If you have any quality  absinthe poems or stories that you would like the world to see, please contact us. But please, no “I got so wasted on absinthe” stories.

 

Green Fairy Visions

Ode to Copulation

Ode to Green

Pool of Absinthe

Spring Soiree with Mr. X

 

I wrote this the day after the Ode Ritual. This drink was a macerate based on ouzo with a rather complex profile. Rick Miller and his peeps have been in the plant biz for forty-some-odd years. The only domestic macerate I’ve tasted that makes the cut.

 

I wrote this for the occasion of the Ode To Green Absinthe Ritual on Spring Solstice 2004.

The publisher gives permission to borrow any part of this work provided the borrower attaches the following tag to the text:
Scott S. Wilson a.k.a. Scotty Bones, freelance writer of mostly food and drink related material, hopes you enjoyed his work. See ScottyBones.com, TheWordMonster.com, and BackwoodsHipster.com for more.

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“Hey everybody, we’re heading up to the pool to eat dessert and swim”, Maggie shouted.

The band had finished playing and were nearly finished breaking down their equipment. The Middle Eastern rhythms had everyone feeling exotic. A person here or there would break out into a little belly dance while they waited for the band members.

The first part of the party thrown by Mel Jones had been enjoyable, with the grilled salmon and hors d’oeuvres of stuffed grape leaves, spanikopita and dried figs. Mel threw a party every year, first a picnic on the big lawn with live music for entertainment, and then a nude swim party that lasted until the wee hours of morning. People noshed on the good food and drank beer and wine as well. Then as it got dark, most people faded away and you saw headlights making their way along the narrow road that bisected the estate and led to the main road. Those in the mood hung around and partied at Mel’s grand house.

Auggie sat on a bench, full of food and beer. A small crowd hung around talking and laughing. The shaved headed drummer of the band approached and spotted a joint being passed around.

“Ah, smoky treats”, he cooed, and the little splif was quickly passed to him.

Out of the dark emerged the rear end of Dominick’s truck. He backed up to the keg of beer and a couple of guys hefted it in. Dominick got out and shook it.

“Not much left, but enough for tonight.”

Then he and Maggie hopped back into the cab and the guys in back sat down and they pulled out.

Someone said, “Let’s go up to Mel’s” and everyone stood and walked toward the big house.

Auggie liked the house. It looked like a big hunting lodge built in the Craftsman style, but with a split pitch roof that looked Japanese in style. The house was built at the top of a rise, so the pool deck and landscaped area behind it were on the slope and held in by thick retaining walls crafted out of imported Italian bricks. Mel said that they had to coax a retired mason to do the brickwork. He was the only one capable of executing the design. The mason had built the walls so that there wasn’t a straight line anywhere, except the top of the walls, which were perfectly level. Lines meandered and granite boulders punctuated sections of the walls, literally popping out of the wall, with the bricks veering to avoid them, and then regrouping on the other side of the rock. The patterns swirled throughout the walls and none were repeated and the variations in the colors of the bricks made it at once pleasing and confusing to look at.

The pool deck was made of square terracotta tiles, uniform in color and lighter than the walls. Every fifteen feet or so sat a large or medium sized pot with palm trees or bamboo or petunias cascading over the side. Built into the short walls that surrounded the pool deck were lights that illuminated the area without lighting it too much, perfect for late night parties. If you knew Mel, Auggie thought, that’s exactly what he had in mind.

 

Auggie and a small group of people approached the pool area from the main road. To get to the pool area, you first stepped up onto a large landing made of brick. This is where the world of brick began. A green statue of a thin yet buxom goddess of Hindu design greeted you there. Then the stairs ascended, flanked on each side by brick retaining walls that formed parts of beds landscaped with trees and shrubs. It was like going through a small mountain pass. You ascended and passed a stone tableau of another Hindu figure, set on a small landing halfway up the stairs, then you arrived on the pool deck and a few people were already frolicking in the water.

 

Dominick and crew were unloading the keg and Maggie was setting up a dessert table. Auggie walked over to them and set down his shoulder bag next to the table. In it were a few personal items, but mostly several bottles of absinthe.

 

"Hey Maggie, is there any ice up here?” Auggie asked.

Without looking up from her dessert arranging she said, “Yes, under the table in that ice chest.”

Auggie smiled and pulled four glasses from his shoulder bag and set them on the table. Enjoying a fine drink such as absinthe precluded swilling it from plastic beer cups and Auggie had not left this detail to chance. Then he removed a bottle and held it up toward a light on Mel’s back porch. The green liquid glowed softly and Auggie stared into its depths, analyzing the way the glass and light transformed its appearance. It was the same liquid, but at the same time, not the same. He sighed lightly and blinked slowly a couple of times, pondering the nugget of truth embodied by the antique emerald elixir in the smallish square bottle.

