Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 1
A work in progress tentatively titled:
Illuminated Fools
copyright 2011
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 1
There was a man on a long train ride. Without realizing it he fell
asleep and missed his stop. He didn’t know he’d fallen asleep and
missed his stop because the moment his eyes closed a realistic dream
began. The dream was also about a man on a long train ride. In the
dream when the man’s stop came he gathered his umbrella and briefcase
and exited as usual.
In the dream he walked the mile-and-a-half to work and worked an
ordinary day, ate his customary lunch of cucumber salad and canned
tuna, and stayed later than the other clerks. As he left the man
turned off the lights for the entire floor.
In the dream he rode the train home and got off at his stop. He
walked home in a light rain and later had a small meal of a chicken
breast and rice. For dessert he treated himself to a mango. In the
dream after dinner the man went to sleep early. He dreamt of riding a
train through mountains like clouds. The next morning the man in the
dream woke and again went to work inside the dream. Days continued
like this for the man in the dream, so mundane the dreamer didn’t know
he was actually asleep on a train far past his home, miles from
anywhere he knew, with nothing to wake him.
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 2
These were the first words Leonard wrote down in a kind of trance, a story that simply
appeared whole in his mind. It was the beginning of the first story. He came to with pen in hand,
stooped over a yellow legal pad that rested on a chest-high plywood bench in the backroom of
the record store. What is this? And where did it come from? It had come in a rushing flow of pure
information, an idea-seeded download.
Only after a week of dream-days, of a full dream workweek and a
bland weekend of watching television and reading the newspaper did the
dreamer escape this life within a life. At the end of the seventh day
the dream-man again went to bed and dreamt of a man sleeping on a
train. When morning came and the alarm sounded the man in the dream
started, shook awake and seemed to dissolve through a red-hot hole
that appeared in the bed. At the same time the dreamer shook awake and
realized he remained on the train. After a few minutes of
disorientation he found himself hundreds of miles from home in the
middle of the night in a place he’d never been, much too late to
return home.
The last eastbound train had departed and he was near the end of
the westbound line. At the next station the man exited, exhausted. He
had a brief exchange with an obese, grey ticket agent seated behind
thick glass. The gruff agent in the booth seemed to swim like a fat
fish in a bowl.
The man walked a few blocks to a hotel the agent had dismissively
directed him to. Once in the room he set the alarm, slipped between
cold sheets and soon slept deeply, dreaming of a man sleeping on a
train, riding on mountains like clouds.
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 3
Afterward Leonard stared at the writing on the yellow pad as one might examine a
foreign object coming out of the body. He walked over to the one-way mirror and surveyed
Peachy Platters, the record store where he worked, through the glass. He could see down the
main isle that divided the new and used sections of the store. Looking through the glass, the store
looked like a cheap set. Leo could also see out the front windows, through the glass doors and up
the steps to the sidewalk. He could see the first few feet of the neighboring Phoenix high rises.
He wanted to run for the door.
Instead he stirred, grabbed the pad, stuffed it into his backpack and chucked it under the
bench. He walked out of the backroom, onto the floor and behind the main counter as if nothing
had happened.
But something had happened. He’d been absently sorting the H’s in the Jazz section
when an odd little voice popped into his head. Bent over the wooden bins with a damp rag over
his shoulder, he’d been trying to decide who was better between Lionel Hampton and Chico
Hamilton, artists whose LPs bookmarked each other. A game to brighten a dull task.
Suddenly the first line of the story materialized in his mind. It felt like a powerful, kind
voice emanating from a small intercom in his head. A voice that seemed to speak sing-song
babble, like a nonsensical nursery rhyme. Along with the sound came a mild electrical sensation
in his skull that gave him a pleasant start. At first his head involuntarily dropped forward and his
eyes closed. When he recovered he stared absently at the old wooden bins, once darkly varnished
and square but now rounded to naked wood from years of browsing hands.
Leo forgot about the two trench-coated goths in the Punk section and if were trying to
take the security tags off some Bauhaus CDs. He also forgot about the finer points of Be-Bop or
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 4
Hard-Bop or Jazz H’s the jazz-head customers had drilled into him. He didn’t notice moisture
from the rag bleeding through his shirt.
The next thing he knew he was in the musty backroom that reeked of dirty ashtrays,
melted plastic shrink-wrap and dude’s feet. The room could be a relaxing place to take a break
from retail hell, the drywall and exposed beams, wires and cables popping out in places like
veins usually afford a run-down comfort. The walls were crudely spray-painted black and pocked
with tags, fluorescent price stickers and promo posters. It reminded Leonard of some of his
favorite dive bars. Sometimes on break the one-way mirror by the door provided cheap
entertainment. It had been installed so employee’s could watch out for theft, but Leonard used it
mostly for spying on folks for kicks.
But now it as if he’d never been in the backroom before, or wasn’t there at all. He stood
staring down at the pad of paper on the bench, straining to decipher the foreign, circular story
written in a hand he barely recognized.
The rest of the day Leo had to stop himself from running out the door, up the steps and
leaving the store to be looted. For the better part of an hour he stood limp with his forearms
resting on the glass counter, palms open. Trying hard to shake off the sensation the store oozed
in and out like a wave. Must be something with his eyes, or some lovely side effect of last
night’s shindig. He felt weak and woozy. Like how it feels hours after having too many beers
and swimming in the sun all day.
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 5
He let Monday, the part-timer, do the interfacing with humans. Monday was cheerful and
good with people despite his huge, oddly shaped bald head, his 6’ 4” frame and the surgically
implanted, twisting red horns thrusting out of his forehead. Leonard felt sure the body-mod horns
had been drilled too far into his skull. There had to be some reason Monday actually enjoyed
helping the clueless customers. When Monday helped the masses he often looked like a giant,
devilish cherub.
Of course The Boss preferred for Monday to leave the horns at home, or unscrewed in his
pocket (so he could put ‘em back on when on break) but his head sans horns also looked
somewhat grotesque. Without the horns in, the machine-drilled holes and implanted
subcutaneous plates were visible. It most pleased The Boss when Monday took out the horns and
wore a hat. That almost never happened. You make that kind of lifestyle choice, you want to
show it off.
Monday and Leo stood together behind the long main counter that rose out of the floor
like a stage. The south end of the glass counter stood near the back wall, on the other end sat the
register. The old machine had been rigged – made modern enough to process excruciatingly slow
credit card transactions, though sometimes they still used the carbon slide thingy when the
merchant line went down. The register was so old it made that cheesy Ding! sound when the
drawer opened.
Locked in the front of the counter were the most rare collectibles in the store. A lot of
kick ass stuff sat dusty in the case, but the Boss took extra pride in a few special items: A first
state Butcher cover, Original Beatles bobble head dolls, a Promo of Metal Machine Music, and
The Ten of Swords 10-LP Dylan boot.
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 6
On this day Monday ran the Reg, answered the phone and fielded impossible questions
while Leonard worked the trade counter, minded the bins and ordered the new vinyl. The trade
buyer determined which of the random items people brought in had resale value. It could be fun,
and the buyer got first dibs on good scores. Unfortunately, most of the stuff was laughably subpar. Leo wondered why people even bothered to crate the worthless shit through the door.
Fortunately today Leonard had space to try to get his bearings – it’d been slow, and the
store was empty. For a while he leaned behind the counter, elbows on the glass without moving.
A few times Monday glanced his direction, not surprised to see Leonard disoriented and wincing.
Monday had become very familiar with this affect, this time chalking Leo’s posture up to another
powerful hangover or lunchtime toke.
Leonard did have a hangover, but a manageable one. There was, however, another
problem: The wooden racks, the white shelves and plastic bins were breathing, pulsing. He also
felt like a bad photocopy, a washed-out facsimile. Even the air around him felt tainted, seemed to
prick his skin on contact and burn his lungs and eyes.
The store faded in and out of focus, in and out of resolution, of substance. Like a dimmer
switch on reality being subtly dialed up and down. It felt like the limits of Leonard’s sensory
equipment was being explored, and he couldn’t make it stop.
Leo had the peculiar sensation that everything in the store - the thousands of records,
CD’s and DVD’s, even the floor mat under his feet - had been removed and instantaneously
replaced with an exact replica. Everything - including himself and Monday. He shuddered, his
stomach flipped and he drooled a little, cupping the dribble in his hand.
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 7
Leonard made a beeline for the john, speeding down the main aisle. He needed some face
time with the toilet. His shaking fingers were turning the doorknob when a leathery hand grabbed
his shoulder.
Leonard turned to see Bill Parks, Peachy Platters’ resident Alzheimer’s candidate and fan
of old-time country. “Hey Leo! How’s it hangin’?” Parks asked, oblivious of Leonard’s state.
Somehow Leo mustered a half wave and spit out a few words through a mouth full of
spoiled cottage cheese. “Bill, you – guuhhhh - gotta excuse me. Right now I - uuhhhhh -got to
see a man about a . . .” He trailed off. He covered his mouth, opened the door and lurched toward
the bowl. He felt something jagged and purple begin to escape.
He soon felt relieved and a little lighter on a couple of planes. The water tasted like
copper when he rinsed his mouth out. He washed his face with hand sanitizer. When he stood
from grabbing shop towels and lysol he saw Bill Parks’ moon face in the mirror. Leonard reeled.
“You got to see a man about a what!?” Bill cackled, in good humor but way too loud, and
slapped his knee. Sweet as hell and incredible to talk to, Parks was like a living Roy Roger’s skit,
but fuck if Leonard needed this right now. Bill cleared his throat, lowered his voice and dialed
down his perma-grin to only a sliver. “Sorry Lenny, sorry kid. Just checkin’ to see you're okay.
You okay? Looked kinda blue there a bit ago. Little blue.”
“Yeah Bill, just need a minute man, if you don’t mind.” Leo liked Bill and so he tried to
be civil despite his state, though he did pretty much shut the door on Bill’s smiling Moonpie.
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 8
Through the door Bill shouted: “I’ll be out there in that little country section you got
there.”
“Sure thing, sure.” Leonard started cleaning up his mess and suppressed a gag while
spraying and cleaning, though it felt like more had been expelled than what showed in the bowl.
Once the cleaning had been completed the john regained its usual honey bucket aroma. Leo
lowered the chipped lid on the commode and sat. He reached over to the grungy sink and turned
on the cold water, dislodging a green soap splinter from the lip as he did.
He wet his hands and spritzed water from his fingertips on his pulsing eyelids. He
slapped himself once on each side of the face and took six exaggerated deep breaths, raising his
shoulders and chest as he did. These didn’t relax him at all, only made him light-headed, made
him feel like he was falling up. In truth he fell off the toilet and sprawled on the cold, wet tile
floor.
He didn’t know how he’d gotten there. He didn’t know where there
was. He didn’t know if or who he was.
A bit of a difficult situation. Not sure if he’d been born into a
place semi-formed, in-between spaces, or if he’d expired, now stuck
between planes. Or really any of the above. He wasn’t sure even if
these thoughts represented ideas generated by his consciousness or if
he might somehow be eavesdropping, glimpsing, flashing on some other
vessel, interpreting alien sensory input. And okay, were these words
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 9
words
–
did
this
constitute
language?
Or
were
these
formless
impressions outside syntax, organized babble? Could language be a tool
he’d acquired?
A bit much really. There were names or words he seemed to know.
For example - Did he have a spine?
Did he have limbs? Symmetry? Did
he have toes and a torso and lips and nipples?
Also there’d been other equipment he thought he remembered or
understood. Pairs of things. Pairs of things that might have been
called nostrils, lungs. Things named eyes and ears and genitals. Were
these present? And was he a he?
