Being an excerpt from my new book that certain readers might want to skip Part Fourteen
NOTE: While everyone is, of course, free to read, these particular excerpts are, essentially, footnotes provided for readers of my books and are there to make sense of what they are reading AS THEY READ. So, they may not make as much sense to those who are not reading at the time...
Scientists tell us that, at the moment of death, certain parts of our bodies called macrophages begin the sequence of rebirth, as if potentially mirroring the processes of The Universe itself. That Black Hole thing. Typical of everything we see around us, so much of which mirrors something else. Doppelgängers, echoes, reflections of something somewhere. A twin that walks into your life from across an ocean, perhaps. A dog that reminds us of an uncle. A young woman walking into your office who reminds you of a long-lost love. A cloud that looks like a galaxy. Not necessarily an illusion, even if people tell us so. Not necessarily some dark Freudian subconscious figment. Perhaps more a Jungian artifact passing through time, suddenly appearing in our cave. Knocking on our door. Or forgetting to knock.
You know what I’m talking about, the Black Hole thing? Where the whole Universe someday collapses into a Black Hole and comes out the other side? A brand-new Universe, fresh, all new? You haven’t heard of that one? Maybe you’ve heard the Hindu version where it works with a lotus blossom. Okay… That’s alright, you won’t be around for it, anyway.
But those macrophages hammering away inside your dead body, cellular rebirths, they still don’t stop the undoing of human life. Your little cells are trying to rebirth you, but you’re done for. You’re already dead and they don’t know it. Poor little things.
Undoing. In time, all things will be undone. Mechanics. Tectonic plates. Black holes. Even little droplets of water on rock. Some things undone sooner with our assistance. Some things better off undone. Others cannot be undone soon enough and are better off forgotten. Five-letter word starts with a “T”... Then, some cannot be forgotten, either, at least not in your lifetime. What, then?
My cat, Peanut, was born, like all cats, instinctively knowing, through fear, it cannot lose an eye or a leg, not even its tail. These losses for a cat cannot be undone, nor, once done, could they ever be forgotten. No rehab for cats.
When I found her, filthy, crouching alone, shivering underneath the lower S-curve of a dirty old toilet in a rundown filthy, ammonia-stinking Tenderloin apartment on Geary, in rooms being shared by fourteen or fifteen Malaysian immigrants and upwards of forty felines of various age and breed, so small I could hold her sandy, tabby body in the palm of my hand, she was close to an undoing. They all were, all the cats and all the friendly, smiling refugees from that strife-torn, heat-strafed undoing of islands somewhere to the ocean-blossoming West.
I had been sent there to undo the future undoing of some other one of their soon-to-be-undoings. There to find another creature they had stolen. Unfortunately, already undone and ready to eat, lying awkwardly, eyes shut, throat cut, in an old refrigerator. I left it, and them, for their futures, something I could not undo. But I did leave the door open for a while as the Malaysians screamed and the living cats scramboobled. My unforeseen reward in my pea coat pocket, sleeping.
Even then, Peanut had these big bunny feet, sticking out. And my solemn duty awaited. A child of friends of friends, this time. She would be undone, for a while. People love their pets. Not only kids, either.
I had this other cat once, Toby. I loved that little tyke. A calico and a gift from a former student. Lived with me down South. The cat, not the student. She would introduce me to a life... Well, later.
Where we lived down South, I once saw two rabbits together, not anyone’s pets, thankfully, and I assumed they were a mating pair, standing close enough to them to sex them, but as I watched they appeared to be apart, disabused of one another, as people should be, alone, just two wild animals, even though no more than five feet separated them. Enjoying the abundance of the summer, they were. Down South, where Toby and I were, and with Robin, then.
People in the area hunted them when they could. As did the local dogs, foxes, owls and hawks. Some jerks joke about their mating. The North American cottontail breeds five times a year. Because it has to. To stay alive. No whining about it. Not for them or us, usually. Not unless we see a raptor carry them off and hear that awful sound, that begging for mercy, for release or a quick death, perhaps after a short scuffle.
Both rabbits were mottled brown with yellowish spots. The female, skittish, hopped away when I wandered too close. The male stared at me forever with a big, blue, pale moon reflected in his eye. That Tennessee moon. Summer. Temperature and humidity both around 95. As usual. I heard music. Incongruous. Faure’s “Pavane.” The soft sadness of the piano mixed with the sound of children’s voices floating on the lake. I could count the days Robin and I shared there. Time gives us that reward. But I don’t much any longer. Why should I? Farewell and good-day to the tyrants of our hearts…
I saw this other rabbit recently, also no one’s pet, native to the Siskiyou forests, turned white for the season, hunting for food in the snow. High on Deer Mountain. Alone. Like me. Well, more or less like me, I guess. Who knows? I watched from a distance, through borrowed binoculars. I never thanked that guy Parker enough, now that I think of it. He saved my life. Maybe. What was she doing way up there? You might well ask! In a drifting storm that had blown small, sharp flakes for two days, the scarce food had been harder to find. That’s what. Had to climb all the way up there looking for something to eat.
