Mayhem (The Remarkable Adventures of Deets Parker Book 1) Read online

  Mayhem (The Remarkable Adventures of Deets Parker) is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner.

  Copyright©️2020 J. Davis Henry

  All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN -13: 9798621882488 (paperback)

  Imprint: Independently published

  Cover Art by J. Davis Henry

  This book is dedicated to the memory of my brother Lonny, my partner in countless adventures. God, how we laughed!

  If I lived another thousand lifetimes, I would want you to be my brother in each and every one of them.

  “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

  ~ Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

  Prologue

  It’s only now, as I begin to tell my story, that I realize my earliest memory in life is of the day I was born. My right hand was the first part of my body to feel the air of planet Earth. A moment earlier, it had slipped alongside my neck, then bumped and probed the contours of my face before getting stuck just as my fingers curled up past my forehead. I remember being aware of how cramped and uncomfortable existence had suddenly become.

  It was then I heard the call.

  The intonation was just a whisper—dark, far away, desperately in pain, in a language spoken only in dreams. For a brief moment, though surrounded by difficult and unfamiliar circumstances, I focused on listening to that voice, and with a flash of understanding that completely encompassed me, I became a light, a wonderful blue light that answered the cry. Across forever.

  It’s time.

  But in the next instant, my physical situation became my main preoccupation, and the ghostly sound drifted away, already forgotten. All that mattered was struggling on through the tunnel I found myself maneuvering in, determined to survive this new reality. Fluid was pouring out of my mouth and nose, and I was overwhelmed with the influx of unfamiliar signals flooding through me.

  My hand guided me. Fingers twitched and wiggled in patterns that brought color, smell, and strange sounds, along with astonishing shapes and movements, into my consciousness. A golden fire erupted across my palm and up through the nerves in my arm, then raced across my shoulder, found my spine, and shot to a place deep behind my eyes where details of my discoveries began storing themselves.

  My feet were still sliding in the fluids that had sustained me, but suddenly my head popped into an area that wasn’t squeezing at my temples. Disorienting bumps shuddered up against my shoulders, and I was jolted and moving in a manner I had never experienced before.

  Oh.

  My whole body lay in the wrong position. My world felt colder.

  Oh.

  Nothing would be the same anymore.

  The rhythm circling within and around me had changed its beat. Awe, fear, and curiosity coursed through me.

  Where’s the tha-rump, tha-rump, tha-rump?

  I needed to open my mouth.

  Sucking in that first breath, I howled out about air and expectations and disappointments. I kicked my legs with surprising freedom and flexed my arms, astounded that they didn’t meet resistance. My neck seemed more important than it had ever been.

  Odd, how different parts of me began to adjust to the new place I’d been released into. Before, I had heard and felt, tasted and seen, the ever present mother heart with every fiber of who I was. Now, bits and pieces of information were registering from a myriad of distinct localities. Something big and foreign touched my head, my nose tickled, the goo in my ear felt different. My own thumper in my chest no longer beat in harmony with the main one I had relied on up until now. I needed something—anything—to help me process the strangeness I found myself in.

  “Wah, waah.”

  Crying just wasn’t enough to alleviate the impressions overwhelming me. My right hand, my guide through the difficult passage onto Earth, hadn’t panicked along with the rest of me. Five digits and my palm absorbed the new rhythms, providing me with crisp, clear interpretations of color and shape.

  So it was, in those first few moments of sensory stirring, I learned to rely on that precious hand of mine to figure out and steer me through the mysteries surrounding me.

  I continued to trust the communications my right hand relayed to me through my early months and years, believing without compromise that my destiny depended on its sensitivities.

  Yet, I had no sense of the workings the dark whisperer had set into motion. What benefit is it to imagine and dream personal visions of your own fate when gods choose you to hear their near-silent breathings? Your soul becomes a verse binding you to their song, no matter that you find the words and the melody incomprehensible. Their voices create an invisible rhythm impossible for a mortal to exist in, yet you do, sometimes with uncontrollable joy, other times with an all-encompassing terror, until you find yourself begging to be released. If they heed your request, consider it—no matter what the price—a blessing.

  Yardley, Pennsylvania, 1950

  At three years of age, kicking a ball around in my parents’ backyard, I heard a low-pitched, drawn-out “Moooo.” I watched as a cow and her calf walked between the trees of the pine woods surrounding the house. A man accompanied the two plodding animals. His head rocked jauntily back and forth as he whistled a song, captivating me.

  Spellbound, I marched into the forest shadows, only to witness the odd little parade fade to nothing as if their pathway had never been. Following to where I had last seen the trio, it seemed imperative for me to kneel on the trail and trace my finger along the edges of one of the hoof prints. As I did so, it struck me that the shape looked like two feathers laying side-by-side.

  Chapter 1

  Greenwich Village, 1965

  I took a bite of the most delicious apple I had ever tasted. Yes, I was feeling good—a bit high on some weed with three months rent in my pocket. I smiled at two giggling, young girls who gave me sweet looks and squeezed around me.

