All the Women Think I’m Fine

All the women think I’m fine

All the women, when they see me, want me

I’m walkin’ down the street

They can’t get enough of me

I’m smilin’ my smile

They can’t get enough of me

I’m strutting my stuff

They can’t get enough of me

I’m drivin’ my short

They follow me down the road

Around the curves

Into the straightaway

They follow me wherever I go

I wanna get somethin’ to eat.

They’re there with their faces pressed against the window glass

I get home and there are three or four waitin’ for me

Two or three scramble in before I can git in and close the door

It’s a long night I gotta put in

It’s a long night takin’ care of ’em all

It’s a long night being me

All the women think I’m fine

Mike Landrieu

As I sit alone in this small church, staring at his casket (a casket, by the way, that cost more than the building it sits in is worth), I can’t help but smile to myself. This is where it had started all those many, many years ago. Mike could have had one of those large, ostentatious Hollywood funerals, but he had asked me to ship him here on the QT. He wanted only one mourner … me.

I first met Mike Landrieu when I was thirteen, the year was 1935. I had run away from home, such as it was. The old man was an abusive drunk and my mother had given up hope years earlier. I hitched myself a ride with a salesman heading west and we got as far as this town when his Ford Model A blew a tire. Not wanting to wait around while he patched the tube, I grabbed my grip and bid him good-bye. As I look back on it now, that blown tire was fate knocking at my door.

While walking through town on my way to the highway, my eye caught sight of a small billboard in front of a burlesque house. It wasn’t the listing of the acts that drew my attention; it was the picture of the star, Rosita Royce. And as many a thirteen-year-old boy can attest to, that is all it took to stop me in my tracks. Having nowhere I had to be and no one waiting for me when I got there, I took myself around to the back to ask for a job.

I walked through the door, which was propped open, and was immediately accosted by Pop. There was a “Pop” guarding the stage entrance in every house. From the grandest in New York City to the third-raters in little towns like the one I was currently in. The man who halted my ingress inquired as to what I wanted and who I wanted to see. When I informed him I was looking for a job, he laughed and said, “Ain’t you heard, boy? There’s a depression going on. There ain’t no jobs nowhere, and if there was a job available, it would have been snatched up long before you showed.”

When he had finished speaking, he slit his eyes, and looking at me sideways said, “How old are you?” I was big for my age, so I lied and told him I was sixteen. I don’t think I fooled him much.

Just then a man walked up and asked, “What’s this, Pop?”

“This here boy is lookin’ for work, but I told him we don’t have none.”

Turning his full attention in my direction, the man asked me my name. When I told him, he stuck out his hand and said, “I’m Mike Landrieu. I run this house.” After we shook hands, I took stock of the man. To me he was ancient; he must have been all of twenty-five. He told Pop that he was going out for a “bottle and bird,” which I later learned was the term show people used for a meal.

“Why not come along?” he asked. “I’ll treat you to some donuts and milk and maybe we can find a job for you.” The short of it is, Mike hired me as his assistant and gave me a room at the back of the theater in which to live.

I liked working for Mike. It was quite an education. He kept me busy, and he taught me the business. It was just a third-rate Burly Q, but Mike ran it first-rate. Even though he was young, he was known as Uncle Mike to all the acts that came through. About a year later, Mike upped and said we were going to Hollywood. He had sold the place.

We hit Hollywood on a dusty, wind-blown day. Back then there were still some orange groves around town and the wind was kicking up an awful fuss … blowing the loose soil around till it was hard to see the road before us.

Mike knew so many people in the business that it wasn’t long before he was representing some of them to the studios. One thing led to another and before we knew it, Mike was a big-time Hollywood agent.

I left Mike in ’55—with his blessing—and started my own agency. Being as busy as I was, I didn’t see Mike as often as I would have liked. I think it might have been six months since I had last spoken with him when I got the call. It was near 2:00 a.m. and I was in bed with a girl from Omaha who thought she was going to be the next Bette Davis.

I picked up the phone and Mike said, “Howdy, partner, I need you.” There was a tremor in his voice that brought me full awake. “Can you come over here right now?” he asked.

I was out the door before the would-be starlet could object.

I pulled into Mike’s driveway and noticed a strange car parked there. I didn’t knock, but went right in and found Mike covered in blood.

