The Naked Bull

To be a weatherman in Seattle is to predict rain probable, though potentially, not. This honest subterfuge allows for the hope of the elusive blue sky while suggesting, with a quick grin, the ubiquitous bumbershoot.

While the plane fell from the sky above SeaTac airport, Elliott’s buoyant head remained far above the clouds. Though there would remain thirteen hundred miles and an undisclosed measure of time between him and his home, he could already taste pozole and the salty tears on his mother’s elated cheeks. One more gig, a pocket full of cash, and he could sleep in until noon in his own bed.

A different forecast confronted Vashon: It rained heavy where he brooded, for every inch closer he got to the ground was another resounding drop in his bucket of yesterdays. The last time he was in Seattle, Poulsbo was alive, Pike Place, the waterfront, and Fisherman’s restaurant on the pier. Tall drinks (you could keep the glass), West Seattle through the upstairs window across the bay, early morning dives and iced beer cool and good down the back of salted air tank throats.

Times for the taking.

They collected the van at the port, a bit worse for wear and tear, and headed north through the Emerald City drizzle. Elliott sat tall in his shotgun seat, bordering on euphoria. This was his idea, his doing. He had purpose, a shore to move toward and not away from.

And so they drove toward yet another lost horizon. Through the shared view of a single windshield, Elliott saw amazing skyscrapers, immense water ports, expensive cars. Vashon saw grey sky ghosts, felt the static hum emanating from the east that he knew to be his father growling at his proximity. Elliott’s giddy play by play of Seattle began to irritate Vashon. His first wide-eyed months with the brother’s had been cute, though he had hoped his friend had manned up by now. Next, he’ll be no doubt taking selfies from the Space Needle, standing in line for a tour boat on the harbor.

He reached down under his seat, digging for the traveler he had stashed there, opened it, and took a long pull. He then handed it across the gulf that had been between them since before they landed, the gesture more for his need than not. Elliott took it and drank, then hooped and hollered, damn near hitting his head on the ceiling as his legs pushed him up against the floorboards.

Vashon took back the bottle, took another swig, screwed on the cap, appreciating the warmth in his gut, and the easing of his brow.

“First time in Seattle, huh?” he said, finally.

“I told you ese, never been much north of Salinas,” he said as if Vashon was supposed to remember. Perhaps he did, perhaps not. He remembered other things just then, other times. He heard a voice that sounded like his though he hadn’t meant for it, nor of that memory. Elliott looked at the man who rarely spoke of his past; when he did it was like something nasty stuck to his tongue. Now he began to glow with a warmth of something he held deep and dear as they crossed Ship Canal Bridge. Just beyond Vashon’s profile, Elliott caught a glimpse of Lake Union; sailboats and seaplanes, Gasworks Park, and tiny people milling about.

“You ever miss it?” asked Elliott, looking around.

“Miss what?” said Vashon, only half there.

“I don’t know, ese. A place to crawl back to at the end of the day. A couch, cable TV, a fridge with beer in it?”

“You know me, amigo,” Vashon said, “I wear only enough weight to get me down and keep me under.”

“Just sayin’, ese. Nice to have a home; people who are thinking about you. That shit has a taste all its own, cabron.”

Vashon took a deep breath then let it out slow. He had been thinking about his debut on the Seattle scene. He opted to air it out, like his chonies on a line tied between the van and a tree on laundry day.

“When I was around seventeen, I got on a bus in Yakima in the middle of the night with a black leather jacket, a ghetto blaster, and one cassette.”

“Let me guess,” interrupted Elliott, “Ziggy Stardust.”

Vashon gave his friend a sideways glance.

“How’d you know that?”

“Shit cabron, you always play that shit when you stop talking.”

Leave it.

“You know that album cover, Ziggy standing one leg up, guitar swung low, in an alley in the dark?”

Elliott nodded.

“That was me, man. Big time. Pulled into downtown Seattle about four in the morning. It was late summer, fall really. Bus stations all smell the same, ya know? Humanity at low tide. The ebb and flow of a million people coming and going. The sky was a rare shade of clear as if to say “Welcome to Suffragette City,” I mean, here’s this punk-ass kid wandering the guts of the behemoth before anyone even knew he was alive, blasting his recently discovered KISW and KZOK as if the rock stations were his discovery.

