Excerpts, Aquarian Revolution

“We’re in the headwaters. It’s pretty wild and wooly. There’s times we have to hike out. We have a highwater trail, and we park our car on the bluff and it takes about a fifteen-minute walk to get down to the house, because the creek’s roaring and we can’t get in or out.” Chapter 1

“If you wake up in the morning and you’re happy, happy to see the sun rise, happy to see your wife or husband lying next to you, happy to be doing what the day promises for you, then I guess you’re in a good place, you’ve done what you’re supposed to do.” Chapter 2

“On really windy days when we couldn’t cut, he’d climb up to the top of the tallest pine and tie himself on and yell and scream. I started doing that. He said, you’ve got to make sure you don’t drink anything for several hours before you go up, because you’re going to pee your pants, totally lose control. The tree tops would make a twenty foot arc—we’re talking Ponderosa pines, or big Douglas firs that are probably a hundred feet tall.” Chapter 4

“I did have to make a living since I was a single woman. I went to Wall Street at that point, doing marketing for tax shelters and oil drilling funds. Pretty successful at it, working for a big brokerage house and pursuing my alternative lifestyle at night, carrying my briefcase, getting on the subway every morning completely dolled up in my full douche regalia, going to work, and then on the weekends going to the Fillmore East and seeing the Grateful Dead. That lasted until ‘71.” Chapter 5

“I loved Haight-Ashbury. Before I went to Haight-Ashbury, my apartment was raided by the Fayetteville police on the rumor that I had a matchbox of marijuana. I had moved out three weeks before. Next scene, Haight-Ashbury. At Haight-Ashbury, people were yelling on the street corners ‘Acid, grass, speed, Berkeley Barb.’ It was like going to the candy store. You couldn’t get arrested.” Chapter 6

Broken Glass

The storm door rattled in its latch. The broken pane trembled and not for the first time Autura thought the glass would pop out and shatter to the floor. She withdrew her hand from the handle and stepped back.

Branson hadn’t stood up. His muscled frame hovered on the wooden chair as if waiting. As if not firmly caught in the direction he’d taken. As if he might spring up any second, slam his fist into something else, shove her against the wall and assault her with his mouth, his body. A tremor ran through her belly. As if.

Calmly, he twisted off the cap on the half pint and emptied the last of the whiskey into his mug. She wanted to challenge him, argue, yell, throw things, stare him down. But her angry gaze caught on the black eye patch, the eye that wasn’t there, the eye that she had never realized was the place her glance went automatically, some habit of engagement with another human when your dominant eye seeks out its counterpart in the other person. She’d never known how that worked. Now, it seemed like the only damn thing that happened consistently with Branson.

Forcing her gaze to focus on his other eye, his only eye, she met his calculating, sardonic gray stare, his expression of contempt, or challenge, or whatever the hell it was that he felt.

“Go on,” he said quietly. “Get the fuck out.”

She stifled the words that sprang to her lips and turned again to the door. The cracks radiating out from the fist-sized hole blurred with the yellow residue of tape that had long since fallen away, victim of hot, cold, wind, rain. She remembered when the last of it peeled away and hung by a thin edge, curled and brittle. Once it fell, he had allowed it to lie on the threshold for weeks.

“You need to fix this glass.”

Why didn’t she just leave? What was it about him that reached into her chest and held her like a fist? She had shed all the tears, tried everything. Except leaving. Maybe that’s what it would take.

“Why?” he questioned, his voice dry and expressionless. “Everything else around here is falling apart.”

He said it like he would comment on the weather to a stranger. On invitation of his words, Autura looked around the familiar place, the tiny living room where a layer of dust coated the window sill, coffee table, the top of the television. A blanket on the couch where he spent most of his days. And nights. The floors needed cleaning. Prescription bottles, empty crumpled cigarette packs, an Elvis zippo worn to bare metal where the neck should have been, and dirty dishes littered the little table where he sat.

November wind hit the glass again, another sharp rattle as the door latch heaved in and out against its little catch. What would happen if she threw it open, let it bang against the outside wall, let the glass fly into glittering shards to cascade over the wet sidewalk and ground? She shook her head slightly. She knew what would happen. The glass would stay where it fell. He’d walk over it like he walked over everything that used to mean something.

Cautiously, she brought her gaze back to his face, his chiseled handsome face with its gritty beard shadow and the scar by his temple and the angry gray eye, watching. His big hands turned the mug in short increments like the minute hand on a clock.

“Okay, damn you.” Her throat choked on the words. But she was right. She had tried everything else. She grabbed the door handle, popped the latch, and stepped outside. The wind caught her hair and whirled it into the air. Cold pellets of rain splattered her cheek. She turned briefly to force the fragile storm door closed, surprised to see him standing there like a ghost on the other side of the glass.

