The Flight of The Caprice
& The Billboard Man
Humboldt County in Northern California is an isolated community. Its towering redwood trees tumble down shaggy bluffs to the Pacific. There are stretches, especially along the Lost Coast to the south, where you can walk virtually alone for hours at a time. Ask someone who lives in the Bay area, four hours’ drive down 101, and they’ll say, ‘Humboldt County – Great weed!” Ask someone in LA, twelve hours away, and they’ll kind of scratch their heads and say, “Where?”
Anyway, Humboldt County to some may seem an unlikely setting for unusual or earth-shattering events. But that’s precisely what it became in the glorious spring of 2019. This is the year when in Eureka, the county seat, 23-year-old Sterling Marshall would embark on his “grand social experiment to mankind.” Meanwhile, Bill and Linda Muncey, from just across the bay in Arcata, would blast into orbit, sending out their famous message, “Love to All, from The Caprice.”
Of course, these two historic events are connected. Just how they are is what this story is about.
Perhaps looking back now, there were signs if one chooses to look for them. Spring came early, after a particularly mild winter. The sunrises along the south end of Humboldt Bay were said to be a little more spectacular than any time in recent memory. And down the road in Garberville, old Gilbert “Star Chaser” Murphy, a self-described “hermit and astral child of the hills,” was seen wandering outside the Calico Bar and Grill one Saturday evening stark naked, asking if anyone had ever made love with God, as he claimed to have done just one hour before. “If you haven’t, then you don’t know what you’re missing,” he reportedly cried, just as the Sheriff’s deputy showed up with a pair of cover-alls and a free night’s park in the Pokey.
Then again, little could have prepared any of the principles for this day, except life. Sterling Marshall, a bright, if histrionic youth, had until then done nothing to distinguish himself. His teachers at Eureka High uniformly described him as, “clever, but needs direction.” He had tried wrestling his sophomore year but had quit after he found the grueling practices dull. The only class he excelled in was, strangely enough, biology. The processes of photosynthesis and cellular respiration absorbed him, and he could parrot endlessly the textbook descriptions on the biological notion of altruism.
Sterling’s peers found himi annoying in that way teens reserve for a classmate who’s a little too enthusiastic about things that don’t interest them. Something in the pitch was perhaps tuned a bit too high.
Sterling Marshall graduated in 2014, then spent a couple listless years at College of the Redwoods, carrying only a half dozen units and working in the evenings at his father’s video store in Myrtletowne. His friends went off to university, Berkeley or schools in Oregon and Washington State.
As everyone can assume, Sterling’s heart yearned for something new and exciting. Although he had no tangible ambitions, he intuitively sensed, as most people do at 23, that he was missing out on the best years of his life. But what to do? That was the question.
His parents let him live in a room they’d refurbished above the garage for $200 a month. While they tried not to be pushy, Glenn and Susan Marshall, did try to encourage their son to arrive at some definite decision. “Now we’re not saying you have to transfer to HSU, not if you don’t want to,” they’d say for example. “But Billy Cross has just graduated, and you’re much more capable than him. So don’t think you can’t do it. That’s all we’re saying.”
“I know,” Sterling would reply.
Billy Cross was a childhood friend who lived down the street. They’d grown apart after grade school, and, if truth be told, Sterling had hated Billy Cross ever since the day, in ninth grade, Billy had in no uncertain terms called Sterling, “a first-class dork” in front of everyone in the cafeteria.
Sterling wanted to please his parents, but he had no intention of following Billy Cross’s path of verbal rejection the rest of his natural-born life.
*********
Bill Muncey met Linda Traversey at a Farmer’s Market in the Arcata Plaza one morning in the summer of 2005.
Anyone who’s ever been to Arcata knows the Farmer’s Market is the place to be on Saturdays during the summer. The whole plaza buzzes with a festive vibe. Everyone goes to see and be seen as much as for the organic lettuce and GMO-free tomatoes. Often there are live music performances or political demonstrations, such as against the Iraq War in those turbulent early years of the new century, or else all-purpose rallies in the themes of anti-corporations or the legalization of marijuana.
The day Bill Muncey met Linda Traversey was a fairly typical day at the market. Geenie Simpson, a plucky hippy in her early eighties, was handing out information packets on the dangers of genetically altered foods. A folk band, the Masters of Sedition, strummed political ballads near the Statue of McKinley at the plaza center.
At 28, Bill had taught part-time in CR’s Applied Technology Department for less than a year. As is perhaps typical with young college lecturers, he’d have rather been doing something else, traveling in Europe or perhaps doing research.
Linda, a transplant from Santa Barbara, was three years younger. She’d spent three years volunteering at the Redwood Peace and Justice Center over on H Street. Bored with this maintstream activism (well, mainstream by Arcata’s extreme left-wing standards), she’d enrolled in evening classes at the local university and was managing to get by on a student loan and other financial aid.
That morning Bill was strolling languidly through the crowd of shoppers when he brushed against Linda near the apple stand. A look passed between them, a certain shared sympathy, and they began talking quite easily. They ended up spending the morning walking together through the market. Later she let him walk with her up to her apartment at the top of the hill on G Street. They exchanged numbers and the rest is history – a pleasant relationship filled with laughter and good times that culminated in a pleasant, “pagan style” wedding at a friend’s house in Bayside eight months later.
The Munceys found a house in the coveted Bottoms just outside town, and for the next dozen years happily devoted themselves to following every turn of Arcata’s whimsical mind. They attended Gay Pride parades, fought housing developments proposed for the wetlands between Eureka and Arcata in 2010, monitored the city council’s debate over issues such as corporate personhood and whether the McKinley statue should be removed from the Plaza, since that Manifest Destiny torchbearer, any citizens thought, totally misrepresented Arcata’s live-and-let live populace. The Munceys dutifully wrote letters to the Arcata Eye, weighing in on issues of the day, and spent innumerable Sunday afternoons strolling through Redwood Park or else in the Bottoms near their home.
Eventually Bill was given a full-time post in the AT Department. Linda, a little dreamy and restless as always, continued taking classes. She took up pottery and horticulture. Over time their home became filled with her jaunty creations, oblong pots and vases flowing over with ferns, rhododendrons and Lady’s Slippers.
They’d both never desired children, vaguely because of the hippy ideal of not subjecting the unborn to the inhumanity of man, but also because both sensed a child would disrupt their blissful, if some would say lazy, pursuit of happiness.
“We’re both kids anyway,” Linda joked to friends. “Two kids in one household is more than enough. Besides we’re both saving ourselves up for a grand adventure. Right Bill?”
“We’re in a holding pattern,” her husband concurred.
This always went over well. Arcata is a town where you could say many people are, to some degree, in a “holding pattern,” “in between bold adventures.” As opposed to working-class Eureka, where people are either working toward an early retirement or else desperately looking for a way out.
“I know exactly what you mean,” said Jeremiah Simpson, a disheveled, middle-aged activist poet who liked to frequent the Muncey household. Simpson, a transplant from Newark, once told a reporter during a radio interview that he’d stopped in Humboldt County during a backpacking trip in the late Seventies and decided to stay after “the trees started talking” to him and told him “Arcata is the Eye of the Universe.”
The Munceys liked Jeremiah, finding him an always talkative and engaging fellow. During his evening visits, the poet also was fond of producing a pipe filled with sticky buds from the crop he grew in his closet.
“I want to start a revolution,” he was fond of saying. “A beautiful movement where we all march on the corporations and declare them null and void, unfit to inhabit this Earth. Then we’d dismantle them, distribute their assets to the Third World, then retire to our homes and tend our gardens. As in Voltaire’s ‘Candide:’ The meaning of life is to cultivate one’s garden.
“Mmm, Paradise on Earth,” Bill Muncey murmured, half listening.
“But we already have it,” Linda would say. “After all, Humboldt County is paradise, at least in Arcata.”
“Yes, but it’s in danger,” Jeremiah insisted. “Too many people coming now. They bring an LA attitude, clog up the streets, dirty the air, take our water. I wish we could just close the county line to all immigration.”
Jeremiah was not alone in voicing this sentiment. In town many voiced similar wishes. Like Jeremiah, more than a few conveniently overlooked the fact that they were urban refugees themselves.
“As far as I’m concerned, everywhere south of Arcata is LA, everwhere north is Seattle, West is Tokyo and East is New York,” Jeremiah continued. “Let all the rats drown in their own waste and greed.”
“Oh, Jeremiah!” Linda laughed. “You’re such a xenophobe.”
“Absolutely,” he said. “I want to keep Arcata the way it is.”
“But we can’t hide behind the Redwood Curtain forever,” Linda said. “The world is changing. It affects us too.”
“The world can go to hell,” the poet concluded. “But then, it already is.”
“Oh, now you sound just like Dick Strong,” Linda said, laughing again. Dick Strong was a retired timber worker who frequently made his starchly conservative views well-known at City Hall.
Linda’s laugher notwithstanding, she and Bill shyly appreciated the vigorous independent spirit that lay behind their friend’s views. It affirmed their own quiet passion for the area, their sense of being allied with an ethereal confederacy (in fact talk came and went over the years on whether Northern California should just split off from the rest of the State). Perhaps Arcata’s destiny would forever be in the discussion phase at those god-awful city council meetings that went on past midnight. In a holding pattern, between adventures. So be it. In fact, it was better that way.
*****
Sterling Marshall, of course, was also in a holding pattern, in search of adventure. But with that subtle stern line above the brow that distinguishes a native-born Eurekan from his step-siblings across the bay, Sterling was practical and impatient. Not content to bask in the rays of whim and fancy, he longed for some definite foothold to take shape. He was an awkward, shy boy, but inwardly he could be aggressive when he set his mind to something. He’d had only a few encounters with girls, that was during high school, but the affairs tended to be brief, the girls either ending up disgusted with him or he with them.
After he finished work at his father’s store in the evenings, Sterling got in the habit of taking long, desultory walks. In the evenings, Eureka’s Old Town is fairly deserted, save for a bright light pouring from the Old Town Coffee and Chocolate Shop. As he passed the coffee shop, Sterling felt drawn to the light as an insect is toward a porchlight. The young students he saw sitting at the tables, affected teens with piercings and dyed hair, filled him with curiosity and dread. He wanted to join them but felt both a self-conscious inferiority, but also a protectiveness toward his twilight thoughts.
So he’d slowly walk by the coffeeshop, fleetingly absorb the warmth and light of social contact, then head down to the waterfront. There he’d look out at the Samoa Bridge and the twinkling lights of Arcata across the bay, and pan over to the sun setting over the pulp mill, covering the bay with shimmering light. Here he felt a desperate release, a loneliness that was both haunting and restful. Sometimes afterward he’d follow the old railroad tracks, unused since the 1997 El Nino flood, and now overgrown with weeds. The tracks wound down empty, blue-tinted streets, past the seafood processing plant, where crab nets lay stacked up at the water’s edge.
Perhaps there was an essayistic conceit in Sterling’s behavior, this sort of “wandering about.” But remember Sterling was young, and in these times he felt most like himself, or at least the self of his dreams. In that lonely twilight atmosphere he felt a generous love for his depressed hometown, a love that came not because the city could afford to grant him his dreams, but because, in these lovely isolated moods, it could little afford to deny them.
Like the Munceys eight miles away, Sterling felt a looseness at this hour, a separateness. He felt in sympathy with the dirty sea birds streaking across the waterline, with the chain-link fences and pile-ons diminishing with the fading light.
When he returned home later, he usually stopped in the kitchen to fetch the supper his mother had left out for him. Often she’d come in and sit down and watch him eat. Susan Marshall had the efficient manner befitting her nursing job at St. Joseph’s Hospital, but she had kind gray eyes. She was not a hard woman.
“So how is everything?” she’d say, as her son looked at the newspaper and chewed his food.
“Alright I guess. How’s work?”
“Crazy as always,” she’d say, sighing cheerfully.