“What the hell happened, Mike?”

“I don’t know. She attacked me with a knife, she just went crazy!”

He pointed towards the bedroom. Sprawled across the bed lay a woman on white sheets soaked in crimson blood, glistening in the dim light. I turned away in disgust. Mike had followed me into the room, he was crying.

“Mike, tell me what happened here.”

“I just don’t know. We were going … going to … you know. As she was taking off her clothes, she was telling me about how she had a small speaking part in a Warner’s film. I said something like, ‘Good for you’ or ‘Enjoy it while you can.’ Then she suddenly ran from the room and came back holding that kitchen knife,” he said, as he pointed toward a knife on the floor.

“I don’t know what set her off. I just don’t know.”

I turned Mike around, walked him to the living room, and sat him down on the couch. I retrieved a bottle of Scotch from his liquor cabinet and poured us both a stiff one. “Okay, Mike … no bullshit, tell me!”

He downed his drink in one gulp and said, “She was a honey I picked up down on Wilshire. You know, that little hole-in-the-wall off Pico. She said she wanted to go home with me and I thought that would be a good idea. She followed me here in her car. Everything was going swell. I made drinks and we talked for a while. Then she made bedroom eyes at me, stood up, took me by the hand and led me into the bedroom. The next thing I knew, she was trying to stab me with that goddamn knife.”

He stood and poured himself another drink, then continued: “We fought for the knife and, as I wrenched it from her hand, it slipped into her throat. It was an accident! I tried to stop the flow of blood, but I just couldn’t. She was on the bed just like she is now. She slowly smiled at me as the life seeped out of her.”

Mike started to cry again.

“What do you want me to do, Mike?”

He did not answer. I don’t think he heard me.

I placed my hand on his shoulder. He had been like a father to me. He was the only person that had ever treated me right. I knew what I had to do.

I went into the bedroom and rolled the woman up in the sheets. The blood had soaked through to the mattress, but that was of no concern at the moment. I carried her outside and placed her in her car. Then I went back into the house and retrieved her purse. Her car keys were in it.

Mike was in a trance-like state and had no idea what I was doing. I told him to have another drink and not do anything until I got back. He nodded numbly, and I left Mike Landrieu for the last time.

I drove the woman’s car out to Malibu and left it in a parking lot of a restaurant on the beach. I had trouble finding a cab, so it was a while before I made it back to Mike’s.

I went in to find my old friend sitting in his favorite chair. He was dead; he had shot himself. There was a note in his hand. He wrote that he could not live with what he had done. He asked that he be buried in the town where we first met. And he thanked me for being his friend. His friend? The sonavabitch saved me when I was just a snot-nosed kid without a dime to my name!

I took the note and left. Let the cops figure it out.

I sit here alone in this podunk town with only my memories … and the body of my friend, Mike Landrieu.

Georgia On My Mind

Georgia was my girl, she was my love. Georgia was taken from me. She is not of this earth anymore. Georgia awaits me in heaven.

Georgia was taken from me last spring as she crossed a street. She was killed by a drunk driver. Winter is now coming on and the murderer has still not faced justice. He has money and a very good lawyer. His trial has been postponed repeatedly.

He may have money and a good lawyer, but I have my granddaddy’s Colt .45. I have decided to be judge, jury, and executioner. I have waited long enough for justice.

He goes out to the clubs every night. He does not drive now. He has a Cuban drive him in his big fancy car; the same car that took my Georgia.

It will be tonight.

As I wait in the alley for the murderer to emerge from the newest, hottest club on Miami Beach, I think of Georgia.

My Georgia was only nineteen when we met. She was in Miami visiting a friend, and the friend suggested that she see Fort Lauderdale before she went home. I was at the bar in The Elbow Room, sitting on my usual stool, when they walked in. I don’t believe in love at first sight, but that night I had my doubts.

I sat there and looked on as a few guys hit on Georgia and her friend. They all walked away empty-handed. Normally, I wouldn’t have made a move, but something drew me to Georgia. She was full of life. If I could see someone’s aura, I’m sure hers would have been a light blue. A loving and pure soul was she.

To make a long and loving story shorter, I sweet-talked her phone number out of her. At that point, all I wanted was to get laid. But that was before I fell in love with my Georgia.

