7. Dionysian Dreams and The Holy Grail

Somewhere somehow someplace someone speculated sometime ago how the ascetic Desert Fathers are somewhat distant blood brothers to Buddhist monks. The someone who was suspected of speaking those  words was Sundance . He said that

 

“ detachment, solitude, meditation were common characteristics between the two groups. A living communion of earthly saints in training.  Rituals of chopping wood and carrying water filled the minutes and hours of each day. Being present to the now is everything that one needs. Mantras are prayers and prayers mantras. Blue skies or rain, it really didn’t matter.  Cries of the intermittent cicadas during the light of day and the chorus of crickets welcome the darkness sing  the same song differently. Change is the only constant. One energy is the thread that nourishes all things. Without the silence between tones called notes music doesn’t exist.”

 

All this intrigued Jake. He really didn’t think about such things on his own. However, Sundance would have to explain how he didn’t recall ever discussing this matter.

 

“You must have been dreaming.”

 

Billy Barrows, resident philosopher of Wanderers, they say he was the first to cross the line, signed Jake’s yearbook with a phrase Jake never forgot, “ Be who you are. And you will be who you are supposed to be.” He used to say that one couldn’t buy peace.  Al Hendle signed his picture in the yearbook by just writing “peace.” He found complete peace before Jake or any of the  “Wanderers.” Sundance scribbled  “. Go forth!” in Jake’s yearbook. Jake forgot what he wrote, if anything, in other yearbooks.

 

Jake had no idea where any of these words or concepts came from.

 

“What is the spark that fuels these words and these ideas to exist and be expressed and to shine anyway?”

 

Both Sundance’s and Billy’s ideas and words resonated when Jake plodded piously down placid paths of the pastoral grounds of the Jesuit Retreat House just outside of Morristown, New Jersey during their high school senior retreat. He discovered that the spartan living conditions at this home away from the world were uncharacteristically appealing. He admitted he didn’t know much about Jesuits or Ignatian spirituality.

 

Jake stopped in the middle of a path, sat and jotted

 

“The song of the wind-chimes of freedom sing responding to the breath of God and the occasional solo of the morning bird interrupts the silence but in doing so the solace and solitude are enhanced  . At the moment of  “just about dawn” the local union owl speaks out asking me the haunting query repeatedly until I gave in responding

 

‘Me!’”

 

Sacred polyphonic chants of gratitude graciously filled the air surrounding the wandering spirits welcoming the birth of that new day on those holy grounds of this Jesuit safe house. When the light of day eventually disappeared from sight the solemnity of the voices returned echoing in and out of halls and walls…  humbled and thankful for the river of constant consolation .“Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariae; Et concepit de Spiritu Sancto.”

 

Memories filled and bounced around Jake’s head as he became distracted imagining that Sundance’s inner sanctum of scholarly and spiritual solitude at Fairfield University to be the mirror of the retreat house he visited years earlier.

 

“Those Jesuits and their influence seems to be the same no matter where they hang their black robes .”

 

His exposure to things of the Company of Jesus was a little limited and his imagination would run away on him . He imagined that Sundance’s dorm room would be a perfect monastic prayer closest where “no thing” would interfere with the consolation and transformation of one’s spirit and mind.

 

It was no surprise that the hallowed residence hall was part no-tell motel and part prison-block in appearance.

 

Sundance muttered

 

“Excuse the stench. It’s normal here.”

 

Suddenly half naked waste high toweled young men chased and screamed like pre teen girls running in Marx Brother precision in and out the doors along the hallway. Jake shook his head and Sundance’s smile was a blend of pride and embarrassment as he quickly unlocked the door to the solo sanctuary. On queue Sundance hummed to the melody to a Brian Wilson song in which Jake was all to familiar as he whispered the opening lyrics,

 

 “There’s a place where I can go and never be afraid…in my room.”

