Slim Novel 12 - http://adventuresofkimi.blogspot.com - See Homepage
29: Morphine in a Meadow
That decided, Ali does another Saturday night, Sunday morning forest.
Van Cortlandt Lake at 7 AM of a clear, sunny, windless day shows mirror-smooth surface with the the white swans near its south corner where stands the white Revolutionary-War, George-Washington-slept-here house with downstairs restaurant now serving breakfast. Ali is at north end of lake, which has sword-grass swamp and it borders the golf course with fence running several feet back from the shore. At lake's northwest edge is the old metal railroad bridge she met the kid fishing last time. She follows a little rock path on water's edge and in a bit she is at the bridge. Its being Sunday morning, several golfers on white bicycle-carts are moving along the east shore toward the tee-off green. No kids are out fishing yet.
29: Morphine in a Meadow
In pursuit of her sunfish scenario, Ali visits Ben's pet shop. To get to Ben's, she walks 10 minutes to East 204th 11 AM of a Saturday.
“Hello, Ben. Look, I got a plan to catch a sunfish from the lake and bring it here in water, and you keep it in a tank on exhibit to teach the local kids about wild fish as pets.”
“Miz Ali, dat is brilliant and good for business too. Da fishes'll need big tanks and air bubble pumps.”
“Miz Ali, dat is brilliant and good for business too. Da fishes'll need big tanks and air bubble pumps.”
“And listen to this, Ben! Down at the lake I spoke to a kid who is keeping the sunnies at home and he says your little guppy fish are their best living food.”
“Hey, honey girl! I sellin’da guppies a penny a piece. Your idea is great.”
That decided, Ali does another Saturday night, Sunday morning forest.
It is midnight and Ali is doing what she calls broken field run. It means not doing her usual. Instead of injecting morphine as soon as she arrives in the Glenn, she does her wine and, after, her eats – a big pizza slice with everything, and the everything is mustard & sauerkraut, ketchup, salsa, and sprinkled paprika flakes. And with each bite, she reads a page of H.G. Wells' The Outline of History - her read for the night. After that, she walks down the slope to the meadow, 3 minutes away. It is a night with clear sky, stars, full moon, fresh grass smell and buzz of insects. And fireflies create lots of tiny flickering dots of light. She walks to mid meadow and lies down on her back, feeling the warm July moist grass and pebbly soil.
She sticks a syringed needle into her left front thigh, injects 2 milligram Morphine and lies on her back looking up at stars and black sky, allowing her mind to move where it likes. She says out loud: "I am 22 years old and unconventional. Have a vivid enjoyment for eating, for my Morphine, for sex, for reading and for all the other pleasures. But I am bored. Dan calls it existential boredom, from too intense living. And there is the question: What shall I do in life? Me, a young woman, unmarried, well educated, and in good economic and social situation? I have feeling for the earth, for the animate and the inanimate, for humanity, for community, for Dan, Brenda, Alfonze, Nicola, and brother Tommy & the gang in Tokyo. But I am like a fool on a hill who each day sees the sun go down and knows that after many a winter, a max one-million hours, my consciousness will go blank. What do I really want to do with my life?"
She sticks a syringed needle into her left front thigh, injects 2 milligram Morphine and lies on her back looking up at stars and black sky, allowing her mind to move where it likes. She says out loud: "I am 22 years old and unconventional. Have a vivid enjoyment for eating, for my Morphine, for sex, for reading and for all the other pleasures. But I am bored. Dan calls it existential boredom, from too intense living. And there is the question: What shall I do in life? Me, a young woman, unmarried, well educated, and in good economic and social situation? I have feeling for the earth, for the animate and the inanimate, for humanity, for community, for Dan, Brenda, Alfonze, Nicola, and brother Tommy & the gang in Tokyo. But I am like a fool on a hill who each day sees the sun go down and knows that after many a winter, a max one-million hours, my consciousness will go blank. What do I really want to do with my life?"
She continues out loud in blackness in the middle of the meadow: “I want to teach – like with Brenda now, like Professor Edwardes but not lecture in class; rather teach by my life example. I want not only to teach in person; I want to write books that will continue after I stop.”
Now Ali is tingling and her mind is pulsing with the idea of goal in life. And at this moment she thinks: I can die happy. I am not afraid. I accept all. I am aware very vaguely of the primeval ooze from which my genes came and the soil beneath me now with which I shall reunite once my consciousness goes blank. I hope to be a link that leads to Science-Civilization.
Now she is sailing in her mind out to the overhead stars where, she hopes, her genes will be heading some day in future flesh to Luna, to Mars, to moons of Jupiter & Saturn. Only minutes of real time pass while she thinks; but for her it seems a happy hour.
Now she is sailing in her mind out to the overhead stars where, she hopes, her genes will be heading some day in future flesh to Luna, to Mars, to moons of Jupiter & Saturn. Only minutes of real time pass while she thinks; but for her it seems a happy hour.
