Heaven's Steamy Kitchen Window

"This is what you should be doing.”

Is there anyone that does ‘humble know-it-all’ better than Gabriel? Okay, maybe George Clooney, but I don’t know George Clooney. What I do know is: Gabriel, my former spiritual teacher, has got it down.

But he’s messing with me already, right? Would my welcoming ex-pat ex-best/-present/-future friend invite me across an ocean and up into the blistering hills of Catalan just to repeat – ver-fucking-batim – the same sacred pimp bait from 20 years ago? Maybe it’s a tick, like the toll-taker whose every utterance spasmodically includes, “Thank you”, as in, “What – thank you – kind of ammo does this thing use?” The sentence that seduced me in the broad Berkeley daylight, right there on the front lawn of his church has been spoken again. I haven’t been on the ground one full night and already my soft-spoken Greek-American friend and tormenter, this lonely holy hustling sage is fucking with me.

Isn’t he?

Or am I rushing a judgment here? Just because I remember these words as the ones that made me believe I could do what he does, the slogan that arraigned all the diamonds on Heaven’s gate to spell my name, doesn’t mean he does. Or should. Give the guy some space, fascisto. Probably no more than a metaphysical bicep squeeze, a spiritual fitness check before he lets me near his students tomorrow. Best I take a deep breath, enjoy my belly full of wine and hit the ‘tranquilo’ link.

I return the serve playfully.

“What? Living in Europe and shaving my head?”

He lobs back a polite chuckle, but the eyes aren’t the right kind of amused.

Something’s not right…

I launch a single exploratory laugh into the black velvet air between us, an investigation of my own to insure he’s being funny or ironic or…

Fear spasms shoot down both legs as I watch my sonic probe move right through him and out into stars the size of Cadillacs. Fuck! I ground myself instinctively – an outwardly invisible maneuver that Gabriel, of course, can see. He takes a calm step toward me, invites the rest of his face to the smile and, in the same movement, slides a casual hand down in front of me, pausing half a foot from my navel. And, like all showman, finishing with a tiny flourish: the index-middle-thumb tripod of fingers bloom open – poof!

Wha…?

But it’s too late. Some essential key has slid across smooth marble and dropped into the fluff of re-united friendship, jet lag and the always-magic stillness of 4 am. Any clues are lost between the cushions of our comfortable, broken past.

All I have to work with is the (near-)certainty that his exploding flower of fingers has shot - tingle-pling! – a speck of metaphysical cocaine into my lower gut, causing the chirp of crickets and a dog’s bark to waft like smoke and linger mid-air, acid-bent Disney audio sparkles weaving in and out, almost masking the alarms.

This isn’t possible - he can’t…

And would he?

But, yeah, whatever’s entered my body fragments, spidering down low in my belly, tap dancing atop my sternum. Hints of cardamom and chlorine blow up the back of my throat, insisting I take a double-deep lung suck of steaming Iberian night air laced with summer flowers, diesel, dog shit and Spanish cigarettes.

My first responder, old, reliable rage-bot suggests a response:

“You wanna tell me what the fuck you think you’re doing?”

But I hold off. Unsure.

Unsure I can – or want to - say anything like that to my friend, the Man of God.

Unsure – well, barely – Gabriel’s responsible for this astral extravaganza.

And, especially and always, unsure I want it to stop. And miss the thrills?! The terror?! The hyper-aliveness of riding in the back seat of a taxi that’s jumped the barricades, watching my reflection smear down the side of 100-story chrome-mirrored skyscraper filled with drunk prophets in clown white and torn fishnets.

Let it rip, motherfucker! Blister me with the flaming sword of an Archangel. Take me to the place where the magic of birth is all mixed up with the courage of murder.

And, now and always, cauterize the hollowing fear liquefying my organs.

The night sky ripples with faint lysergic projections, reminding me to snag a fraction of myself in the material. I fight by pin-pointing my eyes on 4 scarred dogs rooting at the edge of chicken wire down the hill below our retreat’s bungalows and feel Gabriel observe me, his handiwork, as all the components synchronize: the dangerous dogs, the tinkering guru. The, “No! Stop! Now!” protests and the, “Show me every fucking thing in the Universe at once!” double-dares, we’re all pressed tight in an express elevator engineered to outrun any protest or apprehension, mashing it all into colors, gases, flavors -

"NO!"

