TiTi; Dryland Queen

TiTi

Dryland Queen

A Novel By R. J. Mahoney

TiTi

Dryland Queen

R. J. Mahoney

Copyright © 2014 by R. J. Mahoney

Smashwords Edition

Thanks to Marlene, Mary O., Beverly Reitzel. And Chris Parsons.

Cover by Chris Parsons from a photo by Roger Mahoney.

All my friends on both coasts.

This never would have happened without you'all. R. M.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter I Rain

Chapter II Me and the Doc

Chapter III Mar

Chapter IV The North Coast

Chapter V Humboldt

Chapter VI More Rain

Prologue

To Begin With

Well, friend, if I could only tell you the times I sank into the cool sand, just after sundown and the breeze was passing thru TiTi's branches, her hair you know and it was a prayer. My life & hers, it was more than 30 years at the ends of all those little 2 track roads. It was a love story. And it lasted & lasted My Dryland Queen.

Also, she's Old. Ancient. The probable ancestor of all flowering plants. You know, dinosaurs. And she's friendly. No prickers. And green in all that waste. She talks to me now. Especially now that I no longer have to maim her for a living. No more blood on my hands. She saved my life you know. My Mar's life.

So all that's all that's left now that I'm old. The chink of broken rock and the cool cool sand and those barren hills with the stripes of dark dark volcanic rubble. Oh, and the blowing wind.

Roger August 23 2013

Chapter I

Rain

I don’t dare tell you about my life because it would most likely get me in trouble with the law. There are the things in the graveyard and all the other stuff. But then what else is there to tell about? I’m not a novelist and this is not a novel. My Folks are there in the graveyard; so is Mar’s mom, her son and my old auntie; it’s a quiet crowd. At first I thought it would be weird to live so close but it has lent so calm an air to the place that it is a welcome anchor for those immigrant people from Kansas and Russia. Grasslands, larks and blue days in the wind. The sun is my leather friend and I draw nearer now after my accident. Yonder he sinks beyond the western wooded ridges into the ocean. There is no wind; not a breath. An amazing April day after the real rains. So absolutely still and silent. Not to say that the ravens don’t croak. And soar in the lucid depths of green trees that keep their leaves year round. So very green. A strange forest this. So green and full the whole year round. We all love it so and even go to jail to protect it from the shitty timber company that owns so much land around here and thinks that a clearcut is legitimate forest practice instead of a crime. FDR upon seeing his first clearcut in Wash. State said, The SOB that did this should be shot. How ‘bout that? Not to mention federal stupidity in the National Forests vastly deforested to the east. The rivers are dying from the cut and the fish are almost gone. Flipped and gasped their last. We will beat the bastards down yet for it is we who live here, we do own this land and we will fight for it. We are fighting for it. Now.

It’s good cover, the greenwood, like Robin of old and all his troubles with the Sheriff. They have cars now, helicopters and such and they are a big menace and spread much terror. Our pet sharks in Black and White. Always vigilant and on the alert.

The old records show that it used to rain over 300 inches a year just to the NW of here on the ridge that runs on the other side of the river. That’s a lot of rain by God. Still does over 200 these days, in the drought times. The beginning of the next Ice Age or whatever this global warming has in store for us. It sure was dry and when we went south to see the doctor the river was a pitiful thing with its green disconnected pools and newly white gravel bars and shore lines. Dry and dangerous. Windy run of days – big cone year, summer fires are bright as sun. Sunken streams in the gravel bar drunk dry in the morning dew. Who would not wait and wallow in that corridor of alders. The fish are still in the sea and show us rebirth resilient. Pine cones splintered in the white light. Dry out: walk over sandstone she sucks you; scoured dry as daylight on the rim rock.

