HORSEMAN c1982 by Phil Osehippos

     Jack Harrison lived in a small hill-country town until he went to college in the northern, geographically flat section of the state. He received no support from any lineal limbs of his family tree, even though he was the first from either side who attempted to branch out beyond a high school level of learning.  Jack graduated in the top one-percent of his senior class but neither parent ever cultivated a continuance of their son's education. They were still adding to Jack's list of siblings and believed college was for "rich" people (brains or no brains.)  Mr. Harrison suggested "barbering" as the best thing to get into, today.  With no immediate experience to draw from, Jack's innate intelligence was smothered by the lack of incentive to rise above his cornbread-and-beans beginnings.
     His football coach encouraged him to attend his alma mater, a privately funded institution, via a grant-in-aid program.  The most common way to pay for tutelage was to produce on the gridiron and receive monetary assistance from well-organized boosters. The part-time job arranged in conjuction with his grant didn't provide enough hours to defray academic expenses and his athletic ability was limited, at best, so he became more indebted to the college with each passing month.
     Off campus, Jack's rustic beginnings and culturally deprived attitudes didn't surface through his drawling accent since a majority of the local working class had roots in southern states and many of the wealthier citizens were farmers.  But the student population was from metropolitan areas or eastern states.  Their proper articulation and palpable affluence pushed Jack to assume a defensively timorous posture.
     By association, Jack was lumped with the jocks who ground out winning seasons in exchange for coaching degrees, so his strong classroom skills were shunted.  In addition, he was labeled as a "hillbilly."  An all-state halfback, named Joe Meeg, smiled and asked Jack to repeat the word "milk."  Then "chair."  Then "town."  And on and on, ad nauseum. 
     Jack's shy demeanor was further aggravated by his limited experience with girls.  He'd had one steady dating partner, back home, and she had turned his heart wrong side out.  Determined to never allow that to happen again, Jack was convinced he was never going to be tied down by a wife and kids. But one of those hip city kids who lived across the hall, asked a question which would forever stick in Jack's memory.
     Gene Winger looked into Jack's eyes and asked, "Ah, come on, you mean to tell us that one of these days you won't want a little Jack Harrison running around, so you can take him fishing or hunting or to all the places your dad took you?  Or to all the places he didn't but that you wish he had?"
      Jack felt the question sear his skin to blush, before settling as a dryness in his throat.  He swallowed uneasily and denied the possibility.  Gene was lean and had a slightly effeminate way of expressing himself, the way he moved his hands and eyes, but he had touched a purely male nerve end.  All guys want to have boys.  Baby boys.  Male offspring.  They all want to say, "That's mah boy!"  And Jack Harrison was from a long lineage of men who were as typically male as they could convey.
      Six years after Gene had implanted the subconscious seed that manhood would nuture, a girl was impregnated by the same Jack Harrison who was so adament about avoiding marriage and children.  Jack's ego clouded his certitude and blocked the sophistication that had been developed during two years of college and  four years of military service.  He refused to listen to the suggestion she go live with an aunt in California and give the baby up for adoption.  He declined to face the religious extremes; her "cradle Catholicism" vs his lack of even a basic babtismal rite. He never considered the fact he was insisting on a wedding simply because he wanted a son.  By God, that was his kid, he would join her church, be betrothed by a priest and the boy would be raised a Roman Catholic.  He would make it work by telling her he loved her until they both believed it. He overwhelmed an unwilling and unprepared partner.  Seven months later, his first daughter was born.
     Maude Harrison's second pregnancy happened during a celebration of the fact she wasn't pregnant.  Thirteen months later, a sister was born.
     When their third child was born, Jack sneaked into the hospital after hours and his wife was crying.  He told her to move over and allow him to sob over the fact it was another girl.  He'd invited a blond to his house and had to end dancing with another probable piece to make it home in time. He performed at his peak during the height of a disappointing event.  Weeks later, Jack was informed she'd become pregnant and had a D&C immediately.  He wondered if that was his "boy?"
     Dr. Quentin, who delivered the other three, told Mrs. Harrison her reproductive organs could accomodate one more pregnancy before a necessary operation to remove cysts.
     Jack Harrison's final attempt for a boy was planned to the moment of conception.  It was premised on the theory that the weaker male sperm have a better chance of furnishing fertilization if they don't have to travel as far.  Maude had shown Jack an article which stated that, usually, the "X's" outnumber the "Y's," but fade quickly, while the "female-makers" are stronger and last longer but less numerous.  The secret was to shorten the distance to the ovulated egg.
     They  abstained from sexual activity until she informed him of the slight pain which indicated her monthly release.  As the ovum began its slow descent, using split-second timing, they visualized the male-oriented sprinters coming out of the starting blocks, full tilt, for the short dash to the cell of life. But it isn't that simple and the Harrison's were still batting 1.000;  four-for-four, all females.  No son, hon, sorry again.
     Shortly thereafter, Jack had his vas deferens deferred.  He became a spayed cat, not a spade cat, a neutered stud, loaded for barreness and shooting blanks from the hip.  He'd been anxious to leave the operating table, but was held back by the restraining hand of the surgeon, who admonished, "You are only half-safe and that isn't safe at all."  Jack lay back for the second cut.
     Charlie Watts hd told Jack it was a simple operation and he'd had it done, years before, while working as a truck driver.  He claimed to have gotten into his rig and finished the day's hauling as soon as the doctor was finished.  Jack wondered about the type of drugs dispensed to Charlie, because he had to keep his nuts under ice for an entire weekend and returned to work gingerly, after three days.
     Once sterilized, Jack realized the laughs the classic vasectomy joke evokes - about the fixed dude whose wife then requires a hysterectomy - has no relationship to the enjoyment of the fact it is impossible to impregnate any woman, not just one's wife.
     Images are conjured of young hens seeking the sterile rooster to because they can't be fertilized.  Men see themselves as free to play around with none of the weighty conseqences a pregnant playmate would bring to bear upon their bare, cheating butts. After the novelty wears off, the reality lies somewhere between the fantasy of unlimited pussy and the fear of limited puissance.  A vasectomy makes it clear it is easy for a man to take the initiative in birth control, just as Aunt Liza alluded to while lamenting her restricted choices after eight offspring and no end in sight, in the pre-pill era.  Men were even less trusting of any operation which might endanger their manhood.
     Jack considered himself to be a sort of martyr.  He did it for his wife, his family.  For a dozen years he'd been "doing it," putting most of the energy into the contract.  At times, he'd worked two full-time jobs in order to keep his wife home with the kids. But she questioned his "love" almost daily.  Her strong instincts would have kept her in the reproductive line for as long as her varicose veins and stretch-marked abdominals could tolerate the nine months of pressure.  Jack never suspected her drive was more eternal than maternal.  He never knew she didn't have the confidence to believe she was ample enough as a brace against all of the distractions which can erode and topple the matrimonial state.  She used each daughter as another shackle with which to hold her man.  For years, she perservered at pretending to enjoy the enforcement of  child-bearing while showing deference to her husband.  When the ability to have more children was removed from those hollow bonds, they shredded.
