CHAPTER ONE

My geographic movements during the past year could be called “A Tale of Two Couches.” So as June draws to a close, I assume the position here again on Couch California. I am back in Hemet, the place the smug among us call Hemetucky--as if there was nothing a couple of Mint Juleps and a **** of Blue Grass wouldn’t cure. It is the year of our Lord, 2014: so far an interesting year for women. There was a woman who wore socks to bed. There was always my long-time, here today-gone tomorrow, long time companion, currently teaching somewhere remote on the Big Rez, a southwestern Navajo concentration camp near the 4 Corners.  Next, there’s my current object of affection, that fine and frisky lady from The Bronx by way of Bernalillo--currently at home in Laguna Beach, Orange County. Trixie: my main squeeze at the moment.

And now, completely out of the ******* blue this afternoon, my cell phone rings and it’s ******* Juanita--my all-time favorite woman, Juanita Mi Favorita de La Quinta--a Coachella Valley town and desert wadi, extending its lucrative winter tourist season to become a significant, year-round retirement venue and a robust service economy feeding off it.  Juanita arrived there in the late 80s, in middle of her early forties.  She was unemployed, homeless, just a suitcase to her name and a two-year old toddler in tow. Her parents were there, as was her Aunt Peggy.  Juanita was always Peggy’s favorite niece, her favorite child, actually, Peggy herself being childless, never married.  Aunt Peggy put her maternal instincts to work on Juanita Rodriguez, her Sister Rosalia’s second favorite twin daughter.

Maria, Rosalia’s first favorite daughter, Juanita’s twin sister—MARIA: lives in Newport Beach and acts as an extra in many commercial ads shot in southern California and elsewhere, an irony never without sting for Juanita. “Que lastima!” Poor Juanita: as her would-be Hollywood Movie star aspirations disintegrated over the years, along with her unrealized lower expectations to be TV star, and even those semi-glamorous modeling gigs at trade shows and fairs—the elephant’s graveyard of the acting profession—failed to materialize, and now her celebrity habitat shrunken even further, to that sporadic but consistent mockery of stardom, I refer to any would-be thespian’s ignominious one-celled visual protozoan: The Extra Call List.  And—*******-- what happens next? Juanita’s sister Maria starts getting these parts, starts getting hired by filling out a ******* postcard, starts getting paid to look good in the background. *******: no professional education or instruction, no agent, and no need to **** off both the producer, the producer’s cousin Morey, the director and the director’s wife’s huge Golden retriever, Genghis--actually a mighty handsome animal--or needing to spill $4K on that Derma-brasion, Juanita inflicted on herself last year.

Juanita, as you already know, was the second favorite daughter and the second favorite twin of the family. She became the third favorite child in her three-child family upon the arrival of her slick baby brother Nico-- the Golden Child, who grew up to be a glib Merrill-Lynch stockbroker, office and residence, Beverly Hills 90112.  (Enter forcefully into the narrative, His Nibs himself, Sir Nicodemus of Hollywood, Juanita and Maria’s baby brother Nico. He speaks: “Excuse me, stockbroker my ***, as it says in a 11 point Rockwell Boldfont, right here on my gold-leaf embossed business card: Senior Large Capital Investment Counselor.”)

No, Juanita had a hard time just treading water in that Cleveland shark tank. And though she lacked nothing in the cuteness department, she had this one fatal flaw, namely, the gift of ***** and sass and a reflex to speak truth to power. Juanita: rejected by Rosalia as a threat to her hegemony as Boss of the Girl’s Club, was cast adrift on a tempestuous childhood cruel Montserrat sea, out there on the briny deep . . .  
                

                                      



High Seas: where many a tuna has a Sorry Charlie moment: “Star-Kist don’t want no tuna with good taste; Star-Kist wants a tuna that tastes good.”

