One of Those Nights One evening in late October, Carol and Michael end up at Rick's place unwinding from a day of toil in the fields of the Alternative Education Industry. Nursing a bottle or two of Anchor Porter, Rick and Carol are embroiled in a discussion of Museum politics, while Michael, knowing better by now, is ineffectually trying to disassemble Rick's 22cal Ruger pistol. Seven and a half years later Michael will see Rick after one of his extended desert hiatuses. Responding to a question about learning to shoot, Rick will go out to his old truck and return with this very pistol. "Happy Birthday, Michael. Here's how it works." They will spend the rest of the evening trying to figure out how to reassemble it, because Rick has forgotten the trick to getting the firing spring back into the right position. So it's just as well that Michael can't figure it out now. It is approaching 10:00 PM and Carol is beginning to muse on whether she should select one of these gentlemen to take home. Or take her home. Since Michael is recently between dwellings and staying on the floor of a friend's front room, and they are already here, Rick is at a distinct advantage. "Hey enough about that place." Rick's interest in work has wound down. "It's a full moon." "Yes it is." Carol agrees. "We'll do some acid." Rick announces. "Hmm." The other two consider. "I have ten hits in the freezer, we can each do 3 and split one." "Umm, Rick, uh, you, ah, tend to take, shall we say, larger doses...." "Its a full moon, and a nice night. We're all off tomorrow. I'll get it." "Ok," Michael agrees, "But just one for me." "I'll go with the just one part, too," Carol yells to Rick who already rummaging in the back of his freezer. "Ah. Here." He returns with a glass vial containing a small folded piece of blotter paper. He holds it up. "This is great stuff. But first, I never mix it with firearms." He picks up the pistol and puts it away in another room. "Good idea. I couldn't figure out how to take it apart anyway." When he returns he opens the vial and removes the blotter with a convenient pair of hemostats. "Well this might help, but you'll have to take something else apart." He unfolds the paper revealing ten small squares marked lightly in pencil with a watermark dot in the center. With his pocket knife he trims off four of the cells and places them back in the vial, then cuts two individual squares from the remaining six. Michael uses his Swiss Army knife tweezers to pick one up and hand it to Carol. "You know I don't think I've used these silly tweezers for anything but this?" He picks up his own unit-dose. "They're too funky to pull splinters or anything." Rick licks his index finger and attaches it to the remaining four. With a toasting motion they each swallow their tiny messages. "My body can always tell that it's good acid right away," Rick says. "You get this little electric charge, like, Oh! Here we go again." "Yeah, I just noticed that....hmmm." "Wheeeeee...." Carol agrees. Rick lights the two candles on the table and shuts off the desk lamp. The moon illuminates the urban landscape outside the window. In the combination of cool steady moonlight and warm flickering candlelight hidden things can become apparent. "Its been a while," Rick says. "Yeah, lets see...six months maybe, for me," Michael agrees. "I meant more than a month," Rick replies. "I forget exactly when I did acid last," Carol adds. "Must've been last year already. I've got to get out more often I guess." "I took six hits of this stuff up in the Sierras on the equinox and talked to some spirits I met there." Rick grew up in the foothills and knows the area very well. "They weren't too happy with things but we got along pretty well after a while." "Think we can catch up with any spirits tonight?" Carol asks. "I'd like to talk to a few from around here." The edges of Michael's vision are beginning to flicker with the candle. "I'm coming on." Carol looks up at the ceiling. "Yeah me too. This IS good stuff." "Of course it's good stuff. It'll clear out the cobwebs for sure. Let's go for a walk." Rick stands up to get his coat. Carol begins dancing and swaying in the open space beyond the table. Humming to herself. Michael starts trying to find his shoes under the table. He notices that the lace of one seems to be too long on one side and begins to re-adjust it. He can't seem to get them to match because they won't stop moving. "Whatcha doooin' Michael?" Rick leans over to look. "Umm, trying to find my shoes I think." "The Mind Rats took your shoes." "I think you're right. Maybe I'll just use these here." "Do you ever tilt your head and hear their droppings go rolling around inside?" "Hmm. Not yet." Michael manages to get his shoes on. "I can't say as I have." The laces seem to have tied themselves. "Ready? Here we go." Rick rumbles down the narrow stairs of the old, earthquake-re-designed house, followed by Carol humming and snapping her fingers. At the top of the stairs, Michael, still wondering about the shoe laces, sees a scene from two years hence, an impromptu gathering of the extended-work clan. He will be attempting to play drums. Some of the other, using the term loosely, amateur musicians are playing whatever has come to hand and a general racket is being made by all. Rick is lying spread eagle on the floor with his head between two guitar speakers. A blue cap appears at the top of the stairs. Then another. Two SF cops have entered the building to tell them that the neighbors are complaining about the noise and want it toned down. The partiers rouse Rick from his meditations. He mumbles, 'Fuck a buncha cops,' notices that there are actual police officers present, and somewhat more politely agrees that it is late and they will try to keep it under control. In the past, these