May 108

       Needing lunch, I headed for my truck. I never got lunch--got a clear calling to go to the orchard. That's how it goes for we old souls: We get a clear calling, we go--go to the end of our ropes if need be. And if we starve to death going to said end, well then, that's the way we'll go. 
       Heading for the orchard I spied something that made me hungrier still--Apolena picnicking on the gallery patio. 

       Omen. 

       Omens were always challenging for the old soul. One; they were difficult to interpret. Two; they were difficult to rate. 

       Maybe it was my light head--due to starvation--made lighter still by the hunger I had for angel Apolena, here, forking food into that all too mortal mouth of hers, but I decided to place all callings on hold, and go the way of omen. 
       "Apolena," I said, detouring onto the patio, "how does the sun find you on this fine day?"
       "It has found me," she said, securing her fork behind her back. "Bright in the garden today."
       I plopped my dusty boot on the bench of her picnic table. "Ya, and I bet all that bright makes for much burning."
       Apolena looked confused.
       "Burning," I said. "Your eyes; they're burning in the sun, right?"
       "Oh, yes," she said, smiling. "But not burning much." Apolena raised her fork, stirred the air in front of her eyes. "Do they look burning today?"
       "No, but they do look hot." Normally, I wouldn't have been so fresh with a girl. But this was Apolena, fresh from the Czech Republic. There, most likely, 'hot' didn't mean sexy; just meant a lot of Fahrenheit.
       "Anton, you know Ezra?"
       "Sure, he's your Photo prof."
       "I like Ezra's corners." Apolena pointed her fork at each of her high cheekbones. "When Ezra smiles lines get in his corners. Sabina in Photo says Ezra has eyes from bedroom. I never heard this. Is that what Ezra has; eyes from bedroom?"
       Before answering, I had to, one, damn Ezra; two, smile my ass off. Hard to damn a guy, though, when one's smiling so hard ones corners hurt. 
       "From bedroom?" I said. "Sabina must be mistaking lines for wrinkles. No, Ezra's eyes may have been from the bedroom at some point. Of course, now, they're well on their way over the hill."
       Apolena stuck her fork in her food container, took a bite. Watching her chew I felt that tug again to go to the orchard. But how could I leave Apolena now, swimming in the bedroom of Ezra's eyes? So I hit her with my usual: A barrage of Czech Republic questions.
       Between bites, Apolena answered my questions. For a twenty-two-year-old she had a mature perspective on life. In our first talk she had talked consumerism; couldn't believe all the junk her material-girl peers were lusting after here in the states. Today, she was all bent out of shape over Americans wastefulness.
       "I couldn't believe my eyes," she said, referring to what she'd witnessed recently in a Book Arts workshop. "The instructor showed us how to make a medium base out of the yellow . . . how do you say; the yellow of egg?"
       "Yolk," I said.
       "Yes, yolk. And she used, I think, twenty-four yolk. And then she just threw in the garbage the, ah, how do you say; the white?"
       "Egg whites."
       "Yes, whites. I couldn't believe. She just threw all white away. In my country we'd never throw white away. We waste nothing. We stir white into some . . . something to eat."
       "Here's the deal, Apolena; in America it's patriotic to waste. Why? Because waste is the engine of our greed-based economy. Still, though, life in the states ain't all bad. How about you; ever think of moving here?"
       "I'd like to. But they won't let me to."
       But they won't let me to. 
       Apolena went on detailing immigration laws, but I couldn't follow her; my mind busy tying my hands behind my back. No, a Czech Republican opens her mouth; six words of English come out. And all the wasteful American male wants to do is wrap his preserving arms around that flashbulb of innocence; never let it go out.
       Hands secured, I talked Apolena through her lunch. And, I would have talked longer, but the Photo Major had to get back in the dark--the dark room.
       With Apolena walking off to the east, I wanted to yell out, "Ya, well, maybe I got a place to get to myself." I didn't yell out because, in truth, I couldn't think of a place I had to get to. Yes, hard to think when a guy's starving to death and his food source is walking off. In lieu of thinking, I stared at the panel at the base of the gallery.

       This panel was in need of paint. I liked panels in need of paint because in them I'd see stuff. No, I couldn't tell you what some bloke from the old world might have seen, but I was American--and starving to boot--and what I saw was an Indian brave banging his own head with his own tomahawk. But, wait; his other hand was pointing East. Which reminded me of something North I'd plumb forgot. 
       

       Entering the orchard I slowed. Because the two acre filbert orchard had been left to go, it had gone the way of nature preserve; dragonflies darting about, squirrels doing their high-wire acts, jays grab-assing in the canopy, steeling one anothers nuts.
       Years ago a matron of the arts--on a whim--bought an overgrown filbert orchard. Why? "Because I liked the spirit of the place." When ACCW needed a bigger campus, she gave the school the ten acre orchard to build their new college upon. Why? "Because I thought the spirit of the place and creativity would make good bedfellows." Her only stipulation: Leave two acres of the orchard to go. Why? "So the spirit of the place might have a place, boneheads." 
       And, oh, what a priceless place that orchard left-to-go turned out to be. Not only a sanctuary for wildlife, but a place to go for every cut of human imaginable. 
       When I started working at the college, I'd go to the orchard to hide. Turned out the orchard wasn't a good place to hide; always someone or another nosing about. In the mornings it was the open palms of the fertile earth mamas, blessing every bird and bee. In the afternoons it was the closed fists of sterile city-slickers, cursing every path for leading them in circles. Yet, exiting the orchard, these same slickers couldn't see their soiled shoes for the treasure of nature they carried in their open palms.
       Curious, I started surveying the orchard goers. "I needed to get out of doors," most would say. "How I ended up down in the orchard, I don't know."
       Professor Ned, the closest thing we had to a scientist at the art school--and, by the way, the most successful artist on our faculty--would say, "That's because the orchard lies below the studios, and humans, like apples, fall."
       My take was less Newtonian. I believed humans were drawn to the orchard because humans, not all that long ago, had taken a wrong turn. A turn out of the open bog of spirit, a turn into the closed culvert of science. And now we gravitated towards overgrown orchards, empty lots and whatnot, because the spirit was there, the spirit we'd turned our backs on, the spirit we longed for now that our mad science experiment had wrung the heart out of us.
       I pulled out my pad and pen, wrote, "Inside we are children; indoors we are lost. Outdoors we are open, sense something is that way. Home is that way. So we go the way of the overgrown orchard because hope is that way, the arms of our mother are that way; the warmth that will enclose us before it gets dark."
       
       Descending into the orchard, I stopped for a time in the five clearings that served as classrooms for the college's summer camp for kids. Perhaps what had called me to the orchard had come and gone, for though I looked high and low I saw nothing out of the ordinary. Oh, I saw a gleam in a thicket, thought that was my good fortune.

