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| Reverie, Scene 1: Gena Mornay shut the drapes against Barbur Boulevard traffic and tantalizing Mt. Hood. On the sofa with The Oregonian spread around her she was stunned to find a full-page story speculating about local connections in a global crime and drug coalition. In the grip of tension that kept her stomach quivering and her head buzzing she spent the day in bed. Bundled up under her "blankee." Reading. Magazines, newspapers, books. Accompanied by soothing sounds in the background. Crunching crackers and cookies without tasting them. Getting smashed on champagne. Cheap champagne. And reading some more, swilling the dregs of the bubbly. No doubt about it. She was depressed. Down, way down. If it weren't spirits, music and words-in-print it may well have been pills to oblivion. | |
| Reverie,Scene 2: She ate. Her day in bed lengthened into weeks of excess. She got fat. She got unemployment. She got food stamps and the phone turned off. And still she wallowed in an ugly trough of self-pity, self-indulgence. She only got fatter. Reading her way through hundreds of books helped. After all anything worth doing was worth overdoing. Books through the ages, books across the universe. They ran together. Fact, fantasy, motivation, deprivation, art, music, medicine, psychology, science, sci-fi. Real worlds, make-believe worlds, underworlds, overworlds. She leapt from Kafka to Homer, Dostoevski to O'Henry, Hemingway to Jong. She sauntered through Krantz, Auel, Ellison and Walter Mosley. Plunged into the pits of Poe. Segued into the lives of Garland, Beethoven, Poitier, Kennedy, Lovelace, Freud and Dizzy Gillespie. Got involved in mystery, intrigue, murder, suspense. She sopped it all up like a sponge in heat. | |
| Perceptions, Scene 1: In time Gena learned that investigators from Nathan D'Or's office had been assisting a multijurisdictional task force gathering evidence on what was termed the broadest-based drug-crime confederation ever to touch the Pacific Northwest. The prosecutors' strategy had been to convene secret grand juries in Portland and several other American cities to hand down simultaneous indictments. For drug transportation and trafficking, money laundering and a variety of other criminal activities. Against the highest-ranking conspirators on whom they could make the charges stick. Among those to be targeted, Gena read with amazement, were "certain Andean cocaine barons and key members of Colombia's ruthless new Niquita Cartel." | |
| Perceptions, Scene 2: The scarlet mouth curved into the widest smile of the century as Gena found her hand being squeezed. "Welcome to Willey Real Estate, Gena Mornay. Good to have you. I'm Lurene Lawton and it's my pleasure to familiarize you with the luxurious facilities and the incomparable eighteenth floor view. If the rain would cease you could observe the curve of the Willamette River around Downtown, the distant evergreens and five, count them, snow-capped mountains." Lurene wore antique jewelry and owly tortoise shell glasses emphasizing grey eyes. And bore like a cross being born into not one but two old-money families -- on her father's side derived from the 1850 Protestant founders of the town. | |
| Discoveries, Scene 1: Ulu pressed her against him in mock dance movements. "You see? Drums lay the foundation. It all comes from the beat. Jazz, rhythm, blues, rock, roll. Every American music traces to West Africa." "How is that possible?" Lurene asked. "Slavery." In his mouth the word became an indictment. "Millions of West Africans dragged here in chains. Nations of poets, musicians, dancers. Thousands of years of tradition. Songs for work, battle, courtship, spirituality. In Ghana my ancestors were priests with powers for healing, for fertility, for all human endeavors. But their powers could not keep away the slave catchers." | |
| Discoveries, Scene 2: Through music Gena became an expert at recasting reality. Music, the one pure truth, the ultimate equalizer. Of status, station, race, gender. Music the tranquilizer, the opiate, the addictor, the mood enhancer, the downer, the upper. Music, altering state of mind as it moved, melded, changed patterns and nuances. Music, a must. Music, a sustaining factor. More nourishing than food. Stronger than guilt. Alone but it didn't matter. With music to feel by. Feeling her body and her emotions. Feeling mellow, feeling good. Healing. | |
| Revelations, Scene 1: At the Downtown Doubletree they caught Ulu and his band Afrique. Decked out in a kaleidoscope of African silks and sequins the musicians shimmied onto the stage to breathtaking polyrhythms, insolent brass and a chorus of bold African harmonies. In the spotlight Ulu's multicolored tunic glittered and his trio of congas whispered, crescendoed, came down to a heartbeat that pulsed through the room. Then as Ulu switched to the talking drum Nanda and Rita danced onto the floor. Knees spread wide under long skirts hiked up and folded into their waistbands. Jewelry clanking, elbows flying, feet now pounding, now gliding, repeating a series of what must be centuries-old patterns. | |
