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watusichris · 3 years

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Rock Gunfight in the Antipodes

Listening today to the hot new Grown Up Wrong! comp by Sydney’s Lipstick Killers, whose lone officially released single was produced by Deniz Tek of Radio Birdman, it occurred to me that my old Music Aficionado faux faceoff between Australia’s pioneering bands of the ‘70s (all of which I dearly love) has disappeared into the online ether. It’s time to bring it back.

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By Chris Morris

The mid- to late ‘70s were fertile days for rock ‘n’ roll in Australia. Here and there across the vast but not terribly populous island continent, fires were started by several attitude-filled bands bent on doing things their own damn way. They all managed to make their way off the island, but if they hit the American consciousness, it was for little more than a nanosecond during their heyday.

Who were the truest Rock Wizards of Oz? For this Down Under face-off, I’ve selected three contenders: the Saints, Radio Birdman, and the Scientists. All of them had fairly slim discographies; ironically, the act probably least known in the U.S., the Scientists, recorded most prolifically, with their core line-up producing several magnificent albums and singles during a productive four-year stretch in the early ‘80s. But none of these bands ever stayed together long enough to make a deep impression among the Yanks.

So where’s the Birthday Party, you ask? There are a few things to consider. First of all, though the band and its precursor unit the Boys Next Door were in business from 1976 on, they didn’t release their first LP until 1980. Also, Nick Cave is well known enough that more (king) ink needn’t be spilled on him. Finally, I still resent the fact that Cave stole PJ Harvey away from me, so it’s personal.

On with the showdown…

HIT ME LIKE A DEATH RAY, BABY

The Saints, founded 1974 in Brisbane

The prime movers of the Saints were a pair of literal outsiders: vocalist Chris Bailey, born in Kenya to Irish parents, and guitarist Ed Kuepper, raised in Germany. Thus the otherness of their work is no surprise.

With schoolmate Ivor Hay – who over time would play drums, bass, and piano with them – the pair founded a combo originally known as Kid Galahad and the Eternals (borrowing their handle from a 1962 Elvis Presley picture), but they swiftly renamed themselves the Saints and began playing in their hometown on the northeast coast of Australia.

Listening to their records, which were made in something of a cultural vacuum, it’s difficult to get a handle on where the Saints’ distinctive, aggressive sound came from. To be sure they were aware of such homegrown precursors from the ‘60s as the Master’s Apprentices and the Missing Links (whose 1965 single they covered on their debut album). It’s safe to assume they were conversant with the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, and Lenny Kaye’s 1972 garage rock compilation Nuggets. Yet they bred something utterly their own in the ocean air of Brisbane.

With Hay on drums and Kym Bradshaw on bass, Bailey and Kuepper mounted noisy local gigs that swiftly attracted the antipathy of the local constabulary; they wound up turning their own digs into a club to play shows. In 1976, they recorded and issued a self-financed single featuring two originals, “(I’m) Stranded” and “No Time.” These dire, ferocious songs were distinguished by venomous lyrics, unprecedented velocity, and guitar playing by Kuepper that sounded like a (literal) iron curtain being attacked with a chainsaw.

The record died locally, but a copy of its U.K. issue found its way into the hands of a critic at the English music weekly Sounds, which declared it the single of the week. This accolade got the attention of EMI Records, which signed the band and financed the recording of an album, also titled I’m Stranded, in a fast two-day Brisbane session.

The album, which was ultimately released in the U.S. by Sire Records, blew the ears off anyone who heard it, and it landed with a bang in England, where punk rock was lifting off in all its fury in early 1977. It was hurtling, powerful stuff that stood apart from punk in several crucial ways: While some of the songs were clipped and demonic in the standard manner, the Saints proved they could take their time on expansive numbers like the almost Dylanesque “Messin’ With the Kid” and the sprawling, hellriding “Nights in Venice.” And one has to wonder how British p-rockers took to their perverted take on Elvis’ squishy “Kissin’ Cousins.”

Made by musicians who never considered themselves “punks,” and who in fact abhorred the label, (I’m) Stranded is nevertheless one of the definitive statements in the genre, and it has maintained its force to this day.

Settling in England for the duration, the Saints decided to throw a curveball. One could not find a more profoundly alienated album than Eternally Yours (1978), a series of yowling protests, twisted prophecies, and savage put-downs, including the snarling second version of the single “This Perfect Day.” But, though the record was loud and for the most part swift, the group applied the brakes to their sound somewhat, and a couple of songs, including the caustic album opener “Know Your Product,” were dressed by a soul-styled horn section. Punk loyalists ran for cover.

By the time Prehistoric Sounds was issued in late ’78, the dejected Bailey and Kuepper were moving in different directions, and you can hear it in the grooves. The record is slow, almost listless at times, and its logy originals are complemented by incongruous Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin covers with none of the energy of earlier Saints soul-blasts. It is an album primarily for loyalists, and by then there were few in that number.

