With a nod to Carl Jung, here's a Tale from the Road as told in the words of Rolyk Waylander. formerly known as Brother Gypsy. Rolyk has danced with the Veil that separates this world from the next several times. This time, he meets up with fellow road tramp, Jack Kerouac:
I've been across the Border before, and I’ll go there again. We'll all be there eventually. Traveling across the Border between here and the Veil is serious biz. Real life, real death. Crossing this way is freaking wild, not some stupid game, but wow. Real wow.
I jumped on the back of this wagon, and there was this old black lady in the back of it. A carriage made from a Model-A sedan frame, horse-drawn, driven by an old man. The harness was crazy at best. It was haphazard.
We were pulling from the main road to a dirt road when the wagon almost went into a ditch. Haphazard all over this bumpy dirt road -- crazy. And somehow we ended up on a paved street in front of some building, boarded up or something. I was sitting by this kid. It was raining, and I was talking to this kid -- I thought it was Kerouac. I said some things to him that only Kerouac would understand to make sure it was him.
Yeah, it was crazy, and I reached out cuz I knew it was him, and I shook his hand. I knew it wasn't any dream. I knew I was shaking hands with Kerouac. He was young, like 17, and I said: "See ya later, Mr. Kerouac." And he said, "C'mon, let's grab some lunch. We ain't supposed to be here."
So we went in the building. That was the funny part. He pointed at the building. There were all these sick and old people milling around in hospital robes in styles from the thirties to the fifties. They had lunch trays with some slop on them, but Kerouac, and I weren't all about that.
So we went poking around the place instead. And there was this room with this sheet over it, and Kerouac said: "Let's jam in here." No, it was "Ain't nobody using this, let's jam in here." And there were some boys with him. And Kerouac started talking, and I started dancing and the other boys, they started making music, but I don't know what they were using to make it.
And Kerouac was doing spoken-word, and I was dancing with this sheet, the sheet that was over the door. And the sick people started joining us. That's when the jock-boys -- those traditionalists -- the same ones you see in every fifties movie -- clean-cuts -- started getting upset. They wanted the sick people to stay where they were.
They didn't want us in this unused room, even though nobody was in it. You know, cuz that's the way they think things are supposed to be -- sickly and crippled and freaked up. They think you're expected to be that way to cross the border. That's where you start freaking with me with mundane crap when you start calling me back.
I wasn't dancing with a sheet over a door in an unused room. I was dancing with the Veil, and I didn't know that. All those sick people were there, and those traditional jock-boys were there, and they didn't know that when you're dead, you're allowed to do anything you want. And that's why all those straights were being all freaked out. They think they're supposed to be all cool and clean, and that Granny's supposed to be all messed up in her deathbed, but they're not right. You can do anything you want to do in death.
This trip, I chose bad black-and-white movie props from the thirties to forties vintage -- the wagon on the road, made out of some old model-A sedan frame, with an old nag pulling it, and freaked-up harness -- rickety. The thing is, I did have lunch with Kerouac. We didn't eat that slop, though. He did spoken word, and I danced, and the Beat Boys, they made music. They didn't have any instruments, but somehow, they made music.
This trip wasn't my first time through the Veil, and it won’t be my last. I'll be going back as frequently as I can because this toxicity ain't going to last forever. I'm going to get better. But the thing is, I got things to learn. I never know who I'll meet next.
But Kerouac taught me to dance with the Veil as he did spoken-word and the Beat-boys made music without instruments. Yeah, and I'll dance with the Veil again. Hell, yeah.
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