19. The Ithaca Epilogue ( Take one and Take two)

 

19.  The Ithaca Epilogue  - take one

 

 

“Somedays it seems like there is someone always asking questions. Somedays it seems as though all this is one big test that is graded with a pass or fail grade. Somedays the calculated coincidence of two fast fading stars journeying on a parallel path across the universe is not as impossible as once conjectured. Somedays it feels as though the layers of the experiences of existence can be peeled away to discover that the great mystery is no mystery at all. Somedays the light at the end of the tunnel that was growing brighter and bigger is wisped away like some cruel supernatural tease. Somedays it can be considered a little self-centered and presumptuous  to go to bed requesting that your lover deliver breakfast in bed the next morning. Somedays it is better to leave the plans and maps behind and venture out with no expectations.  Somedays it is the intimacy of a true companion is all that is needed.”

 

Jake was puzzled again as he had no idea, which is not an unusual state, how these words found themselves in his journal. This wasn’t the time for him to put on his investigative mask. The Timex on the weather worn leather band was stuck on two forty seven . He had no idea what time it really was. Midnight just seemed minutes ago. Launching out on his leg of his journey seemed just hours old. Everything was moving faster. The Canadian’s siren song whipped him round and round and he couldn’t get off.

 

Sundance appeared in the doorway with a bright glow shinning from behind him making his features dark, mysterious and almost holy.

 

“Both Paul and Wolfe were wrong you know, you can go home, you just can’t go back ! Nothing good comes from Ithaca. “

 

Jake half listening, as he thought Sundance was still stoned or was totally beguiled by Athena’s daughter , scrambled along the floor to grab the pack of cigarettes under the table waiting to be devoured. Lighting one he sat up saying

 

“Since Salinger has decided to be an iconoclastic ascetic and Kerouac is on the road somewhere lost , we are we still going to Walden Pond right? And if you like, after we visit there we can take you back to Fairfield and I can get on with what I am supposed to get on with. Whatever that is!”

 

Sundance slipped on his trousers half warbling in a soft Dylanesque voice, as he was sensitive to the fact Diana and Isabella remained in dreamland,

 

“Well if the Holy Ghost really wants us to get to Henry David’s cabin then I guess we gotta go. Can’t not listen to the voice of God can we?”

 

Jake played along

 

“Do we know how to get there or are we going to wait until we both get spiritually enlightened?”

 

“We can sit under a tree and breathe slowly or grab a map out of your glove compartment. Whatever you think is easier or more practical.”

 

Jake jabbed back

 

“Maybe just grab your Ignatian prayer book. It does have a section on Spiritual Direction doesn’t it, that includes directions in Massachusetts too right? Don’t want to go down the wrong path or head in the wrong direction , do we ?”

 

They both laughed a little louder than they expected as Sundance concluded

 

“It’s all too late to worry about that now.”

 

 

 

 

 

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19.  The Ithaca Epilogue   -  take two

 

 

 

 

“Somedays it seems like there is someone always asking questions. Somedays it seems as though all this is one big test that is graded with a pass or fail grade. Somedays the calculated coincidence of two fast fading stars journeying on a parallel path across the universe is not as impossible as once conjectured. Somedays it feels as though the layers of the experiences of existence can be peeled away to discover that the great mystery is no mystery at all. Somedays the light at the end of the tunnel that was growing brighter and bigger is wisped away like some cruel supernatural tease. Somedays it can be considered a little self-centered and presumptuous to go to bed requesting that your lover deliver breakfast in bed the next morning. Somedays it is better to leave the plans and maps behind and venture out with no expectations.  Somedays it is the intimacy of a true companion is all that is needed.”

 

Jake looking at his open journal in front of his half waked eyes was puzzled again as he had no idea, which is not an unusual state, how these words found themselves in his journal. This wasn’t the time for him to put on his investigative mask. The Timex on the weather worn leather band was stuck on two forty seven . He had no idea what time it really was. Midnight just seemed minutes ago. Launching out on his leg of his journey seemed just hours old. Everything was moving faster. The Canadian’s siren song carouseled around him and he couldn’t get off.