I watched her when she saw the bare outcropping through the shifting, blowing snow in delicate shades of gray and the shot of green. That’s fairly much all they can see, you know, grays and greens. A sharp gust that swept across the ground and whipped keen grains scattered her fur into fluff, making it sparkle, so much it might have been dangerous, but the few remaining spotted owl, red-tailed hawk, kestrel, prairie falcon or white-tailed kite, many orphaned by recent fires, had scattered to homeless branches, shivering up hidden calories, waiting for that harsh slate of winter air to dissipate. She crowded weight forward and short-hopped towards the knot of rock and trees, sniffing again to measure the distance and reassure herself of the image. All around the shades of gray in that vague spot of green continued to dance and this, too, made her anxious, hesitant, curious, I’m certain. But aside from the rushing wind, the adjacent sounds of the conifers and the rare hollies, the singing dead leaves of the occasional beech trees, the humming of the sage stubble, it was morbidly quiet where I waited. This time, not waiting for lost pets or people who steal them, though.
She found the small oasis calm and warmer, I would assume, bedded with detritus from storms and loggers, as it was where I stood, and began to dig and poke but had no luck discovering something to eat. She worked her way quickly to the edge where the clump opened on the other side and fell out onto a rocky crag to the steep bank far below in the valley between us. Now she could hear the sounds that made her stop, as I did, and she turned her head to glance down the slope at the slowly moving line of dark grays, as I did, towards what might have been to her a flock of large birds had it been in the sky, but it wasn’t, far away, in the valley below. The sound didn’t match birds, that line not true like birds. She watched and listened to the subdued din, though, to be sure, cautious, anxious. From this distance, it could have been mistaken by her through the mist, if up close, for a line of her own pellets, had they dropped in a line, had there been that many, or for any strange, protracted line of stones. But pellets and stones didn’t fall in such a regular pattern and they didn’t move, not even slowly.
The line stopped abruptly, it broke, and the sound changed. A sharper clang. It had been like a soft flock of birds. Suddenly it became like a screeching hawk, but vibrating the ground from so far away, so sudden a flash arose it made her jump. Everything around her jumped. I was pulsed back, too. Happens when things explode. There came a large cloud, white, sharply red and black, and the heat, the rumbling, it made her run. That, I did not see. I was falling. But it’s a good guess. From what I felt.
That’s it. That’s what this is about. Half the time Disney when I’m joking with people. Half the time Cthulhu when... Oh, and always a taste of Bugs singing, “Here’s the Easter Rabbit, Hooray!” to set the mood when The Universe just likes to play around.
More or less like people…
A great detective, William Gass, once referred to an old man’s memory as the walls of a box collapsing, or a window that had long let in the sun having the blinds closed. I would add closed in a snap, pulled down the way a dependable pitcher throws a perfect twelve-to-six curve. If I were a poet, which I’m not.
I tried once. Surprising how hard it is to convince people you’re a poet. Not shaving isn’t quite good enough.
Anyway. You want questions answered with a tinge of integrity, so memory is your last, best tool. A pitiful implement for poor getting-old me, whose memories hang in the air on thin filaments with imprinted words floating through them that I grasp at and steal from the past. The words seem not to be mine. Too pretty and honest at times, perhaps they aren’t. They turn into a Disney cartoon… Why? Because animals, non-human animals, cannot lie. Lying, attempting in any way to prevaricate, is above their level of consciousness. Above it. After dishonesty, only avarice causes more suffering. And only people cause these types of suffering. Perhaps that’s why I prefer animals. Or, there could be other reasons.
That’s saying I’m honest about where it begins. Sure as hell did not begin on Little Deer Mountain. Nor the Tenderloin. And not in Tennessee, recently or before. And believe it or not, regardless of what Melissa has to say, it did not start in my office that day and had very little to do with the fucking Dodgers. I’d say “excuse me” again but, what the fuck, by now you’d better get used to it. I’ll try to keep it as clean as possible. I promise. On my daughter’s grave, I promise.
At some point I might be able to identify where this had a crucible. You have to have certainty. It has a pulse, I can feel it, somehow. There’s a shape to it, like a cloud, or this shadow, the one that follows you around, but isn’t quite you. I hope it comes to pass in this life, knowledge of the beginning, since I don’t believe in any other life. Maybe things begin where they end, in black holes. That would make it easy. All I need is some help, and I’ve seen that on the walls. Not that “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin” crap. I understood the easy stuff a long time ago. The harder part I discovered recently. That’s what I’m leading to. On a wall in DC. After what went down there. Just a matter of time and will, and a bit of brain power. That and help.