These sessions were supposed to be “their” time. Glenn Marshall usually remained at the video store until it closed at midnight.
“Anything new and exciting?” she’d ask.
Sterling shook his head.
Before he’d decided not to go back to school that spring, Susan was in the habit of coaxing him to talk about his classes, perhaps in hopes of bolstering his enthusiasm. She knew he found school uninteresting. After he’d quit going, she tried asking about work, or girls, but these subjects too wore thin quickly. Inevitably she’d end up talking about herself, the hospital, or the latest drama erupting among family or friends.
Sterling usually sat through these sessions with only dutiful interest. He liked his mother and didn’t wish to hurt her, but he didn’t feel inclined to put any energy into these chats. Maybe it was a desire to unwind from the day, but also because he felt his thoughts sounded so dull and mundane when he voiced them.
After dinner, he’d go up to his room above the garage, listen to the radio and read until late into the night. Sometime after midnight his father’s car would pull into the driveway, and he’d listen to the sound of his father’s footsteps whisking into the garage.
“’Night, Sterling,” his father would say before heading into the house.
****
Just when the forces that eventually drove Sterling Marshall and the Munceys on to their collective destinies began gathering is anybody’s guess. But a definite step in that direction can be traced back to a simple action in Sterling’s life in March 2018, about a year before the fabulous events took place. The action? He bought a Snicker’s Bar.
That particular evening Sterling was heading home from his evening walk when it occurred to him he was in the mood for a Snicker’s Bar. As a kid he’d loved them, but hadn’t had one in years. He passed by the California Fruit and Deli and, giving in to the impulse, went inside.
The store was getting ready to close. The owners, a middle-aged Korean couple, were busy ringing out the last line of customers. Sterling went to the candy aisle and, bending over, grabbed a Snickers from the bottom shelf. When he rose, he nearly collided with a young woman coming down the aisle carrying a bottle of Jameson’s Irish Whiskey.
“Excuse me,” Sterling said.
“Don’t worry about it,” the girl said, flashing him a smile. As Sterling returned the gaze he was struck by how her dark eyes stood out against her fair complexion.
“You’re Sterling Marshall, right?” she said, startling him. There was something familiar about her.
“You probably don’t remember me,” she went on. “Nikki Bow. We were in Mr. Higgens Poli Sci class together at CR last fall.”
Sterling remembered, suddenly and distinctly, the quiet, good-looking girl who had always sat near the back of the classroom.
“Yes, Nikki, how are you?” he muttered.
“Good. I’m not in school this semester – taking a break.”
“Me, too. I guess.”
Having nothing else to say, Sterling might have slunk out into the night, had not she suddenly burst in.
“Are you doing anything? We could get a drink at the Shanty.”
Sterling paid for his Snicker’s Bar and followed Nikki to the bar across the street.
They ended up sitting in the beer garden in back until well past eleven. Sterling was surprised and flattered by Nikki’s company. It got even better when they rose to leave.
“Do you have to go home?” Nikki asked. “We could go for a drive. I’ve got my car.”
He got in shotgun, and within minutes her red Nissan Sentra was speeding north on the 101 toward Arcata.
It was a quiet midweek evening, so the Plaza was pretty empty. They parked and walked over and sat beneath the McKinley Statue.
“I love Arcata,” Nikki said, gazing around at the closed shops.
“It’s great,” Sterling said listlessly. “I don’t get up here that often.”
“Wait, I’m going to get some Jameson. You want some?” Nikki ran over to the car and came back with a couple Styrofoam cups filled. Sterling took a sip politely. Generally he hated whiskey.
“So what do you think you’re going to do?” Nikki asked.
Sterling fumbled with a series of answers, “Maybe move to the Bay area ... Maybe Portland ... I don’t know.” It occurred to him how worn and second-hand his ideas sounded when actually voiced to another human being.
“What about you?” he asked.
“Oh, if I could have my way I’d be up in one of the redwoods, defending the forest,” Nikki said, enthusiatically. “Either that, or growing pot on a farm in Mendocino County. What’s the matter? Are you always so serious?”
She looked at Sterling and laughed. Sterling was actually listening intently. He’d heard these ideas before, but he was impressed by her conviction, which appeared genuine. Nikki laughed again and took a drink of her whiskey.
“You should try meditation,” she said. “Or massage. You have a lot of aggression built up. Here, like this.”
She turned and rubbed his shoulders.
“I’ve always liked you,” she said.
When Sterling turned, her face was close and it struck him then how casually eventful the evening had become. He thought about it again later when they entered her apartment and he remembered he still had the Snickers Bar in his jacket.
The association lasted about six weeks. They took to meeting at the Plaza almost every evening, going for walks together and ending up back at her apartment. Although two years younger, Nikki was more experienced and to Sterling her company was a revelation. However, though her passion was genuine, it apparently was also transient. One evening she told him she was seeing someone else.
“It’s my fault really, don’t take it personally,” she said. “I tend to like someone for a long time then lose interest when I finally get them. We’re just moving in different directions. And you have no sense of irony.”
Sterling mulled over those last words for some time. He had no idea what it meant, and wondered if maybe she’d got the idea from the AdBusters magazines she kept piled in the backseat of the Sentra. One evening a few weeks after he saw Nikki Bow walking in the Plaza with an older-looking guy with a long ponytail and UC Berkeley T-shirt. From a distance, Sterling searched the man’s face, wondering if he might see in that face what a sense of irony looked like.
*******
Bill Muncey was sitting by the fireplace one evening reading the Times-Standard when a curious article grabbed his attention.
A commercial space company in China Lake was going bankrupt. According to the article, the company, Osiris, was holding an auction in the near future to raise money. “Among the foundering spaceline’s assets expected to be sold,” the article read, “include it’s Explorer series cruisers, as well as some models dating back a few more years, older models that sources say aren’t expected to fetch high prices.”
“Want to buy a spaceliner?” Bill asked, not looking up from the paper.
“Sure,” Linda said. It was after dinner and she was lying on the couch flipping through the Eye.
“It doesn’t say how much,” Bill said, briefly summarizing the article.
“Right. It’s a nice idea though,” his wife enjoined. “Could you imagine. We could load up a few friends, some food and supplies, then just take off for Saturn or something some weekend.”
She smiled and looked at her husband.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said, thoughtfully. “It’s just – I wonder if you could really buy one, I mean, just anyone. Surely there must be funding from the NSF or some other grant.”
“I expect so. But it would have to be for some kind of research. And this is a commercial space liner.”
Bill didn’t answer. He continued looking at the paper a few more minutes, turning to the Op-Ed page.
A few nights later, Bill Muncey rushed into the house from work. He was excited.
“I spoke with Jan Davis this afternoon,” he said breathlessly. Linda was heating some vegetable soup leftover from the night before. She turned to listen.
“Anyway, she says it’s possible the school would be interested in buying a space craft.”
Finishing this announcement, Bill just looked at his wife with a “What do you think of that?” _expression.
“You’re kidding,” Linda said.
“Jan said if I could write the grant proposal, the Board of Directors would consider it. Enrollment’s up, the budget is healthy. She said perhaps now’s a good time to think creatively, out of the box.”
“Amazing. Did you find out how much it would cost?”
“I did some research on the Internet this afternoon, found a number for Osiris’s PR Department in China Lake. A woman there wouldn’t give me an actual price – because of the upcoming auction (which is next month by the way). But she did hint that a ballpark figure would be $10 million for one of the older models.”
“Really?” Linda enthused. She was excited now. “That’s nothing when you really think about it, for a space ship. The school spent more than that on earthquake remodeling last year.
“That’s what I’m saying,” Bill said. “So what do you think?”
“I think it would be fun,” Linda broke in. “Why not? I mean, maybe we could actually go up in space. Would you want to go?”
“Absolutely. It’s pretty easy nowadays. I read somewhere that in Tokyo you can buy a four-day orbit of the moon for only about $1,500.”
“Well, OK,” Linda said. “But if you get to do it, I get to go with you.”
“Of course.” Bill stroked his wife’s hair as she turned to stir the soup.
“Maybe this is it,” he murmured.
“What’s that?”
“Our next big adventure.”
“You think so?” Linda turned to Bill and smiled.
“I know so.”
“Ah, so just like that we’re buying a space ship. Only in Humboldt County!” Linda said, sighing.
****
Bill Muncey’s 10-page grant proposal was submitted to the Board of Directors a few weeks later. His colleagues remarked that it was actually an extremely concise and well-written application. Inevitably, word got out to the press.
“CR Prof Wants To Buy Spaceship,” declared The Times-Standard. “Rocket Man and Wife,” ran the slightly sassier North Coast Journal. The best headline probably goes, as usual, to the Eye, which in its headline begged the question: “Hippies in Space?”
The Chronicle sent a stringer up to profile the Muncey’s, and after that the story was quickly picked up by the wires.
“Space exploration should be within reach of regular people, particularly children,” Bill Muncey told the Chronicle reporter. “I see this effort as a way to bring the heavens a little closer. That’s our job really as educators.”
This slightly melodramatic comment ran as a pull-quote. That, along with the story’s bottom-of-A1 placement, is said to have been key in the grant getting approved. At any rate, the CR Board of Directors OK’d it at its monthly meeting a few days after the Chron story ran.
The Munceys, along with several school officials and hand-picked members of the local press, drove down to China Lake to attend the auction. They put in a successful $9.75 million bid, with the sale officially expected to close in mid-April 20. Thanks to a licensing agreement with the defunct operator and a Swedish company that bought it out, the storage and launch facilties in China Lake could still be rented out, although the cost of these expenses – and who exactly would have to pay them – were still in the discussion phase.
Still, Bill and Linda Muncey’s fireside vision was underway, no one could deny that. The Muncey’s held a party just after returning from China Lake. Close friends attended, along with judiciously invited school officials, as well as colleagues from CR and HSU.
“Well Bill, you pulled it off,” remarked Josh Preston, who taught in HSU’s Marketing Department. The two had known each other for years.
“So when you going up?” Josh asked after they clinked glasses.
“We haven’t even thought of that yet,” Bill said, laughing. “Probably not for at least a year. There are the rental issues to be worked out still, although we’ll probably get state backing for that, at least Jan says. Know any good space pilots looking for work? I mean, we’re not exactly Cape Canaveral, but we can offer good quality of life.”
They looked at each other.
“Say, you want to go in?” Bill asked, setting his wine glass down. “Yeah? Sure that would be great. Linda and I were talking the other night ...”
“—What would I need to do?” Josh interupted.
Well, we need to raise some money,” Bill said. “The college is behind us, but they want to see how much community support we’re able to pull together ourselves before committing to a permanent budget.”
“We can try hitting up the Swansons,” Josh said, smirking.
“That’s exactly where you come in,” Bill said, looking at him steadily. “You know these people, from Arts Alive! Right? Talk to them, see if they can chip in.”
Ken and Kitty Swanson were Humboldt County’s richest couple. The owned a chain of furniture stores and investment companies that stretched across all fifty states. Their actual worth, though not precisely determined was determined to be somewhere in the low billions. The couple was actually well-known for their philanthropy, having pumped a generous bit of their fortune into various community projects and programs. From any standpoint, the only potential problem was Ken Swanson, known for his sometimes brutal temper, tended sometimes to micromanage any project he happened to contribute to.
Josh reported back a week later. As it turned out, not only was Ken Swanson behind the project, he was in fact enthusiastic. Within a half hour, he’d agreed to match the college’s $10 million grant. His one stipulation? That he and Kitty be among the passengers on the ship’s inaugural flight.
It didn’t take long for word of the Swanson’s backing getting around.
“This is starting to sound like Gilligan’s Island,” quipped the Eye, in an editorial. “We have the professor, and now the millionaire. The only question this page asks now: Where’s the movie star?”