events involved various substances more illegal than beer, so all-in-all things go smoothly. The cops leave relieved that they haven't walked into an ambush and the party mostly breaks up. Rick lives in a pre-1906 duplex behind a line of storefronts in San Francisco's North Beach. Rumor has it that Neil Cassidy used to occupy this same space. Old wine bottle-candle holders were found in the attic and a mystery scroll at the back of a closet. The magic scroll turned out to be some indecipherable sketches for a stained glass window left by the previous resident. After negotiating the narrow access passageway between the street-facing buildings they are on the sidewalk across from Ghiradelli Square, one of San Francisco's big attractions now beginning to fade into the nightly tourist consciousness. The present trio are not appropriate to the neighborhood. Rick begins to walk. "Where are we going?" Michael asks. "Up." Rick turns right and begins climbing a hill. On the corner at the next intersection is a bar, popular with visitors who think they have found part of the real San Francisco. They stop near the entrance and look back out over the Bay. It is one of those legendary, thrice yearly, Warm San Francisco Nights that Eric Burden and the Animals mistakenly memorialized. There is no fog, the stars are out, and you can see lights in Sonoma. Or believe you can, anyway. Just as they are about to continue a covey of Japanese tourists, complete with guide, exits from the bar. Rick, being 6'4" towers over their eddy and flow. "Quack." Rick says. One of the tourists looks up and then nudges his friend, nodding at Rick. "Qua, qua, qua. Quack." Rick begins to flap his elbows gently. "What is it?" Carol asks. "Shh. I'm trying to talk to the ducks....QUACK!" The Japanese turn en masse and look at Rick. The guide's voice takes on a note of urgency. "There, you see, I got their attention." Thinking this is a genuine piece of Americana one of the tourists takes Rick's picture. The flash leaves a halo around Rick in Michael's vision. Multi-colored trails of light swirl around a fuzzy four appendaged creature. "Quack." The guide convinces his charges to move on to new photo opportunities. "It talks like a duck." Carol says. "But it doesn't walk like a duck. Or look like a duck." Michael adds. "It must be a duck in a dog suit." Carol decides. Rick looks up at the moon, now almost at its zenith and begins to howl. "Rowh, rowh, raROOOOO!" A regulation midwest-tourist-couple in their white sneakers and matching Alcatraz sweatshirts, have been toiling up the hill to the bar. They stop in mid-step. The woman grabs the man's elbow. Rick is quiet for a moment. "You shouldn't have mentioned the dog part," Carol admonishes Michael. "Or did I mention it?" The couple, hoping that things have calmed down, hesitantly restart their climb. "Rowh! Rowh! Rowh! Rowh!" Rick starts again. They stop. The woman begins to turn and pull the man along. The man looks undecided. They murmur to each other. He steps forward again. "RAROOOOOOOOO!" They turn in unison and hurry back down the hill. Michael notices that the moon is very large and bright. He reaches up and gives it a friendly pat on the back and then touches a few stars, making selections on the celestial jukebox. Carol begins to hum the tune. Rick looks at Michael, "Space Bats." "Yup." "Did you see any while you were out there?" "I think so. I think I did. Yup. I'm sure I did." Rick starts walking again. Carol and Michael hurry to catch up, "Where to now?" "Up." Since Rick's legs are as long as Carol's and Michael's combined they spend the better part of an indeterminate time trying to keep up with him. "Have we gone down hill, yet?" Michael pants to Carol. "I...don't...think...so...." she gasps back. "Rick, how can we keep on going up and never go down?" "Up," he replies. "Haven't we already," Michael points to a street sign, "Been here before?" "Probably." Somehow they cross Columbus Street. Michael is completely lost, but so focused on walking that he doesn't know or care. They are now beginning to spiral upwards on a narrow street with no sidewalks. Carol finally catches on and stops for a moment, pointing into the sky. Michael follows her point but only sees lights skipping through the indefinite trees. "What?" "Coitus Tower. We're going up Telegraph Hill." "No wonder. I can't see the Tower for the Trees." At the top it seems that a good portion of the San Francisco Low Rider contingent have agreed with Rick on the choice of location. The omnipotent eyes of a WPA muralist gaze out from above the Tower elevator at a full scale party raging in the parking lot. Dueling car stereos surround the Columbus statue, thumping into the night. People are drinking and laughing and using the Tower for inspiration in the bushes. The psycho-tourists move off to the far end of the parking lot where it is quieter. Michael stands on Geodetic Survey Marker No. 2, looking out past North Beach and Fort Mason, over the Golden Gate, to infinity. The moon draws a long, shimmering pathway on the surface of the Bay. "All this can be yours. You have only to bow down to me," he thinks suddenly. "Ah, literary 'llusions." Carol says. "What did you say?" Michael starts. "A-llusion or I-llusion?" "Lesion." Carol begins to giggle. "Literary lesions." "Wait a minute. Did I say that out loud?" "Yes," Carol manages between giggles, "you just said 'that' out loud," "Fuck a bunch o'that." Rick settles it. "Too many people. Lets walk." Still following Rick they make their way to the east side, where a sign opines that Telegraph Hill and Greenwich Street cross. Greenwich is actually a steep brick walkway plunging into a jungle of ivy and omnipresent eucalyptus. Once over the edge the party fades and this incongruous existence takes