“Waddaya got there, chief?”

Auggie looked up. It was Dominick holding a cup of beer and grinning widely. He hadn’t really talked to Dominick all afternoon. He felt awkward under the effects of the beer and herb he’d been taking all afternoon.

Auggie used the voice of a conceited scholar. It was a voice that he and Dom used when they were joking around. The character was a pedantic, conceited dork that always referred to his brother’s experience as his authority on the subject.

“Why, it’s a beverage, an potion if you will, known widely as the Green Fairy.”

Then Dominick did the voice, “Ah yes, the Green Fairy. My brother once spoke of the Green Fairy.

“Yes, quite. Its allure has hypnotized many a pimp and poet throughout the centuries.”

“Indeed, my brother once told me of his search for the Green Fairy in the oldest quarters of gay Paree.”

Then Auggie reverted to his voice, “Would you like a glass, speaking of the Green Fairy?”

Dominick answered by patting his stomach and holding up his glass. Then he strolled over to a group of people sitting poolside on chaise lounges.

 

Taking a glass, then, and filling it with small ice cubes, Auggie poured the absinthe into the glass. Its licorice aroma pleased him, as much as his knowledge that it wasn’t only licorice, but fennel, anise, and star anise that mingled subtlely to give it the “licorice” smell. And again, leaving nothing to chance, he extracted a bottle of water from his bag. This he drizzled into the glass and watched as the two liquids mingled and swirled around. The drink slowly clouded up until it attained a yellowish emerald opalescence, which Auggie admired in the light. He tasted it and felt instantly its effects. It warmed him and gave him peace, with the knowledge that absinthe’s secrets were his, as dangerous as they were, yet his, a certainty in an uncertain world.

Auggie asked to the group if anyone would like an absinthe. Most people were eating dessert, a rich and chocolately looking creation, and declined. Two girls accepted the invitation. They were curious and asked questions as Auggie prepared their drinks. He had been researching and working with the drink for several months and felt slightly impatient with the beginners questions. But then he had been a beginner too, so he relaxed and answered their questions.

“What does absinthe do to you?”

"Well, the wormwood has a compound in it that does a few things in your brain. It’s sort of an upper. And some of the herbs in the blend are sedatives and nervines. Of course, you can’t forget the alcohol. What you get, essentially, is a speed ball in a glass.”

“How much should I take?”

Auggie laughed and said, “You should drink the whole glass. You won’t go crazy, I promise. You may feel slightly buzzed but you won’t cut off your ear.”

“Did you make it yourself?”

“Well, no. We have a guy up in B.C. that has a secure supply. We’re able to get as much as we want.”

 

He handed them each a glass and lifted one for himself. “To the Green Fairy”, he toasted.

Joining the group while sipping his cocktail, Auggie noticed that the grogginess he felt earlier from the beer had disappeared, replaced by a clarity and alertness induced by the absinthe. He recognized the effects of the herbs in the distillate. Yet sitting there, with everyone laughing and talking around him, he felt apart from the group, a sensation that he was being sucked upwards, then viewing the scene from above. Even when he was talking, he felt an echo that made it seem as if someone else were talking. It didn’t scare him, really, since he had known these sensations all his life. Only that he hadn’t noticed it so acutely for several years made him ponder and remember feeling like an outsider and apart from others. Yet he had adapted long ago, and once he had figured out that nobody else knew how he felt, or could detect this apartness by outward appearances, the feelings faded to the side, there like a perpetual limp or rheumatic finger, but not too annoying or unbearable. Yet now, the absinthe-induced clarity, in addition to the awkwardness with Dominick and Maggie, brought it all back. A light melancholy crept in like fog and settled in him. He walked to the table and poured another absinthe, which he took quickly. Then he slipped into the pool.

Soon, all the people were in the pool, except for a few who seemed to favor the hot tub. Like all of Mel Jones’ toys, it was well built, the interior surface being an aggregate of tiny colored stones, pleasing to look at and rather comfortable to sit on and lean against.

Soon a game erupted in the pool as someone threw a fluorescent blue toy into the pool and the others tried to snatch it. Auggie thought it was a funny game, with favorable odds that you might get a piece of person as you groped underwater for the toy. That the odds also favored getting a chunk of girl, since there were mostly girls, made him giggle. It seemed like such a transparent ploy to him. But it was enjoyable.

Auggie hadn’t swum for a long time and all the exertion in the pool tired him out. So he went to the hot tub to relax. A pleasant girl, woman really, with very large breasts, sat at the edge with her legs dangling in the steaming water. He sunk into the enveloping warmth and chatted with her. He squinted his eyes slightly and his entire field of vision filled with golden nebulae. He could see everything perfectly but when he squinted ever so slightly, a swirling gilded nebulae overlay filled the view. It was quite nice he thought. So he talked to the nude woman who appeared to float in this mar dorado and he felt at ease. 

