When it was time to write in the morning, afternoon, or during the wee hours, Henry itched, which had nothing to do with writing and everything to do with Tramadol.
It’s winter 1987, Northerners living above the Mason Dixon line are suffering through the worst winter in decades— it has been snowing for days.
After the snowstorm the indomitable Northerners dig for a day and a night, creating a series of snow trenches like the dirt trenches on France’s Maginot Line during the 1st World War.
The tribe, Henry, Lucia, Summer Wynd, the Chihuahuas Che y Mia, and Pedro the woodpecker didn’t want anything to do with winter. Lucia had spent most of her life in Cuba and she couldn't bear the cold. After experiencing her 1st New England snowstorm she pleaded with Henry for 2 days to buy tickets to Florida until he caved in.
The tiny pups Che y Mia are pampered by Lucia and Summer Wynd like they're babies. Chihuahuas are one of the most popular canine breeds in America and their owners commonly refer to them as babies.
This, a far cry from the treatment Chihuahuas received at the hands of the ancient Aztec Indians, who bred the small-scale dogs as though they were 4 legged chickens, roasting them on open stone pits to eat with beans and squash as they celebrated beheadings during blood festivals.
While picnicking in Northern Florida’s Osceola Forest during a car trip to Tallahassee Henry and Lucia were sitting at a picnic table eating take away KFC and drinking beer.
Out of nowhere, Pedro the woodpecker, who was a baby then, drops onto the table and begins pecking on a biscuit. Lucia falls for him saying,
darling, I love the baby bird, his mother is going to smell our scent and kick him out of the nest. I’m taking him home. Henry isn’t convinced,
if we bring him home he’ll peck holes in our wooden furniture. Maybe the little guy would rather stay in the forest and live with other woodpeckers.
If he follows us to the station wagon it means I’m his mother.
As the couple walks towards their car the baby bird flies from the picnic table and lands on Lucia’s shoulder, perching there. Then, riding back to the tribe's Key West bungalow where he has lived ever since.
Personality exists across the entire animal world. Pedro was difficult at times, wanting his food served in particular ways— saltless sunflower seeds with the husks on or diced watermelon served with seeds intact. If his priorities weren’t followed, he’d march begrudgingly around the tribe's bungalow, stomping his feet up and down.
Dave Spleen, editor of Headbanger Magazine in New York calls Henry in Key West saying,
your last story America the Colossus flatlined with the public and staff alike. I'll read you a few bits from the sorrowful letters we received,
...Lucowski needs to hang it up, ASAP!
...the story is crap if the guy needs to talk shit, tell him to go to a bar or a shrink.
My 5-year-old writes better than Lucowski...
...his story doesn't resemble writing.
Get the point, Henry? Gotta go, gotta deadline to meet.
The big nothing reception America the Colossus received concerned and saddened Henry. Was the story lame? Was he finished as a writer? Where New Yorkers fed up with his work? Or could you chalk it up to—
you win some and you lose some.
His mother Pauline, God bless her soul, would advise him,
Henry, clean up your room before you go out, if you don’t it will show on you and people will look at you funny.
Begging the questions,
Do you think feeling woeful while writing shows in your work?
Or is sadness a muse leading you to deeper and more poignant thoughts?
Chopin wrote his best music while he was heartbroken after his lover George Sand left him for a woman.
Being sad is different from feeling flat, sadness is an emotion. The flat affect is a failure of the brain to produce enough dopamine, causing a person to feel half alive. If your brain ceases to produce dopamine you become a zombie.
Hollywood Zombies are like Energizer Bunnies, they keep going, going, going. Real-life zombies are very different— they’re comatose, lazy couch potatoes who lay on their sofas staring blankly at whatever is on TV, anticipating the end of the broadcasting day, when the illustration of the Indian-head test pattern comes on screen.
It's unclear why the Indian-head test pattern is broadcasted in the wee hours. Only the network techs know and they aren't telling why.
It’s a mistake to sell Zombies short because their minds are as uncluttered as a Zen master— they’ve transcended the human habit of habitual thinking.
The Indian-head test pattern is a zombie God, who, like them, is soulless and empty inside— the late-night graphic is a symbol to zombies everywhere of their struggle in a world dominated by humans who set the norms.
Contrary to what the film The Night of the Living Dead implies— zombies aren’t human flesh-eaters, they’re fueled by a life force similar to the Holy Spirit known as Satan’s tea or the Devil's gasoline.