       But, having thrust my hand into the thicket--to collect my good fortune, I could see I had erred; just a broken beer bottle some art student had thrown against the barrel of cast concrete--that monstrous campus ashtray I'd rolled all to hell down here years ago. Oh, the hells I went through years ago. Of course, I wasn't the type of guy who kicked himself over the hells of years ago. I was the type of guy who embraced today. 
       Licking the blood from my thumb, I searched out that patch of tall grass pressed flat by a certain someones sweet bottom. Yes, pressed flat just yesterday. No more had I taken a stand in that blessed circle when I heard a bird song rising from the bramble: "Here for years, for your tears."
       I was a birder of sorts, and we birder of sorts sought to identify what bird have you. I bent over, but couldn't spot the bird for the bramble.
       Here for years, for your tears.
       If memory served, it was the song of the Golden Crowned Sparrow.
       I heard in my head, then, another golden birdsong: "Every one has little bugs inside." The clean voice of the orchard woman was so familiar I had to look into it.
       Walking out of the orchard, I filed through the voices of the women of my past. Who had had that clean voice? 
       "Every one has little bugs inside."
       But no, I couldn't place the clean voice, nor could I see the dirty stepping stones I was scissor-stepping along. All I could see was the orchard woman, sent down upon this hard planet to soften my stay. So what if she's but twenty-one. Hell, I was born in December. That entitled me to a little May every now and again, right?

****

Pulp 109

       Sundays were good days to work. The bulk of students didn't get up till noon, didn't get on campus till two. The bad thing about Sundays were the non students--the after-church families. It went like this: Mom went into the Craft Shop to "Do a little shopping." That left dad outside to watch the boys for an hour.
       Today, in front of The Center, I had two dads watching their two boys building a fort in my evergreen azaleas. Approaching, I panned the dad with the dark shirt and yellow tie. The other dad--in a white shirt and black tie--was even scarier. Inspired, I dropped my wheelbarrow beside the azaleas going the way of fort.
       No, I wasn't out to take no dads to school on parenting--studies show, dads were through with school; I was out to milk these dads of acid. That's right, men in ties were next to extinct in the Great Northwest, and I, the creative writer, was out to extract some DNA before they died off. Some called this stealing. I called it keeping an eye out for the oddballs of a culture that I might capture the idiomatic phrase, use it in my fiction to spank my readers awake. For, as all writers know; a spanked reader is a reader turning pages.
       I quick-drew my pad and pen, set the scene: "How finished these men in ties looked. So finished they looked faux. Their dress shirts fitted to their gym-ripped chests, their hair fitted to their gunboat skulls, even their eyebrows so meticulously cut into position they looked like pasties."
       Now to capture some dapper-speak. "Blah blah blah," the one man was saying, "dug up some old suit from some old case."
       "Blah blah blah," the other man responded, "certain to throw out said suit."
       At first I thought the men were trashing a fellow oddball's outfit. But then the singular phrasing, "said suit," sunk in. Ah, legal-speak. Sure, a couple of lawyers, talking shop.
       Dejected--little spank in legalise, I pocketed my pad and pen. 
       Picking up my wheelbarrow, I caught the black-and-white dad throwing me an incriminating eye. I threw an eye right back. An eye that said, "True, I was out to steal from you. Too bad you had nothing of value." I thought that funny, and was about to laugh, but the snap, crack, crunch, coming from my azaleas got me pissed, so I threw the black-and-white dad a follow-up eye. "Hey," my eye said, "I'm not the criminal here." And away I went, wheeling my barrow off in a huff. 
       My sure-fire cure for culling anger was to find a mess on campus, sweep it up. Wheeling through the corridor alongside Drawing, I envisioned the snowdrop tree growing out of the hole in the Fibers patio. In my vision the tree was quite big, the mess it had made, bigger still. No, I couldn't wait to get broom in hand, shove those leaves and nuts into perfect piles.  
       Coming out of the corridor, I faced reality. Not only was the snowdrop tree quite small, but this time of year--mid September, there was no mess. Oh, sure, there were some nuts. But a dozen nuts the size of cherry pits hardly made for a pile.
       Let's see, there was that spill of paper pulp dried to the patio. Of course, that required getting down on a knee. No, I was in need of therapy; not hard labor. That's when I spied the Dye Studio. Boy, the spiders sure had gone to town on those windows. No, if it's therapy you're after, sweeping away the cobwebs is as good as it gets.  
       Cobbing, my keen peripherals detected someone standing across the way. I didn't look over. This someone, staring me down, was troubling, sure, but not as troubling as said someones clothes--black and white clothes. 
       Cobbing, my stressed brain went to town. No, the only thing to do when you got a black-and-white lawyer about to sue your ass off is to sue his ass off first. 
       "How, your honor? How can a lawyer create a hostile work environment for a groundskeeper? Well, he stared me down for the entire time it took to cob Dye. How, your honor? How did I know said lawyer was sending hostility my way? Well, I guess, by all the hostility I was sending his way." 
       Cradling my broom like a rifle, I turned to politely ask the black-and-white bastard to get the hell off my campus--something my superiors told me I had every right to ask.
       Imagine my surprise when said black-and-white bastard wasn't said lawyer--wasn't a person, even. Just some yarn art that had gone up recently.  

       The Fiber major responsible for the yarn art, Brittany, was the kindest, sweetest girl on campus. After my brush with the law, I'd become hardened; would likely sue her ass off. 
       "How, your Honor? How can an art student create a hostile work environment for the groundskeeper? Well, a groundskeeper's got ground to keep. How can he keep his eye on all that ground when he's got to worry over which limb that mean girl's going to hang her art from next?" 
        It was then that my eye caught movement inside Fibers. Oh, it was the weekend workshop participants moving into Surface Design. But wait; who was that moving in with them? Cry me a creed! It was her; The Woman Of The Orchard, climbing up, sitting on a padded surface-design table.
       It was then that I accidentally bumped into the snowdrop tree. Accidentally bumped into it again. Damn, and now I had made a mess for myself. 
       Boy, sweeping a nut across a patio can sure get a guy stiff in the neck. No, a guy must roll his head often to keep his neck from locking up. And if, in the course of rolling head, a guy's eyes pan a bank of Fibers windows, well, you can't blame a guy's eyes for taking some fiber in. And if, in the course of taking some fiber in, a guy's eyes get fixed on a certain finger stirring a stub of a pony tail, well, you can't blame the guy for positioning himself favorably in what fantasy have you.
       Perfecting my pile, I fantasized how I worked at a school for girls--a finishing school for girls. And, oh, what a curriculum we offered. Where the adjunct professors taught the girls how to put themselves together, I--the sole professor with tenure--taught a girl how to stir her pony tail till it came undone. 
       Admiring my pile, my finishing fantasy was interrupted by a middle-aged woman coming out of the Fiber's door. She planted a buttock on the outdoor ashtray, lit up.
       I was inching my way away from the smoke, when the door opened again. Out came The Woman Of The Orchard--out to chat with the smoking elder.
       I was inching my way towards the smoke, when I spied that patch of pulp under the table. Removing a glove, I got down on a knee, took a slow finger to it.