 

When the heat of the tub became too much, Auggie got out and dove into the pool. It was exhilarating to strike the surface of the water then torpedo down into the depths. He did it a few more times until he got tired. Then he saw an inflated ball bobbing and took hold of it. He lay on his back and held the ball to his chest. It was a comfortable position and he could watch the antics of the others, running around and chasing each other, boobs bouncing and weenies swinging. What made it more interesting was that all he could hear was the gurgling of water and muffled voices, a fitting soundtrack for his state of mind.

 

He squinted and the gold swirls returned. Then if he looked straight up he could see, in the furthest reaches of his peripheral vision, shafts of golden light shooting into the sky. But if he turned his head or rolled his eyes to the side to attempt a better look the shafts disappeared. Squinting and looking straight up, Auggie floated in a lonely gilded reverie.

Commotion on the pool deck and hooting brought Auggie out of his solitude. Dominick was standing poolside with a red inflated tube around his waist. It had a fringe of small inflated semi-circles around it, like flower petals. When he spun the tube, the petals would rise up like when a girl spins in a dress. They would rise up and expose his genitals, to which everyone in the pool cheered. One girl, who was built like a lithe tomboy, though in her twenties, shouted “Again…again…again!” He obliged her and spun the toy again and again and again.

He drifted back into his pool of absinthe and looked at the full moon above. Shooting out above the moon were two shafts of silver light, with and angle of perhaps thirty degrees separating them. From the bottom of the orb shot another silver shaft, straight down, so it looked like a gigantic letter Y emitted from Earth’s satellite. Auggie looked away, then looked back. It was still there. He closed his eyes and shook his head, then opened his eyes. Still there. He squinted and the nebulae returned. The beams of gilded light were there too. Yet his mind felt clear. And he thought to himself that he was actually growing bored. If he were single he might try out with one of the randy girls. He had entertained the idea earlier. It seemed interesting and plausible, but he cast out the thoughts when he started pouring absinthe. Far too much alcohol in the blood to become aroused. His thoughts drifted, mind emptied, as he gazed up at his light show.

At some point, Auggie decided to gather his things together and go home. He was tiring, though the frolicking and splashing and hot tubbing showed no signs of abating.

 

He knew not what time it was, though he felt the wee hours before dawn approaching. He suddenly wanted to be in bed. For him, this party was not worth rising with the sun for, not worth being exhausted and looking like hell the next day for. So he got dressed and packed his bag of accoutrements. Dominick was trying to pick up the tomboy to throw her in the pool. She offered strong resistance and he set her down, naked, five feet in front of Auggie who eyed her without desire.

“Dude, you should try to throw her in”, Dominick recommended.

Auggie replied, “After what she did to you? I don’t want to get punched in the jaw.”

 

The girl said nothing. Auggie imagined for a moment picking her up and carrying her away to some couch or bed. She was a sinewy morsel indeed.

“Naw, she won’t do that to you. She’s a lamb.”

The girl sat listening but not looking at them. She said nothing.

“I’m outta here. I’ll see you guys later”, said Auggie, then he turned and left.

He drove home and was glad he lived where there were no cops. He got into bed and looked at the clock. 3:00 AM. He felt all right and knew he’d be in decent shape tomorrow, probably no hangover. He fell asleep quickly.

 

Auggie woke up at 8:00 o’clock. No matter what time he went to bed he always woke up fairly early. His wife was already up. He could smell her coffee downstairs. He rolled over to get up. He couldn’t move his right arm. It lay across his stomach but when he tried to move it an intense pain racked his shoulder. He tested its range of motion and the results were the same. Any movement at all in the shoulder brought the same burning sensation. He returned to laying on his back, with the arm across his body. He sighed.

“What the hell did I do to myself last night”, he wondered. The thing was, he hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary, except swim. He wasn’t worried though. It was strange. He couldn’t move his arm yet he didn’t feel any panic. Nothing to do but see what happens, he thought. So he closed his eyes and went back to sleep for a while.

End.

 

 

Auggie and Reg pulled up to the small white house of Mr. X. The lawn was trimmed neatly and a female Mallard duck waddled along the sidewalk in front. The house was on the dead-end spur of a street that ended at the river. In the driveway was parked a 1979 lime green Datsun 280Z with the license plate that read MAGICK. The two stepped out of the car and didn’t exactly stretch, but unfolded, as do those who arrive after some anticipation and relax when they reach their destination. They both grinned slightly, still chuckling from remembering how Mr. X. had pulled out a big sword the last time they visited and came close to Auggie’s head with it.