Henry hadn’t descended into the trap of zombie hood yet, but his body and mind were dreadfully out of sync.
He throws on a pair of cut-offs and a T, gets on the tribe’s Vespa scooter, making a b-line to the Key West Public library, parking, and going inside.
There’s a lady librarian standing behind the front desk wearing clear-framed classes who’s as pretty as a picture. She looks like Joan Baez or Rita Coolidge, her Navajo white hair is braided Indian style, like Henry’s hair. He starts a conversation by saying,
you look wise, I guess you read a lot, I’m feeling outta sync can you help me?
I’m a librarian, not a psychologist, let’s look over some back issues of Psychology Today on microfilm.
Henry follows behind her, she's wearing a long dark patterned dress, he eyeballs her shapely figure as it shuffles inside her dress. Her body emits the alluring smell of patchouli oil which arouses him
They reach an area that has 3 microfilm readers on separate desks. The machines are thick and awkward in appearance, surrounded on 3 sides by fabricated metal hoods that shield florescent light from blocking the reader's view.
Then as they pull 2 chairs together in front of a microfilm reader, sitting close, their thighs touch. Henry asks,
what’s your name?
MRS.!…. Linda Lightfoot!
Oh, I get it, you're married and not looking.
Yes, that’s right, call me Linda.
Linda accesses the microfilm collection rolling through past issues of Psychology Today.
He feels the warmness of her body as their legs touch, she gives off the singular warmth of an older woman. He thinks about bending and kneeling under the desk, lifting her dress, spreading her legs with both hands, then, putting his head up her dress to her crouch and tonging her.
Henry struggles to keep the head of his cock from peeking out of his cut off shorts, nonchalantly holding it in place by pressing both legs together.
He thinks about baseball, Yogi Berra, and the Yankees, trying to cool off. Linda’s unaware of the fire he feels in his body as she dutifully pours over past issues of Psychology Today in the microfilm viewer. He says,
Oh, I’m Henry,
Yes, I know, your wife Lucia and I get our hair done on Thursdays at Nikki’s Salon, she’s so gorgeous and really funny, you're lucky Henry.
Linda knowing Lucia is a slap in the face. He hopes Linda hasn’t picked up on his desire for her. She says gleefully,
oh, I’ve found something— Zen Meditation, Sync Your Body and Mind. I hope it helps. I have a stack of books to file.
As she stands she says,
My husband Stanley and I are barbecuing this weekend, why don’t you and Lucia join us?
That’d be nice Linda, what does your husband do?
he’s the sheriff of Monroe County.
As Linda goes back to work, pushing a wooden cart through lined rows filing books, Henry hustles out of the library, humiliated, conscious stricken, feeling like a dirty dog, forgetting why he came to the library.
When he shows at the bungalow Lucia and Summer Wynd, the couples lover, are in the kitchen making dinner— fried grouper with a cornmeal batter, blacked eye peas, artichokes, yellow rice, and Pillsbury biscuits.
He gives both girls a hug and says,
let me make the biscuits? Lucia agrees, instructing him,
OK, get a metal tray out of the bottom drawer of the cupboard, grease it with Crisco or butter, then crack open the biscuit container and carefully pull apart the dough, placing the biscuits on the tray in rows. Watch them close, and don’t burn them, Henry!
The girls didn’t like him hanging around the kitchen, he was all hands and would burn everything.
Once, late one night, Summer Wynd went to the kitchen for milk and cookies. She sees Henry trying to cook a pizza in a skillet on top of the stove and says to him,
let me help you, dear.
She turns off the gas burner, preheats the oven, puts the pizza on a tray, opening the oven door, and placing it inside, staying and talking with him until the pizza’s finished, knowing he would burn it, otherwise.
Back in the kitchen with Lucia, he does as he’s told to a point. Instead of carefully separating the Pillsbury biscuit dough by hand, he slices the dough with a kitchen knife cookie thin, placing the wafer-thin wedges on the oiled tray and putting it in the oven. The dough is on fire 8 minutes later.
Lucia and Summer Wynd are drinking wine and chatting off in a corner, ignoring Henry. Hearing the smoke alarm the girls run to the kitchen and turn off the oven. Summer Wynd tells him,
Henry, get out of the kitchen and let us do the cooking, go to your office and begin outlining the next Great American Novel.
In the kitchen— he was deaf, dumb, and blind. He was a dumb-smart in life.
