POOKIE’S ADVENTURES: Mendocino and the Mystery Box (Jan uary 2024)

“It’s not the despair; it’s the hope.” 

                     John Cleese.

I’ve come to realize that at a certain age, one’s desires are mostly directed towards having more time and less pain, but one’s hopes tend to be for others. The realization that these hopes are often in vain leads to despair.

On Wednesday, January 17, 2024, I woke up at the more reasonable hour of 10:30 AM. The day was splendid, with clear blue skies and a temperature that felt much warmer than the low 60s indicated by the thermometer. I decided it was a perfect day to accomplish something. After breakfast, I assisted Naida with some financial matters, albeit without success in determining the extent of her dental coverage, if any. I then went to the drugstore to pick up some medications and began tackling the pile of bills and my unfinished correspondence. Later, we hurried to the bank before it closed to address some of Naida’s banking issues. Upon returning home, I abandoned my efforts to make much progress on my bills and correspondence, opting instead to watch television.

On Thursday, I woke up surprisingly early at 8 AM, went downstairs, prepared breakfast, and read more of “Songs Of Penelope” by my newest literary crush, Clare North.

     “People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.”

                    Logan Pearsall Smith

Clare North is the pseudonym of science fiction author Catherine Webb, who also writes adult fantasy novels under the name Kate Griffin. I’m not sure why she uses two pseudonyms, and the distinction between science fiction and “adult” fantasy intrigues me. In the past, science fiction was essentially “adult” fantasy, fantasy wrapped in a veneer of “science” to convince adults they were reading mature literature. In the 1990s, real science demonstrated that science fiction was, in fact, just fiction, with fanciful ideas that could never become reality.

Nevertheless, in her novel “Penelope,” Clare North relocates the action of Aeschylus’ play “Eumenides” to Ithaca before Ulysses’ return, turning it into an exciting story of women’s liberation and vengeance.

As long as I am going on about the doings on that fabled island, I recall a short, short bit of a conceit I had written in T&T a little over 10 years ago about that legendary dwarf king of Ithaca, Ulysses. While it is far longer than what I usually post, I really cannot resist an ego massage whenever the opportunity presents itself:

Speaking of Ulysses, Homer’s account is not quite how it happened. It actually occurred something like this:

One night the short, bandy-legged, scraggly bearded young man named Ulysses, who lived in a subdivision on a small island in the Adriatic, left the home on a cull-de-sac he shared with his wife, young son, various hangers-on, and a pack of dogs, telling everyone he was going to the store to buy a carton of milk, or an amphora of wine or new sandals or conquer Troy or whatever. Now twenty years later he stood on the corner of the block down from his old home, broke, hungry and older. He contemplated the excuses he would have to tell his wife explaining his long absence. He concocted stories about ships and strange wars, jealous gods, wooden horses, one-eyed monsters and to cover up the long periods of time he spent living with a succession of comely young women, he fell back on the tried and true excuse of philandering husbands of the time, bewitchment.

On the other hand, the also aging but still zaftig and supposedly loyal Penelope wanted no part of the smelly midget bastard’s return. She had happily spent the past 20 years screwing the Mexican pool boy and every young stud in town. The assholes’ return would only mean she would have to give up the good life and return to working on that goddamn loom. Besides, she needed an excuse of her own to explain why for the last 20 years the same old piece of cloth hung on that machine with no further work done on it since he left. She told all her boyfriends that she would choose one of them to settle down with when she finished weaving the cloth. They were so stupefied with the thought of getting into her toga whenever she lifted it for them they forgot all about the status of that rotting rag.

She believed however, that she would need something better to convince the crafty asshole of her unbelievable 20 years of fidelity. She decided to elaborate on the story she had planned to tell her returning husband, if unfortunately he should ever return. She would tell him that she weaved at the loom all day and every night she tore out what she had done during the day. If the simple and unbelievable story had worked on her lovers why wouldn’t this expanded version work on that scheming lying bastard Ulysses?

Nevertheless, she still was surprised when the testosterone poisoned dwarf suddenly and unexpectedly showed up at her door and started killing all of her boyfriends and the Mexican pool boy as well.

Sadly, Penelope was forced back to working all day at the goddamn loom and at night diddling herself while the drunken scumbag lay snoring among his dogs after buggering some prepubescent boy-chick.

As Holden Caulfield would say, “Crummy.”

(Note: I asked ChatGPT to edit this bit of fluff about Ulysses. It responded that its community standards rules prevented it from doing so. What does that mean?)

On Friday, around 2 AM, my grandson Anthony arrived at our house. We had planned for him to drive me to my sister’s home, where we intended to stay for a week. At about noon, we left to drive to San Francisco to pick up Anthony’s mother, Anne, and change cars before continuing to Mendocino. Naida, my wife, stayed behind as she prefers not to travel. We arrived in San Francisco at about 2 PM, collected Anne, switched cars, and arrived at my sister’s home in Mendocino around 6:15 PM.

After settling in with hugs, kisses, and some snacks, my sister brought out a small mysterious lockbox. She explained that it had been in the garage for a long time. Recently, while cleaning, she considered discarding it but became curious and checked its contents.

She paused, then opened the box for us to see. Inside were numerous envelopes and a bundle of notebook pages filled with handwriting. She revealed that our mother, who passed away four years ago at the age of 99, had left a note with the box. It instructed that the letters, addressed to her children, and the notebook pages, her autobiography, should not be opened until after her death.

I was stunned to find at least seven letters addressed to me. Among the others, there was even one to one of my ex-wives. We decided to open it. The envelope contained two documents: a brief one and a longer one. The brief one said:

“You have turned out to be a manipulating person who hates the world. You turned Joe and Jessica from loving us to hating us. It’s obvious you hate yourself and may someday become alone and unloved. You’ll get what you deserve.”

After reading that, we were all a bit stunned, so we decided to postpone reading any more of them until the next morning.

I had also brought along a box of old photographs that my daughter had sent. We spent a couple of hours sorting and organizing them. There was a lot of discussion and amusement as we reviewed the photographs and identified the people and places in them. I felt somewhat embarrassed by the number of photos of former girlfriends whose names I’d forgotten, which amused the others. I wondered why anyone would keep photos of my old girlfriends and planned to ask my daughter where she found them.

Letters

The lock box on the left and the box of photographs on the right.

Later, as I prepared for bed, I pondered whether I truly wanted to know the contents of the letters my mother addressed to me.

The next morning, after breakfast, Maryann and George read to us the autobiography that my mother had left. It was well over 100 handwritten pages and took almost three hours to read. It was stunning and filled with despair. I wanted to share some of the more interesting passages here, but it had been written in very difficult-to-read longhand, so my sister volunteered to type it up so I can share it here in T&T. Nevertheless I copied out a few pages. Her story began:

I was born in Sicily in the town of Canicatti in the year 1918 on the seventh day of June. I was the fourth child of my parents Josephine and Giacento Corsello. I had two sisters and a brother. When I was born my father was a soldier in World War I. While there my father contracted Heart Disease and Leukemia and was sent home, a very sick man. When I was 15 months old my mother gave birth to another child but both she and the child died. She was 32. My father, a sick man, was left with four children to raise…. When I was seven another tragedy struck my father passed away…. It was very sad, but I did not understand why everyone was so nice to me. I guess they all felt sorry for us now that we were orphans….When I was 8 1/2 my uncle Vincent who was my father’s brother Vincenzo, my father’s younger brother decided since we were now orphans… we should get the chance to come to America to live with another brother of my father and his wife… (My Uncle) married my oldest sister who was then 17… He and my dear sister were not allowed to come to this country (America). I didn’t want to … leave my family, my aunt who loved me and my grandmother. But the papers were drawn and we… (found ourselves on the boat Giuseppe Verde on the way to another world. My brother(aged) 18 my sister then 16 and I age 9 (were) 3 homeless scared kids who did not know what was ahead of us. We were all seasick on the boat with no-one to console us. We cried all the way. When we got to Ellis Island we had to stay there a week, desolate, lonely and not knowing the language… We slept on the floor and ate strange food …our hearts were broken and we didn’t know what to expect. It was hell, just not the hell we were going to encounter when we met our aunt and uncle…

After a very nice dinner, I went upstairs to bed, but I could not fall asleep, and the images from my mother’s story haunted me. As a child, she had no relief from disappointment and fear.

Another surprise in the box was three letters from my brother addressed to my mom. He was estranged from the family from the late 80s until he died a few years ago. I believed he had refused any contact with the rest of the family during all that time, especially with our mother, who had always told me he had refused to allow any communication with her and the rest of us. The last letter was written in 1993 and ended as follows:

In your letter you asked me to make you happy by meeting you for coffee. I wished you would have asked how it might make me feel. I am not going to be at the appointment you scheduled because I am feeling very good about my life and the way things are now. I want to keep it this way. I know that you will be disappointed, but possibly you will think about my feelings also, and maybe you can accept the fact that this is right for me. Please have a wonderful birthday and many, many more — and remember I do love you.
All the best,
Jim

On Monday, when I woke up, there wasn’t a drop of rain in sight. I figured it would be the perfect day for a stroll into town. However, the night before had been rough, and I wasn’t feeling my best. So, after breakfast, I decided to head upstairs for a nap before embarking on my town adventure. As expected, I ended up sleeping until about 4 PM, and with the skies getting darker, I decided to postpone my walk until the next day. I then ventured downstairs and indulged in some reading before dinner.

During dinner, I opened one of the envelopes from my mom contained in the lockbox. To my surprise, it held a three-page letter addressed to me and two poems I had written years ago that she had kept. Her letter began like this:

After having a wonderful day in Bodega Bay, I cannot believe you can turn and be the most disrespectful and miserable person in this world. Yesterday was your birthday, how I looked forward to. Making it a nice day for you. I wanted so much to thank you for Bodega Bay. So, I wanted to have a nice dinner. An d have a birthday cake and a gift that I thought you would like. I knocked myself out and put all my love into it only for it to turn into a disaster. Why? Because of you my son. You have got to be the most antagonistic, miserable, cold and unfeeling person I have ever known. Why do you hate me so much?…

Well, I guess I know now how she felt. She then goes on in the same vein for the remainder of the three pages. My mom was sickly and often dominated by others. As a result, she had no childhood and not much of an adulthood either, at least until she was in her forties when my sister was born. She believed had little no control over the major events in her life or decisions made for her by others. She devoted her life to doing what they needed or wanted. Only in a few cases were her needs recognized or acknowledged so she lived a life of pain and resentment until much later in her life. But let’s not delve too much into amateur psychology. I always felt I couldn’t adequately respond to the needs of others, not due to a lack of willingness to try, but because I struggled to understand what those needs were.

Anyway, rather that reading the entire letter at that time I decided to read the shorter of the poems. It was one I had written when I was about 14 years old.

Some walls work well
Some don’t
But those that do,
Will never tell
Why the hell
They work so well

Sometimes when I am alone
I wish I were not me
But when I think again
Who else would I be

Who else knows me so well
Who so patient understands
Who my secrets could I tell.

This was written by one obviously lonely and isolated little boy.

“(A)s Aristotle put it, ‘To do is to be’; and more to the point, as Zappa put it, ‘You are what you is’.”
Brookmyre, Christopher. One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night (p. 258). Grove Atlantic.

