“The Motherhood goddess, fool! And she’s been anything but lame! Don’t you ever ponder your bent nose bone, your giant chin scar, and the tongue you drove so many teeth through you almost bit it off? You live in a motherhood blackness you’ve never explored with any love or skill. You maimed a bakery truck driver in that blackness. You shoplifted steaks, handed them to cops, nearly lost Roams to animal control, got the clap, nearly killed people, nearly killed yourself in that blackness.”

  “You can’t shame me with what I just confessed,” Jamey said weakly.

  “Then let’s shame you with this. You’ve left your mother lying in that blackness! All these years you’ve never tried to free her from it. Her death, for you, is all about you.”

  Jervis’s furious whisper shook Jamey to the core.

  “Here’s a strobe,” he said. “A direct gift from Ocean to you. This is rare, Jamey. She strobes that Hail Debbie, full of grace, is your lamp. She’s telling you to stop feeling how you felt, go down into blackness, and use your lamp to find out how Debbie felt. Say your Hail Debbies till her face and grace actually show up. Say them some more, until leukemia shows up. Say them as Debbie, full of grace, fights with all her might to get well, only to fail to get well. Say them as Jon brings you to visit her and she lies there helpless, wasting away in front of you, studying your slumped little shoulders and scared little face, seeing you’re afraid of her now because of the sickness she can’t help. Say your Hail Debbies as she dies on your birthday, unable to avoid that terrible timing. The fuck is all I’m saying, Jamey. I’m a pissant and fool, same as you. It’s Ocean strobing you to take a five-word lamp down into your mother darkness, and see and honor what you’ve never seen or honored. Who Debbie was. How good she was. What she had to give up and go through despite that goodness. It’s time to honor her love not just for you but for her own life, her friends, your dad, her full deep breaths, her once-beautiful body, long legs, and gorgeous ass halves going all coordinated down the sidewalk. Confession alone doesn’t touch this. It’s time for contrition and penance, and don’t even pretend to want absolution. That’s Ocean’s job, not ours. Your assigned work is to light a five-word lamp, climb down inside your black hole, hunt Debbie’s grace till you find it, and give it back to her. The fuck! How old are you, anyway? Hail Debbie, full of grace, no matter where or what she is now. Hail Debbie, full of grace, till your whole heart means it and she feels you meaning it. Hail Debbie, full of grace, Jamey. That’s all Ocean’s got for you today.”

  Jamey was so undone he couldn’t even nod to show he understood. But there was no need. Romeo, as he listened to Jervis and felt Jamey’s emotions in response, never once quit panting and nodding.

  “I walk dogs for a few friends,” Jervis said. “Closest thing I’ve got to a job. How about, while you seek Debbie’s grace, I walk Roams? I’ll wind us down to Étouffée Bruté by dark. When you and Debbie and Debbie’s grace have met, that’s where we’ll be. Okay?”

  Jamey stood frozen, recognizing the five-year-old inside himself, traumatized at the prospect of being abandoned. When he managed a nod, Jervis took the Nautilus in tow and trudged away. Romeo turned back and gave Jamey a questioning look. “Go,” Jamey said, and Roams happily followed Jervis and the land sub.

  Feeling a stricken urge to run after them, Jamey whispered, “The fuck. How old are you, anyway?” and managed to stand motionless until they rounded a corner two blocks away.

  JAMEY’S FIRST RECITATION was a raging failure. The instant he said, “Hail Debbie, full of grace,” he stopped cold. “Fucking ridiculous!” he snapped. “This I will not do!”

  But in a perfect Jervis impersonation, he added, “Said the Princeling to the Darkling. The fuck, Jamey. Light the lamp and do the damned heartwork.”

  He sighed. The first cold rain of autumn began to fall. Not dressed for it, he sighed again. “Okay. Okay, Jervis. Here goes.

  “Hail Debbie, full of grace,” he declaimed in his resonant actor’s baritone.

  You just turned prayer into performance, he imagined Jervis saying. Don’t act. Invoke! For once in your beslubbering fen-sucked life, find Debbie, and be with her!

  “Bossy, bossy. But dammit, you’re right. Okay. Maybe it’s as simple as…

  “Hail,” he said in time to a stride up the sidewalk; “Debbie,” he added on the next stride; “Full,” he said on the third; “Of grace,” he added with a fourth.

  Crapola! Why did it feel so awkward? One stride per word made each word feel like a bowling ball dropped on the sidewalk.