Aside from such witty rhetoric, the Eye supported the project, as did the T-S and other local papers. In fact, virtually everyone was at least curious, if not overtly excited. The one tangible exception was the taxpayers’ league. The league held a press conference on the steps of the county courthouse to declare the project a “complete waste of the college’s money.” League President Anton P. Jurkinson was said to have made this declaration just before suffering an attack of dizzy spells.
“Our children deserve the best and highest use of California’s hard-earned tax dollars – and they’re just not getting it,” Jurkinson was also reported to have said just before his fit. “This ‘monstrous boondoggle’ (as the craft was described) is a perfect symbol of the state of our local leadership: Lost in Space.”
Jeremiah Simpson, truth be told, wasn’t all that happy about the project either, but for different reasons.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” he cried one evening. The Munceys were at home sending out mailers to potential underwriters.
“The corporatization of space is already happening,” Jeremiah continued. “We shouldn’t be a part of that.”
“Come on, Jeremiah, don’t be so hard,” Bill Muncey said.
“I like to have my heavens clean, clear and undisturbed thank you,” Jeremiah said dryly. “We’ve made more than a mess out of this planet already. Do we have to throw ourselves and our garbage into space now?”
Bill and Linda looked at each other.
“Why don’t you come up with us, Jeremiah?” Linda asked.
“I admit it would be awesome to see the Earth from space,” their friend said huffily. “But no. On principle. I think there are much more important things we could be doing here. I’ll keep my eye on the heavens, but my feet firmly on the ground.”
“Oh, Jeremiah,” Linda said, laughing. “I thought you were a poet. Don’t you want to see the heavens a little closer?”
“I can see them fine from here, thanks,” Jeremiah replied.
Critics notwithstanding, everything moved forward pretty smoothly in the weeks leading up to official sale. By early May, word came that indeed the state’s coffers could come up with a few extra bucks to help with rental and operating costs. These bureaucratic necessities aside, it was time to give the public something it could see and touch: A ticker-tape parade down Main Street.
The parade, held May 15, 2018, has been well-documented, so there’s not much need here to describe it. Suffice to say the space ship, rechristened “The Caprice,” was hauled on the back of a semi-truck trailer down Fifth Street in Eureka and down the 101 to the college in a fitting spectacle of applause, camera flashes and laudatory headlines. The name, Caprice, by the way, was Linda Muncey’s idea. She took it from a line of Oscar Wilde: “The only difference between a caprice and a life-long passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer.”
“Sounds like you’re worried,” a reporter joked during the parade. The Munceys, each wearing blue caps bearing the name “Caprice,” were on the back of the trailer with the ship.
“No, not at all,” Linda said, laughing. “It’s just a way I have of reminding myself of what we’re really trying to accomplish.”
“And what is that?” the reporter asked.
“Have fun!” she cried, turning to wave to the crowd.
****
Sterling Marshall joined the crowd in waving back as the Caprice passed down Main Street that Saturday afternoon. He’d followed the news with great interest. He felt a vague envy for not having thought of such an idea himself. After all, it suited his imagination.
Ever since Nikki Bow had stopped calling, Sterling had tried to resume his evening walks alone. But lately he’d preferred to go straight home after work. He’d taken to reading heavily, hoping perhaps to drown out his wounded feelings in philosophic speculation. Many disappointed lovers, it seems, develop the habit of becoming philosophers.
Sterling had taken to reading “Walden,” a great book for those who want entirely no contact with other members of the human race for extended periods of time. “Simplicity! Simplicity! Simplicity!” Sterling became enamoured of the 19th Century sage’s cry. He looked anxiously about for some practical means to apply this new method of living. In a sudden passion, he’d sold his computer and a few CDs two weeks before, but found a few days later he missed them, so he hesitated at the moment to part with any more of his worldly goods.
As the big truck hauling the Caprice and the waving Muncey’s passed that Saturday, Sterling thought again about all these things and a faint cloud floated into his happy smile as he returned the wave.
After the truck passed, Sterling walked a few blocks to the Denny’s. It was late afternoon and the place was empty, except for a single waitress working the dim shift before dinner. Sterling sat at the bar and ordered “Moons over My Hammy.” The waitress returned shortly with his coffee and food but otherwise ignored him until he got up later to pay his bill.
What to do, what to do. Seeing the actual space craft had fired Sterling’s restless imagination, set his nerves on edge. Outside the people had already drifted away, and silence was again returning to the streets.
As Sterling walked along, a passage of Thoreau passed through his thoughts. “What most people believe to be good I believe in my soul to be bad. So if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior.”
“—What devil possessed me that I behaved so well,” Sterling said, finishing the quote aloud.
He kicked a stone and continued walking up towards the courthouse.
Maybe he could go live in the woods. But after a moment, the thought horrified him. He was no naturalist. He’d die of boredom if not starvation. Perhaps then he could start a religion or a new philosophy. Or maybe he could assasinate someone. The thought of being an Oswald or Chapman held little romantic interest, however.
As he passed a TV appliance shop, Sterling looked in the window and saw a big orange sign. “20 percent off EVERYTHING,” the sign read.
I could become an advertisement, Sterling mused.
Wait, that was it. Something clicked. No, not an advertisement. A billboard. A human billboard.
Sterling’s mind began to work faster, and his steps picked up accordingly. He could sell messages, ideas, not products. He could charge a certain amount. How much wasn’t important. It was the idea he liked.
“It would be a grand social experiment for mankind,” he said aloud. “A town crier almost.”
He picked up his pace still more, mentally devising a business plan along the way. He wanted to get to the art supply store in Old Town before it closed at five.
******
So maybe I was wrong. Perhaps it was actually not one, but two, occasions that the destinies of Sterling Marshall of Eureka and the Muncey’s of Arcata crossed. I’ll get to the second one shortly. But the first time was definitely that Saturday afternoon. Technically the Muncey’s wouldn’t go into space for another year, and it would also take Sterling the same amount of time for his “grand social experiment for mankind” to really catch on. But in both cases, their journeys had already begun that Saturday, the wheels already set in motion.
Sterling Marshall’s approach to becoming a human billboard was pretty simple. He bought some big colored poster board, markers and heavy nylon cord from the art supply shop. He tied the poster board together with the cord so he could strap signs over his chest and back.
As far as ideas, Sterling started the way all artists start. He stole great quotes from the sages and passed them off as his own. “Nothing can bring peace but the triumph of principles,” he took from Emerson. “Anyone can be great because anyone can serve,” from Martin Luther King. “Don’t follow leaders, watch the pawking meters,” from Dylan, although he got some flak over that last one.
Sterling also dabbled in locations. He started by hiking out to the green stretch just off the highway between Eureka and Arcata. But there the cars went by too fast. People were in too much of a hurry to stop and read signs. So he migrated the operation in town. He tried the parking lot at the Bayshore Mall, but a security guard came out that first morning with a mesage that he was instructed to leave. “We don’t allow solicitors,” the guard said, after Sterling explained his business.
He had the best success at the crowded intersections in front of the courthouse, and down the street in front of the Pizza Hut. Every now and then he got the impression people mistook him for a protester or disgruntled employee on strike, because a few times people threw things at h him as they drove past, or else cried out, “Get a job!” Even worse, people who knew him consciously avoided looking at him when they drove past.
He still worked part-time at the video store, but his parents were a little upset too.
“If you want to live like a bum, then why don’t you go live in the trees with the goddamn hippy protesters,” Glenn Marshall snapped one evening.
Susan reacted differently. She voiced support for Sterling, but he could see signs of impatience in her eyes. She seemed to think her son’s experiment some sort of sign of arrested development.
They both warmed up a bit later, after the papers did profiles. “Sterling Marshall: Human Billboard,” ran the T-S. “Idea Peddler,” is how the Eye described him. Local radio stations followed up as well. KMUD’s morning host Sheryl Sunrise even began having Sterling on in the mornings to discuss the ideas he’d sold that particular day.
“Well I’ve had the usual requests, like ‘Free your Mind,’ ‘The End is Near,’” Sterling said during one of these broadcasts. “One guy this morning offered me $20 to advertise ‘Laura B. Is a cock-sucking whore.’ But I think it was a joke. Either way, I wouldn’t do it. I try to avoid advertising personal attacks.”
“Do you think you’ve helped anyone?” Sheryl Sunrise asked.
“I think so,” Sterling replied. “I meet people all the time now. They say, ‘Look, it’s the Billboard Man.’ Even the little kids, they’re the best. I think some people still don’t get it. They think I have some alterior agenda, or that I just want attention. But most people seem to like the idea. They say, ‘I think it’s cool what you’re doing.’”
“Is there any special message you’d like to send out to our listeners today, Sterling,” the host asked.
“Sure, as always, Be yourself, Be happy – that’s the simplest and best message,” Sterling said.
*****
The paths of Sterling Marshall and the Munceys met again about a year later in the glorious spring of 2019.
The Munceys were driving home, tired from an overnight trip from China Lake, where final preparations were being made for the launch, which was set for two weeks.
“Look it’s the Billboard Guy,” Linda said languidly, gazing out the passenger seat window. It was just after seven, the Munceys were passing the county courthouse.
“We should get an ad,” Bill said, chuckling.
Linda started.
“Yes, of course we should! Pull over.”
Bill parked about a block up from the courthouse and the Munceys got out and walked. It was a bright clear Saturday morning and traffic was light. Sterling Marshall was standing on the grass in front of the courthouse. It had been a slow morning. His sign at the moment said, “Serve your local community,” a $5 reminder from a retired Rotarian who’d come around a few minutes before.
Sterling recognized the Munceys before they introduced themselves.
“Hi, when are you going up?” he asked, as they shook hands.
“Two weeks,” Linda said radiantly. “So you’re the Billboard Man.”
Sterling nodded.
“We’d like to send a message, something to wish us luck before the launch,” Linda continued.
“Sure,” Sterling said. “When do you want to run it?”
“On the day of the launch,” Bill said. “The twenty-seventh.”
“Well, just write down the message.”
The Munceys looked at each other. They hadn’t thought of what to say.
“Any recommendations?” Linda asked.
“Simple messages are usually the best,” Sterling said.
She nodded. The Munceys were silent for a moment.
“How about this: ‘Love to All, From the Caprice.” Linda looked expectantly at her husband.
“Sounds good to me,” Bill Muncey said. Sterling nodded in agreement.
“How much?” Bill asked.
“Don’t worry about it,” Sterling said. The Munceys insisted, and, after several refusals, Sterling finally agreed to take a $10 “donation.” He put the money in his pocket and wished them luck.
“Thank you, Sterling,” Linda said. “Good luck to you, too.”
As the Munceys were walking away, Linda Muncey turned around and flashed Sterling a smile.
“Sterling, promise me: Don’t ever get a real job.”
Sterling returned the smile.
“Never – not unless I run out of ideas,” he said.
****
Two weeks later, at 10:07 a.m. PST, The Caprice lifted off from China Lake, carrying the Munceys and 18 other passengers. The lift-off, a picture of which ran the next day in the Times-Standard, went off smoothly. The ship was scheduled for a four-day orbit of the Earth, with a touch down in China Lake the following Tuesday.
An hour after lift-off, the Munceys looked down in wonder at the Earth.
“Can you see Arcata?” Linda Muncey asked.
They looked down at the gauzy-swirled blue that indicated the Pacific.
“I think there’s Cape Mendocino,” Bill Muncey said. “No wait, Humboldt’s buried in fog – guess that’s pretty typical.”
“I hope Sterling remembered to get our message out,” Bill said, after a moment.
“He didn’t forget,” Linda said.
And it was true. Sterling didn’t forget. Thousands of feet below, it was a foggy morning in downtown Eureka, the fog having stolen in from the sea just before dawn. As motorists rounded the 101 bend past the Pizza Hut, they were greeted by Sterling Marshall, who wore a gas-blue posterboard. In silver glitter he’d bought specially for the occasion, Sterling had trumpeted the Sterling’s famous message, “Love to All, From the Caprice.” A picture of it ran alongside the blast-off photo in the T-S the following morning. As for Sterling Marshall, the photo showed a young man who looked like he was having the time of his life.
