We sat in a café and ate falafels in pita. Through the lens of my expanded mind it was the most logical, delicious, and perfect food one could consume. Each component synchronized and synthesized into a complete, unified, and seamless thingness. The smoothness of the tahini with the crunch of the fried falafel, the softness of the airy pita bread with the crispness of the lettuce and carrots, the burn of the hot sauce with the sharpness of the onions: each part an absolute necessity to complete the harmonics. The sandwich was a microcosm of me and Veronica together in the macrocosm of New York City and all the universe beyond.
Veronica wiped some tahini off the corner of her mouth, then touched her Algiz and looked at me. “So now that we’re united in protection, are you willing to step out into the dark unknown with me?”
In an instant I crashed back into real-time regular thought: the old and familiar reality. My nonordinary perception was done and gone as if it never existed at all. In hindsight, I’m surprised her question failed to send chills or sound an alarm or siren in warning of the events to come. The way it came out of her mouth, it sounded solemn and earnest, a call to arms.
“It’s the opportunity for redemption that I mentioned. I still have the highest of hopes for you.”
“I’m in,” I replied.
In my heart I wasn’t so sure why I had to redeem myself or what I had done that made any redemption necessary. I assumed it had something to do with my reaction to her telling me about tricking with Barry. I should have explained that what I said to her wasn’t meant to be an assault or judgment on her character or the things she chose to do, and that my feelings came from a place of solidarity, respect, and care. I was being protective; she was still technically a minor, a child in the eyes of the law. It was her john who was committing a repulsive act both illegal and immoral.
But I didn’t say any of this. I said nothing at all. She was right and I was wrong. She was superintelligent, sophisticated, streetwise, mature, and mystical. I was none of the above, so I moved to whatever music she chose on her jukebox.
And that was fine by me. I would have followed her down into the sewer and stayed at her side until she was ready to come up for air.
twenty-one
Shortly after I was formally dubbed Tim, Lou gave me an unsealed envelope with a folded piece of paper inside. The envelope was addressed to a man in care of a music magazine located in Los Angeles. He told me to keep the letter until he was ready to send it and that I was welcome to read it but might be better off if I didn’t.
“Be sure to wash your hands after, if you do read it.” He laughed. “Better yet, wear gloves.”
He explained that he was afraid of the force contained within the envelope and that once unleashed on its target, some of its destructive powers could leak out into the world. This energy had the capability to alter the angle of the earth’s axis, so he wasn’t sure if he was ever going to send it. I was to keep it in a safe place and await further instructions from him.
I, of course, read the letter despite the warnings. It was handwritten in a manic, rabid print, each word tightly compacted and compressed though the spaces between were generous. He had done things to the page itself. I’d rather not say what I imagine he did (it involved bodily fluids) but nevertheless I’m glad I listened to him and wore the suggested gloves, which in my case were mittens.
Before reading the letter, however, I asked Lou what had prompted him to write it. He said the intended recipient had published some extremely cruel and inhumane things about Rachel in a magazine article about Lou’s last record.
The following was Lou’s defense of his lady’s honor:
January 15, 1977
446 East 52nd Street
New York, NY 10022
Dear Unesteemed Journalistic Scum Slash Shallow Size Queen:
I hereby supplicate: through truest intent, purest pledge, duly sworn oath, and most high prayer; all the gods and demons who lit the fires, dropped the frogs, and pissed the blood, who sent the swarms of locusts, malarial fleas, and poxéd lice upon the house of Rameses.
I beseech them to dump the turds of a million infectious buzzards upon your head; the feces infused with the syphilitic pus and madness of all the dead whores of Babylon and Baghdad.
May the facsimile of manhood that lies between your legs wither, fester, and decay like the corpses that filled the pits of Buchenwald and Birkenau.
May your manqué genitalia become a faucet and font of the most fetid and diseased sewage ever to seep quiet through the veins of Calcutta and black-plagued London.
And all the evils of the Aztec Heart Eaters, the thousand and one Arabian Sahars, the most abhorrent, obscene, defiling, and profane spells and incantations in the entire canon of Haddo’s left-handed path, the Yamas, Yantras, Maras, and Mataris, the second face of Mordrake, the 107 adventitious stains, the 909 untimely Turkish deaths, the 51 omens of Jephthah, the hex of the 66 hairs: may they ceaselessly bear their malevolent and wicked fruit upon you and your house for generation upon generation uninterrupted.
GET THE PICTURE, MOTHERFUCKER?
From this day forth I strictly and explicitly forbid you to hear any sound I have ever uttered, created, or recorded,
