Mere days after Don’s departure, there comes a riotous party next door to Kate’s. Three brothers of staggered ages - eighteen, twenty and twenty ought - are holding a summer get together for the kids in town. I am of course invited being a kid in town. The brothers are a band and a damn tight one at that. I can hear them jam in their clubhouse during the hot afternoon sun sometimes. Darkness inspires the volume next door a few notches. Sounds like that party’s in full swing. I have ever been a person to attend a party only to sneak off halfway through. Which is enough for me. Convenient that a small path sneaks through the field and behind a few pines right to the clubhouse itself. Shine my head and my best shirt (soon to be no longer) a shiny a rubbery black thing my sister Lylla gave me from New York. Sneak down the path in dusky summer darkness. Some drunk has aquired the microphone and is roaring a combination spitty soliloquy and obscene ramble into the poor thing. Electric slur resounds off the hill behind me. Swing around and stick my head in the clubhouse. It’s is empty except for the mad speaker who upon seeing me has a moment of clarity and shouts into the microphone “get the fuck out of here you bald motherfucker!” Which I do. Back around the corner. His drunken and amplified soliloquy resumes as if I had never existed. Phew. But stupid I do not take the hint and wend around the other way to the party.

A loving gaggle of California kids sip beer and smoke on the porch of the house. Must be twenty of them. All sitting too close together and exuding good summer cheer. Up to meet them I am interupted by a sweet young girl who I know from the store. Alila. California name and matching blonde hair. Nursing a concoction of her own, a little tipsy and so extra glad to see me. “Hey!” she grabs my arm like a vice, “c’mere!” Excesive hug. Damn potion. “Someone I want you to meet!” she exclaims. Joyous and hand in hand I am led past the porch full and into the huge house. Smoke in a layers and music shakes the walls. Down the hall another room full. Chock full to excess. Maybe fifteen crammed ass to ass in the haze. All somewhat squinty and smiling. Calm vibe for a crowd. Alila parades me in on her arm. What nice people I am thinking. “Tim,” she announces to the entire room “this is my ex-boyfriend Evan.” Fifty miles away the radio disc jockey scratches his album to death. Instant silence. Everyone in the entire room frowns at me. Evan catches the girl in his stare. It is suddenly clear that this has been a little political stroke in a game I am not part of. Just a hapless pawn. I know this girl because she works at the store, mind thee. “What?! Why you. .” Evan reaches - yes actually reaches for her and is subdued by comrades. I ask myself what planet I am on. Damn the drunk at the microphone for cursing me. Damn me for not heeding his warning. Alila and Evan and enrtourage suddenly clammor to feet and herd out the door like Buffalo. Angry demands becoming shouts and whines. Turns out he is no ex at all. They are a couple with years behind them in the midst of a summer quarel days old. Evan is demanding and keeps one eye on me. Which doesn’t last long and here’s why: this in my mind is the halfway point of the party. Like a sorcerer (and coward) I vanish into darkness. Then around and through the gold but shadowy night grasses to a massy clump where I sit unoticed and watch. Evan repeatedly boils and is cooled by friends (“you can’t hit her man”) and Alila swings back and forth between mouthy and abusive then sorry and submissive. From time to time somone asks “Where did that guy go?” But I am right here and am not getting involved. And though the party lasts until the wee hours, Evan and Alila remain it’s core throughout. I eventually slink off casual and noticed by only one person who says to me “where were you all night?” “I was here.”

Facing the beginning of my work week I have to come to grips with reality. I have to travel thirty miles and back again five days in a row - at night with no car. How to do this? Impossible. No way. The only way would be to actually stay in town for five days and come back to Kate’s at the weeks end. But with no phone I can make no arrangements to stay with so and so. Or so and so. Screw it. Buckle down. Do what I have to. Pack two pairs of jeans and five T-shirts. Toiletries and favorite book. Five pairs of underwear. Strap my sleeping back onto the bottom of my backpack. “I’m gonna try to stay up in town until Friday” I tell Kate. “But I don’t know where.” I say calmly though a nervous ripple runs through me She approves. A small world she asks to check in with her at Aikido on Tuesday. Which I will.

