Reincarnation Tapes Excerpt (Prologue-Chapter 2)

8/10/2019 Reincarnation Tapes Excerpt (Prologue-Chapter 2)

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PROLOGUE

Heres whats gonna go in this book. Get this down. Were gonnachange the motherfuckin world . Thats the straight shit. Youlistening man? Were all here making the best music in the world.Ive got hits man, hits every fuckin day of the week. Get this. Man,we had dudes come in from all over the world here to be part ofthis. This is where it happens. And tomorrow is going to be just liketoday. All I know is I got it made with all these talented people here.Its a gift. I been gifted with world-famous musicians and artists andthe best there is and I got the place right here to do it. This is fuckinmagic. There aint no other place around like this studio and Imhere to bring it all together. Shit. This is fuckin Hollywood. Gotdrivers and shit. Tell me someone else can play my game. Andtomorrow gonna be the same. [laughter] They call me the decider.This guy can play. That guy cant play. This guy standing on afuckin street corner pickin his nose thinkin he can play some shittyguitar up in here like a million other pieces of shit before him andtakes all the respect and care I give him and ushes it all away. No

way. This is my show. This is my stage. Stage left, stage right,roadies on call, carrying my shit. Plenty of itI could brush it alloff and kick back and move on but these fuckin pricks with theirgoddamn hands out actin like I got a life vest to keep them up outthe water. Dont nobody get to fuck with Red Rocks Studio. You


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know how many rundown, out-of-town, upside down souls comethrough here thinking they can hang? Only the best and brightest

dudes that I know can take it to the next level and stick around. Youwrite this book we been talkin bout, you can stick around, Adam,Ill promise you that. Im gonna make you famous. This is ourchance, you see? Im talkin bout destiny. This is everything. This islife. This is all the love in the world and all the power and energybut just cause its there dont mean its gonna just show up on yourlap, you know? You gotta come take that shit. Take it or leave italone. Theres Robbies daily aphorism, motherfucker. Take it or

leave it alone.This man who speaks stomps his old leather boots on the oor

of the kitchen then claps his hands. Not quite We Will Rock You,but close. He expresses a devious, disconnected and uninchingpleasure on his face.

Yeaaaaah.He quickly scoops up an off-white coffee mug and sips whiskey

from it. He sets down the mug on the kitchen counter amid aclutter of dishes.

Ba da da duh dum His gruff, distorted voice is singing someold blues riff. He carries onvocalizing, stomping and clapping all while disappearing down the hallway and walking out the frontdoor of this building, I can hear the corroded creak of the greatwooden doors of this music studio, so often shut against the outsideworld. I can still hear him somewhere far away, carrying on, raving,

laughing at something that he said days ago, talking to no one.This is an afternoon.I remain a dormant gure, eventually letting some impending

arrangement of pharmaceutical distractions hold my hand and rubmy neck and back in a light, soothing euphoria. How else shall Itolerate this man who speaks?

I feel there is something I am supposed to be doing today,something important to be accomplished. Some vague image of anink-covered desk ashes through my memory, though it answers noquestions. Memories of beautiful women beg my attention but theskylight above me hums with a blue sparkle that I watch like atelevision: That is ne for now.


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Ba da da duh dumI am carefully adjusted, unfolded from my seated position to a

stretched-out repose. Corpse pose. Some sound like a birdcallenters my ear. It is either from a phone or a television or a bird.The difference does not seem important. The airy tweets are coldlyinterrupted, broken apart by the man who speaks.

Ba da da duh dumThen this dust-choked, sunlight-streamed room is tilted on its

axis. I am a piece of otsam rolling with the waves, an oldunsinkable and directionless board and all the sound is like

screaming, a furious crash of glass and cookware falls fromsomewhere high and there are whispers and apologies. A few otherdim souls arrive to speak with the man who speaks. I cannot seetheir faces or know their names. They are gures of some darkfantasy, cloaked and veiled.

Ba da da duh dumThis is an afternoon and it has happened but now it is over.

There was trouble and now it has passed. There were people andnow I am alone, save for the weathered refrain of one man, theman who speaks, still stomping his boot on some cold adjacentoor, his smoky voice mufed by the walls between us.

