Sky Man stood guard outside the front door of the café.
Beverly’s ex-boyfriend soon arrived in his pick-up truck. Shotgun in his hand, the burly ex approached. !e healer slowly raised his hands in the air, but the ri eman neither joined hands like Maria nor photographed him like Moses Dude.
“Outta my fuckin’ way, stranger.”
Sky Man looked him in the eye. “Look more closely. I’m no stranger.”
“You’re gonna pretend you’re from here, asshole?”
“I’m not the dead asshole I occupy, awright?”
“What kind of crazy shit are you runnin’ here?” !e ex aimed the ri e at Sky Man.
“I y through the sky when the healing call comes.”
!e ex’s nger clicked o$ the safety and tightened on the trigger. “Who the fuck put you up to this?”
“Your spirit guides. And you know why,” Sky Man assured him.
“I do?”
“Vengeful thoughts breed misery for many.”
Kirpal Gordon Round Earth, Open Sky
“And you’re here to do what?”
“To prevent you from doing a prison bid, cousin.”
“Ooh, you got that right! I’m gonna kill you and her.”
“Go right ahead! Kill away. If it makes you feel better, I die many times. Nuttin’ to it. I return through a hole in the sky. Presto!”
“Shut up with that stupid shit and move away from the door. You’re awfully scrawny. Don’t make me fuck you up.”
!e healer stood his ground, hands in the air, as the ex-boyfriend smashed the ri e butt against his jaw, pushed him to one side and walked into the cantina. But all the ri eman saw was a frightened short-order cook who ducked behind the counter.
Sky Man rose from the ground, spitting out a tooth.
!e burly ex reappeared and stepped into his space.
“Got some explainin’ to do now, you spooky freak show.”
“You’re plagued by a powerful but unreciprocated love for Beverly Hungry Moon.”
“So you do know my woman, you lying sack of shit.”
“I know what Mother Sonora teaches me: it’s not possible to possess a woman.”
“I can’t believe Beverly has taken up with the likes of your sorry berdache ass.”
“Are you crazy? Not with me! Beverly has taken up with the likes of heartache and woe, confusion and tears, pulling out hair. She knew she was in trouble when she stopped laughing. !e blame-shame-maim game wore her down.”
“So where is she?”
“Chilling out, putting the pieces back together little by little,” Sky Man o$ered in a con ding tone. But he sensed the angry ri eman was too engulfed in pride and pain to consider his counsel.
Listening to the ex-lover’s mental monologue, Sky Man spoke in the ex’s bass voice: “Since my one-time squaw ain’t givin’ me any, how will vengeance be served by my doing time for killing her brujo boyfriend?”
Hearing his thoughts spoken aloud in his voice stunned the linebackersized ex. Whatever this crazy curandero was running, he wanted none of it. !is time, when Sky Man put his hands up in the air, the ri eman mirrored the gesture. But instead of interlocking ngers, he slowly walked backward to his truck, then vanished as the dust slowly settled over the parking lot.
Wondering if this was the end of the ride with the driver and hoping the red-dressed woman was just up ahead, Sky Man walked in search of a bus depot.
Moses stepped out of the cantina.
!e desert was still hot and dry, but after an hour in the walk-in cooler with Beverly, everything sparkled. He wanted to thank the luftmensch for bringing them together.
So did Beverly. In the afterglow, she felt neither guarded nor regretful, but wilder and freer. Relieved that Moses knew what he was doing—a walkin refrigerator held certain limitations in the art of love, and he proved imaginative—she sensed it was something in her that had changed, thanks to Sky Man.
“What are you gonna do about your friend Hey-sus of the Lost Highway?”
Moses shrugged. “He does seem lost. As for his being my friend, he’s practically a stranger to me. Even his name is an enigma.”
“Wasn’t the original Hey-sus Jewish and an enigmatic gure? You being Jewish might be just what he needs.”
Moses chuckled. “!e old Jewish guilt trip, huh? What’s gotten into you about this cat?”
“You may see him as a con man, but I’m kind of in awe. I don’t know how he got the name Hey-sus, but he’s a bit like Jesus, or my version, at least, though I’m sure the church would dismiss him as a devil. I felt so free around him. He was seeing right through me with no judgment, encouraging me to let go of sorrows and fears. His nadleehi counsel was tuned in and formidable. He was dropping knowledge from spirit realms. I know his wardrobe, permanent eyes and goofy smirk might throw a hip New York artist like you o$ !at’s why your friendly guidance in our mundane world might go a long way for him. He still has one foot in the desert.”
Kirpal Gordon Round Earth, Open Sky
“Okay. What would you like me to do?”
“You said he seems lost. Why not look after him until he gures out where he is supposed to go?”
“Yeah, but that could be a long time,” Moses observed.
