It was scary....it looked like a door to hell. I was five years old. Grannie was VERY old. In fact she was the oldest person I knew. She actually was only 90 years old. She lived on Haldeman Avenue, off Frankfort Ave. The street was very hilly and was paved with brick cobblestones. I thought that was cool and a bit weird.
She lived alone in a little "shotgun house," which was immaculate, as she cleaned maniacally daily. She had very few modern appliances. She had a television, which was very strange because it was round--looked like a porthole on a boat. To my dismay, it did not work and probably had not functioned for some time. So, I would go outside and play whenever we visited Grannie.
There was a small back porch with shade where I would sit and play with Hot Wheels cars. In back of that, a tiny backyard existed. Grannie, whose actual name was Carrie Graves, had a beautiful rose garden on the side of the house and a larger one with other flowers in the back yard. She worked on pruning , weeding, harvesting the flowers nearly every day. She also, at 90 years old, cut her own oawn with a push mower (non-electric, non-gasoline powered!). I had never seen such a contraption, and she let me try it and it was hard work. You had to push it and then pull it back and forth, etc. I told Grannie she ought to get a gasoline powered mower so it would be easier--she just said , "naw."
There was one weird thing in the back yard......a big metal door-looking thing that in the ground near the back of the house. She had it locked always. I wondered what it was and what was in there and multiple hypotheses came and went in my little brain. I never asked about it or told her about my hypotheses.
Finally, one day, I asked her what it was. "It's the storm shelter, honey, " she replied. She unlocked it for me one day. To my surprise, it opened like the cellar thing in the Wizard Of Oz. We descended the creaky old stairs together. The only light was that which came in from the entrance....it smelled nice and woody, like cedar.
When we reached the concrete floor she pulled a string and a single hanging light bulb came on. Finally I could see. It was very cool and nice down there compared to the blistering horrible Louisville heat and heinous humidity.
Grannie said this was where we go if there is a tornado. Tornadoes are very common in Kentucky. This cellar was still quite scary...it was full of spider webs, and I sure did not want to go into the corners, which were dark. I stayed close to Grannie's side. There were many homemade wood shelves with lots of glass jars arrayed on them. I was fascinated. I asked what was in all the jars.
She explained that those were vegetables and fruit and jams she made and keeps there in case of emergency. These things, I thought in my little head, must be 40 years old or more! Then I peered at the faded yellow newspapers under the jars (lining the shelves.) Headlines were from 1945. I read some of the news from the paper. If I touched it it turned to dust--it was so old! I started to like the place because it was so nice and cool and dark and special down there in the horrific Summer. When she would let me, I would go down there from time to time, just to look around.
Whatever evil lurked behind the stairs sans light...I did not venture there because I was afraid. One reason I was afraid was that there were several GIANT spider webs (the round kind that radiate out from the center about 2.5 feet in diameter!) hanging dangerously low. At first I thought "holy shit! I better run!" Then I saw one of the spiders in a web. It was very very large! I was afraid to move. Remember, I was only 3 feet tall--give me a break!
I sprinted upstairs quickly, just narrowly avoiding another nasty huge web hitting my head. After that, I did not ever ask Grannie to go down into the cellar again (unless SHE came with me to fetch some vegetables or jam.) I preferred to sit on the porch in the shade, read a book, look at the beautiful rose garden and catch small the smallish greenish-bluish lizards and play with them a bit. Some would shed their tail, but I knew they grew new ones.
Occasionally the lizards bit me. It hurt a little, but then I realized I could squish the biting lizard simply by squeezing the lizard's belly. Lizard then realized it too! Lizard stopped biting me. I looked him in the eyes. I then put him down and let him go. He instead stayed a while then then finally a noise spooked him and he ran off into the tulip garden near the cellar door. I loved those visits to Grannie's house. She would go on to live to be 102 years old. I wrote to the president, Jimmy Carter and asked him to send her a birthday card on her 100th birthday, which he did! He and Rosalynn both actually signed it.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Memories of Zeus In New Orleans
This is (finally) another snippet of my book, Apeshit. I hope you dig it. Andre
When I was 14 years old, a freshman in high school, my father, as was his wont, decided to take me and my little brother on a vacation to New Orleans. We had never been there before (Timothy and I.) I don't know if my dad had been there before, I can't recall. It was a road trip, and that was great...got to see a lot of the country that way. We went in his 1978 Chevy Monte Carlo, which had a bitchin V8 engine, but enclosed in a small hood. In other words, it did not look like a fast car, but it was quite powerful. And my dad always drove fast. I liked that about him.
As the older brother, I got to rode shotgun. But, being kind and gracious, I did switch off from time to time on the trip with my brother, Timothy. My dad, Bob, planning with excellent forethought, had a large plastic (insert name brand here) cooler full of iced-down sodas for Timothy and I and beer for him. Of course, that was back in the day, when drinking and driving was not such a mortal sin and capital offense. Dad was a bourbon salesman in those days anyway, and had a fairly high alcohol tolerance. Not that he was a drunk, he could just hold his booze quite proficiently. He was required, in the course of his job, to call on liquor stores and bars of all types, and schmooze with the owners and, of course, let them sample the product. And, to show them it wasn't hemlock, he of course, had a couple belts himself.
