Finding Trippy Taka

Finding Trippy Taka

                                                   1978                                                  David Barry Temple

     He smoked joints, not cigarettes, down Route #5 to San Diego. Long and graceful horizontal shafts of lines, gas and bathroom facilities every so often. As it carried him away, it dragged his energy down. He needed to recharge. The beep-beep was a never ending white slash on the road; language of an inaccessible civilization; chatter of a mad man who always pointed forward.

     He could hear two noises: the hum of the motor, and the buzz of the tires on the road. His eyes saw shades of black and white dots in the night sky. The oscillating ringing in his ears followed as the rev of the motor ran slower, lower, changing its pitch. His ears unclogged, his eyes began to focus. He remembered San Diego and it was no longer a trip to the moon.

He didn’t have Rim Poche’s address but he remembered his neighborhood and found a telephone booth only a few streets from his home in Old Town. With address in hand, he walked through the streets searching for his old friend and naval buddy; a drinking companion in Nam.

    Pa Trung flew around in circles hoping for some mid-air confrontation with soot, dust, and any insects in his path; they crashed into his body causing ripples in the river of his mind. He felt the concussion and its subsequent ebbing. He rolled through it into the last sensation until there was no more.

     The last time Pa Trung had seen Rim Poche, they were both interested in the esoteric lore of Nyingma-pa Buddhism of Tibet. Pa Trung had stopped eating or drinking for seven days after he bumped into Trippy Taka, their spiritual adviser ever since the day the three had met at a meditation retreat in the Big Sur Valley. It was Trippy Taka who said:

“You must flood the body in a crystal stream and never surface. Your soul,” he continued in his holy monotone, “is in the third wash cycle; centrifuge whipping out all the residue and sudsy waste. Send it splashing off the rim of your flesh; have yourself clean and at peace.”

     Seven years had changed nothing in Pa Trung’s relationship with Rim Poche; the two had grown up together.

Trippy Taka had been like their big brother, but they lost touch with him when Pa Trung and Rim Poche were drafted; Trippy Taka had gotten a deferment to stay home with his single mom; and he was afraid of pain. Now, seven years later, Pa was on a mission to rescue Trippy Taka. He heard Trippy Taka had strayed.

     To the streets of San Diego he returned, looking to meet his old friend, Rim Poche, who was also his buddy, in the same outfit, during the Vietnam War. It was to find Trippy Taka and complete the trinity.

When he found Rim Poche, he would tease him: “What will it be for the whistle, old buddy?”

     He thought he could find Rin Poche’s pad with his eyes closed after having been there hundreds of times, stoned and stoner still, years before their lottery numbers came up.

     The city had repainted their buses a brilliant blue, but the bus route was the same. Pa Trung didn’t want to get there until noon; when Rim Poche was accustomed to getting up. He didn’t want to startle him out of one of his infamous foggy stupors; it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary. He only hoped to catch Rim in a sober state

     Pa Trung had been cleansed since then, perhaps too cleansed to meet with Rim Poche again who undoubtedly, would be his same old self. The pressure in his legs from the wound he suffered in Da Nang was almost unbearable as he walked from the downtown bus stop to the old peeling rancho door. He stopped along the way to rest until the shooing pain of the phlebitis receded. He rang the doorbell on the stucco wall near the door of the estancias. There was no answer.

 Rim Poche’s parents had left him with the old place when they passed away; he was overseas at the time of the car accident. He was allowed to go home to a duel funeral and an empty house. The door was open; Pa Trung went in.

     Pa Trung had kept the feeling he had on the day he made his breakthrough with his guru. Out of the bright San Diego sun, the darkness in the hall through the house leading to the back door, past the living room, two bedrooms, a bathroom, and past the kitchen, had shrunk. The way was longer and the door seemed smaller. How Rim could fit through the door was a wonder to him.

      Pa whispered this to himself and listened to the tone in the shrunken hallway, its resonance somewhat removed and not as smooth. Pa stood at the doorway as the back door swung open almost by itself.