Last week, after many years as a columnist for HEADBANGER Magazine in New York, including a 2-year sojourn as the editor of The Gringo Times in Havana, Henry’s blue sky self-confidence was leveled.
He felt broadsided sitting in front of his typewriter unable to write, drinking vodka, listening to sad symphonies, and lamenting life.
Feeling on the cusp of zombie-hood, he goes to the living room, lays on the sofa, and turns on the TV, unaware of what he’s watching, staring blankly at the square tube all night until he nodes out at 3 PM as the Indian Test Pattern comes on.
He wakes on the sofa at 10 AM, the TV is on the fritz, he looks vacantly at the static noise for another 20 minutes.
Lucia and Summer Wynd walk into the living room on their way out of the door, Lucia says,
you look, awful dear, go see Doctor Alvarez sweetie, we’re going to Dog Beach.
The girls hug him and walk out the door, starting the Vespa scooter and riding it to the beach.
It’s a magical day in Key West, the sky's laced with pink cumulous clouds, and its 70 degrees.
Henry showers, oils, and braids his hair and hurriedly dresses in cut-offs, a tank top, and rubber slippers.
He goes to the kitchen, icing down a Coleman cooler and filling it with Rolling Rock beer. Then opening a cupboard drawer and pulling out a baggy with a number of rolled joints and a dozen hits of chocolate mescaline inside.
He places a folding lounge chair and the Coleman cooler in the bed of his V8 Chevy Malibu. Then getting in at the driver's side and starting the engine, hearing a low purr.
As he drives out of Key West on Highway 1 north, he lights a joint, switching the radio to WBGO Miami, all jazz, Sonny Red, Blue Mitchell, and Zoot Sims are waxing soulfully playing Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered.
The words bewitched, bothered, and bewildered summed up Henry's situation, he'll go to Sugarloaf key to detox his soul of demons.
After driving for 25 minutes he turns off Highway 1 parking on a dirt road at Sugarloaf Key. A ghostly key known for its Calusa Indian shell mounds.
The Casula aboriginal tribe lived on coastal areas in Southern Florida waterways 600 years ago. Unlike other Florida Indian tribes, they didn’t farm, instead, fishing for large fish offshore in dugout canoes, using woven nets and shell spears made from conchs, crabs, clams, lobsters, and oysters shells.
The Calusa discarded shells in huge heaps. Also using the shells for tools, utensils, jewelry, and ornaments for their shrines.
Henry takes the cooler and the folding chair out of the bed of his wagon, then pulling the cooler with the folding chair on top down a trail until he finds a Calusa Indian mound.
The mound is as high as a 1 story house, sitting back some from the shore of Bow Channel. He places his folding chair on top of the mound, using his Coleman cooler as a table. The mound of crustacean shells is decomposed and bleached white from sitting in the sun for 600 years.
Opening the cooler he pulls out a can of Rolling Rock beer and sucks it down, then placing 3 tabs of mescaline under his tongue allowing them to evaporate. He lights a joint with his Zippo lighter that has a skull and bones on it, taking a deep drag.
As he comes on to the mescaline the shell mound begins billowing wave-like, then it inflates like an oversized balloon surrounding Henry, holding him in place.
After distending for 10 minutes, the preternatural dirigible ruptures. Henry sees the material matter around him in a purely energetic state, looking like it's covered with chalky dust.
Testing the alternate environment he stands and walks in and out of a couple of large trees, then walking into Bow Channel for 500 meters and turning back as though the bay was fluff, not buoyant sea.
The White Light encounter is intoxicating, He feels born anew. He has shed the unwanted clutter of body and mind that was pulling him down.
3 hours later he’s coming down, he smokes a joint and drinks a few beers to make the landing easier.
He walks the same trail back to his car, loading the cooler and folding chair into the bed of his wagon. It’s 3 PM as he drives south on Highway 1 to Key West, dialing the radio to Miami’s all jazz station, Bill Evan’s Peace Piece is playing. He opens the car windows to let the breeze off of Jewfish Basin in, the scent wraps around him like a blanket of Vitamin Sea.
Back in Key West he parks the station wagon inside the bungalow’s wooden garage, feeling free and clear after the detoxing psychedelic trip.
The girls are at Dog Beach doing what they do, wearing skimpy bikinis, showing off their statuesque bodies, and getting loaded as they eyeball the surf and Dog Beach lifeguard, Dirk.
Back in the house, Henry's in his office thumbing through a book of quotes, looking for one that nails the highs and lows of the past week down.
You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star. Friedrich Nietzsche