       "Thanks for inviting me to lunch," the smoking elder said, her voice dirty as a male. "It's been ages since I've picnicked, and in such a lovely setting."
       "I know," the younger said, her voice clean as an angel. "I love the orchard."
       How about that? An angel had been in the orchard at the very hour I'd received that clear calling to go to the orchard. Damn, why hadn't I followed through with my clear calling?
       Getting off my knee that I might better kick myself in the ass, it came to me; I wasn't to blame. Apolena was to blame. Damned Czech Republican; coming between me and my orchard calling.
       Dragging my feet, I headed back to my pile. 
       "Do it," I had my shovel say as I positioned it to receive my pile.
       "Do what?" I said, sweeping my nuts into my shovel.
       "Write the Czech bitch out of your life. Lord knows you've written women off for lesser offenses."
       That old shovel of mine, what a sage time had made of it. Ya, maybe it was time I got me a new Czech Republican.

****

Hemlines 110

       Driving home, in defeat, I took to warding off depression by looking for something to look forward to. Mmm, tonight was chicken-thigh stew night. Though no pork shoulder I decided to make the most out of chicken thighs by stating with conviction, "I always looked forward to chicken-thigh stew night."
       Home, I sat in my kitchen nook, watched the house fly bang his head against the bare bulb. Bored with the banging, I looked in my saucepan, sized up the two thighs circling one another like bare-backed wrestlers out of Iowa. As usual, I put my money on the smaller.
       "Boil, bastard, boil."
       Thighs dancing in pan, I set about chopping vegetables. Chopping, I could feel the eyes of Sarah Bernhardt looking out from my wallpaper. Though the actress wasn't allowed to speak until spoken to, usually, by now, I'd be using her as an appetizer: The pile of curls upon her head, the gardenia above her ear, that pull of her little finger upon her lip.
       And why had I taken no notice of the actress? In part, because I'd had enough of women for one day. In part, because the actress was always making an ass of me. In part, because I needed to prepare my defense, so when I finally allowed the dead actress to speak, I could come out of the tangle with dignity.
       This little game I played of an evening was simply a writing exercise I'd drummed up to hone my dialoguing skills. The trick was to relinquish control, allow the fictional character to come to life, speak for herself. And, yes, I'd become so accomplished at my craft I had little to no control over what my antagonist would say of an evening. That's what made my little exercise engaging--if not a little scary.
       And, no, this little game I played of an evening, wasn't symptomatic of a human going over the edge. It was symptomatic of an artist going to the edge. We creative types hovered over edges out of necessity. For edges were where artists got stuff--the good stuff, anyway. Sure, the artist could make art without going to the edge, but that art didn't involve creativity; it involved stealing.
       Waiting on my stew, I grabbed the book I liked to read when starving. This novel, Hunger, was first published in 1890. I must have read it twenty times. All my favorite novels were published before 1920, and I kept reading them over and over. Sure, I was hungry for something new to read, but there was little to no fiction published these days that I could read. In truth, that's why I wrote; so I'd have something to read. 
       What else I liked about this book was the embossing. Before reading, I liked to take a finger, run it over the little dog on the cover. No, I had little to no love of dogs, but this dog was blue, and not real, so I rather liked petting it. 
       Before opening Hunger, I got the bright idea of shoving the book in Sarah's face. She was already pissed that I'd taken no notice of her, and I--up for some engaging dialogue--was out to piss her off some more.

       I opened Hunger, pored over the words like a girl pores over a rack at Nordstrom. No, you want to get an actress steamed, just show her what you worshiped before her.
       
       My stew cooked, I took a bite of thigh--yes, the smaller back out of Iowa had won first bite. Chewing, I looked up, made as if I'd noticed something. "Oh, Sarah," I said, smacking, "was that you, or just the house fly banging his head against me bulb?"
       Sarah was so pissed I could hardly make sense of what she was ranting on about. Something about a snowstorm outside, a red-nosed clown inside. But then she dropped the line, "Taint a fit night out for man nor muse."
       This line was from a W.C. Fields movie. WC says, "Taint a fit night out for man nor beast," then throws his dog out into the blizzard. Sarah had cleverly substituted muse for beast in light of the point that she thought I, having talked to my muse--a no-no by the codes of courtly love--had thrown my muse to the dogs.
       My defense well prepared, I pointed my spoon at Sarah. "You know what your problem is, Bernhardt? You're hung up on the wall of history. That's right; dead for so long you don't know up from down."
       Sarah didn't say anything.
       "Take hemlines, Sarah. You wouldn't believe how hemlines have gone up, come down, since they buried you in that ankle-length dress of yours."
       Sarah looked at me as if she didn't know where I was going with this.
       "What I'm saying, Sarah, is that courtly love is a lot like fashion; certain decades permitting more leg than others. Which is to say--in these waning days of the twentieth century--it's totally OK for an artist to talk to his muse."
       "How convenient," I had Sarah say. "You screw up, and you change codes as old as Hammurabi to suit your screw-ups. Like I say, some old soul you are."
       "Listen, you relic, I'm not tossing out hemlines altogether. Though we artists of today are allowed to talk to our muse--even get to know her, if we are so disposed--still, a line must be drawn. And that line is clearly this: The artist must never lay as much as a finger on said muse. Why? Because if he does, then she . . . then the muse in her up and dies."
       "That's a cumbersome saying," Bernhardt said. "Perhaps you wanted to say, 'Touch the muse; torch the muse.'"
       Say, that was better. I opened my journal, wrote it down.
       
       After doing dish, I boiled some water, threw in a bag of chamomile, carried my saucepan over to my laptop. My goal: Prove to Bernhardt--and myself--my muse wasn't dead.
       I clicked opened my Great Work, read aloud the first sentence--all I had so far. "I rather liked my horse, but then a certain finger stirring a certain ponytail roped me, and that's how I lost me horse."
       Proud, I looked up at Sarah. "Is that a killer first sentence, or what?"
       Sarah didn't say anything.
       I looked down at my killer sentence. "No, Sarah, you just don't get a sentence of that caliber without a working muse working your ear. Not to say it was all my muse's doings. Sure, she came up with the meat of the sentence; the horse part, but when it came to bait for my better reader--the clever ponytail part--that was all my doing."
       "Ponytail?" Bernhardt said. "What better reader's going to bite on a ponytail? Ha, ha."
       I looked down. Mmm, perhaps a ponytail was a bit juvenile. I deleted the ponytail part, which left me with a certain finger stirring a certain . . . what?
       I remembered something then. Something pressing I needed to turn to. No, my Thursday night Writing Circle was approaching and my short story needed work. So I clicked open my ex-wife story, started throwing the garbage out in that.
       
