Seeing the Dragon (standard:Psychological fiction, 6844 words)
Author: Joe E.	Added: Jul 27 2003	Views/Reads: 3551/2690	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Jack takes his teenage son to a concert and reafirms the beliefs that he began to develop in the coffee house days of the early sixties. As he is blown into a different reality, we see that time and space are illusions of thought.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

M. I'm sitting at the big brown table by the front window listening to 
a long drawn out story from Sol Weinstein, the comic who writes for the 
Trenton Times. My good friend and co-owner of the Triv., Vance, sits 
next to me. Across the table, the black capped little poet, Mark, 
laughing at all the right places his green teeth showing; John, 
descendent of African Kings, eyeing up the new kid, and hoping to walk 
his white ass home to the room he rents away from home; Black Barb, 
leaning back, eyes closed and legs wide open; White Barb, leaning 
forward, with eyes wide open and legs tightly closed... As I listen, I 
remember the guy from Philly, Cal, with the same last name as Sol, and 
how he told the six Fort Dix soldiers that Jack and Vance were his 
friends, that he'd kick their asses if they didn't return the coffee 
cups, that they could fight him like men one at a time or he'd take on 
all six of them. They shake his hand and return and buy more coffee 
toasting his courage... 

Other faces from the Triv. ; the Village poets, Dick Woods, and Jonathan
North; Big Leo, Bearded Gregory Demetrius, the bongo player, Concho, 
the copy boy from the Tribune, Frank. And out in an alley somewhere 
waiting to kick my ass 'cause I banned them from the Triv. for coming 
in all high on Four Roses and Tea, and busting up the place, were Jack 
Gore, and Tommy Booze... 

Where are they all right now? I asked myself. What would Vance say if he
were here on this Santa Cruz night? 

At the civic center, the line was a little over a block long. We fell
into place across from the driveway to a small parking lot. Stepping in 
behind, and lounging in front of us were just the kind of people you 
would expect; college kids in Levi's and sweat shirts, high school kids 
wearing their Day on the Green shirts behind open jackets, guys with 
long hair and beards, girls with big breasts, and nice asses, a 
scattered parent... As we squared away in line, I thought of Vance's 
comment at a break in Sol's monologue. "Yea, you know what Lenny Bruce 
says, If Christ were alive today, in twentieth century America, he'd be 
electrocuted. Do you realize, instead of a cross, you'd be wearing an 
electric chair around your neck!" 

Christ began to look more and more Beat in those coffee house nights and
days didn't he? I asked myself as I felt a pair of eyes stare into my 
back. I turned and saw a college age Chinese kid. 

"Got a match, bro.?" he asked. 

"No, I ain't got one," I replied as I eyed the neatly rolled joint in
his hand. 

"I got a pack," Donny said reaching into his fur lined jacket pocket,
and handing the pack to the kid. 

A string of firecrackers went off near the back of the parking lot. 

"Hey look,² Stoke said turning his attention to the action. 

"Keep 'em," Donny told the kid, and moved a couple steps toward Stoke. 

The kid lit up, sucked in deeply and passed the number to his girl who
took a hurried puff and returned it. Looking toward Donny, and seeing a 
slender longhaired high school boy, he shook his head no, and pointed 
the number at me. Even if they do see me, it's no worse an example than 
chugging booze, I told myself as I reached for his hand. A big smile 
lit up the kid's face. 

Probably home grown, I thought after a quick hit. The number went from
the kid, to his girl, back to the kid, and then to me. I took another 
quick hit just to be polite thinking that Anne would kill me if she saw 
this. 

"Put away half a bottle a' Jack Daniel's before we left the pad. You
know, man, you got to have your head really fucked up to get into the 
music," the Kid said. 