     After the divorce, Jack felt a slight twinge of regret about the vasectomy.  He wondered why he hadn't considered the implacement of a stainless steel spigot with which a vasectomy could be turned off or on, at the whim of the owner.  However, his new freedom made him appreciate the fact he'd had his DNA building blocks blocked.
     Re-marriage occured years before Jack had planned.  In fact, he never intended to get hitched again anymore than he had the first time.  But he met a younger classic beauty who was everything his first mate hadn't been.  She was elated at the prospect of having no children and Jack was really in love, this time, so he never thought about the question of a "little Jack."
     However, eight years later, while in the midst of his 45th year and infused with that special sort of intensity unfullfilled dreams and artificial highs may produce, he began to hint at having a pup out of Kate.  She began to hint at his insanity.  She did not intend to dot a nine months sentence with one of her periods.
     Jack's first inkling that his second union was doomed came one morning as his wife glared at him after turning away from her makeup mirror.  She pointed with her eye-liner pencil and said, "Jack, you just never stop trying to find something outrageous to suggest, do you?  Well, I have been to as many sides of your personal-motives mountain as I intend to scale.  You want a son?  It is not going to be out of me.  I am not your bitch-in-heat.  I am not thrownig any litter for you.  I hate littering.  I love you.  But I have to lay it on the line, this time.  No!"  Then she turned back and calmly stroked the shading onto her classy countenance with a steady, graceful hand as she readied herself for work.
     Jack understood.  It was crazy to begin to awaken a fantasy from such a distant past.  Being re-tied and trying again to have a son, at his age, was a delusion of grandeur.  And to bring the subject up while his wife was hot to trot with her latest career opportunity?  That was driving across thin ice.
     Katerine Harrison was Lassie in a pound of hounds.  She was a long and limber stone fox.  Jack had always wondered about the results of combining his genes with hers.  He was certain she would be a mother any kid would be able to enjoy and relate tot because of the natural rapport she had with all age groups.  Plus, she was the finest female friend he'd ever known.
     If she had consented to cooperate, he entertained the idea of having his sperm drawn out and implanted.  It wouldn't be the same as getting indecent (balls and all, that's in decent) or ramming a full-blown erection to the hilt.  That kind of lovemaking is difficult to put into words suitable for a woman's ears.  Men have to avoid all references to actions that may be interpreted as boar-like which culminate as a wallow in the bacon-makin' pits.  No matter how a male's desire to sire is stated, it is hardly an affirmation of love, romantically speaking.  Women want love to be ladled in small layers, while men want to be awash in waves of getting layed.  Why wait?  Fornicate.
     Jack could not shake his complusion to change, physically and emotionally, in order to reproduce himself.  April came to the Bay Area like summertime couldn't wait to ease away from a saturated winter. The weather went from sot to hot within a week's time.  Jack was soaking up the rays while listening to the California mocking birds chorusing with Peter Wolf's vocals on FREEZE FRAME, as the freeway entry ramp traffic droned in the background.  He was rushed by a sudden desire to leave Stonarosa.  He had to get away and get started on the arduous task of finding another mate and having that boy.
     He visualized himself back in the Buckeye State, enjoying one of its finest springtimes and that was the impetus which caused him to return to his roots.  Within two weeks, Jack Harrison was running and sunning and enjoying zero responsibilities in the greening glory of southern Ohio.
     He'd  arrived after four days and four nights of non-stop hitchhiking.  His six-feet, one-inch frame was stripped  to 155-lbs. of sun-drenched skin, stretched tautly over undernourished musculature.  His gray hair was dried and its shaggy length covered his ears to blend with ten-weeks growth of salt-and-pepper beard.  One feature contradicted his road weariness.  His eyes seemed to be reflecting more blue than usual.
     As soon as he got out of the pickup truck he'd thumbed just outside town, he remembered it had been over twenty-five years since he'd walked the street in front of his former high school, sans wife and kids.  He wondered what sort of reaction he wauld receive from his relatives, especially since he wasn't sure if he could explain his reasons for returning.  In fact, just five years before, after a short visit, he'd sworn he would never return.
     But here he was, back "home," in the village where it is always 8:18 on the huge downtown watch.  He walked the two blocks to his mother's house and entered through the unlocked front door.  He figured she wasn' t awake so he quietly stretched out on the living room carpet and crashed.
     He was awakened by Aunt Liza who came inside to feed his mother's cats.  She informed him her sister was visiting in Columbus.  She seemed more concerned about his gaunt appearance than his presence and asked if he'd found anything to eat after the initial, "What are you doing here?"
     The same question was repeated by everyone who entered the house.  Jack answered honestly but hardly satisfactorily to each sister, brother, cousin and, eventually, his mother.
     "I'm not sure, yet, I just ran away from home and ended up here."
     Nobody was glad to see him.  Nobody offered any commiseration of kinship.  Jack had returned unannounced, unexpected and unwanted.  Yet, he felt bouyed by the rejection of family and lack of recognition by former friends and neighbors.  Somehow, he ascertained this was a perfect time and place to start over.
     He asked his mother if he could stay with her, find some kind of job and return to college.  She told him he could stay as long as he wished but he detected some reluctance.  She later alluded to how depressed the economy was in this part of the country and believed he would return to his wife in California after a few weeks of cooling off.  Also, she believed his starting over plans were pipe dreams.
     He worked every day in and around the four-bedroom house she was occupying alone since the last of her six children had moved out.  He did every task; washed the windows, walls and dishes, did the laundry, lawn and garden, to her wishes, and anything else she asked.
     He began a strict regimen of daily exercise and running in the rays of the warmest May on record.  He was obsessed with rolling back the years of time and really beginning anew.  His three sets of situps numbered 450 and his three sets of pushups totaled 120.  He ran 10-miles every other day and lifted weights three days a week.
     With each passing day, Jack felt more secure about having returned to the site where it all began.  He did the roadwork, the pushups, the situps and the get-ups from the table, eliminating fats, sugars and preservatives.  Reasoning that everything and anything is more likely to become a probability if a person is physically fit, he molded his body into a powerful physique, thus eliminating the only reason for failure to complete one's dreams, i.e., not being physically able to handle it.
     He intended to be physically able to handle all of the challenges of fatherhood, this time.  His son would demand it.  Starting with the sperm count and ending with the final count, Jack figured to increase the intensity through fitness.  He was in training for the biggest bout of his life - the battle to be better than ever before - and he wanted to be peaking all the time.  Even if he died in the process of attaining his goal, he wanted it to be another energetic experience to the bell, be it pealing with inspiration or tolling his expiration.