     Rim wasn’t standing there so Pa tentatively walked out into the backyard, a paradise with flower beds around the perimeter, and a stone path through a lush lawn leading to a palm tree overhanging a small wading pool, all in an area the size of a tennis court. By the poolside, he saw Rim Poche reclined, eyes closed, on a beach chair.

     “It seems longer than it used to be,” Pa Trung thought. Rim Poche didn’t move. The bright San Diego sun dappled him. A beer can was in his right hand draped over the chair. He slowly twisted his body and looked up.

     “Well, what the hell do we have here?” Rim sounded excited yet only his jaw moved. Pa thought he looked drunk; he had seen him like that hundreds of times. Rim Poche swung his legs over the side of the chair. “Definitely drunk,” Pa thought.

     Rim Poche sat motionless and eyed a leaner, younger looking Pa Trung.

     “Where the hell’ve you been, in jail or something? Hey boy, you look like leeches have been sucking you while you sleep; in your sleep, of course. I mean no leech could get close to my Pa while he’s awake!”

     “Not in jail, Rim,” Pa said, moving closer to his friend, as if revealing a guarded secret. “Removed from the mainstream but not in jail; I needed to lose weight in order to live.”

     “You’ve got stomach problems? Maybe you’ve got a tapeworm.”

     “No, man; you’re not getting my drift,” Pa said, hands dipped deep into his pant pockets.

     Pa straightened the back of his chair. “I understand things pretty well. You’ve got some dreadful disease, haven’t you; yellow eyes, pale…you’ve been hospitalized, haven’t you? You look like you need a massage.”

     Just then, Pa Trung’s sight went dark as two soft hands cupped them from behind.

     “Who could this be?” The hands dropped from his eyes. He spun around. There, a smiling, tall, long-haired blonde stood, completely nude. Pa’s mind passed through changes, his eyes to a dozen angles of her shapeliness in his mind. When he felt the palpitations coming on, he spoke up.

     “My, my; well if it isn’t…why, I don’t know who this beauty is.” Without removing his eyes from her face, he asked, “Who is this beauty, Rim?” The woman chuckled. She must have been in the bathroom and followed him out because he didn’t see her when he went out back.

     “Should I go put something on, Rim?” Her voice was soft. “Your friend looks a bit shaken.” She looked at Pa with a shy smile, embarrassed more for Pa’s sake than her own.

     “Do you always dress like this?” Pa said enjoying her fine figure but restricting his vision to her face.

     “You mean in the house or on the street?” She was toying with his sensations. “Listen,” she said apologetically, “this is what comes naturally to me. You really will have to get used to it.”

     “Where I come from, people wear clothes, but that doesn’t mean it is the correct thing to do. No,” he pleaded, “you carry on and pay no special attention to me, that is unless you mind my looking at you from time to time.”

     Rim stood up and came to Pa with a hug while holding the beer can, his other hand bringing the blond beauty near them both. He led as the two followed into the living room.

“Take off your shoes and socks. Make yourself at home." The carpet felt soft under his feet. “Honey, won’t you please get Pa an ice cold one while I put on some music.”

“Oh no, please. Thank you all the same." Pa was just about to be seated but stood to give his answer.

“You don’t like spring water? I was only getting you a can of iced spring water," said turning before passing into the adjoining kitchen.

“What surprises me, Rim,” Pa said sitting down with a puzzled look on the heavily cushioned sofa, “is that you’re still sipping these fattening beers.”

“Oh no, Pa; you’ve got me all wrong. Here.” Rim held out his beer can to Pa’s reach. “Take a sip.” That’s just what Pa Trung did, hesitantly, and could tell immediately that there was indeed cool spring water in the can.

Pa slumped from the sofa to the carpeted floor absent-mindedly. He was going to take another dive into the beer can when the woman emerged from the kitchen and handed him his own can.

“Thank you, sweetheart, er, what’s your name?”