The scenery was greenery passing through Kentucky and Tennesee. As my future ex-mother-in-law would say, "verde con avaricio!" I should have taken that phrase, and her intonation, as a dire warning, but I was clueless, and naive and in love, so I chalked it up to some weird Madrilenyo saying...Flashin' past the windows were mainly cows, horses and beautiful pastures. But in those days, I was more interested in what was on the radio....incidently, my father, Bob, was (on the weekends, and at night) a rock and roll singer in a band. So, he kept up with all music, just like me, a teenager. He was a cool dad. That was wonderful, as most kids' dads were complete squares or red-necks where we grew up, in Okolona, Kentucky. Okolona, like Amsterdam, was actually below sea-level. In other words, it was a frikkin' recently-drained former swamp! In the outskirts of the incredible metropolis of Louisville, Kentucky. As I recall, as we were passing through Nashville we were groovin to "Takin' It To The Streets," by the
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Doobie Brothers. Bob was a big fan of the
Doobie Bros, and eventually would take Timmy and I to see them in our first "real" rock concert later that same year, but lest I digress.....I, as per my duties as first officer (when riding shotgun, we were first officer, like Spock on Star Trek!), had to multitask. Of course, these were in the days when only rich people owned 8-track Quad stereos in their rods, so fm radio was king. "No static at all, man!" I took very seriously the job of tuning out country music and finding the local rock and roll stations. Other duties included opening and passing my dad a beer, so he could chill, while driving. Then, in an extraordinary gesture of trust, Bob would take a catnap, and order me to drive while sitting in the middle seat of the car (actually where the arm-rest could fold up or be lowered). I would drive with my left hand, although I am right handed. This I did for as long as I could stand, usually 15-27 minutes, then I would wake the captain and politely ask him to resume at the con.
He'd splash his face with the icy water from the cooler and resume, singing all the way down the highway. I was a shy boy and played percussion on my legs and hard surfaces of the car interior. Since Bob was a powerful and professional singer, I felt my crummy voice would only disrupt the music. My brother would sing occasionally from the back seat, and also add hoots, claps and vocally-imitated guitar solos. Bob always amazed me, as he knew the words to EVERY song, even ones that had just come out! He told Timothy and I how his band, the Monarchs, had cut several records at RCA and Mercury studios in Nashville, as we passed fifty-seven signs advertising the Grand Ole Opry. Daddy was a friend of Glen Campbell, as the band had toured with the Beach Boys in the early sixties, and it was one of those periods where Brian was having an episode of spiritual emergence. So, Glen was filling in as the lead singer on that tour. At that very moment, daddy was doing his best John Fogerhty as he wailed thru "Travellin' Band." "Won't you take me down to Memphis on a midnight ride--I wanna move! Playin' in a travellin' band--yeah! We were flyin' cross the land, tryin' to get a hand, playing in a travellin' band!" And we were.
It was a happy time. School had just let out, and the song "School's Out" by Alice Cooper came on the radio several times in the stretch of I-65 from Louisville to Alabama. Even Timothy and I would howl in every word to that song, overcoming shyness pretty-much involuntarily, because that song set our souls on fire! Alabama looked depressing, even at 110 miles per hour, as my dad would sometimes gun it to. The houses looked little more than shacks, like something out of the Grapes of Wrath, which I had just read for the first time that semester. What a great book! A frikkin' masterpiece! I didn't even know that there was a movie already made of it, with Henry Fonda as Tom Joad! But, hey, I am tripping forward in time, so I'll get back to the
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story...Timothy had gone to a yard sale and bought a wind-up Kodak Brownie (God, I am old now...) movie camera, and we had brought at least two cans of film for it. Timmy was always into photography, even as a little kid. He took a few shots at the landscape, but bein' as this was the first movie camera he and I ever used, they turned out very blurry and would nearly make you vomit from "movie-induced-motion-sickness." But again, I get ahead of myself. I felt bad and ashamed of our country when I saw that the people living in the shack-like houses in Alabama were all black. The black people I grew up with in Louisville had a house exactly like ours. So I was wondering, "what the hell?" Even at the advanced age of 14, I really did not understand how it was for colored people in "the South." Louisville was, in our minds, NOT part of the "South." It was really more like "the Mid-west." But, the "South" truly began about 10 minutes by car to the South of Louisville. When you hit Bullitt county you were in the South.
Returning to Alabama, we were tired (my brother and I) and began to ask dad if we were going to stop and spend the night at a motel, but he was hell-bent on driving straight through, all the way to New Orleans. So, I did my duty left-hand driving when he would tell me to. And, I must admit, I liked it, until my arm started getting stiff and sore...
We were going to stay at his girl-friend's house in Fat City, which I thought was a pretty funny name for a town. We had met Susan a few times before, and she was very pretty and nice. I could see why dad dug her. I got a rise in my Levi's a few times when she was staying at my dad's apartment in Louisville, before she moved down to New Orleans.
The radio blasting the entire trip-my father never, EVER, had silence in the car, and seldom at his apartment. I bless him for that..for he instilled in me a love of music and eventually an incredible knowledge of music, such that I would become an audiophile and a shower-singer. My dad, Bob, is now deceased. R.I.P.
Friday, November 30, 2012
Shout out to Publishers
A shout out to major publishers (Scribner's, Huffington Post Books, Viking, etc.) that my new book Apeshit is finished and ready to go to the highest bidder. This is a major book with a wide audience that is certain to go to film quickly. I have actress friends in mind for various parts already and they are ready!
