She Thought It Was the Gardener

What happened when I was in Hawk Center

2007-04-19T11:25:00.000-06:00

Hello everyone. This is Horace.

I'm writing becasue Sebastian encouraged me to. He wanted me to say what happened in Hawk Center when I temporarily was gone.

First off. I want to say that Hawk Center is actually North Platte, Nebraska. I don't know why Sebastian was covering that up. Sebastian?

The reason I bring it up is that North Platte has one of the biggest railyards in the world. That's where I went.

There were lots of switches in yard. Switches and tracks and many, many train cars. The cars were mostly yellow and black and red. All were rusted.

It was a windy day in North Platte and the whole place was filled with a great metallic creaking.

I should say that I was taking a tour. There were three other people on the tour. It was a mother and her two children. The mother was in her thirties I thought and had bangs. She was skinny. The children were a boy and a girl. Five or six and eight years old. Our tour guide was another lady. Her hair was short and it was gray. She was wearing a decorative scarf.

The train yard is called the Bailey Yard. It was remarkrably busy. Too busy for us to walk in much, so we just stood outside.

There were men in towers watching the trains. There were other men controlling locomotives by remote control. The long trains were picked apart and put back together with cranes at great speed.

I was having a hard time hearing the tour guide. The little boy and girl were fighting with each other. But I couldn't hear what they were saying. I didn't know why they were gouging at each other.

We walked back into the building we started from.

"This has been a most unusual tour," I said to the tour guide.

The kids said they wanted to go home.

"Oh?" said the tour guide.

"Yes," I said. "It's really noisy out there. The people on the tour can't hear what you're saying."

"I'm sorry," said the tour guide.

The kids repeated that they wanted to go home immediately.

"You bored the heck out of my kids," said the mom.

The tour guide looked sad.

"It's ok," I said to the tour guide. "Children are golden and fickle." Then I looked at the mom and said, "Do your children need sleep?"

"Probably they do," she said. But she blushed when she said it. And then she took her kids by the hands and rushed out the door.

I looked at the tour guide. She still looked sad. Her lips were twitching. "Truly this train yard is a wonder," I said. Then I tipped my hat and walked out.

When I reached the parking lot, the mother was in an old Chevy with her children. She was turning the ignition and nothing was happening. She looked more and more distraught as I walked up. She looked up at me, cursed, turned the ignition. Nothing happened. She cursed. She looked at me. She looked at the steering wheel.

As I walked up, I said, "How thin is the veil that covers us!"

The children were staring at me. I love children. They looked terrified and enraptured at the same time. It is how they look when they look at a large centipede.

"Do you need a ride?" I said to the mother. "I can take you home."

I looked in the car. The back seat was full of possessions. I looked at the mother. She had tried to turn away from me. But the seatbelt held her. I saw tears on her cheek.

I walked to my car and got in. I put it in reverse and backed up so that my rear bumper was touching the family's rear bumper. Then I got some wire that I had been keeping in the back seat and tied the two bumpers together.

I walked to the driver's side window on the Chevy. I leaned down to the open window and said to the mom, "You can put your car into neutral. I'll take you somewhere to get your car fixed."

"No," she said. Her gaze was fixed on the steering wheel. "My brother will fix it."

"Can I take you to his house?" I said.

"He's out of town," she said.

"When will he be back?" I said.

She said, "In a couple of days. Maybe tomorrow. I don't know."

"I'll take you there. And you can rest." That's what I said to her. Then I got her brother's address.

I walked back to my car and got in. I watched in my rearview mirror as she put her car into neutral. Then I drove us to her brother's. It was a tan plastic house in a subdivision.

I got out of the car and walked to the mom. Her children continued to stare at me.

"We're just so tired," she said.

"I've heard this before," I said.

"From me?" she said.

"No," I said, "From a hunter in Wisconsin. He was a good man. But there is a great weariness in the world. All the noise. And not just of trains. All the voices of friends and family. All the noises of televisions and music. We turn to these things--even to our very friends!--because we long for acknowledgement. We want to prove something to the world, to God, I don't know--do we want to prove our existence? But the noise works upon us, the great noise of empty conversation, the great noise of keeping up appearances, and such a great noise of entertainment. The noise distracts us from our weariness and our wounds and defects. So it all festers. And life drains away."

"That is so depressing," she said.

"Take your sleep," I said. "You and your children."

"The neighbors..." said the mom.

"They'll be more interested in me than in you," I said.

"I don't know," said the mom.

"Here," I said. "This is what I do. I stay awake."

"You must sleep sometimes," she said.

I said, "I'm using a metaphor."

"Oh," she said.

I said, "Sleep is a gift and a healing river." Then I went back to my car and waited. Eventually the mom and her kids fell asleep. They slept for a long, long, long time.

A couple days later (I think?) the brother came back. I went back to find Sebastian.

I had kept a long vigil.

In His Holiest Name,

Horace

The always unfinished resolution

2007-03-31T10:48:00.000-06:00

Allow me to speak plainly about a subject that concerns us all. I suppose that, although universal, this message is especially for Jessie. I would put it the way Horace puts things but I don't think you would understand.

The problem with some vampires is that they're evil and want to destroy the human race. But these are the minority of vampires.

The problem with most vampires is that they're bored and immortal. The only way an immortal can be bored is if he or she has given up on pursuing virtue. Pursuing virtue is very hard and will occupy all your time if you let it, and will at times of course be experienced as tedious, like everything, because of our nature. But if you give up on virtue and you can't die there's nothing to do. And so most vampires try to drown the boredom that arises from abandoning virtue by submitting themselves to their passions. Like I've said, the great passion of some vampires is the destruction of the human race. But most often a vampire who abandons him or herself to passion will try to make out with beautiful people late at night. But when they make out with people late at night, the people they make out with inevitably become vampires. And then these new vampires, quickly achieving new levels of boredom, also submit themselves to their passions and seek beautiful people to make out with late at night. Eventually, I suppose, all beautiful people will be vampires.

Unless the minority of vampires succeeds in destroying us all before that can happen.

But the point is that vampire stories are a typology for what is actually the struggle deep in the hearts of so many people, and especially the young. It is the struggle between what is actually boring and what is apparently boring. And when the tortuous heart rejects what is apparently boring for what is actually boring... Well, one way to think of it is that we get to where we all are today, with the apocalypse ever upon us and post-fictional post-musicians attempting to save us all from what we think reality is.

But I should get back to what happened yesterday.

Horace showed up in the morning. He told me a fascinating story, which I will let him relate, when he has time.

But he solved part of the mystery for me. He told me that in the middle of the night, right before we drove to Nebraska, he called the Hawk Center mayor's office on a payphone and left a message saying that we were coming to help.

"What exactly did you say?" I said.

"It was actually about vampires," he said.

"How very interesting," I said.

He said, "I said something like: 'Alas for your town and its complexity! If it were simple it would see a solution near at hand! But it has abandoned the naturally occurring high-fiber availability of lying down on your lawn for the low-impact jazzercise of the Old West dime store shoot-em-up novels. Alas that this world is full of poor, confused vampires, more sad than terrifying, more khaki than black, pale because they lack light, with hair slicked by the sickness of their souls! My name is Horace Gardener. My brother and I are in a band called the Gardens. We will shortly be arriving to help you. Bye.'"

"Did you know the mayor reacted badly to your message?" I said.

Horace said, "No."

After that, we got up from Winfield's and walked outside. The street was empty at first, but then one by one some store owners walked out of the stores and waited on the street. They all had plastic grocery bags in their hands.

"I think they have money in those bags, Sebastian," Horace said.

I said, "Were you serious about what you said about the lawns?"

"You know," said Horace.

"I think it's a good idea," I said. "Let's go talk to one of these store owners."

We walked up to one. She looked at us nervously.

"What?" she said.

"Do you own this gift shop?" I said.

"Yes," she said. "You should probably get off the street unless you have a plastic bag full of money somewhere."

"Do you know how soon the bikers will be here?" I said.

"Probably pretty soon," she said. She looked very awkward, with a hat that was probably trying to look goofy and independent, but which made her look like a Balkan refugee. I was filled with pity for her.

"My dear sister," I said. I realized I was starting to talk like Horace. "We want to deliver you from all of this. But there's only so much we can do here, with so little time." I inhaled deeply and looked out at the street lined with scared people. "Where's the place where we can go to talk and have all the tornado warning speakers broadcast it?" I said.

She hesitated, and looked at me, and then at Horace.

"Mercy awaits," said Horace.

She told us.

"Thank you," I said. Horace kissed her hand. Then we ran. It was three blocks away, in the mayor's office.