Kuepper exited the band on the heels of the third album’s release and returned to Australia, where he enjoyed a long career as leader of the Laughing Clowns; Bailey continued to perform under the Saints mantle with a shifting lineup that at last count numbered more than 30 players over the course of 37 years

Bailey and Kuepper reunited for one-off gigs in 2001 (at the ARIA awards ceremony) and 2007 (at Australia’s Queensland Music Festival).

THERE’S GONNA BE A NEW RACE

Radio Birdman, founded 1974 in Sydney

People who toss the “punk” handle around often throw Radio Birdman into the mix, but the sextet from Australia’s Southeast Coast may be best referred as the world’s youngest proto-punk band.

Its mastermind was guitarist, songwriter, and producer Deniz Tek, a native of Ann Arbor, Michigan, who emigrated to Sydney in 1971 to study medicine. As a teen, he got a chance to witness Detroit’s most explosive pre-punk bands – the MC5, the Stooges, and the Rationals; he would later wind up collaborating with important members of all those groups.

After apprenticing with and getting bounced from a Sydney band called TV Jones, Tek formed Radio Birdman (its name a corruption of a lyric from the Stooges’ “1970”) with singer Rob Younger; the lineup ultimately solidified with the addition of guitarist (and sometime keyboardist) Chris Masuak, bassist Warwick Gilbert, drummer Ron Keeley, and (on and off and then on again) keyboardist Pip Hoyle.

Rapidly acquiring a fan base made up of some of Sydney’s lowest elements, including members of the local Hell’s Angels, Radio Birdman ultimately took over a bar, re-dubbed (in honor of the Stooges, of course) the Oxford Funhouse, as their base of operations. The band’s severe Tek-designed band logo emanated fascist-style vibes for some; at a co-billed appearance in Sydney, the Saints’ Chris Bailey remarked from the stage, “We’d like to thank the local members of Hitler Youth for their stage props.”

Despite much antipathy and some attendant violence, the band maintained a loyal local following, and in 1976 it issued a strong four-song EP, Burn My Eye, via local studio-cum-independent label Trafalgar. This was succeeded the following year by a full-length debut album, Radios Appear.

Anyone looking for something resembling punk will likely be disappointed by that collection. The band wears its all-American hard rock/proto-punk influences on its dirty sleeve. Radios Appear is dedicated to the Stooges (whose “No Fun” was the lead-off track on the Aussie issue of the LP), and a song co-written by Tek and Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton, “Hit Them Again,” was cut during sessions for the record. Tek pays deep homage to MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer with his playing, and blatantly cops a signature lick from the 5’s “Looking at You” at one juncture. The album title was lifted from a Blue Öyster Cult lyric, and the Tek-Masuak guitar-bashing bows to their multi-axe sound. Finally, in both Younger’s sometimes Morrisonian vocalizing and Hoyle’s Ray Manzarek-like ornamentation, homage to the Doors in paid in full. Given that Sydney is a beach town, there’s even a frisson of surf music in the mix.

Bursting with power-packed originals like the apocalyptic “Descent into the Maestrom,” youth-in-revolt anthem “New Race,” the cryptic, insinuating “Man with the Golden Helmet,” and Tek’s autobiographical “Murder City Nights,” Radios Appear was a power-packed set that established Radio Birdman as Oz’s leading rock light.

However, renown did not equal success in Antipodean terms. In 1978, the band cut its second album, Living Eyes, at Rockfield Studio in Wales; it was a solid effort that included remakes of three Burn My Eye numbers (including the wonderful Tek memoir “I-94,” about the Michigan interstate) and excellent new originals like “Hanging On,” “Crying Sun,” and “Alone in the End Zone.” But, with success seemingly within their grasp, Sire Records – their American label, and the Saints’ as well – switched distribution and cut their roster, leaving their new work without a home. Within months of this catastrophe, Radio Birdman disbanded.

The principals scattered, to Younger’s New Christs and Tek and Hoyle’s the Visitors; Tek, Younger, and Warwick Gilbert later joined MC5 drummer Dennis Thompson and the Stooges’ Ron Asheton in the one-off New Race. Tek also later recorded with Wayne Kramer and Scott Morgan of Ann Arbor’s Rationals in Dodge Main.

Radio Birdman’s original lineup reunited for a 1996 tour; in August 2006 – after four of the original sextet regrouped to record a potent new album, Zeno Beach – the band played its first American date ever, at Los Angeles’ Wiltern Theater. Your correspondent was there, and it was freakin’ incredible.

IN MY HEART THERE’S A PLACE CALLED SWAMPLAND

The Scientists, founded 1978 in Perth

Among the important Aussie bands of the ‘70s, the Scientists were among the first to be directly influenced by the punk explosion in New York.

As guitarist-singer-songwriter Kim Salmon – the lone constant in the Scientists’ lineup during their existence – wrote in 1975, “Reading about a far-off place called CBGB in NYC and its leather-clad denizens, all with names like Johnny Thunders, Richard Hell, and Joey Ramone, got me thinking…I immediately went searching for Punk Rock. What I found were The Modern Lovers and The New York Dolls albums.”