  “Hey move it, kid. That’s my doorway. What, you at the Grand Canyon? It’s the same street you see every day. Stop gaping, you’re blocking my customers.” Anthony slapped his counter, picked up a bread roll, and made a false threat to throw it at me. “You’re a goofball.”

  He punctuated his tirade by grunting unintelligibly.

  With an apologetic shrug, I stepped out of the entrance of Anthony’s Fruit & Deli, straight into the path of a large man turning briskly away from a sidewalk display of oranges. If not for some deft foot maneuvering, I would have been flattened by him.

  We both reached out to steady one another.

  “Greg.” I burst out laughing, surprised and delighted to realize the near collision was with an old buddy.

  “Deets, wow, I heard you were living around here. Amazing. It must be about three years since I’ve seen you. Man, how are you?”

  “Cool, everything’s cool. Man, I can’t believe it. Where’ve you been?”

  “Asia, man. Southeast Asia.” He said it in an exaggerated southern drawl.

  “Asia? How’d you get over there?”

  He coughed out a laugh. “Some serious business going on there, Deets. What planet do you live on?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  We were both beaming and guffawing, elated to see each other. Greg and I had lived in the same neighborhood and gone to the same high school. As teammates on a state champion football team, we’d formed a freshman-senio
r friendship, double-dating on Saturday nights, fogging windows at drive-ins, stealing beer from our parents. Despite spending a lot of time partying and playing sports together, we’d lost touch with each other after he graduated.

  “So, man, what’re you doing here? Rumor back home is you play bongos under a bridge near a whorehouse.” Greg jerked his thumb to quickly point at a restaurant across the street. “Hey, you in a hurry? Let’s shoot the shit.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. Sounds great.” I laughed at the memory of one of our hell-raising escapades. “Hey, I think the last time we saw each other was the night we bombed the principal’s house with those watery mud balloons. Remember? He woke up to a polka-dotted front porch. Splattered the place.”

  An unexpected, cruel sneer contorted Greg’s features. “You ain’t seen splattered, boy.”

  The disdain in his voice caught me off-guard.

  Suddenly he broke into a run, quick-stepping in a zigzag pattern across the street, hollering and whooping.

  “Incoming.”

  Reaching the other side, he turned, signaling vehemently for me to follow him. “C’mon you chicken-shit mud ballooner. It’s all clear.” His tone was arrogant and angry, completely out of sync with my jovial memory of our mischievous high school prank.

  Disturbed by my old quarterback’s menacing expression and the hints of violence in his manner, I lingered on my side of the road, balancing the anxiety he had just instilled in me versus the comradeship I had once shared with him.

  What the hell, I hope this isn’t a bad move.

  I took one more bite of my apple before tossing the core, waited for a yellow cab to pass by, and stepped off the curb.

  It must have been at that very moment I unwittingly awakened a signal to the gods that I was ready.

  Chapter 2

  Munching on our burgers, Greg leaned across the table, challenging me with his stare.

  “Deets, it’s getting crazy out there. People are dying, y’know. And man, everything’s about to blow out of control into one holy hell.”

  He thumped the table with a fist to emphasize his words. The abruptness and force of it shook my soda glass.

  “What’re you talking about? People kick off every day.”

  “No, man. I’m talking Vietnam. I was there. There’s a damn war going on and nobody knows about it.”

  “You were in the army? Wow, man, I didn’t know that.” I took a swig of my Pepsi and scratched the top of my head. “Fighting? You were fighting?”

  He grinned and pointed his index finger at me. “Bang bang.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard about that. Commies. The draft. There’s people talking about it around here—passing out flyers, putting up posters—saying we shouldn’t be involved in whatever’s going on over there.”

  “Well, tough bananas, we are. Hey, matter of fact, I came into the city to look up a guy I was in camp with. His name’s Rolly. Really good musician. He’s got a show tonight. Band’s name is Wild Bird. Ever heard them?

  “Nope. Where’re they playing?”

  “Some church basement cafe. I’m heading over to his place and then the church later. Want to come? Maureen might show up.”

  “Maureen? I haven’t seen her since she went off to that prep school.”

  “Now she’s taking classes at NYU. Our parents are bummed she’s living in New York.”

  “Yeah? Well, it’s good to know she’s here. What about you? Going to stick around?”

  “I’ve still got time to serve.”

  He shrugged and dipped a fry into some ketchup.

  Rolly’s apartment sat on the second floor above a vintage clothing store. Before I flopped down onto the living room’s threadbare couch, Rolly, a bushy-haired guy with a confident but graceful manner, softly gripped both my shoulders. He looked into my eyes and held them before nodding slightly. A slow smile spread across his face. He glanced over at Greg and said, “Our man, Deets, here, is stoned out of his gourd.”

  Greg looked at me, cracked a grin, and said, “You little dip-shit bongo player.”

  Rolly reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a joint, ends twisted to keep the marijuana from spilling out. “Need another hit?”

  “Right on.”

  Rolly lit up, and we passed the reefer around.

