In my room I have a little window

Everyday it greets me

Behind the shade it calls to me

Entices me

Convinces me

to find out what I am unable to know

in my bed

or in my chair

I do not know who made it

I simply have it

It does not really know me

or really care about me

But, even so it waits, patiently,

As dear friends often do

for me to lift the shade

And look.

It is double paned.

A single sheet will not do.

In former days, it was one.

In older days, it was none.

For the isolation by,

and the insolation of

my little window,

I am doubly indebted.

Its one yearning being two,

The illuminating of

What lies inside,

And the informing of

What lies outside.

I am painfully aware

of how unaware I am

that I love my little window

But something, with my window, is amiss.

Between the panes, something is growing

Where it should be clear, it is not.

There should be clarity between the panes.

I have always trusted my window.

I never gave the panes a second thought.

It has always been the vacuum between the panes

Which enabled such a pristine view.

When that which my outer pane keeps in check

contacts what my inner pane retains,

a substance foreign

to both panes

begins to materialize highlighting

the impossibility of clarity.

The view is incrementally and systematically impaired, not from without,

But by the exchange between the panes.

It makes no sense talking.

My dear, little window is deaf to my pleadings.

My window is merely the bearer of the panes.

The double pane is here to help me see.

The means of rehabilitation to the pristine view

Lies not with the window

Lies not with the pane

The double pane.

The means lies not.

Joseph –

I finally made it home. I saw your man at the temple and asked him if he would come by later to collect this letter. He said he would make sure you got it. I could´t find you anywhere. Until recently, I could´t find anyone. I have to write you. I have been on the run for three days and so much has happened. I hope I make sense. I will try.

What has happened? We saw you on Tuesday and you were so upbeat. I had never seen you like that before. All you could say was how much the people liked us and how effective  Jesus had been. You must have been kept in the dark to what the Sanhedrin really was thinking. You were not as invisible to them as you thought. There is nothing you can do now, I know. It all went so bad so fast. Jesus was always a bit distracted and withdrawn. He had been like that really since lazarus. I have had some time to think and gain a bit of perspective. My brain has been pouring over every look, every gesture. He split us up on Thursday with the rendezvous to be at Michael´s home, upstairs. You remember? With the back entrance?

That night we ended up in the “olive press” garden.  Just outside the wall past the old press. He said he wanted to pray. That was nothing new, really. We had been here lots of times but never so late and never with such a tension in the air. He asked the group to sit down and a few of us went on with him. He told us to wait and pray with him. He went on alone. I did not feel good about this. To make along story short we fell asleep and woke up to a loud sound of voices and torches. Judas was leading the group. I was relieved. He greeted Jesus and everything went crazy. They grabbed Jesus and tied him up. All of us just scattered into the night. I have the memory of Peter´s voice say something but I was so frightened, I ran as fast as I could.

I can´t tell you where I have been since then. My head is just spinning. I feel like I am being watched and I have never been so fearful in all my life. I finally caught sight of Jesus yesterday morning. Can it be? Is it really only yesterday that they agreed to release Baraba and kill Jesus? These people are crazy. I stood among them at the hall of judgement and watched Pilate. These people were spitting and ripping their clothes as they were screaming to crucify Jesus. I recognized them from earlier in the week. These same people.

I stayed at a safe distance while he walked through the streets. I was truly more afraid that he would see me than anything else. I was so scared and ashamed and yet I was compelled to follow and watch. They got some big, black man to carry the cross the last bit. Jesus was just too weak. Jesus hung on the man for support. It was a terrible thing to witness.

The crowd pressed in as we left the city and the cheering and ranting from people was like a drunken brawl. People were falling all over themselves to see what was happening. I became aware of the blood that I was walking in. It smelled of urine and blood and horse and anger. I could barely breath. I pulled myself to the side to try and find some space and then I saw him. I guess I never really noticed the crucifixions that I had seen before. We always just hurried right by . They had nailed Jesus to the cross beams. Hands and feet. He was trying to breathe and scream. I hardly recognized him. He no longer looked like himself. If I had not been following him for the past hour I would have said that this could not be Jesus. I can´t tell you more. His face was bloody and torn. His cheeks were almost off his face so you could see the bones in his face. His convulsions to breath shook his whole body. I was drawn to move closer. There was more room as the people moved away. I saw some looking sad. I saw some looking angry. They were yelling up at him. There was so much going on. The other men being killed were on separate crosses beside him. He was in the middle. I did not see you but I saw many of your brethren. They said what they had to say and left. The wind was howling so loud. Or maybe it was  the sound of my thoughts and dreams and hopes and beliefs being sucked out of me. The soldiers were everywhere, pushing people and keeping the crowd moving.