Finally, Juanita is rescued, taken aboard the Good/Soul Aunt Peggy—that wayward bark Elisabeta Rodriguez, home-ported in Southside, Chicago, Illinois—the rescue at sea performed in classy, rather low-key manner; no Andrea Doria drama, but understated:

{Camera One, Helicopter above, zooms over turbulent ocean surface. Peggy, an oasis of calm, aboard the raft Kon Tiki with Thor Heyerdahl and his crew, floats by, whispering, “Going my way, Honey? Climb aboard. Have a homemade oatmeal cookie and a small glass tumbler of Jack Daniels.” Okay, no, that’s not fair. Sure Aunt Peggy drank, but never got round to offering you a drink until you were well into your 30s. Let’s just say she offered you a warm glass of milk, the mother’s milk deprived you by your mother, her sister Rosalia. Dear Aunt Peggy: a seasoned survivor herself, flawed by early childhood deafness and grotesque speech.  Yet, she had refused to settle for life in an asylum. She made a go at life.  She learned; she prospered; she flourished. And when the time came, she was there for you in the Coachella Desert, there for her feisty niece Juanita Ann.  Aunt Peggy: a loving spirit personified, became Juanita’s special confidant and counselor, her personal cheer squad of one. Juanita, of course, a former cheerleader herself--an early hint of greatness to be sure, a highlight, perhaps the highlight of her life, shown off every Halloween, still celebrated at American high schools each Fall. She is the Principal’s secretary at a huge suburban high school in Indio. Each Halloween, if the date falls on a school day, Juanita arrives for work wearing that scrupulously preserved, vintage 1966 cheerleader uniform, looking real foxy still, snug now in all the right places. Eternal Truth: Juanita has always and will always be good looking. Life with Juanita is perpetual “ooh la-la.”

So, I am on the couch that afternoon, reading more of Gramsci’s prison notebooks, specifically the philosophy he calls “Praxis.”  Completely out of the ******* blue, Juanita calls me on a RESTRICTED phone, as I said, Juanita, a torch I’ve kept burning for years, flaring up like a refinery flame--oil still very much in the present energy mix--hope springing eternal as they say, and instantly my mission in life is rekindling our lost love. Juanita’s conceived her mission prior to her phone call:  using me to keep her son from being whacked by the local Eme--the Mexican Mafia—that ethnic-pride social club that the RICO-squad-- using family tree socio-grams and other expensively-printed graphics, the one RICO keeps trying to convince us is some sort of organized crime conspiracy. The Mexican Mafia: like everything else practical and utilitarian in this world: THAT’S ITALIAN! And, if you are starting to sense a bit of ethnic chauvinism on, between & below the lines, you are barking up the right tree.
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(AUTHOR’S POST-SCRIPT EDIT: And, an ad for dog food right here? Not the best choice of sponsors, perhaps, at the moment. Juanita was far off from the ****** ***** that start looking not half-bad at 2:30 in the glazy morning, not anywhere near those beasts you find lingering in the airport bars you usually frequent near closing time on Saturday nights. No, I remind you that Juanita was all “ooh la-la.” In my next printing—and my Lord, there have been so many, haven’t there, Paulie “Eat-a-Bag-of-****” Muldoon? I will change out the Alpo ad, plugging in a spot for Aunt Jemima pancake syrup or Betty Crocker whipped cream, you know, something more apropos.)

Juanita, I really must hand it to you. You showed the greatest staying power, year after year as I moved further and further away from La Quinta, California. Juanita: you embraced what was good in me, ignored my flaws and strengthened me with your love for so many years. As far as you and Peggy, I guess it was a case of the “apple not falling far from the tree” one of many endearing Midwestern metaphors you taught me.  Peggy taught you, taught you to be kind and then you taught me. No matter what bizarre venue I pulled out of my ***, you showed above-average staying power, continued to visit me wherever I went, Casa Grande & Buckeye, Arizona, Appalachia, West Virginia, and even Italy, when I thought I’d try Europe again after so many years.  With each move, each time, Juanita renewed her commitment to the relationship. Meanwhile, I continued to test her, quantifying her dedication, undermining her sense of mission to disprove my worldview on the expendability of women. Surely, you know that one: the unreliability of women, women who disappear without saying goodbye. That old deeply etched conviction to never get attached to a woman, any woman, based on the empirical fact that women have been known to suddenly die, a fact seared into my still tender metal by the surprise death of my mother on 11 January 1962.