My son has finished his house and has moved into it over on parcel 2 with his family. My cup runneth over and liquor spilled down my chin. Can’t drink anymore tho’. Too bad but it’s OK, I’ve had plenty. That and all those illegal drugs I took when I was young. So including the folk in the graveyard there are 4 generations of us here. A real living presence. We’ve gained our ground. Will be able to stand our ground. My folks would be so pleased to see how it all turned out. Us all grown into the place. Our lasting and durable home. Property brings the shotgun shout land screams loudest clasped to the chest. We’re bound like brass and leather to the beloved acres worn across the breast, medals of the fall. Virgins of the Spring. Temples of the Grove. All call for the settled justice of lives lived of blood dried. A book of years. A Hart of rest. A blessed beast. No other string when bowed sounds so strong so gripping loud can call you out to embittered fight or is so sweet of its wide embrace. Uprootedness rooted at last. Under apple trees mostly, Jonathan, McIntosh, Waltana and Hudson’s Golden Tangent. I’ve eaten of their fruit and these young trees will grow larger each year if the damned Bear does not savage them again like he did a couple of years ago when we were gone. The Bear ripped the shit out of those young trees. Set them back 5 years I bet, tho’ I’m just learning their ways and growths. It’s no joke to watch the trees grow. They do. In 20 years the forest itself has grown taller. The Silviculture people have figures on board feet per acre per year and so on and you can really see it. Pray for my revamping of the dogwood clutch; the two sister oaks and a bent madrone; these stay. Dogwood determined by bark the sound drying echo of green spring which flows a trickle of water. Pray for enough to voice the prayer cross the dappled mire in the green wood and enter spare dry autumn as the wind dies.

So now I’m back from San Francisco and with all the surgery not able to leave the house. House arrest you might say for high crimes against myself the stealthy growth of calcium stalactites in the dark quiet cave of my spine. Bloody toothy darkness where even the friendly dog is a dangerous obstacle. Seriously, one false step and you’re a goner. Gone to where I wonder but that’s another matter I hope we’ll take up later. Right now I’ve gotta stop.

I’m not really a criminal or a traitor. Just on the wrong side in the war. Lots of us are in the same boat but God you gotta make a living and besides it’s kinda fun. The steep trails in the woods the sunshine and the kind rain. Just like the good ol’ boys in the Smokies or the Ozarks. Rusted junk cars in the dusty ditches the barefoot happy kids who don’t read the Bible. I know these guys who run up fruit (peach or pear) brandy at 190 proof. Must be experienced to be believed so true is the smell and the liquid firey breath of it. Swift and deadly it gets you there fast. And beyond. Yeah beyond. Watch out, us all red faced and happily staggering at the wake. So many people dead in so short a time: drugs, cars, suicide, gunfire, knives, fires, the law – practically depopulated the place. Oh and Old Lon who fell into Painter Creek that rainy Feb. when there was no alfalfa to be had in W. Nevada, N. Cal. and S. Oregon. Water everywhere and him walking crooked drunk home along the steep wet creek bank with the creek running brown and white and foamy way up its sheer mossy walls. Took Old Lon for a ride that stormy night and we found him a week later hung up in a strainer where McKee Creek flows into the Mattole. If he’d made the main river he’d have been off to the salt water for sure. A pickled fish in very sour cream. To be joined a couple years later by John Potter with his head bashed in. Nobody ever figured who did him with most of his body’s bones broke. Maybe his crazy unintelligent wife who could have done most any dumb thing in this world including him, for though stupid she was by no means feeble. And then there was the recent insurance settlement she ended up with. Downstream then past Ettersburg and Wilder Ridge where Larry Amsterdam who was guarding an indoor pot scene became dead by reason of a shotgun in the back of his head and the boys drug off his poor body and buried him in some other place. Like a bag of trash. Massive head hunt for months and months them knocking on everybody’s door. The cops love a murder, gives them blank check to go up all those little roads to rummage around without a warrant claiming that they’re lost and could you please tell them where so and so lives, you knowing all along they’re shittin’ ya, them craning their necks like turkeys. Country crimes joining crimes against nature and I’m not talking about some Oscar Wilde’s smelly butt. No I mean wholesale destruction of the last large Big Tree forests in America. Is John Potter paying for these savage acts with his savage Christly death? I don’t think so. Charles Hurwitz, the Jew boy banker shitface is the one that needs a bath in the river by God. This guy’s got some heavy bread in the bank. The teller ladies whisper in the back room. Plenty of parking in town now that everyone’s back at the ranch. Lots a’ loose talk. The money rolls in in hundreds and 20's big rolls from the hills; big breakfasts biscuits and gravy, steak and eggs and hashbrowns. Hot coffee. Hey! Great new truck! Cocaine. China white. Plane to Bangkok. John Potter in the River with his head bashed in. And Charlie H. creaming this county off from his scummy home in crappy Houston. Daddy Daddy what did you do today? These people will never learn, it seems. My country of silent poisoned fish: Prince of Darkness, Lord of Light what has brought us to this awful plight. Dear God don’t get me started. Starlight and dark flowing water. Cultivated attitudes don’t hold water and biblical imperative is useless as old coin when you consider violence against nature or the dumb cow which goes before cultivation to beat down the land a rough bred beast that shits weeds like the wind. So I say to you that water and people flow in the same hand. Whose? Yes, well, farther downriver the valley widens and there are bottoms and benchlands and barns with tractors glinting in the moonlight. At the rivermouth they are scooping up the nightfish in their V shaped nets up to their hips in the surf. Ol’ Carlan made whiskey in the Arkansas bottoms and come to this coast in the war. He sure kep 'er cookin'. Anytime. An old man in a VW beetle with a jug. At Juan Creek and Abalobadiah or Chadburn Gulch with the burnt rocks. Fires on the beaches for the nightfish (and dayfish). I thought he was kidding me. But he told me how to hold me mouth right. So I’m telling you. Pappy kep her cookin'. The Finn plumbers in Bragg sold us the system and you can still see the stainless stuff off in the brush.