The True Life of
Guffenwall
I. How Guffenwall, stoned under the Douglas fir, one day had an idea
At fifty-seven, Jester P. Guffenwall had never felt better.
He was living in Rio Dell then, a grey, depressing town in the redwood country north of San Francisco. Guffenwall didn’t mind that Rio Dell was grey and depressing most of the year, because in the spring when the sun came in from the mountains to the east suddenly the town shined with clarity and life.
That particular spring Guffenwall was in his twentieth semester at the local community college, a half hour up the road on the south part of Humboldt Bay. Thanks to student loans and a Pell Grant, Guffenwall had long since been able to give up the diner job in town he’d hated and could devote his full attention to being a professional student.
It was a good life. Anyone who’s ever spent time in this noble profession knows it’s realities and limitations, but also it’s pleasant and rewarding aspects. Guffenwall seldom, if ever, took morning classes, which allowed him to sleep in most of the week, and he never took more units required to continue receiving funding.
Yes, it was a good life. Especially in the spring. That spring was warmer and drier than the typical Humboldt County summer. It would be perhaps an early harvest for the marijuana growers in the hills to the south, some said. Guffenwall maintained a modest crop in the closet of the grandma unit he rented from a young working family. He had a good strain, with mellow-gold flecks around the buds, that he grew mostly for his personal use and could harvest every three months.
Guffenwall had a van, a beat-up blue ’78 Dodge, but most days in the spring he preferred to hitchike the 20 miles to the campus. More often than not he got a ride immediately, for Humboldters typically are a little more laid-back about such things than in other parts. It didn’t even matter that Guffenwall looked a bit sketchy. His graying hair was long and in a ponytail, his features rough, with a beard to cover old acne scars, and he often wore a faded pair of Army pants. He had nice eyes though, a green the color of a tea leaf, that made people trust him once they got to know him.
Guffenwall had another trick, too. He never failed to produce from his pocket a home-rolled fattie, which he’d light and wave at approaching cars. During the drive, more often than not the driver quickly warmed to Guffenwall, and by the time they rolled past the wildlife refuge and the south bay toward the campus driver and passenger were comfortably baked.
“What a good-lookin’ place,” Guffenwall would say. He’d repeat it again, holding the “Oh Shit! Handle and gazing out at the scenery.
“I tell you this,” Guffenwall would go on (It was characteristic that his speech became more “countrified” the stoneder he got). “I tell you this, one day this here whole place will be lit up and paved under. Gone and goodbye. “It’s inevitable, like drippin’ water carvin’ into a mountain and making a canyon. Little by little. (For it was also characteristic, that the stoneder he got, Guffenwall liked to be philosophical).
“So take a look around,” he said. “Enjoy it now, pardner. Cause it aint gonna last. But hell, I guess aint none of us and nothin’ last. So as they say in Botswana, Fuleku. Fuleku. Adios and c’est la vie.”
Not having actually been to Botswana, it’s impossible for this writer to ascertain whether the Botswanan people really have such a phrase as fuleku (pronounced Foo-leh-Koo), so we’ll have to take Guffenwall’s word for it.
Anyway, Guffenwall enjoyed college. He spent whole afternoons in the library, or else strolling about until his film class started at five. He loved film classes. He’d taken Mr. Morrison’s Film 101 six consecutive times. While fairly indiscrimminate in his taste (he loved “Birth of a Nation” as much as “Singin’ in the Rain” or “Chinatown”) Guffenwall enjoyed biopics most. He’d seen “Citizen Kane” sixteen times, and the autobiographical Fellini film “8 ˝” at least a score more. After the class it was still bright outside, so Guffenwall was fond of walking to the little forest behind the school and sparking up under a tree. He’d sit there, the wheel of images – especially of Guido soaring like a kite over black-and-white existential clouds.
Yes it was good, this life. It was good until one day, sitting under a tree and reflecting thus, that Guffenwall experienced what must have happened with Newton, minus the falling of course since it was a Douglas fir. But he an idea.
A movie, he thought. Why not make a movie himself? What movie? His movie – a biopic of course. The Life of Guffenwall.
Guffenwall couldn’t have known then how dangerous the idea was, and how it would bring about a horrifying, startling, shock to his pleasant world.
II. How Guffenwall hit a crisis, and how he solved it
To Guffenwall, the idea of making a film didn’t sound too monumental a task. During the course of his twenty-semester career as a professional student, he’d taken a dozen film classes. He’d learned the workings of the D8 and digital cameras, and teachers said he had a natural flair for editing. The keys lay in financing, and the itinerant production details, lighting, sound, etc.
Heck, he eschewed all that. When it came down to it, Guffenwall was a surprisingly efficient thinker. He really didn’t need a budget. There was $10,000 left from his parents sitting in the bank. And because of the style of film he hoped to achieve, handheld, using natural light and sound, Guffenwall sensed he didn’t need much more than that.
What did Chaplin say? he challenged himself. ‘All I need is a girl, a park and a policeman, and I’ll give you a comedy.’ Damn right. Exactly. All I need is what I got. Me. Jester P. Guffenwall. Some good Humboldt bud, and a camera. Hell, I’ll deliver a goddamn tour-de-force, a friggin’ opera.
The crisis came when he sat down to write a script. He toiled at it for three nights. Where to begin? His birth in Arcata to a father who’d worked at L-P, or his stay-at-home mother? That was too far back, there was nothing interesting about it. The sixteen-month tour in Vietnam? He’d been discharged from the Army in ’72 for committing “a lewd act” as his papers stated (in truth he’d been arrested for jerking off in the public library in Saigon). No, that was no place to start.
With growing anxiety, Guffenwall inventoried the remaining years. Fact was, there was no rosebud, nothing elusive, mysterious or compelling. There was nothing cinematic in all the years. There was just nothing.
What the fuck, he thought. He couldn’t believe it. Truth is, Guffenwall had always viewed himself as a rather exceptional person. Part of his affinity for movies lay in the fact that he’d always framed his life from a director’s perspective. If he took a stroll in the park, it was always in a long shot. If he was tackling some problem, as he was then, the imaginary camera swooped in reliably for the close-up. It had always been that way, unfolding, a music score like Nino Rota’s “Godfather” theme rising and diminishing in accord with the waves of his existence.
Guffenwall was devastated. For three straight weeks he didn’t go to school. He stayed in bed, “self-medicating” on pot and Jim Beam. One early morning he was awoken by the faint blue light coming through the window. Guffenwall awoke with the unfinished fragments of a dream still in his head. His thoughts arrived at a particularly sharp fragment and suddenly he rose fully awake.
“—Stop it!” he whispered, a terror in his chest.
The room was quiet.
“Stop it,” he repeated. “The acting. Stop.”
He had that sudden awful clarity that comes sometimes in the early morning after a night of raucous dreaming, a hideous, frightening, loathing self-knowledge, the kind that for the less stable can lead to suicide or even salvation. There was no movie. He knew it.
“You’re acting. Stop it. Stop it.” Guffewall hissed, frightened by his thoughts.
And what had it all been then, the years in the diner, in Vietnam, even the sweet renditions of afternoons roaming the campus in full philosophic revery after watching “The Seventh Seal?”
No it couldn’t all be nothing. But it was.
No, there was a way. Only one way. He knew then what it was and it came as effortlessly as the first revelation.
A new script. That was what he needed. A new life, a new hero. He had to rewrite it, everything, from the very beginning. Thus began the true life of Jester P. Guffenwall.
III. How Guffenwall embarks as a pot demonstrator
He began by getting arrested.
It was surpringly easy to, he found. Guffenwall walked into the county Board of Supervisors meeting on a Tuesday and, in full view of both the district attorney and the sheriff, lit up a joint. Not only that, but Guffenwall also demanded the standard three minutes public comment to address the board. Even Chairman Walt Stevens, an aging hippy from Arcata, was taken aback.
“—Sir! Mr. Guffenwall,” Stevens cried. “The public comment period has already passed. And I’ll remind you that the county ordinance and state law forbids smoking of any kind in county buildings.”
Presently three bailiffs were brought down from the courtrooms upstairs.
”Fulekuh,” was all Guffenwall said. He was taken without incident.
He’d brought along a friend from the film class, a quick young fellow from Santa Barbara named Aiden Green, to shoot the scene.
“You gettin’ all this Aiden?” Guffenwall asked, as the bailiffs walked him over to the jail for booking.”
“Got it,” Aiden said.
Since he had no prior criminal record (he didn’t mention the Army incident) and was possessing less than an ounce of pot, Guffenwall was cited and released by the end of the day. He even had a small write-up in the local paper, The Times-Standard, the next morning.
Guffenwall was happy. It had been a quite pleasant experience, getting arrested, and even the jail itself was nice. The food was good and no one treated him badly. He almost hated to leave. But of course he had to. The first scene had been shot.
“Fuleku,” he said. “That’s what I call a beginning. That’s more like it.”
IV How Guffenwall went to San Francisco to be a street preacher
It was easier to come up with the next scene than Guffenwall thought it would be. He didn’t want the movie to flatten out, having gotten off to such a good start. He’d learned this from Kurosawa, you see. “Keep a sustained level of tension,” he said. “Like ‘Rashamon.’ Just keep em guessin’ to the very end.”
That’s how he ended up in San Francisco. Guffenwall and Aiden packed the camera, a couple of lapel mics, some clothes and a good stash of buds into the van and took off down the 101 on a Saturday morning. They arrived in the city about noon. Aiden of course got good shots of the Golden Gate from the dashboard and by leaning out the window of the van.
They spent a glorious week camping out in a park near Haight-Ashbury. Guffenwall quickly made friends with a bogus acid dealer named T-Bone and a skateboarder from Tennessee who said his name was Brandon.
Guffenwall spent most of the day standing on the sidewalk of the famous district, delivering tireless speeches on a topic he called, “Love and the Glory of Life.” He also handed out a few free samples of Humboldt bud, so word of the neighborhood’s new street preacher quickly got around.
“Fulekuh, that’s all it is really,” he proclaimed as people walked by. “I won’t pretend I have much to say but I will say this. I’m in love with the world. I’m in love with you all. Life’s my girl and as they say in some parts of East Timor, Mamama-my-momamon. Fuck em all and pass the sugar. You gettin’ all this, Aiden?”
Aiden was getting it.
“Here let me turn this way, I want to get those girls in the picture.” A couple of Berkeley girls, holding hands, walked by. They looked over and waved.
“Hello girls!” Guffenwall proclaimed. “The glory of love and life! The glory of love and life is here. Ginsberg knew it. Kerouac too. It’s all here. The sadness, the music, the story. It’s all here. We’re getting it, we’re only in the second scene for Christ’s sake. I done been arrested and now by golly I’m spreading the word. Everyone should try it, at least once. Anyway, but we’re here, at the table. Brothers and sisters, won’t you join me for food and drink at the table. Fuck em all and pass the sugar.”
The girls laughed a little, but moved on.
“Ah, fuleku,” Guffenwall said. “Guess they aint hungry.”
T-Bone liked the speech though. He wanted to sit at the table. Actually he wanted a larger role in the film.
“Sorry, my friend,” Guffenwall said. “But there’s only one star in this picture, at least so far.”
At the end of the week, Guffenwall was tired of speaking on the glory of love and life. But he didn’t have any other topics. The scene was finished.
“Guess I’m not really cut out to be a street preacher,” he reflected. “But hell, can’t be good at everything.”
V. How Guffenwall met Lucie, and talked her into taking a road trip
The next scene involved a little manuevering. They were on their way south of the city near Sausalito when they saw a girl walking along the other side of the highway. Her name was Lucie Vargas. She was a 19-year-old art student from San Diego.
“There she is, a fellow soul!” Guffenwall cried. He was driving as usual. I’m gonna hang a ‘U’. Aiden. Be sure to get this.”