1962. It was already an insecure world, to wit:  The Cuban Missile Crisis. Nikita Khrushchev, in his time both Dr. No and Dr. Evil, namely the Premier whom we Baby Boomers saw as Boogey Man of All Time (Although Putin is showing potential, lately)—the Kennedy ****** (what else could you call it?). All these events scary, whether or not I got the chronology right . . . I remained on high alert for any threat to my delicate adolescent psyche.  My mother-Rosa Teresa Sekaquaptewa-died at 2 o’clock in the morning, screaming in agony while apologizing to my father for not having his dinner on the table when he walked in from work that prior afternoon. She’d already been in bed since noon, attended by two of my aunts--both my father’s sisters--who loved their Hopi sister-in-law, Rosa.  Also present was Lafcadio Smirnoff, M.D.--last of the house call medicine men--a dapper, mustachioed, swarthy gentleman, misdiagnosing her abdominal pain as a 24-hour virus, while she bled out internally for at least eight more hours, her whimpers alternated with screams, well into the wee hours of the morning.

I was upstairs in that dormer bedroom listening to her die. An hour later, Father Numb-nuts of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish teleported in, beaming directly into my bedroom from the parish rectory.  Father Seamus Numb-nuts, an illuminated Burning Bush . . . not quite the bush I ‘d conjured at other times, so many times alone with Gwen Wong, ******* Playmate of the Year, 1961, one of Hefner’s hot centerfolds. No, give me a ******* break, you momo! Whacking off is the last thing on a libidinous, adolescent guinea’s brain when his mama is being tortured and killed by God. Even Alexander Portnoy, Philip Roth’s early avatar would have drawn the wanking line at that unforgettable moment.

No, perhaps what I’d had in mind was The Burning Bush Golf Course where so much of Fletcher Kneble’s political mischief and government shenanigans got cooked up. You remember his books, some of the Cold War’s finest: Seven Days in May, Vanished, etc.

Or better yet, perhaps the greatest political slogan of the 20th century: “STAY OUT THE BUSHES!” Thank you, Jesse. “Thank you, Reverend Jackson,” I slip into my Excellence in Broadcasting mode, my very own private Limbaugh. Announcing my on- air arrival is El Rushbo’s unmistakable, totally recognizable bass line bumper, courtesy of Chrissie Hynde’s Pretenders band mate, guitarist Tony Butler: Dum, dum, dum-dum, Da-dum, dum-dum-dum-dum-da-dum-dum. Single, “My City Was Gone” by The Pretenders
Rush Limbaugh Song– YouTube www.youtube.com/watch?v=SScW9r0y3c4

I become Reverend Jackson. I emerge from the vapors, an obscure abyss of deep family pangs and disappointments, ever-diminishing public relevance and fade to black (no pun intended) and media oblivion. The only thing left is that line:  “STAY OUT THE BUSHES!” You will always own that line, Jesse--true political genius (to wit: Rainbow Coalition) Jackson that you are, despite El Rush-Bo’s virulent anti-Black animus, his predilection to mock you, Al Sharpton, Corey Booker, Barack “Hussein” Obama, and any other professional ***** in America. Isn’t it time someone came right out and tagged Mr. Limbaugh as the Father Coughlin of our time.

