1. Mahayana

I ought to have known it would come to this. The oracle warned
me.
Crazy Bear said there'd be days like these. As usual, no one believed him.
Now, all I want to know is: where is that lifeboat, and how do I
ditch this ship of fools, without any of these bliss ninnies noticing that I'm
already gone?
What I really need to do is quit counting cards with all
these psycho psychics, and find my future freely, unfettered by someone else’s
idea of who I’m bound to be. Isn’t that what I was fleeing in the first place?
The strangling sense of wrongness that derives from the dictations of others?
And now, a huddled mass of probabilities, waiting to test me
across the intersection. The novelty has definitely worn off, and converting castaways to stowaways has
already put us behind the glut of traffic,
as well as reducing the overall standard of life aboard our usually
spacious cabin.
Rather than collecting more human souvenirs, I was considering
making a few of them walk the plank, but that would hardly be kind, and
kindness is written into my job description. Not that any of our itinerants are
on a schedule, but if we don’t claim our designated spot by noon, the info
booth will be relocated to the nether areas.
Captain, my ass. We are equal in this sea of madness. No
matter what some power-tripping hippie says.
Still, I feel like Peter caught with his pants down.
You will deny me three times before the cock grows.
That iceberg is looking awfully big.
Too true, too true. No one really follows all the
rules, when no one’s looking. Uncanny, these forecasts of failure. Everyone
gets around to falling down, sooner or later.
How easy it would be, just to pretend…
Imagine there were no big Brother
No all-seeing Eye in the sky
So easy to forget the perils of an innocent lie.
The shadowy lump rises, banishing hope that I had spotted a bag
of trash awaiting pickup, instead of a rolling stone looking to ride awhile. A
mirage would have been welcomer, but may as well face reality, here and now.
Price we pay for every new day.
Not a trick of highway hypnosis. Action, then. Do I stop like a
good soldier, or do I bypass the mandate, bearing the curses of the forsaken
backpacker upon my eternal soul?
Hitchhiker off starboard bow, Captain. What are your orders, already?
Dilemma. How defiant do I feel? That ugly instant of limbo, where
destiny debates while decision awaits. Disregard prophesy, and brace for
whatever horrors result. Crap on the cross, just to prove that no thunderbolt
strikes.
Or.
Pull over for the camel that broke the straw boss’ back.
No. Absolutely not. No way can I stand one more
damned rider today. And a dog to boot?
What I wouldn’t give for a month off from helping these
nitwits go nowhere faster.
This has gone too far. Choose it or lose it...
NEVER
PASS
A
HITCHHIKER
Every creed carries cumbersome, ritualized
regulations. We labor under a minimum of absolutes, having found already the
futility of following how-to manuals toward Heaven, or, in West Coast psychic
space, “awakening,” whatever that would mean. Awaken from what?
Into another new dream?
Enlightenment. That sparkly shiny New Age Aquarian euphemism
for “The Product.”
If you knew what that word really
meant, you wouldn’t go there. Rotten bloody pit, it is, full of raving
moonchildren baying their assorted animal imitations from a sewer tunnel of
truth that washes away the waste of floods.
Other world-changers must wrestle with dogma.
The nit-picky suggestions that are crafted to be forsaken. Those foolish
consistencies which try the faith of the devotees and the patience of the
priestly class.
In KALI, we follow Magma. We don’t even
pretend to piety. But bets are inviolate, and I wagered Crazy Bear the keys to
this bus that I would never abandon a rider along my predetermined path,
without dreaming how tempted I would be to get out and walk myself, just to be
rid of the noise. Privilege confers responsibility.
Karma chameleons, we must nonetheless commit
to our own kind.
The only constant is deviance. Profanity is
sacred. And, never, ever, pass by a chance to give an angel in disguise a free
lift.
You never know Who might be checking.
Well, sure, that’s Crazy Bear’s first
commandment, the superstitious old yenta, but I’m in charge. First
principles. When in doubt, figure it out.
Screw
protocol. My Moses is off on the Mountain, talking to burnt-out bushes. He can keep
his damned impossible pronouncements. Why should I be the only one
bending over backward? That Golden Calf is looking better and brighter every
day.
And I have possession of the pedal. Nine-tenths
rule.
Power flows from the barrel of a carburetor.
Ultimately, the power to dictate the course of our journey rests more with the
helm than the admiralty. Besides, what does the Fool expect? The primary
qualification for leadership is an intrinsic inability to obey.
Tripped-out Trustafarian left me to
tend to his destiny while he’s busy playing psychedelic playboy, paying us in
profound promises to work out his karma for him here in crumbling
Babylon, while he putters around Peru, experimenting with fancy entheogenic
plants and consorting with shamans to penetrate the pyramid pattern.
He
doesn’t have to endure the dozen-and-a-half raggedy sign-slingers and
threadbare thumbers already stinking up the schoolbus and giving my head
a world-class ache, with their dumpsterdove wardrobes and noxious habits.
I’ve just about had it. For real.
One more, and I’ll scream. No shit.
Despite the official KALI poly-see of
universal acceptance, I am starting to find myself intolerant of these
freeloaders, with their overloud gutter-gravelly voices stuck on repeat, as our
uncomplimentary complement rings with dissonance, good-natured and half-hearted
attempts to scold puppies named after Grateful Dead songs, for public
urination, or, in an ironic twist of comic hypocrisy, for “begging.”
What to do when some pierced troglodyte
knocks around an infant canine for yapping after snickers and ho-hos deemed too
elite for the bellies of burdensome beasts, while the humans tactfully look the
other way as a fellow hitchhiker, complaining loudly of the meatlessness
onboard, has been unsubtly “reappropriating” my “secret” stash of homesmoked
tofu jerky, before I’ve had even a bite?
Damn kids! Unbelievable. How did
I get myself into this mess?
The child will embarrass his mother and kill
his bother…
This
is why Priestesses had to get stark raving stoned before dishing Delphi’s
pronouncements to the marks. Drive you mad with contradictions, otherwise. And no
one wants to believe that Last Supper callout. Hurts not to be trusted. Even more
to be entrusted with a left-handed proviso that I am not nearly worthy of it.
Which puts me in a no-win bind. Because if I
lack faith in Crazy Bear’s vision, what am I doing here at all? For that
matter, why did he assign me to run things, if he was really convinced I would
end up resigning?
Prove me wrong, witch. You always have that
option. Sincerely hope that you do.
Even the primal Mugwai admits that his
predictions taste better with a shot of salty soy sauce. No one’s perfect,
especially those who claim to be. And then he wanders off to consult his
charts, mumbling something about glimpsing alternate quantum paradigms.
After all, his posted batting average on
verified precognition lately dipped below .800, when the train went off the
rail in Spain, earning our leader a lively roasting on Holy Fool’s day. He’d
called the attack for Italy. All of us lowly neophytes trotted out our patented
Crazy Bear impressions that day. High comedy, low humor. He had to sit
there, grinning stupidly, but the wrinkles of worry beneath his eyes betrayed
dismay.
The Lead Luna-tic himself, in a fit of pique,
once claimed he would retire when his record dipped so low, which, predictably,
put the estimating prophet in the terrible position of changing his flexible
mind.
Crazy Bear persevered, ignoring the hecklers,
and so will I. Can’t give him the satisfaction. Knock that cocky bastard down
to fifty-fifty, if I have to be an angel to do it.
Rules are rules, after all, and graceless
leaders, who won’t abide the regulations beneath which everyone else labors, deserve
mutiny. That’s Magma. Self-evident, but must be stated anyway, to remind
the memory-impaired. Go ahead and lynch me already. Who needs this
authority role play, anyway?
Rather be the bad girl for the rest of the ride,
but everyone grows up someday.
May as well be today. Here we go. Welcome to
hotel hippie Hell.
On the roads of life, there are many pitfalls
as well as potholes. Some are strewn along the concrete, others inside
the bus. And the most dangerous lurk inside the driver hirself.
This is what I get for taking the road more traveled. For all its faults, an idyllic ride along
the rolling cliffs of Highway 1 would be less littered with vagabonds. When my
precognition and driving get better, I’ll foresee the dotted deadheads before
we hit the highway, and ride the white-knuckle coastal gauntlet instead, like
Neal Cassidy. No shoulders means no thumbers.