Scientists tell us that, at the moment of death, certain parts of our bodies called macrophages begin the sequence of rebirth, as if potentially mirroring the processes of The Universe itself. That Black Hole thing. Typical of everything we see around us, so much of which mirrors something else. Doppelgängers, echoes, reflections of something somewhere. A twin that walks into your life from across an ocean, perhaps. A dog that reminds us of an uncle. A young woman walking into your office who reminds you of a long-lost love. A cloud that looks like a galaxy. Not necessarily an illusion, even if people tell us so. Not necessarily some dark Freudian subconscious figment. Perhaps more a Jungian artifact passing through time, suddenly appearing in our cave. Knocking on our door. Or forgetting to knock.
You know what I’m talking about, the Black Hole thing? Where the whole Universe someday collapses into a Black Hole and comes out the other side? A brand-new Universe, fresh, all new? You haven’t heard of that one? Maybe you’ve heard the Hindu version where it works with a lotus blossom. Okay… That’s alright, you won’t be around for it, anyway.
But those macrophages hammering away inside your dead body, cellular rebirths, they still don’t stop the undoing of human life. Your little cells are trying to rebirth you, but you’re done for. You’re already dead and they don’t know it. Poor little things.
Undoing. In time, all things will be undone. Mechanics. Tectonic plates. Black holes. Even little droplets of water on rock. Some things undone sooner with our assistance. Some things better off undone. Others cannot be undone soon enough and are better off forgotten. Five-letter word starts with a “T”... Then, some cannot be forgotten, either, at least not in your lifetime. What, then?
My cat, Peanut, was born, like all cats, instinctively knowing, through fear, it cannot lose an eye or a leg, not even its tail. These losses for a cat cannot be undone, nor, once done, could they ever be forgotten. No rehab for cats.
When I found her, filthy, crouching alone, shivering underneath the lower S-curve of a dirty old toilet in a rundown filthy, ammonia-stinking Tenderloin apartment on Geary, in rooms being shared by fourteen or fifteen Malaysian immigrants and upwards of forty felines of various age and breed, so small I could hold her sandy, tabby body in the palm of my hand, she was close to an undoing. They all were, all the cats and all the friendly, smiling refugees from that strife-torn, heat-strafed undoing of islands somewhere to the ocean-blossoming West.
I had been sent there to undo the future undoing of some other one of their soon-to-be-undoings. There to find another creature they had stolen. Unfortunately, already undone and ready to eat, lying awkwardly, eyes shut, throat cut, in an old refrigerator. I left it, and them, for their futures, something I could not undo. But I did leave the door open for a while as the Malaysians screamed and the living cats scramboobled. My unforeseen reward in my pea coat pocket, sleeping.
Even then, Peanut had these big bunny feet, sticking out. And my solemn duty awaited. A child of friends of friends, this time. She would be undone, for a while. People love their pets. Not only kids, either.
I had this other cat once, Toby. I loved that little tyke. A calico and a gift from a former student. Lived with me down South. The cat, not the student. She would introduce me to a life... Well, later.
Where we lived down South, I once saw two rabbits together, not anyone’s pets, thankfully, and I assumed they were a mating pair, standing close enough to them to sex them, but as I watched they appeared to be apart, disabused of one another, as people should be, alone, just two wild animals, even though no more than five feet separated them. Enjoying the abundance of the summer, they were. Down South, where Toby and I were, and with Robin, then.
People in the area hunted them when they could. As did the local dogs, foxes, owls and hawks. Some jerks joke about their mating. The North American cottontail breeds five times a year. Because it has to. To stay alive. No whining about it. Not for them or us, usually. Not unless we see a raptor carry them off and hear that awful sound, that begging for mercy, for release or a quick death, perhaps after a short scuffle.
Both rabbits were mottled brown with yellowish spots. The female, skittish, hopped away when I wandered too close. The male stared at me forever with a big, blue, pale moon reflected in his eye. That Tennessee moon. Summer. Temperature and humidity both around 95. As usual. I heard music. Incongruous. Faure’s “Pavane.” The soft sadness of the piano mixed with the sound of children’s voices floating on the lake. I could count the days Robin and I shared there. Time gives us that reward. But I don’t much any longer. Why should I? Farewell and good-day to the tyrants of our hearts…
I saw this other rabbit recently, also no one’s pet, native to the Siskiyou forests, turned white for the season, hunting for food in the snow. High on Deer Mountain. Alone. Like me. Well, more or less like me, I guess. Who knows? I watched from a distance, through borrowed binoculars. I never thanked that guy Parker enough, now that I think of it. He saved my life. Maybe. What was she doing way up there? You might well ask! In a drifting storm that had blown small, sharp flakes for two days, the scarce food had been harder to find. That’s what. Had to climb all the way up there looking for something to eat.