  How about a word timed to the first step, then two steps with no words, the Jervis voice suggested. Turn your prayer into a waltz and you could dance for her as you pray.

  “What an idea,” Jamey murmured. And with no further ado, away he whirled. “Hail” (two, three) “Debbie” (two, three) “full” (two, three) “of grace” (two, three), “Hail” (two, three) “Debbie” (two, three) “full” (two, three) “of grace” (two, three)…

  Yeah! Better! Coordinating steps and words and upping his heart rate and breathing removed his anxiety about not believing in prayer. He didn’t expect a thing. He just waltzed along until rhythm, words, and steps merged. “Hail” (two, three) “Debbie” (two, three) “full” (two, three) “of grace” (two, three)…

  Maybe five minutes in, though the rain was falling much harder, Jamey realized he was smiling. Yet as he waltzed his way down Thurman past commuters walking home from work, several of them greeted his chant with fierce scowls. Wondering why, he tried to see himself objectively—and burst out laughing. Hail Debbie? The scowlers, he realized, must be Catholics who thought he was so stupid he couldn’t get Mary’s name right!

  Ever the contrarian, and an excellent dancer as well, Jamey began to greet the scowlers by placing his arms round an invisible Debbie and flying past them, spinning her in time to his chant: “Hail” (two, three) “Debbie” (two, three) “full” (two, three) “of grace” (two, three), “Hail” (two, three) “Debbie” (two, three) “full” (two, three) “of grace” (two, three)…

  He waltzed across Vaughan Street and down into the industrial district, the pedestrians thinning, the rain a near downpour now, and as he spun his way along he found himself going blind to the city for a reason beyond hope: he began to see his mother more clearly than he had since he was five. “Hail” (two, three) “Debbie” (two, three) he kept breathing, till there she towered “full” (two, three) “of grace” (two, three) on tiptoe “Hail” (two, three) high above him “Debbie” (two, three), her body lithe in a pale blue dress dotted “full” (two, three) with hundreds of tiny red flowers “of grace” (two, three) as she peered “Hail” (two, three) into an enormous rose bush “Debbie” (two, three), then sent her long arms “full” (two, three) and slender hands “of grace” (two, three) into the bush, separating blossoms and leaves “Hail” (two, three) till her face “Debbie” (two, three) disappeared in the green cave, then emerged “full” (two, three) beaming like the very lamp “of grace” (two, three) he thought his prayer could never light “Hail” (two, three), her arms, hands, face, body “Debbie” (two, three), blue dress, tiny flowers “full” (two, three), then bent down to him “of grace” (two, three) with a smile “Hail” (two, three), clutched him under the arms “Debbie” (two, three), and swept him “full” (two, three) up into her face “of grace” (two, three), kissing him “Hail” (two, three) even as she pinned his arms “Debbie” (two, three) tight to his sides “full” (two, three), whispering, Thorns! “of grace” (two, three) as she clutched, lifted, and eased him “Hail” (two, three) into the green cave, Look! she whispered “Debbie” (two, three), and tucked among the thorns “full” (two, three) from which her grip “of grace” (two, three) protected him, Jamey saw the bird-thrown bowl “Hail” (two, three) in which five eggs glowed “Debbie” (two, three), the same pale blue “full” (two, three) as her dress “of grace” (two, three). Keeping his “Hail” (two, three) strides light and waltzing steady though his clothes had soaked through “Debbie” (two, three), but fighting emotion “full” (two, three), Jamey’s memory did a jump cut “of grace” (two, three). She was climbing “Hail” (two, three) from a car’s front seat now “Debbie” (two, three) as he watched “full” (two, three) from the back seat “of grace” (two, three) as her door closed “Hail” (two, three) and his opened. And as she “Debbie” (two, three) stood tall on the sidewalk “full” (two, three) a fierce wind “of grace” (two, three) blasted shoulder-length hair the color of backlit autumn grass “Hail” (two, three) and whipped it wildly against her face “Debbie” (two, three) till her trout-quick hand captured it “full” (two, three) and held it tight to her cheek “of grace” (two, three). Then—somewhere north of Vaughan Street, Northwest Portland, October of ’97—thirty-four years vanished as a thirty-nine-year-old five-year-old waltzed brokenly past unseen buildings “Hail” (two, three), blinded by the beauty of the smile she “Debbie” (two, three) gave him as she bent down to offer him her left hand “full” (two, three) as her right still held her hair “of grace” (two, three) in check. But as he steadied “Hail” (two, three) on the sidewalk, her right hand “Debbie” (two, three) willingly left her cheek “full” (two, three) so her autumn-yellow hair “of grace” (two, three) again whipped her face fiercely “Hail” (two, three), and she smiled even so “Debbie” (two, three) because she’d freed the backs of the two fingers “full” (two, three) that now glided softly along her thirty-nine-year-old’s cheek “of grace” (two, three), causing Jamey to stop waltzing,

  stop chanting,

  close his eyes,

  touch his cheek,

  and stand crushed,

  by purest gratitude,

  steeping in the presence of the very love with which she loved him.

