CHAPTER FOUR: WILBO PONDERS

copyright 2009 by Jim Nail



It must be three a.m. by now, the hour when the darkness is darkest and the silence is most profound, the hour just before the turning back to the light.

Wilbo has built himself a little fire out of driftwood in the sand in front of his open cabin door. It has burned down to an ember, a pale, flickering radiance, like the tip of a cigarette, the smoke twisting up in a column to the dark skies. Wilbo sits on a driftwood log in front of the fire. It’s a perfect log for sitting. It has a straight smooth back and a precisely angled seat with just the right depth and height. There’s even a gnarly burl at one end for an arm rest. He found it down the beach in a cove, over a mile from here a few years ago and he dragged it all the way back, because he knew he had to have it. It took him several days. Now the wood is polished and smooth, like a piece of fine Danish furniture, not from any use of sandpaper or craftsman’s oils, but just from many, many nights of sitting.

Wilbo’s cabin is not really a cabin. It started out as a tool shed built by the park service back before most of the beaches went private and the park service was driven inland to the forested coastal hills. Now the cabin sits in an unclaimed cove between the two remaining stretches of public beachfront. It no longer resembles a tool shed.

One late night, a few summers ago, Doralina Steindl-Klas happened along the beach and found Wilbo sitting on his driftwood bench by his fire, pondering. This was shortly after he had found the bench. It was then she decided that Wilbo’s house must be transformed into something utterly new and numinous, to suit his character, she said. The very next day they set out, combing the beaches for suitable debris- driftwood and kelp and broken boat timbers and rusty old automobile parts. They knocked out all the planks from the tool shed, leaving only the framework and the two glass windows, and around this they built an entirely new and magical thing, without a single right angle to be seen. Part of one wall is a broken forklift pallet, covered in plaster and embedded with a mosaic of shells and beach glass. A third window has been added to the right of the door. This one is perfectly round, its frame being the rim of a bicycle wheel with hundreds of tiny colored rhinestones strung between the spokes on copper wires, like dewdrops in a spider’s orb. Colored glass bottles and pieces of beach glass are glued to the sills of the other two windows. The door itself is completely shingled on both sides with broken pieces of abalone shell. Above the door the flow of the house swirls to a focal point where a tie-died purple windsock hangs from a long forked limb. Sometimes in a storm, pieces of the house break off and disappear in the wind. It’s not a problem. Then Wilbo goes to find Doralina and they build something new.

Of course the time has passed and the act has changed. Tonight the house is nothing but a shapeless black form against the dark cliffs of the cove. The only light is the fading glow from the campfire where Wilbo sits and ponders.

Arno! Arno! Arno!.

Why do you torment me like this? Why do you torment me again like this? Will you always torment me? Will you always find some new way to torment me? I don’t like to think this thought, but it’s true: I almost liked it better when you were drinking. I almost had some peace. At least then you weren’t tormenting me.

But why am I thinking like this? Is there any truth to it? Is this really the way it is? Or am I just latching onto some dramatic device like I saw in a movie. Damn movies! I’ve seen too many goddam movies.

Arno, Arno, Arno, why do you torment me like this?

Like when you were a little kid and I was a big kid, and you wanted to play the piano, and Mrs. Buxom Bosoms broke your knuckle when she hit you with a ruler, or at least so you said she did, but you wouldn’t let mom take you to the doctor. I wanted to play the piano, Arno. But you told Uncle Allen, Wilbo plays the piano like he has two left feet! Ha! Ha! Very funny, Arno.

Do you remember the night we first got our names? I had just graduated. I was going to go off to college. That was before Dad went missing. And you were just a kid. Just a year of high school under your belt. All my friends were already gone for the summer, so I said hey Arnie, come out drinking with me. You were just a kid. We went out to Sunol, to the water temple, where the water from all the reservoirs comes together. It was a hot night. We were drinking that turkey stuff, wild turkey. We got so drunk we decided to change our names. We didn’t want to be Will and Arnie anymore. Wilbo and Arno! Wilbo and Arno! Later, you threw up in the car; it was Dad’s car, the one he took when he left. I remember I tucked you in that night, so Mom wouldn’t know, then I went out and cleaned the car. I don’t think I ever got all the smell out of that car. But the names stuck. Maybe not with everyone, but they stuck.

Wilbo halts the flow of his pondering for a moment to mouth the names silently: Wilbo, Arno, Wilbo, Arno. He doesn’t want to think the next thought, but he knows he will. He has before.

That was the first time you ever drank. You were just a kid.

After he thinks the thought he gets up and stirs the fire. He tosses a little wood into it. He steps around to the other side of the fire and watches the waves for awhile without thinking anything, just feeling the night air on his skin. He crosses the fire and sits back on the bench.

Then dad disappeared, and I changed my mind about college. I got the job at the movie theater. All those movies. So many movies! And I started reading the books. Nostradamus. Edgar Cayce, the Book of Revelations, the Mayan prophecies. It became more and more clear to me. There wasn’t going to be a future. It started with the bomb. Why do anything at all, if there isn’t going to be a future? Mom was worried sick about me.

You never knew I went looking for Dad. For about a year or so. On the weekends. In the bars and the museums. Once I tried hitchhiking to Nevada, to the test site. But I never got out of Sacramento. I knew who some of his friends were, the ones he didn’t share with Mom. But they didn’t trust me. They wouldn’t talk to me. My hair was getting long. I lost interest in trying to find Dad. What’s the point? There wasn’t going to be a future anyhow. Not a recognizable future, anyhow.

And you had your friends that you drank with and I had mine. We never drank together again, after that night we changed our names. You had your career path. You believed in the future. You were going to go off to college and become a concert pianist. What were you thinking, Arno? You got it all wrong. Your head was in the wrong place. None of this would have happened if your head had of been in the right place. You should have cared about Dad. You shouldn’t have cared about the future. There wasn’t going to be a future! You should have cared about Dad. It’s a code of ethics, Arno. You have to have a code of ethics. It starts with caring about others. Deeply. You should have cared about Dad!

Wilbo clamps his words to a halt and lets his thoughts spin out like a wheel, disengaged from its thrust, spinning freely but slowly losing momentum.

Foolish thoughts! Shouldn’t think these foolish thoughts. Stop them at once!

The sounds of the night gradually fill in as the stillness in his mind accumulates. There’s the sound of the breakers, always there, easy to forget about, but quickly returning whenever you tune back in. It’s like breathing-rhythmic, yet varied, and there are other, subtler rhythms hidden in the variation, like the myth of the seventh wave, or at least Carl says it’s a myth. He read it somewhere in a book. But Wilbo knows there are other, subtler rhythms, even if they don’t come in sevens. He’s heard them, he’s counted them, on many a long pondering night. And there are other sounds as well, hiding in the breakers. The waves drown them out so you can’t really tell what they are. They sound like little clicks and booms, like pebbles or logs are being washed up on the shore somewhere. And there are cries and whispers- voices, maybe human, maybe animal, maybe neither. You can’t really hear them; they’re hidden in the crash and the tinkle of the surf. Many nights, many nights, countless nights, it takes to learn these things.

Foolish thoughts. I will not think them.

Presently a small flock of gulls passes along the length of the beach, from north to south. Their cries are arrhythmic and scattered. They don’t have the precision of a soaring formation of geese or blackbirds. Each gull seems to be lost in a thought of its own.

And then you married Eleanor. You didn’t have to marry Eleanor! I could have married Eleanor. We were going to go to college. You talked me into it. San Francisco State. You said, come on, Wilbo, come to college with me. We’ll get an apartment together. We’ll have fun. Then that summer you turned around and married Eleanor, out of the blue. That was the weirdest six months of my life, living in that apartment with you and Eleanor. Why did you marry Eleanor? What good did it do for her? What did she get out of it? Two sickly kids and a drunk husband who hits her with the leg of a chair!

Arno! Arno! You should never have started to drink. I take it all back. You tormented me then, too, when you were drinking. I just didn’t think about it all that much. When I thought about it, it was like oh man, my brother, my own brother, I can’t think about this. And so I didn’t think about it much.

Except I remember that one time, you were flying away on that airplane, you hadn’t been drinking for a month and you were going back to New York for that big audition. Of course Eleanor was gone then. She was out of the picture. But there we were. We were all seeing you off- mom was there, she was smiling and smiling. Everybody was happy, things were looking up, things were going to turn out after all…

Oh, Arno, Arno! Why do you torment me? It’s more like I’m your father than your brother! I feel like I’m your father and you’re just a little kid. Like I could just pick you up and rock you in my arms…

Wilbo is surprised by the power of this image, by the way the glow of the fire blurs in his tears. He has to stop his thoughts again just to feel the feeling, just to let it pass over him in waves. Sometimes this happens when he ponders. It’s not that unusual to be overtaken by emotion. Especially if you’re a person with a code of ethics. A person who cares deeply for others. And not just yourself.

The gulls vanish in the distance. The breakers continue. A pale boatlight blinks twice on the horizon.

So now what, Arno? What’s this all about? What am I supposed to do with this? Is this for real? Are you really saved, like a shipwrecked sailor? Saved? Well, I’m glad for you then, if this is real. Of course I want it to be real. I want you to get better. I care for you. But I hold my judgment. It’s only been one day. There were other times as well, when we thought you’d found a way out of your predicament. That whole New York thing- the big audition. And there were other times besides that. I just have to hold my judgment about this one, Arno. We’ll wait and see.

I suppose it’s possible. Maybe religion is the answer, at least for you. And we do have some history in that department. There was that time, Mom went through her religious phase, and she took us to that Sunday school where Mrs.Beehive gave us all those jelly beans. You were probably about five years old. Those were actually happy times, even if the religion was weird. Things were going pretty well, dad was making money, we were living in a house. Maybe all those religious ideas got hooked up with happy memories, and that’s why they resonate for you now. It’s a subconscious thing. And there was that picture on the wall of the classroom, that one with Jesus, standing on the waves, pulling that shipwrecked sailor out of the water. Maybe that image just works for you. Saved. Like a shipwrecked sailor. Saved.
Well, that’s fine, that’s good. If it works, it works. Like William James. Pragmatism. I want you to get better. I care for you. Deeply. But why this? How could it possibly help you for me to stop drinking? It’s something I enjoy. It’s not a problem. I have control over it. Besides, it’s not just drinking- it’s the whole thing. It’s the Dogfish, and all my friends. It’s those long nights with Carl, wrestling with philosophical questions over a glass of deep red merlot. It’s sitting by this fire on a warm summer night, watching the Perseid meteor shower over the ocean with a glass of Old Bushmills on ice, waiting for the glow. These are simple pleasures, Arno, and they’re harmless. They’re part of what I am. Why should I give them up, just so you can be saved?

