Van Morrison Knocked up Half the Town

               

Flora and Ted Delmar lived in Bolinas, California population sixteen hundred, a artist community that people from San Francisco visited on weekends, with famous residents Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Van Morrison who owned a ranch outside of town. Bolinas looked like the old run down town in the western "Three Bullets for Ringo". The Delmars lived in a small old wooden house, weathered and sky blue color. They were AWOL, Absent Without Leave from society and the rat race, opting out when Nixon was elected.

Flora had a trust fund from a eccentric rich uncle who lived in the East. It wasn't allot, but the Delmars could afford to live simply and past the time painting, writting, drinking, listening to music and smoking pot. Flora painted her dreams using house paint instead of expensive Rembrant paint. She would glue old newspapers and sand from the beach on the thin canvass to thicken and give it texture. Ted had a old Olympia typewriter he used to write stories with, both were moderately successful and could care less about making it. Flora had a few exhibitions in San Franciso and Ted published a book of short stories entitled ' Mescaline Sombero' on Black Sparrow Press.

One night their neighbors, Dennis and Lola Weaver, came to the Delmar house for a visit. They owned the health food store in Bolinas and were heavy drinkers like the Delmars. After eating some falafel and couscous they began to drink bourbon and spring water, passing a joint of high breed Humboldt County pot around.

Lola Weaver knew that Flora had wanted to get pregnant, bored and feeling horney, like she was in heat she said, " Oh Flora good lord what is wrong with Teddy's sperm? Try this dear, put raw oysters,  earthworms, seaweed and pumpkin yogurt in a blender then give it to Ted before you make love." Flora says " Oh fuck off Lola we all know that Dennis's sperm isn't any better than Ted's, and that your son Moonboy was fathered by Van Morrison", Lola countered by saying " Well dear my darling Moonboy has the DNA of a genius and will be a world famous musician someday,". "Sure" says Flora in reply reminding Lola that, " Van the mans DNA also carries the lousy genes of a sexed out doper, booze hound, rogue cowboy and bald fat man". Roaring out loud spontaneously the pair laughed so hard that their eyes teared.

Meanwhile Dennis and Ted were in the backyard, peering through a telescope at the night sky as they passed a joint back and forth. It was a fresh and crisp night and you could smell the ocean. The sky looked like a dark blue tarp draped over the horizon as though someone had pricked the tarp a zillion times with a needle allowing the light source from beyond to shine through the tiny holes. Ted got serious for a moment saying to Dennis " One night broh, I was looking at the sky, like we are tonight and I saw a tiny star like blue ray of light that was moving up and down, hovering near the moon for fifteen minutes, then bingo the blue ray shoots up into space and vanishes."  Dennis was skeptical and didn't believe in UFOs saying " You are not going to tell me it was a UFO, maybe it was a star that just flickered out." Ted thought for a few seconds and said, " Well it sure as shit wasn't your momma's booty"! The two good friends wrestled each other to the ground laughing.

Later that evening Flora decided she wanted to walk down the hill and go skinny dipping in Bolinas Lagoon. She wanted to bath in moon beams, asking the Weavers to come along. After splashing about and chicken fighting the couples went to their perspective Mexican blankets, exhausted, full of joy, necking a bit and passed out. Life was good for the Delmars and Weavers, whom in their different ways had escaped the rat race of the city and found simple joy in country living, living off the grid, opting for a spiritually creative life instead. Aware beings, choosing to generate the smallest carbon footprint possible, using green energy to power their houses. Not wanting to leave behind allot of plastic shit that would end up in the rubbish, more carbon based toxins taking a big dump on the precious environment, perpetuating the cycle of sedate planetary suicide.

One Christmas night Flora and Ted got magnificently wasted on Mescal. They finished putting the colored lights on their tree, which was not a pine but a huge home grown cannabis bush in a painted pot. For them Christmas night symbolized the birth of earthly innocence that was eroding, going down to the low lands as the centuries progressed. 

Flora got up and changed the channel on the old TV, they only had two channels. It was Christmas at the Nixon White House,
they both hated Nixon and his phony "values" and got a sinking feeling watching Pat, Tricky Dick, David Eisenhower, Trica and the rest of family values crew sitting around the huge White House blue pine christmas tree. The Delmars thought the Nixon family looked soulless, like mannequins or plastic dolls. Ted began sweating and couldn't watch the the travesty any longer, it was taking the joy out of Christmas for him. He picked up a shot gun he kept at hand and fired a few caps into into the TV, watching pieces of the glass screen, tubes and circuits fly apart landing on the living room floor. He had a Elvis or a Hunter S. Thompson moment, then saying to Flora, "Damn that felt good baby" thinking to himself that he would never watch TV again. The Nixon family had that affect on allot of people.

Later, a month after the night of revelry at Bolinas Lagoon, Flora took a home pregnancy test and it came up positive. She knew that Lola Weaver would say that Van Morrison was the father. People in town believed that Van the patriarch had a witches brew of magical and formidable whale sperm and had knocked up half the women in Bolinas. But Flora knew that the moon beams shining on her and Ted the night they balled on the lagoon Ted's sperm hit a bullseye. She knew the child would be a girl and that she would name her baby Moongirl.

Months past and Flora was showing her pregnancy. One day she went to Bolinas to get some jasmine tea and have a drink at the No Name Saloon. Van Morrison was sitting with some pals at the bar. He took one look at Flora and started grinning like a proud father. Flora looked at Van and said, "You're not the father of my baby you big fat piece of shit the moon is". Van got up and walked out the door, went back to the studio on his ranch and wrote "Moon Dance", obviously moved and inspired by his run in with Flora.

The American Indians have a saying " Just because you point your finger at the moon, it doesn't mean you're the moon" But sweet Flora knew better.