The line grew longer. "Lucky thing we got here early like I said," Stoke
told me as we stretched our necks to see the end of it. Donny stepped 
off the sidewalk for a better look. I followed while Stoke held our 
places. People crowded behind us for at least three blocks. Bumper to 
bumper cars circled the block. Kids hung out of windows greeting 
friends in the line. An occasional car came to a complete stop until 
horns and shouts from behind got it moving again. In the back of my 
mind, I was thinking about the up coming New Year's Eve at Alex's.  How 
we'd toast in the 80's. How I'd have to tell him about my latest dream 
of the coyote. 

"That's from their last album," Stoke hollered nodding to a full blast
car stereo. 

"Who, Blue Oyster Cult?" I yelled back. 

"How'd you like living there?" Donny asked pointing to a three-story
apartment house adjacent to the parking lot. 

"Be great if you're into rock music," I answered noticing that the
lights were out and the windows empty. 

"Got a match, bro.?" the Chinese Kid asked of Stoke. 

"Donny already gave you his," Stoke told him. As the Kid searched
through his Levi jacket, Stoke and I exchanged places. Scratching his 
head, the Kid thought for a second, reached into his back pants' 
pocket, lit up, took a long hit, and offered the J to his girl. She 
shook her head no. When he pointed the number at me, I nodded to the 
boys, with an expression, which said, "Sorry." The Kid winked that he 
understood and took another hit. 

As I looked towards the front of the line, another memory from the
Trivia days flashed through my mind. It's a week or two after we 
opened. The Snowman walks in just before closing. I'm in the back 
office catching some Z's.  Vance, Mark, and some other regulars are at 
the front table waiting for Sol to finish his shift. 

"You got any Tea?,,, Man?" the Snowman, a tall black man in his mid
twenties, asks in a hoarse whisper when Vance steps behind the counter. 


"Tea? Why hell yes, man. We got orange blossom, mint, jasmine, red rose,
chrysanthemum, mulberry, herb, bancha-green, American...² 

"No, man... I mean Tea... You got any Tea?"  the man asks through
sparkling white teeth. 

"We got every tea a man could want. We got..." Vance says running
through the list again. 

"Dig, man... This is a favor.  Couple sticks," the Snowman tells Vance
as he opens his magazine to reveal the merchandise. Closing it, he 
passes the magazine across the counter.  "Catch you later, man. Dig?" 
he says and takes his leave. 

Vance wakes me up around five A.M. after Sol and the others are gone,
and explains what happened. High school dope fiend movies still in our 
minds, I tell Vance, "Too late to try it now. I have to leave for work 
by one." 

Vance comes back with, "We don't want to smoke none 'round the place,
anyhow. Look what it done to Gore and Booze..." 

We decide to stash it under the back seat of my Buick and wait until
Thursday, my day off from the airport job. "Yea, you can pick me up 
early. We can head down to the river," Vance tells me. Two days later, 
when we look for the stuff it's gone. We tore apart the whole back seat 
trying to find the two J's. One of the regulars must have heard the 
story and gotten into the car. Vance and Cal shared a joint on one of 
their jaunts through Philly together. But he and I never did share 
one... I told myself as a couple of long legged coeds walked toward me 
searching the faces. I caught the eye of the closest girl and we 
exchanged smiles. As she continued down the block, I told myself that 
Alex would have invited her to cut in line. 

Sure... Sure... I answered remembering the kids, that I'm wearing a
shabby sweater, that my Pinto probably won't even make it home 
tonight... 

"What time you got" Donny asked as he and Stoke returned from the curb.
I pointed to my empty wrist. The Kid's girl told us it was just passed 
seven. More and more people kept coming. The dress got freakier; a girl 
in a long green velvet gown, a guy with top hat, tails, and cane, a 
couple dudes in full leather. The line behind us got longer, and so did 
the line in front of us with concertgoers spilling over into the 
street. I blinked my eyes trying to take it all in while I half 
listened to Stoke and Donny argue about the merits of the back up 
group's new lead singer. 

