Spiritual Pandering -or- Setting Up Blind Dates for the Dead: Pt I

Three years ago I moved into a World War Two Quonset Hut. It was moved to its present location in 1948 from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. It was used as a dormitory and then a classroom there.

Living in this type of housing has some interesting problems. The walls are curved, actual floor space is dependent upon how tall you are. This is beside the point, however, as the rent is very low, I know the owners, somewhat, and the place is just too cute. I really could not walk away from an egg shaped house under a cedar tree; the symbols were good, and I needed re-birth.

Well. A few weeks after moving here I was awoken by a bunch of guys outside my window. Like, what the fuck. Laughing and whispering, the smell of cigarettes. I have issues about people hanging around inside or out while I’m sleeping. I could hear a Zippo being played with. Click open, flame on, Click closed. Over and over.

I slide out of bed and tippy toed into the bathroom where I could look out at them from behind. I did so, ever so quietly and carefully and peeked out the blinds and… there was no one there.

I grabbed a bathrobe and bolted out the front door onto my patio and looked down an easement and still found no one. It was about 3am and I stayed up having an early estate sale to go that morning.

A couple of days later it happened again. I lay there and listened, not quite being able to hear them, only a mumble mumble and the click of Zippos. I peeked out the window above my bed. No one there. Again I went out the front door, I mean I just heard them they had too far to go. No one was there. I checked the time. It was actually 3:30am. OK. I stayed up again.

The third time I just laid there. It went on for about fifteen minutes and then stopped. I decided to begin getting up earlier than 3am and wait for them. No luck. So I began leaving the dead bolt open using only a entry door chain for a lock trying to ensure quiet. The next time I heard them I did not peek but went out the front door, very quietly. There was no one there. It dawned on me the next time, laying there listening to them boyishly giggle, a “Shhh” on occasion, that they were trying to be quiet too. Well, I knew by then what these guys were, I realized they were from another time, another place. They were sneaking a cig, maybe, before or after breakfast, and they were having fun, the time of their lives and by ghostly decision returned to that dorm window, in this time now, my own bedroom. I finally calmed down about them being there when I realized what this was, a noble haunting by World War Two Air Force guys, warriors to be; though the idea itself is fairly alarming.

Their tone had a bravado, a risk taking, a humor about what I could not quite hear. They were telling jokes or talking about the sergeant behind his back like school boys, giggle, smirk (if I could just hear them) and they probably were not much older than that themselves. They were off to become heros of their time and ours and saw none of what we know.

My offer to the Spirit of Randy, my part time friend who died last week, for a place to stay here was intentional, not just poetry but to make life, art, on purpose and with full knowledge that the guys still hung here too. I wanted to give them a gift of “All Souls” Coitus. They deserve it being so young; I feel several did not make it home or here directly but by a longer route. I wanted Randy to not be alone with no where to rest but the lonely hospital room where she died.

I meet her when she was still a teenager, trying to sneak into a Rock n Roll night club I managed at the time, Jekyll and Hyde’s. I would not let her in then and she became one of the parking lot drug girls. I watched this happen and then she disappeared, popping up again, now and then, right up to her end.

This time I wanted to offer accepted entrance before she asked. She talked like she still pursued young guys and I just had to set it straight between us. I have not seen or heard from her or the boys since then and think this a good sign.