There is also much, much more Apeshit to read than the pieces put up here on the site, so tune in frequently and publishers, email me or contact me via this blog! Lots of moola to be made people! Prost!
Thursday, August 2, 2012
When my sister-in-law Elena Vag fiched me
I was a young ameican.....and I was conversant in Spanish and went to Sopain. Esplaya i mean Espanya.......met a young higger there and she besuckled me away from the others.........we got married etc, yadda yadda yadda.
Misery ensued, after her sister Vag fiched me. See, Elena Fernandez Leon de Cordoba y Bubion, was the HOT pattuttie of the family.........but she was too young when i met her sister........
Sje literally was like 11 yrs old when i met her and began to train her. I wanted to communicate to her how much I loved HER instead of her sister, whom I did love at fist....FIST TO her memory, may she rot in Bad Stobokor, KUNT!
Anyway, Elena turned out to be the smartest one in the family too!!! that made it all the more worse for me.....every year for 10 years going b ack and forth between Spain and USA......each year /elene blossoming into such a magnificent beauty. Seductive naturally. Not trying to be super-sexy......just was. Could not HELP it.
Misery ensued, after her sister Vag fiched me. See, Elena Fernandez Leon de Cordoba y Bubion, was the HOT pattuttie of the family.........but she was too young when i met her sister........
Sje literally was like 11 yrs old when i met her and began to train her. I wanted to communicate to her how much I loved HER instead of her sister, whom I did love at fist....FIST TO her memory, may she rot in Bad Stobokor, KUNT!
Anyway, Elena turned out to be the smartest one in the family too!!! that made it all the more worse for me.....every year for 10 years going b ack and forth between Spain and USA......each year /elene blossoming into such a magnificent beauty. Seductive naturally. Not trying to be super-sexy......just was. Could not HELP it.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Them Damn Wild Catholics
Now. Catholics in okolona in those days, we were a tiny minority. the KKK was more numerous. They felt about as "mighty white" to US as to the "niggers." They used to burn crosses in the area. I saw hundreds with their stupid pointy Spanish insquisition sheet hats on marching like dumb white speed freak zombie nazis. It scared me as a kid. I hated them and identified with my black friends accross the street whom I had grown up with. It helped that they joined the St Rita Church too.
I learned not to trust Whitey. then i found out weird shit from aunts and uncles. We had slaves and bred with them in not so distant past. We were also and still are heavily Cherokee on one side of family (mother's.) So, I can identify since I come from Kaintuck.
andre
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Fran's Death And My First Psychic Opening
I was 24 years old. I was a student in the second semester of my second year of Medical school at the University of Louisville, in Louisville, Kentucky. It was February, to be exact, Tuesday, Feb 16th, Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras.)
I was on my bed listening to music as is my habit when I study. I know I was studying something I did not enjoy too much, like Pathophysiology or somethinjg of that ilk. The phone rings---I answer (this was before cellphones and "caller ID"); my friend Dan Anderson, voice sounding shaky, says "turn on the TV." A bit rankled, I am like "what channel? Why? What is up?" He was stuttering, which I had never heard him do before blurting out "any channel!" I went over and turned on the small black and white TV I used in my room (hardly ever watch TV) and the news was on. The big story was that a young man (our friend, high school and college classmate, Francisco Guerrero,) had been murdered, shot at point blank range between the eyes. The killer, the ex-husband of Francisco's girlfriend, Rhonda, then shot himself through the head and died. We later learned more grisly details. He did this on Fran's front porch, in front of Rhonda and their son.
But I knew why Dan was totally freaking out on the phone---I mean the news itself was horrible, tragic and inane, but it was weirder than most knew. Dan, Fran (as he was called) and I had been out drinking two weeks earlier. After sifting through some "pick-up bars" without success, we headed back toward the U of L main campus (Belknap Campus.) There was a dive called Dino's Pizzeria, which served mediocre pizza but that night had some kind of special on "Little Kings Ale," which came in small bottles (hence "little")--we drank lots of them. We were clinically drunk. We, like many college, grad school, law school, med school students did this fairly often. I cannot drink like I did back in school. Now I can feel the next day's hangover looming after 2 drinks--the third often portends a hangover.
We were going to be very hung over and it was about 1 a.m. Fran was talking about his girlfriend, Rhonda, who was pretty and very nice (we'd all met a few times), but had a 3 year old son with her now ex-husband. The ex-husband we'd seen, but none of us knew him. When I did see him he always looked angry and a bit wild. He had finished, like so many of us divorced fathers, "his weekend" with his son, and brought the child to Rhonda wherever she happened to be that night. Francisco was the eldest male in his Filipino family. He had a younger brother and a sister. His family lived in one of the nicest neighborhoods in the South end of Louisville. Both his parents were medical doctors. When he was 16, his parents bought him a brand new red Chevy Z-28 Camaro. A cool car to drive at 16--and we all liked to party in it--nice stereo etc. Fran was naturally a bit flamboyant in his style. I mean the way he did everything, he did it his own way. I often admired the way he got to live (parents gave him money every weekend, gasoline card, etc) and felt a bit of jealousy. But he suffered a lot as one of the few Asians in Louisville at that time, and children, even high-schoolers were quite nasty, racist and called him all sorts of names. Usually he kept his cool and took the upper hand. A few times he was forced to fight by bullies. He was one of my all-time best friends. He, Dan and I were all best friends, sharing most things, including women at times.