It’s weird then, what happens. It’s almost like in a movie- damn movies! Wilbo hears a voice in his head, clear and audible, just barging right into his head, drowning out his thoughts. Arno’s voice. Arno’s very words:

Listen to yourself, Wilbo. Listen to the excuses you’re making. How can you say you don’t have a drinking problem when you have to make so many excuses? First you say I’m your brother, I’ll do anything to support you. But then in the next breath you say, but I won’t give up drinking! Wilbo, I would call that a drinking problem.

These words are horrible and irresistible. They’re horrible because he can’t think of any defense against them. Surely they are not true. If they were true there would be no reasonably-minded person anywhere in the world, sitting in a pub like the Dogfish, haggling over philosophical questions, or getting up to dance a jig or breaking out into the eerie strains of an Appalachian folk song. These words seem to invalidate all the human goodness he has ever known. And yet there’s no defense against them. There’s no way he can use them to spin off onto another round of pondering. And where is that at, if you can’t ponder? What good is it for there to be a fire, an ocean, a sky full of stars, a bench worn smooth with sitting, if you can’t sit on that bench by that fire, under those stars, listening to that ocean, and ponder?

So you see, Arno? That’s why you can’t make this demand on me. It’s a question that has no answer. If I answer yes, it’s the wrong answer. If I answer no, it’s the wrong answer. It’s a trick question. It’s like one of those Zen koans.

Maybe that’s what it is. A Zen koan. Maybe you’re being used as a pure instrument in order for me to realize something- a truth that lies beyond paradox, something that’s both/and and not either/or. It’s neither either/or nor neither/nor. Even your Jesus said something about the peace that passeth understanding. I think it was Jesus. Some Christian guy, anyhow. That’s what I’m looking for. The peace that passeth understanding. I don’t have to answer yes or no to your request. It’s not a yes or no question. I just have to live in the moment. Like Ram Das says, Be here now…

In the here and now, Wilbo remembers something. It comes to him first as a vague shape, then he can feel the shape of it in his hands, then there’s a sound, a full-throated popping sound, releasing a rich, mind-drenching aroma. Ah, yes! It’s a bottle of Almaden Tawny Port, half-full, inside the house, under the bed. A gift from someone, now he can’t remember who, it’s been waiting there patiently for just the right moment.

He allows this pleasant thought to saturate his consciousness, but he remains seated on the bench by the fire. Of course this is a trick, he tells himself. He won’t be fooled that easily. He isn’t a slave to pleasure. The memory and the promise of pleasure is pleasure enough to the man who is fully immersed in his life. The pleasure itself can wait. Right now there is work to be done.

But even so, he thinks about it for a little longer. Then he gets up from the bench and goes into the house. He explores under the bed in the dark with his hands, like a blind man trying to understand the face of a woman with his fingertips. He locates the bottle, but he does not move it. He does not even roll it over to expose the label. He caresses its curves briefly and releases. He returns to the bench.

There, see that, Arno! I don’t have a drinking problem. I can take it or leave it. You’re the one with a drinking problem, Arno. It’s OK, I’m not making a value judgment here. I have other problems. I just don’t have a drinking problem, that’s all. I can take it or leave it. You’re the one who has to leave it. Don’t feel bad about that. It’s just your karma. It’s not your fault. It’s a good thing. It’s an opportunity for you to do some real growth. I envy you, in a way…

This new train of thought seems to calm Wilbo’s nerves, somewhat. It frees him up, so to speak. It untangles a few of the knots. Besides, he realizes that he is nearing the point in the pondering where he needs to seek some closure. Not final answers, just closure. It’s a point he reaches in all his ponderings. The hour is late. Sleep is a requirement. The good work done in a session of pondering will not be lost in the oblivion of sleep. It carries on over into the dreamworld like a passenger on a ferry. And for your boatman choose old John of Dreams. In the dreamworld the fruit of pondering is transformed into something liquid that diffuses out through all the limbs of the body and the mind.

He rises stiffly from the bench and stretches. He kicks the fire with his boot and spreads the last of the embers thinly over the sand. A flurry of sparks rises and disappears into the sky, to join the stars, perhaps.

Well, I’m glad for you Arno, if this is real. I want it to be real. I want you to get better, Arno. I’ll do everything I can to help you get better. I care about you. I care about you deeply. Just remember it’s a big world, and an even bigger universe. The truth is huge, Arno. It’s so goddam huge…

He grunts and coughs and rubs his hands together. There are a few necessary rituals he must go through before he can sleep. In the house, on a shelf just inside the door sits a stoneware crock with a metal spout at the base. Wilbo draws water from the spout into a mug. His toothbrush and toothpaste are propped up in a flowered blue glass tumbler. He steps outside and brushes his teeth for a long time, humming little snatches of melody as he brushes. He spits into the sand. Then he goes back inside and takes off all his clothes, folding each item carefully, even his socks, and laying them over the rods of an ornamental iron trellis that reaches all the way from the floor to the ceiling at the foot of his bed.

Completely naked then, he steps out of the house into the bracing night air. This is something he does every night. When did he start doing this? He remembers the night. It was the first night after the house had been finished, after he and Doralina had rebuilt it out of things from the sea. Now it’s always late when he does it. There’s never anyone around. Naked, he walks out onto the beach until he first feels between his toes the sensation of wet sand, the event horizon on the shore where the waves last touched. Of course this place is different every night, depending on where he is in the cycle of the tides. He stops here. Facing the waves and the west he raises his arms high above his head while inhaling, then releases them slowly as the air falls out of his body.

He turns to the north and faces down the wild and rugged northern beach where the double arched rock sits offshore and the cliffs swoop up tall and jagged from the ocean. Tonight the bald dome of Saint Brendan’s Head is cloaked in fog. Again he completes the exercise, raising his arms on the inbreath and dropping them on the out.

He turns to the east and faces the mountains, rising and rolling up from the sea, dressed in pointed pines and stately redwoods with wide swatches of clearcut edged with the black silhouettes of bare snags, all of it washed tonight in rivers of fog, flowing down the contours of gullies and canyons like soft cream poured out of a giant pitcher. He makes the gesture, arms rising and falling.

He turns to the south, the civilized stretch of the beach, curving along the line of the bay, where the houses and stores and factories and motels all nestle together. From here he can’t see any of the lights, only an orange glow above the dunes. In the daytime these dunes are teeming with dune buggies, tearing up the sand and filling the air with dust and sound. In the night the tracks mysteriously disappear, the virginity of the sand continuously restored. Wilbo honors the south with his rise and fall.

He turns back to the west and faces the ocean once more. He makes a small bow. Soon, the red tide, he thinks to himself. Dinoflagellates. Not every year but some years they bloom in such profusion that the bioluminescence kicks in and the waves burst into bright light when they break- a magical sight to behold. Maybe this year. Already, when he kicks the wet sand bright little points of light appear and fade.

He walks out to where the waves lick his feet. There he urinates into the ocean. This is not part of the ritual but it is something he does every night. His body requires it.

He returns to his house, climbs into his bed and wraps himself like a burrito in the blanket. His bed is a narrow bunk, built into the wall; his mattress a thin cotton futon. His blanket is a large multi-colored quilt in a classic style known as the double nine patch. It’s stained and worn threadbare in places but the design still shows through. It was made for him fifteen years ago by his mother, the year his father disappeared.

There’s no yes or no answer, Arno. That’s because it isn’t a yes or no question. It’s just a big question mark, that’s all. A big question mark, hanging in the sky. We’ll see what happens.

We’ll just wait and see what happens.

His last thought before he sleeps is a memory: a memory of a sensation, a sensation of softness and smoothness, his hand, pressed by her hand, against the young skin of her chest, just above the plunge of the neckline of her sleek black dress.

CHAPTER THREE: JUST OUTSIDE THE DOGFISH, ONE A.M.

coyright 2009 by Jim Nail

Just outside the Dogfish the air is damp and cold and full of distance, the distance of the ocean, the breakers, the jagged twin arched rocks beyond the breakers, the sky ablaze with stars hanging above the rocks. All these distances hover in the air.

Wilbo is leaning on a post, his mind emptied of thought, his heart rattling uneasily in his chest, staring at his little brother, Arno. Arno is not leaning on anything. He stands, shivering in the buzzing red Budweiser neon. Finally, he speaks.

“Wilbo. I’ve been saved.”

This doesn’t tell Wilbo much, but it increases his uneasiness. “Yeah, OK,” he says, nodding his head.

“I’ve been saved, Wilbo. Did you hear what I said? I’m a new creature. Look at me! Can’t you see the difference?”

“Yeah, Arno. I see a difference. You’re sober. And you forgot your sweater.”

“Don’t mock me, please, Wilbo. This is important. This is the most important moment of my life.” Arno looks down, looks at his hands, rubs them together, takes a deep breath.

“I’ve accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior.”

The words hit Wilbo like a hard punch in the stomach and the pain radiates down his legs, up his spine, out his arms, making his fingers tingle. When it reaches his head, his vision fills with swirling phosphenes. He feels dizzy. He stumbles. He clutches the post. He feels disoriented, like it could be any time of day or night. He has no idea why he feels this way, and he makes no response to Arno’s words.

Arno continues. He hasn’t noticed Wilbo’s reaction. “I know it sounds crazy, Wilbo, but you know what I was like. I was going to hell. There were only two possible fates for me. One, I would die a drunkard and go to hell. The other… But can I tell you the whole story?”

Wilbo slaps his arms with his hands, trying to bring sensation back into his shoulders.