So now I’m marooned in my blue and white bedroom upstairs in the house I built with my own hands almost 20 years ago. I’m still bleeding and the Doc is not real happy with my progress and my pain. 2 weeks, he says. Don’t leave the house. OK Doc, here we go. Stillness shall reign and the imagination is loosed of daily care so I wrote this little poem for my brother’s wife over in Washoe County, Nevada.

Old Outlaw’s Evening Chore

The old outlaw lady

hand over hand

along the rail

not afraid of

the distance

to travel

to the pen

Stops to smell the rose

in her garden

which is her

graveyard

of son parents

relatives

their dusts;

their struggling

trees

Now she’ll

put the horse up for the night

close the gate

on his salty nose

Her old man

and the truck

way out on

the desert

They are herb tea collectors they call themselves wildcrafters. They don’t make any money. They’ve been doing it since 1972. I guess they’re kinda nuts. They love it so what can anybody say to that? They are also poachers sometimes, on BLM land that’s Bureau of Land Management, the Federal Agency that owns most land in W. US and Alaska. In Nev. they own about 80% which is why my brother gets in trouble. Got hauled down off of Peavine Pk. near Reno for cutting tea in the Western Watershed Green Belt. Whoops. Almost ended up in the gray grim stone prison in Carson for possession. I’ll tell you about that later maybe.

In 2 weeks I might be able to write down a bunch of shit if I can get my head to stay still. The painkillers ought to help. They were giving me 6 mg. of morphine every 2 hrs. about a week ago. 4 days in intensive care. Lots of math. Calculus of dwindling pain. Flight of dark birds across the ceiling. Some old guy in there said Hello? or Hello! or Hello and every other way you can possibly say it. Every 2 minutes all night long. Jesus, take it away birds, sister morphine due soon with her lovely syringe oh la la cradle me. Anyway I’m outa there; back home with my clock still keeping time. Would birds flock and fly in despair? No. They would be ought but scud in the dark wind. Take wing to song. Course I can’t play the bass now but I hope to later. People recover from the most awful shit.

So let’s see where was I. Oh telling you about this neck of the woods. The terrible deaths amongst these woods hippies: guy shot himself in the head and his partners took his brains and planted them under the weed. Punch your # on the phone buttons up and home alone. Balls out before the dark. Your neck gathered close – a blouse; a frosted window pane. More speed the high bridge is near. A black ice crash heard by nobody. My guilty secret lover’s dope a drug a dragg for all. I was always hoping that some writer type would make a novel about those times in Whitethorn. I came in kinda late even tho the things I’m telling you are real enough. Whiskey afternoon: tops of firs cut off short like rain which stops short. Fog. Down in the street the little butcher’s sausage dog tears out the frame of the cartoon with old slang like homemade frankfurters or walrus mustaches, days gone by hereabouts the leather whip; crazy women up in the old hotel. Fire! Fire! Jack Sykes he took too much skagg. Same for Little Stevie the fisherman, likewise RB who was so nice to me 20 years ago. Oh lord all the dead people. I can’t dwell on it so much, it won’t help with my recovery. So look I’ll tell you a really funny story and I’ll try to make it short. Richard Gienger a friend of mine is a woodland restoration expert and as part of his Zen he will not leave a turd in the woods, but wraps it up in newspaper and hauls it out. So he’s coming back out along the Gulch rd. and near Gopherville the cops pounce on him, it’s pot harvest time or something and they are hasselling everybody. They want to search the vehicle which is by jeez a big huge mess of tools and trash and goodies and God knows what so Richard says sure go ahead so they light into his old crummy and turn the fucker upside down and tear into everything and they come to the newspaper bindle and Richard says (big wiseass) Don’t touch that, that’s my shit and they we knew it no, really that’s my shit them we’ve got you now. So they unwrap this big smelly turd. Too bad they didn’t have to eat it. You see, there’s some funny stuff too but like they say it don’t sell papers. I buy the papers so I ought to know that it is not funny what’s going on in Afghanistan too stupid I say but who cares what I think like that Bill Clinton is a traitor and Al Gore is a faggot and that all of them have blood on their hands and I’m glad that the dreadful towers are no more except I’m sorry about the killed dead people as I’m sorry for the 10's of thousands dead on the highway and the 10-50,000 dead from the flu (almost got me – twice) and the 400,000 dead from tobacco every year what are we talking about people! I got no use for the FIRE sector. That’s Finance, Insurance and Real Estate. When they move in on the city it’s bad for your health. Listen to the city planners on this one and you’ll see it’s the cold kiss of death. You’ll also see that the Globalopoly will sink of its own uncaring weight and good riddance too. Give it that extra push folks and buy local and don’t eat their poisonous food flown wastefully in from god knows where on the other side of the globe where it’s an open scandal that they feed offal to live animals so that pretty soon they will fix a tube from anus to mouth and they will cut out the earthy filter we need to survive. And grow yr. own in a closet if need be. And don’t let the bastards grind ya down. I’m telling you true you know.