     Smiling to himself, he imagined himself in terms of the fabled spermatozoon who had worked out feverishly in hopes of fertilizing the egg of a potential All-American.  After sprinting to the lead, his future was sucked away above the frantic pleas of the poor fellow to "Stop, go back, hold it, it's a blow job!"
     One late afternoon, brother Bob stopped by to ask Jack to go mushroom hunting.  The temperature was a high humidity 80-degrees and they stopped for an 8-pack of Stroh's after  picking up another hunter.  The man refused any of the cold brew.  Bob took it as a personal affront, questioning the friend's manhood with a series of caustic remarks while he and Jack drank one after another.  The three of them arrived at the property which belonged to the fourth member of the mushroom search.  The wooded acreage was perused diligently but only three morels were found.
     After ending the hunt, they returned to the farmhouse and the four joined in the enjoyment of the host's beverage supply.  Jack accepted the proffer of an unopened fifth of Jack Daniels Black Label #7 and took a couple swigs after breaking the seal.  The sipping whiskey swished into the pool of six or seven consumed beers mixed with the three helpings of Mom's cooking Jack had eaten earlier. As Bob got up to leave, the host handed the bottle of Jack to Jack and told him to keep it.
     "Man, this is barely touched, why do you want to give it up?"
     "Take it, I insist, I want you to have it."
     "OK, my man, thank you."
     The gesture would prove to be paramount to Jack's future.
     After the other man was driven home, the two brothers continued to cruise around the county back roads and drink the remains of the sour mash.  Jack began to fade fast from the onslaught of  "JD."  Bob was feeling it, too, as he 4x'd his pickup off the pavement, into and out of a ditch and straight up through high weeds to park alongside the fence which bordered the outside lane of the fairgrounds racetrack.   Bob bounded out of the cab and vaulted the fence before Jack had even located the passenger side door handle.
     The nearest source of illumination was a distant security light and the only sound was Bob's heavy stream of urine thudding into the dry clay of the track.  Jack's bladder was screaming for relief but he realized his side of the vehicle was a long step down the slope of the embankment.  He began to manuever into the bed of the truck  while still holding the whiskey bottle.  After some struggling he stood in the bed.  He considered pissing over the side but his brother was asking about the contents of the bottle and although he couldn't see him, he decided to step from the truck to the fence and then jump to the track before handing over the near-empty bottle.  Then he would relieve himself.
     Visibility was limited to no more than a few feet in the no-moonlight darkness as Jack stepped to the edge of the bed of the truck.  He extended his right foot towards the top board thinking it was the larger surface of a fence post.  From below, Bob had a better vantage and saw that his brother was misjudging the width of his foot placement.  When he warned Jack with "Don't...!" it only distracted Jack's dulled reaction time. 
      He stopped in mid-step and teetered on his left leg, then shifted his weight back to the narrow edge of the truck bed. Then he pivoted drunkenly 90-degrees to his left in an attempt to regain balance.  As he began to fall back into the cargo space he tried to push off on his left foot, sideways, to clear the fence.  His right leg scissored off the edge, pulling him into the blackness.  He dropped and straddled the five-foot high fence.  His scrotum was scrunched between the 3/4-inch width of plank and his pubis.  Each gonad fit snugly between the wood and his ischium bones..  Before the pain had even registered, Jack felt he had split himself to the navel.
     Nerve ends frayed, trying to penetrate the alcohol laced lanes to his brain.  The intense distress manifested in lightening bolts and flashing stars, then a white-out followed by a blackout as Jack's eyes squeezed shut.  Bob could see the reflection of a distant light in the beads of sweat which oozed from the pores of Jack's face.  He watched as Jack pushed the clear bottle's bottom skyward and sucked the insides dry before releasing his grip and tilting backwards astride the fence.  He held as though impaled, then rolled off and fell face down into the horsetracks and scat.  He writhed, clutching himself and screaming in agony.
     His brother was certain he would need assistance getting Jack off the track and into his truck, so he sped away across fields and yards to a friend's house.  Even though the buddy was dressed and needed no explanation, by the time Bob drove back full-throttle with head-snapping shifts, Jack was gone from the accident scene.  The other man thought it might be a ruse but knew better when Bob phoned his mother and informed her Jack may not be coming home until morning.  He was sure Jack was passed out and incapacitated somewhere on the fairgrounds even though he and the friend searched and called out for a half-hour before leaving.
     At daybreak, Jack awoke next to a horse.  He was on straw in a stall and much or all of what he'd eaten the day before was on him, the floor or the wall.  Bewildered and wounded, he struggled to his feet.  Slowly, by slight increments, he stood, feeling the hammering ache fill his skull then overflow into spillways of pain.  Fill, spill, refill, spill, refill, spill until he was upright except for a slight tilt of his head.  The horse began to get up and Jack left via the open window before he was aware his crotch was of more immediate concern than his hangover or the aroused animal.  He got up from where he had landed after clambering through the narrow opening and after a few moments of leaning against the whitewashed structure, minced his way towards home, cautiously avoiding detection by following a path along nearby railroad tracks.
     After two weeks, there were no remaining ill effects of the drunken fall except that it took a few minutes each morning to loosen up enough to leave the bed and walk to the bathroom.  He inspected himself for injury and even though he couldn't detect any, he felt some physical damage had been done subcutaneously.  He knew that ice should have been applied during the first few hours but after he'd limped to his mother's house that morning, he'd crawled into bed and slept untill mid-afternoon.  When he did get up he went no further than the back yard to lie in the sun where his mother berated him for abusing himself with alcohol even as a first cousin was dying in Indiana from a brain tumor.
     "Your poor cousin is suffering for reasons he can't avoid and you did this to yourself!"
    Hot tub soaks and short walks cured the soreness and after two weeks he resumed jogging.  After some time, the only cause for concern was the dream he'd had that night.  Plus, he couldn't remember the blank space between the fall and the horse stall.  Jack Harrison is as aware as anyone that alcohol is the most dangerous drug and in a very high percentage of instances, a person will remember what happened while under the influence, especially after being reminded by others.  Even though most everybody has been guilty of conveniently "forgetting," the truth is they refuse to admit they were so far removed from their usual personality while intoxicated.  How could they have been so bizarre and embarrassing to themselves and others?  "I don't remember any of that." is usually a lie in reply to an eye witness replay of incriminating details.  But in his case, this time, Jack could not remember, nor did he have any witnesses to help reconstruct the events after the fall.  What he did remember, though, was vivid and frightening.
