Carmine Vermilion

Carmine Vermilion

An underground train of thought

Published by Caspar Frederik Riga at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 Caspar Frederik Riga (text & cover art)

Smashwords Edition License Notes:

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

See more of my work at

http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/casparfrederikriga

what I’m up to on

http://sites.google.com/site/casparriga

or mail me at

mailto:caspar.riga@gmail.com

Enjoy!

Table of contents:

Chapter One: Red ink and vinegar blink.

Chapter Two: Agitate the gravel.

Chapter Three: Pardon my French.

Chapter Four: The secret is in the pie.

Chapter Five: Up the creek without a paddle.

Chapter Six: You look like a million dollars.

Chapter Seven: Tuckered out in a dust bowl.

Chapter Eight: A different ballpark.

Chapter Nine: The X that marks the spot.

Chapter Ten: A Chinese fire drill.

Chapter Eleven: Shadow politics.

Chapter Twelve: Why must I chase the cat?

Chapter Thirteen: Behind the eight-ball.

Chapter Fourteen: Off the reservation.

Chapter Fifteen: A town that has gates and bars.

Chapter Sixteen: Cottonwood crossroads.

Chapter Seventeen: A reed that bends in the wind.

Chapter Eighteen: Par for the course.

Chapter Nineteen: Kilroy was here.

Chapter Twenty: Ring around the roses.

Chapter Twenty-One: Throw a monkey wrench.

Chapter Twenty-Two: Jerusalem.

Chapter Twenty-Three: Dead stick landing.

Appendix: Indexical Zero Theory.

About the book.

About the author.

Chapter One: Red ink and vinegar blink.

Two lines in a plane intersect in a point, Benjamin tells Dion Robin, as he uses a pencil to measure Dion’s ears. If you neglect the parallels. He is drawing him on squared paper. Should I lean, Dion asks him, against the wall? No, says Benjamin, I am done. He shows Dion the drawing, with the supporting wall in the background, but it’s not him in the picture. It’s a smile drawn in a thought cloud, just like a cartoon. What do you suppose, Benjamin asks him confused, it means? The mechanic is standing right where the wall was a moment ago. Dion looks at him and the construction. Steel beams set in brick, both painted white. Yellow lines on the floor. Hey, all the inner walls are gone! Above them the roof is carried only by the beams. He sees no floors, only steel walkways, and all that is wall is adorned with benches and tools. Through the inner walls he can see inside the next house, and the next, all through the building. Wonders where the trucks are, that are supposed to be parked above the oil pits. Is it Sabbath? A wind picks up through the open walls. Oddly familiar yet out of place. His friend Benjamin has stretched out his arms and makes like a bird formation. Robin, he says, pronouncing the n, keep your feet on the ground! The wind gushes. Settles down. Dion can’t feel the ground anymore. Sees Benjamin standing in an oil pit now, holding a lamp up, but there’s no truck above him, no undercarriage to light. Playfully, the mechanic is moving his free hand around, aiming his palm in every direction, but he cannot find the source of the wind. Dion has drifted off into the still air and views the garage from the outside, as if from a tree or a ladder. He sees Benjamin running around the pit and shaking like a medicine man, and he hears how the wind picks up again, as familiar as before, and sees how it plays with Benjamin’s locks of gray, while it soars ever so quietly through the open construction of bricks and beams. It peels off the white paint, revealing the orange hue of the bricks and the deep dark red of the beams. And again, the wind settles. Dion tries to drift closer to his friend, but he is stuck in the air, like a traffic light. On top of his frustration, Benjamin is closing the garage. Can’t hear him. A woman stands there on the lot, waiting for the mechanic. They meet and hug. She has a look of desperation. This is a romantic encounter, Dion can tell, by the sunset and the kiss. He can also see his own shadow. It is that of a dog.

<<<<>>>>

As a landmark on a roadside prairie in this old corner of France, a sign of being almost home, or just about to venture out, Benjamin’s garage was loved by young and old alike, known to everyone who lived in the city that had come to surround it. It stood out in the urban jungle, as it serviced only fire engines, ambulances, colorful rigs parked neatly by the highway. Some trucks had just arrived. Others were waiting to be returned to their owners. Dion Robin knew his way around the garage and he was glad to see that, unlike in his dream, it was full of trucks this morning. He greeted the manager and asked for Benjamin, who was in the main building, an old farm. So Dion passed through the open walls he had seen in his sleep adventure, from one house to the next. Found no supporting walls and smiled, for he had figured out the cartoon riddle. Funny how you see things in your sleep that you never noticed before. Each house had a pit with a truck parked over it and a garage door, to the back of the premises, from which he had observed the place in his dream. Only the second floors had ceilings. He could see the walkways and the tools upstairs. The top of a ladder truck fitted right in between. Dion had a look inside the store, which faced the highway, to see if his friend was there. The store was part of the old farm, and run by Yusuf, a friend whom Benjamin had brought from Israel. He sold performance car parts with a staff of three. On Fridays Benjamin ran the store for him and on Saturdays he ran the garage for Benjamin. On Sundays both were open. Yusuf wasn’t there. Nor was Benjamin. So Dion walked through a back door into the greater part of the farm where a couple of trucks stood ready on rollers, waiting for their first or last inspections. Each rig was connected to a terminal and a computer, and some mechanics stood by, drinking a cup of coffee. Benjamin came out of an office and found Dion bemused.