“Oh yeah? We could be standing here a long time too,” Beverly told him.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not going to say goodbye until you promise.”
Moses thought this over. “All right then,” he conceded, “I promise.”
Beverly put her long arms around him and craned her neck down, and he got up on his toes. !eir lips met.
Tramping along the highway, Sky Man contemplated his good fortune.
!e sun had not yet reached its zenith, and the day was already full of valuable interactions with humans. Unlike the picture-talk language, human rituals of communication were tricky, a game of hide and seek, a play of lure and snare. !ough they felt one thing in their hearts or sex organs, they often uttered the opposite thing with their tongues. Sky Man found that everything made more sense if he considered both possibilities when they spoke; that proved to be potent medicine. And he regarded his own speech as potent medicine, proven by the right words emerging unexpectedly from his mouth—words that caused the burly ex to put his hands up and step back.
Sky Man kissed his shell necklace and gave thanks to his sky people. He gured he must be learning words from the nourishment the humans served him. Language might be transmitted in the taste or the chewing-swallowingdigesting of the food. He reasoned that he had known nothing about human love desire until Maria fed him; then she made healing love with him and birthed in him human love desire. And he had not known anything about human love desire gone wrong until Beverly fed him and made healing love with Moses Dude while he counseled her ex-boyfriend. Sky Man felt assured that if he could continue to eat and taste and chew and swallow and digest, his understanding of this world of love and desire would grow.
Slowing his gait, Sky Man turned at the sound of a riding machine and put his whole hand out, more like a hello than a hitch-hike. !e approaching
silver sports car momentarily blinded him as the sun danced along its tinted windows. At the last possible moment, to avoid getting hit, Sky Man jumped o$ the road.
Despite his remarks to Beverly, Moses was not sure he wanted to nd his passenger.
Needing a gut check, he pulled out his cell phone.
“Max? It’s Moses.”
“You’re in jail over that lm, is that it?”
“I’m comin’ by with a copy,” Moses announced.
“!is is why you’re calling?”
“I’m comin’ by with a friend.”
“A friend? Is she there? Can you talk? Where are you and where are you going?”
“East of Ajo, headin’ to Hopi-land. I’m not traveling with a gal but a nadleehi.”
“A nadleehi?” Max sco$ed. “!is is the way you get laid now?”
“What can I say? My gal told me to look after him.”
“And when have you ever listened to a gal?”
“When his gal told me he was sent ‘to repair the tear in the world.’ Picture that. Quoting tikkun olam. Out in the middle of nowhere, awright? And she didn’t look Jewish. Nor does he.”
“Does the all-knowing love counselor have a name?”
“Hey-sus Christay.”
“Jesus Christ, Mo! !is is a joke, right? !is is why you call me?”
“Max, his eyes don’t blink.”
“What do you mean his eyes don’t blink? Where is his home?”
“He’s not from this world. You know Kabbalah.”
Max’s voice rose. “!at’s a reason to risk everything?”
“Stop with the ancient history, Max.”
Kirpal Gordon Round Earth, Open Sky
“If something should happen, you’re willing to go back to prison?”
“Why with the worry? !e guy reminds me of you, Max.”
“A whacked-out Navajo faygelah?”
“You just proved my point: whatever you think he is, he becomes. Presto! !e mind-reading Zelig is a love guide to Beverly, a tube-suck doctor to the cowlicked boy and a stigmata-bleeding Hey-sus lover man to the Mexican mama with the rosary beads.”
“And to you?”
“He’s the best subject I’ve ever had! I’m getting incredible stu$. It’s not just the desert—it’s like I’m capturing on lm the luftmensch’s crazy story. Why do you ask?”
“Because I wonder who’s the driver and who’s the passenger.”
“Hey, he’s right up ahead on the side of the highway.”
“Will you stop and get serious?”
“I will stop. And I am serious. And I’d like to thank you for this conversation. I was kind of hoping not to nd him, and now that I have found him, I’m glad.”
Sky Man watched the silver sports car dissolve into the waves of sun and blacktop.
He remembered how the blue riding machine had vanished earlier, only to reappear and pull up beside him. Later, he would wonder whether his remembrance had summoned the blue machine from the shimmers, but right now Sky Man got into the ride and closed the door. Once again, he was rolling down the road.
Moses picked up speed, then looked his passenger over.
“What have you been doing out here—dodging cars? You cut yourself pretty good on that knee. What happened to your face, man? Looks like you got hit in the mouth with a baseball bat. If you want to reduce that swelling, there’s ice.”
Sky Man opened the cooler, rolled ice cubes into his handkerchief and pressed it to his jaw.
“Anyway, dude, thanks for helping hook me up with Beverly.”
Sky Man noted the change in the driver’s voice.
“Did you enjoy her pussy on a silver platter?”
Moses wanted to object to the question, but he had been reliving that very moment when he had laid Beverly down on a large silver platter atop a table.