Salmon first dabbled in the new sound with a band bearing the delightfully punk name the Cheap Nasties. Cobbled together in Perth – the Western provincial capital of Australia – from members of such local acts as the Exterminators, the Victims, and Salmon’s the Invaders -- the early Scientists were as derivative as one might imagine. Their early songs, heard on their self-titled LP (the so-called “Pink Album”) and an early single and EP, sport original songs authored by Salmon and drummer-lyricist James Baker, the backbone of shifting Scientific crews through 1980. The tunes range from straight-up Dolls/Heartbreakers rips (“Frantic Romantic,” “Pissed On Another Planet,” “High Noon”) to buzzing romantic pop-punk in a Buzzcocks vein (“That Girl,” “She Said She Loves Me”).

Not terribly promising stuff, but, after the departure of Baker for the Hoodoo Gurus in 1981 and a brief stint in a trio called Louie Louie, Salmon assembled a new Scientists who would prevail for nearly four years. That outfit – Salmon, guitarist Tony Thewlis, bassist Boris Sujdovic, and drummer Brett Rixton – promptly relocated to Sydney and started making the noise they are noted for.

By that time, Salmon had begun cocking an ear to the Birthday Party (and no doubt paid careful attention to the sordid noise on the Melbourne group’s 1982 album Junkyard), had discovered the miasmic voodoo of the Cramps, and started grooving to the dissonant, slide guitar-dominated racket of Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band. In short order, he would also absorb the bluesy downhome assault of Los Angeles’ roots-punk outfit the Gun Club.

The Sydney-based Scientists hooked up with indie label Au Go Go, which issued a devastating run of careening, mossy records by the band in 1982-83 – the vertiginous singles “This is My Happy Hour”/“Swampland” and the corrosive “We Had Love” (backed by a faithful cover of Beefheart’s “Clear Spot”), and the heart-stopping mini-album Blood Red River, which bore the churning “Set It On Fire,” “Revhead,” and “Burnout.” Others were essaying a similar style, but the Aussie youngsters were beating their elders at their own game.

Eying the big time, the band moved to London in 1984. Some opportunities presented themselves initially: The band got European tour slots with the Gun Club and early Goth act Sisters of Mercy. But their deal with Au Go Go fell apart acrimoniously; while they made a pair of fog-bound albums, You Get What You Deserve (1985) and The Human Jukebox (1987) for Karbon Records (and a set of re-recorded songs, Weird Love, was issued in the U.S. by Big Time Records), they scraped by in Britain.

Defections from the ranks commenced in ’85, and by early 1987 the depleted Salmon used money from a housing settlement to move back to Australia, where he founded a new band, the Surrealists.

Still valued among the cognoscenti, Salmon, Thewlis, Sujdovic, and latter-day drummer Leanne Chock appeared, at the invitation of Seattle’s Mudhoney, at London’s All Tomorrow’s Parties Festival in 2006. Earlier this year, Chicago-based archival label the Numero Group issued a comprehensive four-disc box of the band’s original recordings.

So, at the end of the day, who is the all-time champeen of ‘70s Oz rock?

Scoring on points, the Saints are tops for Being Punk First with additional wins in the Pure Noise and Weltzschmerz categories, Radio Birdman takes the Technical Ability and Old-School Attitude slots, and the Scientists prevail in the Loud Young Snot and Grunge Thug division.

And the championship belt goes to…the Saints!

Of course, that could all change tomorrow, but that’s rock ‘n’ roll for ya.

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serenawsorrell · 7 years

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A Sacrifice of Seasons

A Sacrifice of Seasons by S.W. Wildwood (homepage)

Once upon a time in a faraway kingdom was a castle with a garden. It was there, in the soil, in the garden, in the castle, in the kingdom, in faraway place a seed was buried. As most seeds are, this one was so very small. So small in fact, even earthworms paid it no mind at all as they wriggled by. Even so, it began to grow and twist through the dirt. It broke through the crust, and into the light, But even so, it was still so very small. Passersbys thought it a twig and castle gardeners thought it a weed. And certainly, no one and no thing paid it any mind. No one and no thing except for the Queen. She who came from an even farther away kingdom.

She first met the seedling as she wandered out from dining with other court ladies. She happened upon the small seedling and noticed it. She thought it very lovely indeed. She liked its heart-shaped leaves, and the branches beginning to form. She liked the sapling so much, she visited it every day after her luncheons or tea parties, for her husband, the King, was almost always gone. His heart not at all shaped for queens, but for war. The small tree itself was glad to be seen and liked by at least one person, and of such noble esteem!

Each day she visited she brought along gifts. On dry days she watered it. On hot days she fanned it. On cold days she warmed it. And always, every day, she talked to it. Oh! The things she would tell the tree. She did not mind this new kingdom, so far from her home. She liked its people and how green it was. She didn’t mind her husband, though he often was gone. She didn’t mind that she went each day unloved. She liked the green world, the nature and flowers. She dearly loved spring and summer in bloom. The autumn and winter, though lovely, were bleak. She parted each meeting with well wishes ‘til tomorrow.

