Magical Mystery Tour de Force

7:30 am: Alarm rings. Stagger into kitchen, start coffee brewing.
Turn on TV, watch news. "Man killed by police for
refusing to stop when ordered" talking head mouths.
Outrage turns to remembrance: "GET OUT OF THE CAR",
the Nazi with the .44 screams as he reaches across Jimmy
to grab the keys. Jimmy turns to me, face full of
beatific calm, and whispers "you have to eat it". My
eyes dart to the still smoldering, half-burned hand-
rolled organic wonder in the ashtray. Jimmy obeys,
slowly exiting the driver's door giving me the time to
retrieve the spliff, and pop it into my oral cavity. I
respond likewise, and as my body is molested by
searching gorilla hands, I feast upon the charred flower
buds - the taste is wretched, but less wretched than the
fate which awaits us if I don't finish my food. Twenty
minutes later, after much wailing and gnashing of teeth
by the proper authorities, we are in our car,
unencumbered by the specter of imminent death if we fail
to obey orders. It's 7:47 am. and seven million things could
happen today.

9:45 am: The class shuffles out of the room, except for one
lingerer who approaches me. He is rarely there,
never talks, misses due dates - but when he writes, it's
absolutely brilliant for a freshman. I wonder what he
will petition for, what I should say to him. The dis-
ease of this too-familiar situation jars my memory. 1982
and the sky is blue. I am maneuvering my bicycle, laden
with baggage over a country road. My quest had taken me
95 miles, toward what destination I knew not. If my
sociology prof. had only known what loaning me the book
*Peace Pilgrim* would bring about! I stop to rest,
examine the cloudless horizon, and think "what the $#@%
am I doing?" I get back on my bike and do a 180. It's
now days later, and I am begging my English 1302
instructor for a chance to retake the final exam that I
had missed during my absence. Her eyes hardened, the
words were not even necessary. I'm back now, and he's
looking askance at me. I am reminded of Gertrude Stein's
diffident note to William James about missing her final
exams at Harvard, and the syn-chronic nature of the
moment makes me smile...accommodations can be made.
It's 9:52 and 3 million things can happen today.

12:14 pm: My blood begins to boil. I have been standing in line

for over ten minutes, and now my progress is completely
thwarted. "Can't you just take my word for it?", I
practically scream. "Sir", the clerk icily replies, "I
have to have a skew number before I can ring it up".
The part of me that isn't insane at the moment ponders,
"Ring? Cash registers haven't rang in twenty years".
And there I was, 1976, except I was on the receiving
end. "Goddammit", the red-faced man screams at me, "I
want some napkins NOW!" As assistant manager of the
fast-food restaurant, I had ordered my supplies from
the commissary, but they had failed to send me certain
 vital items. An employee had been sent to the store to
buy emergency fill-ins, but it would be several minutes
before she returned. "NOW!", he breathes fire into my
face, and the entire restaurant turns silent. "The
customer is always right", I remind myself as I
repair to the back, and again as I approach the
irate patron's table. "Here you are sir", I distribute
folded-up toilet paper to each of the four seated, "and
have a nice day". I am still complimenting myself on
my problem resolution skills when the general manager
calls an hour later to fire me for my rudeness. The
scene in real-time faded back into my conscious view,
with little logistical improvement. My newfound silence
seems to intimidate the clerks even more than my
volcanism, and matters get resolved. It's 12:26 and a
million things can happen today.