“Hey Seattle, are you ready or what!” Judas Priest, Thin Lizzy, The Boys are back in Town. Saw these big-ass buses that looked like accordions, bent in half in the middle as they turned corners. Never seen anything like that shit. Got on one and sat right in the turret. Intense. Met this other kid on the bus. Said he was on his way out to pick mushrooms.”

“Mushrooms?” asked Elliott.

“Blue ringers, dude. He showed me where to find them, which ones to eat and the ones that would get inside your liver and kill you.”

“You ate that shit?”

“Not there, not then. The kid said, ‘Not here, not now,’ all serious, you know?”

“Serious?”

“Religion, amigo. Ever wonder why church is on Sunday?”

The Catholic had no answer.

The wise man doubts. To doubt, to question, to question, to wonder. Elliott was not and would never be a listener, though he did give it an effort. Vashon was not a man of many words, though he did have his moments. Elliott enjoyed this one beyond all reason.

“We caught another bus. Seemed the preferred method of transit for the Seattle elite.”

Vashon was home

“Lake City, man,” the sign hadn’t moved, he acknowledged it with a nod. Car dealers and Kim Chi in huge jars on the porch. Apartment acquaintances. The door opened after footsteps. There was music, Led Zeppelin ‘Since I’ve Been Lovin’ You.’

“We got seriously high, I mean that stinky shit, you know?”

Elliott knew.

“He had some beer, and we sucked it down,” both agreeing that sounded good just then.

“There were three of us then. We got in his VW square-back and headed to this place they called the U district. I wondered what the U stood for but was too cool to ask.”

“What was it?” asked Elliott.

“University District; University of Washington. It has its own barrio, man. Like a freaking village. A theater called ‘The Neptune’ and ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show‘ every Friday and Saturday midnight. People stood in line all dressed up as characters in the movie” Vashon shook his head as the wheels turned.

“We parked somewhere behind and walked. My eyes were wide, ya know? Living large, man.”

Elliott chimed, “I hear you.”

“Went to this pizza place. I didn’t even know I was hungry until I Smelt the grub. Then it hurt.”

Green lake. Mount Lake Terrace. The Rain Song. Vashon had been wondering ever since Spain if Mukilteo really was a place. Now he could swear he knew exactly where it was.

“When the pizza came, the kid pulled out the wrinkled paper bag and sprinkled the mushrooms on it; let them warm, you know, steep” Vashon was there. The sound, the day.

“After an unbearable waiting, the signal was given, and we dug in, the munchies took over. Damn pizza never had a chance. By the time we hit the door, we were deep-fried, dude, everything had changed. The sky was fluorescent, man. Everything that moved had these multi-colored tracers. I was no stranger to psychedelics; had my share of acid, mescaline. But this was different, this was Seattle, and everything was intense. Fell in love with the place right there and then, have been ever since. No matter where I go in the world, I measure the distance from here. This is the center of my world.”

Elliott knew from the sound of his words he had his friend in a good place. So, he let the man talk.

“Anyway, I woke up the next morning under a bridge in a place I learned later was called Ravenna park. My boom box and Ziggy were gone; jacked sometime in the night. So now there was me and my black leather jacket, and a head full of spiders.”

“Welcome to the big city,” offered Elliott as they had another drink.

“Well, yeah. I was pissed, at first. It ain’t easy to get to heaven when you’re goin’ down. Climbed out from under the bridge and out of the ravine looking for someone to hurt. Stomped back toward the U and stalked the place. Actually, thought I might catch someone carrying around my shit. The sky was grey, which is pretty much standard around here. Then I began to notice something, something not altogether bad. See, I had been carrying that damn hunk of metal and plastic around for months, ever since I scraped up the money to buy it. Was like some kind of carte blanche, you know?”

Elliott nodded, listening.