The brainless drainbow didn’t even leave enough room for a
VW bug to safely pull over, let alone our thirty-foot blue
submarine. No jury in the land would convict me if I just…kept…rolling…sorry,
kid, too much momentum…
“Althea! No groundscores! Go! Kick it down. Down!”
Still, I have come too far now to
forget the energy boomerang such selfishness always ensures, and, besides…I did
promise Crazy Bear.
The patron prophet of KALI would read about my flyby in his
morning tea leaves, not to mention a whole pantheon of supersensitive Goddesses
who would recall the neglected stragglers, stranded by indifference and indulgent
self-pity, the next time I called upon any of Her for aid.
What excuse could I offer for my
conscious callousness, when I stand before the scales of Maat on Judgment Day?
Certainly don’t need any krappy karma or a
jumbo-sized order of guilt on the side, so I grind my teeth
…and the bus…
to a halt, honking and skidding into the diminishing shoulder
of southbound Highway 101 at the last
conceivable instant. Well, may as well. Can’t really get any worse.
Breaking our stride has to be worth the
heartwarming spectacle of the grateful boy with his miniature mastodon skipping
up the gravel, kicking up a cloud of dust and pebbles in their haste to take
their place on the train to Jordan.
Or was it the highway to Hel? I forget.
Otherwise, why were we thus cosmically paired? There are
no accidents, and coincidence is always meaningful. How Magmatic!
Now
comes the hard part. Where will we put this mystery?
Overbooked on this flight, the bus resembles a
fire marshal’s sweatdrenched nightmares, crammed to the rafters with ticketless
deadheads. Maybe I’m doing penance for past-life slum-lording.
Fully half of our human passengers accompany
their canine masters on this pilgrimage to the unholy Shitty, and blood has
already been shed several times in squabbles over mutual edibility between much
smaller specimens. The dogs are feisty, too.
Flipping open the door, I spin about in the
captain’s chair to shout warning at all the dogslaves loafing in the back.
“Hey! Wake up back there and be on point! Brontosaurus on board! Keep
hold of your leashes or collars or whatever,” I yell over the chatter of
heedless hitchhikers, “if you don’t want your pet to become someone’s dogfood!
Everybody take a step back…and then another step back…and then another.”
These unheard, unprojected, and poorly scripted directions do
nothing to make space onstage for these new extras to enter the scene, so I
summon my soulmate for backup. When all else fails, count on your bedtime buddy
to lend a hand.
She always owes me one.
“Hey! Cherie! Help me regulate on this insanity
already, will you? Can you get some more kids piled on the bed back there? We
have to make room for Abu and his elephant here.”
Overcome with joy, the oversized dog tackles his laughing friend,
pummeling him to the pebbles, while we choreograph a crowded clown act to
accommodate them. Cute. This should be typical. Another endearing predictable
fuck-up, plaguing my most definitely sub-saint patience.
Ms. Get’erdone always comes through for us, as a rule. Seriously.
If she can’t direct internal traffic sufficiently slick to shoehorn another
fleabitten pair onto the trip, she should resign her responsible post as
recruitment coordinator for KALI. Talents are like assholes; they only function
when flexible, flowing and loose.
Love that Magma. Don’t have to be a rabbi to understand straight
shit like that.
“Move it, Momma! I’m getting mobbed up here.” How much harder to
help than be helped!
Thin ice, girlfriend. Leaving me hanging in the sack is one
thing. Shirking the Mission is quite literally another. That, I take personal.
Wouldn’t be who I am, if I didn’t. Get Her Done!
Will Che appeal to their collective conscience, guilting
the huddled masses into making way? Or will she whip out one of her patented
pranks, to redistribute the mess of smelly humanity? Either way, the problem is
in surer hands than mine. Cherie is a bona fide mistress at the art of
bossiness.
“Well, part of the problem is this big, empty bed! Why hasn’t anyone
started a massage chain yet back here? I wanna see a daytime cuddle puddle right
now! What kind of hippies are you? Come on, now. Let’s go! Everyone pile up
in the back of the bus!” she commands, to the extreme glee of some
copiously unwashed folk I’d just as soon not have groping my girlfriend
in our sleeping space.
No arguing with success, though, despite triumph’s transient and
illusory nature. The beleaguered pair loads up, before the swelling tide of
humanity washes back to the cab and forces them to retreat.
Unable to advance after all, despite Cherie’s heroic efforts, the
two stake out the stairwell, blocking the exit for the time being. A clear
violation of safety regulations, but such is life straddling the curve of the
Sacred Chao. Situation Normal, All Fogged Up.
So much for the fire marshal. Good thing our mechanical speed
limit keeps us well below the legal one. Hate to have to explain this
surrealism to an officer of Babylon.
The protect/serve crowd might offer to help us thin out our
bursting population. Assholes. They have guns and paddy wagons, but they
won’t get at my kids during my watch, no matter how bad they
smell. Family is Family.
On the road again. Pleased to be departing, for the fifth time
this morning, from Mendocino’s middle realm, dubbed “SchWillits” for the shady
and swilly who frequent the stopover, I engage the engine and return our
rumbambulating expedition to the flow of traffic. The new rider, precariously
perched, loses balance and falls more or less on top of me.
Far from the typical dazed drunk we’ve generally been hosting
today, this one exudes an Asian gentility and a shockingly genial odor. Like
the way glass might smell, if it did.
Definitely not bad, for a boy at least.
His alert, smiling eyes set like dark garnets in his clear copper sculpture
face, beguiling my femininity out of habit more than interest. Come-to-my-tent
eyes.
The new debut bears a radiant, violet Kirilian
haze, matching a mop of semidreaded black locks, peeking out from beneath his
backward Be Good Family hat and tickling the thick hemp choker
chafing his reddening neck.
Then, the funniest thing…
Though I should be at least glancing at
the highway, our liquid lightsensors lock and I’m lost in his world. Let the
small and weak make way for the mighty Mystery machine.
I’ve been here before. An eternity passes as the rider extracts
himself from my lap, and the bus drives itself as we struggle to disengage.
Mahayana moves unimpeded on pure faith, as I leisurely appraise the stranger
with whom I am suddenly so familiar.
The backside of his baby blue cloth overcoat bears a Sri Yantra
mandala and an eerie, extraterrestrial energy. As I gaze into the timeless
sacred geometry, I feel drawn into its whirling mystery, overcome by the
anonymous attraction between us.
Overall, he emanates an appealing androgyny and crafty confidence
that strokes my cat, whether I find it in a physique equipped with an innie or
an outtie. Belly buttons or genitalia, gender alone really is a trivial
reason to exclude such a beautiful being from bed.
I could go there. In a different
dimension. If I did not have a girlfriend…
Back to reality. What am I thinking? He’s not
even my type. Instead of shouldering his own backpack, his massive
animal companion is loaded down, like a pack mule, with items meaningful only
to humans. What other animal feels so helpless without a stash of
collected objects? Humans are so lame. Next species, please.
None of my affair. The road beast seems
free to leave if dissatisfied, bringing along his human’s spare stuff wherever
destiny leads, in a rather tragicomic flash of ironic justice. I’d absolutely love
to see the look on his face when that development turns the tables.
Here we go again. I hate introductions,
where strangers exchange the most superficial details of ego data while
concealing our inner nature, but it comes with the territory I cover.
“My name is ‘Amana,’” I repeat
obligatorily, for the fifteenth frustrating time today, as each of us regain
our compromised composure, “and the bus is called, Mahayana. The ‘Big
Vehicle,’ get it? We’re on a peace mission. Hail and welcome. Please observe
our preference that you not consume powder drugs or meat in our home, or leave
any trash.”
What else? “Oh,
and do everyone a favor and feed your dog friend from the communal supply while
on board, not canned scrap meat-or the other riders. There’s a throwdown stash
behind my seat. Help yourself.”
“Thanks. I generally do. You can call
me, ‘Adam,’” he flirts pleasantly over the din of the recently resuming
bus and her occupants, pressing palms together before his sweatstreaked face
like a psychedelic monk. “This big heartbreaker here goes by ‘Doobie Scoo.’
Don’t listen to him when he says you’re his one and only; he’s got one
in every port.”
Charmed, I’m sure. Mirrors everywhere. Like
married humans, road dogs always capture the essence of their companion’s
foibles. Supersized egos adapt to each other out of necessity.
Domestication is egomania in action.