A fresh flurry of rain dashed against her face and she hurried toward her car. If she looked one second longer, she would lose any hope of leaving. The car ignition sent its gentle ding-ding into the noise of rain and wind. A crashing sound shattered across the yard, and she knew what she would see before she cast her gaze toward him. He stood there in the open doorway, his arms crossed, his gray stare burning across the distance until she could almost see the bloodshot rim, the slightly puffy lid. The storm door lay flat against the outside wall with one last large section of glass hanging at a forty-five degree angle and the rest of it in a thousand pieces on the ground and concrete walk.

She wanted to cry out, curse, beat his chest with her fists. Tears burned her eyes as she slid into her car seat and closed the door. Methodically, she turned the key in the ignition. With great effort, she did not look at the doorway as she backed down the drive and slowly pulled away.

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Dawn

He saw the blanketed form across the expanse of dark concrete, its shape faintly outlined by the distant street light. He strode toward it, afraid of what he would find. At the far edge of the parking lot, it lay prone within the fold of a black quilted cover. Hesitantly, he reached down and pulled back the blanket.

A naked female, her dark hair tossed against her shoulders and covering the side of her face, lay face down. Her waist tucked neatly before flaring to wide hips. His hand trembled slightly before he touched the shoulder, afraid she was dead, afraid he was falling in love just from the sight of her.

Warm. He exhaled a shaky breath.

Miss, Miss, are you awake?

He grasped her shoulders and pulled her over. Her breasts brushed his hands, luscious and full with dark nipples. Her thick hair streamed across her face and he tried to smooth it back, mesmerized by her beautiful full mouth and delicate features. She stirred with whimpering noises, and he did what he had to do, pulled her close to his chest and held her, comforted her, while her body shivered as if with cold.

The Scent of Cotton Cloth

ID-10025847A thousand miles away, removed by harvest, processing, manufacture, and the long wait on some store’s shelf, the fabric retains the aroma of its origins. There is the faint trace of vegetation, chlorophyll of its rusty green leaves, and fibrous texture of its stem. There is sun beating down on the surface of the plant, the growing bolls, the dark earth enclosing its hungry roots. What hands, what machines, have planted the small black seed in fresh tilled ground?

Thick round bolls swell ever more white in the steamy rain, the rise and fall of the moon, the passing of weeks toward harvest. Its heart bursts open, waiting to serve its purpose, giving itself to whatever the world might make of it. Cotton is content in its life.

The sheet remembers its beginning. Languorous in summer heat, in the hot breeze, it undulates slowly on the clothesline before falling again to its resting profile. Blinding white, it welcomes the sun to bake it clean, to stiffen its threads, to remind it of its birth.

At the ironing board, pungent with starch, the cloth gives up its moisture in clouds of steam. Slowly, the heavy metal appliance presses the shirt stiff, its clever tailoring sharp at collar tips and cuff edges, its shiny buttons evenly placed down the front and held firmly in the grip of cotton thread. Ready now for hands, for the body that will wear it, even after hours of moving as its wearer moves, absorbing sweat and pain and fatigue, the shirt embodies its natural grace. The scent of cotton cloth rises from the heat of the body, reminding itself and the person whose body it covers that it is of the land, the sun, the wind.

Night settles gently through the countryside, bringing its tired wanderers to rest. Upon cotton sheets they lie, sheets embedded with afternoon breeze, warmth of sun, the comfort of soft dirt fields loose and gentle underneath them as they drift off to sleep. The cloth yields its memory as the fabric pulls close around the face, the shoulders, of its burden.

Months pass, years, night after night, day after day as the fabric is washed and dried, starched and ironed, stretched and pulled in daily lives, humanity’s ongoing race to gain, to finish, to understand. Cotton waits patiently in the towel, the robe, the socks and undergarments, as it gives itself to service. Its thick folds stand at the window, guarding against cold and sun, against storm. Its flexible material waits in the locker ready to run. Its woven pile lies on the couch, soft and nurturing.

Even when cotton’s long life begins to fray, wear thin, tatter, and the shirt can no longer be worn, the sheet no longer useable on the bed, cotton continues to clean windows, mop the floor, wipe up spills. Even there it finds long life, continues to yield its peculiar memory of its genesis as a young plant, its unique ability to absorb moisture, move pliantly, take up tiny particles and release them again, giving according to the need.

And when all has been given, when the life of the fabric ends, cotton moves on. Processed again, it becomes paper. Rich white sheets of paper wait for the word, the number, that serves the user, the future, with its memory. Cotton, still redolent of its birth, its perfume carrying forth in nuances of earth, sun, sky, waits for the hand. On paper, the writer gains insight and purpose, reflects on the meaning. What revelations of man, what declarations of intent, of civilization, take up life on cotton paper, become immortal and await the next incarnation?

Even then, the scent of cotton stirs faintly as the pen crosses its breast.