(Searching for) SOLID GROUND a novel by Pete Shanks Advance Praise for (Searching for) Solid Ground “Coruscating intelligence” Yawn Upchuck “Darn good yarn” Capt.W.E.Johns,dec’d. “Probably libellous” George the First,ret. “Not enough naughty bits” Penile Wrath “Not enough drugs” Gwen Queasy “So beautifully written” Rushda Judgeman “I don’t understand” Yawn Minor (Searching for) SOLID GROUND a novel by Pete Shanks SE S C,CA: to Stacey,Alison & Jane for years ofinspiration All the bad people are imaginary; all the good thoughts are true. Copyright © 2000 Pete Shanks wordsontheweb.com Thanks to Robert Hunter for giving me permission to quote from his lyrics for “It MustHave Been the Roses,”“Uncle John’s Band”and “Ramble On Rose,”all ofwhich are published by Ice Nine Publishing Company. There are briefquotations from other works;I encourage the reader to seek out the originals,most ofwhich I would prefer, but for possible legal restrictions,to quote at greater length. επαµεροι, τι δε τις; τι δ’ου τις; σκιας οναρ ανθρωπος. αλλ’οταν αιγλα διοσδοτος ελθη, λαµπρον φεγγος επεσιν ανδρων και µειλιχος αιων. Wills-o’-the-wisp,what are we? What are we not? We are a dream ofa shadow. But when the pure light shines, Radiance rests with us, And a gentle life. Pindar, Pythian Odes, th century ... I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together … GOO GOO GA JOOB John Lennon,“I am the Walrus”(“No you’re not!”said Little Nicola),credited to John Lennon–Paul McCartney, published by Northern Songs,owned by Michael Jackson,& recorded by The Beatles for their Tragical History Tour (S ) SG 1 I am this world and I eat this world. Who knows this, knows. Taittireeya Upanishad, ca th century ... L   , a hundred miles . that scared the living daylights out of everyone below the Forest of Nicene Marks State Park in two days after the Loma Prieta Earthquake itself. California, the great turtle on which the earth What was terrifying was the cumulative effect of depends flexed its carapace. Eased by the action, it five thousand separate aftershocks in the following slowly settled into comfort and dozed again, to lie month –– one every eight-and-a-half minutes on almost still and silent till some other irritation of average, much less near the beginning, longer later, growth or decay should urge it once more to wake- but stretching on for months, maybe years. fulness. After a couple of weeks, the survivors learned to On the surface the shock was palpable. Houses remember to forget, like novice sailors finding their on the ridges that worshipped Loma Prieta were sea-legs, but then Cal-Trans reopened Highway  blown off their foundations, to land where they and shoppers could drive to the better-stocked would as ruins and rubble. The downtown districts stores of San José. In the new routine, they opened of both Santa Cruz and Watsonville, the centers of their car doors and braced themselves for the tiny each end of the county, were devastated. A hun- adjustments that the quivering land continually dred miles north, by some quirk of energy trans- demanded … and shook themselves because the mission too subtle for the scientists, the landfill of pavement was still. San Francisco’s Marina District pulsated, the Bay They were out of sync with their world. Bridge partly fell and the Oakland section of I- Everyone always is, to a degree, except for the collapsed. odd ecstatic mystic and the occasional artist surfing At .on the Richter, the Quake of October th, the zeitgeist to immortality, but most of the time , was a Pretty Big One. Half a dozen residents most of us resonate closely enough with our uni- of Santa Cruz County died and thousands more verse to ignore the anomalies and accept the mun- lost millions of dollars worth of things, from trin- dane realities of everyday life. We accept the kets to palatial estates. Some fled but most paradox of a shared culture of individuality. We remained, shocked but determined to remake their know that molecules are mostly empty and the lives, their towns, in the face of catastrophe. In the earth barely more substantial than the vacuum of eerie, candlelit evenings that followed there was a outer space but still, when in need of balance, we grim sense that they had taken the blow they half- say we ground ourselves. expected, rarely acknowledged and always feared. Solid ground is a convenient approximation, a There was anger, fear, grief, and occasional bleak useful fiction, part of the consensual reality that we humor, mixed with collective love and determina- agree to honor. tion into a roiling mess of feelings encased in a Solid ground is a cliché. sense that the way onward was up. Solid ground is a myth. What followed was worse. Not the dozen or so (Searching for)Solid Groundis a quest for right . or greater quakes that hit in the first seven living in a wrong world. hours; not the ninety measuring . or more that It’s also a love story of sorts, but then what tale came in the next thirty days; not even the lengthy worth its salt is not?  2 Only