“Well, maybe we can go somewhere warm. I don’t mean back in there.”

“We could sit in my car.” Arno offers, indicating a dusty green Ford Falcon parked across the street.

So they cross over, Arno unlocks the car, and they get in. Arno sits in the driver’s seat. Inside the car with the windows rolled up it’s quiet and smells like mouthwash. Arno starts the engine and lets it idle as the cab slowly fills with a close, musty warmth.

“It happened last night.” he begins. “It was still early. I wasn’t so far along yet, although I’d had a few. I was walking on Albatross Street, down by the cannery, when all of a sudden I heard this music- voices singing, and a piano- really incredible piano playing, it sounded like Fats Waller. That’s what caught my attention, the piano playing. Like Fats Waller. But then I noticed the words they were singing. Come home, come home, they were singing, Jesus is tenderly calling, come home! And all of a sudden I felt this incredible sadness, right then and there my eyes started to fill with tears. Sadness! I had this thought- what a wretch I am-a wretch! Look at the mess I’ve made of my life! I don’t know where it came from. Up to that point I was just rolling along, riding the waves, you know what I mean. But suddenly I was filled with remorse. It was something I’d never thought of before. A wretch. I was a wretch!

“So I turned the corner and there was this…you won’t believe this, this is so incredible… there was this building that was never there before. I swear to God, that building was never there before. It was all like blue, and glowing blue, like the walls were made out of glass and there was this blue fire burning inside. And there were these tall, stained glass windows with pictures in them- scary pictures, monsters and demons, and there were these like bat-like creatures with wings. They made me nervous. But the door was open and the music was just pouring out of the doors. I don’t know how I had the courage. I just walked right in.”

Arno shifts in his seat and rubs his hands together vigorously in the warm air streaming from the heater. “Do you believe my story?” he asks. “Or do you think I’m just making it all up?’

“It doesn’t sound like the kind of story you’d make up, Arno.”

Arno turns again and faces forward, looking out through the windshield. A black and white tabby cat is perched on an orange crate just outside the empty storefront of a darkened market. They watch together in silence until the cat jumps down and disappears into an alley.

“OK, then, I went in.” Arno continues. “The light in there was blinding, I could barely see. It was a strange sort of golden light. There were pews, all full of people, but there was this man in the back pew- he smiled at me and moved over, and he handed me a hymnal. He was a black man. I think maybe all the people in that place were black- I can’t really remember. That’s funny, I can’t remember that. Anyhow, he handed me a hymnal and then he went back to singing. His voice was big and powerful except it was a little off key. I tried to sing but I couldn’t read the words because of the tears in my eyes. Every time they sang come home, come home, I just got more tears in my eyes.

“Then the music stopped and this woman got up and started to speak. She said that we all have this home that we can barely remember. It isn’t the home we live in now and it isn’t the home we grew up in, but it’s our real true home, nonetheless. It’s the one place where we’re happy and safe and there’s no fear or pain or anger. There’s love there, real, true love, love that never betrays. And the cool thing is, there’s no death! It never ends. You can live there forever!
Then she just started saying, come home, come home, come home to Jesus! Leave behind your life of sin where every path leads to heartbreak and sorrow.

“Then the piano started playing again and people were singing softly and tenderly Jesus is calling…time now is fleeting, the moments are passing… though we have sinned, he has mercy and pardon… Some people were getting up and starting down the aisle. I don’t know. I don’t know why I did it. I just got up and started down the aisle. There was this big long railing there and people were kneeling down. A woman took me by the arm and led me to the rail and I just fell down on my knees. There was a man standing there. He was wearing a purple robe and he put his hands, both his hands, right on my head- this head, this greasy head- he covered the entire top of my head with the palm of his hands and then it was like… I don’t know, it was like landing on the ground… it was like an eagle landing on its nest after hovering over it for a long time. It was like coming home. I was crying and crying and people all standing around me, they were saying Thank you, Jesus! Thank you, Jesus! They all had their hands on me…”

Arno is bent over the steering wheel by now. His voice is shaking and there are real tears in his eyes. “Wilbo. I’ve been born again. I’ve been saved. I’m never going back to that old way of life.”

Suddenly he sits up, straight as a board, as if he remembers something, or as if he suddenly realizes where he is. “Wilbo.” He says, gravely, “There’s something I need you to do for me. There’s a promise I need you to make me.”

Wilbo is caught off guard by this turn in the conversation. The story up to this point had been strange but in a lulling, somnambulant sort of way. He was listening, but part of his mind had been drifting, trying to connect the dots.

“Uh.. Ok, sure, what’s that, Arno?” he says.

“I need you… to promise me… you’ll stop drinking.”

It’s as if there is an audible pop in Wilbo’s head. Suddenly he is fully awake, fully attentive.

“Now, wait a minute!” he says. “Up till now, this was all about you. What does my drinking have to do with it?”

“It’s still all about me, Wilbo. It’s all about me. I’m not at that point yet, where I can make a difference in someone else’s life. It’s just that I need someone who can support me, a brother- someone who can stand beside me and walk with me and hold me accountable. You’re my brother, Wilbo.”

“Yeah, but Arno, I don’t have a drinking problem.”

Arno sighs, a long, slow exhalation. The sigh says, I wish I didn’t have to say this. “Wilbo, if you drink, you have a drinking problem.”

“No, Arno, I don’t have a drinking problem. I like to drink. It’s not a problem. I don’t get fired from my job because I come to work drunk. I don’t go on extended weekends and wind up getting picked up by the cops in the back of a dumpster. I don’t break windows in my house and hit my wife on the head with chair legs. I don’t run over little old ladies in my car. I don’t…” Wilbo catches himself in mid-sentence and reigns himself in. He is getting too wound up with this list of atrocities, torn from the pages of Arno’s life story.

“I know, I know, you don’t have to remind me.” Arno’s voice is mournful. “It’s a sin, Wilbo, that’s what it is, a sin. I’ve been a sinner. I’m still a sinner.”

“No, no, no, let’s not talk like that, let’s not get sin mixed up with this. It’s just that there’s some people that can drink and there’s some people that can’t. It’s not a sin. It’s more like an allergy.” Wilbo reaches out and gives his brother a gentle shove on the shoulder. The gesture feels phony. But he continues. “Hey, man, I’m with you. I’m glad for you. Really. I want to support you in every way I can. I just don’t see why I have to stop drinking.”

Arno sighs again. It is a brand new skill he has acquired- the art of sighing. Wilbo wonders how he could have picked it up in such a short time. “Listen to yourself, Wilbo, Listen to the excuses you’re making. How can you say you don’t have a drinking problem when you have to make so many excuses? First you say, I’m your brother; I’ll do anything I can to support you. But then in the next breath you say, but I won’t give up drinking! This is the one thing I’m asking of you. It’s the only thing I’m asking of you. Wilbo, I would call that a drinking problem.”

“But it wouldn’t help you, for me to stop drinking. You’re the one that needs to stop drinking.”

“I know. I know, Wilbo. But I’m weak. I’m so weak. And the demon is strong. I could get sucked back in so easily. If I knew that my own… my own brother was beside me, holding me up, walking the distance with me… it could save my life, Wilbo. You would do it to save my life, Wilbo. If you can’t do it, you must have a drinking problem.”

The words hang there in the cab for a long time. The only sound is the whir of the heater fan and the occasional misfiring of the untuned Ford engine. Wilbo has absolutely no idea what to say. He feels trapped. He feels stuck in a moment of time that isn’t moving either way, forward or back. The thing he would most like to do is get out of the car and start walking. But that would be wholly inappropriate.

Finally Arno speaks. “I won’t bother you anymore about it tonight.” he says. “Let me take you home.”

Good, Wilbo thinks, this is coming to a close. “No thanks, Arno,” he says. “I’ll walk. I’ve got to do some thinking.”

Arno nods. “Yep. I bet you do.”

Is there a trace of smugness in the voice? The irritation it conjures propels Wilbo out of the car without another word. When his feet hit the pavement his knees buckle and he almost falls. Arno rolls down the window.

“You’ll make the right choice, Wilbo,” he calls out. “I have faith in you. God bless you, brother!” Then there’s the sound of the Falcon, grinding into first gear.

As the car rolls away, a little wind picks up and a tin can tumbles off the crates in the alley by the market. There’s a scuffling sound from behind the boxes, and an irritated feline complaint.
Wilbo is not watching his brother disappearing down the rattling wooden slats of Gull Street. In fact, he’s facing the other direction, along the wharves and pilings of the warehouse district. At first his mind is so distracted he doesn’t know why he’s doing this, but then he sees.

Someone is approaching from a great distance, a small thin figure, moving very slowly, weaving slightly. A female, for sure. He can tell by the posture and the little things she does, like strumming the segmented links of a cyclone fence with her fingers or forming basket-shaped circles with her arms above her head. At one point she does a full pirouette, circling a trash can at the entrance to Pier Nine. She’s a little bit off. She stumbles at the end, but catches her balance and continues her approach.

It occurs to him that he has been watching her for a long time, through the windshield, sitting in the front seat of Arno’s car while Arno was speaking. He can half-remember the moment she first appeared from around the back of the cannery, then only a tiny, undulating dot of movement. His mind remains vacant, refusing to process all that has happened, his eyes absently fixed on the approaching figure.

At the place where the gravel of the access road meets the wooden planks of Gull Street, she sees him. She stops abruptly and her twirling arms float down to her sides. She stretches her neck and presses her head forward, inquisitively. Then she speaks.

“Hey!” is all she says.

Unable to think of anything else to say, Wilbo responds in kind. “Hey!”

She scrunches up her face and blinks. “Hey, is that you?”

“Well… it’s always me, no matter who it is.”

“No, I mean, it’s you. It’s really you. You’re the person I came to see.” She steps forward under the street lamp.

Even then the recognition is not immediate. He’s not sure. So many people pass before him, every day, and not just casually, not the way they pass by Earl at the tilt-a whirl who takes their tickets with his bored face and his wrinkled hands. But this girl- does he recognize her or does he not?