The van slowed and crossed the grassy median.
Lucie’s honey blonde hair was pulled back in Princess Leia pigtails, and she was wearing a blue jean jacket and camouflage pants. On her MP3 player she was listening to some Brazilian hip hop.
“Excuse me, beauty,” said Guffenwall, in his dashing way, a joint in one hand.
Lucie pulled off an earphone.
“Hi,” she said.
“Where you goin’” Guffenwall asked.
“Portland.”
“Want a ride?”
“You’re not a serial killer or anything are you?”
“If you mean am I crazy, well, I guess I am. But not like that.”
Lucie noticed Aiden, who’d stepped out of the van for a closer shot.
“What is he doing?”
“Oh, excuse me. This is my assistant, Aiden Green. And I’m Guffenwall. Jester P. Guffenwall. We’re from up the road, Humboldt County. We’re making a movie.”
“What’s it about” Lucie asked.
“About everything. About me, about life. You want to be in it?”
Lucie narrowed her eyes.
“Um. OK. Interesting.”
“No, it’s not like that. We’re not porn dealers or anything. Really we’re just going on and filming what happens.”
“Didn’t they do that in Easy Rider?” Lucie asked.
Guffenwall, who had seen ‘Easy Rider’ fifty four times, shook his head.
“Not exactly,” he said. “You see, Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda actually did work with a script, even though they did improvise on the New Orleans bit. We don’t have a script. You gettin’ this Aiden? This is important.”
Aiden was getting it.
“I don’t know,” Lucie said. “What happens next?”
“We take you to Portland or wherever you want,” Guffenwall said. He had a flash. “You want to go to New York. Ever been there?”
“I’m supposed to meet a friend in Portland. We’re looking for a room there.”
Guffenwall wasn’t listening.
“I’ve never been to New York,” he mused aloud. “Aiden, you been to New York?”
“No, not yet.”
“You up for it? We can download this stuff along the way.”
“Sure.” Aiden grinned. He was starting to get the hang of Guffenwall’s thoughts.
“What do you say?” Guffenwall turned back to Lucie. “You can email or call your friend.”
Lucie hedged.
“Seriously,” Guffenwall said. “It’s only a movie. A few days. We can drop you in Portland on the way back, or anywhere.”
“Do I have to pay for gas?” she asked. “I don’t have much money.”
“We got you covered,” Guffenwall said.
Lucie thought for a moment. Her mobile was in her jacket.
“Let me text my friend,” she said.
A few minutes later, Lucie was settled in the back, Guffenwall was behind the wheel and Aiden stood on the road. He wanted to get a nice wide shot of the van getting back on the 101.
VI They go to New York, and Guffenwall tries to explain to Lucie what’s on his mind
The journey across the country took about a week. They stopped regularly, but usually just crashed in the van. Guffenwall had tremendous energy. He loved driving long distances and he often sang merrily to himself as the van hurtled across the Rockies, into the plains, up through Illinois and across the cornfields of Indiana and past Cinninati and later Columbus and up into the first rolling patches of the Appalacians. And of course, the reliable Aiden got it all, or most of it anyway. Sometimes Lucie sat shotgun, and other times dozed off in back, listening to her MP3.
“So why are you doing this?” she asked one night. They were parked at a McDonald’s near Wheeling, West Virginia.
Guffenwall had finished his quarter pounder and lit a joint. He passed it to Lucie.
“Aiden, you gettin’ this?” Lucie asked. She looked at Guffenwall and smiled.
“Hey that’s my line,” he said.
Actually for once, Aiden was sleeping. He hadn’t eaten much of his burger.
Lucie grabbed the camera.
“Like this, right?” she put the camera to her eye.
“Turn it on there,” Guffenwall said. “Here’s the zoom if you want it. It’s on auto focus.”
“OK,” Lucie leaned back. “You want a wide shot first.”
“Sure, then you can move in close.”
“So why you doing this?”
“Can we start with something easier?”
“No. OK. Where were you born?”
“I told you. Humboldt.”
“When?”
“Way before you were born.”
“Good. OK, enough. So why are you doing this?”
Lucie zoomed in.
“I’m tryin’ to invent something,” Guffenwall said.
“When did you get the idea?”
“A few weeks ago. I was sitting under a tree stoned, thinking about this movie ‘8 ˝’ by Fellini. Ever seen it?”
“No,” the girl said.
“It’s an old film. Anyway. It’s about this guy, a film director, who’s supposed to be making his next movie and he hits this creative block. All the pressure’s on him, the producer, the actors are arriving for rehearsal and they want to know their parts. They’ve even got the set built, this big old spaceship and the director, the guy, he doesn’t even know why he had it built. And meantime, his wife hates him and he’s got all these other women in his life who he’s got to deal with to. All this is happening and he starts thinking about everything. His childhood, his parents, even God and death. All that shit.”
“So what happens?” Lucie asks.
“He decides in the end not to make the film. He kills it.”
“Why?”
“Because there isn’t any film. There’s only life. Or they’re the same. Something like that. I’m not even sure if I really understand it. Anyway.”
“I don’t understand,” Lucie said. “I think you were just stoned. Or crazy.”
“Yes, that’s probably true,” said Guffenwall. “But maybe they are the same. You can start your life anywhere you want. And you can end it too.”
“Sure,” Lucie said.
“That’s all I want,” Guffenwall said. With the pot, he became philosophical as usual.
“I think you are stoned,” Lucie said. She smiled and put the camera on the dashboard, with the camera still on Guffenwall. She leaned over and kissed him.
“Did we get that,” Guffenwall said.
“I think so,” Lucie said.
VII How they arrived in New York
It was raining and in the middle of the afternoon in New York.
Guffenwall steered the van uncertainly through the mid-town traffic, with Lucie negotiating the map and Aiden back on the camera, taking it all in. A series of mismanuevers took them out to the Queensboro bridge.
“Fuck we’re headed out to La Guardia,” Guffenwall said. He looked out the passenger side to see, across the river, Manhatten starting to recede into the distance.
“Get a shot of that Aiden,” he said.
“It’s not the same without the towers,” Aiden said.
“Maybe not,” Guffenwall said. “But it’s still the Big Apple. I’m gonna hang a ‘U’ on the other side of the bridge.”
Eventually they got turned around and started back across, this time with the Manhatten skyline on Guffenwall’s side.
“That’s more like it,” he said, lighting a joint. “Holy Jesus, the top of the world. Fuleku, as they say in Botswana.”
They drove to the Upper East Side and across Harlem, where Guffenwall got out and asked a taxi driver for a hostel.
“There’s one on 103rd and Amsterdam,” said the driver, who was carrying on a second conversation on his mobile.
“103rd and Amsterdam,” the driver repeated.
They found it eventually, a large burgundy colored building not far from the Park.
Inside a young Italian guy worked the front desk.
“What’s all this?” he asked, looking at the camera. “You guys tourists?”
“Yeah, tourists,” said Guffenwall. “Two rooms.”
“How long?”
Guffenwall looked at Lucie and Aiden.
“Whaddaya say, crew?” he asked. “It’s Friday. We could stay the weekend.”
“Three days, two nights,” the clerk said. “That’s 130.”
They paid and got the keys and headed into a long corridor. They passed a TV lounge. It was full of people, mostly European and Asian students. They were watching “Friends” and laughing uproariously.
“Get a load of this, Aiden,” Guffenwall said. “They come all the way to America just to watch the TV.”
“It’s the real deal,” Aiden said, getting a shot of it. “I guess if you visit America you gotta watch TV. Like going to Paris and seeing the Eiffel tower.”
“Or meeting a girl,” Guffenwall said. “Fulekuh.”
Guffenwall went into the lounge and tapped a long-haired young guy on the shoulder.
“Here take one of these,” Guffenwall handed him a joint. “Humboldt County, best in the world. Don’t watch too much of that TV it’ll ruin your brain.”
“Thank you,” said the young guy.
“Did you get that Aiden?” Guffenwall asked. “I just wanted them to know there’s more to America than just TV and McDonald’s. OK, let’s get going. What are you up for tonight, pretty girl?”
“The Village,” Lucie said.
How Guffenwall visited Wall Street, Ground Zero, and accidentally defiled the Lennon memorial
The next morning was fabulously sunny. The film crew got up fairly early, even though they were out late touring the pubs near the Village and SoHo. They walked to Central Park. Aiden got some shots of New Yorkers sitting on the benches, reading the paper, or others jogging along the trails or lounging in the grass.
Guffenwall lit a spliff, which he gladly shared with a Latin couple sitting together on the grass nearby.
As usual, the buds made Guffenwall philosophical.
“How about this,” he proclaimed, his voice already growing countrified. “ Aiden, git here a nice roaming shot across that there lawn. There, where you can see the skyscrapers up over the trees. Ah, you smell that? What the hell is that smell? A green smell.”
“Sewage,” the young Latin man said.
“Sewage hell,” Guffenwall said. “Don’t tell me that. I used to live near the wastewater plant in Arcata. That aint sewage I smell. It’s green, it’s moist., it’s toxic, it’s living, it’s like nothing else. I’ll always remember this smell. I’ll store it right up there in this part of my brain. Whenever I want to think of New York, I’ll just download that there smell.
“How many places on Earth do you have a veritable forest plunked down smack dab in the middle of skycrapers. Kinda boggles the mind, don’t it?”
Nearby there was a hot dog vendor.
“I want a hot dog,” Lucie said. She got one and came back and sat down, offering a bite to Guffenwall.
“Let me look at you,” Guffenwall said. He planted a kiss high on her forehead.
“Is this the romantic scene?” Lucie asked.
“Fuleku,” Guffenwall.
“What is that? Fuleku.”
“It’s something like holy shit.”
“Fuleku,” Lucie said, kissing him.
“That’ll clean my fittings,” Guffenwall said. “Hell, I could stop the whole damn thing here. Right in the middle. Wait, I’m gonna take a piss.”
He wandered off into a grove of bushes. Guffenwall was happy, enjoying relieving himself when something on the ground nearby caught his attention. It was the word “Imagine” inscribed in a small memorial.
“I’ll be damned,” Guffenwall said, looking around. “I’ve been pissing on the goddamn John Lennon memorial. Imagine that.”
He laughed at his own joke, which he didn’t always do.
“Imagine that.”
“I kept it in long shot,” Aiden voice came from nearby.
“You motherfucker,” Guffenwall said. “Now the whole world’s gonna know I pissed on John Lennon’s memorial. Damn John, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I hope the bushes need some Vitamin A.”
Guffenwall was seized with the feeling of attonement.
“How far do you think Ground Zero is from here?” he asked.
“It’s Lower Manhatten, about fifty blocks,” said Lucie.
They walked the entire fifty blocks, passing down Broadway and past Times Square. It was Fleet Week so the square was full of sailors in dress whites, all of them looking slack jawed and ready for a long weekend of hell-raising.
Eventually they got to Wall Street, where Aiden got good shots of the Stock Exchange and the old federal building across the street, where the statue of General George Washington stood looking sternly out from marble columns at the center of the financial world.
“Fu –le –fucking – ku,” pronounced Guffenwall. “I feel like I’m passing through the streets of Caesar’s Rome.”
He stood on the steps near the Washington statue.
“Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Ladies, Gentlemen, Perverts and Masturbators!” cried Guffenwall, addressing a mock mob. “I admit it. It’s true. Every bit of it. I killed Caesar. I fingered Monica. Hell, I can’t even order a pizza without trying to skim the waiter for some hot wings. But I ask you, who did you screw last night?”
The speech finished, Guffenwall turned to the Washington statue.
“George you look like you could use one of these,” he said, slipping a joint at the general’s feet. “They say you liked good hemp. Trust me, Humboldt County. Best in the world.”