Meanwhile back in The Bronx, enter another man of the cloth:  It’s Seamus Numb-nuts, making one of his many well-documented spectral visitations, his splendiferous miracles and wonders. How much longer will the Vatican ignore this humble Bronx priest, this epitome of Sainthood; this reverent man, lacking only the stigmata for a unanimous consent vote? Quote the Numb-nuts: “God Works in Mysterious Ways.” An old standard to be sure, but a lovely, all-purpose bromide for explaining why evil exists in our world. Needless to say, I was underwhelmed; I lost God at that moment, consequently shooting myself in the foot--metaphorically-speaking-condemning myself to an unshielded life, life OUT THE BUSHES!  I went forth into the world without God, without that handy divine crutch, that Andy Devine metaphor for when one’s legs grow weary: a puff of smoke, a reverb twang and a nasty frog croaking “Hi-ya, Kids. Hi-ya, Hi-ya. Hi-ya.”

   Andy's Gang - Pasta Fazooli vs. Froggy the Gremlin - YouTube
► 3:55► 3:55
www.youtube.com/watch?v=H35odPm7b3w Aug 8, 2012 - Uploaded by jmgilsinger
Froggy the Gremlin -Tuba ... Andy Devine (Aug 24, 1952)

Life for me became lonely and purposeless. And probably explains my susceptibility to military discipline and a subsequent career in clandestine government service. In 1968--the very day I turned nineteen, September 25th of that year—that fateful day when I should have shot myself in the foot—literally not metaphorically--earning that coveted 4-F physical rejection, a draft deferment to be desired, that 4-F classification of unfitness for duty, a necessary loophole in U.S. conscript service law.  The Draft: last used during that great commonwealth Cold War purge, that culling out of the unwashed, uneducated children of immigrants, that cut-rate, discount, lower socio-economic ***** bank—the only bank where after you make a deposit, you lose interest, to wit: most Black, Hispanic and Poor White Trash parents.  We were cannon fodder, many of us got to be planted at Arlington and other holy American shrines, still wrapped in black or olive drab leak-proof body bags, doing our generational bit to strengthen the gene pool left behind. A debt, some would say, we owed the country and, given the sorry state of the global wicket, increasingly an obligation to the species. And if I had to predict an outcome, Fascism in America will arrive riding the white horse of the environmental, anti-nuclear Bolsheviks. One could argue that Communism has moved so far left on the political spectrum that it’s now the far right.  Concoct a legislative policy goal, accomplish it legally as the bill becomes Law, signed by the President, endorsed and blessed by The U.S. Supreme Court, the highest court in the land.

To wit: “Three generations of imbeciles is enough?” declared Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., an Associate Supreme Court Justice at the time, buttressing a majority argument harnessing the power of U.S. law as a legal means of purifying the race.  When euthanasia failed to win over American hearts and mind, the Federal Government played the war card again and again. Vietnam: undeclared and therefore unconstitutional--except for that Gulf of Tonkin ******* resolution. Vietnam: a cost-plus eugenics project, if ever there was one, although responsive, of course, to the needs of the Military-Industrial Complex.  ******* Ike: he warned us against Fascism in America. As usual, we ignored the man in charge.

Eugenics? Why didn’t the government just put all the retards on the stand, as John Frankenheimer did in Judgment at Nuremberg, a crafty Maximilian Schell humiliating a feeble-minded Montgomery Clift?  Why not, make everyone face a public tribunal, forcing all of us to testify in court, exposing our many substandard and borderline substandard cerebral deficits?  Why not force everyone to demonstrate just how ******* dumb we are, using some clever intelligence test, something l

The Sycamore trees... They have their own stories... They have seen much... Heard much... Known much... Witnessed much...

