Friday, April 13, 2007

Alienus Tractus - Part 1 - Moby and Dick

Twigs, leaves and branches blown onto the road from the recent storm cracked and popped beneath the tires of my '90 maroon Daytona as we drove down Mulberry street. We, Tabitha and I, had left our daughter, Elizabeth, with my biological cousin (adopted sister) at my mother's house. We had just finished watching a couple movies in our home town, Capeston.

We had watched Spiderman II together, and I stayed and watched "Minority Report" while Tabby went home. She won't watch, read, or hear anything that pertains to Tom Cruise, or for that matter, Steven Spielberg. I guess you could say it's my fault. After the movies, we went to Tabby's mothers house. Well, I dropped her off (she lives in Clovil) and I went riding around in Gladstil, just 3 miles east. Gladstil is where I grew up. I don't go there often, and when I do, it's just to cruise the few streets and reminisce about all the houses We had lived in while I grew up.

Mom had gone to Bingo, leaving Liza with Britney, my sister. Liza was riding a tricycle, and when we pulled up, she looked up and grinned at us. Britney, and my other sister Shelly, and another girl; the two twins, Darel and Darek, and two other boys whom I did not know were all lounging about a yard swing in the front yard.

"Hey Bub," Britney said. "Have you met our friend? His name is Moby Dix, but we call him Moby Dick, you know, like the one in that book?"

Trying to keep from grinning too conspicuously I gave a curt nod to Moby Dick. He may have been white, but I didn't see what was so great about him. They can play innocent all they want, but I knew the joke behind the name. If they were my daughters. Well, I didn't want to get into that at that moment.

After a few minutes of meaningless talk, Liza, Tabby and I left for home, Capeston. Driving down the broken branch road, I thought, "Moby Dick, huh?". In my minds ear I began to hear that song that used to play on the radio all the time. But I haven't heard it in over two years. What was it called?

After turning left onto Business 82 I glanced at Tabby, "Do you care if I turn the radio on?"

"It's okay, go ahead", she said.

I turned the radio on to the station already preset. To my surprise, the song that would not go away in my mind was actually playing.

"Tabby," I said. "What's the name of the group that plays this song?"

"I'm not sure," she said. "But I think it's that guy Moby. He's bald and does a lot of electronica and dance music."

My mind reeled momentarily. What a coincidence!

First, when I usually go south of Capeston, it is almost always to take Liza to visit my mother. I hardly ever go to Gladstil, and when I do go there, I never stop and talk to anybody. But guess who I stopped and spoke with that day. Philip Rankins. And then, Britney's friend Moby Dick. And then (later I found out that song was "Southside" by the Group "Moby") hearing that song by Moby in my head and then hearing that as I first turned the radio on. With everything else that had happened, this was like a beacon in a storm. The movie I was going to see later was called "Minority Report" based on a short story by the science fiction writer Philip K Dick. This inevitably led to my pondering this author's middle name.

What did the K stand for? This was major Jungian type synchronicity coming into play. It had to be, with everything else that had occurred recently. It's like my own IDIOS KOSMOS has been altered from what it once was, in preparation to receive this information. It was like there was some sort of master mind controlling the way reality works. This couldn't have been just me. Certainly there was some outside objectivity to it. Either that or I truly am crazy, or um, sick.

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