JPF Home Page Forums Creative Arts Forums Creative Writing Forum "One Night In Paradise"

10. A STAR IS BORING: Zapped!

I've brought the guitar with me to pick up the suits. The suits aren't ready yet. I show the machinist the broken treble E-string. I show him the end of the string, the ball and twist that holds it in place, indicate, I think, that the other strings are made the same way, wound and unwound. I uncoil one coiled on the head of the guitar to try to talk about length. I always leave them on there, coiled, as opposed to cutting them off. There's a loss of tone as soon as you cut them off.

He examines the wound strings with his magnifier. He seems excited. He's looking at his wire coils hanging on pegs. He seems to reject them. He's rubbing his chin with the second knuckle of his left index finger. It's a habit I think. I've seen him do it before.

He opens a drawer, pulls out a leather-sheathed tool. It's a micrometer! I know what a micrometer is. I've never used one but we had them in the Air Force. It measures very fine thicknesses. He puts it on every string at intervals from the bridge to the nut, makes marks on a yellow-orange paper pad. I leave him the broken string, in two pieces. He nods. We brush fingertips and part. Another two fingers on the suits.

I've been continuing to play with just five strings. I've written songs with them before, years ago, when I was too poor to get strings, not because they cost so much, they did, but just because the global economic environment on Planet Earth went to hell with Climate Disruption. You just couldn't get stuff. They wanted your money, if you had money. And they had ways for you to send money. They just didn't have ways to get stuff back to you, kinks in the 'supply chain'. After what happened to California ships would sit at anchor longer than it took for them to come across the ocean, waiting to get in to the docks. You could order stuff, pay for it, and sit and wonder when and if you'd get it. Surprise! One day it could come. Other stuff, ordered the same day, a month, two months later!

The girls continue to be entertained. Tinunh's friends too. The one little girl who went sad back when I got evicted, Eevannh, has cheered up a little, but she's become more somber, more... sober... less a little girl, more mature, in a sad way. Life shouldn't be that serious when you're that young. I think she had something to do with my eviction, probably told her parents I was living here. Or maybe it was just the landlady, certain number of people renting and then someone else moves in, wear and tear, utilities. I don't know.

I don't want the little one to be sad. It... worked out. The girls and I still share meals, spend time together. I grocery shop. Eenunh tells me what to buy. She prepares it. We talk. We read. We... laugh. Our... relationship... has... blossomed? One night she was at the door. It was late. I knew she was there. I can sense it... sense her. Tinunh was with her; I knew that. I don't know if they're generating a vibe to me, or I've developed a... a sensory... perception. I opened the door. Tinunh was pushing her toward me. Tinunh turned and went back to their apartment. I heard her lock the door. Eenunh stood there. She paced, once a couple steps to her right, back that few steps to her left. She... threw her hands up, swept her hair back, held them there behind her head, and came in, suddenly... crowding past me. She turned and closed the door, turned the lever to the right, which locks it, I've learned. She stepped close to me, hugged me, we began kissing. I wanted those lips for a long time! She took me by the hand, led me to the bed hollow and... we... laid down in it.

I had seven condoms in my shaving kit. I flushed a couple before I started washing them to reuse. When those broke, one by one, I flushed them. Soon I had no condoms. We couldn't stop. We... took other measures but... soon we didn't. I told myself with her green blood and my red blood there was no way I could get her pregnant. That seems to be the case... so far. Disease? We want each other too much to worry, in the moment. We worry... both of us... I think... later. And keep doing it. Any time I want her she seems to want me. Any time she wants me, she... comes to me. Kurt Vonnegut, an author, said, "Sex is like money; only too much is enough." Or was it, 'Money is like sex; only too much is enough.''? Either way, we... get enough, until we want more.

The lightning storms have stopped. There are no clouds... no clouds... in the sky. It got hot. The water went down little by little. We found ourselves finding places to ford the low water to get back one day. We didn't go out again. That last day there weren't any wrigglies anyway. None came out of the water. None. We basked in the sun in our underwear, walked up the beach along the muddy line, where the water had stood, looking at rocks. They seemed to have no fear of scaring up a lizard, didn't wear leathers, take their corn knives. I found a fossil of a small wriggly. I gave it to Tinunh for her collection. We got back driving the water-truck through the mud in places and haven't gone out again.

It's hot. Hotter than hell. The mud dried up and dust blew around. We'd peek out through the shutters on on the fifth floor. Sometimes it looked like a black blizzard, dark red 'sea' of dust below, broad daylight above. Sometimes the storm, a haboob, was down low, even below the patio. Some times the house got dusty. We used wet hornet's paper to plug around the windows, the back door.