- igniting a white-hot filament searing my brain stem from the inside out, building a pressure weighing hard on my chest, popping the seals on the cap of my skull.

“Is it – finally - too much this time?”

And then:

Nothing.

Instant frozen anti-gravity.

All.

Thought.

Stops.

Except:

I’m having an aneurism. This is what it’s like to die.

No fear, no loss. Neutral. The only interesting thing about dying is that I have no interest whatsoever.

This is fucking awesome!

Now a second wave crests, washing my brainpan in pearlesent light and angelic perfume, raising me up past the penthouse and onto the very floor of Heaven I always pray for and now, again, resist.

Exhaaaaale.

Gabriel’s at-ease smile floats Cheshire-like, prying the last fat, tight fear-fingers loose and I wash down a velvet river of melted Crayola Indigo.

This is exactly how it’s always felt. Like God feels.

Exactly.

Like.

Smack?

Was it, after all, always the same, the dope and God? In the right sky, just on the wrong airline?

Oh, God, You can’t blame me for not going to You first, with Your too-shiny brochures of open door policies and patient hearts. Far as I could tell, You were the Ultimate Mean Drunk Dad reeling at the controls of an amusement park with no exits. And like children of addicts everywhere, I became the Father and the Son, providing me, my only child, with essential medicines and rare elixirs to treat the distemper. I know You understand.

But now, tonight, I wonder: maybe those visits to powdered peace truly were peeks thru Heaven’s steamy kitchen window. If God is truly the All of Everything, then He’s no less the very essence of that other trinity: the spoon, the needle and the big blue vein. Maybe dope’s lip-to-ear breathy promises of freedom and power really do sneak us backstage and into the golden vapor-lights of The Kingdom and The Power and The Glory we’re after: The God-Fix!

I just never got the hang of which gates in the Ancient Maze the dope unlocked. Sometimes, shimmering pools of love and plenty, but, too often, sulfurated stench and broken teeth.

I relinquish my command, cozy up in the ear of a heat-shimmering, beautiful tiger -

NO! FIGHT! Don’t let go!

- and watch via satellite as mi isla Manhattan, with her glorious rivers of money and freedom, friendship and luxury, hemorrhage out of me, draining off my swank ‘hood and stamped-up passport, the $200 Japanese dinners, the $300 English shoes and icy neon cocktails with mentally unstable movie stars.

SLOW FADE TO BLACK. TITLE UP: The End.

Is this it, God? Is this what I get for my ten thousand vows of surrender to Your Will?

Defenses evaporate like ether on a warm mirror. I let go and float in time-free perfection, the glory and the peace I’ve always wanted. Forever and ever. Amen.

Down below, the wild dogs breach the fence and a blast of chicken screams clip the mountain tops and shatter the night sky with a cardiac-monitor green lightning. Gabriel’s gentle, sincere grin is a pictogram telling me that, once again, I missed yet another clause and am still bound to our old, old contract. I want to cry and sing out loud to the angels. I want to mangle a windpipe and run. I want to do God’s Will and resent every motherfucking task I’m given.

The phantom cabbie grabs my bags, then gently cups my ear and whispers:

"Yes!"

•

“God, I need a sign. I’m watching and listening.”

The question asked, today’s meditation is officially over. Out my open window, we join a perfect New York morning already in progress: Warm, clear blue with a tingle of fall. Reconnecting with the external, I rise off the pillow to see my own baked brown legs and, like a replay of that one never-fail hottest unforgettable sex memory, my chest, lips and forehead are painted in a flush of heat that fires up little movies starring the fragrant clatter hundred-plate dinners at midnight, Antonio Gaudi castles that appear designed by the children of potheads, heat-wobbled knots of ancient streets flowing into elegant boulevards and honky-tonk ramblas, bitter olives and anchovy swimming in a salt sea fed by rivers of warm red wine. Un mamsasita caliente, un atractiva paella grande, La Barcelona.

“We’ve been talking about opening an institute in Stockholm, but we don’t have anyone who’s qualified... ”

Gabriel, his sweet, smart Swedish wife, Cecila and I are under a tree in an afternoon blast-furnace 10 steps from where we stood last night. The proprietor tells us 15 or 20 chickens were killed overnight. “Perros salvajes”, she hisses. Wild dogs. Down the hill, two old men shovel dirt into a dog-dug trough below bent fence.