"I'll make a diversion," I said to Horace as we ran. "I'll try to start an ideological argument with the mayor. While he's distracted, perhaps you could grab the microphone in the back office of his room and tell people what to do."

We got to the building where the mayor's office was. The front of the place was deserted. We ran up the stairs. The mayor's door was opened. We burst in. He was looking out his window.

I said, "Mayor, I am Sebastian Gardener and I have come from the dusty empty plains of middle America to announce the transformation of all things, which is upon us now as ever. Now, tell me, where do you stand? With us or against us?"

The mayor seemed confused for a moment. He was a bald man wearing suspenders and a white shirt and a red bow tie.

"You!" he said. "The Gardens!"

"A fact," I responded. "Now, prepare to defend yourself with words. Do you deny that things exist? I ask you not about your mind but about your life. How do you sleep at night, on your stomach, on your back, or in the secret wish that you will never again awake, or do you simply desire that you will have lucid dreams so you can fly around and do who knows what? Against what and whom do you struggle when you struggle? And begin by telling me this: where is your courage, with what does it lie? I wish you nothing but good, yet I must know the answers to these questions, your honor! Now, answer!"

To be honest, I had been thinking the mayor would engage me in a lively discussion at this point. But he simply shouted, "Security!"

But while I had been talking, Horace had calmly walked past the mayor into the back room. Suddenly I heard the tornado warning speakers turn on and feed back a little.

"Hey!" said the mayor. "Get out of there!" He made a move toward the back room.

"Stand and deliver!" I said. I mostly said it to catch the mayor off guard.

It seemed to work. The mayor looked quizzically at me, and Horace started speaking through the tornado warning speakers. This is what I remember him saying:

O you citizens of this earth! O you who stand in fear awaiting your diminishment! O you who are lost and look to your leaders, who promise much and give little! There is a power within you, there is a power without you. Of this I could say much, but later. For now, try this: put your money away--along with your fear!--and do not lose heart. Lie down on your lawns. Face up. Don't move. I think that will probably confuse the bikers. That's all. Thanks. In His Holiest Name. Outtie.

I heard someone coming up the steps behind me, so I said, "Horace, I think the cops are coming. We should probably run."

And with that Horace came bursting out of the mayor's back room, and then we both went careening down the stairs, past a bewildered, kindly-looking old security guard, and out onto the street. Everywhere, there were people lying at the ground, their eyes looking up to heaven and the swirling clouds of day.

Horace and I hid behind a panel truck to watch what would happen. Just a moment later, a squad of motorcycles came rumbling slowly down the street, past the courthouse, past the gift shops and little restaurants. Everywhere were the people lying down.

The bikers looked very, very confused.

They passed.

We watched them.

They drove down the main street toward the Interstate. And they didn't come back.

After about twenty minutes of silence, the townspeople got up and clapped each other on the back and laughed and hugged each other. Horace and I kept hiding behind the truck, then after a while we walked unobserved to where he had parked his Buick.

We got in.

Horace put this keys in the ignition but didn't turn them.

"There's nothing stopping the bikers from coming back," he said.

I thought about this, and then said, "There never is really. But by the same token, there is nothing stopping you or me from becoming a biker either."

"There may be," said Horace.

Then he started the car and we started driving back to Sioux Falls.

After we'd been on the road for a while Horace said, "What exactly does 'by the same token' mean?"

"I guess that's something I haven't thought about," I said.

Horace took us through a turn, then said, "One more thing to do, then."

Best to all of you. Horace should write about his time apart from me soon. Really, I thought it was an interesting story. And Horace writes so well. And Leo probably should be posting things to let us all know about his speaking tour.

Right, Leo?

The plot thickens and becomes shinier

2007-03-30T09:57:00.001-06:00

Yesterday I waited around for a few more hours at Winfield's before Curtis and Jessie showed up. Curtis had changed his sweatpants-sweatshirt combination from white to dark green. Jessie was wearing the same clothes. There was the same barista working there who had told Horace and me that there were no bikers.

When Jessie and Curtis had got coffee and Orangina I said, "That's the same barista who told Horace and me that there were no bikers."

Jessie said loudly, "Hey Dean."

The barista walked over and said, "What?"

Jessie said, "Why did you tell Sebastian Gardener that bikers don't come and terrorize us?"

The barista knelt down at our table and said, "Shhh," while looking at the other tables to see if anyone had noticed us. But the four of us were the only people at Winfield's at that point.

"Um..." I said.

"Didn't you guys hear?" said Dean the barista.

We all shook our heads. "Hear what?" said Curtis.

"The meeting the mayor held yesterday morning?" said Dean. He kept glancing up at the door, he seemed very nervous. Much like a small rabbit. Or perhaps an anxious hamster. "At nine o'clock yesterday morning? He announced it on the tornado warning speakers? That we were supposed to all come to the high school football field and he would tell us what was going on?"

"I was asleep," said Jessie.

"I was digging a well behind our mom's house," said Curtis.

"I wasn't here yet," I said.

"Why were you digging a well?" Dean said.

"To hide our money from the bikers," said Curtis.

Dean raised his eyebrows. "That's a really, really good idea," he said sincerely. "Mind if I steal it?"

"Nope," said Curtis. "Just don't go letting everybody know that digging wells in your backyard and putting all your money in it is such a great idea, because then everybody'll be doing it, and then the bikers'll find out, and then they'll just drive around to all the backyards and get the money anyhow."

"That's an important point you make," said Dean. "I'll remain wary."

I said, "We are art museums; we enter ourselves and get bored."

No one said anything.

"I was trying to get us back on track," I said.

No one said anything.

I said, "The meeting. At the football field. What happened?"

"Oh, right," Dean said. "I was just premeditating on your profound comment." He glanced at the door again. "Ok," he said, "So the mayor gets us all at the football field and--now obviously not all twenty-four thousand Hawk Center residents are there--and he tells us to tell everybody we know about the meeting so as nobody gets left out."

"I can't believe nobody told me," said Jessie.

"Um, I'm sorry Jessie," said Dean. "Uhh..."

I said, "We have bikers to stop. Keep talking."

"The Gardens are so awesome," said Curtis.

Jessie made a face at him.

Dean continued. "Right, so anyways, the mayor gets us all there, not everybody, but a bunch of us, and says words to the effect that we know the bikers will be coming soon and that also he knew that a certain Christian folk band consisting of three identical dislodged evangelist brothers was all coming and he had just visited their MySpace page and they seemed unseemly."

"Does our MySpace page really communicate unseemliness?" I said.

"Sorta," said Curtis.

"And then he warned us not to get involved with this band," Dean said. He was looking at the floor. "And, uh, he said they'd want us to do all sorta unusual things and he would call the governor again and get the National Guard back and we'd get those bikers this time."

"That's so dumb," said Jessie. "The bikers'll just do what they did last year. They'll just come in June." She fiddled with the buttons on her outermost plaid shirt. "The mayor's so dumb," she said.

Nobody said anything for a while. I thought about what to do. I wondered how in the world the mayor found out we were coming and why he was so opposed to our musical apocalypse-prefiguring. Then my mind started wandering and I started thinking about King Arthur. But then I got back on track and thought about what to do. Then I remembered that I had no idea where Horace was.

"Have you seen my brother Horace?" I asked Dean. "He was here with me yesterday. Had a beard, sunglasses, jumpsuit, hat..."

"Sorry," said Dean.

Then another customer came in and Dean jumped up and ran behind the counter. "Boy you're right that table was dirty!" he shouted to the room. "I'll have to clean it with bleach!" Then he asked what he could get the customer, an old lady.

Jessie sighed. "I don't think he's gonna talk to us anymore," she said.

"Yeah," said Curtis.

"Well, I'm supposed to show someone a bunch of my DragonLance books," Jessie said. "I should go."

"Yeah, I guess I should technically be in school," Curtis said.

They both said bye then got up and left. Which left me wondering what to do. I felt like King Arthur, but the sad King Arthur, not the happy triumphant King Arthur.

I decided I'd just wait and see what happened, and hope that Horace showed up. I went to a WaldenBooks and bought some poetry by TS Eliot and some books by Evangelical preachers who don't understand human nature. I went back to Winfield's and stayed there until they closed, reading the books I'd got. I went to a grocery store and bought some lettuce and some cheese, which I ate for dinner. Then I went to the 7-11. Jessie was working.

"Mind if I sleep in the back?" I said.

"No sign of your brother?" she said.

"Horace is the person most like a wooden table I have ever met," I said.

Then we talked some more, about vampires. Jessie thinks they're really great. Then I went back to the room and fell asleep.

Then I woke up, then I came back to Winfield's.

Horace. Are you out there? We should touch base about how to defend Hawk Center against the bikers, if possible.