connect! … Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. E.M. Forster, Howards End,  I ’  ,” said Annie, trying not to wrinkle “You wha’?” her forehead. “I just hit a time-warp.” “Really. It’s official. I did the MMPI tests when “Forward or back?” asked Brendan casually. I was getting career counseling at Cabrillo and the “Back, definitely,” she nodded. “That’s how I instructor told me. I thought she meant I was nuts know it’s a time-warp –– it’s weird but it’s sort of at first, I was really worried, but actually that’s not familiar. If it was a forward time-warp it would what it’s about.” only be strange, right?” “Yeah?” “Unless you hit a place where time went back- “Yeah, all it is, is I don’t follow rules just ’cause wards. Then you’d jump forward to the familiar they’re rules, I’ve gotta know why.” and back to the strange.” “Oh, I get it,” Brendan cut in, “Of course. Your “Well it’s back to the strange, all right, but I answers deviate from the norm of conformity. remember it anyway,” she explained confusingly. “I Hell, that’s what I’m saying.” haven’t felt this way for twenty years.” “You mean I really am alienated.” “How?” “ ’Fraid so.” “I dunno exactly. It’s like, I’m the only one in “Alienated. Darn. Just when I thought I was step. You know? There’s an entire universe out getting over it. You don’t have to be young, huh?” there that’s completely out of its tree and they can’t “Nope.” Brendan usually had the answers. see it and if I say so they say it’s me and I say it’s “How about hungry? Do alienated people eat them and … the whole thing’s crazy. But I know dinner?” I’m right.” “Only if it’s vegan; vegetarian at least.” She widened her eyes and inspected her beer. “How about Seychelles?” They were perched on bar-stools at the Front Street She meant the restaurant of that name, though Pub in Santa Cruz, California, sampling the Light- no-one who knew her would have been too sur- house Lager and wondering where to have dinner. prised if she’d made a bid for hustling off to a tropi- Brendan took a solid pull and smacked his lips cal island. Exotic warmth had become her favorite noisily before setting the glass down with an air of coping mechanism, her drug of choice at the end of decision. the muscle-bound eighties. They drained and dis- “I know what you are,” he announced, pausing mounted, tipped and left, laughing in the warmth for effect, “You are alienated.” of a summer evening in Northern California, and “Oh no I’m not,” she laughed. “I’m a psycho- floating away again from darker insights, slowly pathic deviate.” coalescing underneath.  3 Titles are but nick-names, and every nick-name is a title. Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man,  B  W   K in you out. Price was not a big deal –– shit was so the days of the weasel king. They added im- cheap that negotiations were on the basis of say-a- measurably to the gaiety of nations, not least buck for yay-much –– and everyone was happy. It’s because of their outfits. Blackie had a black cor- a rare privilege to find yourself doing so well by duroy safari jacket, with belt and large patch pock- doing so good. ets, that he wore with matching cord Levi’s and a This activity cannot have passed unnoticed. charcoal T-shirt, while his mate had a tropical suit Indeed, nothing whatsoever in Kabul passed unno- that, from a distance, in the late afternoon with the ticed, which seemed to be an unstated keystone of sun behind him, looked rather like one of Tom their local marketing plan. Back in those halcyon Wolfe’s cast-offs. Even the French freaks dug the days of the late sixties, the most remarkable things gear; for a pair of Limeys, they were striking. were available in the bazaar, at competitive prices Everyone knew them by sight and nobody dictated only by the invisible hand of classical capi- knew who they were. This they obviously encour- talist theory, not forgetting the quantifiable trans- aged: It only helped their collective reputation as portation and risk factors. Every currency in the minor masters of the mind-fuck, not to mention world was available, at exchange rates that bore lit- being a sound precautionary measure for a pair of tle relation to the fantasies of the War Game Jour- sub-rosa entrepreneurs. No one was too clear how nal. Disque Bleu cigarettes cost less than they did they kept themselves afloat (natch) but it was gen- even in Paris, where the government took its cut as erally accepted that if you needed a little crank of a profits rather than taxes. You could find Pentax morning, Whitey was a major dude, while those cameras and pre-war Lee Enfield rifles, traditional who wanted to mellow out on the sticky Afghani carpets and workmanlike scimitars, elaborately hash with little flecks of opium blended through it embroidered waistcoats in vibrant colors with tiny would be well advised to have a quiet word with mirrors sewn into them and (it was widely Blackie. Acid, Mandrax, mushrooms, ’ludes, rumored, having been on the front page of the Lon- bombers and other such commodities were a don Daily Excess) eighteen-year-old hippie chicks mutual