“Jain,” she said. “Just call me Jain. And you don’t really have to say ‘thanks’ around here,” Jain said as she delicately lowered herself to the carpet beside Pa. “Don’t feel badly though; it took Rim two months before he stopped patting me on the head after every nice thing I would do. All of these ‘Please do this’ and ‘please do that,’ or ‘thank you, Jain.’ Well, we just had to set thing straight eventually.” She took his hand and raised Pa’s beer can to his lips. “After all, we are all here together as one. We all like love from each other; wouldn’t you agree?” She looked closely in Pa’s green eyes with a twinkle in her bright blues. Her voice was soft and languid. He could have kissed her then.

“You’re a fine person, Jain.”

“And we’ll have none of that praising, either,” cut in Rim after putting a record on the stereo. “In our home, dear Pa, we are all fine; all of us on this sweet, green planet; just fine. These weird religious nuts,” gestured Rim flippantly with his hand, “they make a big thing out of God’s natural ordering of nature, till it seems like it is only there for their congregation, are not all right. It is there for us all.” He could have been referring to Trippy Taka who'd joined a sect.

“Nobody needs anything more than what we have coming to us, isn’t that what you mean, Jain?” Pa Trung had come under that assumption, anyway, to spread the word with an old friend, to save Trippy Taka from himself. Rim Poche had already saved himself with Jain. They sipped their beer cans of spring water like fine wine. Jain began to hum along to the Frank Sinatra tune Rim had put on the stereo. It was Frank and the Tommy Dorsey Band with their rendition of “Imagination.” Both Rim and Pa knew the words well. The three swayed in their spots and sang along.

“Remember that old jalopy we used to push around Venice Beach on Saturday nights, looking to score?” Pa smiled back, lips closed. “Boy those were sweaty old days.”

“…And some of the lines we used to throw those young things on Santa Monica beach?” Pa leaned against the cushioned sofa and stared through the glittering air. “My dear Rim, what a wonderful memory you have. How those good old days pop into your mind simply wipes me out.” He went on, lethargically, “Why, I thought you would have forgotten, I mean, left all those things in your memory behind by now.”

Jain sat twirling Pa’s wavy, mid-length, brown hair behind his ear. “Oh look, Rim; what cute ears your friend has,” said Jain in a gleeful, girly squeal. She leaned toward him throwing her arms around his shoulders and kissed him on the cheek. “Mmmmm, I love your ears,” she sweetly whispered. “How come you don’t cut your hair so everyone can see how cute they are?”   

     “Nothing to drink,” Rim Poche repeated. He hadn’t lifted a glass since he was discharged after his three-year stint seven years earlier; didn’t mean he stopped smoking weed or tripping. What affect his dryness would have on their friendship, Pa Trung could not predict.

    Rim got up from the sofa and stretched his arms outward as if he had just awoken. He passed by Pa with Jain and slapped his knee as he passed into the kitchen.

     “Sure is hot out today,” as the ring of a beer can was pulled and pitched into an aluminum sink.

 Pa sat melting while Jain circumnavigated his forehead with her left hand fingers and began twirling the hair behind his other ear, too. He let his arm fall naturally onto Jain’s lap, but something inside pulled him back; he placed it on his own pant leg instead.

“I must say,” Rim’s voice came drifting through the doorway as he swaggered back into the living room. He stopped in front of the two on the rug near the sofa and looked down at them, and whispered, “It’s a lovely day for the beach; don’t you think?”

     “And cool refreshing splashing waves,” Jain added. “Do you like warm sandy beaches?” she asked Pa. “I know you do,” she said prodding him on. She then jumped up sending her long blonde hair flying into Pa’s face as she did, held out her hands to help him up and hugged him tightly, almost spilling his beer can.

“Let’s go to Black’s Beach today,” she said turning asking Rim, her firm tanned ass in Pa’s appreciative face. “Let’s go to Black’s Beach; you know how I love Black’s Beach.” She was so excited by her own suggestion.

