As Jack rewrites the account of his first night in a Montana bunkhouse, he describes night time dreams from a quarter of a century later, and tries to Remember himself all the way back to his grandmother.

"The Meditator is thought, nurtured in these conflicts and injuries, and thought in mediation must totally cease. This is the foundation for meditation." Krishnamurti







Homeward Bound Chapter-Three




It seems that we went a little too far north as we drove the dark dirt road back then. We spent near an hour in that vast darkness searching mailboxes, and heaved a sigh of thanks when we finally came upon Wards'. Vance parked below the bunkhouse and turned off the headlights. Total blackness greeted us. Deep silence echoed from the fields and sky. The stillness of a million stars lit our path to the tiny gray shack. We two from the East, hurried inside, and pulled the fly-specked light string.

On my bunk, I lit my final smoke of the day. “Reckon breakfast will roll around mighty quick," I told Vance.

"Ole Doc says we rise with the sun. And, you know the sun ain't no late riser."

"I'll tell you one thing, man, it's sure going to be nice sleeping in a bed."

"Couple weeks on this ranch isn’t going to hurt us one bit. I'm telling ya, Daley, a little good grub, some out-a-doors work, sleeping in a bed. Christ, man, we will breeze right through. By Christmas we'll have our stake."

"Yea, Anne and me will be married by then.… You know, she wants to go home for Christmas no matter what. I
could see, you know, her spending a year or two in Glasgow. You and me splitting for South America. Putting away some bread. I could meet her in Scotland, after. Bicycle through Europe.…"

"Sure, Daley. I can see you wanting to leave her after you've been married a couple months."

"Yea, but she'd be safe with her mom, and dad, and family. She wants to go back home and spend some time with them.…"

"Can you imagine what we'd do with a year in South America? I
mean, do a little gun running.… Help support the democratic revolution. Maybe get in the cattle business. I'm telling ya, man, we'd come home healthy, wealthy, and wise.…"

"Yea, we could put new tires on the car. Drive on down through Mexico.…" I said as we continued the dream.

This morning, a quarter century later, I sit in my backyard, sipping a coffee and watching a heavy fog roll across the valley. I think how it has traveled all the way from the coast of San Francisco as I ride with the passing droplets trying to Remember Myself.

When I return with a second cup, the fog has lifted. The whole sky has opened. A flight of seven gulls carries my attention to the east. A rising sun lights up this portion of her favorite planet. Consciousness lights up her favorite ‘I’s inside my head. As I try to separate my real self from the many selves that I have acquired since that night back in Montana, I realize that the search for identity has shifted to a different level. Nighttime dreams are more important than daydreams as I try to remember.

I don’t know what I dreamed as Vance and I slept in that Montana bunkhouse, but dreams that I have
while writing of that night stay with me.

I'm swimming off shore of a small island that is crowded with military housing. As I swim towards the island, I imagine myself diving to the ocean floor. I'll need an aqualung to stay under, I tell myself, and imagine one strapped on my back. Still in my imagination, I dive to the bottom of the water, and probe for the handle of a trap door. I'm certain that I'm very close to discovering an underground world.

As I get nearer to shore, I realize that someone is watching me through a pair of binoculars. You can't let them know what you're doing. Pretend to swim, I tell myself as I tread water. Pretending to move my arms and legs, to my surprise, I find myself skimming through the water with great speed. I can't believe how fast the shore is coming up on me. In less than a minute, I find myself out of the water and walking on a sandy beach.

I'm standing next to an elderly woman who looks very poor. She points to a black widow spider. Following her finger, I see that the spider is spinning a web of pure gold. "All my troubles and cares are over. This will pay for my daily bread,” she tells me. I see that little globs of gold have bunched up at various places on the web. I understand that the woman can lift out the globs without damaging the web. I feel very happy for her.

On a brick wall just behind the spider, a green cabbage-like plant is climbing one leaf at a time. In a weak human voice, the plant tells me, "I have just as much right to the gold as the old woman."

I argue that the woman saw it first and has more need.

The plant insists that it has just as
much right, and continues to climb the wall. I take a lose brick and begin pounding on the plant. As the leaves beneath my attack turn brown and die, the plant continues to protest its right to the gold. The old peasant woman looks on with disapproval of my violent action, but she makes no move to stop me.

It's a couple of days later. Anne and I are moving back to the old Milligan place. Only, the old house is two stories, now, and looks different. As I carry our things upstairs, and try to figure out which part of the house belongs to us, I realize that we are sharing the house with another family. In the kitchen, Anne is putting away pots and pans. I spot several of Milligan’s teen-age daughters peeking in from an open door at the other half of the house.