The house was built in 1807 by Reuben McFerguson for his irish wife. McFerguson was a retired scottish  teacher who moved to Ireland to start a new life. They got married in 1805 in Edinburgh. Living a hard life in Edinburgh they decided to move to Kilkenny. There he built her a house which would later be known as The Sycamore. In 1809, three years after the sudden move, their baby boy was born. The only son they ever had. They named him Aindreas Crióstoir McFerguson (anglicized Andrew Christopher Ferguson). Andy grew into a quiet young man. Two weeks after his
21st birthday in 1830, his father died of lung cancer. Despite being so young, he had to take the responsibility for taking a good care of  the house and his mother. Andy was indeed a good looking young man. His being quiet was considered his *** appeal by many. Nobody knew or even had the slightest idea about his troubled soul.
One night he invited a young girl to dine with him. After his mother went to bed, he took the poor girl into the basement and then strangled her to death. He hid the body in one of the barrels of wine. The next two nights he invited two girls again. One girl each night. Killed them in the basement and hid the bodies in the barrels. He killed two more in the attic. His mother lived her days till she died, 7 years after the killings, never knowing about five bodies hidden in the house.
After his mother's death, Andy lived like a ghost. He barely slept and visited his parents' graves regularly three times a week. In 1839, At the age of 30, he married Rachel Moore, whom he met at church (When he met her, he'd been regularly going to church every week to become closer to God). They had two daughters, Marie and Johanna and a son, Jeremy. Each born in 1841,1843,and 1847. Due to The Great Famine, they rented out the house to be used as a temporary mortuary until the famine ended in 1850.
In 1852, being haunted by his crime, and the need (which kept coming back) to **** again, Andy ended his own life by hanging himself in the basement. His wife sold the house and moved to Belfast with her children.
In 1857, Mr.Lowell, the man who bought the house, decided to renovated it. His workers found the bodies of the five women. They also found Andy's old journal and then learnt of how the killings happened. Knowing that Andy's wife had nothing to do with the killings, they didn't bother asking her at all.
In 1884, Andy's son, Jeremy moved back to Kilkenny and bought the house back from Mr.Lowell's son. Another renovation and then (which was already known as 'The house of the dead fairs') 're-occupied', the house was once again owned by a descendant of its first owner.
Jeremy had five children. His oldest son, Matthew inherited the house.
In 1922, Jeremy passed away. Before he died he asked Matthew to take a really good care of the house. Though later Matthew sold the house to an english doctor, his son Reuben bought it back in 1938. Reuben's son, Patrick, from his second marriage, was born in 1950. Armand, another son was born in 1954. At the age of 19 Patrick converted to catholicsm and then became a pastor. Armand moved to Carrickfergus and married a girl he met there in 1980. Armand had three sons. In 1989, three days before christmas, Armand was killed by some unknown men who broke into his house. After his son's death, Reuben moved to his wife's hometown, Edinburgh. Blaming Armand's wife for Armand's death, Reuben never tried to make any kind of contact with her.
In 1990, Reuben and his son's widow reconciled.
He asked her to move back to Kilkenny. In 1994, Emma... Armand's widow.... My mother... Moved back to Kilkenny to occupy The Sycamore, The House..... and start a new life... And with Reuben's permission, she married his husband's cousin, Isaac Ferguson...

Crystal lived alone in the cabin Ray had built for her. Ray had left long ago but she thought of him often and sometimes went to see him in the city. She was an artist and a dabbler in many fields. Her house was a kaleidoscope of stained glass windows and half finished art projects. It was built almost entirely of wood with a beautiful stairway to a loft bedroom replete with a skylight window on the stars. Set in the mouth of a valley next to a clear stream the cabin looked almost as if it had grown there.

Crystal spent most of her time on her art projects, in fact she made her living that way. She was well known for the macabre nature of her works and they sold well at the local art fairs. Most of the scenes she painted could not possibly have existed on earth. Take for example the orange sky and purple mountains of Mariners Delight or the river of blood in Cosmic Conception.

Often Crystal would meet Ray at the art shows and they would discuss his books or her latest works. It was just such an occasion that preceded the first of her dreams.

