Enter the field of Ah


Soon there was no walkway, only brambles strewn about which had grown so closely together it was almost impassible. We met this obstacle course head on and continued toward our 5th destination, till we found
a clearing on the other side. Here was an area known as the field of Ah. Twenty or so feet past this clearing was a path cut into a fifty foot collage of thorns and thickets that I would maintain out of sheer boredom. With my machete in hand on a hot summer day, I was unstoppable! There is nothing quite like a well maintained path to keep everything in order
and make our time here a pleasant one, but when we got to it, I noticed something missing from the picture. *The path was no longer there*

Through total neglect on my part due to outright laziness, there was now only a one foot opening which had at one time formed a long expansive tunnel. Even though I had not been back here for some time, I didn't think it would be as bad as this, so I neatly unsheathed a new pair of pruning shears from my back pocket and began the grueling task of trimming. "You should have brought the machete for me to use." Who knew?
Peter said only one more thing and that was it. "That, is going to be one royal pain in the ass." Through the swearing and tearing of flesh was this burden before me. I tried to ignore the thorns as they moved into place and wrapped around the very essence of my anger. Entangled in grief
and bleeding from several wounds, I continued to remain posturing in
my quest to prevail. Hooked into the pores of my skin like blades of
glass were these tiny intruders that neither gardener nor hungry insect
could ever masticate!

 After a fair amount of time elapsed, I managed to maneuver my way
through, ever so carefully clipping until finally, I reached the other side. When I was finished, I summoned for Peter, who was waiting patiently
some thirty feet away. As Peter drew near, he asked me how often I come back here to do this. I told him every two weeks in the summer. Any longer than that and it becomes a monotonous chore, I wind up hating. We sat down on two makeshift benches that I and my friend Paul made for the area from long lengths of timber and twine. We were most resourceful when it came down to making something from nothing.

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Four years ago, Paul and I labored in hacking a clean cut path through
the thorny brush before widening it into a crop circle. From nearby construction sites, we would harvest scraps of wood left in a heap for
the taking. This kept that which was underground from growing and if
not for our diligence, the whole area would still be amassed in thorns.
In doing so, we secured the land which to this day has not been
breached. The following year we would make the benches.

It was a sunny day in April of '81 when Paul came to my house carrying with him a small paper bag. What's in the brown bag, I ask. Lunch? "Never you mind what's in the bag there Sammy. Cool your jets
down and let me get situated."

As he plops himself into one of the wooden high back chairs neatly coordinated around the kitchen table, he begins talking about going about The Great Adventure Fiasco. "Let me tell ya, I got it all mapped out this time. You, John and Pete are gonna sleep over my house the night before we go this time, because last year you guys made me look like a fucking dummy! My old man was gonna drive us down there and now nobody feels like going. "What happened, they stiffed ya?" my father was sayin'.
I wasn't even gonna hang out with you idiots anymore after that." How many times do I have to apologize for this? "Dude, I don't want an apology; I want a friend who does what they say, that's it. Just tell me if you don't feel like going, don't outright lie to me like I'm the kid everyone spits on in school. Be honest. If you don't wanna go then say Paul listen, I really don't feel like going with you guys on the trip, that's it. I'm not gonna flip out like a fucking two year old and throw a temper tantrum. You can't!!! You have to go!!! You-said! ! ! Get the fuck outta here." Paul listen, I really don't feel like going with you guys on the trip. . . "Excuse me," he said with the straightest face I had ever seen! As I began to attempt repeating the sentence, I could not compose myself and immediately brought my lips into my mouth.

"Can't say it with a straight face, can ya scumbag!!!"
(Laughing) "You know who you look like right now?
Ole grannie farm-apples down the road!
"Muddya doin' summy," she says with her lips in her mouth like that!!!
I can never understand that woman when she talks to me!
She's even worse than old man Barton!!!"

Yeah but seriously, I'm not a hundred percent on going.
   
"Bullshit, you're going. I don't care if I gotta drag you and the other two scumbags by the ear! Ya hear me? We're all going and I don't wanna hear another negative word about it. . . "

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"I see what you're doing asshole!" (Now laughing heartily)
"You're trying to jangle my nerves, but it ain't gonna work.
And before we shoot outta-here you're filling that guttysack."

When my stepfather arrived in this country,
he brought a leather guttysack.
The only difference between a bota bag
and a porron is that the porron is made of glass.