Presently they reached the Ground Zero area, basically a big hole in the ground several blocks wide, surrounded by Iron Gates. There were still wreaths and flowers, some of them fresh, hanging at various points along the gaves, as well as little handritten notes, and even pictures of the remembered.
They were quiet for a few minutes.
“I didn’t expect it,” Guffenwall said, looking at one row of flowers. “I didn’t expect to feel anything coming here. But you do feel something. It’s like that hole is trying to pull you down in it, something is dragging at you and you can almost hear those people’s voices as they’re dragged down in it. It’s strange.”
“For me it’s like I can feel the wind from it,” Lucie said. “It comes across the back of the neck, like a ghost. What do you feel Aiden?”
“I don’t know, something,” he said. “It’s a different feeling though. Guffenwall’s right. I didn’t expect to feel anything.”
“Fuleku,” Guffenwall said. “All those people. Should be salute or something?”
“They can be in the movie,” Lucie said.
“That’s right, beauty,” Guffenwall said. “You hear that, people? We’re making a movie and you’re all in it. Well, if you want. We can always cut it. You getting this, Aiden?”
Aiden was getting it.
“You know I always was a patriot at heart, even in the Army,” Guffenwall said, lighting a joint. “In a way I kind of envy you people. Maybe some people say you died for nothin’, but hell, until these past few days I never even lived for nothin’. There’s a lot of people out there who don’t ever live for nothin’. That’s a far worse thing I think. Maybe in some way you were the lucky ones.”
How Guffenwall went to Washington, considered a career selling marijuana there, and paid his respects to Lincoln
“Washington? Why the hell you wanna go to Washington,” Aiden asked.
This was Sunday evening and they were leaving New York. Aiden was tired and a little irritated. Plus, he was worried about cash and bills that probably were arriving at home.
“Would you leave it to me?” Guffenwall said. “Trust me, if we get in a jam we still got a lot of pot. We can sell some.”
“Where in DC?” Aiden asked. “To who, John Ashcroft?”
“No, Bill Clinton,” Guffenwall said.
“He didn’t inhale.”
“Well he’s not in office now. Maybe he’d like to.”
“He can’t,” Lucie said. “Hillary might run for president.”
“Well, I’m sure Washington is just like anywere else, there’s gotta be plenty of people who haven’t tried good old Humboldt. Hell, we could start a business.”
“Sure,” Aiden said.
“It might help, relax everyone a little bit, keep their fingers off the red button,” Guffenwall said. “We could even send some to the Middle East. Seems to me everyone could use a good smoke.”
“Well, when you are selling drugs and put in Guantanamo Bay we’ll be sure to get it in the movie,” Aiden said.
“It was an idea,” Guffenwall said.
They arrived in the nation’s capital the following evening at dusk, and drove first to the Lincoln Memorial. By then it was near dark. Old Abe’s granite features were lit up in solemn light. Guffenwall felt it was a good occasion, so he rolled a special joint, a unique hybrid of Humboldt and Mendocino, a neighborhing pot capital.
“Here’s to our better angels,” Guffenwall said, lighting the joint. “By the time we’re finished, you’ll be ready to take Hollywood by storm, Aiden.”
“Fuck Hollywood,” said Aiden, who as usual was getting the shot. He moved in to frame Guffenwall and Lincoln together.
“You know what? I feel like one of those minutemen,” said Aiden, circling back around. “The patriots who kept their boots on and their rifles close when they slept so they could rise and be ready when the redcoats came.”
“That camera’s worth a thousand rifles,” said Guffenwall, as usual becoming philosophical with the pot. “One image can beat a whole army. Hell, Christ knew that. That’s why he wasn’t afraid of Pilate. Or Caesar. He knew the image of him on the cross would take them all out, and it did eventually. Of course, eventually other images came along and took him out too. It’s just the way it goes, I guess.”
“What about now?” Lucie asked.
“Ask Abe,” Guffenwall said. “Abe, what do you think?”
Aiden got a close-up of the statue’s face.
“Hell, I guess you didn’t have it easy either,” Guffenwall said. “Maybe the world’s getting too small for patriots, and martyrs, and heroes. They all end of dead anyway. What do you think, Abe? Should we strap on some explosives and go take out the White House?”
“—Ssh! I think people are looking,” Lucie said. Indeed, there were a few people, tourists, who’d stopped and were regarding Guffenwall.
“So what?” Guffenwall said. “They can be in the movie, too.”
“Yeah but someone could call security,” Aiden said.
“What are they gonna do, arrest us for talking to Abraham Lincoln?”
“No, but they might not like the part about blowing up the White House,” Aiden said. “Come on, let’s go.”
“Ah, hell,” said Guffenwall. “Fuleku. I hope you don’t mind being in the movie, Abe. You can see what we’re up against.”
How Guffenwall thought about driving the van into the White House, but reconsidered
It was almost midnight when they arrived at the White House. The lawn was floodlit, throwing some of the light up around the columns of the house.
“I think it’s closed,” Aiden said, but he got a shot of the facade.
Guffenwall didn’t say anything. He was tired, and with the special Humboldt-Mendocino blend, was feeling pretty much the most philosophical he’d ever felt in his fifty seven years.
“Think the president’s home?” he asked shortly.
“He’s in India, I read it on Google,” Aiden said.
Guffenwall continued staring through the gates.
“How strong you think these gates are?” he asked. “Think we could drive the van through?”
“Probably,” Lucie said.
“How far you think we could get,” Guffenwall asked. “Think we could make it all the way – “
“Oh, fuck, Guffenwall!” cried Aiden. “You’re not serious.”
“Why not?”
“If you think I’m going to stand here and get a long shot of you committing suicide, then fuck off. I’m not that far gone.”
“Who said long shot?” Guffenwall asked. “You could ride shotgun.”
Lucie took his hand.
“Come on, Guffenwall,” she said. “There’s really nothing you can do.”
“There is something I can do,” he said.
“No.”
Guffenwall was quieter now.
“No,” Lucie repeated. “You’re too good for this. You don’t want to go there.”
“It would make a great ending to the movie, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes,” Lucie said. “It would be the end. I don’t want it to end. It’s a great movie so far.”
“It’s gotta end sometime,” Guffenwall said. “How should it end?”
“I don’t know,” Lucie said. “It’s your movie.”
“Yeah.” Guffenwall sighed. “Fuleku, as they say in Botswana. Fuck ‘em all and pass the sugar. Come on, let’s go.”
“Where are we going?” Lucie asked.
“Home.”
How Guffenwall went home
The drive back to California was long. They were all tired.
“It’s always a little longer on the way back, you ever noticed that?” Guffenwall asked. He was driving. They were somewhere in Kansas in the late afternoon.
Lucie was asleep in back. Aiden had taken a break from the camera since Cinncinnati.
“I can’t believe it,” Aiden said.
“Can’t believe what?”
“I can’t believe the past three weeks. You’ve been arrested for smoking pot in the county courthouse, made a speech on the glory of life and love in San Francisco, picked up a 19-year old girl and dragged her and me three thousand miles across the country, went to New York, pissed on John Lennon’s grave – “
“ – by accident,” Guffenwall said.
“Whatever. Then you gave George Washington a joint, got high with Abe Lincoln, stood in front of the White House and threatened to drive a van into it.”
“Did you get it all?” Guffenwall asked.
“Yeah, I got it all,” Aiden said.
“Hell of a movie,” Guffenwall said. “Everybody dies but not everybody lives.”
He passed a joint to Aiden.
When they arrived back in Humboldt County it was six in the morning on a Tuesday, the first Tuesday in June.
“Summer’s coming,” Aiden said.
“Yeah, might be an early harvest, they say.”
“I hope so.”
“Me, too.”
Guffenwall turned on the radio and found KMUD, a local hippy station. It was playing some Bob Marley.
“Wanna pull over?” Aiden asked. “Sun’s coming up. I’d like to get a shot.”
“Absolutely,” Guffenwall said. “Hey, Lucie. Hey beauty. Rise and shine. We’re home.”
“Home for you,” Lucie said sleepily. “Aren’t you taking me to Portland?”
“Oh shit, I forgot,” said Guffenwall. He really had forgotten. “You still want to go?”
“Maybe tomorrow,” Lucie said. “Let’s just get somewhere and be still. I just want to be still for a little while.”
“Me too,” said Guffenwall.
The sun was well up an hour later when they rolled across the Scotia-Rio Dell bridge. Guffenwall lit a joint. Presently he became, as always, rather philosophical.
“It’s a beauty, aint it?” he said, looking out the window. “Well, take a look around folks. I tell you this. One day, this whole place will be lit up with neon lights and paved under. All of it. Sure as shit. Well, as they say in Botswana, Fuleku. Fuleku. You getting this Aiden?
Aiden was getting it.
The Unsaved
Craig Johnson was saved one bright cold morning in 1995. It happened near the Gazebo in Eureka’s Old Town when Craig encountered an earnest, straw-haired fellow associated with a Bible study group and who’d been out doing his weekly turn at proselytizing. Craig had accepted an invitation to attend a study session. One reading from the versus of Matthew was enough to set Craig on his present path.
Like others over the centuries who have been saved, Craig was very thankful of the god who had graciously saved him, and he loved nothing more than to tell others the debt he owed.
Naturally, Craig was convinced that others needed to take on this debt.
He was 45, with a slight paunch and facial features that resembled storybook descriptions of Santa Claus. Even his nose had a slight cherry red color.
An artist wishing to paint his portrait might not alter a single thing, except perhaps a slight crinkling around the eyes. The sheen of the cheek was perhaps a bit to bright, doubtless a byproduct of the glow of his promised salvation.
Sitting in Toby and Jacks, a pub on the plaza in Arcata, Dennis Lockerby didn’t like the look of Craig Johnston from the minute he first laid eyes on him. It was a wet, windy afternoon not too long ago. Members of the Bible Study group were expected to put in at least three hours a week in the community, spreading the word. Craig that afternoon had settled on Toby and Jacks.
In Johnston’s picturesque beautitude Dennis saw a false and unlikely peace, and he distanced himself from it from the start. At first he didn’t tell Craig. That would have been impolite.
Plus it was interesting to listen, at least for a while.
“Each day I say a prayer: Thank you Jesus for being in my life,” Craig began, as he found a seat at the bar.
Two stools down, Dennis Lockerby only caught the profile of the visitor. Lockerby worked for State Farm’s office in Eureka for five years. A few weeks before he’d been caught sleeping on a stack of claims and, after an uncomfortable confrontation with a long-standing client, he’d been dismissed. Since he’d never married, there was no real urgency to find work. He’d taken to hanging out at Toby and Jacks because it was generally quiet during the day and it allowed him to stare off into his thoughts for hours at a time. That’s exactly what he was doing when Craig Johnston sat down.
“That’s right, I’m a very lucky man,” Craig said. “You look like you could use some luck, Mister.”
Dennis looked at his inquisitor.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m sorry. It’s just that, well, you look a little lost.”
The statement, though not lacking in truth, annoyed Dennis. His existential state seemed to him to be his own business.
“Listen,” Craig said. He stood slowly and pointed to the empty stool next to Dennis, then promptly slid into it before Dennis had a chance to react. “I bet you could use another drink.”
Dennis looked at the Jack and Coke that was nearly finished in front of him.
“You buyin’?”
“I could buy you a drink,” Craig said, wetting his lips. “But I’m prepared to do more. A lot more. What would you say to a drink with Our Lord, Jesus Christ?”
“No thanks.”
Dennis was disappointed. He really had hoped the stranger would buy him a drink. But he understood Craig only referred to a metaphorical, or figurative drink. Dennis didn’t want metaphorical or figurative drinks, not even with the Lord Jesus, and to be honest not with Craig Johnston unless he was buying a very literal and alcohol-based substance.
Still, he couldn’t help examining him. No, there would be no drink, only more talk of drinking with the Lord Jesus.