 

Jake scrambled along the floor to grab the pack of cigarettes under the table waiting to be devoured. Lighting one he sat up saying

 

“Since Salinger has decided to be an iconoclastic ascetic and Kerouac is on the road somewhere lost , we are we still going to Walden Pond right? And if you like, after we visit there we can take you back to Fairfield and I can get on with what I am supposed to get on with. Whatever that is!”

 

Sundance appeared in the doorway with a bright glow shinning from behind him making his features dark, mysterious and almost holy.

 

“Both Paul and Wolfe were wrong you know, you can go home, you just can’t go back ! Nothing good comes from Ithaca. So if the Holy Ghost really wants us to get to Henry David’s cabin then I guess we gotta go. Can’t not listen to the voice of God can we?”

 

Jake played along

 

“Do we know how to get there or are we going to wait until we both get spiritually enlightened?”

 

“We can sit under a tree and breathe slowly or grab a map out of your glove compartment. Whatever you think is easier or more practical.”

 

Jake jabbed back

 

“Maybe just grab your Ignatian prayer book. It does have a section on Spiritual Direction doesn’t it, that includes directions in Massachusetts too right? Don’t want to go down the wrong path or head in the wrong direction ,do we ?”

 

They both laughed a little louder than they expected as Sundance concluded

 

“It’s all too late to worry about that now.”

 

The river from a secret unknown mountain spring flowed feverishly finding her way eventually to Diana’s kitchen sink. After filling the kitchen sink with ice and cold water Jake buried his head into the water waking himself

 

“Whewee! Wow! Ok , now I am ready!”

 

Isabella half dazed, half confused , half sat up on the couch as Sundance handed her a cup of coffee from the fresh pot he just made.

 

“So you guys off somewhere or what?”

 

Diana strolled out from her bedroom draped in the bed cover showing her mostly naked right leg up to the uppermost part of her thigh. Picking up her foot and leg planting it in Sundance’s lap

 

“So lover boy, …”

 

“Huh?”

 

“Sweet baby, do you really want to leave this treat?”

 

Sundance pulled Diana close to his mouth and he whispered rather than kiss her while Jake preoccupied himself with packing what few things he had into his old gym bag. Diana then shoved Sundance away

 

“ Well, you better be back soon or call or write or something!”

 

Sundance winked over at Jake and smirked

 

“I am sure I will , hon.”

 

Jake grabbing Isabella with one of those off to war or some great adventure farewell hug-kisses

 

“ Knock ‘em dead on your exams, sweetheart . “

 

Getting more dramatic he

 

“As my hero Bogey said to Bergman said ‘The problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that.’ I will call you when Sundance and I find a  safe harbor. Until then , keep the faith… te’ amo mi amore’.”

 

Diana and Isabella stood at Diana’s front door as the two boys scrambled into the worn out Chrysler watching it speed off into the early morning fog. Diana turned to Isabella and said

 

“Now that was a strange night. I don’t even know  what Sundance’s real name! Who is he anyway? Maybe they were the Lone Stranger and his native companion?”

 

Isabella smiled and returned to the kitchen to warm up her coffee.

 

As Jake tried to impress the girls by laying some rubber on the road, the tires just spun uncontrollably burning rubber smoke until they finally got traction. Sundance laughed lighting a smoke of his own

 

“Ya know that Diana wasn’t a half bad . You know, a really nice lady. I gotta get her number from Isabella and you gotta tell me her last name!”

 

Time moves faster when one is in a speeding car. In almost no time at all Jake and Sundance were pulling up to the entrance of the Massachusetts State Park at Walden Pond only to see a sign on the barrier that blocked the entrance way.