 

A red-yellowed Avedon Lennon portrait hung adjacent to a black and white of Groucho poster adorned Sundance’s self-proclaimed Sistine ceiling with all eyes watching every move of the pilgrims’ comings and goings.  A “Free Booby Seale” banner curtained the window. Novels, textbooks, and vinyl records thrown and stacked here and there. Cigarette butts and ashes poured over on the desk next to the key worn selectric typewriter. Unedited notes on a thesis on Joycian influences on Behan and Donleavy stacked proudly on a corner of the dresser almost hiding the annual Christmas holiday Cassady family photo. The requisite crucifix crookedly hanging above the doorway was both a persistent reminder and warning. This place was not at all what Jake expected. He smiled…

 

“Wow, this place is great!”

 

Sundance was so excited about Jake’s arrival that he forgot that the great traditional weekend bon fire planned by the members of “Lost Fraternity of Fairfield” was cancelled by the administration. Students used this ritual as the rite to celebrate spring by burning away the past and to drown old sins by drinking beer celebrating the forthcoming season.

 

Sundance explained

 

“You see this Anastheria Dionysian celebration was considered a little too hedonistic and counter-catholic by the many in Jesuit administration of the university. Bonfires were a little too reminiscent of witch burnings,  I guess and may have been reminders of the regularly scheduled celebrations in the past for the local puritanical Fairfield village. “

 

Sundance tried to rationalize further

 

“Well, you know the best laid men of mice and plans often go astray.”

 

Pre-occupied as usual Jake didn’t laugh and thought for a moment about asking for a grand tour of the university reserved for special guests. He didn’t get the tour. He didn’t know why but he maintained a curiosity about the Society of Jesus. Jake fantasized that just walking onto this perceived Holy Ground of Sundance’s university would somehow transform him. He continued his drifting in silence.

 

“Will I hear some profound message? Would there be a metanoia?  Would this just be another day in paradise? Something’s gotta to happen. It always does”

 

He always had trouble letting go. He didn’t see any priests that night and that was probably a good thing. There was only one solution for him…

 

“When in doubt drink and drink a lot…(of alcohol of course.)”

So where’s the local watering hole where we can get a burger and a beer?”

 

Sundance chimed

 

“Ah, burgers and beer, the communion meal of wayward acolytes.

I know just the place and maybe we’ll get lucky and get invited to a Yale party!”

 

Sundance continued

 

“Beer and parties are perfect bait, the words themselves are soulful sounds of the Sirens for posing as waitresses singing for wandering single sailors seeking safe passage. Lost souls consuming alcohol helps increase less concern about long our wayward sojourns. “

 

Jake drifted again, he did that a lot lately, and recalled for Sundance how something always seems to happen when he went to a bar. He reminded Sundance that it was in the same bar where Jake would eventually meet Isabella that he, Billy, Art and a couple of would get into their first bar brawl.

 

“We took Chase to some bar on Staten Island to celebrate with Chase the  birth of his son and God dammit wouldn’t ya know Chase had the balls to make a very overt pass at the first waitress he saw. Unbeknownst to us the waitress’  ‘US Marine fiancé on leave from Vietnam was at the other end of the bar and like a flaming rocket threw a flying fist at Chase’s face. Before one could yell “bar fight” Chase, Billy and me were assaulted by half dozen of locals as our philosopher fried Billy screamed

 

‘I’m a lover not a fighter’ “

 

Sundance smiled

 

“That’s my Billy!”

 

Jake not laughing

 

 “Well it wasn’t very funny or cool as it was about six guys who took me down and knocked me out cold .”

 

“It was probably just one or two,”

 

whispered Sundance.

 

“ I was beaten to a pulp and woke hours later in Chase’s car that had it’s headlights knocked out and windshield smashed. Chase drove and cried all the way home blubbering

 

‘How am I going to explain this to my wife?’ “

 

Sundance shook his head and couldn’t keep from laughing as he said,

 

“And that’s my Chase!”

