The Mothers are Always Better

Once upon a time in a time that should perhaps be buried under stones of impunity, two people came together to mate and when the mating had been done they moved away from each other like strange ships in the harbor.

Is it upon us now , the tale we have to tell? Without the confusion and false starts that in themselves would bring tears to a sentimental era? Enough said that two people came together for the purpose of mating and in the confusion of that act understood they had come for no other reason. Two people, then, and a time forever which they will squirm in the memory of it; tantalizing the present and future with exotic scents and fashionable clothes as if the ornaments have some power over memory.

And I? I sit in a tree with a flute against my lips and watch the moon rise and fall. A damn pretty site through the black, naked limbs of this tree. And the road below me, half complete, leading from over a concatenated roll of hills towards a vast city in the distance where a night is a sequent burning fire one can observe from the air. They have removed the wheat, here, stalk by stalk. This was not a pretty sight. Prisoners from the local jail were driven by convoy trucks down this road and pulled to a turn-out half a mile down the road; angry men in brass chains. I could hear ever faintly the orders barked by the uniformed gentleman to the effect that every stalk was to be uprooted, tied, and then laid in bundles by the side of the road until a machine being driven, at that moment, from another town was to come and devour the bundles with an iron tongue at fifteen miles per hour without a pause; at fifteen miles per hour.

All day the sun crept over the backs of the prisoners until they were stooped in the field and by nightfall the side of the road lit in precise bundles of yellow wheat. Then they were taken by the trucks and disappeared into the night and early morning, under the morning star, came the brute, strange machine exposing its tongue out its side until all the wheat had been eaten.

It seemed like nonsense to me. I knew the government had had a sudden urge to buy farmland for god knows what reason; perhaps to build or invest. The business of government as it revealed itself from point one of my innocence and into packets of profound disgust, didn't concern me at all.

The land spread, I reckon, a thousand acres from both sides of the road. At the perimeters of the land ran a dilapidated barbed wire fence. On the surrounding hills cattle grazed, at times alone and at other times, when it was very hot, close together. I noticed them first as I walked down the road now below me without a care to be truthful about it but reveling in a unique freedom I had won out of the most ungodly circumstances. My mission was to walk until I could no longer walk and I began past the little village behind me, where, perhaps because of an aura that lifted from my body or the fact that I was a stranger carrying a small, black rectangular case- for whatever reason -a seduction was attempted involving myself and two girls.

They were not quite women but then they were not little girls either but preparing to leave high school I believe. Perhaps in this little valley they had only seen city people on television screens so the three-dimensional reality, the flesh of it, astounded their imaginations. I don't know.

I was in my room and writing inside my flute case notations I had heard in my head, carefully remembering what they had looked like for they were real images and not simply sounds I would wrench to retranslate in notation but the notation itself. As I wrote them I could hear the notes play back to me. If I may say so, without sounding pretentious, there was something about these disparate notes. A melody began to mimic itself from node to node. That's when the tapping came at my door. I started I admit, being a stranger and all. I had expected complete loneliness; had even prepared and gone through a kind of initiation for these things though it was anything but kind. I wanted no disturbance but the knocking was persistent however timid it insinuated on my side.

-In, in! I yelled.

The door opened gracefully and the two sisters or friends (I never found out which) stood nonplused at the door. One of them was tall and pale like a moon drop but slim and carrying three or four magazines under her arm. The other was pleasantly plump and dressed in the freshest green dress I'd ever seen as though she'd bought it that morning and ironed it later in the day so when the sun came out it would ravish a strangers eyes. It was completely green without design and fell to her ankles, held at her waist by a thin white belt. She had her hands on her lips and of the two I could immediately tell was the more arrogant. -Yes? I closed the flute case with an unobtrusive gesture, an instinct I had learned so no one would ask me about the curious notations serpentining through the large pale label inside the case.

-Are you from San Francisco? The tall one asked; she with the magazines. I was not from San Francisco proper to tell the truth but from a suburb which these girls had never heard of and which, at times, I was ashamed to admit coming from because it had a reputation for a gross kind of wealth and a crass population who could just as easily have walked the streets of London at the turn of the century as ride in maniacal automobiles through secluded ways and courts winched into the hillside.

-I know the area, I replied. At this the girl broke down into giggles.

-Oh- he's from San Francisco!

-Maybe he has some pot from out there, the plump one said pointing her arm in an indistinct direction.

I had already guessed they had come to me for marijuana but I admit I gave smoking it up years ago out of fear that smoking it gave one a more profound view of things in general. If this had been true I would have had no other choice but to hang myself somewhere for even the roots of trees appeared like sick worms at times ready to eat me alive given half the chance.