It’s almost like you’re preparing them for a race, said Dion, all hooked up to those machines.

A lot of what we know comes from racing, Benjamin explained, and so does the equipment. Asked why he had come, Dion told of what the night came up with.

"You laugh at the thought of supporting walls. At least, you draw a cartoon that says so, with a smile in a thought cloud on a wall. The wall I wanted to lean against," Dion said, and he spoke of the wind gushing and settling down, and how Benjamin tries to sense it with his hands. His friend seemed to focus primarily on the woman he had kissed.

That was no premonition, Benjamin said. "You met her last month. Her name is Deborah. Actually, she is the one who draws. For a living. And…"

And what?

"And I don’t think she was desperate. At least not for my love. She is very confident in how I feel for her. Sans doute, the garage keeper assured his friend in a tongue they shared only with their neighbors. You see, she’s been with me before."

Oh, really?

Yes. It wasn’t very serious, but we were very comfortable with each other. Now we hooked up…

And how do I know her?

She saw you in the grocery shop.

So she knows me?

You introduced yourself.

I think I remember, Dion realized, She asked for something…

My rum.

"Right. So I asked her if she was picking it up for an old grease monkey, and she said she was. Did I dream of her? Yes, I did. Except she had hair more curly. It wasn’t long or short, whereas the woman I saw in the shop had long hair."

She still has.

She had round cheeks and sharp eyebrows.

Yes, said Benjamin, Like the strike of a pen.

With a little dip in each of them?

Exactly.

Then it is her. Curious to know his friend’s opinion, Dion asked about the wind. Staring at some of the younger mechanics, Benjamin answered pensively that some things in a dream should just be taken literally. If he had said in the dream that he could not find the source of the wind, then there probably was no source. According to Dion the garage had been empty. I thought it was Sabbath, but I realize that Yusuf runs the garage on Saturdays, so it is never empty, is it? Dion asked. Benjamin frowned.

Maybe the wind cleared out the garage, the old mechanic reasoned. No, it is probably that the wind picks up because it is empty. He walked to a vending machine and got Dion some beef tea and himself a coffee. Dion waited for him and said, after thanking him for the soup:

"That was the first time the wind blew. You’re playing with it, making a pun on my name by holding your arms in a bird formation. Robin, you tell me, pronouncing the n, so it sounds like a bird, keep your feet on the ground! But I drift off into the air. What the wind did the second time, was reveal the walls behind the paint, which it flaked."

So you say. I wish I could say I have nothing to hide, Benjamin pondered out loud.

Really? Feeling troubled? How come?

Things. Various things I come across. Paperwork. Applications. I couldn’t name anything specific. I would just like to not live on the edge for a while.

The edge? You never lived your life in the fast lane.

The edge of legality.

Oh. Why now? Suddenly?

I will tell you when I know what troubles me, said Benjamin and Dion believed him. Sure he would. In the meantime, Dion, how would you feel about a trip?

You mean, a road trip? Like last year? Sure. When?

"Next week. Some rigs must be returned to an airport. I thought you might like to drive one of them. It’s an airport crash tender."

Is that the kind with big wheels? In case an airplane comes short of the runway? Am I licensed to drive it?

Well, if you need to ask… No, don’t worry. You’re licensed, Benjamin assured his friend. He placed his empty coffee cup in the appropriate bin and made a gesture telling Dion he was getting back to work. Dion blinked his eyes and finished his beef tea.

How long will we be? he asked.

From Monday to Wednesday, maybe Thursday.

Where are we going?

Have a look around, suggested Benjamin, pointing at the doors of the trucks waiting for inspection. Painted on these, the names of their respective fire departments, each in their own bright colors. But when Dion meant to ask, Benjamin shook his head, saying these trucks didn’t come from an airport. He nodded at the front lot. Thanked Dion for telling his dream and turned toward a phone that rang. As he entered his office and closed the door, Dion was walking out the gate. With his hands in his pockets, he strolled across the parking lot behind the garage. He couldn’t find any fire engines belonging to an airport, so he headed back through the garage toward the parking lot in front of the building, along the highway. Found himself both in the way of a big red pumper truck, and heavily frowned upon. He realized the two had to be connected. He was barely embarrassed, yet enough to make him forget what he was looking for. So he loitered to the front lot, for this aim he still remembered, yet he did not look at the doors of the trucks he saw, the two rigs Benjamin had mentioned, both big and robust, their sides the shape of stretched hexagons and with big wheels as he had figured. So he would drive one of these next week. He was very impressed with himself. Walked back through the busy garage and across the rear lot, onto the old road, which used to run east and west before the highway did. Nowadays it was just a few hundred yards in length, running parallel to the highway, to which it turned at either end. From the old road sprang sand tracks going north through the prairie. Each was guarded with a green gate, part of a fence that ran all along the road. Except for where a street ran north, just behind Benjamin’s garage. It started as a T-junction, but Dion knew it used to be a crossing. One could still see how the street used to run, because there was a gap between the white buildings that made up the garage, where never a house had been. The street had continued across what was now the highway and the shunting yard just south of it. Dion crossed the junction and entered the street, like he had in his dream. Except that now he touched the ground. Recalling his dream, he looked at the shadow he cast on the street. It was not that of a dog. He remembered distinctly that he should know what kind of dog it was. It was the shadow of a Labrador, but this name didn’t surface in his mind. He figured there was one couple in this street that might be able to help him. Surely Mr. and Mrs. Denis, who had an auction house, could tell him what the dog was called, if he drew it for them. Before he reached the auction house, he cast a glance through the semicircular window of the tavern. Mr. Denis wasn’t there. He waved at the girl behind the bar, who saw him peeking in. She smiled and he continued on his way. Saw something shining on the roof of the auction house, on the little bell tower. Could it be? Yes, Feu de Saint Elme, Saint Elmo’s fire! It made his day. A poster on the barn door that led inside the auction house told Dion of an auction tonight. A hat collection was to be sold along with a complete library on interior design. He asked for Mr. and Mrs. Denis and was shown upstairs. Susan Denis was in the kitchen. She offered him a cookie and listened to his dream. When he asked about the dog shadow, she walked him to a room. On a computer she found that she had a booklet on dogs in the warehouse, from 1873, in mint condition, and she gave him the lot number, with the location. Dion looked at her, the puny lady. She indicated she had better things to do by touching the gun he knew she kept under her sweater. He could not suppress a smile, yet he obliged and ventured to find the booklet for himself.