Continuing his rapid, manic rap, Adam traces a
quick pentacle in the air using his index finger, a gesture which reminds me of
the way devout Catholics carelessly cross themselves to commemorate occasions
of personal sanctification and guard against evil.
“Namaste! Many blessings, for
you and your crew. May the Holy Eye take note of your kindness, and reward you
generously for giving sanctuary to a wanderer. Om Shakti Ganesha Lakshmi Om.”
He smiles. “There. I ordered you good fortune.”
“So mote it be,” I quietly agree.
“I thought I’d have to grow tits to get
a ride. This highway is absolutely lousy with kids headed to Synergy!”
He domes his palms over his nascent nipples to dramatize the horrible fate I’d
rescued him from. Cute. Great way to score points with me, kid.
Try it for ten years of monthly
swelling, daily crass commentary, and unceasing harassment. Large breasts cause
stupidity. In other people. Complimenting my mammoth mammaries is like
insulting the rest of me.
Nevertheless, a shocking number of degenerates
feel possessed to call my unwilling attention toward my chest, often merely to
notify me of my mountains’ impressive size.
Oh my! They are big, aren’t they? I never noticed.
Must have happened only a minute ago. Thanks for getting me up to speed on
that. I was simply dreading passing my whole life as a two-back. Guess
I’d better go buy a bra now.
Lousy, indeed. “You’re telling me! I was
thinking of billing CalTrans for services rendered, the way we’re cleaning up
the one-oh-one. Call us the Hobo Express.”
Adam takes stock of the technicolored clusterfuck behind me. “So
all of you happy campers are headed to the festival in Golden Gate Park?” he
probes presumptively. No point in denying it. I agree noncommittally, annoyed.
Kid could learn a thing or two about making friends on this
bus. First, kick the sexism. Lesson two: do not refer to me as a “happy
camper.” Especially on this rotten bullshit lameass day.
“Any particular whatfor? Or is this just a
party scene?” Strike three. Sorry kid, you’re out. Already irritating, it’s
almost as if he’s been speed-reading a textbook on my pet peeves. Even
well-intentioned interrogation bothers me like no other common social vice.
Time to kill the chit-chat, before I get rude.
Not his fault I’m in such a piss poor mood. Just having a hard
time loving my species today.
Birthdays are like that for me.
“We’re on a mission,” I explain again
tersely, staring ahead. “Promoting peace,” I amend, more a message for
myself than him. But I can’t hang with him in this headspace.
I leave it at that, connection cut. My silence
speaks for me, and he hastily gets the point, recovering a little lost ground
with me. So few people can take a hint!
Sowing greener pastures, and spotting a free
patch of bed, where the steamy cuddle puddle is proceeding with an abandon I
cautiously ignore, Adam climbs eagerly over several heads to claim his human
cushion, leaving me to my driving and thoughts.
Zen Master, how can I soar with the eagles
when I have turkeys always begging a lift?
Dharma, pure and simple. May as well be a good
sport about it; there is no escaping the duty of tending toddler spirits.
Cosmic babysitting. The Bodhisattva chauffeurs the Big Vehicle across the
energetic ether, as all sort of childish souls cling to her, seeking
enlightenment under Maya’s million guises and yet never knowing that
illumination is all we ever truly seek.
As Crazy Bear solemnly warned when handing
over the keys and the immense responsibility of his vision for what we were to
do with them, this mission is metaphor and memory for the accelerated
hyperreality, predicted to follow this preparatory phase of flesh.
It’s all part of the scribe’s semisane scheme
for evolution beyond the age of Reason, the plan that I serve in spite of my
misgivings, because between his manic proclamations rings an undeniable truth.
The aging coffee shop Jewru’s tongue vibrates
with the conviction of inside information as he demystifies the mystical.
Cunning linguist, that one. Or so I have been given to understand. Rainbow
rumours are so unreliable. Never trust a Trustafarian.
All so very obvious, the estimated
prophet likes to say.
The guiding theory is that our lessons and lives are constructing
the recollections and temperament of the Star we are destined to collectively
spark, when the skin addiction plays out, and the elements are aligned for
ignition of the planetary parts.
Individual bioentities can be considered self-aware specialized
neurons connecting the collective consciousness of an embryonic stellar soul.
We’re manufacturing the memories of God. What we imagine to be
our struggles for sustenance and success now are the stories which stream simultaneously
before the Eye of Ain Soph, which in a different Now is being born, and in
another Now recounting our adventures in the flash of reflection accompanying
the death of the Star We Are.
Every choice represents a vote for a kinder or crueler Nirvana.
For the handpicked crew of ambassadors
managing Mahayana and spreading her message, awareness amplifies the
effect. Electing to stand for love and light carries the obligation to live
it, or face the fate of the hypocrite.
Couriers of consciousness expansion, each of
us becomes a focal point in the struggle between self and soul, as Ourstory
winds down to its climactic commencement.
Even the most trivial errors can blow back on
the awakening Buddha. The Bodhisattva trip is a trap. Enlightenment consists
primarily of a shocking satori, exposing the stupidity of every prior
choice.
Welcome to the Karma Cola world of rolling the
immovable rock up the insurmountable mountain. Peak experience, indeed.
Privilege
Negotiating the ethical minefield of everyday elections
constitutes training for the rapid-fire test we All will face when we confront
each other, naked soul by soul, for Judgment Day celebrations. Hence the vital
importance of our salvage efforts.
Better Brahma’s million manifestations coiling
about in the celestial Spiral Dance remember me kindly when we assess
Ourselves; better still that these embryonic Enlightenments be nursed with
exemplars who serve with a smile. If I don’t Love this, why am I doing it?
confers
Driving. Thoughts. So intertwined, after six months meandering
with Mahayana along her overworked itinerary of counterculture concerts,
communes, and collective complaints against the war machine. As this experiment
hurtles forward in space, I find myself moving more in terms of mind,
zooming effortlessly into realms no earlier experiences led me to expect to
exist.
The map, to me, no longer depicts physical locales,
so much as vibratory states of existential awareness, a schematic of Her
Spirit, rather than an arrangement of legal labels, assigned to every part of
the Mother by those who seek to control Her.
responsibility
Kalifornia, certainly, is a state of mind. The end of the
road, as it were, brimming with those who came up against the Void and found
they could run no further from their problems. Stolen land, heisted and shysted
over and again. Greedy for gold, every exploiter trod upon this ground and
claimed it with names, first in Spanish, then with Oklahoma quaintness.
Welcome to Hopland.
Nowadays the fortune-hunters come seeking nuggets
of shimmering cannabis- renewable, sustainable green gold, clutching
their trim scissors instead of dipping pan, but even still, only one in ten
will come up as they dreamed. The balance will barge manically about the
largely redneck and outsider-sensitive rural widespots in a vain quest for work,
which as far as these shiftless streetkids can tell is nothing more than a
local codeword for garden duty.
For a growing small-minded segment of the
counterculture, clipping buds for twenty tax-free dollars an hour is just the
Manna from hippie Heaven they’ve been holding out for, in order to finance that
hegira to Holland or hedonistic heyday in Hawaii.
As in all things, the Wheel of Karma spins for
some, and rolls over others.
Some will be successful in landing the coveted
contract, and happily trim marijuana for a month, before being run off by an
armed grower who decided not to pay the inflated scale after all.
And some will wind up in the river for having
unauthorized access to the bounty of the Harvest.
By and large, these are the kids burdening us
today, the waste product of the work migration that infects the counterculture
each autumn, as the bliss ninnies and water-treading grasshoppers realize that
with winter looming, they’d best come up and with a quickness.
Chronically unemployable, even within the
underground economy, because of how alienated they are from what work is for,
they solicit each other for help in everything, even failure.
Drainbows. Free lunch as lifestyle option. The blind begging the stupid. I
want to shake these kids, wake them from their dependent stupor. Somehow these
“hippies” never grasp why they are repeatedly passed over for the
abundant trim work, even after laying around for weeks in front of the small
growingtown grocery grouped in large, dirty bands.
So there they sit, season after season, flashing annoyingly
alliterative, unsubtle “WILL WORK FOR WEED” signs, scribbled on cardboard boxes
with crudely drawn scissors and unconvincing marijuana leaves, while
unwittingly harassing for spare change and pot the very growers they seek to
impress with their work ethic and reliability.