Leo. How about you? How is it going evangelizing America and defending the realm of Things-Exist?

Happenings in Hawk Center

2007-03-29T10:19:00.000-06:00

Sebastian here again. Yesterday turned out to be quite an eventful day. A few minutes after I published that last post Horace walked into the cafe smelling of sleep. I bought him a chocolate milk and a croissant and he sat down with me.

"How big is this town?" I asked Horace.

"Don't know," he said.

A twenty-something barista busing a table next to us said, "About twenty-five thousand."

"Thanks," I said.

Horace twisted around in his chair to face the barista. "Do you know anyone named Curtis?" he asked.

The barista, who had a neatly trimmed goatee and was wearing a baseball cap, stood up straight and scratched his ribs with one hand. "Hmm, don't think so," he said. "Does he hang out here?"

"We don't really have any idea about that," I said. "He's nineteen and he lives in this town. That's all we know."

The barista furrowed his brow. "Well... If you don't know anything about him, why are you looking for him?"

I took the email out of my pocket, unfolded it, and handed it to him. "He sent us this," I said.

The barista read the paper, then handed it back and said, "That's really weird."

"We're the Gardens," Horace said. "We're here to rescue you. We're a post-band."

"Wait," said the barista. "Do you really think that this happens?"

"The bikers?" Horace said.

"Yeah," the barista said.

We nodded.

The barista shook his head.

I glanced at Horace.

"There are no bikers who come here and take your money?" I asked.

"Nope," he said. "Sorry." Then he walked back to the coffee counter.

Horace turned back to me. "This is most unusual," he said.

I said, "Agreed."

We looked at our empty chocolate milk glasses.

"We should find Curtis," Horace said. "Ask him why he sent us that letter."

"Ok," I said. "Split up? Cover more ground?"

Horace nodded. We got up and left. Horace got in the car. I started walking.

I stopped at a lot of places with no luck. Gas stations, bars, fast food restaurants, useless antique shops. Nobody knew a nineteen-year-old named Curtis. Nobody admitted to the presence of any rampaging bikers. A little before five I walked into a store with a sign out front that said "Sport Cards - Comics." It was on a residential street with good trees, cottonwoods and sycamores, but they didn't have leaves yet.

The inside of the store was musty and brown. There were rows and rows of comic books in off-white cardboard boxes, and white plastic dividers sticking up out of them like hurdles, labeled "Spider-Man" and "X-Factor" and so on. There were three thirteen-year-old boys at the counter looking at some cards laid out on the glass. An middle-aged lady was watching them from the cash register.

"I'm looking for a nineteen-year-old named Curtis who thinks that bikers rampage through this town every spring," I said from the doorway. Everyone turned and gave me a look except for one boy. "I'm Sebastian Gardener," I said. "I'm in the Christian post-band The Gardens. He wrote us a letter. We travel the world pre-figuring the musical apocalypse," I said. "Does anybody know Curtis?"

The boy who hadn't turned to look at me now did so. "I'm Curtis," he said. I noticed the shaved hair around his ears, the stud earring in the left ear, the long hair on top, the white oversized hoodie with light blue lettering on it, the oversized white sweatpants, the Reebok soccer shoes, and the eighth-grade mustache.

"You're not nineteen," I said.

Curtis shook his head.

I stopped and thought. He didn't look like he was lying.

"But you like the Moody Blues?" I said.

Curtis didn't say anything. The other boys and the middle-aged lady all scoffed. I felt bad.

"Let's go," I said. "I'll take you to dinner or something." He followed me out the door. "When do you have to be home?" I said when we got outside.

"Like 9 or something," he said. He was looking at the ground.

"Where do you want to eat?" I said. "Pizza Hut? Wait, do you guys have a Fazoli's?"

"No," he said. "Hawk Center sucks."

"It's OK," I said. "We'll go to Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut's nice."

We started walking to where he said Pizza Hut was.

"Um, so you like our music..." I said.

"Aren't you going to ask me what the meaning of life is or something?" Curtis said. "Isn't that what you guys do? You and your brothers?"

I thought about this and then said, "The meaning of your life really isn't something words can communicate intelligibly given this context. So I don't think I'll ask you that." We walked on in silence for about a minute. "But maybe I'll ask you when we get to Pizza Hut," I said.

A few more minutes passed.

"I shouldn't have said I was nineteen," Curtis said. "But the bikers really do come."

"Why doesn't anybody else say so?" I said.

Curtis said, "Oh, it's my sister!" He waved to a girl playing hacky-sack in a circle with three guys in front of a Kum & Go gas station. She trotted over toward us. She had fake maroon hair and some kind of dragon tattoo climbing up her neck from underneath her flannel shirts. She was wearing at least two flannel shirts. Possibly three.

"Hey Curtis," she said. She hugged her brother. She seemed to be in her early twenties.

"This is Jessie," Curtis said.

"Hi," I said.

Jessie looked toward her brother and said slowly, "Watcha doin' walking around with a guy with a mustache, Curtis?"

Before things could get really awkward, Curtis said, "He's in my ninth favorite band, the Gardens. They're dislodged evangelists."

"They're that folk band you like?"

"Yeah. You wanna come to Pizza Hut with us?"

"Sure," Jessie said.

"We're walking," I said. Then we all started walking together and Jessie waved bye to her hacky sack friends. "Jessie, do bikers terrorize this town every spring?" I said.

"Pretty much," she said.

"Are some people unaware of this?" I said. "Because when I ask them about it they're as silent as stones at the bottom of a smooth black lake."

"That was an awesome metaphor," Jessie said. "Are you into vampires?"

"In their restlessness many people will construct alternate identities they'd rather inhabit than face the tedium and inanity of their lives as actually lived, but I don't honestly know why so many people's alternate identities involve vampires," I said. "Is it the blood or the costumes?"

"It's the night," said Jessie. Then we all walked on in silence for another couple minutes.

I cleared my throat and said, "So why doesn't anyone else admit to there being bikers who terrorize Hawk Center, Nebraska? Or is it that there are no bikers and you two are saying that there are for some reason?"

"I think people are embarrassed," Curtis said.

"Yeah, that's probably it," Jessie said.

"Here's Pizza Hut," Curtis said.

"Let's get pizza," Jessie said.

And we all walked inside.

At this point I started wondering where Horace was, how we would find each other, and where I would sleep.

I was also wondering, obviously, if bikers actually came every spring to terrorize this town or not.

But then I stopped wondering about this because there were three bikers sitting at one of the tables. And Curtis and Jessie stopped walking. They also seemed to stopped breathing. They looked scared.

"That's three of them," whispered Jessie.

"They're probably scoping us out to make sure the National Guard isn't here," whispered Curtis.

The bikers were all men, large and hairy and covered in leather and steel and ink.

"I'm not afraid of bikers," I said. "My brother Horace is around here somewhere and he's really strong. Let's get pizza."

This seemed to calm Jessie and Curtis down. We sat down and ordered some pizza. We all drank some Cokes. The bikers didn't pay attention to us. They were drinking orange pop and eating salad.

"I need somewhere to stay tonight," I said. "I don't know where Horace is."

"There are some motels around here somewhere," said Curtis.

"I work at a 7-11," said Jessie. "My friend Jack is taking my shift tonight. I bet he'd let you sleep in the back room."

I said, "That sounds ideal."

Curtis said in a whisper, "I don't really feel comfortable discussing the bikers when there are bikers in the room."

I nodded.

Our pizza came and we ate it. Then we had some dessert. By then it was dark.

"I'll take you to 7-11," Jessie said.

"Let's all meet up tomorrow. At Winfield's. Maybe Horace will show up. Afternoon," I said.

They nodded. I said bye to Curtis and Jessie walked with me to 7-11. She introduced me to Jack, who was a scraggly hippie-looking guy. Jack and I talked about poetry for a while. He likes Andrew Marvell a whole lot. I told him that I had met lots of convenience store clerks who were big Andrew Marvell fans, and he seemed to take comfort in this.

Then I went to the back room and lay down under a table. Jack gave me an old coat somebody had left there to use as a blanket and a couple of rolls of toilet paper to use as a pillow. It was pretty good.

I woke up around dawn and Jack was just leaving. We fixed up the back room so no one would know I slept there. Then I went to Winfield's. And here I am again. Chocolate milk, donut, blog.

I'll stay here until Curtis and Jessie come.

Horace, if you're reading this, hopefully you'll come too.

Leo, if you're reading this, how's your speaking tour going?

