The Spell of Ai..
Chapter 2: strange and unusual things
ai, 1. ( a’i ), n., a large sloth, Bradypus tridactylus, of Central and South America, having three toes on each forelimb. 2. interjection, (an utterance expressing pity, pain, anguish etc.). The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, The Unabridged Edition, 1967, 1966 by Random House, Inc.
“Language is an indispensable instrument of human society. It is the means by which individuals understand each other and are enabled to function together as a community”. Random House Editor in Chief, Jess Stein.
Sometime around the age of six my grandfather, (Gordy), sat me on his knee and revealed to me a strange and unusual object; “do not speak of this”, was all he told me, and so its story and present whereabouts remains a mystery. That object resides in my mind’s eye where my grandfather placed it for all time; it is as real as anything can be and ignited a flame that is the search light that guides me still. Imagination and the realization that all things are possible was sparked in that moment; a gift the mythical gods would pay a heavy price for. We are as ordinary as the miracles that go unseen. You might have a moment when you pierce a vail, go into or through something, find yourself in a hole or be confronted by a portal. When reality seems less real, a search light can be handy. Gordon Ai Pierce was a stoic man of few words; the spell he cast upon me required no explanation and was never repeated.
” The Place of Things” we abide within is permeated with objects; the talisman resides within us. One of the few personal objects permitted me during a period of imprisonment was a steel cup; my last criminal act was the theft of county property in the form of that cup, (American Permanent Ware, serialized). Over the next forty years it was dipped into the headwaters and tributaries of the major rivers east of the Mississippi. It is with me still. The spell it cast upon me requires no explanation and will never be repeated.
Another forgotten American, when asked by a newsman if he truly believed all things possess life, even the rocks, he responded, “only some of them”. That man knew something of the spirit of the object, the secret language of artists and poets. In some way the world we see might be looking back at us.
Where my legs are standing, behind me is the World of time, the Place of things; before me is the Unbounded, Unknowable; there is no bridge between the two - but where my legs are standing. anon.
A strange and unusual occurrence: sometime around the age of thirteen, together with my brother, we sat on our neighbors’ porch one summer evening with the sun well down at twilight, just before dinner with everyone else inside. We sat stunned as the visible horizon before us lit up and a large object passed directly overhead. Some descriptive words:
it was large,
it was heavy,
it was spherical,
it was loud,
it was HOT!
After regaining our composure, we commenced a war dance right then and there; we couldn’t have paid for a better seat. My best estimate is it was headed East toward the Atlantic at a low trajectory and relatively low speed. The sound wave arrived ahead of the object, and as it passed overhead might have sounded like a commercial airliner at about eight hundred feet. Suffice to say it was massive and hot enough to fairly say we felt the heat signature as it went by. To me, it would not have been more surprising if the Mesiah had dropped down from the heavens; it would have simply meant a different future.
It never occurred to us that what we witnessed was anything other than a meteor of unusual size; the story book kind complete with craters and heavy metal mass, (nickel-iron comes to mind). A burning cycloptic megafauna from space - it was wonderful.
Strange and unusual people: if you missed the seventies, you have my sympathy, the rest of you will understand.
Speedy was a precocious child and a gypsy in every sense. Born in Germany, his family fled to Spain escaping a hostile regime, only to flee to Cuba escaping another hostile regime where his father was interned for having blue eyes. After suffering torture, imprisonment and undergoing rather invasive experimental surgeries, Speedy’s father spent the remainder of his days living with his family in America, in a shanty by the highway, drinking vodka.
Speedy was my introduction into altered consciousness. To describe these adventures would be to imagine having your close friend, in a heightened state of awareness spontaneously erupt into no fewer than three separate languages and maybe some we don't know about; or appear out of nowhere without rhyme or reason anytime you are in search of whatever you are in search of. This was not just uncommon; this was an enigma; one dare not turn away from such opportunity.
