Ommadawn--As I Recall

A quirky time travel tale (or not), love story (or not), classic music, movie, and literary review (or not), and a reflection on how lives change or not!

 

          

            The panic of falling again jolted me awake. I established my sojourn’s location in the cramped red Chevy Vega; the cigarette smoke providing a surreal but polluted atmosphere that burned my eyes and clouded my memory of the episode. My circumstances felt differently than I had previously recalled.

            “A long night with Valerie?” The inquiring voice belonged to my best friend Richard�"Dick�"sitting behind the wheel.

“Ah, no.” Warily withholding the details, I told the uncomfortable truth between teenage boys. The underlying reality was that I had not seen Valerie for quite some time.

“Must be slipping, Curt.” Dick gave me his narrow-eyed look of wily ridicule.

I squinted against the sun-glints off the chrome-bedecked cars lined along the street and around the gas station’s concrete pump islands. Remembering the green flag out front confirmed the station had gasoline, the metal sign beneath still shocked me; it boldly proclaimed another record high in the steadily rising price of gas�"a wallet-swallowing sixty-four and nine-tenths cents a gallon. Where would it stop? With a price like that, it is no wonder they still had gas.  

Dick scrutinized me, took a long draw from his stubby cigarette, and let the life-diminishing breath out like a snorting bull in nostril-driven plumes of swirling fume. He pinched the glowing butt from his lips and flicked it out the window; the spark traced an arc like a meteorite racing though the atmosphere.

His stare bore heavily on me for a reply, so I felt obligated.

“I know what you think, but Valerie and my relationship is nothing like your one-night stands.” Reassessing my situation, I decided to clam up before it was too late.

“Too bad for you,” said Dick, “going without some fine nookie.” With a crackling crunch, he crushed his empty cellophane-covered red and white Marlboro pack and tossed it out to the street as just another asteroid of earth destroying trash. He fingered open a fresh pack and tapped the end against the steering wheel to pop three tan filters out of the torn opening. With his lips, Dick finessed the longest one out of the pack just like the commercial cowboy.

            “Want one?” He asked, offering the pack while the unlit cigarette teeter tottered in his lips.

            “Naw.” I gestured it away, recalling the gas-rationing scheme. “Your sister has an odd-numbered plate on this thing?”

Dick punched the cigarette lighter. “Yep. My Chevelle does too, but I won’t have her out of the shop for a couple days,” said Dick. “I have to stroke and rub her new paint job before I get her out. Gees, maybe I’ll never afford to drive my beautiful baby-girl She-velle with this frigging price of gas. Cripes, those camel jockeys got us by the cojones now, we should just nuke them until they glow and take all the oil.” He took a midair grab. “They sure don’t need gas living in the desert and riding around on camels.”

            The car in front of us moved ahead, opening up a space. Dick glanced around for the curbed audience, revved the Vega’s four-cylinder engine that pathetically sounded like a sewing machine and popped the clutch. The tires squeaked on the pavement, and we lurched forward in a single leap to blockade the gap before anyone could sneak in. Dick grinned big as heads whirled our way. The lighter popped. Dick snapped it out and set the molten lava-like knob to his cigarette. A volcano erupted in his face.

            “Yeah, it is nearly America’s bicentennial.” I reflected. “I thought until this gas crisis started, our oil came from Pennsylvania and Texas; you know, Pennzoil, Texaco like that,”  I gestured at the Texaco star in a hoop that looked somewhat like a huge Old West sheriff’s badge on a pole. “Now we find out it is all Middle-Eastern oil.”

            “Guess America’s not so powerful anymore,” said Dick, directing the fresh blue smoke from his pursed lips through the steering wheel before turning to look at me sideways. “Anyway, you sure jumped back then when you woke up. Having a nightmare? Ahhhh,” he slyly smiled. “Over the chick not�"”

            “No, it was just a stupid dream.” The recalled fright of my future ran down my back like a snake, but I shivered the clammy reptile off. I looked around the inside of the car’s stark interior and stuck my finger into the tape player’s trap door to peek inside. “Your sister have any tunes for the 8-track?”

            “In the back,” Dick thumbed.

            “What does she listen to?” I reached through the narrow gap between the seats to rattle around in the box of plastic cartridges each the size of a paperback.  

            “Weird stuff, that’s why I got the radio on,” said Dick.

I noticed the radio playing Barry Manilow singing “Mandy” again for the snoringly umpteenth time. Until Dick pointed it out, I ignored the car’s radio like a jabbering sibling.