 

“Well that’s when I decided I was going to be a conscientious objector and peace activist or something like that”

 

Jake suddenly shifted gears …and added

 

“As they say the show must go on. The next night after the fateful fight I had an important gig with my then band. “

 

Sundance thought

 

“When is he going to grow up? He’s always in some band or something.”

 

Ignoring Sundance’s physical turning away pretending to shuffle this or that on he desk, Jake continued.

 

“Well my new image of wearing sunglasses with a bandage on my chin all the time was born. The girls thought the new look made me cooler than cool. Though at first it was just an attempt to hide a big puffy black eye and a three-inch gash on the chin it became my look. Those scars never really healed completely. (I guess scars never do.) That night led to an unexpected bar fight and transformation of how I saw myself”

 

“So?”

 

“I’m done with bar fights and the idea of going into an unknown tavern in Connecticut is a little scary, ya know. ”

 

“But going to a bar, like the one where you were knocked out, is how you met Isabella!”

 

“Exactly! I can’t take anymore surprises or changes!”

 

Sundance tried to explain that no one partied in the town of Fairfield. It still maintained it’s puritanical roots. It was a lonely town for lonely people.

 

“They role up the sidewalks and fold up the trees at sunset in Fairfield. Besides who would want to stay here when you have Yale parties just a few minutes away and everyone across the country has heard about the infamous Yale parties! You don’t understand we need to go to get out of here.”

 

When Jake was going through his blue period after Mary Lou vanished Sundance sent Jake a post card of the Statue of Liberty with a brief message on the back

 

“When you need to be free – don’t forget to quench your thirst. When you need consolation– drink from the cup of life. It will help you realize that you can be free from the traps in this world that try to suck you into the belief that nothing will make you ever make you happy. Drink so that you feel only peace as you walk away from the wreckage. ”

 

Jake was convinced that Sundance was writing about beer.

They were off to New Haven.

6. Elysian Fields Forever

 Multiple Millers, Marlboros and maps are all one needs as provisions for passages to probable unknown escapades. Everyday is a journey filled with adventures. The intensity of the passage is often dictated not by the events but by if and how the reaction to the incidents may have altered one’s course. But it really doesn’t matter if one doesn’t have a plan.

 

Sailors prefer sextants, compasses and charts. Even though Columbus had no idea how where he was going he needed a plan to get to where he believed he might end up. Sometimes when our assumptions and journeys are wrong we can make great discoveries. Most cross-country truckers have plans and count on map accuracy and CB’s. Somehow dads tend to depend on some defective inner compass when taking family excursions. They reluctantly eventually use maps finally admitting to the family that they have no idea where they are. Jake’s dad never used a map, which would result in the Niebo family taking eight hours to make a normal four-hour trip upstate New York. His dad was a proud man of few words. When Jake bought “Betty” his new guitar after working long and hard to buy it his dad observed in passing one night

 

“Nice guitar. See what happens when you work hard.”

 

That’s all.

 

 Jake took it as a compliment.

 

“Thanks. dad.”

 

His dad was the same guy who used to quietly and unsolicited brought the Wannabes pizza and soda when they practiced their Beatle imitation in Jake’s basement. Leaving the food on a card table he walked back up the stairs without looking back and the boys heard

 

“Nice job, Keep it at it!”

 

On one of those long summertime treks upstate Jake’s dad said he had heard of another “new way” to get to Uncle Mikes near Herkimer. After about an hour of seeing the same intersection from four different approaches Jake grabbed a map from the glove compartment and feverishly focused on the map pointing out to his dad that he might want to follow one particular state highway. His father sat in silence and continued driving. There was a slim crack in the curtain of silence an hour later when his dad briskly whispered once

 

“Hey what was that good idea you had?”

 

Jake learned from an early age the value of maps.