Would
he
be
subjected
to
time
and
gravity
and
atmospheric
pressure? Could he enjoy things as he may or may not have once enjoyed
them?
Gah. Stranger than that time . . . the time that . . That time?
Nothing. Blank.
Nothing rose to the surface. Like it’d been wiped clean.
Maybe he’d reached the end of a fractured glimpse into another
realm. A view provided by a shard of broken mirror. Had he been called
into being, summoned? Might he be an accident of energy, a momentary
impulse
that
had
gained
consciousness?
An
expression
of
something
unnatural? And who was he talking to, or thinking to or . . .
Also
-
could
this
be
a
at
random
chemically
and
released
tangible?
Are
words
objects
memory?
and
A
when
what
floating
something
are
experience
dies?
objects?
Is
He
overwhelmed without a way to channel or define these sensations.
stored
memory
became
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 10
He went away. Or blinked out, turned off, dematerialized, died,
was born, switched channels, swam to the surface, woke up, ceased to
be.
This was the first time. He didn’t know what he should be doing.
He’d yet to find things. He would find things.
A loud knock woke him.
“Leo! You okay in the head? In the john I mean?” Leonard shook awake in the fetal
position on the floor. He stood too fast and went swimmy but shored himself by leaning on the
sink. He turned on the cold tap but when he stuck his hand in the water it felt hot and spiky, like
electrified glass. He cleared his throat.
“Hey, uh, Bill. Yeah, man. . .Uhm, got lost on the throne if you know what I mean.”
“Need a minute to wrap up in here and I’ll be out.” In other words get the fuck away from me.
When he spoke, the words felt like sand.
“10-4 good buddy!”
Leonard wanted to scream at the old man; instead he gripped the edges of the bathroom
counter and tried to breath. He caught a glimpse of the clock in the mirror again. Forty minutes
had passed. “What-in-thee-FUCK!” Leo said to his reflection.
Leonard opened the door slowly, praying he’d find the same store. Bill appeared behind
the door, a 75-year-old bow-legged light bulb in wrangler dress pants, rough outs and a checked
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 11
roper: a real deal AZ old-timer. Despite Leonard’s overall shitty disposition and the fact that he
felt like a copy of himself drifting in a simulacrum, he manufactured a smile for the coot.
Parks was an actual retired cowboy – he used to literally make saddles from scratch- and
loved him a lonesome song, but the fucker didn’t have a mournful bone in his lizard-skin body.
The man always sported a shit-eating grin, unless temporarily lapsed in confusion. He also
happened to be a great customer, so Leo tempered the urge to tell him to bugger off.
“Heya Bill, what’s the haps?” Leonard learned the phrase from Bill. It was an attempt at
cordiality, though inside he was seasick. Bill didn’t notice anything amiss. Could scarcely see
five feet in front of him unless wearing his ‘focals.
“Just tryin’ to find some nice ol’ tunes. Juanita and me was trying to ‘member this song it’s a GOOD UHN, but we prolly can’t remember much how it goes. But we like it.” When Parks
said GOOD the O’s soared loudly into the squeaky high end of the old man’s already high voice.
The word “One” would be used like an enthusiastic exclamation point to rein in Parks’ tendency
to inflate his words to show just how good that dammed ol’ song really was.
Bill had married Juanita five years ago, a couple of years after his wife of 42 years passed
away. The two lived in a trailer park near the store. Bill didn’t have a good license anymore, had
attracted too many tickets, so he’d usually arrive at Peachy’s on a beach cruiser decked out with
western tassels and a mini-leather saddle hand crafted by Park’s arthritic hands.
They loved old country and would listen to records and 8-Tracks and sometimes the old
time country station out of Show Low. They even had a vintage console that played 78’s. When
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 12
they listened to the static-filled station it sparked pleasant memories that disappeared like
flashbulbs for both of them. He was afflicted with poor memory and she whiskey sours, most
days she enjoyed her first after the Early Bird breakfast.
For a time Bill kept a little notepad by the radio, and they would write down songs when
they heard them or remembered. They’d write down titles, sometimes fragments of lyrics, other
times just words or feelings. Once he came to the store with the phrase “Good mornin’ Captain”
written on a crumpled piece of paper. Another time “Great Speckled Bird.” Sometimes he would
forget the list altogether and make a big production out of calling Juanita on the store phone.
Hand on his hip, finger through a belt-loop, he’d ask her what the hell the name of the song was
‘cause damn if it wasn’t a GOOD UHN!
It could be entertaining as hell and Bill was cute, but at times it veered to straight sad.
His condition faded in and out seemingly in accordance with the desert breeze.
Leonard walked with Bill over to the used country records. Leo remained baffled about
why this man asked him, a person not 30 years old, to help him remember songs twice his age;
but he did his best and sometimes clandestinely used Google on his phone to help the divination
process. The Boss was boss at Bill’s game of Name That Tune in one syllable, and Monday
rocked at it too, but for some reason Bill kept returning to Leo.
Most of the time Leonard could only help by providing a sane reflection of Bill’s jigsaw
puzzle thoughts, and hope the old man pulled the tune out of the ether. If that happened, which it
did less than half of the time; it then became very unlikely the store would have it. This had been
another issue, but the Eureka moment when Bill came up with the name of a song was pure joy.
Also the old man would special order old compilations or re-issues just to be able to access the
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 13
lost memory on cue, bridging clotted neural pathways by force. He ordered a lot of stuff, like
Bear Family re-issues, and they could be spendy.
“Okay, Lenny. Tune’s like a waltz, like’a slow dance number. What I member.”
This could go on for a while and usually all the employees indulged it, but today
Leonard’s head was full of static and rough seas. He hoped it was only temporary and that Bill
would get out of his face. Though he hated to do it, Leo knew how to short circuit the oral tape
loop and take Bill to the end of the song-name sub-routine.
“Bill, my man - you got the list?”
Most often he wouldn’t, or he’d bring the pad without any writing on it. Bill popped open
the imitation mother of pearl button on the pocket of his shirt and clawed for the list. He pulled
his bony hand out, bringing it down to waist level in a red fist. He opened his hand in front of
him and stared at his palm as if reading, alternately pursing his lips and rocking on his heels. He
started clenching and opening his fists. Leonard thought smoke might come out of his ears.
Shortly after he snapped to and asked to use the phone.
‘Of course Bill, no problem.”
Parks headed toward the counter and pulled out his tan leather wallet. It’d been stitched
with red leather on the edges and bore the faded brand of a ranch outside Tucson. Bill shuffled
the contents looking for the laminated card Juanita had gifted him in one of her lucid moments. It
contained his phone number and address. “Don’t know my number – who the hell calls
themselves?” Bill had remarked on many occasions, each time taking pleasure in the joke. At
least he was dead consistent.
He pulled out his Peachy Platters VIP card – spend $100, get 20% off your next purchase
– pulled out his Driver’s License, along with a faded, folded postcard of a Lon Megargee
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 14
painting. He produced a threadbare, crumpled social security card. He pulled out a five and six
ones and a raffle ticket with a stick of Big Red stuck to it and a nickel stuck to that, but no
laminated card.
His moon face turned to a fleshy sun and he rocked back and forth on his heels, making a
constipated face. He swung his arms out in front of him and sighed “Goddamnit.” Leonard had
never heard him use such strong language. Bill’s distress momentarily cut through the fog
enveloping Leonard.
“Bill, dude, simmer. Check it – bust out that Peachy Platters VIP card again. You’re our
number one Very Important Person. Lemme show you something.”
Bill pulled out the VIP card and handed it to Leonard, who flipped it over and handed it
back. On the back of the card was Bill’s number, his address and a small list of titles and oblique
clues to other lost songs. Bill looked down and let out a whoop. Leonard dialed Bill’s number on
the cordless and handed it to the old hand, making a mental note to put it on speed-dial. Bill
walked off into the used stacks; card in hard, phone to flat-topped head.
“Juanita, hey!” He yelled toward the back wall. “You got that list oer there? What’s that
one that’s lika little ol’ waltz? Yeah! That’s it! THAT’S A GOOOOD UHN!
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 15
Juanita and Bill pooled their Swiss cheese gray matter over the phone and eventually
found the song title. They painstakingly pieced it out using a secret language of excited though
pleasant mutual frustration. One side of their game of memory hangman could be heard at top
volume as Bill marched through the rows of Peachy Platters, rapt and tense as if
misunderstanding orders from on high. To those within earshot, meaning everyone in the store
and possibly people on the street, Bill may as have well have been conversing in country scat.
“Uh-Huh. Yeaaah!. . . NO No NO. . .Somethin’ somethin’ duh-doo-doo-da-doo-doo / My
world's in disguise/duh-doo-doo-da. . . Yeahhh thass it!”
Minutes later Bill stomped one of his rough outs on the concrete floor, and somehow
managed to simultaneously slap his knee and hang up the phone. He hustled his old bones
toward the main counter, his moon-pie now looking like a jack-o-lantern. He speed-waddled
toward the register and shouted in victory: “Waltz Across Texas! Waltz Across Texas with
yuuuuu! Mr. Ernest Tubb! Oh Good Gravy! That’s the one! It’s a GOOOD Uhn!”
The cordless in Bill’s hand erupted in a metallic ring. Bill looked at it like he was
strangling a snake. Leonard got his hand on the base and gently nudged the offending appliance
out of Bill’s dry paw.
“Peachy Platters, a real record store, what can I do . . .for You?” He intentionally put
callers off-balance with the long pause and accent on the word you.
“Uh, You guys do trade, yeah?”
“Yup, mostly vinyl, CDs and DVDs, if they’re in great shape and not scratched.”
“Yeah. So I got like 200 8-Tracks from the 70’s. You want ‘em?”
“Yeeaah . . .probably not, we don’t sell 8-Tracks. Though maybe if some of ‘em are
classic honky-tonk, country swing or Bluegrass.” Leonard looked at Bill but he and Monday
were busy searching for more info on his Good Uhn on AllMusic.com.
“They’re like disco compilations, R&B stuff, some K-Tel albums.”
“Yeah, um, unfortunately we’re gonna havta pass.”
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 16
“Okay. Oh - I also got like 70 laser discs and a couple of players.”
“Well, uh, again don’t really deal with laser discs or laser disc players, man. Sorry.
Maybe look on eBay or put ‘em up on Craigslist. Never know.”
“Yeah, okay, thanks. So shouldn’t even bother . . .”
“I mean, yeah, probably not. Don’t want you to have to lug ‘em all in here just to have
me say no thanks. Honestly, dude, no one asks about 8-Tracks or laser discs unless it’s a trade
call like this.”
“Yeah, okay, well thanks.”
“Anytime.” He put the cordless back in the cradle. After Bill’s 30-minute improv comedy
sketch the phone had to be drained. “Anytime I can keep you from bringing in your landfill
fodder, your sad entertainment industry detritus, and spilling it all over my counter, I surely
will!”
Monday and Bill found a best-of comp of Ernest Tubb’s greatest hits which also included
the classic “Walking the Floor Over You” and a bunch of other songs Leonard had never heard
of, including one called “Pass the Booze.” The title spoke to him. He needed something to take
the edge off. Maybe he’d call a chick later.
Monday special ordered the comp from the distributor - $40 bucks all told - not totally
taking Bill for a ride, though definitely paying a little for the VIP treatment. Monday might have
been able to find it cheaper used, but Bill gladly ponied up the coin for a chance to capture a
firefly of memory, however ephemeral.
A short while later Bill took off, still smiling but not as hard, tired from the excitement.
Regardless he tipped his invisible Stetson to the boys as he backed out the glass door; the little
bells hanging from the handle with hemp rope jangled a friendly goodbye. In the window
Monday and Leonard watched as Bill mounted his saddle and started to pedal away in a
controlled wobble. He smiled and thumbed the shiny rotary bell on the handlebars and the Rrurrrinngg! Rru-rrrinngg! carried through the glass.
