15 years earlier I knew none of these men
June 11, 2004 Los Angeles, 6:10AM
I sit at a small wooden kitchen table
in the breakfast nook of my house
just after dawn
pen in my left hand,
hunched over a journal called The Morning Pages Workbook
writing stream of consciousness longhand
for a class.
“What next,”
I write, “ what next..what next,:
“The light is gloomy….
My eyes are… crusty,.
I hear A mockingbird
‘Twittercacklecawchirp’”
Clatter of claw on floor
My cream-colored long-haired brown-eyed dog Luna looks up at me.. Nudges my knee with her snout.
“ NOnono Loolooloo. I Can’t let you out. I have to keep writing”
I picture my acting teacher Jeffrey on stage two nights before saying to the 50 of us:
“Your Homework this week – Roll out of bed every morning
Write three pages longhand..
See what you find..
Now… Scram.”
Scribble THAT down… “Now… SCRAM”
Scram
Sham
Slam
Spam.
Picture a can of SPAM at my brother’s house in Honolulu “The US soldiers brought SPAM here in WWII, Dave. Caught on”.
Good,
Write that down…
Pause….
What’s next what’s next what’s…
ARF
Luna jumps up at my feet runs to the back door. Arfs at it.
Turns to look me in the eye brown eyes to my hazel
“Loo Looo I’m not done yet..”
ARF.
I look at the page of writing. ARF Nothing.
ARF ARF
“Okay, I’ll let you out.” I write down “Taking a fucking break.” Cross to the back door open it.
Luna clitter clacks past me
leaps off the back porch into the yard,
runs to the apricot tree in the center – squats, pisses then
Barks up at a squirrel
Lying on its back in the crook of a limb
Eating a… what?
One of my last Fucking APRICOTS….
On the grass.. apricots scattered each with a single bite…
Pwehhh.. God DAMN IT
Grab the broom by the door
charge the tree
YOU LITTLE BASTARD
Swing the broom head “YAHH”
Slamming the bristles into the limb
But the squirrel dodges and hops up to the top of an orange tree
twirls its tail at me barking down
PRrrENCK RrannskRENKRNKRN
I swat up Out of reach
YOU LITTLE FUCK FUCK
Then I remember…
It’s 6:30 in the morning.. David you’ll wake up everybody.
Shut up Go inside and write.
Squirrel hisses down “HSSSSSS” I hiss up “HsssSSSss”
Drop the broom run to the kitchen table.
Fill up the page with what just happened ending with “Fucking Squirrel”
Squirrel…
.Twirl.…
Swirl?..
SWIRLLLL?
What if I just Swirl?..
Fuck writing..
I’ll just let my left hand do what it wants to do.
Okay.
And that’s when the portal opened.
And my left hand moves up the page drawing a line
Then looping down …descending
What is that a circle?
Nono Its in out left and right
And it’s a B
It circles out again is that an “O’ no it’s an “a” an “a”
Stops.
A “t” then “o” and “n”
Baton
Like a conductor?
No..something in me says “No.”
Draws an “R” yes and a “o” “u” What’s it doing then
“g”
Then “o”?
no
“E” an “E”
Stops
Something in me
Catches up with my hand
Rouge.
Baton Rouge.
I put it together and
my left hand takes off like the heart-shaped planchette on a Ouija Board
and writes:
“Go to the Infantry reunion in Baton Rouge.
Bring the recorder Cynthia bought you.
MAKE FREE RECORDINGS OF ANY VETERAN WHO WANTS TO TELL YOU ANYTHING.
Give it back to them on a CD for their families.
And do it in memory
My hand slows
Of
D
A
I know the rest.
Dad .
I see my father 10 months before in his hospital bed pointing at the television where President Bush is prancing on the deck of an aircraft carrier talking of our “great victory in Iraq.”
“President Bush,” my father croaks. “President Bull Crap.”
He wants to be a War president, Dave, but he doesn’t know what war is.”
Two weeks later my father was dead.
I was in the hospital room by his bed making sure he went as peacefully as possible.
Now I am here in my kitchen, looking at what I wrote
… Where did this sentence come from?
Not me.
Not me.
An hour later my wife Cynthia comes into the kitchen.
I have fed the dog, drunk coffee, and returned to the book stared at the sentence. I remembered my brother saying he was 27 before he had his first original thought.
‘Is this is my first original thought?”
I kiss Cynthia and I show her the Ouija board sentence.
“What do you think?
“I think you should go”
So I went.