…The Twain Shall Meet
j guevara
Copyright © 2009 by j guevara
All rights reserved.
www.jguevaranovels.com
Smashwords Edition , December 2009
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Guilt is a terrible thing to live with.
To Shen, for the love,
And for taking
Jeri, Jhade, Gayle, Dan-Dan and Nico
to the beach
so I can get it finished
Acknowledgement:
To a'ye wee bonnie a'ight mate, Lisa Daly Miller, and to Anu Girish, who put the proof in the pudding; two great editors that took a storyteller's rambling and turned it into script. For your months of labor, your faith and encouragement, not to mention your patience and tolerance of miserable grammar, horrendous spelling and typos beyond belief, I am forever in your debt.
Disclaimer:
This novel is a work of fiction. The people, places, and events are not.
Notice:
Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot will be shot.
By Order Of The Author…
…The Twain Shall Meet
j guevara
Even pale, cold and drenched to the bone, in his wet, salty, once white suit, and his unkempt crop of white hair, he could have passed for Colonel Sanders. By the unweatherd look of the dinghy, he couldn't have been adrift for long before the tide washed him ashore. Face wasn't weathered, lips weren't parched. As I lifted him out, he coughed seawater, so I laid him face down and pushed with both hands on his back. Cough got stronger, pulse was good. He was coming around.
As I rolled him over, he was conscious enough to motion that he wanted to sit up. Just then that first rush of incoming tide rolled over the sand, so I helped him to higher ground. He couldn't have weighed much over one-forty, wasn't tall or agile; certainly not in his prime. I guessed he was in his seventies.
I took the bottle of Perrier out of my pouch, unscrewed the cap, and handed it to him. As he gulped it down I suggested he sit here and rest while I go call an ambulance.
He grabbed my arm, not a tight grip, but firm enough to make his point. "That will not be necessary. I will be fine. Please," he insisted.
Dehydrated and maybe suffering from who knows what, he needed help, professional help; or at least a quick look by someone better qualified than a nightly beach bum who couldn't pass a Scouts’ badge in first aid. But he was insistent, even in his diminished condition, so I went along.
Normally, I wouldn't have been on the beach at this hour. Usually I took my stroll after dusk; but this was the year of Halley's comet, and Key West was the best location in the continental U.S. to view this septuagenarian event. Hence, as expected, Galileo wannabes from every state in the Union were scattered along the beach, adjusting their galactic magnifying glasses as if they were calibrating for the Mauna Kea Observatory.
Until this phenomenon passed, I resigned myself to predawn walks, after the sky gazers had shut down. And again the beach was mine, all mine; that time with my mind when I get to play with my brain – my favorite pastime.
It turned out for the better, though, when it dawned on me that if you're facing an eastern horizon over an ocean, dawn beats dusk any old day.
"My name's Reid," I said, sitting down next to him.
"I'm known by Samuel," he replied in a warm, cordial manner with a slow, Midwestern drawl, "though friends, on occasion, call me Mark."
He didn't offer a hand, nor did I. Some find the custom cumbersome, never mind unhygienic. I'm one of them.
"…pleasure running into you, Mark." Since I just saved the guy's life, I didn't think it presumptuous to call him Mark.
"The pleasure, I assure you, is most gratefully mine."
With crisis past, I had to ask. "What in hellfire's name were you doing out at sea dressed like that?"
He looked up, not at anything in particular, then down for a moment, contemplating, before he replied. "I was on a cruise holiday. One a those hifalut'n ships. T'were the night of the Capt'n's Ball. Must'a indulged a trifle much and fell overboard."
Good story, quick mind, especially under the circumstances. By his exaggerated accent, though, he didn't expect me to believe it. Why he chose to be vague was no business of mine. So, I continued his story, "…and the captain was kind enough to launch you a dinghy."
He smiled, and stretched it further. "Nope, t'was the first mate, if I recall correctly. That Capt'n was too engaged with his waltz."
We both gave a knowing grin, and let it go at that.
With no clouds, and a spring sky, dawn was breaking fast. I wanted to take in sunrise, but since I had played Good Samaritan this far, it may as well continue.
Granted, Key West gets more than its fair share of homeless, especially during winter months. But, in spite of his soggy seaweed appearance, there was too much dignity about him to be a beach bum, a derelict or an indigenous Key West dirtbag. He was a bit strange, but he seemed harmless. No matter, I couldn't abandon him.
No need to ask if he had a place to stay, enough money in his pocket, or if he needed a bite to eat. So, I flatly said, "My place isn't much," an understatement, "but I can offer you a sofa, hot bath and some grub."
"That," he smiled, "would be extremely gracious of you. Too much so to allow myself to accept –"
"Don't give it a second thought," I interrupted before he let his pride back his good sense into a corner and batter better judgment all to hell. "You're in a tight spot …been there myself. Return the favor some day, or better yet, pass it on."
Recognizing my charity as an obligation to his character rather than a burden on his dignity, he accepted the terms.
I pulled the dinghy up out of the tide to a safe spot well camouflaged under the brush, then flipped it over and piled on dried palms for good measure. Since he was too weak to walk far, I waved down a ride.
This was in the days when Key West had its original charm. Locals all recognized one another, and never hesitated to lend a hand. Names were usually a nickname, with no surname, and everyone sold T-shirts for a living. How you survived was nobody's bizness.
To some, Key Westers might have seemed a little set in their ways, obstinate even. Nevertheless, they knew they had a good thing going, and were not interested in messing with it. Like the bumper sticker said: We don't CARE how you do it up north.
It was part of what made the place unique, a culture of "Let it be", which is what it takes to get along on a two-by-four island with a population approaching twenty-five thousand …or, for that matter, a cosmic speck of a planet approaching six billion.