One climbed up and put some sign on his cross. I did not understand what it meant. I was looking at him. I could not look but for short periods of time. He was being pulled apart, muscle by muscle, ligament by ligament. I found myself standing next to his mother. He was trying to talk to her. She looked like she wanted to fly up to his side, she was so out stretched to him. My head was reeling from the smell and noise. I think I blacked out. I do not remember. Next thing I remember, they were taking him down off the cross. It was so dark but was not yet Shabot. They had to hurry,that is clear. Mary, his mother, grabbed him and held him. He was nothing to hold. He was a bloody shell of what was once a man. She held his body to herself and screamed such a scream as I will hear in my head until I die. I have never heard a human make such a sound. It seemed to go on forever. The soldiers backed off and we surrounded her as the people wrapped his remains for transport. Like in a fog, I followed. That is when I saw you, at a distance. You were leading the way to the tomb. The next thing I saw was the stone rolled to close the tomb. You left. Mary stayed for a while and then left with some men. I was frozen stiff. I could not move. The centurion came and hit me with his shield to drive me off. I stumbled through the under brush and rocks on my way back into the city.

I sat down in a dark corner somewhere just inside the gate. There was no noise. I never never why, all of a sudden, the whole city stopped. It was like a very long inhale. I looked up and where there were usually stars, there was a blanket of black over the sky. I turned and saw a man siting very close to me. I recognized him. Judas was sitting on the ground, in the dark, just inside the gate. I asked him where he had been. He said that he had seen everything. He would not look at me but talked looking straight ahead. He said that he had hoped for change and was sorry. He made no sense. I could not understand him. He looked at me. He handed me the purse he had always carried. It was heavy. He said for me to give it to Mary, his mother. He got up. I started to ask him something but he put his finger to his mouth as if to silence me. He ran out the gate into the night.

Dread hung on the city all night. I wondered through the streets with no rhyme or reason. I looked for the others all day today. A few of us met outside the city in the grotto where we often bathed. We are there now. There is talk that more will join us. Peter arrived about an hour ago. No one dares talk to him, he is so despondent and remorseful. Where are you? We could sure use some of your wisdom and guidance tonight. My thoughts go to Mary tonight. Here at the end of all things, it is Mary that carries the deepest loss and pain. She is said to be on the way to us this evening. We have known him for about 3 years. She was there at the start. What a horrible end! Come soon!

J

Every weekday morning a bus would come and take us, the children from the neighborhood, to school. In the Bucket called “Allocation of funds for adequate School District transportation vehicles”, my neighborhood scraped the bottom. This was my first real experience with School Bus Culture, (hereafter, SBC). To the uninitiated, only Freemasonry rivals the intricacies and subtleties inherent to SBC.

First, the large, orange, monolithic transportation device arrived. Its proximity intuitively measured by the increased resonating pitch produced by the drinking glasses in our kitchen cabinets. Then, as if on cue, all the animals in the forest converge. Most of the indigenous life forms from our particular Savannah exited their hovels and dens. Thus introducing the most intricate and complex of all the native customs. The ritual of  the Parting. Those, allotted to stand guard and protect the den and so remaining behind, gave off peculiar sounds of encouragement. For the most part, the sounds were imitations of high birdlike calls communicating heartfelt affection and hope to their young. Each one wishing their offspring well and a hope for a bright future. Others were more reticent in expressing  external support in full view of the eyes of the Savannah. Simple and rather stiff movements of the hand communicated all that was needed. Most of the larger animals, of which I was numbered, simply exited their domains with no visible signs of support from the pack. Support was, therefore, taken for granted or not expected.

One did not, however,simply approach said large transportation device without regard of consequence. Being new to the Savannah, I was still learning the pecking order by which one transitioned onto this bearer of all things unbearable. Gaining the ascent to the platform came with no small risk to life and limb. While ascending, one was painfully aware of the positioning of nose to backside of your predecessor. It also left ones hind parts open to evaluation which contributed to the innate insecurities attributed especially to this particular species. Upon ascension, you approached Her. She was the Gate Keeper.Your worthiness to enter was ,in some way, calculated by this Keeper of the Gate. And either by a deep, psychic intuition or a powerful, unconscience subjectivism bred by the anger of, at a young age , love gone a miss, the Keeper of the Gate deemed you worthy or not so. It was clear, after witnessing not a few failed attempts, that offerings to the Keeper, burnt or otherwise, were not blessed. It became so that silence and reverence while passing the Keeper yielded her most beneficent spirit.

