"Dust of the Earth", chap 5

Welcome to the continuing serialized version of Phantom Limbs' bassist Jim Parks' novel, Dust Of The Earth, a Tucson story about Tucson history, mystery, other worlds, desert mojo, forbidden love, and the fledgling Tucson music scene... (c) by Jim Parks, reprinted with permission

We last left off with the narrator of this story having a psychedlic experience inside of Tumbleweeds...

Chapter 5

"Rain began to fall on my face...it felt like the orgasm of sky giants"

 

 

Preposterously, I started skipping through the crowd that was gathered in front of the stage, waving my arms and conducting with the others, only I kept running into people, or tripping and falling onto the floor. At other shows, this might have been acceptable, even encouraged, behavior, but the crowd that night was in no mood for heroic dance moves. I fell one last time onto the floor among the crowd. I felt myself grabbed by each arm, drug out of the bar, and set down on the sidewalk lying face up. I looked up and saw Jim and his hulking doorman.

    "You can come back tomorrow, bud," Jim said, not unkindly. "But tonight you're 86'ed."
    

I'm not sure how long I lay there -- I had lost track of the passage of time. I was fascinated by the view above me. Occasionally a few familiar faces would look down at me, laughing or saying something unintelligible. The sky was whirling around, periodically lit up by bright flashes, punctuated by cannons roaring in the distance. Boom, boom. At one point Jorge and the girls hovered over me briefly but ran off shrieking.

    The fever of summer is usually broken suddenly by the first thunderstorm. The respite from the oppressive heat is welcome, but the storms are violent and sometimes destructive. High winds, lightning and thunder are followed by a heavy downpour -- big, thick drops -- what the Indians call masculine rain. This was the kind of rain that began to fall on my face, and in my condition it felt pounding and penetrating, like the orgasm of sky giants.

    I slowly got up to my knees and then to my feet. My intention was to get up and walk to my car, but I kept forgetting what it was I intended to do. I thought, okay, I will take it in steps: first start walking. But I had forgotten where my car was. Hearing some laughter and screaming in the distance, I began walking toward it. My clothing was soaked, and my vision was blurred by rain on my glasses. The street around me would light up with a flash and the image would persist for several seconds, day-glo colors melting back into the darkness. The thunder would crash, making my body vibrate. I tried counting the seconds between the lightning and thunder but forgot why I was counting. I started counting everything around me, and then just counting, each number becoming highly significant.

    Hearing voices and laughter again, I followed, coming to a dark cave-like opening. I started walking down, down, down -- it felt impossibly steep. I leaned on the wall to the side of me. Suddenly, the rain stopped. There was a kind of audible silence and a dim light around me. Then I heard loud horns and saw bright lights flash by me -- I felt splashing water. I fell to my hands and knees and cowered from the beasts in this cave. Hearing more laughter and shrieking, I pulled myself up with great effort and stumbled along, still descending. Hell, maybe. Beware, beware, all who enter. The only way up is to go ever down.

 To Be Continued!