He looked around the bar desperately. It was just past three, still a couple hours til Happy Hour. The bar was empty except for a few of the old regulars, retired or laid-off mill workers dipping their grey mustaches into pints of wheat or amber ale. The bartender, a plump, whispy woman named Helen, was doing a crossword puzzle.
Craig hadn’t moved. Dennis turned and saw the two cobalt-blue eyes focused on him. There was a curious knowing look in them, a flicker of what can only be described as compassionate triumph.
“Yes, yes,” Craig said, in a raspy whisper. “I could buy you that drink … You know, at one time I was just like you. I would have gladly bought you that drink, and then another. You think I wouldn’t. But I would’ve. Except since then I’ve learned more, you see?”
Dennis saw. He wasn’t interested in what Craig had seen or learned.
Craig’s features had crystallized into a screen of searching benevolence.
“… Three years ago my wife left me,” he said. “After 17 years. Packed up and moved to Phoenix. Said she was tired of livin’ in a hick town and all the word was Phoenix was the place to be. I got home from work one night and she was gone … At the time I thought I’d lost everything in the world. You know? You know how it feels to feel like you’ve lost absolutely everything in the world? I was ready to toss myself in the bay. I thought, living is impossible. I can’t live this way, alone, all alone. But you know what? I was wrong. I learned I wasn’t alone, and that anything is possible. Do you understand that? You are not alone. Anything is possible.”
Helen had gotten up to wipe down the bar. Dennis signaled to her he wanted to pay.
“Where are you going?” Craig asked. “Have you ever asked yourself that question?”
“Thanks,” Dennis said. Helen brought his change. Stuffing it into his pocket he turned and headed outside.
The wind had died down, but the sky still had a grey metallic color. Near the entrance a young guy, dreadlocked and leaning against a huge back pack and playing an Eastern melody on a flute. A couple good-looking girls, obviously from the university, strolled down the sidewalk holding hands and laughing to each other about something.
Dennis scarcely noticed any of this. He felt a little drowsy. It felt good to be outside.
“Seriously, where are you going?”
Dennis turned. Craig was standing there, almost musically, on the sidewalk. His _expression had changed again.
“I’m praying for you, man,” he said.
“If you come any closer I’ll knock your fucking block off!”
“So be it, brother. So be it.”
Dennis was a little surprised himself at the violence of his own response. It took him longer than usual to find his car, partly because the anger was still there, distorting everything.
He drove. The anger faded and he felt tired, crowded with loneliness and the worn-off liquour buzz. He wanted to get home. He wanted to get home where he knew he would be alone but it was a different kind of alone. It was lonely but there was the bed and it was warm and it was a softer, familiar form of loneliness and he could play his records and that would take the bite out of things and maybe later he could get something to eat. Home. Where he could escape the crinkled eyes of dishonest gods.
“Jesus.” Craig sighed and turned onto Samoa Boulevard, gunning the engine. It felt good to drive. The car eased onto the 101.
Dennis went home and slept. He awoke a few hours later, disoriented, not knowing if it was day or night. The apartment was dark. It must be night, he thought. Oh well, not as if I have to get up and go to work in the morning, he murmured.
He undressed and took a shower. The water was hot and refreshing. He sang a “Queen” song as he shampooed his hair.
Afterward he checked the time and it was almost nine. Dennis dressed and headed out. He drove to Arcata. There were more people out and Toby and Jacks was almost full when he arrived.
That night he met a nice girl named Marcy. She worked at the B of A branch in Eureka. She was petite, well-dressed and had a pleasant scent. She didn’t offer him a drink with Our Lord.
They had a nice feeling between them.
Later that night, Dennis stayed with Marcy at her flat in McKinleyville. It might have interested him to know that, a few miles down the road, Craig Johnston was still awake and was praying for him.
But Dennis knew nothing about this, of course.
“Do you want to again?” Marcy asked. “Or do you want to sleep for a little while first?”
Dennis had his arms around her waist and he was looking at the smoothness of her shoulders.
“Let’s sleep a while,” he said.
A Sailor’s Death
The pidgeon sat at a strange angle on the street next to the curb. It was only an ordinary pidgeon and it was dead. Looking at it from the window of the barracks two stories up, Payton was unable to determine how the pidgeon had died. The legs were crushed, bent inward, which accounted for the strange angle. Otherwise the pidgeon looked very much alive, except it was unnaturally motionless.
It occurred to Payton the pidgeon looked a bit embarrassed at being dead, as though it would have planned a different death or manner of dying.
It was Saturday and the base was quiet. Outside the morning was warm and mild. It’s always warm and mild in San Diego. Inside the room was still dark. Payton turned from the window. His bunkmate, Bates, a mechanic’s apprentice from Michigan, lay passed out on top of the sheets.
Payton was 23, though he still had the lanky, awkward appearance of a high school freshman. For the past two years he’d been Seaman Apprentice Russell in the Navy. He’d officially ceased being Seaman Apprentice Russell the previous afternoon, when the personnel department had stamped his discharge papers. He’d folded the papers and placed them at the bottom of his seabag. The bag was full of street clothes; his uniforms he’d unceremoniously dropped in a Dumpster the previous evening. So the bag, the papers and $80 final pay were all that remained of Seaman Russell.
He’d never been to sea. Funny, he’d been able to avoid it. The master chief at the base, looking at his papers, had said, with a sureness in his brittle features, ‘Next time -- you’ll be going to see, believe me.’
Well, now he wouldn’t be.
He had to be off the base by noon. Payton still wasn’t sure where he was going. Since getting busted with amphetamines a few months before, he’d gone through a very public process of discharge. Before, when he was a yeoman working in the Admin office, he’d processed discharges for drug cases. It was always the same. At least half a dozen times he’d watched the offender marched by the MPs past the office, up to the Captain. Afterward, the offender is marched back to the Admin office, where with a gentle severity, as is maybe given to those on Death Row, the papers are signed and stamped and the offender marched off to the barracks where he’ll spend the next month or so under restriction.
After that, until his discharge becomes final, you see the offender, stripped of rank and wearing the working dungarees, sweeping a floor or painting a wall or some other shit job. The general consensus around the base is that the offender’s life is finished.
After he was busted, Payton made a very flashy show that he cared nothing about the situation, that he was in fact removed from it all or above it. It was better he was getting the boot, he said. He didn’t need the Navy, which after all operates with the same mentality as a prison, down to the fireproof uniforms with the names stenciled on the pockets. He didn’t need it.
When his restriction period was up, Payton even continued doing speed. He got it from a petty officer who worked in the legal department. It was in fact the same official processing his discharge papers.
Each Friday afternoon, the two would rendevous on the beach just south of the base. They’d drive up to the source’s house and score a couple grams.
“Lt. Stevens asked about your case the other day,” said the petty officer, who on the weekends allowed Payton to call him Randy.
“What’d you say?”
“That everything was fine. Still waiting for a reply from D.C.”
In truth, Randy postponed sending the papers to D.C. as long as he could. He liked Payton and the two enjoyed getting high together.
Randy and his wife Vonda had a condo on Imperial Beach, a half hour south of the base. At night helicopters roar over the rows of condos and over the wide, flat stretch of marshland that lead to the Mexican border. Randy had a pair of binoculars, and during the summer evenings the two of them used to sit on the balcony and peer across the marshland and sometimes they could see shadowy clusters of immigrants moving low to the ground to escape the roaming helicopters.
Later in the night, after they’d cut another few rails, they’d sit out on the beach, listening to the ocean. Sometimes Vonda would come out and join them. Once a Mexican family, a husband, pregnant wife and small child, crept by on the beach.
Randy and Vonda also had a son, a toddler named Cody. He was usually put to bed early, and then the all-night party began.
It was alright for a while, then rapidly the situation disentegrated. “You’re both drug addicts!” Vonda screamed viciously one night. Payton winced at the memory of the night when Vonda dug her nails into Randy’s cheeks just before she picked up a glass and flung it at the wall. There was a big crash as the glass shattered.
Then there was the other night, just before the divorce, when some guys from the neighborhood came by and suddenly there were a dozen people in the apartment, and Randy disappeared for a while with a chubby attractive girl who lived in the next apartment. Then there were more screams and accusations, bewildered denials.
And then the look on Cody’s face that one morning, when he came to Payton and in a whisper asked if he could have something to eat. Payton got him some cereal, and as Payton got it he remembered the previous evening, when Vonda had invited him to have sex while Randy was down the street at the store getting beer.
“If you need a place to stay when you get out you can call me,” she said.
All of these images were fresh on Payton’s mind as he prepared to leave the base, but he pushed them off. It was a little after eight. He was hungry and he knew he could still get breakfast in the galley. He left his bag in the room and went out.
There was hardly anyone in the galley. A boatswain’s mate, looking surly and tired, sat over coffee. A couple of Marines were in the egg line.
Payton ordered a ham and cheese omelette, potatoes and toast. It was a big breakfast and he ate it slowly. He had four cups of coffee.
Afterward he sat outside on the curb. He smoked one cigarette, then another. There was the sound of a lawn mower coming from the other side of the barracks.
Payton knew he was hesitating. He knew he wouldn’t miss the Navy but at the same time he didn’t want to go. He didn’t know where he wanted to go. He finished smoking and walked back to the barracks.
Passing the laundry room, Payton looked in the window. Stephanie was folding her clothes. She was a bright-eyed, pretty girl from North Carolina. She worked on the flight line.
The night before Payton had knocked on her door sometime near midnight. When she answered the door there was a heated, lazy look in her eye and he knew she’d been drinking. A mutual intuition flashed between them as he stood in the door. She laughed and, with a funny toss of her head, pushed open the door to let him in.
“How does it feel?” she asked.
“What?”
“How does it feel?” She was lying underneath him on the bed.
Payton looked at her and understood. There was only the intuition, but underneath it was really nothing and he had to admit that it was nothing. They sat up. Stephanie lit a cigarette.
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Have you thought about going back to school?”
They went on this way for a while and then Payton was tired so he went off to bed.
Now Payton felt a little odd going into the laundry room.
“Hey.”
“Hey. What are you doing here? I thought you left.”
“In a bit.”
Stephanie looked sharp and rested. She continued folding her clothes.
“Want to hang out?” Payton asked.
“Sorry, kiddo. Got watch this afternoon. But listen, take care, OK?”
She hoisted her laundry bag over her shoulder, and giving him a little press on the arm, headed out.
Payton went back to his room. Bates was still crashed. The shutters were closed so the room was still dark. Vaguely he thought about the previous evening and remembered something. As he was leaving the room, Stephanie had called him back. She’d pressed something into his hand. It was a flower, a simple plain flower. They grew in a row near the parking lot. What had happened to it? Payton couldn’t remember. Perhaps, a little bitter, he’d negligently tossed it down the stairwell after she’d closed the door. Or else it was somewhere in the room and he’d only misplaced it. Still, it was nice she did it, even if he had wanted something else and not the flower.
It was time to go. There was no room in the bag for the pea coat. He liked the pea coat and wanted to keep it so he put it on, even though he knew it would be too warm. The seabag over the shoulder and out the door.
The sidewalk leading to the main gate was already blindingly white in the midmorning sun. By the time Payton arrived at the gate he could already feel the heat from the coat. He passed the guards at the gate, not bothering to salute.
Outside the base lay Coronado, an affluent, tree-lined neighborhood. Most of the people who lived there were retired brass. Payton walked past rows of manicured lawns and staid houses. Since leaving the base the sky seemed hauntingly high, like the skies in old photographs of Midwest storms.
Payton walked a few blocks until he reached the public library. It was closed but nearby there was a pay phone. He reached it and dialed the number Vonda had given him.
She answered after a half dozen rings.
“Where are you?”
“The library.”
“OK. I’ll be there soon. Just wait.”
