Dust On My Boots - Part 9
Crazy Days and Smokey Nights (Clowns To The Left Of Me, Jokers To The Right), by Nazel Pickens
“We are what we do, not what we think or say or wish or perform. We are animated life in the world. We are not a spreadsheet of excuses, rationales, calculations, or identities. We are not our hopes and dreams either — those are ours to hold and to inspire us, but they are not us. And, we certainly are not some performative character floatin’ around in cyber-space manufactured on a lil’ screen in one’s hands. We are of and in this world as active agents impacting to some degree everythin’ around us (to an amount and with a quality we can never truly know) and bein’ impacted by all of it. And lately, I’ve been feelin’ pretty impacted (nothin’ a finger can’t help loosen up a bit, I suppose). We are here for a very brief jolt and spasm, and then we are not, forever, in all directions, from the eternity within our life and back to the infinity of the universe and beyond, with only others’ memories and stories, our creations, and the reverberations of our actions remaining until they eventually diminish and disappear as well. We are the moments most potently; informed, influenced, and perhaps directed by a whole wide range of events, situations, and motivations, but the moment is what we are and what we are being, and what we will onto the world from our being. This is to be alive. And it might drag out for decades or even a century, and it might be snuffed out in a flicker. So, I dunno ‘bout ev’ryone else, but I’m gonna live it to its damnedest and truest to myself as I can possibly muster up, rise to, and be. And, keep the leeches and vampires and scenesters and social networkers and players and pushers and trenders and distractors and managers and controllers, and most especially the mediocre ones, to a minimum. I may even sometimes be outwardly hostile to their pathetic existence if I can summon the energy or divert it from my primary passions and desires. But as a whole, if ya add somethin’ to my life (and me to yers), I can walk beside ya for a while, but if ya don’t, stay the fuck outta my way, don’t step on my toes, and by all means don’ mess with me, my kindred, or my home.”
This was the internal rant spininn’ through my groggy head as I waited for the post office to reopen from lunch so I could get a coupla money orders to pay some overdue bills. ‘Bout as mundane a time-wastin’ task as I could imagine. Not really how I wanted to spend this mid-Summer hot and hazy afternoon. Rather be dippin’ in the creek or fiddlin’ in the garden or strummin’ on my ol’ guitar in the shade with a cold beer, but this task needed doin’.
I saw the sign flip to “Open” so I creaked the door of my truck, only to find Doo Daa standin’ there with a crazed look on his already stupid up-all-night face. His real name is Bronson, but he goes by the silly nickname as a kinda dumb hippie clown moniker to display his “wackiness” in some sorta cosmic joke nobody gets. He’s in his early sixties, and while his physical condition is somewhat toned and tanned, his mental state is cracked and unpredictable. Bronson comes from a well-to-do family, so he could always play the adventurous carefree risk-taker without the consequences most of us deal with or at best try to maneuver around. That coupled with never working a day in his life, extreme narcissism, a once marginally tolerable trickster spirit, tons of psychedelics over the years, and more recently a lot of chemical disassociates, alcohol, and uppers (all of which I suppose may have their time and place in limited dosage, I will attest), have quickly skyrocketed him to the top of the list of people to avoid like raw chicken soakin’ in spoiled milk and left out in the hot Summer sun for a few days.
I used to even marginally appreciate Doo Daa, but over the past few years he has degraded into a walking biohazard mixed with a perpetual car crash sandwiched between a bad dream and a bad check. During his stumblin’ crumble we have had multiple increasingly escalating encounters. For potential legal reasons I cannot get into most of them here, and although I was justified and “in the right” every single time (ethically and legally, for whatever that’s worth), he has continually lied about these interactions, he has called the cops on me, and most importantly he can afford lawyers that I can’t. I will say, just to expose the tip of the dysfunctional iceberg, that he endlessly defends pedophiles, nazis, and general scumbags (possibly over self-interest), has gotten kicked out of every public and most private spaces in our little town, and constantly antagonizes people until they react and then plays the victim, lies, and initiates prolonged futile but aggressively annoying campaigns. Again, as with all potential and active threats to my well-being and piece-of-mind, avoiding him is my ultimate goal, but angrily, not always possible.