Of all of the joys lost to past generations I have particularly lamented the dissapearence of hitchiking. It is illegal in places and quite dangerous about everywhere else. Dangerous to pick one up or to be one. A hiker that is. But here in Northern CA it is more commonplace. Mike LeClaire: “We were stumbling around in the woods at the lost coast ya know? And it was raining sumpm fierce. Me and Stanley and both our dogs. Just covered in mud and totally lost. We thought we’d never find out way out. But we did ya know? Just before dark and we are so totally soaked. Totally. Just covered in mud. About twenty miles from our car.” He pulls his tufts of red hair. “We’re thinking ‘who the hell will pick us up - dogs and all - like this. Rains pouring down. First truck comes along Stan sticks out his thumb. The guy picked us up dogs, mud and all.” Laughs with real glee. Northern California.

That hot day I left for work an hour early. Thirty miles to hitch shouldn’t take an hour. But it does. With the big pack I must have looked like a long distance hitcher and folks just drive on by. Breaks my heart. Even though they could be killers. Three miles up 101 I stop at the Peg House. The bus station where we first met Don Parker. “You got any cardboard back there?” I ask the girl at the counter. Big beefy man of a Dad comes forward with a huge box. “This do?” “Yep. Got a magic marker I could borrow?” Warily he gives up a black felt tip pen. Outside in the breeze I write the name of my town in big letters on the cardboard. My sign. Which two miles later works. Middle aged woman and young girl in a green hatchback. All smiles and absent minded like. Friendly but no eye contact they drop me off five minutes late right at the restaurant door.

Homelessness in America is the condition of being without a home. Though largely it is also a conotation for a level of society that is destitute and lost. The mentally ill, veterans of war, fools and geniuses alike share this condition. In Northern California within the confines of community it is known as ‘couch surfing’. At least within the small community I know. This means you are staying on couches for the time being. I had until this point known three of my friends here to be ‘surfing’. All of whom ultimately found permanent accommodations. So I guess I could consider myself couch surfing at this point. Though I suppose it was just that I was doing at Kate’s. Yard surfing. And when my shift is through I still have not prepared for the eve. Shuffling into the street at eleven pm with my mighty pack. Sixteen hours until my next shift. Where to hideout? During the week before Reggae on the River we experienced a sudden flood of vagabonds. Kids who had forsaken their homes (for summer or for good) to wander the highways of this country. Somewhat like myself minus the car and minus, oh anyway. Ragged sunburned kids who would come into the restaurant and ask if they could do chores for a meal. Two such wayfarers were awarded a broom and a pizza one night by a Roger. Charitable man. “Sweep around the building and the back stairs and Tim will make you a pie.” They became my friends after a month or so of this trade. Peter was from Virginia and almost eighteen. Stout with a head shaved like mine. Paul was from Minnesota. Tall, lanky with long sandy locks. Thick glasses. Friends for mere months you would think them brothers. And though their level of unconcernedness with the world at times frightened me, I admired their testicles. So to speak. These two had been cross country twice with little and no money, one single outfit each (Pauls shirt bearing a growing tear across his shoulder) and an older man (who looked a little too much like 70’s rock icon Bob Seger) who called himself Holiday. Who was on Holiday from his own life and home and to some extent his senses. While wondering where to sleep Paul and Peter appear magically. “Any slices left over tonight?” they plead but friendly. No but let me see. Race back inside and produce two burritos for them. None for Holiday who showed his pink and drunken face too late. Hip to my situation, “you can stay with us down at the river! We got a camp”. Peter says. So ok. Trust them. A mile and a half down hill to the dark river. Where Don and I discovered the pink stuff on Julia’s hot engine. Up the banks to a great bridge and up to it’s eves. There in the sand is the remainder of a small fire. “Our camp” says Paul. Though there is only the spot of fire. A young and beautiful german shepared comes from the darkness to lick Holiday’s face. Where did she come from? Maybe his spirit animal dude. Peter builds a small and smoky fire (though for what reason I don’t know) and Paul sits beside him working the rotten spots off of a turnip he has found somewhere. I watch in fascination as he finishes and eats what is left. Holiday smiles at his dawg. She smiles back. Peter produces a little pot and thank you for the sacred offering. Their stories of the road are fascinating but are less frequent than their stories of scorn met with on the road. For being so homeless. Holiday seems to have left a nice life behind. “Oh well” he says scratching Dawg, “time’s time you know?” and he pulls a black sheet of plastic tarping from beneath a nearby bush. Laying flat on the sand he covers hisself for the night. “Gnite boys.” “Gnite Holiday” they chime like sons. They fish their sleeping bags out from the reeds. Real bags (though they would later get stolen). “You can crash with us” they pipe in unison but no thanks - they are too visible from all sides not to mention the bridge above. “I have my own camp” I lie. And off into the world I go.