Being a sunset rather than a sunrise culture, there was not much traffic at such an early hour. Still, the first car that came by stopped. I recognized Bo, the drummer with the house band at Sloppy Joe's, one of the island's better-known watering holes. He was on his way home from the gig; and an amorous all-nighter, most likely. We didn't hang, just good acquaintances, a fun guy to know.
Bo leaned over and rolled down the passenger side window, "Yo Reid, what's happenin'?"
I explained that my friend slipped in the surf and we needed a ride to Old Town.
"Not a problem, my man," Bo replied.
We put Mark in the backseat so that he could lie down. However, he was too preoccupied with the surroundings. As Bo and I exchanged the latest tales of island anarchy, I noticed Mark out of the corner of my eye playing with the door lock several times, and running his hand over the upholstery and headliner as if it was his first time in a car; although at his age, that was highly unlikely.
Bo gave us a lift all the way to my place. Before I could pull a few bucks out of my pocket, he insisted that a beer some other time would do.
I had to open the door for Mark – he couldn't get the handle to work – and help him out of the car and up the walkway to the porch. No need to fiddle for the key. Like I said, Key West had more character back then. Few felt it necessary to lock their doors.
I eased Mark onto the sofa, helped him remove his wet shoes, turned off the ceiling fan, and squeezed some lemons. With leftover soup heating in the microwave, I got him a beach towel so he could get out of his squelchy formal wear.
Although he was overtly
curious – the same as he was in the car – he remained silent,
slowly sipping his soup. Before I realized it, he fell asleep
sitting up, soupspoon still in hand. He barely stirred when I
stretched him out on the sofa.
Chapter Two
"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society."
After gathering his clothes to drop off at the dry cleaner, I hopped on my moped and set about my day.
Choy was behind the counter, which was a relief. I had to explain that I needed these clothes back before noon, and she spoke better English than her husband, Bok, did.
No doubt she'd do me the favor, even though I wasn't a regular customer. Then again, neither was anyone else. Key West fashion rarely requires dry cleaning. The guidebooks refer to it as "casual". "Careless" would be more depictive. Therefore, there was only one dry cleaner in town; and it survived only because it was a mama- and papa-san operation, and didn't need to hire help.
Choy agreed to have everything ready by noon …and tagged on an extra three bucks. Before I could object, she cut me short.
"You got 'nother place, no?"
Rather makes one wonder how these people ever lost a war.
Chapter Three
"Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please."
Key West has a bona fide reputation as a haven for Bohemians, a culture that judges a good book to be more entertaining than the tube. Consequently – unlike dry cleaners – there was no shortage of bookstores. Those, and head shops, were probably the most prominent businesses in town.
Other than Tony, the airbrush artist at Art Attack, who'd boast in an emphatic rhythm, "I-don't-read", as though it was some sort of an honor badge, it seemed as though everyone read at every opportunity. Walking along Duval Street, Key West's main thoroughfare, you stood better odds of bumping into a reader than you did a skateboarder.
Surprisingly, the city council, mostly tenth generation Conchs – an ethnicity not known for literary appreciation – didn't pass an ordinance that banded them both.
With bizness completed, I stopped at Camille's Eatery for a couple of avocado-tomato-Swiss-alfalfa sprout sandwiches on seven-grain bread, with double-extra mayo …so no one mistook me for a health food nut.
While waiting for my order I spotted Connie sitting at a corner table with her nose, as usual, glued to a book. Connie worked for Tony, which was one of the reasons he said he didn't read. Connie read enough for both of them.
I settled quietly in the chair across the table; so it took her a moment to notice. When she looked up, she greeted me with that mock-shock expression. We'd been longtime booze-and-bud buddies ever since I bumped into her one day, but we hadn't seen each other for a few weeks.
Key West was like that during tourist season. Everyone was hustling to survive. You only had from Christmas to Easter to make it before the snowbirds migrated back north with the cranky Canadian geese, after which the island reverted to its permanent summer slumber.
Connie and I chatted about how the quest for survival was going. When she went to the counter to pick up her order, she left her novel on the table. Seeing how engrossed she was in it, I checked it out.
I assumed it was another one of her classics – not my favorite read. No real aversion, but as much as I like to read, it is still hard work for me. Not even Evelyn Woods was any help. She did, however, send me a refund after receiving my letter with a taste of her own medicine:
Woods
dissat
attorney
money back
rf
Hence, I tend to gravitate to the more modern, particularly if it has social commentary. This book didn't look like it fit that criteria – leather bound, ribbon bookmark, thick, small print, weighed over six ounces – so I started to set it down. Then, like laser neon, the title zapped my attention.
I opened the book and fumbled my way to the introduction. The facing page had a sepia toned photo of self-satisfied looking author, in an overly pompous cap and gown, holding an honorary degree from Oxford.
"You look like you've just seen a ghost," I heard Connie say.
It took her words a moment to register. Without looking up, I think I muttered, "I may have."
"Can I borrow this?" I asked, still unable to take my eyes off the book, as I flipped between photo and cover.
"I've already read it umpteen times. It's a good book to hang out with. Wha'cha got to trade?"
"Hemingway?"
She looked over the top of her glasses as if to say, Who in Key West doesn't?
"Already got it." She didn't have to ask which one.
"Then go ahead and loan it to me. I'll get it right back to you."
Connie agreed. She knew it wouldn't be a problem. She'd already been through one of my tirades about people who don't return books. If I were king, it'd be an offense so punishable that the culprit would beg for the gallows.
When my order was ready, I promised Connie I'd call her in a few days, tucked the book under my shirt, grabbed the bag waiting for me on the counter, hopped on my moped, and went to pick up the dry cleaning.