“Then it was gone, just like that. I felt pounds lighter, and the people had stopped staring at the punk-ass white boy carrying his home entertainment system with him everywhere he went. I saw another kid across the street carrying one. Not mine, but about the same size, blasting the whole world with his version of music, forcing all to endure. Damn, he looked stupid. And that, only the day before, was me. I walked on, left it all behind, and glad for it.”

They were now far north of the city and getting close to exit they were to take.

“So, I survived my first night minus a stereo, had discovered the U district, and had learned the art of the mushroom harvest, and my first taste of minimalism. Not bad, all in all.”

“Gonna have to try some of those ‘blue ringers’ cabron.”

“Satisfaction, satisfaction. Keep me satisfied,” sang Vashon.

A break in the clouds.

Elliott held the small piece of paper scribbled by the eccentric Sumner as if it were a treasure map. He was optimistic about the work. Vashon, not so much. If it sounded too good to be true, it probably was, though neither looked forward to another summer on a job site swinging hammers for traveling money.

The instructions were simple enough: Head down the hill towards the Tschakolecy Island ferry dock. Turn right and follow the dirt road along the train tracks north until you could go no further. There the map ended, and they were to wait. Having memorized the words and sensing his partner’s mood, Elliott opted for conversation.

“Think you’ll see your dad after this?” he said. He knew he was approaching uncharted territory but needed a lead-in to discuss his own personal plans of the future. In addition, he had begun to tire of the list of available topics in which to discuss with this person. You can only kick a dead horse so many times, and then it’s time to find a new ride.

Vashon snorted.

“Hadn’t given it much thought,” Elliott knew bullshit for what it was and let it be. Vashon hadn’t seen his father in years. It was an issue Poulsbo had brought up on occasion around the campfire, joking about the old man’s obstinate habits. The stories he told over and over, as if the first time; his insistence on doing things his way, irritating in their unimportance.

“You go see him anytime you want” Vashon would say

“He’s your dad, too” Poulsbo would admonish.

“I fell off that boat a long time ago.”

Poulsbo had once told Elliott how it had been, years before. Vashon and their father had been best of friends, Vashon, his first-born son. They did everything together, Poulsbo, the young tagalong. Vashon began to strike out on his on more and more, and little brother wanted to follow. This was alright, at first. But the older brother’s adventures became more and more daring, at times even dangerous. Poulsbo would return home injured, nominally, but crying all the same. Vashon would get the blame.

Tired of this, Vashon would strike out on his own no matter how many times his little brother would promise not to get hurt. Then their father would admonish Vashon for not taking care of his little brother, for not letting him take part in his life. Vashon became more and more distant. Father and little brother spent all their time together until at an early age Vashon finally left home.

When Vashon spoke, he shared physical impressions, as though making love to a woman soft and slow. He had the ability to describe a sight or a sound, a taste, or touch or smell with the flamboyant hyperbole of a novelist. Yet these were external perceptions, what could be observed by any stranger who gazed upon his rippling surface.

Elliott, perhaps due to his Latin extraction, was at heart a romantic; was possessed with the gift of empathy, though sadly lacked the words to portray such. He felt another person hidden, perhaps at some point buried, in the dark visceral depths that was Vashon. The distance between the two faces was vast, as two gargoyles on opposing ledges for soul eroding ages, frozen in some contest of wills.

At one point, there had been a lifeline, a translator, an avatar of Vashon’s psyche. And that had been his brother Poulsbo who was not afraid to rattle the bars of the huddled prisoner in his dungeon. When he died, the line was severed. And as a probe in deep space that disappears behind some distant frozen world, the signal went dead.

“Looks like this is the end of the road,” Vashon said as they pulled the van up to a huge growth of blackberry briar, perhaps sixteen feet high and spanning the dirt road and continuing into the distance on both sides. They stared in silence for a time. Vashon shut off the engine.

“Well my friend, this is your dance,” he said.

Elliott had nothing to say and didn’t appreciate the shitty attitude. He had followed the leader into much worse circumstances than this with not so much as a word.

“Map says to wait. So we wait,” he said.

Vashon reached into the cooler for a beer and then, opening his door, climbed out. Elliott did the same and they spent the next hour walking, in opposite directions, up and down the impassable wall of most pernicious thorns, Vashon towards the saltwater to the left, Elliott towards the steep mountain of rock and trees to the right.

