Nine Kinds of Naked (44 page)

 

Wide open your heart,

and find that you're kind.

To live is to give,

to enhance the chance.

 

Abandon your head,

and unwind your mind.

How can you pray if

you can't even dance?

 

And Jacob Jingelheimer overheard someone pontificate that “We're all like tornadoes” as the world began to spin and he realized it was not the world that was spinning but himself and he grasped tightly the mistletoe and tried to steady himself
against his sword, groaning, “Whoa . . . whoa now” against his own cyclone and thousands of gnomes suddenly flew at him from every direction, hooraying and spinning him yet faster until someone somewhere exclaimed, “The wind!” and then his cyclone ceased and the world stood still and there amidst a sea of frozen faces there moved but one, a woman shining pink and purple flamboyant and she smiled and kissed her palm as her words filled him softly. “
Cherish it
,” she said and she blew upon her palm as the final flicker of his mortality twinkled into the past, whiffed out by the wind of a whispered kiss.

 

127
A
ND THE
S
PIRIT OF
G
OD
moved upon the face of the water, but it was really just the wind. And the face of the water tumbled under the wind, churning upon itself like dolphins at play as hundreds of waterspouts arose like the tentacles of some leviathan, great columns of moonlight dancing under a gratitude of heaven as streaks of silver pinballed between, daredevil fish who'd taken that ride to the sky.

And thusly did the Great White Spot dissipate, though it did not dissolve, sighing wide and propagating itself a thousand times nine. This was a wind of change, after all, an inspiration to liberation, and such a wind can hardly be suspected, and certainly never stilled. Newborn whirlwinds radiated in every direction, fractal emissaries of the mother-wind destined to caress the calloused canyons whorling through every desperate fingerprint grasping at freedom.

And the wind would embrace the Earth entire and find itself bristling in birdsong and buzz, gasping into life and out of death, heaving with grief, bursting with laughter,
exhilaration, exertion, an orgasm, a sneeze, a yawn at new dawn. And perhaps this would not be the night before a transcendental sunrise sweeps across the Earth, a galactivation of human consciousness awakened by the bump and the thump of the dance and the trance of ten or more million, but who can surely say what tomorrow may bring?

Something was stirring, that much was certain, for between every blink a world was billowing apart and discovering itself anew. Collapsing structure, crumbling stability, vanishing certainty, a black and heavy veil was falling, an illusion was fading and a wonder was waking, a heart-bursting abandonment of all that was past, humanity admitting humility and facing the grace, and all of us finding a world more familiar than we can imagine. Here is the Earth at play in the mind of God, respiring the breath of heaven as one by one we lose control and find at last the peace that radiates eternal ecstatic out of every moment right now and we give up—and give in—to that inclination, that instinct, that
impulse
, to love.

And a woman lonely on her thirty-fifth birthday finished lighting the thirty-five tea light candles surrounding the perimeter of her claw-foot tub before she eased her body into a bubble bath. After gasping inch by inch her torso beneath the scalding water, she closed her eyes and settled into lavender relaxation, stirring when she drew a breath so deep it felt as if the atmosphere were breathing her, and opening her eyes only when a single voice held forth from an emergent surf of din, exclaiming, “The wind!”

And she sat up in her birthday suit and discovered not her bathroom but a crowded street at nighttime, though no one
paid her candlelit bubble bath any heed. All eyes were up and heeding she knew not what, and she was left to wonder first at the voluptuous size of the bubbles in her bath and only second at how her bathtub was in the middle of a sidewalk on Tchoupitoulas Street. But she smiled nonetheless, and found her smile reflected in the eyes of the first man who saw her, who bowed glad and gracious as a swirling gust of wind tousled his hair and extinguished her tea lights as if they were candles on a cake and a wish was just granted.

