It happened again like spring and Jacarandas. Flowers came out in purple as well as many other colors. They came out in the ears, the eyes, the nose, and they bloomed like silent popcorn in the brain. They came first when he went to sleep; he being Kendall Penwid. Whether he slept or not was certainly in question. He dreamt, though; dreams of cities jutting up like state fairs, held together by only a few carny-tightened bolts; dreams of a mobile home he'd never seen before, one that was raised so high off of the ground that he couldn't get his funny, white pills out of it. He knew they were his because they sat next to his car keys, his wallet, and his passed out friend. The friend wouldn't wake up when he called his name: "Drake, Drake, Drake!" Penwid whispered "Drake, Drake, Drake" to himself as he woke from his sleep (or emerged from his waking dream, whichever). It was because of the pills that he didn't sleep much. And it was because of the pills that the flowers bloomed in his brain. He stopped taking the pills because he wanted more out of life. He didn't want to sleep, didn't want to eat. He just wanted the landscape to glow and for things to make sense like they normally wouldn't. Last night things made sense in such a way. Kendall sat in a brewery facing Balboa Boulevard. His eyes drifted past the conversations of those around him and fell on a cluster of signs across the street. At first glance the signs seemed usual. But then he incorporated the iron bars that surround the brewery into the picture. The sign on the left read Carl's Jr. in yellow and brown. The sign on the right read Lucky, as in the supermarket chain. When meshed with the iron bars, certain letters on the signs became obscured. The signs then read "Car Luck," and that made a certain amount of sense to Kendall. He'd been drinking strong, pretentious brew beer for the past couple of hours, and figured he, indeed, would need some "Car Luck" if he ever expected to make it home safely. It turns out that he did have some "Car Luck" and caught a ride home with a girl who said she was the daughter of Rock Hudson and that she sang rock-a-billy tunes for a popular retro-band in Los Angeles. He didn't believe her, but nevertheless, told her the truth about himself. He'd been on a rampage recently, he told her. He uncovered all the links of power along the border between Mexico and the USA. He walked with angels and demons along the streets of Los Angeles' Boyle Heights and in the low-lying LA river area. She nodded and chewed on gum, not believing a word of it. Then he landed himself in a prison of sorts - in the state mental institution, he told her. She seemed to be biting on this story. The details flew out of his mouth like disconnected sounds coming from a crowded mall floor - "There was water damaged paint on the wall of my room. . . it looked like a uterus . . . from the water on my face and the convulsions rippling through my body, I knew I'd experienced another sort of birthing . . . I'd left my brain behind in some other world, only to struggle in this new one, trying to get it back . . . the men in white chased me, the other prisoners screamed at me . . . the food was good though . . . it tasted like astronaut food, something I could really deal with, flying in our own little space and all." The girl occasionally glanced toward him as she drove up the bluffs. She wanted to see a lie in his face, but there was none. He either really did this, or he just believes his own fantasies, she reasoned. "Well, I'll get you home so you can rest," she said with a wavering tone. "Yeah, that'll be good," he replied. As she pulled up to the curb in front of his house, she told him, "My name's Heather. Maybe I'll see you back at the brewery sometime." She smiled at him with a sense that she'd overcome a little fear she might have had about crazy people. "I thought your name was Hudson," said Kendall. "Well, my last name used to be Hudson, but that's changed. My first name has always been Heather." "Did you get married," he asked. "No, I just wanted a new name." He turned away and walked toward his door confused. She yelled after him, "My last name's Tarin." He didn't hear her, but he continued their conversation on his own. "Heather, how could you be Rock Hudson's daughter? He's a homosexual, isn't he?" "Homosexuals aren't neutered," she said in his head. "They still reproduce." "Hmm." He dipped into his pocket to find his keys and pushed them into the lock. He rose from his dream state in the morning. Remembering that Heather had lied to him last night about her singing career and father, he vowed never to talk to a woman again. "Why must it be that we find the lie the most charming mode of communication?" he asked the ceiling. Then he sang something from "The Sound of Music." He sang, "Gladly I go/I cannot tell a lie." So he drove his truck and his wet laundry around town to find a Laundromat. The dryer had broken and he was running out of T-shirts. Harbor Boulevard made no sense to him, though. There were too many signs, nothing lined up to make any blatant sense like "Car Luck." Every other corner had a dry cleaner on it, but he couldn't find a Laundromat. "What has the world come to," he muttered in statement more than question. An idea struck him. He'd go to one of those apartment complexes that have laundry facilities. He knew of one, called SeaCrest, where he once played tennis. And, sure enough, he shortly found himself pulling into a parking space right in front of a laundry facility within the complex. Jacarandas hung over his car. Kendall marveled at their bright flowers and fluorescent green foliage. "This is my spot," he said to himself. He walked up to the door with his basket. The door was unlocked. He turned the knob and opened it without having to put the basket down. Kendall sometimes hated those silly little mechanical steps you had to do to get though the day - like dropping things, unlocking doors and picking things up in order to get to a future goal - like looking for parking at the market when all you really want to is shop for groceries. The sequence and tedium of getting small things done often frustrated him. This time, though, he didn't feel that itching for arrival. He enjoyed the steps and his smooth transition to the completion of his tasks. Everything was going smoothly. The room was clean, all white and bright. He fired his wet laundry into two commercial sized dryers and opened a book, Henry Miller's "Colossus of Maroussi." He read a few sections and fidgeted a bit. He decided he'd check out the complex, find a pool or something. Numerous paths flanked with winding, man-made streams filled with