At length, they came together in front of the van. Elliott knew what was coming long before he saw it on Vashon’s face. It hurt, but he plead for mercy.

“OK, patrón, what would you do in my boots.”

“Strap on a tank and jump in the water.”

“Serious, man. Could use some back up here” Elliott was near wit’s end, and his friend knew it. More pissed at the old fraud than anyone he did the next thing that happened upon him, which was to put his open hands to his face and yelled with both his lungs at the wall

“SUMNER, YOU OLD FUCK! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU!”

This brought an instant smile to Elliott who shook his head. At least his friend still had a sense of humor.

“Didn’t see that on the instructions, cabron. But I like your style.”

Vashon was deadpan.

“It appears we’re looking for the nearest construction site hiring strong backs,”

Elliott knew there would be no arguing the point, so they turned and climbed back in the van. When they had both sat and looked up again through the windshield something had changed, was changing before their eyes. The thick briar vines seemed to be alive and writhing, slithering amongst themselves like a thousand thorny snakes hastening to unravel from one another. The nest of vipers separated and regressed to either side, to a distance barely large enough to allow passage for the van.

Elliott sat wide-eyed.

“Damn, cabron. The old fuck must’a heard you.”

They looked at each other and looked back again. In the distance sat some old wooden structures, no more than cabins, one larger, perhaps two-story, with two or three chimneys from which smoke billowed lazily. There was a small shack just inside where the wall had once been. From an opening in this, a man appeared and walked towards them carrying a spear; a long sword bounced heavily from his side.

Silence over footsteps on gravel.

He wore dark leather trappings, appeared perhaps oriental. Vashon considered, at first, native American, though dismissed this readily as his skin was pale white. What was he supposed to be, Samurai? His face clean-shaven, hair long, straight, jet black, held back out of his face by a knot at the top of his head. His air was dominant, though Vashon sensed a tinge of fear in his display. He would not walk to one side or the other, instead positioning himself dead center in front of the van to take up a stance suggesting he would move no more.

“Friend of yours?” said Vashon.

“Guess I’ll find out, amigo,” said Elliott and cautiously exited the vehicle. He felt the need to prove something just then. Walking slowly up to the man, he decided first to hand him the old man’s map in hopes it might grant entrance or at least some explanation for their presence, the words for which escaped him. The man first looked down at the paper and back at Elliott, who now saw his face at close range. It was stern and unyielding, and most of all, suspicious, this much was obvious.

“You were followed?” he said. Elliott turned and looked back down the long dirt road.

Nothing. He turned back to the guard.

“Nobody following us,” he said and waited. The guard looked him up and down again. His clothing was somehow confusing the man.

“You may enter, now,” he said, then turned and walked back to his shack, taking up the same stance as before. Elliott climbed back in his seat and shut the door.

“Well, what’s chuckles got to say?” asked Vashon.

“Bienvenidos a Mukilteo,” said Elliott. Vashon started the engine and drove inside the wall. Elliott rolled down his window and looked at the guard for further instructions. Vashon glanced in the rear-view mirror.

“Hey Elly, you gotta see this,” he said. Elliott turned his head to look back down the road. There, where they had just passed, was the high wall of briar, slithered back and intertwined, as if it had never parted.

There was some commotion around the van then. Another guard, more swords, and long spears looking at them and pointing, exchanging words. The two saw old wooden boats with oars at the shoreline only just arriving and being hauled up on the beach. Vashon hit Elliott on the shoulder and pointed out his window to the south.

“And what in the hell is that?” he said in an exasperated tone. Elliott was at a loss for words. For there, beginning far up the shore and extending far out into the sea was what appeared to be a pier, or dock, though the sheer size of the gargantuan structure rendered this theory ridiculous “What next, cabron, pinche King Kong?” said Elliott.

Vashon snorted.