<<<<>>>>

A bakery van pulled up in front of the tavern. It did not hail from far, just the end of the street. And it wasn’t very big, just as big as the semicircular window through which the girl behind the bar saw it roll to a stop. She observed how the baker himself came out the van and collected a stack of pies and cake from the back. Last week, when she started working here, the baker also came. What was it that she had to keep in mind? She asked Rosa, a woman twice her age, who worked here from the time her grandfather still ran the place. The girl’s grandfather. Her grandmother had kept it open, but now she was gone too. Passed away in her sleep. Rosa hesitated, then answered her that she should keep in mind not to cut the pie that was reserved for Saul, but to give him a knife.

Oh yes, she thanked Rosa, That’s it. Could you hold open the door for him?

"Baker-man…is baking bread," a customer started to sing with an heavy accent. His name was Lazare, almost twice as old as Rosa, eighty-three, and his pals, Jacques and Abel, giggled at his melodious remark. Rosa opened the door for the baker-man. Actually there were two doors, one on the outside and one on the inside, against the draft. Martin, the baker, had already opened the first door and welcomed Rosa’s assistance with the second. He placed the stack of pies and cakes on the bar and tapped one of the boxes. The girl didn’t quite understand.

For Saul, he said.

Indeed. I’ll fetch a knife then, Tisha concluded. Martin thought she was very sure of herself. Like most other customers, he did not know the girl owned the place. Only Lazare knew, or at least he suspected the truth. The baker went back out, passing Saul between the inside and the outside door. This space was called the newsstand because it was where papers, gum and cigarettes used to be sold. Saul was sixty-two, almost a generation younger than Lazare, Jacques and Abel, and smiling as he entered the establishment. He sat down at their table and shyly asked for his pie. Rosa wanted to fetch it for him but she considered it would be nice if her new boss brought it to the table, so she urged the young woman to come out from behind the bar.

You speak a different French, Tisha asked Lazare as he made an innocent joke about her wearing a scarf in summer. He knew what it meant. She was impersonating her grandmother. He wondered if his friends would see it too. Probably not.

I am from Sedan, Abel is from Stenay and Jacques… he said. Abel nodded. Jacques added:

I am from Romagne. She shrugged.

Don’t shrug your shoulders. Ask them where that is, urged Saul. She blinked. Before she could ask, Jacques told her:

"That is in the north of France. We’re from Champagne."

"You should ask him where he’s from," Abel said, pointing at Saul.

Where are you from? she obliged. Saul wanted to say from the south, but he thought it dishonest.

They are just teasing you, he answered her, "because my home town is really in my dreams."

What’s it called? she asked.

St. Vith, he said, without pronouncing the t’s. Took the knife from her hand and opened the box. It revealed a plum pie, laced with dough in a diamond pattern. Saul let the others have a look. There was a man called Thierry de Nantes, a nobleman, who saved… he began to say in their Champagne French.

Is this the story where they all observe in silent protest? asked Abel with a frown that expressed his seniority.

Yes.

You told us just last weekend.

Did I?

You did. Tell us a soldier story.

In a way this is about soldiers. Priest-soldiers.

Tell us about the English.

Alright… Well, in 1812 the English invaded our land. Ghislaine Peyroux was a shoer’s widow whose children had left the house. All but one. A son. His age was also the number of years she had not seen her husband, Saul was saying. Outside the tavern, Dion passed the window with Mr. Denis, the auctioneer, and he held open the door for him. Saul continued: This boy had discovered that an hour’s walk outside my town a band of English soldiers had set up camp. Ghislaine dreamed of the soldiers taking her son, and she warned him in the morning, but this was to no avail. They kidnapped her boy and made him point the way through the marshes. Yet she had also dreamed how she would free him, so she went after him…

Good morning, everyone, said Mr. Denis as he came in. His age was about the same as Saul’s, but his accent was slightly more academic. He had a look at the pie and so did Dion, who followed him in. Lazare placed a finger on his lips and Jacques said to the newcomers:

Saul is just telling us a dream about his home town.

Oh, I had a dream as well, said Dion.

Which dream were you telling? asked Mr. Denis.

About Ghislaine Peyroux, said Saul, who seemed more interested in what Dion had to say. For a moment he wanted to cut the pie, yet it was too soon. Two were still to come, the owners of the music store and the flower shop.

