“bonk, bonk bonk,” goes a knuckle against the glass window in Wrack’s room[R1] [R2] . “Who is outside my window at three in the morning,” asks Wracks?  “Bonk, Bonk, Bonk, meet me outside,” says BG.  “bonk, bonk, and bonk, its me BG.” Says BG. Make me some breakfast.  “Where is my dog,” asks Wracks. “I gave Punkin a milk bone and put him to sleep,” says BG.  “How did you get in my house,” asks Wracks who now is wide awake. “I reached through the dog door and opened it up,” explains BG. “I did not want to wake your parents so I put Punkin to bed and came around to your window.  Meet me in back.”   “I have to put on some pants,” says Wracks, “give me a minute.”  Wracks exits his room, walks down the hall, closes the hall door and looks at the cushion where Punkin the house dog sleeps.  Punkin dozes upside down with a smile on his face and stirs when Wracks walks by.   He opens his eyes, makes a whining noise and goes back to sleep.  Wracks let BG in the back door. Bg wears a cardigan sweater and a large woodsman hat because it is winter even here in the best climate in North America on the west coast in December.  “The con is on,” says BG.  “It should be about eight to ten feet at the point and bigger at indicator.”  “A new swell is hitting today and then it will drop tomorrow. The con is on and we should go now and be out in the water at sunup. The tide is low at two PM so the swell should peak in the morning and then drop with the tide. Let’s have breakfast.  What do you have? “   “We have eggs and toast,” says Wracks.  “I’ll have two eggs sunny side up and two pieces of toast with butter,” states BG. Wracks takes out a pan from underneath the stove, adds butter to the bottom of the pan and turns on the electric range and then drops four eggs into the melting and then sizzling butter.  Five minutes later the two sit at the kitchen table and have breakfast with two cups of Yuban fresh brewed coffee.  “It will not be as big as last time we went but it should be real good and have excellent shape. “  BG takes a draw on his coffee and finishes his eggs. “Bring some gas money and a pack of Pall mall Gold.   We will need the nicotine.”  Says BG.  He rises from his chair, takes his dish and sets it in the sink like he would at home.  “Ill gets my stuff, “says wracks. The dog spins around right side up and yawns.  “Ill see you out front, “says BG as he exits the back door in the dark in December as the mist from the ocean puts a shade and shadow on everything.   The dog goes back to sleep.  Wracks gets his jacket, his Coca Cola and bread, his paraffin bar, a pack of cigarettes, two dollars in change, and an O’Neill super suit, and goes out the back door into the garage.  A red diamond tail seven foot five inch Nat Pro gun sits in the rafters and Wracks pulls it down with a hook and brings his gear outside the gate to underneath the big pine tree on Bacon way as the street lights illuminate the opaque  air about the night. The green General motors durabuilt engine econocar hatch sits open and Cool is loading his surfboard into the car between the seats.  “I invited him along, “says BG. “The more the merrier.”  Cool turns his head in a Mexican pullover with hood and says,  “Hey brau,”  He then takes a draw on his cigarette and finishes a Heineken bear in a dark green bottle then heaves the empty into the neighbors yard.   “tonight you are going coffin,” says BG.  “Wait till I get my motorcycle helmet,” says Wracks.  Wracks dashes back into the back, into the garage and extracts a black bell motocross helmet and puts it on.   The three surfboards sit in the middle of the car separating the two driver seats and the back folds down into a large cargo area.  The gear of the three surfers sits on the right behind the “passenger side,   On the left will go Wracks coffin style. “Get in,” says BG, we have to get going.”  Wracks climbs into the cargo section, sits down facing back and lays into the car like count Dracula going to sleep.  BG closes the Hatchback over him, enters the car, ignites the ignition, puts the car into gear and the three set off into history. Down Bacon, past Mellow man’s, onto Suez lane and then sunrise avenue and Wracks looks up at the stars with his helmet on, chin strap on and starts to fall asleep and the car accelerates like mad up highway number one.  “We are going to take the freeway today,” stipulates BG.  Up Pang oh road the hatchback flies and the tires screech around the hairpin curves until the plateau and the freeway 101 appears as a green sign in the headlights at night perpendicular to the direction they were going.   Onto the onramp the car flies and BG accelerates until the car is in forth gear and floored at night with the high beams on traveling on the 101 north.  Wracks awakens from sleep to see the stars and the car fills with smoke and the windows are half way down and the wind whips around Wracks helmet, the icy coolness bringing him back to life.   Within a short time the three arrive at the junction, the junction of California street and highway one, and the ocean makes sounds and the moon sets largely on the ocean, illuminating the way to the little corner.   The little corner is the most consistent surf break in SB and gets a northwest, a hard north and a straight west swell.  BG says today the swell sweeps in straight west and Wracks dozes coffin style in the hatchback.   Kool comes to life and says, “let’s stop at the little clam for provisions.”  BG acknowledges and the car comes to a stop a half hour later at a little market, in a shack, set against s a hill with a gas station a half block away and the ocean rumbles and roars.  BG buys a hot dog and a pastrami sandwich heated in the store microwave.  Kool gets a sandwich and a bag of candy.   Wracks stays inside the car.   The two eat in silence.   Then BG says, “Lets get going and be out in the water at sunrise.”  Kool acknowledges with a hand gesture.  BG ignites the car and heads out on the highway. Within ten minutes the three are at the little corner and pull into the big parking lot made especially for wave riders surrounding  them with cyclone fencing and concrete blockades.   The night closes and the scene begins to lighten into a dark grey and morning arrives.  Eight cars situate inside the parking area.  Die hard wave riders who scoff a normal life sit in their cabs or hang out of the cargo doors of their vans waiting for first light.  Sharks cruise in the darkness and light sends them back out to deep water until the sun starts to set again.  Vans of ladies arrive to watch the wave riders surf the long thin tubular swells of the little corner.  The little corner breaks mostly on a west or northwest swell.  On these disturbances, the waves line up perpendicular to the point and break with ruler straightness in cylindrical almond-shaped tubes.  From the outer first point, three separate tube sections exist and a wave rider can situate his or herself strategically at each section to ride deep inside the wave.  The little corner holds a west swell up to fifteen feet, and then it starts to break erratically and closeout.  On a rare hard north swell that refracts off the Channel Islands onto the west-facing beach, thirty-foot waves will break for a morning and then disappear in the afternoon.  For these waves, people dedicate their lives and wait and watch for the perfect big day to arrive.  Once initiated, the little corner draws addicts from all over the coastal region of southern California.  Cool is the first out of the car. BG uncorks wracks who arises like a vampire from his tomb, shucks the helmet and saunters with the other two down the little trail unto the base of the beach to catch a glimpse of what morning brings.   Today, the three are lucky, a solid ten to twelve-foot swell sends lines three to five at a time to break down the point into the bay.  The morning starts, the light arrives and a cool offshore breeze holds up the waves unto perfect spinning vortexes larger than ten feet and growling.  Cool screams out an unexplained word and runs back to the green hatchback along with BG.  The hatch opens, three wetsuits hang on the car and wracks share the bar of paraffin with the other two, and white streaks appear on the surface of the three long surfboards. With boards in hand, the three run down the trail, through the flotsam and jetsam of wood and seaweed up to the point.  Timing the sets, they launch during a lull and are outside.   The sun comes up over the mountain interior to the little corner point and the day begins.  About twenty people ride the waves that morning and enough waves arrive to give each his or her own to enjoy.  When the sun raises to directly overhead, the offshore wind stops and the ocean becomes completely smooth and glassy like a window pane.  Three wave sets pour through endlessly.  Within an hour the wind reverses into a westward flow and the ocean surface starts to roughen up and chop.  BG turns to Wracks and says, “We’re going in.” Wracks starts to paddle to shore without waiting for a wave to ride and then arrives on the beach by going along with the white water.    Cool waits up at the car. BG opens the car, cool grabs a bag of candy, and starts eating.  Wracks strips off his wetsuit and enters his druid robe.  Cool takes off his wetsuit then noticing some young ladies down the parking lot, starts dancing stark naked and singing.  The girls laugh and blush and Wrack stows his gear in the hatchback and modestly puts on his corduroy jeans and tee shirt and then his jacket.  BG smokes a Pall mall gold and drinks coke.   The waves still pour in and the parking lot shows full.   Surfers run down to the beach with their boards and the wind is a light five knots on shore.   BG tosses his cigarette butt and says, “Let’s go.  Wracks get in the coffin.”  Wracks dons the black bell helmet and descend into the hatch.  Cool drinks a beer and tosses the can as close to a trash receptacle as he can.  The green Chevrolet launches southward at light speed. “I told you so, I told you so,” chides BG….  Ten to twelve feet slides and churning green tubes.  What more can you ask for.”