Find a huge and singular tree in a grassy clearing. A lone willow. That’s me I think. And beneath it I roll flat a six foot stretch for my bag and body. The bag blue black against that golden but night dark grass. I lie for a while watching the anemone like undulations of the shadowy branches above. The clouds are full and the diffused moonlight alludes to pre-dawn. I have never felt fear like this. Like a thrill or floating. I feel so completely at the mercy of the What Will Happen-ness of Life. So aware. Aware of the Story itself. And powerless to call a friend or to even get to a phone. Powerless against rain or killers or monsters And as I fall to tenatious sleep the wind above me roars.

Just as the sun rises (and too early to be awake yet) I notic a van pulling in near my clearing. The caretaker of the park here come to open the gates for the early morning swimmers and such. I quickly pack my bag and slink off into the shadowy forest of Redwoods beside the water. Where after a twenty minute grumbly search I find the most exquisite stump fifteen feet high and clear flat spot just beneath and behind it. Spend another twenty clearing it out and laying my bag out again. Back down for another few hours of dream. During which time I dreamt that the stump I slept under was really a great tower of rooms. I floated up inspecting each and marveling at the size of them. “Hey, dude!” came a voice. Groan to conciousness. Holiday, Peter and Paul stand over me. No dawg. Just how in the hell they found me so nestled in the wood I can never know. But they did and I slowly wake and repack my bag. Stash it behind the stump. They show me to their favorite pool in the river. Hidden nicely and perfect for morning preening. Still hours early for work what to do? Inspect the forest around my stump. Find a nice spot for tonight in advance. Just up the hill a bit and nearly impossible to get within I find the most perfect circle of Redwoods ever. Nine trees stand in a uniform ring. The center area is flat and forty five feet around and tan and softly bedded with hundreds of years of falling needles. Against the wall of this little room are two fantastic and ancient stumps. Burned from within and halved to flatness. They are the original sisters who long dead had started this grove - family. Arms akimbo I turn slowly as if to ask all this for me? And for a while it was. Oh, it was.

Years later watching a movie with Jim Dove. The man on the screen is dying and says to his buddy “I’m dying and I never did a godamn thing.” Jim nods knowingly. “Tim, did you ever do a godamn thing?” “Yep” I say, my thing rising like cream. “I lived for a while in a circle of Redwood trees.” And so I did. Just that one night of the lone willow and I found my True camp.

During the course of this first and hectic week of Tree surfing, I perfect the following routine: After work up to Walter’s house for a movie and philosophy. (About Walter is just ahead). Then a midnight walk alone that mile and a half to the river and into the forest. Waning moon and starlight teaching me to see in the darkness. Stumble into the wood to stump One where my sleeping bag lives. Stumble to stump Two where my other pack and small pillow lives. Stumble up the hill and invisible path into my tower. Where at night I lie looking up into the circle of branches and shiver with a near weeping joy. Seems as though the Trees accept me after a while and I Swear they are glad to see me at the days end.