 

No matter how sophisticated or useful maps are the potential experiences are nowhere to be found on a colored lines and names of villages and towns represented on the carefully unfolded paper. Sometimes one just needs to follow the white lines on the road and take what comes. Like the meandering rivers most roads will also take you eventually to where you need to be. Like his father Jake thought his own intuition was pretty good about setting a course. He would say his inner compass was pretty accurate as he thought he knew where he was at any given moment. He was always good at faking it.

 

The map in Jake’s hands indicated that after making it across the river he would enter a postage stamp called the “nutmeg state.” This New York suburb state was where Sundance went to college, Fairfield University. Fairfield, town and university, had a history of being a temporary safe harbor for journeymen on odysseys. A disaffected Massachusetts conservative Puritan who later moved on to the colony of Virginia and eventually escaped back to the place from where he came, Dublin, gave Fairfield its name. He really had trouble settling down. Maybe the Jesuits were strategic in selecting Fairfield for their suburb university. Young men on journeys seemed were attracted to this formation factory.

 

“ ’Finding Fairfield ‘ might a good name for a poem or book. “

 

Jake thought

 

It really wasn’t much of a task for a probationary student from the suburbs of northwest Jersey to find this little island in between here and there. There were no signs for the university on the highways but there was a large exit sign off the interstate “Town of Fairfield.” Jake often relied on signs in some form or another. Another Marlboro moment - toking a lit butt relieved the anxious pilgrim as he entered the secret garden with a wink from God. The rain ceased suddenly and a slim ray of sunset sunlight poked through the gray expanse over head. Like a power spotlight this lasered beam focused on one particular spot, a small hand carved sign on the side of the road almost imperceptible because of the surrounding overgrown thorny rose bushes

 

“Fairfield University  -  (in smaller letters) Per Fidem Ad Plenam Veritatem- Main Entrance.”

 

Jake started to sing about rolling into Nazareth feeling half past dead.

 

He entered this unknown island . The birds escorting he and Betty were delighted in his arrival. As Jake drove up the narrow roadway across the Fairfield campus he imagined apparitions of black robed exorcists suddenly jumping from bushes holding up crucifixes shouting.

 

One lonely shadowy figure in the distance stood in the middle of the roadway with his right hand raised in the air.

 

“The power of Christ compels you.”

 

Remnants of the past few days showering baptismal rain became land streams that worked their way to the rivers that spilled into the sea.  As the shadowy figure drew closer to the car the grin on the half hidden face became more recognizable. It was Sundance. His hand remained out to greet Jake who had finally landed. Sundance’s grin of welcome grew as they got closer:

 

 “ Introibo ad altare  Dei –“

 

Before a second breath could be taken Jake’s automatic learned response

 

 “ Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam “

 

Sundance made the sign of the cross over Jake’s head with his raised right hand

 

“Ego te absolvo ”

 

“ You mean it took that long for me to be forgiven?”

 

“You know what I mean. I have been trying to get you up here for the longest time. “

 

“Wow, it feels like I just left a couple of hours ago.”

 

“Well, whatever, you are here and the weekend is ours!”

 

Jake secretly sought to be safe and inspired - again. In a peculiar way he felt - at home. He was in a place he knew nothing about but he was in the company of an old trusted friend. Jake and Sundance strolled excitedly together across the red-striped horizon graced quad with an immense oversized shadow of the chapel’s steepled cross laying at their feet.  Simultaneously and in standard Everly Brothers harmony they sang

 

“Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream, merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily life is but a dream”

 

And laughed.

 

5. Hera and Apollo: A Duet

The soft soap soaked sponge slightly slipped over smooth curves.  The bubbles subsequently swept away  by a supple shower of sweet spring water.  The weariness earned during the ins and outs of winter’s storms was also whirlpool washed away down the drain to some winding unseen stream. She sighs in relief. A towel slowly wiping her gently protects her from the damage that the remaining hard iron based well water could cause to her skin. Refreshed, glowing, and made up she is ready to have him slip inside her. They close their eyes and they were gone.

 

Radio cranks up and blasts almost blowing out the speakers hiding her whiny scream. His intuition was right on how hard to drive her and how loud to play the music. Riding without music was like not riding at all. 