The following day, despite the persistent overcast sky, the rain thankfully held off, so I decided to venture into town. I took it easy, but to my surprise, I found myself getting tired after just about 100 steps, forcing me to take frequent breaks. Eventually, I reached Frankie’s, where I happily settled in and indulged in a delicious lunch of pepperoni pizza, washing it down with a refreshing bottle of root beer.

My next destination was my favorite bookstore, where I had initially planned to shop for presents for everyone I could think of at the time. By the time I arrived, I was so drained that I could barely recall my purpose, let alone select any books. The idea of lugging them back home seemed impossible. So, after spending quite a while on a bench amidst the bookshelves, I decided it was time to make my way back. The journey home took a long time, with me pausing to sit on every available bench I passed and leaning on fences or walls to rest whenever I could.

Eventually, I made it back to my sister’s place and practically collapsed onto the sofa by the window, my favorite spot. At that moment, I couldn’t help but wonder if this might be the last year of my life. As I gazed out over the ocean, the sun peeked out from behind the clouds, casting rays of light that transformed the frothy waves into bursts of fire.

The following day, I struggled to get out of bed. On Wednesday, my sister drove me back to Sacramento, as she had a conference to attend with local economic development directors, representing Mendocino. We hit the road around 1 PM.

Thursday left me feeling drained, but I perked up in the evening when Maryann returned from her conference. We all enjoyed a delightful dinner at Lemon Grass. The next morning, Mary left to return to Mendocino, and I headed to my appointment with my primary care physician. I’d been grappling with sleep problems and recently had swollen ankles. Later, I met up with Hayden for lunch.

Hayden and I dined at Subway, where he shared captivating tales of his recent adventures in Thailand and Japan. Upon returning to Sacramento, Naida and I spent the remainder of the afternoon resolving a hiccup with her account.

Saturday morning saw Naida heading off to the Saturday Morning Coffee event, while I, feeling under the weather, decided to stay home. In the evening, I felt guilty about missing the coffee gathering and spending so much time in bed nursing my hypochondria. To show my love for her, I told Naida I would have the soup she had prepared for dinner. She attempted to use up the surplus of beets and potatoes delivered weekly by the organic farm co-op and combined them with milk to make the soup. Unfortunately, the milk had curdled. She assured me it wouldn’t taste too bad.

I woke up Sunday feeling better than I had in a while, having finally enjoyed a full uninterrupted night’s sleep. The day was sunny and bright, with fluffy clouds scattered across the sky. January had been an unusual month here in the heart of the Great Valley. Most days had been gloomy and overcast, with damp ground – quite unusual for California, which is typically starved for moisture and known for its sunshine. Even more peculiar were the unseasonably warm daytime temperatures in the high 50s and 60s. Today, still in January, the forecast predicted a high of 70 degrees. We are living in peculiar times, where the old certainties are fading, replaced by the new. We, the older generation, view the future with apprehension, fearing pain and danger for our descendants while they often see opportunities and adventures in the impending storms – the eternal yin and yang of our species.

After a short nap, I decided to head out for a stroll. The weather still was quite unusual for mid-winter January – sunny and around 70 degrees. Some might view this as further proof of global warming, but even if it is, it’s still quite an anomaly. What’s even more intriguing is something I mentioned about a decade ago, which still seems to be overlooked in discussions about global warming.

When it comes to capturing the sun’s heat, the oceans play a significant role, accounting for about 75% of it. We’re all familiar with how El Niño and La Niña affect weather patterns. However, these variations primarily involve changes in ocean temperatures in the deepest parts of the world’s largest ocean. While the impact of this variation, likely caused by atmospheric heating, seems to be growing and influencing global weather patterns, it’s confined to a specific portion of the Earth’s oceans. Other parts of the oceans must undergo similar dynamics, releasing heat at a steady pace or perhaps in periodic cycles with less disruption to the atmosphere. Anyway, why am I digressing from describing today’s walk? I have no idea.

During my walk, I bumped into Naida and the dog, Boo-boo the Barking Dog, who were returning from their own adventure. Naida explained that Boo-boo was all excited to go on his walk, and assuming I would be napping all afternoon as usual, she didn’t wait for me. Feeling a bit embarrassed, I continued on my way.

Physically, I was feeling great, so I decided to extend my walk all the way to the lake and back. There seemed to be more people on the paths than usual, although there are never very many. Normally, I encounter just 4 or 5 people during my walks, but today, I must have passed by as many as 15.

I stopped and rested on a bench near Ed Hullander’s house. Ed had dedicated this bench to his late wife Joni. He used to be a regular at the Saturday Morning Coffee until he passed away a few months ago. I affectionately called him “Spy” because he had served as a high-ranking official in the US Agency for International Development from its inception until his retirement around 2001. He once shared with me an interesting tidbit: American spies weren’t typically stationed in State Department embassies. This was because host governments generally restricted State Department employees from leaving the city where they worked. AID employees, on the other hand, had to be mobile and travel wherever their projects took them.

I made it back home just in time to witness the San Francisco 49ers getting thoroughly beaten in the first half of the NFL Championship Game. It looks like there won’t be a Super Bowl appearance for them this year. What a disappointing day it has turned out to be.

Later, Naida brightened my mood with a dance to “Shall We Dance,” a song from “The King and I,” At dinner, we enjoyed a Newman’s Own frozen four-cheese pizza topped with Naida’s secret vegetable mix, which made me feel a little better. We’ll have to wait till next year.

After dinner, we settled in to watch the final three episodes of “English,” a western series that was beautifully filmed, albeit a bit challenging to follow at times. Nevertheless, it remained captivating throughout all eight episodes. When it concluded, around 11 PM, I decided to check the final score of the football game, and oh my goodness, the 49ers won by coming from behind for the second game in a row. Go Niners! This, of course, is utterly ridiculous because I don’t have any interest in professional sports and don’t typically watch any games. Strangely enough, I also consistently avoid watching the 49ers play because I fear that doing so will jinx their chances. Go figure.

Anyway, Monday blessed us with another beautiful day, with the temperature hovering around 70 degrees Fahrenheit. In the morning, I drove Naida to the Kaiser Health facilities to pick up her medication, and afterward, we had a satisfying lunch at Bernado’s.

Then some grocery shopping and home again.

In the evening we watched Rachel Maddow’s interview of E Jean Carroll and her attorney’s on MSNBC. Three things struck me about the interview.

The first was E Jean’s quirky sense of humor and her stating that when she looked out in the courtroom and saw Trump she realized “He was nothing. He was an emperor with no clothes”

The second was that E Jean’s two attorney’s represented the new face of woman trial attorney’s.

And finally, I was impressed by the closing words of one of the Attorney’s. She mentioned that when she initially joined the lead team she viewed Trump as a powerful, wealthy and aggressive man. However, after observing him in the court room without his usual; entourage of supporters and sycophants around him she realized “He was just a guy, just another guy.”

The spring-like temperatures remained through Tuesday, Naida worked cleaning up the yard while I typed this.

On Wednesday, the rains came. Apparently, a so-called atmospheric river will bring us here in the center of the Great Valley, not only most of the year’s rain but hateful February as well. At mid-day I trundled off through the gloom to have six separate blood tests done. On a positive note the vampire technician painlessly removed about 90% of my blood leaving enough for my to drive back home and plop into bed. I hoped when I woke up it would be March.

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POOKIE’S ADVENTURES AS HE PUTS ON HIS SUMMER PANTS AND STRIDES INTO JULY. (July 10, 2023)

Remember the road you take to get there is often as important as the destination itself.

                Trenz Pruca

Yesterday evening, our weekly Zoom conference was scheduled to discuss the proposed development in Campus Commons, (renamed by me as The Enchanted Forest). The plan involved removing a historically significant structure, a Mid-century California commercial building, and replacing it with a high-density residential development. Unfortunately, I had missed the last four calls and failed to keep up with recent events. Consequently, I hadn’t contributed anything significant to the group, which left me feeling embarrassed. I even contemplated dropping out. However, Naida encouraged me not to quit and instead join the upcoming phone call. Taking her advice, I participated and realized that I had underestimated myself. I did have something, limited as it may have been, to contribute.

Later, before going to sleep, Naida and I engaged in a lengthy conversation about the captivating allure of Gregorian Chant. We even sang a few sections of the Mass together. Additionally, we explored the artistry of modern song lyrics, particularly in the realm of Rap. The following day, I felt exhausted, and apart from driving Naida on an errand, I spent most of the day sleeping. Nevertheless, I managed to stay awake until about 2AM to finish my latest Swords and Sorcery novel. You see, for individuals like me, immersing oneself in an enthralling novel that transports you to unattainable places is akin to embarking on a mosquito-free boat journey down the Amazon River.

By Friday, the temperature had soared into the low 100s in our beloved Enchanted Forest. Naida expressed concern about the heat’s impact on the two little hummingbird hatchlings nesting near the studio window. We checked on them, and they appeared to be doing well.

The two adorable Hummingbird hatchlings. (They look to me more like two figs in a small bowl)

That evening after dinner Naida came up to me in high dudgeon and said “I have just been reading your last This and That. You wrote that I said that tree was a California Coffee tree. It  was not. It was a California Pepper tree. Coffee beans grow on bushes.” I was embarrassed, humiliated, chastened, and abashed. I begged her forgiveness and promised I would correct the error in this post. So here it is:

The California Pepper tree. (Mia culpa)

Later, when the sun began its descent behind the southwestern horizon, we decided it was probably cool enough to walk the dog. The temperature had dropped from 105 degrees earlier in the afternoon to 96 degrees when we set out. Although it was nearly 10 degrees cooler than earlier, the air still felt stifling making it difficult to breathe. It was unusually quiet as we walked – no bird songs, and even more strangely, no sounds of automobile traffic. We didn’t see anyone else until we were almost back at our door. At one point during the walk, we became so exhausted from the heat that we rested on a bench longer than usual.

After returning home, we watched the movie “The Pale Blue Eye,” starring Christian Bale, one of my favorite actors. It is a mystery story set at West Point in the early 18th century. Bale plays the detective, and another actor who previously appeared in the Harry Potter movies portrays Edgar Allan Poe. Poe had actually attended West Point in real life. Although the movie didn’t receive much praise from the critics, partly due to its slow pacing and convoluted plot, watching it in a darkened room on a small screen while Naida recited excerpts from Poe’s “The Raven” at appropriate moments made the experience wonderful and mesmerizing.

On Saturday, the temperature in the enchanted forest reached nearly 110 degrees. We drove to the Nepenthe Clubhouse for the Saturday Morning Coffee because it was too hot for us, the decrepit ones, to walk. The attendance at the Coffee gathering was good, and as usual, I couldn’t hear the punchlines of the jokes. Most of the discussion revolved around preparations for the Fourth of July festivities and parade at the Campus Commons greenbelt. The temperature is expected to exceed 105 degrees on Tuesday. I gave a brief presentation on the status of the proposed development at 707 Commons Drive and provided a summary of the most recent Zoom meeting on the project. Then, we drove back home. Naida spent some time puttering in the garden while I sat in the coolness of the studio. It was one of those days that occur frequently for me now, where I feel closer to death than an active life.

That evening, I was feeling better, so we went out to dinner at Lemon Grass, a Vietnamese restaurant we enjoy. Even though the sun had already set, it was still around 100 degrees outside.