  IX. Grady at Elevation 40 Feet

  (Portland, September 1997)

  High El Grady’s thesis:

  Corruption never has been compulsory. When the cities lie at the monster’s feet there are left the mountains.

  —Robinson Jeffers, “Shine, Perishing Republic”

  Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.

  —Psalms 61:2

  Low El Grady’s antithesis:

  Sudden loss of altitude is the main clue to my veering moods.

  A change is taking place, some painful growth, as in a snake

  during the shedding of its skin—dull, irritable, without

  appetite, dragging about the stale shreds of a former life.

  —Peter Matthiessen, Nine-Hearted Dragon River

  At twenty our bodies start to go to pieces.

  We were built to go downhill and not to climb.

  —James Ensor

  From the City Journals of Low-Elevation Grady Haynes:

  It is 1997, and the American people are loaded, and the American people are lost. It is 1997 and the iconic New York author Norman Mailer is so lost he’s just published a book purporting to be the memoirs of Jesus Christ. It is 1997 and America’s 101st senator, Tony Blair, is so lost he’s living in the prime minister’s house in London. It is 1997 and Vice President Al Gore is so lost he’s wandered off to China, and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is so lost he’s jetted off to China to prove he’s more importantly lost than the damn fool liberal Gore.

  It is 1997 and America’s Oz the Great and Powerful is Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, American Beat poet Allen Ginsberg has just died, and the RMS Titanic has sunk for the second time, this time taking out Leonardo DiCaprio, breaking Kate Winslet’s heart. It is 1997 and a syndicated astrologer, seeing exciting connections here, publishes a column in over a hundred Rupert Murdoch–lobotomized US newspapers dubbed GINSBERG, GREENSPAN & DICAPRIO ALL BORN UNDER SAME SUN SIGN! It is 1997 and the Gallup Corporation has stepped in, probed the sun-sign claim, and determined that Alan, Allen, and Leo were born in March, June, and November, respectively. But it is 1997, so Murdoch and all his papers stand by their astrologer, refusing to retract the sun-sign claim, causing Gallup to take aim at Murdoch’s Disinformation Empire with a hard-hitting public opinion poll. Among the findings: 69 percent of US women under the age of forty find the Titanic’s second sinking “way more tragic” than the first, 78 percent of Americans have never heard of Ginsberg or Greenspan, and 23 percent of Americans identify Alan and Allen on the Gallup questionnaire by checking the box that reads: “balding, sexually ambiguous, aging, or possibly dead Jewish poet/financier with oversized black glasses.” It is 1997 and America’s gender-ambiguous, arguably defunct Federal Reserve Chairman Alanis Grinspleen is so troubled by the poll’s potentially deleterious effect upon the US dollar that he/she calls a meeting of the Reserve Board, wheels and deals behind closed doors, calls an international press conference, and the entire free market world listens with bated breath as Gurnsprain announces:

  I have seen the best financial minds of my generation destroyed

  by dot-com derivative junk-hedged hostile-mergered madness,

  dragging themselves shrivel-cocked down Wall Street at dawn—

  ambition-stoked MBAs who goose-stepped through grad school

  thrilling to the tactics of free market warfare, masturbating

  ecstatic at the jimmied back entrances to the Lotteries of Liquidity,

  hollow-eyed high on cathode glow, burning for Cuban ’gars and

  single-malted secretaries splay-leggèd in their boardroom backrooms,

  slathering rabid for the inside offshore Senate-vetted fix,

  weirdwired sleepless on speculation-pubed bank-balled

  yackety yack, I’m retiring at thirty to the Ronald Reagan Golf, Yacht, and

  Jellybean Ranch! Hasta la vista, baby, to the SEC-suckered cowards of

  finance!—INCINERATED INSTEAD IN A MOLOCH AVENUE

  NIGHTMARE! manacled to slave-rat cubicles for eighty-hour

  workweeks screaming, Buy!No!Sell!No!Buy!, shit-spraying their

  outsourced toilets, tension-puking in the security-cammed stair-

  wells, bleeding down the pant legs of their data-breached, melted-

  mortgaged Goldman Sachs suits,

  meat

  for the Corporate Machine,

  cast down on pavement,

  “So I have decided,” Goonspawn concludes, “to lower the Fed another point.”

