Tirzah Pyrestone was meeting her old friend Gator Matcha at the Texas Roadhouse just inside the Longmont city limits to discuss their follow-up project called The Direct Road to the Nearest Neighborhood, How to Reach Your Inner Artistic Spirit. Simon & Schuster was mildly interested. Tirzah had driven up from Boulder in her Outback Subaru that had a decal across both sides exclaiming “Outback Oracle”. It was her side hustle. She dabbled in Uber.
“Perhaps,” Gator said, looking out at the geyser blue Outback Oracle in the parking lot and hearing his agent’s words about this particular collaboration ringing in his head, “you might consider helping me prepare the lecture material for the book promos. I would really appreciate a PowerPoint, just a draft would do. Maybe you could even use a break from the driving routine, for instance. Time to reflect,” he suggested.
“I appreciate your concern for me, Gator. But as you well know, due to these tragic and catastrophic days on this planet, I happen to be one of the ones who is called to guide those in dire need of transportative meditation sessions. Our collective grief is everywhere,” snapped Tirzah.
Tirzah had no time to entertain Gator’s ideas about honing his own professional image. She had a mortgage to pay, connections to make and enough energy to churn up caldrons of unrealized crypto-genetic trauma across five counties. She also had a trunk full of books which she sold on the side during her Uber hours. Tirzah was remarkably successful at off loading copies of her book Under the Earth, the Grip of the Thriving Potato to women. It was a partial memoir. But when her passenger happened to be a man she tended to push copies of her CD entitled Ashy Bonfire Memories which was a collection of “zone out” meditative tracks. Besides, it was her idea to transform Gator’s initial concept by rejuvenating the ghost theme for their new book and, it therefore seemed to her, the whole project was her original idea that Gator’s agent was trying to sell to Simon & Schuster. Why should she be the one to make the Powerpoint?
Gator looked tired but then he never looked anything other than tired. Even when he was in his early twenties, he had appeared exhausted. It had not gone unnoticed. No one had ever expected much of Gator to come up to the surface. Now, like Tirzah, he was on the verge of turning seventy. In true form Gator peered morosely across the restaurant. He didn’t often react, it could have been all those decades working as a therapist to drug addicts. Then again, he was also regularly partaking of his stash of potentially therapeutic drugs, as a demonstration to the healing powers of his own decades long research program on reversing trauma, and this routine had definitely dulled his senses. However, Gator was wrinkling his brow enough to alert Tirzah that he was witnessing something. “That man,” Gator said in his hoarse sounding voice that always sounded hoarse, “he looks like F. Scott Fitzgerald. Not the young one, the old one.”
Tirzah whipped her head around. Looking out from under the fringe of her blond wig, she saw not one single soul sitting in the direction of Gator’s gaze. “What are you saying, Gator?”
“He’s dressed.” When Gator talked barely any of the syllables coming out of his mouth had any voiced tones so Gator always sounded neither surprised nor disappointed. “Like back in the day, you know, with the vest and tie, and he’s come to me.” Gator, fixated on his vision, appeared to be in a trance. “Rudolf nose….”
They were interrupted. “Ok, I gotcha your two iced absinthe matchas topped with maple syrup cream and crushed spicy candy cane. Double shots of booze.” the waitress with the bountiful chest said, setting down their specialty drinks. “Are you guys ready for some food?”
“Who ordered these?” Gator asked, looking down at the drinks.
Mila was picking up the receipts. Her aunt worked as a manager at the Texas Roadhouse and prepared the books for A2Z Motor Care, mainly as a favor.
“Listen, tell your father, I won’t have time for this anymore,” Carmen said as she handed Mila the shoebox. “I probably can finish off this year but next year is too much.”
“Why don’t you teach me, tía?” Mila suggested.
“You have time? What about school?”
“So how much time will it take to learn?” Mila said.
“This is bookkeeping. You have to be accurate.” Carmen said carefully.
“What if I bring a friend and we both learn it? My girl Blessing is really into numbers and good at details.We can help each other.”
Carmen looked at Mila. She had already talked to her niece about budgeting and wanted Mila to have enough skills to stand on her own two feet. After all, there was Juanito. Mila had certainly learned her lesson the hard way about trusting people, but she was proving herself to be a good mother. True, Carmen reflected, Mila had stopped hanging around the people she used to hang with and was growing up fast. Soon Mila would be sixteen and basically the work Carmen did for A2Z Motor Care was a sequel to budgeting. Money in and money out, checking receipts and invoices. “You trust Blessing?”
“Hundred percent. How much time will it take to learn?”
Carmen shrugged. “It’s just a software program but you need to understand the consequences when you enter data. And that takes time.”
“But papa’s accountant checks it, right?”
“Right. You don’t need to handle the tax part but you don’t want to make mistakes.” Carmen hesitated. Then she smiled, “Mi hija, let’s try it. We can at least give it a shot during your school break. I am taking some days off work here. You promise to come? Sandra can watch Juanito. You know I don’t like to waste my time.”
Mila confirmed the dates her aunt mentioned and said she’d double check with Blessing. She turned as she held the box of receipts and watched two elderly people argue at a table in an empty area of the restaurant. They were thin and anxious looking people wearing unattractice khaki green clothing.
“There’s no one there!” the woman in the blond wig said loudly. “You have got to stop taking that stuff everyday! You are hallucinating!”
The buxom waitress came up to pick up an order at the counter where Carmen and Mila were standing.
“Are they alright?” Carmen asked. “Should I go over and talk to them?”
“He says F. Scott Fitzgerald ordered their drinks,” the waitress said. “So, I don’t know.”
Mila was fifteen pages short of finishing The Great Gatsby for her English class and was due to write a book report before the end of the semester. “That dude’s alive? He must be ancient.” Mila didn’t really see the point in wasting her time reading The Great Gatsby. She’d much rather learn bookkeeping.
“Maybe it’s his ghost.” Carmen joked.
Keith Abbott spent the morning at the Longmont Public Library. He got there well before nine and waited outside the front door for five minutes. Then he realized that he was dead and he could walk right in day or night. It hadn’t occurred to him that he could break his usual routine. He had always liked to go to bed early and wake up early. He walked past the Friends of the Longmont Library Bookstore in the lobby and into the reading room. He took off his wool hat and unwrapped the shawl from his shoulders. He was wearing his white woolen kimono over his white Shetland sweater. Keith caught his reflection in the mirror. His hair was snow white and growing. It was longer than he had ever seen it. Even longer than Allen Ginsberg’s longest hairstyle, and Allen had been extremely hairy.
Keith missed his students at Naropa. He thought about taking the bus down to Boulder to visit the campus. Of course, his students had long gone. It had been years. Sighing a little, Keith typed "Rhino Ritz" into the computer in front of him. Nothing came up. The Longmont Public Library didn’t even have a copy of his book in the collection.
He eventually found access to Google Chrome. He entered “where is Rhino Ritz?” into the web search function. A chat box flipped up on the screen.
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