Anne motions me to come closer. Next thing I know, I'm inserting my penis into her vagina. She holds it out to me between her hands as if it were a cup. With surgical care, I push it in a little at a time. All the while, the Milligan girls are watching.

The wind begins to blow furiously rattling the doors and windows. Looking down the long hallway, I see several doors blowing open. I'd better secure them, I tell myself.

It's five days later. Anne, Vickie, and I stand in front of the elevators in a large Philadelphia apartment building. I understand that black gangs have taken over the building and that it is very dangerous to be here. Mom's apartment is on the twenty-sixth floor, I'm telling myself. Apartment twenty-six twenty-three.

The elevator stops at the ground floor. The door opens. Inside are half a dozen teenage gangsters who laugh and make obscene gestures. The door closes. I become very frightened as Anne yells for them to come back. The elevator door opens. "Come on in, mama," a tough looking hood says and takes Anne's arm. "Fuck the rest'a you honkies," he shouts at me and several other middle class whites who have gathered in the hallway. The door closes before I can force my way in to pull Anne out. As the car begins to rise, I peek through a small window. Anne has changed into a yellow hat and two-piece suit. Her lips are painted bright red.

They've made her over already, I'm telling myself in one voice, and in another I'm saying, I knew it would happen.… We should'a took the stairs.

Vickie and I have climbed to a higher level. As we pause for a breath, Vickie breaks loose from my hand and takes off down the hallway. I see that she is only four or five years old as I yell for her to return. When she continues to run, instead of taking off after her, I continue up the stairway telling myself that my mother's apartment is only three flights more. Though I'm frightened to death of climbing any higher, an intense urge pulls me to find my mother. At the same time, a voice tells me that I have given up my wife and daughter for her.…

It’s a week later. Remember yourself all the way back to your grandmother, I tell myself as I sit on my spot trying to draw a picture of a kindly old lady. We visited my father's mother in Yonkers, when I was still in short pants. The dumbwaiter in Grandma's kitchen was fascinating to C.C. and I as we watched the long tunnel it made.

In the same kitchen, I remember my dad is taking a knot out of C.C.'s shoelace. "You never use a fork,” he says in a firm voice. "My sister, your Aunt Vivian, lost her eye…. Marie, your aunt Marie, was only trying to help her get the knot out. It was one of those unfortunate things.…"

Today, seeing my father in his most mechanical state, when at 81 he comes to California to die, I realize that it is lying that creates the buffers that keep us from seeing our real selves. "The psychology of ordinary man could be called the psychology of lying, because man lies more than anything else.…" Ouspensky tells us.

"Whenever I got a bankroll, something always came up. I'm the unluckiest man in the world.… I had thirty-five thousand in the bank.… The crash came in twenty-nine. If only I had met your mother a year earlier. We could'a had the most beautiful home in Atlantic City.… " my father whines.

"I had eighteen thousand in the dresser drawer.… Eighteen envelops, a thousand in each. The old Jew across the street said he wouldn't take a check. It had to be in cash.… I came home from Atlantic City, eight A.M. The door's kicked in.…

"I missed it by one day.… The most beautiful house in South Philadelphia.… Marble porch.… I didn't know he had cancer and went to live with his daughter. He should'a left a note. Eighteen thousand dollars.…"

My mother's mother came up one summer to visit at our apartment on Thirteenth and Berks. Every afternoon she would give C.C. and me a nickel for a soda. We'd run as fast as our little legs would carry us to the colored man's store up the street. Once, the heavy steel door of the icebox fell on my finger. "It doesn't hurt too bad, Granny," I told her.

A couple more weeks go by. I'm in my sixth grade classroom lining up children in groups of twos and threes. From across the room a mean looking kid throws an obnoxious sneer. I feel both offended and frightened seeing the boy as his teacher, and as a fellow student. I wave my arms and walk toward the boy. "Abbbracadabra.… Abbbracadabra.…" I chant in rhythm with the movement of my hands. Green, purple, and violet light flashes across the boy. He becomes very frightened and begins to cry. "Don't worry. I can't hurt you. My magic only changes the way I see you. It doesn't touch you," I say as my fear passes.

It is a little later the same February morning. I've been given a pass to leave prison and take care of some business in downtown San Francisco. As I walk through the rural area outside the prison gates, I see twenty or so prisoners milling about waiting for transportation to another jail. There are dozens of guards standing watch. There's a general confusion about the whole operation. I'm afraid I'll be mistaken for a prisoner who is being transferred. I approach a guard, and show my pass, a button size plastic chip with the number twenty-one on it. He glances without any interest and waves me on.

I'm in a run down area of San Francisco. My hands are dirty. I'm looking for a place to wash. I know that I'm here for a specific purpose, but I can't remember what it is.