The Kid took a fresh number from his jacket pocket. It slipped from his
fingers. He stooped to retrieve it, leaned too far, and went over in 
slow motion his shoulder banging into the sidewalk. The girl, Donny, 
and I rushed to help. 

"I'm all right!  I'm all right!" the Kid shouted staggering to his feet.
He checked his thumb and index finger, smiled, and shook his head. 

"You don't need any more," the girl laughed and gave him a big hug. He
returned her hug with his left arm. 

"You got to have your head really fucked up to get into their music,"
the Kid told his girl as he lit a match and puffed into the flame. 

A burst of excitement ran through the crowd. The line jerked forward,
stopped, and then started up again. We crossed the driveway, and I 
turned to look for the Kid. He was rooted to his spot. The girl tugged 
on his arm with all her might, but he wouldn't budge. As the 
concertgoers stepped around, she dropped to her knees, and embraced the 
legs of the froze up Kid. Her teardrops washed his stonework body. "He 
got his mind fucked up all right, but his feet won't work,² I told 
myself as I patted my shirt pocket to make sure the tickets were safe. 

"Where you want to sit?" Stoke asked when we stood on the wooden floor
inside the five thousand capacity auditorium. I stared wide-eyed as the 
unlined crowd broke for favorite spots. "Me and Donny want to get as 
close as we can," he said with a sense of urgency in his voice. I 
turned in a circle and watched the seats filling up. 

"You probably don't want to sit too close," Donny told me. 

"Yea, over there," I said pointing to a section of seats to the right of
a small platform that was filled with lighting equipment. "I'll meet 
you by the stage here when it's finished." The boys nodded their 
good-byes and took off in a rush. 

Several rows up, I found an empty section of cushioned chairs and eased
myself into the first one. Patrons were filling up the rows around me. 
Stoke and Donny, standing some ten people back from the right hand side 
of the stage, turned to check where I was, and then refocused their 
attention up front where a crowd of some five hundred hard core rockers 
were gathering. I could just make out a half dozen or so grips who were 
setting up in the dark. Recorded rock blasted from mountains of gray 
and black speakers. On the edge of my seat, a rush of excitement 
pounding my heart, an intense pull at my umbilical region, I had the 
notion that I should remember something... 

Relax... Focus on the crowd. Try to find a ³proper tonal,² I told
myself. As my eyes swept the auditorium slowly up one side and down the 
other, face after face struck my senses. I squinted an eye and tried 
not to rest on a single aspect. Arms and legs and bodies merged one 
upon the other and battered against my thought stream. The lighting 
stage caught my attention. Two bearded kids worked with easy confidence 
on a jungle of wiring. On both sides of the stage latecomers rushed to 
remaining spaces. Mixed with the odor of cigarette smoke was the sweet 
smell of grass. I swallowed at the dryness of my throat, and listened 
to a faint moaning from the seats behind me. Muted conversations 
bombarded my ears, while electric charged rock blasted my eyeballs. 

As I continued to search the crowd for a ³proper tonal,² faces merged
into memory. My mind drifted back to a Philadelphia stage that would 
soon hold Theodore Bikel. Vance is seated next to me wearing a small 
goatee, shades, a boat neck shirt, and three dollar white sneakers. "My 
old man." he's saying, "All he lives for is that God dammed house of 
his. You wouldn't believe the projects he's got lined up for me over 
Easter vacation. I mean, there's got to be more to life than jacking up 
the value of your property..." 

An image of my last visit with Vance, at his Vegas home, in
seventy-five, floats up from my unconscious and mixes with the sounds 
of Fiddler on the Roof. He's showing me his latest project, an enormous 
brick barbecue. He takes a sip of his fifth Martini. "I've been wanting 
to tell you this all weekend, Daley. I mean, I never thought you'd let 
California change you like that. I always thought you were your own 
man. It hurts me to say this, but if the chance came up, I couldn't 
hire you to teach in my school. I mean, there are certain values... 
Society is based on certain values. Values that go beyond that long 
haired hippie bullshit.  The kids pick up on it right away. You let a 
teacher on your staff with shoulder length hair..." 