       Bored with forty-something ex-lovers, I went into my kitchen nook, picked up my chair of power, carried it to my closet, positioned it just so. Here, between door jams, I'd sit and meditate. Here, in my place of power, I'd wield my will and whatnot.
       Before sitting, I liked to throw a cold eye into the corner I never went in, where stood the chair I never sat in. That blue fish chair I wanted no part of because it was bad.
       The good chair I sat in was more like a short stool, with a short back on it. Because one couldn't lean back in the chair without falling over, I'd learned to position the chair in the doorway of my closet, using the one jamb as a backrest, the other jamb to brace a knee against. Yes, wedged between jambs like that, one could sit for hours.
       Positioning my body just so, I rolled my neck, engaged my breathing, shut down my thoughts, tuned to my favorite program: Silence.
       Wait. I'd never expressed it just so. I got up, lifted my journal, wrote, "Silence, my favorite program."
       I looked back at my beat-up chair posing between door jambs.

       I had acquired my chair-of-power in college--stole it from college if memory served. Though worse for ware, the chair was exactly the right height for my bend of leg, so I'd held onto her. But the old girl sure was getting to be high maintenance. No, I'd patched her back together so many times with wire and makeshift dowels that every time I sat on her, now, she'd creak and moan. A real tester for meditation. Hard to breath your way up your chakras when the old girl you're sitting on is begging you to put her out of her misery. 
       Which reminded me; time to turn in. I laid down on my floored futon, turned out the light, told myself a bedtime story.
       But my eyes, they're burning in the sun.
       No, too much glare for a bedtime story. I rolled over, covered my eyes, told a story with a darker theme.
       Every one has little bugs inside.

****

Eyes 111

       A good way to fall asleep is to review what one knows. Why? Because to review what one knows is to bore oneself to death, and death makes for some good sleep.
       I knew at 3 years old Smoky the cat was there for me. I knew at 4 I had thinking to do. At 5, my color was blue. At 6, my number was 22. At 7, I'd marry an Indian princess when I got big. At 8, I'd be a big game hunter when I got big. At 9, I'd be a Minnesota Viking when I got big. At 10, I'd run away before I got big. At 11 I learned--the hard way--I'd best wait till I got big to run away. It was settled; at 18 I'd leave home and my life would begin.
       Who knew so many numbers were involved in what I knew? Something, for a guy who refused to give math the time of day.
       For the next several years I knew nothing, for I was going in, coming out of puberty. By the time that storm blew over, it was 1968 and I found myself in a rock band. This afforded me the luxury of being discerning where girls were concerned. Where my band buddies were banging every groupie who leaned on an amp, I only chased after the girls who knew better than to mess with a musician.
       When I graduated highschool at 18 it was 1971 and the cut of girls I chased were concerned with something called The Equal Rights Amendment. I didn't know what that meant, exactly--I was caught up in something called The Draft. August 5th rolled round and I pulled number 101 out of the hat. It was close, but due to something called de-escalation, instead of dying for nothing in Vietnam, I got to start my life.
       I quit the band and off to college I went. Again, unlike my band buddies, I had no notches carved in my gunstock. I couldn't put my finger on it, exactly--why I hadn't jumped on the girls begging me to bang 'em, but I just had a sneaking suspicion to do so was to have notches carved out of me.
       A new number came to me driving to college. The number 7. That's right, I was to sleep with no more than 7 women in my lifetime. 
       "Choose wisely," I had said heading for the state line.
       I broke from my autobiography. No, I knew a whole lot more, but sleep reminded me I needed some now. I rolled over on my futon. "Nope," I told myself, "that's all you know. Now, go to sleep."
       I opened my eyes. I knew I was 46. I knew I'd been with six women. Time to step up to the plate, cash in on number 7.
       "Choose wisely," I said, getting up to pace.
       Pacing my apartment was a challenge. The four steps East, the four steps West, was more like turning circles. Dizzy, I sat down on my chair of power, stared at my phone.

       My movie buddy, Deirdre, had moved out of state, said she'd call when she got a new number. I willed her to call now.
       "Call, Deirdre, call."
       A year ago, I kept running into this tall blond at matinees. In time we started going to matinees together. In more time we started going to dinner before the movie, then out for a pint after. No, these weren't dates. How could they be dates? She wasn't my type. I wasn't her type.
       Something, though, how Deirdre and I got along. We could talk about anything, agree or disagree, but never did we fight. Why? Because of one little act left out of the equation--sex. That's right, without the impeachments tied to sex we never felt the need to fight.
       Oh, great; now I was thinking about sex. I got up and paced.
       A good way to stop thinking of sex is to think of something serious. So, I thought of my Great Work, that novel I'd been sent down to write.
       Dizzy, I stumbled over, picked up my journal, wrote, "At 46, I knew it wasn't so much that I'd failed to pen my Great Work as it was my muses who had failed me."
       I set down my journal, stepped over, opened my drawer of treasures, dug out my photo of a pair of eyes a girl had once sent me. At the time, the girl had been my girlfriend. The eyes were her way of telling me she was no longer my girlfriend. But the eyes Stephanie had sent me, weren't her own eyes. They were the eyes of a muse of mine.
       "No, Gia," I said now, staring into Gia's eyes, "no muse ever failed me more than you."
        I recalled then, the Saturday I'd brought home the biography of Gia Carangi. I couldn't read much that day because I had a dinner date with Stephanie. But I'd read enough to know Gia was gold where muse material was concerned.
       Driving over to my girlfriend's, I thought how tragic that Gia had died--died so young. More tragic still, that I had not crossed paths with the super model when still alive. No, had I gotten the chance to pass a word or two with her, I most likely would have saved her. After all, we writers of Great Works had no little way with words.
       At the restaurant, Stephanie could hardly eat for all she had to say about our future. I could hardly eat for the pad and pen I kept digging out that I might jot down yet another high-octane idea for my Gia-fueled Great Work. 
       A recurring problem I had with girlfriends was that I was too truthful. "What are you obsessing over now?" my girlfriend asked. "Gia," I answered. "Gia Carangi. Here, let me get her." 
       Perhaps it was in bad taste that I ran out of the restaurant, grabbed my Gia biography out of my glove box. Perhaps it was in bad taste that I set the book up on the table so my date and I could feast on Gia while we dined. 
       Sunday I read the entire biography. Turned out, as a muse, Gia fell short. No, it wasn't that she was a lesbian--I had a long history of getting crushes on lesbians. What killed the muse in Gia was the fact that she was a womanizer. How could I, a higher male, pedestal a girl who behaved in the very manner I most despised in my gender?
       A week after our threesome dinner date, I got some mail--a big manila envelope from Stephanie. In it was a break-up essay and some eyes ripped out of Vogue. "Here's your dead Gia," the essay ended. "Hope you two live happily ever after."
       And, oh, how those ripped-out eyes of Gia spoke to me. No, few eyes in our time could speak like Gia's. "I trust that you will love me," Gia's eyes were saying.
       But, wait; a new know had just come to me. No, it wasn't Gia herself who was saying, "I trust that you will love me." It was a force greater than Gia.
       I ran over, picked up my journal, wrote, "And God came down--not to look out for Gia; but to look out from Gia. 'I trust you will love me,' God had said through Gia. But mankind loved Gia's surface too much, and the God inside Gia died."

