Four years ago, Joe had prepared notes for his lawyer for the divorce. He found un mailed letters where he had imagined his name as a river flowing through dreams he never quite realized. He was glad the letter was never sent. Joe would never admit it, but he could be grandiose.
When Joe visited LA in 1996, he looked at the sign on Hollywood Hills and imagined "Florian Joseph Rudaski." After all he had just been awarded a Pulitzer Prize. Once upon a time the historian dreamed he was a prophet. Perhaps he would be the unanticipated "God of the Lost Life" written on a newly translated pre-Mayan tablet from Site #345. Joe wondered if he could create his own California style religious sect from his angst. Joe's search would have an atypical origin and an unpredictable final act. The signs of it appeared in all his daily acts of grace and failure. Last year he took care of his niece when her mother returned to school. Joe and Juliet flirted; on her 20th birthday, the naked woman danced and pretended she couldn't see Joe. That night the self-aware historian Rudaski wrote about himself as if he were an historical person in a Lolita sequel.
As Joe often explained to his seminar, "every action has several consequences and choice is the means by which the successive action plays out. There are many levels within the overlap of layers that create an entirely new present. Every perceived idea becomes a new way of living. Things, of course, change too fast. Usually, these vulnerable personalities in the scrapper of war show their greatness.
Joe had no idea how his world would change from his unpredictable final act. Joe had always been attracted to younger women. Perhaps that's why he had no children. He had only acted on the urge in places where he knew he was safe. The movie star college professor feared rejection, but he understood his compulsion. It's not that Joe didn't like mature women. He preferred them, but there were some who pushed him over the edge. In High School, the younger daughters of some of his friends had idolized him. He was a football and baseball star. At camp he taught a girl counselor to scuba and his hands trembled at night, but he did not do anything. There was no reason why he couldn't seduce the girl. She obviously wanted him, but Joe didn't like using that special skill to get more than he thought he deserved.
In Vietnam, on leave, in Thailand, he slept with young women for a week. He let go there, because he believed he would not survive the war.
Back in the world, in graduate school, young women satisfied his unease. He married a much younger woman. She didn't want children. He resisted temptation. She divorced him because he was bored by her.
When Joe drove alone in his air conditioned luxury car on this hot July afternoon in 2006 he nurtured bizarre images tied to nightmares. Sometimes, to not be aroused, He thought of the fuck as convoluted vomit and a glaze of semen or feminine lubricant. Sex lived in this group as an intellectual misfit. Rivers and valleys disgorged into feed back mechanism that covered the ground with flora. Nothing was in balance or could be predicted. Wrong preceded right.
Disgusting was ordinary. Incest and exploitation linked itself to the most ordinary of melodies. It would never be acceptable, but it doesn't go away. Even astute politicians rubbed themselves to their perfect Kink motel. Even Congress folded and the Pages lined up to pay their respects.
Blood had its own tune.
When Joe tripped the wire, made his mind drop kick itself the face of his Nam war buddy Dave's Lynch's almost nineteen year old niece jumped in his sleeping bag, in the tent, the last day of the hike, she grabbed his cock, and wouldn't let go until he came. She wouldn't let him do anything to her. She giggled. Joe broke down.
Why did he let her do it? Afterwards, she sat there holding his big hand rubbing it against her mouth. She demanded a kiss and he gave it to her. She wiped her chin and smiled back.
After all, another Ulysses did find bubble gum on the floor of a Cinema in Paris. Some loud American girl had been chewing it, and her companion felt her up, she spat it at him. Joyce noted the incident in a letter to Pound.
Strange fates conjured from the win and lost tickets saved at the race track for a losing season. Flight and thought becomes spastic and random, and as Joe rode, wondering what he would do, the world suddenly stopped as he pulled up within the parking lines as the only car at a rest stop on an important highway somewhere.
History has its own wandering ghost as Yeats mused. Or was it Joe? What new language would Joyce and Beckett create to describe twenty-first century America? Nabokov did it in 1955. Lolita became satiric mask, magical talisman, idol and jerk off symbol for soft, complicated cocks.
Finally, Penelope waited for the heroes to return as soldiers and marines returned to the world at Travis Air Force base, Joe remembered how his body lurched forward when the wheels ran two bumps into the tarmac. And in that end, hallucinations recorded, Joe pulled into the almost empty rest stop just south of some no name road designated #186.
When he stopped The Benz in the parking lot of some broken down rest stop, Joe loosened his hold on the steering wheel. His body buzzed as he let go. He had no idea what he would do next. He opened the door and closed it. "My God," he said. "It's fucking hot." He slammed the door close and started to leave. Joe had to get cool, so he looked for his athletic bag. He couldn't find it. He looked in the glove compartment. He saw his wallet, cell phone and passport safe. He remembered he had the second draft of an important paper for a Dutch conference in that bag. He could replace it, but he wanted it with him. He looked up the number for the motel last night. He had the bag in his hotel room. He remembered it. Meanwhile, he found another bag and changed into a tee shirt and shorts. It must be 100 degrees. The AC in the car allows delusions. He laughed too himself and called up the hotel. Yes, they had the bag. He told them to keep it at the front desk. His legs cramped. Outside was another deal.
When Joe first drove into the Interstate rest stop two 18 wheelers were parked next to each other along the exit road, and one car was loading up getting ready to leave. He was at least 100 yards from everyone. Joe was careful. He stepped out, looked around, and stretched. He noticed some kids playing grab ass by restrooms and vending machines. It wasn't hard to figure out why the rest stop was so empty at one PM on Saturday. It was a miserable day. While he walked to the men's room, one truck pulled away and then two cars passed through without stopping. Another car left quickly as he pulled up to the space. Only one truck was now parked out of the way. He did notice there was a direct line emergency phone line next to three pay phones with head sets ripped out. He scanned the entire parking lot. Now, there were no cars. After all the rest stop constructed over cattle grazing land owned by speculators never came up to value.
To the left apple and cherry trees grew fat fruit. Bees swarmed over the garbage cans, and there, always present, a raccoon scampered on top of a picnic table pushing garbage off the edge of the table. The beast rode the candy wrappers to the ground.
When the last truck pulled away, Joe wondered how the folks he saw by the vending machines could get home. He had just started to look at them. No one would just walk up. There was nothing here but farm land and scrub. For all he knew he was alone.
*
End Chapter 1
Mother & Her Cannibals
(c) 2006-2007 Sean Farragher