Years passed, and the young queen became older, a woman now, no longer a sapling herself. Still, she visited the tree every day. They had grown into the beauty of their respective species. The tree loved every day she visited, except the time the King found her there. He home from a conquest and unquestionably bold had taken his Queen under the green’s fold. The King hadn’t noticed, but the tree felt her horror and tried in vain to move. The King laughed at her tears and, not noticing the tree’s fury, carved the Queen’s into its brown bark. This, however, the tree did not mind. The pain of the blade and the sap of its blood. It was her name, and so it was right for it to be carved in its skin. The tree rejoiced nonetheless when the Queen slapped the King. For how dare he do something to harm her dear tree. The King raised a hand, but it dropped to his side, and he never returned to the shade beneath the tree.

But neither did the Queen.

It was sudden and at first the tree thought perhaps she’d got sick. It had often heard humans could. But after a month, and two, and still even three the Queen didn’t come, not even one day. More months passed, the tree now an adult. It had the best shade and no longer needed the Queen to survive as it had in its youth. But, the tree knew something. It knew from its roots to the top of its canopy. No matter how much water it drank up from the dirt, it would be thirsty. No matter how wind blew and cooled its leaves, it would be in a festering heat. No matter how much sunlight played on its leaves, it would be starved. And, no matter how many creatures nestled in its branches, or people came to its shade, it would be heartbreakingly lonely.

The tree loved the Queen.

And so the tree waited. She would come the next morning. The tree whispered to the fireflies at night.

“Tomorrow. She will come tomorrow.”

But she did not.

It waited through spring rain which brought it to life. It waited through summer heat which made its bark itch. It waited through autumn when is leaves turned to brass. And it struggled to stay awake through winter which made the carved name ache in its heart.

“This cannot be right.” It said to no one but the snowflakes, who, as everyone knows, are much too vain to listen to others. “The Queen must be terribly ill.”

Things remained the same through spring. This worried the tree greatly. It decided, at last, it was time to take action. It stretched its great roots, and creaked its great branches. But no matter what it tried nothing happened. It was stuck. It was, after all, no matter how strong-willed, still just a tree in love with the Queen.

And so the tree wept. It wept loudly for days. So loudly, even the wind couldn’t out-howl it. Soon, the whole garden filled with the sobs of the tree. All the other plants worried that this weeping would rip off their petals or leaves and make them quite bald. Still, the tree wept. Until, something finally noticed.

“Oh, lovely green tree, why are you mourning?” An early firefly, its glow almost gold, called out to the tree, “It is spring, and soon summer. Rejoice! Be alive! There’s no reason to cry.”

“I care not for my branches, my roots, my leaves, or my bark. I care only for the Queen, whose name is carved in my heart. But she has been missing, how long I don’t know. Something is wrong. I simply must know, must see, if she’s safe. Without the Queen I will wither away.”

The firefly beheld the carved name, and felt the love the tree felt. And, even though rather dramatic, the firefly’s heart was touched. The tree wept anew, until finally, even the firefly could take no more.

“I will fulfill your wish.” The firefly traced the Queen’s name with its light. “I will give you the light of life.” Then, the firefly warned of the price to be paid, “You are a tree and have only ‘til winter, as you do every year. You must return to the soil before the first snow. If you do not, you will die as a man.”

The tree was overjoyed. It earnestly thanked the firefly. Three seasons with the one it loved most. The tree agreed to the bargain, and then was a man. And the firefly gone. In just a few hours the sunrise would bathe him. He knew the palace garden, but nothing much further. He was clothes in the browns and greens that had once made his clothes as a tree. The rays of the sun peered over the mountains. The light spilled over the castle, and into the garden. The tree looked at his hands, his legs, and his feet. He was transformed. And he took a first step.

He felt a tug on the name yet carved on his skin. He knew at once. This gravity was taking him to the Queen! He stumbled forward and clumsily walked. He followed the direction his heart said was right. He wandered the wide, awakening garden until finally he stood at the base of the castle. He recalled stories the Queen had told him. He was at the threshold. He just had to walk to the open window to see her.

So, he did. She sat in a golden chair before a tall mirror, and brushed her cascade of dark, mud-colored hair. She was even more lovely than he remembered. He did nothing but stare from the window. The Queen of his heart just right there. Time stopped and eternity passed, until her eyes caught his in the glass of the mirror. She faced him and neither one moved. The tree felt infinity inside her dark eyes.

“Who are you?”

She spoke to him again, at last. Her voice clear, almost holy, like last he had heard it. The name emblazoned on him burned. He bent in half slightly, trying to bow, as he’d seen others do in the garden and courtyard.

“I’m from the garden.”

His voice found at last. It felt strange to speak words humans understood. He hoped she’d remember, and perhaps stir her heart. But her eyes didn’t recognize him without foliage and bark. He did not despair.