Clarity, the kind of cold, threatening clarity that comes pairedwith regret in a post-drug wake, reaches out and grabs myattention. I am being misled here, living with some unnaturalabandon to t in, to forget lost loves, to chase a fantasy, to sing

along:Ba da da duh dum


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HIPPIE ENCLAVE

She said her name was Sunshine and it probably was. I never sawanyone wearing so many layers of clothing who wasnt pushing ashopping cart overowing with belongings down a city sidewalk.She likely had loads of cash from trusts and inheritance but shelived like a Merry Prankster. She wore tight black leggings as pantswith condence, but the top half of her body was sheathed withwhat looked like half a dozen old thrift-store t-shirts, a couplescarves and a silk tie all covered with a torn old cardigan the colorof dark mustard. Her dark brunette hair was long and tied incomplicated, obscure knots, pinned with many bright pinkbarrettes. When someone spoke, she approached the speakerintently, staring so deep into their eyes that it provoked eitherdiscomfort or apparent psychic connectivity. When she spoke, her

voice was low and raspy, shockingly so for her small frame.These are my friends, Jane and Lori.Two friends and I did the usual polite introductions, shaking

limp and slightly upturned hands, smiling. All three women were

equally buried in their clothing, cheap old jewelry, ribbons andconfusing accessories. We were at the only bar open later at night inTopanga Canyon, sitting outside in the patio, gas heaters hissingoverhead despite the temperature being no lower than 60. Sunshinepulled out a decorative tin full of American Spirit cigarettes and


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passed one to each of her friends.Oh, hey. Would it be cool if I bummed a smoke? Sean asked.

Sean Price, Felix Allen and myself grew up in southwesternNew Hampshire, went to high school together, played in a bandtogether and all somehow wound up living together in Los Angeles,more precisely in Topanga Canyon, a strangely isolated hippieenclave in the hills between Santa Monica and Malibu. We allarrived at different times in our lives but there we were, togetheragain, assuring ourselves we would make a living in music. Any daynow.

Every person except myself lit a cigarette. I huddled into thesmoke circle nonetheless and acted the part, trying hard not to lookawkward while holding my plastic cup of water as everyone drankalcohol and talked over each other. I failed to think of anything tosay in this situation so I said nothing. I looked around andoccasionally smiled and nodded. I was standing among all thesepeople but I could not help listening from 10 or 20 yards away,seeing this familiar routine develop; seeing Sean sense his momentand go to work as he would; seeing these young women, these L.A.women living like Jim Morrison is going to show up. Any day now.

Sean was speaking fast now, moving toward the women,getting closer and closer like he had known them for years. He waslaughing with the group, but glancing knowingly at Felix and Ievery now and again to conrm his motives. His period of smalltalk was funny and engaging and soon it left him with an

opportunity to launch into a familiar story.Sean Price was similar in stature to myself. We were bothcomparatively short, especially when standing near Felix, who wassix feet and four inches with long light-colored hair and animpressive beard to match. Seans hair was a curly mess of darkbrown, he was wearing a Guns N Roses t-shirt with countless holesand tears. The holes in the knees of his jeans had spread outward,encompassing most of the front and exposing the white fabric ofhis pockets and the tops of his socks. He had a lazy beard and onearm was covered with a tattoo of an octopus. But the confusingpart about Seans appearance was that it could alternate suddenlybetween skinny and groomed or stocky and unkempt in short spans


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of time. His tendency to try to be a different person on differentdays of the week would inuence his look greatly.

Well this is great. Thank you so much for the smoke. I reallyam trying not to smoke much anymore. But anyway were actuallygoing to head out pretty soon, but its been great hanging out.Actually, you should all come with us! Were living and working atRed Rocks Studio, its a famous recording studio right up the road.We are just going to party and play music all night, we usually havea bunch of people there all relaxing and jamming and everything.Good vibes. Totally chill. Adam heres got his car and hes sober,

what do you say? Head out?He rattled off these lines in practiced pitch quickly and left no

opportunity for rebuttal until the very end when he nished with agreat big smile on his face and his arms open in invitation.

It was true, I was sober and I had a car. That was my part inthis. Honestly, this come to our famous studio and party withstrangers you just met play wasnt that effective and I had alwaysbeen wholly uncomfortable with it, but nonetheless, they agreed to

join us. The cigarettes were nished and the girls moseyed for a bit,saying a few words around the bar to acquaintances beforefollowing us outside.

Shit, six people, said Felix, pointing at my small car.Its a short drive, though, you want to just cram it in? Sean

asked.I shrugged and waved everyone into the small car.

We started driving up the dark canyon road, past the densely-settled bungalows, modern cabins, designer estates and hippie-sleekshacks. Sean pointed and commented on supposed celebrity homes.I noticed that one of the girls in the backseat, whose name waseither Jane or Lori, I was not yet sure, had a cocktail in a large glassin her hand and was sipping it through a straw. I silently negotiatedthe sharp corners toward the studio. Eventually Sean began rattlingoff a list of artists that he said had recorded at the studio.

