Pink Dawns and Purple Dusks (an Excerpt)

The following is an excerpt from my novel “Pink Dawns and Purple Dusks” which follows the lives of five friends from their youth throughout their lives culminating with the whirlwind unprecedented events of 2020. The two characters presented here, Nick and Marlene, are offered the opportunity to escape the L.A. pandemic landscape and head for the hills as suggested by Marlene. Nick, lead guitarist for legendary rock band Blue Triangle agrees to the trek, motivated at least in part by the chance to bump into the esteemed author TC Boyle.

“Let’s get out of here,” she whispered to him in bed as they rested in their favorite spooning position.

   “As you wish,” he replied, “what have you got in mind? A drive up the coast, a walk in the canyon?”

   “No. I mean, like, out of here… way out of here. I know a guy who rents secluded cabins up in the Sierras. Really private. Really isolated.”

   Nick thought about it for a moment. It sounded good, but as usual, he had his reservations which were connected to his long-held preference for comfort and convenience. He was all for taking action and shaking things up as long as it kept his soft feathers reasonably unruffled.

   “How isolated are we talking about? I mean, they got electricity and running water, right?”

   “Oh yeah,” she said as she broke loose and rolled over to the side of the bed. “I think there’s like a half-saloon half-country store within walking distance.”

   She stood up and straightened her nightie.

   “Walking distance? You know, that phrase means different things to different people.”

   This was an acknowledgement of the fact that she walked vigorously for an hour or so on a daily basis whereas Nick took occasional strolls.

   “A mile or two down the mountain, I think. But when in doubt, there’s always the car you drove up in. Oh, and by the way, I heard that TC Boyle has a cabin up there. Makes an appearance at that saloon every once in a while.”

   Nick perked up. “Really? Wow… one of my favorite writers.”

   That clinched it.

    “Well, my schedule is uh… let me see, hmm, why yes, it happens to be wide open. You set it up, babe, and I will follow.”

   He sang those last three words just like Bono.

   Just then Nick received a text. Damn. It was too early on a Sunday morning to be receiving any kind of communique from anyone but God and even He, She or It was cutting it too close.

   It was from Gilbert Adonis: Larry Bates wants to reunite for proposed tour. Says he could use the cash. Get back to me pronto.

   “Yeah,” Nick groaned with an agitated sigh, “for sure, let’s get the hell outa here. Pronto.”

Nick packed lightly.

   A plethora of underwear and socks and shorts and t-shirts. Well-worn sneakers and a big floppy hat.

   What will we be doing up on top of that mountain, anyway?

   Fornicating, making a lot of spirited love, of course… and in the interim, sleeping, eating, don’t forget toilet paper, hiking, breathing fresh mountain air, getting to know one another even better. He pulled out a shirt he hadn’t donned since late 2017: I work for the DEEP State and you’re fucked! He typically didn’t like to publicly display such harsh commentary toward his fellow partisan-man, but where he was headed nobody should really care. Oh, an uptight chipmunk or two could be offended, a rural wood-mouse with a penchant for the only the best in cheese, say an aged Caciocavallo, but as long as the bears were kept in line he could live with it.

   Marlene looked over at Nick’s stuffed bag.

   “What about me?” she asked.

   “Oh, you don’t need anything but the duds ya got on… if even that.” He winked to confirm his intended compliment. Which she received kinda-okay but then there are some girl things that even liberated and somewhat enlightened men like Nick don’t fully comprehend despite their coy semi-lewd commendations.

   “Thanks,” she responded with a somewhat sardonic smile which was more of a smirk, “but I’ll need to stop off at my apartment on the way out. Or there’s that Kohls on Sepulveda which is on the way. Don’t worry – it’ll be a quick in and out thing.”

   They both laughed at the reference. “Girl, get your head out of the gutter!”

   “Hey, where’s your guitar?” she said in all seriousness. “And your laptop. You never know, inspiration could hit and you gotta be ready!”

   Nick hadn’t really thought about it but right now that sounded like a damn good idea. In fact, crucial even.

   “You’re right – I can’t go off the grid without my acoustical instruments in tow. I might get that peaceful, easy feeling sitting out there on the porch chewin’ on a stalk of stinkweed. I can sing the wildebeests to sleep at night.”

   “Dude, you’ll be able to plug it all in, remember? And I’ll be ready to add background vocals and assorted percussion if requested… so come on, let’s get this show on the road already!”

The original idea in Nick’s mind was to stay maybe three or four days, attempt to engage with nature, try to relax, finally get bored and then retreat back into the numbing haze of urban reality. But they blew past that arbitrary timeline and before he knew it they’d been there a full week… and then it became two. Lo and behold, now they were entering week number three. No emails answered, no texts sent out, just a whole lot of nothing. Each day delivered an even less hesitant step toward the escape from mad chaos, toward the reengineering of a previously staid and resigned perspective, and toward a renewed appreciation of nature including hikes which went deeper and deeper each time and fostered fruitful introspection.