Everyone just wishes they’d go away;
they’d want it themselves, if they’d snap out of their lazy daze long
enough to want better than bumming. Sooner or later, they do what birds do,
where the climate suits the clothes.
No point in being bitter about it. Scruffy
streetkids are Family, like it or not. It’s a phase. Psychedelic infancy.
Dropped out but not tuned in. And every once in a while, one of these kids will
show you hir pure crystal light through the layers of dumpster grime and
proudly recycled rags, and you know that tomorrow, that one will be driving
the bus.
In the strangest of places, if you look
at it right.
Another backpacked form shadows the shoulder,
this time in front of the erstwhile Solar Living Institute, a progressive
enclave which sticks out like a hitchhiking thumb on the south end of this dull
agrarian community. Stopping here, probably to pick up one of their
permaculture interns, warms my heart. Mahayana is running today on
vegetable oil, partly with the help of these folks. We owe them many blessings
for converting the big vehicle to operate outside the petrochemical box. I
eagerly open the door for her.
She brings sunshine to my dreary day, waking
me with her wide jade eyes. Orbs linked, we linger a moment in the other’s
openings, her unavertable lids parting like lips in amazement, exposing a
bright, conscious soul adorned in a full, fine body wrapped in functional khaki
cargos, white wifebeater tanktop, and windblown bandana.
Shimmering golden crown chakra burning brightly above bunned
blonding dreads, she simultaneously shows the protean energy Being she
ultimately Is, as well as the flawless form the atman animates, gripping a climber’s
walking staff in her right hand to balance her bulky backpack.
Without wearing a dab of makeup, she easily
outfoxes nine of ten magazine models. The faint rich dampness of her armpit
hair reaches my naughty nostrils and sets my snatch squirming with a musky
moistness of its own. This rider, too, is quite emphatically my type.
Whoa, momma.
“Linda,” she exults perkily. “Linda
Hand.”
“Amana,” I return, tickled. “Amana
Mission.”
Gracing me with a golden grin, she fires back,
“We’re a natural team, then. Need a hand with anything?” I’ll say, I
think, imagining the elegant erotica we’d make together.
“Let me ponder on that for a minute or
two,” I purr suggestively. “I’ll get back to you.” Where is Cherie? Can
she hear this?
Linda flashes her pearlies. “Can’t wait.
Thanks for the ride! I’m supposed to set up the Sustainable Living booth by
noon. Otherwise they’re giving our spot to the tree-sitters and we get
stuck next to the beer garden again.”
I abandon any attempt to contain my
excitement. “We’re neighbors! We’re running the Synchronized Survival
info stand, for the Karma Alliance Light Institute.”
Naturally she’s familiar with our work. We’re in the same racket:
sustainable energy.
Complements on many levels, we agree to collaborate on more
mutual projects. Linda and I flirt for an all-too-brief moment, comparing notes
and spiraling souls, before she is absorbed in the swirling mass of non-driving
humanity to the rear, and I am rebound by the road.
Fantasies. They
come unbidden in the most inconvenient of moments. A test of my newly sworn
monogamy, or some cryptic cosmic signal of that played-out path’s
hopelessness?
Of course, if my girlfriend likes her,
too, we can make a triad without compromising our commitment. Sharing with
Cherie! Could we give polyamory another go?
The idea fills me with a giddy evil electric
anticipation. Eat my pie, as it were, and have it, too. Three hot, hairy young
dykes on the prowl all over the festie circuit…we could be downright dangerous.
Until I wind up tending the bus, alone, again,
wondering where has that girl gotten off to all night? Opening that
Pandora’s Box will only free the demons that feed from the energetic exchanges
of the orgy, who gleefully shatter the stodgy bonds of soulmates striving to
greedily reserve their love for each other.
One’s eager sexual frenzy is the other’s
neglected needs, and our relationship, at my own insistence,
can’t sustain such frivolity any longer. There is always somebody on the
sidelines; far too often, that somebody is a stupidly surprised self.
Hot breath caresses my cheek, and I realize with a start that the
breeze is temporal, not astral. Cherie! I’d know that spicy scent in a
fragrance factory. Think of the devil…
“Pull over, it’s time for a brake. Go ahead, I’ll take over the wheel.
This wing nut that you just picked up has some pretty extreme weirdness
going on, that you ought to see for yourself. I can’t explain it, but something
told me you should get hip…switch with me, so he can turn you on to his trip.”
She tries to undo my safety belt, but I bat her hand away.
What an annoying pushy bitch. Don’t try
to pull me out of my groove just to look at some goofball’s mandalas or mobile
museum! “Send him up here to sit on the stairs with his dog, and I’ll
talk to him while I drive.” Nobody gets me to relinquish my
throne for trivia. The only reward this driving duty offers is the satisfaction
of sliding into the parking spot at the end, and I’ll not be cheated of it so
close to the Shitty.
Slut.
Forgiveness is coming slowly.
Festival season’s been rough on our relationship. Each of us have
vowed to forever forsake the other, multiple times over the course of the
summer.
Interlopers, drama royalty of various gender persuasions, the
pathologically horny, and just plain pathological, have all taken a crack at
splitting us apart. Great fun.
It’s not the sex, per se. I mean, we both played
with plenty of people before we met, as well as the since which
bothers me, and reasonably assume that the future beyond each other will
contain many adventures with various crevices and protrusions. Transcending
relationship staleness is our primary premise.
The problem is the way Cherie treats me,
when she’s busy weighing my virtues against someone unfairly new, exciting and
flawless, free of bitterness and expectations. The way these others treat me,
as an obstacle to their lust for my lover.
Machiavellian shifting of loyalties in the
pillow room have far outweighed whatever transient thrills I found there. Our
late-night ventures to the labyrinthine world of polyamory has brought us to
the brink, and now we’re both sworn to faithfulness, just like a picket-fence
straight couple.
Now, apparently, it’s my turn to regret
that demand. The Wheel of Karma is often cruel.
Healing lies before us.
Adam’s trip turns out to be interdimensional.
“As I was explaining to your girlfriend, this Ephemeris, here, indicates
the temporary presence of a Portal Potty, in Speedway Meadows, on this
date,” he solemnly intones, as if everyone bases hir life around accessible
squatting space.
Crackpots and chamber pots. The zen of
crapping without the benefit of internal plumbing.
I snort. “You don’t need a chart to tell you that!
There’ll be several dozen. The promoter rents them, so we don’t shit
under the bushes.”
He laughs. “Not a Port-a-Pottie; a Portal
Potty. A transient effect of mass gathering, which enables quantum travel by
opening a wormhole, poking through a temporary rending of the fabric of the
space-time continuum. Get enough imagination in one place, and the boundary
between dimensions becomes very malleable.” Out of my eye’s corner, I spy a
green graphic matrix against the otherwise black LED screen of a Palm Pilot.
Wing nut, indeed.
“I think I saw that episode of Star Trek.
Or was it the Twilight Zone?” Usually I conceal my incredulity at the
delusional nonsense that comes my way-glass houses and all-but there’s no point
in encouraging him. Is this rubber-room case for real?
How come California doesn’t fall into the
Ocean? Cause there’s a wingnut holding down every corner.
“Have you looked at your girlfriend’s digital
flip-phone lately? Those things make Captain Kirk’s communicator look downright
primitive. We happen to be traveling, after all, in the twenty-first century,
a region with maximum mind manifestation. Minor miracles all over the place.
But the programs I’m running, here, will blow your mind.”
Consider it blown, brother.
“You won’t see the Existential Ephemeris
reviewed in local tech magazines. The download time was unreal, but worth every
year. I had to design my own server to access that Web, and piggyback
the signal from Sirius B’s surveillance net; no commercial provider connects to
it this far in the boonies.”
“You’d be surprised. This is
California, after all. Every other head designs web pages or builds systems or
UFOs in their back yard.” Or has been recently liberated from psychiatric
incarceration, thanks to Republican cutbacks.
He frowns. “I meant chronometrically
local, as in ‘Gregorian time coordinates: the early second millennium A.D.
Pre-Purge. Dawning of the Age of Aquarius. You know, this end of the Kaliyuga.”
He scans for comprehension. “You’re hip to this trip. I can feel it on
people.”
Well, this, at least, makes sense. We seem to be on the same page
here. “You’re talking about the final phase preceding the transformations of
2012,” I probe ominously.