By mid-morning the next day, the temperature had already risen above 100 degrees and was set to reach a level comparable to yesterday’s scorching heat by mid-afternoon. So, we (Naida, I, and even the dog) decided to remain indoors until the evening, hoping that the weather would be slightly cooler.

I attempted to post things on Facebook. For the second time in the span of four days, I have been banned from posting anything for 24 hours due to sending restricted material. The first ban occurred when I posted a 1910 newspaper photograph depicting a women’s protest in Thailand, in which one of the women protesters in traditional Thai costumes had an exposed bare breast. There seemed to be no way to appeal the ban except by clicking on an option that said “appeal.” I did so, but almost immediately received a response stating “appeal denied.” This most recent ban doesn’t even explain which rule I may have broken or offer me a means to appeal. What can I do now?

Days passed, fading from memory and slipping away from my life. However, during this time, I found myself plagued by recurring dreams. While most of these dreams disappeared from memory upon waking, there was one that lingered. It visited me for several consecutive nights. Naida, noticed the restlessness and turmoil that accompanied these dreams. According to her, I  thrashed about and exhibited signs of deep distress. Despite her concern, she hesitated to wake me, choosing instead to retreat to a safer distance until my turmoil subsided.

The dream concerned a house, but not my own.  I was a young lawyer. My office was situated within a vast warehouse, and I was fixated on a peculiar case involving the son of the house’s owner. For a couple of nights, this dream became a realm of horrors, as evidenced by my whimpering and frenzied motions during my sleep. Naida told me later that she contemplated intervening but ultimately decided against it, opting to maintain a safe distance.

In the dream, the son’s demise was gruesome. Consequently, the grieving parents made the difficult decision to vacate the house, leaving it abandoned and steeped in sorrow. As the dream unfolded, a peculiar idea took hold in my mind—I would acquire this house for myself. With three tenants already residing within its walls, and the parents being amenable to a low-cost sale, I envisioned the potential to transform it into four separate apartments through remodeling. Encouraged by this vision, I made the decision to purchase the house.

Initially, my relationship with the tenants seemed amicable. However, my illusions of harmony were shattered when the woman residing in the top unit filed a lawsuit against me, citing various reasons. As tensions mounted, her extended family joined her in negotiating with me, their presence in my office brimming with animosity. Yet, as fate would have it, a surprising twist softened the contentious atmosphere. We discovered that our respective families hailed from the same region in Italy. Just as this newfound commonality began to dissolve the hostility, I abruptly awoke, leaving the resolution of our differences suspended in the realm of dreams.

The dream left me contemplating its significance. Was it merely a product of my subconscious, an amalgamation of anxieties and desires? Or did it hold a deeper meaning, one that eluded my understanding? I couldn’t help but mull over the connections between the different elements of the dream.

Days passed, merging into the flow of my life. The dream lingered, teasing me about its meaning if any. Now the house, the people and the story are part of my life. The days that I do not remember are no more than dreams.

On Tuesday morning, July 4th, 2023, we walked to the Campus Commons greenbelt for the annual Fourth of July community picnic and children’s parade. We brought a blanket with us to spread out on the grass and sit on, which I did as soon as we arrived. While the attendance was pretty good, especially considering the number of dogs, the parade itself was less grand compared to the last time the event was held.

After the parade, a few women who often attend the Saturday Morning Coffee joined us on the blanket to talk with Naida. At some point, I felt the need to get up and walk around. As I tried to rise, supported by my walking stick, my legs gave out and I toppled over. I attempted to get up again, but my legs couldn’t support me, and I had to rely on the women to help me up. This worried me since it was the first time my legs proved too weak to raise me from a sitting position. After walking around for a while, I gathered Naida and the blanket and walked home.

Speaking of walking sticks or canes, I could never understand why we stopped using them regularly. I began using them 20 years ago for safety reasons, such as support in case of stumbling (I also thought they looked cool). They have saved me from serious injuries multiple times. Now, it seems like I’m starting to need one to stay on my feet.

That evening, we attended a Fourth of July barbecue at Sarah Naida’s daughter’s house. Sarah’s husband, Marc, was in charge of the grill. There were approximately thirty people in attendance. Along with food and drinks, there were various games such as ping-pong, croquet, and beanbag toss. Of course, there was also plenty of talking and laughter. Naida and I, being the older ones present, left early to avoid driving in the dark

The rest of  the night was filled with the sound of fireworks. It seemed that some were even set off in the alley behind our house.

The following day, I drove to the Golden Hills to have lunch with Hayden. He had recently returned from a vacation in Thailand and Japan, lasting about a month. As a gift, he gave me two colorful Hawaiian-style shirts that he had purchased in Japan, which I really liked. I’m currently wearing one as I write this.

We decided to go to a local pizza place that we both enjoy. We ordered Stromboli and sat outdoors at a table under an awning, overlooking the lake. While we ate, Hayden shared some stories from his trip. He was accompanied by his friends, Big Jake and Little Jake. Big Jake had traveled with Hayden to Thailand a year ago, but it was Little Jake’s first time leaving California. They had all graduated from high school together, and this trip served as their graduation celebration.

Hayden had never been to Japan before, except for layovers during flights to and from Thailand. He found it incredibly exciting and enjoyable. They slept in a capsule hotel where one sleeps in a small capsule rather then a room.

Although he had already shown me some photographs and shared a few more during our conversation, he mentioned that he had many more taken with a special camera. He promised to send them to me in the upcoming weeks. They had a fantastic time exploring parts of Bangkok that they hadn’t been able to visit when they were younger. Additionally, they spent a week at the house I had built in a small town in Southern Thailand and made a side trip to Krabi, including a day of snorkeling at Phi-Phi Island.

Upon returning from my visit with Hayden, while riffing through Facebook, I came across a post from my sister Maryann Petrillo, She lives in Mendocino and is the president of the West Company, a business development entity in the county. She received and then posted the following communication:

Hi Mary Anne, 

Let me know if you get this message.

I’ve attached a long-ago interview with your brother, Joe, that the President of the board of directors of Jug Handle Nature Center just sent me. The article brought up very old memories as I knew John Olmsted, the founder of Jug Handle Nature Center (1968) and one of Joe’s inspirations for creating the Coastal Conservancy, quite well. I became one of the first naturalists at Jug Handle in the early 70s, and John O. was my mentor, too. 

After reading about your brother’s excellent work in developing land conservation models and his connection to Jug Handle in the early days, I can see why I was so blessed to have him as an advocate for my work. As I told him at our brief meeting in line at the Film Festival, his decision to engage me in creating interpretive panels for CA wetlands in 1983 began my lifelong career as an interpretive display designer. I’m sure the Mendocino Land Trust, for which I’ve done several panels, uses versions of Joe’s negotiating techniques for their land access and acquisitions. And there are many more examples of interpretive sites. I feel as if I’ve been sailing a little ship on a vast sea of his legacy for a long time without knowing what lay beneath the waters. This article was profoundly moving and enlightening.

Big Hugs to you, 

Eric

A version of the interview can be found at:

https://planningimplementation.wordpress.com/2023/07/08/in-the-beginning-an-interview-with-joseph-e-petrillo/

During the 1970s, when I first became involved with California’s coastal protection initiatives, I often complained about the dull and uninteresting informational displays found in the state’s public nature preserves, historic memorials, and parks. Despite facing significant opposition, as the director of the California Coastal Conservancy, I decided to take action. I began searching for an artist who could create engaging art combined with informative content that would capture the essence of the environment.

Eventually, someone introduced me to Erica Fielder, a young woman residing in Mendocino. To my astonishment, she had already proposed creating such signage in the county and considered herself an interpretive display designer, a profession I had never heard of before. Impressed by her work, we hired Erica to produce informational signage for the Conservancy’s projects.

If you’ve lived long enough to witness the artistic and informative improvement in signage for public environmental and recreational areas in California since the 1980s, then you should be aware that much of the credit for that is due to Erica Fielder’s efforts.

A thought during those days that pass with little else to exercise ones memory:

I wonder, at times, why it is that Republicans in Congress are so eager to reduce taxes and grant benefits to the Super wealthy. Most of the congressmen and woman, as wealthy as some my be, are not the super wealthy or billionaires. Do they wish some of that wealth would somehow trickle down to them? Or, perhaps it already has.

This morning, Naida came in from the backyard and excitedly told me that the hummingbird hatchlings had started to emerge from the nest and were perching on its edge.

With that happy news brightening our morning, we set off for the Saturday Morning Coffee. The weather was delightful as we strolled to the Nepenthe Club House—sunny with temperatures in the high 60s and a gentle breeze. The Coffee gathering was well-attended, with approximately 35 people in attendance. Unusually, they divided into four or five groups, which was a departure from previous gatherings. Naida treated us to a few piano riffs before our leader, Gerry (with a G), rang her bell to call the meeting to order. I managed to catch the first of the bad jokes, which went like this:

“A mushroom walked into a bar. The bartender shouted, ‘Get out, we don’t serve your kind here.’

The mushroom replied, ‘Why, I’m a fun guy.’”

As usual, once the announcements concluded, I left and went to sit by the pool, waiting for Naida to finish socializing. Approximately an hour later, she woke me up, and we walked home together. Later on, she started playing some jazzy tunes on the piano, while I sat in the studio, waiting to see if anything interesting would happen for the rest of the day.

A mystery or a miracle.

That afternoon, while I was taking my usual nap, Naida came upstairs and started talking excitedly. Since I didn’t have my hearing aids on, I could only catch the words “green” and “key.” I immediately got up, put on my hearing aids, and went downstairs. There, she informed me that she had noticed our spare house key, which we had placed inside a small metal turtle with a hinged top and hidden in the bushes, had started to turn green on one side. She assumed this was due to moisture causing the copper in the key to corrode. Today, when she looked at the key, she noticed it had become even greener on both sides. Upon closer inspection, she realized that the green color was not tarnish, but a lovely shade of green paint with small sparkling white flowers on both sides.

Neither of us remembered painting the key. We also contemplated the improbability of someone sneaking down the alley, discovering the key in the turtle, painting it, and returning it to the turtle just to surprise us. “It’s a miracle,” I exclaimed. “It’s a mystery,” she countered. Which do you think it is—mystery or miracle?

I then took the dog for a walk. There was more barking and snarling than I would have preferred, but aside from that, the walk was enjoyable. After returning, Naida and I watched reruns of the Lawrence Welk Show. Occasionally, we would sing along. We often watch the show. I may not be proud of it, but I refuse to be embarrassed.

On Sunday, the dog woke us up too early. We had brunch at Ettore’s, a place we really like. I ordered French Toast with apples. Instead of toasted bread, it came with a toasted pastry. It was delicious, and I even took a photograph of it.

Around 5 PM, after a nap, I went downstairs to the studio and turned on my computer. Naida was working on her memoir. We continued that way until it got dark, not speaking, neglecting to walk the dog, and skipping dinner until after 11 PM. During most of that time, I asked Chat GPT questions in an attempt to make it respond with nonsensical answers. I succeeded, but when I pointed out that it was spouting gibberish, it seemed offended.