When Leonard heard the bike bell he realized nothing played on the stereo, a no-no.
Leonard walked over to the Marantz receiver to see if the music was paused, muted, or
had simply ended. He scrolled the round, steel volume dial up slightly, solid and cold in his
fingers. The coda of a jaunty, spacey chamber-pop number materialized over the system. He
remembered that earlier a Hot-Rod hipster had requested to hear Esquivel. Leonard asked the
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 17
dude if he dug into Martin Denny and Dooder nodded and looked away. Clearly not a poker
player, more like another cocktail-nation wanna-be.
Leonard let the dingo off the hook because of he felt sick inside and out and scared, like
after waking up in the bathroom his feet had changed places. If he were feeling spunky he might
have asked the guy if he’d heard Jazz Valve, adding that ‘Valve was a band that used to open for
Combustible Edison in the early 90’s. If the douche feigned any knowledge of Jazz Valve,
Leonard would look at him with fake, begrudging respect. If really pissy Leonard might reveal
that while the name Combustible Edison sounded fake they were a real band, but Jazz Valve
he’d made up on the spot, though but there was a band called Jazzhole. He made a lot of friends
this way.
With the music under control, Leonard opened the Reg and checked to see if he needed to
do a drop and if the credit slips and checks were good. The action ran automatically, a macro,
one subroutine of many that sometimes made Leonard feel like a manager-bot or a record-storeroomba. Little tasks performed perfunctorily through the day, modular and automatic.
Sometimes he envisioned the daily laps he walked in the store, a fluorescent ribbon
billowing behind him like a contrail. The endless laps were comparable to his routine outside the
store, driving endlessly down the same road, running deep grooves in the same rut he’d been in
for years. His life as a broken record. Like the track his parent’s Cairn Terrier had forged inside
the perimeter of the backyard fence as he hunted phantom rodents.
Leonard cut his musings short when he noticed the register clock blinking 10:23. It meant
Monday clocked out in seven minutes. He didn’t know how he’d survive the last 90 minutes by
himself. He didn’t have much to do, but he wouldn’t have the buffer Monday provided between
himself and this suddenly foreign place he’d spent years standing around in. No way he’d ask
Monday to stay - too self-conscious – and anyway what would Leonard say? A few minutes later
Monday also backed his shoulders into the glass door on his way out. In homage to Bill Parks,
Monday pulled an invisible trucker horn and tooted twice as he exited.
After Monday left, business died, although that could change at any second. The
possibility of a rush fueled Leo’s anxiety. Alone for the first time since the episode Leonard felt
out of control and afraid. His chest and throat tightened in anxiety as the scenes raced in his
mind: waking up out of a trance after apparently composing some mystical story, later being so
disoriented he puked and passed out for 40 minutes.
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 18
Also the friggin’ wireless was on the fritz and he didn’t have a book. So for a long time
after Monday left Leonard stood behind the main counter, elbows on the glass, and zoned. With
nothing to distract him a bone-tired, discombobulated aura settled over him. In an effort to
dislocate his mind he tidied the flyers near the register, absently brushing those out of date into
the recycling bin behind the counter. He half-ass dusted and cleaned the glass in front of the
collectable case. Without success he tried to push the thought away the same way he brushed the
old flyers into the trash.
At least the waves of vertigo and the breathing of the store had calmed down, though
every once in a while something in Leonard’s peripheral vision would dance or seem to melt and
suddenly reform. His disorientation heightened when confronted with what happened, and scared
it might overtake him again without anyone there to help.
Nothing he did distracted him enough to get away from his thoughts.
He couldn’t even use the desktop in the store. The Boss didn’t like anyone to surf the web
on the store computer, especially not employees. It was linked with the old register in a
hilariously rigged steampunk fashion. The computer and register were paired using an analog
printer cable and some Unix code that captured each register keystroke as if it were a print job.
They’d had a Unix wiz working there for a while and he wrote a resourceful PDF hack adapted
from the days of Basic.
The Boss worried that anyone doing anything outside of base store functions would jam
the works. Or at least that’s what he said. Denied the sweet, sweet lullaby of the interweb
Leonard stood around and scrolled through his iPod, picking stuff to play over the kick-ass store
system in hopes of getting in touch with his mellow. The system was a beaut: a Marantz 2330b
tube receiver, a Dual 1228 turntable, mounted Bose 901’s, 4 industrial-grade studio monitors and
a bunch of Bose satellite speakers.
Leonard scrolled through the 15,000 songs on his iPod, a drop in the bucket music-hourswise when compared to his non-mp3 music collection. Shit, most of the stuff on his iPod wasn’t
even in his collection at home, and he’d honestly forgotten most of what he’d uploaded onto the
player. When Leonard told Bill the number of tracks on the device Bill had stared at it like a
caveman holding a bic lighter.
Often at work he’d cue-up a playlist he made beforehand based on mood or stuff he was
digging he didn’t mind sharing with the general public. In the store they were supposed to play a
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 19
mix of new and current re-releases and albums usually in stock, like friggin’ mall music, but
when Leonard worked alone his iPod ruled the store, unless some asshat asked to hear
something. If that happened and he didn’t approve of the selection, there were many ways to
make the unhip goofballs regret ever asking.
Look, the store had four fuckin’ listening stations with headphones and plenty of new
releases to choose from, and a fifth for listening to used LPs & CDs. The stations sounded fine
and allowed for a certain discretion. Leonard liked to think the stations were there to keep losers
from subjecting the employees and the sweet stereo to horrible musical taste.
If someone dared to ask Leonard to stop his selection and abuse the beautiful system - a
system hand installed by himself and The Boss - he would make them pay. They would get a
dose of traditional, straight up, old-school music-store ‘tude. Something to be proud of, arguably
a part of the used-record store consumer experience; but definitely something that made working
retail for a non-living wage almost palatable. A rite of passage like that tourist-y steakhouse
where they chop off your tie, or something.
But tonight only a couple of people came in and didn’t stay long. Leonard didn’t exactly
exude warmth and looked strung out. After the customers left he passed the time micro-mixing
on his iPod, actively ignoring the absurdly detailed TO-DO list from The Boss. Instead he sent
texts to some peeps and tried to pretend the browser on his phone didn’t suck. Nine bucks an
hour does not provide state of the art, it barely provides shelter. None of the attempted diversions
and mind games erased the images of the episode swarming in his head.
Leonard knew it might take his mind off things, but seriously that TO-DO list was not
reasonable. Five eager, good-doobie clerks couldn’t complete all the BS tasks. The Boss knew
on his best day Leonard could do maybe a quarter of it, the list served as another power play on
the part of The Boss. And anyway Leonard felt seriously funk-ifed. This was all the reason
Leonard needed to completely blow off everything on the list.
That and the fact that The Boss was his dad.
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 20
He called him The Boss for a number of reasons. On a primary, non-ironic level it was
the truth. Leonard Peachfoot had worked at Peachy Platters since he could walk and talk. He had
good memories of the holidays at the old store, hanging out in his playpen (which he now called
a kid enclosure) in the middle of the store. The small store had been decked out in gold
ornaments and frosted lights, and to Leonard’s little eyes everyone that came into the store
looked happy. In those days they also sold sheet music and The Boss taught some guitar lessons.
They’d lived in the back of the store in a small converted studio. Modest quarters for a tight little
unit: Leonard, The Boss, his mother Josline and Leonard’s kid sister Nadine.
But that was a long time ago. Before Leonard’s mother died. Before Nadine grew up and
made it clear she wanted more from life than to work in a shitty little record store. Before
Leonard viewed the boss as an adversary he could not escape. Before he and the Boss were
toxically co-dependent, locked into an unhealthy symbiosis.
They needed each other, knew it and hated it. So mostly Leonard called his dad The Boss
to mock him. And his dad hated Bruce Springsteen, so that would be another reason.
So TA-DIDDLEY! TA-DON’T-THINK-SO! Ain’t gonna do any of it. Fuck odering the
new music shipment or shrink-wrapping the used product waiting in a box under the register.
Fuck picking up cigarette butts that haloed the ground at the base of the tall ashtray out front.
Pretty much fuck doing anything except having a stare-down with the grandfather clock in the
northeast corner of the store. He’d stand there and watch the clock run down until it announced
his freedom for the day. Mindfully doing nothing.
When the clock did chime twelve Leonard jogged to shut everything down. He powered
down the stereo, turned off the lights and prepped the alarm. He did a quick idiot check in the
backroom and grabbed his backpack. Then he ran to the front of the store and had to stand
perfectly still for twenty seconds so the alarm wouldn’t trigger. Normally he’d use the
opportunity to strike a silly pose in the frozen silence, but today he just wanted out.
Outside he locked the deadbolt, fingered the soft pack in his shirt pocket, flipped open his
gunmetal Zippo with a crisp ting, sparked up a Camel and took a deep drag. He then inserted his
earbuds, slung his backpack over his shoulder and headed to the light rail stop. At first he walked
by memory, focused on the text he wrote his connection T-Boy, wondering if Doo had any salad.
He could really appreciate some fresh green.
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 21
The light rail sucked but his Scout had broken down, his bike gears were mucked up and
he’d pawned his longboard a while back to pay rent. Yeah, he was almost 30, but he’d been
skating since the day, so he got a pass from most skate-babies. He guessed the light rail signaled
progress for Phoenix, now if the city could fucking stop tearing down cool old buildings and
erecting something pink and stuccoed it would have a chance to be a real town. Anyway he’d
much rather be cruising under his own power than riding the train, be it foot, petal or horse. On
the Metro he found an empty row and took the window seat. He put the backpack in the aisle seat
so other humans wouldn’t feel invited. Looking at the pack he remembered the yellow pad and
the writing.
He started to re-read the story and again felt at once queasy and energized. He tried to get
a handle on things when his phone vibrated. He absently threw the pad in the backpack and slid
the pack under the seat in front.
T-Boy sent a text saying: Today’s menu features: all kinds a fuckin’ salad. Nice. Now he
just needed to come up with some scratch, or maybe something else. He should have hit T up
before he left the store, sometimes he and Th’ B could work a deal out in trade, something fresh
from the record store for some fresh ensalada.
The city blurred and halted in a stutter out his window. He started to feel drowsy but sat
up straight when he remembered the story of the man on the train. He reached under the seat for
the pack. When he grabbed the backpack something came up with it, tangled in the straps. It was
a red staple-bound pamphlet, filthy and all kinds of beat up. Definitely not an artifact for
collecting. He nearly chucked it but the title caught his eye:
“A Man on a Train
or
A Dweller on Two Planes
by
Phylos Thebetan.”
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 22
L eonard
flipped to a random page in the grimy booklet and read:
Two stone statues were at the bottom of a deep green lake. One
appeared tall and thin, a once vibrant blue color. His skin seemed to
have the texture of rough cement. The other looked smooth, short and
round, the color of dark moss. They were having tea.
“Pardon me,” said the tall blue one when he clinked her saucer
with the spout of the tarnished bronze kettle. It was speckled with
black barnacles that almost looked like sequins. When the cup and
kettle bumped some of the beautiful green tea clouded and disappeared
in the murky water. “Not at all,” said the short mossy one, “after
all, practice makes perfect.”
This was a little joke as the two had been together at the bottom
of the lake for a very long time. At the very least their time
together had taught them to be patient and kind with each other. They
had been there together, alone, for as long as either could remember,
what could easily equal forever. Certainly forever for the two stone
gods.