“It’s up to Pa, honey,” he said. So she spun around onto Pa’s lap as he sat back on the sofa, surprising him.

“Oh, you’ll just love Black’s Beach; I know you will. We can all sit on a big blanket; talk about the old days. We could talk and swim and maybe throw a Frisbee and, you know, love the beach.”

“Pa looked past her bright-eyed face at Rim. “She likes talking about the old days? You told her everything about the old days, didn’t you?”

Pa looked for a reaction from Jain on his lap but she sat calmly, quietly listening. “You mean to tell me that Jain knows all about those late nights we used to spend and the…well,” Pa thought it over, “why not?” Let’s all go to the beach!”

“Gee, Pa,” Jain shouted as she cradled Pa’s cheeks between her tender hands, “you’re an alright guy! But what else would you be if you’re a friend of Rim’s?” She went to kiss his lips and Pa met hers with an open mouth, but she kept her lips closed; he couldn’t enter her. “Not here, Pa,” she said painfully as Pa’s unconsciously closed eyelids flung open. She was looking at him. Pa felt ashamed.

It was a short drive from Rim Poche’s place through an affluent San Diego neighborhood near Scripps Institute, technological labs overlooking the steep cliffs above Black’s Beach. Rim toyed playfully in the backseat of Pa Trung’s Japanese station wagon with Jain. With a beautiful nude woman in his rearview mirror, Pa made idle chatter though he knew how foolish he sounded. He tried to keep his eye on the winding road along the ridge. Jain focused in on the well-kept lawns that stretched out front of designer homes, with unobstructed Pacific Ocean views.

The ride was not as outdrawn as Pa had supposed; the situation that Rim and Jain set up glued his mind to interest. In no time, they arrived near the spiraling road to the coastline, and searched for a place to park. When that was done, Pa looked around the streets, on a late Sunday afternoon, for anyone who might see Jain emerge from the car. It was only after the coast was clear, literally, that Pa opened his door and led them out. Rim grabbed a cooler, and a Frisbee from under the seat. Jain grabbed a blanket that she held under her arm. Pa held his own. The trio single-mindedly walked the desolate decline in a niche of the cliff wall, the only way down to Black’s Beach, A few parties passed heading up. Pa smiled at Jain. Rim held her hand. Jain smiled at them both.

“On the river flows,” Jain softly sang, “it knows where to drift us,” as they wound down the helix road to the beach. Pa swore, as he watched her face singing, that it had blossomed into a flower; so sweet did her voice sound in harmony with the warm, gentle breeze and waves on the shore before them.

“But this is an ocean, Jain,” Rim reminded her, his voice fluctuating in windy currents of salt air as he fought to spread the blanket on the yellow sand.

“The oceans pool the rivers of the world,” beamed Jain, looking like a sunflower leaning against the gray cliff.

“Yes, like the heart is to the ten thousand veins and arteries of the body,” Pa grossly added as he kneeled on the blanket watching her candidly beautiful body flow gracefully to the sandy beach floor beside him.

Three fellows were passing by, but they didn’t faze Jain at all, their hands working playfully upon each others’ torsos. Pa secretly scoped them out of the novelty of seeing naked men walking, but was quickly distracted by the swaying of areolas and nipples, dark centers of disk flowers’ brown petals fused together on Jain’s full breasts, reached with her for the ice cooler. She had turned from a flower back into a beautiful woman as the sun, setting subtly, began to reach the horizon, silhouetting her. Pa mentioned to her his delight in feeling how the creeping darkness seemed to bring them closer.

Rim was sitting with his legs outstretched; his body weight braced on one hand, a can of water at his lips with his other hand. Perhaps something was in the water they shared; perhaps not. On the corner of the blanket, Pa quietly assumed a lotus position, hands tucked near his groin, eyes closed, concentrating inside himself.