Attendants, Greenboys/girls, Brownboys/girls, a squad of them, are washing out the lower passage and pub today, others pushing the mud out and onto the patio with squeegees. They have hoses, and have cleared a channel across and off the edge. The patio is huge! I thought they'd be days at it. But tonight we come down there and the room is full of people, laughing, whooping it up; a party! I look outside. The patio is clear. It's still wet in places, clean. The smell of the water is swampy out here. The million stars shine brightly. We drink two bottles, her the green, me the blue. We avoid public displays of affection (PDA) but I can't take my eyes off her. Anyone looking can probably see. Tinunh plays with friends, running out on the patio, back in, up the passage. Eenunh seems okay with it. I guess we're safe. Cops come and go.

The next night, I bring my guitar, at the girls' urging. Ennunh sets a chair in the tunnel over by the open door, right back by the edge of the spindle door. I can lean back in the chair and my spine between my shoulder blades lean on the door edge. The acoustics are good, about ten feet down the ramp toward the outside. Tinunh stands at the opening, in front of me, swaying. I begin to play. The place goes quiet; then erupts in voices. People off to the sides of the room come and look down the passage, go back. I play an extra bar or two until they settle down, then pick up singing again.

"I sold my soul..."

When the song is over Tinunh faces the crowd, and claps her hands. Some of the crowd picks up on it and applauds. Maybe clapping hands isn't something their culture did, but they do now.

I'm a hit! LOL

They're probably bored so probably anything would be a hit. It's been a long wet season. A dry season has begun, not as hot, but dry.

Three men come in on my right, off the patio. I get a bad vibe. I keep playing. I've played about ten more songs and it is hot, for me! I'm perspiring. I feel a nice breeze coming in behind me. I stand, pick up my chair, turn and go out on the patio. The million stars. The breeze. The air is sweet with blossoms out in the desert. The Sunstarset on the horizon is still lit, rich orange. I set up my chair out about as far out on the patio as I was from the ramp to the inside. People start coming out, everyone laughing, bringing their chairs. The two Blueboys who run it roll out some tables; not all. By request, I figure, I... maybe. I do a lot of maybe-ing.

They roll one table out and the three men... strangers... who came in while I was still inside... bring chairs. They seem boisterous, rowdy, abrasive with the Blueboys.

It seems I've had a good idea! It is so much more comfortable out here, the breeze gentle and constant. I play. They applaud. We drink wine. Tinunh and her friends have joined Eenunh, sitting at her table. She's grinning at me. She nods. I can see her steady golden irises, her perfect white teeth. I'm feeling that unfamiliar feeling, identifying it as happiness. I'm... happy. I play... with abandon... the... abandon that makes me think, despite mistakes... I'm executing my five-string guitar work and vocalizations and remembering Lyrics well enough, to be giving a good show... by... Oomam standards!

The cops come out of the cafeteria opening. Both step to the left, stand with their backs to the wall. Two more come out, stand on the right.

Suddenly... the three men who had come in off the patio jump up from their chairs and start running off around the other people's chairs and tables, down the patio to the right! The cops all rush over through the crowd!They all stop; don't pursue the runners! I'm wondering...

Suddenly a bolt of electricity shoots out of the device one woman cop wears on her right shoulder! It hits the nearest man, zaps to the next man, and on to the third! It is sustained electricity! A visible bolt! A hella-taser! They all fall down! Face down! Their arms and legs lift up off the patio! Their heads rock upright, back toward their spines! They rock on their bellies! The electricity stops! Scares the hell out of me!

The crowd is noisy, shrill! The cops run to the men! It looks like one male cop crouches down and holds the foreheads of two of the men nearest us. A woman runs and holds the third man's forehead. What? The zapped men's arms and legs flop to the patio. The cops lower the men's heads down. Had they not, I suppose they would have flopped down like the arms and legs and been a painful hit. Everyone's talking. The cops let the men lie there, frisk them, take things from their pockets. One is deprived of a necklace around his neck. In a couple minutes the man furthest from me rolls onto his right side, pulls his left leg up, waking up. The other two do it, one by one. Finally the cops help them up, hold them up as they seem unable to stand just yet. They begin moving them toward the doorway of the pub, and all disappear into the hive. I sit, begin to play again. Just like playing in bars on Earth! The crap must go down. The show must go on.

Eenunh comes to me, fishes my debit card out of my pocket, holds it up. People look, come closer and look, and go away. She's saying my numbers, quietly. They talk. Grins all around.

Party over. We pack up and call it a night. But, I think, I made some money tonight! The usual commannh team comes, the signal to close up for the night. I help the Blueboys carry in tables and chairs.

I don't play my four-string and five-string songs I wrote long ago very often so I didn't think I was prepared to play them now. I started trying songs, seeing if I could make them work without a treble E. I can. Ass Oomam Oomam ass can.

And, that night, I learned that you don't mess around with the cops! 'Cause they won't mess around with you!