She’s very young, and slim, and strange, but not strange like a madwoman, or a creature from outer space, or a demon from the spirit world. Her strangeness is deliberate, a work in progress, a self-statement, a lifestyle made flagrantly visible. Her hair is impossibly red, streaked with strands of gold, like a sunset; it cascades over her shoulders in a magnificence of disarray. Sequins sparkle in her hair and on her eyelids, over smears of lizard-belly blue mascara. Seashells and colored stones dangle from her ears and from a silver chain about her throat. She wears a thin black rayon dress tied at the waist with a blue silk sash. She is barefoot. Her ten toes are painted in ten colors, with a complete disregard for chromatic harmony. She is very pretty.

When the recognition comes it’s like waking up in an unfamiliar room from a numinous dream about which he remembers nothing. When he speaks, his voice is paper thin.

“Who are you?”

“Well, what kind of a greeting is that?” she answers. “You know who I am. I helped you make all that money today. I came all the way down here just to see you. I got the address from the napkin. You said it was your business card.”

Wilbo stills his breathing and relaxes his eyes, allowing them to rest on the details of the apparition before him. “Well, what do you know about me?” he asks.

“I know your name. It’s Wilbo. Like Bilbo. Like Bilbo Baggins. I asked around. You have a lot of friends, you know. I went to this place called Mac’s Burger shack. . He’s got all these pictures you drew up on his wall. He calls it the Wilbo museum. And you play this accordion thing, and people give you money.”

“It’s a concertina.”

“Yeah. Concertina. I love your act. I want to be part of it. I’m a dancer.” She does a funny little leap after she says this. It starts out graceful but it ends up clumsy, and she has to throw her arms out at her sides to catch her balance. Maybe the clumsiness was just part of the act.

Wilbo blows off a big lungful of air. So much at once! He shakes out his hands from the wrists. He shakes his arms from the shoulders. He shakes his head from the neck, trying to shake off the past, as best as he can. Here and now! Like those silly birds in that novel by Aldous Huxley. Attention! Attention! He must be here and now.

I’m sorry,” he says. “I just had a rather unsettling conversation with someone. Forgive me. What’s your name?” he extends his hand.

She takes the hand but she does not shake it. Instead, she does a very strange thing. With a swift and precise motion she draws the hand toward her and places it, palm down, on her chest, on bare skin just above the neckline of her black rayon dress. She covers it momentarily with her other hand, then releases. Wilbo quickly draws it away.

“Claudia,” she says. “Claudia Jenkins. I come from the land of the palm trees and the parking lots.”

Wilbo chuckles. “Oh, you mean Los Angeles,” he guesses. But the moment he says it, he notices something else about her, something he missed on first appraisal. Her left eye is swollen and puffy and a pale blue bruise is just beginning to form under the patina of her make up.

“Take me in there,” she says, nodding to the Dogfish. “Buy me a drink. Let’s talk business. I told you I want to be part of your act.”

But Wilbo is troubled. “What happened to your eye?” he asks. “Someone hit you! Did that just happen?”

Claudia raises her hand- both hands to her face, but she does not touch her eye. Instead she makes a screen out of her cupped palms, furtively trying to hide behind it.

“Oh shit, does it show? Shit, I didn’t think it would show. It wasn’t that bad, really…”

“That just happened, didn’t it? Somebody hit you. Who hit you?” He reaches out and takes her wrists, gently, pulling down her hands to reveal the eye. “You’re going to have a shiner in the morning. Who hit you? Was it that guy you were with today?”

She lowers her face and he feels her try to raise her arms again but he keeps his hand on one wrist.

“Nobody hit me,” she says to the ground, “I mean, yes, somebody hit me. But he won’t hit me again. He’s gone. He’s so gone, that guy. He’s gone and a half. I don’t ever want to see him again. Come on, take me in there. Buy me a drink.”

Wilbo looks up the Dogfish. At that moment the door flies open and some people tumble out, laughing robustly, slapping and hugging and singing. He feels a strange, confused sadness. Sure, why not? They could go in there; he could introduce her to Carl and Doralina and old Blue Lake Pole Bean himself. They would like her. She would fit right in. Maybe a little younger than the others, but she would fit right in. Yet something is in the way. It’s almost as if some kind of a curtain is being drawn between where they stand and the pub door still swinging.

“Oh, let’s not go in there,” he says, “I’ve already spent my time in there. Let’s just walk. We can walk and talk. They call that the Socratic method.”

“Well, shucks, I was looking forward to getting completely plastered tonight. I was kind of counting on you to help me find my way home.”

At another time Wilbo might have found these words tantalizing, full of the promise of secret, forbidden pleasures. But instead, he is washed over by a wave of tenderness and regret.

“Let’s walk,” he says, taking her arm, “There’s better things than that for you to do tonight. Come on and walk with me, and tell me all about it.”

He finds himself leading her by the arm, gently, firmly, away from the Dogfish. Without giving any thought to a specific direction he starts along the narrow trail that leads past the outbuildings behind the Dogfish, down to the ocean.

“Are you safe now?” he asks. “Will he come back? Will he try to hurt you again?”

Claudia laughs, mirthlessly. “Oh, for crying out loud, are you worried about him? Are you afraid he’s going to come and try to get us both, like in the movies? No, no, no, it’s not like that at all. He’s not gonna hurt me again. It shouldn’t have even happened this time- I could have prevented it; I could have just ducked. I don’t think he even wanted to hit me. But that doesn’t mean he’s tender-hearted or anything. No, he’s out, he’s gone. He’s so gone.”

“Ok, he’s gone, that’s fine, he’s gone. We won’t talk about him any more. Tell me something about yourself then, Claudia…Claudia Jenkins. Tell me a story.”

After that, she doesn’t say anything for awhile, and neither does he. They walk together in silence, arm in arm. The path leads through a scrub of salt-stunted heather out onto a narrow railed boardwalk that follows the water side of the warehouses.

Claudia finally speaks. “It’s very quiet.”

“It’s nice when it’s quiet sometimes,” Wilbo replies. “There’s a lot of noise, all day long.”

So they walk along a little further, sharing the quiet, but Wilbo’s thoughts are not quiet, nor are they well-formed. Repetition, like the tides, subject to subtle variation; Carl’s eccentrics on the spokes of the wheel, providing the wobble. Arno, he looked so skinny there, shivering in the neon light. Arno’s done this before, bobbing to the surface like a drowning sailor, grasping at a lifeline, letting it go. But it’s never been religion. And this is the first time he’s ever asked me for anything. A mysterious sighting out beyond the breakers, like Captain Nemo’s giant squid, or a ghost ship made entirely out of bones.

“You think I’m sheltered, don’t you? You think I’m a rich and sheltered. And I’m way too young for you.”

Claudia’s voice startles him. It’s almost like he’s forgotten she was there. But no. it’s just that his awareness of her is completely sensual, rhythmic, vibratory.

“You do, don’t you? You think I’m a rich bitch.”

“I don’t know the first thing about you, Claudia. I haven’t formed a single opinion.” Not so, he says to himself. But his opinions are completely sensual, rhythmic, vibratory.

“It’s true, though. I am. I won’t deny it. I come from money. It’s not a thing I’m proud of, but there it is. My father is a record producer, in Los Angeles. He works for Warner Brothers. I’ve met a lot of famous rock and roll stars. They’re all phonies. All of them.”

“You’re embarrassed by your wealth then. You shouldn’t be embarrassed by your wealth. It’s just where you come from- it’s your roots. There’s no inherent value judgment.”

“Oh, of course there is. Wealthy people will always be outside the circle. They can never really experience life. Life is all about struggling and suffering- hitting the bottom so that you can find your way back up again. A wealthy person will never go to the bottom, except maybe as a tourist, where he can just buy a ticket and get out whenever he wanted.”

Wilbo thinks for a moment about his friend, Carl Rogers, and how the sparks would fly if Carl was to get together with this red-haired girl and her untamed ideas.

“Well, there was something about the rich man-how hard it is for him to get to heaven. Easier to stick a needle in a camel’s eye, or something like that. Sell all your stuff and give the money to the poor. Jesus said that.”

“Oh, are you one of those?”

“One of whats?”

“One of those Jesus freaks.”

This one drops a small stone of discomfort into Wilbo’s stomach. “No. No, I’m not one of those,” he says.

“Good. I hate those Jesus freaks. They’re phonier than rock stars.”

Wilbo nods in rhythm with their footsteps. “No, I’m not one of those,” he repeats, quietly. “Let’s not worry about the Jesus freaks. What about you, Claudia? Tell me more about you.”

She gives him a coy look, then pulls herself away from his grasp making a sweeping gesture with her arms, first to one side and then the other, her fingers drawing little spirals in the air.
“I want to dance,” she says, and she pivots into a swanlike swoon, swirling fast enough that her hem flies up, revealing sturdy, shapely legs. “I’m taking classes up at the institute. That’s what I’m doing here. Classical ballet and Turkish belly dance. And Tai Chi. That’s where dancing merges with self-defense.” She produces some graceful gestures of repulsion so effective that Wilbo has to step back. “Josephine Baker, she’s my idol. She taught us not to be afraid of our bodies. Body language should be taught in school- just like French or Japanese. It’s a foreign language to most people.” All this time she keeps moving, dipping and swaying from side to side on the planks, drawing energy toward her with her arms and then flinging it out again through her fingers. Wilbo is amazed, and pleased. If nothing else, this girl has entertainment value.

Suddenly she becomes self-conscious. Her arms fold down awkwardly and she careens to a clumsy halt before him.

“I’m sorry,” she says, “I’m acting silly, aren’t I?”

“No, not at all. That was wonderful. I’d really like to draw you some time. In detail, I mean.”

She stares at him for a moment. “I’m attracted to older men. I don’t say that to just anybody. I say it to you because you’re an older man. It can be our little secret.”

“What’s the secret?”

“That I’m young, and sheltered. I don’t want to be young and sheltered. I don’t want anyone to know. I want to be experienced, you know, like Jimi Hendrix. I need some experience, real fast. That’s why I picked you.” She grabs his arm. “Let’s keep walking.”