The next morning, Naida went to the backyard to check the Hummingbird nest. It was empty, and she worried that the dog might have eaten the birds. Later, I went for a walk, and it was glorious. The weather was sunny with temperatures in the high seventies, but it felt cooler under the shade of the big trees in the Enchanted Forest. It was a refreshing change because, for the first time in a while, I didn’t feel any pain in my body, nor did I have a runny nose, itchy eyes, or wheezing with each step I took. This rare feeling made it seem like a completely new experience. Perhaps only older people or very young children can relate to such a sensation, where almost every experience feels new.

I walked nearly two miles, pausing at the lake to observe a line of geese paddling across the water. Then, I made a stop at the Nepenthe Clubhouse to collect a parking pass. This pass would allow my son, Jason, to park his car overnight when he arrives to spend the next weekend with us.

While my body often feels even older than my 83 years, my mind still feels youthful. Well, maybe not youthful, but rather, immature. Perhaps not even immature, but more like disconnected. Hummingbirds, mysterious keys, French toast, and bad jokes have consumed my attention for the past week or so. I feel like a three-year-old again, holding a bobby pin and wondering what would happen if I were to stick it into the holes of an electrical socket. I suppose I should be grateful that my body has become so feeble that it wouldn’t be worth the effort to find out.

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Tito Tazio’s Tales: JOEY’S MYSTERY NOVEL — “ENTER THE DRAGON.” Chapters 1, 2 and 3.

 

Sometime around the turn of the century in San Francisco. Times were simpler then. Cell phones had not yet gone viral. The world seemed as though it may survive humanity’s best efforts to destroy it. The Cosmos seemed smaller and more understandable. Sex, drugs and alcohol were easily available in the City and music was still music.  

 

Chapter 1. 

 

Some people call me Dragon, not because of my fiery breath or temperament or even because I might be sitting on a pile of gold, which I definitely am not. I got that name for the perfectly pedestrian reason that my real name is Matt Dragoni. And, as with most nicknames, you go with it or try to hide it out of embarrassment. I can live with Dragon. It beats, Matty, Drags or Gony Gonads. 

I am part-time attorney and private detective working out of San Francisco and Bangkok Thailand. When I am not doing that, I mostly spend my time like today, sitting at a sidewalk café in San Francisco’s North Beach or some other place like that, sipping espresso, working on my novel and staring off into the distance. Mostly the latter. As for my novel, I began the current draft, my sixth or so (none either finished or published), about four months ago. I have reached the middle of page seven. I have however accumulated 35 pages of notes, clever sayings and obscure facts, that I am convinced some day I will integrate into the novel and win me a literary prize.

I used to be what many people call a success, a euphemism for asshole, but now I am mostly a bum. So it goes. I have a small stipend from what is left of my investments and I work now and then as a private eye and attorney hoping to eke out $1000 or so more per month to keep me in whatever it is at that moment that I crave.

  Anyway, I was sitting there contemplating the appropriate simile with which to end a series of sentences that began, “[I] stood there is the shadows. It was freezing. My frozen nuts clanged against my thighs like….” I began considering something like, “ice cubes striking a cocktail glass” but was sure something like that had been done before. Suddenly a woman walked up and stood in front of my table.

If this were a noir mystery novel she would be a tall willowy blond with legs extending to heaven or some other improbable place like that. Given that when I was in my dream space my ability to switch back into reality is somewhat impaired, the appropriateness of a contest to decide the suitable metaphor or simile for where those legs actually did end up flashed through my mind. 

Alas, she was not a tall willowy blond no matter how her legs connected to her body. She was short and sort of skinny. Decent breasts pressed against her jeans jacket. “Tits on a stick,” my friend Gary would call them. She also had a shiner around her left eye. 

She had short spiky black hair. Actually, only some of it was black the rest was red, yellow and green. A spike in her nose holding what looked like a tiny dog biscuit (do they still do that?). The jagged edges of red, blue and green tattoos snaking up her neck above her collar and peeking out below her cuffs. Black leather leggings, metaled joints and motorcycle boots or Doc Martins, I could never tell which is which. Her face was heavily freckled and she had a small pinched nose. She looked a lot like the woman in the first two Indiana Jones films who always got into trouble that Harrison Ford got her out of and then screwed at the end of the picture. 

I thought her look had gone out of style a few years ago. But, hey, this is San Francisco, weird dress never goes out of style here. Today I saw two men wearing berets and there are whole neighborhoods where people still sit around complimenting each other on their tie-dye T-shirts.

She said, “Can I sit down?”

  “Depends, I am not good-looking enough or rich enough to expect an attractive woman to walk up and sit at my table. What’s up?”

“You’re The Dragon right?”

  “Dragon, is enough. And, yes I am some times called that — among other less savory things, but you still did not answer my question.”

  “Pino said you were a private detective.”

  Pino was one of the shills that line Columbus avenue trying to entice passers-by into restaurants to eat generally atrocious, over priced, pretend Italian food.

  “Pino is a fat asshole, and yes I sometimes do some detective work, but I am not very good at it.”

  “That’s what Pino said. Can I sit now?” Which she did without waiting for an answer.

  I looked over at the smiling Pino leaning against the parking meter and mimed a pistol shot at his head.

  “Would you like a drink?”

  “If you’re buying.”

  She ordered a glass of Barbera. I signaled for two.

  “How much do you charge?”

  “$100 a day, plus expenses. Seven day minimum. Half up front and the rest when the week’s up.” In other words $350. At my level, I figured I would never see the rest of the fee or the expenses. 

“That sounds reasonable”

  “Like everyone seems to agree, I am not very good.”

  She chuckled, said, “What are the expenses?”

  “You know transportation, telephone calls , cocaine. Things like that. The usual.”

  Chuckled again. “Ok, except for the cocaine.”

  “What’s your name,” I ask?

  “Mavis Corcoran”

  Thought, “Who the fuck names their kid Mavis today?” Said, “Your shitting me, not Dawn or Sandy?”

  She ignored me said, “I would like you to find my friend. He has been missing for a week.”

  The drinks arrived. I took a sip of mine. She did not touch hers. Said, “Why would you pay someone like me? Why not go to the police? They have a department just for this.”

  “Yeah, but they never do anything but wait and tell you to let them know if he ever shows up.”

  “Did he give you that?” I said pointing at the shiner?

  “Uh, no I fell at work.”

  “Do you drive a Harley?” I asked?

  “Huh?” “In fact I do. How did you know?”

  “I’m a detective?”

  “Ha, more likely a lucky guess. What happened if I said no?”

  “You would be lying, and even if it were true I would have said I knew it all along.”

  “So what?”

  “So,” I added, “I know bullshit when I hear it. It is your right not to tell me what you do not want me to know. Your information as well as your money are what you pay me with. You get what you pay for. Why do you want to find this guy?”

  “Don’t you want to know his name?”

  “We’ll get to that. This is more important now.”

  So she told me her story about their being lovers for a while. The last few weeks he being nervous but he would not explain why. Something about an import-export deal with Clarence Reilly. Then he disappeared and the usual, “he would have told me if he were going away.”

  In my past life I had dealings with Reilly. He billed himself as an “investment advisor.” You know, he took your money and told you what you wanted to hear. If things worked out, he took some more. If it didn’t, he still had your money but did not want to know you anymore. A gangster without guns. Reilly was up there among the hall-of-fame assholes. I hoped I would not have to deal with him. It would take weeks to wash away his stink.

  “Tell me, do you ride your bike in the Gay Freedom Day Parade?”

  “What what does that have to do with it,” she said reddening slightly?

  “Humor me.”

  “Yes” she said staring defiantly in my eyes.

  “You drive or ride postern?”

  “Drive. My girl friend rides behind.”

  “So you have a boyfriend and a girlfriend?”

  “This is San Francisco, and what does that have to do with him being missing?”

  “Nothing I guess, this is San Francisco.”

  I took her information and entered it into my computer; his name and address, work address, friends (he did not seem to have many), same information about the girl friend and a bunch of other bullshit things to make it seem as though I had a lot of work to do. I also got his name. Mark, Mark Holland.

  I asked her for photographs of Mark and of her girl-friend. She fished in her back pocket pulled out a wallet and eventually handed my two photos. The first, a little out of focus, showed a young man, a little too much hair on his head and a little too little in what passed for a mustache and a beard. He was young man thin but already showing the signs of the bloating that was to come. He was flexing a poor excuse for a bicep to accentuate for the camera the spiky dark tattoo; something abstract, nordic, who the fuck knows. I hate tattoos. I took him for about 30 years old and a big time stoner.

  The girl friend was another thing altogether. Lilly Park was her name. She was as they say drop dead gorgeous. She appeared Eurasian. I wondered how many more generations in the city it would take for these racial identification characteristics to disappear. Already, most of the teenagers I see around the city had lost any distinguishing visual racial markers that I had been brought up with that identified whatever it was they were supposed to identify. Another separation from life’s comfortable moorings. Probably a good thing that it goes wherever it is that ethnic jokes went.

  The photograph looked like a publicity shot. Taken from slightly above it showed blond smokey eyed beauty revealing plenty of cleavage. Said, “Those must have been some threesomes.”

  Got the bitch look in return. You know the pupils crash down to pinpoints and the body goes rigid. That’s one of the differenced between men and women. Insult a man and it takes him time to work through his slow-thinking mind whether he was insulted. Then even more time to figure out whether he can take you or not. That usually gives you time to run, make a joke of it or hit him first. With women their reaction is instantaneous. You no longer have options.

  Rather than risking further damage, I told her that I would take the pictures with me now and when I get home scan them into my computer and return them tomorrow. Actually I do not have a scanner. I said that just to avoid any protest from her in the matter.

  Finally, I got her cell phone number and email address and asked where she works.

  “I own Marky’s Tattoo Parlor on Columbus. I worked with Marky for years. He gave the place to me when he retired. Marky was a real artist.”

  Thought she must have a thing for guys with that name. Said, “Oh, I was unaware that sticking needles in someone was considered an art form now.”

  “Asshole”

  I smiled, “so they say,” and collected the $350 fee.

  I watched her walk off, skinny ass swinging in a tight, almost prissy, determined rhythm.

  “I like them with a little more meat on their bones,” I thought.

 

Dragon’s Breath:

 

“Remember, I’ve got no idea what this is all about,” 

Dashiell Hammett

 

Chapter 2.

 

I watched her disappear around a corner, took a sip of my wine and realized she had not paid for it. “Bitch,” I opined to no one except me. Drank the rest of my Barbera. Began on hers since she had not touched it and I was paying for it and I am opposed to wasting good, or even mediocre wine on ethnic and religious grounds, being raised Italian Catholic.

 

Usually tracing a missing person for the price I was being paid warranted about a half hour or so on a computer, a few telephone calls to bulk up the brief final report. A report written in a way that allowed the client to resolve any residual guilt they may be feeling by assuring that he or she had done all that could be done under the circumstances or, if the client is still mired in guilt, suggesting they pay me the rest of my fee and retain me for another week of futility. What the fee did not include, however, was any effort requiring the use of foot protecting composite material or knocking on doors.

 

Nevertheless, given that the sun was out and it was about as warm as it was going to get in San Francisco; I had just drank two glasses of wine; the knowledge that the missing Mark’s apartment was only about three blocks away from where I was sitting; and the urgings bubbling out of that dark and defective communication channel that ran between my brain and my groin suggesting that the extra effort could result in my observing Mavis’s tattoos closer up, I decided to knock on his door just in case Missing Mark had decided that Mavis was no longer his playmate and he was hiding from her wrath.