Mysterious news

2007-03-28T10:55:00.000-06:00

Sebastian here. Last night as I was practicing the organ upstairs I heard Horace come in the front door. He seemed really distraught: pacing back and forth, then stopping suddenly and exhaling sharply. It made it hard for me to concentrate, the boots on the wood floor of our apartment. Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, pause, sigh. So I got up and went down to ask what was the matter.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

Horace turned to face me. I think he was looking at me. But it's always hard to tell (sunglasses).

"I received a most disturbing email," he said.

I waited.

"Here," he said. He reached into the back pocket of his blue coveralls and handed me a folded piece of paper. I took it and unfolded it. I was a printout of an email. This is what it said:

Dear The Gardens,

My name is Curtis. I'm nineteen years old. I live in Hawk Center, Nebraska. [Hawk Center is not a real town. I changed the name --Sebastian.]

We are having a real bad time here. Every year in the spring a biker gang called the Hell's Bells comes into town and smashes your store windows if you have a store or spraypaints your garage door if you don't have a store. If you don't have a store or a garage they leave you alone. The only way to get them to not smash your windows or spray paint your garage is if you put some money in a plastic bag and throw it into their bike trailers as they ride by.

This is really getting to all of us.

We tried to call the sheriff's office but there are too many bikers so he won't come out with his deputies (only has two). Last year we wrote the governor and the governor sent the Nebraska National Guard. They waited all spring with their armored personnel carriers and machine guns and body armor and then at the end of May they got tired of it all and left. And then the Hell's Bells came anyway but in June that year instead of March or April or May.

Please The Gardens come and help us. I wrote to all my other favorite bands and none of them ever wrote back except the Moody Blues and they sent a form letter.

Please come help us here.

Yours truly,

Curtis.

"I wish Leo were here," Horace said. "He has a very practical mind."

(Leo just left town two days ago to go on a speaking tour. He filled a laptop case with clean shirts and cheese sandwiches in plastic bags and started walking toward Iowa.)

"There's nothing we can do about that," I said.

"They need us there in Hawk Center," Horace said.

I said, "Yes, you're right."

Horace said, "I'll go put gas in the car."

I said, "Ok." Then Horace walked outside. I looked at the printed email. Sometimes I feel like white paper dries my hands out when I hold it too long, and I started feeling like that, so I put it down. Then I sat down on the floor and waited for Horace. Afte a while I fell asleep. I had a dream about a big storm and everything in heaven getting lowered down to earth with ropes and big squeaky pulleys.

I woke up in the back seat of Horace's Buick. It was dark outside and the car had just stopped.

"What?" I said. It wasn't the most appropriate question. But I had just woken up.

"I parked in a ditch so we can sleep for a few hours," Horace said.

"What time is it?" I said.

"Four-thirty," said Horace.

"In the morning," I said. "How did I get in the car?"

"I carried you," Horace said. "I'm pretty strong."

"How far are we from Hawk Center?" I said.

"Two hours."

"Great."

Then we both fell asleep.

We woke up a few hours later. It was a little light out. I took the keys from Horace and he went to the back seat and went back to sleep. I got us to downtown Hawk Center. Hawk Center is an old railroad town. Big yards there. I drove through the streets a few times then found a cafe. I bought some chocolate milk and a donut and I ate breakfast and now I'm sitting here at Winfield's Coffee typing this. Lots of places have wireless these days. Horace is still asleep in the car. Probably good for him. When he wakes up we'll go try to find Curtis.

Anthemic Self-titled Song

2007-03-27T13:24:00.000-06:00

Dear friends of the Gardens,

I am really sorry we don't use this blog more. Perhaps we will recount some of our historic adventures in this space sometime soon.

In the meantime, please enjoy our newest song, which features me playing the dulcimer as well as the electric piano. I also used a drum machine. These things happen.

It is called The Gardens.

It has been long, long

2007-02-08T14:48:00.000-06:00

Posts are hard to come by at times. Will I recommit myself? These things, these movements of the thought complex, are hard to predict.

Here it is winter and so cold. A poem written quickly like them all:

O you baseball teams and you elementary school teachers
O you scuba divers and number sets
Frost and chill
Snow and ice
Dancing girls
Acclaim this God of yours!

He locks your front door, He replaces your siding.
He operates water fountains. Unplugs drains.
Priests and fakers
Magicians and princes
Arbitrators
Praise His Mighty Deeds!

He brought you out of a foreign country and taught you to farm.
He turned on the sprinklers and pushed up daisies.
He also pushed up corn and squash
and Squanto helped with that
and it was very good.

Aphrahat, Michelle, Aquaman and all you water creatures
O all you waters under the creatures, above the creatures,
whatever
Praise and Announce Your God
Talk about Him, His immanence, His eminence
His tallness.

O you prophets and construction workers
O you ballerinas and centipedes
Around you hover gobs and gobs of angels
They have lots of eyes.
Pick them up by their hands and fling them around
They will help you make dinner tonight.
They will help all of us do that.

O you boring families and you small red plastic trucks
you are capable of gratefulness.
Gratefulness like good clean light.

O praise Him!

How our gig went. A new song.

2007-01-06T13:03:00.000-06:00

Well, our gig went very well.

We showed up at the Penguin. No one seemed to be there. We tried the front door. Locked. I asked Horace, "Did you schedule the gig?" and Horace said, "No." Leo said, "We never schedule gigs, remember? We're post-schedule." "Right," I said.

We drove Horace's Buick around to the back and tried that door. It was open. We brought our instruments in, and the mics and the PA and all that, and started setting up. As we were doing that, three teenage girls walked up to the front of the building and knocked on the window.

"Who are you?" one of them said.

"We're the Gardens," I said. "We're about to play a show. Would you like to watch it?"

"Yeah," they said. We opened the door for them and they came in. There was a teenage boy who walked in too. I hadn't seen him.

"Um, I work here," the girl said.

"Are you closed?" I said.

"I thought so," she said.

"Nobody ever plays here," the boy said. "This is, like, a place to get ice cream. And hamburgers."

"We're going to play here," Leo said. He looked meaningfully at the four kids. They looked back.

"We're all celibate," Horace said.

"Weird," said one of the girls.

"Well, are we ready?" I asked my brothers. They said, "Yes," and I said, "Then let's rock," and we did. We played all the songs on I Will Tear Down My Barns, and the new one I wrote, which is called One Wild Night in America. Our audience was pretty into it by then. One of them shouted, "Yeah Gardens," when we finished that song.

Some of the lyrics in One Wild Night in America are sloppy. But I think the spirit is fitting for our quest of apocalypse-prefiguring. You can listen for yourself. It's on the new site in our web empire. Here it is.

New song and a show

2007-01-02T13:02:00.000-06:00

Hi everyone.

We're getting excited about our first show of the New Year, which is tomorrow in Manitowoc, Wisconsin at the Penguin, which I understand is a fast food place/ice cream store. We're driving out there tonight.

I wrote a new song which we have not learned yet, but we will tomorrow before the show and we'll post a live version of it somewhere, maybe MySpace. It involves this combination organ-accordion which I have been learning to play.

Today is our birthday, so we'll all be eating applesauce cake tonight. But who will make it?

We spent the last couple of nights walking around empty parking lots. There is something about them. The white lights flooding down on abandoned nothingness. Is it metaphysical, or does it just remind me of Back to the Future? Probably the latter. I always think someone should be skateboarding around in them:

Wheels grinding the tiny asphalt dust below. Something
in the mind and the heart, but hidden in the wide space.
Skaters like gods and ghosts. There's mist below these
lights as well. Good for the ghosts to move in and past.

Merry Christmas from the Gardener brothers

2006-12-25T20:21:00.000-06:00

I just wanted to write and tell everyone that the Gardener brothers wish you a very merry Christmas. We are now united in Sioux Falls.

Our first album, I Will Tear Down My Barns, is now officially released. We will have to find a way to sell it/give it away.

For Christmas, we got Leo a tie imported from Paris. We got Horace a beat up old copy of the Little Flowers of Saint Francis which he said he will read very slowly. He has loved Brother Juniper for a long time. Leo and Horace got me a very nice pen to write down my thoughts. They attached a card I appreciated, which said,

Dear Sebastian,

You are an engine. Our engine. Keep it real.

Love,

Horace and Leo
Your brothers

The first thing I wrote with my new pen:

The excellence of brotherly love
is a heavy solid staff. My hand
is supple still. I have been
told by dear ones whom I trust
that this is all right. So far.

Peace be to you, reader!

Leo and Horace A-OK

2006-12-24T11:27:00.001-06:00

I have a few pieces of news, which I think everyone will enjoy.

One is that I got a phone call from Horace and Leo to the effect that everything is fine. I recorded the conversation so I'll report the good parts verbatim. If I can figure it out I may post the phone call as a podcast. There were some really nice thoughts in it, both from Leo and Horace.