Jennifer, could you bring us some more coffee? For both tables, Lazare ordered, probing the girl for a reaction.

Jennifer was my grandmother’s name, she acknowledged. Lazare smiled. His guess was right. Now the others saw it too.

Was Jennifer your grandmother? Jacques asked yet.

So you own the place? Abel reasoned. Behind the bar Rosa tried not to nod. She wanted to see how her young new boss reacted. Tisha said nothing. She only asked Rosa for some plates. Mr. Denis, also a Jacques, sat down with Dion at the other table. Saul was asking Dion about his dream.

I dreamed of Benjamin, Dion recalled, "and of his garage. Benjamin makes a cartoon that says he laughs at the thought of supporting walls. He also makes a joke about my name, pronouncing it in English. I see no trucks in the garage. We are looking at the construction, the bricks and beams. The inner walls are gone. A draft picks up in the empty garage. It is unsettling but it passes like the wind that it is. It’s a really familiar kind of wind, but I don’t know what it is. Next I see him in an oil pit, trying to sense the wind which has picked up again, and eventually the wind peels off the paint in his garage. As you may counted for yourselves once, his garage is made up of ten separate houses, and two barns, all painted white. And I saw this morning that indeed, there are no supporting walls in between them. The buildings are fused with steel beams. Anyway, the wind reveals the orange bricks and the deep red beams behind the paint. Then Benjamin closes the garage and I see him kissing a woman. This morning he told me that I already knew her. I spoke to her in the grocery shop."

Yes, Deborah is her name, said Jacques, the elder, who sat with Lazare, Abel and Saul. He was served a coffee like his friends. Dion thought to conclude his dream quickly, before they all began to speak.

"I have drifted away from the garage into this street, where I hang still. I can see my shadow. It is that of a dog. I looked it up in a tiny book in Susan’s warehouse and it was the shadow of a Labrador," he said.

So the wind reveals what’s behind the facade? asked Abel. Next to him, Jacques smiled mysteriously. Saul reasoned:

Not a facade. It was a view on the inner construction, not the outside.

True, said Dion, "Benjamin is looking for the source of the wind in an oil pit, yet again on the inside of the building."

My grandfather told me something about facades. I mean the facades here in the street, said Tisha. All the old men, and Rosa too, turned their heads toward her. He told me when I was eight.

Is it about the paint? wondered Lazare. Hey, maybe that has to do with your dream, Dion. For Benjamin’s garage is the only building that is painted white.

Oh, but the dream tells us Benjamin’s garage does have color, beneath the white appearance, Jacques argued bemused. His own words resounded in his mind, so he looked at the girl. She was not the sole person of color in the establishment, there was also Dion, but she heard the double meaning too.

When we used to come here as a child, we considered this a white neighborhood, the girl explained. That was before the flood. My grandfather knew many white people. And to be honest, that’s what I expect to do myself, now that I have taken over the business.

She looks like Jennifer, said Jacques Denis.

We already noticed, said the other Jacques at the other table.

I’m sorry. You look like your grandmother, said Mr. Denis.

I’m Tisha, she noted. From Chalmette. Didn’t my grandfather have any bl…

Blues?

Blood?

"Bloods?"

Yes, black friends?

Have you met Phelps? Saul tried her in his Champagne tongue, but Lazare argued that Tisha meant an older sort of friend, like Mr. Worrell. Then Abel said that Phelps was in fact a Worrell.

Of about fifty people here, Dion stated with an all-encompassing pride, a dozen are black. Yet Saul thought it unfair. To count blood like that. It was so arbitrary. Another dozen are my color, Dion added just as proudly. Even more if you count the students…

But this is also a Jewish neighborhood. Since long before the war, said Abel, himself a Jew, and once a refugee. Tisha didn’t have to ask which war. It was the Second World War. She reckoned that the oldest of the men she was talking to were children at the time.

<<<<>>>>

The outer door opened without a sound. Amanda entered first, followed by Phelps. Their muffled voices reached the ears of the men inside. Saul took the knife and opened up the pie box before they had even touched the second door. Like the others had, Phelps and Amanda had a look inside the box and nodded or blinked to approve of the pie. Saul cut it up and put the parts on plates. The newcomers joined Dion and Mr. Denis at their table and soon they were all talking about business. Mr. Denis said he had a big auction soon and would need a lot of parking spaces. Since it would be on Wednesday evening, he thought it would be no trouble, yet Phelps, whose store was just across the street from the auction house, said that during the summer he held T-concerts in his yard. On Wednesdays. ‘T-’ meant small, ‘petit’ in French, and it was Phelps’s way of speaking the language. Tisha compared herself with him, as far as their French was concerned. She was the better at it. He was asked how long his concerts would last into the night, since once a month a Wednesday evening was followed by a market Thursday on which the street needed to be cleared. Amanda organized the flower market. They would start building stalls at three in the morning. Phelps promised to send the bands and performers home long before that time. They didn’t just discuss parking spaces. Another car-related issue was the historical rally to be held two weeks from now, on Independence Day. It wasn’t as much a rally as it was a parade. Over a hundred old-timers, classic cars, muscle cars, rally cars and racing cars would first make a tour of the country, the high roads and by-roads, and then return here, to the sand tracks of Atakapa Park, as this area was known. Originally, the first four editions had only toured Vermilion Bay, home of the Atakapas, or Ishak, as Dion called them. Once every five years the Atakapa Park Rally held a special edition and no less than two-hundred-and-fifty cars toured up the ‘Blues Highway,’ as the route passing the garage was called. Route 61. Here, where the highway sprang from its roots in the city and touched the length of the park, it was called the Airline Drive.