“I have to go work for my father,” says Cool “mellow.”    Wracks as customary fades into oblivion as the car enters the 101 at California street.    The three arrive back at Bacon way at three thirty pm.  “Service with a smile,” says BG.  “Wracks, get out, I have to go to work.”  Wracks grabs his gear in a brown grocery bag and plucks his red NatPro gun from the car.   “Thank you very much, BG that was a session I will always remember.  BG and cool accelerate in a close circle and rocket up Mellow man’s land to Charmed street where Cool lives.  Wracks stows his board in the rafters and washes his super suit with cold hose water.   The little dog sits on the kitchen step, growls, and wags his tail.   Wracks enters the house.  “What for dinner,” asks Wracks. “Grab a frozen bag of chicken and microwave it, “says mom.   “Where were you?” “I was surfing big wave up in SB with BG,” explains Wracks.  “go shower off and do your homework,” says Mom.   Wracks walks to his bedroom, then falls into his bed, and is asleep.  The day closes, and night arrives again and the darkness brooding in the silence becomes a reality.  Wracks wake up when it is dark, makes his meal, boils water for a cup of coffee and read by his little desk lamp.  The dog strolls in through the doggy door and falls asleep on his little cushion and wracks turns on the evening lights and locks up the house.  A light shines from under the door in Grandma’s room and Grandma is watching tony Orlando on television.  “Do you need dinner,” asks Wracks.  “No, she says and smiles and holds a speaker up to her ear.  “I already ate.”  The day ends, the night begins and another page turns over in the book of Wrack’s life.  Today he rode long thin tubular waves for a quarter-mile ride while the world turns.  No one noticed except Wracks and maybe his little dog and tomorrow he will wake up and read the Sunday paper and maybe go to church.  Then a new week begins again and Wracks will grow a little older.

 [R1]

 [R2]

The highly intelligent and most ethical have trouble accepting the truth.

The truth is that the working class maintains the infrastructure and drives the economy.

If there was a Passover and God took back all the rich overnight, the nation would wake up the next day and function normally.  The well-to-do are expendable.  

The wealth of a nation must be directed to maintain and nurture the working class because they are the life blood of the continuing existence of a free society.