The other piece of news is that I finally put up some of our glamor shots on a new web album. They are for those fans of ours who aren't satisfied seeing us in our unpredictable shows given in unpredictable locations in small midwestern cities. I will post here whenever there's new material there. I think the official release of our album will be tomorrow, so we'll get more mp3s up on our myspace page, and maybe find a way to sell the albums as well. But there are already some copies floating around out there. We met a guy at one of our shows who bought all the ones we had with us.

But to get to the point. I was fiddling with some of our tracks this morning when the phone rang. I picked it up.

"Hi, Sebastian," the voice said.

"Is this Leo?" I said.

"No, Horace," said Horace.

"Oh, hi Horace," I said to Horace. "Is Leo still being held captive by the anarchists?"

"No, I got him," Horace said.

"That's great," I said. "Tell me what happened."

"I'll let Leo."

Then Leo got on the phone.

"That was really something," he said.

"Explain!" I said.

"Well, so the anarchists had me give this talk. And I told them that even though I wasn't crazy, if I was, I would resent the fact that they had imprisoned me in their revolutionary library. And this seemed to make them ashamed and one of them said, 'What the hell were we thinking?' But then I recited your poem about how Jesus turns people into fish, and they became afraid and they locked me in the revolutionary library again and they said Christmas was bad for a bunch of reasons."

"I slept there and in the morning a few of them let me out, saying that they thought the others were totally insane and they thought all of this was nuts and nothing made sense anymore and they thought this anarchist collective sucked. That was what they kept saying, 'This anarchist collective sucks. I hate it.' I was really confused. Which I guess I'm used to."

"I asked them if they would let me out because it was Christmas Eve Day, and then they got uncomfortable and asked me why I cared about that, and I said, 'Look, I'm not going to tell you about me and the Lord because direct speech on the subject would only make you angry, and so I'm going to have to speak in riddles.' But of course by saying 'the Lord' I had spoken directly and we got into a big argument about all kinds of things. I guess I knew saying 'me and the Lord' would really get them going, because normally it's not something I say. The argument went on for quite some time. And they said they understood why the others had locked me in the library, and the things I said sounded really wrong-headed, and so on and so forth."

"We were getting nowhere, and I was about to put their commitment to violence to the test by just walking out the door, when Horace drove up in his Buick and walked in the front door which was unlocked. Horace, what did you say to them?"

Horace got on the phone.

"It was a speech. One I'd been working on. In my head, I mean. So it was all ready. I said: 'Why are your faces so contorted and your hairs arranged so thusly? Look: my brother and I are going. You can't go with us where we're going. We're going in a Buick. We're going home to see our other brother. His name is Sebastian.'"

"'You think we're the same. We're not. Look. You say identical triplets don't exist. I know you say that because I read the blog. But look. Here we are. We exist. Right? Touch my arm."

"'I've seen these books before.' I gestured to the library. 'I know what you say about the heart of the human species, how we are animals and we are free. And you say: If we ate whole grains. If we adopted polyamory. If we put herbs on our skin. If we made zines. And so on.' I walked into the library and they followed me. I opened a window. Then I started picking up their books and throwing them out the window as I spoke."

"'But you do not know the common nature at all,' I said. Then I became full of passion. 'How can you walk through these sidewalks and brush up against these people in sterile gas stations and not know?' I whispered. 'How can you not understand the sorrow and the longing when we are all steeped in it? People suffer. Yes, they do! But: If you are hungry. If you can get no job. You feel a wound. The wound is that your body is in pain. The deeper wound is that you see hatred in your brother.'"

"'But what do you offer us? What do you offer the world crying out for humanity? The world who senses its own dignity in spite of everything. Senses it because the mind of Almighty God is so near. You say: You are parakeets. You are free. Eat this seed. Mate with the the pretty blue birds. Now your suffering is gone.'"

"Ah, you do not see!' I said, and they looked at each other. They seemed bored. I kept going. 'No, you are thoroughly blind!' I said. 'You refuse to give that which is lacked. You refuse to condescend and fill in the pain with mercy. Because you lack wisdom. Because you lack wisdom, you don't know mercy. You probably don't even think mercy is good. But then, the word mercy has probably been transformed into an alien symbol...' At this point I trailed off. The two anarchists were lying face down on the ground and covering their ears. Leo said, 'Let's go,' and we just walked out. No one stopped us."

Leo got on.

"Isn't that good?" he said.

"It seems very confusing," I said. "Not to me. I think he took some of my ideas. Confusing to others."

"That's the deal, right?" Leo said.

"Yes. That's the deal," I said.

Then he told me they were driving home and he hung up.

Still your brother in chains

2006-12-23T21:36:00.000-06:00

I was released from jail this morning only to find myself in a much more unexpected kind of imprisonment.

The guards came in at 7:30 and told me that I was going to appear before a judge, since I had refused to be released on my own recognizance a few hours after I was arrested. (I refused to be release because I figured I had better just stay put and let Horace find me, plus I had no where else to stay and no hotel owner within 15 miles would let me stay with them... And I had of course heard it from a guard that the jail had free internet. Go figure.) They told me I could plead guilty or innocent or no contest, and the judge would sentence me there.

I was expecting to be brought in to a courtroom, but instead they put me in a room with a TV and a video camera. The judge appeared on the video screen and explained my rights. She had brown hair and a severe expression. She didn't look directly into the camera (i.e., at me) but seemed preoccupied with some papers on her desk.

"Horace Gardener, you've been charged with trespassing and resisting arrest," she said. "How do you plead?"

"I'm not Horace Gardener," I said.

"The defendant will refer to me as 'Your Honor,'" said the judge.

I rolled my eyes as loudly as I could. "Your honor," I said.

"You say you're not Horace Gardener?" asked the judge.

"No, I'm his identical brother," I said. "You can look at my ID, which you probably have a photocopy of. I'm Leo Gardener."

The judge shuffled through some of her papers, then pulled out the one she was looking for. "Minus the beard, he looks exactly like you," she said.

"There are subtle differences," I said.

"Nevertheless I can't deny that you aren't the same person. Sorry about you being in jail. Case dismissed."

Then the screen turned off. A guard came in, took me to another cell, gave me my clothes, and after I had changed, let me out of the jail into an alley. There was a taxi waiting there.

"Need a ride somewhere?" the driver said.

I was about to say "No, thanks," when a blue suburban pulled up. There was a black and red star painted on the door. A white woman with dreadlocks leaned out of the window and said, "Are you Horace Gardener?"

"No," I said. "But I'm his brother. We're two of three identical triplets."

"Identical triplets don't exist," she said. "Get in."

"I think I'll walk," I said.

And then she said, "No, come on, we need a speaker for our Saturday night meeting."

"Who are you?" I said. The cabbie was watching us with some degree of interest.

"My name's Kendra and I'm from the 1st National Anarchist House of Madison. We have a potluck and meeting every Saturday night and we always need a speaker. The grandmothers of one of our members heard you say some amazing things at that motel in De Forest. We've all been talking about it. Get in."

I thought of Horace coming to look for me. "Um, I'd better stick around De Forest," I said.

But then two large tattooed people, a man and a woman, came out of the rear window of the suburban, opened up one of the doors, gave me a cigarette, then grabbed me by either arm and thew me in. They sat down on either side of me and then shut the door. Then Kendra hit the gas and we were tearing out of De Forest.

"That seemed really wrong," I said. No one said anything. There was a backpack on the ground that had a pin that said, "Visualize Armed Revolution," with a picture of an AK-47 on it. I gestured at it and said, "Nice," to the large man next to me. "I don't think I'll make a good speaker. I don't believe in violence," I said.

"Look, sorry," said Kendra, "But we really wanted somebody from the mad community. We thought you probably wouldn't mind actually. Based on what Fur's grandma said."

"Mad community? You mean crazy people?" I said.

"Yeah," said Kendra, "Except most mad community people I know prefer to call themselves the mad community rather than crazy people."

"You know, this is the second time I've had my sanity questioned in the last couple of days," I said.

"Welcome to the revolution," said the large woman sitting next to me.

I thought about this.

"I don't think we're part of the same revolution," I said.

No one said anything after that.

They brought me to a large wooden house in Madison and locked me in the room I'm in now, which appears to be a revolutionary library, and which appears to have free internet. (The internet is everywhere now. This is starting to alarm me.)

They let me out at dinner and I tried to escape. Everyone had a good laugh and then I gave my talk, which I think I'll have to recount later because I think someone is about to come in, and I don't think they know I'm writing this. I'm going to try to get them to let me out tomorrow (it's Christmas Eve, right?) but I heard one of them saying Christmas was bad for a bunch of reasons, so maybe they'll keep me locked up.