He nods. “I think of it as the South
Side of Time.”
This happens to be a pet subject, but I’m in
no mood to harbour or humour lunacy. “You mean to tell me, with that
innocent poker face, that you are taking up all this room on my bus, hitching a
hundred-fifty miles to this festival, not so you can enjoy the big-name
bands or speakers, not to vend goods legal or illicit, not to
network with the many heady minds in attendance-but…because you think a
particular shitter will be there, let me get this straight, that enables
you to teleport through space and time? What are you on, and
where can I get some?”
My jibe fails to take its intended derisive
effect. Instead, suddenly pensive and secretive, he draws closer and lowers his
tone to a barely audible, confidential whisper.
“Okay, that’s the secret password.” Oh, goody,
I’m in the club!
“What I have is so strong it breaks the laws
of physics. So I can’t offer it to people; I have to wait to be asked. Some
sort of filter to keep the unready away. This is not for the mass
market, and lives are on the line to keep it that way, for safety’s sake. This
is about Deep Magic.”
I’m all ears. His face is so serious, I have
to bite my lip to restrain a skeptical snicker. Humor the madman and he’ll go
away.
“They call it R-E-P, Reality Exchange
Potion, and you have qualified for a guided trip to the other side of the
story. But I’m warning you! One hit will completely transform the way
you conceive of existence, no matter what you think about it
right now. That’s part of the magic. Astral jetskiing, nothing like it.
Definitely does not mix with narrow minds. You’ll see what I mean.”
He’s thoughtful. “Keep it on the downlow,
though, it’s very powerful stuff. Not for the kiddies. Strongest letters
in the alphabet soup. So let me decide who’s ready to hear about it.
Rather, I’m only supposed to tell those who have already figured it out. This
shit makes DMT seem like a whip-it. REP is the secret ingredient in
transdimensional metempsychosis, which is what floats my personal boat.”
I refrain from informing him that I had
figured out nothing. The expression I employed is merely a venerated
Hippiespeak way of implying insanity. Let him imagine what he wants.
“And what does this have to do with why you are here, now?”
“There’s a very narrow window for these
things, and it looks as if Synergy taps into a main vein from which one
can virtually travel virtually anywhere. These mass gatherings have a
distorting effect that represents a key opportunity for spacetime surfers in
the region. High tide, as it were. The metaphysical event generated by
the physical event contains all the intensity and intention that the
promoter’s thoughtform generates, interacting with the energetic enthusiasm and
expectations of everyone who eventually makes the scene, with and without
bodies…and of course all the psychedelics...”
I have now officially heard it all.
Enough. Too freakin’ much…
Someone more interested in this drivel than I am grabs his unwanted
attention, and I am free to be One with the landscape Mahayana smoothly
conveys me across, the material Mother, with Her contours and ridges that
mirror the metauniverse completely in every manifestation. All the mystery I
crave at the moment is the koan of the road.
Why, Zen
Master, are human beings such hopeless irredeemable fuck-ups?
The coast is high-rolling, with Porsche and Mercedes in every
lane, but the real wealth comes from Gaia’s flesh, this rich fertile place near
the sea, full of fruits and forests.
Behind every million-dollar mansion is a devastated woodland
habitat invisible from the top-dollar view on the redwood patio deck.
Enlightenment will come when we realize how much more valuable trees are
while they stand.
I can never resist a stiff middle finger whenever we emerge from
the final refuge of redwoods remaining on the soiled planet, to greet the
grisly spectacle of a lumber mill, billowing toxic fumes as loggers reduce the
lungs of our Mother to toilet tissue and junk mail.
Synchronous enough, Mahayana is once
again stuck behind a caravan of flatbeds, each loaded down with thirty or forty
centenarian lumber lifetimes. Not really a cosmic coincidence; the 101
is a prime conduit from forest to sawmill. I feel like scripting a MasteredCard
ad of my own:
Logging rights on public “protected” lands:
$80 a truckload.
High-quality polished redwood table top:
$5000.
Our irreplaceable ancient ecosystem:
PRICELESS.
Not that the TV generation will be alert
enough to sense the contradiction. Plenty of trees in the dogwalking
park. If they want nature, they’ll buy a granola bar at the corner gas station.
A final rider, just outside San Rafael, not
interested in exchanging pleasantries or even being pleasant. Beyond this
point, or, really, from Santa Rosa on South, hitchhikers tend to be lazy or
stupid or both, since we are in range of the city transit system. The vibe on
this one is dark and shady, and I immediately regret stopping for him, despite
my pledge to Crazy Bear in the name of those without wheels.
We barrel into a wall of fog obscuring the
exit to Stinson Beach and the underground surfer haven of Bolinas, as I catch
the unmistakable whiff of something unspeakably foul, which I deliberately
mistake anyway for some sort of smoldering mechanical disaster, before spotting
the source of the awful stench: our latest addition smoking speed from a
folded foil, only a couple feet away from my delicate nostrils. Without even
asking!
The thing is, I’m hypersensitive to stimulants
and also prone to them, and even the fumes from meth get me lit. Tongues start
to move faster than minds, and an argument always breaks out when we practice
chemical tolerance for street powders.
For this and other reasons, their absence and
our abstinence relates to the subject of Crazy Bear’s second rule. Only
psychedelics are exempted from this ban, along with untreated herbal products.
“Hey, kid,” I stammer. Will it ever end? Who
the Hel did I piss off to deserve this? “You can’t smoke that shit
in here. Save it for behind a dumpster.”
He affects shock and indignation. “They’re all
smoking back there,” he protests.
“Sure. Buds and hash, not crack
or tweak. We don’t need that poison in our lungs. If you must
waste your energy that way, could you stick to a discreet bump, and not foul up
the air for the rest of us? Thanks so much. And stay out of sight of the
windshield, okay? Were you born in a crackhouse or something?” I realize with
regret as I say it, that, perhaps, he was, and, if so, I may have rather
cruelly touched a sensitive nerve.
Oh, well. He needs to know that he comes off
that way, if he’s even capable of caring.
The Bridge is upon us before I even have a
chance to consider the five-dollar toll. San FranPsycho, the city with a cover
charge. Like everything else about the Shitty, the toll plaza generates
calculated cash, on absolute lockdown. The only way to avoid paying is
to loop around to the south, a detour which expends more fuel and time than the
five dollars represents. Smart. Evil, but brilliantly so.
“Hey, anybody got five bucks for the Man?” I,
naturally, have no cash. Most of the time, I don’t really need it. We carry six
fifty-gallon tanks of pure refined hemp oil up top, and can refill anytime at
the KALI communitarian farm outside of Bend, Oregon, or the new one in Southern
Arizona.
We run a barter and begging economy: tit for
tat, if not this for that. Donations come easily on the road; there are many
friends for our ideas in the natural food business. Since we represent a
non-profit educational charter, carefully crafted to avoid both excise levies
and excessive harassment, the regular crew of six gets into concerts and
festivals with a wave of our laminates.
Everybody loves missionaries, even the
cannibals. We just disappear when they break out the ketchup.
The Institute’s break-even premise also,
theoretically, takes care of Caesar and his extorted cut at this
inconvenient juncture, if I actually knew where that paperwork is buried
beneath the gear of six residents and nearly twenty transients.
Par for the course; none of my guests admit to
holding even five units of Empire scrip, to get us past the trolls.
Instead of a contribution, I am assaulted by a barrage of obnoxious excuses: “I
had to buy burritos for my dog,” “will they take Canadian cash?” “don’t pay
their fascist imperialist tax, the money feeds the war beast in the Middle
East!” “Ask them if they’ll trade for a nice rock” and so on so I am
Forced to Jedi my way through the tollbooth.
“Do you even know what 501c3 means?” I lecture the agent. Little
old matron, with thick glasses, curly short grey hair and a pompous
disposition. Bet she goes to church a lot. “It means tax exempt.” I
jiggle my imaginary Minster’s credentials in her face.
She shakes her head, smiling in that annoying
way inflexible librarians tell you they are closed for the day, despite five
minutes grace on the clock behind the desk. I smell bitter bitch in full-on
resentment mode.
“You have to apply for a sticker, if you’re
part of a church fleet or something like that. Look, take this, and I’ll snap a
photograph of your license plate. The bill will go to the address on the
registration. Go ahead, we can’t hold up the line, now.” She hands me a blue
flyer describing the billing procedures and penalties for ignoring them.