There’s no excuse for suppressing the truth and the ban on anything Mr. Bin Laden says is censorship and repression of the rawest sort. Act up people this won’t wash. It will not. I will personally tell them that they are full of the stinkiest shit. You sons o bitches flown in on choppers and your stupid war memorials and crappy tournaments. You cocksuckers. You motherfuckers. You motherless bastards. Ok you get it. I’m no fan of the palace. I’ve lived in that boring second rate city filled with ugly marble and concrete. They can keep it for they are hypocrites and queers and wouldn’t know what the straight story is if it appeared in the papers (which it won’t). The fact that those towers went down played into their wildest fantasies. They can now usher in the fascist police state they’ve had plans for for years. Hitler quoted as saying If you would see fascism in its finest flower wait till it blooms in America. I’m real sorry I can’t place this properly. These bloated old pink cock-suckers safe in their fat and excessive Georgian style homes behind a gate in a dumb suburb. Burp. Wow can you imagine that dumb bitch Condo Rice telling the NY Times what to print! What the fuck! Ok it’s out in the open anyway they’re either that confident or that stupid. Who really knows who brought the towers down. Probably the sneaky Israeli secret forces – brainwash some ragheads off into the wild blue yonder. Have them stack the big birds full of fuel into the concrete and steel. The most stunning single act in history as far as I can see. No more towers.

So now my wife informs me that our family husky dog is shivering and his back legs don’t work. Oh boy 2 down. Too much too bad. Good dog nice doggy oh shit. That I left here head first in the rain 10 days ago ok but the dog too. Sounds like country music. No beer tho’. And my truck the love of my life is sitting in the rain and I don’t have any idea of when I’ll be behind the wheel. The bit nut behind the wheel is loose. She’s off to the vet 15 miles away down off this ridgetop to the East and the South Fork of the Eel. The dog’s got the shakes and it ain’t chocolate. Down to the river in the rain; the main drain. Weather band robot says more rain all this week. It might even rain by God. When we first lived in Mendo county it rained like hell for the first few years. Our landlord Ray Furey said to me you mean nobody told you about the gales? What gales? says I. Well we sure found out in that little house on stilts out on Frog Pond Road. Our place had the frog pond on it. Bull frogs croak to drown out the surf on the rocks down along the cove. The gales came in from the south with 90 mph winds, heavy heavy rain, thunder lightning and balls ‘o fire hail. A real circus. Many nights we thought that house would carry away. But she held and did not leak. What absolutely wild weather. Much worse while it was happening than a blizzard. Well that stopped and when we moved north to Humboldt Co. it was the same thing all over again. Now it’s dry here too in this wettest of the country’s wet places. I know there’s a wetter place in Olympic Park but it’s small with no one living there. I must have dry luck tho’, we have a great well. I’ll tell you about the well diggers’ ass later maybe. Do you know why the camel is called the ship of the desert? Because it’s filled with Arab semen. Yuk. Behind the dune; sky of the cleanest blue. So clean and precise those old desert Arabs had the clearest view of heaven and earthly pleasure tempered by hardship and hashish a thousand years ago and just a thin shelter between inside and out. Extreme changes. Now, for some reason they (men) in N. Africa squat to piss. Same for Tibetans. An Englishman in disguise was found out by his failure to do so. Strange. Answer anybody? Smaller target most likely. Sure don’t wanna die with your limp penis in your hand. Maybe some other place huh? Bed her down in the dune. Divine.