Though it could be near one hundred degrees by ten and my sleeping bag warm to negative thirty, my spot is deliciously shady and allows me dark and the deepest slumber until near noon. Lie still a while and listen to the world. Pack sleeping bag (before even standing). Stash both packs in their respective stumps. Stumps as big as volkswagens. Wend to the river for my morning bath. Strip naked and dive into that deep blue pool. I considered during this time that nothing is so perfect as skinny dipping in a soft cool river on a hot morning. Something womblike about it. Beats a shower and beats the hell out of a sink. Quick clean with that castille peppermint soap (ok for rivers you know) and brush the teeth. All minty slick and naked in the cold (but not too cold) morning river. Change o’ shorts and pants and stand my hair up like the 1950’s. I am now ready for that hike up to town. The hill is almost seventy degrees. A mile in that dry hot sun. About a hundred every day. By the time I crest the hill and am In town I am soaked with sweat and very much awake. But you know I have to go straight to the Ice Cream shop for coffee anyway. In the bathroom there I hid a small disposable razor and would shave in their sink some days. Other days I go to the restaurant and have a burger and fries (on my tab) and use the razor hidden in the bathroom there. Some days Oliver would let me use his bathroom for a dollar. Which is almost like family. “Oliver I’ll give you a dollar if I can take a shower dude?” “Sure bro.” He called me Bro. Clean awake and eaten there were a million ways to spend the three hours before work.

This routine and these three hours are in a thickness of summer. I can go through a whole week with little more than a dollar in my pocket. Each night the waitresses tip me out just enough for morning joe and maybe an ice cream sundae in the afternoon. And spending all my free time in town I began to feel a sense of home. Home I said. And though this lasts only a month or so, it is a time period in my memory that is endless. One morning a raven above me caws and click-clacks me awake. I can’t throw a stone high enough to scare him off so instead snatch up a fallen limb and Babe Ruth style sock a fat round river rock so high it drives him away. Clever me I think. Forest boy. Back to sleep.

“It’s definitely power steering fluid” says Michael. “I can’t seem to find where it’s coming from though. Could be the pump.” “Can you get a new pump” I ask. “Sure, about two hundred, take a few weeks.” He says. No. Unacceptable. Let me make a few calls. Back home my mechanic (the sweetest man on Earth) still chagrin over my alternator incident in Reno offers to send me a power steering pump. Rebuilt but he will send it for free. What a guy. Give him the address and tell Michael. “Few days, I got one coming in the mail.” He smiles at me. And sure enough a few days later the magic part arives. I carry it all thirty pounds or so in its cardboard box atop my head the three miles to Kate’s. Another Sacred Organ. “Well” says Michael later that day “the pumps sound. Still leaking somewhere though. I dunno. Maybe the rack. You can take it I mean, you just gotta keep putting fluid in it.” We’ll that’s at least something. But aggrivating. Back on the phone with my mechanic back East. He is befuddled. But says he will send the whole damn power steering rack if I like. Ok send it but I but know my favors are running dry. Hope I don’t need many more. Behind the wheel for the first time in forever and up to town for ten bucks worth of fluid. Even though I know she’s not fixed there’s a reverie of freedom about the drive. That rush you feel the first time you drive alone. That rush I felt. Two fifty for a little bottle of power steering fluid. Some’s pink and some’s gold. Let’s see how far four bottles will go. Julia drinks it up. The steering returns to a glide. How nice. I can go back to Kate’s after work. Yee Ha. Electricity. Company. Running water and coffee and rented myths. After work however I feel the purity feeling of sleeping in my trees. I think I will just park in town and hike down to the Redwoods. I keep this up for days. Having the car in town is like having storage.

But I am indulging and Fate reminds me. All a sweaty glow with my hand around my morning coffee I make my way to my car for provisions. Fresh shirt and jeans. Deoderant. While sliding the key into the lock I notice the mess inside. A mess I didn’t make. Fling it open. It takes a moment to for me to realize what has happened. Someone or ones have broke into my car and very methodically took just over half of everything I have. Had. Every single pair of long legged pants. Every single long sleeve shirt. Most of which were gifts from my Sisters and bore stories. Histories. Half of my T shirts. All, yes all of my toiletries. A few books, nick nacks ect. My dirty clothes bag has even been rifled through. Some underwear missing. It would take months to discover the depth of this theivery. Stuff I would reach for weeks later would have to be added to the list. Some losses replaced some just mourned. As I rifle through what’s left my skin starts to crawl. I whip around for something to attach the feeling to. I want to turn and find three vagabonds right there at the corner holding my things and watching me so I can run them through like a Bear. I slam the hatch and head immediately to the safety of Kate’s. It takes about an hour to remove my few and precious remaining belongings and relinquish Julia to Michael again. “Keep her. That rack should be in in a few days. I’ll bring it over. Just keep her okay?” “Hey, whatever you want man.” He shrugs.