           ****

Vow 112

       Monday, my day off, I headed up to the college. No, I had no work to do--had a conflict to resolve.  
       Driving up, I found myself staring under the ass end of a bus--found the blue there comforting. That's what it was; the very blue I'd hunkered under in my youth. 
       When I was knee high to a grasshopper I'd pull my blue blankie over my head, hide. And, no, I had no favorite place to hide. Any corner would do--as long as it was far from the pain-in-the-ass parenting.  
       One day those pain-in-the-asses brought home something new. I came out of blue to check it out--I was hoping for a little brother to pound on. But, no, just a window box. I was going back to blue when the box came to life. That's the day I gave up my blankie, started sitting under the blue of the TV. 
       Back in the John Wayne '50's, every other show had cowboys in it. Whether black hats or white hats, these boys were in the business of driving wild horses into corrals. I had little to no love of horses, but I sure identified with something the wild horses had--spirit. 
       No, you want to give a kid a vocabulary, just set him under a TV. And for social skills, what better model than the TV Western. Nope, that's how adults carried on around the OK corral; shoot first, ask questions later. 
       Years later, in grade school, I was still getting the bulk of my education from the TV--still watching Westerns, still asking questions. 

       One day, blowing smoke from my toy six-shooter, I asked: Why are all these adults trying to make an adult of me? I'd been looking around my home town--fear filled adults in church pews, fear filled teachers in classrooms, fear filled parents in my neighborhood. Every adult was nothing short of a horse standing in a stall. Ya, a stall that was just big enough for a broken spirit to turn around in.
       That was that then, no adults were going drive me into no corral.  
       Oh, what an education I gave myself, asking questions, looking around.

       Years later, out of high school, I was still asking questions. Take the question I asked having driven myself to college: What kind of corral had I driven myself into? Clearly, college was for scorekeeping. You had your test scores over here. Your big-man-on-campus score over there. Further over, your hot-chick-in-the-sack score. No matter, the only score I kept told the real story--few had made it to college with their spirits intact.
       Success. 
       In the '70's college went like this: During the day you'd learn big words. In the evening you'd look into the TV to learn how to apply said words. In "Introduction to Liberal Arts," I learned the word disenfranchisement. On the TV show Kung Fu, I learned about the disenfranchisement of growing up in America. Where I was free to purchase a cheeseburger and a side of fries, Caine, growing up in China, was issued a spiritual master and a side of martial arts. 
       Kung Fu went like this: Caine, raised in the Far East, ships off to the spanking U.S. where he has run-ins with the black hats of the wild west. What I liked were the flashbacks--flashbacks Caine has of his master issuing forth sage words-to-live-by.
       "Grasshopper," Master would call Caine, then load Grasshopper's ear with sage. Of course, words-to-live-by didn't register with black hats of the wild west--black hats who were only in the market for words-to-die-by. So, in every episode, of course, reluctant Grasshopper had to go martial arts on their black-hat asses. Oh, that made for good TV; string-bean Grasshopper kicking burly butt from Deadwood to Dodge.
       

       The bus I'd been following veered right. I wanted to follow the comforting blue under it, but I veered left towards the college, had that conflict to resolve. Last night I'd been leafing through my journals, had come across the words of a sage: "Confronting conflict dissolves conflict. Putting conflict off, compounds conflict." No, you want to nip conflict in the bud, just fill your mouth with sage.   

       Which brought to mind another conflict I was way overdue in resolving. Ever since I was knee high to a grasshopper I had hated my middle name. And yet I had never seriously shopped for a new middle name. Now that I was up to my neck in middle age, it was time to make a purchase.

      Anton Sage Celadon. 
       
            
       

       
       
          Searching out a parking space on campus, I thought I'd give my new middle name a dry run. A good way is to drum up some dialogue. Yah, a dialogue a sage might have with some greenhorn grasshopper.

       Parking, I imagined a wannabe grasshopper approaching.

       Opening my pickup door, the green horn got in my face. "I need you--need a guru like there's no tomorrow."

       Climbing out of my truck I said, "Why a guru, son?"

       "I've grown disillusioned with society, find no food in its falseness. Want to find some real food--the food of truth." 

       "And where do you propose to find such food?"

       "I thought I might run away, live in a cave or something."

       "Well, for starters, Grasshopper, truth ain't about running away." 

       "Well, see, that's why I need you--need a master to guide me."

       "Well, that's all fine and dandy, but first you must prepare yourself."

       "Prepare?" said the greenhorn.

        "It's like this, Grasshopper; you can saddle a dead horse, but it aint going to get you out of Dodge."

       Grasshopper didn't say anything.

       "See," I said, "you want to run away from society because you fear society. Face your fears first, then you'll be prepared for the likes of me."

        "Mmm," Grasshopper said, "perhaps I've mistaken the likes of you."

       "Believe me, the only mistake you haven't made, is assessing the likes of me."

       "Oh, so you are a guru then?"

       "I am--Anton Sage Celadon, at your service."

       "Answer me this then, oh Master: What do grasshoppers eat?"

       "Well grasshoppers who live in caves eat bugs and bat shit. Grasshoppers who live in fields eat . . . well, grass, I guess."

       "No, grasshoppers eat sage. And you can't be my master, Anton Sage Celadon, because I'd eat you for lunch."

        

  
       Approaching The Center, I felt my face heat up. Vowing to search out a less pretentious middle name, I forced a laugh to fight the heat.

        In the course of slap-sticking the back of my head for good measure, I noticed the work gloves in my hand--non matching gloves, no less. How unlike me; grabbing my work gloves when I had no work to do. No, running around like a robot was the MO of green souls.

       Anton Grasshopper Celadon.
       A good way to to restore dignity, is to bend the grass blade of truth. Approaching The Center I spied the campus ashtray. Clearly, there had been no mistake; I'd brought along my gloves, here, because I had work to do.

Having shoved my clean hands into my dirty gloves, I took a stand over the campus ashtray.