And 10,000,000 scattered matchsticks flash-form an intricate parquet: The out-of-nowhere email inviting me to teach in Spain, not allowing me to pay for my own lodging – an unheard of first. And then, of course, last night’s Grand Event: The Castanadian psychic date-rape we both pretend didn’t happen.

Gabriel’s coy invite is a cartoon anvil frozen in the swelter between us. I can’t look, instead chaining my eyes to the old men down the hill, smiling, nodding, feeling my molecules re-arrange.

Before I’d left Spain, Gabriel finally asked outright if I wanted to open the Stockholm institute. My first thought: That’s not going to happen. Why would I give up the greatest life I’ve ever had? I say, “I’ll take a look at it”, meaning: “I’ll meditate on it.”

Which is how I’ve been capping each morning meditation since coming home: A request for direction, for signs indicating a move to Sweden. Just in case. Just in case it’s what I’m really supposed to do (can’t be). Just in case Gabriel’s invitation isn’t some psycho/psychic manipulation, but a divinely inspired memo from Management that I’d be insane to ignore (ridiculous). I’m not going anywhere, after all, because God obviously wants me in New York – right here, right now - downtown Manhattan. Lowtown, U.S.A..

I stretch, relaxed and energized by today’s session, about to swing onto the floor and get going, but the sound’s getting louder and closer, so close the loft vibrates a little and the first of two jets crash into the tall buildings 10 blocks away.

Any sign at all, God. I’m looking and listening.

•

I know how this sounds, me asking God for a sign and boom. If someone used this in a movie, I’d be brutal, i.e., “That scene where he asks God for a sign and the planes hit? What kind of bullshit was that?” Yet it’s exactly what happened.

But nudge the perspective a little. Move just one seat over, and “Bullshit” becomes, “Huh… no shit?” All you need to do is add a voice-over: “Was I the only human being below Canal St. – or New York or the Eastern Seaboard or the U.S.A. – requesting a divine sign at 8:52 am?”

•

The way sound bounces around Manhattan’s Artificial Alps, I think I’m hearing a plane go down somewhere in midtown, maybe 30, 40 blocks north.

I call the actress warehouse one floor above me. Kirsty, the Aussie, answers.

“I think a plane just crashed uptown.”

“The radio says it’s at World Trade.” She’s rasping, either choked-up crying or still asleep.

“Meet me out front.”

A warp in the rules of New York culture occur in times of real trouble: Strangers start conversing without hesitation. No preliminary hand shakes or awkward self-introductions, it’s as if a previous conversation had been picked up mid-sentence. You might have thought the group gathered on Hudson Street to watch a 110-story building burn had, if not shared a sofa at a party, maybe temped together a few years ago:

“Musta run outta fuel, right?”

“Sheila o-ways said, ‘Dem taowas is a magnet fa air-o-planes’.”

“Do you see any clouds? No. I don’t either. No clouds, no fog. It just doesn’t make sense.”

Now Kirsty’s beside me, tear-streaked and silent and – BOOM! - a Michael Bay exploding fireball blows thru the top quarter of the second tower. From our perspective, none of us saw the second jet, just the explosion.

Like sheep catching the scent of coyote still miles away, the energy shifts in our huddle, scattering half of us.

“That was no plane, that was a bomb, yo.” the Afro-Latino kid announces, but instead of being repelled, he starts south, toward the pyre.

Before the second tower explodes, I’m sure this is the number one most hallucinogenic accident in our history, already stacking stats against Hindenburgs and Titanics.

But two? No, not random.

My neighbor George walks up.

“Dude, can we go up on your roof?”

“Yeah, c’mon.”

Kirsty, George and me leave the thinning herd, climb up that dangling, dangerous last staircase and back to the horror set in deep, endless blue. From up here it’s closer somehow, more intense without all the hysteric torrent of emergency vehicles thundering by. And then it gets a little weirder: The roof is covered with rows of professional grow-troughs filled with tomato and sunflower arraigned to camouflage a tall thicket of marijuana.

Standing at the edge, silent, it looks like the world’s largest air conditioning units burn and smoke, ten million file folders have magically emptied out and released a sparkling confetti pre-commemorating the saddest, strangest thing that’s ever happened.