She opens eyes in the first lightening. Crickets chirp, the moist grass soaks through her clothing and the ground is uncomfortable. Her morphine has worn off.
Sky and surroundings tell her 5 AM. She thinks out loud: Must find earthworms. Arising, she walks to edge of meadow and digs in the soil - Lo! - 3 big wriggly dark-red worms try to escape but can't. She puts them in her right pocket in her Levi pants; its waist hidden by Dan's old black silk shirt hanging loosely out
"I'm hungry!" She shouts and answers. "No sooner said than done!" She walks to nearby bushes thick with red raspberries, ripe and juicy, collects them in kerchief from pocket and heads back to the Glenn to cook breakfast.
Thirty minutes later she sits at cookout table over fry pan filled with still sizzling bacon strips and one egg-over, and Campbell's can of pork & beans on the side. She is reading H.G. Wells as she spoons the mouth-exciting, hot beans and one piece of pork and spicy red sauce, savoring it on her tongue.
Being a young writer, the opening words of a book are teaching. She hears herself reading them: The earth on which we live is a spinning globe. Vast though it seems to us, it is a mere speck of matter in the greater vastness of space.
She thinks: I gotta learn from the master here. Gee he really gives it movement and opens his book with a sense of mystery and wonder.
She takes a sip of black coffee just off the grill. Then she pops the sweet red raspberries, one at a time, into her mouth and chews slowly not forgetting to crunch up the crisp bacon piece attached to the pork & beans mouthful.
"Ooh, this needs my Morphine!" She exclaims, adding. "No sooner said than done."
An injection enhances breakfast's sensual delights.
An injection enhances breakfast's sensual delights.
Afterwards, she cleans up the cookout and stows stuff in nearby tree trunk and, in the brightening day of a treetops sun, she walks south along a path towards the lake, singing as she goes "Hey diddle dee dee, a forest life for me."
Van Cortlandt Lake at 7 AM of a clear, sunny, windless day shows mirror-smooth surface with the the white swans near its south corner where stands the white Revolutionary-War, George-Washington-slept-here house with downstairs restaurant now serving breakfast. Ali is at north end of lake, which has sword-grass swamp and it borders the golf course with fence running several feet back from the shore. At lake's northwest edge is the old metal railroad bridge she met the kid fishing last time. She follows a little rock path on water's edge and in a bit she is at the bridge. Its being Sunday morning, several golfers on white bicycle-carts are moving along the east shore toward the tee-off green. No kids are out fishing yet.
She scrambles up from end of the shore path to the old rusting railroad track.
She sits on the high edge of the track bridge over the lake, takes a hand-line out of her left pocket, removes the bit of cork that protected the fish hook, unravels the green string and neatly lays its loops on the girder to her left. A secret of success in fishing for sunfish is to use a very small hook. Unsuccessful fisherman use too large a hook that cannot fit into the fish's mouth and is easily stripped of its worm by the fish. A small hook of correct size catches onto a sunfish's lip and comes away with a twist and no harm, and the fish is ready to be thrown back in the lake or taken home as pet. But a too tiny hook gets swallowed and kills the fish.
She sits on the high edge of the track bridge over the lake, takes a hand-line out of her left pocket, removes the bit of cork that protected the fish hook, unravels the green string and neatly lays its loops on the girder to her left. A secret of success in fishing for sunfish is to use a very small hook. Unsuccessful fisherman use too large a hook that cannot fit into the fish's mouth and is easily stripped of its worm by the fish. A small hook of correct size catches onto a sunfish's lip and comes away with a twist and no harm, and the fish is ready to be thrown back in the lake or taken home as pet. But a too tiny hook gets swallowed and kills the fish.
Ali takes out a plastic bag that has a noose closure at its open end and now she jumps down to lakeside, onto a rock ledge. With a sweeping motion of the open-end of the bag in the water, she fills it and gets back to her ledge and hangs the bag, now filled with lake water, on a rusting nail jutting from bridge ledge.
She reaches into right pocket, pulls out a squirmy worm and, wanting a big fish that will impress the kids who buy at Ben's, she puts the whole worm on the hook as bait with a lot of worm hanging free, wriggling furiously. She has imagined a big sunfish will be attracted by the big worm wiggling. She throws it out several feet onto the lake. Just as it hits the water, there is a gold flash and the biggest sunfish Ali ever saw - maybe 9 inches (23 cm) long - breaks the surface and takes the bait and after an exciting jerking about on her hand line, it gets pulled up onto the ledge. She grasps the flapping fish about its head and with a twist of hand separates hook from lower lip and in quick motion inserts the fish into her water-filled plastic bag and it swims about for a few seconds and then stays stationary but healthy as shown by gill movements.
"Mission accomplished! Yay!" she shouts, getting an answering cheer and wave from 2 morning golfers at the other side of lake who hear her cheer. Excited with happiness she gathers up her stuff and heads home. For next, click 12.(30-32) Monster Sun Fish - Ali Makes a Pet
No comments:
Post a Comment