Payton felt a little disgusted at himself. He wished he had someone else to call. There was Randy. He was still living in the condo after the separation. No, he couldn’t call Randy. He didn’t want to call Randy. In the past few days, after the discharge papers finally came back from D.C., Randy’s manner toward him had changed. Payton noticed that Randy had gotten a haircut, and carried himself with a detached, busy air and avoided looking at Payton when the two passed in the hangar. It became clear to Payton by degrees that Randy, in the manner of the reformed sinner, now looked upon their old association as a black mistake and now wanted nothing more to do with him.
Vonda arrived 20 minutes later, her black Nissan looking washed and waxed. Payton got in, shoving his sea bag in the back seat. Vonda was wearing a light summer dress with a floral pattern. Though in her early forties, she was tanned and carefully put together, attaining a good approximation of the storebought, climate-enforced freshness of a Southern California woman.
They got onto the Silver Strand and drove south. Vonda didn’t say much. She turned up the volume on the radio, which was playing bassy dance music. Payton looked out the window at the Pacific, which was flat under the bright sun.
He sensed a change in Vonda, as well, a cool efficiency lurking in the eyes behind her sunglasses. But she would help him, he knew that. They had an understanding. No, that wasn’t it. It was the separation. No – or maybe. But he wasn’t going to go to bed with her. They both knew that.
“You’re like a child,” she’d said one time. Yes, he was a child. She would play mom for him, at least for a little while. Maybe that was it.
Vonda had found an efficiency apartment a mile or so away from the condo. It felt far enough away though, a place where one goes to assess the damage or forget it or else keep on going whatever it is people do. She’d taken the TV, and some of the furniture. Cody was staying with his dad, at least for the time being. Payton didn’t ask about the custody issue, or the divorce.
He stayed three nights. Vonda was gone most of the time. She worked as a waitress in a bar near the beach, and in the evenings she didn’t come back. Payton guessed she was going home with someone, perhaps someone she already knew before. It didn’t matter.
On the morning of the fourth day he called Preston. This was a guy he’d met a few months ago at a party in Ocean Beach. The two had had a good evening. They’d even wound up in a threesome with a British woman who was in town on holiday. Preston owned a pizzeria up in Eureka, and before leaving he’d given Payton his number.
When Preston answered the phone, Payton breathed easier. The voice sounded familiar and not strange.
“You’re out?” Preston exclaimed. “Good for you. Where are you going?”
“I’m not sure. Can I come up and crash at your place a while.”
“Yeah, sure. When are you coming?”
”Be in tomorrow morning.”
“Just call when you get in.”
Vonda drove him to the bus station that afternoon. She’d been a little surprised when he called her up at the restaurant and said he was leaving.
“So where are you going?” she asked as she drove. She was wearing a different summer dress that day, but the same sunglasses.
“Maybe San Francisco.”
“Oh. I like San Francisco.”
Payton looked out the window. He didn’t know anyone in San Francisco. Except some girl named Fairlight. She would remember him if they saw he each other, but he couldn’t remember exactly where she lived.
San Francisco. He wondered why he’d lied to Vonda. It was a pointless lie. Why not just tell her Eureka? Because San Francisco sounds better? Yes, it sounds better, and you really do want to go there. You could go there. But you can’t. It’s impossible you don’t know anyone and it’s expensive. You’re going to Preston’s. He said you could stay. Why lie about it?
Preston didn’t really think these things consciously. They were little fleeting sensations in his gut, they passed with no more weight or meaning than the fluttering of sunlight on Vonda’s summer dress as she shifted gears and passed a car on the freeway.
They arrived at the bus station.
“Have you got enough?” Vonda asked.
“We’ll see.”
The ticket to Eureka cost $56. Payton came out and told Vonda. He had the money but only that much. Vonda reached into her purse and handed him a couple Twenties.
“That’s all I’ve got.”
She seemed fatigued all of a sudden, but not in a bad way. Just a little tired. Maybe the sun, maybe. The fumes of the traffic, bad air.
“Thanks, Vonda. Well, so long.”
Payton leaned through the open window of the car and gave her a shallow hug. It was awkward. But he did it because it felt like he should.
The bus trip was 14 hours. It arrived in Eureka about five the next morning. Payton stepped off the bus at the Greyhound station. It was foggy and cold. His nerves were frazzled from a dimebag of speed he’d half consumed on the trip.
The town was ghostly and unfamiliar. It was too early for anyone to be up. The streets were empty. Payton walked three or four blocks up the 101 before he realized he was going the wrong way from the loose directions Preston had given him over the phone. After reconnoitering, he located the Denny’s Preston had identified as a landmark. From there he found Preston’s address within a few minutes.
It was just getting light outside when he knocked on the door of Preston’s house. It was a large Victorian house that had been restored and there was a gleaming coat of fresh peach paint.
Presently Payton heard footsteps, and the door opened.
“Payton!” Preston looked sleepy, but he gave the greeting some enthusiasm.
“Preston!” With a little sigh of relief, Payton followed him in.
They went upstairs and Preston showed Payton his room, then went back to bed. “See you in a few hours,” they both said.
Payton crashed. He slept until noon, and had many visceral, black dreams. When he awoke, he was laying in a strange, uncomfortable angle. He rose with a start, disoriented.The room was dark except for some light coming in from the window. The world seemed to have grown and changed again; it loomed sharp and unrecognizable. In this new world, only his dreams, foggy and frightening, seemed to mean anything.
The Man
on Petrin Hill
I first heard about the man on Petrin Hill just after the new year.
It was a miserably cold and wet Monday morning, and I was at the Museum station waiting to catch the crosstown metro for an early class in Kacerov. A newsboy pressed a copy of one of the free dailies into my hands. My Czech isn’t good enough to make much sense of the news, but I like to pass the time during the ride looking at the headlines and pictures.
That morning there was a small item on the inside pages. A man had been spotted in recent days wandering in the vicinity of Petrin Hill not far from the observation tower. The topic came up randomly during the lesson later that morning, so my students clued me in. Descriptions of the man were vague and contradictory. In the half dozen times the person had been cited he’d been described to authorities as Chinese or Southeast Asian, while others insisted he was of Western appearance, possibly Belgian or Danish.
Why a man, nationality aside, wandering about the vicinity of Petrin Hill, or anywhere else in the city, would be of any interest to the papers no one could say. Must be a slow news day, some said. Others, humorously suggested the man was associated the likes of fugitive billionaire Radovan Krejcar, or was perhaps an exiled communist, come back to finally deliver on that long-discredited promise of a Marxist utopia.
At any rate I was curious. I had a busy teaching schedule that week, and the weather conditions were formidable, this being the Russian winter everyone made such a fuss about a couple years ago. But I resolved on the first possible opportunity to go to Petrin Hill and see if there was anything to this man who’d created such an air of mystery throughout the city.
The following Friday afternoon I was free. There was even a slight break in the weather, a false spring that sent a gentle veil of a sunshine to cover the city.
I got off the tram at the foot of the hill and climbed the steps.
The first thing that caught my attention was a curious work of art erected at the foot of the steps, the memorial for victims of the Communist regime. It’s a bronze-like sculpture of a man, perhaps in middle age. Behind him stands an exact replica, except there’s a jagged split down the shoulder. Four more replicas stand directly behind. By the time the eye settles on the last one, the man’s head and torso have completely vanished, until only a pitiful set of ashen legs gaze up at the sky. Taken in as a whole, the work seemed to capture the process of man’s genesis, or degenesis, depending on how you looked at it.
After looking at the work for a moment, I proceeded up the hill. It wasn’t an easy hike. The path was steep and still covered with ice. Twice I nearly fell, and I quickly tired. I was about to turn back and go for a cup of coffee, when suddenly I caught sight of someone standing about thirty meters further up the hill.
It appeared to be a man. He was dressed in a woolen winter coat, a rather quaint old fedora hat, and he was smoking a cigarette. I couldn’t determine his age, but he appeared decidedly on the old side, perhaps in his sixties or seventies. But the strangest thing was he appeared to be looking at me, almost regarding me.
It took me a few minutes, walking carefully up the icy trail, to reach the same spot, but by then he’d moved on, disappearing in a grove of trees covering the trail near the summit.
Presently I reached the top of the trail and found myself standing in a tree-covered courtyard not fifty meters from the observation tower. It was a quiet day, with only a handful of tourists wandering about. High above in the trees you could hear a silvery whisper of bird songs, and the effect produced by the false spring sunlight hitting the snow was dreamlike and unsettling.
I caught sight of the man again. He walked into the house of mirrors, one of those tourist traps that I generally avoid. After hesititating, I paid the fee and went in.
I didn’t see him inside. The labryinth itself unfolded. I walked quickly, aware of my reflection twisting into abominable deformities, courtesy of some shimmering ritual between light and glass.
Back outside I passed a group of tourists, then headed over in the direction of the tower. Nothing. A bell rang somewhere mutely down the hillside. The same birds chirped and whispered, the light danced off the snow.
And suddenly there he was.
He was sitting on a bench in the courtyard not ten meters away and appeared to be gazing off into a stand of trees.
I approached pensively. I think I was still afraid he’d vanish into thin air.
But he didn’t. And as I sat down on a nearby bench, he made no sign of recognition. Had he looked at me back down the hill, or had that been a trick of light, a betrayal of the senses?
I watched the man as he lit a cigarette, maintaining his vigil over the quiet courtyard. His features were roughened with age, but good. A patch of white hair poked out from beneath the hat, but as he smoked I noticed the hand was steady.
“Good day,” I ventured in English.
He nodded without looking at me.
“Looks like the winter’s finally getting a lift.”
The man still didn’t say anything. I wondered if he even understood English.
“What do you want?” he said presently. It startled me.
“Who are you?” I asked. “I mean, you’re that man, I think. The one, the papers,” I trailed off, not realizing until that moment how ridiculous I must have sounded.
“What’s this?” this man looked at me. For the first time, I noticed his accent was American.
Quickly I recounted some of the rumors circulating around him, the strange air of mystery and excitement his presence had unaccountably created.
“I have no time these days for newspapers,” he said. He looked at me and I detected his eyes were not without irony.
“What, may I ask, would the newspapers want from a broken-down old man like me?”
It was a good question, and I didn’t have an answer. The man kept looking at me, then presently gaze turned back to the trees on the edge of the courtyard.
The silence was interrupted presently by the sound of children’s voices. There were three of them, quite young Czech children, dressed in bright red winter coats and tossel caps. They chatted in shrill voices, dragging a little yellow sled behind them over the sidewalk.
“I was about their age last time I was in this place,” the man said abruptly, looking at the passing children.
“It was in the winter,” he added. “My mother, she used to take us here, my brother and I. On the weekends.”
He surveyed the courtyard again, and this time I followed his gaze.
“When the war came they took us to America. We settled in Eureka. You wouldn’t know it.’
‘Wait! I know Eureka!’
He looked at me with a slight twinkle while I explained.
“Anyhow, I grew up there,’ he continued. “Went into business with my brother. We did well. Shipping. He died a few years ago and I sold the business.”
“Is this the first time you been back?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Before you came and sat down, I was just thinking. This courtyard, this place, is all I really have left of that time. It’s all I can remember, the only thing that has feeling. The rest of the city is beautiful, but it doesn’t belong to me the way this place does. The rest of the city doesn’t mean anything to me really.
“Back in America I never really thought of it. Too busy I suppose. But as I got older, after the folks were gone, especially after Thomas went, I began to wonder if any of it was real, those winter weekends here. If they’d ever really happened at all, you see? I had to know. That’s why I came back.”
“And is that all?” I asked.
He smiled.
“You’re young. You haven’t had time yet to scatter yourself here there and across the world, to wonder where it all went and whether any of it was ever real, what once belonged to you.”
I didn’t say anything.
We sat for a while longer, listening to the silvery birdsong in the trees and looking at the sunlight bouncing off the snow. I looked around for the children but they’d gone.
I was tempted to introduce myself, but didn’t. After a while I gave an embarrassed nod and rose. He didn’t appear to notice. He’d gone back into his thoughts, to that place high above the trees where the old world whispered and worked right again.