It was mid May, a lovely day scented with Cottonwood, and they could hear Mr. X’s voice booming through the open front door. Auggie went to the trunk of the car and pulled out a bag of food and an old aluminum ice chest full of cans of Tecate beer and limes. It was good beer to drink in hot weather because it didn’t sit heavily in the stomach. He was ready to crack a can right away, anticipating the cold soothing feeling of good old beer. They walked up the steps to the porch and leaned in the door. Mr. X’s large frame paced within the confines of the small front room office, talking loudly into the cordless receiver. He motioned them in with his head. They looked at each other and snickered as they passed between bookshelves filled with interesting heady volumes and piled high on top with science and conspiracy/UFO magazines. Most of them contained articles written by him. They passed through the dining area and into the small kitchen where Auggie set the bag of groceries on the counter and the cooler on the floor. He lifted the lid of the cooler and pulled out a beer for himself. Then he looked at Reg.

“Want one?”

Reg shook his head no. Mr. X. was finishing up his conversation and they listened.

“O.K. Jose, sounds good…No, don’t push yourself…Why don’t you come down tomorrow and we’ll go out to dinner with Elvira and Jake…What?…Oh, sure…just tell him we’ve got two truckloads of cones from Idaho set for next week…Yes, yes…can you provide six guys for the moss harvest?…O.K. great…O.K…See you tomorrow. Get some rest…Alright… Bye.”

He set the phone in its cradle and turned to us.

“That was my friend Jose. He and his brother do a lot of wildcrafting for me. They’re from Guatemala but everyone calls them the Mexican Mafia.”

“Why?”

 

Mr. X didn’t answer but segued directly into the next immediate inspiration.

 

“Have you seen my new website? It’s nutro-micro.com. We have a sterile conclave in Santa Cruz where we produce a hybrid Cordyceps mycelium inoculated with rattlesnake venom. We’ve got a throughput of twenty thousand pounds a month and I need people to get it into the stores. Reginald, how would you like to get it into the stores for us? It’s priced to move and we provide full tech support and we’ll help you close the deal. Wanna play?”

He chuckled his sinister chuckle, a guttural laugh that he seemed to use when he wanted to convey the clandestine/subversive/naughty nature of something. Usually it came after he dropped a weird line in conversation such as “I can build you a TLC (thin line chromatography) lab on the tailgate of your pick-up for two hundred dollars.” Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle. Or “I’ve been reprogramming my brain using holosync technology, but I think I’ve tapped the fifth dimension.” Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle. Any time we tried to delve deeper into one of his boggling pronouncements, he was already onto the next subject.

Mr. X. seemed very confident on his computer. He clicked through layers of lists and files to show us pictures of people and things and articles he had written. Reg and Auggie used computers in their work but they weren’t “heads” like Mr. X., who appeared to invest a part of his persona in his networked desktop trio of softly whirring machines.

Auggie was polishing off his first beer as he offered one to the host. Mr. X hesitated briefly, and then accepted.

"Sure I’ll have a beer. I don’t normally drink beer but it’s a special occasion.”

 

He lowered his voice in volume and raised it in pitch to a mellow, sincere tone.

“I want to thank you for coming over. It’s really nice of you. And it’s good for me to see some new faces. Sometimes I go for weeks without seeing anybody.”

That seemed implausible to Auggie, who returned with a beer and a wedge of lime for Mr. X. and a new beer for himself.  He had had enough of computers and suggested they go outside and sit at the picnic table and continue the conversation. Reg agreed readily. Mr. X acquiesced but seemed a little bit deflated that he had to leave his mouse and pad behind.

“You guys go ahead. I’ll be right out.”

 

Reg and Auggie exited the kitchen through the service porch and down three steps. The house was in an older neighborhood. Towering trees in the yard next door were pleasant to look at and lent an air of coolness, Auggie thought, though they cast no shade on the round, picnic table where they set up the snacks they had brought. The fences separating the yards were low, as they often were in old neighborhoods, before privacy was such a big deal. The lawn was green and well trimmed also and cooling to look at.

 

Reg popped open a beer and noshed on some bread and hummus spread that Auggie had made. Auggie said, “Toss me a beer” and Reg obliged. The cold bubbly felt good going down his throat and his head was feeling looser now, less worries and the afternoon sun seeming timeless in the eternal, hopeful spring. Mr. X joined them then and they all toasted to each other and the brilliant day.
    
