The Holy Ghost

(Author's note: Sometimes the only way to begin a story is at its end.)

I.

There simply were no better directions.

I had little more than a room number at The Woodlake — an aging mid-century Goliath of a 'gasthaus' set along the potholes of an out-of-the-way frontage road. Still, the past seemed to be calling me. I pulled the car around to the hotel's backside circumnavigating its wings and reading through its well-obscured numbers. Even by then, the numbers had become faded; all were bearing witness to the hotel's general atmosphere of an obedient decline.

My car seemed to hesitate. What exactly are we doing here, boss? In the short distance, a train wailed as if it understood my confusion. It was hard to believe it has already been so many years since those days at Swig Hall, or indeed since he'd couch-surfed his way through my life in that room along The Alameda.

I opened the door and stepped out of the 600 to look around. The elocution of mid-80s tech surreptitiously warned me, "Your door is ajar..." Indeed, so was my mind. It was late afternoon, and the weather had turned clammy. The ambiance of The Woodcreek Inn's "rooms for every budget" made it feel even more so. Locating the wing where I suspected his room was, I stopped. Feeling overloaded, I felt sick to my stomach and short of breath. Christ, I really need to get back to work. How much will have changed?

A gritty wind blew above the hotel's rooflines. Fronds of Jurassic palms obscured layers of peeling paint that conspired to hide the view of his and other room numbers. Hazy light overshadowed two sets of stairs that zig-zagged both ends of the building's barge rafters leaving me with that you're about to go "Through the looking-glass" feel to it all.

Getting my shit together I quickly realized that they were only focal points. They were just points of light to search for him by and for that silly room number. My mind kept pulling me back in time. No, Jeff, this isn't Pipestage. No, you aren't trying to make your way out of Winterland.

You're just in the parking lot of some dumbass freeway hotel in Sacramento. Get a grip dumbass.

Eventually, and about mid-way across the second-floor balustrade, I heard him, and I heard the music.

"Everywhere is freaks and hairies

Dykes and fairies, tell me where is sanity

Tax the rich, feed the poor

'Til there are no rich no more

I'd love to change the world

But I don't know what to do

So I'll leave it up to you..."

Even through the music, the boom of his voice was unmistakable. Then I remembered his laugh. It was a laugh that sucked up all the air around him; it resonated across the chipped stucco and echoed against the neo-preen runway. I followed that laugh to where the lesser of the Jurassic fronds had hidden his 'missing' room. The electro-plated numbers showed his digits; all were engraved, and fastened to the door by some long ago and forgotten process. A slouching bag of litter stood guard outside the door. It greeted me; a pizza carton, milkshakes, and an empty box of Huggies were all getting ready to blow away with the next gritty wind. The odor of Sensi or Skunk weed wafted from the cracks around the door and surrounded that scattered litter. Maybe it was a good thing that the gritty wind wasn't so far away. Indeed, all these things seem to cling to the old hotel's very pores. Was I sure about this?

Knocking on the door his vacuum of laughter greeted me. An ambush of smoke flew past us escaping over the balustrade and into the arena of the parking lot below. From the corner of my eye, I saw the door to my latest get-away car glisten angrily in the afternoon heat. The 600 seemed to say: What exactly are we doing here, boss? The auto dealer's license plate now obscured by one of the Jurassic fronds. Turning inward I smiled, each of us taking the other's hand to bring us together in the embrace of old friends. Hey, maybe it hadn't been so long since Santa Clara U. after all.

He ushered me into his den. An additional collection of food and litter was blended in with assorted "travel" odds and ends. Worn carpet and unmade beds swam around me, and I could see a child's toys scattered near the bathroom door. A sturdy toddler with a half-baked runny nose sped past me clutching a soggy stuffed animal of nondescript identity. The child appeared to be a boy, but looking back now I can't really say. The child was clean enough, but too quiet, quick, and vacant in his stares. There was a gurgle in his breathing. How could he breathe in this room anyway?

Half-reposed on the bed was (I guess) the little boy's mother. Let's Make a Deal was spinning dollars in staticky color on a small TV nearby. She peered up at me with the half-lidded eyes of someone who spends more time with the bong than in reading any Dr. Spock. There was a vague odor of soiled diapers, but none seemed to reveal themselves among the room's debris. I may have imagined it anyway; the smell of weed and of yesterday morning's leftover pizza confused my nose. Still, it was good to see him, and the woman on the bed was polite enough as he introduced me to her and her son.

After the usual vagrant pleasantries, and after asking him who what and "where are you bound to and for," and of course after declining the standard issue bong hit, we began to compare life's notes. After all, I had to go to work. He told me "they" were off "chasing the dead." (Well that's what DeadHeads do forever isn't it?) He explained his plan again, and about how he would soon be "petitioning the government for the use of an aircraft carrier." After all, he had a right to use one, didn't he? He explained how they'd then be making arrangements with Jerry Garcia to have "those grateful ones" play their music on an aircraft carrier as they sailed off to Egypt and the Great Pyramids.