"Mr. D... Mr. D... Is that you?" broke into my reverie as footsteps
stopped at my row. I turned and saw a kid with sunglasses, a small 
mustache, and dark tanned skin. "What you doing at a rock concert?" 

"Hey, how's it going?" I returned. "Yea, my son talked me into bringing
him." 

"You remember me, don't you Mr. D.?" 

"Yea, sure, you won't believe this, but I had a dream about you a couple
weeks ago." I answered and focused on a gorgeous high school girl who 
peeked around from behind him. 

"Mr. Daley!  Oh, hi!" the girl said. 

"Mari... Hey how you doing?" I asked and gazed at a stunning face with
violet eyes and wavy black hair. "Doggone, you must be what a senior, 
now?" 

"Naw, we graduated last year... I was in your dream?" 

"Yea, we were walking though my old neighborhood in Philadelphia. You
looked just like you did in sixth grade." 

"You mind if we sit here with you and your son?" Pete asked. I explained
that Stoke and his friend were standing at the stage, and invited them 
to sit. 

"So, you guys still hanging together after all this time?" I asked. 

Mari explained that they had lost touch with each other for awhile. That
Pete was home from college. That they ran into each other and he 
invited her to the concert. 

"So where you going to school?" I asked of Pete. 

"U.C.L.A. My dad wanted me to go to Berkeley, but I wanted to get a
little further away," Pete explained. 

"You remember science camp, Mr. Daley? " Mari asked. 

"Yea, didn't we go in October? It rained all week. The trails were all
wet and muddy..." 

"Yea, we had to wear those long army rain coats. That was so fun..." 

"You still go, Mr. D?" 

"No, they cut outdoor ed. last year 'cause of Prop. 13..." I answered.
We continued to talk about the dream, science camp, and other sixth 
grade things for several minutes. Then, as the two drifted into talk 
between themselves, I got back into watching the crowd. 

A young man in green pants and a matching sweater caught my eye. He ran
down the stairs, reached floor level and spun around. Coming back up 
the stairs three and four steps at a time, his long red hair bounced up 
and down with each footfall. His feet were way too big for his body, 
like he was wearing a pair of over sized clown shoes. With the green 
outfit, he looked like some kind of giant leprechaun. I turned my head 
to watch as he stopped several rows above, slid into the middle of the 
seated patrons, and scanned the upper rows. Slipping back to the aisle, 
he took off in a run toward the top. 

"We're going down for a coke. You want us to bring you something back?"
Pete asked as he and Mari got up from their seats. 

"No, thanks," I answered, and shot a quick glance at Mari's soft round
flesh as she squeezed by. "God, has it been seven years since they were 
in sixth grade?" I asked myself. 

Just as the kids cleared the stairs, the Leprechaun came bouncing by. He
kangaroo hopped around the lighting stage, and started up the aisle 
directly across from me. At the very top row, he worked his way in some 
ten seats or so, shook hands with the boy in front of him, and pulled 
the boy's girl right out of her seat. Slipping into her place, he 
pulled her into his lap, and stared into her face. I stretched my neck 
and blinked my eyes. In one swift movement, the Leprechaun lifted the 
girl from his lap, leapt to his feet, and did a sideways strut back to 
the main aisle. There, he stopped, placed both hands over his eyes and 
peered down the rows. His gaze bounced over the lighting stage and met 
mine. Leaping into the air, he shuffled his feet, and danced down the 
stairs. 

An explosion of cheers pulled my attention from the Leprechaun. The
volume of the recorded music went full max. Cheers and Yeas from the 
stage front rockers joined with the music of Montrose's hit single. 
House lights dimmed and flickered. I could just make out the backs of 
Stoke and Donny through the throbbing crowd. The movement back and 
forth across the floor grew more frantic. The Leprechaun was seated on 
the seventh row among a group of girls with one kneeling in front of 
him. He moved his head from one to the other stopping just long enough 
to bless each with a kiss. 