 

So, I finished the wine, packed the computer in its protective shoulder bag and signaled to Pino to put it all on my tab (which was met with a scowl and a sneer). I then got up, jay-walked across Columbus Avenue and moved on up Green Street toward Telegraph Hill.

 

I guess I ought to describe how I was dressed so you do not simply picture a dark blob bobbing along the sidewalk. I was dressed like a dark blob. I wore a shapeless gray-brown short overcoat with wool lining that I picked up at Goodwill, over a yellow sweat shirt with nothing written on it. I do not do advertising. Black slacks below. I don’t do jeans. On my feet are ugly orthotic enhanced shoes to coddle my non-existent arches. I don’t do sneakers or trainers of whatever those horribly expensive and garishly colored things are now called. Around my neck hung a ratty red and black wool scarf with a fringe on each end.

 

The sun was shining. The fabled San Francisco fogs of three decades ago a vague memory. It still, however, was about a million degrees colder in the City than in the East Bay but the temperature was still warmer than it had been in times past when one suffered through 12 months of semi-winter. Now, due in all likelihood to global warming, winter in San Francisco lasts only about seven months.

 

I regretted this change in the weather. Gone were the fogs that cloaked Hammitt’s Sam Spade in his daily run from his offices near the Burritt St. ditch to Jacks’s for lunch. You need a real City for mysteries, full of shadows and unhappiness. San Francisco is not a real City. It is too happy.

 

On the far side of Grant, Telegraph Hill rises. It is capped by that great phallus in the sky memorializing the transcendental virility of San Francisco’s Fire and Rescue personnel. The stunted cement penis also separates the residents of the sunny side of the hill from those fortunate few who actually have views of the water. These few live primarily in shacks converted over the years into luxury aeries. These luxury shacks, reachable only by stairs, cling to the side of the cliff like barn swallow nests cling to the eaves of a barn. Among these fortunate few living snug in their aeries reside some of the most unpleasant people living on the face of the earth. They are those who fervently believe that their struggles for the preservation of their water views and indolent live-styles benefit the rest of us.

 

Now do not get me wrong, I hate rapacious developers as much as anyone and believe that most developers should first be boiled in oil and then burnt at the stake in the middle of Union Square, but if these cliff dwellers were so concerned about the rest of us, as they would have us believe, why don’t they turn their happy huts over to the rest of us, say for two days a week, so that the rest of us can sit by the window, smoke a joint, sip some wine and stare slack jawed at the Bay bridge marching across the water into Angel Island, while the ceaseless maritime traffic in the bay pass back and forth under its soaring piers.

 

On the sunny side of the hill, the streets get steeper as they approach the crest of the peak. The sidewalks change into steps about half way up the hill. The houses on this side sit cheek by jowl crammed one next to each other. Built about 100 years ago as immigrant tenements, over the years they have been stuccoed, shingled, painted or wood or aluminum sided as fashions dictated. All now painted either white or some pastel shade of pink, blue or green. All except Missing Mark’s building located about where the sidewalk changes into steps. Sometime in the late 1950’s someone tore down a number of older buildings and replaced them with a dark shake sided five-story apartment in the then fashionable but utterly boring international style. It gave that side of the street the appearance of an ancient bleached jaw bone with a few molars missing.

 

I knew this building well. In it lived Ann Kennedy who, as serendipity dictated, lived on the same floor as Missing Mark. Ann Kennedy was a masseuse that I visited now and then. She was the type of masseuse that one finds in the back pages of monthly alternative newspapers or on Craig’s List.

 

Because of the steepness of the hill the entrance to the building was on the second floor, Ann and Missing Mark’s floor. Various stacks of construction material lay about as they always have as long as I had come here. But no one was ever working.

 

I marched up to Ann’s door first, because I thought she may have some information about her neighbor. Also, I contemplated the possibility of spending some of my fee on relaxation and release before embarking on my job. Knocked on the door and rang the bell which buzzed with that grinding sound that I hate almost more than anything I could think of.

 

The door opened about a foot wide. Now, if one were expecting that curvaceous, cleavage exposing, lingerie wearing, red lipped, dark-eyed beauty in the photographs that often accompany the ads, it was not Ann. Ann more resembled a reject from a model call for a Dorothea Lange photo shoot on the ravages of the Great Depression, right down to her shapeless house dress.

 

“Yes,” she said?

 

“Hi, Ann,” I said with a big smile.

 

I was met with a gray eyed, pupil-less stare of non-recognition.

 

“Do you have an appointment?” she asked.

 

Thought she was either stoned or my belief in the memorability of my presence was overrated. Decided I would save some money and later resolve by hand any uncontrollable urgings I still may have. Said, “Do you know Mark Holland?”

 

Long stare. “No.”

 

“He lives on this floor. He is your neighbor,” and I gestured toward the other end of the hall.

 

She slowly turned her head and looked in that direction, which made no sense since she was standing in her apartment and could not see down the hall. Slowly turned back to me.

 

“No,” and she closed the door in my face.

 

Stood there wondering if I should kick the door in frustration. Decided I would only hurt my foot.

 

Turned went to the other end of the floor to stand in front of Missing Mark’s apartment door. Looked down at the doorknob saw scratches and splintered wood. Thought, “Uh-oh, run!”

 

However, like touching just to see if a sign announcing “wet paint” means what it says, I reached down to turn the doorknob just to see if what I knew to be true really was.

 

Dragon’s Breath:

“A good detective should be afraid…always.”

 

 

Chapter 3.

 

I turned the doorknob and pushed the door open slowly. I only had opened it a few inches before it was wrenched from my hand. A big guy stood there holding the door and filling all the space between the door and the door jamb. He was not too much taller than I am, but he was big, with a body poised somewhere between muscle and fat.

 

“What do you want?” he growled.

 

I stepped back. Said, “I’m looking for Mark Holland.”

 

“Why?”

 

Thought this might be a good time for a clever story. Could not think of one. Went with the truth. “I have been asked to find him.”

 

“Why?” again,

 

Still lacking clever responses, repeated, “I’ve been hired to find him.” Took a business card from my pocket handed it to him. He looked at it for a long time. Said, “A detective eh. Why don’t you come in and we’ll talk.”

 

I said, “If it is all the same to you, I feel better standing out here in the hall.”

 

The door opened a little wider. Another fat guy appeared. He had a phone pressed against his ear with one hand. In his other hand he had a gun that was pointed at me. “Get in here,” fat guy number one ordered.

 

In that moment I noted a strange phenomena. My clothing went instantly from dry to wet. At the same time I felt like I shit my pants. Said, “I think my chances of being shot are greater in there than standing out here in the hall.”

 

I flashed on how stupid that sounded. The embarrassment of shitting in my pants began to leak into my consciousness. Did not get far with either thought as they were interrupted by an explosion to the side of my face. As I toppled toward the floor, my first thought was to protect my computer. The second was that I might be dead.

 

Thought I was shot. Actually Fat Guy One suddenly had reached out with his ham sized hand and slapped me aside my head as they say. His heavy ring raked across my jaw.

 

Before landing on the floor, I was grabbed and dragged into the room. I looked down the hall in the vain hope that Ann had seen what happened and would call the cops. No such chance.

 

I was thrown onto a bean bag chair on the floor. Thought “Who the fuck still has a bean bag chair?” Said “Who the fuck has a bean bag chair any more?” But did not get it all out as the pain had finally hit and I realized that I had bitten my tongue and was dribbling blood down my chin. Got out “Woo fla bee or?” before giving up and grabbing my jaw. I was bleeding there too from the ring. Said, “Shiss!” Added “Blon.” My tongue was swelling up.

 

Fat guy one threw me a dirty dish rag. Thought I would probably die of sepsis if it touched my open wound. Spit the blood from my mouth into the rag folded it, and pressed it against the side of my face anyway.

 

Fats Two was talking on the phone. Whispered to Fats One. Fats One said, “Who sent you?”

 

Replied something that sounded like, “that’s confidential.”

 

Fats one raised his fist.

 

I quickly responded, “Gul fren.”

 

“Fucking Mavis,” said SF fats.

 

“No, na yeh” I commented. I thought I was being clever. They ignored me

 

Fats Two whispered to Porky One again.

 

Porky asked,“Find anything yet?”

 

“Hired hour ago. This first stop.”

 

More talking on the phone and whispering. Fats Prime asked, “What did Mavis tell you?”

 

What I answered sounded a lot like, “Not much. He’s missing. She’s worried.”

 

More talking on the phone and whispering.

 

I said more or less, “We could save a lot of time if I just talked directly to whomever is on the phone.” Although it did not come out quite like that, I actually was getting used to speaking through my swollen tongue and frozen jaw.

 

They ignored me. Fats One said, “What’s she paying you — tattoos or blow jobs?” Thrilled with his cleverness he let out a surprisingly high pitched giggle.

 

I did not answer as I struggled with a clever comeback and failed mostly out of fear of retaliation.

 

He said more forcefully, “What do you charge?”

 

“Two hundred dollars a day. One week minimum. One half paid in advance.”

 

Some more whisperings into the phone. There seemed to be some disagreement.

 

Fats Prime finally turned to me and said, “We’d like to hire you to help us find him.”

 

I was gobsmacked. Wanted to say, “fuck you” or “What the fuck,” even. Said instead, “Can’t, conflict of interest.”

 

Prime Cut One turned red-faced and advanced on me. I quickly said, “On second thought I can probably figure a way around it.”

 

He stopped, smiled reached into his pocket and pulled out a wallet. From it he extracted 10 one hundred dollar bills and placed them in my hand not holding the towel. “You will get another thousand if you find him.”

 

Pocketed the money. Said,“Whose my client?”

 

Again with the whispering. “Me,” said First Lard Brother.

 

Asked, “What’s your name?”

 

“No name.” He scribbled on a piece of paper. Handed it to me. “My phone number. Call every evening at about five o’clock.”

 

“What can you tell me about Holland to help me along?”

 

Again the phone. The Fats One then said, “Ask Mavis. She knows more than she is telling you.”

 

They then both picked me up out of the bean bag and guided me toward the door.

 

“How do you know I won’t go to the police?”

 

“If you do we will have to kill you.” They both giggled in falsetto.

 

I knew that was bullshit but I was still scared shitless, literally and figuratively and I knew involvement of the cops was futile.

 

Once back in the hall, I ran to Ann’s door pounded on it and rang the awful buzzer. I do not know what I expected if she answered; to cry in her arms. No response anyway. Pictured her standing in the middle of the room staring blank eyed at the door.

 

Turned, grabbing the computer in one hand and the bloody rag in another, ran out of the building and back down the hill to Pino’s place.

 

When Pino saw me he said, “what the fuck happened?”

 

I ran by him and into the restaurant. Said as I passed. “Bathroom. Ice in a napkin quick.”

 

In the toilet I threw the rag into the waste basket. The bleeding had mostly stopped. Dropped my pants and drawers and sat. Saw that I really had shit my pants, a little not much but enough to make me groan. My hands were shaking as was the rest of me.

 

When I left the toilet Pino was there with the ice in a napkin. Repeated, “What the fuck happened?”