Reg pulled a cutting board and knife from the bag along with tomatoes and a red onion and started slicing them. The low chain link gate separating the yard from the driveway swung open and Dominick and Maggie appeared. Auggie had told them that he and Reg were going to visit Mr. X and that they should come too, to check out Mr. X’s scene. It was certain to be interesting he told them. They said they didn’t doubt it. They had been guests at the absinthe party, or ritual as Mr. X insisted on calling it, that Auggie had hosted and Mr. X had led. Maggie had some reservations about going, mainly because Mr. X had seemed a little too interested in her at the absinthe fete, and had sent her a couple of pushy E-mails attempting to enlist her in his “absinthe project” as co-webmistress with his shotgun toting webmistress, one Mabeline who dwelt in San Antonio, Texas. However, she arrived with her laptop computer in hand, and Dominick carried a bag with more beer, tortilla chips, and a bottle of Absente, which was a brand of faux absinthe, being free of any wormwood, that he had bought at the liquor store as a curiosity. Auggie asked him if he wanted a Tecate and he declined opting for a bottled micro-brew, which he preferred for its hoppiness. So Auggie reached into the cooler and got himself a Tecate and squeezed in a wedge of lime.

Now Mr. X took note of their arrival and expressed himself with the same guttural affectation that he used for his sinister chuckle, which, it appeared, could be used to express anything of a clandestine/subversive/naughty nature.

 

“I see you brought your laptop with you. Good. Good. Mabeline is very excited to be collaborating with you on the absinthe project.”

Maggie’s face tightened slightly. Auggie approached her and told her not to worry, that they would ask Mr. X bluntly what he had in mind, and what Maggie’s compensation was to be for the work. Reg and Auggie had found that you could be very blunt and nearly insulting to Mr. X without him taking notice. What made him irritated though was when you didn’t pay attention when he was showing you things on his computer.

They continued arranging the snack display and chatting about the absinthe party. Dominick and Maggie hadn’t seen Mr. X since then. Reg and Auggie had been there once in between so they had a better feel for Mr. X and what he was all about. They had both expressed great interest and hope that they had rediscovered some lost savant floating in the backwater eddies of their town.

Reg would say, “Dude, what if he’s some kind of super genius, just hanging low in town and doing his mad scientist stuff.”

 

Then Auggie would add, “Well, remember he said he worked for Army in black ops? Maybe things got too heavy and he had to get out. That psychological double agent stuff can be stressful.”

They would carry on like this between visits to Mr. X. That was about the time they began to suspect that his repertoire was limited. The chuckle, chuckle chuckle bombs of profundity that he liked to drop began to recycle. Auggie was disappointed that his discovery of Mr. X wasn’t going to net them a super guru, but instead gave him a glimpse of what he might be like in twenty or twenty five years, a brilliant guy with a limited repertoire of tricks. Reg seemed willing to suspend disbelief. He said that they could probably still get a couple more good visits out of Mr. X before he had recycled everything. To give Mr. X due credit though, he had once showed Reg and Auggie several photo albums filled with articles documenting his life since high school and he had indeed been somewhat of a prodigy in science and physics. He showed them books he had written and many articles written about him and agriculture projects he had developed. Yet for all that, he couldn’t or wouldn’t engage them in the present. He could or would only expound on his achievements or about articles of his that had been published.

As Mr. X bellowed forth about a conference in New Zealand that he was to be keynote speaker at, Mog appeared in the yard wearing only a pair of cutoff shorts and a leather band tied around his forehead with a crystal attached to it, right in the middle of his forehead. He was bare-chested and wore for pants what looked to be a pair of cutoff lederhosen.  He seemed much more confident than the last time he had sheepishly appeared at Mr. X’s looking for work. But he’d had no vehicle and no money and he wouldn’t stay at the rescue mission because he didn’t like the religious b.s. that they made you listen to before giving you meals. Auggie spied a Miller Genuine Draft tallboy tucked into Mog’s back pocket and toasted him with a fresh Tecate he had just pulled from the ice. Mog pulled his beer out and toasted too. Mr. X adopted a soothing fatherly voice as he questioned Mog about his recent activities. Mog hadn’t been taking his meds. Mog had been drinking. Mog had been camping in the forest. Mog had a new truck. Reg and Auggie looked at each other and raised their eyebrows. Just a few weeks ago Mog had appeared at Mr. X’s when Reg and Auggie were visiting and Mr. X had appeared surprised and not too happy to see him.

“Mog, what a surprise. I haven’t seen you for, what, three years. How are you?”

 

The how are you sounded like it meant how messed up are you and Mog answered.

 

“Not too good.” He looked glassy eyed and Mr. X cut the conversation short.

 

“I’m sorry to hear that Mog, but I’m enjoying myself with some friends here and we’re in a good mood. I hate to be blunt to an old friend but I don’t have any money to lend you.”

“Oh, no I’m not looking for money. Do you have any work?”

“Well, I need five hundred pounds of salal. Do you have a truck?”