I became nearly frenzied by their innocence and stupidity. -I am a passer-by- a wayfarer leave me alone- what do you want? I felt the pressure increase in my own head and sealed my lips closed for fear that the provincial girls would become hysterical or frightened and bring the authorities to my little room. I did not know it at the time and only found out later in a very embarrassing situation that the two women greeted all strangers who appeared out of the ordinary. It was a shock to me that I seemed out of the ordinary. It is a custom of mine, for instance, to cut or trim my hair with my own hands and to do this use two mirrors. I hold a small mirror in front of my face and turn it obliquely so the back of my head is reflected off the reflection. This is for pure utility but I admit now that more than once I've paused and turned my head this way and that to catch an image of my face in different poses. Then I effect a smile and pretend I am someone else observing my smile who must judge ever preciously the contents of the two lips. I imagine a situation where I will be caught unawares in a restaurant or running along a beach and smile for a passing scene and while smiling another human being will be observing me and judging character, potential, and class in the curve of lips or little show of teeth. During this process I've noticed that my face is completely normal appearing with a wide swath of dark beard covering both sides and a hanging bit of fur under by lip. I admit and admit again my solipsistic ingenuity in believing I am an old Patrician that belongs in the Roman Empire instead of the age I was raised in. Years ago, as a matter of fact, I had decided on an athletic career with the intention in mind to bring the crowd to its feet by a shuddering display of muscle and speed. I had been told that if one wanted to be; that the opportunity was there for anyone. And anyone being myself I trained every opportunity I got for the time I would grace the cover of a sports magazine and had, in fact, perfected an autograph which I still carry around with me. But I was diverted from my goal by temptation I guess one could call it temptation or voices and yes voices can tempt but these were voices with a temptation I'd never encountered before and they led me to a hell I neither have the time nor courage to articulate for fear I am still in it.

The thought came over me that I was still in hell as these girls sat and stood quietly in my room without any intention it seemed of leaving. Finally the plump one in the green dress announced that she intended to remove her clothes if I desired. She said it matter-of-factly as though there was no choice (and later my suspicions were confirmed) that it was a chore much like milking cows or shoveling horse droppings into the pig trough.

I say that fully disgusted at myself but with no alternative for I fear love is such a thing and now these two innocents were confirming my fear.

The girls had stepped into the room without invitation and were but three strides away from me. They did not do anything to those mating instincts which are always an embarrassment to me when they appear. I was excited by their temerity however. They had come to my room without invitation and had asked personal questions and now stood inside the room with half smiles on their faces which were not at all demure but stank of television itself as though being from a city like San Francisco I now had to perform for them, somehow. We stood looking at each other for a long time. Soon, the tall one with the magazines sat on the brown chair next to the bed and began reading or flipping through the magazines on her lap. I did not catch the titles of these magazines but the pictures were familiar. I mean, the eyes of movie star's and athletes are as recognizable as anything and apparently this magazine filled itself cover to back with popular heroes. Don't think I'm trying to be derogatory. Kudos always belong to the popular heroes to the ones who can perform well; and my kudos also extend to any man or woman with the soul to perform well.

And I had once been romantic. Not in the vague sense either but in the actual sense of one who feels all is possible and that love between man and woman leads to the infinite or heavenly spheres or sublime music; any place but where the flame of nerves demands satisfaction.

I believe this on experience. And too- I believe women though I have reservations on that point. Women have fought off their shackles. I will -----if I must- and am free or at least as free as the women and heaven help them when they find how free that really is. Repression- when you get right down to it -is better than the imagination. How many ghost stories have been told lately? And who believes anything any more? I tell you again and again this freedom is spurious without an imagination that can fear. Well now, people are doubly afraid you say- someone has said- perhaps a commentator on one of the three networks. But it's all a fear of abstractions. a fear of a wisp of mind lifted by someone to a latitude one actually believes exists over the contours of the planet. And out of of this- one tries to love. This is why I've given this up in general. Women that is. There is no conclusion to be reached in this tale. The young women wanted me to penetrate them as the clock struck midnight and then play my flute. Ah, they found out I was a musician! But, they weren't interested in any song I had to play for them. I waited until midnight and then began to play despite their presence. I allowed them to watch late night television and they turned, immediately, to the music video station where men were painted in all the signs of black magic and were attempting to conjure the haunting season. I was going to warn the young ladies of this but decided that they must find out in their own time, on their own terms. They would have to discover the difference between the light and the dark. They would have to discover the moment when the devil himself dances from the end of some innocuous object that dangles like an old utensil in the shopkeepers window. I wanted to tell them, 'but, young ladies, you must come with me, at this hour, and sit on the rock high above the road and watch the strange dance that occurs when the moon is full. Then, then you will know not to fool with these powers.' But, I didn't. I longed for the city. I was suddenly ashamed of my adventure and my feeble gestures.

They demanded to search me for drugs. They wanted to escape, in the room I let, in my presence, as I tried to play my music. I dismissed their inquiries with contempt and suggested that it was time for them to go. 'Go home girls because I have important things to do. I have more rocks to climb. I have more scenes to witness. I have more sounds to hear. You girls believe I will satisfy your curiosity for the perverse. I will not. Now, please go and leave me.'

Reluctantly they got up and left. It was cold and dark and they sped away in an old car I had seen driving around the valley all the time here.

Two days later I was through with my private business and started my trek down the old road in early morning. I heard the sound behind me. It was the machine and its slow, voracious tongue. It was devouring the bundles of wheat laid neatly by the roadside.

It was dawn and a few birds had collected on the fence, tiptapping along the top before flying to the shuddering machine.

I knew the machine would, eventually, devour the town itself.

I knew the young girls would be its victim.

I knew that the scarecrows would be carted away on its metal tongue.

I knew that there would be no trace of the town, no record of it, no memory of it, no spot on the map, no stories, no sound, nothing but my notations, my mere scribbles inside my flute case.

So, it was very predictable to me that as I reached the border of the town an old car passed by me; whizzing with glee, with the young girls hanging their heads out the windows, winsome, as in some movie of youth discovering the parameters of its derangement, a beautiful American gesture of contempt for the mere will to witness and transmit. They yelled something obscene. They made me to understand that they were not devastated by my rejection of them several nights before. I knew I had a startled look. I knew I had not a thought in my mind.

I only remember mouthing the words, "Ah, the Mothers are always better!"

BERKELEY: 1977

Back to Story Page