     He recollected the dream as real and as emotionally charged as all nocturnal emission sequences which surprise men when they awaken to climaxial throbs.  It had begun with the outline of an enormous crocodilian set of jagged, prehistoric jaws.  Eyes were hidden in silhouette and the body was a blur.  The ugly mandibles were still, parallel with Jack's line of sight.  The nose was even with Jack's left eye and the thicker section aligned with his right eye.  Then it changed form, becoming a faint, lithe, running female.  She appeared to be running downhill from him.   He attempted to follow but was frozen by stabs of agony between his legs and the figure faded away.
     She reappeared and drew nearer, running towards Jack, revealing details of  a tall, tanned, shapely blond.  As she came within Jack's reach, she was suddenly and violently transformed into a beautiful horse.  Jack grasped the graceful filly's neck with his hands and felt the animal collapse effortlessly.  He entered the steed, his face buried in fur.  He felt thick slimy suds of perspiration against his lips and nose, breathing in the warm wetness and tasting the musty mucous. The chimera continued  as all of Jack's reproductive appendages were alive, extending themselves  to sizes and proportions of intensity which sapped his strength.  But he kept concentrating and bearing down, pouring more energy into that area of his body until he was frightrened he'd gone too far.  When he finally ejaculated, his life seemed to be ending as it was pulled through his organs to be expended into the beast. Definitions to express the sensual scintillations and heady joys of sexual relations between a man and woman could only come close to describing Jack's encounter with the horse in that dream.  Or was it a dream?
     The memory was coupled with the fact he hadn't been with a female since the incident and it began to haunt him.  He wasn't certain he could perform sexually at all and the freaky, kinky nature of the nightmare
may likely create some sort of mental blocks of guilt or ineptness.  Jack's son-fixation seemed to be pushed further into the less-probable category.
     He increased his running to every day but mostly on paved surfaces. His left heel felt bruised and the pad behind his right toes became tender.  Since he didn't have money to replace his shoes, he began to yearn for a more forgiving path.  He thought about the junior college track in California with the rubber compound lanes which felt like jogging in new shoes with cushiony insoles.  He also thought about the fairgrounds track at the site of "Williegate."
     Jack had run there even though he received a ration of trash from a lady rider who kept screaming for him to stay on the far outside lane.  The next time, a dark-eyed jockey told him the track was for horses, not people. One morning, a large Doberman was loose on the infield and Jack supposed it was there to distract any bare-legged humans.  The dog came onto the track on the opposite side from where Jack left to return home.  The experience with the horse people and his dislike of  dogs combined to form an anger from persecution by those who would try to prevent him from using the public facility.  He felt an intense need to tell somebody.  In a paranoid portent of his compulsion to find a mate to produce a son, he spotted a well-dressed lady as he was about to cross Santa Rosa Avenue, veered from his usual direction and sprinted towards her.  She was about sixty-yards away and by the time he got there, she was inside her Firebird and ready to key the ignition.  Jack slowed beside the automobile on the curb side and then stepped in front with his hand over his heart while looking through the windshield.
     "Please, can I get a lady to listen to me?"
     The sweat was dripping from split ends and scraggly beard as he moved to the opening she'd given him by rolling down the window.  He bent over and began, breathlessly.
     "Thank you, I feel the need to tell somone this and I'm glad it is a beautiful lady like you."
     "Well. I don't know about that," the blue-eyed beauty protested while beaming a thirty-two flash of even ivories.
     "Hey, you know you're a fox and you don't need an old funky dude like me to stop you on the street and remind you."
     "OK," she agreed, showing some impatience while waiting to hear the rest.
     He told her about running at the fairgrounds and since it is tax-supported he should have as much right to train as the horses.  He was intent to sound convincing while digging her classy makeup, shining hair, smooth skin and friendly calmness.
     "Anyway, today there was a Doberman running loose and it was on the track when I left.  If somebody is allowing that dog to run unleashed in an attempt to keep joggers away, then tomorrow there will be a showdown.  You can tell your friends and neighbors it will be the canine or me, soon after noon."
     Although she seemed sympathetic and agreed Jack may be in the right, she was preparing to leave.
She started the car and Jack blurted, "It's going to be a motherfucker, baby, if we clash!"
     Then quickly added, "And I apologize for that last outburst."
     She smiled, said "It's alright," pulled away and waved goodbye.
     One morning, as Jack sat on his mother's front porch, drinking tea and thinking about the tracks in California, he was approached by an old friend.   Dan Trapp told Jack that he owned and trained standardbreds at the local fairgrounds.  He invited Jack to visit the track on Saturday and said as long as he didn't interfere with any training procedures, he would get approval for him to jog there.
     When Jack arrived, Dan showed him his five horses which were stabled at the opposite end of the same barn where Jack had ended up on the night of the drunken accident.  After being shown around and introduced to some trainers and other horse owners, Jack began using the track.
     He would use the railroad route to the grounds, go through the barn and onto the half-mile oval.  When finished, he'd leave the same way.  He felt at ease, running where he was known and once in the barn he always glanced at the horse in the end stall.
     The fairgrounds held many memories from Jack's earliest days.  When he had been growing up, the traditional first fair in the state always opened there.  Also, it had been the venue for stock car races, carnivals and days of playing with friends in the barns and livestock pens.  Now, he felt a sense of his grandfather's spirit because the old man had spent many hours of his last years walking to the stables with his dog and visiting with other fellows who hung out there.  Jack's compassionate remembrance of his grandad was manifested in the cry of the kildeer, the views into the surrounding hills and the silent strength of  the stabled steeds.
      Circling the turf, he would observe the natural trotting gait that man utilizes while running or walking if the arms are compared to forelegs.  He began  to feel some type of equine eqanimity and he would try to relate his own aches and pains with those of a horse.  He experimented  with different foot placements and speeds to eliminate the hurt and tried to imagine how similar problems would effect a horse's will to run and win races.  He was developing a desire to work with the animals to test his theories.  He would observe the rail, the bank  and the texture of the surface, turning on bursts of speed in order to get a racehorse's viewing angle.  Entranced with different techniques, his mileage mounted sans the boredom of counting each lap.
     One hot June afternoon after having run alone for about ten weeks, he was surprised to hear someone behind him.  He glanced back and thought it was a mirage.  About twenty-yards back was Ms. Perfect.  He increased his pace but she pulled alongside before he finished another lap.  They exchanged greetings and continued running together.  Then she spoke of doing some stretching exercise and trying a faster lap or two.
     "Want to join me?"
     "Certainly."
     In front of the grandstand was a lower fence and there she slowed to a stop.  She introduced herself as Doris, before extending one leg supported on the top board and touched her chin to her knee as easily as he could touch his thumbnail to his spine.  Jack's stretches weren't nearly as limber but after reaching the toes of each extended foot, he told her his name and asked, "Are you ready?"
     "Oh, I'm just following you,"  she answered.