The highly intelligent and most ethical have trouble accepting the truth.

The truth is that the working class maintains the infrastructure and drives the economy.

If there was a Passover and God took back all the rich overnight, the nation would wake up the next day and function normally.  The well-to-do are expendable.  

The wealth of a nation must be directed to maintain and nurture the working class because they are the lifeblood of the continuing existence of a free society.

In southern California, the temperatures average sixty degrees in December, and the wind is still until January when the brief storms begin.  Today is Christmas and a long time ago, the family would concentrate during the yuletide season and wish good tidings to all.  Tonight, the grandparents are coming along with their relatives and business cronies, the Chivas.   The Chivas have a large family and each of the children was named for a number depending on when they were born.   Tonight, Quinto and his brother and wives are coming for Christmas dinner.   Grandfather as a trick has his relatives administer his businesses.    The contract is to keep it all in the family like they do in Vegas.

This Christmas, Mother and Grandmother Theresa are cooking a big ham.  Theresa has the Wracks insert cloves into the ham fat about an inch apart to give it flavor.  When it is done a covering of sweet honey and cinnamon will drizzle over the roast and each guest will savor a large piece.  With the ham, this Christmas season is candied yams.   Yam’s dice and are baked in an oven in a casserole dish and when they are done, small marshmallows cover the potatoes and melt contributing to the orange sweet with white. Along with the yams and ham is creamed spinach.   To make this vegetable, a huge amount of spinach dice upon a board, transfers to a large frying pan, and a quart of light cream add to it, rendering the green vegetable a silky-smooth repast.  The guests assemble and Grandfather sits at one end of the table, father at the other, Fonz next to mother, and grandmother next to the Wracks.  The Chivas sit on the other side of the table.  The food places in the pass-through and the guests get the first crack at it.  Red wine pours into all the glasses and everyone raises theirs in a toast to the past year.  Then the family bows their heads and gives God a prayer of thanks for the heavenly meal.  

Manga says father Wracks and everyone digs in.  Grandmother puts a piece of her ham on the Wracks plate and smiles and today is Christmas.   For dessert, Mom serves a huge white cake with chocolate icing homemade and everyone has a second helping of this pastry made with whole milk, and the icing with gobs of chocolate powder, sugar and butter.  When everyone is done, Mother brings in a large decanter of Columbian coffee with half and half as a creamer.   Everyone smiles and enjoys the dessert and the coffee on the day of the birth of the savior, the prophet Jesus. 

This is the first time Grandfather brings his business associates to dinner and this will be the last time and the Wracks will ever see them again.  Like a contract in a bridge game where the best hand triumphs, the guests move to the living room.   Mom passes around See’s candies and the white decanter of coffee and Christmas music plays on the little intercom speakers around a large white flocked tree that Grandfather obtained from the local market and Grandmother decorates with homemade ornaments in sequins with names embroidered on the balls.   The Wracks sit on the floor and play with his gifts.  Quinto sits next to the Wracks and tells him how he lost the tip of his index finger to an adversary in a fistfight and describes in detail how to twist your fist when you punch to cut the skin on the face.  Quinto says he has been in a lot of fights and this is how life is. He has a son named Don.   Grandfather and his business associates gather in a group and talk amongst themselves.    After a while, the Chivas get up and announce they are leaving.    With huge grins on their faces, they thank everyone in the house for the delicious Christmas dinner, they retrieve their coats and leave.   Then they walk down the steps of the brick entrance and together enter a green Cadillac coup de Ville, wave, put the car in reverse, and slide away.  Grandfather waves to them and then he and Theresa enter the house.   They then announce they are leaving also and for everyone to have a merry Christmas.  The gifts the grandparents brought to the Fonz and the Wracks were profuse and opulent as is his style.  He and Theresa enter their white Ford Fairlane, she smiles and waves, and then they are away.  

The best gift that God can bestow on his children is to give them a family, an eternity for them to celebrate the holidays with.   When someone has a family, they don’t need gifts or fancy food to enjoy festivities and special days.  All they need is each other and all the Tycoons sitting on their treasures alone cannot imagine the joy and happiness that family and camaraderie bring.    The Wracks wish his brother and his parents a merry Christmas and loads the dishwasher and clears the table and counts the sterling silver cutlery.   They have to be hand washed and that can wait until tomorrow morning, Christmas has come and gone and it is wonderful.   The Wracks turn off the kitchen lights and the lights in the living room and finally the multi-colored lights that deck the tree.   He enters his own bedroom because he and his brother have to be separated because they fight, he puts on his pajamas, gets on his knees and thanks God for another Christmas with his family, one of the days in the Twentieth century.  Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.  