Back to the point, I dropped the receiver of the phone and turned pale white as every hair on my arms and chest suddenly "stood up" at the heinous news. My heart began to thump hard, and as I picked up the phone again, I could hear the blood pumping in my ears loudly. I could not speak coherently, making grunts in between "fuck!" and "god-dammit!"
Dan sputtered out---"remember Dino's with him 2 weeks ago?" I was silent for a while, until, in sotto voce I mumbled, "uh, yeah." I was sitting in a booth that night looking across the table at Dan and Fran. I asked how it was going with Rhonda. Fran said "great, she is wonderful and accepting regarding different racial stuff--even likes Filipino food." (Translation: Lots of women in Louisville at that time, mainly white women like Rhonda, would never date "outside their race.") So Fran had a tougher time sometimes finding nice women to date, and I was very thankful that he had met Rhonda. I asked when he saw her last. He said on Sunday night, the ex-husband, having used up his time with his son, brought him over and delivered him to Rhonda, at Fran's house. I heard this and said, "hey man, that is not a very good idea Fran." Oblivious, he said, "what?" I said, "you (your parents) have a very nice elegant house, you drive a sports car, and now you are dating his ex-wife. Making him bring the boy over to your house is like "rubbing his nose in it,"--dude, that guy is a red-necked hothead and you are really pushing it with him." Fran considered this, apparently for the first time. "Fran it is a good way to get your head blown off, man!" I said. He characteristically laughed off my worries and continued to take Rhonda to his parents' house for the drop-offs of the little boy.
Holy motherfucker. Now I saw why Dan could not talk right and was totally freaked. He reminded me of what I had drunkenly said. I remembered looking at Fran while I was saying it. At the time, I had no inkling this statement was prophetic.
I felt confused, a bit scared, anxious and extremely sad all at once. Dan and I agreed to meet after work/school the next day to talk about this. Once together, we downed a couple of beers and slowly began to rehash that night at Dino's. I let him first tell me all he remembered, so as not to color it with my memories. He and I both had also seen Fran once (me, at a distance, in a parking lot--we mutually waved) since that night. We both remembered the same things. We both remembered my comment about "a good way to get your head blown off."
Strangely, since to my knowledge, this was the first instance of precognition I had ever had, and it felt simultaneously like "an accident" or a "coincidence" but also, the most wretched feeling that somehow, by saying it, maybe "I caused it."
I felt an inner anxiety that would not go away. I had trouble sleeping. Over and over in my mind, the scene at Dino's played non-stop. I shuddered when it got to the memory of looking him in the eyes and warning him about getting killed. A female friend of mine in med school, who had dated Fran in high school, "found out" about his death in an "only-in-med-school-way," when during our Pathology class we had to attend a few autopsies. Just in case someone might know the deceased they tell the students the names of the dead just before walking into the pathology lab/dissection area. "Jerline" heard the name and froze. She asked the professor to repeat the names. This was how Jerline heard about his death (she was about to participate in his autopsy!) She began to cry and ran out of the room, into the hall way.
I talked to several other friends, hearing their stories about, "when they found out." I kept my information to myself and Dan, and because I still felt so different, so "out of myself," I asked him not to talk about it to people, and he did not. We went to the funeral and were pall-bearers. Fran's family all wore little black pieces of jewelry, something like onyx on, as a sign of mourning. They wore these every day for the next year. I wore mine that day only.
The next two weeks were unbelievable. It was "as if" I were "accelerated" in time. Not by much. About ten minutes "ahead of reality." Dan was with me much of the time in the next 2 weeks because he was the only person who knew about the "precognition" I had regarding Fran's impending death. I slept very little and my mind was churning non-stop, wondering what this all meant. Meanwhile, I'd say something out loud to Dan, and 10-15 minutes later, it would transpire in front of us. It was kind of fun, but very weird feeling, like I was a "visitor from somewhere ELSE" and already knew what was going to happen. I went through Catholic theological dogma in my head, physics, laws of chance, anything and everything I could think of to try and come up with an answer to what was happening to me (or had already happened.) There was no easy answer to be found.
Then everyday, everything started to seem to be "this is your life." I would watch TV in the pool hall where we had gone to try to calm down. When I listened to the news being read, my mind connected everything said to me and the recent strange events. I asked Dan if he heard the same things. He said he did, but his mind just accepted what was said at face value and did not feel it was somehow, "about me." When I told him of all the constant "coincidences" I saw and heard, he indicated he understood. (I now know I was seeing synchronicity as it constantly happens, but I had no clue then.) It was easy to see Dan was very troubled by this, and was totally freaked out that I would say something, then in a few minutes, it would happen! I began to worry about really watching what I was saying.
Then I began to feel Fran's presence when I was praying about this late at night. It was as if his soul was actually contacting me. Noises would occur strangely in my bedroom. I asked God, to let the noises reflect a "yes" or a "no" depending on the noise. I began to rehash the whole thing for the 99th time with God, and the sounds gave answers consistent with what occurred. I felt a bit of relief, but since the sounds only did "yes" or "no" answers, I could not get an answer as to what this process was that had happened to me or what it meant. Or whether it would ever go away.