3:39 pm: I enter the hospital room with my tray of sharp

implements. My mercenary mission is to obtain a sample
of this patient's blood, one which I have performed
perhaps two thousand times before. The victim of this
sacrificial rite is like many, in this drug rehab unit,
beginning the withdrawal from his heroinic monkey. I start
the usual small talk, but it is quickly interrupted with an
agonized "just draw my blood and leave me alone". I feel a bit
of anger for being so rebuffed, how dare the junkie insult me so,
and so on,an indignation which dissolves into memory: it is 1988,
and the moaning creature on the bed is me, having just had a kidney
removed to be transplanted into my younger brother. My veins have
collapsed, and the entire staff tries unsuccessfully to
reestablish my intravenous link, without which effective
analgesia can not be achieved. I finally demand to be given the
needle set, and after tortuous effort to prop myself at the
proper angle, plunge the penetrating steel into my flesh. The
agony of the invasion is hardly felt against the background of my
rent torso, and my probe is finally rewarded with a dark crimson
flow into the tubing. Only seconds later, the morphine hits and I
pass out of consciousness into the junkie's bliss, floating away
on pillows of warm air, the pain draining from like the vortex of
bath water from a tub. "Did you get it yet?" - my patient's query
jars me back to reality. "Yes...I hope it's not too bad on you" I
reply. He engages my eyes in a somewhat grateful manner as I
retreat into the hallway. It's 3:44 pm. and 300,000 things could
happen today.

8:28 pm: I arrive in the middle of the third inning. The Brewers
are rocking the Ranger pitching in an extreme way. Some fans
below me begin to boo and call for the current reliever's
removal. I shake my head at how things never change. I'm now mentally
transported to 1968, it's the final game of the season. My Pony League
baseball team must win the make the playoffs, but we are being trounced
by the strongest team in the league. I occupy my usual seat at the end
of the bench, and watch every pitcher we have get hit mercilessly. "Warm
up", the coach commands me. I look around, not believing my ears, I
haven't got into a game the entire year except for pinch hitting. I
follow the orders, and the coach ends the suffering of the kid on the
mound and inserts me. Men on second and third, two out. I walk the first
batter on four pitches, none of which the catcher can even get a glove
on. I repeat the procedure with the next batter to 3-0, the parents are
now muttering in the stands, the coach seems poised to leave the
dugout and forfeit the game, when the inexplicable happens - the
batter decides to hit my next pitch. The blast zoomed toward the fence,
seemingly out of reach of the left fielder. A desperation jump at
the fence and he comes down with the ball? End of four, them 12,
Us 0. The top of the fifth, supernatural powers suddenly entered
our sticks and we bat around twice for 15 runs. I go out the next
two innings in a trance and strike out six batters to win my
first and only game of my career. The Ranger's pitching coach is
out to talk with his reliever, and I send mental signals
of support: "Let him hang around for one more pitch".
It's 8:33 and 3000 things, including a Ranger comeback, could happen.

11:15 pm: The kids are in bed, I plop my tired carcass down and flip the TV
channel to a cable movie. Fuzzy, dimly lit images of bodies writhing over each
other, the strategic parts hidden by shadow and editing expertise flicker across
my eyes. I am bored, yet I keep watching. "What makes sex such a powerful
impulse?" I ask myself, and on cue my time-machine memories percolate to the
surface. It is 1980, there is snow on the ground that I view from the comfort of a
bed, where I am about to "go all the way" with someone that I idealized as a
goddess, an angelic manifestation sent to Earth to reward me for my constancy.
Before I can fixate on the moment of truth, I fast-forward two years plus into the
future. Tears, anger, recriminations permeate the atmosphere of a sweltering
summer afternoon. The goddess and her supplicant have reached the parting of the
ways; her divinity seems less certain now. A panorama of images explode in my
brain: I'm at the dog track, but I'm not in the stands, I'm one of the dogs..."Her
comes the rabbit"..I explode out of the box, I burn to catch that rabbit...Now I'm
a horse in training, chasing the carrot on a stick which recedes from me
eternally...I ache to have it in my mouth...The soft-core movie has reached a
climax, and I click the TV off, feeling that I have either been shown the secret
of everything, or its ultimate meaninglessness. I slide into bed, and the
electrical monster that is my brain slows its vibrations from beta to alpha,
slower now, now theta....annnddd ddeeellltttaaa......It was 11:59 pm, there were
probably 11 things that could happen, but ignorance is bliss, dontcha know! :)