Soon, my optimism tells me, the fire department will put it out and we can do something else. Until then, there’s nowhere else to go, nothing else to look at. We’re hypnotized, enslaved by our collective mind’s inability to categorize, file away, make sense. Every so often somebody says, “It looks like a movie”, because that’s as close as anyone can get to wrapping logic around what we see.

The spell is broken when my neighbor, Chet, appears, edgy and more superior than usual.

“I just got off the subway at Chambers. You know, there’re people jumping.”

“No there’s not,” I deny, indignant. “I’ve been watching the whole time – I haven’t seen any people…”

“There’s one”, he points out. “There’s another one.”

And thru the slo-mo rubble twister, I see them now, realize I’ve been watching human beings freefall a hundred stories for what seems like hours. And not just forms of humans. I can actually tell what colors they put on this morning, before they left their apartments, their children, their bodies.

Suddenly it’s no longer abstract and way too fucking intimate.

“I’m not watching any more.”

I start down to my loft, Kirsty and George following.

Back in my place, I turn on the television. I’m worried about Kirsty: If there’s a look that says, “near-catatonic”, this is it. Her family’s on the other side of the planet and she’s too thin, shivering convulsively.

“Are you okay?”

“Got any smoke, Randy?” she asks in tiny Australian.

I dig out a stash I keep for friends and fill a pipe for her. She’s shaking pretty bad and suddenly I wonder if I’m hallucinating?, pretty sure I’m seeing thru her skin, down to her skeletal structure, a panic-activated x-ray vision.

Okay, yeah, tranquilization. I open a bottle of white wine from the refrigerator. George pulls hard on his glass. I do, too, and pour some more.

Out my window, the sky is still perfect clarity, dotted with the occasional - what are they? Legal documents? Résumés? Emergency procedure manuals for offices filled with jet fuel and melting steel?

When the first tower collapses on itself, I have a dreaming sensation of watching something on television while simultaneously feeling the faint tremors radiate thru the paved earth below me, a small thunder passing into 200-year old brick. An alien sorrow moves into my chest as I listen to every kind of person - man, woman and child, all ages and colors, all nationalities, all classes – join in a distinct human sound, a shockwave that surrounds the wreckage 10 blocks south, it tracks north, echoing up the streets, muffled yet unmistakably clear, it’s volume rising, the chorus now around our building, up the stairwell, my living room, into all of us, embracing our lungs and heart and involuntarily out our mouths, too, that we relay north, to Vestry, Debrosses, Canal, a harmonious moan moving into SoHo, a tarnished golden cloth woven from human heartbreak, a single, necessary, congruent oral wound - Oooohhhh, a release up from the gut, one shared wordless expression of painful, beaten, spent amazement.

The sky fills with ash and plastic, dark smoke and more paper. Sharp chemicals are released that I can taste.

“Let’s close the windows.”

The phone keeps ringing: L.A., Bay Area, Europe, the Bronx, Florida, Upper West Side. “Yes, I’m fine.” One tower still stands and already I’m feeling an awkward guilt, the side-effect of repeating the same epic tale, editing, honing, it becomes an oddly rehearsed version of a tragedy too big to know. Ever.

“I love you, too. No, I’m okay. Really. Bye.”

Christy Whitman says our downtown air is safe to breathe. Adolph Giuliani morphs into Il Papa before our eyes. All flights are grounded, gridlocking the planet’s airspace. Now the Pentagon’s attacked, then a forth jet’s down – maybe shot down – out in Pennsylvania. When the second tower goes, it’s terrible force cracks the seals on twin Pandoric ampules, releasing vapors more dangerous than imaginable: First, airborne ice vapors of sorrow and loss, resetting what was thought to be the American human’s capacity to endure. The second far deadlier: a floral-scented stream of genetically engineered lies so sophisticated, it binds the atoms of fear (red), hatred (white) and death (blue) that subtly infuse the air supply with an atmospheric cancer, infecting thoughts, ideals, morals and hearts, a new and potent vapor now a part of every breath on Earth.

•

“If your offer still stands, can we talk about opening that school in Stockholm?”

Gabriel lets out one of his many knowing chuckles, this one dosed with a few molecules of the internationally recognized smirk known as I told you so.

“Fantastic! When’re you coming?”