Inside the gift reclines love inviting. Around the gift reside space and Om and the Om lives in quiet harmony with the gift and the all.  The all changes into everything and the everything become an arena for the all, the gift, the ego, and the mind to fraternize.   The all exists as a wave function that was and will always be after the end of time and the new beginning. The all lives as itself and inside the all lives the love that the all insists upon in his or her loneliness and perpetuity.   If the space becomes a screen and the gift caresses the space then the result returns a picture of what happens in an in phase sine wave projection.  The gift sees and does not know a master,  the gift only knows truth, justice and harmony and sees only them when awakening and when falling into complete slumber.  The other side of the gift yields mercilessness.  The gift knows no sides, takes no hostages, makes no bargains, it only sees what happens real and is delivered in the space given to it by the all.  The all can be benevolent and shield the gift from what the all does not want the gift to see. The all screens the content of the gift because the master of the gift born mortal has weakness and human failings and viciousness. Inherent in an incarnation of a human being.  The all gives an ego to the gift to control the output of the picture the gift provides the incarnation.  The ego hopes the gift will not see the truth and only deliver a feeling or volume of existence of space-time at the instant of arousal and focus.  The gift can be evil because it knows no master because the all wants it that way.  In the imagination of the all, the whim becomes the gift and the gift sees what it is not supposed to see and the ego scolds it for seeing it.  In the recklessness of the ego as a mortal being comes weakness because the ego only reasons with the anagrams of past experience provided by upbringing and the environment and the life of  the gift in a human stems from the imagination of a lonely all.  During sleep the gift looks around unbridled, uncensored by the ego and sees what truly happens in the darkness and shadows of the night.  The gift as a mind’s eye reacts to stimuli appropriately without regard to race, creed or color only in the intent based upon a vector gram in a 180 degree Cartesian coordinate system given to it by the all.  Because the gift has no feeling, no empathy, no prejudice, it can seem to act inappropriately to a casual observer.  In unconsciousness or during attack, the gift sees and may choose not to arouse the ego in rapid eye movement slumber because death does not register as a permanent state to the gift.  The gift sees death as a necessary or paramount experience that returns the gift to the all for safe keeping.  Should the gift decide to arouse the ego in the everything surrounded by ether and the undertaking of mortals then appropriate action ensues instantly, drastically, vector ally and completely.  The ego feels the gift likes to kill and the ego tries to shield the gift from any information that sets it on a collision course with reality. In the world of the gift lives woman because woman in a male gift transmits love and love is the sound that makes life worth living.  In the mind’s eye lives woman and her image becomes one instantly in the space time continuum no matter the time of day or night or distance from modular transmission station.  The all lets the gift see love and show the ego the beauty of the word in its entirety.  All this occurs instantly without lag, without upload, without delay on the bus because the all wants it so.   This vision given man or woman debuts not as 3D but 4D because the experience transcends time, space or matter.  The Om equals the vibration of matter at an instant in the space time continuum. The vibrations of humans may be in phase or out of phase with  the Om.  The gift senses out of phase variations in the environment of the all.   Who can believe that humankind lives in the world only as a dream in the mind of the gift of God.   This all in view of the third eye.

I see you in my mind’s eye even when I sleep.   And I can feel love.

The steel pot bubbles slowly with parsley, onion, carrot, a turkey neck, and heart making a stock for the gravy.  The bird still cooks in the oven.  The Wracks is helping grandma make the thanksgiving repast.  White potatoes in a cauldron boil merrily and pureed yams with marshmallows on top wait to go into the oven when the turkey comes out to cool.  Long green beans boil too, waiting to be drenched in olive oil and salted with garlic.  Two store-bought pies wait on the table, to go in the oven after the yams, blueberry and cherry to top off the super Thanksgiving meal.  Then come the guests.

First arrive the Fonz with his Beau, a brunette, whom he found at junior college that seems to get along with the tall, gangly strapping man dressed in Levi denim with a white shirt and tie.  She comes in a one piece dress with high heels, and gold earrings, and her light brown skin somewhat match the brown mahogany table where dinner is to be served.  Together, they go and sit on the couch, in the family room near the dining room table.  Soon the doorbell rings again and the Wracks answer it.  In steps Kool in black dress slacks with a white short sleeve shirt opened at the chest.  His long goldish brown hair with a permanent wave adorns his head like a rock star on stage at a concert somewhere near.  The Wracks could just imagine the shining sprinkles placed in his long golden locks.  His date is even better.  She wears a two piece suit over a mini-skirt way above her knees.  She is southern Italian with sandy blond hair down to her waist, and blue eyes with a steely gaze.   The Wracks imagines the two as Atalla the Hun reborn and Circe the enchantress, she is that exquisite.   The Wracks does not have a date, he doesn’t have any money.  Kool pulls out a cigarette and lights up and the two go and sit on the couch in the living room where the Wracks join them.  They talk teen talk and Kool asks for a beer so he brings him a Michelob and Maria a glass of white wine. 

Father Wracks rings the wine glasses with a spoon and yells, “Come to dinner”.

 The table is lengthened with two inserts to accommodate the eight people.  Mother and father sit at the poles of the table while the Fonz and his date sit next to father Wracks and Kool and Maria sit opposite the Wracks and his grandmother Theresa.   Father Wracks passes around a bottle of Johannesburg Riesling and everyone fills their glass and the meal begins.  

Let us say a prayer and thank God for another year with good food and our friends. 

The Wracks bows his head and says “amen”.