Horace, if it's not too much trouble, could you come rescue me?

Hun(stop)in

2006-12-22T12:42:00.000-06:00

I'm sorry brothers. I was gone because I met a man on a road near Sparta and we went hunting. Except he said, "Hun(stop)in." Swallowing the T in "huntin'". No sign of an apostrophe at the end.

I spent two days visiting the Deke Slayton Memorial Space and Bike Museum. It portrays human history as a progression from bicycle to spaceship. And Deke Slayton is the center of it all. He was an astronaut from the area. Sebastian. I wish you had been with me. It is your kind of thing exactly. You could have written a good poem.

For my two days at the museum, I was the first person there and the last person to leave. I asked for special appointments to stay later. This seemed to make them nervous. So I decided to drive my car away from Sparta. Go somewhere else. I wasn't reading the blog. I was too busy.

I was driving along a road. My car started running out of gas. So I parked it on the shoulder. There were woods around. I turned off the car and got out. There was a man in camouflage standing about ten feet away. He was sitting behind a bush and looking at me.

"I can see you," I said.

"Dang," he said.

"What are you doing?" I asked him.

"Huntin'," he said, except without the T or the apostrophe. I noticed he did actually have a rifle in his hands.

"Are you allowed to hunt here?" I asked him.

"Nope," he said. "This is military land here. Big base nearby." He stood up. "My names Walt," he said.

"Hi Walt," I said. "Horace."

"Pleased to meetcha," he said. I agreed with him. Then he said, "You ever hunt?" I shook my head no. "Wanna learn?" he said.

"No. But I could walk with you," I said.

"Can you move silently amidst the underbrush?" he said.

"Yes," I said truthfully.

"Then follow me."

I followed him and we moved silently further into the forest. It was grey outside. Cold. I had put on my lined coveralls. We walked for about fifteen minutes. Then he dropped to one knee. I looked ahead of us. There was a deer maybe fifty feet away from us.

"Dang," he said. "Dang." The deer perked up its head. Walt knelt there for two minutes. Maybe three. The deer and us were very still.

"Can't do it," Walt said. He seeemed to be in great pain. "Can't. Mother. Friggin. Do it," he said. "Sorry bout the language," he added. The deer started bounding away. Walt jumped up and threw his rifle after it. The gun hit a tree about ten feet away and got stuck in the branches. We looked at the gun dangling there for a bit. "Better that way," Walt said.

"You're an unusual hunter," I said.

Walt laughed and looked at me and said, "Dang right I am." Then he sat down on a log and started crying. He said, "MotheraChrist." Very tenderly.

I stayed where I was. I looked at him and the big tears rolling down his fat cheeks. He didn't seem that old, maybe 30s. He took his camouflage baseball hat off his head and wiped his face and then let the cap dangle between his legs. He continued weeping. I was filled with love for him. "My dear brother," I said. "You are carrying great sorrow in your hands."

He didn't say anything, just kept staring at the ground and crying. So I decided to keep talking. "The world is swollen with grief," I said. "One bit of this grief is enough to undo any of us. And no soul on this earth is untouched by it. It is a leaden weight pulling down on the heart of all mankind. And it weighs heavy as we receive the wounds of this life."

I was stung with pain. "Oh, these wounds!" I said. "They are more than enough for us. But listen! They will drive us to despair and nothingness and inane philosophies if we are not worthy of them. But what makes anyone worthy? What does that even mean? I don't know. But so great a suffering only approaches making sense when we always, always keep in mind the great forgiveness of God, which lies sleeping, immense and incomprehensible, at the heart of the universe."

"His forgiveness is closer than your sorrow. It is flowing through you more than your blood," I said.

He stopped crying for a moment, then said, "Those are nice things to say." Then he started crying again. I stood there watching.

He cried for more than a day. I stood with him. Then I brought him to my car. He refused to get in. So I put him in the trunk. Sparta was downhill, so I put the car in neutral and we rolled. I stopped in front of a motel. I openend the trunk and took Walt out. I walked him inside.

I gave the clerk a bunch of money. "Here," I said. "This is Walt. Let him stay here until he's better."

"Um..." said the clerk. "This'll last maybe three days."

I said, "Whatever." The clerk looked at Walt.

"What's wrong with him?" he said.

"Actually, probably nothing," I said. "But everybody needs rest sometimes."

I stayed in that town until today, when I drove to Tomah. I didn't see Walt again.

Leo, I'll come bail you out.

In His Most Holy Name.

Horace.

This seems bad

2006-12-21T17:13:00.000-06:00

Sebastian here. Leo, are you still in jail? Horace, where are you? Even if you feel it's best to let the silence speak, I would like to know where you are.

I have almost finished mastering our album. I think it is OK. Perhaps the guitars are too loud on some songs, and I could have made some of your vocals, Leo, take up a little more presence in the mix. But... I'm tired of doing this. I hope people read the lyrics. That's where the action happens and all the magma comes out.

All of you people with your hearts in knots: there is water dripping somewhere nearby. There are muscled animals grazing. But this is all imperfect, and I hope you know that.

Ah, I can feel the soul in me, how it is so separate from the soul in you and so like it.

Pull the webs from my eyelids. There is breath on my face and the frost melts. Smile marks appear.

I have been a long time walking these roads of the heart, which wind like pythons around us and through us worm-like. I have seen things dark and heavy, and you have felt them to be right and light and warmth. And you have been wrong.

I wish there would be a judge. I wish there would be a leveller. I wish there would be someone. God! Let there be someone. Is there any feeling better than salvation?

No. There is not.

I would weep if I could for this people, for these generations milling around us. Oh, my neighbors. You are wandering and coughing and shaking your coats accidentally.

Look up! Your chin. Tilt it the other way, to the sky.

Somewhere the people of Nineveh are putting down their newspapers and standing up from the breakfast table.

Arising. This is the first sign.

Oh, my neighbors.

Your brother in chains

2006-12-18T09:43:00.000-06:00

I left the UW campus and walked out toward Highway 151 as I figured that someone could probably get me to De Forest from there. I spent some time looking at the lake--there's a big, beautiful lake right in Madison, and 151 goes along it. Then I decided to I'd better find a gas station if I was serious about hitchhiking to De Forest. It turns out I wasn't really. I waited for about an hour, then asked the man behind the counter how far De Forest was. He said it was less than half an hour by car, maybe 15 miles.

"What am I doing waiting here?" I said. "I could walk that in less than three hours."

"You have comfortable shoes?" he said.

"Yeah. I got them from a friend," I said, and I showed him my shoes.

"I've never heard of anyone walking to De Forest before," he said.

"Me neither," I said. Then I said bye and left.

It got dark about halfway through my walk. As I started being able to see what I assumed were the lights of De Forest, a police car pulled up behind me and turned on its mars lights. I turned around and tried to look past the headlights into the car. A policeman got out of the passenger side. He had a moustache, which no longer shocks me.

"Would you mind stepping over to the car?" he said.

"Sure, no problem," I said, and I went over to him.

"Drivers license," he said. Had I been speeding? I took out my wallet and gave him my license. "Your car break down somewhere around here?" he asked while giving my license to his partner in the car.

"I took a bus to Madison and started walking."

"Why not take a cab?" he said.

"I'm cheap," I said.

After a few more seconds his partner nodded to him and the policeman who had called me over, the one standing next to me, said, "I'm going to have to ask you get in the car."

"Am I under arrest?" I said.

"No," he said. "We're just going to take you to the station and ask you some questions."

I said OK and got in the car, and we drove into town. It turns out I was only about two miles away when they picked me up. The one policeman I had talked to led me up the handicapped-accessible ramp into the station, and then he brought me into a small room with walls made of bricks, a mirror, a table with two chairs, and a bare lightbulb in the ceiling. I looked at the mirror.

"People on the outside can see through that, can't they?" I asked.

"I'll ask the questions, OK?" he said.

"You bet," I said.

"Where were you this morning?" he said.

"Madison," I said.

"You weren't at the Holiday Inn Express?"

"No. But I bet my brother Horace was."

"Your brother Horace?"

"Yeah, he's one of two identical triplet brothers I have. The other one's name is Sebastian," I said.

"Identical triplets."

"That's right."

"I don't think those exist."

"Well, maybe I don't exist," I said.

"Don't get smart," he said. "So, you and your 'brother,' you, uh, what do you do?"

"Like with our lives?"

"Like for money. Yes."

"We're dislodged evangelists," I said.

He looked doubtfully at me.

"Let me ask you something," I said.

"I said, I'll do the--" but I interrupted him.