They didn’t conceive of breathing or what sustained them, nor how
they could send and receive much less speak or hear. No bubbles
betrayed breath, but they could receive each other and the other life
of the lake very well. The lake consisted mostly of two stone gods,
schools of giant, spectral koi fish, black squid and twelve breeds of
orange salamander.
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 23
If the gods’ intentions were pure and they conducted themselves
carefully, the tea didn’t flow anywhere but in the cup. It had taken
millennia to understand this.
Sometimes out of habit after tea they would try to seed the
dreams of their worshippers. This had once been their primary
function. Creator and creation, a binary system of belief and being.
The gods were worshiped and in turn they illuminated the best in their
willing subjects with gifts of spiritual strength and love. But the
circle had been broken, the circuit terminated, when the people grew
prosperous. The people forgot that reverence and piety had manifested
their success. They didn’t know man could not exist without their gods
and that the gods couldn’t thrive without worshipers.
Sometimes an ancient offering still winked through sediment and
coral, seaweed and shell-bones. The bottom was once covered by them:
gold ingots, silver, jade fashioned into eyes, wood carved lightning
bolts, even the bones of human sacrifice. In those times shaman would
walk the shore with sharp cactus thorns, circling the beach with
offerings of their own blood until they collapsed. As a reward, the
gods would gift them with visions and restore their strength.
Those were good days, now long past. Now when they tried to seed
dreams there were no dreamers. They knew they could not be the only
neglected gods. So they sent out blessings anyway hoping they found
new receivers. Are not forgotten gods still gods?
And sometimes, even now, they found a far off mind to nourish.
What in thee hairy hell was going on? Leonard stared dumbfounded at the pages.
Some messed up Voodoo bullshit. He stopped himself from tearing the book into tiny pieces;
half thinking it might invoke a curse. After reading that weirdness he felt out of scale,
incongruous in relation to the light rail, the city and the people. Also the pamphlet in his hand
floated away from its meaning. It may as well have been a piece of toast or a tennis ball; the
object in his hands no longer connected with anything known. He dropped the book as if it had
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 24
shocked him, grabbed his backpack, zipped it closed and as the train still moved he stood and
hurried toward the exit.
The next stop was announced by an unsettling robot voice and the door slipped open.
Leonard ran off and sat down on a hot metal seat at the stop and grabbed his phone, in a rush to
meet T-Boy and oblivion. “Yo T-Body. Be over in 30.” He thumbed. “You got any other
potions, like something a vet might use? I needs to get out of my head.”
He looked up - six stops shy of his usual exit that meant he had to wait at least fifteen
minutes for the next train. He got shaky and nervous when he realized he was temporarily
stranded. He pulled the iPod from his pocket and put on “Sister Ray” from Gymnasium. That
should do it. The version he cued started playing: a nasty 19-minute studio outtake from The
Velvet Underground. Leonard couldn’t possibly be more depraved or fucked up than Lou on this
song: a terrifying, discordant symphony in praise of fallenness.
Leonard lit a smoke and cranked the song. Too loud probably, but hearing loss is a badge
of honor or some shit, right? He fiddled with his Zippo and tried to control the sensation that
something moved in his body. It felt like an echo, like an empty impression of his body floated
around him, up and down like a dying helium balloon slightly out of phase.
Across the street he spotted a familiar sight: a homeless guy he’d dubbed the Toilet
Priest. The guy usually had one of those tissue toilet seat covers around his neck, suggesting a
forgotten ministry. The man was terra cotta colored. Alone on a bus bench he gesticulated as if to
an audience. Leonard noticed the man’s deep, calm breathing and unconsciously took a deep
breath. Would it be so bad? right now any life seemed preferable. For a moment he saw himself
sitting at the light rail station through the eyes of the Toilet Priest. The light rail arrived and
Leonard, still reeling, got on.
It is the middle of the night. It’s raining. It’s raining on one
corner of the intersection and not the others. A man sits at the bus
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 25
stop and appears to glow a greenish white. He is having an animated
conversation with someone in front of him but no sound escapes. The
man waits, listens and thoughtfully responds to his conversation mate.
No one else is there.
The man at the bus stop seems to subtly pulse in and out, and as
this happens he shades from light green to pale yellow to a glowing
red. He sits full lotus on the middle of the bench in a nest of
newspapers and dons a colorful umbrella hat. He wears a Priest’s
collar. To his right on the bench is a bouquet of dead flowers in an
empty plastic milk carton, to his left a withered plant.
He has a large, grey beard that is kempt and curly. It extends
from his face like an upside-down cloud. His hair curls in salt-andpepper strands below the umbrella hat.
Something sparkles in his
curls like tinsel. Even in the darkness he is the color of earth and
his features and limbs are blocky and creased, like something sculpted
from leather. He’s wearing a respectable polyester sports jacket and
lime-green track pants with luminous white piping. He wears filthy
white socks full of holes. Below the bench are two shoes that don’t
match. He has an air of dignity.
There is mule tape lassoed around his right wrist that allows him
to hold forth to his invisible associate while keeping his shopping
cart properly leashed. The cart is impossibly, ingeniously stacked, a
sculptural feat of found-object engineering. Peeking out from the vast
and variegated inventory is a satellite dish, a bust of Wagner and a
nude Mr. T Cabbage Patch doll. Occasionally small frogs are seen
leaping around the cart. Below the bench a few city chickens coo,
nesting on Astro-turf.
A naked bulb from the top of the metal bus-stop canopy casts
dimly down on him echoing actor and stagelight, though most of his
features are obscured in the umbra of the umbrella hat.
Still in lotus he jerks up spine-straight, extends him arms and
forcefully splays his hands like energy is beaming from his
fingertips. Synched with this gesture he speaks forcefully without
producing sound. He sits back, half smiling at his friend, an
expression that at once portrays exacerbation and respect. He’s won;
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 26
he can afford to relax a little. The powerful jazz-hands gesture and
his eloquent pontification made the victory clear to all in
attendance.
The pigeons coo. The rain moves to the middle of the road. The
streetlights make grotesque shadows on the man’s face. He is at peace.
The bus does not come. It is the middle of the night.
Time passes. The man sits stone still, hands on legs in the Shaka
mudra, eyes closed, breath measured and deep.
More time. The rain
stops. There is a localized thunderclap that sounds like someone
rattling a steel sheet. The pigeons stir and scurry. His eyes peer
ahead as if seeing something for the first time. His hands move to the
side. He unfolds the left and then the right leg from the lotus
position and lowers his feet to the ground, placing them in the
mismatched shoes. One shoe is too small, the other too large. With
effort the man stands. He dons a bathrobe that was draped over the
shopping cart.
Not succeeding in finding his land-legs the large man moves
toward the street with the grace of an elderly infant. He places his
hands before him in a posture of prayer and then puts them down at his
sides. A strong white light suddenly illuminates his head and body. He
takes a deep breath and a woozy step forward toeing the edge of the
sidewalk.
“Congratulations and greetings. You’ve found the dark Phoenix.
The black Phoenix. The one that doesn’t rise,” he says in a strong
baritone. It is the middle of the night. The street goes black.
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 27
Montgomery Sparks, a.k.a. Monty-cum-Monday, had worked at Peachy Platters years
longer than any other part-time worker. He was loyal, punctual, and despite his horns, one of the
nicest people you could meet.
The Memphis transplant blew in to Phoenix and got stuck like a tumbleweed in a golfcourse lake. He first got trapped four years ago, when the van his band was touring in threw a
rod on the highway outside of Gilbert. In August. His band, Long Tom Onion, barely had
enough to pay for gas and grub for the short ride to the next gig in Tucson, much less replace an
engine.
Once it became clear they were stranded the five bandmates said nothing. The
singer, bass player and guitarist split a cab to Phoenix. Monty and the drummer sat together in
stunned silence in the back seat of the van, sweating, heads down, as if the van were still rolling
down the highway.
Monday later heard the singer had money wired for a Greyhound bus back home, and the
other guys chipped in and rented a car. Monty was told that, broke as a joke the guitarist, bass
player and all their gear shared the expansive cab of a sub-compact Ford Aspire. For seven
nights they slept on the side of the road in the ultra-compact two-seater full of guitars, heads,
half-stacks and luggage with no blankets, pillows or showers. Each night doing Rock Paper
Scissors for who had to sleep bent over the wheel without a pillow. Coupla times they shook
awake when a nodding head honked the horn, once while driving. Monty said the big joke was
that the piece of shit Aspire is so named because it Aspires to be a car. Like driving two lawn
chairs down the road; like sleeping inside a microwave. Good times.
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 28
Monty last saw the drummer walking south on the highway embankment, all the
remaining gear loaded in a stolen shopping cart with a stuttering wheel. Monty called it the cart
of opportunity.
He could laugh about it now but in truth Monday was left homeless in a strange town
with only his horn(s), forty-seven dollars and a pink rolling suitcase full of dirty clothes and
underwear. It also contained four packs of GPC’s, a half eaten microwave burrito, a broken
tambourine, a half-empty half-pint of Early Times, a creased, paperback copy of Brewer’s
Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, seven condoms and a pair of Groucho Marx glasses.
“Forget busking for change in Phoenix, anyway. Much less in August with a goddamn
trumpet!” Monty would say when telling the story of how he got stuck in Arizony, always
related with a pained smile from the cheery Devil of Peachy Platters, really a kind of angel in
disguise. The sort of angel that would punch you in the mouth if you called him that.
A few days and forty-two dollars after the van died Monty walked into Peachy Platters,
over-ripe and covered in sweat. He wore a tattered t-shirt, filthy jeans and a maroon pork pie hat
with a halo of sweat on the brim. The store was his last stop before pawning the horn. He
balanced the trumpet case in the crook of his right arm and rolled the pink suitcase in front of
him with his left, like a pet on a stiff leash. As usual Leonard had the morning off so The Boss
was minding the store alone.
This was before Monty had horns surgically drilled into his cranium. Even so Monty cyt
quite a figure on a Monday morning in ol’ P-Town. As Monty crossed the threshold little bells
on the glass door chimed his arrival.
“Can I help you?” The Boss asked from behind the main counter, a greeting used in part
to inform sketchy characters they’d been seen and were being watched. Monty walked down the
main aisle toward The Boss. Both men appeared ready to draw. Monty said in an exaggerated,
marmalade drawl:
“Yeah, you can help me, mahhn. Kindly give me a Dang job!”
The Boss, one hand holding a tan cordless to his right ear, shook his head while checking
out the oddball sauntering up: a huge, smiling, muscular bald man in a squashed fedora rolling
pink luggage and carrying an instrument case on his shoulder like a boom box or a rocket
launcher. The Boss exhaled loudly. “Oh yeah? What kinda job?”
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 29
Monty stopped beside the used CD racks, as he did his free hand straightened a few CDs
out of habit. “Anything, boss. An-y-thing. Got experience. I know music. Can run a register. Do
trade. And,” Monty did a little half bow, slapped the case: “Will play for food!”
The Boss laughed. More when he noticed that this creature had spurs on the back of his
Chuck Taylors. He covered the receiver with his hand as best he could and laughed loudly.
“Excuse me Ma'am, yes I’m still here. Can I please put you on hold while I try to find that, uh . .
. Neil Diamond record? Oh. Okay, sure no problem. Click over.” The Boss rolled his eyes,
cradled the phone to his ear with an elbow. He stepped down from behind the counter and
walked toward the vinyl bins, brushing past Monty. “What’s your name, cowboy?” he said,
heading for the “D’s” in the LP section, showing Monty his back and leaving the register
unguarded.
“Monty.”
“Monday?” said The Boss.
“Yeah it’s Monday. But the name’s Monty.”
With the phone to one ear and hearing loss in the other from years of loud music, The
Boss didn’t hear him correctly. He turned and held up the cover of an album.