How does he get away with it? I asked myself as I scanned the crowd to
see if anyone else was watching. 

Pete and Mari returned holding large plastic cups and giggling. "Like a
sip," Mari asked as she slid into the seat next to mine. 

"Yea, thanks," I answered tasting the dryness in my mouth and throat. I
returned the coke and felt Mari's knee come to rest against my leg. 

"What do you think of Montrose?" she asked leaning her face close to
mine. 

"I don't know. Stoke was saying they just changed lead singers. He told
me the new guy is super good..." 

"The one that quit them is Sammy Hagar," Pete interjected as he leaned
our way. "He is really bad, man, really bad. Too bad for the rest of 
the group, too much... He's putting together his own group. A new 
group, man..." 

"You go to a lot of concerts?" Mari asked. 

"No, not really. The last one I was at was in Fresno. Tony, this friend
of mine, is event's manager there. I didn't really get into the music. 
Tony was showing me all the behind the scenes stuff. Like for security 
he had a Fresno police sergeant, used un-uniformed college kids for 
crowd control. Lot of first aid for O. D.'s" 

"Who'd you see, Mr. D.?" 

"I'm not sure... I think the headliner was Black Sabbath... No, it was
Rare Earth..." 

"You seen Blue Oyster Cult?" 

"No, I listened to a couple of their albums, though. Stoke has their
albums." 

"This is my fifth time. I really get off on them. They are really bad,
man." Pete told me and explained how some groups cut really bad albums, 
but bum out when you see them live. Blue Oyster Cult, he explained is 
even badder live. "Wait 'll you see their light show. It will blow you 
away if you never seen it before!" 

The house lights dimmed, flickered a couple times, and then went out.
Spots and lasers sparkled the audience. I followed a single spot that 
bounced off the Leprechaun who was now at the bottom row. He pulled a 
long legged girl from her seat and led her down to the floor. Taking 
her in his arms, he danced her round and round as the spot faded out. 

What is he part of the show or something? I asked myself as Mari's leg
pressed into mine. 

All of a sudden, the music stopped. Pitch blackness except for scattered
cigarette lighters. Then, a hundred spots circling the stage. Blinding 
lasers reflecting off cold chrome. One by one the band fell into light 
as they strummed out a dumbing rendition of their hit single. The kids 
up front went crazy, screaming at the top of their lungs. Cheers and 
Yeas echoed across the floor. As the spots came to rest on the lead 
singer, the group toned down their darkened instruments while he went 
into a long spillage of words to welcome his Santa Cruz fans. 

Live music began in earnest. I turned my attention to words and separate
instruments, but I couldn't get the group into focus. Their playing was 
too loud, too electric, too shattering. There were too many 
distractions; the rhythmic movement of the stage crowd, the back and 
forth hustle of outer stage people, screams of approval from the seated 
audience, the warm flow between Mari's leg and mine. Reflections from 
the lights, which worked the musicians and the audience, mixed with 
illusions from behind my eyeballs; music keeping time with the lights, 
lights keeping time with the music. Flashes so loud and sharp that they 
blow away the thinking process of my mind, words falling out and 
breaking on the concrete floor. Visions of pure color; purple, red, and 
orange melting into violet and painting the empty space inside my head. 
Heart pounding wildly, I gasped for breath, and in a flash saw five 
thousand bodies each keeping their own separate time. In another flash, 
I saw my own vacant body beneath me... 

Back inside, my legs snapped tightly closed as I wrapped both arms
around my chest and sat bolt up right. I felt an intense pressure from 
my abdominal region. My mind flashed on Castaneda's seeing from a 
different center. But, instead of going with it, I shot a quick glance 
at Mari and Pete. With relief, I saw that their eyes were glued to the 
entertainment. 