Naturally, Rosa will teach me to cook kosher, Tisha told her guests when she returned from serving other customers. So you don’t have to worry that I will change the menu.

That’s all we wanted to hear, said Lazare. He ordered some more coffee.

What did your grandfather tell you about the facades in this street? Saul asked her. Please tell?

Well… I guess…well, he told me that every house that has an arched window, like we have, also has a tunnel and that these tunnels are connected. So the arched window is a sign that there is an escape route, she said and looked to see if anyone was surprised. They were just amused. Well? she asked, wanting to know if it was true.

Well…yes, she was answered. She did not know by whom. It was Saul. Everyone looked at him. He looked over his shoulder again and his eyes rested on a young man, whose name was on the tip of his tongue. This young blood too was new in the neighborhood. Would it be wise to let him in on…what he would have to know eventually? Lazare began to smile. He had an insight he could easily share, but he had seen Saul looking at Ralph, the young man who overheard the conversation. And he had seen this young man looking at Tisha with keen eyes. Instead of speaking up, Lazare tapped with a finger on the table, so as to ask permission to make a point out in the open.

What? he was asked.

Now that we’re talking about the tunnels, may I say that their supporting walls are a laugh, and didn’t you say that in your dream Benjamin laughs at the thought of supporting walls? Lazare asked Dion, who nodded at him, and looked at Ralph, who seemed to want to say something too. Ralph is from Northlake, from the town of Slidell, Lazare added, Simeon Mouzon is his great-uncle.

Actually, he is the brother of my grandfather, Ralph thought to correct him. Rosa took a moment to tell him that that is what a great-uncle is. She saw how he looked at Tisha, quite shyly. I was thinking… Ralph hesitated, that your dream, Sir, might be about something that was in the news. Something that makes a wind pass by and is constructed in a pit. In fact…

What was in the news? asked Dion, thinking maybe the garage.

Let him finish, said Saul, glad that the young man had something to contribute.

In fact, continued Ralph, it has a lot to do with supporting walls.

Indeed, noted Amanda. She knew what Ralph meant. We discussed it a few weeks ago, she said to Saul, and Jacques would concern himself with it.

I know what you mean, said Mr. Denis. Seeing that the meeting was as good as over, he stood up, and let the others guess. Tisha began to clear the plates from the two tables. Dion probed Amanda for what she knew, but she wouldn’t tell. Ralph was no help either. Saul returned to his story about his home town, St. Vith, and the widow Ghislaine Peyroux. She had dreamed of English soldiers taking her boy, as a guide, so they would not get lost in the marshes, and of trailing them on a horse and wagon. Indeed, her son was captured by the soldiers, but by following the instructions of her dream, she confused the soldiers in their tracks, and the poor souls let her boy go, as he turned out to be a bad guide. Poor souls or just invaders, Ralph thought. He had heard Saul tell the story before, more elaborated. He thought that Saul made up the stories, because sometimes he would tell the dreams as if he had heard them firsthand. Something else had bothered him but he had forgotten what it was. He hoped that Tisha would not be fooled by the stories. They were all saying goodbye to her now. Saul turned to Ralph and said:

I realize which concern we left up to Mr. Denis. I believe you’re right, young man. Except that I don’t understand the shadow of the Labrador.

Nor do I, Sir. But it tingles, Ralph answered. His fingers ran across his laptop. Let me just… What I want to do is search everything I’ve viewed the past couple of months for the term ‘Labrador,’ and see what comes out.

Can you do that? asked Saul, a bit surprised.

Yes…anyway…here it comes…just let me fill in ‘Labrador’ and see what comes out…nothing… In the meantime, Sir, could you tell Tisha another story of your home town? About that Remy fellow. Weren’t there cellars in that dream?

Yes, what’s your point? Saul first wanted to know.

I see the connection with Dion’s dream, said Ralph.

You mean, with the supporting walls, Saul said with a meaningful smile. He excused himself and stood up. Remind me of this after Sabbath and I will tell you the story. You don’t believe me, do you? Saul surmised as he left the establishment. Only Dion remained. He sat down with Ralph while Tisha cleaned the other tables. Gazed at the screen as Ralph extended his search all the way to the day he bought his laptop and found a hit, a web-site, all about gems and minerals. Ralph smiled and said:

I remember. Someone had given me a yellow stone, a crystal, and I tried to find out what it was. Closest to it came a stone called Labradorite, but that didn’t come in yellow. Anyway, that is what I was looking for. But why I associated the name with this place here, I don’t know. I didn’t live here yet, when I looked this up.

Who gave you the yellow stone? asked Dion, much intrigued as Ralph opened the web-site. He recognized the stone, rough on one side and smooth on the other, shining in the colors of a sunlit oil speck, except that it was blue. Wasn’t it your great-uncle? he suggested. Ralph exclaimed:

Yes! It was. He gave it to me when he first talked about the house. How do you know?

Because this rock, in yellow, we find a lot here in Atakapa Park. In our gardens but also in the tunnels that Tisha spoke of. In fact, the tunnels swerve around the huger pieces of this rock, Dion told him.

How huge?

Like a car.

So you’ve been there?

Where?

In the tunnels?

Yes.