 

Took the napkin with the ice, pressed it to my face, said, “Later, I need a taxi right now.” Pino went into the street flagged down a cab. I got in. Gave the driver the address of my condo on Fourth Street, waved to Pino and slunk into my seat as far down as I could go.

 

 

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TODAY’S QUOTE: From“Dance Me to the End of Time,” by Christopher G. Moore.

Sometimes, within the depths of a novel of fiction, there appears oddities and insights that force the reader to reconsider what he had read in the novel and what he knows or experienced about life. My friend Christopher G. Moore, a Canadian living in Thailand, and a distinguished author and writer who had written a series of fascinating mysteries featuring a half-Jewish/half Italian attorney from New York who, having been forced to leave that city, took up the life of a detective in Bangkok Thailand. After 16 well received novels in the series he decided to end it in the 17th with a story unlike any he had written before. A story set in the not too distant future when his beloved Bangkok and many other parts of the world had become mostly inundated by the rising seas  disrupting the political and social forces of the time causing chaos and uncertainty about the future and whether there will be one of not. The discussion I have included here both amused and mystified me and left me struggling less with its meaning than its meaning for our future. Enjoy.

 

 

 

““Henrietta has the answer,” said Emily,…“What is her answer?” asked a delegate from Jakarta, which was mostly under water.

 

“Dance,” said Emily….

 

“Henrietta said to Kyle and me: ‘I’ve studied your species for over two hundred thousand years, and I found that everyone dances. So long as you’re dancing, you’re not fighting. For the next sixty days everyone who dances will receive EC credits. The more you dance, the more goes into your account.’”

 

“What dance does she want us to do?” asked a boy in Bangkok. “Whatever you like. Bhangra, flamenco, samba, salsa, tango, rap, belly or break dancing, nail dancing, dragon dance, waltz, gopak, adumu aigus, Zaouli-mask dance, ballroom, ballet. Old traditional dances. Ritual dances. Ceremonial dances from the time of your grandparents. Whatever.”

 

A laser projected holograpic dancers re-enacting dances from thirty-thousand-year-old Bhimbetka cave paintings. Another performance was based on dances recreated from ancient Egyptian tomb paintings. There were ritual dances from temples and religious festivals, dances for crop harvests, births, weddings, deaths, Sinhalese healing dances to cure mysterious illnesses. Cham dances from Tibet. Shakespeare was wrong—the world wasn’t a stage, it was a vast ballroom.

 

Magically, the dance performances promised a re-enchantment of the world. A world where everyone danced. A world where people were paid to dance. There was freedom and equality in dancing. Difference no longer mattered. The contact was immediate and direct. As the holographic dance re-creation ended, there were cheers from the audience.

 

… “We are divided by hate and fear. Henrietta believes that dance will reawaken our common bonds. I know the love of killing dragons and demons on the road to a quest. I’ve tasted the bloodlust in my mouth. I also know the reality. When we stopped dancing, we lost our way. The sixty-day cease-fire will be the chance to dance together. Let’s take the chance.”

 

…“Okay, we dance. But what do we do for fun?” asked someone.

 

“Relearn the fun in dance. Let’s give dance a chance,” said Emily.

 

…Another young person in Dar es Salaam, holding a bible, stood on his chair. His hair slicked back, he wore a short-sleeved button-down shirt with a black plastic name tag. “In sixty days, there may be no religious guilds left. Dancing won’t stop us from losing millions of believers.”

 

“Just the opposite,” I said. “Dance renews your shared faith. When we dance, we are moving in rhythm with deep time. Henrietta has a point—violence and conflict starts when the dancing stops.”

 

…Scientists had stopped dancing long ago.

Moore, Christopher G.. Dance Me to the End of Time (p. 284). Heaven Lake Press.

 

 

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POOKIE’S ADVENTURES WHILE SLOGGING THROUGH THE GREAT PANDEMIC OF 2020.

It was a balmy night in the Enchanted Forest. Naida and I sat in our respective recliners facing the TV. I was naked but for the swim trunks I had worn all day and Naida was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. We were attempting to find something to watch until it was time to sleep. In other words, to sleep with our eyes open before having to close them. We decided on something called Night Club Scandal a 1937 movie starring John Barrymore. Its opening scene showed Barrymore standing over the body of his wife whom he had just killed. Naida soon fell asleep in her chair and I went back to reading my latest novel leaving the movie flickering in the background and the 1930s patter rumbling in my ears. John Barrymore was caught in the end, I think.

That night, I suffered the second of the horrid dreams that kept me awake and moaning most of the night, the first of which I wrote about here a few weeks ago. Throughout my life, I always fought back, sometimes effectively and sometimes not, against the threats posed in the nightmares but not during these last two. Two weeks ago it was stark terror and fear that immobilized me. Last night it was absolute helplessness first at the destruction of my home and happiness and then from the exhaustion from the need to fight off the creeping hands searching my body as I began to try to restore my life.

In the morning, I tried to figure out what was causing these dreams. It seemed appropriate to set my mind to it, after all I had little enough to do otherwise. My first thought, as one might imagine, was that these dreams were harbingers of the inevitable arrival of death. In the past, when confronted with these night time stories, I could fight against them because tomorrow was another day and my fears could be confronted. But, at my age, Mister Death no longer seems satisfied to leave too many more tomorrows for me to wrestle with my fears. At first this bit of infantile self psychoanalysis seemed to fit the bill. Then, I remembered that I had taken a swig of NyQuil before going to bed on each of the evenings.

Dextromethorphan (DMX), one of NyQuil’s three active ingredients, has mind-altering effects. Lots of kids use it to get high and drugstores often prohibit people from purchasing too much of it at a time. So, perhaps, that may be the cause and not that silly existential pseudo-psychiatric stuff. But, I seem to recall taking NyQuil on other nights without similar effects. Then again, my previous nightmare occurred on the first day of the last Central Valley heatwave and yesterday the most recent one began. Could my overheated imagination merely have been a response to my overheated body? As I have written often whenever I have rambled off into some adolescent level philosophical speculation, who cares? Anyway, although the cause of the dreams may remain a mystery, trying to solve that mystery at least allowed me to spend my time writing this and avoid watching The Great Escape for the umpteenth time.

Speaking of heat waves, it was in the mid-90s at 10 AM this morning when I left the house to swim in the pool. The swim was enjoyable after which, I went for a long walk through the Enchanted Forest. In New York where I grew up, temperatures in the 90s were often accompanied by humidity in the 90s also. To anyone walking along the City’s sidewalk death appeared imminent before one could walk the distance from one telephone pole to the next. Here in the Great Valley the air is bone dry. Walking in the Enchanted Forest shaded by the giant trees, I felt like I was covered in a warm blanket on a cool evening. It was delightful. There was a slight breeze. I decided to sit for a while on one of the benches along the path in order to enjoy the comforting warmth of the air and the beauty of the forest.

My view from the bench in the enchanted Forest

Pookie at Rest

(Naida wanted me to make sure I point out that my hair is not white. It is actually quite dark. Its blond hue is only an effect of the sunlight. As one can tell I wear my hair in a popular Age of Quarantine style called the Albert Einstein Do.)

That evening, we watched a Nina Foch festival on TCM — yes, Nina Foch. At about 10:30 the temperature outside had dropped to 95 degrees. Cool enough to take the dog for his evening walk.

The next day, it was over 100 degrees outside when I woke up at about 10:30 in the morning. I had missed my slotted pool time so I spent another hour or so lying in my bed playing with my iPhone until the dog came upstairs started barking at me to let me know that I should stop lazing around and begin my day — a day that promised even less interest than usual.

Apparently, the SF Bay area had an East-Coast type of lightning storm that drove its citizens out into the night with their smartphones to photograph, post on social media and record for all time the singular event of the lightning displays. We East-Coasters were somewhat blasé about night time spectacles of lightning and thunder having experienced them on almost a weekly basis every summer. I loved them — the crashes of thunder so loud it would shake the house and the tingling on your skin as the flash of lightning tears through the sky. All the sounds and lights of a war among the gods without the slaughter. The next morning in the silence, as you read the morning newspaper, there was the inevitable story about some guy trying to get a last round of golf in before the storm broke getting fried on the fairway by a bolt of lightning. Ah, those were the days.

 

 

One of the images posted on Facebook

(It looks to me a bit like a skeleton with a sword confronting a dragon)

The lightning storm passed over the Enchanted Forest last night, the dog crept under the bed and shook in fear, and Naida, unable to sleep with the noise and flashes of lightning laid in bed and stared at the ceiling. I slept through it all. Too bad, I would have liked to have experienced it. A welcome break to six months of social distancing — even the end of the world would be a welcome break.

The next day was even warmer with a lightly overcast sky. Naida accompanied me to swim. Then I left to visit with HRM in the Golden Hills. He cooked me a lunch of pasta and meat sauce. That night, we watched the opening night of the Democratic Convention and cheered Michelle Obama. Let us hope this pandemic inspired unconventional convention marks the beginning of a new way to hold political conventions.

Two days have gone by. The temperature remains in the 100s. Today, the air quality was worsened by the annual burning of California. We have watched two more days of the Democratic Convention. The fear that our democratic republic is at risk was palpable. After the convention ended and the commentators and pundits signed off, we turned to TCM which was featuring the movies of Dolores Del Rio. I skipped it and went to bed.

The next day air quality was worse (AQI 253. Hazardous). Now and then I would look up from my computer screen and stare out at the sickly yellow aspect of scene outside through the sliding glass doors of the studio. I skipped swimming again due to the effect on my throat and lungs of the air now polluted with the smoke and ash particles from the nearby fires.

A few well forgotten days later, the Air Quality Index appeared low enough for Naida and I to go outside and chance an early morning swim in the pool. It was delightful. After my session in the massage chair, shower, lounging around in bed and a brief nap, it was 3:30 before I returned downstairs for lunch. That, I consider, is an ideal way to spend a morning.

Well, that about does it for this post. Not too much excitement to mark these days of our quarantine. That’s most likely the reason why I spent most of my time these past few weeks writing. We, all of us I imagine, are destined to sit here in our homes watching with horror and disgust on electronic media the passing of perhaps the most consequential, challenging and dangerous time in the history of our species. And, for most of us, we feel helpless to do anything about it except to vote for people we do not really know in the hope that they somehow may be able to draw us back from the precipice.

Nevertheless, no matter how grim or not our future may appear remember always to enjoy your days. We have few other options.

Ciao

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Chapter 3 of my unfinished and never to be published novel “Here Comes Dragon.”

 

The following reproduces Chapter 3 of my unfinished and never to be published novel “Here Comes Dragon.” The whole unfinished draft can be found at, (https://papajoesfables.wordpress.com/here-comes-dragon-an-unfinished-novel/).

 

 

Dragon’s breath:

“A good detective should be afraid…always.”

 

 

Chapter 3.

 

I turned the doorknob and pushed the door open slowly. I only had opened it a few inches before it was wrenched from my hand. A big guy stood there holding the door and filling all the space between the door and the door jamb. He was not too much taller than I am, but he was big, with a body poised somewhere between muscle and fat.

“What do you want,” he growled?

I stepped back. Said, “I’m looking for Mark Holland.”

“Why?”

Thought this might be a good time for a clever story. Could not think of one. Went with the truth. “I have been asked to find him.”

