The always unfinished resolution

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

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

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

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

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.