The back up group finished their second curtain call, and the house
lights came on. I centered on the nervous rocking movement of some two 
thousand bodies on the floor. "Settle down. Settle down," I told myself 
as an athletic looking kid in a red football jersey caught my eye. I 
remembered seeing him before the group started. He had been dancing on 
the outer edge of the stage crowd. Strumming an imaginary guitar, he 
would dance forward twenty feet or so, do a backward step for maybe 
thirty feet, and then regain his forward motion. He must have made five 
or six passes, varying his step and cadence with each pass, but always 
in time to the music. 

Now, he was walking slowly from stage right, just the opposite direction
from that which he took earlier. Instead of dancing, he was bent near 
in half searching for something on the floor. He made a circle and 
disappeared into the stage front crowd. In a minute or so, he 
reappeared on the other side. Sliding through a group of college kids, 
he bent to the floor to pick something up. Holding the object close to 
his face, he shook it two or three times, and carefully placed it in 
his left hand. A ten-dollar bill? I asked myself, as I watched the Kid 
dance a gleeful twenty steps forward. He pushed through a dozen loosely 
packed fans; bent to the floor again, picked something up, placed it 
next to the first, and jumped in the air with joy. Tickets? 

No, stubs... Ticket stubs. 

The kid danced around the lighting stage, scooted to the floor, and
picked up another stub. He slid it into place beside three others. Not 
stubs. Playing cards... He's picking up a hand of cards. The Kid held 
the cards at arm's length, made a change in the order, switched to his 
right hand, and shook them up and down in front of his ear. As he 
spread the cards close up to his eyes, a gigantic smile lit up his 
face. What's he holding four of a kind? I asked myself, and wondered if 
he could be some kind of diablero or something. I searched the crowd 
for a partner that he might be playing with. No one paid him the least 
attention. As he danced out of sight, I scanned the audience for some 
sign of the Leprechaun, but found no trace of him. Could he be a 
diablero too? 

Naw, the two of them must be part of the show, hired by Bill Graham to
keep the excitement flowing. 

Mari tapped me on the arm and pointed to a girl just in front of the
lighting stage. She was wearing an old fashion green cloth gown and 
matching bonnet. Completely identified with the recorded Blue Oyster 
Cult music, she danced away as if nothing else mattered. Mari and I 
shook our heads and laughed. I leaned closer to tell her about the 
Athletic Kid. She shook her head up and down, but I knew she couldn't 
hear me. As my eyes returned to the Dancing Girl, a thought struck me. 
Maybe they ain't diableros, the Athletic Kid and the Leprechaun. Maybe 
they don't work for Bill Graham either. Maybe they're just totally into 
that moment out there. Not thinking of tomorrow, not conditioned by the 
past. Totally into the now... 

Weren't there days and nights at the Triv. when you lived as if nothing
else mattered? I asked myself. 

"I hope you don't mind, Mr. D.?" Pete asked. I turned and saw the
number. 

"No, go ahead," I told him. A big smile lit up his face. 

The house lights flickered bringing a rush back to seats, a press of
bodies toward the stage. I found Stoke and Donney through the crush and 
settled in my seat. The lights went out. The music blasted beyond full 
max. Above the hiss of indrawn breath, live Blue Oyster Cult exploded 
from the stage. Their fans went crazy; Shouting!!!! Screaming!!!! 
Whistling!!!! A burst of lasers pulled my eyes toward the stage. Spots 
light up strummed guitars in a punk rock pose, bad bad bad, super bad 
drummer, lead singer in a Mick Jagger mimic, lasers rebounding off 
steel string, and strutting behind my eyeballs into the blackness, 
electric vibes resounding from sea to shining sea, static sparks 
spattering off French fried brain pans as we, "Kick Out the Jams!!!" 