       The ashtray cleaned of butts, I did something new; I set a swirl in the sand. This would be my mark. The mark of a man of dignity.  
       Rounding the corner of The Center I walked with so much dignity I had to stop, quick-draw my pad and pen. "Who's the richest man in the kingdom? The pauper who, through true works, can afford to walk the land with dignity."
       Wanting to get filthy rich with dignity, I pulled up to the Book Arts ashtray, set my mark there. No, you can always tell a man of high dignity by the low place he leaves his mark.
       Anton Picasso Celadon.
       I could see said mark-making was going to take some practice. What I was going for, in the way of swirl, was the same thing I strived for in my writing--controlled effortlessness.  
       Practicing, I harked back to college--back to something my writing professor had said to me: "Writing isn't about putting words on paper, Greenhorn. Writing is about hanging on while letting go." Like a lot of lessons in college, I heard the words, but didn't really get the lesson till I'd been out in the real world for the better part of a life. What my prof was getting at wasn't writing, exactly, but what was at writing's core--creativity.
       Anton Gabriel Garcia Celadon.
       In college I thought the creative act had to do with pouring insides out. Ya, like throwing up. Now, it was clear to me, creativity was more like light; a constant that was always happening inside and outside of me. Now, instead of shoving my finger down my throat to shed light on the world, I simply threw open the window on the universe, registered whatever light was in the offing. 
       "Here," I said, as if I were in a how-to video, "let me show you how it's done with the ashtray sand here." I made my swirl in the sand. "See how that swirl sucks? That's because I took to hanging on pretty good, but fell short on the letting go." I erased my swirl. 
       Reassembling my camera face, I continued. "A good way to do both, is to envision a zone. Ya, a zone where forces in control are battling it out with forces out of control. Now, putting your best foot forward, you want to step into that zone, and while in the zone, you simply record the battle." 
       I made a new swirl. 
       "There now; see how that swirl sucks? That's because I was talking to myself. No, if you want get off on the wrong foot where getting in the zone is concerned, just up and talk to yourself."
       Practicing my finger swirl, I told myself the story of how I'd gotten off on the wrong foot with these campus ashtrays. Though we called the cast concrete receptacles ashtrays, they were more like ashbarrels. There were ten or twelve of these ashbarrels on campus, and I held a grudge against one and all.
       My first year at ACCW, Hayward ordered me to remove the ashbarrel from the gallery patio--the Metals students weren't supposed to smoke there. Well, a barrel of cement weighed a ton. The school had no equipment for the job, of course, so I got out my maul, started busting said ashbarrel up. That's when Hayward came storming up. "You primate; you're destroying The Permanent Collection." 
       I didn't know what that meant, of course, so Hayward educated me. Turned out these ashbarrels were bona fide art, commissioned along with the iron gates, ornamental downspouts and whatnot when the college was first built.
       Let me tell you, that first September at ACCW was like summer football practice. No, I'd kept a lot of ground at a lot of nonprofits, but keeping the grounds of an art and craft college was a whole new boot camp. 
       Take the morning I'd come on campus to find the shrubs ill-watered. I looked into this and found some prankster had stuck cocktail umbrellas in all the sprinkler heads. Cursing, I postponed my planned work load and began the painstaking task of removing said umbrellas. 
       My bucket full of umbrellas, I heard someone yelling at me. I looked up to find Professor Ned's class stampeding towards me like a herd of wildebeest. Turned out they were making the rounds, critiquing student art projects. Next up: Lucy's so-called "site-specific installation" I'd just destroyed.
       I loved Lucy.
       Anton Ricky Recardo Celadon.
       So there I stood, outside Book Arts, practicing my patented back-handed finger-swirl--practicing half-heartedly on account of wronging Lucy so. But then I remembered today was Monday, my Saturday--tonight was New York steak stew night. I always looked forward to New York steak stew night.
       Salivating, I shut down my internal dialogue that I might better savor my stew. No, New York never tasted so good. I opened my eyes, took in the finger swirl I'd unconsciously made in the ash barrel.

       Say, that's the look I was going for--controlled, yet effortless. Proud, I looked up for someone to show and tell. Inside Book Arts I saw Ezra, Apolena's Photo professor. Screw show and tell; had that conflict to resolve.
       "Ezra," I said, entering, "can I have a word with you?"
       "Sure," Ezra said, eyeing my non-matching gloves.
       "The other day Apolena had an appointment with you and she was late. I want to make it clear that it was I, and I alone, that made her late."
       "Interesting," Ezra said, folding his arms. "That's the excuse she gave. You know, Anton, as a staff person, you shouldn't be conspiring with students to deceive us instructors."
       "No, no conspiring." I waved my gloves. "At least I'd never knowingly conspire against you profs." Though a lowly groundskeeper, Ezra had shown me every respect. And now I was afraid of losing that respect.
       "I'm just saying, Anton, these art students are creative enough without the sage groundskeeper contributing to their schemes."
       Boy, that had a nice ring to it. 
       Anton Sage Celadon. 
       That Ezra, you couldn't help but like the guy. And our conversations; if we weren't taking on the mysterious workings of the universe, we were taking on the more mysterious workings of women. 
       "C'mon, Ezra, I just got to talking with that Apolena of yours. Hell, I didn't know she was supposed to be somewhere else."
       Ezra laughed. "Just pushing your buttons. You know, for a sage, you sure have exposed buttons."
       That Ezra, you couldn't help but want to pound on the guy. And that's another reason I liked Ezra; he was like a brother that way. All I ever had was a sister. Sure, my sister pushed my buttons, but you couldn't pound on a sister. Well, you could, but then she'd tell dad, and then dad would pound on you.
       Anton Ezra Pound Celadon.        
       It was then a Photo student came in the Book Arts door, had some questions for Ezra. Waiting, I took a read on her body language. No, this teacher's pet wasn't asking questions so much as fine dining on the professor's bedroom eyes.
       Anton Paul Newman Celadon.
       Did I say, like? No, there was way more to hate about Ezra. Personally I hated his jaw. Ezra had one of those leading-man jaws, where my jaw was more on the order of jaw next door. I also hated that every girl on campus wanted Ezra. But even then, you couldn't help respect the guy. He and I hadn't really talked about it, but word had it, even with his leading-man airs, Ezra kept things platonic where student interactions were concerned.
       Ezra's pet left, and I stepped up to the plate. "OK, Ezra, I know you got to get to class, but first I want your word that you won't take this out on Apolena. Sure she was late, but that was my fault." I paused for effect. "You sure can't blame a girl for hanging on a guy's every word." I paused for more effect. "Especially when said guy's handing out sage advice like there's no tomorrow."
        "Sage?" Ezra laughed. "You know, Anton, had Apolena dropped any other name, I wouldn't have bought her excuse. But since it was you, well, yes, we all know how girl-crazy the aged groundskeeper is."
       Keeping my cool, I assured Ezra I was not girl crazy. Laughing, Ezra assured me he wouldn't give Apolena a bad grade. I was about out the Book Arts door, when Ezra gave me one last tease about my inability to leave the young things alone.         
       Well, that did it. No choice now but to make a vow.
       I turned around, slammed my gloves on the photo light table. A dust cloud smelling of cigarettes hit me in the face. "Mark my words," I said, spitting, "from now on, when it comes to that Apolena of yours, I'll never pass more than a greeting, sexy accent or no."