A bit of info about me at the time. I was a believer in Christ, yet was an empiricist, using the "scientific method" to understand and test my world. I had never gone to a "psychic" or "fortune teller," because everything I was taught said that kind of stuff was complete bullshit. Up until that point, I saw life as normal "cause and event." I believed God could do miracles, but what the hell was this about? It was some kind of miracle (a BAD one) what occurred--exactly as I said it, and now, feeling like I was communing with his soul, etc, I was kinda freaking out. I did not believe or know that I could do miracles. But why this? Why my best friend? Shit, I cried hard for many nights. I could not sleep so I studied all night many nights and would collapse asleep in the lecture hall when they turned down the lights for slides. This was nothing new. Medical school taxed you and challenged you more than anything I'd yet experienced.
But I was changing--my mind was on overdrive. I found I could do all sorts of new things with my mind that I could not do before. I could read, study, remember, write out/draw out multiple complex ideas/theories simultaneously. Studying, which I usually dreaded and hated, became a joy. I could rip through books and retain the info faster and more efficiently than ever. Also, I could "see into" people differently, by looking deeper in their faces/eyes. I caught much more subtle messages, and developed "gaydar." I realized a certain surgery student wanted me. She was a beautiful Italian woman with bright blue eyes. I had just gotten married Dec 26th 1987 to a woman I met while studying Spanish language and culture just before my second year started. We honeymooned and she returned to Madrid to finish her last semester of her degree from La Universidad Complutense and I returned to medical school at Louisville. I called her every day and we rung up huge long distance bills. She would get her visa and finish school and move over in six months. Oh my God, six months of raging change, in the abilities of my mind. I could tell who was coming around corners at school (hundreds of people moving about), before they made the turn. Naturally, except for my friend Dan, who was there when it started, I did not tell anyone about this, as it was so weird it might scare them. I noticed subtle movements in "inanimate objects," and I could watch flowers breathe. [It was as if I were on, say, 300 micrograms of LSD, ALL THE TIME, without having taken any. That last line, I say with many years of experience since those days (retrospectively speaking.)] Everything was becoming more simple, more understandable to me. I wondered why I had not understood it the first time. The loneliness (missing my new wife, who was in Europe) and my horniness would drive me to give "the look" back to my Italian classmate. I do not mean to justify my actions, as what I did I feel was wrong, but I was on a roll and nothing could stop it. I became a lot funnier--people got my jokes, and I began to finish people's sentences (which I now know is irritating.) La Italiana was an enigma, an exercise maniac who did 200 sit-ups a day. Really. We quickly became lovers, though she knew I was married, and I was certain this was a sin, according to the Church, since I knew I was married. But it felt so good, so right, I did not see how it could be morally wrong. It also helped de-focus my raging mind that had never slowed down since the phone call on mardi gras, as my mind doing all these things that later I would learn (15 or so YEARS later) were siddhis and what I was going through was actually my first psychic opening or "spiritual emergence." By June, I had rented a small house and my brother Tim, and I moved from our apartment to this little house in the South end. The plan was that Ana (my ex-wife) and I would have the back larger bedroom and Tim had his water bed in the front bedroom.
I was on my bed listening to music as is my habit when I study. I know I was studying something I did not enjoy too much, like Pathophysiology or somethinjg of that ilk. The phone rings---I answer (this was before cellphones and "caller ID"); my friend Dan Anderson, voice sounding shaky, says "turn on the TV." A bit rankled, I am like "what channel? Why? What is up?" He was stuttering, which I had never heard him do before blurting out "any channel!" I went over and turned on the small black and white TV I used in my room (hardly ever watch TV) and the news was on. The big story was that a young man (our friend, high school and college classmate, Francisco Guerrero,) had been murdered, shot at point blank range between the eyes. The killer, the ex-husband of Francisco's girlfriend, Rhonda, then shot himself through the head and died. We later learned more grisly details. He did this on Fran's front porch, in front of Rhonda and their son.
But I knew why Dan was totally freaking out on the phone---I mean the news itself was horrible, tragic and inane, but it was weirder than most knew. Dan, Fran (as he was called) and I had been out drinking two weeks earlier. After sifting through some "pick-up bars" without success, we headed back toward the U of L main campus (Belknap Campus.) There was a dive called Dino's Pizzeria, which served mediocre pizza but that night had some kind of special on "Little Kings Ale," which came in small bottles (hence "little")--we drank lots of them. We were clinically drunk. We, like many college, grad school, law school, med school students did this fairly often. I cannot drink like I did back in school. Now I can feel the next day's hangover looming after 2 drinks--the third often portends a hangover.
We were going to be very hung over and it was about 1 a.m. Fran was talking about his girlfriend, Rhonda, who was pretty and very nice (we'd all met a few times), but had a 3 year old son with her now ex-husband. The ex-husband we'd seen, but none of us knew him. When I did see him he always looked angry and a bit wild. He had finished, like so many of us divorced fathers, "his weekend" with his son, and brought the child to Rhonda wherever she happened to be that night. Francisco was the eldest male in his Filipino family. He had a younger brother and a sister. His family lived in one of the nicest neighborhoods in the South end of Louisville. Both his parents were medical doctors. When he was 16, his parents bought him a brand new red Chevy Z-28 Camaro. A cool car to drive at 16--and we all liked to party in it--nice stereo etc. Fran was naturally a bit flamboyant in his style. I mean the way he did everything, he did it his own way. I often admired the way he got to live (parents gave him money every weekend, gasoline card, etc) and felt a bit of jealousy. But he suffered a lot as one of the few Asians in Louisville at that time, and children, even high-schoolers were quite nasty, racist and called him all sorts of names. Usually he kept his cool and took the upper hand. A few times he was forced to fight by bullies. He was one of my all-time best friends. He, Dan and I were all best friends, sharing most things, including women at times.