     For most of two laps, Jack was having a difficult time staying even with her, but then she slowed, waited for him to circle past, thanked him, waved goodbye and jogged off the track through a nearby exit.  Jack continued  running slowly, cooling out, in a daze, wondering if he'd been hallucinating.
     She was there the next day and every day for the next four weeks.  She would arrive shortly after Jack and they would run together.  Se was getting off on her so much that he dominated the conversation with immediate facts, as if to discount the time she spent anywhere else.  He was fearful of discovering information which might break the spell of his enjoyment of being with her.  In fact, the discourse decreased  proportionately to their increased number of days on the race track.  But she seemed very interested in Jack's horse/man running theories.
     "Jack, I hear you've been spending lots of time with my daughter.  Now you know she is just a kid, my kid, in fact and...."
     "Wait, wait, wait just a by-god minute, Dan.  Your daughter?"
     "That's right, Doris Virginia Trapp, my oldest baby.  You mean you didn 't know?"
     "Know?  No.  Hell no, I didn't know!"
     Jack faced his old friend over the two beers sitting on the old barroom table and tried to read something in an expression or gesture that would indicate what direction the conversation would take.  He had stopped to express his thanks for being allowed the opportunity to run on the track and to ask some questions about horses.  He wanted to get closer to them and perhaps assist in the care and feeding and training of them.  Dan owned the bar.  It was the first time he'd been able to talk to Dan since that first day he'd been shown around the stables.   Although the two men had been tight friends in the past, their differences were drastic now.  Dan was tens of pounds overweight, less than healthy and operating a coal mining business in addition to racing standardbreds.  Jack was running and owning nothing.  Yet he had just discovered thay had a mutual interest.
     Jack sat across fom Dan, paranoid, confused and a little frightened by what his old buddy had to say about Doris, Jack's newest obsession.  He had come to question Dan about horses and was suspecting he was about to receive a lecture.  He thought of all the ways he could appease the "old man" but he was certain the truth wouldn't be clear.  So he waited as Dan studied his face and began to speak in low, confidential tones.
     "Jack, I'm glad it is you, in a way, because it makes it much easier to be honest."
     Jack felt guilty already.
     "My DV is in love.  Some man has put a smile on her face and that man is you.  Even though I know you and know you are damned sure old enough to be her father, I believe the relationship is as innocent as she claims.  She told me, already, you aren't aware she is my kid.  Now, maybe I don't really know you or what you are all about, anymore, but I do know that if this friendship progresses, it can't remain as pristine as it has been, so far.  Doris can handle herself and she's been able to handle the men in her life, including me, so my warning to you is to not get hurt.  Remember, old heads are hard but old hearts are brittle.  Forewarned is forearmed.  You be careful."
     "Thanks, Dan, I appreciate it," Jack said as he raised his glass in salute and rinsed the lump in his throat down with huge swallows of beer.
     The very next afternoon, Jack was jolted to see Doris standing in the end stall, talking to the horse.  The initial shock of seeing her someplace besides the track was further intensified when he approached and realized the horse was hers.  His heart jerked to an increased rate as if from an electrical impulse.  He had just "hit the ties" as he referred to the quick pace between the train rails on the way to the fairgrounds and he was sweating profusely.
     Doris Virginia noticed his lanquished expression and his unsteady stance.  She showed immediate concern, but Jack forced a weak smile and assured her he'd be alright "after a few laps and a hot shower."
     "You can forget the laps,"  Doris insisted.  "Get in my van.  I'll take you to get a shower."
     Jack followed her directions and slid into the front seat of the green and gold vehicle with the side picture window.  As he sat there waiting for her to finish with her horse, he wondered if he would ever be able to face her with the details of that haunting night?   She soon arrived and wheeled the van away from the fairgrounds.   She glanced at Jack to make sure his condition wasn't deteriorating as he sat stiffly, looking straight ahead.  He was in a daze from the sudden reality of all the days of dreaming about being alone with her.  He couldn't decide whether to be elated or if the timing was ill-fated.  His mind was reeling and rocking back and forth while his body was as still as if stricken by catatonia.
     It was a short ride to the house and she backed into the driveway, came around to the passenger side, opened the door and reached to assist but he waved her off and she stepped back to follow him to the door which was unlocked.  Jack hesitated, Doris opened the door and he followed her inside.  Once inside, she directed him to the shower and asked if he wanted a beer.
     "Bring two in here," he said.
     After soaking each other and drying to taste, the waves of her queen-size water bed washed away all of Jack's worries about the physical and psychological damage the drunken trauma may have caused.   Doris matched Jack's best ever.  The kind of best which includes a strong physical attraction.  The kind of best that includes it all, to the finishing climax.  When there's nothing left but a "Thank you for hanging, and a "You're welcome.  And you shout on the way away from the bed, "Damn, that was good!"
       Less than three weeks later, Doris mentioned that her two-year old, Phyllis Nash Rambler was showing signs of gestation, yet hadn't been purposefully bred.  Jack flashed a replay of that night and began to lose control.  Outrageously, he conjured a scene of smashed sutures, mutilated sperm and a fertile filly.  The nightmare clouded over the official fact of his sterility.  Somehow he had impregnated a horse!
     Jack suffered alone.  He avoided Doris and began to run away from town, to the lake and on into the woods. Whenever he saw a boy or a horse, physical features of each would be rearranged to form grotesque, inept caracatures of a "horseman."  Scenarios played in his head of him raising a bastardized beast. He was sliding slowly but surely into this surrealistic fabrication.   The extremes in his life during the past three months had twisted his psyche until he was afraid to think.
     He avoided Doris from the instant he'd walked away after hearing about Phyllis.  Punishing himself, he pushed aside the last hours with her and concentrated on the consequences of  unaccountable amount of time during an alcohol blackout.
     Doris Virginia Trapp wasn't having any of this crap.  Jack was jogging slowly along a country road, early one morning, when Doris sped past him, jammed the van into a sideway slide and blocked his way with a dust cloud.  The door was already open and he climbed aboard suppressing a smile.  The van was accelerated  and his grin turned to wide-eyed seriousness as dust and gravel was churned into a rooster tail curtain of brown.
     "Miss me, Jack?"
      "Yes."
     "I was out of town for a couple of weeks, but what about the rest of the time and the bullshit walk-out you pulled on me with not a word?"
     "Why'd you have to leave town?"
      " I had to take Phyllis Nash Rambler to a surgeon to have the false pregnancy growth removed."
     Jack's tear ducts emptied over his cheeks.  The fantasy was finished.  The false feeling of renewed virility vanished.  He cried while laughing at his insanity and Doris listened, puzzledly as he pieced together imagined events. He leaned back and wiped his closed eyes with his shirt sleeves.
     "Guess I'm just a crazy old man, huh?"
      "Do you remember the date of that night?"