My head was in a vacuum. I gave myself a physical shake, as I forced to reason. Coincidence, that's all. Nothing more. Like life itself, just a coincidence. Running into Connie, her book, that photo, the names…
Nevertheless, facts can be cumbersome items to deal with.
Chapter Four
"Be careless in your dress if you must, but keep a tidy soul"
Apparently, Mark had been up for a while and had scoped out the place. Nothing timid about him, I noted, relieved that he felt comfortable enough to make himself at home. Shy company, especially a houseguest, is a lot more work.
Stooped over the television when I walked in, he stood up as soon as he heard me. Probably trying to figure out how the dang contraption works, I thought, half in jest.
I greeted him with a short laugh to put him at ease, and told him to relax. "Mi casa, su casa," I said, then laid his clothes over the back of the lounge chair, and took our lunch to the kitchen.
"How you feeling?" I hollered.
"Very well rested," he sounded in good spirits, "thanks to the comfort of your home."
He then asked about the container of water set into the side deck. Not recognizing a Jacuzzi jarred me again. Hold on to reason Reid. Okay, the guy doesn't know what a Jacuzzi is. Many people have never seen a Jacuzzi.
We stepped out on the patio, then I threw the switch to show him how a Jacuzzi works and what it's for, generally, that is – a soothing massage for tired muscles, a relaxing bath to calm the nerves after a weary day. I didn't go into its main selling point – a surefire way to get laid. You'd think Mr. Jacuzzi would emphasize this advantage in his promotion; but then, that unique selling point goes without saying.
There was also a small but well-stocked wine cabinet, however, the only way to get to it was through the Jacuzzi; and, the house rules were clearly stated on the wooden plaque – No Swimsuits Allowed!
Mark, grateful to the point of ecstatic that I had his clothes cleaned, headed for the bathroom to change. He did look out of character, like Father Time in a beach towel. I shouted that there was shampoo and soap in the shower, clean towels in the linen closet, use the blue toothbrush, and yell if he needed anything.
While he made himself presentable, I straightened up the place. I'm a neat freak. Friends call me anal. After setting out lunch, I sat down at the kitchen table to take a long look at that photo.
I scoured over the eyes, the nose, the chin… obviously, it was not possible that they were one and the same. And yet… Shit Reid, quit being an ass. He has not returned from the… I could not bring myself to finish that sentence in my head, let alone attempt to ask him about it.
When I hollered that lunch was on the table, he was already in the kitchen, dressed in his neatly-pressed white suit. His white hair was still unkempt, but clean. I casually closed the book, trying not to look obvious, and set it on the counter behind me.
Damn, I thought, if that ain't the same guy; bushy eyebrows, Roman nose, same receding hairline, square chin…
No matter, I was not about to bring it up. There was something about his decorum, a sort of centered dignity, an air of propriety, or maybe it was out of consideration that he might be sick of hearing it. Nevertheless, directly confronting him, or even a facetious comment, felt out of place, ridiculous, absurd. Still, I could not let it go.
We sat at the table and ate our lunch. Though starving, he ate with gentlemanly manners. No telling how uncouth I looked, mesmerized with the vision of him sitting there superimposed over that photo in my mind, and mayo mixed with tomato running down my arm.
In line with the island's culture, "Where are you from?" is another vapid question like "What do you do?" Overt coincidences mixed with invert curiosity, though, make a powerful potion strong enough to overcome the most ingrained social etiquette. Even so, I was struck by how easily I ignored Key West mores and asked, "Where you from, Mark?"
He finished his bite, dabbed the corners of his mouth with the napkin, then replied, "My accent is from Missouri," which confirmed my first Midwestern impression, "though, one could say that my breeding is from Connecticut."
This was getting out of hand way too fast – Sam, Mark, Missouri, Connecticut. Screw island etiquette! Without making a show of it, I reached over to the counter, picked up the book, and slid it across the table, face up in front of him.
"…you familiar with this book?" I asked as though I was only making conversation.
He held it at a distance, and read the title aloud. "The Autobiography of Mark Twain, by: Samuel Langhorne Clemens. "Hmmm," he whispered, "so it did get published."
With a reminiscent whimsical smile, he looked me directly in the eye, and answered, "Familiar? Why, my dear friend …I wrote it."
Chapter Five
"News of my demise has been greatly exaggerated"
He set the book down, and went back to eating his lunch as though there was nothing else to say. Maybe in his mind, but not in mine. There were a zillion things left to say; the first, however, was figuring what to ask first. Who the hell is this guy? If he was delusional – which was the only sound conclusion – should I have him picked up for treatment?
I couldn't do that. What harm was he causing? Besides, I really liked the guy. I wasn't sure what the attraction was. Something about his aura drew me to him. I could feel it when I helped him up the beach.
Okay, maybe he was a little off-centered; so what? He couldn't have come to a more fitting place. Characters are what Key West is all about. Captain Tony, even after he became mayor, still dressed in a red, three-piece, vested suit, bow tie and all. And on any given evening you could find him on the Duval Street strip, shaking hands and having his picture taken with any inebriated tourist who wanted a snapshot to brag about back home.
And what other town in the States uses its public access cable rights to broadcast programs like The World According to Joe featuring Joe Balbontine, a plumber – Key West's Cuban version of Archie Bunker?
Even the homeless were notorious; like Box Man, a well-known, secondhand trash can scavenger. His distinct style of dress was a common costume at Fantasy Fest, the annual October charade patterned after the one in New Orleans …'cept this one's more of a Mini-Gras.
Now, there was another impossible possibility. What if he was the author? Could I really be sitting in my kitchen having lunch with Mark Twain? Of course not. If word got out that I believed that, I'd be the one locked away and doing the Thorazine shuffle for my remaining days.
"You have barely touched your meal," he commented.
"I guess I'm not really hungry," I replied.