            The first tape I pulled out was Wish You Were Here and put it back; then, I pulled out a dark brown cartridge. “Hey, this is new�"Ommadawn.” The glued-on paper label showed the bearded Mike Oldfield appearing like the commonly accepted Christian representation of Jesus. “I liked Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, you know, after they used it in the movie. The quadraphonic station called this Oldfield’s masterwork�"Ommadawn means sighting a new beginning,” I recalled.

            “Woo, deep stuff. You know, I don’t remember Tubular Bells in a movie,” said Dick.

            I froze, trying to recall the timeline�"it hadn’t released yet! “Ah, hmmm, it wasn’t a big movie.” I stuck the tape in the slot and punched the next track button until it snicked back to the first track. The instrumental music started low and slow. Dick turned my way with an evil smile building across his face like an ocean swell.  

            “Well, let’s have the whole scoop on the redhead.” Dick requested, looking at me hard. I ignored him to stare out over the Vega’s red bulgy hood. His gaze shifted with mine to the activity out front at the island that used to be lawn-covered but was now brown and trashy. “Oh damn, look at that would you?” We watched as the pump attendant pulled down the green flag and replaced it with a yellow. “Crap, maybe we won’t get gas.” I hiked up a cheek in a sneer and nodded, thinking Dick might not continue with the redhead interrogation; but of course, I was wrong.

“So, what’s the deal?” Dick persisted. “You and the redhead�"Valerie.”

            I paused, considering my answer because it had been a very long time. “I like her. A lot, I think.” I averted my gaze away from Dick’s intent stare and felt nice, warm, and comfortable; I decided to lie. “We’re were seeing quite a bit of each other a while back, but�"”

“Hmm, that sounds good, not too long until�"” He knuckled the air.

“You know,” I told him adamantly, “not every couple heads straight into bed.”

 “That’s how my relationships go�"right into bed.” Dick clapped his hands

together suggesting a belly flop. “I like them that way.”

“No, Valerie’s different�"nice. She is the softest, most authentic woman I’ve ever

been with.”

“All girls are soft. Authentic?” He pointed at me. “Curt, you’re soft in the head. I think you’re in love.” Dick scoffed audibly through his nose, producing another noxious carcinogenic cloud. We watched a heated discussion ahead of us between a man shaking a finger at another man inside a car who leaned away from the stabbing finger. The standing man shouted something about needing to ration gas supplies so everyone could get their due share. 

With the few seconds to dwell on Valerie, I hesitated to envisage her before

describing my thoughts. How could I help myself? It had been awhile and absence�"  “Her lips are like velvet, her hair is like silk, those green eyes look right through me, and ever since I had a crush on that redhead in junior high�"”

Dick’s open-mouthed, dumbfounded stare gave me sudden nausea. I gazed out the window quite certain I should not have said all that. A silvery 727 towed an ever-widening chalk line that slit the cerulean heavens wide open. I shuttered.

            “Cripes! You got it bad.” Dick informed me as if I hadn’t already analyzed the circumstances over the untold years. “Are you writing love poems for her yet?” He fired another glowing butt out the window like a pop bottle rocket without the report.

            “Come off it, I’m no poet.” My consciousness groaned. I leaned my head on a fist, and for several moments, I silently studied a crumpled Tab can and puzzled over the shiny pull-tabs embossed in the street’s warm impressionable asphalt. I thought their arrangement spelled out something revealing that I really needed to know like the secret to the universe or the Unified Theory of Relativity; but no, I could not decipher the pop-top conundrum.

I had to break this train wreck of a conversation and change the subject, remembering my relationships were generally embarrassing to share with my macho friend, or I just ended up breaking my heart in solitude�"not that I would admit to that to anyone�"ever.

“Hey!” I evoked as much enthusiasm as I could muster. “We saw that movie Earthquake last weekend, you know, with Charlton Heston?  Pretty cool, they got these megawatt woofers that shake your seat, and the whole building rumbles during the big quakes.”

“Yeah, I heard about that, is it realistic or dumb?” Dick asked, while we pulled up

another car length.

“Both at times, I guess. That other disaster movie, Towering Inferno is coming

out soon too. They finished shooting back on September Eleventh�"Steve McQueen is in it.” I recalled the eerie future coincidence and squirmed.  