   Soon came the revelation: Damn. It doesn’t have to be like that after all.

   He played around with his guitar and noodled with the Casio and became inundated with a flurry of musical ideas that seemed to be floating around out there among the birds and the bees like invisible pockets of energy. Sometimes it becomes the primary work of the artist to reach an exalted state allowing him to reel back in such pockets of energy and then create.  

   Far easier said than ever done.

   Oh, and the weed and the wine and damn fine ale came in handy as well.

   So in the end he could feel it in his bones, between his ears, and in the warm rising within his heart… soon he’d be ready to plug it all in and hit record.

They’d come down the mountain a couple of times a week to visit the little country store with its rustic saloon, picking up whatever goods they required while whetting their whistles. The bar was usually less than half full and quiet, a darkened log cabin abode which smelled like heaven and gave him a feeling in his belly not unlike a sublime fizzy peace. It felt like a refuge offering unspoken fellowship, a sanctuary for like-minded folk in need of respite, and they usually slid into the same old booth along the far wall and then slowly coalesced with their surroundings. And after four or five visitations they had become quite comfortable within that blessed space.

   “There he is,” Marlene said in a hushed voice.

   “What? Who?” Nick replied in a burst of paranoia. At first he thought it might be some dogged and prickly officer from the California legal patrol who had finally run him down for some long ago and supposedly forgotten transgression.

   “Shhh…” she said, and that shook him because Marlene was not a shusher. “You know who… TC… TC Boyle… remember what I told you?”

   “What? TC… Tommy Boyle? Coraghessan? The writer? Here? Now?” He fought off the urge to simply turn around and gawk. Instead he leaned in closer.

   “Where?” he asked in a reciprocated shush.

   “At the end of the bar. Nursing a beer. Watching a baseball game.”

   Yes, the season had begun a few days ago. A fan-less almost soulless affair. There’d be no take me out to the ballgame for quite some time. But still, someone had yelled play ball and so the Big Leaguers had obligingly assembled. Large sums of money were involved of course and besides, we all needed some kind of a pastime, or at least a hopeful distraction during the long hot summer of our mounting discontent.

   “Well I’ll be damned.” Nick picked up his own bottle of beer and took a swig. “Are you sure?”

   Marlene dared to look over there again.

   Their eyes locked in that one specific point in space-time where separate retinal visions merge together in a square-inch of glass as reflected by a properly-cleaned mirror. Mr. Boyle had seen those eyes and that look before. The deer-in-the-headlights stabbing glare of recognition. In that tiny fleeting moment he knew that she knew who he was. Why you have a lot of optic nerve, lady, the author inwardly quipped, and then thought I need to write that down for future reference. Oh well, what else to do but offer a pensive smile with a slight nod to the pretty lady in the mirror and then turn his attention back to the game.

   She instantly confirmed. “Yep, it’s him alright.”

   After a brief moment of rumination: “So, what are you gonna do?”

   “Me? Hell, I’m not gonna do a damn thing. I’m gonna leave the poor guy alone. Leave him to his beer, his game. You know, do unto others as you…”

   “He’s getting up. Putting on his jacket.”

   Nick heard the scrape of a barstool on the wood floor.

   And then, “See ya next time, Tom,” from a low male voice, most likely that of the loyal and discreet bartender, and then there came some kind of muted yet affirmative grunt. By the time Nick looked around the esteemed author was already out the door.

   “Go. You can catch him. He’s one of your favorites. Come on… you owe it to yourself… hell, you owe it to him. Just go say hi and thanks… tell him thanks for everything.”

   Nick finished his beer. He was a little drunk, just enough reckless.

   “Y’okay.”

   So he caved in a burst of boldness, accepting the ephemeral challenge as presented unto him by this one moment in time which had come so unexpectedly and which would soon enough be forever gone, and then he was up and out that same door in pursuit of the distinctive wordsmith.

By the time Nick stepped outside into the parking lot the man was long gone. He had completely and somewhat mysteriously vanished. There was no dusty plume of any automobile driving away, no sign of a hiker trekking along that upward trail. In the dying light of the day it was as if TC Boyle had never been there at all. The man had simply disappeared like some pioneer ghost drifting along the mercurial mountain breeze.

   Nick stood there and thought about it. Maybe it’s for the best. God knows he preferred being left alone as opposed to having some old scraggly dude wandering up to him, pointing effusively into bis face, saying, hey, yer that guy. Ol what’s-his-name. From that band that used to be kind of cool back in the day when I was taking all the drugs. Where ya been all these years? Mister Boyle had undoubtedly come to these mountains to escape all that, to regroup in solitude, and hopefully recharge in preparation for the next act of his own creative will.

   That’s when it dawned on ol what’s-his-name…

   And so have fuckin’ I!