And a block away the kid with sun-bleached dreadlocks sat on a curb trying to tune the guitar he'd stolen from Diablo's apartment days ago, but mostly he was just trying to capture some attention. And a pretty blond in moccasins slowed her way toward Jackson Square, enchanted by his guitar as women sometimes are. And the kid with sun-bleached dreadlocks noticed her notice and he fastened his gaze and reached for a chord as a breeze licked his eyelashes and just then the guitar's B string snapped with a cuss, welting his hand and wounding her ears and the pretty blond in moccasins resumed upon her way.

And Dr. Rip Blossom wandered aimless and alone through the crowds making their way toward Jackson Square, dejected that Betty had not shown up at the club that day and realizing how broken his life had truly become. Lost in such thought, he had just resolved to quit it all—his obstetric practice, his striptease fiending, the whole depravity of his life—when an invisible whirlwind engulfed him, tearing off his shirt and sailing it up and away as it flared his nostrils with the breath of life reborn and someone slapped his back as if in congratulation and someone else kissed the squish of his belly and no
longer was he alone but suddenly part of a pulse and a flow and Dr. Rip Blossom felt the frown of his face cramp into smile and then he understood and he touched the side of his nose and looked at a kid with sun-bleached dreadlocks sitting on the curb and sucking on the back of his hand and Dr. Rip Blossom pointed at him and spoke the words with which others had long taunted him but which he had never before grasped: “Walk away.”

And up ahead in Jackson Square a man untamed in dance felt the throb of crowd open around and surround as he filled the emergent center with his spinning, and no vertigo could prevent him from noticing the undomesticated beauty all around, gods and goddesses dancing the dance their bodies have been dying for, impulses pulsing timeless and tireless through eyes so bright like stars of the night and he heard himself whisper, “
I can't believe how beautiful
” but that wasn't true he knew because he did believe yes he believed that beauty has no superlative and the only gratitude we can ever offer is our joy and our thrill as the sun kisses our face and the breeze cools our skin and we really have no idea how deeply we are immersed in miracle how thoroughly we are saturated in relentless unpremeditated overflowing fountains of wild beautitude and how is this not happening all the time but of course it is for how could anything

 

                      ever

                                               possibly

                                                                          be out of tune?

 

And a woman bold in beauty and sparkling in eyes enters the center and into the spin, a yang and a yin in growl and in
grin. And their dance was beautiful and their dance was true, though after a minute he ceases their groove but after three steps he has to glance back and discovers her glare and where do you think you're going get back over here and he complies yes he does and regards their dancer proper ‘cause you're not really dancing till you imagine that you're making love and if they were dancing before they were brawling now and the center expanded as the wind circled round and their shoving loving shouting kissing encounter gushed into glory so amazing incredible so bright and so light is the spirit undistracted and he would never know how he healed her and she would never know how she healed him but it happened all the same and an exhilaration of epic healing gasped into atmosphere from the hearts of all who witnessed.

But the pretty blond in moccasins turned away only to find frustration in her dance, unable to get past currents of lust as unwelcome men lurched repeatedly close. She rolled her eyes and they licked their lips and she turned around and they brushed against her and she moved away and here comes another. And the beat increased as did the wind and her heart it hurt and her love it burned but her eyes grew fierce and when she smiled her teeth were bared and those who dared the primal tribal pulse of dance could only wilt as she found her growl and then her howl and let her threat to all who'd crowd and men could glimpse but then they'd cower as her spirit expanded beyond their reach and she was almighty free at last.

And a man troubled by loss and furrowed in brow examined the exhilaration of the dancers uninhibiting all around Jackson Square and wondered why are they free and what
about me? And the wind found the rut crumpling his brow and it soothed the swelter of his concentration as the pretty blond in moccasins' howl raised its pitch and also his pulse and he saw all at once the broken hearts and the wary eyes, the lonely nights and the shattered dreams, the sufferings of solitude that seethe within the soul of all. And his sweaty hands freed themselves from his slumping pockets as his aching feet began to move and he was clumsy and he was awkward but he was smiling just the same and no longer was there loss as herky-jerky he danced, high-stepping his feet as his arms flailed the fool but no one was judging and least of all he for he became we and we are so free for we are Spirit embodied and our bodies are but leotards for the soul and we are here to caress this Earth with the dance of our lives and there is nothing we can build that will not collapse but we can love without limit and dance without denial ‘cause this is our life and this is our death and we don't know why and we don't know where but this is our dream and if this dream is to be then we must be free to abandon the past and give up control and dance, and dance, and dance the wild divine.