After awhile the walkway drops down a short flight of rickety steps to a rough pathway carved in the rock and filled with sand drifted in from the beach. The warehouses are behind them now. On the inland side there’s a straight cement wall tattooed in graffiti. Seaward, a jumble of boulders and still, stagnant water disappear in darkness. It’s darker here because there is no man-made light- only the pale glow of the half moon sifting through the fog. The water is quiet enough that they can hear the sound of crickets fiddling in the underbrush.

“What’s that?” says Claudia suddenly, and she squeezes Wilbo’s arm a little tighter.

“What?”

“Over there in the rocks. I saw something move.”

They stop and Wilbo squats down to peer into the darkness. At first he doesn’t see anything- just rocks and the shadows of rocks and the small disturbance of waves. But then-yes! There is something, a black, slippery-looking thing, bobbing from side to side between two boulders.

“Seal,” he says, “He must have lost his way.”

“Oh!” she cries with delight. “Can you pick him up?”

“Well, they’re not too fond of that. But at least maybe we can say hello.”

Without standing, Wilbo leans over and presses his hands against the nearest boulder, then pulls himself up onto it. The rock is slick and mossy and his foot slides down and lodges on a shelf a few inches below where he had placed it. He thinks to himself: what am I doing? This is crazy! At that moment the black, bobbing, and clearly living thing makes a noise- a long, wheezing, guttural out-breath that ends in what sounds like a bemused guffaw.

“Hey, what’s happening, pal?” Wilbo manages to say as he pulls himself up into a more secure footing.

Silhouetted against the moonlit rocks, the seal rears up its head and upper torso and begins to applaud. It’s front fins slap together, it draws a deep, watery breath and lets out what can only be described as peals of laughter, mirthful, barking, yuck! yuck! yuck! Obviously, Wilbo is the funniest thing that has crossed this creature’s path in a long time.

Claudia bursts into laughter too, but the seal is less amused by this. It ceases its racket at once and slinks back into the shadows, bobbing its head from side to side, scrutinizing this strange new creature on the shore. Wilbo leans over and holds out his right hand, palm up and open.

“Hey, it’s ok, friend,” he says, soothingly, “That’s the female of the species. They can be a little disconcerting at first.”

For a moment the seal seems to ponder this. It cranes its neck sniffling inquisitively at Wilbo’s outstretched hand. Perhaps there’s a fish there, somewhere. But there isn’t, and with a sudden, and decidedly seal-like motion it tosses its head to the side and peels off the rock, headfirst and sideways into the darkness. Wilbo is surprised to hear a splash. He didn’t know there was water there. In fact, there is water everywhere. The rock he is sitting on is actually a small island with water curling and foaming up all around it. How did all this water get here, and how did he get here in the first place?

“Wilbo, what happened? Where did he go?”

Wilbo wheels around to see Claudia standing there bright with moonlight against the graffiti-covered wall. She looks so much like a child it startles him. She could be twelve years old. But then as he stares at her she morphs before his eyes into a full grown woman, smart and sophisticated, old enough to run a business, or to bear a child. Then she turns back to a little girl, then back to a woman, then back to a little girl- it keeps happening, over and over. He blinks to make it stop.

“Oh, I think he went back to tell his friends,” he says. “Hey, would you hold out your hand? It looks like the tide is coming in on me.”

She giggles. “Oh, you’re silly. How could that happen so fast?” But she out a hand anyhow, and pulls him safely back to the trail, just as a wave washes over the spot where he was standing.

“Tides are like that. Or maybe it was a boat, out on the ocean. A wake can travel for miles.”

“But this isn’t the ocean, though.”

“Oh yeah? Well, what do you call it, then?”

“I don’t know, just some water.”

“Well, how do you think that seal got here, then? He’s going back to the ocean. He’s probably there now. It’s all connected. Up there, around that rock- that’s where the beach starts. That’s where the breakers are. I live up there. On the beach. My house is up there.”

“You got a house? On the beach? Take me there! Take me to your house!” Claudia claps her hands and jumps up and down.

Wilbo’s thoughts are whirling, fast enough to make him feel dizzy. His libido is wide awake but a motion picture in his mind’s eye keeps repeating the image of the girl on the shore, shifting back and forth between a child and a woman. On a periphery of the screen Arno’s dented green Falcon disappears around the corner of the warehouses. Underscoring it all he feels a real, physical weariness in his arms and legs.

“What about your place?” he asks, the weariness bleeding into the tone of his voice. “Where are you staying?”

“Oh, I’m staying in a studio, right above this coffee-house. It’s really cool. Come and see my place then, if you don’t want me to go to your house.”

He’s not sure how she sensed this but the prospect feels safer, a middle ground where he might have some control. He says, “Well, I can walk you there, anyhow. So you’ll be safe.”

Claudia does an odd thing. She leans over and pummels Wilbo several times on the chest with her small fists. “Oh man, there you go again,” she says. “Don’t be so silly. There’s no danger, he’s not gonna get me. He’s not that kind of guy. He’s probably crying in his beer someplace right now, so sorry about the whole thing. But I don’t care. He’s so gone.”

“I don’t mean just him. There’s dangers out there. A woman needs protection in the night.”
She laughs. “Now you’re being old fashioned. That’s cute. But it isn’t wild. You have to be wild or this won’t work.” She grabs his arm and snuggles up to his side. “Come on then, old man. Walk me home.”

They walk in silence, Wilbo fuming in a mix of pleasure and resentment. Old fashioned? Old man! Doesn’t she know? How foolish can she be? She’s young and unprotected. Does she think she’s going to fight someone off with Tai Chi? A woman needs protection! He almost mutters it out loud, under his breath, like an old man might do. But there’s pleasure, too, the way she curls up against him- incredibly soft, like a piece of silk- like a seal! And her voice- the tone of it, not always the words. There’s something saucy and melodic at the same time- a tango melody, perhaps. An Astor Piazolla tune.

They reach a notch in the cement wall. “If you want to walk me home it’s through here.”

Through the notch the path enters the darkened town, up past motels and gas stations and into a little trendy district, bookstores and boutiques and juice bars.

“This little coffee house where I live is so cool,” she tells him. “You should come some time. They have poetry readings and live music. The other day Neil Young dropped by. He just walked in the door and ordered a chocolate milk shake, just like that.” She stops and ponders what she has just said. “He’s a real phony though.”

They meander on through deserted streets until they arrive at the coffee house where once the great phony Neil Young stopped in and ordered a chocolate milk shake. It sits on a corner with big, smoky plate glass windows looking out on both streets. The windows are plastered with posters for concerts and events. Through the glass, a pale blue pole lamp illuminates a jumble of old, shabby and heavily cushioned couches and easy chairs. Claudia pulls out some keys and approaches an unmarked door in the wall.

“I was serious, what I said,” she tells him. “I want to be part of your act. I think I can help you make lots of money. Believe me.”

Wilbo scratches his stubbly chin. “How are you going to do that?” he asks.

“Just let me try. Give me a try. Are you going to be there tomorrow?’

“Yeah, tomorrow. All day. Same time, same station.”

“What time is that?”

“All day I said. It’s a full time job. I’m a working man, you know. I have a strong work ethic.”

She starts nodding her head in big, exaggerated nods. She giggles. “Yeah, that’s right,” she says. “Something my dad would say. Ok, then, tomorrow. You’re going to be watching for me. You’ll never know when to expect me. Suddenly I will just appear. It will drive you crazy, Wilbo. Wait and see.”

Then like a seal into water she slips behind the door and is gone.

CHAPTER TWO: MIDNIGHT AT THE DOGFISH

copyright 2009 by Jim Nail

Outside the Dogfish you can hear the surf, pounding and breathing in the dark. It’s an ancient sound, one of the seven primal sounds of the universe, out of which all the other sounds are formed, the same way that all music is formed out of the eight tones of the octave, or the way that all color springs from the six hues of the rainbow. Everyone is affected by the sound of the ocean, although different people respond in different ways. Some people get peaceful, like they’re listening to a lullaby. They buy recordings of the ocean that they can take home and put on their stereos whenever they need that peace in their landlocked lives. Other people get restless, like they’re listening to a clarion horn, calling them out to adventure, or mystery, or danger on the jagged rocks. Still others wax philosophical and muse on the contrast between the evanescence of their lives against the eternal rhythms of the tides. There are even people who get annoyed by the sound of the sea, and they bolt their windows against it at night, so they can get some sleep. That sound! It’s always there. It never stops!

The Dogfish itself sits on stilts. It’s doors open out onto Gull Street, while the wide lounge window in the back offers a sweeping view of the Pacific Ocean where whales can be seen spouting on fine spring afternoons. But tonight the windows are steamed over. There is nothing to see in them except for some squiggly signatures and a finger drawn replica of a Picasso nude. It’s midnight at the Dogfish. The place is packed.

Wilbo sits at the bar, third stool down, next to the salty shell peanut bowl, his usual spot. There’s a drink in front of him, mostly ice, an amber liquid and a maraschino cherry. There’s also an empty beer glass and another beer glass with some dregs and some foam. Next to the beer glasses is an elaborate piece of architecture constructed entirely out of empty peanut shells.

He’s talking with Carl Rogers, a hefty bearded man in a blue work shirt and red suspenders. Behind Carl, Levon Blue Lake Moon sits at a table with his wife Opal Moon. Levon’s graying hair is long and tied back in a braid. His eyes are like a camera, taking in everything. Opal, her eyes closed, is singing, quietly, wordlessly, a tune that seems to draw its intervals from the voices surrounding. Opal often sings.

Wilbo’s hands gesture fluidly, sloppily, like he’s trying to make a point but he keeps missing it. Carl is hunkered down, well-centered on his stool, motionless- just his head moves; he nods slowly, thoughtfully, weighing Wilbo’s words.

“It’s the inner beauty, Carl. The inner beauty.” Wilbo is speaking. “Some people have it and some people don’t. Maybe everybody had it once, but most people let it die out. To protect the status quo. Most people get ugly. But I can see the inner beauty in a person- I can see it coming a mile off. That’s what I do for a living. They say beauty is only skin deep- that’s bullshit! Beauty has nothing to do with skin. Beauty isn’t the way your face is put together. Beauty expresses itself in the way you walk- the way you carry yourself, the way you hold your head, the way you swing your arms. I got an eye for that, man. I can see it coming a mile off.”