I called the next day. We went sailing on my boat. I told her to bring her friend along so that she would feel safe. The three of us sailed the bay and then ate a picnic lunch on Elliot Key. As we sailed back, the sun was setting into a fiery western sky .

We hit Dinner Key just as it got full dark. By then I was in love.

My home base is Fort Lauderdale—about two hours up the Intercoastal Waterway.

I asked Georgia to sail up there with me and I would send her back to Miami in a cab. To my great surprise, she said yes. Her friend left us and I cast off from the dock.

Two hours later, in a cove off Dania Beach, we anchored and made love. The sweetest most loving love I have ever known. From that moment on, she was My Georgia.

She flew home, settled matters and came back to me. We had two years of love and life before she was taken from me. In that time, I learned how to love another human being. I learned of tenderness. I learned of love. And because of what was done to My Georgia, I will kill a man tonight.

It’s coming up on 2:00 a.m., about the time the killer heads for home with his conquest of the night.

I see them now, the three of them—the murderer, a girl, and the Cuban.

My quarry has his arm around the tall, skinny girl. She sways on her high heels. She wears a silver dress that reflects the pink and yellow neon lights of the bars they pass. He weaves as he walks. I hope and pray that he is not too drunk. I want him to know why he is going to die.

I step out of the shadows to block their path. I stand before them and tell the girl to hit the road. She hesitates, but when I raise the gun, she finds someplace else to be.  I then turn to the Cuban. “This ain’t your fight.”

He also hesitates. So I explain it to him, “In one minute, your boss will be dead. Do you want a piece of what is about to go down?” I reckon he didn’t because he shrugged and walked away.

Now it is just me and the murderer.

“This is for Georgia,” I say as I put a bullet into his shocked face. His blood and brains splatter onto the wall behind him. So simple to take a life. So very simple. I did it with a gun … he did it with a car.

I thought I would feel better killing the son-of-a-bitch. But you know what? It does not feel good to kill another human being … although I am glad I did it.

Now I’m waiting for the cops. I hear the sirens nearing. But I am not worried; I will not be here when they arrive.

With the barrel of the gun in my mouth, I think of My Georgia and tell her that I am on my way.

When I see the first cop car approach, I slowly squeeze the trigger.

I’m So Afraid of Dying

I’ve been a long time livin’, too long

I’ve been a long time hurtin’, too long

I need to feel somethin’ good, for a change

I need to feel the touch of another, for a change

Sometimes I’m so lonely, so blue

Sometimes I just wanna die, I just wanna

There’s gotta be a better life awaitin’, for me

There’s gotta be somethin’ more than I have, anything

There’s only one way to find that somethin’

That is to move on

But I’m so afraid of dying

Love

Love is never spontaneous.

Love takes work.

Love, over time, grows strong like a mighty oak.

No sapling is Love.

Love is soft and low.

Love is hard as a rock.

Love is not words.

Love is action.

Love is showing.

Love does not have to be spoken.

Life without Love is a long, lonesome road.

Love is being sheltered from the rain and snow.

Love is the Tao.

Love is the Way.

Never trade for your Love.

Never expect anything for your Love.

Because then it is not Love.

Weird Stuff

Note: Here’s another snippet of my youth. I don’t know why I’m writing so much about myself these days. Perhaps all those people who have, throughout the years, told me it wasn’t all about me were wrong. Maybe it is all about me. If not, I gotta get back to writing fiction. I’m feeling a need for a spurned lover to take his revenge. In the meantime, here’s a story that is true down to its last word.

*****

How to convey something that I know, down to my very soul, to be true? How to put into words something that no one is gonna believe? How indeed?

I reckon I’ll get right to it and see what happens, see who believes what.

I’m out hitchin’. I’m twenty years old. I’m a robust young man in the prime of his life. It’s early morning. The sun has just cleared the horizon to the east, and I’m heading west on Interstate 80, a brand new super highway. I’m on my way to San Francisco, the year is 1970. As I write this, I don’t remember where I slept the previous night. Probably in some bushes off the side of the road, snug in my sleeping bag.

I’ve been eating, at least as well as one can while on the road. Perhaps my last meal was the night before. Perhaps it was only an hour earlier. I can’t remember, but I do know that I am not hungry. There are two of us in the car, me and the guy that picked me up that morning. We’re shooting the shit as the vast, flat lands of Nebraska speed by.