     "Very well, 27th of April, a Wednesday, I think."
     "I was there.  I saw you on the track."
     Jack sat upright and listened, bug-eyed and dumbstruck as she spoke of jogging around the perimeter of a nearby ball diamond because two secuity lights were out at the track.   She saw the truck, heard the commotion and the screams.  She went to investigate after the truck sped away and nearly stepped on Jack.  Startled, she ran a short distance and then back to offer assistance.
     "Now I remember, Jack interrupted, "I wanted to run after you and tell you not to be frightened, that I needed help, but then you were gone.  Then I managed to crawl under the fence to hide my disability.  Even saw you return.  Then I heard Bob's truck and must have passed out.  Crawled or walked  to the barn and collapsed in the end stall.  Thought it was empty, I suppose."
      "Phyllis probably thought it was me.  I visit her at night, sometimes. Besides, she raced in West Virginia that night and was too tired to move."
      "It's awesome to think I want a son so badly.  Anxious to be changed back. Or perhaps it was wanting something unique to result from all that pain. I don't know. I just know I love you and I feel indebted to you for being there then, and being here, now."
     "I love you, too, Jack and something did happen because I'm definitely pregnant and I've been with no one else but you for at least six months."
     That evening, a beatific smile covered Jack's face and the joy encircling him was as thick as funk.  His last image before falling into a deep restful sleep was of a spermatooza squeezing from one crushed end of a spaghettii-thin tube and squeezing into the other crushed end.  He also had a smile on his little microscopic mug.

                                                               The Finish Line
      
    
    
    
    
    







     
      
          
    
    
    
                    

THE 2020 ALL-TIME LIST

page one


Marker had just come inside the apartment on C Street and handed Harson a soup-size plastic thermos.
"Dink said you'd know how to open this. It's a special treat for you."
Harson unscrewed the lid and Marker said, "It's empty, I said 'special treat.'"
 After prying the container open with a kitchen knife, Harson found a gram of coke stored inside a folded sheet of paper.
"Are you ready for a Little King?  I brought three cases, oh yeah, and these."
He held up a baggie and there were four purple pills inside. Harson shrugged.
"It's acid, man, a hit for the four of us"
"Is that acetylsalicylic acid?"
"Very funny, this is purple microdot, good shit, not easy to score...."
"O-fuckin'-K, I believe you."
Marker smiled broadly and exclaimed, "We going to party, or what...or maybe you gettin' to that 'too old' stage and...."
"Boy, forget you talkin' to the HaWK? You wish you could hang with me."
Marker had driven from Ohio in Dolly Daggar's Lincoln. She was Harson's sister-in-law, twenty-years Harson's junior. His wife was fifteen-years younger. Harson had no interaction with a chronological peer for nearly ten years.
He'd met Marker Boyd after Dolly'd been asked to introduce him to her brother-in-law. Harson had been scoring hash from a TU student who was breaking off slabs from a sheet and calling it a gram or two grams. It was probably stolen and all profit, so Harson got "ten" grams for $70.
It was smoked by sticking a piece on the end of a needle, lighting it and quickly putting the needle under a glass bowl. After it filled with the white smoke, one person would bend down, lift the side of the bowl and inhale the smoke, re-cover and hold the hit while another took a turn.  Traditionally, it's toasted by water pipe people, with multiple mouthpieces so someone is drawing all the time and the hash stays lit. Anything else is mostly show. Which is where Marker came in.
    He wanted to buy some to impress his clientile.  He paid  Harson eighty-five dollars for the "ten" grams.  After quite a few years, while Harson was chiding Marker about his high school dealing days, Marker admitted he turned it over for ten dollars a gram within hours after weighing with balance beam scales.  Never did reveal how close the "ten" was to true.
     When Harson had first become aware of  Marker, they were members of  one of two Roman Catholic Churches in a farm and factory northern Ohio community and were straight.  Harson was attending with his first wife and daughters.  Marker had just been adopted.  He was black and every direction he looked was white, as he crawled over one parent or the other.  Harson watched him grow to serve mass and then to be spoiled  by most of the town while he partied and lived at home.  He was quick to laugh and  his diction was exactly like the rest of the townspeople.  He visited Harson and Colleen often, becoming a kid-brother-friend they both enjoyed.  Both men began dealing pot about the same time they first got high.
      Discussing, comparing, inspecting and testing marijuana provided enough of a bond which eventually led to cross-country visits by each, to touch bases.  This one was precipitated by Humboldt County sensimillian.  Harson had moved to Eureka, California, made acquaintance with a grower and had a deal set up for Marker to get a quarter-pound for $375.  When Walter Wilson delivered it, he held the bag up and gave a bit of a swish towards Marker and affected, "The next one will cost more, darlin'."
     Marker just laughed at antics he'd never seen from anybody, especially a black man.
     Dolly was between them, smiling, and Harson remembered her father warning her about the population of young blacks at the Ford plant where they were both employed.  She listened.  Quit her job and drove to California accompanied by Marker.
     Just weeks before, another couple crashed at the Kelley's prior to getting an apartment.  He was in the roofing trade and was travelling with a girlfriend from Demoines, Iowa,  Rochelle "Rocky" Russel.   She said, "goodness" alot and it came out "g'ness."  She spoke of the Blue Moon Lounge which was a hilljack joint where she could hear SATIN SHEETS.  Nearby was Up Your Mother's.  Rocky said, "You probably got a buzz if you''re inside there."
     She was travelling with "just Dennis,"  another back home Catholic.  Major dealer, one time, during the Boogie Hall days.  Packed heat and never stayed around long.  One time at Harson's, Marker and Gut were toasting one when Dennis stopped by.  Marker starts quizzing him down which he did with everybody and when he asked his name he got, "Dennis."
     "Uh, Dennis...?  What about a last name?"
     "Just...Dennis."
     "Whoa-ho, 'just Dennis,' me and Gut knew he was bigtime!"  Marker used to crow about that incident.
     Dennis was avoiding a warrent of some type, or something similar and had followed the Kelley's to Eueka.  He spoke of looking for psilocybin mushrooms but he quickly was hired on by a roofing contractor.  He was also a classmate of  another hometown Catholic, the friend of Colleen's who provided a roof when the Kelley's first arrived to stay.
     The first time, they used a drive-a-way from Chicago to Santa Anna but had five days, so they drove to Glatt Street to see Sharon.  It was exactly 1000 miles over their 3500 mile limit.  For some reason Harson and Colleen overlooked the mileage written on the form by the older guy who had picked them up at brother Bruce's and drove them to the lot his son owned to get the Chevy El Camino.
     There was a two-hundred dollar deposit to be picked up at the dropoff office and a $.20 charge for each mile over the limit.   Colleen was taking a whiz as Harson and the proprietor went to the car.  The guy checked around then opened the door to check the mileage. 