“No, I don’t have a ride right now.”

“Sorry, Mog I don’t have any work in town. I’ve got too many worries of my own. I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m being honest. You can sit with us if you don’t bring us down. Otherwise, I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

The soiree continued as Mog sat down with the group. Dominick loaded up a bowl of weed and passed it around. When it got to Mog, he looked at the bowl then looked at Mr. X, who made a disapproving face, so Mog passed it on. When it got to Mr. X however, he summoned the power of his lungs and roasted a hit that left a big cherry glowing in the glass bowl. He exhaled dramatically and in the same motion slid over on the bench next to Maggie where she was toying around with different absinthe logos on her laptop computer.

"Oh, you’re working on the bottle labels. Wonderful. Wonderful. Mabeline is very excited about the Tempe project and your Santa Barbara project. Absinthe is very hip in the underground transgender community right now. I think it would go over very well.”

 

Maggie asked him, “Soooo, what exactly is this project all about?” What she really wanted to know was how she was going to get paid.

Auggie took a draw off his third or fourth beer, then chimed in, “What she wants to know, X, is how much she’s going to get paid for this work, and who’s going to pay her?” He said it in a mock “all right buddy, listen here” tone, which amused him. Both he and Reg liked being blunt to Mr. X, mainly because it didn’t seem to phase him.

"Yes, yes. Of course. What we envision is you design the labels for the abisinthe.”

Mr. X slipped an extra “i” in when he pronounced absinthe.

He continued, “Then you and Mabeline can collaborate on the website and you’ll get a percentage of sales as commission. And I just have to tell you that Mabeline is very excited about this project.”

Reg, who was listening, spoke up, “So, Mr. X what did Mabeline say about how much it would cost to make up two hundred bottles of hooch?”

“I’m glad you asked Reginald. As I said, Mabeline is very excited about the project. She’s still working on the numbers. The biggest problem is finding a cheap source of Ouzo.”

Reg shot a glance at Auggie, who was listening, grinning, with a growing pile of Tecate cans arranged neatly next to his bench seat. This glance was the confirmation that X didn’t really know much about absinthe. At the Absinthe Ritual presided over by Mr. X the past spring equinox, he had been unclear and evasive answering questions about the mysterious drink. Since then, they had done a fair amount of reading on the subject and were as much authorities on the subject as anyone with a decent IQ and access to the Internet could be. Why then did Mr. X, the proverbial, magickal Dr. X, the self-described prodigal wonderboy of physics, the channeler of math, seem to have such an incomplete knowledge of the matter? The problem, as the glance acknowledged, was that real absinthe contained no Ouzo. If they needed Ouzo it meant that Mabeline was just doing an herb soak in the Greek spirit and not distilling the maceration as prescribed in real absinthe recipes. What this meant, what the glance also acknowledged, was that the Santa Barbara project was now a shaky proposition. Why would they risk such incriminations as interstate transport of controlled substances, liquor sales without a license, etc, to “turn on” the intelligentsia hipsterazzi of Santa Barbara to glorified Ouzo?

Reg continued asking questions, “So what’s your recipe? Or is it top secret?”

 

“We are taking thee, uh, Ouzo and adding Pernod, then finishing it with herbs such as coriander, cardamom and a few others. We’re still perfecting the recipe. Then we’re going to sell it on the Internet.” Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle.
   
“So, when are we going to party with Johnny Depp and take the limo to the Viper Club?”

Auggie added, “Yeah, we thought it would be cool to arrive and have you dressed up like a high level wizard and me and Reg will be your handlers. Like we’ll be wearing green crushed velvet tuxedos and stand on either side of you.”

Mr. X didn’t hear Auggie because he had turned to Maggie to tell her the Johnny Depp story, how he was tight with Johnny ever since he and Mabeline had supplied him absinthe on the set of a film (even though the film he mentioned was not a Depp film). And now he, Mr. X, had a standing invitation to be escorted to the Viper Club in a convertible limo, with Hell’s Angels as bodyguards, to turn LA onto absinthe.

 

Maggie had already heard the story from Auggie and they had wondered if it could be true, having at that time only begun hanging out with Mr. X. Now in X’s backyard, on a lovely May afternoon, Mr. X leaned toward Maggie, who wore Auggie’s baseball cap to block the sun while she tapped away at the little computer. In the bright light you could see vaporized spit fly from his mouth as he told her the Depp tale. She shrunk slightly away from him and smiled politely.

 

“Dude, Mr. X gives her the creeps.” Dominick leaned and whispered to Auggie. “She told me on the way here that the whole thing is kind of creepy. She thinks the whole website thing with Mabeline is strange.”