“You make fun of people, Wilbo,” says Carl. “That’s what you do for a living.”

“Well, of course I make fun of them. They deserve it. They’re all fools. They need someone to wake them up. They’re all caught up in this oscillation that keeps repeating itself, ka-chunk, ka-chunk, like that, over and over. They need electro-shock therapy- like Gurdjieff said, they need that first conscious shock.”

“And another thing I notice, Wilbo.” Carl turns in his chair ever so slightly, just enough to throw Wilbo off his rhythm.

“What?”

“You favor women.”

“What?”

“You do, you favor women. I’ve watched you do it. Even your pictures. When you draw a picture of a man you always bring out the worst in him. But when you draw a woman, she’s always pretty. You always make her pretty.”

Wilbo leans over in a long, slow arc until his forefinger strikes Carl squarely on the chest.

“Well, there’s a reason for that, Carl. Women are not men. Women haven’t been in charge around here for the last two thousand years. That’s why they still have their beauty! Women need to be respected and protected. The future belongs to women, man- you wait and see. But not through power! Not through power, Carl! Through beauty! Beauty, man! You wait and see! If there’s any hope for the future, it’s women!”

There’s the sound of applause- the sound of two hands clapping. Everyone in a four foot radius turns to look. It’s Doralina Steindl-Klas, an ancient, sturdy woman; her button-clad hat is flopped down over one eye and she’s holding up a glass of something dark and crimson.

“Ergo sum!” she salutes. “The orangutan speaks my mind!”

Wilbo slips off his barstool and lurches forward. He throws an arm across Doralina’s shoulder.

“Look at this woman!” he proclaims. “Look at the beauty here! Does this woman have power? No! She doesn’t have power! She holds no office. She pens no laws. She doesn’t dispatch troops to third world nations or guide the course of large corporations. No, this woman has no power. This woman has beauty! She spreads beauty among us, secretly- in the night!”

His enthusiasm is mildly contagious. A few people cheer and whistle. Doralina just beams.

“Now, just wait one minute here.” Carl has laboriously rotated his considerable girth around on the barstool and now he faces the small crowd gathered around Wilbo and Doralina. “Take a look at this place. Look around. Look at us, every one of us. Oddballs and misfits, that’s all I see here. This is not a representative sampling of western culture.” He makes a sweeping gesture with his arm, throwing energy out of his fingertips onto Wilbo, Doralina, and a few other unsuspecting innocents who happen to be in the path. “Alien scientists could come down here from another planet, gathering data on the human race, and leave two years later without any inkling that people like us even exist.”

“Damn straight!” someone yells, and an unidentified fist pounds three times on the bar.

“Well, that’s not a bad thing, Carl.” Wilbo has let go of Doralina and started the uneasy trek back to his barstool. “Would you want it any other way?”

“Well, of course it’s not a bad thing. The deviation can never be the norm. Hey, what do you think happens when the deviation becomes the norm? What does it become?”

Wilbo knows this routine. It’s like something out of a Laurel and Hardy movie directed by Frederico Fellini. He obliges willingly. “That’s a silly question. It becomes the norm.”

“Yeah, right. It becomes the norm. Then if it’s the norm, it can’t be the deviation anymore. It’s the norm. Get it?’

Behind the bar Karen the bartender is drying a wineglass with a pink towel. “Carl, I don’t think there’s much danger of things getting normal around here real soon.”

Wilbo reaches his barstool and sinks his weight against it. He does not sit. Carl turns to make room for him.

“Hey, Wilbo, do you know the true definition of the word eccentric?” Carl nods his head and smiles. You can tell he takes pride in what he’s about to say. “Well, I’ll tell you the true definition of the word eccentric. Eccentric. It means outside the center. Out on the distant radials of the wheel. Think of a wheel. Dig deep into your mechanical knowledge. The hub is slave to the shaft. The hub takes the energy of the shaft and translates it into spin. The hub spins the wheel. All the motion of a wheel comes from the hub. The eccentrics don’t have anything to do with the spinning of the wheel. But do you know what the eccentrics provide?” He leaves a little space for this question, but Wilbo knows Carl better than to answer.

“The wobble.” Carl intones. “The eccentrics provide the wobble.”

“The wobble!” Doralina is delighted. “Of course! And don’t forget the wobblelet!’

“Carl, Carl, Carl, that’s all good and fine, what you’re saying,” Floyd Collins, seated at the bar next to Carl, still has his nametag on from work. Professionally laminated and sealed with gold trim, it bears the name of the mother company in bold letters, but Floyd’s name, merely FLOYD is scrawled below that in green marking pen. The top of Floyd’s head is a shiny dome rising above a cloud of unkempt curls. He’s been listening closely to the whole thing, taking it all in. “But Carl, what will the eccentrics do then, if they’re not empowered? That wobble you talk about. It will just go away. It’s already going away. Look at this place. Look at us here. Five years ago we were different. We thought something was happening. We were excited about the future. We thought we were the edge of a whole new vibration. But now look at us. Old farts already. Old farts in just a few years. And the young people today, the ones that ought to be the caretakers of the vision. They’re impoverished. They can’t get jobs. They can’t buy homes. They can’t even get credit approval! There’s this voiceless mass of people out there, all because they look different, or they think different. There’s so much they can tell us.”

The tableau has returned to its original position. Wilbo has sprawled out on the barstool with his back to the bar while Carl sits Buddha-like, staring into the row of bottles on the wall.

Wilbo and Carl. They sit side by side, facing opposite directions.

“It’s a moral question, really,” says Wilbo, after some thought. “It’s not just a matter of wobbling outside the center, as you put it, Carl. There has to be a code of ethics.”

“Yeah, Ok, a code of ethics.” Carl replies. “So how does making fun of people fit into your code of ethics?”

Doralina leans forward and wags her finger playfully. “And don’t forget- favoring women!”

Wilbo sighs. “I think we’ve already been here.” He says. “Where’s my drink?” He wheels around on the stool. “Hey, Karen, can you just top this off for me please?”

Karen already has the bottle in her hands. She dispenses a generous drizzle down over the melted remains of Wilbo’s ice. At that moment there’s a commotion at the front door. The sound of the ocean comes in and there’s a shuffling of feet. Karen looks up and a troubled expression crosses her face.

“Your brother’s here, Wilbo,” she says quietly.

Wilbo makes no attempt at concealing his dismay. He spins round rapidly and slams his fist down hard on the bar. “Fuck.” he mutters. Then to Karen, “What does he look like? Is he staggering?”

Karen scans the crowd. ‘Actually, he looks remarkably good for this hour of the night. You’d better go see him, Wilbo. He knows he’s not allowed to drink in here anymore.”

Wilbo picks up his drink and tosses it back in one gulp. “Yeah, yeah, OK, I’m going.” He pushes himself off from the bar as if he was a boat and begins a troubled voyage through the crowd to the door.

“Just be yourself, Wilbo!” Carl calls out after him.

Everybody in the bar seems to know what’s happening, or at least that something is happening. People step aside and conversations lull as he passes. A draft of outside air brushes against him as he moves, carrying with it a damp fetid smell, like the underside of a dock.

Arno is standing in the open door. People around him have given him some berth, but no one is speaking to him. In fact, he does look completely sober. His clothes are a bit rumpled, but they’re clean- brown slacks, a white shirt- salesman clothes. He’s standing erect, his eyes are clear, his hair is combed. But as Wilbo get’s closer, he sees that Arno is trembling all over. He’s breathing in quiet shallow puffs and his lower lip quivers.

“Wilbo, I’ve got to talk to you. Something has happened to me. You won’t believe what’s happened to me.”

Wilbo looks around the room. People are not being successful at ignoring this scene. Conversations are resuming, but the voices are subdued and furtive eyes are stealing glances.

“Well, sure man, you can talk to me. Let’s just step outside.”

CHAPTER ONE: A DAY'S WORK

copyright 2009 by Jim Nail



April 20, 1973. Friday. Early afternoon. Wilbo Hoegarden stands at his usual spot between the tilt-a-whirl and the bumper cars. There’s a ticket window where Earl the grumpy ticket man doles out ride tickets with his wrinkled hands. An inflorescence of pink cotton candy blooms out of a pole by the ticket window; behind it, a row of small teddy bears are crucified to a plywood board. Behind Wilbo there’s a wooden bench. On the bench his concertina lies with its bellows exhausted, next to a tablet of drawing paper and a pile of charcoal pencils. Behind the bench, a channel of muddy water, behind the channel, a jetty of big grey boulders, behind the jetty, a few clouds hang in a pale blue sky. Faintly visible below the sky, the horizontal line of the ocean beckons like an invitation out of the known into the unknown, out of the commonplace, into the mystery.

Wilbo’s appearance has changed some over the years, although his act has not. He’s cut his hair for one thing. It used to be shoulder length and he used to keep it brushed and clean. Now it’s a jungle of mats and tangles and it makes him look a little like a madman. And he’s dropped his trademark colorful shirts and ties and opted for a workingman’s look, khaki pants and plain brown shop shirts with the name torn off the pocket.

He picks out one figure in the approaching wave of passers-by: a man in a flowered shirt, laughing robustly, a small woman by his side. The woman is not laughing. He fixes his gaze on the man until they make eye contact, briefly, then the man turns away. This is the signal. Wilbo springs into action, catching the pad of paper in one hand, a pencil in the other. He steps in stride behind the man, his eyes fixed on the man, his hands scribbling furiously, as if they had a life of their own.

“Your portrait, sir!” He announces, boldly ripping the page from the pad and skirting around the man until he is standing squarely in his path. “Only five dollars!”

There is a pause, a moment of disorientation, at least for the man and the woman. The artist, however, knows exactly what he is doing.

“Wilbo Hoegarden,” he says taking a little bow. “The fastest draw in the west! Portraits and landscapes. Plus I darn socks, and politicians. I’ll mime for a dime!” At this he makes a little Marcel-Marceau-like flutter of his eyelashes. “My specialty is death scenes. Also, I give birth!”
He thrusts the portrait before the man, only a few inches from his face.