"Have you ever become disembedded from your sensual experience?"

"That sounds like a personal question," he said.

"It is. Has, in your view, sense-based reality ever stopped cohering suddenly?" I started feeling very thirsty, and started wondering what in the world Horace had done at the Holiday Inn Express.

"So you're telling me you're some kinda guru," he said.

"What I'm telling you," I told him, "Is that I'm trying to tell people the good news, but because reality is no longer intelligible to anyone, and as our modes of communication have helped the unintelligibility, the only way to speak is with symbols, metaphors, and heightened academic-sounding nonsense speech. None of which anyone understands. So telling people the good news becomes exceptionally confusing for everyone involved."

"I don't understand," he said.

"Exactly," I said.

He looked at the ground thoughtfully for a minute.

"You're not a bad guy," he said. Then he raised his eyes to me, big, soft, brown eyes. "But I think you're crazy. What do you think about that?"

I thought for a moment. "Don't they tell you in interrogation school that crazy people don't think they're crazy?" I asked him.

"I didn't go to interrogation school," he said, and took a breath while looking at his watch. "How do I know you actually have an identical brother?"

"I can tell you what he looks like," I said.

"Let me guess: exactly like you."

"Well, there are subtle differences."

"Such as?"

"He has a beard and a hat and sunglasses."

"So you're telling me he looks like one of those Santa Claus commercials," he said.

"That was good," I said. Maybe this guy actually did go to interrogation school. "He also wears a blue jumpsuit," I said.

"OK," he said. "Accurate description. How do I know you didn't just change your clothes and shave after this morning's events?" he said.

"And then what?" I said. "Did I flee De Forest only to decide to come back? On foot? At night?"

"The criminal always returns to the scene of the crime," he said lamely. I noticed that he looked exceptionally bored.

"Look," I said. "What did Horace do this morning that was so bad?"

"He stood on a table and talked crazy and dumped a bunch of Honey Nut Cheerios in a sink," he said.

"And you can arrest him--me--for that?" I said.

"Well..."

"Is that a crime in Wisconsin?" I said. "No, it's not a crime. What, did he scare some people?"

"Yeah," said the policeman. "He scared some people pretty bad."

"He was probably trying to evangelize them," I said. "That's what we do."

"Do you."

"Yes."

"I don't believe it."

"At this point, my brother Sebastian would probably say, 'Deep in your organs you know that the air you think you breathe is not really the air as it is. Thought. Mind. Eyeballs! What matches up? Real air. Real air is from the starboard bow, it sprays, it dazzles! It is cold.' That's from a poem he wrote."

"You my friend," he said, "Are going to jail."

Which is where I am now. Strangely, we get to use the internet sometimes. Horace, if you read this, could you please come bail me out of the jail here? Sebastian, perhaps you could wire some bail money.

The guard is yelling.

Was there music?

2006-12-17T19:32:00.000-06:00

So this is the first chance I’ve had to use a computer since the other day. That girl came back just after I’d gotten up from her computer, and so I asked her if she knew anyone who could give me a ride to De Forest.

“Where’s De Forest?” she said. She had curly hair and framey glasses and looked like she probably ate a lot of natural foods.

“Maybe forty minutes from here,” I said. “I actually have never been there.” I explained that I was trying to find Horace.

“Are you a grad student here?” she said.

“No,” I said, “I’m a dislodged evangelist.” I noticed the apprehensive look on her face, so I added, “I’m prefiguring the musical apocalypse, along with my two brothers.”

“You’re really funny,” she said.

“Um, thanks,” I said. “So do you know anyone I could get a ride from?”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “But maybe you could take a cab.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” I said. I decided to hitchhike at that point. “Do you have a piece of cardboard and a permanent marker?” I asked her.

“Yeah, actually,” she said, and she took them out of her book bag, a piece of cardboard maybe 24 by 12 inches and a Sharpie.

I sat down at a table nearby and wrote “De Forest” on the piece of cardboard, making sure to make clear, thick letters. Many people are not aware that success in hitchhiking owes a lot to having a neat, legible sign. When I was done, I handed it back.

“Thanks,” I said.

“So are you going to get that cab?” she asked.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“Hitchhiking?”

“Yeah.”

“Not worried?”

“Nah,” I said.

“Lemme ask you something before you go,” she said. I looked away and waited. “In what way did this prefigure the musical apocalypse?” she asked.

“Was there music?” I said.

A lot more happened to me, especially once I got to De Forest. But I’m out of time for writing right now, so I’ll try again tomorrow or the next day.

Mind beams! Words! Interconnectivity!

2006-12-16T18:40:00.000-06:00

This is the way we talk. With my fingers under my eyes I focus on you. My hand goes back and forth between our faces. Like this.

You stumble out of bed bang into your dresser. The drawers fall out. You recognize in this a symbol for something. Your own breath. Some colors.

Look. Think back to your first experience ice skating. Do this as a thought experiment. Maybe a few mornings a week, before you do anything else.

Yesterday and Today in Wisconsin

2006-12-16T16:34:00.000-06:00

Yesterday morning I went to the continental breakfast at the De Forest Holiday Inn Express, even though I hadn't stayed there the previous night. The cleaning lady kicked me out shortly after I posted my previous post. I looked around in the dining area. There was the boy and girl again. Eating cereal. I couldn't tell which kind.

I sat down across from them. "Hi," I said.

"Oh, hi," they both said. They had been talking about something but then they stopped.

"You were talking about something, but then you stopped," I said.

"You're really creepy," said the girl.

"Yeah," said the boy. "You are."

"Is that what you were talking about?" I asked.

"Why are you still wearing that jumpsuit?" asked the boy.

"I came here to find something out about you," I said.

"I want to leave," said the boy.

"Learn to resist sudden impulses," I said.

"Um..." said the girl.

"I think I'm going to get the manager," said the boy.

"Wait, wait," I said. "There's something I need to know."

The boy ignored me and said to the girl, "Hey, let's go find the manager."

"Cereal," I said. I looked at their faces. "I need to know what kind of cereal you're eating."

"Bye," said the girl. The two of them got up and started walking to reception area. But then the boy turned as they were leaving the room and said, "It's new. It's Hakuna Matata cereal. From the Lion King. You should leave before the police come." Then he walked out of sight.

I stood up and looked around the room. Everyone must have stopped their conversations a few minutes earlier, I realized. I looked at them. I studied their faces. Good people. Balding middle-aged ladies with lumpy perms. They looked so kind. I stood on the little table I'd been at.

"My fellow citizens of the universe," I began. "We are trained to believe that the choices we make matter. For instance: cereal. The cereal you choose matters. Advertisers suggest this. Cereal companies suggest this, and the fortunes of many great men are based upon this idea. And I say to you all: It's true. What cereal you choose does matter. But not in the way the great barons of cereal-making want you to think. Most people choose a breakfast cereal based upon their deepest anxieties. You are afraid you do not exist, and so you buy Honey Nut Cheerios. But look." I walked over to the container full of Honey Nut Cheerios. I carefully opened the top of it, then dumped the contents into the sink. I picked up a Cheerio.

"Behold this Cheerio. It's made of oats. Every Cheerio is. There's probably two oats in this Cheerio. That's just a guess. I don't know for sure. Two oats--probably from two different plants. Perhaps from two different farms. Worked by different people, who live and breathe and yet you do not know them."

"My sisters and brothers," I said. "The work a person does has spiritual significance. Every little effort of those farmers, every bead of sweat, every blink of their eyes, every cough--it all echoes through eternity. You eat this Cheerio and you are in communion with the essence of your sister and brother the farmers. And your choice, to eat Honey Nut Cheerios, you choose because it tastes good, because it's high in fiber, because the brown box wards off the widening terror of existing. Whatever. Your choice is an expression of your being, even if you do not know it. And your every little choice and thought echoes through the cosmos, and the Creator of us all is with you, even in something so mundane. He made it too. You are participating in the work of creation, even in your mundane choices. You are creating the universe with God."

The manager walked in. He was holding a pool cue.

"Now listen mister," he said. "I don't want any funny stuff."

"Ok," I said. "I'm leaving."

"You're going to pay for those Cheerios," he said.

"Of course," I said. I took out my wallet. "Is five dollars good?"

"Let's see you get off the table first."

"Has my brother come by?" I asked.

"What?"

"I have a brother named Leo. He was going to try to get here from Madison. He was asking college students to drive him."

"Um," said the manager. "What does he look like?"

"We're identical triplets," I said. "He looks like me. Except no beard. Or hat, or sunglasses, or jumpsuit. He usually wears a nice jacket. He stares meaningfully at people and smokes."

"Get off the table," said the manager.