 

“At least it’s not boring”, Auggie replied as he finished a can then fished another out of the cooler.  He held a new can up to Dominick, who replied by holding up a nearly full bottle. Auggie opened the can and took a nice, cool chug.

 

Mr. X was full of energy and zipped around the table constantly, going in and out of the house, bringing things to show Maggie. It was kind of cute. First, he brought out a couple of books he had written, one on psychedelic plants and one in Hebrew that opened “backward” and read from right to left. He brought out old yet pristine price lists from the herb company, Beltane Herbs, which he had started in Seattle in the seventies. As soon as everyone looked at each item, Mr. X took them and ran back into the house to return them to safety. Reg and Auggie had seen this stuff on previous visits. But finally he brought out some stuff they hadn’t seen. There was a bundle of fringed deer hide, tied with a length of finely woven hide rope.

He laid it ceremoniously in front of Maggie and said, “Let’s see what we have in here.” Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle. Then he unrolled it. The outer layer was actually a long sleeved V-neck shirt made of deerskin. Inside it were, a headband of beadwork, a leather pouch with beadwork, a piece of salmon skin rolled up and wrapped in clear plastic wrap and a black rawhide whip. Each item had a story and he rattled them off quickly, such and such an Indian from such and such a tribe had made this one or that one. He told how he had been adopted into one tribe as a full warrior by running a gauntlet of warriors who swung heavy clubs at him, but he had practiced martial arts for years with a Chinese master, so he practically breezed through the swinging clubs with nary a scratch.

 

As he recounted his exploits, the gate swung open and into the yard glided a tall woman with long blonde hair hanging in front of her shoulders. Large, dark sunglasses, along with the hair, obscured her face as if she were in Kate Hepburn style seclusion. She wore hip hugging blue jeans, black leather boots and a black leather jacket. In her hand she bore a white envelope.

“Hello Devorah, come in and join us”, Mr. X shouted to her. Then he said to us, “That’s my ex-wife. She has men crawling all over her. In fact, she has six lovers right now.”

The woman called Devorah approached the table and Mr. X spoke again.

 

“Sit down and join us. These are some friends who are visiting.”

 

They all smiled and nodded to her.  Auggie and Reg knew her from her website, which was linked to Mr. X’s. The picture on her homepage was of her in a leopard skin mini-skirt and fishnet stockings, sitting on the ground with her legs pulled up in front of her. They thought of her as a hot chick in the around 60 category. She was deeply into metaphysics and the Kaballah.

Mr. X saw the envelope and asked, “What have you got there?”

She waved the envelope and replied, “X-files, man. It’s a letter from Ben Stillwater in Arizona.”

Mr. X explained to us, “Ben is a Native American. The Feds have him locked up in Arizona. Ben has the ability to communicate with low frequency entities and the Feds are upset with him because he won’t act as their translator. It’s some pretty heavy shit. In fact, if what he tells us is true, Earth is in for a big shake up.”

 

Auggie offered Devorah a beer. She declined.  He pulled one out of the ice for himself. The long afternoon was beginning to wane and the sun cast long shadows across the backyard.

Mr. X turned again and explained, “Devorah and Fred Mills and myself actually wrote the first screenplay for the X-Files. It wasn’t actually the X-Files, but the exact same concept, based on our work in the 70’s and 80’s in Army Intel. The stupids rejected it and the same year the X-Files came out on a different station. Go figure.”

Devorah nodded sadly as Mr. X told the story.

 

“Dominick asked her, “What kind of things do low frequency entities have to say?”

Before she could answer, Mr. X was telling the story of Devorah’s six lovers again. She nodded slightly and appeared a bit smug but offered nothing else to the story. Then he segued into the absinthe project again, to which Devorah perked up and showed interest. After all, it was her friend, the porn star Bobby Precious, who was behind the big transsexual extravaganza planned for Halloween in Tempe starring the underground diva of the New York scene, Djeneva, who Mr. X swore was a very dear friend of Devorah’s.
Devorah approached Maggie and looked at the screen of her laptop computer. Mr. X introduced Maggie as Mabeline’s collaborator on the website, to which Maggie bristled slightly again.

He said, “Devorah, Maggie here is working on the new label for our abisinthe.”  He always pronounced absinthe with an extra “i” in it. He rubbed his hands together and continued, “And these guys here want 200 bottles of Mabeline’s recipe. We shall introduce it to the underground queer scene in Tempe and then on to Santa Barbara!”