The introductory piece ended with a fanatic burst of appreciation from
the floor. Then, sparkling through high-tension wires came shadows of 
soaring serpents. On the stage, five men in a pool hall stance screamed 
at the top of their lungs, " HISTORY SHOWS AGAIN AND AGAIN HOW NATURE 
CONVERTS THE FOLLY OF MEN!!!!  HISTORY SHOWS AGAIN AND AGAIN!!! AGAIN 
AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN!!!! GO GO. GOT TO GO. GO GO GODZILLA. GO 
GO GODZILLA. GO GO GODZILLA!!!!² 

My hand slipped off the armrest into Mari's lap. I felt the softness of
warm flesh beneath tight Levi's, the steady motion of thighs in time to 
the music. Flash after flash of lasers pulled my attention to the bass 
guitar. The fiery eyes of Godzilla stared into mine. A flood of flame 
leapt from her nostrils. Towering above the city, the black 
fire-breathing dragon retched a steady spew of red vomit. Ant like 
inhabitants scurried in every direction. Bodies drowned in vile 
excretion flowed into over spilling gutters. Godzilla bent to suck in 
the flow. She grew beyond the skyscrapers. Mixing her fire with that of 
the sun, her eyes became two luminous orbs. Mari's legs opened 
slightly. My hand slipped between them. She always had a schoolgirl 
crush on me, I thought as the music stopped with a deadly silence. 

From the silence, a thundering voice cried out,"YEAAAAAAAaaaaaaa!!!!" I
turned to my left and saw Pete standing on his seat. He was pumping 
both arms over his head and screaming for all he was worth. As I 
watched, Mari climbed atop her seat to join him. My empty hands folded 
over my umbilical region. In your dreams, you dirty old man...  a voice 
told me. You're no better than a god-dammed pervert, another voice said 
as I wondered what Anne would think... 

Focusing on my hands, I realized a pressure from my gut that was pulling
me out of my chair. Sucking in, I held myself down with all my might, 
as a vision of myself, at the age of four or five, walking home pass 
the three story red brick row houses flashes into my mind. Several kids 
are playing on one of the stoops. I feel a strong urge to stop and join 
them, but something hurries me along. As I get closer to Berks, I tell 
myself, Mommy! I want my mommy! My mother is sitting in a wooden 
kitchen chair. She's pulling me home by my umbilical cord... 

Catch the rope! Jump up and catch the rope!  a fourth voice says. 

Next thing I know, I'm out on the floor doing a dosados with the Dancing
Girl. The Athletic Kid promenades toward us. "Deal!" I tell him. 

"Ante up!" he replies as he shuffles the deck. 

I draw the Empress, the Devil, the Magician, the High Priestess, and the
Hermit. "Bet twelve fifty," I tell the Kid. 

"See you," he replies. 

I throw back the Empress and the Devil, and tell the Kid two. He deals
me the Wheel of Chance, and the Fool. 

"Dealer takes one." 

I slip my new cards next to the Magician and bet another twelve fifty. 

The Leprechaun comes out of the crowd, picks up our wagers, and kangaroo
hops toward the nearest exit. The Kid and I follow in hot pursuit. He 
disappears into a large house where some of the concertgoers are 
throwing a party to celebrate Pete's graduation from U.C.L.A. In the 
front room, I see the Chinese Kid polishing an intricately tooled brass 
etching. "Look," he tells me pointing to a panel of spherical figures. 
"Rub them lightly and you can watch them grow." I look more closely and 
see the fruit like figures take on a fiery glow. Fully absorbed in the 
pulsating figures, I lose all sense of time and space. 