  IT IS 1997 AND Datalyrick VP Grady Haynes is so lost he has split in two. He now comes in alienated high and low elevation versions of himself, and the drivel he’s writing here is as close as he’s come to carrying the mountains down out of the mountains as the Informant advised. It is 1997 and High El Grady is so enamored of the human-shaped phantasms he glimpses on high Elkmoon ridges during his prolonged near-death experiences on the High-Elevation Purification Loop that he’s decided low elevation is the root of all evil. It is 1997 and Low El Grady, meanwhile, is sitting in the upstairs drawing room of his Sacajawea Village Luxury Townhouse on the banks of Portland’s Willamette River (elev. 40) thinking, For nine straight summers the high-altitude fascist who shares my body has squandered every fucking vacation of our life. Hoping to nix the coming summer’s death march, Low El affably remarks to High El that he’s decided to get back into Buddhism, So what say we go on a not-too-rigorous Buddhist retreat this summer instead of the usual mountainy masochist thing?

  It is 1997 as High El growls, When were you ever into Buddhism in the first place?

  It is 1997 as Low El drags his legs into a painful half lotus and groans, I’ve studied plenty of Buddhist sages.

  Name one, hisses High El. No wait! Quote one.

  Chögyam Trungpa, Low El replies. Quote: Everybody loves something, even if it’s only tortillas.

  Elkmoons! High El groans to his distant mountains. Help me lose this buffoon!

  It is 1997 and Grady’s salt-of-the-earth kid brother, Rafer, and Rafer’s troublingly luscious wife, Lynn, have driven down to Portland from culture-starved Pendleton, Oregon, to enjoy their biannual “romantic city weekend” while kindly Low El overnight-babysits their four-and-a-half-year-old son and three-year-old daughter, Hugo and Hallie. Or is it Corky and Kiley? Bugler and Riley? What’s more, babysitting Bugler and Riley has been surprisingly tolerable this evening thanks to a gift from Rafer: a Missoula, Montana, rye hooch that spent two years toiling, troubling, and bubbling in a pot still and aging in charred oak casks before it was bottled and most excellently christened Bad Buddhist Whiskey, awakening in me both the aforementioned desire to get back into Buddhism and the means by which to do it! It is 1997 and the view out my picture windows, the Bad Buddhist elixir, and the sight of the kids falling to sleep on my drawing-room hide-a-bed have inspired both a sincere prayer (Buddha! Please don’t let them pee the bed!) and my first Buddhist poem. Look, High El!

  The goddamned moon shimmers on the

  goddamned river. A goddamned breeze stirs

  the goddamned trees. What is there to

  yearn for this boundless goddamned

  evening? Rejecting the usual carefully

  cultivated illusions since I can’t get my

  hands on any, my babysitting duties and

  reborn love for the dharma cutting off

  the Portland house of cards completely,

  I turn from the goddamned thief skulking

  across the moonlit condo lawn to my

  sweetly sleeping niece and nephew and

  ask, What’s the goddamned difference?

  It is 1997 and High El is roaring, Do you know how a Lûmi destroys his illusory self, funny man!? On the High-Elevation Purification Loop he ascends and descends and reascends so many peaks and valleys in succession that he hikes that dirtball not to death, which would allow the lower self to reincarnate, but to extinction! And when we reach the Elkmoons next summer that’s exactly what I’ll do to YOU!

  Oy vey, dear reader. It is 1997 and I, Low El Grady, am harmlessly funning with a little free verse and Buddhistic booze while altruistically babysitting my kid brother and luscious Lynn’s kids, whose names, by the by, I know perfectly well to be Hugo and Hallie, but who fall over laughing when I call them Corky and Kiley, so they themselves made up the names Bugler and Riley. But easygoing humor so horrifies thin-lipped grim-browed High El that, when summer arrives and I’m dying for the Scandinavian or Caribbean vacation my fun-loving nature and material successes deserve, my same-body doppelgänger will drag me off on another month-long assault on his mountains in an attempt to annihilate his fun-loving better half for all eternity!