After admittance had been granted, the vista painfully morphed into a variety of obstacles, corporeal and incorporeal. Before a place of repose could be unearthed it was deemed the right of passage to push and shove and grunt and groan your way through the minions of Jr.High purgatory. This was the place of holding. This mobile receptacle reserved for those between a rock and a hard place, between hell and high water, between the 14th and 15th year of life on planet earth served as the link. It was the conduit by which we , the uneducated, would be later inserted into the uterus of educational fertility. This container of the best and the worst of our generation was, however, full of others. From neighboring Savannahs, young men and women looked similar but did not smell or act familiar. Some were obviously Tree Dwellers. They had a lofty, airness about them that inhibited trust and limited conversation. Others were clearly murky Water Dwellers. These had scaley, aquiline features that required the constant wiping of the frontal lobe in the hopes of the capture of some supposed moisture. If it were in my power, I would usually attempt at some hybrid solution. I would sit next to or around a group of Hovel, Den Dwellers like myself with just a hint of Tree Dwellers. I loved their syntax.

    She always wanted to listen to ” Me and Mrs. Jones”.

Perhaps this is where my uneasiness began with the inabilities Americans have in deciding if “I”or “Me” have a thing going on. Elton John rose to unimaginable heights during 1974 with the phrase”Daniel, my brother. You are older than “me”. It must have been easier rhyming “me” with “heals” than the more grammatically correct “I”. Who knows. He made millions with that song. I digress.

She played the Billy Paul album and always ,only,“Me and Mrs.Jones”.

I can, to this day, hear this song and see their single wide
mobil home. I can still smell the baby lotion and
wood polish mix that hung in the air. The polish, copious amounts of it ,
was applied to the thinly panelled inside walls as if to augment value and worth to a relationship void of respect and love. It was there, just there, I stood looking at the pictures. A large, gregariously inverted pyramid of images. With a flagrant disregard to the function and meaning of frames, there were images of her and her husband, their parents, (I assumed) and their little girls. Everyone was smiling. The memory of someone obnoxiously whining the word “cheese” hung in the air, irrefutably adding a slight hint of a yellowish hue to all the photographs. Olan Mills had done it again. Another satisfied customer.

They had come over, a few times, to visit us after church. They were a nice family. We had, it seemed, just moved to Northern California. My mom was always very friendly and loved to entertain. In my later years I understood her loneliness better than I did at the time. It was damp and cold and raining all the time. I discovered Johnny Carson´s ” The Late Show”and on Friday nights, ” The Midnight Special”. I felt like I could depend on Johnny to usher me , every night, into my nocturnal retreat. It seems like I slept a lot. My bedroom was just off the living room, down at the far side. In place of a door there hung some long beads. When they came for a visit she would just show up at my door and talk to me. She was nice. She was, I learned, one of the reasons I was living with my father.

My room had one window. My room was shaped like the roof with a prominent downward slope.  The window looked like a regular window. A 5 sided box of sorts. I enjoyed looking out through my window.  Jeff, the son of my father´s wife, had an identical room on the other side of the hallway. A stairway leading down to the living room divided the rooms. He was two years younger than I. He had the same size room and same size window that I had. I always notice windows. I have always been aware of space outside. Perhaps because of my asthma, I always equated breathing with what one did easier outside, as it was usually a struggle inside.

I was 5, the first time I remember windows . My mother ran to the piano and laid the glass ornaments on the floor. She scooped me up and we stood under the door frames . The windows rattled as the earthquake from Alaska rocked our house. I remember the rattling of the windows the most. It was like they wanted to come out of their frames. It sounded like people laughing.  The next window I remember was a car window. I watched my father walk away from our car and get into another car. Those windows did not seem to laugh.

It has followed me, this window watching. I will lose myself in the nothing I see through a window. Like small frames that capture moments of nothing, nothing has captured my attention since I can remember. Sitting, then, on the floor in my upstairs bedroom; the guitar propped up between my knees as I look out the window, it seemed like “nothing ” was better out there. “Nothing” was going to be alright out there. “Nothing”needed to be a certain way when I looked out there. “Nothing” was disappointed or confused when I looked. The telescope of my window, during my stay with my father and his wife and her son, would shift-shape into a microscope, later in life. What I saw through my window, then,  balanced with what I saw in me; through the house; in the nothing that was my heart.