Back to the point, I dropped the receiver of the phone and turned pale white as every hair on my arms and chest suddenly "stood up" at the heinous news. My heart began to thump hard, and as I picked up the phone again, I could hear the blood pumping in my ears loudly. I could not speak coherently, making grunts in between "fuck!" and "god-dammit!"
Dan sputtered out---"remember Dino's with him 2 weeks ago?" I was silent for a while, until, in sotto voce I mumbled, "uh, yeah." I was sitting in a booth that night looking across the table at Dan and Fran. I asked how it was going with Rhonda. Fran said "great, she is wonderful and accepting regarding different racial stuff--even likes Filipino food." (Translation: Lots of women in Louisville at that time, mainly white women like Rhonda, would never date "outside their race.") So Fran had a tougher time sometimes finding nice women to date, and I was very thankful that he had met Rhonda. I asked when he saw her last. He said on Sunday night, the ex-husband, having used up his time with his son, brought him over and delivered him to Rhonda, at Fran's house. I heard this and said, "hey man, that is not a very good idea Fran." Oblivious, he said, "what?" I said, "you (your parents) have a very nice elegant house, you drive a sports car, and now you are dating his ex-wife. Making him bring the boy over to your house is like "rubbing his nose in it,"--dude, that guy is a red-necked hothead and you are really pushing it with him." Fran considered this, apparently for the first time. "Fran it is a good way to get your head blown off, man!" I said. He characteristically laughed off my worries and continued to take Rhonda to his parents' house for the drop-offs of the little boy.
Holy motherfucker. Now I saw why Dan could not talk right and was totally freaked. He reminded me of what I had drunkenly said. I remembered looking at Fran while I was saying it. At the time, I had no inkling this statement was prophetic.
I felt confused, a bit scared, anxious and extremely sad all at once. Dan and I agreed to meet after work/school the next day to talk about this. Once together, we downed a couple of beers and slowly began to rehash that night at Dino's. I let him first tell me all he remembered, so as not to color it with my memories. He and I both had also seen Fran once (me, at a distance, in a parking lot--we mutually waved) since that night. We both remembered the same things. We both remembered my comment about "a good way to get your head blown off."
Strangely, since to my knowledge, this was the first instance of precognition I had ever had, and it felt simultaneously like "an accident" or a "coincidence" but also, the most wretched feeling that somehow, by saying it, maybe "I caused it."
I felt an inner anxiety that would not go away. I had trouble sleeping. Over and over in my mind, the scene at Dino's played non-stop. I shuddered when it got to the memory of looking him in the eyes and warning him about getting killed. A female friend of mine in med school, who had dated Fran in high school, "found out" about his death in an "only-in-med-school-way," when during our Pathology class we had to attend a few autopsies. Just in case someone might know the deceased they tell the students the names of the dead just before walking into the pathology lab/dissection area. "Jerline" heard the name and froze. She asked the professor to repeat the names. This was how Jerline heard about his death (she was about to participate in his autopsy!) She began to cry and ran out of the room, into the hall way.
I talked to several other friends, hearing their stories about, "when they found out." I kept my information to myself and Dan, and because I still felt so different, so "out of myself," I asked him not to talk about it to people, and he did not. We went to the funeral and were pall-bearers. Fran's family all wore little black pieces of jewelry, something like onyx on, as a sign of mourning. They wore these every day for the next year. I wore mine that day only.
The next two weeks were unbelievable. It was "as if" I were "accelerated" in time. Not by much. About ten minutes "ahead of reality." Dan was with me much of the time in the next 2 weeks because he was the only person who knew about the "precognition" I had regarding Fran's impending death. I slept very little and my mind was churning non-stop, wondering what this all meant. Meanwhile, I'd say something out loud to Dan, and 10-15 minutes later, it would transpire in front of us. It was kind of fun, but very weird feeling, like I was a "visitor from somewhere ELSE" and already knew what was going to happen. I went through Catholic theological dogma in my head, physics, laws of chance, anything and everything I could think of to try and come up with an answer to what was happening to me (or had already happened.) There was no easy answer to be found.
Then everyday, everything started to seem to be "this is your life." I would watch TV in the pool hall where we had gone to try to calm down. When I listened to the news being read, my mind connected everything said to me and the recent strange events. I asked Dan if he heard the same things. He said he did, but his mind just accepted what was said at face value and did not feel it was somehow, "about me." When I told him of all the constant "coincidences" I saw and heard, he indicated he understood. (I now know I was seeing synchronicity as it constantly happens, but I had no clue then.) It was easy to see Dan was very troubled by this, and was totally freaked out that I would say something, then in a few minutes, it would happen! I began to worry about really watching what I was saying.
Then I began to feel Fran's presence when I was praying about this late at night. It was as if his soul was actually contacting me. Noises would occur strangely in my bedroom. I asked God, to let the noises reflect a "yes" or a "no" depending on the noise. I began to rehash the whole thing for the 99th time with God, and the sounds gave answers consistent with what occurred. I felt a bit of relief, but since the sounds only did "yes" or "no" answers, I could not get an answer as to what this process was that had happened to me or what it meant. Or whether it would ever go away.