 

She was blacker than black…. a ‘57 Chrysler with a 383 cubic hemi patiently parked in Pizza Pete’s lot waiting for her partner to get her going. She would sit calm and ready till he lit her on fire and they’d drive the night away. Cruising from back streets to open highways is freedom. A chariot on fire was a gift carrying her racer searching out hippodromes and straight aways. The diverse colors and contours of these velocitous virile vehicles became topics for drivers and marketing professionals …and naturally a few greedy psychotherapists.

 

Jake lived in the state of just needing to get from here to there. He named his ride “Black Beauty.” She was always fast and responded by getting to 90mph faster than newer rubber burners on US Rte 22. Whenever the “”Black” hit local streets everyone knew “the Reb” was in town. Isabella knew that Jake’s ride could ruin a reputation as well as take a life. Though both the Black and Betty, Jake’s new guitar, would scream when he held them tight Isabella found the “Black” more threatening. Jake was oblivious of Isabella’s feelings as he rationalized that this was the only vehicle he could afford and Betty the only guitar he was destined to play. He was careful in how he held both and they responded to his caressing touches.

 

Jake drafted in that weathered torn school-like marble notebook about the black motor queen

 

The Black Queen and Betty

 

Mated souls in conception

mystical keys

flicking of the wrist

 flames born of  a spark

in one a fire is born

the other echoes Aeolus’ harp

no destination needed

 

They lift me where

We need to be.

Pegasus’ Mustangs

And vestal virgins

Bow as we pass by

Heaven’s gates open

Gift of Helios

We are of the sun

 

As the wear of winter began to show it’s effect on the Black’s once smooth edifice the plans of a slow cool cruise down Ocean Avenue under Long Beach Island’s red evening sky over the mainland seemed a far off dream. In her day she was stealth and had been too fast for the local “po-po’s”. It was a non-issue to blow the “hot rodders” off the line on midnight runs to nowhere. No bread or title drags were necessary, just riding for the pleasure was enough. It was a time when speed and size would matter.

 

However, it was the living in the fast lane and adding up the miles of black tops and dirt tracks that began to age this “Black Beauty.” Her speed days began to wane as she slowly became transformed into a casual cruiser. She was this lonely warrior’s vessel carrying him from one adventure to another on his passage to somewhere.

 

Good companions fill voids of all kinds. Different needs, different voids, different companions. Jake felt like he had too many needs and one too many voids. He knew how some relationships could be temporary and how voids can sometimes be filled temporarily. No thing stays the same, not even relationships.  It’s just the same way all across the universe.

 

“Impermanence. “

 

His meditation mantra.

 

He had nightmares about how long he and the Black Beauty and Betty would be together. Similar nocturnal fears consumed him about Isabella and Sundance.  Any thing or person could never fill the void left by Al.

 

Betty would take Jake places journeying deep within. Holding her, caressing her neck and while strumming her time did not exist, nor did the realities of existence . The sounds separated by silence created a soothing sonata of melodious lamentations. Sometimes verses about voyages would be vocalized in a whispering psalm-like refrain. Troubadours travel from town to town, their anthems a momentary diversion from the world for the locals as well as themselves. Betty was always at the ready to be held, ready to mutually mystically drift away at Jake’s whim.

 

Black Beauty was a transport of a different kind. She existed for Jake’s body to escape to physical places he only dreamed about and places he never imagined. Inside her he was in a different world, he was a spirit in a vessel being carried down rivers and to the unknown sea.  When he held onto Black Beauty’s steering wheel he could feel how she would hold him in return. He never controlled her direction, as she knew exactly where to take him. They could not let go of each other. They were one when on the road with Betty resting in the back seat waiting for her opportunity to enhance their joint escape, the ménage’ trios. Finally responding to Sundance’s persistent invitation to venture to Connecticut all three headed east as fast as they could sail away from the setting sun.