My head was in a world of a thousand other things, all vying for attention. Still, my mind paused long enough to realize that he probably hadn't eaten in… years. One avocado seven-grain was nowhere near enough. He was too polite to mention it directly, of course. So, I moved my plate over to him, and offered, "Would you mind? Avocado doesn't keep. I'd hate to see it go to waste."
He smiled gratefully, continued to eat with his proper manners, and continued to keep the rest of his story to himself. Although, he did nod to indicate that he'd answer whatever I wanted to know. My problem was in knowing what I wanted to know next.
"You know, Mark, if that's who you really are …"
"Oh, I assure you, that is most certain," he insisted.
"C'mon, Mark, there's no way the author of that book is here, sitting in my..."
"Would you care to make a wager?" he proposed, without a flinch or so much as a twitch in his gray-blue eyes bearing down on me.
I'd played enough poker to know that this guy wasn't bluffing; but, what could he possibly have to back his claim? No matter, I'm not one to venture what I can't afford.
"I hate to see easy money slip through my fingers, Mark, but –"
"Money is not the only funds one has for wager," he interrupted.
Solely out of curiosity, I asked, "What do you have in mind?"
He'd already thought it through, apparently, so his pause was a matter of timing, not contemplation. "I will wager you one month of your service and sustenance."
Seeing question marks written all over my expression, he elaborated.
"For one month you will be my guide, introduce me to modern times, and provide me with sustenance and a place to rest."
An interesting bet, but it was only the first storey. Curious to see what was on the second floor, I asked, "And if you lose?"
"That unnecessary thought has not occurred to me." His reply exuded the confidence of a royal flush.
Although caution has never been caught by the cat, I left my half of this bargain open for later negotiation, nodded agreement to the wager, and motioned for him to continue.
He picked up the autobiography, thumbed to a section he seemed to know already, and slid it back across the table. "Here, read the next few pages. I believe they will make my claim of evidence clear."
Within a paragraph or two, I could see where he was going. The chapter discussed a scheme cooked up by two of Mark Twain's friends for exposing the fraud of palmistry.
Although denigrated to a fringe occult today, at the turn of the century palmistry was a highly respected discipline.
While I continued to read, Mark added, "Never having been one to accept anything secondhand, I was only too eager to unveil for myself the facts of the matter. Palmistry may have lacked the empiricism of reasonable science, but it did manage to survive on down the ages. Therefore, I felt it deserved a fair and just trial, to put the matter to rest once and for all.
"To allow this pseudoscience to testify on its own behalf, my friends and I made copies of my handprint and sent them under assumed names to several reputable palmists. However, when returned, they concurred unanimously that the possessor of this hand was void of a sense of humor."
"Why didn't you resend the prints under your real name?" I asked.
"I don't know," he answered with an exasperated sigh. "Probably because I was too devastated being confronted with a secret fear, that I really did not have a sense of humor."
Mark smiled and shrugged. "It is quite simple. In Hannibal, Hartford, Elmira, wherever my papers have been billeted, there should be several copies of prints made by my hand. They will prove beyond reproach that word of my demise has been greatly exaggerated."
He let this soak in for a moment, and then asked, "Shall we proceed, or do you wish to forfeit the wager and spare us the effort?"
I knew that somehow I'd been had. It's crazy, but at that point I had little doubt who this man was. It could have been the way he thumbed through the book, as though he actually did write it, not memorize it. Or, maybe it was his air of confidence. I mean, I know a poker face, and his was no bluff. I also reckoned, who would make a bet – and it was a serious bet – with someone they hardly knew, and have nothing to back it up? Men have been shot for less.
"Both," I said, after thinking it through. "I'll forfeit, for now. But in the meantime, I'd still like to check it out."
I had high friends in low places, as Jimmy Buffet says, that owed me a favor or two. There was Ziggy in Miami, a private detective, or was licensed, anyway. My testimony had cinched the custody battle for his two boys.
There was also McKinney with Key West's finest. On a good tip, he rousted a couple of Rastafarians who were squeezing my turf. The dumb asses didn't have anyone from the law on their payroll, which by definition is what makes one an "outlaw".
In the end, Officer McKinney tripped onto a literally dynamite collar – a cache of enough C-4 to turn Miami into a lagoon – and ended up being promoted to Detective McKinney. I ended up entering my own witness protection program on the island of Anguilla, a British protectorate; the only nation on record that actually fought a revolution to remain a colony.
To be clear, however, McKinney was not on anyone else's payroll. He's an old-fashioned cop, the last of a dying breed, a cop that actually walked around the block once in a while. A cop you could find before you needed him.
But, he knew that some crime is inevitable. He accepted that as natural law, so long as it was nothing more than harmless weed, and that that someone didn't become some two.
McKinney or Ziggy could check things out, or at least point me in the right direction. Before any information got back, though, negative or otherwise, the month would probably be over.
What the hell, I would have helped the guy out anyway.
Chapter Six
"How hard it is that we have to die" …a strange complaint from those who have had to live."
Room and board was simple, three squares and a sofa. What "guide" entailed, though, was a little vague. Still, I was more interested in how he got here over seventy years after he supposedly died.
"Death," Mark began, "has many definitions, some practical, most taken on faith, a few attempt reasonable rationales. Yet, none satisfy the whole story as man is capable of perceiving.
"Dead is dead, and in spite of of what one professes to believe, think or hope, in the silence of the heart, death, that inevitable end, that final dispensation is an incomprehensible waste, impossible to purvey meaning or worthiness.
"All efforts to define its merits have only conjured wrong questions, which in course beget wrong answers. Nonetheless, it is a credit to man's delusional mind that he stubbornly anticipates correct answers from wrong questions."
I silently questioned how one would get this point across to the questioner, and let Mark continue.