“McQueen was pretty cool in Bullitt. So, what’s up with all this disaster stuff and

tall buildings?” Dick asked, waving his cigarette hand up and down and all about showering whitish-gray grimy ashes like a snowstorm. I watched the flurry flutter down to settle on the green plastic dashboard like a new-fallen miniature snowscape. He noticed my scrutiny and directed his giant hand and smoky-windstorm breath to obliterate the snow scene.

My focus evaporated with the puff of ash. “Oh, I guess they just finished the Sears Tower and World Trade Center last year or so, and everyone is hyped-up over skyscrapers�"the show of American economic might.” I shook a fist in the air. “Sure scary to go up in a skyscraper that huge.”

“I think so,” said Dick. “No skyscrapers for me, thanks; I’ll keep my feet on the

ground floor or in a car.” After a few moments of silence, he started in again. “Speaking of high places, got your reading done for Monday?” Dick asked. “I know you do�"fill me in, I don’t have time to read all that heavy fantasy stuff.”

“Gees, we’ve had years�"ah, a month and a half to read it. What’cha been doing? Oh, look at this.” I pointed.

There were only five cars ahead of us now to pump gas, but we now understood what the earlier argument was about. The guy had filled his car with gas and was now working on two five-gallon cans. We shook our heads concomitantly as people in the other cars stared daggers, switchblades, and stilettos.

“I’ve been working on my baby She-velle, and besides, the first part Fellowship of the Ring was okay enough to read during the winter and all, but I don’t have time to read the second part.”

“C’mon, my telling you about it is not going to help because your last senior English grade depends on these readings. If you don’t read the second part, the third part sure isn’t going to make sense.”

“Who needs English anyhow? Not what I am going to do, work on high-po cars if there is any left.” Dick said, throwing up his hands. “Cripe, the new Chevy 350’s have only one-sixty horses that is less than half of my Chevelle’s horsepower. Camel jockeys and tree huggers are killing this country,” he muttered, shaking his head.

What a gearhead, I thought but didn’t say anything. I retreated into arcane ponderings as we crept onward in time. There was much too much influencing my mind at this time in my life with graduation coming up and the recall of the fun and games, nightmares, hormones, and the greatest influence: Valerie. I did love Valerie, I really thought I did, but then immediately second-guessed the thought wondering if she ever really loved me too.

She was the first woman I knew well, so very unlike the girls I had known before, and my mind always drifted back to her as the years plodded on. Valerie was my own real live redhead, and those freckles of hers mysteriously drove me utterly insane. Back in junior high, I thought redheads were displaced extraterrestrials or medieval Celtic damsels in distress; no, not Valerie per se, she was authentically gentle and sincere enough, but her focus on her studies came ahead of everything, which at times, included me. Maybe she excluded me from plans like marriage, but isn’t that what we are supposed to think about at that age? Free love was okay and all, but to have someone, a single person who cared about you well, that is what it was all about anyway�"bottom line.

Ommadawn caught my swerving attention as the music switched to a jaunty English folk-type song about preferring to ride a horse over other assorted activities. For a pleasantly long couple of seconds, I saw Valerie in a gauzy Celtic gown astride a big bay mare cantering across a grassy meadow. I was no Celtic knight, and my inkling finally informed me that Valerie was too good for me.

Maybe Dick was right and I was soft in the heart and head with a pinch of paranoia back then. After imagining kissing Valerie goodnight, damn those warm, tender lips of hers, I envisioned losing her. While she strolled away with that stately female figure of hers silhouetted in a soft light�"an alluring tall drink of water in my vision�"I imagined her not stopping to look back at me with those green man-penetrating eyes�"not even one more time. That was the sure sign we had reached the untimely and gut-wrenching end. Considering that inconceivable culmination, I compared my distress to embarking on a desperate and impossible rescue mission to Alpha Centauri in a Chevy Vega.

The gas attendant walked out, waving for the drivers to go away, mouthing, “Sorry, we’re out.” He over-exaggeratingly shrugged in all directions and replaced the yellow flag with the red flag that looked less used, bright-warning red, in fact. He tipped the metal sixty-four and nine-tenths signs over on their sides with a rattle, rattle�"clang.

Dick groaned. “Oh, this sucks. That gas went way too friggin’ fast, and we wasted all that time. At least this thing gets good gas mileage.” He notched the tiny shifter into first gear and began to start the engine, but he stopped, fixating off to the left. “Hey Curt, that chick is bee-lining over here. Mon amie, she’s a cute one.”

I scrunched over to see around the rearview mirror. “Mm, mm,” I noncommittally agreed. “That’s Dawn from my biology class�"kind of quirky.”