 

“Closed for Repairs”

 

Jake screeched out his indignation

 

“Can you believe it?! We came all this way and look what happens! This is unbelievable ! They are repairing nature. What , God’s work isn’t good enough?!”

 

Sundance popped a can of warm beer handing it to Jake trying to console him saying

 

“Well, we didn’t come up here just for this did we? Besides how many folks have been here ? This place has probably been destroyed with garbage, thievery and the like by all the tourists over the years.”

 

Jake laughed in a snide way

 

“That’s what God said about earth and he hasn’t closed this yet. But I wouldn’t blame him if he did.”

 

Sometimes the skies clear and the wind shifts and only the astute focused navigator readily notices and takes advantage. Sometimes the sailing is perfect and the vessels course is unabated and even novice sailors cruise along without any imminent danger. Even Poseidon  smiles sometimes.

 

Sundance snored all the way from the gates of Walden to the gates  of Fairfield University . One fading burned out cigarette lighting the next and again and again,  Jake chain smoked the whole trip and filled his head with questions  around the pro’s and cons of heading back to Boston . Maybe , he meandered, that he should just keep driving for the next few days until he reached the Big Sur in California. Then Black Beauty stopped intuitively at the entrance way of Fairfield and Jake gave a big shove at Sundance waking him . Sundance just put out his right hand to clasp Jake’s as he grabbed his bag looking straight into Jake’s half sleep-filled eyes

 

“Ok, this time it was a short phase of our own tertianship formation. This summer we head to Dublin or maybe Paris or both. Ad magestri Dei gloriam! ”

 

Jake leaned forward half out the passenger side where Sundance had escaped to see if he heard Sundance clearly

 

“What? Dublin, Paris ? When? How? “

 

Within two blinks of an eye Sundance had become a fast fading shadow amidst the pedestrian traffic of students rushing here and and there over the university quad in between classes.

 

Jake shouted as if Sundance could still hear him

 

“And pax amicus .”

 

The Black Beauty cruised off into the oncoming red-coated sunset that slowly and carefully bathed the Tappan Zee Bridge. A fear burned within Jake that the unpredictable erratic wind gusts of change and his speed would provide evidence that Burnouli’s theorem works on cars as much as it does sails, airplane wings and souls alike. His concern rose as he felt that somehow he would soon take flight over the river.  Would he fly or would he make a splash that would make the front pages of some local non-read non-important community weekly newsrag ?

 

The story found on page seventeen lower left next to the advertisement for the schedule of masses at St. Francis Xavier’s church in Somwheretown , New York would read

 

“ Another car takes off from Tappan Zee and makes unnoticed small splash in Hudson River. No body or driver found.

 

‘ Somebody is going to pay for this’ said Police Chief . He added ‘ People don’t realize how expensive it is to retrieve these cars from the river. Ever since these hippie types started in with those demonstrations and  drugs an all , we get about one of these incidents a week and we never have found a body. ‘

 

The police have stated that The Wall Street banker who’s body was found near the shores of Tarrytown a month ago is said to be a different case. Authorities found his car on the bridge and it is suspected that he stood on the outer railing when he shot himself in the head.”

 

Before Jake could continue his another thought in his mindless meanderings and second guess himself once more… a sound off in the distance rises. It is his mother’s voice slipping gently but firmly and louder and louder into his space and time ,

 

“Jake! Jake! Wake up! You need to get on the road!”

 

He rubbed his eyes and sees that his is lying in a sweat soaked bed and shakes his head like a bewildered just birthed puppy. Whimpering

 

“What …. day is this?

 

She shook his bed hoping it that the shaking would rile his spirit.

 

“Time just doesn’t stand still until you think are ready, you know!””

 

Jake mumbled a protesting question

 

“What time is it?”

 

His mother now just at the just about boiling point of complete loving exasperation

 

“You need get going! Now! You are going to be late!”

 

Jake slowly pulled the blanket to his chin asking

 

“Late? When? Where am I going?”