The guests line up at the buffet, placed on the alcove of the pass-through in front of the kitchen.  Everyone piles their plate high with turkey, stuffing, candied yams, garlic beans, and mashed potatoes, and covers everything with a light coating of brown gravy.  Everyone eats while Christmas music gently plays over the intercom from the stereo. All the guests get seconds and sit down and eat and another bottle of wine opens and is passed around the table.  Grandma takes her turkey wing and puts it on the Wracks plate.  “Eat it she says.”   The Wracks stands up and clears the plates and sets them in the sink to be delivered to the dishwasher presently.  The hot pies come out of the oven and are placed on mats on the table with a red tablecloth with a brown cornucopia set in the center.  Then the guests eat pie.  Huge slices of fruit pie slavered in whipped crème from Ready whip aerosol containers.   Everyone is done so Grandma serves Yuban coffee from a decanter into fine porcelain cups with a green band around them and green saucers below.  Kool pushes his chair back, smiles and lights up a cigarette.   Maria looks at the Wracks and then the Wracks clear the dessert dishes.  All the guests including mother and father Wracks move to the living room and father Wracker breaks out a bottle of Courvoisier cognac and small sifter.  The cognac passes around the room.  The Wracks and grandma do the dishes.  They fill the dishwasher with the first load and set it going then start to scrub the pots, pans and baking dishes with steel wool.  The short load finalizes and the Wracks puts away hot ceremonial China in its place in the boxes where it is used several times a year.   Next, the pots and pans place into the dishwasher and a second load begins.  Grandma washes the fine crystal stemware piece by piece and the Wracks dry the glasses with a cotton towel and place them in the cupboard in the family room.  After they are finished grandma goes back to her room and the Wracks joins the guest in the white living room with green and white shag carpeting.  The bottle of cognac is nearly finished the guests sit back in their chairs and digest the holiday meal.  Kool lights up another cigarette. A heavy smoker, it doesn’t seem to bother him when paddling in big surf.   Christmas music plays on.  Around nine o’clock P.M.   The Fonz and his date excuse themselves because she has to be home.  Kool and Maria are next to leave and Kool asks the Wracks if he wants to go to the Over the Rainbow club with him and his date.   The Wracks declines politely.   They leave the house and Kool sits Maria in the front seat of his F-250 red ford truck with huge wheels and they blast off into the night.  The Wracks thanks his mother and father for a delicious meal and puts away the turkey carcass into the refrigerator for leftovers tomorrow and check his grandma and then goes to his room.   He thanks the Lord for his family and Thanksgiving and his friends and another day of life.  It was a wonderful thanksgiving in his youth and he will have a lot more.   “Bon Appetite,” says Marvin and have a wonderful Thanksgiving. 

My heart is a mirror.  Everything can fit inside and it looks outside in Panavision. My heart is all yours if you want, and it never dies; it lives there to show you a reflection of what you want it to be, just like a mirror. My heart can never exist, if you go away and leave an empty space that cannot show your image as a reflection.  I can shout this out to the world and if someone would just believe in their dreams and then act upon it, it would all become true.

Green is the color of money.  Green is the color of life that lives and grows and renews itself yearly.  Green grows as a color everywhere and the ocean becomes green every year in the spring.  Green lives as the color of the world that surrounds us.  The house on Mellowmans’s Lane is green, green like leaves, green like hundred dollar bills, and green as an emerald in the mouth of a toucan in Columbia.  The green house on Mellowman’s grows like trees and seems new and never fades, and not one person has been seen coming or going from the green house.   The wrack notices the green house.  From youth he felt the force inside the house.   From youth his curiosity might have killed him because each time he hunted on or near the green house; he felt the numbness of ending and finality.  The green house sits in upper middle class suburbia, in an upper class area, filled with upper class and professional people. The green house seems to be painted often as the green gleams newly as a painted house does.  The shrubs outside the green house appear manicured perfectly like the plants around the Small, Small World ride at Disneyland in Anaheim California.  Perfectly groomed dicondra surrounds the green house without a single weed apparent. Not a track shows.   Wracks searches for a four leaf clover in the dicondra next to the house until he feels the numbness overcome him and he has to draw away, far away.  The dicondra shows every footprint that treads upon it and the footprints of Wracks slowly disappear as though he never trespassed and a wrack does not know why.   Wracks never found his four leaf clover there, never found any luck and once saw a tall oriental gardener with a lump on his neck trimming the bushes meticulously by hand.  The gardener would look at wracks and wracks imagined that his eyes glowed but Wracks new this was hallucination, because the eyes of people do not glow, and the man eventually went away.  Wracks looks at the green house but common sense tells him never to knock on the door.   One Halloween Wracks and Koest knocked on the door but no one answered but a light burned on like a reading lamp and through the glass kost and Wracks thought they saw the figure of a person in a large armchair reading but this could have been a false impression.  Wracks felt the force and never again would he seek candy there on Halloween, even if the lights were on.  That year he and Koest had to content themselves to assault with tear gas provided by the sociopath at the log cabin house on Bacon way situated to face the green house.

Wracks went to college and would hitch or take the bus to and from the Big University.  Every day walking up the hill to Bacon way Wracks sees the green house, the pretty green house that maintains itself perfectly with manicured shrubbery and that big dicondra lawn without a single weed or footprint rendered upon it.   When Wracks life became half done and the parents sold their house on Bacon Way, the green house still sits there with nary a person coming to or fro or enters.  This situates in the last century and the river runs full under the bridge and careless and useless things pass under the bridge to be lost forever, and ever.  Wracks never went back and never will and a large Hydrogen bomb sits inside the house waiting for someone to say hello.

It feels in this mind’s eye the feeling of life and beauty and truth and birth and fulfillment.  It seems in the mind’s eye that right and justice and truth will ultimately prevail but at a horrible cost to everyone.  As to why and when it is or will become, the mind’s eye will not tell him why.  Wracks do not know how, but when he was a child, a man wearing a robe with a crown said to him, “We are but a whim in the mind of Allah, and he showers us with his tears.  Wracks life goes on and with him the memories of youth in whimsical traces, and the life goes on.