     "According to this, you're a thousand miles over.  That eats your deposit."
     "Hold up, dude, this makes no sense.  I get lost once in the City and it's a thousand miles?  Exactly a thousand?"
     "Yeah, right here, take a look."
     Harson was seeing it for the first time and bluffed, "I've seen it man, but I'm telling you it must have been printed wrong."
     Just then Colleen arrived and asked about the protesting.  When told, she launched into a mini-tirade.  She ended with, "In fact, he couldn't see the odometer and asked me to repeat it to him.  He just copied a number wrong, that's all."
     "That's right, I'd forgotten about that," Harson agreed.
     The guy began walking towards the office mumbling that it was too late to call Chicago so he'd cut a check and cash it.
     The Kelley's, carrying bags and baggage, walked over to a Taco Bell, paid for an order and sat outside eating and planning to hitchhike towards Huntington Beach.
      Marker began rolling joints as soon as he checked the special aroma of the pot Walter had delivered.  The hits were rinsed with the 8-oz. bottles of ale and Colleen fixed casidillas under the flat surface of an electric waffle iron.  At the urging of Marker,  Harson lined up some of the power powder on an antique mirror his wife's grandmother had given her.  Later, Marker handed Harson the acid pill.
     "Here, take this, man, me and Dolly and your wife have already eaten ours."
     Harson Welsey Kelley was acronymically nicknamed "HaWK,"  by his grandfather.  Few others copied Ernest D.'s appelllations, so it was obscure even within the family.  However, he began to use it as the identity of his marijuana persona, e.g., "the HaWK is in a steep stoop!"  Harson also believed he was going to be published as soon as he had the time and resources to get it down on paper and get it in the mail.   Boosted by what he believed to be a release of creativity and a perfect place to "be a writer," Harson jumped around fashioning stuff for The Writer's Market and it all seemed the likely hit to allow him to dip into his well of stuff and get money.  He'd reached age forty-two and was stuck in semi-poverty in northern California and could only hold on to the writing.
     He would eventually figure it out or it would come to him and he'd be the one to put it down for all to read...but not tonight, Harson was thinking.  Just relax and party.  Dennis and Rocky arrived to add a 6-pack to the party.
     Marker drank from the corner of his mouth, the green bottle held sideways as he looked directly ahead.   Taking small sips and talking between, he spoke of an arsonist and wondered if Dennis recognized the name "Torch?"  He'd been grilling Dennis down about different people back home that they both might know.
     Harson sensed Dennis was uncomfortable,  so he stepped in and told Marker to back off.  Dennis left the room.
     Dolly and her sister were catching up and Rocky was fitting in,  the younger dudes were joining the small talk and laughing as HaWK perched by the second story bay windows watching the Halloween evening  decorations and costumes below.  In Eueka, there are neighborhoods with Halloween adornment as dedicated as Christmas.
    "When is the last time you heard about a country so free that it could proivide a living share for everybody?  You're in it!  It's happening here."  HaWK was standing and preaching to young ears listening to party conversation about real stuff, not political ranting.
    "You hear that, it's on the radio?"
    Alan Parsons Project Breakdown lyrics were meshing with his speech and the "freedom, freedom..." chants set him off.  Harson Welsey Kelley was on his first acid trip with coke, alcohol and high grade pot back.  The writing jones was bursting his seams.
     Rocky mentioned the beautiful full moon everyone else had gone to see, so he suggested they all go together to see it.  All six squeezed down the narrow stairwell and into the middle of the street.  By then, the neighborhood was quiet and dark.  Suddenly, HaWK was concerned about Dudley, the renter below them, and whether or not he was alive.  He began going toward Dudley's apartment door with five people trying to hold him back which became a weight the door latch didn't stop and six people tumbled into a space at the foot of Dudley's iron bed in a weak night light glow.
    Dudley was laid out and  Harson yelled, "Dudley, if you're alive, let me know."
    The toothless dishevelled figure sat straight up and screamed, "I'm alive, goddammit, now get the hell out of my house!"
    As soon as Harson was hoisted upstairs, Dennis had Rocky by the hand and was on the way out with, "I can't be here, man, wouldn't be good."
     Colleen was leading HaWK around as Marker said he was taking Dolly for a walk because her trip was starting to go bad.
     Dennis and Rocky were hurrying while hugging and had cleared the first cross street when two cruisers screamed to a v-cordon behind them.  Three patrolmen in full riot gear advanced toward Kelley's.
     At the other end of the block, the scene was repeated with four in riot gear advancing.  Dolly was half-leaning on a picket fence and Marker left her to run to the first officer and ask what was going on?   He was told about a major disturbance in this block and Marker said there was just him and his girl and she's kinda sick...he was told to get the girl and leave.
    Meanwhile, Harson was under the delusion the street below was filled with media and spectators awaiting his move to recognize them.  Somehow it was tied to his writings but there were other keys to his corridor of  mind doors like a brother in the crowd shouting out his nickname.  He grabbed a wheeled TV cart and mumbled about it being the moment and was going to heave it through the bay windows.
    Colleen grabbed it back to the floor, then grabbed her husband and spun him through the bedroom doorway and onto the bed.  She climbed up onto his chest and began slapping him.  She was jacking his jaws from side to side, then shaking him by the shoulders and shreiking  for him to snap out of it.
     He neither felt nor heard.  His head was spinning into futuristic visions.  His focus closed on a Norman Rockwell style cover of the July 4th 2020 issue of THE SATURDAY EVENING POST.  It was a caricature of each member of  The 2020 All-Time List.  HaWK is in front because he has written the one-sentence quitessential definition of "an American."  Another was the inventor of the Skycar, a vehicle able to hover out of jams and accidents.  He sees futuristic scenes in a city he had yet to live in.  The next thing he realized was sitting on the edge of the old claw-foot tub in the bathroom at the back of the apartment.  The cruiser lights reflected through condensed moisture on the window panes producing a red and orange frosted flash.
    "I really did it this time, didn't I?"
     "Yes, you did."
     Harson imagined he'd completely destroyed the front-half two stories of the old 
Victorian structure.  In his mind, the two of them were sitting behind the closed door of their bathroom and only jagged timbers and broken boards formed the wall to open space.
    "Does the landlady know?"
     "I'm sure she does."
     "Will we be evicted?"
     "Probably."
     Colleen helped Harson to his feet and opened the door.  Harson paused, then realized the apartment was still intact.  But the "List" was still real.  As they passed a desert scene wall hanging, Harson reminded his wife the camera was still behind the camel.  He believed he'd created a huge audience and networks were plugged into his apartment and neighborhood, awaiting the description which was to put him on a future course to join an "All-Time."