Really? So the dream from ten years ago was still the same? No adjustments to the fantasy other than the new wayward lady and her kid in tow?

We walked outside. That nearby train whistled again as he pointed out past the Jurassic palms toward his car. There in the parking lot, the headlights of the 600 looked up at me impatiently. Hey boss, you do realize that I'm late for my wash and wax? Are we gonna be here all day? In my race to get there, I hadn't noticed the bright blue and very ancient Benz parked right next to the 600. The Benz seemed to grin lugubriously up at us; it had a tired countenance as if to say I'm almost dead too.

Maybe it was the general look on my face. I mean, it was 1985, and well, admittedly that 600 there in the parking lot was just a gaudy, faux, and wicked beast. But I guess his fervor for the sagging old Benz didn't hit me where it was supposed to anymore. Looking back, I should have feigned more happiness for him — and selfishly I didn't. I am an utter ass some days. At that moment, whatever there was between us — whatever there had been back in the day, well, it just sort of crashed.

I didn't care about chasing some past glory. I wanted new and shiny things.

Hell, I wanted fast food version of family life in the suburbs. I wanted lawnmowers, barbecues, and picking out pre-schools. I wanted Back to the Future, Huey Lewis songs, and at the very least only a very gently used DeLorean. After all, I was in the process of developing a decent 80s style "cocaine habit on credit." I sure as hell didn't want to be off-chasing dancing bears to Egypt and back.

It had been ten years. Maybe the university life of "Swig Hall" and "The Alameda Residence" were already becoming just the stuff of old campfire stories.

Maybe they were only the stuff of holy ghost stories if you will.

And so it was done.

II.

It's probably not right to tell a story in reverse. I mean, common sense tells you that you're supposed to start at the beginning, and you know, tell about how it all happened and 'bring it all on home' to some sort of a close. I can't do that this time. You see, the story about him kind of starts where it ends, at The Woodlake, and nigh on Ten Years After Old Swig Hall.

But here goes anyway...

We'd been misfits together. And yes, he was odd. Odd in that way that made a lot of folks around him feel vaguely uncomfortable — and they were never exactly sure why. He was odd in the way that folks in tie-dyed t-shirts might make folks in three-piece suits cringe, or the way too much Grateful Dead brouhaha might make a bunch of freshman Catholics run for cover as his voice boomed through the corridors of Old Swig Hall. He was odd in one of those "look the other way folks" ways when he might have tried to wander in barefoot to Benson for dinner. He just didn't fit in well.

I suppose I liked all of this about him. Believe me, though, I wasn't immune to being embarrassed for him or because of him from time to time. Like I had any right at all to feel that way? Not. You see, even with all his oddities and or his peculiarities, he was so wonderfully honest, so mysteriously transparent in who he was and how he dealt with life. And while I lacked his distinct verve, I too was also a misfit. (Nah, say it isn't so!) So I couldn't help but be drawn to him, or at the very least feel compelled to his company. Like meets like.

"Once a fool had a good part in the play

If it's so would I still be here today

It's quite peculiar in a funny sort of way

They think it's very funny everything I say

Get a load of him, he's so insane

You better get your coat dear

It looks like rain, yeah..."

He wasn't afraid to be different. (And I of course always shuddered in fear of such a thing.) He even left once; going all the way to a Buddhist monastery at Mt. Shasta to work and find his inner peace. How could I not be drawn to that? Nobody I knew ever went past the doorsteps of the Mission Church. He wasn't afraid to drive a huge beat-up and absurdly vintage gun metal-colored Sedan De Ville convertible to let his freak flag fly. It was, after all to him, still a Cadillac. For him, true quality was intrinsic like virtue. It never lived on the surface of anything even despite appearances. How could I not respect him for being truer to himself than I could ever be?

After all, I liked new and shiny, fake stuff.

Well, you know — nice stuff?

Then there were the drugs. Why does it always have to be about the Goddamn drugs? At first, it was just all that Columbian Gold and the "whatnot hits of acid" and then of course toward the last years at Santa Clara U., the cocaine. If I'd had any reservations about him I surely set them aside as I became dependent on him for my latest fix of the blow. And in truth, he saw that I rarely suffered for that next line.

He'd always say, Give me a good reason why we should do a line...

Hmmm....tough one. Not.

After all, I really liked cocaine.

Duh.

Still, we were there for each other, sautéing mushrooms over a glass of Cabernet and eating the magic ones in between a line or two. I truly did like that laugh of his. It was amazing. And then, of course, there was the music. You see, that was "the truest beauty" about him — the truest beauty of his soul. He knew that music was the great unifier; the most excellent means to bring people together. He was a burgeoning promoter of the muses. I guess he knew that I was lacking here. Because of this, I guess he felt it incumbent upon himself to teach me those lyrical values.

Of course, for him, there was only ever one true school of thought when it came to music. The only school there ever could be. The School of the Dead.