“It has been a long time since I saw you spending happy days in the garden, dear Queen.”

To his dismay she wiped away a tear. “I am banned from the garden. By order of my husband, the King. I am to focus on the needs of the kingdom while he is at war, and when he returns he will give me an heir.” Her eyes became distant. The tree remembered that night, “I am sorry to bother you with complaints, gardener.” She shut the window.

His spring-green eyes shone with verdant energy of life. And though just a tree he understood he must save his beloved Queen. Not for himself, but because she so reviled her place in the kingdom, in the castle, her prison. His heart pounded. The Queen needed his help, as he had once needed her care. The tree called to the grasses, the mosses, and flowers; he begged one and all to help save the Queen. For the Queen, who had always been kind to the plants, they decided to stop being lazy and do something to aid her.

The grasses grew high and spread far. The mosses covered every stone of the castle. The flowers burrowed their roots into the walls. Every leaf, every twig, every bush, every berry, every flower, every thorn, every root strained to help their friends, the tree and the Queen. The whole castle was covered in a blanket of flora. The tree called to those living in the moat. The lilies and algae heeded at once. Every plant in the garden and surrounding the castle weakened the walls. The place ruptured like an overripe berry. Daffodils, roses, asters, foxgloves, and daisies swarmed the castle on grassy rivers. They stormed the castle like a massive green monster.

Through the panic of people fighting the plants the tree raced for the Queen’s chamber. The Queen simply sat and marveled at the plants spreading through corridors and rooms. He broke her trance by calling her name. She looked to him and smiled at last. He took her hand and together they fled the castle, the people, and the all of the plants. They ran through storms of marigolds, past veils of morning glories, and over herds of lilies. Finally, the sunflowers covered their tracks.

They ran and ran. They ran such a long way. Night had fallen, and the mayhem of the castle far behind them. She cast a glance over her shoulder, her eyes didn’t linger. She squeezed his hand tighter and on they still ran. They ran out of the city surrounding the castle. The ran over rocks littering the land. They ran through scraggly bushes who spoke in an accent the tree could not understand. Until, at last, they reached a forest the King sometimes hunted in. It was a ferocious forest, full of horrible beasts. The trees here were warped and bent. But she was free, and he with her, and so the wayward couple entered the dark forest. He felt no alarm, for he was a tree; nor was she frightened, for he held her hand tight.

“Thank you, gardener.”

She smiled at him and his human heart thumped. He wondered a moment if perhaps woodpeckers had found their way inside him.

“I am not sure what kind of gardener is so well-versed in speaking to plants, or freeing a Queen, but here you are. And, I don’t know why.”

He stopped for a moment to ponder. It didn’t take long. He wanted to be the reason she smiled, he had something like greed. He wanted to monopolize her heart and her smile. He kept the words inside, unsure how to say them in this new human form.

In the distance the baying of the castle dogs faded. It was night, so the tree led her to a copse of those twisted trees. He asked them for safety, peace, and a place to hide the Queen’s sleep. The wild trees of the forest were touched by his heart. They decided, just for a night, they’d be tame, just a bit, and tell all the beasts as well.

And so in the forest, dark and foreboding, the Queen slept by her gardener, the tree. He soon succumbed to the pull of sleep, too, not knowing that men, even if they were trees once, all needed the stuff. The two dreamed of the other. In sleep they clung to one another, in comfort and warmth. Soon came the morning, the Queen woke with an idea. She looked at the gardener and studied his face, the lines and curves, so odd and familiar. She stirred him at last. He woke to her smile, to her clinging to his chest. The heart inside him beat so he shot up at once.

“We should leave this kingdom behind. Go far away together, back to my homeland. For now that the King knows I am free he will search and collect me.”

She said these words so plainly to her transformed tree who, though he believed he could keep her hidden forever in the forest, agreed. They left the woods where he felt safest, to travel to distant lands where she felt safest. He would not complain. She wanted him to stay when he’d only meant to free her. They traveled on foot, and they traveled on wagons. They traveled by day, and they traveled by night. The crossed many oceans, and they crossed even a desert. It soon became so no one would recognize them.

At the end of spring, they crossed lush, rolling hills. The trees here bore leaves the color of his eyes. They had reached her faraway country, and at once knew where they’d stay to spend the rest of their days. There was a small town by a lake, and so that’s where they lived. The people here were few and welcomed the weathered strangers. The tree found work as a farmer, for he was unusually adept at growing seeds late. His lady tutored children and taught them to sing. The two lived happily into the middle of summer. Yet, the tree still did not know how to tell her the feelings he had realized fully. Feelings still carved over his chest. The heart he hid beneath his clothes, the heart beating under her name. And so life continued, until she finally asked.

“Gardener,” she called him, and he loved to hear it, “your eyes. They are darker now than when we first met. In spring they were light, and when summer began they grew rich green. Now autumn approaches and they golden at the edge. You aren’t ill, are you?”

“No, not ill.” He said, dizzied by her touch, “My eyes only reflect the change of the seasons.”