Alright the dog’s ok, ate fermented dead animal and no more than drunk for chrissake. So says vet who sees it often. Now it’s dark. Again. We’ll bed doggie down by the stove for the night, he seems to want to stay in. Not his usual practice. If anything happens to the poor beast I’ll let you know. Me I’ll take all my drugs and pass on out. That’s how friendly my nights are. My poor wife holding the bag. Thank God she’s able. Old girl does do good seeing she’s 65 and winter’s coming and all the rain and mud. Mud yeah mud even the radio station is KMUD on purpose of course. If ever the weather turns normal again maybe it will flush out a bunch of these newcomers from the south who thought that the dry years since the early 80's were pretty good and what was all the talk about anyway. Now of course there was a wet year or two in there but it was seen as an aberration. A single cloud in their blue sky. Their dreams are of palm trees and convertibles. The rich easy life of the south. How many times will the rock fall from the hill? It is the season again the flood will rule and the rain. It’s none of our concern except that the path lies thru here our small domain. You must smile at the coming wind as it sweeps down from the mountain than you may lose your hold and not be around to see the city blown away. We should have proofs of all such action, like hills in the background which tell us of what we need to know. Sad little streams are lonely until they have met the river between the bluffs. My dreams of your mouth have entered canyons of despair. Spare visions deserted hillsides at dusk. The trees will grow when we’ve gone and fallen into cracks in the earth we are bloodmeal in the dark rock. The roots will find us be sure of it. How can we regret the rock, we are balanced by its calm assurances. We must not be angry with limestone because it is made of the terrific death of life in ancient seas. Granite is crushed beyond despair of melted armies or the pain of children. It laughs at us for feeling betrayed by sunlight on high mountains. I take it for granted that our joy is the music of smashing stars.

You may find it grim but I do have a dour sour streak, not that I’m against anybody having a good time like the insane mullahs or the lunatic right wing in this country or anywhere else like the filthy Orthodox Jews and their dirty dirty hands. I’m sure it was the same all thru history. I hate the religions and all their mad rules and laws. We would have been very much better off without them. Except for comic relief from guys like Rasputin. But Torquemada – you keep him. Anybody can’t stand a little blasphemy – well fuck ‘em. Laugh a little! Wear red or tear your clothes off and dance with the devil which reminds me of Lau Tzu that wise old Chinaman who when asked why there was evil in the world said most memorably to thicken the plot. Well that says it all. Very simple, encompassing and true. To think that all the other silly religions got their panties in a wad over it for thousands of years and no good answer yet. Must be getting late what with all this bullshitting. Bong midnite. Have a hit; go to bed. Smoke drifts. Cool air between showers of rain brief stars. Black. Our house guarded by trees made cold and silvered by stars a warm place by necessity. Sleep.

Let me tell you a dream. Boy what a dream. Such as these come but rarely and this one was a lulu. Here goes – I dreamed I went to the BBQ in Texas with truckers and country guitar pickers beer and fun and pretty women and it was loud tuneful and the pickers played their licks and the best food was made by somehow torching it inside cannisters filled with marinated filet mignon and salmon and ignited by a jet of diesel from the injectors of a Big Rig and one rev to compression of the engine. Then when we had had our fill and the ladies were flushed and dishevelled and our overalls were hanging by one strap about our waists and we had sung and loved long and were leaving that place there was a whole new crew of revellers that started to appear and they were wan and wasted. It was to be another party and I was not invited but I and some of the pickers stayed anyway and helped these newcomers lug into the place these piles or stacks of frozen crystals that looked like angels wings white glittery slabs some 2-3 feet high which had a beak-like point at the top. This bedraggled crew had barely the strength to lug these in so wasted were they. So we stayed on in that place and as the silvery icy slabs began to melt we were shown how to capture the efflorescing liquid that came from their melting tips into small crystal cups or flutes. This liquid was surprisingly of a dark color rather like sparkling cola and as it sparkled it let off fumes of a gas rather like nitrous or ether and of a strong sweet and very pungent smell. This then was the drug. Inhaling these fumes rendered one very high and rarified and gave of the ability to sing or be sung and in