The men were brawny, unshaven, unkempt. There were women among them: this was a good thing. They were well-muscled as well, differing in two distinct details: Minus facial hair, added breasts. One stood out, tall, dark-skinned. Her long dreadlocks tied behind her head with a thick leather strap, she directed the others with animated gestures. There did not appear to be much conversation among them, they moved as one at their task of securing their vessels. A stout man with a huge tangled mane that encircled his face noticed the van, as did the dark woman. They both carried their long harpoons as they began to walk towards it, the others soon followed. As they approached, the oddity of the vehicle and its occupants became evident. The two strangers were equally mystified.

“Do me a favor Elly,” said Vashon “Next time you get a big idea do it before you start drinkin’.”

Elliott nodded slow.

“Heard that, camarada. These pinche locos never seen a van before or what?”

“Who knows,” said Vashon, “Maybe they just never seen a real live Mexican before.”

Elliott turned and pointed a finger toward himself

“This is my laughing face, cabron.”

Vashon grabbed his door handle.

“Keep laughing, pal. Time to go make nice with the savages.”

They opened their doors and, climbing out warily, met at the front of the van, surveying the many faces. It was a mixed bunch and they both tried to figure the many origins. The entire world seemed represented there. The dark-skinned woman planted the butt end of her spear in the sand and took up a wide-legged stance, eyed the two, then spoke.

“Who be you then?” she said in a booming voice, no smile, no welcome.

The man beside her sneered ugly.

“Kill them and be done with it, woman!”

She motioned to the other to stay, her thick, multi-colored dreadlocks hung below her waist. The man’s face was beyond unfriendly, nearing malevolent. This brought an end to her introductions; the others remained silent.

Vashon spoke then, testing the water.

“Vashon,” he motioned. “This is Elliott” and waited, truly dumbfounded by the scene. The dark woman stood her ground. Then after eyeing the two for some time, eyeing both up and down, she frowned.

“We have heard talk of a new hunter,” she looked then at Vashon “I had hoped they would send a man.”

The two exchanged glances. Vashon took a step toward her. She stood her ground. The woman spoke again.

“You know where you are, white man?”

Vashon rubbed his stubbly chin.

“About an hour north of Seattle, depending on the traffic.”

The woman winced.

“What is ‘Seattle’?

A silence.

“What is ‘traffic’? said the ugly man.

“What is this pinche Mukilteo?” asked Elliott.

Vashon gave a sideways glance that rendered ‘your idea, asshole’ then turned back toward the tribe.

“Don’t get out much, do you?” he spoke simply, prompting a dark response.

“No one leaves,” boomed the dark woman.

“Well, you seem friendly enough,” he said, a sad attempt at humor. The whole scene would have been funny if it didn’t feel like death on a stick. His nerves were taught, to an extreme. He threw out his only meal ticket.

“And Sumner?”

The woman lowered her chin then and nodded slowly once, twice.

“You will wait,” was her simple reply. The conversation dried up as they all stood facing each other. Vashon was about to suggest to Elliott that they get back in the van and head for the gate when a small voice found its way to them from behind the motley crew. Then, winding his way amongst them as a mouse through a wolfpack, Sumner appeared to take a position between the two fronts. He looked almost bewildered as he beheld the two.

“Gentlemen,” he stammered, “You have finally arrived. I… we are grateful.”

Vashon looked at the man.

“Grateful?” he said, “I’m seriously not feeling it.”

The old man turned and glanced at the hunters, at their stone faces, their poised weapons. He addressed them as if calling down attack dogs.

“Now, Bryn Mawr,” he said with respect, then Redmond, with venom, “we have invited these men here to aid in our endeavor. Let us not be rude,” Then, turning back, produced a sheepish grin.

“Oh, never mind these. They’ve been out hunting all day; in need a tall brine or two to wash off the salt, nothing more. As are you if I am not out of my water.”

Vashon looked hard at the two hunters, having acquired some standing.

“Not sure what you mean by brine, but if it involves alcohol, lead the way.”

This pleased Sumner for having devised an ad-lib detente.

“Good, good! Yes, quite to the crux! Come this way, we shall speak of your long journey,” then added, more to the wind than any, “Come, Bryn Mawr, let us welcome our guests as I once welcomed you, yes?”