She laughed. Her twinkling laughter and sparkling smile filled the room and his heart. She quenched his soul like a gentle rain of sweet water.

“You make me think you’re a plant.”

“If I were?”

In response to his question her eyes became dreamy.

“I might ask, what kind of plant you had been?”

“If I said a tree?”

“I might ask, what kind of life it had been?”

“And, if I said I had a good life as a tree? Where I grew in a faraway kingdom, in a faraway castle, and in a faraway garden. Where I was cared for by the Queen there herself, who watered me on dry days, and fanned me on hot, and even warmed me in winter. Then what might you ask?”

“I might ask, if it all was so good, why was it then you abandoned the soil?”

“And, if I said for love? For the name carved in my skin?”

He showed her the clumsy strokes where a knife had once dug. She traced the lines, letter by letter. She kissed his human lips, and he held her tight.

“I was certain I would never see you again.”

They spent the remaining summer in love and in bliss. The tree took care of her, and she took care of him. Nothing bad or wicked existed in their world made for two. The town they had chosen was as peaceful as any. After work each day finished they met on the patch of grass in the center of town. There at the park they sat and they laughed. Sometimes the tree would whisper her the secrets of plants; sometimes she would read stories from pages of books. The world around them all but disappeared. Even the townsfolk knew those two could never be bothered.

Had they been paying attention though, the she might have known. One face in the town was not a new stranger. Her kingdom’s jester, long retired, lived there. When she was a princess she had been the subject of his want. The old jester was not as foolish as one might expect a jester to be. He instantly saw through her poorness and dirt, he saw her and knew her almost at once. The girl he had wanted turned runaway queen, no longer so lovely, but he didn’t care.

The old jester crossed lush, summer hills. He traveled a desert, and many seas. The jester traveled night, and he traveled day; he traveled by pig wagon, on foot from there. He went through a gnarled, dark forest, and came out alive. At last the old jester had finally arrived. In that faraway land, where the tree’s lady had been queen, the foolish, old jester reported to the King. The jester promised to tell where the King to take his army. The jester would happily place an X on the map where the small town past mountains, seas, and a desert lay. The King promised the jester all the gold he requested. When the town was revealed, and the jester executed, the King set out at once, bloodlust still raging.

Meanwhile, the tree and his love spent their days happily. Unaware of dangers abroad, the tree thought of those closer. It was already mid-autumn. His eyes now brass, became ever golden. His love looked day after day, checking their color. He feared she would ask, because he knew now four seasons would never be enough.

“Your eyes are gold. Your eyes change with each season. My love, my heart, what happens in winter?”

Oh, how he wanted to lie. How he wanted make some excuse about magic and love. How everything would continue after the first snowfall. He wanted to quell her fears. But he did not, he could not lie to his queen.

“My dearest, you know what I am. You know trees change with the seasons, and in winter die, reborn every spring. I am a human, though still my soul is a tree’s, and such a soul will wither at the year’s first snowfall. I must return to the soil, or die as a man.”

Though she had guessed long ago, to hear it be said, she wept in his arms. What could be done? Neither had any answer, and so, though bittersweet, they continued to live, loving each other more sweetly with each precious day. However, their kaleidoscope world of fantasy would be soon broken. The tree had made his decision.

“I will die as a man.”

“Then I will die with you.”

“No, you can’t. What can I do to entreat you to live? Do you wish me return to my rooted self and leave you alone?”

“I am alone nowhere you are, my heart, not so long as you live in some form. I will know you are thinking of me, and I will be thinking of you. I will be here to water you, fan you, warm you, and love you.”

The tree was not satisfied with this outcome. He had known her lips, her taste, and her warmth. What comfort were dirt and worms compared to that? They kissed and all seemed decided. He loved her though. When he became a tree how would he embrace her? He had known her as a lover. He could not go back. But there was no other option.

Time continued, and soon autumn passed. Winter came quickly, like spite to the lovers. Each day grew colder. Each day she urged him return to the soil. And after each entreaty, he repeated to his lady, growing more worried.

“It won’t snow tonight. Tomorrow! I will return to a tree tomorrow.”

His answer was the same the night the King found the town. The tree had a high and terrible fever. The lady, desperate, cared by his side. His eyes were turning again, this time almost blue. How could she return him to the earth before it froze? Just as she felt she was close to an answer there was a heavy, loud knock at the very late hour. She opened the door, only a sliver, but the King forced open the door. He grabbed the Queen quickly, but before had turned the tree leapt from bed. He pulled his love from the King’s clutches and called for reinforcements.

But none came. Winter was too far. Snow was coming soon. All the planets lay under the soil, already dreaming of spring. The tree was alone. He made for the door, but the King had recovered and unsheathed a sword. A brushstroke of red splattered their floor. The King stepped forward to finish the job, but the Queen came behind him and slit the King’s throat. Then, the two ran.