     He mentioned Lou Gehrig as another noted member and when Colleen didn't recognize the name, he viewed her as being in a Gracie Allen role and decided to patronize her for the millions tuned in.  He began to worry about Dudley again and spoke of  wanting to see him to make sure he was alive because if Dudley is dead it means he will also die before he has time to come up with "the description."
     He grabbed his wife's hand and held it against his chest proclaiming he could feel it pounding and her eyes indicated she too, could feel it.
     HaWK thought he had to concoct the sentence while on live TV.  His wife thought he meant he had to write it so she lead him to the typewriter and suggested he sit down and start typing the "answer."
     "I don't have time!"
     "Yes, you do."
     HaWK glanced at the clock and it was fifteen minutes from midnight.
     "You mean I have fifteen minutes to put it down on  paper?"
     "Go ahead."
      "Impossible, I can't do it.  I can't type!"
     "Do you want me to do it?" 
     Colleen moved a chair next to her husband and began to type:  Dudley is out there.  Harson Kelley is out there.  HaWK is out there.  Lake Alma is out there.
     She got up and said she was going to get Dudley.  Marker and Dolly had just returned and she told them to keep an eye on Harson.  By the time she convinced Dudley to get dressed and come upstairs, Rocky and Dennis were back, so everyone was wondering about another meeting with Dudley.  Harson inquired about the reason the neighbor was being aroused and Marker told him because hed insisted.
     Dudley wasn't a stranger.  Harson had spoken to him many times and Colleen had been friendly.  He claimed to be part Indian but he wore cowboy boots and hat.  Said he played the steel guitar and mentioned some unknown bands.  After awhile it was clear he was a recovering alcoholic, receiving government aid and likely to hit the bottle and be locked up again.
     Harson hugged Dudley, tentatively, as if making sure he was real, then offered to make him a sandwich.  Colleen had already begun to grill peanut butter with mayonaise between white slices. Dudley was soon the center of attention, holding court in the living room and expounding on the bad effects of white lightening.  He explained that Indians call everything that intoxicates  "White Lightening." 
     Suddenly, Harson was hearing what P.D. the biker told him once.  He was talking about the only people not to mess with, from hippies to Hell's Angel, with two or three colors in between.  But don't fuck with the cowboys!  The all-inclusive definitive sentence which would describe all Americans was flipping the trip anew.
     Harson began to ramble on about Dudley not knowing if he was an Indian or a cowboy and how the quest to write the sentence is becoming more difficult.  Colleen brought his slippers and placed them in front of him and asked him to check them out.  When he looked down, he saw his grandfather's slippers.
     His wide cuffs were like those on full-cut trousers his grandfather wore.  HaWK was standing on his grandfather's legs.  He walked to the sink, cleared away some dirty dishes and spit into the drain while running water, an act he'd seen his grandfather perform.  Colleen was aghast as he explained it was all on TV.  Then he walked towards Dudley who was furiously chewing on a bite sans teeth.  Dudley seemed uneasy with the stareing.  Colleen gave Harson a sandwich and when he inspected it, he decided it was the All-American sandwich, sure everything was still being recorded.
    He believed Dudley was his grandfather and that somehow their bodies were going to transpose into one with attributes of both, grandfather and grandson.  Dudley's half-sandwich and HaWK'S half would be the "key" matchup to unlock the interchange.  Anxious moments, until Colleen led him slowly to the typoewriter and insisted he finish.
     Once again, the last line she'd left left him less plugged into the trip.

page 27

     He glanced up and down and across the street which used to run parallel to the four lanes of highway 101 which dissect the city.  This street wound through the poorest neighborhoods in an un-incorporated, previously Italian section, through a railroad underpass, across third street and on to the Railroad Square area.  Over surfaces from bumpy and curving to smooth and straight, and three street name changes, it eventually led to the city's original shopping center.
     Harson puzzled to remember what was different.  The first thing he noticed was the absence of the huge tree which he'd only heard described as a "monkey tail" because of the long stemmed seed pods with the hard discs encircling them.  Then it occured to him there were no automobiles, either parked or being driven.  Also, there were none of the homeless vagabonds and local poor who used to lie on the small patch of grass or meander around waiting for the Catholic Worker's Kitchen to open.  But turning to look towards the building he'd just left, he became aware it occupied three entire block lengths, encompassing a former hotel, the soup kitchen, an antique store, barber shop and record store.
     Everyone else on the street was rushing past as Harson stood alone.  There was a loud whooshing sound and a train arrived on tracks which he'd seldom seen used.  It came at tremendous speed and stopped in an instant.  Gull-winged sides opened and two or three hindred people disembarked.  They boarded what Harson had seen as empty truck trailers.  Each had a different destination identification but Harson recognized only the "San Francisco/Oakland."  As soon as each was loaded, the trailers were driven away silently.  Harson would learn that each was designed to be attached to a truck and propelled at high speed on a reserved strip of 101.
     Within seconds, the area was deserted until three more trailers arrived.  Another large group transferred from trailers to train and they were whooshed away.  Harson stood alone again. He walked over to the Third Street Bridge to see if anyone was there.
     The outline was there but the creek was gone.  It's flow was now encased by a steel conduit and controlled by automatic valves.  No more trouble than a kitchen spigot.  Harnessed at all the former tributaries, outside the city, the once natural flow which supported fish and game and beautifully lush banks was now contained in an unforgiving metal.  Harson remembered the early '80's when the creek had swelled like an engorged womb and self-cleansed its walls with a dynamic douche of millions of gallons of torrential rainfall.
     Harson continued towards his old neighborhood and thought about those times when he spoke of being the Mayor of Roseland while dispensing pieces of his positively patriotic melting pot principles.  He smiled at his intensity to do THE THIRD TESTAMENT.
     He finally met another person who wasn't rushing by.  He immediately thought the man was older than he appeared because of the look in his eyes.  They didn't seem to shift of dialate to see, as if focusing on the near and the faraway, at once, as if conserving energy for the lean body.
     Harson spoke with a hearty, "Hey, brother, how's it with you today?"
     The man stopped, smiled and asked, "Are you natural?"
     When Harson hesitated with a squinting expression, the man asked, "Do you still do synthetics?"
     "Hey, man, no chemicals.  Hell, I don't even take aspirin.  Yeah, I'm a natural tetrahydrocannabinolic, know where I can get a buzz?  You got a joint or a bowlful.  I have a pipe not far from here."
     The man put up his hand as if to stop Harson's speech.  "You've been watching too much of the history channel.  Here, take this budduster."
     Harson accepted the small foil-wrapped cylinder and read the fine print before unwrapping.  He could barely believe his eyes as he examined the reed which was very similar to the hollowed lengths he'd used on HaWK"s Haunt to smoke pieces of the Mendocino bud he used to score from Lisa Squirrel.