AZOTUSLAND chapter three

Editor's note...I'm late today so this is just the beginning of todays...but thanks for the notes of encouragement and the desire for more...this'll have to do for the next hour or two. Then back to real work...sheesh.
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So at 10:50 sharp, Jonathan got up from his chair, having finished his turkey and cheese sandwich on rye, and he ascended the stage. He looked around and saw only fellow employees. He motioned to Jeremy to close the door to the Big Room, then he exclaimed “Sorry folks barns empty! Boo-weevils and Republicans got here first!”

Then he seemed to draw up and transform himself into a Bible belt preacher. He had brought a napkin which he used for emphasis and would often pat his forehead for added measure as he did a dead-on impersonation of the Rev. Tanka, himself already somewhat of a caricature.

“Dear Brothers and Cistern!” Jonathan bellowed in a darkly and grumbling ephysmatic voice. “I do NOT want you to be unaware of the nefarious schemes of De Debil!”

Pacing back and forth as if discerning direct inspiration from the Spirit he shouted “That glass case of paaaastries ovah THERE is so filled with da white Shoooo-ger that it is a veritable hive of demonic activity!!”

Then he paused, “Does anybody have a smokie? You there!! Red-headed Rootabaggah…you got you a smokie!?”

“No Rev. I don’t smoke!” Roo yelled back laughing.

“How bout you Big Jim? You gotta smokie on ya?”

“Fresh out” Jim said shaking his head and hoping to God that the Rev. Tanka was not still upstairs, or worse, out on the balcony within possible earshot.

“Gotsta have me a smokie!” he said then started a long hacking sound.

“Juss a minute,” he growled then recovered. “All the terrible ills of this fallen universe are contained in the White Shoo-ger…all pestilence, all wars, all forms of adultery and bestiality such as were had at the likes of Sodom and Gaa-morah... and certain rural Texas towns which will go unnamed are because of Da White Shoooo-ger which must be Exor-Cized OUT!”

With this he jumped down and did the laying on of hands on Martine’s dark hair and suddenly yanked back his hands “Come Out! Yee evil DEEEEMON SHOOOGER!! Back Back YEEE to the Krispy Kreme from Whence YE came!”

“What if you use Splenda?” someone called out.

“Uh…not so very bad," he said l;ow and introspective. " But! Nutrasweeeeeetah is a made of dah piggy spleens!! And It-Tah is made in da Purg-gaa-Tory. And if you ingest it, as I have for many years, it will affectah your memory so that you will, er….I lost my train of thought-tah.”

Everybody broke up at this.

“And I do Thanka-YOO! cough cough," he hacked. "Now I must needs go and see my producer Maurice about the smok…er da Show today.”

And that was it for the day. The day before it was his imitation of James Mason reading NBA basketball scores and often falling asleep in mid-sentence.

“Aalin Iver-son took it to the HOOOLE… repeated-ly… and earned the high watah mark of 28 points (deep and sad sigh).”

Actually there was a bit of John Housemen mixed in but it was pretty good and got lots of laughs.

Jim left after that with Martine right behind on her way up to the café. As he turned left at the top of the stairs He said “see you in a bit Marty” and she harrumphed.

He turned and looked at her. “We’ve been through this before Marty.”

“I know, but it still bugs me.”

“Hey you want me to burn out?

“No, I’m just not sure it’s fair.”

“Look you have a life outside of here, I have to take what I can get…and right now I need time to study for tonight’s lecture.”

“Yeah that’s a big money maker” she said sarcastically.

“Well why don’t you come…you could double with Maug. You know he likes you.”

She blushed at that.

“What’s it on?”

“It’s actually a dual lecture I am doing with Dan Palmer from the Zen Center.”

“Sounds snoozey” she smirked.

“8:00 p.m. in the usual. I know Maug is coming because he wants to kick my ass. Now you don’t wanna miss that do ya sweetie?”

“Peh” she said and turned and walked into the café proper.

Jim went into the Bunkhouse, grabbed some books and fell back on the bottom queen-sized bunk. He turned on the CD player to cover the murmur coming through the wall from Manfred’s room... and endless stream of soap operas all late morning through afternoon every single day. He put on a Thomas Newton CD. He closed his eyes and dreamed.

In his dream it was dark outside on a warm summer night as he approached the small bungalow. She was waiting outside in a long cotton gown. She seemed to be having fun, taking care somehow.

When he saw her and walked up she turned and smiled.

"What are you doing?"

She crinkled her little nose and said "I'm just taking care of the last."

"Okay," Jim said and went inside past the screen and regular door.

He could faintly hear Newton's Mauve Antartica in the background, twinkling, dancing, a little sweep here. Beautiful. Like delicate cat paws on new carpet.

But the room was empty. He turned on the air conditioner but it made no sound. Just the music.

He lay down on simple soft bedding. The dark yellow glow of the lighting warmed the room. He felt at peace.

She did not come into the room. The dream was too short. But she didn't need to. He knew upon waking that in time, her time, she would, and lay down next to him. He would smell her hair, and enjoy the line of her jaw in the light, and she would stretch out and just want to be held.

As he woke, Jim felt happy. A room with nothing but a bed. A woman to trust. Crickets outside, and a winsome soundtrack.

Ah...if life were only like this. Then he looked to his left and saw the stack of books: Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death, Peter Berger’s The Precarious Vision, and Merton’s Love and Living.

He sighed, then the door of Manfred’s room burst open and he came out and exclaimed “Jamie is Pregnant Sahib!! Oh I knew this would happen!! Oh Joy of all joyfulnesses!!”

Then he retreated back into his room.

Jim got up and popped a Molson and sat down at the small wooden table that was surrounded by three windows, to jot some notes.

Two floors down, Hans opened up the double gallery doors which basically stayed wide open all day long. Marin is unique in that most of the year the climate is neutral. There is no need for either air conditioning or heat. It rarely matters whether it is day or night. It’s a county of great irony because one would think it a perfect bastion for Right Wingers wanted less taxes and capitalizing on their slim energy needs.

Marin has the highest income per capita of any county in the US, and no real major energy needs…yet in the last few years Jim had never once seen a pro-Bush sticker. People seemed very willing to pay their fair share of taxes, and also to conserve in an area that hardly needed to.

The folk were also deeply spiritual, though highly distrustful of any organized religion.

That was just one of the many reasons that Jim had decided on Marin as a base of operation for the beginnings of Azotus. He was not disappointed. In fact he had more attention than he really knew what to do with. He was often asked to speak at various organizations around town on his theory of “Depth Pluralism”. In most cases he declined, and simply invited people up to the old mansion that housed Azotus day in and day out.

Things were getting a bit out of hand and he was starting to think that he might need to open and second, and perhaps a third, location if he was to keep his dream alive. But who would run the other one or two?

That was a mystery, but what wasn't?

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Hans flicked on the lights and walked around the gallery inspecting each piece of work and how well hung it was.

Everything was in order just as he had left it at 5 p.m. the day before. But he checked just the same. He had suspicions that Jim came down at other closed times for his own reasons and while he could not figure it, he wondered about the three slim doors that were at the back of the darkroom.

he had asked Jim about them when he first signed on and Jim had just said they were "personal storage units" in a nonchalant manner.

But Hans had noted that there were no survellaince cameras anywhere in the art area or near the three doors. At the end of one day he had taken tiny slivers of clear tape and placed then at the bottom of all three doors. The next morning two of them were detached.