They raced, chased by the dead King’s army. The tree’s eyes began to frost over. Blinded by winter, the Queen held his hand tight while blood streamed from his wound and made a nice trail. She lead him to the park. She ran in a trance. The wound would be nothing to a tree. But, her love was no tree now, he was only a man. To a man, such a fever and wound lead to one outcome.

He knew where she was running, even as the first snowflake of winter melted on his fevered forehead. He collapsed on the ground. They both in a fit of gasps and a mess of blood. The two lovers huddled on that small patch of earth. The shouts came closer, and soldiers ran faster. They followed the tree’s blood, and would soon be upon them.

“Hurry,” her voice quivered the plea. “Return to the soil.”

He smiled, though he could barely see her at all. His eyes had turned gray, all death and cold. He squeezed her hand and pressed it to his lips.

“It’s too late, my love. The soil is frozen solid.”

He touched her warm cheek, and the lovers embraced. He kissed her, and held her. And, the lay on the ground. How long he did not know when finally he roused. But he could feel his last moments had arrived as promised. He felt for the Queen’s hand, only to discover every bit of its warmth gone. He touched her lingering smile with weak trembling fingers. Her body had melted the soil. The tree choked and he sobbed. The pain of fever and sword meant nothing to the pain in his heart. He raged, wild and loud. The town woke to his heart breaking. The soldiers were upon him at last. The townsfolk looked on to witness what creature could create such a sorrowful wail.

In the center of the town, on the patch of winter soil, stood a tree. Its branches were barren, but its splendor and might were easily seen. The knights searched, and the townspeople too, but no one could find the source of the sobs in the air. Nor could the citizens gather how such a resplendent tree had grown in just one night. They found only a heart, carved long ago, around the name of a farmhand’s lover. The tree’s root and the soil were drenched red with blood. But nothing remained or offered a clue. The townspeople returned to their homes, the snow falling heavy all around. The soldiers returned to their faraway land, much more peaceful at last.

In spring the tree fountained to life. Its leaves vibrated life. Its trunk showed its heart. Though, any knife which tried could not pierce, not stab, even an inch. It was well understood the tree had only one person inside of its heart. And, in the evenings, just before dark, people heard the whispers and laughter of lovers. They stayed high in the branches, hidden from sight. And, on very dry days a rain fell over the tree’s roots. On very hot days wind fanned the tree’s leaves. And, on cold days, during the winter, a lady the people recognized embraced the tree’s trunk, warming him from deep inside, until she disappeared.

And so it was, forever.

#original fiction #short story #readlr #booklr #July 2017 #S.W. Wildwood

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literarygoon · 4 years

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So,

The forest surrounding Skmana Lake was like a symphony.

During the day a multitude of avian voices would permeate the foliage with their shrill tittering and plaintive screeches, and the resulting soundscape was inescapable for the lumberjacks running North America’s largest log flume during the summer of 1928. These barbarous men spent all their waking hours amidst the slow-groaning trunks of monstrous trees hundreds of years old, drunk on mountain air and confident in their relentless victory over nature. All around them was the constant applause of slapping leaves, the sighs and whispers of the wind, and the soothing burble of the flume’s diverted flow — which transformed into a sloshing roar every time they sent a log hurtling down to the Adams River eleven kilometres away.

Sometimes the work teams sung solemn, masculine hymns as they sawed, building to the thunderous climax of crashing wood when these noble titans would finally fall to mere men. They were David, and the trees were their Goliaths.

After his years in Scotch Creek, it took some time for Shuswap Joe to remember the language of the woods. After stashing his final shipment of Shu-Scotch in a remote crevice in the mountains, he’d spent nearly a year evading the authorities and devolving into the feral state of his youth before walking into a nearby logging camp and applying for a job under a fake name. It felt good to be in the company of men again, because his headspace was nothing but torturous, never-ending conversations with two women that he had loved, now dead. Their names were Mistress Molly and Lucy Applewater, and they haunted him with accusatory eyes, forever unsatisfied, these floating spectres from his past. Since the escape he’d become terrified by his own mind, and welcomed any distraction from the visions it conjured of bullet-riddled corpses, slit throats and fiery conflagrations.

Now that he was back in the forest, divorced from the belching chug of modern civilization, Joe regained his awareness of the music all around him. A squirrel proudly rhapsodizing for its mate, the percussive hiss of a mountain stream sluicing through moss-covered rocks, the crunching of leaves underfoot — all of these awakened a primal yearning within him that he couldn’t quite name. He had never been a religious man, and had never once stepped foot in a church, but nonetheless he felt the presence of a watchful deity controlling everything around him like a cosmic conductor. He longed to add his voice to the chorus, to find the right words to bellow into the wilderness, to transform his solitary sadness into a song.

