What seemed like brick and mortar days passed in a slow succession of ticks…I tried to keep chaste and proper, sit twice a day, and work on I Ching Repair…I laid low, refrained from calling Johanna, and with sly cunning, whipped myself nightly. The tropics are one tough place to be alone with heart hurt because of the lack of distraction…beach, drink, or TV…I meted these out to myself in small doses, working discipline with books and the cushion, and solitary snorkeling forays in front of our house, where I saw many sea horses and an eagle ray in the 5 foot shallows…Somehow this felt like the cursed lower Hells, and I cold feel the hot poker of change nearing my personality as I begged the Sage for a reason…Why was I always on the losing end of lovelorn dementia? What vexations could I expect to escape? In the back of my mind were the admonitions and deeds bestowed upon me by Vinnie Bend back in San Francsico—his direct transmission sitting mantras, his insistence that I stop fucking my ex-wife in SF, his deep hypnotic suggestions that I focus on my practices, those of spirit and letters, and rid myself of so much lust…would it be enough to help me turn a very long and blind corner? Could I bail out of the Dirty Machine?
I waited for the phone to ring and checked for emails to come…the former was desertedly silent and the latter showed up after three days…I had sent Ramona a long rambling teenage email first in English and then Spanish when she said she couldn’t understand the most of the first…I pawed on and on how I had been waiting for her to break with renaldo and get her plane ticket to Ecuador…how I had eschewed my plans for San Francisco, lost estados unidos, and basically, changed a fundamental aspect of my character—that of having to stick to a rational, job-holding plan by free-floating, cheating the government by claiming unemployment and having my old roommate and good pal Ben Laver sign and deposit the checks so that I could pay my bills and spend a few dollars here and there…Also, how I loved her from the first mention of her name in Fidos, before I even laid eyes on her beauteous form…how I had endured the humiliation of knowing she was sharing the very body and spit of herself with the old paramount…
- Michael Price