 

128
E
LIZABETH FIDDLED
with the bathrobe Diablo had given her to wear to the dance in Jackson Square. “It's going to be tricky dancing in these digs,” she commented happily.

Diablo tied the belt of his bathrobe. “Yes,” he agreed, leading her to the door where Zippy was pawing at it mrowling. He slid his arm around her as he opened the door and out Zippy darted. “Perhaps we'll start a trend.”

“Of course we will,” Elizabeth bantered, sliding her arm
around him as they stepped onto the landing and an updraft of wind gasped beneath their bathrobes. The distant rhythms of Jackson Square whomped and pulsed the atmosphere and they looked around speechless as everywhere every which way blouses and panties and slacks and skirts and jeans and boxers and brassieres were billowing about in the breezy midnight like so many ghosts dancing away from the devil. A peasant skirt flirted past and a faded pair of cutoffs somersaulted over top, and as Zippy delicately lapped away her thirst from a puddle of water collected in the upturned Day-Glo orange Frisbee, Elizabeth hugged Diablo close.

“What happens now?” she asked, though she already knew the answer.

Diablo intercepted a skirt out of the air and grinned. “Anything we want.”

I
N THE BACKMATTER
of one of her novels, Ayn Rand states that “no one helped me.” This is perhaps impressive, but it is certainly not an achievement that I can claim. Quite the contrary, I could not have gotten by without a little help from my friends.

It was an honor to collaborate on this project with my whipsmart editor, Jenna Johnson. Incisive in her insight, she assisted me immensely in focusing the story and clarifying the theme. Apologies are due for the occasionally cantankerous reception with which I afforded her excellent advice.

Thanks also to my agent, Matt Bialer, for his ongoing encouragement, and to Jennifer Bassett, Anna Bierhaus, Sara Branch, Eric Liebetrau, Lindsay Ribar, Mark R. Robinson,
and Teri Tobias, all of whom have been a pleasure to work with. For their respect and encouragement, I am thankful to Bill Fitzhugh, Chris Genoa, Christopher Moore, James Morrow, Neal Pollack, Tom Robbins, and Kris Saknussemm.

It is a rare gift to have a tribe, and though the Athenian crew has flung itself far and wide, my heart goes out to Jeanette, Joey, Tony, Jeroch, Cat, Ross, Lux, Geoff, Susan, Mat, Brandon, Lindy, Jon, Nalnee, Joshua, James, Gina, Sam, Seth, and all the rest. Special thanks go to Jessica, for waking me up. Ah, my friends, what a gift we are to us.

Austin, too, has welcomed me home, and the names are too numerous to count. Particular gratitude goes out to Sonya—for illuminating the way; to Kim—for guiding me through; to Tamara—for showing me my self; to the dance—for the dance; to Ricky and Greg and the rest of the Gnostic Brotherhood—for making all of it a wilder time than I've ever known, and to the staff of Austin Java on Barton Springs—where I finished this book.

Thanks also to my former student Ellen, for reminding me what I once taught her, and to Misha, for hearing me. A debt of gratitude belongs to Blaine and Ammathyst, who allowed me to adapt their personal experiences with synchronicity, to Nina, whose a-musing correspondence inspired some of the highest peaks of this story, and to Abraxas, the Solarians, and the entire village of Entheon.

I have dedicated this book to my family, for they alone know me as I know myself—my father, my mother, my older sister, Melissa, my younger sister, Jessie, and Trevor, my brother in spirit.

 

T
ONY
V
IGORITO
is the author of the underground classic
Just a Couple of Days
. A former professor who taught social theory at Ohio University and Antioch College, he now lives in Austin, Texas. Visit
www.TonyVigorito.com
.