“Your friend sees nicer things inside his vision than out here with us,” Jain said to Rim, prodding Pa with her elbow. Her remarks were meant for him. Rim knew the scene and fixed his gaze at his old buddy awaiting a reaction, but there was none.

“I know you’re in there, Pa,” Rim nonchalantly said. Come on out and talk with us, boy.” Pa sat motionless focused on a point between his forehead, they could tell, by the quivering of his eye lid muscles.

“Now I bet you he is trying to go deeper.” Jain’s observation sounded like a hunter’s stalking pray.

“Sure does look like he’s trying to cut us all off; oh well.” Rim took another sip of water and handed the can to Jain. He then slid over to her and dropped to her side, resting lastly over the spread of her legs, his lips hovering over hers. There weren’t any sounds except the wind and the waves’.

Voices were becoming nearer and clearer to Pa. He could almost make out some words like black fire on his white mind slate. Now, he was hearing whispers nearby, soft, from the fifth chakra. Pa was attaining one-pointedness, for sure. In his mind, he had loped to the ocean and was floating upon the lapping waves.

“You three should get up and put your clothes on.” Rim, who was moving on top and inside Jain had to suddenly stop and twist to look up with his beet red face. He pulled out and they rolled to their sides on the sand which coated their perspired backs. Pa remained, as still as a stone. The men decided that Pa would be the easiest to reach. After a few vigorous shakes of his shoulder without a response, Rim leaned over and severely twisted Pa’s fingers cradled in his lap to get his attention.

“Wake up, Pa; we have real visitors here,” Rim shouted. Pa felt a draft come through the door in his mind and his eyes snapped open. He shook his head as a chill ran down his spine. There, three dark figures stood blotting out the setting sun.

“I would like to inform you that you are in violation of public hexagram code 24; a piper awaits you at the gates of dawn.”

“Stop that, Marty; you’re scaring them.” Two men stood closely behind one another and the third, squatting, spoke. “It doesn’t seem to matter to you that in a few hours this beach with be submerged up to the cliff wall.”

Jain seemed frightened. Her reaction was to grab the blanket on which she lay and cover herself.

“We didn’t realize we were doing anything wrong,” Rim said.

“Well, it’s your trip; just telling you.” With that the three men broke away from each other and began running merrily along the shoreline away from them, their balls bobbing between their legs. Pa, Rim, and Jain looked at each other in mock shock, and then burst out laughing.

Pa turned out to be the first one completely dressed. He dusted the sand off his feet, pulled on his socks, pulled up his pants, and climbed into his t-shirt. They could hear the laughter in the distance as the three young men who had approached rolled around in the sand. It looked like they were throwing confetti which blew unattended in the sea breeze over the sand, beached seaweed, and driftwood.

“Well, look at them; it doesn’t seem to matter at all to those guys,” Pa said to Rim and Jain who were taking their time getting ready to leave. Jain folded her arms over her chest in disbelief.

“It is now 5:45: this beach will be closed at 6:30. For your safety, you should leave now. Have a safe trip home.” The three men then began hooting and hollering as they made their way up the helix and off the beach.

Pa Trung stood silently in disbelief. Rim picked up a handful of sand and threw it into the wind. “And I was looking forward to building a bonfire,” said Jain disappointedly as she wrapped the beach blanket around her sleek body.

“And we’ll still do that, Jain,” Rim said bravely. “Let’s start collecting kindling wood,” said Rim with a smile, and took another sip from the can.

“You heard what he said, Rim. I really don’t think that he was joking.” Pa grabbed his sneakers which had been holding down two corners of the blanket.

“Nah, it’s just a scare tactic,” said Rim pooh-poohing the threat. “They have said it was too dangerous due to the undertow, landslides, and unusually high tides. They just didn’t like the idea of a bunch of naked hippies invading their affluent neighborhood and upsetting the order.”

“That’s not a nice thing to do to a couple of navy buddies,” chimed in Jain. “It sounds kind of fishy to me,” she added covering her mouth when realizing her silly pun.