| Revelations, Scene 2: Deep in the ghetto Gena faced Jann Donnell of the District Attorney's office. She greeted Gena like long-lost family. And with no consultation ordered the house-specialty rum punch for both of them. Now here they sat. In overstuffed chairs in the upstairs room of the recently-refurbished early-century bordello called Sally's Place. Glass in hand Jann Donnell leaned toward her as if to whisper a confidence. But somehow the forward motion never halted. The glass shattered in a loud crash. And as if in slow motion the heavyset woman became a crumpled mass on the clay tile floor. Gena froze in a soundless scream, scrambled to the floor. Found herself cradling Jann Donnell, stroking the smooth brown face, patting the wiry hair. Her heart knew but her mind would not accept. | |
| Intrigue, Scene 1: The inky night swallowed the slam of the trunk lid as the men waited on the side of a rutted road, their breath hovering in the icy air. Snugging his muffler around his throat to protect the vocal cords the driver opened his door of the vintage Cadillac, stage-whispering, "OK, guys?" From the darkness he heard, "Go." He crammed his bulk behind the wheel and reached to unlock the other door. "Sorry, man." Even before his passenger belted up he switched the key and the engine roared to life. The big gold car navigated a field of frozen furrows and cruised through a stand of Douglas firs. At last two-lane blacktop heading westward down the mountains. Few vehicles on the road and he couldn't help smirking. This shipment the biggest they'd trusted him with. The venture a great success and on the home leg now. Just drop his passenger off at the beach house serving as temporary lodging. Then a few deliveries and back into Portland, sweet-talk his lady and on to rehearsal, no sweat. He flipped the Crimson Crew demo tape onto the deck at full blast and commenced rapping out rhythms on the steering wheel. "Dammit, Carl!" his passenger yelled. Startled, Crimson turned the sound down. "Sorry." "No. You're GOOD, you know that, Carl?" "Lotta good it does me." Crimson lit up, took a drag and passed it over. "Good gigs, paying gigs, are damn hard to come by." With one hand on the wheel, Crimson had to swerve to avoid the sudden lights of a semi screaming over the center line around a curve. He wheeled onto the rocky shoulder, swearing, "Goddam sunnabitch muthfuckah!" "Too close," Blanck panted. In response out came the rocks and up went the sound. With the drug in effect Crimson belted harmonies to the tape. | |
| Intrigue, Scene 2: Flecks of fear swam in Gena's system as she piloted her VW bug down the hill past the historic water tower, the shops and the posh condos of John's Landing, across the Sellwood Bridge and onto Antique Row. Ignoring the charming storefronts she braked at a brick fortress of a building and got out. Angling across the neon green of its clipped lawns she shifted her shoulder bag and hurried forward, sensing eyes at the windows. And inside the double doors she entered a weird waiting room parade. A boy with humped shoulders and acne repeated, "The road of excess is the route to the palace of wisdom, the road of excess is the route to the palace of wisdom, the road of excess ..." A gent in a suit explained, "I cannot sit down. I have enough to worry about with the green liquid." A gaunt old man brought in handcuffed by police muttered, "Not yet, not yet, not yet, not yet, not yet," to absolute infinity. "Gena!" Choo Choo exclaimed. "Long time." "A VERY long time." Gena heard the caustic edge but couldn't help it. All she wanted were answers but the roly-poly director of the institution intruded. "We are two establishments here, Miss Mornay. In the past Bryant House served only the severely disturbed. Both acute and longterm custodial care plus necessary medical services. But in recent times we have been forced to dedicate one wing to substance abusers who run afoul of federal law. He ended by asking Choo Choo to show her the drug wing. "My pleasure, 'Miz' Mornay," Choo Choo winked and Gena jumped as if scorched. They had to pass through the combined dayroom with its assemblage of humanity. Old faces, vacant faces, folks immobile in wheel chairs, wild-eyed young men needing a shave, frazzle-haired young women in dayglo shorts and halter tops. It could have been Kesey's Cuckoo's Nest. Except his crazies lived and died a generation ago in the old antiquated State Asylum in Salem. MORE TO COME |