I have to hitchike back to town that very afternoon for work.

During the next few weeks I try to rebuild some of my losses. Buy some new blue jeans. I receive in the mail a Thank You Mom pair of khaki dungarees. Buy new toiletries. Nail clippers. Scissors. Magnifying glass. The essentials. Something to put them in.

One cold winter years before I bought as a hobby a small sewing maching. Smallest model that Singer makes. With it I made pouches and hats and pants all of which completely unacceptable for use. One bag I designed myself, was an octagon with a singular stitch round the edge. Big fat shoelace for a drawstring. Look no seems. Tie die it green and it goes with all my other junk. At Kate’s one morning a month earlier Don Parker found this green octagonal bag and finished it once and for all by affixing a flawless and two holed button of mother-of-pearl he had found on the beach. The drawstring became instantly and finally usefull and I adopted it as magic. This bag and all of it’s magical contents were stolen that night from my car.

To ease it’s loss I invent a new bag. Sew it myself. During my two day respites from work I hold up at Kate’s and stitch away for hours on end to the electric drone of the rented myth. I must have made ten before I make one to my liking (the others thrown and given away). Black cotton pouch with a rawhide leather drawstring. Looks small but can hold jeans and a t-shirt. Doesn’t close right but oh well. I composed another bag for staying in the forest. Straw basket with shoulder straps from the island of Borneau. Packed neatly with tins and books and such. Some oil for the sun and small tools for projects. This pack I hide in still another stump while I sleep.

A week later the power steering rack arrives. This one is no picnic to bring to Kate’s. Four foot and ill packed. I get a ride in a pickup though a mile out. Not even hitching. “Here” I say to Mike. He wipes his hands on a greasy rag and laughs. “That’s it,huh? You think that oughta do it?” “At this point probably not,” I say “but who cares. Give it a go.” I have considered these past weeks (for the first time Ever) going on in life without Julia. He nods. Come back tommorrow.

At Kate’s I make a discovery. From across the room a mason jar lid becons. It looks the perfect size to fit that bag I made. Check it out. I pound two holes inn the side of the lid. Sew a button on the bag. Make a loop out of the lid and presto - looks like a jar. The lid cinches the bag shut and covers that hole. A jar - bag. This is a major discovery. It’s value is evidence of the simple life I am living. Kerouac once said “Give up everything. Give up booze and sex and sins and all your friends and food and fun. Give it all up. And when you have nothing, everything - Everything will seem like an event. A day, a nap, a sneeze.” Or thereabouts. It’s as true as you make it. For me this jar - bag is a monument. And an opportunity to justify the loss of the old one. Whatever. I’m so mad about my car.

The next day at Mike’s. “Check it out man, look” he hunkers under the hood. Mechanics like to show me stuff under the hood. All these years and my tours of my engine haven’t rubbed off. I feel like a moron every time. “See here I put the new rack on. Right there? And here. It was leaking from up under here. Then it stopped, see. But started again.” Oh God where is he going with this. “So I got looking over back there see? And guess what. It was a little leak in a fucking hoze. I patched it up in five minutes.” Slams the hood grinning. Damn. All that time. I pay him the most joyous little fee ever. Three days later. Over coffee Kate asks to borrow the car to take Gregory to his pad. Be back in two hours plenty of time for work. No problemo. She has shown me all summer that her place is mine. My car is hers. Totally. Two hours later the front door opens and she comes through the door in one great step. Her face slack and strawberry red and glistening with sweat. “Tim man I swear to God. We didn’t do anything.” Gregory behind her looks aghast. “What. Tell me.” “Your car man won’t go into third gear.” She delivers flatly and as ashamed as if she had killed my Dog. Or Cat. “No.” Dive behind the wheel and on the road to see for myself. Sure enough at thirty MPH she whines like a tortured Cello. You guessed it back to Mikes. He raises his eyebrows all the way up under the brim of his hat. “Jesus, tranny huh? I dunno. Leave her here, it’s not really my thing but I’ll see what I can do.” I am flustered and my heart is pounding as though I have been struck by lightning. Which is just about how Kate looked. Quick race up to the house and pack in a panic for a few days in the Trees. Kate is near weeping. “Christ Kate don’t worry, it’s an automatic there isn’t any possible way - no poissible way you could have done it. Seriously.” And I mean it though it doesn’t ease her. Which compounds the tragedy. My dividend is that I receive the two fastest rides ever and am still on time for work. I decide that night to be content with living in my Tower until Fate sees fit. So ok.