The guy tells me he’s getting off at the next exit and that it’s out in the middle of nowhere. He suggests I get out at a rest area that’s coming up ahead. There’s nothing there yet … no restrooms, no nothing; the road is too new. But if someone pulls in there, my chances of getting a long haul would be a lot better than if I stood at the entrance ramp outside of Nowhere Town. I agree and my host pulls into the rest area and lets me out.

I look around. The land sure is flat. I can see for miles and miles, all the way to the horizon, so far away. Then I notice there is one thing at that rest stop: A small plaque telling me that particular portion of Interstate 80 was built on the old Oregon Trail. Big deal. I had never heard of the Oregon Trail.

This sucks. No one is pulling into the damn rest stop. I’ll never get to San Francisco. Only one thing to do, get back out to the highway and stick out my thumb. It’s about a hundred-yard walk, so I heft my bedroll and start walking. I’ll have a ride in a few minutes. Maybe if I’m lucky, the guy will offer to buy me lunch.

But then something funny happens. One minute I’m filled with vim and vigor and the next, I’m getting really tired. Funny, but not worrisome. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other. Get out to the highway. That’s where the cars are, that’s where your next ride awaits you.

With each step, I’m slowing down. It gets to where it takes all my willpower to take one lousy step. My feet weigh a ton each. My bedroll weighs two tons if it weighs an ounce. I’m almost to the highway. Gotta get there. Standing here ain’t gonna get me anywhere.

But it’s no use. I’ve come to the end of the line. I couldn’t take another step if my life depended on it. I just want to collapse. It takes all my strength just to keep upright. My feet are mired in the asphalt—cemented in place. I feel my soul wanting to leave my body. I won’t be heavy any longer. What a weird thing to think.

Just then a car pulls up next to me. It’s coming from the rest area. The passenger window is down. The driver leans over and offers a ride. I want the ride, but I can’t move. But if I don’t move, I know I’m going to die. How do I know that? With my last bit of energy, my last ounce of strength, I reach out and open the car door. But that’s it. I’ve got nothing left. The only thing I can do is fall into the passenger seat. The guy doesn’t wait until I’m all the way in before he accelerates. It’s a good thing that he did. It closes the door for me. I sure as hell couldn’t do it.

He wants to know where I’m headed. I answer in a weak whisper. It’s all that I can manage.

The guy’s really moving. The land is flat and there are no other cars around. We’re tearing up miles. But the funny thing is, the more miles we tear up, the farther I get from the rest area, the stronger I get. My strength is returning. Four minutes and five miles later, I’m restored. I’m once again a strapping, youthful guy with his whole life ahead of him. I don’t know why I think that, but I do.

I put the whole thing out of my mind. Never to think of it again. It was just something that happened. I’m looking forward to my sojourn on the West Coast. I love hitchin’ up and down the Pacific Coast Highway. I always meet interesting people who take me into their lives for a few minutes, a few hours, or even for a few days. Whatever.

Fast forward twenty-seven years.

I’m now middle aged, forty-seven years old. Out of nowhere, I start having this recurring dream. In it, I’m on the plains of America. The sky is blue, very blue. The sun is warm, it’s summertime. Things are quiet. I hear not a sound. I stand behind a covered wagon, I’m at the tailgate. I’m feeling weak, very weak. It takes all my willpower, all my energy, just to keep standing upright. My folks and my sister are at the front of the wagon. They are dead. We tried to cross the continent on our own. We did not provision properly. We ran out of food, I think. The details are murky. Maybe something else killed my family. I don’t know. All I know is that they are dead and I’m dying. I want to bury my family, I should bury them. But I just can’t. I’m standing, holding on to the tailgate for support. But not for long. In a few seconds, I’m going to fall to the ground and die. I don’t think I am scared. The last thing I see in that life is the rough, grey, weathered wood of the tailgate and the tall, brown grass of the prairie as it comes up to meet my face.

The dream comes again and again and again. Then, one time, for the first time, I look around in the dream. I look behind me. I see the prairie. It hasn’t changed. And I know, with a calm certainty, that I am standing on the exact spot where I stood rooted to the ground on that day in 1970. It’s the same damn place. The exact same place! The same two square feet of earth—just different times.

