and open all the doors and ask them inside,
a host among strangers . . .
I will know the love of one,
beyond my making or my desire,
and I will nourish her with the light
of my devotion all the length of my days.
I will travel . . . in a blossoming world.
And suddenly – like the first faint stirrings of madness – inexplicably, he exploded in a fit of incongruous, bitter, self-deprecating laughter, akin to a horrible tearless cry. . . And the turquoise sea opened its arms of living waters. And closed them again like an immense, unfathomable creature breathing in a storm of solitude the bitter-sweet dream of Life and Death.
Dawn seeped into his mind like the end of a sad dream. He couldn’t recall much of the day before: lots of drinking, brooding, a quick visit to the grave, staggering among the dunes. He remembered walking home, the street light’s corona intensified by the alcohol. Something else; something special had happened. He’d fallen face down onto his bed, his last thought one of self-disgust, his mouth parched, severely dehydrated, feeling utterly stupid and lazy, too lazy even to get himself a drink of water. His consciousness faded into black oblivion, a last sickening knowing fading into nothingness: It had all been a dream.
2
It is good to know where your life is;
to know you are not in control.
The horizon is vast and beautiful,
the color of a ripe peach.
On a calm clear morning from the lonesome crest of the coastal range, the wheat-colored hills diminish in perfect symmetry, and fall away toward the broad, driftwood cluttered beach and the cold blue-green waters of the vast Pacific. From here one might see the great Gray whale on their annual twelve thousand mile pilgrimage from the feeding grounds of the Gulf of Alaska to the breeding and birthing lagoons of northern Mexico. Here they prepare for the long return voyage in a vast elliptical orbit with a new – yet, as a species one might say, ancient – family in tow; a distance used for the training of their beloved children in matters both practical and profound. These immense mammals of the deep, living nomadic as well as predictable current-bound lives, represented for Hector a transient home upheld by the strong bond of family, something he’d sought, unsuccessfully, for the nearly sixty years of his solitary life; the life, muted and isolated, of a once powerful and idealistic man, now reduced to periods of long silences and solitary drinking. The wide beach between Morro Bay and the little town of Cayucos was the closest he’d come, geographically speaking, to a sense of home; but even here, lost from view among the high dunes and the fidelity of the threshing waters, he felt like a fraud, an interloper hiding from life’s grievous absurdities.
Morro Rock stands at the isolate opening to the jetty like a monument to the gods, through which fishing boats, tourists’ crafts and private motor boats navigate their way into the small yet precarious harbor. The narrow bay is divided by the embarcadero on the mainland and a long uninhabited dune peninsula seaward.
The giant, fifty-four acre granite rock is located at the road’s western end, just north of the jetty; overlooking the restive sea as an imposing landmark to the sleepy little town of Morro Bay. Old photographs show an even larger rock, revealing the extensive mining that went on in the nineteenth century; mined in spite of the local Indian’s adamant and vocal argument in the holiness of the ground. What was left of the two primary tribes, the peaceable Chumash and Salina, after the missionaries’ indoctrination (which included smallpox infected blankets) were merely humored and the desecration continued until both tribes were nearly extinct. However, remnants of their traditions can still be found; and the Rock, buffeted relentlessly by the timeless sea, maintains an otherworldly, ethereal quality.
The embarcadero is primarily a brief walk past fishing boats and fish and chip restaurants and curio shops, which end at a small park on the south end of the bay section of town. The ‘Rock’, however, remains an impressive sight, nearly as tall as a small mountain; with long gray grains of erosion and sparse chaparral, it captures the first and last white lace of the ubiquitous fog. Some mornings, as the fog disperses, ragged patches linger round the crest, and slowly melt into nothing. Heading east toward San Luis Obispo are seven long dormant volcanic peaks, whose rock faces add a starkness to the otherwise smooth and flowing scenery. The barren hills, descending from the pine-covered coastal mountains, are brown and golden except after the winter rains which transform them into green folds, unfurling gracefully to the broad shore.
Dwarfed by the eastern range of pine-covered peaks and dry valleys, this rolling, feminine topography ends abruptly at the shore, making the ‘Rock’ seem that much more impressive, a solitary ‘mountain’ standing sentinel beside the crashing waters. Approximately five miles north is the smaller village of Cayucos, hugging the defeated hills and a flat wide swath of beach. A long gray pier groans on swaying pilings above the immense ocean, whose chilly air meets the hot desert-like breezes inland, to create a reliable pattern of summer fog. Along the demarcation line between cold and hot air masses tremendous temperature differences occur from one mile to the next. This is a land of two seasons: wet and dry. Inland, summers are reminiscent of the great south-west desert, while our stories’ location is generally foggy and cold, with the exception and exceptional Santa Ana winds; erratic easterly winds in which the heat overwhelms the pattern and creates warm breezy summer conditions, usually in the fall or spring but at times even between winter’s rains.
The great Gray whale pass in strength some distance out, and on a clear calm day one might find them on their mysterious journey, to or from the frigid waters of the northwest currents and the warm lagoons of northern Mexico. Dvorak’s lumbering cello concertos, of late Hector’s favorite composer, reminded him of man’s equally strange journey; the deep cry of the cello and the majestic currents of the sea were somehow related, free of intellect with its innumerable and suspect definitions. However, these sightings were becoming rarer as the whales withdrew farther from shore, perhaps intuitively grasping the need to distance themselves from the strange land creatures, who it seemed, had become more intrusive and destructive, with an energy which rose like a dry wind from the shifting plates of the immense and mysterious land.
Slightly to the east of the sea is a small, well-manicured cemetery – a rectangle of earth no more than a few hundred yards from the broad beach and Highway 1 and the first exit into the town of Cayucos. Protected from the sea by large grassy dunes and the freeway running north and south, as well as a slight incline toward the eastern hills, its silent residents, though apparently within dangerously close proximity – and with an unobstructed view – of the unrelenting waves, have never had anything to fear from the ocean waters, and hence lay peacefully, one would hope, with nothing to fear from the elements.
Predictably the days are foggy and cool, but on this day the late afternoon sun shone brightly and the still air gave off fragrances of licorice, eucalyptus and rosemary. Hector dragged his paraphernalia to a certain plot and sat down, facing the sun, and cast an approving eye upon the gravestones.
To the rollicking insanity of Cocktails for Two, he popped open the first beer of the day, with his whiskey chaser, and watched the white foam roil over his fingers as he saluted in military fashion, his friend, Death, and brought the taste to his lips. He turned up the music, took a long draw, and only then looked upon the stone before him. Scrawled recklessly, with a black permanent marker, were the words:
What’s Her Name
Wife & Liar
Good Riddance
“Anybody home?” he muttered in a gravelly voice, and then broke into hysterical laughter. “What’s that you say?” he answered himself, laughing with such violence that he seriously began to question his sanity. He tapped the stone with his thick knuckles as one would knock on a door.
“Hey!” he shouted, “I’m talking to you!” The whiskey burned pleasantly