"Ok," I said. I got off the table.

"Now beat it," he said. He waved the pool cue at me.

"I'm beating it," I said. And I walked out.

"I may or may not call the police on you," said the manager.

"That's an unusual threat," I said.

I got in my car and started driving. It was about 11 am. I drove to Sparta. Short trip. They have a lot of information about bicycles there. I slept in my car in the parking lot of a Denny's. I spent most of today in Denny's eating eggs, thinking about God, and wondering about Leo. Leo, I'm in Sparta now if you want to come hang out. I'm using the internet at a new motel.

In His Most Holy Name.

Horace.

Last night at the Holiday Inn Express

2006-12-14T14:03:00.000-06:00

I was sitting in my room last night at the Holiday Inn Express here in De Forest. The pizza made me feel kind of sick. Ate too much. But I decided to make the best of it. Prayed. Read some St. Aelred. It was in the glove compartment.

I turned on the TV and paged through the phone book. Are "Escort Services" really just prostitution? They appear to be. Sad. I closed the phone book and turned off the TV. I thought, "I should get out a rosary or something." But I was distracted by voices through my door. I got up and walked closer. I could hear what they were saying.

"No, he's fine now." A young woman.

"Well... What did your mom and dad say?" A young man.

"Nothing, what do you think?" The girl again.

Silence.

"Hey, I need a cigarette." The boy.

"Alright."

I thought maybe he was going to smoke right then and there, but he didn't. They walked away. I opened my door and walked after them. I caught up with them in the back parking lot of the motel. Standing and smoking. They looked cold through the glass doors. I walked through the glass doors and stood behind them. They turned their heads a little to see who it was and stopped talking. There was quiet. For about 45 seconds.

"Um... Are you waiting for someone?" The girl.

"No," I said.

15 seconds.

"Do you smoke?" The girl. They still both had their backs to me.

"No," I said. "But my brother does."

Thirty seconds.

"This is probably awkward for you," I said.

They laughed and looked at me and stopped pretending I didn't exist.

The boy said to me, "So are you just bored or what?"

I said, "I wonder sometimes. What do you think I am?" The girl giggled and the boy smiled, but the corners of his mouth were turned down.

"A mechanic," the girl said. She had on a fleece and a pair of tight jeans. I thought I recognized her from a group photo in the Culver's of the 2004 varsity soccer team. Ponytail. "Who's Amish," she said.

"And you," I said to the boy. He didn't have a baseball cap on. He had a long-sleeve t-shirt and jeans and Adidas shoes. Sort of a patchy 5 o'clock shadow--but it was dark and hard to see. "What do you think I am?"

He took a drag on his cigarette. Which was perfect. "Could be a weirdo," he said. I thought that was unusual, because he wasn't bigger than me. He either had a gun in his truck or could tell I was harmless.

"I'm a dislodged evangelist," I said.

The boy laughed and said, "Here we go!" He leaned forward, taking the last drag on his cigarette, then threw it into the parking lot. "Listen, we gotta go."

I said, "Probably."

The boy walked past me and opened the door. The girl walked past and said, "Bye."

In His Most Holy Name.

Horace.

I left too

2006-12-14T09:25:00.000-06:00

I took the unusual step yesterday of taking a bus to Madison, overnight from Sioux Falls. I left at about 4:30 in the evening, and I got into Madison this morning at 4:50 without having slept much. At two something, in Tomah, I got off the bus and bought a burrito.

I decided to follow Horace. Horace. Why do you go wandering off?

So here I am in Madison, at the University of Wisconsin's library actually. I don't have a password, so I'm just sitting at the computer of a student who got up. I guess this is illegal. But if the student comes back and sees me here, I'll just say it was an honest mistake; actually I guess I should say it was an honest on purpose. I'll tell her (the student: she left a frilly scarf on the keyboard) that I'm looking for my brother, and ask if she knows anyone who can give me a ride to De Forest. It should only take about 40 minutes. If that. I guess I've never been there before.

Horace. What motel are you at? Are you still there?

I had these thoughts as I ate my burrito and we pulled out of Tomah:

Granted that the lot of affluent homo sapiens is to find himself wrapped in a thick blanket of tedium and/or total fascination and engagement with his "one passion in life," how does a person who believes in the abiding presence of All-Merciful God pursue a more intimate union with his creator without becoming terminally distracted by epidemic sameness or the dangerously interesting variety of his own imagination?

How can you make the familiar new--how can you focus your attention on what you already know and do this in a spirit of joy--without inventing a novel (and false) essence for it?

I'm going to see my brother.

Sebastian, please see that our music gets posted and our project of cultural transformation can continue. Some glamor shots of us would also be nice.

I started driving today

2006-12-13T16:41:00.000-06:00

Today I got into my 1996 Buick Le Sabre and started driving. Lots of people like the two-lane highways. They're friendlier. You stop and it looks like you're somewhere different from the last time you stopped. I like that. But I also like the Interstates. Impersonal, massive. Grey. Every stop on them looks the same as every other stop. They feel like the world.

I picked a destination: De Forest, Wisconsin. Almost one straight shot on I-90. About seven hours. That's where I am now. De Forest. Motel.

I parked the car at the Culver's and walked over to the overpass. Couple of blocks. I found what amounted to a frontage road, and sat in some bushes to watch the cars. There are a lot of cars that go by on the Interstate. And a lot that stop in De Forest, actually. There are many fine fast food eating establishments within 60 seconds of the Interstate here in De Forest.

It's good to think about all those people. In the cars, I mean. Thousands, passing by. Their cars go fast. No one knows each other. No one knows what De Forest is like. I don't know what De Forest is like. It feels good, and it feels terrible to be somewhere like that.

As I sat in the bushes and felt cold, I thought of a conversation I once had with a friend in Canada. I had call waiting, and so I told him to hang on for a second because there was a call coming in. I clicked over; nothing, just some hissing. "Hello?" Nothing. "This is Horace. Hello?" Nothing. I thought of the distance, and all the many thousands of conversations, carried roughly at the speed of light through the many hundreds of miles of telephone wire. And there were voices I could not hear in the quiet hissing. I clicked back to my friend. "No one was there." But everyone was there. Or at least, a lot of people were there.

Back to this afternoon in De Forest, in the bushes. I was getting cold, but I was glad that I was just watching the Interstate and not listening to the phone line. More accessible. I walked back to my car. I thought about buying a salad at Culver's, but this seemed like just too much. So I drove into town, ate at a place called the Pizza Pit, and then found the motel. And here I am.

In His Most Holy Name.

Horace.

The Job

2006-12-12T14:34:00.000-06:00

The job is to find something in lunchboxes,
phone poles, brown bottles. The blessings!
See them in a world yet strange;
see in unimagined homes passed by
on trains the lives fantastic unknown glorious
and glinting out their meaning to a lone mind.

We'll Have Music Soon

2006-12-11T15:38:00.000-06:00

Hi everyone. Leo Gardener here. We hope to have some music up soon. Maybe some pictures as well.

We've been busy recording for the last few weeks. Sebastian is our sound engineer in residence. But that doesn't necessarily mean he's a sound engineer (get it?), so we'll see how that turns out. It will at least be listenable. And in his words, it will probably echo through your bones and cause a great resonating in the enamel of your soul. At least, this is our great hope.

As for me, I am waiting for the darkness and the noise. Craig Finn of the Hold Steady says that he sees Jesus in the awkwardness of new lovers or something like that. I sit in these 24-hour cafes at night and watch the kids smoke and drink coffee and draw on each others' arms. Yeah, there's Jesus in that. He's longing to grow in them. And they are longing to become.

A question: can you long for something which you cannot, in fact, refuse? Can you desire your own possessions? These 16-year-olds become what they are not whether they desire it or not. In other words: how can something be constantly present to you, and yet be desired, and not only desired but perceived as unattained, even in its intimate closeness?... For instance: the teenagers who cannot sense their own becoming, and so desire their own growth even as their growth unstoppably proceeds. They are drowning in it.

For instance: the person who cannot sense the closeness of God, and desires Him (or more likely, desires "something better" or "something else") because He is, apparently, not there. And His Spirit might be living and moving in them, and they are drowning in His merciful forbearance, and yet they sense Him as unattained.

Or is it that the desire for God is insatiable? And yet, nothing could be greater than God--not even the desire for Him.

Organic Solipsism

2006-12-11T12:51:00.000-06:00

Like the hawks the circle the dusty plains of America, we are coming to accentuate hope on behalf of the crestfallen and undertake battle against "I don't know."

We are coming from South Dakota.

We are the dislodged evangelists of Things-Exist.

Attack, attack, attack! Attack the fake in the name of the real.