The likeness is striking, although not particularly flattering. With only a few strokes of his pencil Wilbo has captured something about the man- the goofiness of his posture, the absurd height of his forehead, the clueless look in his eyes. The woman smiles unexpectedly, then begins to giggle.
“Look, Frank!” she cries, “It’s you!”

For just a moment it looks like the man could go either way. He looks at the picture. He looks at his wife. You can see wheels turning behind his eyes.

Wilbo sees it too. Without missing a beat he releases the picture; it wafts, leaf-like, to the pavement. He grasps his pencil.

“Of course! The little lady! We must have a matched set.” The pencil flies. “I’ve drawn mayors and millionaires. Just got back from Texas. Did a series of twenty-four profiles of Billy Graham- especially his ears. Also his hands at prayer. There! For the little lady. A matched pair!”
As he says this, a breeze picks up and the man’s portrait begins to escape down the sidewalk. Wilbo sets his foot on it, gently, gracefully, while his arm makes an easel in which rests the woman’s portrait.

The woman is clearly pleased. She has a right to be. Her picture is a valentine. Certain little attributes of the face- an elegance of the cheekbone, a sweetness in the smile- are captured and blown up into movie-star proportions.

“On special today- eight dollars, a matched pair!” Wilbo has brought the man’s portrait up into the cradle of his other arm and he holds them both with his head turned slightly down, like a bashful Jesus, exposing his bleeding heart.

“Oh, look, Frank! They’re perfect! We must have them!” the woman exclaims, and then to Wilbo, “How did you do that?”

“Well, I can’t disclose the master’s name. He works in secret- and in abject poverty. The apprenticeship was a mere eighteen years. I am but a novice.”

The man looks from side to side. You can see he’s feeling trapped. Wilbo knows this, but he also knows his traps. This one will hold.

Slowly the man reaches into his pocket. “That’s really pretty cool.” He says, pulling out a handful
of rumpled bills. “No, I mean it, really,” pawing through the bills, “How ‘bout six bucks?”

“Ah, but of course,” says Wilbo, his head still turned down, apologetically. “Six dollars. I understand. Times are tough all over.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, take eight dollars for your silly pictures!”

“Frank!”

“No, no, I mean it, they’re good- he’s good, he’s a character!”

“Frank, don’t talk like that!”

“I’m not talking like that! I’m talking like this!” The man changes his voice to make it sound like a radio announcer. “Now see this man- a colorful fixture of this lovely seaside attraction!” All this time he’s counting out more dollars- perhaps he’s not actually counting. More dollars are coming out of his pocket into his hands. He hands the bundle to Wilbo who takes it with a bow.
“I’m serious, ok? This is good work. I know good art. I took a couple of classes in college. Come on, honey, let’s get some lunch!”

And with that they are gone, hurrying down the boardwalk. You can’t hear what the woman is saying as they disappear into the crowd, but she’s not happy. Wilbo pockets the cash without counting it, turns quickly and swoops up the concertina. He must move without hesitation- work to be done! Another wave of tourists, fresh from the tilt-a-whirl, is approaching up the midway.
Wilbo snatches his beret off his head and flings it onto the sidewalk. A dollar bill is pinned to the lining inside the hat. He launches into an up-tempo rendition of the Fisher’s Hornpipe. He dances a little as he plays- he wags his head from side to side and shuffles his feet.

It’s a happy bunch of silly people. A few of them step out of the flow to watch and listen. Two middle-aged women start to dance a sort-of jitterbug- wholly inappropriate for the music, but who cares? Three or four others gather around the women and start to clap, arhythmically. A few coins are tossed into the hat. Wilbo makes eye contact with as many people as he can. He smiles. When he gets a smile back he clicks his heels. He waits until maybe ten people have gathered out of the stream of passers by, then he moves into stage two.

Out of the approaching crowd he selects one figure- a man, one of three men, together. They look like businessmen; their shirts are casual, but not festive. All three faces are slightly flushed, like maybe they’re just coming out of a business luncheon where wine was served. The man he has selected is talking and gesturing as he walks. One hand is making circles like a hamster’s wheel while the other hand is chopping, quick choppy chops. He walks with his knees slightly bent, crouched, as if to pounce. The overall effect is awkward and silly, no movement synchronizes with any other. An easy target.

Just as Wilbo thought, the three men walk right past, paying no attention to the music, the crowd, or the dancing ladies. Like a bit of flotsam caught in their wake, Wilbo is peeled from his post and falls in place behind the gesturing man. Only one step behind, he places each foot in the exact spot where the man had stepped. His body immediately sinks into the knee-bent, arm waggling carriage of the man. Still wringing the Fisher’s Hornpipe from the concertina his hands mime the motion of the man’s hands, circling right, chopping left. The man keeps talking, walking, gesturing. There are a few tittering laughs from the crowd as people begin to realize what Wilbo is doing.

Alerted by the proximity of the concertina, one of the other businessmen turns around, but he sees nothing out of the ordinary. Wilbo, folded back into the crowd, stands at the sidelines, still playing, an exaggerated “O” of innocence on his lips. The crowd breaks into laughter. The businessman glances back, confused- who are they laughing at? But the gesturing man has seen nothing of this. He keeps talking, walking, gesturing. The other man is pulled back after him by the momentum and they disappear into the crowd.

Laughter, applause, coins jingle into the hat. But Wilbo is not done. He chooses his next subject- a risky one maybe, but what the hell? The man approaches alone. His posture is bent over, his head down, like he’s carrying an enormous weight on his shoulders. He’s a stout man, pock-marked face, long hair in a pony tail, sleeveless t. shirt, tattooed arm.

Wilbo slips in behind him and falls into the pose. The man keeps walking, past the ticket booth, past the bouquets of blue and pink cotton candy; he approaches the neon-lit entrance to the arcade. Wilbo is behind him all the way. He is barely able to conceal his delight. This is one of the longest runs yet! A handful of people are following, amused by the spectacle.
At the arcade the man stops, looks puzzled, turns his head from side to side. Someone laughs sharply nearby. The man spins around. The laugh is morphed into a cough. Wilbo shrinks back into the crowd, a few sour notes escape from the concertina. All the onlookers disperse at once. Everyone else is in motion except Wilbo, his instrument hanging limp in his hand.

No fooling this guy! The man steps forward and squares Wilbo straight in the face.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”

“Forgive me,” says Wilbo, unapologetically. “I mime.”

“You what? What the fuck are you talking about? You mime?”

“It’s a nasty habit. Most people have never heard of it. I’ve been in treatment for years. Forgive me, I’ll just be on my way.”

The man hunches over and lunges forward. “Well, you little pervert!” he says. “Are you fucking with me? Hey, man, do you want to fuck with me?”

“No sir,” says Wilbo, turning around. “I just… I mime, that’s all. I just mime. I’ll be on my way.”
Wilbo does not run. He pulls open the bellows of the concertina and starts to play, and as he plays he walks, and as he walks he sings. He sings in a warbly, country-western voice.

“I’m just a mime, I’m on my way, I’m a mime, mime on my way…”

“Hey! Come back here, asshole!” cries the man. “You wanna fuck with me?” But the crowd fills in between them, like the waters of the Red Sea. The man’s menacing voice and Wilbo’s wheezing concertina are separated by a crush of humanity.

Wilbo reaches the bench where he throws down the concertina and scoops up the pad and the pencil. All in a day’s work and no time to lose. He scans the approaching crowd, zeros in on a bevy of happy women, approaches one and the pencil begins to fly.

“Wilbo Hoegarden, fastest draw in the west. Portraits and landscapes. Realism, cubism, capitalism.” The paper rips from the pad. “Your portrait, ma’am. Only five dollars….”

The day moves on. It’s a good afternoon for the work. Everybody seems happy and generous. He draws many portraits and sells several, including a few matched pairs. On three separate occasions he succeeds in attracting a small crowd of happy people, dancing in strange and awkward steps to his jigs and reels and jingling their happy coins into his welcoming hat. He mimes many passers by; everyone is amused, few are annoyed, and everyone is generous. The work delights him and goads him on to try new and different things. At one point he approaches a young couple sitting eating corn dogs at one of the sidewalk tables in the food court. They are deep in talk and she is making distinctive circular gestures with one hand as if she is trying to stir up the conversation from the bottom. So he sits down at a nearby vacant table and mimics her moves while a handful of onlookers watch in nervous amusement. It’s nervy, but it works. She’s an extrovert, and when she catches on to what’s happening, she is nothing but amused. She even invites him to join them at the table where he makes three portraits of her husband and sells them for five dollars apiece. Plus, they buy him a corn dog, which just hits the spot.

In the late afternoon the sun fades out, rather than sets, as the sky turns slowly from blue to a dull yellow-gray and the wooded mountains in the east disappear behind a bank of shapeless clouds. It’s six o’clock now; Wilbo reads the time from the dials of the blue face above the ticket window. He’s a little hungry, he’s a little tired, he’s not sure what he’s going to do next.

Out of the approaching crowd, someone catches his eye. A girl. A wild girl, but very pretty, she’s wearing some sort of blue dress, something thin and flimsy. Her hair is a mass of tangles, full of little sparkly things that glint in the slanted sunlight. He is quite sure he sees her first but she sees him soon after. She stops walking, momentarily. It’s too far away to see her eyes, but he can tell by her posture. She sees him.

She isn’t alone. There’s a man with her, short and stocky, a black leather jacket, greasy slicked back hair, a dirty white t shirt. Up to the point where she stopped walking she was holding his arm. Now she has released it, and for a moment he walks on, oblivious, then stops, turns back.

“Hey!” he barks. His voice is sharp, aggressive.

When she resumes her approach she does not take the man’s arm. She passes him, her attention now fully focused on Wilbo; she moves with intention. The man follows her. He’s saying something but Wilbo can’t hear what he’s saying. He’s gesturing with his hands, palms up; he keeps thrusting his upturned palms forward like he’s shoving something into an oven.

Wilbo sets down the concertina and takes a firm stance, legs slightly apart. He knows something important is about to happen but he has no idea what it is.