Crazy Bear’s accountants can worry
about it, then. If they can follow the tortuous trail of front companies and
semi-serious spiritual organizations, they’ll wind up sending the trivial bill
to Les Williams and his team of paper mages, who will probably find some way to
get the Institute a tax credit in the bargain.
Sometimes the obvious answer is to be direct.
Crossing the Gate gives me occasion to glance
at the digital clock we keep mounted on Mahayana’s dash, in order to
overcome the watchlessness of our crowd.
No way. This is not happening. We did not just strand my best
friend while picking up all these losers.
“Ah, shit!” A forgotten promise stands
neglected. I knew I should have risen with the sun, instead of greedily
grabbing another cuddle-hour with my snoozing sleepmate!
Sure enough, Cherie’s phone can be heard
twinging over the din in the back. Deva’s special ring. Incoming text
message. Damn! One momma I definitely did not want to leave hanging.
Too late now.
“What’s up?” Adam, again, tending to Doobie
Scoo’s frequent, ferocious appetite. We maintain a bag of soy-based, vegetarian
animal food for general use near the front of the bus, in order to avoid the
spectacle of low-quality pet grade meat being consumed in our strictly vegan
presence.
Far from being an ethical issue, since we
believe predators are predators and should ideally kill their own food,
preferably elsewhere, the ban is part of the health code. Most of us-especially
me-simply cannot handle the smell.
More than one gruesome vomiting episode convinced
us that for everyone’s sake, even the most reluctant carnivores need to give
vegetarianism at least a trial run while riding Mahayana.
“Oh, nothing. Just that I promised Deva
we’d stop by her place in the Mission to pick her up, and bring her with
us to Synergy. We’re behind schedule. No way to do that and set
up the booth on time.”
“Is it incredibly important? Can’t she take a cab, or city bus?”
“Yes, except she’s in a wheelchair, and won’t
spend a penny on herself because she’s on a fixed income, and terrified
Bush is going to cut off her SSI. No way she’ll leave the house unless we
go get her.” Nothing to do about it except doubletime to the site and dispatch
a driver to the Mission, once the booth is erected.
The foggy clogged streets of slanted San
Francisco always bring me down, with their duplicate duplexes and irrational
traffic insider-only instructions. Every trip I swear never to return, only to
be foiled by the stark reality, that all counterculture roads lead, eventually,
here, to this incongruously dark slum city, with its overpriced hovels in the
wall and sketchy vibe.
Masonic
The plain fact is, despite the huge head
population clinging to the site of the Summer of Love, San Francisco is not a
“hippie city,” whatever that would mean. Hippies don’t build
cities. Masons do. Hippies build communities.
Reinforcing this impression is the creepy
coincidence implied by the bizarrely named street triangle of Bush,
Presidio, and Masonic, which I pass suspiciously synchronously to
these thoughts.
Presidio
What prescient Inner Order Stonecutter ordered that triangle
carved into the map, nearly a century before the code could be cracked by
events? To what diabolical end did the shepherds of civilization place this
obvious sign of their tyranny, which unmistakably suggests, without explicitly
exposing, the dark occult conspiracy behind the current reign of calculated
madness, to the point of naming the family figureheading the plot to
impose a New World Order from the Pentagon? My, what have we gotten ourselves
into?
Bush
“Hey, tune in, ’Mana! Heads up,
girlfriend! That was Deva-”
I curtly cut her off. “I know! Shit!
I know. We’re late. Tell her we’ll have somebody go for her, in about an hour.”
Preoccupied, I pass my turn on to Fulton. “Shit!” I repeat.
Adam is talking to me. All things considered,
I wish he’d shut up for a minute and let me regain my bearings in this mazelike
metropolis, but I can’t spare the energy to silence with kindness.
“I can get you an extra day, but smaller
slips are trickier; it might just make us be later. Turn….Here! Now!
You won’t get another chance!” He’s frantically punching keys on his
doo-hicky.
He’s insane, but something deep within screams
run with it, and I dutifully execute the prescribed turn, without any
reality-based evidence that I ought to do so. You’ve got to be like that in the
Shitty; the misaligned streets abound with penalty-bearing proscriptions
against changing course midstream, that appear to be little more than a brazen
intention to waste fuel on a massive scale.
Market Street is a nightmare that way; using that
thoroughfare is a subtle but necessary art. The key is conviction, knowing the
map in your mind will lead you to a place where the compass can once again
help.
“Left. Okay, through that tunnel…trust me.
You’ll thank me yesterday. Turn right, and…there. Go to your friend’s
house. She’ll be pleasantly surprised.”
“No, you dimwit, she’s expecting us.
I’ll just have to send somebody down for her later. If we don’t set up before
the first band plays, it’ll be madness.”
He smiles. “Have it your way, then.”
Cherie arrives, acrobatically vaulting over
the teeming masses. “Listen, ’Mana.” She inclines toward Adam. “Sorry to
interrupt, kid. High drama in the hole.” Preoccupied, she returns frantically
to me.
“Deva said not to go to the dispensary.
The Feds showed up with a warrant this morning. All the plants have been
seized, and she said stormtroopers are just sitting quietly inside, waiting for
patients to come and fill prescriptions. Everyone who goes in there could get
hit with Federal drug conspiracy charges. We’re supposed to warn
everyone we can get ahold of.”
Too much to absorb. Engage autopilot. “Where
is she now?”
She wrinkles her nose. “That’s the funniest
thing. She said she had Luna and Dylan help her across the street to wait for
us on the corner, about an hour before the raid…because of your message.
The girls are pooling cell phones and contacts to clue everyone in as fast as
they can.”
Confusion. “What message? I sent her a
text memo, yesterday morning, to remind her to be ready by eleven, and haven’t touched
your phone since. What time was this raid?”
“She says hell broke loose about fifteen
minutes ago. She had front-row seats and they didn’t even glance at her. The
first thing she did was send a quick summary to her list of text contacts, once
she calmed down enough to think.” The clock reads 12:20.
“That’s impossible. I woke up in the Patrick’s Point rest area at
eight, realized we were running behind schedule, and have been driving nonstop
ever since. Did someone else send her a memo, and she just thought it was me?
Check with the Family.”
“No, she specifically said it was you.
Thanks for the warning and steer clear.”
Adam’s grinning like he’s got the Cheshire Cat
in his bag. “What is the matter with you?” I snap. “Our friend’s in deep
trouble. And so is a whole network of medical marijuana
patients.”
“She’ll be fine,” he assures me softly,
as if he’s channeling Nostradamas. “They’ll all be fine.”
Exasperated, I fall back on default mode, and reset course for
the north side of Golden Gate Park. The only thing to do about the mess in the
Mission is to stay the hell away from it. All we can add at this point is
arrest reports.
The north side of Fulton is strangely
deserted, considering the crushing crowd anticipated, and I readily slide Mahayana
in to the first gap which calls to me. No longer in the mood for the festival,
I am nevertheless relieved that the journey is over and our throng of riders
can finally debark.
“Um, there is one thing…” Adam stammers, as if
realizing the enormity of something. “This could get a little tricky.”
He stands up abruptly and authoritatively addresses the multitude.
“Listen, we did a little…um, dayslipping
on this trip, and you all owe yourselves twenty-four hours. No need to
worry about it, the Universe will collect, the next time you sleep.”
The cabin bristles with befuddled agreement. A
great time is most certainly our due. We should treat ourselves to a frenetic
festie, after this uninspiring journey, not that we need this presumptuous
nitwit to tell us so. Yes, we owe ourselves a wonderful day.
“But…wait. There is a downside. You’ll lose
the day when you finally pass out. The Law of Conservation of Mass, Energy and
Time. I just realized, if any of you fall prey to the Sandman before Synergy,
you’ll miss the party altogether. So all of you must stay awake until
the festival is over. Sleep when you’re dead.”
Not that anyone has any idea what he’s
talking about or why he’s choosing this moment to seize the soapbox, least of
all me, but his last comment is received as a pep talk to party hardy, and
therefore greeted with an appropriate riot of enthusiasm.
Feeling more like I’m delivering a
prepubescent classroom to the Zoo than hippies to a peace festival, I
gratefully and triumphantly jerk open the doors to Mahayana, and let the
flood flow out onto the sidewalk.