  “Good stuff.”

  “Hey, Deets, so... what the hell... you doing in the Village?” Greg spoke as he inhaled, holding the smoke in his lungs.

  “Doing some art, man.”

  “That’s cool. Sell anything?”

  “Yeah, just sold three pieces. One of the Beach Boys bought a drawing a few months ago.”

  “Surfing on the Hudson, man.” Rolly looked pensive. “Man, imagine riding a wave of sound. Like, I mean, sound that just picked you up off the floor.” He reached for an electric guitar leaning against the sofa and started to plink it unplugged. I recognized the melody from the song “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka-Dot Bikini” as it evolved through a “Pipeline” riff before being effortlessly transformed into a bluesy rock progression.

  “Never rode in a woodie or a deuce coup.” I passed the joint to Greg.

  Rolly began singing softly as he strummed and picked.

  “Well, I never been to California

  Never rode in no surfer’s woodie”

  A seed popped in the joint and a small spark arced through the air.

  “Wooah, man, powerful little sucker. Which guy bought your drawing?”

  “I said I never been to California

  Never been in no beach buggy”

  “Don’t know. Did it through a gallery. All those surfer dudes sort of look the same...” I lost my train of thought, distracted by Rolly’s fingers flying around his guitar.

  “Honey, I know you ran off to the coast

  When you left your woodie tracks all over me

  Yeah, yeah, you know, baby, all over me”

  Greg said, “Why don’t you plug that thing in?”

  “Groove on it, man. Listen, Sarge, listen.” Rolly stretched a note out by wiggling one of the steel strings as he plucked at it quickly with a guitar pick.

  “Smooth.” I could tell, even without an amplifier, he could make sounds on that guitar I’d never heard before.

  “No it isn’t. It’s like some gook, chinka-chinka instrument.” Greg made clumsy, exaggerated strumming motions.

  His old buddy laughed and kept playing. Turning his attention to me, Rolly said with mock seriousness, “Surf music’s going dry, man.”

  A phone rang. Rolly got up to answer, pushing aside multicolored strings of beads that hung in the doorway to another room. Every once in a while, I heard him exclaim loudly, “No shit.” Then later, “Nah, no sweat, man, there’s a couple of dudes here that’ll help with the equipment. If not, I’ll leave a key with the chick in the shop downstairs. She’s cool.”

  Greg picked up the guitar and plugged it into an amp. He strummed a few chords, adjusted the sound, and started playing “Blowing in the Wind.”

  Coming back into the room, Rolly took a drag on the joint. He caught my eye and jogged his head back towards the other room.

  “Hey, man, help me out. Let’s do some experimenting.”

  We flipped aside the doorway beads and returned with another amplifier and two guitars.

  I sat with one of the instruments across my lap, feeling out of place as Rolly showed Greg what chords to play. “We haven’t jammed since the base, man.”

  He turned his attention to me. “You play?”

  “No. A couple of chords, but no, man.”

  “I got this song in my mind. It’s like, not quite there yet. Okay Sarge, the rhythm slides together. Like so.” Rolly’s fingers licked along the frets, slipping three chords into one smooth progression with graceful ease, then repeat
ed it over and over. “It’s like a breezy soft wind.”

  Greg followed along. After a few measures, Rolly said, “Yeah, cool, that’s it. You got it.”

  The maestro turned to me. “Now you add the magic. Just play this note here.” He placed one finger on the third string down and plucked it in time to Greg’s strum. Counting off the beats, he signaled me to join in. I hit the wrong note. He jerked his head back, obviously startled. He stared into my eyes briefly and, like a great lock clicking open, destiny allowed itself into the dreams forming in that room.

  Greg’s strumming floundered. Odd, how at that moment he looked to me as if seeking direction.

  But I went elsewhere, overcome with a feeling I had done some great wrong. From a room downstairs, harmonizing voices rose up from a scratchy phonograph singing of trouble and separations and meeting again sometime on a sunny day. A woman joined in, her singing perfectly sweet and soft, clear and clean, wondering when and where, knowing the reunion with her beloved would happen if all the stormy clouds were chased away. The music inexplicably filled me with despair. Upon hearing it, I sensed an unyielding burden about to claim my future. Encircling. Inescapable.

  Rolly had an amazed expression on his face. He kept repeating my mistaken note on his guitar, exploring something he hadn’t expected.

  Then we were all back from where our minds had jumped to.

  “Whoops, goofed.” I slid my finger to the fret Rolly had first pointed out.

  “No, man.” He stopped my hand. “Play your note, the other one.”

  I joined in on Greg’s strumming. Every fourth beat. It came easily, and I relaxed into my part. Rolly listened to Greg and me, then flashed a wicked smile. “B-Flat. Deets, I knew you were a wizard the moment I saw you in that doorway. Perfect. It sounds like you’re chanting it.” He cupped his ear theatrically before settling back into his chair. “Dig it. Now let me add a little experience.”

  Drawing out that last word melodically, he blended its vocalization right into the first few notes he played.