“Okay Monday. Here’s the 50,000-dollar question, or maybe the eight dollar-an-hour
question. What’s the first single from Neil Diamond’s album Serenade?”
Monty flicked the suitcase handle forward, dropped the trumpet case into his hands and
snapped the bronze latches open. He popped out a golden trumpet, deftly dropped the case to the
ground and blew the opening notes to “Longfellow Serenade,” with what might have been a
grimace on his face. Played it perfectly.
There wasn’t much work but The Boss told him to come back the next day anyway.
Monty, now officially christened Monday, swept the hell out of the sidewalk, picked up all the
cigarette butts and scraped petrified gum off the entryway steps leading down to Peachy Platters.
The Boss even advanced him a 20-spot when Monday offered to leave his horn as collateral.
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 30
This was some serious shit. Leo was no gourmet, didn’t know a cannabanoid from a
hemorrhoid, but he knew he was hella stoned. So high in fact he’d bolted Teddy’s digs right after
T-Boy smoked him out. Now he was just trying to maintain on a late-night metro ride home,
baked. Bailing on T like that added to Leonard’s stoney angst, but he’d had to split. He should’ve
heeded Ted’s warnings that the stuff was beyond Chron. Blue Diesel T had called it - whatever it
was it rocked Leo - not in a happy way. The ride seemed to go on forever.
“What time the show start at?” a woman in front of him screamed into her crappy flip
phone. Her strawberry blonde hair exploded in a ratty curl that waved and snapped behind her
seat. It was so long it almost touched Leo’s knees. She was utilizing the I’m too confused to
speak and hold this thing to my ear mode of the phone, usually seen in the wild at check cashing
places or the MVD, or any place where people are forced to stand in line.
“What show’s that? We meetin’ out front?” . . .
Her grunted questions were punctuated by long pauses between each brilliant burst as she
lowered the phone and stared at the blaring earpiece as if harnessing fire.
“What he been in?” . . .
“You got tickets?” . . .
“Whaddya you mean Ricky got caught?” . . . “So he ain’t got the Skittles?”
. . . “I’m hungry.” . . .
And on. Until she realized something.
“Shit baby, I got on the wrong fuckin’ train.” . . .
“Yeah, I know there’s only one, but it go two ways.” . . .
“Getting’ off and turning round hunny. Gonna go on ahead and turn my shit around!”
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 31
There was a hushed element of live theater as she in fact turned around and stared blankly
at the phone and then the seated people who hadn’t existed to her seconds before. She actually
contained her voice for one exchange but still sported Walky-Talky mode.
“Sorry baby. We still good for the show?” . . .
The train stopped, a few miles from where she got on.
“Goin’ ahead and getting off, hunny bunny. Buy me a hot dog.” At that the squat woman
waddled off the line, reversing her trajectory to hopefully intersect with that hotdog. Glad you
figured it out, lady. Next time I see you, remind me to puke projectile bursts of alphabet soup in
your direction.
Garrrrr, that was soothing. Leo inserted earbuds in defense and put on a playlist he’d
named “Instry-mental.” Would have donned shades if he’d had em, better yet one of those eye
covering sleep masks.
Sooo, soo stoned. Sometimes Leonard preferred good ol’ dirt weed, some nice Mexi, at
least that stuff usually did the job without sending you into Deep Space Nine. Yeah, dirt weed
could burn you out if you were like wakin’ and bakin’, but Leo had long since switched to booze
as his primary mind altering substance anyway. Even those first years when he was smoking a
lot he never liked to greet the world with a hit and a smile. Except for a few hazy months when it
felt strange not to be high. In that phase he would get high in the shower at his parents house
before school. With the water running he would spark up and open the little shower window and
blow out the smoke. What the hell had he been thinking?
Leonard glanced around the car. Directly across from him sat a young Hispanic mother
and her baby. The tiny baby was in a carrier and though still very small it looked like he was
sportin’ a Caesar ‘do. A young couple, bloodshot and painless, sat forward of Leo in a row of
seats against the wall of the Metro. She had curly black hair and curves, maybe 20, and he was
skinny with white blonde hair that stood up in cowlicks front and back, not a fashion thing, more
like half-hat-head, half-porcupine. He was pale with cystic zits. She held a deep red Fender
Squire six-string like one might hold a stranger’s baby. Leo could see smeared finger-trails on
the face of the guitar. He would put money that they were headed to the walk-up window at the
twenty-four hour pawnshop.
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 32
He could tell they were wasted, shit, he was faded himself, though just high. Anymore
these days Leo usually enjoyed a booze and bud cocktail. He’d get drunk first at the bar and
finish off the night with a couple of hits and some tunes, topped off by the occasional
recreational pharma.
Sure, booze could burn you too, did, but when you got drunk you didn’t have to contend
with thinking. Also once in a while a hangover provided dramatic, almost noble focus to
personal desperation. Or if you couldn’t hang with a hangover you could just say fuck it and do a
little Houdini of the dog. Whatever, people had a right to pursue their hobbies on their own time,
or something.
Booze had its predictability, within reason, as long as it wasn’t your first time bellying
up. Most drinking nights you go up, you go down and stay down for a while. Like the wisdom of
that old ass bumper sticker: “I don’t have a drinking problem. I drink. I get drunk. I fall down.
No problem”
Leo couldn’t believe he’d allocated mental real estate for storing that clichéd crap, much
less that it had bubbled up now, being, as he was, supremely stoned. It took one fast, slowmotion blink of his eye to realized being high was the precise reason that nugget o’ 70’s bumper
sticker bullshit popped up in the first place. He laughed into his chest as his mind filled further
with smoke, while his little stoned self rode home on the too-bright light rail, so full of eyes.
What idiot would put that shit on the back of a car, anyway? Different times, maybe.
Those days you could hop a fence late at night and jump on a stranger’s trampoline without
getting sighted down by a ghetto bird’s searchlight. Them was the days. Those days a guy could
pick a pomegranate hanging over a fence without fear of the slammer. What?
He could do this. He could make the ride. Just a few more stops. Why is that baby
staring? He slid the volume up and examined the roadmap of his palms.
He fended off anxiety by attempted rationalization: I am having a problem. I want to
scream out “I am having a problem! I am having a problem!” and pull the emergency lever. But
doing that would serve what purpose? Doing that would accomplish what, exactly? I’ll only
announce I’m having a problem, creating a further, new problem by drawing attention to the fact
that I’m having a problem. And then what? Run outside to escape the claustrophobic train to
land on a busy metro-station sidewalk, high and dry, no closer to home, still having a problem.
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 33
Better to just ride it out, though the mutant high showed no sign of mellowing or
playing nice. He would not die, he was not poisoned. I am not my thoughts, he thought to
himself. This helped, despite the fact that it was itself a thought. I am not my thoughts. The
mantra helped him stay seated and silent despite still having a problem. Hey, probably everybody
on here was having a problem, except maybe that rude staring baby. He’s got the world by the
teats . . . Why does he have a full head of hair?
Like a cartoon thought bubble, another bit of vintage bumper sticker wisdom popped into
his head: “If you’re so goddamn smart, why ain’t you rich?”
Leonard chuckled, awed at the randomness. He relaxed his shoulders, took a better breath
and yielded to the associative spring. These bubbling bumper stickers made him wonder why
people would freakin’ advertise on their vehicle that they enjoyed consuming things that would
make them unable to drive or operate heavy machinery, as it said on every pill bottle worth a
rattle.
A car appeared in the rear view mirror of his mind. A Dodge Dart, white over chicken
noodle soup brown, square and banged up, with a peeling rainbow pot sticker in the back
window. A Bob Marley sticker with Rasta colors shared dented chrome with “I Break for
Hallucinations.” A dream catcher hung from the slanted rearview. On top of the back seat, like a
store window display, a Hacky Sack nested among crumpled Wendy’s bags. Beside it a Troll
Doll peered out among the fast food ruins. It was a vision. Fuckin’ stoners, he thought, not
realizing he’d actually said it in a hissing whisper, attracting a quick glance from a bald man
across the aisle. My prreciousss he thought but did not say, though he did sort of chortle and
grin. Screw that guy, if we’re being judgmental up in here, dude’s pants were too tight.
Putting that shit on your car was like walking around with a big bong at an ice cream
social or something. Ice cream – for it, not against it. Then he remembered why people felt the
need to advertise their favorite intoxicant on their vehicles: most people were dumb fucks, like
our Lady of the Hot Dog. But idiots could serve a purpose, their ignorance could make it easier
to get away with your own risky shit. Let the asshats be cannon fodder and run interference until
they got popped and landed in the jail cell that quietly waited for them. Some trimming of the
herd was necessary. He pictured all the Metro riders as freshly shorn sheep in business casual.
Baaaah. His hands were sweaty and his throat was dry. Sounded like a blues.
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 34
Earlier at Ted’s apartment it hadn’t taken long for Leo to realize he should have had just
a couple of hits off the blunt Teddy rolled. T’d said tobacco would take the edge off the high.
But Leo ignored him, thought he deserved a reward for a terrible day. He felt he’d earned a sixfoot, ice-chilled, Absolute Citron bong load, even if it took three full lungfuls to cash it. The
chilled vodka chronic smoke tasted like a forest of frozen sugar tendrils cascading down his
throat. But very soon he regretted his weed-smoking bravado.
Leonard had a theory about good bud: it was like riding in an airplane. If a person is
inclined to get tripped out on the Kind, the first ten minutes are the most difficult and are also a
good barometer of how the rest of the trip will be. The smoke out there now was much, much
stronger than it was even five years ago. The availability of superb seeds, huge leaps in hydro
tech and Internet-forum Geekdom had cross-pollinated to yield insane strands of super high
potency bud. It was readily available now, but somehow, despite the democratization and
demystification of hydroponic marijuana alchemy, it was still spendy as hell. But it did the
goddamn job. Too well sometimes. This time.
Leo was also still worried because he’d finished the bong, gone to make water and within
minutes was running out T’s door. Wasn’t really the plan, but after clearing the bong and taking
a trip to the john, he quickly realized he wasn’t going to be able to hang, on more than one level.
It started with something so mundane: his own urine splashing in the bowl. An acoustic
shift, the stream started sounding like pennies dropped into a pool from a skyscraper, with some
reverb. It was disorienting. He considered stopping himself mid-stream. He composed himself
enough to finish the job, but as he did he noticed a see-through box full of little compartments on
the sink counter. The box had seven columns, each labeled with abbreviations for the days of the
week. Down the side were four rows labeled Morn, Noon, Eve, and Bed. The box sat in a cheap
pleather case. The name Theodore Quinn was monogrammed on the inside. The many
compartments held a brimming pharmacopeia, except for the empty space where Tuesday
should have been. The entire vertical column for Tuesday was missing. It was Friday.
Leonard knew Teddy needed to stay on his meds. Point in fact Teddy had scared Leonard
a few times when they were high and hanging out after a purchase. Teddy could be crazy,
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 35
probably was, for sure lacked boundaries and filters, and his conspicuous, chronic consumption
exacerbated these traits.
The high that was enveloping Leo as he gathered himself in the bathroom verged on the
psychedelic. He tried not to look at the daily “good” drug cocktail dispenser or think what those
drugs were supposed to suppress in Ted. But mostly he tried not to stoner-obsess about the
totally full compartments. Tried not to think about the missing Tuesday pills and how long it had
been since T had popped the correct, desperately needed, legally prescribed meds and what
would happen if he didn’t. Another part of him wanted to explore the smorgasbord of drugs, to
see if he recognized anything useful, but he thought better of it.