What is or did live in that house occurs beyond the imagination and the word never can be spoken or believed, or disavowed.   The wrack knows who lived in the green house but refuses to believe it himself because the vision flows like a wretched hallucination in a drunken debauchery.  The bomb still lives there behind closed doors in Wracks imagination and he will never again return to Tranquil Hills. If you pile up depleted uranium, when a critical mass achieves, fission begins and lights off the hydrogen bomb.   The rooms next to the bomb stuff full with spent battery casings like a huge pyrotechnic display in the making in the imagination of a wandering mind somewhere far north in nowhere.

There exist words that everyone speaks but few practice or believe.  Words like truth, honesty, friendship and mostly justice.  Justice looks truly beautiful and I have seen her and she tells me that truth lives and waits for you.  She doesn’t have to posture or take off her clothes or say anything more because her smile and her eyes and her manner reveal all that is good and real.  Justice lives where the light shines and light shines brightly for those who really want to see and sight shines out there for everyone who wants to look. Where the light is, is where your heart lies, and it is your heart that cannot lie to you.  Follow your heart, think with your mind and believe with all your feeling and the future will become real and all yours.  Transcend obstacles because hurdles are only to be surmounted and death does not hurt.  Evil, prejudice, and inequity are the pains that we might have to live with.  Goodness leaves a good feeling and the others don’t and the integral of positivity and optimism yield a positive first derivative and a second derivative in the fourth dimension.  What it is all adds up, and positive values cumulate  and non-positive values subtract.  What I am trying to say, is that the way is toward the light and no other path exists or matters and this is why.

He does not want you to look at him because he has become horrible to behold. This time is a hallucination or feeling of total emesis.   His hands warp into claws and he has eyes like a cat, dark complexion and thick black wavy hair.  His teeth are all canines because he eats meat and nothing else. He eats any kind of meat.  He wears black and purple clothes because black is his color and purple signifies royalty and the only colors he sees are orange and purple, grey and black and nothing in between.  In his demeanor breeds horror, and death and wanting and hunger that never can be satisfied and he asks you to denounce your religion and follow him.  In this revelation and the horror, god installs cruelty that cannot be cured, forever.  His friend is tall and slender and reminds someone somewhere of a snake. The blond has blue eyes, a long head and hands like him transfigured by the lord into claws of revulsion, hate, deception and torture. He wears a long robe with nothing underneath.   He too, asks a soul to denounce his faith and follow him.  He and he promise riches beyond the imagination, hot women that never satiate and a life of action, adventure, lust and carnage.  They don’t accept no for an answer. They never have and never will, and this pauper looks for time to end and for his children to grow up   and start their families so he can finally find rest. 

Life is beautiful and offers something to everyone.  What this life offers a soul is the truth and a truth that no one can ever cloud, obfuscate, purvey or destroy.  In this life and the truth with justice, beauty and faithfulness, the powers manage to support until ends and means are met. However, who wants to be a shaolin monk in the streets holding a rice bowl? Better are the other fifty-one percent.  Venus could be a Russian and she has blond hair and she promises something somewhere forever. The Chinese other is a favorite.  She likes to ride and wields a sword like a man and has no other.  She carries a dagger in a leg scabbard and stabs anyone who tries to approach me. Aphrodite is in Russia when the other is too tired to go out.  When you see the light, dreams and hallucinations are enough to satisfy this life in the promise of something better, longer and faster. In acceleration to the speed of light, I can love and in this love is everything and what more, another child.   The emperor of China told his people to multiply for this reason and this reason only.  And I have seen the shining light.

You are too old to go out and trick or treat, say Papa Wracks.  Now that you are in college why don’t you man the fort and hand out candy instead. 

That is a good idea, says Wracks.  I can read my textbooks, watch TV, maintain the special effects and hand out candy all at the same time. 

The kids start to come around dusk and then the flow peters out around nine o’clock, says Papa Wracks.  Your mother buys a lot of candy to give the kids so help yourself while you wait.

The special effects at Wracks house this year include pumpkins, lights and a boiling cauldron with Fog.  A plug-in device when set in water bubbles and makes fog that slowly oozes out the cauldron.  The luminous light inside attached to the device flickers with different colors and gives the bubbling cauldron an eerie and magical look. The carved pumpkins sit outside on the doorstep with candles lit inside.  The flames flicker diabolically when the wind wafts past the grinning mouths and mischievous eyes cut into the orange jack o Lanterns. On the window sill inside sits an electric pumpkin of plastic that emanates different colors with time out of a toothy mouth and slant-cut eyes.  Orange lights blink hanging from the rain gutters outside near the entrance and as night begins the entrance to the Wracks house becomes an aperture to the spooky and occult that waits inside.  Tonight the breeze blows minimally and the candles glow and wane with an ominous look.   The large harvest moon looms luminously high in the night sky and the immense glow gives the earth a semi-lighted appearance, light enough so that an observer can discern moving clouds seething in the darkness above.   Already the trick-or-treaters start to move in the neighbor hood.  Families from less opulent neighborhoods an hour away drive in and bring their children to trick or treat here because of safety issues in a crime infested neighborhood.  The smell of the ocean seems distant but arrives succinctly as the clouds move scurrilously across the night sky.  The stars twinkle and loom distantly behind the clouds projecting a three dimensional theatre in a sky illuminated by a huge yellow moon set in October on Halloween in the twentieth century.