Grief was his constant companion. As a younger man Joe had become convinced that fate was on his side, that the universe was conspiring on his behalf, but now it seemed the opposite was true. How else to explain his plummet? First he’d lost his mentor, then his bootlegging business, and finally his home at the River Eel Saloon. What had he done to deserve this? Why would the universe let him sip from the cup of prosperity, only to fling it away? More than once he found himself standing at the lip of some dizzying precipice, contemplating the plunge and what might await him on the other side. He felt like he’d already lived multiple lifetimes, like he couldn’t take any more sadness or loss, like his story was already written and simply waiting for an ending. Eventually, with tears dribbling into his tri-coloured beard, he would will himself away from the edge and beat his fists bloody against nearby tree trunks out of mournful frustration. What was the point of all this?

Then one night he happened upon a small grove of bobbing mushrooms, red-spotted and dew-slick in the moonlight, right as his stomach growled out in hunger. By this point his body had transformed from his Scotch Creek heyday, tautening with muscle from climbing trees and swinging axes, his broad shoulders narrowing to a washboard stomach. During his walkabouts he’d been living on a diet of berries, Shu-Scotch and the occasional river eel — so the proud fungi were a welcome feast. He plucked them up in handfuls, gobbling greedily, until the entire patch was bare before him. It reminded him of his youthful days living in solitude, back before Nanor stole his innocence, when the forest provided for his every need. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he murmured a quick prayer of thanks to the purple night sky and continued on his perambulation.

At first Joe didn’t acknowledge the warm throb in his jugular, the curious weightlessness of his limbs, the way his footsteps seemed to take on a deeper resonance. But before long he was singing, and it was as if he’d known the words all along.

“The river brought me life and the river taught me death,” he sang, his voice echoing through the silhouetted trees. “My mother gave me nothing and that’s all that I’ve got left.”

He wrapped one arm around a tree trunk and spun around it, dancing with his stationery partner. “The river taught me patience and the river taught me pain. My father gave me nothing and it’s with nothing I’ll remain.”

By the time he reached the second verse Joe’s soul had vacated his body to float formless in the ether. He was not himself, not really, but a universal energy that animated this silly little logger body. His selfhood was nothing but a stubbornly persistent illusion, just a temporary lodging for something far more eternal. Some part of him had always known this, he realized, so how had he forgotten? He watched himself traipse through the woods drunkenly the same way a parent watches their child take their first faltering steps. This was the beginning of something new.

Eventually he broke out to the shore of the Adams River, right by the mouth of the log flume. In front of him was the rapid known as the Lion’s Head, and the hellish current that had swept him into Nanor’s lair as a child. He’d seen it countless times in his nightmares, but never like this. As he stood in quiet rapture the scene began to transform before his eyes, swirling hypnotically, until the white light glinted across the waves. It was morning now, and he wasn’t alone. On the far bank a sun-browned pregnant woman was rising out of the water, dripping and naked, her dread-locked hair dangling to the base of her spine. She shrugged into a rainbow-coloured robe hanging from a nearby branch, then crossed to a small beach fire crackling amidst the rocks.

The river gave me life and the river taught me death. My mother gave me nothing and that’s all that I’ve got left.

In much the same way that Joe knew his body was an illusion, he now understood that somehow he was looking at his long-dead mother. Her robe flapped around her protruding stomach, which was decorated with deep pink claw marks. She was singing too, and her voice echoed to him across the water as she produced a handful of red powder and blew it luxuriously across the flames. The crimson cloud expanded, breaking into fiery spiralling spirits that dispersed far above her head. She was praying, Joe realized, or maybe performing some sort of ritual. Retrieving a small drum from the ground, she hopped and danced spasmodically, ululating along to the heart-like beat of her drum. Her music filled the air until it drowned out all other sound, until the music seemed to be coming from some cavern deep inside himself.

Then, just like that, she was standing beside him. He saw now that his mother’s face was streaked with soot, her eyes like glowing embers from her fire. She had been crying.

“I don’t understand what’s happening,” he said, to break the silence. “I don’t know how I got here.”

She smiled, but her eyes were still sad. “You don’t need to understand, my love. And you probably never will. We’re not meant to have the answers.”

“Will you tell me what to do next? I’m lost, and I don’t think I’ll ever be found. This world has taken everything from me. Everything that mattered to me, everything I built. It’s all gone.”

She cupped his face with one hand, and met his gaze. “You can never lose the things that matter. Every breath you take is a gift from me, a gift that I paid dearly for. The river has other plans for you.”

“What plans?”

“That’s not a question I can answer. It’s a question you’ll have to answer for yourself, sweet Joe. But keep your eyes on the heavens, because your salvation will come from the clouds. She’s coming already. She’s on her way and you have to be ready for her.”

“Who’s coming? Ready for who?”

His mother was crying again now, silent tears that drew lines in the soot. She let her hand drop back to her side, then took a moment to brush her dreadlocks past her shoulders. Somehow he knew without asking her that this would be the only time they would meet; he could see in her eyes that she was readying herself for a final goodbye. Behind her the flume erupted, and a log struck the river with a mighty splash. The world was starting to go dark around them as his vision blurred with tears. He was losing her all over again.

Just as she was fuzzing out of existence, he reached out to grab her and clasped nothing but air.

“Look to the skies,” she said. “That’s where you’ll find her.”

The Literary Goon

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