After that … after I came to understand what had happened to me as a twenty-year-old kid, back when I was on the road … the dream has never returned.

How I Met Terry

NOTE: This is an edited excerpt of a much longer story. This was the beginning of a five year stretch that took my life, turned it upside down and made of me a completely different human being than I was before I met Terry. I was once so young and innocent. As all the tales of my youth, this one is also true. Regrettably. 

It was a few days before Christmas. I don’t recall the exact year, but I was about twenty-seven and I was at one of my accounts, a “head shop” … you know, where “drug” paraphernalia was sold. The shop was on the beach, so I left Henry in the car; the passing parade of beauties was enough to keep him occupied.

I hadn’t been through the door for more than a second before I fell in love. There she was, looking into a display case of hash pipes. Red hair, petite, a figure a woman half her age would kill for. She was fortyish, but to me she was the sexiest woman I had ever seen.

Prior to meeting Henry, I was shy around women. But, after spending two years hanging around with him, I had finally learned how to speak to the opposite sex. Now that I knew the ropes, I walked right up to her, gave her the killer smile that never failed and said, “Howdy, may I help you?” I figured if she thought I worked there, she’d be more likely to talk to me.

She told me she was looking for a hash pipe for her son, for a Christmas present. Well, to make a long, embarrassing story short, I came on to her with everything I had. But she wouldn’t give me the time of day. As far as I got was to learn her name and where she worked.

I remember walking outside, getting into my car, and just sitting there. I said nothing to Henry; I just stared at the door of the shop, waiting for her to come out. Henry looked at me and said, “What’s happening? Let’s blow this pop stand.”

“I can’t, I’m in love.”

She came out of the shop, gave me a half-smile, and turned her back on me.

I’ll tell you what I didn’t know at the time. Her name was Terry; she had just gotten out of prison. She had done five years of an eleven-year rap. She had been a member of the infamous “Murph the Surf” gang, named after Jack Murphy, the leader. Jack got all the press; they even made a movie about him. But there were two leaders of that gang. The other was Bobby Greenwood, Terry’s old man. You older folks might remember the “Star of India” heist from the American Museum of Natural History. It was one of the biggest jewel thefts in history. Well, my little love was in on that. The gang all got light sentences because everyone loves a jewel thief.

However, the main reason she would have nothing to do with me was the fact she had a sugar daddy paying her bills. She had three kids from three different men, and I guess it can get scary out there, especially if you’re on parole and all alone in the world. But I didn’t know any of this at the time. All I knew was that I had the hots for a woman that wouldn’t give me the time of day.

I’ll spare you the details on how I won Terry’s heart and got her to throw over the sugar daddy in favor of me.

All right, now we can get down to the nitty gritty. Terry and I got hot and heavy, and eventually I got to know “associates” of hers from the old days. These were second-tier members of the gang. At the time all the shit went down, they were young. But when I met them, they were Terry’s age and just getting out of prison.

Back at that time, almost everyone was smuggling marijuana into South Florida, even the “good old boys” on the west coast, shrimpers, fishermen, and the like. They referred to the bales of pot as “square grouper.” That’s where Sonny, an old friend of Terry’s, was based out of; he had done eight of a twenty-year sentence. So, Sonny and the other guys fell right into the smuggling thing. They were bringing pot in every week. They had a squadron of boats that would go out and pick the stuff up from the Bahamas. They were making money hand over fist with nowhere to put it. That’s where I came in. They thought my business was just the place to invest some of their ill-gotten gains.

Now I’ve got these wise guys as partners. And I have to admit; as far as partners went, they weren’t so bad. Every Saturday, another briefcase of cash was flung onto my desk. It got so I told them enough already. I remember one Saturday I had stayed on my boat because I was trying to avoid that week’s stipend. Well, ol’ Butch tracks me down and says, “What’s the matter with me? Why won’t you take my money?”

I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, so I said, “Okay, Butch, just this one time.”

And with that, he tosses me a brown paper bag and says, “Here’s fifty large ($50,000.00). Thanks for taking it.”

“Don’t worry about it, Butch. Maybe you can do me a favor someday.”