Moses smiled. “It got pretty hot in that cooler.”
Sky Man laughed and o$ered him water from his canteen.
Moses took a sip. “So how did you convince Beverly and Maria that I ought to look after you?”
“!ey gured it out on their own.”
“How come I don’t buy it like they do?”
“!ey don’t resist what is. !ey have open hearts.”
“And me?”
“You are hunted and haunted by fear.”
“Really? Name a fear, dude.”
“You fear that I killed a human in the desert.”
“Well, now that you mention it, yes.”
“Yet you have no evidence. !e blood you saw on my shirt was from wolf.”
“Like I say, it’s just a gut feeling.”
“Maybe it’s you I kill, Moses Dude.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because another fear hunts and haunts you: brown uniformed police o%cers, red-blue whirling lights, handcu$s.”
“Correct.”
“Okay. Pull o$ over here so I can get out.”
“What for?”
“Fear draws bad medicine.”
Moses rode on the shoulder of the road, stopped the car and thought
Kirpal Gordon Round Earth, Open Sky
things over. He granted that the two of them were both on their way home. Even though this loner knew no direction, he belonged somewhere. And even though he was disconnected from his past or future, the dude did have a tribe. Beverly was right: His ideas may be coming from another dimension of time and space, but he needed help navigating this dimension.
Moses felt the need to clear the air.
“A long time ago, in my wayward youth—” he began.
“—Arrest. Prison. Escape. Alias disguise,” Sky Man nished his thought.
!ose ve words told the driver’s whole story.
“I call you Moses Dude now or Shem Dude?”
Moses did not like where this was going. !e instant he loosened up and let his mind be read, boom: !e luftmensch was putting him in check. Moses Abitbol—the names were from his mother’s Sephardic side of the family— had replaced Shem Bogulawski, the paternal Ashkenazi name he had grown up, gone to school and then to prison with. Realizing that the mind-reader could blow his cover at any moment, Moses grew confrontational.
“Trying to put my game in check? How do you know my name, dude? What’s up?”
“Your ancestors talk. What does crying alone in the desert to a strange god mean?”
“It means I’m Jewish, awright?” Moses paused. “Got a problem with that?”
“I cry alone in the desert to a strange god and seek a hole in the sky. !en you show up.”
“!at’s just a uke.”
“Does the original Moses bring his people out of the desert and into the Promised Land?”
“Where are you going with this?”
“To the Promised Land, Moses Dude! You borrow your namesake’s mission and drive me to the hole-in-the-sky ceremony.”
“Oh yeah? How do we get there?”
“By practicing tikkun olam, repairing the tear in the world through right
action, seeking justice for all sentient beings, manifesting acts of healing and loving kindness.”
“!at’s crazy, dude.”
“But tikkun olam is who you are and why you picked me up. You saw the dead wolf on my shoulder and you seek justice for wolf.”
“!at’s another uke.”
“You mistook me for a poacher! You had just come from a conference on wolf.”
“Awright, you’re wearing me down. So what’s the point?”
“If you lead me to the Promised Land, Moses Dude, I must be Jewish, too.”
Moses thought this over. “Technically, to be Jewish, you must be born of a Jewish mother or o%cially convert. But metaphorically speaking, you are kind of Jewish.”
“And Hey-sus Christay? Jewish?”
“Yep. Been dead for over twenty centuries, but some say he’s still around. How about that?”
“Hey-sus Christay is an immortal! !e goyim eat his body and drink his blood?”
“Sort of.”
“Okay, no sweat. Now I know I’m with the right folks.”
Moses laughed at the luftmensch’s logic.
Sky Man smiled widely. As his tongue found the gap created by the exboyfriend’s ri e butt, he saw another door open in a hallway of memories. Inside a dentist’s o%ce, the young man whose body Sky Man was inhabiting sat in pain, his tooth throbbing, reading a magazine article that taught a visualization technique as an antidote to obsession:
Imagine you are on a beach with the lover with whom you are trying to end the relationship. You have golden ropes with lead weights at their ends. With these, you bind up the loved one. A large rowboat appears at the shore. You put your lover in the boat and row out to the deepest point in a great lake. Stand up in the boat and throw your lover’s body overboard! Know you are ridding yourself of
Kirpal Gordon the lover forever. Watch the body disappear as it sinks, forming a small whirlpool. !at’s all that’s left of what was causing you so much pain. Row the boat back to shore only when you are convinced that the body will never resurface.
Sky Man saw the hapless human trying to practice the technique. But the exercise kept taking the same disastrous turn: As streams of lightning lled the sky and struck the lake, the lovesick rower grew confused and threw his own body overboard. It had been his descent into the bottom of the lake that he sought. As his lungs lled up with water, his last words rang out: “Your love is killing me! Is that what you want? Why?”