****

War 113

       Wednesday found me wheeling a barrow full of tools into the orchard--had some serious ground to break on behalf of ACCW's summer camp for kids. True, it was but September, and this tent site need not be prepared till May, but, truth be known, we free-spirited old souls were largely dogs of divine intervention, and when that wise inner voice barked, we heeled, common sense be damned.
       I stopped pick-axing, looked up to see if a certain someone hadn't showed. A certain someone had not. I got back to pick-axing.
       I was building this new tent site because the old tent site--I'd built years ago--was deemed too dark for making art. Sure, I could have cut down the old tree that grew up over the old tent site. But that twisted Cherry was an old friend of mine. Instead of killing an old friend, I chose the harder labor of building an entirely new tent site.
       Nope, that's the kind of old soul I was.
       Of course, I had a lot of friends in the orchard, so it wasn't easy searching out a new tent site. Harder still was telling the four friends who grew just below a certain circle--swirled in the tall grass--I had to kill them.
       Nope, that's the kind of old soul I was.
       I stopped pick-axing, looked up to see if a certain someone hadn't taken up her circle. A certain someone had not. I got back to pick-axing.
       Busting up the earth was doubly hard this time of year seeing how the clay soil had been baked to brick. To bear up to the hard labor of pick-axing the slope into a flat, I searched for something promising. Let's see, today was Wednesday, my Monday. Yech, save-a-buck stew night. I never looked forward to save-a-buck stew night. My old stew with no meat was like popcorn with no movie.
       I stopped pick-axing, looked elsewhere for something promising. Perhaps that blessed circle would do. I dropped my pick-axe, went over, stood in it. There I closed my eyes that I might better re-create the day I'd come upon a certain someone sitting here.
       A good way to re-create a day is to see it as a movie: There he was, the leading-man groundskeeper, stepping out of the dark, stepping into the clearing, stepping off the gravel path he knew, stepping into the unknown of the tall grass, stepping up to the young woman sitting in the grass who, on the big screen, was lit up like an angel.
       I stopped the movie, opened my eyes. What I needed here was a better line than the one I'd actually laid on her. Yes, something movie-worthy. It took some writing, but I finally nailed it.
       I closed my eyes, got back in my movie. "Forgive me," the leading man was saying. "Forgive me for disturbing your peace, but when a mere mortal gets a glimpse of heaven devouring the earth, he must step up to said heaven, see if his glimpse is real." 
       The camera panned onto the beautiful face of the orchard angel. She was looking up to see what kind of mortal could say such unearthly words. And that's when the stellar mortal first fathomed them--the mindshafts the angel had for eyes. No, he could hardly register the angel's clean voice for the--       
       Wait. 
       I opened my eyes. Mindshafts? Damn, I'd forgotten about the mindshafts. No, those mindshafts weren't the stuff of movies, they were the real deal. 
       I got back to pick-axing, and with each blow, cursed the kind of old soul who gets so caught up in a girl's cursed beauty, he couldn't see what's important. No, no mistaking those eyes; the woman of the orchard was nothing short of an old soul. 
       
       Mid-afternoon Simone and Sabina came strolling through the orchard. They strolled the orchard often, stopping here and there, taking in every weed, every bug. In their early thirties, the strollers could have passed for twins, and never had there been a more exotic pair to stroll the land. They wore their blond hair piled high in turbans, the effects of which elongated their skulls, giving off airs--Egyptian High Priestess airs.
       Early on, when I'd see the two strolling like this--leaning into one another, sharing what they'd found, never letting go of their serene smiles--I thought they might be lesbians. Curious, I'd asked their professor, Ezra, what he made of them. He had said, "They're not lesbians, certainly. But neither are they exactly straight. I'd call them human, but I'm not sure that's entirely accurate."
        "What?"
        "I'm afraid what we have here, Anton, are a couple of beings who've climbed so high up the spiritual ladder, the tractor-pull of sex has altogether given up the ghost."
       I didn't know about that; I was as highly evolved as any being on this suck planet, and I wasn't above dropping in on the odd tractor-pull every now and again. Nevertheless, I thought it wise to take precautions where Simone and Sabina were concerned. 
       And here I was, now, three years later, still taking precautions with the two strollers.
       "Hi," I said, making sure to avoid eye contact. And why avoid eye contact? Because we old souls could read eyes, and if my eye-read led me to conclude the stollers were beyond human, where would that get me? True works, or no, hard for the pauper to walk the land with dignity having shit his pants.
       A few other students came through the orchard, but with no sign of the orchard angel, I gathered up my tools--had to get up the hill, freshen up before the staff meeting at three.
       
       I was pushing my wheelbarrow out of the orchard when I caught myself scissor-stepping along the four stepping stones. I stopped, looked around. 
       "All's clear," I said, thankful no one had observed my ungainly performance. "No," I said, getting on my way, "ask any super model; it's not easy pushing a wheelbarrow down a runway with grace." 
       I stopped again, looked back at the cement discs inset in the brown lawn like over-sized coins. I looked at my pick in my wheelbarrow. I was heading towards the dumpsters behind Metals. Yes, watch me pop these coins out of the sod, get this pocket change off my beaten path once and for all.
       Returning to the stones, I channeled the energy I'd built up over the years cursing them out. Away I went, pick-axing the rock hard soil surrounding the stone I deemed the meanest of them all. But damn, this wasn't a stepping stone as I knew stepping stones. This was more like a cement car tire.

       Having dislodged the stone, I wrestled it into my tipped-to-the-side wheelbarrow. Breaking new sweat, I righted the wheelbarrow, but I hadn't gone a yard before the overload pressed the air out of my tire, causing the wheelbarrow to tip, and away rolled my stone.
       Fearing the roll-away stone might gash the trunk of the apple tree--an old friend of mine, I chased the stone down, kicked it over. True, there was a hair of animal still growing deep within me that wanted to go on kicking the stone. But I was an old soul, a master of detachment. Instead of getting angry, I assessed my next course of action. I could leave the stone where it lay, under the apple tree. But then I'd have to fill the gaping hole in the path. No time for that--staff meeting at three.
       Sweat pouring off my face, I rolled the cement tire back in its hole. Of course, the damned thing refused to seat right. Try as I might I couldn't get it to stop rocking in its hole. That's when I lost it. "Son . . . of . . . a . . . bitch!" And with each word yelled, I jumped down hard on the stone. "I . . . swear . . . to . . . God . . . I'll . . ."
       I stopped jumping on the stone, for I had bruised my heel. I looked around. "All's clear," I said, gathering up my tools.
       That's when I sensed it--the enemy stone, laughing at me. 
       "Hey," I said, getting in the stone's face, "if it's war you want, it's war you got." I straightened up. "But right now I got a staff meeting I got to get to." I spanked the dust out of my pants. "Ya, and now, because of you, there's no time to freshen up."
       I wiped the sweat out of my eyes, grabbed the arms of my disabled wheelbarrow, and limping, dragged my injured comrade up the hill.