"This impasse cannot be resolved from the perspective of life – the only perspective available to the human race – for by its nature, death can never have a serviceable designation. The only thing definable from life's perspective is life itself." In afterthought he mumbled, "Yet, man's definition of that fares little better.
"To understand death, then life, in the conscious sense of being alive, as opposed to a biological accident, is what we first need to define.
"Life, as a self-conscious expression, is the sum of your ambitions for better or worse, gain or defeat, all we hold sacred, all we distain, love, passions, vengeance, inhibitions, neurosis, addictions, fixations, objectives... Quell these misperceived amenities, surpass even the dispensation of need versus want, then one can possibly fathom what lies beyond life's borders.
"I say possibly, for although understanding life from this perspective has brought me closer to the answer than most, death has still remained illusive."
"A strange comment," I pointed out, "coming from someone who died seventy-five years ago."
"This sum of one’s emotions," he clarified, "those dreams, those inner desires, is what sustains and perpetuates an individual's life, as though our wish is the power behind life's command. Unbeknownst of this authority, we proclaim our aspirations both aloud and in secret, and thereby ignorantly design and then execute our own sentence.
"Mind, my friend, is the precursor of reality. Thus, every mind being individual, every reality is one of our own choosing. We all hold to our personal world, similar yet still unlike any other. The similarities are what mingle and meet to form collectively what we agree to be reality, the reality where we coexist. Mankind's individuality, however, remains a separate reality, the circumstances of each one’s life, in other words."
This didn't answer my original question, so I assumed he paused to allow me time to catch up, to contemplate the groundwork he had laid down thus far. The question of reality being subjective or objective has been a philosophical debate since the dawn of time.
What Mark was expounding, though, brought into focus the possibility that both are correct. That made sense, to me anyway. Why must seemingly opposing views always be diametric, when it is quite possible that both are needed to complete the whole? As someone once pointed out, '…reality ain't nothin' but a collective hunch.' By Mark's explanation, they're right, collective reality is in actuality a collective hunch, and thus objective.
Yet, one's individual reality, like the Law of Attraction, remains just that – a subjective projection onto the collective whole. A little esoteric sounding maybe, but could still be within the realm of natural science, physics, quantum, space, time, etcetera.
When he saw from my expression that I was up to speed, he proceeded.
"I had outlived Livy – my only love – and survived to see all but one estranged offspring pass away. How, I asked, could one who reportedly brought the world so much laughter, be rewarded with such misery?
"I wished only for it to be over, to pass in obscurity, this meaningless assumption we call life, this 'damned human race', this foolish experiment, this unnecessary experience, and yet I lacked courage to end it. Instead, I gave it a final dispensation, and set it to mind.
"I had often prophesized that born in the year of the comet, I will go out on its return. I came in with Halley's comet... it is coming again ... and I expect to go out with it... The Almighty has said, no doubt: 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.’
"Similar to our protagonist in Connecticut Yankee… I too became locked into a perpetual cycle of fate. A cycle linked to a comet; and like that comet, we are all destined to return, and continue wherever our desires left off."
Again he paused, but with more finality, as though estimating where best to continue.
When I later verified the connection to Halley's comet, it made more sense. Twain was born in 1835, died in 1910, and, apparently, according to my own current reality, had now returned in 1986, which coincided with Halley's average cycle of seventy-six years, recorded as far back as the 250 BCE.
I had no problem viewing life from an emotional rather than a biological definition. As for its cycle, Mark was merely referring to a form of karmic reincarnation, which I already adhered to, not necessarily in the Hindu sense, but a close facsimile.
I'd long been a proponent of you reap what you sow, you get what you give, what goes around, comes around. However, I still try to do the right thing because it's the right thing to do, not because of any reward or punishment. At least, that's my ego's fantasy.
Why this cycle of like-begets-like appeared to be a contradiction with Mark must have been due to unknown factors at work, subliminal patterns that he, like most of us, was either unaware of or refused to acknowledge.
We think in secret and it comes to pass; environment is but our looking glass. Maybe it was nothing more than his “life is unkind" perception that brought it on, like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
What seized my interest more, though, was that Mark seemed to be on the verge of a breakthrough, a solution to this endless wheel of misfortune; so I asked, "What can break the cycle?"
"Change your perceptions to the point of no perception," he answered without pause or reflection. "Redefine your self-importance to where there is no self or importance."
"That doesn't sound difficult." I replied. Wasn't that what the Sixties were all about? After all these years, though, I have difficulty perceiving any of it, or its importance, for, like a lot of us, that was many brain cells ago.
"True," Mark agreed, "it should be as easy as wiping chalk from a slate. However, being the foolhardy jackasses that we are, one would gain better wishing a star not to twinkle."
I still failed to see any perplexity. "But just knowing the better possibilities, the expanded consciousness, should make it easy to adjust your truth to one more objective."
"Then you end up with a truth that cannot uphold to reality as you perceive, reality within the realm of your subjective understanding, which makes it no truth at all."
"The Tao of nothing," I remarked, barely above a whisper.
Overhearing me, Mark said, "I tried that. It failed. Nothing remains something."
"What about emptiness?"
"That also takes up space." Anticipating my response, he brought up, "Immeasurable is still quantifiable."
This left me with a void as vacant as when we started. The Tao wisdom that states, "He who speaks does not know" is self-explanatory. The second half of that proverb, "He who knows does not speak", however, takes on a clearer meaning when you add "because it's a waste of time". Generally, is it safe to assume that he who listens already knows, and he who does not know will most likely not listen anyway?
"How ironic," Mark commented, "that we dream so earnestly of overcoming death, of finding that Grail of immortality, when it is the chaos and traumas of life, not the tranquility and peace of death, that most deserves our fear."