I may have given you the wrong impression about the timeline. It wasn’t until two years into my relationship with Terry that I got to know “the boys.” By then, Terry was living in Los Angeles. I had opened an office out there and rented an apartment. Once there, Terry went Hollywood on me and refused to come back to Miami. She was having a ball; she had hooked up with an old girlfriend, a “fence.” You know, someone who buys stolen goods. Her name was Irene and she once sold me a diamond ring I wanted for Terry, three carats. Got it for $1,000.00! One time, Terry and I were fighting and she took the ring off and threw it at me. I picked it up, put it in my pocket and said thank you. You should have seen the look on her face. Well, being the sport that I am, I gave it back to her. Needless to say, it never left her finger again.

Then things got kinda interesting. But that’s a story for another day.

 

Getting Through

I once met Kris Kristofferson at Johnny Cash’s house. I’ve written about it and maybe some of you have read of that meeting. I was eighteen years old and didn’t know him from Adam, he wasn’t famous yet. He offered to give me a ride back to the highway (I was hitchhiking to New York) but I declined his offer. Now I want to tell you about my second encounter with the man.

I had spent the last four and a half years of my young life hitchin’ around the country. I left when I was seventeen and came in off the road just before my twenty-second birthday. I had decided to start a new life for myself—a new life in a new town, someplace where I knew no one.

The town’s name and the reason I chose it ain’t important. It was a midsize city. The year was 1972. Got myself an apartment and found a job right off. I was all set to start my life in earnest. No more going from town to town and living off the land. I had got the roaming out of my system.

I went to work every day and then went home every day to an empty apartment. I was never much into watching TV, so I’d read books. I’d go for walks in the woods across the street. I played Frisbee by myself. I had no human contact outside of work. And work wasn’t all that great either, because I worked alone and had limited contact with other people.

I was so lonely I’d sit on the front steps of the apartment building so I could say hi to the other tenants as they came in, hoping they would stop and talk with me. There was a dive bar in the neighborhood and I’d go there in the hopes of a little conversation, man or woman, I didn’t care. But it never happened. It got so that I could really relate to the Hank Williams’ song I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.

You wanna know how bad it got? One day a guy came by selling magazine subscriptions. I invited him into the apartment and sat him down and listened to his spiel, enraptured to hear a human voice. I bought subscriptions to magazines I didn’t even want to keep him there longer.

There’s a special kind of lonesome for the young. When we’re young, we want to be a part of what’s going down. We want to meet up with our friends at the local pub. Get together for get-togethers, for parties, for going to the beach, to laugh and cavort. Maybe not so much in later life, but when we’re young, there’s a fire in us. And whatever that something is, I had it bad. I was so lonesome I could have cried. And on occasion, I did.

Now this is where Kris comes into the story. I was browsing through the bins of a record store one day and came across the album The Silver Tongue Devil and I. I took one look at his picture and thought: What the hell? I know that guy! I remembered sitting across a kitchen table from him as he sang one of his songs for Johnny. He had just written it and he wanted Johnny’s take on it.

I definitely was gonna buy the record, but did the cat have any others? Sure enough, in the same bin I found Border Lord. I took them home and put them on the turntable. From that moment on, the loneliness I’d been living with started to ease. It wasn’t overnight, but the clouds slowly parted as I listened to Kris sing When I Loved Her. When I heard him sing about that wasted guy on the sidewalk, searchin’ for a shrine he never found and wearin’ yesterdays’ misfortunes like a smile, I realized that I wasn’t the only lonely person on earth. I would find myself and get my shit together on that “lonely way back home.”

He sang about the lonesome, the misfits, he sang about me … he sang to me. He brought me sunshine. He got me through my darkness.

Well, long story short: Here I am in my dotage. But in the half century since I wore the grooves off those two records, I’ve never been lonely again. And I think if Kris were to offer me a ride today, I’d take it.

If you’re interested in reading about my first encounter with Kris, you can do so here:

https://andrewjoyce.wordpress.com/2018/05/26/john-kris-and-me/

When It’s All Up

When it’s all up, whatcha gonna do?

When it’s all up, you gonna cry, you gonna beg?

When it’s all up, what will you be thinking?

You be thinking of your long fine car?

You be thinking of your diamonds and your cash?

You be thinking of the power you had over others?

Or you be thinking of other things?

You be thinking that you never had enough?

You be thinking if only you had more, then you’d be truly happy?

You be thinking of the anger you felt that others had more than you?