“Hey Nazel, when are you gonna pay my hospital bills?” Doo Daa smirked.
I pretended he wasn’t there and proceeded towards the front door of the post office.
He follows me. “Hey Nazel! When are you gonna pay my hospital bills?” he repeats with a more agitated tone, stretched facial twirks, and arms flailing about.
I open the door and enter the building and he slinks in after me.
“Hey, Bronson, you are not allowed in here!” the postal worker, a generally pretty friendly and mellow guy named Doug, states firmly.
Doo Daa gives us both a deathly glare and yells “Oh, I guess he works for you Nazel! This whole community must work for you. All your lackeys and dupes and zombies and puppets and…”
“Get out now!” Doug more loudly demands, pointing to the door.
Doo Daa deflates, exaggerates the closing of the door behind him, and goes to the middle of the gravel parking lot, sits crossed-legged on the ground with eyes closed and palms facing the sky and begins to chant: “All bodies Nazel owns…All bodies Nazel owns…All bodies Nazel owns…” over and over.
I exchange a few words about Doo Daa with Doug, take care of my postal business, and leave. Before I get into my truck, however, two older hippies of eternal love, light, and forgiveness (at least in rhetoric and in public) named BreezeMelody and Aloha stop me to express their concern for Doo Daa.
“It is so sad.” BreezeMelody sighs.
“He needs help” Aloha adds, “He used to be such a solid community member with so much to offer.”
“Well, he needs to stay the hell away from me ‘fore he really regrets it. The universe and mama terra will provide I assure ya!” I blurt out as I wave my fist and stomp my boot.
“Oh, Nazel, have some compassion. This isn’t really him. I choose to remember the Bronson of old. The kind, gentle, fun-loving one.” BreezeMelody condescends in a whisper.
“Yeah, man, come on, he has done so many great things for all of us.” Aloha adds.
“Well, I don’t need to dig too far back to remember what he has done lately and continually does to me and others around here who have done him no harm, or at least no damage he didn’t bring on himself. So, go ahead, live in your fantasy world behind yer rose-colored gates with unicorns and leprechauns and organic fair-trade ambrosia enemas. I live in the real one with actual cause and effect consequences.” I state firmly. “If you actually cared about him and this alleged community, than you would get him help, hold his ass over the fire, keep him away from others, and do more than just remember and wish.”
In the background Doo Daa is continuing with his chant, but now interspersing random cliches of hippie-dumb with misogynist, homophobic, and racist slurs while humping the ground.
“Ok, y’all have a wonderful day.” I smile, tip my hat, and get into my truck.
As I head towards home I see a giant plume of grayish black smoke rising from the forested mountain just above where I live. Racing there as fast as my ol’ truck can push, I drive just past my place to find a ragin’ fire up the hill from the road, right next to a dozer and other earth-destroying equipment that have been wrecking this mountainside (county land recently sold to a large financing firm to be hacked apart by an outta town logging company). To be clear, I don’t have too big a problem with logging in any absolute sense, especially when it legitimately benefits choked-out and highly flammable forests and the people around them, but clear-cutting a huge chunk of a somewhat intact watershed to make huge profits for a few somewhere else is way over the line for me and gets my blood a-boilin’.
At first I get a giddy glimmer of delight, thinking some anarchic elves set a machine ablaze in an eco-act of righteous rage, but then reality sets in only to realize that a spark from a chainsaw cutting during a humidity-free 100-degree Summer afternoon set alight some bone-dry brush… and it was spreadin’ fast. Before I knew it, thankfully, our local fire crew was on the scene. They were quickly followed by state wildfire trucks who, although they have far more fire-fighting power, are also kissin’ cousins of the logging companies. The scene feels apocalyptic.
