Even though Rimbaud was dressed in a coarse black suit with the white shirt open at the neck and the jacket buttons as "pale as a calf’s eye", Keith Kumasen Abbott never saw him that way.
Rimbaud’s face was a blur, the hair dark brown and stiff. The hair was situated on the poet’s head as if it were an afterthought, just a thatch of brown hair plopped down like a dislodged clump of grass because maybe something had been lacking and someone got up off the couch and fixed the problem.
Keith’s own hair was thick and he liked to keep a comb on his desk so that he remembered to comb it whenever he paused between his writing or reading. Keith would sit back in his chair, thinking about the next thing and then interrupt his own thought by reaching his hand out to grasp the comb on his desk next to the typewriter. It sometimes startled him, he didn’t know how his mind paused midway to perform this trick and he never knew the exact point when his mind decided that it was time to comb his hair.
Keith was thinking a lot about Rimbaud while sitting in Lolly’s Chevy truck. It sure was a fine truck. Keith was happy that Persephone was letting him have a ride in a Chevy truck in the novel Routine Apparitions. Forget Tirzah Pyrestone’s Outback Oracle. This 1955 Chevy Cameo was much more promising. Keith had a flash premonition that a trip out to Buck Rogers’ Rimbaud Ranch was going to be a whammer of an evening.
In general Keith would look forward to anything related to Arthur Rimbaud and he was anticipating that Rimbaud might even appear again. Maybe just to Keith’s imagination, like the last time. But still, any chance to meet Rimbaud, was a chance worth taking.
Because even when Rimbaud wasn’t there, somehow the fuschias had seemed to be him, hanging there with their waxy purple and red and white petals, and peeling paper bark…..so whatever the state of the suit Rimbaud was wearing didn’t really matter.
It hadn’t been snowing for a couple of days. Lolly drove slowly out to the ranch in the late afternoon as the dark began to fall and the mountains grew even darker in the distance. The sky cleared and the stars began to shine. Lolly was dressed in his best shirt, a checotah southwestern print from Wrangler. Lolly had stopped in Longmont to fill up his tank. Keith had been hanging around the convenience store ever since Aunt Carmen had pulled into the gas station. Keith was hoping to catch sight of Rhino Ritz but a 1955 Cameo Chevy was maybe even better.
And then he’d overheard Lolly talk about the road out to Rimbaud Ranch with the gas station attendant. That cinched the deal. The zen monk decided to ride shotgun.
Lolly was oblivious to the ghost of Keith Kumasen Abbott. Lolly was sitting behind the wheel and thinking about what he was going to say to Gator. Which was ironic since Lolly was reading all of Keith’s missing manuscripts and notebooks, the very things that Rhino Ritz was investigating.
At the gate, Lolly leaned out the window and pressed the code in the panel.
“526-1629.” Keith noted. His old telephone number.
The gate opened and Lolly shifted back into gear. Lolly was listening to a sermon. The sermon was playing on a local radio station. “And that, my friends, was the word of faith by Minister John One,” the announcer said. “We now return to our musical selection. Here’s a little number to get the party started, called ‘The Martian Boogie’.”
Keith could have sworn that the driver turned a little pale at the title of the song. Lolly stopped the Chevy and rolled down the window. He peered up into the sky for a moment. Then he rolled the window back up, shaking his head. The driver hesitated to put the truck back in gear. Keith watched the man tap his hands on the wheel and, for a moment, Keith thought he’d have to walk the rest of the way to the ranch.
They sat still for a few minutes, the truck stalled on the road. Then something moved in the pond next to the road. At first Lolly didn’t notice the water demon rising out of the pond. Keith certainly noticed. Once Lolly saw the water demon, he shifted back into gear and pushed the gas pedal. Not too panicky, though, because he didn’t want the gravel to dent his truck.
A large basket sat in between Keith and Lolly. The basket was Lolly’s gift to Buck in return for the invitation to New Year’s Eve at Rimbaud Ranch. Lolly figured that the Colorado Vineyard Christmas basket was the right thing to give instead of some fancy brand gift basket on Amazon. Lolly didn’t know much about luxury goods but he did know a lot about Colorado.
When they got to the ranch house, Buck greeted them warmly. He stepped out the front door wearing a green and white Christmas cardigan and carrying a shotgun. Once Lolly and Keith were standing on the porch next to the front door, Buck stepped off the porch and shot off a couple of bullets.
“There’s things brewing out there tonight,” Buck said to Lolly.
Lolly nodded. “Been seeing any tracks?” he asked.
“That damn water demon leaves a trail like a Disney escargot.”
Lolly had heard about Disney and escargots. He hadn’t heard about the two together and he was having a hard time realizing that he might have seen a water demon. He liked it better to think he hadn’t seen a water demon so Buck’s statement unnerved Lolly for a moment.
“You don’t say,” Lolly said politely and stepped inside the house, holding his gift basket.
Keith was already standing at the window in the living room, overlooking the expanse of countryside that lay beyond under the stars and moon. He felt that someone was staring at him. Turning, he saw that Gator Matcha was seated on the leather sofa behind him.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know why,” Gator said to Keith, “but every time I tried to focus on your lost tablets, all I saw was Shirley.”
For a second Keith wondered who Shirley was and why Gator was looking for his pills.
Sipping on their alcohol free margaritas after the buffet dinner, Blessing and Mila waited for Emery to continue. “It gets even weirder,” Emery said. “When I asked Aunt Candace about this Keith Kumasen Abbott guy she got super excited. She said there could be a connection between Moses and this dude.”
“Like what?” Mila said skeptically. “You are talking about Moses, like in the Bible?”
“Yeah, Moses.” Emery said.
Blessing was thinking hard about this matter. “Do you think Moses is real?” she asked.
“I think Gator thinks Moses is real.” Emery said.
“Hold on,” Mila said. “Do you mean to say that you don’t believe in Moses?”
“Aunt Candace left the church and she still believes that Moses existed.” Emery said.
“That’s not,” Mila said, “what I asked, Miss Mormon-Goody-Two-Shoes.”
“Well, F. Scott Fitzgerald definitely existed.” Emery said.
“Don’t change the subject,” Mila said.
Emery flashed a smile. “So what do you, Miss Wanna-Be-a-P.I., think Moses, Keith Kumasen Abbott and F. Scott Fitzgerald have in common?”
“They’re all writers.”
Emery started. “Aunt Candace said that they are all here in Longmont at the moment. Some sort of energy force is driving them here.”
“Maybe,” Blessing said dreamily, “they’re chasing a story.”
#keithabbott #keithkumasenabbott #persephoneabbott #longmont #colorado #rhinoritz #zen #monterey #gator #matcha #moses #buckrogers #rimbaud #rhinoritz #chevy #truck #waterdemon Copyright Persephone Abbott All rights reserved. No part of this blog/publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means. No automated text and data mining is permitted.
Comments
Post a Comment