We soon left for the field of Ah with a guttysack that looked like an enlarged liver. "Nothing but the finest Gallo red, Hubert!" said Paul while patting it gently and singing his own rendition of "Nobody home" from Pink Floyd's "The Wall" album. . . "I got a-bag-a bookbrush and a comb-brush, and laughing like he was about to pull the switch down on me in the electric chair. Then with those long marsupial arms extended out as far as they could go, he squirts a fine stream of wine into his mouth. The way it kept flowing toward the back of his throat without stopping and without swallowing made it seem like he was filling up a tall glass! No sooner do we get there, does he hand me the guttysack and I hand him in return, the little brown bag that I was forbidden to look in.

He then proceeds to take out what appeared to look like a small hockey puck and slowly proceeds to unscrew it. "How does it smell?" asked Paul, bringing it over to my nose. Upon smelling it, I said it smelled like spicy chemicals. "I'll give ya spicy chemicals, upside down, back-a-the-ear!
Dab into a little-a-this there Charlie-boy, and let's forget about them old chemicals," he said, laughing like a jester with that glint of true madness in his eyes! He then rolls his hands together in an impetuous fervor, as if he was trying to make fire with a stick. He then begins singing, "Just a pinch between the cheek and gum, it won't be long before the doc-tor comes!" He started laughing and I laughed louder! You're a nut man!!! I put a nice sized pinch under my lower lip, and it didn't even take a minute before it began to burn. "eh-eh," I said as I spit out a thousand dry flakes. What are you trying to do, give me cancer over here? "I'm with ya, man!" He then pulls out a clear plastic bag of Jolly Farms, long leaf chewing tobacco! Gonna try some, Charlie Cheswick, asked Paul, sounding like a out of control R.P. McMurphy? "It's awesome!" I think I'm gonna have to pass on that. "Aw-man, don't be a-douche bag, come on!" It looks like a sticky brown bag of plants. "Yeah, and what was it, you said chicken looked like again? That's right, a dead animal! You are a-penis!" Laughing in a mock tone at my expense again. All right, I said sounding most disgusted. I stuck my nose in the bag, and it smelled divine! I pulled out a nice sized clump that dangled down about two feet and looked like weeds that
had been soaking in molasses!

"Remember there Maximus you swaller, you gonna holler!"

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If you make me laugh, and I fucking choke to death, I ain't never doing this again! "You're right, he said clapping, you won't be!" I put the long leafs in my mouth, as I would have done with a heaping mouthful of spaghetti and began chewing. This is great, I said before spitting a thick, tarry blob that narrowly missed landing on my right foot. "Didn't I tell ya? Ain't that some shit!" He then proceeded to do the same. Without warning, a tiny drop of that heavenly nectar went down my throat, and it felt like
I had swallowed pure lye. I let out a scream like, I'd just been shot in
the throat with a nail gun and spit the rest of it out! "Don't you listen to anything I say? If you swaller, you gonna holler!!!" Strange days indeed,
I thought to myself quietly.

The sun was now streaming through the trees, casting its light directly upon our brows. I thought nothing of it as I walked around the inside of
its perimeter, snipping off vines and thorns, which had begun to grow out and into the sacred circle. All along its edges, thirty or more arms grew in, while I and my trusted pruning shears kept the brambles at bay. Peter was apricating in the warmth that the sunlight had given him, while I tended to the thorns, keeping them all times at a respectable distance. I didn't mind this encumbering task, for it always brought prosperity to a day that was so lacking of it. As I snipped the thorn strands and tried to avoid getting pricked by them, my mind left me to wander.

Another place of refuge in a land of inescapable people. Crazy kids,
flying around in cars. Honking horns and yelling loudly like savages! You can hear them babbling about conquests of women for it is the nature of the satyr to redefine infidelity; the key to unlocking their domain. All they want to do is drink and fight, then talk about drag racing and whose car is faster. There always seems to be some form of anger behind the grin, and that we could all do without. Who needs to be among such madness?
Surely not I.

That is why, when here amongst nature, one can find the serenity and peace much needed to transcend everyday living. There is nothing in a
tree to make one angry. There is nothing in a flower to make one swear, just an occasional calm soothing breeze blowing in from another town. Here, the echoes of life are stilled. From out of nowhere a noise could be heard coming over the horizon. As it entered the airspace directly above our heads, it looked like something had just flown out a history book! "Wow" said Peter, "that is a U.S. Army cargo plane." The massive giant had four old propellers spinning in unison to the sound of victory in the sky. We didn't know where it was going, or what it was doing up there
but it sure did look nice. It also left a wonderful impression on my mind!
One that would linger for weeks to come.

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