In a fit of anger and frustration, I go directly to the big cornfed jerk of a joker wearin’ a stained “Free America: From Illegal Immigrants” shirt sitting on a quad next to an rv marked “Security” and covered in American flags, thin blue line stickers, and other assorted knuckle-draggin’ propaganda that attempt to portray freedom and insight, but in fact denote their thick-browed utter slavery and stupidity.
“Now you done it!” I scream and glare into his bloodshot sunken eyes as shards of my spittle shower his face.
“You need to get off this property!” he demands, almost getting up from the quad.
“Ya’ll come up in here, where we live, our home, and demolish this watershed, make fist-loads of money, plow yer loggin’ trucks way too fast up’n down our curvy single-lane mountain road all day’n night, run yer machinery at 3am, and now ya start a fire up here!” I shout.
“You need to get off this property, now!” he again demands, putting down his Coors, and this time standing up on the quad with a huff and a snort.
Just then, a leathery grey-haired woman with three teeth and wearin’ a “Make Gaza Israel Again” shirt pokes her dumb head out from the rv and declares “We live here too. This is our home too. We are the caretakers of this place.”
I look right past the guy and snap at the woman “You ignorant piece of refuse. You have been here two weeks. You get paid to guard all of this havoc and destruction. The two of ya can take yer two brain cells and roll yer rv outta here at any time and park it at some pig trough down the road. We live here. Built homes, raised families, created lives for ourselves and loved ones away from all your garbage world, and now you insult me with your pathetically stupid words as you potentially burn our home down while ya pile up cash to buy things to stuff in your worthless holes!” Needless to say, I was pissed.
The guy finally gets off the quad, waddles over to me, points his stubby finger, and attempts to puff up to the best of his aging alcoholic diabetic abilities “Don’t you talk to my woman like that.”
I sigh, take a deep breath, and in the flattest inflection I can muster under the conditions declare “Oh that’s right, I’m sorry, yer just petty pawns, grubby little inbred guard dogs, dupes for the company that is doin’ all this. Doesn’t mean I don’t despise you too, but I wouldn’t expect yer feces-filled pea brains to understand anything but orders and little high-fructose training treats from yer owners. Hope you sleep well tonight…. ” And I mumble more insults as I trail off… and head towards the fire, hopin’ not to get shot in the back by the mentally-challenged security detail. I ask the guy who seems to be in charge of the state wildfire crew what’s goin’ on.
“Oh we got this, sir” a large bearded guy bluntly responds as he pulls a drag from a cigarette and chuckles with the two loggers next to him.
I begin to give him a slightly less aggressive and paired-down version of the rant I shot at the “caretakers”, but he cuts me off and says in a calm but firm tone “Hey, believe me, I understand your frustration. It seems like you are concerned for your home and family. I think you should go there and be with them now.”
“Don’t patronize me.” I snap back.
He responds “If I wanted to patronize you, I would just tell you to leave.”
I shake my head in disgust “Do you even know what patronize means?” I ask.
He stares off towards the fire, pulls another drag, tosses his burning butt to the grassy ground, and says “Like I said, we got this, now you need to leave before we call law enforcement.”
“Obviously this logging crew don’t know what they’re doin’ up here. They don’t even have a water truck and they’re cutting in unsafe conditions. Are you gonna at least stop the logging until you investigate the cause?” I ask.
“No, it was an accident. They happen. Have a good day.” And he lights another cigarette and goes back to friendly chewin’ it with the loggers.
“Not if…awe nevermind.” I turn around and stomp down the mountain shakin’ my head and spittin’ on the ground.
I go home. My family and I quickly gather whatever precious belongings and memories we could think of and load them into our vehicles, search for the cats, and remove flammable things from around our home. I begin to water down the house and gardens that surround three sides of it, rake some leaves and forest duff back from the other, and get ready for an evacuation, probable fire-fight, and possible total loss of a life we have been creating here for twenty years.