How ironic indeed, I thought, but not for the same reason. What I found ironic was that Mark Twain, a highly reputed, hardcore realist would resort to the esoteric for answers that could possibly bridge western empiricism with eastern mysticism.
Western humorist turned Eastern sage. How ironic would Kipling find it that should East and West ever meet, Twain would be the one to make it happen?
Chapter Seven
"Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident."
Guide, as it turned out, entailed bringing him up-to-date with all the social changes – not easy to do with someone who'd never heard of NOW, AIM, or the NAACP.
Then there were all the technological achievements – another formidable challenge with someone who'd never heard of plastic.
It hadn't occurred to me until we began that the last seventy-some years, one orbit of Halley's comet – a coincidence I presumed – marked mankind's greatest period of technological and social advancement since Neanderthal.
I mentioned this to Mark to get his take on whether or not the comet had an influence. He stated, though not convincingly, that we have always made great strides in any century.
"Most notable," he quickly added, as if to change to subject, "these freedoms and discoveries seem to have dragged man's perception along …albeit, kicking and screaming all the way."
As for current amenities, I started with our modern conveniences – from disposable razors, lighters, and ballpoint pens, to push-button dialing, microwave ovens, and the dangers of 110, before tackling all the other inventions from light bulbs to microchips.
He was most enthusiastic. Having always been an advocate of the latest technology, quick to take advantage, dealing with modernization was nothing new for him.
He wrote the first manuscript on a typewriter, had the first telephone in Hartford – having no one to call was no discouragement. He was the first to have gaslights in his house, and installed one of the earliest burglar alarm systems (a constant source of frustration). He also went bankrupt financing a boondoggle of an automatic typesetter – the harebrained contraption of some dreamer better at milking than at inventing.
Besides all the latest gadgets, there was a pantheon of global events: two world wars, two lesser ones in Asia – one loss, one draw. I didn't bother with Grenada. Then, a cold war with looming nuclear annihilation, plus all the happenings from the Wright Brothers to Neil Armstrong.
Mark was both fascinated and appalled over the development of nuclear weapons. The theory had been around in his time, and he long held that such a super weapon would be the end of war and the answer to man's dream of world peace. That optimism, however, was based on the misassumption that only one nation would obtain such a weapon. He never envisioned the consequences of several other nations inevitably following suit.
I gave him a brief history from Hiroshima to the present, nuclear weapons proliferation from atomic to hydrogen, with Hiroshima, like Richter, as the yardstick by which destruction is now measured, and how they're kept in check under the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction. He lost no humor on the acronym.
When I ran down the arms limitation treaties, such as Salt I and II, where they agree to limit stockpiles to eighteen-thousand weapons, but they only have sixteen-thousand, so they have to build two-thousand more to maintain the limits of the agreement, plus the latest technology of MIRV-ing, which makes it possible to load a half-dozen nukes on one missile, and Reagan's recent "build-down "solution, he nearly fainted from bafflement.
"So man has gone from damn fool to dangerous fool," Mark said with a sigh, sounding like an exasperated prophet. As for the ongoing negotiations to reduce stockpiles, he observed, "It appears that all they negotiate is how high they want the rubble to bounce."
He was awestruck over the rapid development of aviation from Kitty Hawk to Tranquility Base in less than sixty years. "From global obliteration to planetary exploration. Man, what a wonder to behold!"
Like nuclear power, development of aviation came from the necessities of war, that great instigator of inspiration that has always gotten science and technology off their duffs. If not for the Civil War, for example, whisky might still be used as anesthesia in surgeries. Without World War I, Lindbergh's great grandson would still be trying to fly the Atlantic. World War II gave us the Manhattan Project, for better or worse. I could think of no country that had contributed much without war goading them into action.
"Switzerland," Mark said, taking exception, "a country that has not fought a war in three-hundred years (four hundred, actually, but he wouldn't know that), yet has not failed to contribute their share."
"Switzerland? What have they contributed?"
"The cuckoo clock," He proclaimed abruptly.
"Cuckoo clock, what's the big deal about that?"
"For years my pet aversion had been the cuckoo clock. Some sounds are hatefuller than others, but to me no sound was quite so inane, silly, and aggravating as the hoo hoo of a cuckoo clock. I have, however, come to see that it would be a sad matter indeed to have a world without a clock that every hour reminds us of both the time and its meaning."
It took me a moment to catch his drift, an undertone reference to time and its crazy illusion, and another moment to realize that I was going to have to be more attentive to follow his subtlety, a gift he held in abundance.
On the political front there were presidents from Roosevelt, who Mark already knew, "that megalomaniac expansionist", to the next five bunglers, starting with "low-tariff" Taft, who Mark could not praise enough, "no war" Wilson, "Teapot Dome Harding, "Cool Cal" Coolidge, and "Dam" Hoover, followed by "new deal" Roosevelt (four times), "nuke 'em" Truman, Ike, a good president who did nothin’, "Fly me to the moon" Kennedy, "Tex-mess" Johnson, "I am not a crook" Nixon, I skipped Ford, "peanut" Carter, "jellybean" Reagan… which Mark assessed as, "Quite a degenerating succession you've had there."
"Where" to cover next was difficult to determine. "How", was simple. I showed him the remote control, and how to turn on the TV. I explained in my layman's knowledge how TV worked, the same as radio, with different frequencies carrying images transmitted through the air, picked up by a receiver and projected onto the screen. Although amazed, he already had a working knowledge of the concept.
"Incredible. So my good friend Nikola was correct."
"Nikola?"
"Nikola Tesla, the greatest genius of his time," Mark reminisced – something I would hear him do a lot over the coming days. His well of reminiscences was a geyser, dependable as Old Faithful, though not as synchronized. "Oh, the afternoons we spent on his park bench feeding pigeons, and the late nights with friends listening to him expound on the most extraordinary ideas. His imagination was boundless.
