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Expires June 15, 1990
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475-6363 «
$1.00 off j
Any Pizza i
11a.m.-4p.m. I
Name_f
Address_ I
Limited delivery area
Exprres June 15, 1990 |
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i
You hear loads of stories. If
you’re a reader and not a lis
tener, you may read loads
of the same. Stories — fairy tales,
fables, fiction and newsprint (though
who can tell the difference any
more?), tail-tales, black-and-white
lies, yarns spun of drunken bud
dies and barstool babble from smelly
old tavern trolls ~ creating, detail
ing life here on the planet.
Millions of minor monologues.
Marble magnetic pathways of human
communication.
The monologue, the soliloquy,
is the oldest form of story-telling.
Some overly grown-up humans
these days seem to have the notion
that a story is not a story unless it
contains a conflict, a crisis and a
resolution. It needs motion. The
narrator needs either to be involved
as an active character or as some
sort of omniscient, a really smart
and all-seeing guy or gal, delineat
ing comedy or tragedy like the
form of comedy or tragedy were
nothing more than a multiple-choice
exam.
What’s wrong, anymore, with
simply telling a story?
So if this were a radio talk show
and I were the disc jockey, I could
now spit a gratifying “HAH!” into
my microphone.
“Hah!”
I have a guest writer this week,
or actually an account of his story
via his own jagged and idiomatic
use of the language. This buddish
ubermensch vignette belongs to
Jean Henri, one of the greatest
traveling-toddlers to dawdle the
Earth.
• • •
‘‘Ave, lads and lassies, 1 am Jean
Henri. Born on the w ind-haggled
blood-grape vineyards of southern
France, 1 w as. But w hen only a toe
headed lad of 4, did 1 find me
tender frame without a bosom
mother to cuddle. Abandoned by a
maniac mother and rescued by a
wry Irish rogue named Dergil
Mooney, I was Drought to be a man
in the endless sunflower fields of
middle-west Kansas. But that’s not
a story. Many a winsome buck lost
their kin in the red-rubber-ball
backlash of spudhood.
But the tale that fits here, aye, as
asked of me, is the time 1 crossed
the Stikine River and traveled 75
miles of British Columbia wilder
ness with nothing more than a new
gair of Red-Wings and a faithful
uck knife.
‘ARRGHHHH!’ THAT BLASTED
SEARING COLD WATER RAGED
about me gut and tightened me
bowels like a snare might wrench
at a bears ankle and twist it off at
the joint. Pulling weary bones from
silt and salt water, I hoisted me
body up from the scum and strode
the shores of British Columbia.
‘BUGGER THEM ALL! BUGGER
THE FISH AND THE LOGGING!
THERE’S WORK EVERYWHERE!’
was me mighty yawp from the
bank.
You always need to yawp, lads
and lassies, vital for spirit reso
nance, the yawp. But now, night
drooped a grainy grin and a bracer
of a gale freeze-dried me tawny
locks and sopping Red-Wings. I
knew the time for yawping shriv
eled with the sun and that the time
for this freed slave to dig a hole for
the evening bared survivalist teeth
like a raging Rambo moron.
Headed into the woods, I did, to
find a camp. Brambles and devils
club tore me clothes and skin to
strands of flesh and canvas rib
bons. Me body writhed and me
wounds seethed, and I pawed up
the side of that hill all brazen and
brutish like a wounded wolf with a
bear on his hindside.
By the time night held full reign,
I’d drug me wailing sack o’gnarled
flesh to the top of the first peak.
The wind raged full-tilt, and it dried
the blood on me arms and back,
chilling me bones to the marrow. I
looked across the river, seeing me
group of wood-sprite-workers
dancing gypsy-journeys around the
fire in the Great Hall of the Eve
ning.
AL’WOOCXXX),’ howled I, and
several yips, a yap and three long
howls met me ears from the other
side.
Shadows were thick, like black
berry opium tar, and I jumped down
from the peak and hit a patch of
loose shale. WHOOSH! Me, the
shale rolled into one and slid right
down the side of the mountain
Aye, but that lassie Fortune waited
at the bottom. A cave -- a shallow
cottage at the base of a mountain --
lay right there before me eyes. I
could sec it when things stopped
whirling gangbusters, and I got my
balance. Festively, I crawled in
side. Dragging me beat sack o’
protein along, I noticed the cave is
no such thing at all, but it was a
rotled-out stump of a giant hem
lock, and the wood mulch-chips
were the warmest bed for miles, so
I curled up for a spat of dire,
resupine time.
1 lay in the knotty mulch ’til the
sun broke the mountain top, at
which point it took to shinin’ on
me haggard countenance til I gave
‘er a bloody eye -- then I felt the
pain
‘AL’GH!’ them nps, bnii.ses, knots,
strains, cutsand abrasions all broke
to song in one evangelical strike,
and I then saw the blinding white
light of sheer pain A pitiful wreck
of a beast, I was. No doubt I looked
real horror show, laying there in
the roots of a lightning-struck
hemlock. But the. woods don’t grieve
sore muscles. Pulling pulp-flesh from
pulp-wood I stood, mustered a
stretch and made for a stream so I
might tend to my wounds and
swipe me a coho or two before 1
headed too far inland.
I headed east, aye, kept me back
towards the west, eating salmon
berries, mussels, salmon -- scat
tered a small pack of wolves who’d
just killed a deer. A man’ll kill for
venison, lads and lassies, and a
wolfs nothing more than a gargan
tuan hound. 1 scaled a four-foot
round spruce and threw rocks at
the hungry mongrels ‘til one was <
dead and the others were sashay
ing off whimpering and whining. I
climbed down and ate me fill of the
deer.
I rode astride those woods and
mountains for 12 days. Forest livin’
nails ya right quick -- reminds a lad
that we gave up our fur and pad
ded feet eons afore, brings ya right
back and humble to just how es
tranged we lads have made our
selves from nature. Ah, but wouldn t
I enjoy crossing the path of the
mutated ancestor of yours and mine
who provoked this farce of evolu
tion, want to meet him right here in
ihf*
‘Lad,’ I’d say, giving him a hard
stare. ‘Just why do you want to go
and give up this fine fur? Give it up
and we freeze, laddie, just like me
estranged sack o’ bruises right now.
Why, laddie?’ I’d say, then pop him
one quick palm to the forehead
and yell, ‘HEAL!’ and I’m sure he’d
be set straight.
Sniffing the wind and taking in
what sun breaks the clouds, I
wandered along, eastward, play
ing thoughts like mental bagpipes,
time passes, and I see a raven hov
ering timeless and prehistoric, and
I get this thought:
Time was once burden-bound
with bent-oak casks and burly
beards and spears, swords and
arrows to cleave friend-foe throats.
Time was then a mighty young
man, and woman, too.
But the ravens beast need haunt
us no more! Let the soulful bird cry
not unto those who might listen.
Nay, let his spirit chock wisdom o'
time through dusty jeweled ages.
Let time and the raven sit to
gether in the far comer of any black
hole brothel and share the rich kiss
of amber-dark mead, singing all
the old songs with froth on filthy
lips Dirty beards, black feathers
and timeless rags heard nudge close
together, then apart.
And the raven, the man with the
old dark mead snuggle like silt to a
sinkhole, and raggedy-lass time
binds the trinity.
But when the mead runs dry,
and the raven clucks and boops to
the smile of the rising sun, and the
See ALPINE on 11