Or you be thinking of other things?

You be thinking of the beauty of a sunrise?

You be thinking of the time you dallied with your young love in a sunlit-dappled grove?

You be thinking of the love you shared in your short life?

When it’s all up, ain’t no more time for high hattin’.

When it’s all up, ain’t no one gonna come to your rescue.

When it’s all up, you’re gonna have to go back to Mother Earth.

When it’s all up, what are you gonna leave behind?

Life Giver

I posted this a year ago. But I’m putting it up again for the three new followers I’ve accumulated over the last 365 days.

 

 

We are here to create … I do it with words … but we all create … if nothing else, we create our lives each and every day as soon as we get out of bed.

I once had a mystical experience when I was quite young and on the road.

That experience forms my writing … it forms me … I spoke with God … once upon a time …

I swear this is all true. This is an abbreviated version of what happened on that magical, mystical night.

Back in 1968 when I was eighteen and hitchin’ around the country, I was going from LA to Miami. Thought I’d go home for a spell. Along about sundown, a blue pickup truck picked me up on Old Highway 90 in Arizona. One thing led to another and the next thing I knew, I was spending the night with a young Apache Indian. His name was Jimmy.

After his grandmother fed us, we walked out into the desert and sat down on a small rise. The western sky was aflame with bright orange and pink clouds. Another day was coming to an end. Jimmy talked of Geronimo. He spoke for over an hour. I listened with my eyes closed.

Then things grew quiet. I was hesitant to open my eyes; I did not want to break the spell. Though, eventually, I did open them and looked directly into the face of God!

While Jimmy was talking, the sun had traveled to the other side of the world and the stars had come out. Never had I seen anything like it. For three hundred and sixty degrees the stars touched the horizon. No light impeded their brilliance. There were no buildings to block my view of that wondrous sight. There was just as much starlight as there was black sky. I felt as though I could reach out and touch them, they seemed that close. I could see how Ptolemy believed the earth was encapsulated within crystalline spheres. In the dry desert air, the stars did indeed look as though they were made of fine, delicate crystal. I saw the Great Bear … and Polaris, the only star that does not move. Orion seemed as though he could lower his arm and smite me with his club. I was in the midst of searching for other constellations when Jimmy broke my reverie. He said, “It is time.”

Jimmy handed me a wooden bowl; he had one just like it. We each held our bowls with two hands in front of us, about chest high. I was told the potion would help me go within, to commune with the Old Ones. Jimmy said: “It is my hope to speak with Life Giver at times like this, but it has not happened yet. Although I have been trying for many years. I am told by the older men to be patient. That Life Giver will speak to me when I am ready to hear what he has to say.”

Jimmy reached his bowl towards me, as in a toast. I did the same. Then we drank whatever that concoction was. (Hey, I was young and open to anything.)

He said that we would not speak again until morning. He would continue facing west, and I should face north. I walked ninety degrees around the rise to Jimmy’s right, sat down, and awaited whatever was to come. It was starting to get a little cool, and I thought it would have been nice if I had had the forethought to bring a jacket. In an effort to keep warm, I brought my knees up to my chest, folded my arms about them, and rested my chin on my knees.

Time started to stretch out. A second felt like a minute. After a while, I noticed I wasn’t cold any longer. I unfolded myself and lay back to look up at the stars. As I said, time was playing tricks on me. I don’t know how long it was before I heard The Voice. At first I thought it was Jimmy, but when I looked in his direction, he was staring off into the western sky, oblivious of me and his surroundings. Then I heard it again. It was in my head.

Aloud I said, “Are you calling me?”

“There is no need to use your vocal cords … think … and I will hear you.”

For some reason, this all seemed perfectly natural. As though I spoke with disembodied entities every day.

My first … or if you want to be technical about it,  my second question was, “Who are you?”

I swear this is what I heard:

“I have many names, and have had many other names in the past. I am known to your friend Jimmy as Life Giver. I am known to you and your culture as God. Some refer to me as Jehovah. I am called Allah and Krishna by others. Some call me The Tao, or The Way.”

I don’t know why, but, for some reason, it did not seem strange that I was having a conversation with God.

“If you are who you say you are, why do you speak with me when Jimmy has been trying to speak with you for years?”