Enter Marezene, the travel sickness pill: this little lady would turn into a powerful hallucinogen by consuming an entire package. Not your everyday colors and patterns type, but full bloom kinetic phantasmagorical apparitions. Symptoms set in around ninety minutes and dwelled for forty-eight hours or so. We emptied the drug store shelves at ninety cents a package. There must have been a trend because it made the papers; reports of emergency room visits arose telling tales to jiggle the nerves of nurses and staff. Marezene was, at least temporarily, discontinued and pulled from the drug stores.
My final encounter with this ghastly maiden included two work friends and myself riding in an oversized Buick. Our passenger in the back seat was left abandoned miles from his home sometime during the night, which left Davey the driver, and me; we never discovered why we abandoned him, but he wasn’t really a friend anyway. We two survivors, unknown to us at the time, were parked in the front yard of people we didn’t know while we were overlooking Three Mile Island at night; an otherworldly sight anytime but in our present state spawned a symbiotic psycho-neurosis that hatched flying saucers and long armed space people darting about the car. We fled, Davey in one direction, me in another, clutching a Yoo-Hoo, both of us on foot.
Davey was escorted home by two troopers after receiving complaints from the residents of a trailer court that someone was rousing them from their sleep, alerting them Martians were deflating their car tires.
After falling into the shallows of the Susquehanna River in the dead of winter, crossing the bridge to the guard shack entering the nuclear facility, turned out to wander; this one was escorted home by Tiny, the only policeman in our town, along with a trooper after they found me naked on the front porch of someone not of my acquaintance, my cloths a frozen heap nearby. They delivered me home, not saying much, but leaving me with a modest citation for disturbing the peace.
and when we got on the ship, he brought out something for the trip, he said “its old but its good”, like any other primitive would. Neil Young
Strange and unusual names: one should not be blamed for asking the meaning of the name Ai.
Spirits and Night of the Super Moon: growing up Old World Pentecostal lends credence to the spirit. Witnessing ordinary people speaking in the tongues of their God while in a spiritual trance is another life changing moment. Why not surrender to a reality which includes spirits?
If all life is sacred, then all spirits are benign, so long as we allow it. The “Presence” that resides in the Tip Top House is only malevolent if one decides to spend the night there alone. Schrödinger’s Cat and Loren Eisley’s Changeling Hound have something in common: the thing we name it and the thing it is have nothing in common. The Oak doesn’t refer to itself as the Oak. Our words are the spells we cast attempting to invoke these spirits. Our language is the glue holding it all together.
Driving home one night along a secluded stretch of road there appeared a woman standing in the rain; no streetlights, no houses nearby. Slowing my car and lowering a window to offer help, she declined. This was in a wilderness area well after midnight, with little to no traffic.
The next day my old hill country friend informed me she was “The Woman in White”.
Strange things happen. Now, these stories occur in lore and print pretty much everywhere, this Woman in White being a Lenape named Winona who threw herself off Kittatinny Mountain after a broken love affair. The troubling part comes while trying to describe my encounter: my friend hails from a family of early Dutch settlers in the Upper Delaware region; their lore is passed along orally, not from books. My memory includes no details of the woman’s dress or her language, other than being strange and unusual. The exact place of my encounter lies along the Delaware River near the famous Delaware Water Gap, at the base of Kittatinny Mountain below its highest vertical section of wall named “Winona’s Leap”.
Continental drift and glacial action resulted in The Gap along with the melt water river Delaware. Habitation by humans presumably began just after the last ice age, presumably following their game. Rock shelters, pottery shards and stone implements harken to a long history. The Minisink within this region, by all accounts, has seen a great deal of conflict. Long before the arrival of wooden ships the Eastern Nations of people were certainly dealing with issues of domination and struggle over resources. Since the arrival of the wooden ships, there have been countless wars ranging up and down the Delaware River, right into the 20th century with the Tock’s Island Dam Project; the seizure of private lands by eminent domain, arson and pre-dawn raids.
There are many spirits here, in the soil beneath the feet and in the stones and stories of its people.
Winona lives on in the diners and shopping centers along with a hundred other commercial place names. Her time is in the primal hours with no one about. Why not give her life and form? Winona is.
see the voodoo child, he’s holding out his hand, “we’re glad to have you brother, welcome to the band”. Jimmie Vaughan
Loved it. Sorry the music scene was a bust. But I love to read your stuff