A bit of info about me at the time. I was a believer in Christ, yet was an empiricist, using the "scientific method" to understand and test my world. I had never gone to a "psychic" or "fortune teller," because everything I was taught said that kind of stuff was complete bullshit. Up until that point, I saw life as normal "cause and event." I believed God could do miracles, but what the hell was this about? It was some kind of miracle (a BAD one) what occurred--exactly as I said it, and now, feeling like I was communing with his soul, etc, I was kinda freaking out. I did not believe or know that I could do miracles. But why this? Why my best friend? Shit, I cried hard for many nights. I could not sleep so I studied all night many nights and would collapse asleep in the lecture hall when they turned down the lights for slides. This was nothing new. Medical school taxed you and challenged you more than anything I'd yet experienced.
But I was changing--my mind was on overdrive. I found I could do all sorts of new things with my mind that I could not do before. I could read, study, remember, write out/draw out multiple complex ideas/theories simultaneously. Studying, which I usually dreaded and hated, became a joy. I could rip through books and retain the info faster and more efficiently than ever. Also, I could "see into" people differently, by looking deeper in their faces/eyes. I caught much more subtle messages, and developed "gaydar." I realized a certain surgery student wanted me. She was a beautiful Italian woman with bright blue eyes. I had just gotten married Dec 26th 1987 to a woman I met while studying Spanish language and culture just before my second year started. We honeymooned and she returned to Madrid to finish her last semester of her degree from La Universidad Complutense and I returned to medical school at Louisville. I called her every day and we rung up huge long distance bills. She would get her visa and finish school and move over in six months. Oh my God, six months of raging change, in the abilities of my mind. I could tell who was coming around corners at school (hundreds of people moving about), before they made the turn. Naturally, except for my friend Dan, who was there when it started, I did not tell anyone about this, as it was so weird it might scare them. I noticed subtle movements in "inanimate objects," and I could watch flowers breathe. [It was as if I were on, say, 300 micrograms of LSD, ALL THE TIME, without having taken any. That last line, I say with many years of experience since those days (retrospectively speaking.)] Everything was becoming more simple, more understandable to me. I wondered why I had not understood it the first time. The loneliness (missing my new wife, who was in Europe) and my horniness would drive me to give "the look" back to my Italian classmate. I do not mean to justify my actions, as what I did I feel was wrong, but I was on a roll and nothing could stop it. I became a lot funnier--people got my jokes, and I began to finish people's sentences (which I now know is irritating.) La Italiana was an enigma, an exercise maniac who did 200 sit-ups a day. Really. We quickly became lovers, though she knew I was married, and I was certain this was a sin, according to the Church, since I knew I was married. But it felt so good, so right, I did not see how it could be morally wrong. It also helped de-focus my raging mind that had never slowed down since the phone call on mardi gras, as my mind doing all these things that later I would learn (15 or so YEARS later) were siddhis and what I was going through was actually my first psychic opening or "spiritual emergence." By June, I had rented a small house and my brother Tim, and I moved from our apartment to this little house in the South end. The plan was that Ana (my ex-wife) and I would have the back larger bedroom and Tim had his water bed in the front bedroom.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Grannie's Dark Cellar
It was scary....it looked like a door to hell. I was five years old. Grannie was VERY old. In fact she was the oldest person I knew. She actually was only 90 years old. She lived on Haldeman Avenue, off Frankfort Ave. The street was very hilly and was paved with brick cobblestones. I thought that was cool and a bit weird.
She lived alone in a little "shotgun house," which was immaculate, as she cleaned maniacally daily. She had very few modern appliances. She had a television, which was very strange because it was round--looked like a porthole on a boat. To my dismay, it did not work and probably had not functioned for some time. So, I would go outside and play whenever we visited Grannie.
There was a small back porch with shade where I would sit and play with Hot Wheels cars. In back of that, a tiny backyard existed. Grannie, whose actual name was Carrie Graves, had a beautiful rose garden on the side of the house and a larger one with other flowers in the back yard. She worked on pruning , weeding, harvesting the flowers nearly every day. She also, at 90 years old, cut her own oawn with a push mower (non-electric, non-gasoline powered!). I had never seen such a contraption, and she let me try it and it was hard work. You had to push it and then pull it back and forth, etc. I told Grannie she ought to get a gasoline powered mower so it would be easier--she just said , "naw."
There was one weird thing in the back yard......a big metal door-looking thing that in the ground near the back of the house. She had it locked always. I wondered what it was and what was in there and multiple hypotheses came and went in my little brain. I never asked about it or told her about my hypotheses.
Finally, one day, I asked her what it was. "It's the storm shelter, honey, " she replied. She unlocked it for me one day. To my surprise, it opened like the cellar thing in the Wizard Of Oz. We descended the creaky old stairs together. The only light was that which came in from the entrance....it smelled nice and woody, like cedar.
When we reached the concrete floor she pulled a string and a single hanging light bulb came on. Finally I could see. It was very cool and nice down there compared to the blistering horrible Louisville heat and heinous humidity.
Grannie said this was where we go if there is a tornado. Tornadoes are very common in Kentucky. This cellar was still quite scary...it was full of spider webs, and I sure did not want to go into the corners, which were dark. I stayed close to Grannie's side. There were many homemade wood shelves with lots of glass jars arrayed on them. I was fascinated. I asked what was in all the jars.