At last, Walter and Henry.

I always enjoy the sense of team work working in a restaraunt. Though there is a hierarchy in all these places (hostess, waitress, busboy then dishwasher - chefs, line cooks then prep cooks) the company is usually good. Everyone is in the mix together and bonds sometimes are born surviving a ridiculously busy shift or week. Or season. And of these bonds friendships are sometimes made. Here I had made many. Daniel was like a younger brother and Oliver and his friends made me feel younger than them.

I cook pizzas in the front of the restaurant where customers can see the pies being made. The rest of the cooks work in back. We communicate through a hole where the food is passed. Henry works in back. About my age. Sandy stiff hair and wide shoulders. Blue eyes and deadpan expression. The Straight Man of comedy old. Though I have worked with him for over a month we haven’t really hit it off. No dialogue. No jokes or conversation. One night he just begins making stupid faces. Some people just strike you funnier than others I guess. The incongruity of his dumb faces and his otherwise placid nature just hit me right. He cracked me up and we became friends. “So Tim are there a lot of women on the East Coast?” he asks. Really wants to know.
“Yeah sure, I guess.”
“Yeah. So you know, I’m a big drop-out too.” He says mattter of factly and arms folded while I pound out a dough.
“I’m not a drop-out.” I said.
“It’s ok man. You know, like do you like folk music?”
“Folk music? Like folk singers? Hand me those olives.”
“No like folk - like traditional music?” he says handing me olives. “You know like traditional songs?” He pleads for me to understand.
“What are you talking about?”
“Traditional music.”
“I don’t know what you mean. You said I was a drop out.”
“No I’m a dropout. I was all lined up for those big bucks you know?” Emphasizes Big Bucks with his hands and eyebrows. “But I balked man. You know. Balked?”
“I guess.” I say.
“Do like your parents hate you?” he asks.
“What? No, my parents don’t hate me. Why would you say such a - your’s hate you?”
“Yes. No, I mean, I don’t’ know - I don’t know what more I can do for you Tim.” He says.
“What?”
“You know.” he says.
“I have magic powers.” I smile.


Sometimes we cover actual grounds and sometimes not. Sometimes it’s all just crazy bullshit and sarcasm and sometimes enlightening. Our dialogues become referential of other dialogues. The philosophy achieves depth. The jokes gain history and momentum and a friendship is woven of these things.

He drives a pickup with three to four days worth of stuff in the back. Like you know who. Works in town during the week and goes home (north about fifty miles) the end. Sleeps in the truck in between. Showers at Walters. My God am I a drop-out?

At last. Walter. Walter is the head cook. Second in command only to Roger. Early fifties with a peppered beard. Kingly nose and the chefs hat to tuck up his also graying ponytail. His years of command here have honed him a calm and natural leading figure. Wears a hand rag across his shoulder which all the kid cooks imitate out of admiration. I like him from the start. Has been here since the restaurant opened. Lives just up the block and upstairs. He has seen drop-outs like Henry and I come and go for twenty years. And a family member of Town. During my summer there I think I would see every single citizen in town sitting on his couch one time or another. I had wanted to be among that family but it is like a gear I have no idea how to catch.

One day at work Walter hangs a sign on the wall saying: Who is the Idiot who put the sugar in the salt bin?