hold, an exotic garden illuminated by the yellow darkness of distant street lights. Entrances to almost hidden homes can be glimpsed at the ends of narrow branch paths. Sepia tinged camellias and deep purple agapanthus line the walkways. Gnarled grandfather pepper trees lean in to whisper silent messages to the passersby. Occasionally a light from Treasure Island sparkles through the foliage or a stretch of the Bay Bridge suddenly recedes from view. Wild roses and ferns beckon quietly from the shadows. Brick, wood, and concrete steps and landings traverse a zigzag patchwork over the face of the hill. They are finally going down. A salad of orange nasturtium and feathery green fennel cascades around the final flight to Sansome Street. This now dead industrial area will soon be populated by droves of earnest young Levi-clad professionals sipping energizing libations in cafes or sunning themselves around artificial waterfalls. But Michael will not see this until much later. In the dead of night they make their way back to Rick's. where candles are re-lit and they sit, staring at objects on the table. Michael picks up an old book, "Science and Sanity". "That's a great book, you should read it," Rick says. "Everybody said he was nuts, and now he's basically right." Michael sees 16 years into the future. He will be helping to clean out Rick's apartment in Berkeley, after his death from the after-effects of cancer treatment. He reaches to take down some books on a high shelf and finds this one among them. Remembering it, he opens it to a bookmark and finds that the marker is his own credit card that expires a year from now. "...ever wake up in the morning and see the edges of your vision breaking up like a bad raster scan?" Rick is asking no one in particular. "Sometimes you can see around the edges of the raster. There are spiders weaving webs over webs. When Peter and I were up in the canyon last month we saw the spirits of some dead space beings that crashed there thousands of years ago. They couldn't find a way back out. If you go in too far you can't come back. The spiders wove a web around them." He looks at a notebook on the table. "They were stuck." "Hmm." Carol says. Michael, still holding the book, has wandered further afield. "...this design," Rick continues, "for a tube guitar amp that uses transistors to drive the plate voltage so you can run the whole thing off of 12 volts. Plug it into your cigarette lighter. Using tubes for power amps is wasteful. With this circuit you can get the distortion sound from the preamp stage at low voltage and then drive some VFET output devices to get a whole lotta power. You can fine tune the sound you want independent of the volume." "Yeah..." Carol agrees. Shouldn't I be having some kind of big revelation right about now, Michael wonders. Rick flips the pages of the notebook. "I was figuring out the best way to build the speaker cabinet so you can carry it around. I think I can put a 12 inch bass speaker into a folded horn and make it light enough to carry easily but pack a real punch." He points into a dark corner, "Guitars. My fingers are too broad, that's why I made that four string guitar. I'm learning to play it pretty well. Louie's been teaching me songs." "Great." Michael is puzzled why the transcendent promise of each experience never seems to materialize. "...guy stops me and says, 'gimme your money'. I pushed him backwards and got my Gerber opened up where he could see it and said, 'Let me carve my name on your eyeballs so the cops can identify the corpse.' Punk bastard ran off. Should eradicate all of them from the planet. We could make backpackable catapults out of Chevy leaf springs. Launch bowling-ball-sized thermite bombs at them. Over a hundred yards, easy. That oughta keep em busy." "Wow." Maybe it's simply a long series of moments in time. The fact that there is no revelation, Michael realizes, is the revelation. Rick leafs through the book again. "David and I were talking about a single cylinder diesel motorcycle engine. Actually it's a dual cylinder, but one is for power and the other is a compressor. You could make it pretty cheap and it would run on anything. Crankcase drippings even. Pull up at a stop light. Clanka. Clanka. Clanka. Just like a Semi." He looks out the window where dawn is lightening the sky, "Yeah. The raster breaks up." "I'm hungry," Carol breaks into the monologue. "Well, let's get breakfast then." "What?" Michael drifts back into the common-law present. "Breakfast. Eagle Cafe." "Where's that?" "Pier 39." "Oh my god. With those people?" Michael is worried that something did a flip-flop during the night. "You'll see. Lets walk." So, back down the stairs and through the rabbit hole they go. The eastern sky is glowing golden and the moon is beginning to disappear behind Fort Mason. They walk down the middle of Jefferson Street, paralleling the bay. There are still some working fishing boats here but most have been out for hours so there is no competition for the center line. As the full moon sets and the full sun rises Rick explains the Eagle. "It's an old longshoreman's bar. It used to be where the Pier 39 parking lot is now. They refused to move and the city was desperate to redevelop so they cut a deal and moved them onto the pier. It frightens the tourists. Unless they think it's a Disneyland kinda thing." The place is empty, save for one old fisherman with his morning-tonic glass of whiskey. Dishes are clattering in the kitchen behind the cafeteria style bar. Michael gets scrambled eggs and bacon, Rick an omelette, and Carol oatmeal and OJ. They sit down. Carol, having apparently made her choice, sits next to Rick. In the new light shimmering over the bay Michael has never had such a wonderful breakfast. xxx Copyright (c) 1997 M. I. Smith