Jack Nicholson is badgering the waitress, trying to get toast with his omelet. I love that scene. For all his rebellion, though, he never did get his toast.
It comes to that, doesn’t it. Do you want to rebel, or do you just want to eat some breakfast.
“The toaster (lacking real bread) would pretend to make two crispy slices of toast. Or, if the day seemed special in some way, it would toast an imaginary English muffin.” ― Thomas M. Disch, The Brave Little Toaster
Cook throwing dough at Serious Pizza, Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas
From my blog (I called it an “Online Journal” then), The Daily Epiphany, Monday November 06, 2000
Tropical
I woke up and lay there in bed, in the darkness. Thinking it was time to go to work I craned to look at the clock, but it was only three AM. While I restlessly padded around the dark and quiet house the dog looked at me through half-lidded eyes before he sighed and went back to sleep, convinced I wasn’t up to anything interesting. I tried the TV – they were selling kitchen appliances, loading whole chickens into rotisserie grills. The audience ooohed and aaahed. They couldn’t believe the price.
This wasn’t working so I gulped down a glass of milk and went back to bed. I curled up with stress, worrying about the upcoming workday – things I needed to do and don’t know how I’ll get done. My stomach churned, my palms burned, I tossed and turned.
One stress relieving technique is to have a place in your mind, a place to go, a safe harbor, an imaginary retreat. I have one, modeled on a real place from far away and now long gone.
It’s a simple boat dock, a swimming dock mostly, remembered from my youth on Lake Gatun, in Panama. In my mind I imagine the steep walk down the rough trail through the jungle to the lake. In real life it was rare to walk this without getting bit by a tropical ant or stung by some jungle bee – but in my mind they don’t attack.
The dock is crude, made of pallets and other thrown-away wood, attached to old metal drums. No boat is tied up today – a couple of handmade wooden canoes are upside down, pulled into some thick greenery at the water’s edge. Everything is green; the jungle is alive. There’s a big tree leaning way out with a rope swing. Giant lizards sit in the tree. I pull the rope back and climb with it a little way up the muddy slope – then swing out and drop into the lake.
The water is warm, tropical green, fragrant. I swim on my back out toward the center of the inlet then dive down, holding my breath frog-kicking down until my ears pop. Rising, breaking the surface, I turn and in a few strokes I’m back to the dock, climbing up, and stretching out, resting there for a few minutes.
Of course, this place didn’t really exist exactly like that – my memory has molded it. What did exist is long gone, even the base I lived on has disappeared along with the entire Canal Zone.
In my mind, though, I’m there for a few minutes at least. I smile a little smile.
“The leaves were sun-baked lizards, stirring towards the sea that churned its chain of silver snakes, which would, if given half the chance, coil round, pull him out of this urban setting, vomit him on dry land.” ― Ann Quin, Berg
Renner School House desks.
From my blog (I called it an “Online Journal” then), The Daily Epiphany, Saturday, June 8, 2002
Trash
It was getting hot, really sticky and humid, as I walked around the point and stumbled into the mother lode. Working my way south along the shore I hadn’t found much; but here there was a north-facing shore and with the summertime hot southerly Texas wind all these cans and bottles were massed up – blown across Sunset Bay from the popular family picnic spots on the other side. Everything was mixed up in the big round clumps of grass that protect the shore or hidden in the gobs of bright green seaweed – mostly aluminum beer cans plus plastic soda bottles, thin Red Bull cans, and a plastic quart of oil.
I fell into a routine as I worked along the shore. I’d use the grabber-a wooden pole with a little swivel handle that pulled on a thin rod that worked the flimsy pair of plastic-coated jaws on the far end-to grab the cans and bottles and lift them out of the vegetation. I’d line them up on the steep bank, upside down – so the lake liquid inside, brown and green, would drain out. After a few minutes I’d return, pick up the aluminum cans for the blue bag, everything else in the black.
Across the cove I could see a group doing the same thing. They had a long aluminum pole with what looked like a net on the end and a whole swarm of kids running around with trash bags. Two guys in kayaks slid by moving into the thick vegetation of the inner cove itself, looking for floating tires and other crap, I suppose.
The ducks and geese that live there were getting pissed off at all this commotion, after convincing themselves that I didn’t have any stale bread to throw out. The circled and clucked and clacked and gave me the Evil Eye. A mother and five ducklings arced out of a hiding place behind a clump and swam off into a more protected part of the cove. Off to my left was a more open field lined with trees. A photographer was wandering around gazing up into the trees, looking for an artistic shot of the limbs, and eyeing me every now and then. I could tell he had no idea what I was up to. Past him, a couple had set up easels along the treeline of the thick bottomwoods, protected by a stretch of swampy ground. They were painting away, sometimes walking back and forth to see each other’s work. I wanted to work my way over to them and see what they were doing; but the wet ground kept me away. There was plenty of trash where I was anyway.
On past the painters was a colorful clot of balloons arcing over the road at a finish line. Lanes were set up, tables of water bottles, a big yellow elapsed time indicator, and an ambulance – set up and open with oxygen bottles, gurney, and a couple of bored-looking paramedics in blue uniforms. When I first arrived a flashing police car had escorted the winning runner through and now the rest of the race was streaming by.
I’ve always been jealous of runners. Not of how they look, but of the fitness needed to do these races. Even when I was in good shape and riding my bike a lot I couldn’t run. I was a strong swimmer and thought about triathlons (God, that feels like so long ago) but my ankles and feet couldn’t hold up to the running. The constant pain of shinsplints was more than I could take.