I rise to follow them, but Adam interferes.
“Let them go. There’s nothing in there yet. The Portal Potty hasn’t even been delivered,
and that spot won’t be activated for…twenty-eight hours. Let’s go paint this
square town red.”
Cherie appraises him quizzically. “Hey, Mr.
Interdimensional Traveler, we’re here. Load down. If you want to
join our group, you need to submit an application to the Board of Directors and
work a probationary internship on the farm, like everybody else. You’re welcome
for the ride, and you don’t have to go to the Festival, but you and your
dog do have to clear out of this bus. Now.”
He stares at her blankly, openly stunned. You
can see the thought run across his face-Bitch!-and I have to admire his
restraint in refraining from voicing it. She comes off that way, some times. I
myself have often failed to keep that bitter word to myself, when my lover so
frequently evokes it. It’s part of Cherie’s charm.
I find myself answering for this stranger,
before I realize it myself. “He’s cool, Cherie. He’s my guest, for now.”
She shrugs. “Have it your way. You always do.”
Not now, I beg her in my mind. A fine time for her to display some
extremely petty, not to mention inappropriate, jealousy.
“Let’s all get some air,
anyhow,” I suggest. “I have been driving for four straight hours, as if
anyone cares.” Consensus is found on fresh air, and we put Mahayana on
lockdown, urban protocol, which consists of a large chain latched from the
steering wheel to the accelerator, and held in place by a large Master lock.
This is for show; the bus is equipped with a
secret cutoff switch, Lojack style. Only a driver who knows precisely where we
put that switch has a prayer of turning over the cranky old biodiesel-swilling
beast, who frequently challenges even my authority to start her. But an
ounce of deterrence is probably worth a few pounds of shattered windowpane.
The ease of parking speaks profoundly; it is
quite obvious that something is amiss. This side of Fulton should be jam-packed
with RV’s and buses by now. Our riders have disappeared into the woods,
probably expecting Synergy to come together for them, but I realize with
a creeping sensation that they will find nothing in Speedway Meadow.
“Was it cancelled?” Cherie wonders aloud. “The
permit yanked at the last moment? I thought the Mayor of this dump was on our
side.”
She’s on the wrong track. Paying close attention,
all right, but not to the right things. I know what’s happened, I
just don’t know how.
We’re a day early.
Even though we left the same day as the
festival and picked up a dozen-and-half hitchhikers, all entertaining the same
mad delusion.
Hard to escape the conclusion that this is all
part of something this weird kid did with his pocket computer.
Boy, will Cherie be pissed off when she gets ahold of that
concept!
Nevertheless, we all stride silently to the
site, as if to see with our own eyes evidence that the unimaginable has not
only been imagined, but actually come to pass. Again.
There is jack shit in Speedway Meadows.
No stage, no speakers, no vending tents, no twenty-five thousand
projected peace enthusiasts. The extra event Honey Buckets have yet to be
delivered, as Mr. Portal Potty prophesied. Score one for the looney prick.
Sure enough, we have managed to arrive before
we left.
The physicists will line up around the block
to argue with this. I leave them the unenviable job of offering an alternative
explanation.
We, the jaded crew of Mahayana, seek our
explanations, all six of us, from a suddenly nervous Adam.
We’re listening.
“Well…I guess it’s a little strange,
the first time you do it. I don’t know, I never brought anyone with me
before. I dayslip all the time, as it were.
“Adam,” I say slowly, “what the hell are you
talking about?”
“It’s cheating. Living on borrowed time. You
go back a day, then forward an extra day when you next sleep.” Groping to
explain the everyday phenomenon of altering time seems to stump the glib
Mac-daddy. Good to know, for future reference.
We’re all staring at him, trying to decide if
it is he or we that are mad. An impromptu visual straw poll suggests the vote
is evenly split.
“Look, I told you the reason I was
journeying to Synergy was to take advantage of a quantum abnormality
associated with the event. This whole area of space-time is bristling alive
with little trap doors and other wild energy.”
Blaming him for our dilemma is tantamount to
conceding the power of his Palm Pilot, but guilty, or merely insane, we are
content to place the culpability on the one claiming it.
“All I did was use this handy-dandy
pocket program to locate the nearest dayloop, and tell Amana how to get there.
I heard about your poor friend, and I guess I acted a little brashly.”
He brightens. “Of course, this means
you can be her salvation. We might even be able to avoid the electric
fence of paradox, if we’re slick about it. Some errors, I will
eternally maintain, are inspired.”
There’s only one way to settle it. To hell
with taking the bull by the horns; the way to deal with those fuckers is
to grab and control their nuts.
I collar an innocent bystander, a local yuppie
aerobics class refugee in tacky pink tights, frilly socks, and designer
sneakers, powerwalking her poodle through the park.
She tries to ignore me, but I block her way
and rather forcefully demand the time of day from her. Befuddled, she consults
her flip phone and brightly provides it after a moment of awkward fumbling.
“Twelve forty-five,” she announces.
“I see,” I say carefully. “And excuse me, the date?”
She doesn’t look at the cell phone for this
one. “Why, it’s Friday, the twenty-fourth.”
“Of September,” I offer speculatively.
She nods, plainly confused at this interrogation. “Just for fun…it’s two
thousand…four…right?” She agrees, deeply disturbed on many levels.
Cherie, eternally being Cherie, gets in
the poor woman’s face. “Are you sure?” she demands.
“Leave her alone, momma. Let’s just go
look at a newspaper or something.” The grateful but frightened civilian seizes
the opportunity to dance away with her tiny dog, fleeing from the lunatic band
of drug-crazed ruffians we had taken every pain to appear to be in her eyes.
The love of my life is madly waving her
own cell phone about, which claims, in accordance with each of our memories,
that the date is actually, as we had hoped, Saturday, the twenty-fifth.
My birthday, for all that’s gotten me
so far. Hell of a surprise party.
An unlikely suspicion grows suddenly
plausible. I ride, after all, with latter-day Pranksters. Could this all
be rigged? A warped mindfuck, as a birthday roast?
If I am the sole butt of this put-on,
one simple explanation occurs to me: the crew has been feeding me the wrong
day all week.
“Hey Amana, you put the wrong date
on this recruitment report. The twenty-second was yesterday.”
And I checked my mental calendar, deciding I
was right. “Veinteidos, cariña. Twenty-second is miercoles.
Hoy, chica.”
“Today’s not Wednesday, it’s
Thursday. Veinteitres, pinche pendeja .”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I am. I know what day
of the week it is, bliss ninny!“
“Okay, Thursday it is. Let’s get on
with it.”
And I fell for it.
Now I get it. Must have gotten mixed-up during
one of the innumerable date disagreements that so frequently arise among the
calendar challenged, and innocently let them falsely correct me out of a day
of my own life.
Cherie, of course, would be the mastermind; manipulating the date on
her phone would be simple. Deva would have to be in on it. That would
make Adam a plant in the gag…
…and Linda, too, for that matter, and all
the hitchhikers we’ve picked up, pretending to be desperately rushed, to arrive
at a festival that wouldn’t be happening until tomorrow. That has to be
for realism.
No reason for all these kids to be loading
down the shoulders of the highway, without anything in it for them.
Usually we only get three or four kids hitching on this frequently run route.
Most of them seemed authentically
pathetic, but my sneaky soulmate could have recruited the actors from the
treesitting community in Southern Oregon, where she deliberately maintains
contacts I am not privy to. Those kids just have humility.
Another bus could have ridden just ahead of us, dropping off
riders as fast as we picked them up.
It was Cherie, after all, wasn’t it,
who asked me to pay special attention to Adam and his too-convenient
time-travel trip. Was that the set-up? If so, I done been suckered.
Hats off. They had me, for a second. But now I’m hip to
their jive.
Call it out? Why not let them have
their fun? I must admit to being impressed at the grand scale and
sophistication of the prank, and curious about what else it might be a setup for.
All in good fun, I’m sure. Some of our friends
will practically turn themselves inside out, just to make a memorable party
more so. Great lengths have obviously been gone to, and I surely wasn’t hustled
down here a day early for nothing.
There’s no way on Goddess’ green Earth I’d
have chosen to spend one more day in the Bay than absolutely
necessary; but I may as well make the best of it. Play dumb until they deliver
me to whatever midnight climax Cherie has in mind, and love her for dedicating
her sneaky self to serve our mutual Mistress.