Can you show us? Tisha asked Dion, for she had been listening from behind the bar, drying cups with a towel. Dion blinked.

"Rosa knows," he chickened. Rosa shrugged. She didn’t mind showing her new boss the way, so she opened up a door behind the bar, which led to a stock of glasses and cleaning supplies. Tisha had seen it before. Half of it was below a stairway leading up to the guest-rooms. She expected Rosa to lead her down some stone steps toward the cellar, but she didn’t.

Help me remove some stuff, Rosa asked Dion instead, handing him a chair and a broom and some boxes of wine, vin rouge and vin blanc.

Red ink and vinegar blink, Dion told Tisha, when she asked what was in them. One box held an envelope marked with her name, and he handed it over, so she opened it and read her grandmother’s handwriting. It just congratulated her on finding the tunnel. Rosa was struggling with a wooden panel. Dion lent a hand and revealed a staircase with an entry to the tunnels. A cool draft slipped through the door and past their cheeks and ears, as the tunnel was revealed. Ralph and Tisha marveled at the length of the passage and they were duly impressed with the traces of yellow rock in the walls, though in fact they had more eye for each other than for what was in the dark.

###return to index###

Chapter Two: Agitate the gravel.

Barely the chamber pot misses the mirror, as his foot slips on some sand someone has walked inside the house. Now he has to clean his mess up. Except he sees none. Just a trace of earth that is coming from the door. It is open, but there’s no dirt outside. In the corner of his eye he sees the culprit, reflected in the mirror. A fox. It is foaming at the mouth and Remy does not dare to come near. In the mirror he sees the fox scouring through the kitchen. He hears chuckling. Is it the fox? No, it’s the portrait of his grandfather. But it is not his ancestor in the frame, it is a soldier. He is snooping out the place, even leaning out of the frame itself, counting the mirrors in the hall. Remy sees another soldier in the picture next to it, who eyes the silver candlestand. Their tongues are hanging from their mouths. Remy is scared. Goes up to the bedroom and picks a pillow from the bed. On the way down to the hall he tears it open. The fox is still in the kitchen, and Remy begins to beat out his pillow. It puffs feathers through the tear. The feathers land on the tiles, all across the hall. One of them whirls into the kitchen and the fox comes to see. Chases the feathers with its nose and growls at the two men in the portraits. They wipe their mouths with their sleeves, to tease it. Look, they frolic, he thinks that some fox got here before him! It growls at Remy now, who throws the empty pillow from the stairs. The fox sniffs it. Growls once more, before it leaves the feathers for what they are, and Remy can see it sneaking out the open door. Without hesitation Remy Cigogne runs for the portraits. In his hands he holds a blanket, and he uses it to cover the soldiers’ eyes as he takes the paintings from the wall. Several times he carries a painting down the stairs, toward the cellar, and every time he bumps his shoulder, he knocks crumbles from the wall. The steps seem to blend. Up or down, he cannot see. How much paintings are there? As he bumps his shoulder in the corner, the wall breaks through. He sees Jules. Not the neighbor he expected. He lives across the road. What are you, Jules asks him, carrying in your arms? He lifts a tip of the blanket to show the painting. It’s the portrait of Henri Cigogne, his oldest namesake. He puts it next to the others. Jules is carrying a crate of candles. Together they climb up the stairs, but they come out the cellar in Jules’s house. The fox has been here too. They can see the feathers on the ground.

<<<<>>>>

On Monday morning Chief Dion Robin presented himself in Benjamin’s garage with an overnight bag and a plastic wrapper containing a flask of soup and a raisin cake. He found Yusuf in the performance parts store, and told him with a big smile that he was going to drive a rig to an international airport. He didn’t know which. According to Yusuf it was Dallas.

Are you in charge here all week? asked Dion. Yusuf said:

No. I only fill in for him on Saturdays. When he is away, Ray Fiske is in charge. You’ll be back on Friday, so Benjamin can fill in for me.

We may even be back on Wednesday.

Don’t count on it, Yusuf reckoned, You’ll be picking up another rig somewhere else. Both rigs, painted orange with white and yellow, stood in the inspection area. Now Dion read on their doors that they indeed belonged to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. He asked Yusuf about the slash, and the born Iraqi told him the airport had their own fire department, the ‘Fire Services,’ which trained firefighters from all across the country. That makes them an important client. I think that’s why Benjamin wants to return the trucks himself, Yusuf explained. Dion knocked on Benjamin’s door, saying to Yusuf:

I meant, is it the fire department of Dallas or of Fort Worth?

Probably Fort Worth, said Yusuf, and Benjamin opened the door. He was talking Hebrew to a mechanic, who smiled at seeing Dion’s face. As the appointed chief of this reservation tucked in so cosily between the city and the suburbs, Dion was the official Park Authority. Though home to only a dozen Native Americans, as he had boasted last Wednesday, it served thousands, spread throughout the South. And as the home of the Chickasaw Institute of Technology and the First Nation Regional Council, four- and five-story buildings, the area did lots to advance the causes of the original tribes. It had all the air of a reservation. The prairie stilled all thoughts of the city and gave the place a unique smell. It could be picked up even in the garage. Benjamin kept on talking modern Hebrew. Did it occur to him? Dion didn’t know. He nodded and smiled, trying not laugh. Yusuf did understand what Benjamin said. It was about the rigs. Only when the garage keeper looked at Dion did he start to talk English.