She explained that those were vegetables and fruit and jams she made and keeps there in case of emergency. These things, I thought in my little head, must be 40 years old or more! Then I peered at the faded yellow newspapers under the jars (lining the shelves.) Headlines were from 1945. I read some of the news from the paper. If I touched it it turned to dust--it was so old! I started to like the place because it was so nice and cool and dark and special down there in the horrific Summer. When she would let me, I would go down there from time to time, just to look around.
Whatever evil lurked behind the stairs sans light...I did not venture there because I was afraid. One reason I was afraid was that there were several GIANT spider webs (the round kind that radiate out from the center about 2.5 feet in diameter!) hanging dangerously low. At first I thought "holy shit! I better run!" Then I saw one of the spiders in a web. It was very very large! I was afraid to move. Remember, I was only 3 feet tall--give me a break!
I sprinted upstairs quickly, just narrowly avoiding another nasty huge web hitting my head. After that, I did not ever ask Grannie to go down into the cellar again (unless SHE came with me to fetch some vegetables or jam.) I preferred to sit on the porch in the shade, read a book, look at the beautiful rose garden and catch small the smallish greenish-bluish lizards and play with them a bit. Some would shed their tail, but I knew they grew new ones.
Occasionally the lizards bit me. It hurt a little, but then I realized I could squish the biting lizard simply by squeezing the lizard's belly. Lizard then realized it too! Lizard stopped biting me. I looked him in the eyes. I then put him down and let him go. He instead stayed a while then then finally a noise spooked him and he ran off into the tulip garden near the cellar door. I loved those visits to Grannie's house. She would go on to live to be 102 years old. I wrote to the president, Jimmy Carter and asked him to send her a birthday card on her 100th birthday, which he did! He and Rosalynn both actually signed it.
She lived alone in a little "shotgun house," which was immaculate, as she cleaned maniacally daily. She had very few modern appliances. She had a television, which was very strange because it was round--looked like a porthole on a boat. To my dismay, it did not work and probably had not functioned for some time. So, I would go outside and play whenever we visited Grannie.
There was a small back porch with shade where I would sit and play with Hot Wheels cars. In back of that, a tiny backyard existed. Grannie, whose actual name was Carrie Graves, had a beautiful rose garden on the side of the house and a larger one with other flowers in the back yard. She worked on pruning , weeding, harvesting the flowers nearly every day. She also, at 90 years old, cut her own oawn with a push mower (non-electric, non-gasoline powered!). I had never seen such a contraption, and she let me try it and it was hard work. You had to push it and then pull it back and forth, etc. I told Grannie she ought to get a gasoline powered mower so it would be easier--she just said , "naw."
There was one weird thing in the back yard......a big metal door-looking thing that in the ground near the back of the house. She had it locked always. I wondered what it was and what was in there and multiple hypotheses came and went in my little brain. I never asked about it or told her about my hypotheses.
Finally, one day, I asked her what it was. "It's the storm shelter, honey, " she replied. She unlocked it for me one day. To my surprise, it opened like the cellar thing in the Wizard Of Oz. We descended the creaky old stairs together. The only light was that which came in from the entrance....it smelled nice and woody, like cedar.
When we reached the concrete floor she pulled a string and a single hanging light bulb came on. Finally I could see. It was very cool and nice down there compared to the blistering horrible Louisville heat and heinous humidity.
Grannie said this was where we go if there is a tornado. Tornadoes are very common in Kentucky. This cellar was still quite scary...it was full of spider webs, and I sure did not want to go into the corners, which were dark. I stayed close to Grannie's side. There were many homemade wood shelves with lots of glass jars arrayed on them. I was fascinated. I asked what was in all the jars.
She explained that those were vegetables and fruit and jams she made and keeps there in case of emergency. These things, I thought in my little head, must be 40 years old or more! Then I peered at the faded yellow newspapers under the jars (lining the shelves.) Headlines were from 1945. I read some of the news from the paper. If I touched it it turned to dust--it was so old! I started to like the place because it was so nice and cool and dark and special down there in the horrific Summer. When she would let me, I would go down there from time to time, just to look around.
Whatever evil lurked behind the stairs sans light...I did not venture there because I was afraid. One reason I was afraid was that there were several GIANT spider webs (the round kind that radiate out from the center about 2.5 feet in diameter!) hanging dangerously low. At first I thought "holy shit! I better run!" Then I saw one of the spiders in a web. It was very very large! I was afraid to move. Remember, I was only 3 feet tall--give me a break!
I sprinted upstairs quickly, just narrowly avoiding another nasty huge web hitting my head. After that, I did not ever ask Grannie to go down into the cellar again (unless SHE came with me to fetch some vegetables or jam.) I preferred to sit on the porch in the shade, read a book, look at the beautiful rose garden and catch small the smallish greenish-bluish lizards and play with them a bit. Some would shed their tail, but I knew they grew new ones.
Occasionally the lizards bit me. It hurt a little, but then I realized I could squish the biting lizard simply by squeezing the lizard's belly. Lizard then realized it too! Lizard stopped biting me. I looked him in the eyes. I then put him down and let him go. He instead stayed a while then then finally a noise spooked him and he ran off into the tulip garden near the cellar door. I loved those visits to Grannie's house. She would go on to live to be 102 years old. I wrote to the president, Jimmy Carter and asked him to send her a birthday card on her 100th birthday, which he did! He and Rosalynn both actually signed it.
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