CHAPTER 44
The voyage is into unmarked territory. All we have are negative maps; tricky stuff. Maya. Illusion. Words and Stories which makes us disappear. Abandon us. …All we’ve done—all of us: you may not like my saying this—but all we’ve done is fuck each other. Cocks and cunts. Fingers up assholes. Been Tricks! …We’re just a weird type of celibates. Bertha’s words, which are the essence of his message. Spoken in so many ways, re-worded, images altered, but the message being the same.
“Crew!”
Frank was just certain—that he would find them. Jokingly tagging himself and them “Water-Boys,” for it was at the various watering holes that he searched...finding each other as males do—hoisting beers at the bar...in dens running off at the mouth during game intermissions...laughing and farting in the gym, the sauna, the steam room…males need to be wet—sucking it in; placental...so over time they “just came together,” as had The Corn, so the Water-Boys.
Some were guys he knew, others he’d seen, still others total strangers. But it happened in a flash...as startling to Frank as Dalores’ dragging him into the nursery to see Ken and Tui on that first night…he’d just begin to talk and he’d know: a look in the eye, a shared personal story, the nonverbal confirmation of hands and bodies orienting themselves towards him as compass needles so right themselves. Not just one kind: guys who were jocks and scholars and everyday joes, old and fat, young and gym-rocked, holy guys and Hellers, of spectral hues, shades, tones…he didn’t even know where he’d go each night, just left and found them.
“Water-Boys”—his own joke: meaning, “to carry new water”...also, breaking water, new birth—sailing on seas and pitching water in the storm...sharing, slacking thirst—water as the purity of the planet… “water and wine”…Frank never really stopped to consider it all...it was just there.
“Imagine”—Lennon had sung it...these guys talked about it. Then, he took them home.
Home—to the place, before—what the Earth had never been, would never be to Adam or his Eve...not cursed Earth with serpent crawling in the dust…here, the house a home...their voyaging home, ship, boat, whatever…entering and saying, “I’ve been here, before”…echoes of F and D all about—savoring the camaraderie, the diversity, the sheer delight of finding fellows who yearned for what you yearned for…more than even the women, so Frank grasped, the trick of Genesis was cruelly apparent to these men...sure, disagreements, jealousies, jousting—the “old male cock of the walk” fought a fierce rear-guard action, was relentless, cold-cocking them time and again!…but it was home which drew them to its hearth, their hearts, amazing discussions, stupendous braveries, the healing of wounds—wounds of the steely penis…embracing, unifying, exuding excitement, desire for deep sleeping.
Fellows—twenty or so...the number rising and falling, but it was never the count, just selecting themselves out, confronting the Father God who deep slept with the Shade Mother...they were Adam, each and every one knowing that Adam had a choice—“The choice to lay down in deep sleep!”
So they chose Free Will—chose to imagine new time and space...private spaces of intimacy where they danced together, donned masks, finding within their embrace of talking, eating, sleeping, arguing, debating, even fighting, in all this that they “Have to be newly named,” for it was the naming...even naming the God as Father and non-naming the Mother, so it was—“From our breaths, so we know who we are”...they breathed: naming one another from their essence, “A” or “B” or “T”—sounds which were for some brief, one breath, for others, longer, several breaths long…“M” of three breaths.
“Intimacy. Sensuality. Sharing our breathing opens that up. I wake eager to be breathed upon, to breathe upon.”
“T” of one breath: “I have begun to feel those orgasms. The subtle ones. Silent, almost mystifying, when “X” watches me paint, I can feel him through my fingers.”
“N” of two breaths: “When those of us jog together, it’s a rhythm which makes music. I’m exhausted when done, in soul as much as in body!”
“O” of five: “Lame as I am. This leg which I once depressed over. When I read,” and he breaks in words as his heart waters, “When I read, when I am read to, it’s the magic of the words which heal me. Makes me whole. I am a four-legged man!”
Bi-sexual—“I used to worry about this,” says “B” of three, “but now I know. What I relish is the play. The foolishness. The utter unseriousness of it all. It makes me laugh!”
“Hair grows on the hand which masturbates—how many good Catholic boys heard that!”
“It’s not just fucking—hell, it can be—why should bi’s be any different from straights? Hell, I don’t want to play—act at being a woman anymore. I just want to be one!”
“F” of six: “I accept that our flesh is our map. What have we learned? What can we share, not just with ourselves, but with other Fellows? with the Sisters?”
Foursquare—so they agreed: “Fathering. Mothering. Being child, each of the other. Of all. So touching all. Accepting others into our embrace. Not our embracing, going out, but letting others in...touching us!”
Deep sleeping—they were ready. Within a clench of months the Water-Boys, now: Fellows, were heavily breathing: intense...on the make: anxious...heartfelt anxious to begin, to launch, to set forth!
To laugh robustly!
Coming into the house and mating with The Corn.
It was just that abrupt.
Frank didn’t even try to control it. Direct them. Introduce them. One by one and as a group, so the crew boarded the ship.
Gathering at the house, weekly. Off in pairs, threesomes, foursomes—it never mattered. Just believing. Believing so that they could, that they would see. Searching for the Magnificence: the brewing fullness of the Now.