“Why,” again?

Still lacking clever responses, said, “I’ve been hired to find him.” Took a business card from my pocket handed it to him. He looked at it for a long time. Said, “A Detective eh. Why don’t you come in and we’ll talk?”

I said, “If it is all the same to you, I feel better standing out here in the hall.”

The door opened a little wider. Another fat guy appeared. He had a phone pressed against his ear with one hand. In his other hand, he had a gun that was pointed at me. “Get in here,” fat guy number one ordered.

At that moment I noted a strange phenomenon. My clothing went instantly from dry to wet. At the same time, I felt like I shit my pants. Said, “I think my chances of being shot are greater in there than standing out here in the hall.”

I flashed on how stupid that sounded. The embarrassment of shitting in my pants began to leak into my consciousness. Did not get far with either thought as they were interrupted by an explosion to the side of my face. As I toppled toward the floor, my first thought was to protect my computer. The second was that I might be dead.

Thought I was shot. Actually, Fat Guy One suddenly had reached out with his ham sized hand and slapped me aside my head as they say. His heavy ring raked across my jaw.

Before landing on the floor, I was grabbed and dragged into the room. I looked down the hall in the vain hope that Ann had seen what happened and would call the cops. No such luck.

I was thrown onto a bean bag chair on the floor. Thought, “Who the fuck still has a bean bag chair?” Said, “Who the fuck has a bean bag chair any more?” But did not get it all out as the pain had finally hit and I realized that I had bitten my tongue and was dribbling blood down my chin. Got out “Woo fla bee or?” before giving up and grabbing my jaw. I was bleeding there too from the ring. Said, “Shiss!” Added “Blon.” My tongue was swelling up.

Fat guy one threw me a dirty dishrag. Thought I would probably die of sepsis if it touched my open wound. Spit the blood from my mouth into the rag folded it, and pressed it against the side of my face anyway.

Fats Two was talking on the phone. Whispered to Fats One. Fats One said, “Who sent you?”

Replied something that sounded like, “That’s confidential.”

Fats one raised his fist.

I quickly responded, “Gul fren.”

“Fucking Mavis,” said SF fats.

“No, na yeh” I commented. I thought I was being clever. They ignored me

Fats Two whispered to Porky One again.

Porky asked, “Find anything yet?”

“Hired hour ago. This first stop.”

More talking on the phone and whispering. Fats Prime asked, “What did Mavis tell you?”

What I answered sounded a lot like, “Not much. He’s missing. She’s worried.”

More talking on the phone and whispering.

I said more or less, “We could save a lot of time if I just talked directly to whoever is on the phone.” Although it did not come out quite like that, I actually was getting used to speaking through my swollen tongue and frozen jaw.

They ignored me. Fats One said, “What’s she paying you — tattoos or blow jobs?” Thrilled with his cleverness he let out a surprisingly high pitched giggle.

I did not answer as I struggled with a clever comeback and failed mostly out of fear of retaliation.

He said more forcefully, “What do you charge?”

“Two hundred dollars a day. One week minimum. One half paid in advance.”

Some more whisperings into the phone. There seemed to be some disagreement.

Fats Prime finally turned to me and said, “We’d like to hire you to help us find him.”

I was gobsmacked. Wanted to say, “Fuck you” or “What the fuck,” even. Said instead, “Can’t, conflict of interest.”

Prime Cut One turned red-faced and advanced on me. I quickly said, “On second thought, I can probably figure a way around it.”

He stopped, smiled reached into his pocket, and pulled out a wallet. From it, he extracted 10 one hundred dollar bills and placed them in my hand not holding the towel. “You will get another thousand if you find him.”

Pocketed the money. Said, “Whose my client?”

Again with the whispering. “Me,” said First Lard Brother.

Asked, “What’s your name?”

“No name.” He scribbled on a piece of paper. Handed it to me. “My phone number. Call every evening at about five o’clock.”

“What can you tell me about Holland to help me along?”

Again the phone. The Fats One then said, “Ask Mavis. She knows more than she is telling you.”

They then both picked me up out of the bean bag and guided me toward the door.

“How do you know I won’t go to the police?”

“If you do we will have to kill you.” They both giggled in falsetto.

I knew that was bullshit but I was still scared shitless, literally and figuratively and I knew involvement of the cops was futile.

Once back in the hall, I ran to Ann’s door pounded on it and rang the awful buzzer. I do not know what I expected I’d do if she answered; cry in her arms perhaps. No response anyway. Pictured her standing in the middle of the room staring blank-eyed at the door.

Turned, grabbing the computer in one hand and the bloody rag in another, ran out of the building and back down the hill to Pino’s place.

When Pino saw me he said, “What the fuck happened?”

I ran by him and into the restaurant. Said as I passed. “Bathroom. Ice in a napkin quick.”

In the toilet, I threw the rag into the wastebasket. The bleeding had mostly stopped. Dropped my pants and drawers and sat. Saw that I really had shit my pants, a little not much, but enough to make me groan. My hands were shaking as was the rest of me.

When I left the toilet Pino was there with the ice in a napkin. Repeated, “What the fuck happened?”

Took the napkin with the ice, pressed it to my face, said, “Later, I need a taxi right now.” Pino went into the street flagged down a cab. I got in. Gave the driver the address of my condo on Fourth Street, waved to Pino, and slunk into my seat as far down as I could go.

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Excerpt from my unpublished and never to be finished mystery novel, Here Comes Dragon.

Dragon’s Breath:

Sam Spade: “Then the trick from my angle is to make my play strong enough to tie you up, but not make you mad enough to bump me off against your better judgment.”

 

 

Chapter 2.

 

I watched her disappear around a corner, took a sip of my wine and realized she had not paid for it. “Bitch,” I opined to no one except me. Drank the rest of my Barbera. Began on hers since she had not touched it and I was paying for it and I am opposed to wasting good, or even mediocre wine on religious grounds, being raised Catholic.

Usually tracing a missing person for the price I was being paid warranted about a half hour or so on a computer, a few telephone calls to bulk up the brief final report. A report written in a way that allowed the client to resolve any residual guilt they may be feeling by assuring that he or she had done all that could be done under the circumstances or, if the client is still mired in guilt, suggesting they pay me the rest of my fee and retain me for another week of futility. What the fee did not include, however, was any effort requiring the use of foot protecting composite material or knocking on doors.

Nevertheless, given that the sun was out and it was about as warm as it was going to get in San Francisco; I had just drunk two glasses of wine; the knowledge that the missing Mark’s apartment was only about three blocks away from where I was sitting; and the urgings bubbling out of that dark and defective communication channel that ran between my brain and my groin suggesting that the extra effort could result in my observing Mavis’s tattoos closer up, I decided to knock on his door just in case Missing Mark had decided that Mavis was no longer his playmate and he was hiding from her wrath.

So, I finished the wine, packed the computer in its protective shoulder bag and signaled to Pino to put it all on my tab (which was met with a scowl and a sneer). I then got up, jaywalked across Columbus Avenue and moved on up Green Street toward Telegraph Hill.

I guess I ought to describe how I was dressed so you do not simply picture a dark blob bobbing along the sidewalk. I was dressed like a dark blob. I wore a shapeless grey-brown short overcoat with wool lining, that I picked up at Goodwill, over a yellow sweatshirt with nothing written on it. I do not do advertising. Black slacks below. I don’t do jeans. On my feet are ugly orthotic enhanced shoes to coddle my nonexistent arches. I don’t do sneakers or trainers or whatever those horribly expensive and garishly colored things are now called. Around my neck hung a ratty red and black wool scarf with a fringe on each end.

The sun was shining. The fabled San Francisco fogs of three decades ago a vague memory. It still, however, was about a million degrees colder in the City than in the East Bay but the temperature was still warmer than it had been in times past when one suffered through 12 months of semi-winter. Now, due in all likelihood to global warming, winter in San Francisco lasts only about seven months.

I regretted this change in the weather. Gone were the fogs that cloaked Hammit’s Sam Spade in his daily run from his offices near the Burritt St. ditch to John’s for lunch. You need a real City for mysteries, full of shadows and unhappiness. San Francisco is not a real City. It is too happy.

On the far side of Grant, Telegraph Hill rises. It is capped by that great phallus in the sky memorializing the transcendental virility of San Francisco’s Fire and Rescue personnel. The stunted cement penis also separates the residents of the sunny side of the hill from those fortunate few who really have views of the water. These few live primarily in shacks converted over the years into luxury aeries. These luxury shacks, reachable only by stairs, cling to the side of the cliff like barn swallow nests cling to the eaves of a barn. Among these fortunate few living snug in their aeries live some of the most unpleasant people living on the face of the earth. They are those who fervently believe that their struggles for preservation of their water views and indolent lifestyles benefit the rest of us.

Now do not get me wrong, I hate rapacious developers as much as anyone and believe that most developers should first be boiled in oil and then burnt at the stake in the middle of Union Square, but if these cliff dwellers were so concerned about the rest of us, as they would have us believe, why don’t they turn their happy huts over to the rest of us, say for two days a week, so that the rest of us can sit by the window, smoke a joint, sip some wine and stare slack-jawed at the Bay bridge marching across the water into Angel Island while the ceaseless maritime traffic in the bay passes back and forth under its soaring piers?

On the sunny side of the hill, the streets get steeper as they approach the crest of the peak. The sidewalks change into steps about halfway up the hill. The houses on this side sit cheek by jowl crammed one next to each other. Built about 100 years ago as immigrant tenements, over the years they have been stuccoed, shingled, painted or wood or aluminum siding as fashions dictated. All now painted either white or some pastel shade of pink, blue or green. All except missing Mark’s building located about where the sidewalk changes into steps. Sometime in the late 1950s someone tore down a number of older buildings and replaced them with a dark shake sided five-story apartment in the then fashionable but utterly boring international style. It gave that side of the street the appearance of an ancient bleached jaw bone with a few molars missing.

I knew this building well. In it lived Ann Kennedy who, as serendipity dictated, lived on the same floor as Missing Mark. Ann Kennedy was a masseuse that I visited now and then. She was the type of masseuse that one finds in the back pages of monthly alternative newspapers or on Craig’s List.

Because of the steepness of the hill the entrance to the building was on the second floor, Ann and Missing Mark’s floor. Various stacks of construction materials lay about as they always have as long as I had come here, but no one was ever working.

I marched up to Ann’s door first, because I thought she may have some information about her neighbor. Also, I contemplated the possibility of spending some of my fee on relaxation and release before embarking on my job. Knocked on the door and rang the bell which buzzed with that grinding sound that I hate almost more than anything I could think of.

The door opened about a foot wide. Now, if one were expecting that curvaceous, cleavage exposing, lingerie wearing, red-lipped, dark-eyed beauty in the photographs that often accompany the ads, it was not Ann. Ann more resembled a reject from a model call for a Dorothea Lange photo shoot on the ravages of the Great Depression, right down to her shapeless house dress.

“Yes,” she said?

“Hi, Ann,” I said with a big smile.

I was met with a grey-eyed, pupil-less stare of non-recognition.

“Do you have an appointment?” she asked?

Thought she was either stoned or my belief in the memorability of my presence was overrated. Decided I would save some money and later resolve by hand any uncontrollable urgings I still may have. Said, “Do you know Mark Holland?”