“We’re aware of the safety measures that should be taken,” said Rim, in charge. Pa detected a hint of the old navy spirit.

“We sure spent some hellish nights on the beaches in Nam with incoming fire,” added Pa, to Jain. “You couldn’t imagine what we went through back there, no matter what I say about it!” Rim nodded his head in agreement as Jain looked on astonished.

“Does that mean we can start making our bonfire?”: asked Jain in anticipation.

“That’s right, sweetheart.” Rim lifted himself up with the help of Pa’s outstretched hand. “Come on, pal; let’s go fetch some dry driftwood.”

“Rim and Pa walked off to the base of the hundred foot cliff checking between the boulders down the beach, finding wooden soda crates left from others’ parties, paper cups, and branches that had fallen from the foliage up above. Jain remained on the blanket, facing the west sunset, cradling her legs to her chest, humming “The East is Red,” a song she had recently heard on cassette from a Chinese revolutionary drama.

  Long gone the last rays of sun, the stars beginning to glow beyond the clouded sky, the cresting of the waves auditory only, the surrounded fire warming the chill that had begun to settle in, hallucinatory visions draping the cliff walls with laughable creatures of the minds’ creation, Goober Grape jelly and bread sandwiches, and Jain roasting marshmallows on a stick for he who didn’t Bogart the joint.

Jain clothed herself and draped Rim’s navy jacket over her shoulders. But the tide rushed in to wash their sandcastles away. The prophecy was becoming true. They were just about to start peaking and the luster of shooting traces confused their comically echoed chatter. Their teeth chattered with the speed of a million light years drenched in California dreams.

“It’s all too much,” sighed Rim

“It’s far out,” cried Pa. “The water’s getting closer; let’s relocate.”

“Let’s re-collate, I reckon,” said Rim dreamily.

“Why is the blanket calling me?” Jain wondered.

    “The blanket is telling us to move,” Pa reassured her, and pulled her on the blanket on the beach like she was a genie on a magic carpet ride, till he ran out of sand. The water was rising. The waves were getting louder, higher, crashing more and more often. It was getting serious.

The three gathered up their belongings hurriedly, back-stepped up around and over boulders dislodged along the cliff, climbing the shale steps to higher ground, as high as they could climb, but still the waves came crashing, sizzling the sand with their white foam at their feet.

They were peaking, beating fast hearts, wondering; “What if they had made a mistake? What if the warning they heard was real?” It crossed Rim’s mind that they could die. He looked left towards the spiraling road to safety; it was vanishing in the darkness, covered ten feet deep with sea water. The full moon made shadows dance. Pa and Rim cowered in fear. Jain was oblivious to the danger; she was their guardian angel accepting the role she was given, quoting Han Shan:

“The multitude of stars in the late night’s light

Alone below a cliff before the moon sets

The perfect luminescence the unpolished glow

Hanging in the sky is my mind”

Their minds eased. A gradual calm returned to them as they could detect tide grabbing less and less beach in waves of retreat. The darkest hour had passed. The ordeal was over.

“What is that, Rim? Do you see what I see?”

There, on the beach, to the left and right, as far as the eye could see, silvery sparkles of  lights flip-flopping against the shore, reflecting the moon-glow, glittered up to the cliff walls that had sheltered them. This was their phoenix rising; the residue of a night that let them be, left them alone.

As the sky lightened, the two men looked at each other recovered from distress, their scrotums felt like silk purses of warm crystal glass, Jain’s warmth returning to her face, gold to her long, windy hair, paleness vanishing with approaching dawn, as the twinkling lights along the shore submerged into imagination

Grunions had played out their mating ritual, digging their tails into the sandy nests to lay eggs, their mates in tow wrapped around them, depositing their sperm, so millions of young grunions, at the next high tide, could wash out to sea.

Three witnesses came to the realization, as Pa drove Rim Poche and Jain back to Old Town: like the grunions, Trippy Taka would be fine.

   The End