I watched her when she saw the bare outcropping through the shifting, blowing snow in delicate shades of gray and the shot of green. That’s fairly much all they can see, you know, grays and greens. A sharp gust that swept across the ground and whipped keen grains scattered her fur into fluff, making it sparkle, so much it might have been dangerous, but the few remaining spotted owl, red-tailed hawk, kestrel, prairie falcon or white-tailed kite, many orphaned by recent fires, had scattered to homeless branches, shivering up hidden calories, waiting for that harsh slate of winter air to dissipate. She crowded weight forward and short-hopped towards the knot of rock and trees, sniffing again to measure the distance and reassure herself of the image. All around the shades of gray in that vague spot of green continued to dance and this, too, made her anxious, hesitant, curious, I’m certain. But aside from the rushing wind, the adjacent sounds of the conifers and the rare hollies, the singing dead leaves of the occasional beech trees, the humming of the sage stubble, it was morbidly quiet where I waited. This time, not waiting for lost pets or people who steal them, though.
She found the small oasis calm and warmer, I would assume, bedded with detritus from storms and loggers, as it was where I stood, and began to dig and poke but had no luck discovering something to eat. She worked her way quickly to the edge where the clump opened on the other side and fell out onto a rocky crag to the steep bank far below in the valley between us. Now she could hear the sounds that made her stop, as I did, and she turned her head to glance down the slope at the slowly moving line of dark grays, as I did, towards what might have been to her a flock of large birds had it been in the sky, but it wasn’t, far away, in the valley below. The sound didn’t match birds, that line not true like birds. She watched and listened to the subdued din, though, to be sure, cautious, anxious. From this distance, it could have been mistaken by her through the mist, if up close, for a line of her own pellets, had they dropped in a line, had there been that many, or for any strange, protracted line of stones. But pellets and stones didn’t fall in such a regular pattern and they didn’t move, not even slowly.
The line stopped abruptly, it broke, and the sound changed. A sharper clang. It had been like a soft flock of birds. Suddenly it became like a screeching hawk, but vibrating the ground from so far away, so sudden a flash arose it made her jump. Everything around her jumped. I was pulsed back, too. Happens when things explode. There came a large cloud, white, sharply red and black, and the heat, the rumbling, it made her run. That, I did not see. I was falling. But it’s a good guess. From what I felt.
That’s it. That’s what this is about. Half the time Disney when I’m joking with people. Half the time Cthulhu when... Oh, and always a taste of Bugs singing, “Here’s the Easter Rabbit, Hooray!” to set the mood when The Universe just likes to play around.
More or less like people…
A great detective, William Gass, once referred to an old man’s memory as the walls of a box collapsing, or a window that had long let in the sun having the blinds closed. I would add closed in a snap, pulled down the way a dependable pitcher throws a perfect twelve-to-six curve. If I were a poet, which I’m not.
I tried once. Surprising how hard it is to convince people you’re a poet. Not shaving isn’t quite good enough.
Anyway. You want questions answered with a tinge of integrity, so memory is your last, best tool. A pitiful implement for poor getting-old me, whose memories hang in the air on thin filaments with imprinted words floating through them that I grasp at and steal from the past. The words seem not to be mine. Too pretty and honest at times, perhaps they aren’t. They turn into a Disney cartoon… Why? Because animals, non-human animals, cannot lie. Lying, attempting in any way to prevaricate, is above their level of consciousness. Above it. After dishonesty, only avarice causes more suffering. And only people cause these types of suffering. Perhaps that’s why I prefer animals. Or, there could be other reasons.
That’s saying I’m honest about where it begins. Sure as hell did not begin on Little Deer Mountain. Nor the Tenderloin. And not in Tennessee, recently or before. And believe it or not, regardless of what Melissa has to say, it did not start in my office that day and had very little to do with the fucking Dodgers. I’d say “excuse me” again but, what the fuck, by now you’d better get used to it. I’ll try to keep it as clean as possible. I promise. On my daughter’s grave, I promise.
At some point I might be able to identify where this had a crucible. You have to have certainty. It has a pulse, I can feel it, somehow. There’s a shape to it, like a cloud, or this shadow, the one that follows you around, but isn’t quite you. I hope it comes to pass in this life, knowledge of the beginning, since I don’t believe in any other life. Maybe things begin where they end, in black holes. That would make it easy. All I need is some help, and I’ve seen that on the walls. Not that “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin” crap. I understood the easy stuff a long time ago. The harder part I discovered recently. That’s what I’m leading to. On a wall in DC. After what went down there. Just a matter of time and will, and a bit of brain power. That and help.
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