"He swore he could send wireless images around the world, but the guardians of ignorance ridiculed him insisting that the curvature of the Earth made that impossible.
"He once proved that enough electricity to light up a city could be transmitted safely through the Earth itself, without the need to string that offensive looking wire everywhere.
"Thinking, constantly thinking, Nikola's flow of ideas never faltered, never waned, his mind never at rest. His creativity, however, was not limited to resourceful devices. Nikola was also an accomplished poet with the most resounding verse, like his inventive mind, untethered by ill-defined rules.
"Such brilliance, such profound genius." With afterthought, Mark continued, "… accompanied, of course, by his share of eccentricities, those peculiar vagaries that tend to haunt such personalities, a fault both friends and foes often accused me of, family being no less forgiving.
"Timidity, however, was not one we shared. Nikola did not warm up to strangers easily. Shy. Inward. Still, a fine man who one could say had a multitude of friends …if you counted his pigeons.
"His prevailing peculiarity was mysophobia. Why, the mere thought of dirt or germs mortified him. With such persistence on the topic, it could not help but rub off on me, persuade me to adopt this lighter wardrobe, which by and by became my trademark, so to speak."
When the geyser subsided, he turned to me and asked, "Whatever became of that remarkable Serb?"
"From what I recall, Mark, his electric motors made a lot of money for Westinghouse, Edison lifted a few ideas off of him, and Western Union owes him a debt of gratitude. He died sometime in the forties, as the story goes, broke and obscure."
"But surely his patents…"
"What wasn't stolen or swindled was sold to finance one fruitless scheme after another."
"The one weakness we shared, we were both inept at investment. If only we had been as fastidious with finance as we were with microbes."
Chapter Eight
"Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself."
All the social changes were too much to conceive. I hit the major ones, like you can't call someone a "Jew" anymore, unless there's more than one, then the plural form is okay. Mark couldn't understand that one at all, neither could I, so I told him to be safe – stick with "Jewish”.
That, he felt, was more of an insult, because "Jewish" sounded as if you were insinuating the person wasn't really a Jew, just sort of pretending, a counterfeit. He agreed to go along, though he insisted that "Jewish" made them sound ashamed of their full heritage.
I had my hands full.
He had the utmost regard for Blacks. "The years of hardship had not diminished their character one bit."
To test his modern opinion, I told him briefly of their struggle, crime, unemployment, poverty, segregation, equal rights, and of the marches, riots, and violence.
Though pained, his sympathies did not waver.
"Respect must be earned, which this race certainly has. Thus, it is right to demand it. How regrettable it has to come to that."
I also felt it imperative to inform him that although it was acceptable in the nineteenth century, you cannot refer to them as "niggers" anymore. They preferred "Blacks”. He couldn't see how "nigger" could be derogatory, or how black could be an improvement.
"If change is necessary, I dare think one should wish to trade up. Black plies none towards that goal. Black is what one finds on an old pot, or something to polish boots with. Nigger, however, can only be a person. Nigger has individuality, significance, status. Black is vague, common…"
"Mark," I shouted, before this geyser blew any higher, "it's the way the language has evolved."
"Evolution is not always towards improvement," he noted. "Man, is testimony to that."
He explained how he viewed words as, "…empty vehicles, a fleshless skeleton. The dictionary merely provides definition; it is the person, the individual, that provides intent."
Mark relented, and said that he'd make the adjustment. Not to tax his manifest destiny, white man's burden, Victorian arrogance any further, I saved greasers (Latinos), Chinks (Orientals), and Injuns, squaws and redskins (Native Americans) for another day. Nevertheless, he was not colorblind. He also held Tennessee hillbillies and Ozark "Arkansarwians" in the same vista as "coloreds”.
To be fair, though, he was not vindictive, and he held no personal bigotry towards any particular race. Consequently, the few dogmatic prejudices he had were easily converted once confronted with recent history.
In his society, racial awareness was not an open issue. It's just the way things were, words, empty vehicles, a fleshless skeleton. As for intent, Mark Twain may have voiced generalities, but he dealt in individualities, and spoke out against injustice in any color, be it black, white, red, yellow, brown, or feminine.
I thought I had covered race sufficiently, but realized I should have gone into more depth when I had to bail his ass out one afternoon. I seldom let him out of my sight, but on this occasion, somehow we became separated.
He approached the first person he saw to ask for assistance. I found him in a knick of time up against the wall with Leroy, who by chance happened to be a friend, screaming, "Boy! Boy! Who's you callin' boy?"
I quickly stepped between them as Leroy seemed about to put him through a plate glass window. "Whoa, Leroy, Bro, wha's happenin'? You ain't havin' no problem with my man here, are ya?"
"…dis ol' honky a friend'a yors?"
"Yeah, well, Uncle Mark here's an old relation, kinda from another time, you might say. He's been out of touch. It don't mean nothin'."
"He gonna be an ol' dead relation next time his cracker ass calls me boy."
With no prompting, Mark stepped towards Leroy and offered his hand. "Please accept my most heartfelt apology. Where I come from, the term is more endearing. I thank you for igniting my ignorance."
Mark's words may have been over Leroy's head, but his sincerity was not. Leroy melted like butter on August asphalt.
Chapter Nine
"There are no grades of vanity, there are only grades of ability in concealing it."
Next, we customized his Kentucky Colonel getup. With his scrawny, knock-kneed, lily-white legs, we agreed that flip-flops, cutoffs, and tank tops were out of the question.
We ended up keeping the white trousers, and exchanged the coat and tie for an assortment of Hawaiian shirts. Mark was only slightly pleased. "I look like a blooming bouquet. Why, I'll lure every hornet, wasp, and honeybee for miles."