ducks led through the apartments. A gate with a sign that read, "No unsupervised children beyond this point," loomed ahead. He worried that it might be locked. It wasn't. It led to a lovely pool in a sunny clearing. There was a Jacuzzi, and a what he thought was a woman sunbathing. Kendall reminded himself not to talk to her. As he walked around the pool, he saw that the woman was topless. His heart started, but then he realized that it was a quite hairless and slender man in a speedo and long hair. He felt strange and slightly confused, so he turned around and walked back toward the laundry room. On the left, he noticed a drinking fountain and took a few sips out of it. It cleansed his mouth of the tobacco flavor left from the previous night's brewery atmosphere. Back by the laundry room, he noticed a sign by the dumpsters that read, "Absolutely no trash digging." Another sign repeated the warning in Spanish, something like "Prohibido remover basura" - "It is prohibited to remove trash." It struck him as strange that no reference to digging was in the Spanish sign. The machines hadn't finished yet, so he cracked open Miller again. Then he decided he'd get a Dr. Pepper out of the vending machine. He went to his car, dug some dimes and nickels out of the ashtray, taking pleasure in the smallness of his task. A woman in a white cloak and a hyperactive Collie caught his attention. They seemed to be walking circles around a lawn on the other side of a barbed-wire fence in front of his car. Kendall noticed a golf course on the far side of another fence which enclosed her yard. A guard tower hung over the yard. A rush of heat swirled around his heart, like warm tea flushing through his chest. He had viewed this scene from another angle. Inside. The woman and the Collie were inside the institution - the prison. He shuddered and then looked at his feet to make sure that they were on the outside of the fence. They were, but he didn't trust them and the scene before him, so he turned and quickly walked into the laundry room. The dryers shut down as he opened the door, and he jumped at the sight of brown-haired woman loading a machine. She didn't look up from her laundry but said, "Hi." Kendall moved toward the dryers to collect his clothes without acknowledging her. He proceeded to sift through and fold his laundry, watching her out of the corner of his eye. She smiled constantly, perhaps laughing at his coldness. "Liars, liars, liars," Kendall said to himself. He saw smoky, auburn lipstick on her parted lips. Her teeth seemed big. Straight hair stopped at her shoulders. She broke the sound of whirring washing machines with a criticism. "You fold laundry like you're just getting it ready for someone else to fold." It was true. There was no symmetry to his T-shirts, no match amongst his socks. Kendall pointed to his throat as if he couldn't talk. She laughed and said, "Oh, I thought you were just being a dick. Don't mind if I just blabber." "Just don't lie," he said under his breath. He considered it a comment to himself and not to her. "What's that?" she asked. He waved his hand in a "no" motion. "I think you're the one lying." She smiled toward him and squared her shoulders to his profile. "I tell the truth, like - your taste in clothing is horrid, you fold like a sloth, but you're not reading a bad book." He broke his silence, a little hurt boiling up in his voice. "Then I'm sure you're familiar with 'Tropic of Cancer'." "He talks," she quipped, enjoying her boldness. "Well, then you may know Miller's tirade against the lure of the female flesh." "I think so." "You know," he said, "the phrase goes something like, 'Why get all steamed up about a crack with hair on it?'" "I wouldn't call that a tirade against the lure of the female flesh," she giggled. "I'd consider it more of an ode to the female body." "Is that so?" "In his frustration is his worship," she said. He squared up to her face and stared deeply into the shiny black holes of her irises. They seemed to spin or pulse or something. He was mesmerized. Her white teeth glowed beneath the small, dark orbs, and he smiled back at her with love and hot tea rushing though his heart. He broke the stare and jumped into a chasm of risk. "If you're interested in books," he said with nervousness, "then maybe we could, I mean ... I've got my voice back and all, and you're very lovely, well, knowledgeable on writing I guess. Uh, why don't we just get together some time and maybe talk about things like that?" His heart spun free from his ribs as the question flew out into the air. "Sure." His heart somersaulted. She pulled out business card and gave it to him. "Call me at work, and we can get together." "Great, great, great," he sang. "Ok, then. See ya." He took his clothes out to his truck and tossed the card onto the seat beside him. He read it. It said, "Jane Darnell, Social Services, Fairview Mental Institution." "Oh no, the prison," he thought with trepidation. The fear of chance, fate and coincidence swelled up in him. Paranoia set in. "They're after me, he thought. They know I escaped, and they know I've stopped taking the pills." Despite his spinning head and heinous panic, he started his truck and sped past wild, bright, hulking and screaming Jacaranda trees toward his home. Cars, stoplights and pedestrians conspired to keep him from his home. The hot sun, the sound of planes, and the low hiss of white static in his ears made him nauseous with a giddy sort of despair. In other forms, he rather liked the giddiness, but now, with its source of fear, he wanted it to stop. All the signs along Harbor Boulevard glowed with neon intensity. Kendall worried that soon he'd lose control of the car. At one point he hovered above it, looking down on his knuckles clutching the wheel. The truck soon found the his driveway, though. He left the cab and then stood transfixed before the garage door. On it were intricate patterns of cracked and peeling paint. They pulled him into their pattern like the rainbows on soap bubbles might pull in the gaze of an infant. After a few moments he broke free of the labyrinth, forgot his laundry, and jogged toward the front door. He slipped the key in expertly and dashed to bathroom medicine cabinet. He gulped down a double dose of lithium, such pure, little, white capsules, and hoped that he could make through the night. He hoped with all his tea washed heart that he wouldn't have to meet the beautiful, brown-haired girl behind the barbed-wire fences of Fairview. He'd rather meet her as a sane man and discuss the works of Henry Miller.
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Updated Thursday, 04-Mar-2004 14:58:27 PST