The door chime rings.  A wrack opens the door.  Outside a little princess with her proud father and mother smile as the child shouts out, Trick or Treat.  Wracks hold the large bowl in front of her and she peruses the candy and chooses a handful of her favorite confections.  Mother Wracks buys expensive candy with coupons and the result means Milky Way bars, three musketeer bars, snickers, and butter fingers and more.  The pretty little princes says thank you and the family moves on and the door closes.  Next the bell rings again and this time a group of teenagers dressed as indigents appear at the front door.  Two girls in rags with dark make up and two gentlemen in bowler hats, cut gloves and linen shirts shout, Trick or Treat and Wracks brings the bowl and lets the hungry kids grab a handful each.  Their eyes gleam with delight at the candies and they turn and run away to the next house.  About fifteen minutes later the bell rings again and this time a bunch of hoodlums presents at the front door. All have masks on like raccoons and have obscured their faces with rouge, giving a rough and haggard look.   They wear old clothes and sport hats of different character.  For candy bags they all carry potato sacks with draw strings as petty thieves do when they enter a house and liberate away personal goods with some resale value on the black market.  Each criminal has a can of shaving cream on their belt to enforce the possibility of retaliation for a lack of commensurate trade.  The wrack holds out the bowl and they each greedily grab a handful of candy bars.  They then turn and quickly evaporate into the night.  Approximately every ten minutes a group of trick or teeters walk up the steps to the front door.  The candy bowl looks low so Wracks opens another bag of candy bars and pour them into the mix.  The night moves on, the door bell rings and Halloween celebrator fills their door with costumes and frivolity.  Mainly  young children trick or treat with their parents as chaperons and the costumes range from royal figures to puppies and tiger costumes to devils and monsters, depending on the age of the children.  Teen agers appear sporadically in rushes to obtain the most candy they can hold in their market bags and savor the next day.  A wrack sits in Grandfather’s old chair, watches Halloween sitcoms, glances at his textbooks and slowly adds to the pile of candy wrappers stolen from the main bowl. 

Around nine o’clock the frequency of guests starts to diminish.  Revelers start knocking at the rate of one every fifteen minutes.  After nine o’clock, Wracks hears the bell ring repeatedly and fists knock on the large oak door that frames the entrance to the Wracks house.  A wrack opens the door, swings it back and beholds a motley assortment of celebrators that appear in front of him.   These tweeters stand out due to the difference in their costumes and to the degree of elaboration in the theme of Halloween.  The first crew is dressed like a skeleton, a specter of death.  This tall skeleton steps forward and holds out a large black plastic trash bag.  A wrack presents the bowl and death scoops a large handful of candy into the sack.   The second reveler dresses like the devil.  A red skin-tight leotard costume with a tail behind, a black goatee and accompanying mustache, with two prominent curved horns on his head, steps forward with a large black purse.  Wracks holds out the bowl and the diabolical figure take a few select candy bars. Next, a pretty tall woman with bracelets, jewelry, and a black low-cut evening town steps forward.  She has white makeup on and a large French handbag which she holds out open.  The wrack takes two handfuls of candy and drops them inside the purse.  She smiles and two large vampire fangs spring out of her mouth and she laughs cunningly and then retreats.  Finally, a small ghost holding a small pumpkin steps forward.  The ghost wears a white sheet with holes cut for eyes and a thick manila rope holding the sheet around his or her waist.  The ghost has a brown paper bag with handles, like that obtained from liquor store, and then sets the pumpkin down on the ground and pulls a small J frame smith and Wesson revolver in 38 special from the bag.  The replica looks amazingly like a real police man undercover firearm issued by the LAPD.  Trick or treat the ghost whispers as he holds the toy gun up to Wracks head.   The wrack says, treats, and pours half the bowl into the brown liquor bag.  The ghost drops the gun back into the bag, picks up his pumpkin and says, Happy Halloween.  The gang turns away.  The wrack closes the large wooden door.  Only one or two revelers showed up for candy later that night.  At approximately ten thirty Wracks opens the door, steps outside and extinguishes the candles in the pumpkins and unplugs the fog maker in the cauldron.  The night cools off; the moon diminishes in size, and sets in the Northeast.  The wind whispers slowly and the wispy clouds linger somewhat and Halloween ends at the Wrack’s house.  Wracks steps inside grabs another piece of candy, slams the bar in his mouth and chews.  He then walks to the brown bathroom, brushes his teeth, and moves to the second bedroom that he shares with the Fonz.  The Fonz is not home and lives in a VW camper van on campus somewhere near the Beta House. A wrack takes off his shoes, removes his pants, and slips inside the covers on the bed.  The setting moon indirectly cast light through the shades into the bedroom and Wracks falls deeply into a slumber as is his habit of living.  Wracks will be on the 7 thirty RTD tomorrow on his way to school and he survives another Halloween in Tranquil Hills. 

Mom and Dad, I am going out with the boys tonight on Halloween.  There is supposed to be a rumble downtown like last year.  The boys fight against the Cops 10-31 in the Hills and radical tonight.

The police are going to arrest you again and then you will spend the night in jail without any candy, says Mom. 

Why don’t you dress up and torment the neighbors like you did last year?  Ride your mini-bike on everyone’s lawn and burn in ruts, says Papa Wracks.  Or heave water balloons at delivery trucks like you and Nate did last year. 

How did you get in here Cool, asks Wracks?   The doors are locked.  

Your dog let me flip the latch through his doggy door.   We are good friends, smiles Kool. Can I smoke inside?

Cool, do your parents know you smoke cigarettes, asks Papa Wracks. 

It is part of my religion to smoke cigarettes, says Kool. We are Serbian orthodox.

Neither your father or mother smoke cigarettes, says Papa Wracks

They do other things, says Kool, other things.  I forgot my matches, can I use your lighter.