“I have been with Jimmy all those years, and more, waiting for him to notice me. I am with my children—all my children—always. I am never not with you.”

NOTE: To cut down on the prose, I offer a transcript (as I remember it) of my conversation with the entity, which I have come to believe was indeed who It claimed to be: Life Giver. Before you make up your mind, read the transcript in its entirety. Then decide if what I heard makes any sense.

ME: It just doesn’t seem fair that I’m here speaking with you when it should be Jimmy instead.

LG: Jimmy and I do speak, all the time, but not in this way.

ME: Have you come to teach me some great truth?

LG: You have nothing to learn. None of my children have anything to learn. You only have to remember.

Me: Remember? Remember what?

LG: Who you are, and where you come from.

ME: Now I’m getting confused. Aren’t you God?

LG: We are God. Some refer to me as All That Is, which is more descriptive of the truth. There is only ONE. We are both a part of that ONE. This planet’s first religion was The Law of One. In a time long forgotten, man knew from whence he came. That is what I mean when I said you have only to remember.

ME: So, why can I experience you and Jimmy can’t?

LG: As I have stated, Jimmy, you, and all of humanity experience me every day.

ME: What I mean is why am I talking to you tonight, and Jimmy is not?

LG: How do you know he is not speaking with me now as you are?

ME: Well, I guess I don’t. I reckon God can carry on more than one conversation at a time.

LG: You reckon?

ME: I didn’t know God had a sense of humor.

LG: I have what you have, you have what I have. We are ONE.

ME: I guess I was pretty lucky when Jimmy picked me up this afternoon, or else I wouldn’t be here speaking with God.

LG: It was no accident that Jimmy offered you a ride and a place to sleep. Jimmy and I arranged it while he slept last night. We spoke in his dreams. Though he has consciously forgotten our talk, he has remembered it subconsciously.

ME: Then why am I here?

LG: Do you mean why are you here tonight, or why are you here on the planet Earth?

ME: Both … I guess.

LG: You, and everyone else extant on the physical plane, are here because you want to be here. You, personally, are here tonight because I have a message for you, and this was the only way to make sure you heard it.

ME: Before you give me the message, may I ask just one more question?

LG: You may ask as many as you wish.

ME: What is the meaning of life?

LG: The meaning of life, the reason you, and all our brethren on this planet and on all the other planets in other star systems, is to choose. Making choices is the reason for life. The choices you make is the way I express myself. When a life is completed, the experiences you bring back to me are a gift. A gift from a loving child who has volunteered to endure the hardships of the physical plane in order that its parent may BE.

ME: What if we make the wrong choices?

LG: You cannot make a wrong choice. Whatever you choose will eventually lead to evolution, and over time evolution creates balance as part of the nature of existence.

ME: Even if we make a choice based on hate?

LG: Remember this: Ultimately, there is only Love. All so-called negative emotions—hate, anger, jealousy, greed, just to name a few—stem from fear. The only way to combat fear is Love. Love always wins out over fear.

ME: WOW!

LG: WOW, indeed.

ME: You said you had a message for me?

LG: Yes, you are planning on going home. You, of course, may do anything of your choosing. However, you came to the Earth to teach. Some of those you have agreed to teach will miss their lessons if you go home now.

ME: I thought you said we have nothing to learn, we only have to remember.

LG: The lessons help you to remember. As a song will bring back memories of the time you first heard it, the lessons you, and all teachers, impart, help those involved to remember.

ME: I’m just a kid, how can I teach anyone anything?

LG: First of all, you are as old as I am. We existed before time began. Secondly, you teach by example. Some will learn from you after seeing you for only a moment, others will have learned their lessons after many months with you. As you, in turn, will learn your lessons from others you will encounter.

ME: You say I have a choice?

LG: Of course you do.

ME: Okay, as long as it’s my choice. I don’t like to be pressured, even by God. When will I know when it’s time to go home?

LG: I will tell you.

ME: Sounds like a plan.

LG: Yes, it does. It is almost daybreak. It would be better if you left without disturbing  Jimmy. He is speaking to his inner self.

ME: Well … good-bye.

LG: I am always with you.

I got my carcass up, looked over at Jimmy, and mentally said good-bye. I walked the few hundred yards to his house, picked up my gear, and walked into a new day.

Three years later, I finally made it home.