As she enters Wilbo’s domain, she slows down. She doesn’t look at him but you can tell she knows he’s there. It is, after all, his domain. She walks with her head bent down; she looks at her hands; she enters the clear space between the ticket window and the helium balloons. There she stops, raises her head, and crouches, knees bent, one hand out, as if she’s holding a spear and she just sited her prey. She looks so ridiculous; Wilbo almost laughs, but no, play the game! He mimics the pose and they stand there in frozen mirror image for just a couple of seconds.

Then she moves. In an instant her arms become snakes, slithering cobras from a snake charmer’s basket, rising and falling in counterpoint, flickering forked tongues made of fingers. She holds every other part of her body level and motionless, her gaze fixed on Wilbo; her eyes say, bet you can’t do this!

But of course he can. It’s what he does for a living. He has a technique. He locks his eyes on hers but he draws his attention to the extremities, the flurry of movement, the vortex of kinetic energy. He allows himself to be drawn into it, like a dead leaf into a whirlpool, and immediately his body responds. His arms rise of their own accord, and they too become snakes, only a few coils behind hers, his fingers splay and forked tongues dart from his hands.

Her face registers surprise, briefly, and there’s pleasure in it. This will be a contest then, and she intends to win.

She goes to work. Her first moves are wild and erratic, all over the map, no grace or artistry, just a crazed flurry of motion, arms and legs every which way, a chicken running with its head cut off, a flopping fish on a wooden plank.

At first he is disarmed, motionless, but only momentarily. He leaps into his own set of frenetic motions, but watching hers closely; catching the nuances, the trends, he begins to duplicate them, roughly at first, approximations, the general feel.

Paradoxically, this seems to center her. She calms down a bit, her moves become more studied, more dancelike, more predictable. It’s partly because she starts watching him, watching to see what he will do. Of course he’s been watching her all along. This gives him an advantage.
He calls upon a trick of the trade. He focuses the center of his vision on an object to the left and behind her, a blue flag flapping on a post by the ticket window, but he draws all his attention to the general shape her body is making in the peripheral. This is what he mimes.

At first it’s a seal shape, but it flutters back and forth between the shape of a seal and a low flickering flame, like a pilot light on a butane stove. He steals a fleeting glance, directly at her body.

She’s doing little finger mudras and her head is wagging from side to side on her neck. He copies. She notices. She turns it up a little. She throws her arms above her head and brings them down slowly, sparkling the fingers like fireflies. That’s easy enough. The mirror he places before her has only a few seconds delay. Emboldened by his success, he looks her square in the face, he locks her eyes. She does not turn away. Perhaps she sees this as an additional challenge, a staring match. The loser is the first to blink.

With their eyes locked she tries more elaborate and fanciful moves, at first with her hands and arms only, twirling them in concentric circles, clasping and unclasping, rolling dough, pitching pennies, unwinding balls of twine. Then she begins to work her legs. Over the years Wilbo has learned to expand the range of his vision, to see more things at once. He thinks perhaps he has actually been able to change the physical shape of his pupils through practice. He calls upon this skill now. In no time, he’s doing everything she’s doing.

Then he has a wild and crazy thought. Perhaps I can take the lead.

He doesn’t try it right at first. He lets the mirrored movement play itself out a little longer, just so he can be sure it’s really happening. Then, on one outthrust arm, he reaches a little further, curls the side of his hand down ever so slightly in the opposite direction. He thinks it works but he’s not sure. Perhaps her arm wobbled. Perhaps there was a hint of distraction in her eye. He tries again. This time the arms are raised, overhead, and he allows his to linger just a second longer, ever so slightly, pressing his will.

Yes! She follows. Surely she’s not aware that she follows, but she follows. At the bottom of the circle he turns his palms inward as her arms rise. Yes, her palms turn inward. It’s subtle. The timing is very close, but he’s quite certain- the impulse was his. He tries more things, always slight, always small, little bends of the waist, thrusts of the neck, little finger dances. Each one works. He gets bolder. He tries things that are unique- things that she wouldn’t ordinarily do, things that are distinctively masculine, distinctively Wilbo.

Yes! He has her completely. He has taken the lead, and she doesn’t even know that it has happened. The flow has changed direction. She is his.

That’s when it falls apart. It starts with a thought. Much slower than movement, the thought drags the movement and pulls it down. What does it mean, I have taken the lead? And what about that point when she relinquished it? Was there a moment in time when neither of us was leading? And what about that moment? How long was it? What if it could be prolonged? What if it could be prolonged indefinitely? How long could two people go on doing exactly the same thing without one of them leading?

What is happening? Is anything happening at all?

It’s too much. He turns away; he breaks the spell. From behind him he hears her voice. “Hey! Hey!” Then she’s drowned out by a completely unexpected sound- a burst of applause, cheers, laughter from all sides. He wheels around to face a wild and rowdy throng of happy spectators, whistling and stamping and clapping. People have climbed up on the hand railing and people are standing on the bench to get a better view. The money starts to pour in- jingling coins and crispy bills. His hat fills to overflowing.

Wilbo looks at the girl. She seems just about as flabbergasted as he is. Then she leaps forward, jumping right over the hatful of money, scattering a few of the dollar bills.

“Why did you stop! Why did you stop?” she cries, and then she twirls around and addresses the hatful of money. “Hey, I did that for you, man. Look at all that money! Look what I did for you!” In a dramatic gesture she plunges her hands into the hat and scoops up a handful of bills and coins, letting them fall back in with a metallic jingle. “Look what I did for you! Hey, we need to be a team! We could go on television.” She leans over and grabs Wilbo by the arm. “What do you think? Look at all that money!”

He’s a little embarrassed by this. It’s an unspoken rule of street performance: you pretend the money isn’t there until you get a chance to be alone with it. But then several people from the crowd rush in at once with compliments and questions.

“Hey, that’s great!”

“What do you call that, anyhow? Is it a form of martial arts?”

“Is there a school where you can learn it?”

The girl turns to the crowd, basking in the glow of the attention. “Yeah, it’s a school,” she informs them out of the blue. “It’s called Kinko Syncho Quinto. It comes from Burma.”

Wilbo is astonished and delighted. Kinko Syncho Quinto? Burma?

“Yes, that’s right,” he jumps in, “Kinko Syncho Quinto. You practice it in front of a two-way mirror. You know the kind, glass on one side, mirror on the other side. You take turns being on the mirror side.”

She looks at him and makes a funny face. “You usually practice naked.”

Suddenly there is a shift in the dynamics of the crowd. It’s a kind of thing Wilbo has learned to sense from many years of performance. The moment breaks. The onlookers are distracted and one by one they get caught like paper boats in the flow of movement. A clear space opens and with a jolt of uneasiness, Wilbo recognizes the man.

He has separated himself out from the others. His separateness is conspicuous. He leans, slouching against the railing by the bench with the slough and the jetty shimmering behind him. His head is thrust forward with his chin jutting out and his eyes narrowly set on Wilbo.
Wilbo calls upon a trick of the trade: when the man is alienated, approach him. Even so, this one won’t be easy. The wall of repulsion around this man is almost visible. Wilbo keeps his eyes on his face. Taking in the details he snatches up his pad and pencil from the bench.

“Wilbo Hoegarden, portraits and landscapes, comedy and drama, your portrait, sir!” The paper rips and flies. At first he isn’t sure the man will take it. It hangs in the air like a flag of truce before the man abruptly snatches it up. He looks at it for a long time without smiling or frowning. Wilbo begins to worry. Who is this guy? His face is a closed book- it can’t be read. Wilbo is just about to say something when the girl, still panting and reeling, grabs the man’s arm to get her balance.

“Whoa!” she cries when she catches sight of the picture. Her eyes get big and round. “Look what he did. He stole your soul, man. He captured it and put it in that little piece of paper. You better look out, man! He got your soul!”

“Ah, but no.” Wilbo makes a sweeping bow. “On the contraire, you have nothing to fear. The soul remains intact. It takes hours to catch a soul with a charcoal pencil.”

The man chuckles dryly, turns to to the girl, and shakes his head. “You’re so fucking weird,” he says, “What makes you say something like that?”

“Well, it happens. I mean, it could happen. It’s possible.”

“Happens all the time.” Wilbo replies. “She knows what she’s talking about. You pay attention to this girl. She’s a fount of wisdom.”

She lets go of his arm and punches him in the shoulder. “That’s right, Gary. You heard what he said. A veritable fount of wisdom.”

“Well, he didn’t say veritable.”

She grabs Wilbo’s arm. “Hey, man, say veritable. That’s ver-it-a-bull…”

“Obstreperous, too, I see.” Wilbo turns back to the man. “You can keep that portrait. Free for the laughs.” He lowers his head, trying to find an angle from which he can peer into the man’s face, trying to see if he’s made any in-roads.

The man nods slowly, staring at the drawing. He doesn’t smile. “Yeah, well, maybe,” he mumbles. “You got a business card?”

Wilbo chuckles. “Now, if there’s anything that’ll steal your soul...” He reaches into his pocket. What he pulls out is not a business card, but a cocktail napkin. “Most late nights you can find me at the Dogfish Pub, third stool down by the salty-shell peanut bowl. Until they kick me out.”

The man pockets the napkin. He looks Wilbo, up and down. “Yeah, well, you’re an interesting character, Wilbo Hoegarden,” he says. “I’ll keep you in mind. Come on, Claudia, we got stuff to do.”

The girl gives Wilbo a helpless look. Clearly she wants to say something, but she can’t. She even opens her mouth and begins to move her lips soundlessly. But the man grabs her firmly by the arm.

“You coming or not?”

In his head Wilbo hears her reply, as a matter of fact, no, I’m not. But she does not say this. The man tugs on her arm; she gives Wilbo one last entreating look but he has no idea what to do with it. In the next moment they have disappeared into the crowd.

Wilbo stares at the rush of people swallowing up their departure. For a long time he stands there while a slow gnawing emptiness forms and grows in the pit of his stomach. At first he attributes it to the turn of events, and their strange lack of resolution. But gradually it dawns on him.

“I think it’s time for a drink.” he says out loud, and he turns to the bench to gather up the tools of his trade.