Dawn bounced breezingly toward us with a hip-wiggle I had not recalled. She had on a loose, bright blue flowery blouse with three-quarter length sleeves, and her bellbottoms flapped huge around her ankles. As she approached, Dawn let her long auburn hair fall over one shoulder and bent down to make eye contact with me through the windshield. She smiled and flipped a wave from the wrist as she crossed in front of the car. The cars continued to evacuate the sucked-dry station; the pavement between the pumps had a puckered, caved-in appearance.

“Hi-ya Curt, I thought it was you.” Dawn smiled wide and leaned on the Vega’s door, but then she went dour. “Hello Richard. Real nice car,” she said levelly across the smoky void.

“My sister’s car. Hey! How do you know me?” Dick asked.

“We girls know who to watch out for.” Dawn said, slowly averting her eyes directly into mine. Her warm smile formed like her namesake before a mid-summer day.

“Whoa, that’s cool.” Dick grinned, but then he paused to think a second and lost the smile. “Is that a bad thing?”

Dawn nodded without looking at Dick. “Definitely.” She leaned in until her cute-as-a-button face was inches from mine. Her huge unblinking brown eyes tore at my heart, her hair shone like fine burnished mahogany, and her appealing breath delighted my olfactory sense with the sweet bouquet of Juicy Fruit Gum.   

 “Anyway, sorry to hear about you and Valerie,” Dawn waggled her cute blue derriere back and forth. I peered over the door edge to check out the seductive white and red toes of her diminutive Ked-sneakered feet. 

What she had said took a second to penetrate my fascination with her toes until I snapped to. “What? Huh?”  

“Oh shoot! Don’t tell me.” Dawn dropped her smile and dipped her head letting her silky long hair cascade across her face and drape into the car like a warm satin negligee over a footboard.

“What do you know?” I sat up straight.

“Maybe it’s not true.” Dawn backed away, withdrew her hair negligee and pulled it into a twist behind her neck. She toed the Tab can with a rattle and squatted there a couple feet from the car. I wondered how the can had moved all those car lengths as we had advanced along in the gas line.

“Dawn, what’s not true.”

She looked away and didn’t say a word for several seconds.

“Dawn?” I persisted, staring at her.

She slugged her knee with a fist. “Someone told me Valerie went out with Kevin the other night, and she had his ring on.”

“Kevin?”

“Kevin Sheldon.”

“Uh, Kevin that graduated last year? And he took Valerie out?” Dick asked, leaning up over the steering wheel to get a full-frontal view of Dawn.

“Yeah, pay attention,” said Dawn adamantly.  

 “Bummerinski,” said Dick. He shoved me on the shoulder.

I flicked my eyes his way. An emotional mudslide started to ooze downhill, and I felt my eyes swelling in a see-water high tide; I pressed on despite the flood. “I saw Valerie just a couple days ago.” I grasped, confused. “She was mine�"still had my ring on anyway.”

“I’m sorry, Curt�"I�"I thought you guys broke up and�"maybe I’m wrong,” Dawn visored her eyes with a hand, and she forlornly shook her head. I could see huge alligator tears crawling down her cheeks, and I warmed, discovering there is nothing that gets to you like another available girl tearing up over your broken romance.

I suddenly realized that I would never solve the perplexing mystery about Valerie that had vexed me since junior high: Did that entrancing sprinkling of paprika freckles cover her entire body? Well, perhaps Valerie had to report back to her home planet or her castle, and I would never solve that mystery, though my future self knew unquestionably that I would miss her dearly.

 “Sorry. I didn’t want to be the one to tell you, but I thought�".” Dawn slapped herself on the cheek and stood up. She dabbed her eyes with a frill of her loose, flowery, bright blue three-quarter length-sleeved blouse. “I’d better go, I’m sooo sorry.”

“You should ask Dawn out, now is the perfect time.” Dick whispered, with an elbow poke to my ribs. I glared and wiped my eyes as we studied her walking by the front bumper. Dawn paused on the other side of the car and slowly pivoted back to look at me with those comfortable brown eyes�"sad brown eyes right then, but otherwise, she emanated a soft warm glow that could illuminate any cool, dark bedroom. Dawn tucked her thumbs into her jeans’ pockets and flipped her fingers out like petite ailerons as she spun to take off. Ommadawn snicked back to the first track.

The panic of falling in love again jolted me awake. I raised my head from the Cobalt’s window frame and was relieved to find the gas price at twenty-first century prices. My situation, surroundings, and love life had not changed all that much.