endeavor and subject to availability but the who’d been kidnapped and sold into white slavery staples were always in stock and under a continu- for a taste of the awful potions of the orient. ing, rigorous program of quality control. The tales of women (and men!) who had suf- Advertising was not an important part of their fered fates worse than death (and worse, death!) operation, although if they had to file tax returns were the nub of the local tourist-based distribution they would presumably have been able to write off a opportunity for organic and/or manufactured significant proportion of their personal consump- relaxants and stimulants. Let’s face it, the bazaar tion as a business expense (the free samples alone was exotic and fascinating but it was also, if you had would have sent shudders down the controller’s a brain in your head, scary. Freaks who stuck spine). Not for them the corner-of-the-mouth around got used to it, or at least learned how to ‘Hey mister’ come-on or the deniably sibilant ‘Has- cope, but the smart ones never forgot just how ssheeesh?’ They just lounged around the courtyard weird it really was. with Rizla papers and Samsun tobacco and passed The simple code of the Afghan male was: Don’t the time with anyone who felt like stopping by. If fuck with me. Since this was assumed to be recipro- the subject came up, which was not unknown cal, a mutual understanding between men was not under the circumstances, well, yes, they could help hard to maintain. Step out of line, though –– just  (S ) SG give a hint of something that could be construed as Hindu women’s lives were vastly more accessible. disrespectful –– and the polite if taciturn offers of The Muslim women of Afghanistan were practi- tea and a puff at the hookah disappeared fast. Even cally invisible to the outsider, the chadoor an im- in the big city, where not everyone carried a gun at penetrable black hole within which personality all times, a knife was as much a part of the costume disappeared. as the flat Afghani turban, and it was large and The frisson of danger that never quite left the sharp and expertly handled. visitor’s awareness was attractive –– controlled fear Western women had to have a lot of nerve to can even be a turn-on, as more than one woman wander around on their own. Being chattels, they silently stretching a relationship to get her through were fairly safe with their putative husbands (male the rest of the Muslim countries could attest –– and pride was assumed to extend to protecting the wife added immensely to the entertainment value of and even if these European kids were as feeble as Kabul as a tourist destination, but it was a tedious they looked, who knew what they were packing) accompaniment to routine transactions like scor- and more or less fair game without them (male ing. Besides, good authority (the U.S. embassy) pride also extended to the challenge of conquest, had it that drugs were illegal and even though bet- although shameless infidels were presumably easy ter authority (the street) was certain that the weasel pickings). In this, Afghanistan was more direct and king was personally in charge of the hashish indus- arguably more honest than Britain, but not so fun- try, not to mention the odd numbered bank damentally different. It was a man’s man’s man’s account in Zurich, absolutely nobody wanted to get world, in the hippie subculture as in the dominant busted. paradigm, and the good-looking old lady, epito- Enter Blackie and Whitey, your friendly mid- mized by Marianne Faithfull [sic], was as much of a dlemen. They were as safe and simple to deal with trophy as the businessman’s Barbie, and often as as the neighborhood Tupperware hostess, and fucked over, fucked up and generally ignored much lower-pressure salespeople. Hell, they gave (except for fucking and even then). away as much as they collected for and the thor- If a woman had the temerity not to buy into oughness of their testing procedures ensured a the game, to show a quiet pride and hide fear, she well-satisfied clientele. In fact, their customers stood a chance of establishing herself in a special were generally so completely zonked that they category –– Amazon, perhaps –– that opened inter- never noticed the essential illogic of this charitable esting possibilities, but it was a hard row to hoe in activity disguised as a commercial venture. Not London, and potentially deadly in Kabul. Most that they had anything to complain about, and the split for India pretty quick. To get there, you few economics majors and budding capitalists who admittedly had to get through Pakistan, where the started to apply practical dentistry to the gift horse hassles were at least as numerous if less lethal; in in front of them soon concluded that they were just the considered opinion of one experienced woman too stoned to understand and why on earth not. traveler, “Lahore is the armpit of the world.” Once After all, the operation evidently ran on the you made it through, however, you found that interesting principle, ‘Stay high, sell low’. 