Countless overly stoned Days on the Green ensued. Many trips followed to Winterland on acid that often became required sojourning. He made certain we were there at the Coliseum when "Jagger turned 50." I simply must be schooled he said. In later years, he even began to stretch his musical prowess by organizing live rock concerts in the Santa Cruz mountains which he always implored me to or indeed insisted that I attend. Still, always in the end, his religion was the Dead.

It was always about those "grateful ones."

Maybe I just didn't get it?

After all, I was late for my wash and wax.

III.

I should have known that things were changing that Spring when I came home to him sleeping in my front yard. While my new wife was accepting and tolerant of my Dead Heading friend, looking back now, I wonder if maybe I wasn't. It was after all our brand new home, and the thought of front yard vagrancy in the suburbs didn't feed my everyday dreams. Hell, I had a baby. Hell, I had a 600 that warned me when my door was ajar. Did I really need to worry about commandeering that aircraft carrier to Egypt?

By 1985 I just couldn't see my way to any more dancing bears.

IV.

I spun away out of that parking lot at the Woodcreek. The 600 nagged its warnings about low fuel over Simple Minds as I hit the frontage road. Jesus boss, what was that all about? You've got a sales meeting in an hour ya know. It wasn't that it hadn't gone well. I liked seeing him. I liked "remembering when" through a bit of his skunk weed haze. I mean we were still the same old friends from Benson and Swig Hall. We were still the same misfits. Weren't we? Yet there had been a tone of anarchy in him this time. Was it despondency? I really couldn't tell. He seemed to rebel against even the slightest mention of anything conventional or anything (God forgive me) "normal." The turbo in the 600 seemed to kick in as I merged onto the freeway at Arden Fair. Let's get the heck outta Dodge it seemed to say.

I guess I'd never really gotten that he was an anarchist before.

I didn't realize he'd always been one.

I guess I'd forgotten I wasn't one.

You know friendship is a funny thing. It can evaporate on you, and it will certainly starve when climates change. It wasn't like I didn't look for him in the years that followed. Yet he vanished that day with that somewhat sad-looking vintage Benz and the mod podge family he'd put together to help chase his dreams of music, dope, and more Days on the Green.

"Slow change may pull us apart

When the light gets into your heart, baby

Don't you, forget about me

Don't, don't, don't, don't

Don't you, forget about me..."

By 1991 there were only rumors about him and nothing more. I had heard less than anything since that day at The Woodlake. Some said he'd been in Sing Sing prison in New York State. Some said they'd seen him at a convenience mart in San Luis Obispo in the middle of an angry exchange with a woman and a child. Stupid me. I wondered if that old sad Benz had had to listen to all that "angry exchange" or if it had been left behind in the prisoner's parking lot at Sing Sing. None of it made sense. In the distance, the only thing I could hear was the hum of an old 600, its warning voice silent now as it too drove away.

It didn't make sense.

He wasn't an angry man.

He was a good man, a music man, and a man who recycled and repurposed things before anyone else ever knew what recycling was all about.

Hell, I'd never recycled anything before.

I guess that like the rest of us, he was a blend of many things. In terms of ancestry, he always seemed a bit conflicted. Can I even say that anymore? The product of a Jewish father and a Catholic mother, I suppose that this blend of cultures forced him into being a certain outcast in each. His mother's family was old Santa Barbara and had been an important one there for many years. And who'd have thought it so — but one of his ancestors was a man named Richard Warren who came over on the Mayflower.

I wonder if the Grateful Dead ever played on that boat.

Maybe all of this forced him to seek out anarchy as a resolution to it all. God knows the drugs didn't help.

Last year, his mother passed away at nearly 100 years old. I sent a card to him at her last address to offer my condolences, but as with the last thirty-five or odd many years, there was no answer from him. I'd reached out to his mother once before, looking for him, but at the time she had no answers either. She had no idea where he was. Like any mother, she was worried for her son. I think she answered my inquiry about him in the hope that I might be able to tell her if her son was simply "okay."

I wasn't able to help her.

He was only a Holy Ghost out of Old Swig Hall.

There is word that he has stayed in touch with some from those Halcyon Days at Santa Clara U.

A mutual friend of ours, an artist in Canada, and also a brilliant college professor friend who taught at Berkeley now keep his confidence. They honor his absolute request for utter anonymity and privacy. They are good to him and they respect his need to be somehow off the grid and incommunicado with the likes of me and an old 600. As for myself and well, as for the rest of us out of Old Swig Hall, we are all out of that dancing bear loop.

I hope before "all of this" is over that I will get a chance to ask him why — to know just what I did that I needed to be so very ghosted. He was my friend. Were our growing differences just too much for him to withstand? Had I been too much of a condescending asshat? I sure hope not — though not to go all Occam's Razor on it — no doubt I was. I'm sorry for that.

In the end, nobody ever said Keep on truckin' wasn't gonna hurt.

Peace.