I'm polishing the figures with a soft cloth, getting more and more into
the scene of a medieval garden. The picture grows larger and more life 
like. I enter the garden, pass through the stone gates, and find myself 
at a Greek Theater Dead Concert. It's early summer, 1983. Alex is 
standing at my left hand side. From out of the crowd, two Deadhead 
guys, and a girl in a long green velvet gown greet us and ask if we'd 
like to trip out with them. "This is some dynamite shit. It will take 
you into the fourth dimension," one of the guys says. The other passes 
a large clay Egyptian hieroglyphic filled biscuit to the girl. He 
explains that each one must take the right amount. 

"Everyone is different. If you take too much you might never return. If
you don't take enough, you might get caught up in someone else's body," 
he tells us. 

"You'll be gone for a thousand days," the girl says as she passes the
biscuit to Alex. 

"The warrior takes every event as a challenge. Each blessing, each
curse, is a card dealt you by fate," Alex reads from the Egyptian clay, 
and passes it to me. 

I examine the clay closely and see four snakes winding themselves in
figure eight like loops and swallowing each other's tails... 

I'm flying through an ether-like energy field just over the heads of the
other concertgoers. Something in the field connects me to the past and 
future of each individual. A historic guidepost of our times, flashes 
through my mind. When I'm almost dead center over the crowd, I rise to 
an altitude of fifty feet. A cheer goes up as a Bay breeze sweeps me 
over the trees and upwards into the clouds. Beneath, I see the city of 
Berkeley, the Bay, the bridges, San Francisco, the mighty Pacific... 

As I travel over oceans and sandy beaches, time expands, and then begins
to contract again. Back in the Greek Theater, I'm passing from body to 
body. Each wears a dark brown suit, a clean white shirt, and tie. Not 
one holds a single thought of what it will take to trap me. Each is 
sound asleep in his own lullaby... 

And, the thing that keeps you hypnotized is the imagination that makes
you believe that you are an eagle instead of a sheep, a voice tells me 
as I sit on my spot near the buttonwood tree a couple days before the 
summer of '87 Dylan-Dead concert. I reflect on Gurdjieff and realize 
that only with the first conscious shock can the transformation of 
impressions take place. Only then can the seed be transformed into a 
living entity. And to give oneself that shock one must free oneself 
from the Dragon, I tell myself as a lone crow stretches out the valley 
sky. 

I'm standing in left field at the Dylan-Dead concert. "There's a very
thin line between being in the moment and identifying with it. A razor 
thin line that you have to make a conscious effort to walk," I'm 
telling Alex. 

"Exactly," Alex replies nodding his head in half time. 

Incoming Bay fog draws my attention to the sky. Light years away, the
stars look down on our planet. Words can't put you into scale with the 
cosmos. You have to see from more than one center, I tell myself as I 
focus on the fifty thousand ŒI's who people the field, the stands, and 
my consciousness. Will history be any kinder to our Coliseum than it 
was to the Roman? I wonder. 

It comes to my mind that Dylan never sings the same song twice when I
stop listening to my album edition of "Baby Blue," and hear the crisp 
sharp words of the singer. Fifty thousand people merge into one long 
drawn out note... 

"You know, it's the conscious shock that sets it all in motion," I tell
Alex as I keep the beat at an interlude. "If you don't pick up the 
missing vibes between MI and Fa, if you follow cosmic law, you end up 
round in a circle like a snake biting its tail..." 

"That's why man asleep can not do," Alex answers. 

"So, to transcend yourself... To Remember Yourself you have to go beyond
reality..." 

"Go against God..." 

"Krishnamurti calls it a mutation in consciousness,'" I answer, as Dylan
comes back with, "Your empty handed fainter from the streets..." and I 
pick up the vibes with a faint picture of someone behind me saying, 
"Look at that old man dance..." 

And, in the future, Dylan sings country again, and the Dead die... And,
I realize, that one reality is just as valid as the next; the reality 
of Donny's father, that of the Chinese Kid, of the Leprechaun, of Pete 
and Mari, of Vance, of Alex. Each is valid, but not one is actuality. 
Each is created in our individual and collective mind by thought. 
Actuality is beyond the confines of perception and memory... 


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