The afternoon gets more and more anxiety-ridden. As smoke fills the air and a half a dozen or so helicoptered water drops in rapid succession attack the growing fire, my family prepares to head down the mountain to stay with friends. I tell them we will meet up later, but that I’d stay to look for the one still missing cat, continue soaking down the place, and fight the fire as long as I could if necessary. After some hugs and tears I watch them head down the road.
As the evenin’ eerily approaches, I wet things down for a while, hear more fire crews speed up the road, more helicopters above, as memories of our life here flood through my mind interrupted by the sourin’ thoughts of more recent crazy days and smokey nights. Tears and sweat and smoke burn my eyes while continual conflicting thoughts of this life and how beautiful and wonderful it can be battle with Their world and how disgusting and deranged it too often is. Love and anger swirl around my brain as the back of my throat scratches with soot. I begin to feel dizzy and see flashing spots dancin’ all around my vision. I feel light and heavy at the same time as I am overcome with the sensation that I am both floating and falling and then everything fades to black…
As the orange flame sun
Hides behind emerald mountains
I sit still in wild wonder
Dream on youth’s fountains
The day’s all used up
You can never go back
Everything in this world
Fades to black
Swam turquoise waters
Crashed on white shores
Never seems like enough
Who could ask for any more
It ain’t my opinion
Just a simple plain fact
Everything in this world
Fades to black
Your scarlet ribbons faded
Blue dress frayed and torn
You have only rags
From the skins you once worn
But it don’t really matter
What hangs on your back
Everything in this world
Fades to black
Autumn leaves pale to yellow
As my dark hair turns grey
I’m left in a cold room
With not much to say
I don’t wanna bring ya down
Or anything like that
But, everything in this world
Fades to black
Spring’s flowers of violet
Turn a dead brown
And all of my bright dreams
Have abandoned this town
No matter how high you fly
We always fall back
Because, everything in this world
Fades to black
Well, I still have some silver
But I lost all my gold
And this body I travel in
Is tattered and old
But, It ain’t what ya have
Or all that you lack
Everything in this world
Fades to black
The rainbow has ended
Kaleidoscopes rust
And bones that once carried me
Return back to dust
Life’s only a glimmer
Death just a crack
Everything in this world
Fades to black
Sometimes it goes quickly
And sometimes it fades slow
But sooner or later
We all gotta go
When shadows thicken
And your front is your back
Then everything in this world
Has now faded to black
*Note: While I call this story a “fictional tale”, it was unfortunately an account based on mostly very real experiences, events, situations, and feelings.
Sucks, huh?
—————
Nazel Pickens, a cosmic-anarchist-cowboy with backwoods, home-spun, divergent, deviant, rebellious, sorrowful, cynical, silly, and celestial commentary on the world at large and his forever cluttered and dusty lil' place in it. Ol’ Nazel doesn’t have a cellphone (they’re gonna pry his rotary landline outta his cold dead hand) or internet connection, but he sure does have opinions about this psychotically alienated technophilic postmodern mess of a world and of his perpetual pursuit of authentic anarchic freedom, and loves to pound them out on his typewriter, some of which is available as the somewhat regularly reoccurring column “Dust On My Boots” from The Rogue Writers Guild’s online magazine (www.roguewritersguild.com). From essays to poems to rants to short stories to songs, Mr. Pickens emotes with words in the dust, and lets the wind take it all away. He sometimes joins forces with another voice in his head, Invecchiare Selvatico, who writes from a more sophisticated, sometimes more analytical, voice. They teamed up to put out a book, Black Blossoms At The End Of The World, available from underworldamusements.com.
Messages to be passed on to Nazel (and requests for a free catalog of his own distro) can be sent to PO BOX 316 Williams, OR 97544 or nazelpickens@gmail.com. Nazel also puts out music with his (now defunct, but hopefully someday reconstituted and resurrected) cosmic-outlaw-country band, which can be heard at: distilledspiritrebellion.bandcamp.com