Dancing—it was that which generated the heat, blurred the lines, allowed spirits to fling themselves off bodies as sweat flew as they whirled and whirled and twisted and jumped and shouted and spun themselves into fine threads, silk, cotton, gossamer wings: sweet butter churned and whipped: all bodies, old and young, fat and slim, athletic and lame...rocking, jazzed, mambo, plain song—all transformed through motion and masks and breathing...calming down, quiet, whispers in the dark, over in a corner...laughter: raucous, belly-aching, lewd and spicy…they, again, re-named themselves...shifting identities, defying tags, playful names—Rock and Breezy and Bug Eye, names of passion: Sweet Kisses, Humpy Dumpy, Clutch…what swirled about was that which hooks and catches, snags and grabs onto the mind, the body, the soul, the imagination...drawing into intimacy, into embracing—intercourse of every aspect of skin!
Their language became instantly common, shared—conversations, public and private, which were like gifts—“Is a gift!” Dalores thrilled one night.
Language—intimacy...foursquare...deep sleeping...Shade Mother...abandonment...obliteration...embracing...family...Adam...Eve...Snake—laughing robustly!.
Ritual—that which speaks what dancing and language and imaging fail to say so clearly, so together there are common forms and common ways. Greeting—“Greet the day. Stand and raise your hands, saluting the East, the Rising Sun, Setting Moon. Greeting our Father and our Mother: Our Parents. Welcome them. Thank them for another day. To the South: Greet all who rise this day. Rise to be part of Earth’s family. Imagine them as they greet one another. Their families. Those who are to them parents and children. To the West: hail where the Son sets, Daughter rises. Where all come at day’s end. To meal. To eat. To break and be common bread. Happy, imagine them. Thankful for the day which they have shared. To the North. Towards the dream, all march. Greeting one another as we march off to sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream, but always to deep sleep. Saluting the bodies which we are. Which are us. Opening our bodies. Sharing our skin like blankets. So we deep sleep, together, as one Body, one Family: communally
Turn fully clockwise, then counter-clockwise. For all the children: those of t
he left and those of the right. Those in every dimension which pivots on deep sleeping.”
Sally and Kunja wrote it down, kept a record, assembled notes—capturing colorful episodes, insightful tales, fabulous chapters for this unfolding Story. For all knew that they were going somewhere...somewhere both inside and somewhere outside—outside of everything they, themselves, and the world around took as normal, traditional, standard operating procedure.
Explorers of the intimate and the public...so they shed their old skins, offered themselves to be read; closely read the skin of others—touching, sniffing, licking, pressing, holding, comforting, washing, painting, embracing, celebrating…voyaging where such maps led them.
Voyaging upon deep sleep...laying down within the embrace of skin, wrapping each with the other, filling the moments of day’s end or sunshine naps with greetings, salutations, openings so that they would themselves become Magnificent...sails surging with the fuller breathing, swelling unto the robust body, being made present eternally.
Earth rituals—all and every act, word, image, artifact—for the Intending, for the Consciousness which flows into Unconsciousness, for the awareness and care which blesses the dreamers with deep sleep. A communal dreaming...so dreaming and so making real how they now name themselves: “C” of three, waking one morning and sharing, “We are tribe. As tribes we become village. As villages, kin of regions. As kins are we all gen of the Earth and Sky. We are Earthfolk!”
All hear. All laugh!—robustly.
Deep sleeping: “A” of two: It is the voyage which is now Beginning as another voyage ends. “D” of seven: “We are voyaging through Infinity!” “W” of one: “Is, is deep sleeping!”
SxZ: “Pipe me aboard, matey!”
Water-Boys and Corn Sisters...Sisters and Fellows...heaving to the house’s gangway: hauling-up anchor...letting loose the sails—shipping out:
Plucking.
Weaving in and out.
Imagining.
Writing.
Dancing.
Feasting.
Dreaming.
Embracing.
Playing.
Mating.
Voyaging onto deep sleep: voyaging towards the realm of Magnificence.
“It can’t be formulaic!”
An utterance almost a cry.
Cry of despair, defeat, frustration…of great hope.
Hope flushed with evil innocence.
“We can plan. We can arrange. We can compose. But if it’s to happen, it will—on its own terms: mystically, mythically—whatever the right word…But we must try.”
AxZ: Don’t try too hard! Please, remember to laugh!
“Heave-ho!”
He closes the door, turns off the lights, walks up the stairway...Dalores has put the children to bed. The Sun has set in the Moon’s rising.
The house is back to being wharf, landing zone, beachhead for Frank and Dalores and the kids. A house which is now part of a bustling neighborhood, but one of Intention not just locale. A neighborhood which is now part of a gathering tribe, a heartfelt Embrace—a singular flesh which visions the Earth as Familyship and whose flights of imagining under the Sun and Moon of Deep Sleep launch Dreamingships…they board these...with regularity, with ritual—at a moment’s Embrace.
In the Final Days:
No one really knew why.
No one really knew how.
No one really knew when.
It just happened.
In the First Days:
Imagining Is happening.
Voyage: O’side.
:onto deep sleep...ever laughing, robustly:
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Good luck on your vOYAGE!
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