Although Crystal had often dreamt of playing in a large meadow surrounded by reflections of her art work this dream had been different. She awoke from a scene in the woods where she had been the object of a grotesque conclave of creatures almost beyond description. There had been a huge goat like creature leading a chant, "Rada nema nestos Yreba, Rada nema nestos Yreba", for a group of creatures that resembled animals. There was a black toad sitting on a rock of seemingly impossible crystalline form, while an agile spider danced on the spokes of its luminous web above her. The smell of blood, the heat of the fire, and the constant and oppressive chant, "Rada nema nestos Yreba, Rada nema nestos Yreba" with all eyes directed at her. She woke with a start, it was early morning, her bed was a tangled mess, and she was covered with sweat. She felt she could almost smell wood smoke, and somewhere in her mind she could still hear the echos of the horrible chant.

It wasn't until almost a year later that the dream repeated itself. She had just completed what she considered her greatest work, a large mural like painting called Id Conclusion. It was a matrix of human forms in contorted and deformed conditions against a backdrop of misty images of human holocaust, war machines, and atomic clouds. She had gone to bed in a storm of thoughts on human depravation and greed. The scene was the same, the spider, the goat, the half human animals, all seemed the same, except for the chant, it was different. "Rada nema nestos Yreba, Raga mantra nestos reale, Yreba Yreba Shiva kommt da." Lightening cracked and a creature appeared. He seemed a man but was built more like a large monkey. Light seemed to follow him like an aura. He was the obvious master of the conclave and all stood back at his approach.

Crystal was lying on the stone altar in the center of the glade and although not bound she was incapable of motion while held in Yreba's gaze. That this creature was Yreba was obvious since all had bowed down now and the chant had changed, "Yreba Yreba teach us to grow." Crystals eyes were glazed and her naked body shown in Yreba's light. All her past works were floating across her mind like a collage. Lost in ecstasy she responded to his aggression like a wanton beast, screaming and writhing in the flow of his energy.

She woke to find her cabin in shambles and she was lying in the center of the living room on the floor, she panicked and ran to her car, slammed it into gear, and sped off down the road.

Ray was sitting in his office at the University that morning when Crystal burst into the room. "Ray, Ray, I've had a dream, a horrible dream, it was, I was!" "Slow down Crystal! You've had a what?" said Ray. Crystal sat down in a ball of frenzy and continued.

About an hour later Crystal had finished her story. Ray spoke, "So you say this is only the second time you've had this dream. Tell me more about Yreba. Does he resemble any of your art works?" "No", she said, "He seemed a lot more like that creature you told me about that day we were discussing witchcraft. The one who was supposed to be the personification of ****** desire evoked for the *** ****** of the ancient Persians."

Ray walked to his bookshelves (he was a professor of ancient mythology and religions) and pulled out a book called Necromancer by Abdule Azerod. "As I recall" he said "that creature was also a god of fertility." He thumbed slowly through the book, "yes, here it is. What did you say this creatures name was? Yreba? Very strange that's almost exactly this Persian deities name, Youruba. It seems he was evoked every year on the vernal equinox to assure ****** reproductivity and if you think that's frightening, feature this, last night was the vernal equinox." Crystal was stunned. "Do you think there's a connection" she stammered? "Don't be silly girl, this was three thousand years ago. Why don't we drive out to your cabin and see if we can find some clues."

Twenty minutes later they were standing in Crystal's cabin. What had seemed so disorderly to Crystal in the morning was now clearly a purposeful state of order. All of her sculptures were arranged neatly on the stairs to the loft, and her pictures were arranged so as to face the spot on the floor where she had awakened. On the floor where she had lain was a large five pointed star. "What does it mean Ray?" "I think it's a pentagram" he stated. "Is anything missing?" "Not that I can see" she said. "I don't think we had better stay" he said, "Find what you need and we'll go back to my house. You can stay there until we figure it out."

Crystal never returned to the cabin. Ray sold it for her and bought her a new house in the city.

Crystal got sick a few months later. She was sitting in the doctors office now awaiting his return. "I have good news" he said. "Good news" Crystal groaned. "Yes" he said, "Your pregnant."