So, if it catches on fire, you know what you did wrong, he joked. Dion just blinked and lifted his overnight bag into the steering cab of the first rig, which Benjamin held open for him. He showed his friend the soup and cake. It was approved of with a quiet hum. I’ll reverse first. Watch me do it and then do like I do. I want us to be able to make the turn into the thoroughfare, said Benjamin, referring to the passage that led through the gap between the original buildings, to the front of the premises and the highway. The old mechanic said goodbye to Yusuf by padding his friend’s elbow, and when asked, he said that he and Dion would take a plane from Dallas to St. Louis, to pick up a rig there. An old-timer, painted black. They are going to use it for recruitment. A tiller truck. Do you know what that is, Dion? A semi-trailer. It has a ladder. We’ll spend a day in St. Louis to see what they really want from us, and to tighten every bolt and screw. And then we’ll drive it here. So we’ll be back on Thursday. Maybe even on Wednesday. Depending on how long we stay in Dallas. Dion started his engine and looked in his mirrors, to see how Benjamin reversed onto the rear lot. He followed his friend’s lead and once he had backed it up, he found that he could just turn the airport crash tender into the thoroughfare and onto the front lot. By then Benjamin already pushed his nose onto the highway and joined the first of four westbound lanes.

Last week, after we spoke, I ended up in the tunnels, said Dion, over the radio, as they left the suburbs behind them.

So? asked Benjamin. Dion knew what his friend meant. He was in the tunnels at least once a week. The only thing special about it was that he mentioned it.

So Mr. Lamarque changed the entrance when he was still alive, said Dion.

I know. It’s not in the basement anymore.

No. It’s on the ground floor.

Does this have anything to do with your dream last week?

It does. Saul was talking about his home town…

"His home town?"

Yes, St. Vith.

What nonsense.

He was talking to a dude and tenderfoot.

Who’s the dude?

A Ralph. He guessed what my dream was about. Though he did not tell me straight away. You see, I heard Saul telling them about the dreams and I kind of interrupted him to tell mine. And Ralph helped me with the computer. You see, the shadow I dreamed of was of a Labrador. This I found out in Jacques Denis’s warehouse. And Ralph said he associated the word with our street, so he searched through his computer history and found pictures of a rock that looks like…

The rock in our backyards. Labradorite. Only ours is…

…yellow. Indeed, Benjamin. And…

I’m sorry. Who is the tenderfoot?

Tisha. Tisha Lamarque, I guess.

Oh, Tisha. She’s nice, isn’t she?

She said her grandfather had told her about the tunnels. That a house having a semicircular window means there is an entrance to the tunnels.

And that was the meaning of your dream?

No. Well, kind of.

Go on.

It took me two days to figure it out. Well, three, but I have not thought about it on Friday, Dion radioed. Anyway, this Ralph had said that it had to do with supporting walls and that it was in the news. Amanda apparently guessed what it was and she said that Jacques Denis concerned himself with the issue. First I thought it had to do with parking spaces, since in my dream it was surprising that there were no trucks parked at all, and Mr. Denis was talking about parking spaces with Phelps. On Thursday I thought about the wind in my dream. I was sure I recognized it from somewhere. And that’s what I realized on Saturday. It is the wind produced by a subway train when it pulls a draft in the tunnels. And Mr. Denis would look into the matter of that subway the city wants to build.

I see.

It also has to do with the rock. You see, to any normal engineer it would be foolish to make a tunnel in these old marshes, like…

…we know from our own tunnels. That’s what the supporting walls are all about. Who were you with?

Rosa, of course, said the chief. He enjoyed the attention he got by driving the rig. Children waved at him in passing cars. Some people took pictures of the colossus with their camera phones. Now and again Benjamin radioed some instructions. On what to touch and what not. Not, the panel that controlled the sirens and the lights. He could touch some buttons Benjamin had installed. One shaded the polarized windscreen and the side windows, to filter out the glare of a sunset or a blazing fire. Another pumped air in or out of the tires, to raise or lower the truck, or to give it better grip. Benjamin explained that these were the kind of extras any fire engine garage could install on a truck. What he did that few others could, was to enhance the performance of a truck.

"As I was telling you last week, I was bothered by the legality of my business. I’m quite sure now that it is my business that bothers me. Not…Saul’s home town, so to speak. Tell me why I service fire engines and…well, why Yusuf sells only racing parts?" asked Benjamin. Dion was no teacher. Nevertheless he was a founder of the Chickasaw Institute of Technology, which had always had a few students working as an intern in the garage.

As I understood, you service fire engines because you learned your trade fixing special purpose trucks in the Israeli Army, supposed Dion. Benjamin radioed back:

"And I thought about that the past couple of days. With that experience I could have started fixing up mammoth trucks or power boats. But I didn’t. My first rigs all had caterpillar tracks. I did some geological survey trucks, because I was the only one in the South who could guarantee not to mess up their calibrations. But they were all off-road vehicles. Of course I had done some fire engines before I learned this new technology… Let me tell you that I first figured out what bothered me, when I considered an offer on my desk. Which is to service cranes. I mean the trucks. Cranes on wheels. And I can’t get myself to answer the request because if I do what I do to these cranes, I will be breaking all kinds of rules. That’s why I asked you about the fire engines and the racing equipment."

I know why you don’t call your applications free energy devices, said Dion, And it’s the free energy that makes it illegal, isn’t it?