Idiot is underlined. Oops. Tear down the note and find Walter. “Hey, I uh, think I’m the idiot.” He laughs and slaps me on the back. “Ah that’s ok doughboy, it takes balls to admit it. That’s good you coming right up to me like that. Stop up sometime.” That was it. That night I knock on his door like all the other kids. “Yeah,” he says from behind it. Door half opened already. Swings open as Bobby the dishwasher is heading out. “Hey,” he says. “Hey.” “Doughboy!” Walter pipes at me. “Sit down.” Motions to the co-host chair beside him. The room is hazy with smoke and packed with a lifetime of well chosen furnishings. And tidy. Bins and bins of record albums along the floor and wall. Low and deep couches. Tapestries and smoky glass lamps. Paintings and posters and plants like an encroaching jungle. Two human sized speakers and an enormous television which has hypnotized the bus boy and two cooks from the restaurant. Walter’s long hair is still pinned up atop his head and with that pointy beard he looks like a great Genie or Djinn. He produces without removing his eyes from the television a great tin tray and rolls a cigar worth of just about the finest you-know-what on earth. A myriad of cats (who really own the place) sleep and stalk about the room. “Whatdaya watchin?” I ask.
“Movie.” He says. “Just movies. No TV.” He motions to the wall to indicate some three hundred video tapes. Each with three movies. A little red book indexes them and allows the locals to choose more conveniently which film or films to borrow.
“I can’t stand the shows or commercials or any of that crap.” He says cigar crackling to life. “Get the news from the paper. Just movies. I got over five hundred channels.”
He knows his directors and writers. Knows exactly who was in what movie and what year. An living encyclopedia of film lore. And I a rogue apprentice in this very pursuit. We talk all through the first movie and I know he likes me. I know I like him too. When I come back from the bathroom he is out like a light. Snoring above the movie but nobody leaves. He wakes for a moment and comments on the scene at hand and drops back out. Likes us to stay.

Henry was a regular on Walter’s couch. “Hey after work are you goin up?” he’d say.
“Up?” I’d ask. “Whadaya mean up?” I ask but of course know.
After work we’d punch out exhausted and carry our work weary madness up to Walters for that gravy time you wait for all day. “I don’t believe in beleiving you know,” emphasizes with his hands over the Movie “it’s like beleiving is like leaning - like faith you know - like leaning on something you can’t ever touch. I don’t believe in beleiving.” “Hm.” I say “well how about this - let’s say that beleiving, like faith is leaning one way toward something or rather away from something - like a center - and I see what you mean about that but check it out - not beleiving in something is leaning away in the opposite direction away from that same center. That’s just as bad.” Walter who hasn’t moved in an hour laughs.

And this is the happy heart of summer. The purity of the trees by night. The blue river and hot summer sun and small town life by day. Frantic twilight pizzas and mad philosophy as dusk turns to cool dark. And Walter’s - dark and smoky and warm welcome home Walter’s at the days end. My midnight summer walk in the starred blackness to the purity of the trees. This was the happy heart of summer.
Ok.



While reading in the sun one weekend at Kate’s, I have an bolt of inspiration about my car. Which Michael still has not diagnosed. Race a mile to the payphone at the Volunteer Fire Department. Use my magic card and call a Transmition Specialist. Fancy. They agree to take my car for a look and will send a tow. Which you know I still have three free this year. Back to Michael’s my keys are where he hid them. Take the car up the road to meet the tow truck and within the hour the transaction is complete. Julia has been shipped south sixty miles. Mechanic on the phone the next day says they can fix it but good for about one fifty. I bid them do so.

Two days later I spend the first night sleeping within a structure in over a month. Bobby the dishwasher offers his couch at Walter’s. “Really, go ahead. I’ll be up and out by six. Sleep all day for all I care.” And I did. Though not too deeply. It was odd not to have the rush of wild air against my face all night. But the shower entices as the warm sunny mornings are fading to cool grey autumn. That night I borrow Bobby’s sleeping bag and sleep in the Cemetary at the end of the street. Huge flat tomb stone seems well hidden enough. Cold and hard but otherwise preffered to indoors. In the morning a small dog comes sniffing near. “Why you.” I hear across the graveyard. Bent little old man.
“Git over here. Godamn you. God-damn-you Git over here!” he snarled at his dog. The dog obeys and I wake up giggling. Poor little Godamn dog. But today is a big day.

Walter’s one day off and I have an hour before the bus which will take me almost ninety miles south to Julia - new and improved. He pours black coffee into cups and saucers and offers me the sports section. We read the paper like civilized barbarians over our silent coffee. I am secure in the universe. Diabla’s kittens are becoming frisky and curious.

Earlier this summer: “You know, Walter” I say admiring his cats. “That one over there. The big guy? He ever father any kitten