When Auggie and Reg had first arrived, Mr. X told them that Devorah would be coming over. He said that he was hatching a plan to win her back. If he could make $200,000 by the end of the year, he thought he could do it. Yet on this day, to Auggie at least, it seemed improbable. Mr. X, in shorts and t-shirt with skinny pale legs. Devorah in snug jeans and leather jacket. Mr. X with a ring of wild gray hair around his bald pate. Devorah with long blonde, albeit dyed, hair crowding her shoulders. Mr. X spewing high tech non sequiturs with blue eyes bulging. Devorah demurely pouring tidbits of strange scenarios from behind erstwhile Kate Hepburn sunglasses. Though she had penned an essay entitled I Married A Wizard, she wasn’t married to the wizard anymore. In fact, the wizard’s magic was fragile and with effort he used it to sway the admirers with him now. Auggie first, then Auggie and Reg, thought they had stumbled upon a real gem in their own town. But if he was or had been a gem, or could have been one, they weren’t sure anymore.

 

The guys however appeared to be digging her hot vampira persona. Reg and Auggie asked her questions about her art and her Jungian psychology sessions with Bobby Precious. Dominick passed another bowl around and Mog just ate, as does one who knows not when the next meal will be.

The conversation, which had evolved into a pattern of Mr. X roaring pronouncements with others attempting to comment or engage him, wore on. Auggie noticed that Mr. X didn’t listen to him at all. And he had arranged this soiree. Some thanks. When Maggie spoke, however, Mr. X breathed in each of her words and his voice sweetened. When Auggie and Reg were fishing another beer from the cooler, Auggie said, “We can’t bring Maggie over here anymore. X can barely keep his tongue in his mouth.”

 

Reg laughed and commented, “Yeah, did you see when he went over and picked that iris, then held it to his chest and sighed. Then he gave it to her.”

Suddenly, Devorah got up and said she had to go. Everyone seemed disappointed, especially Mr. X. He told us as she stood up that she was going to meet one of her lovers. She smiled, mouth closed, and offered no comment. Then she turned and was gone. Mr. X followed her out.

Dominick grabbed the whip from the table and said, “I can’t resist any longer. I gotta check this thing out.” So he went out onto the lawn and tried to crack it. The thing was at least fifteen feet long. He almost wrapped it around himself a couple of times. Then he got it to emit a weak snap.

“This is hard,” he lamented.

Mr. X returned and his eyes lit up when he saw Dominick with the whip. He zipped right over and plucked the black leather device from Dominick and began to swing it over his head.

“You’ve got…to get… the thing…moving”, he explained as he swung his arm, feet planted wide.

He was too close to the table and the whip whizzed over everyone’s heads. Dominick and Reg fell backwards off the bench they were on. Maggie gingerly lifted her laptop computer from the table and tiptoed quickly out of range. Auggie was next to the cooler, which was next to Mr. X. He ducked down, with fresh beer in hand, and backed away like people do around helicopters. Once they were out of the danger zone, they laughed and watched Mr. X, who was working up a little sweat. His eyes were partially rolled up in their sockets as he explained in broken sentences how to crack a whip.

“Once…you get…it going…you reverse…directions.”

Several times he got the thing whipping in a circle, but each attempt at cracking it failed. He did not seem deterred.

“My Indian…friends…in Washington…taught me…how to…crack this thing…really good.”

Hope and anticipation shone on his face for several more attempts as he talked and assured his guests that he just needed to warm up. But finally he got too tired and the whip fell limp to the ground. With it he was as useful as a pastor with a flock of dead sheep.

“I’m a bit out of practice, I guess, but you can really get this baby to sing man,” he intoned, still huffing from his workout. He put it on the table and sat down.

Reg picked it up and walked out to the middle of the lawn. He swung it around a few times and managed to snap himself on the chest.

Auggie laughed, “You must be kinky, dude, snapping your own nipples!”

 

Then Auggie finished his beer and took the whip.

Auggie finished his beer and took the whip. He carried on for a few more minutes then grew tired. It was getting dark quickly. Mr. X said he had to make a phone call at eight o’clock. The revelers gathered their things and filed through the small cottage onto the street. Mr. X thanked them all profusely and said he hoped they could do this again sometime.

“This is really good for me, these meetings. I spend so much time alone and on the phone that I get a little crazy,” he waxed in a soft voice.

Dominick and Maggie left together. Reg and Auggie put their stuff in the trunk of the car and got in, Auggie at the wheel. It was now dark. They laughed and recounted all the funny and interesting things that had happened that afternoon. As they got close to Reg’s house, Auggie felt his shirt pockets.

“Shit. I think I lost my wallet. Can you check the glove compartment for me, Reg.”

 

“Nope it’s not there.”

 

“It must have fallen out of my pocket when we were messing around with the whip. I’ll give him a call in the morning.”

He was still buzzed enough that he wasn’t too worried. He made a mental not to leave his wallet in the car next time.

“Dude, did you see his eyes when he started swinging the whip?”

 

“Yeah man, when he was talking big globs of spit were flying all over the place!”

     End.