"That’s a bit beside the point, but indulge me. Why don’t I use the term ‘free energy’? It’s not because it is illegal, on the contrary. It’s…well, that’s for you to find out."

You don’t, Benjamin, because you believe that where there is free energy, there is also free force and free momentum. And you don’t want us to stare ourselves blind on energy, just because that magnitude has most to do with money.

Right. Energy is billed, in contrast to force, action or intensity. Yet the new understanding of physics concerns every magnitude.

It’s a whole philosophy, isn’t it?

"It is, Dion. But one has to have a philosophy is this emerging field. New insights create new inventions, and the range of possibilities grows day by day. You can’t keep up with all of it. At least, I can’t." After a while Dion thought he had an answer. Something he had picked up at the institute. So he told his friend:

It’s technical. Free energy devices are forbidden, but the fire departments have a way around it. They answer to the National Transportation Safety Board, not to the Department of Motor Vehicles. And, this I’m sure of, when fire departments want to keep their oldest trucks up and running, they turn to you because you can make them perform like any new truck on the road.

"They do turn to me. But that’s not quite the story. First, it’s not the free energy devices that are forbidden. I mean, not categorically, because they don’t want to list anything free as a category. In practice, each device is judged independently, and then banned from the road. It is this that I wanted to hear from you. Most of what I do and what I teach your students is only forbidden on the road."

That’s why Yusuf only sells parts for racing?

Yes. Racing is not considered to be on the road. Though most racing federations have their own restrictions on what parts you may use in a race.

And the fire engines? asked Dion. Benjamin replied:

It’s almost like you said. Only, the fire departments don’t have a way around the regulation. They simply persist in using the new technology, saying that it’s up to specs and less of a hazard than fuel-based engines, and that there are more things on a fire engine that wouldn’t be allowed on the road, normally.

And the chiefs go along with that? asked Dion as they approached Baton Rouge. He turned on his windscreen wipers. It’s starting to rain, he said. So he also turned on the lights.

More or less. We have to get off the highway now and onto the Interstate. Anyway, I want to hear more about your dream. What was the meaning again, and how did the dude find out? asked Benjamin. He too turned on his wipers and lights.

About the subway! And he had read about it in the newspapers, said Dion.

"Of course. So if I remember your dream correctly, I laugh at the thought of supporting walls, but cryptically. I can see that now. Those are the cave-ins everyone expects when they will build a subway in the swampy ground. I believe we are both in the garage, and I am in an oil pit. And there is no truck over my head. You wonder…oh wait, that was me…whether the wind that is there comes from my garage being empty or that my garage is empty because of the wind. I understand the lack of trucks. If a subway is built, I might have to remove them during construction. That seems like the considerate thing you would dream of," Benjamin giggled. He signaled their departure from Route 61, and Dion followed his lead.

And the wind was like the wind you feel in a subway station, when a train comes and goes, Dion added. He paused, then said: The dude, Ralph, also asked Saul about another story from St. Vith. I guess he had heard it before.

Saul always tells those stories to newcomers. But his ‘home town’ is quite an invention.

Because the tenderfoot had learned from her grandfather that every house with an arched window had a tunnel, the dude asked Saul to tell the story of Remy Cigogne, said Dion over the radio.

Remind me, said Benjamin.

"Remy is the tailor. When the French Army sets up camp around town, preparing for a battle near the river, he has a dream of a fox foraging in the house. So the tailor tears his pillow, and he beats it to let the feathers twirl onto the tiles in the hall. The fox finds the feathers, and thinks some other fox was here before him, so he gives up on his raid. In the morning the tailor found a trail on the road, left by horses and wagons, so he knew the army had set out to battle. He rounded up the village and they all listened to the plan he conceived in his dreams. Everyone should bring their precious goods to their cellars, like he had done with his paintings, and they should leave their house in disarray, making it look like the village had been plundered already."

Right. And the French Army, which lost the battle at the river, passed through the seemingly deserted town, and found that it was already pillaged. Perhaps, they figured, some of their own had made an early retreat.

The story goes, Dion knew, that all the soldiers took from the town were oranges and some ham and cheese.

Maybe Saul just made that up, Benjamin supposed, not seriously.

No, he knows the best ones by heart. Each ledger contains a hundred of these stories, argued Dion. Benjamin agreed:

I know. I’m just a bit jealous. It rained all morning and they stopped only once to have some soup. Kosher soup, stressed Dion. Benjamin was aware of this. Jasmine, the chief’s wife, taught how by those with the patience to answer her many questions, always observed the rules when she cooked for Benjamin. When we pass Natchitoches, I will give you directions. There is a truck stop that serves kosher food, Benjamin said, wiping the raindrops from his forehead. It was still warm, despite the rain, this 24th of June. He called Deborah. She had a job interview with a company that sold lawn grass, to draw pictures for their catalog. He wished her luck. Dion turned to his friend when he hung up the phone. Wanted to know more about the doubts he had, concerning the legality of his business. It wasn’t hard to bring the matter up.

You said something about cranes, the chief mentioned.

Yes, said Benjamin, "I was offered to service some cranes. For this I need to rebuild my garage or start in a new place, since these cranes are just a bit bigger than fire engines, generally speaking. I can do that. I can even read into the legislation to find out when a crane is considered to be roadworthy. But I see no way that I can answer to the requirements made by the insurance companies. You see, a fire department and a racer don’t get the same insurance as everyone