An older woman runner went by, her safety-pinned race number flapping in the warm breeze. She was hoofing it as fast as she could with the finish line finally in sight, making a loud guttural huf huf huf as she ran. I turned back to the water and poked at another clump of lake grass that was making a tinkling, metallic sound as the waves washed over it and pulled a goodly mass of cans out from under the blades.
The cleanup was supposed to last until eleven, but it didn’t take me long until both my bags were bulging full. I was getting really overheated – most everybody had worn shorts and T-shirts but I wanted some protection from the nasty trash juices and fetid lake water so I had worn jeans and a long-sleeve shirt. I was spattered with brown mud thrown off when I pulled cans out of the lake – so I guess I had made the right decision. After putting my bulging trash bags (black for trash, blue for recyclables) in the proper spot I walked back north to the Bathhouse Cultural Center where I had parked my car.
A younger guy and his cute girlfriend were walking the other way, carrying trash grabbers like me. Their bags were still stuck in their pockets. “Having any luck?” I asked. “Nothing,” the guy said. “Well, I’ve already been by here,” I said. “You must have done a good job, there’s no trash left,” his girl said. “Usually there’s stuff along here in the clumps of grass,” he said,” most people don’t want to get that close to the lake.” “Keep going,” I said, “Around the point there should be plenty to pick up.” I felt for the guy; I could tell he felt diminished by the fact that somebody had beat him to his favorite trash spot and cleaned it out before he could get to it.
The second Saturday of each month an organization called For The Love of the Lake sponsors a trash pickup of the lake. I’m going to make that a regular thing for me – I’ve spent so much time at White Rock over the years it’s not too much to give a little back.
I’ll spend my Saturday morning picking up trash. Once you go to school and get a real job – knock yourself out to be successful – whatever the hell that means – you end up doing the stuff that you dedicate your life to avoiding, for fun. You buy a car and spend your leisure time walking, running, or riding a bike. You buy a big house and spend your free time doing yard work, carpentry, or plumbing. I always worried that if I didn’t work hard I’d end up as a janitor – picking up trash.
And now, a short piece of autobiography for today:
“In every outthrust headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand there is the story of the earth.”
― Rachel Carson
Lee walking in the surf at Crystal Beach. I checked my old blog entries – this was December 29, 2002.
From my blog (I called it an “Online Journal” then), The Daily Epiphany, Saturday, April 22, 2000
Out of Shape
Daingerfield State Park has a beautiful little lake at its center. The deep forest comes right down to the shore making the water look like a little cup of crystal in the greenery. It is lined with little coves covered in the green disks of lily pads. These were blooming with giant white explosions of water flowers. There is a swimming area marked off with a couple of foam buoys and a wooden platform floating out in the middle of the lake.
It was barely warm enough to swim and we spent a good part of the days sitting on the shore or throwing tennis balls for the Giant Killer Dog, while Nick swam. He would paddle out to the platform and climb up, pace back and forth, shivering in the cool breeze, until he was rested enough to swim back. He is so skinny it hurts sometimes to look at him.
The concession was open for the weekend and they had paddle boats for rent. Somewhere I have a photo album with a picture of a paddle boat I rented as a child. It was an elaborate all-steel affair, two torpedo shaped pontoons, a high bench seat, bicycle style pedals and a chain transmission to a real, visible paddle and a steering wheel. Today, paddle boats aren’t as well made. They are plastic and foam, bright molded-in colors, low-slung, a bent pipe with wooden pedals directly driving a completely enclosed paddle assembly. They are steered with a little pipe sticking up behind the seats.
Still, Nick wanted to rent one, so we paid our seven dollars and put on the ubiquitous red life vests, tattered and moldy-smelling, marked S, M, or L with fading Magic Marker. The boat was a bit too big for him and too small for me, making for inefficient propulsion. I am in such bad shape, my legs burned terribly as soon as we moved away from the dock. I could only paddle for a few minutes before I’d have to give up and take a rest. It took us what seemed like a long time to move across the lake (although we never completely used up our rented hour).
The breeze was light and the lake was even more beautiful from the center. Nicholas said, “Everything is blue or green, the only colors.” He pointed out how tall the forest was, it undulated into the distance, up from the water, and you couldn’t tell where the real hills were or where the trees were simply tending to be taller or shorter. Ducks and geese floated around looking for handouts. Black turtles sunned themselves on logs in the center of the lily pad seas, plopping into the water to swim away, sticking their heads out to peer out at us if we paddled too close.
When we looked down into the calm water with the sun at our backs we could see shafts of yellow and green extending downward, pulsing with the gentle waves. The trick of perspective made the water look miles deep, cold and clean.
Even with my legs burning, the sun heating up the uncomfortable clumsy life jacket, it was a pretty nice way to spend an hour and seven dollars.
When we reached shore, the kids shot some baskets at a hoop above the parking lot and hooted around in the playground for awhile. I examined some immature bald cypress trees growing in the shallow water and decided, for sure, that I was given an incorrect tree for my front yard. It is definitely a pine and not a cypress.
Nick, Candy, and The Giant Killer Dog drove back to the campsite while Lee wanted to walk back with me along the trail – a bit of a shortcut as opposed to the park road.
“Let’s race them!” Lee shouted, and took off along the trail.
It’s true, that in your mind’s eye, you see yourself as you were when you were… maybe sixteen years old. I could see myself running down that trail with Lee. I couldn’t do it. A few hundred yards and I was out of breath, side splitting, slowing to a walk. The MiniVan made it back to the campsite before Lee and I did.
Bill Chance 