Leo composed himself, walked back to the front room and sank into the couch. Teddy
was in the middle of an intense, hyper-violent Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 game and didn’t
notice Leonard’s return. Teddy was maybe too into it. Leonard wasn’t a gamer, so he sat back
and tried to ride out the first few minutes of the fractaling, static electricity and astro turf dance
in his skull. He leaned back and rested his head on the back of the couch.
When he leaned back he saw: hanging marionettes, giant flying ladybugs, floating papermache' globes, Dia de Los Muertos skeletons, dangling, swaying spirals of green colored keys
arranged like sculptural trees, spinning blue bottles, tiny guitars hanging like elements of a
mobile and naked dolls dancing from the ceiling as if suspended. Some of the dolls were missing
heads or limbs, others were spray painted black. Dozens of other things were hanging from the
ceiling, among them: an orange parking cone, what appeared to be a slice of pizza, a dead
goldfish in a water-filled zip-lock, bouquets of upside-down dried flowers, a wooden leg, and a
shriveled Ronald Regan mask.
Leonard had been at Teddy’s for a sack only a couple of weeks ago. Apparently since
then Teddy had changed the décor. Leonard stood.
“Doood!”
“Hang on man.”
“No Teddy, what the fuck is up?”
“What?”
“Pause the game. Pause it.
“Why – shit, alright. What?
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 36
“What’s going on with the, uh, ritual objects hanging from the fuckin’ ceiling?”
“You don’t dig it?”
“No, me no dig.”
“Well fuck you. It’s art, mahn. Came to me in a sweet sea dream.”
Leo debated his next move. The sack the salad was sitting on the coffee table, actually a
wooden door on cement blocks, faux-bronze knob still attached. It bore a fist-sized hole near
Teddy. The kind bud lay next to the fugitive Tuesday column from the pill planner, its
compartments filled with black jellybeans and confetti.
“Uh, look man, can we work this out,” Leonard asked quietly, staring at the table.
He hadn’t noticed before but the table, like the ceiling was strewn with a macabre
assortment. Among the items: maybe fifty burned-out candles trailing wax stalactites, a deck of
Loteria cards and a wicker basket full of plastic fruit with nails coming out of them arranged like
a bouquet with an assortment of doll arms. Tendrils of plastic grape vines emerged from the
rotten cornucopia and extended over the edges of the table to the dirty carpet. The carpet, like
the popcorn ceiling from which everything was suspended, was between color, a symptom of
neglect and party smoke, once-tan. Next to Ted’s naked feet, toenails painted black, sat a
macramé pair of pink bunny ears.
“The bag’s right there man, but I got to tell you you’re harshin’ me.”
“Well this extreme makeover freak edition is harshing my gig. I’m outy.” Leo took a
breath. “Problem is I don’t have the scratch. Hoping you have some records in mind I can pull
from the store. Can swing ‘em by tomorrow.”
“Gladly pay you Friday for a hamburger today . . .”
“Whatev T. You know we’ll work it. Can I hit you up later or somethin’? I’m not in a
happy place.”
Teddy stared blankly at the table and then at the paused game on the huge flat screen. He
looked at his feet, shook his head. “Okay man, this once, but I did try to warn ya! Gonna let this
slide but this ain’t the way I do business.” Ted picked up and put on the bunny ears, flashed a
manic smile. “Next time we settle up before La La Land. Lucky for you I take my aggression out
healthy.” T pointed the X box 360 controller at Leo, arms flexed, teeth bared. Without looking at
the game, Ted pushed a button and blew the head off a figure in the distance. It was meant to be
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 37
funny, but under the circumstances not at all. Leo didn’t see the reflection of the giant HDTV in
the mirror behind him, and Teddy didn’t say shit.
“OHH-KAY! Game. Over. I’m out. Gotta get home and get vertical. X-out of this shitty
day.”
“Do what you do. Take ten puffs and call me in the afternoon.”
“Will do, killer.” Leonard grabbed the pot and stood in the doorframe. “Tomorrow my
man. ”
“Saaweeet!”
Just as Leo started to shut the door he said:
“By the way, Theodore Quinn, today is Friday. Friday all day!”
Leonard could hear “What’s that supposed to mean?” through the particleboard door as
he hurried away. He half expected to see a fist burst through the door, making a hole to match
the coffee table.
Leonard somehow held it together for the rest of the Light Rail trip, eventually able to
bypass some of the more treacherous pathways in his mind. He did it by likening thoughts to
breath. If he didn’t like the route the thinking took he could purge it on the next exhale and
upload a virgin thought. Exhale and breathe in a new pure thought made of freshly baked bread
and evergreen. If that new thought high-tailed it to funky-town he could purge again in just a few
seconds, as easy as breathing. It was a trick but it worked. For the rest of the ride he managed not
to have an outburst, to not scream out his problem, not to insult a baby or ridicule a guy with
questionable slacks. Just like everyone else on the train.
About two hundred breaths later (or was it four-hundred, one in, one out?) he stepped off
at the 1st Street and Roosevelt station. On autopilot his hands reached for his Zippo and he fired
up a Camel light. It was after One A.M. on Friday but Leo didn’t see anyone, even though a
plaque above some metal benches claimed this was the stop for the “Arts District.” Metal seats
at a metro station in Phoenix? Smirt. He was actually pleased the street was dead; especially
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 38
happy it wasn’t First Friday when all the kids came down to party and be over-awed by tacky
amateur art.
Glad for the solitude, Leo walked. The meditative breathing provided some relief, but he
still felt tension in his shoulders and tightness in his chest. He was also still fending off paranoia
from the monster high, still hard at work showcasing the day’s Lamest Hits. He only wanted to
get behind his door, pour a Guinness and allow he and his couch to become one. Or better, hit the
rack.
He could see the window of his second floor apartment at 3rd Street and Roosevelt. It was
near, but he wasn’t inside it yet. The Westminster building loomed like a brownstone oasis, but it
felt far away, like he was toiling uphill on a conveyer belt rolling backward. As he headed east
on Roosevelt he glanced at a stone labyrinth in the courtyard of the Diocese. Though he was
bone tired he thought about walking it, thought it might provide some spiritual amour, ward off
some of the dark energy of the day. Instead he moved off south across Roosevelt. Maybe if the
labyrinth wasn’t right on the street he’d have done it, but he wasn’t into public worship, or
publically appearing insane, for example walking in circles in front of a church at One A.M..
He opened the little wrought iron gate in front of the apartment walkway and closed it
behind him. It was apparently meant to deter toddlers and midgets. It was thigh-high and never
locked. As he walked up the wide concrete steps he saw the grimy white subway tile of the first
floor hallway through glass panes in the front door. The hall walls were landlord white and
wooden doors mirrored each other like missing teeth.
The door of 1C was cracked open, not surprising as it was still hot at night and the units
only had swamp. He didn’t know the people, but he sometimes heard party noises from inside
and liked the music they played, though it was usually too loud, even for him. As he opened the
front door a cute girl popped around the door of 1C. Not a whole girl, just her head framed by
long brown hair and straight bangs. They looked at each other with practiced dispassion, though
both were thrown off balance. They both felt like they’d been caught spying. A second later and
she smiled a crooked half-smile and blinked back behind the door, her cameo over. Leo was
intrigued, but for now the girl was less alluring than his bed.
Leonard climbed the grungy stairs, shiny in places not from maintenance but wear, scuffpolished by foot-traffic. The stairs were black and white stripped, like a keyboard or a
Gondolier’s shirt. The flight had a small landing halfway up and then took a left turn. As he
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 39
neared the top Leo fumbled with his keys and shrugged the backpack backward so it wouldn’t
plop forward when he put in the key. He turned the key, opened the door, and threw the
backpack on the couch. For a moment he stood with his back against the closed door, swarmed
full with butterflies of gratitude as he surveyed his funky downtown dump, feeling something
close to love.
It was a messy nest, full of his collections: records, books, DVDs, equipment, and a mesh
of cords. An impressive sculpture of dishes and empties sat near the sink. The place could use a
cleaning, but it was definitely home.
To Leo’s surprise a big, orange tomcat jumped up on the arm of his frayed “country
style” couch. The cat, which Leo’d dubbed Mr. Crackers, popped in at random through a
window Leo never closed except in extreme cold. It was a mystery how the cat got in at all; the
window was on the second floor far from the balcony or any obvious cat-scalable surface. But
the cat showed up fairly regularly, Leo’s place a stop on his never-ending prowl. Mr. Crackers
was a real-live alley cat, mangy as hell and missing part of his ear, but also hyper vocal and
affectionate, at times barely containing his near-feral love. Leo instantly un-puckered when he
saw Mr. Crackers. Crackers was a good omen.
Leo scratched the scruffball around the ears, not too hard as dude had ear mites and only
one ear to start with, poured some dollar store cat food in a dirty dish and freshened the water in
an up-ended Frisbee. Mr. Crackers voiced his approval and purred while eating, while Leo
enacted a speed-disrobe. As he did he wondered what cats made of clothes, if they just thought
we changed colors. And what the hell did they think about cars? Once down to his boxers
Leonard threw on his designated house-shorts, a hilariously garish pair of Bermuda shorts from
the 80’s. The outfit was complete when he donned a super-old Pavement ringer with holes at the
pits. Leonard thought of the armpit holes as ventilation, a desirable Arizona adaptation. When all
you have is a swamp cooler in the Monsoon, any little helps. Sounded like white-boy blues:
Only got me a swamp cooler/ in this danged old Monsoooon! Middle-class suffering.
He nuked a Subway Italian BMT of questionable vintage, poured some green sun-tea and
snagged a bag of salt and vinegar chips and a mostly empty sleeve of Chips Ahoy. Seconds later
he was on the couch with remote in hand, a plate before him on his steamer trunk/coffee table,
and a cat of mystery doing the Sphinx on the arm of the couch. Leonard breathed deeply,
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 40
extended his hands in front of him like a televangelist, and let out a primal sound. FuUUUUcK
that day! He scarfed.
After a two-minute meal a competitive eater would be proud of, Leo grabbed his
backpack. He needed to make sure the weed didn’t get left in there when he went to work. He
had to take it out right now while he remembered, short-term memory and all. Sometimes he
would take a discreet one-hitter to work, a dugout with a little stash of smoke, but he’d learned to
avoid traveling with pot in Fenix, Arizony. Too many people doing real time for the harmless
crime of making yourself stupid.
He opened the little pouch on the backpack but all it contained were mic cords, some
burned DVDs and a withered Slim Jim. He opened the main compartment and remembered the
yellow pad a split second before he saw it, covered in that crazy chicken-scratch voodoo. He
snatched it out of the bag in revulsion and hurled it behind his head. He heard the leaves
fluttering in unnatural flight. He shook his head and shook it off, and reached back into the bag.
He didn’t feel the sack right away, but he did finger something he didn’t recognize. It was
a small book, though he hadn’t brought a book with him when he left for work. He pulled it out
and went cold as he stared at the soiled red pamphlet, and the creepy, familiar title in Gothic
script:
“A Man on a Train
or
A Dweller on Two Planes
by
Phylos Thebetan.”
It felt like someone was holding a 9-Volt battery to his tongue. It was that scary cryptic
book he’d found and ditched on the train. He was positive he’d thrown it away. What. The.
Heelllll. He threw it behind him like he’d done with the pad and worked at not shaking. Now he
kinda wished he’d pinched some of the pills from T-Boy’s impressive hoard. He stood up heavy
and stiff and walked to the bathroom, passing the notepad and red book, shuddering. The
pamphlet was upended, standing like a little Teepee. He found what he was looking for in the
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 41
medicine cabinet, all nice and legal. Leo opened the bottle and crunched a Xannax. He enjoyed
the sour narcotic juice it yielded. He nearly ran to the bedroom, took off his house shorts and
shirt and crawled into his unmade bed. In seconds Mr. Crackers was on him like a succubus. It
was the end of the first day.