I didn't worry about anyone recognizing him; the likeness was too believable to be believed. Hemingway in Key West may have been another story, but Mark Twain in a Hawaiian shirt was safe. Connie was my only concern. Maybe with luck, we wouldn't run into her before the month was over.
We agreed from the outset that with the ruckus, controversy, and demand that his presence would stir, it'd be wise to keep his identity under wraps. Key West was the ideal place for that. No one – at least in my circle – would bother to pry. No last names, "where're ya from," or "wha'd ya do."
He suggested we keep his first name, no need to complicate things more than necessary. I suggested that he also tone down the highfalutin' verbiage. That turned out to be a highly unwarranted consternation not worthy of the burden on my solicitude.
No denying that he basked in being the center of attention. Contrary to his reputation, however, he was a keen observer who said little.
When I commented on this, he replied, "One who gauges the value of words tends to spend them wisely. Those who have acquired such perspicacious insight are seldom any other way." True to his reputation, humility was not his forté.
Eventually though, even this characterization proved tenuous, for underneath it all, I found him to be humble. I came to realize that I was dealing with two distinct personalities. There was Mark Twain the river pilot, risk taking, rough-cut adventurer; and Samuel Clemens, the quiet intellectual, silently evaluating every moment for information beneficial to Mark Twain.
It was a curious transition to watch, to see how well these dual personalities worked together, fully aware of each other.
Mark was the operation; Sam was the brains behind it. Their areas of expertise were well defined. There was no hint that one secretly coveted the other. Each personality was comfortable with its role, and dependent on the other to contribute its part, like equal halves.
Chapter Ten
"I have been born more times than anybody except Krishna."
I didn't fully understand the logistics of it, but a month was all he had. Halley's comet had already passed its perihelion – the point of its orbit nearest the sun – and was heading out of the solar system.
Before it got too far beyond the perigee of its Earthly approach, somehow Mark, or his essence, or whatever, would rejoin it, provided he was near the same drop-off spot. After which, he'd be gone, supposedly not to return for another seventy-six years, approximately 2061.
I asked him what would happen if he didn't make it back to the rendezvous point. He said that he'd most likely experience what could be an alternate form of death, where not even your essence survives, where everything about you is wiped from all consciousness. As far as any cosmic records were concerned, you never existed.
"That, my friend, is a finer definition of hell. Not the damnation of eternal suffering, but rather never to have existed in the first place."
What a tragedy that would be, a world with no Mark Twain, or worse, a world where Mark Twain never existed.
Then again, how would you know? If someone never was, you'd never know you knew if he was or not to begin with, would you?
Some faiths believe the same thing occurs if you take your own life, so I asked if that's what becomes of suicide victims.
"I presume so, if committed voluntarily. However, to perform such an act so counter to nature, one would most likely be out of his mind; so it would not be voluntary."
"Catch-22," I commented.
"Pardon?"
It was impossible to avoid using idioms unfamiliar to him. "I'll get you a copy of the book."
Taking in what he'd said, I delved further. "So, as long as we do not end it on our own, we keep going round and round in a continuous cycle. What happens once we finally work out this Tao of desires? Where do we go then?"
"I don't think it's ever been accomplished. If it had, none has bothered to return with the news. From appearances, though, and this is merely my speculation, I assume we advance to a bigger circus."
This must have been the uncertainty he was referring to when he said that death remained illusive. I questioned that if there was a bigger circus, would it not make sense that there was also a smaller one? Or, could it be that death and life are multidimensional?
Sometimes we might catch glimpses of it, a brief flicker in our conscious minds, or more likely in our dreams. Until we are able to handle more, our five senses keep us locked in this third dimension, protecting our consciousness from what would drive a majority of mankind insane. Though, judging by the average state of humanity's sanity, could one say it's doing an efficient job?
Who knows? Where is the ultimate truth here? Being a dedicated seeker of ultimate truths, the answer to "Why are we here?" translates to, the unveiling of irrefutable knowledge that stands the test of time, relativity, and quantum mechanics, combined. This would make ultimate truths seem more mythical than a unicorn, or at least rarer than the Hope Diamond.
Nonetheless, I have discovered two such definitive wisdoms. No matter what anyone says, thinks, believes, or thinks one believes what they say, when it comes to death or deity, I don't care from Pedro to Pope, Abdul to Ayatollah, bodhisattva to Buddha, or Swami to Shiva; the ultimate truth is: Absolutely No One knows for sure.
Mark was no exception, though he seemed to imply he was close.
My other ultimate truth is: The prosperity of a nation is directly proportional to the cleanliness of its public toilets. Maybe not as profound, but to borrow a quote from my friend here, "… let not the tongue of idle cavilers dissuade."
I asked Mark what he was aware of the last seventy-six years.
"Language cannot describe it without contradiction," he replied.
I could not imagine Mark Twain unable to find the words to explain something clearly. "Try," I said.
He described a consciousness of himself as an individual mind, but at the same time, he was not an individual.
"Time and place existed, but not in the conscious sense. Time had no beginning or end, place was the difference of 'here but not there', although distance did not exist.
"I was alone, but not lonely. There was communication, companionship, but again, not in the conscious sense. Knowledge was my foremost companion, though not necessarily conventional knowledge applicable in our dimensional awareness.
"And since this knowledge was for the taking, there were no questions.
"There were questions; the mind is a mass of ongoing questions. That’s its primary function. Telling your mind not to question is like asking your lungs not to breathe. However, the act of questioning produced answers faster than one could formulate the question.
"It is as indescribable as civility to a Frenchman. The attempt would bankrupt an unabridged dictionary. There is a word, however, that comes close by maybe a fraction of one degree…"
"Freedom," I guessed.
"No, though close. I rather prefer the word manumission."
Chapter Eleven
"...when a teacher calls a boy by his entire name it means trouble."