****        

      
      

Education 114

       The staff meeting hadn't ended, exactly, but I hauled ass out of the Blue House, anyway. Well, hauled ass best I could with the one bruised heel. Damned staff meetings running on and on. Now I really had to haul ass to get the slide lecture set up in time.
      Hobbling across the deck of the Blue House, I reviewed the staff meeting. I thought I'd handled myself well when Hayward hit me up for the changing look of the campus--going the way of wild. "That's an administration decision," I had said. "Ten acres is more ground then one man can keep."
       "Don't bring men into this," Hayward had said, "it's more ground than you can keep."
       I panned the staff; the set of jaws seated around the square of tables. Yes, hard jaws made for a good audience. 
       The first to loosen a jaw was the Dean. "I know you two have a strained working relationship, but a staff meeting is not the place for this." 
       "Hey," I had said, "Hayward and I have a great working relationship. He pisses me off and, to vent, I go out and get more work done than if he hadn't pissed me off."
       I panned the staff; jaws had loosened all around. Yes, laughs made for even a better audience. 
       Oh, had I been a hit at that staff meeting; providing laughs for everyone who still had a laugh left in them. And, hobbling down the deck steps of the Blue House, I let loose a laugh at that dark stiff, Hayward, who hadn't a laugh left in him.
       Down the steps, of course, I recalled another laugh in the staff meeting. Yes, something I had said later had gotten a laugh as well--a laugh at my expense. No, I didn't go to staff meetings to speak--issues rarely involved the grounds. I went to staff meetings to get off my feet, laugh at the humans hard at their power plays. OK, so I'd stuck my foot in my mouth. I was an old soul, I could handle it. 
       Hobbling along the gravel path to Fibers, I felt a buzzing on the back of my head. This meant one of three things. 1. Some human was looking at me. 2. Some god was laughing at me. 3. Some agent of Mother Nature had something wondrous to show me. 
       I stopped, turned around to see which it was.

      There was lots to see, so I stood on one leg to take the pressure off my heel. After much assessment, I concluded it was simply the Blue House itself wanting attention. Understandably, too, seeing how it wasn't even blue. My eye drifted then to what was blue.
       "Anton."
       I dropped a leg, turned around. "Ezra, hi."
       Ezra pulled up. "I wish I had had my camera."
       "Why?"
       "You, standing on one leg, staring off into the blue. You looked like a heron."
       I raised a leg, tipped a grimace towards my hovering workboot. "Bruised heel. Dangerous business, you know, hacking back Mother Nature."
       "You think that's dangerous. I've been in Photo for the last hour, trying to kick-start the brains of a 19 year old." Ezra put a gun-finger to his head. "I wish all I had was a bruised heel."
       "Say, Ezra, why is Admin called the Blue House when it ain't even blue?"
       "It used to be blue. Then Hayward came on board, thought it untoward that his office was housed in a house that had the blues. So he had it painted."
       "Great, so now he's housed in a house the color of dirty underwear." 
       "It's called taupe."
       "It may be taupe, but Hayward might-a picked a cleaner shade of taupe."
       "Nope, that's about as clean as taupe gets. But don't fret," Ezra said, looking up at the sky coming through the firs. "No one calls it the Taupe House. It's still the Blue House to us common folk." 
       Ezra headed up the steps of the Blue House, and I got back to hobbling my way to Fibers. 
       The pain in my foot reminded me of the foot I had stuck in my mouth in the staff meeting. In the staff meeting, Amber, our Public Relations Director, had offered up some of the catch-phrases the Marketing Committee was considering for an add campaign. She probably wished she hadn't. We staffers were all creators of sorts ourselves, and if there's one thing creators of sorts took to, it was critiquing.
       But critiquing was only the half of it. An add campaign has, at its root, the mission of an institution. And when you work at a place called the Art and Craft College of the West, inevitability, the question arises: What exactly are we? Are we art, or are we craft? 
       Unschooled in the art and craft debate, I kept my mouth shut. Though, as a writer, I did take an interest in the tension in the room. Things got heated when a pro-art staffer advised against pushing the craft button. "Craft is tools making tools. Where's the glory in that?"
       "Ya, well," chimed in an advocate for craft, "art is gray matter glorifying gray matter. Where's the sense in that?"
       "No, no," said the staff person who had recently work-shopped mediation, "what ACCW is about, is the collaboration of hand and head; crafting things so fine the creations rival art. We could call it Fine Craft."
       "Fine Craft?" mocked the staffer who wanted to work for Wieden and Kennedy. "And what's that the equivalent of: Not-So-Fine-Art?"
       Back and forth they went; what craft is, what art wasn't, what craft could be, what art shouldn't be. Then the staffer who had been worked over by born-agains declared, "What craft should be is man using the tools God gave him to create something so full of truth it shames the falseness art has become."
       No one said anything.
       I looked around. C'mon staffers; what craft should be has been declared. What art should be needs to be declared now.
       No one said anything.
       Though I didn't know art from craft, I did know creativity inside out, and figuring creativity had to be the corner stone of art and craft as well, I burst forth my philosophy of creativity: "What art should be is God using a human as a tool to manifest spirit."
       I'd said it in all seriousness, but I could see--in my colleagues' cracking faces--they thought I was a joke.
       "No, no," I said, waving myself off, "I only used 'God' for the sake of communication. I should have used 'Great Spirit.' Ya, that's what I always call God now."
       Well, that really got the staffers in stitches.
       Phenomenal, yes, a guy opens his mouth once, he's labeled a Christian. He opens his mouth twice, he's labeled a Pagan. The fact that I was neither demanded I open my mouth a third time. But I kept my mouth shut. No, given the all-out laughter, I didn't want any fellow staffers choking to death by labeling myself a Primitive.
       So I looked to he who wasn't laughing at me. He who I never looked to because, unlike me, he had too much straw up the ass to laugh at anything. He was shaking his no-no head at me. Then again, he shook his no-no head at everything. So I looked to she who wasn't laughing at me. Oh, blessed day, the born-again was nodding at me. Which was more insulting than the secular roars, more insulting than the no-no-ings of he who had the straw up the ass. For if there was one thing--down here on the nether earth plan--I thought was a joke, it was religion.
       One thing ACCW was about, was community, and in that spirit, the staff sobered up, saw fit to reach out, pull the lost into found. "I'm sorry, Anton, but it has been decided, some time ago, that God is dead where both art and craft are concerned."
       "Ya, died last century."
       "Ya, something called science killed him."
       "Darwin, if you need a proof, ha, ha."
       "Nietzche, if you need a declaration, ha, ha."
       "Munch, if you need a henchman, ho, ho."
       "Munch?" I wanted to say, he, he. "If you want a real henchman check out Munch's literary friend, Strindberg." But I kept my mouth shut. No, if there was another thing I hated down here on this nether earth plane, it was those cultural know-it-alls.
       But then something phenomenal happened. The God I'd thrown out in an attempt to deepen the debate, had brought an immediate cease-fire to the art/craft war. The staff, united in the act of throwing pagan boy and his born-again girl to the lions, put their secular noses to the grindstone and came up with a marketing campaign of their own:

MAKE ART?

Hell, anyone can MAKE ART

CRAFT ART?

Now that requires an education

Get it at ACCW

****