The next day Leo rode the train the few stops to work. It was a compartment he’d never
ridden in before, with metals seats covered in a red fabric, with smaller, beveled windows. The
car seemed older and more narrow, though peopled with the usual shiny sheep in human guise.
On cue they drank coffee and read their papers, scratched.
Leonard could barely keep his eyes open after a night of listless sleep, despite last night’s
Xannax good night story. That morning he’d awoken to a frozen river of dried slobber on his
chin and a little orange furball in the corner of his mouth. When he’d gotten up to piss and then
thrown on his house-fit to smoke on the balcony, he noticed the book and the notebook sitting
nonchalantly on the big bookshelf. Nothing to see here, move along . . .
Nothing to see on the train either, just a typical, too-hot day, only 107 in September.
Outside the city flashed and halted, blurred and formed, coming into focus and running away as
the train rolled on.
Leonard yawned and stretched, made a Wookie noise. He didn’t care, he felt normal,
maybe in part to the half-life of the Xanny, but so what. At the next stop he glanced out the
window and saw the Toilet Priest sitting at a nearby bus stop. In keeping with his name, the man
had a tissue-paper toilet-seat cover around his neck. He smiled and chatted away, maybe
conversing with the pigeons arrayed at his feet, there more in simpatico that grubbing because
the man didn’t have anything to feed them. The priest laughed and looked up at the light rail and
Leonard again felt a strange kinship, an electrical twinge of recognition, of understanding.
Looking away he shrugged it off. NO more mystical B.S. . . Not today, not any day. I’m just a
dude who works at a record store, my celestial homies. Nothing to see here, move along. To his
left sat a shriveled Mexican man, at least 70, with a dyed black pompadour, full sideburns and a
huge bald spot. His painter’s jump suit stated in a large meandering hand:
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 42
Leo laughed in recognition; he’d seen this cat in the record store many times. He hovered
worshipful near the Sun Records 45’s, sometimes busted out an excited monologue about Carl
Perkins, but never bought anything.
The Metro started up again. Leonard exhaled, realizing he’d been holding his breath. The
Toilet Priest receded and Leonard stretched his neck, first left and then right. When he moved to
the right he saw a small flock of yellow legal pads fluttering by in unnatural flight. He shook
awake. It was the start of the second day.
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 43
The Boss was pissed when Leo called off the next day. But Leonard was wiped, hung
over in a few different ways and truly drained. He promised to at least do some bookwork while
recovering, though he wasn’t sure he’d be up for it. Even calling his dad before noon had been a
supreme effort, well beyond the usual hangover radioactivity. Leo just wanted back in bed.
After the phone call he puked long and proper, noting it was the third time in two days, a
record for recent years. Way to go LP! Too weak and nauseous to do anything but flop like a
beached whale Leo lay back down, Bermuda shorts and all. Around three he sat up in bed and
ran a systems check to make sure yesterday’s freak fest wasn’t rebooting. He:
Successfully wiggled fingers and toes √
Blinked and focused eyes, rolled them left and right √
Could hear when he snapped his fingers beside each ear √
Smelled his own rank breath when he cupped a hand over his mouth √
After the sensory check Leo got up and started coffee. The microwave announced his
oatmeal was ready, he stirred it, took a bite and put on his shades. He walked to the door,
blinking behind sunglasses and padded to the balcony to satisfy another hunger. He fired up a
Camel and dragged deeply, tried to pat down his bed-head and ran a hand over his shirt to
smooth it, though there was no way to hide that the thing had seen better days.
Leo finished breakfast after 3 pm, but reasoned the meal was more about the experience
than the time of day. When returning from the morning constitutional, Leo noticed the yellow
notepad and the red pamphlet sitting in an A frame on the wood floor behind the couch. They lay
there like artifacts from a nightmare. He was confused that they weren’t neatly stacked on the lip
of the bookshelf, but then remembered throwing them the night before.
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 44
Like his hands belonged to someone else, Leo quite naturally reached out and grabbed
the book. For whatever reason reading the title didn’t make him shudder. Maybe he was too
exhausted from yesterday to be affected.
Leonard had planned to take it easy for a couple of hours, listen to some tunes while web
surfing, or play a little guitar. Instead he found himself plopped down in the Leo-shaped indent
on his couch, opening A Man on a Train or a Dweller on Two Planes.
Leo noticed the book copyright was 1915. Then he flipped to the table of contents. It
featured four separate preface sections before the book proper, before the chapters were
numbered.
iv.
Amanuensis’ Acknowledgement and Testament
iii.
Amanuensis’ Foreword
ii.
Amanuensis’ Preface
i.
Introduction: A Letter from Phylos Simeon
Leo watched his hand flip a couple of pages to the first introductory section, detached
from the movement. He felt compelled to read the words.
#
Amanuensis’ Acknowledgement and Testament
By permission of the true author of this volume, I humbly appear here at the opening of
this work to satisfy the honest and curious mind, to provide the major facts concerning the
writing of this – even to me – very remarkable book. I am an ordinary man of limited education
illuminated by this special teaching. My prior knowledge of the subjects treated herein was
beyond trivial. My father and mother were witness to the daily circumstances concerning the
writing of this book, their testimony can be found in the afterword. My parents held up the
Christian life above all else. I myself have been an observant, humble servant before God. That
said, I am spiritually small before the true composer of this mysterious work, I study it with as
much interest and awe as any reader.
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 45
I claim no pride of authorship, this is a work of unselfish love and was made for the
betterment of upward struggling souls, searching ever more for light. In these days of doubt and
rank atheism it requires much courage to state unequivocally that the book: A Man on a Train
or a Dweller on Two Planes is absolute revelation and that I in no way consider myself its
author. Such is the fact.
Peace be with you
Daniel Salt
Dec 12, 1913
#
Amanuensis’ Forward
I listened. I heard what was told and wrote it. I am no author. I am not a learned man.
While it is true I was schooled through grade six, I was not skilled at lettering. And while I do
own five books, it took me as many years to read them.
I cannot take credit, nor do I fully apprehend the knowledge within this primer. This is not
a flight of fancy or trickery of the mind. The teaching is here presented as it was told me. The
bulk was dictated to me thusly: from back to front, from the end to the start, the last sentence
written first and the first last. And curiously some chapters were spoke out of sequence.
The deliverer, the entity that calls itself Phylos Simeon, is, according to his declaration, a
spiritual adept not currently incarnate. This entity wanted urgently to communicate and
disseminate a message and needed an earthbound instrument to transmit the teachings.
I do not claim to know why I was selected, having no special religious gift or mediumistic
abilities. I was at first unwilling to allow passage to the entity. I regret the time it took to be
convinced I’d been chosen to hear these truths, and not that I’d become set upon by madness. I
do hope my early obstinacy did not prevent any of the work being delivered.
For those curious: I have simply functioned as a stenographer or reporter, the incorporeal
master Phylos Simeon spoke the text to me. I was ever aware of his presence when composing,
and a few times did glimpse an image of him in my mind’s eye, though mostly it was just me
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 46
dutifully writing what he spoke, glad to function as an amanuensis (this is how he addressed
me.)
Often during the composition I would not understand what was being delivered, unable
to pull meaning from the sentences he dictated. This was purposeful, the entity wanted the
words to be like babble to me, made the message initially unknowable as I lettered. For this
reason it was delivered piece by piece widdershins over a two year time, without understanding
of what I wrote, until on completion he provided instructions on how to recast it. This was that I
would not unknowingly lend my tendencies or in any way anticipate or affect the result.
It was delivered in chapter, or chapters in many sittings. The adept often summoned me
from sleep to write by candlelight or more peculiar to write in darkness. If delivered in darkness
the lettering was as clear as by day. At times day-long sittings filled whole reams revealed in a
finely mannered script, other times mere sheets of vellum in miniature calligraphy delivered in
under an hour. The work appeared in several variations of script, from my pen, but never my
own hand. To clarify: it was not automatic writing, more what I have learned is called
clairaudience. Simply, I was told what to write and did.
The revelation itself, once set in the proper order, had been transmitted in a consistent,
solid style. This led me to believe the master Phylos was himself reading from a text and not
speaking extemporaneously. Only after completion of the main volume did I receive instruction
on how to put it together to make a whole. Then did I begin to comprehend what had been
delivered, clothed in allegory, parable, or children’s story.
There was also a peculiar period when he rapidly dictated a volume to me over a
fortnight and then bade me put it aside and continue the main work. For months it was not
mentioned until he commanded me burn it in the fireplace. It was never referenced thereafter.
I wish to restate: I make no claim to greatness, if I had my druthers my name would not
appear in this text. I was told it must be included for legalities of publication. I am not the writer, I
am the receiver, as a lake reflects moonlight but is not the source of light.
I am grateful for my role as amanuensis for Phylos Simeon, but also grateful this period
has ended. That said I do rather expect to be summoned for another work from the master.
Praise be on high that I have been returned to life in possession of my mind. In the creation of
this primer, it was not always so.
Amanuensis’ Preface
A humble servant meets Phylos Simeon:
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 47
The publisher entreated me tell how I first encountered Phylos Simeon. In the following account,
I do my best to satisfy the request and explain how I became his earthly conduit. I am humbled
and in no way wish to affront the adept Phylos, he previously assured me the account is needed
as the living are, to use his words: “the most curious of crowds.”
D.S.
1914
It came that I heard a voice.
On a sunny morning in the summer of my seventeenth year I walked the wide middle
row our cornfield, sent by Father to cull withered stalks. I walked the cornfield on the back ten of
the modest twenty-acre farm where we lived and worked, plum at the bottom of Monument
Valley, Utah. It was the year Nineteen and Three. I walked, arms out, gently slapping stalks in
greeting as I passed, daydreaming and gazing at the sandstone spires of the Three Sisters.
Then came a gentle voice at once small inside my head, beside me and booming through the
field. It seemed to beam from every filament of light and to vibrate from within and without all
living things before me. As it first spoke the warmest sparks flew all through my mind and down
my spine. It felt like soft lightning rained down on me and then through me, first down to my toes
and then up and out as though pin pricks of light beamed from atop my head.
I contracted goose flesh. I could not move. My arms were stuck out, I couldn’t lower my
head, it was frozen facing up to the Sister’s red spires at the top of the mesa. Slowly,
automatically, my head dropped, and then I clearly heard a voice. When it began it carried that
warmth, the soft lightning as it spoke to me. The first words seemed to float as if a swarm of
fireflies crowned my head. Woven with the swarm of words were symbols and sensations I did
not understand. There was somehow also a sweet taste, an unknown nourishment. At the same
time I felt my essence explored, tested, examined.
It began:
“He who reaps what he sows!
Tiller who culls withered offerings
Hear me, reaper of the labor-made bounty!
allow me to plant my seed,
let my offerings bloom within you:
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 48
receive this in your fertile mind.”
I gasped without sound, frozen like a scarecrow and as helpless. I breathed hard but
had the peculiar sensation of breathing in water. As if all I knew –- the valley, the field, the barn - were underwater. Like I was standing at the bottom of a sea but curiously not drowning. Light
and heavy at once, splitting in two: part of me rising, rending away like a dirigible, while another
heaviness in my body seemed to seep into the ground. The cornstalks looked to sway like
seaweed and my outstretched arms floated with them.
I knew no one was in earshot, but I inhaled deeply to push out a scream, accidentally
finding myself drinking deeply of that liquid air. I had no voice to announce my terror. In a fit I
again full inhaled, so finding the balmy water not unpleasant in my lungs, and attempted to wail.
Still no sound.