Hail Eris!
Linda-who
suddenly strikes me as a consummate actress-appears genuinely perplexed
as she approaches our rapidly retreating core.
All of us-for various reasons, I’m
sure-are eager to avoid the inevitable reality-confirmation demands of the
disoriented, debarked riders, who now outnumber the routine local park patrons
by two-to-one.
“Do any of you have any idea
what the malfunction here is all about?” she solicits anxiously, with a
perfect imitation of worry. Award winning! Cherie knows lots of theater
types, too.
Seems sometimes like my girlfriend knows
the whole world. Walking double entendre that she enjoys being, part of
her mystery-and my misery-is never being sure just how Biblical
that knowledge really is.
With a consciously hypocritical stab of
jealousy piercing my own tender heart, I contemplate anew what their
connection might really be, after all.
A general chorus of denial and mutual
cluelessness.
I wonder what scriptwriter was recruited to
choreograph this convincing conspiracy. My friends are well coached.
Each of us on board Mahayana harbours a secret love for drama, in
our sexually ambiguous hearts. Our dharma is drama.
Adam, sticking to the script, perfectly plays
his predictable part as quantum Casanova. “I’m afraid you’ll need a little background
on that,” he slickly explains, sliding his friendly arm around Linda’s
shoulders just as smoothly.
He leads her away from the group and abandons
the rest of us to our own devices. The maddening, magnifying
matrix of mutual covetousness!
Actors, I remind myself. None of this is real. Observe
disinterestedly, play your role, have a good time, and for Goddess
sake don’t get emotionally entangled in onstage romances.
What a fool you’ll make!
You have a girlfriend that you love.
Cherie, taking Adam’s cue, shuffles me aside
for private consultation. We walk a good distance in silence, enjoying the
contrived peacefulness of San Francisco’s communal back yard.
No
one, even the superrich scumbags controlling reality from their barricaded
Presidio estates, can afford to waste spare acreage on dog turd turf, so
by common consent this landmark park is preserved, to remind the very
synthesized people here what life used to be all about for the whole
species, before bureaucrats decided humans are more suited to inhabit
duplexes, than the forests that birthed our kind.
Trust…paranoia
begins, for those of us who fail to socialize with a belief in the benevolence
and omniscience of our elders, with the dawning suspicion that the tyrants who
control every item of information ever provided, in home and school,
may be lying to us about the world where we live, and that which
preceded us.
History is obviously bunk. What’s Ourstory?
For the nascent freethinker, developments make
apparent that we are routinely mislead about events as current as the most
recent irrelevant lesson, which our social indoctrinators assure us is for
enriching our intellect, but was clearly designed to acclimate students
to the habit of submitting to daily drudgery and makework, doggedly
depriving us of the critical faculty to even wonder why.
How could we fail to suspect the
overwhelming powers, who conspire to compel our allegiance before
we could possibly be capable of comprehending what the word, let
alone the concept, entails?
Eventually we form a worldview, in which everyone
deals in bunk information, and harbors inscrutable ulterior motivations.
As evidence for this shaky hypothesis mounts,
so does the sense of alienation and paranoia.
We start to imagine that perhaps nothing
we’ve been told is true.
We even toy openly with the questionable
verifiability of external reality. Does
that notion hold any water at all? What if this is all just me, me, me…
Solipsism, according to philosophy profs. Perhaps, we wonder with
frightened fancy, if all of This is just a ruse, for my personal
benefit, and only I even exist?
When you clip away all the suppositions and
third-hand reports and categorical logical abuses that compose what we are
taught to regard as History, the past is like a fat larffy bud that
turns out to be just so much leaf after all.
How deep does the lie go? And who is the Liar that has the power
to clear up all this nonsense, but never sees fit to?
Every once in a while, usually after dropping
too much acid, Cherie requires that I state, for some internal record, that “I”
exist.
I cannot comply, while retaining any sense of
integrity. Instead, I ask her to define what she means by using the
vague terms, “you” and “exist.”
She charges me with deliberate obtuseness, and
knowing damn well what she means, and I do, but I have not
resolved the issue for my own purposes, let alone my lover’s
ontologically insecure ones, and it would be dishonest to mislead her.
“ ‘You,’ ” she grudgingly seethes
through gritted teeth, “means ‘whatever faculty is capable of
perceiving and responding to that painfully simple question.’ Stop playing
stupid. If there is no such thing, that must be my answer.
Otherwise, please just say so. Are you for real, baby? I need
to know, now!”
I protest that I am being, not obstructive,
but precise. “ ‘Exist,’ ” she continues. “That this faculty
perceive itself more or less as I do, as a separate being,
with a distinct personal history, thoughts, beliefs, emotions…damn it
girl, I’m tripping hard…you know what I’m asking! Tell me you
are a real person and not a figment of my imagination.
Tell me I am not alone at this very instant jabbering to myself
in some invisible psych ward after years of sustained hallucination!”
By this point, she may be teary-eyed. I pity her, but cannot do
as she asks. Not because it’s not true, but because it wouldn’t mean
anything anyway. A figment’s reassurances only confirm the wholeness
of the delusion.
She needs to settle the question for herself, as do we all.
I’m not sure what to say to her, what to make of this decision
she seems to have made, Freud-style, in choosing to celebrate my birthday with
this monstrously dishonest gesture. What intention for the future is she
thereby announcing? This question, more than the details of her little skit, is
what concerns me at the moment.
“Okay,” Cherie decides, “I am only going to ask you this once,
and I beg you, in the name of all we have meant to each other: please,
please, please answer me as truthfully as you can.” I nod agreement,
more to find out where she’s taking this, than out of any conviction that I-of
all people-am qualified to clarify the murkiness my lover herself
has generated.
This is where they catch you looking stupid on KALI’s funniest
home videos. Probably be watching this on Holy Fool’s day next year.
Here’s where she drops the “Gotcha!” I scan the bushes
nearby for lurking eavesdroppers, jittering as they await their cue to burst
onstage catching me red-faced, and totally, thoroughly duped.
Nothing left to do but be good-natured about the whole thing and
accept gracefully the ribbing every participant will be sure to generously
bestow upon me, until next year, when this production will surely be trumped by
even greater mischief.
She’s going to ask me something like…how many hippies does
it take to forget what day it is?
Or…did you know that the word “gullible” is not listed
in any dictionary?
To my great surprise, she offers instead,
“What the fuck is going on with the day of the week? I swear on a
stack of Vedas that yesterday was Friday all damned
day long! Come on, ’Mana, we spent the whole day on the horn
with people, trying to get them out to support Synergy. How come not one
of them said anything about it really being Thursday?”
Wow. She really is working this shit! I
almost buy it in spite of myself.
Blowing me away with a blast of prime irony,
Cherie continues, “Be straight with me, for once, before I lose my shit…if this
is some kind of game, you win…go collect on your bet. I give up. Tell
me the damn truth, or I’ll never forgive you.” She inhales deeply,
centering. I’ve seen it a thousand times. Hyperventilation. Her antidote to
hysteria.
Never have I known Cherie to let the faucet
flow on demand, but now, in this absurd null state of doubt about the date, her
face is full with genuine wetness and stressed redness. “Is this all some kind
of trick?” she blurts accusingly. Her certainty is wavering, and Cherie
is melting before my very eyes.
Goddess forgive a fool, but I am forced to
concede, contrary to all reason, that she actually means it. Cherie
can’t keep a straight face to save her life. Besides, my girlfriend’s no actress.
Her style is an almost painful directness, a guileless bluntness that
fails to fake even courtesy.
I surrender to the inexplicability of it all.
So much for the simple explanation. If I am victim of a gag, she
must be as hoodwinked as I am.
Time for a radically revised conspiracy
theory. Back to the drawing board. Paradigm shift. Did Matt, or Lucia, sucker
us both, fearing that Cherie would spill the beans to me? This is more
their style.
Or did we actually bop back a
day in time, the way we’d return to an erroneously skipped highway exit?
She stands shaking before me, once again
begging me to anchor her to certitude. How could I suspect her? My lady’s as
honest as me. And I’m as honest as a rambling girl can be.
Once again, not knowing how else to respond, I
embrace my distraught lover, relishing the feel of her bony boundaries. “Oh,
baby, damn it all to Hel and back! I was going to ask you
the same question.”