Cascade Jr. High was a big school. It was a much bigger school than I had ever attended. I took my 7th grade year in Santa Clara, Ca. We had lived in the Bay Area since I was 5. We moved in the summer and I started my 8th grade year in Eureka, Ca. It was not working out so the remainder of my 8th grade year I went to live in a suburb of Seattle, Washington with my father. I remember, my first or second day of school, being approached by three rather aggressive young men my age. Their sole desire in approaching me was to know if I wanted to fight. I ended up talking my way out of the fight. I was a big kid and made a large target for those who spoke with their hands. It was a unique form of sign language that I learned quickly. I joined the basketball team and the concert band thereby cementing the  association I have always made between the physicality of music and the musicality of sports. It seemed at the time,however, that I was far too physical to fit into the band and far to musical to fit into the sporting world. The only thing left for me to do was fight. At this, I had no real experience. I remember one evening in particular. In the kitchen, after he had returned home from work, my father was giving me pointers. He was demonstrating how one could feign indifference to the would-be assailants and then turning on them in a brief but decisive maneuver. The object was to cause significant but not lethal injury to the area around the nose so as to render the opponent incapable of retaliation. My father´s wife and her son and I were seated at the kitchen table. He commanded our utmost attention.  My father was 6 feet 6 inches and 250 lbs. He practically filled up the small kitchen by himself. My father was deeply intent on equipping me with the most up to date information in stealth techniques used at the eighth grade level. He used me as a substitute bad guy, to show me what I needed to do and how to act. He was so intense and  scared me so I thought I was going to pee my pants. I was excited, I let it be known, to experiment with these new techniques at the next available opportunity.

My Pitts come into my life just around this time. One day, as fate would have it, I was running away from a group of young men. One of them had a bloody nose. I ran into the school office and the first man I saw I asked a simple but impassioned question. ” Can you help me, please”. He said he could and ushered me into his office. He was the head of the guidance councellors for the school. Mr. Pitts, it would turn out, would become a friend and help to me through a rough patch of life. Even when I learned that he called and talked, regularly, to my Father to inform him of my insecurities and progress, I knew that he had my back and that meant a lot to me at the time.

Besides learning the intricacies of living with my father and his wife and her son, I learned to play the guitar. Alone in my bedroom, I was introduced to the joy and frustration of disciplining my fingers to approximate guitar playing. I checked a book out of the library that diagramed chords and fingerings. I learned to play all the songs of “Bread” and ” Paul Simon”. My father´s second wife, Rae, had a brother. He lived close to us and he taught me how to solo through some basic jazz chords. I was exhilarated and felt completely affirmed as we surfed the mild currents of the jazz world. Micky, my almost uncle, playing rhythm. I , with my head tilted back pretending to be anywhere else, was filling those all too infrequent evenings with music. I loved my guitar. If I registered love at all to anyone those days I guess I loved Mickey.

Mickey was a salesman at a large Ford dealership. My father worked there, as well. My father was a selling artist. I loved to watch my father sell cars. I loved to watch my father talk to people. My father was my very first exposure to an artist. He could absolutely convince you that he believed everything he said.  He made everyone with whom he spoke feel as if they were the most important people on the planet. It was clear to me, through stringent observation and first person data retrieval, that at any moment, regarding any topic, my father could actually, fully and unequivocally believe something for the immediate benefit of those with whom he was speaking. Some might have seen this as a liability or character flaw. I am quite sure they did. I was learning at the feet of a master.

In the back yard there was an enormous Weeping Willow tree.  My father lived in a two storied space. Two bedrooms above. Master bedroom below with kitchen and living room.. Unique was it not. All the houses looked alike. Located in a rustic, rural setting, large houses were old and past their initial intentions. There were only 10 houses in the entire neighborhood. Like an enormous al- anon meeting, each house told their story of failure and the promise of redemption. The abused sections getting their perfunctory gutter replacement. The confusion of mixed iron, wood and brick facades. The obligatory installation of a skylight over the kitchen. Like a  bizarre self -help group, all 10 houses witnessed to the  the sins of the architect being passed on to the 3rd and 4th generation. And always this tree. I remember the immediate area being dominated by this tree; an enormous Weeping Willow tree.

It was winter. The branches were many.  Like the fingers of a hundred old ones in their beds, all long and bare; the expectation of movement that never came; Frozen in some sleep induced memory of action. Long, arching, seemingly dead branches that mocked more than wept. Absolutely impractical for use. The summer months of hiding among the branches were practically a lifetime away. It was not of the sort in which houses were built. You were simply allowed the devastating honor of meandering through its tentacles and listening to the thin, weazened echo of voices at play among its fluid, green curtain.

You approached the Tree from either the back porch or the path between the house and the garage. The porch was a poor excuse for an addition to a house. I was reminded of places I had visited where rooms were built in which you could not stand up straight. It was meant as an optical illusion. In my house it was the price you paid to make it into the back yard. As the one and only toilette was located on the porch, it gave new meaning to being pissed off. One had to aim to be pissed on.