Standing like an abandoned marionette I heard the voice again beaming inside and
outside at once. It said: “Witness the Book we will write!”
I do not know what happened next but I believe I must have slipped from wakefulness.
Next I knew I saw the sun dropping behind the sandstone Three Sisters, a red-orange
glow over the valley and a breeze blowing the corn. Shadows of clouds moved like great
stalking cats over the valley floor, slinking over the tops of stalks in waves. I had no idea I’d lost
a workday in whole, didn’t remember standing for hours like a dummy. I simply brushed some
dust off my dungarees and swept pollen from my hair. I drank deeply from the canteen to relive
my severe parch and walked blankly in the direction of the house, with no thought other than the
darkness that would soon fall.
After walking a distance I found myself unusually stiff and weary. When I went inside the
cabin I found Mother with her back to me, thumbing the crust of a peach pie. That was when I
discovered a hearty hunger rumbling above the belt. The iron supper pot hung from its pole
over the fire, the table set. I made to greet her but when I opened my mouth no sound came.
Only a weak wheeze escaped, yet my throat had no soreness, and my mouth moved
unencumbered. Presently she spoke to me, having heard the door and the wheeze, and said:
“Daniel, where have you been? You’re holding up supper and Father’s been waiting for help
with the woodpile.”
I could do nothing to reply to her, and I prepared for a scolding for my rudeness. When
she turned to me her stern look changed to concern.
“What’s happened to you boy? “ She looked me up and down. “Daniel? You’re lily white
and shaking like ol’ George used to do.” (George was a little goat we all loved, who was ever
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 49
shaking and would faint at the drop of a feather.) She come near me and placed a warm hand
on my face. “Clammy,” she moved her hand from forehead to cheek “cold, a fright. And no
greeting for your poor mother.”
I tried to reply but this time just breath came out, like a woodwind with no reed. I put my
hands over my throat to signal I could not speak. When she gave me a queer look I put a hand
over my mouth, and shook my head, trying hard to impart that I’d been struck dumb. I was
stricken, wild-eyed at the thought of never speaking. Before this I had only ever lost my voice
when sick and in bed. Imagine my reaction if I’d known I would scarcely speak for an entire
year.
My mother’s look shaded from mild concern to worry. “What troubles you son? Gone all
day, white as an egg shell and just as fragile.” She brushed my hair back and again stroked my
forehead. “Cold as a corpse. Come, sit at your place.” She poured me a cup of Greenthread tea,
squeezed a lemon, then scraped open an aloe arm and ringed the rim of the glass with the
balm. I could not help but notice her hand did shake.
“Sit still and I’ll go find your father.”
The old man arrived in a huff and scolded me for idleness, but he soon calmed into
reserved hostility that grew into something I’d never seen on my Father’s face: fear. I remember
little of that first day, but he swore that when he entered the room, seated at the table next to me
was my own ghost. That an azure shell of my body sat beside me like a waxen dummy without
breath of life. He also said, curiously, that somehow my face appeared to be a mirror reflection
of its usual arrangement. He said that soon my double dissolved into air and my face returned to
its standard polarity. Strange claims from a man who spoke little, and only of the Lord and his
work. Despite his early years as deputy and later an undertaker, he said it was the worst fright
he’d known.
Mother tended me, washed my face with a warm compress and rubbed some Galen’s
wax on my throat. She tried to spoon-feed me, but I gently brushed her away. I should have
allowed her, I could just lift the spoon to dry lips to sip, tasting the golden broth not at all. I was
hollowed out like a cactus bone, spent. More tired than after the last day of harvest. I retired
without gargling the hot brine she’d urged me to, but she gave me no argument.
Toward dawn that night of perturbed sleep I came upon a dream. I found myself sitting
in a Parlor car rolling through a colossal mountain range in thick fog. We looked to be rolling
through clouds. A dapper man appeared through the front door of the car, wearing a top-hat,
three-piece suit, monocle, cane and gloves. A halo of fireflies swarmed the brim of his hat. He
sat down, and in the seat between us set down a handsome tome, bound in Burgundy Morocco
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 50
Leather with a hand-tooled, elegant spiral carved into the cover. Encircling the spiral, and
written in Gothic gilt was this title:
Wordlessly the man opened the full leather cover, revealing purple velvet endpapers,
and turned to the first page of the book. The first letter was adorned in illumination the likes of
which I had never witnessed. The letter vibrated radiant energy. As my eyes read the first line it
was synch-spoken in my mind. It was the same as the last words I heard spoken in the field.
itness
the book we will write. It is a sacred thing of beauty and truth, of secrets long possessed. These
words cannot find their place in your world, cannot be liberated, without transmission through
your vessel. There are many things to see and know -- but you must allow them. Welcome me,
together we shall illuminate this page.
At this the fireflies from his top hat flew and crowned my head. As they swarmed they weaved
words and symbols I didn’t comprehend. The fireflies, they did seep into my mind. The man
turned to the second page and I saw the vellum contained no script. He fanned more pages
then flipped to the end, all pages blank but the first. Returning to the second page, the man
again spoke to my mind, without the use of voice. As he did the words were burned onto the
page.
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 51
“You must be a willing instrument Daniel Salts. If opened you will see things that betray your
common sense. If you act as a window, remove the blind and let the light shine through, it will
be for the betterment of all evolving souls. There will be sacrifice, but honor too. I have chosen
you, but you also must choose. Daniel: choose to be the lake of mercury that reflects the light of
truth.
I awoke on the cold caliche floor in a night still as black as a murder of crows. I did not
know my locality. I made to call out but still did not have the power of voice. The dream was so
branded on me that in the darkness I thought I might still be on the train. Crawling, I found the
cot and dropped in. Just then what happened in the cornfield flashed in my mind. The images
from the cornfield mingled with the dream. Then the kind voice came to me like the memory of
sound, and again the sweet nourishing taste. I was terrified. I tried to cry out again, no sound
came. I then cried in a different way, silently moaning while tears ran down my cheek.
In the morning I felt more weary than before retiring, if that were possible. Memories of
the train dream and the scene in the cornfield had merged and caused confusion in me. I
elected to dismiss it all as nightmare. In this regard it was fine I didn’t have a voice. Nothing
could have made me speak of the fireflies and the warm voice in a sea of waving corn.
When greeted good morning from Mother I put my hand over my mouth and shook my
head. She understood, and patted the side of my face. That day and a few other proceeded in
uncomfortable silence, myself all the more tortured because of the incident in the field and the
trouble with voices: the voice in my head and the voice I had lost.
The desire to speak left me. I was distracted and Father looked at me rough during our
rounds on the farm. He would never say, but beyond his scowl I sensed he was as concerned
as Mother. In a few weeks my voice returned but I spoke not, afraid to burden them with my
experience. Also, afraid what I had to say would provide them proof I had lost my mind.
How would it sound if I revealed that I’d been stopped dead in the cornfield and
controlled by a presence that spoke directly to my mind and in an instant transformed the valley
floor into an ocean? That I was visited by this being in my dreams and told I was to receive and
deliver a great message? And that I had the same dream every night after the first? Similar
dreams, I should say: the same train but new instructions and entreaties each time, new
methods to demonstrate his actuality. And when alone in the day I would often hear the calm,
friendly voice asking me to welcome him in, to allow passage so the work could be done. In one
instance the voice began, and in desperation I set out at a full run. I soon understood my
foolishness, for how can a person escape his own mind? I was trapped.
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 52
For months my work suffered and Father muttered about my approaching imbecility. I’d
never been the brightest boy and his prior disappointments regarding my aptitude had been well
noted, but his disgust further mounted. In some ways I don’t blame him. I spoke not, was ever
distracted, hung my head and must have often appeared spooked. At times I felt Father saw me
as a horse gone lame.
Captive, I contemplated ending my life. Though Phylos Simeon has often assured me he
would never have let that occur, at the time I dangled from a rope of sand. I’d prayed about the
voice, even tried to look up passages about possession in our bible books, but was too
confused by the language and keeping to my frightened silence, unable to ask Father.
One morning while milking Emily, our heifer, I mused on the train dream and my
predicament. Just then the air was scented with lilac and the taste of honey awakened my
tongue. Then the voice came warm and gentle:
“Daniel, the candidate, the muted instrument, have you understood why I visit and what awaits
you? I know you have heard and seen me. I do not wish to cause you unrest but there is work to
be done.”
I let go of Emmy’s teat mid-pull and milk squirted all over my good boots. I stood up, knocked
the stool backward, spilled the pail and for the first time screamed out to the voice:
“I don’t understand what is happening. Is this devilry or manifestation of derangement?
Whichever: Get Thee Gone!”
With conviction I spoke to the air. It was then I understood how gravely sickness had overtaken
me.
#
That night in the train dream I took similar action and with difficulty spoke through dense
dream air. I recall these images like reflections on waves. I asked Phylos questions about his
true nature and how he could communicate with me if he was not living in the world. I asked
him about the source of the material he wished to deliver and the reason he had chosen me as
receiver. He appeared surprised to hear me thus, but also pleased, as if it were a progression,
but earlier than expected.
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 53
On the train the leather book sat between our seats opened to a page full of writing I had
never seen. When I read it, the words were instantly recognized: it was a transcript of what he’d
spoken in the previous night’s dream. With his permission I flipped a few pages back. That
page, too, was letter-for-letter what he’d said in past train dreams, a perfect imprint of his
speeches.
I was further amazed when I flipped forward and saw a recently blank page contained
the unfolding dialogue he and I were presently having, burned character for character into the
vellum. I gasped and said: “How can this be?” As I did the words appeared seared into the
book, first by minute flame, then tiny controlled embers formed perfect script of my exclamation.
From the top of the page it read:
“Phylos, I am not the owner of spiritual blessings or learning, but I have been chosen?”
“Chosen, Daniel the Tiller, not for spiritual sensitivity but for a rare openness.”
“What you ask is a great sacrifice, and pardon me, but I am not sure you aren’t a phantasm or a
figment of mind.”
“I am as real as anything you know, though not in a way you know. However, you did create a
part of me. A kind of agreement between phases. You’ve made a way to see and hear me that
aligns with your constructive reality. Do not trouble over this, it will be told later, but know that I
was once as you are and can be again. For now I need a living instrument to tune, to later play
these orchestrated truths.”
“And I am the instrument?”
“You are Daniel.”
“Why me?”
“Do you remember the valley flooding when you were a child?”
“Yes, how did you know?”
“I have been waiting for one like you for a long time. Once you could be seen by those like me I
watched and learned about your life there on the farm.”
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 54
“Watched?”
“Yes. Remember the flood when you were swept away, and the old man who saved you?”
“I remember it little, but yes, I was saved by what Father called a healer.”
“Daniel, in the flood, for a moment you were lost to your world.”
“Lost?”
“Yes Daniel, for a time as a little one you were with us.”
“I was with you? That place you are is, dare I ask . . .heaven?”
“Something like heaven. You were with us until the man who saved you, the elder, saw your
work was not done and blew the breath of life back into your lungs.”
“I did not die. I was not revived. Surely I would have known of this.”
“When you were a baby you knew. You know when you are here in dreams, here with me in the
borderland.”
“I died and was saved for you?”
“Not for me Daniel, for yourself. For other upward striving souls, those that can and choose to
hear.”
“This openness - I have been touched by death so I can see and hear you?”
“ This life you know is complimented by death, they touch like lovers. But that is not for this
lesson. While I am glad you are here with me now, it seems you are not ready to receive. For
now I will seed your dreams, not visit them. Perhaps through these fortified dreams you will
come to readiness. Be ready to open another way, through a teaching on your plane. Perhaps
these will prime you to begin our work.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You shall when you open yourself to me.”
Bond/Illuminated Fools/ 55