Long stare. “No.”

“He lives on this floor. He is your neighbor,” and I gestured toward the other end of the hall.

She slowly turned her head and looked in that direction, which made no sense since she was standing inside her apartment and could not see down the hall. Slowly turned back to me.

“No,” and she closed the door in my face.

Stood there wondering if I should kick the door in frustration. Decided I would only hurt my foot. Turned went to the other end of the floor to stand in front of Missing Mark’s apartment door. Looked down at the doorknob. Saw scratches and splintered wood. Thought, “Uh-oh, run!”

However, like touching just to see if a sign announcing “wet paint” means what it says, I reached down to turn the doorknob just to see if what I knew to be true really was.

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NOT REALY BOOK REPORTS: Monstrous Detectives, Bloody Adventures, Serial Killers, Faries, and the Evolution of Life.

As usual, most of the novels I read are not much more than candy for the mind. I guess, since I no longer ingest spun sugar, cotton candy for the mind will have to do. Well, that’s not precisely true, I have always preferred to flood my mind with fluff. Living in a fantasy world is every bit as rewarding as living in the real world — perhaps even more so

I am currently reading, The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl by Theodora Goss. It is the third in a series of novels whose principal characters include Mary Jekyll the Daughter of Dr. Jekyll; Diana the daughter of Mr. Hyde; Beatrice Rappiccini the daughter of a man who raised her on a diet exclusively of poisons leaving her “as beautiful as she was poisonous;” Justine Frankenstein, a significantly over six-foot woman created by the famous doctor Frankenstein originally to wed the equally famous monster and; Cathrine Moreau a puma transformed into a woman by Dr. Moreau. They all find each other during the course of the first novel and decide to live together in Mary Jekyll’s home, name themselves the Athena Club and with the assistance of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson set about solving arcane crimes. Cathrine is the Dr. Watson of these estimable ladies’ adventures. One of the many conceits in the books is to have members of the club interrupt Cathrine as she writes, criticizing and commentating on her work.

Another book I just completed was written by one of my favorite authors, Joe Abercrombie.  In “A Little Hatred” begins a new series continuing the tales in his prior novels set in a world living in something similar to medieval England with a dollop of magic thrown in. Abercrombie clearly intended to feature a bit more magic in his series but his main character a ruffian called The Bloody Nine, was so compelling, he focused more on the Barbarians of the north of which The Bloody Nine was one and their ceaseless slaughter of one another in the Ring, a battle to the death between two heroes to determine who would be king. These are adolescent boys novels which is probably why I enjoy them so much.

“Dark Pattern” by Andrew Mayne features a mathematical biologist who gives up his post as a college professor to track down serial killers using the techniques of his academic specialty to do so. He is as obsessed with pursuing them as they are in their chosen profession of murder.

“Not my Fae” by Tom Kelly a multi-book series about a Las Vegas cop who discovered the city is really run by fairies (Fae) and demons and what is worse he learns that he is a fairy and even worse he is a son of Gaia and the King of the Fairies. Needless to say, the stories deteriorate in each successive novel to such an extent that the author has to explain why in the afterward of his most recent novel.

“The Vital Question” by Nick Lane sounds like another trashy detective story, but it is not. Lane is a biologist. I think it is best that he explains what his book is all about

For me, the best books in biology, ever since Darwin, have been arguments. This book aspires to follow in that tradition. I will argue that energy has constrained the evolution of life on earth; that the same forces ought to apply elsewhere in the universe; and that a synthesis of energy and evolution could be the basis for a more predictive biology, helping us understand why life is the way it is, not only on earth, but wherever it might exist in the universe.
Lane, Nick. The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life (p. 16). W. W. Norton & Company.

It is a slow read, but I think helpful to clarify my musings about the nature of the biosphere.

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Today’s Poem: Aphrodite Metropolis by Kenneth Fearing.

 

Aphrodite Metropolis

Harry loves Myrtle—He has strong arms, from the warehouse,

And on Sunday when they take the bus to emerald meadows he doesn’t say:

“What will your chastity amount to when your flesh withers in a little while?”

No,

On Sunday, when they picnic in emerald meadows they look at the Sunday paper:

GIRL SLAYS BANKER-BETRAYER

They spread it around on the grass

BATH-TUB STIRS JERSEY ROW

And then they sit down on it, nice.

Harry doesn’t say “Ziggin’s Ointment for withered flesh,
Cures

thousands of men and women of motes, warts, red veins,

flabby throat, scalp and hair diseases,

Not expensive, and fully guaranteed.”

No,

Harry says nothing at all,

He smiles,

And they kiss in the emerald meadows on the

Sunday paper.

Kenneth Fearing

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BOOK REPORT: Auntie Poldi and the Vineyards of Etna (An Auntie Poldi Adventure Book 2) by Mario Giordano.

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I have just finished reading the second installment in the series of my current book crush, The Adventures of Auntie Poldi. Although the books purport to be detective stories, I, frankly, do not recall in either of the two novels of the series I have read so far who was killed or why. Nor can I claim they are great or even good literature. So, what attracts me to these books?

Perhaps it is the magnificently exuberant and shameless bit of overwriting with which the author begins his novel:

“Although in the past few months Poldi had temporarily thwarted death thanks to solving her handyman Valentino’s murder, her romantic encounter with Vito Montana (Polizia di Stato’s chief inspector in charge of homicide cases), her friendship with her neighbours Valérie and sad Signora Cocuzza, my aunts’ efforts and, last but not least, her own love of the chase, we all know the way of the world: peace reigns for a while, the worst seems to be over, the sun breaks through the clouds, the future beckons once more, your cigarette suddenly tastes good again, the air hums with life and the whole world becomes a congenial place pervaded by whispers of great things to come. A simply wonderful, wonderful, universally familiar sensation. And then, like a bolt from the blue, pow! Not that anyone has seen it coming, but the wind changes. Fate empties a bucket of excrement over your head, chuckling as it does so, and all you can think is “Wow, now I really need a drink!” And the whole shitty process starts again from scratch. So it was no wonder my aunts became alarmed when Poldi still had no running water after two weeks and Lady was murdered. No doubt about it, the wind had changed and the ice was growing steadily thinner.”
Giordano, Mario. Auntie Poldi and the Vineyards of Etna (An Auntie Poldi Adventure Book 2). HMH Books.

 

Or perhaps, it is Auntie Poldi herself, a lusty sixty-year-old German woman who had married a Sicilian immigrant to Bavaria and who after his death retired to her husband’s ancestral town on the slopes of Mt Etna there to “drink herself to death with a view of the sea.”

Poldi wears a wig, dresses usually in brightly colored caftans, enthusiastically and vigorously enjoys sex, and as the daughter of a Bavarian chief of detectives is compulsively drawn to solving crimes, photographing cute policemen in uniform and bedding dusky and hunky Sicilian detectives (well one in particular).

On the other hand, Poldi was a woman of strong opinions as well as strong appetites. As she explained to her nephew whom she had appointed to be the Watson to her Holmes:

“I’ve never been devout,” she explained later before I could query this in surprise because I knew that Poldi harbored a fundamental aversion to the Church. “I’m spiritual but not devout, know what I mean? I’ve never had much time for the Church. The mere thought of it infuriates me. The males-only organizations, the pope, the original-sin malarkey, the inhibited cult of the Virgin Mary, the false promises of redemption, the proselytism, the misogyny, the daft words of the psalms and hymns. Mind you, I’ve always liked the tunes. I always enjoyed chanting in the ashram, you know. I screwed every hippie in the temple of that Kali sect in Nevada, I’ve meditated in Buddhist monasteries, and I believe in reincarnation and karma and all that, likewise in people’s essential goodness. I don’t know if there’s a god and if he’s got something against sex and unbelievers, but I can’t help it, I’m Catholic. It’s like malaria: once you’ve got it you never get rid of it, and sooner or later you go and make peace with it.”
Giordano, Mario.Auntie Poldi and the Vineyards of Etna (An Auntie Poldi Adventure Book 2). HMH Books.

Or on even another hand, perhaps it is the authors alter ego, Poldi’s 34-year-old unmarried nephew, the narrator in the books, a self-described but inept author who works at a call center in Bavaria. He has been attempting to write the great Bavarian novel for years now but seems to have only recently gotten inspired to write the first four chapters the last of which he enthusiastically describes in a blaze of overwriting:

“I was in full flow. I was the adjective ace, the metaphor magician, the sorcerer of the subordinate clause, the expresser of emotions, the master of a host of startling but entirely plausible turns of events. The whole of my fourth chapter had been completed within a week. I was a paragon of self-discipline and inspiration, the perfect symbiosis of Germany and Italy. I was a Cyclops of the keyboard. I was Barnaba. All I lacked was a nymph, but my new Sicilian styling would soon change that.”
Giordano, Mario. Auntie Poldi and the Vineyards of Etna (An Auntie Poldi Adventure Book 2). HMH Books.

He found himself periodically called to travel to Sicily and reside in an attic room in Poldi’s house whenever the Sicilian relatives believed Poldi was skating on the thin edge of reality or whenever Poldi herself demanded his return because she felt she needed someone to beguile and complain to.

Or perhaps, it is the denizens of my beloved Sicily, like the three aunts fascinated and often shocked by, and at times participants in, Poldi’s escapades. Or her partners in crime, so to speak, sad Carmina and the local priest. Or, Poldi’s French friend, Valerie her forlorn nephew’s love interest who Poldi steadfastly refuses to allow him to meet.

“For Valérie, like Poldi, happiness possessed a simple binary structure, and the whole of human existence was suspended between two relatively distant poles. Between heaven and hell, love and ignorance, responsibility and recklessness, splendour and scuzz, the essential and the dispensable. And within this dual cosmic structure there existed only two kinds of people: the deliziosi and the spaventosi, the charming and the frightful. Rule of thumb: house guests, friends and dogs are always deliziosi, the rest are spaventosi. At least until they prove otherwise.”

“‘You see,’ Poldi told me once, ‘Valérie has understood that happiness is a simple equation. Happiness equals reality minus expectation.’”
Giordano, Mario. Auntie Poldi and the Vineyards of Etna (An Auntie Poldi Adventure Book 2). HMH Books.

 

Or perhaps, it is just that I am a child of Sicily, have lived as well as visited there many times and loved that large rocky Island whose citizens have suffered almost two thousand five hundred years of continuous occupation by a host of invaders— Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Visigoths, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Germans, French, Spanish, Bourbons, Nazi’s, and even British and Americans. Where the inhabitants were considered so irrelevant by their foreign overlords their cities, unlike the rest of Europe, were built without defensive walls. Where the people are reticent with strangers but boisterous and generous with friends and family, where Bella Figura reigns supreme, the cuisine extraordinary, people speak in gestures and revel in the mores of their medieval culture and where “Being Sicilian is a question of heart, not genes” (Giordano, Mario. Auntie Poldi and the Vineyards of Etna, An Auntie Poldi Adventure Book 2. HMH Books.)

Whatever, the reasons for my own enjoyment of the books, Pookie says you should check them out, after all, as Auntie Poldi says: “Moderation is a sign of weakness.” (Giordano, Mario. Auntie Poldi and the Vineyards of Etna (An Auntie Poldi Adventure Book 2). HMH Books.)

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