Go ahead, says Papa Wracks and he walks over to his chair, sits down and light up a cigarette also.

Where is Koest, asks Wracks.

He is going to meet us at the bottom of his hill and then we are going to assault the city. Let’s go.

Tonight the night is warm and breezy.  The Santa Anna winds whip up the brown leaves and dust in an Indian summer before the winter sets in.  The moon and the stars glimmer across the black sky and the warmth feels like freedom before the storm inundates forever.  The street lights showcase the hills of tranquil hills and they undulate up and down as the road turns in a serpentine fashion into town. At the bottom of Casa de Azul, Koest waits with his back pack and gang costume.  In tranquil hills, the typical gangster costume exemplifies as cut off blue jeans, adidas sneakers, a tee shirt knotted at the arms and a baseball cap.  In the hood, like in tranquil hills the most easily obtained weapons work the best.   A short knife and baby baseball back when used effectively can then be tossed into the nearest trashcan or into the ocean.  However, the idle rich of Tranquil Hills acquire weapons much more costly, lethal and effective. The landed gentry prefer suppressed rim fire rifles with a scope to exert control and the upper hand over the masses. The key to not getting shot is to not venture to secluded areas and to always keep moving.  Running up Tranquil Hills High school hill and entering the town bordered by the funfair market and bicycle shop. 

On to Milton’s parking lot, says Kool.  Have your shaving cream and rotten eggs ready. 

I have my tear gas if they get uppity, says Wracks, Walbe sold it to me. 

In Milty, s parking lot, the juveniles have accumulated.  From the depths of the crowd an occasional rotten egg splats on the pavement or catches an unsuspecting participant in the face.  Koest pulls a rotten egg out of his knapsack, heaves it and it catches an adult on the side of the face.   The larger man turns into a saturnine figure and runs through the crowd trying to find out who threw the egg.  A Halloween festival churns on at tranquil parks tennis courts and the ruckus at Milty’s draw. The kids draw lines and rotten fruit from the back of the supermarket begins to sail through the air and hit unsuspecting people above the waist.  Rogues run out through the lines and squirt shaving cream from Cranks or Gillette foamy in a stream that reaches ten feet long.  Just as things start to escalate and get fun, three Police cars with riot officers in helmets and shields with long batons roar into the parking lot and form a line between the two opposing participants in the battle of tranquil hills 10/31.  The police get out of their cars and clash their batons against their shields.  An Officer with a megaphone leans out of the center car and states.  “Everyone has fifteen minutes to disperse or we will arrest offenders and take them downtown.”   With that a rotten eggs, his helmeted offer straight in the face and a huge rotten tomato hits the megaphone and hangs off its end.  The police start to charge the crowd

Let’s bail, says Kool, they are getting rough.

I nailed them, says Koest, I nailed them good. 

Here they come, says Wracks, run for your life.

The three exit quicker than they arrived and rest at the cul-de-sac at the bottom of way of Peace Street.  Kool pulls out a smoke and lights up.  Koest pulls out a smoke and lights up too.  A wrack is not addicted to nicotine yet and does have any.  He finds five pieces of gum from his knapsack, takes off the wrappers, slams the wad into his mouth and starts chewing. 

Let’s take the back way home; says Kool, I want to check out Kneemo. 

Not many street lights line those streets, says Koest, it will be rough going.

Lets stop at some houses and get some candy, says wracks, I am hungry.

Down and around the High school bordering the football field the road turns in a snake-like fashion and escalates up a hill steeply to the enclave that borders the high school framed on all four sides by streets that angle steeply downward then at the bottom turn up sharply again.   As the four enter the colony, a whizzing sound appears in the air and lemons begin to rain upon the three.

Run says Koest, we have been ambushed

The lemons come from everywhere and each one of the three gets hit with a hard lemon. 

A gang of young players appear out from the shadows with apple bags on their sides filled with lemons. 

Peepers, who has red hair is the first to speak

Any aggression and we will pelt you with hard lemons. says the red-haired teenager.

We give up, says Kool, where is Kneemo and Mondo?

They are at a Halloween party and we are holding their turf for them, says peepers

Can I have a couple lemons, asks Wracks.

Sure, we have a truckload of them, help yourself, says Peepers

A wrack grabs four lemons and puts them in his backpack for ammunition.  Happy Halloween the two groups say to each other and the three make their departure down the hill and up the hill again.  At blue Houses Street, Koste says goodbye and starts walking home up the hill.  At the next Hill, Kool states he is taking the round way home so he can visit a friend before going home.  Wracks walks along alone to home at about eleven o’clock on Halloween.  Most law abiding citizens sleep soundly and the porch lights shut down and the hills become dark, illuminated by the moon and shattered stars scintillating slowly.  The street looks dark; the way seems long and the moon light consoles Wracks who walks rapidly so he cannot be targeted by the elite.  Trotting by the convenience market on the street without lights Wracks moves as fast as he can without running.  Turn right on Bacon way, to the crossroads and then the grey gate on the south side of the house and enter through the back door. Wracks father sits in the chair smoking a cigarette, watching TV and the candy bowl still broods full.  A wrack grabs a handful and heads to his room. 

How was your Halloween, asks Papa Wracks

The police broke it up before it could happen, says Wracks

Crowd and riot scenarios can get vicious, says Papa Wracks, vicious.

Wracks falls asleep before consciousness can overtake him and Halloween is now history and memory. The moonlight shines through the bedroom window and the stars kiss young wracks goodnight.