Bob Dylan, Rage Against the Machine, Yo-Yo Ma, ummmDire Straits, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Tom Petty, so many more.

Ringo Starr I think, Felix said. He had a look on his face thatsuggested he completely made that one up.


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The one artist I knew with any certainty had worked at thestudio was Bob Dylan, who recorded a very forgettable album there

in the 80s. The rest of the list was entirely rumor at best and in afew cases complete ction.We pulled to the side street where the studio was located and

parked just off the street behind a dilapidated GMC suburban fromthe 70s. Triumphantly, Sean lead the way through a series of olddoors to a back patio area and nally through a large steel door intothe main living area of the studio. There was a small kitchen, twobathrooms in close proximity to each other and a few old dining

room chairs near a small table. On the other side of the small roomwas a bar that only collected a VCR, a stack of magazines, a bag ofrolling tobacco, empty beer cans, dirty dishes and an ash tray thatcontained only stumped out joints.

Dropping an old joint in another ash tray on a table, RobbieCortez sat in a chair that was known to those that frequented thisplace as his chair. A television mounted in the corner near theceiling was on ESPN. The room smelled strongly of pot. Robbiewas a very short man, perhaps coming in under ve and a half feet.He had a somewhat round face, his dark skin giving away hisMexican heritage. He had thin black and grey hair pulled back by ared bandana tied across his forehead. There was a thick necklacewith a cross on it hanging over a faded olive shirt. His loose jeans,splattered with bleach stains, hung over old leather boots. Robbiesaid he had connections. Robbie said he was a legend, he had the

King Midas touch. He said he was in charge around here, placed inan authority role to try and govern a lawless group of addicts,drunks and naive musicians.

He did not own the building, contrary to the impression hewould give. The real owner was a man that was a complete reclusewho lived in Torrance and never showed his face and did notappear to give any resemblance of a shit about the debauchery athis studio.

Sean brought the girls into the room and presented them toRobbie as a young boy would bring home a glowing report card tohis parents. It was understood that in our current livingarrangement, we were strongly encouraged to invite women to the


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edges and light xtures; massive webs from multiplying spiders;missing lightbulbs and old, exposed wiring.

There were only a few instruments in the room at that time,leaving much empty space. I had an acoustic guitar, a bass and anamp neatly tucked into a corner. Sean had an electric guitar amp,an immense array of effect pedals and a guitar situated near thedoor. A drum set sat on a raised platform in the corner of theroom. An old out-of-tune piano took up another corner of theroom and looked like a sad memorial. Robbie stood holding acheap old nylon-string guitar in the center of the room, pointing

things out with his free hand. Sean dragged a couch closer to theworn out carpet in the center of the room. I moved instinctivelytoward my gear, pulled out my bass and sat on my amp playingunplugged and silent as the group looked around. Felix, as adrummer, naturally gravitated to the drum set and sat down at itbut did not play. Robbie continued a tour, turning on the lights tothe control room and showing off the huge control board and rack-mounted hardware. Then, through yet another window panel inthe control room, I saw them enter a smaller version of the room Isat in, called for some unknown reason the Mariachi Room. Iconsidered it to be ideal for vocal takes, but at that time there was adirty couch and a giant pile of belongings taking up most of thespace.

Which one is Jane and which one is Lori? I quietly asked myfriends.

Shit. I dont actually remember, Felix whispered back. Ithink Jane is wearing the purple scarf and black beanie cap andLori is the one in the white knitted thing and baggy tank top. ButIm not completely sure to be honest.

Yeah, thats right, Sean added. Hey, while you were outside, Sunshine said they have some

acid, so it looks like thats happening, Felix said. I dont know.Why the hell not? Robbie wont take any though. Hes on enoughother shit I think. I dont think he likes

Just then Erick Cooper stumbled into the room. I mean, heactually stumbled on the side of the door, kind of caught his foot onthe frame and nearly lost it before somehow catching his balance


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and looking up at us with an intoxicated, toothy grin. He wasalways in various states of drink and was most certainly an

alcoholic. Upon learning of my alcoholism when I rst showed upin the studio, he confessed to me he had gone through spells wherehe had given up drinking, but they never lasted long. Now heembraced the booze. When he found new and creative ways tohumiliate himself or cause a scene, I couldnt help stack my ownexperience against his. Other than some brief, half-hearted andboredom-plagued attempts at sobriety when I was 21, I gave updrinking at 22 after a death-at-the-doorstep hangover, a

mysteriously broken bicycle, a deep gash on my arm and theconclusion of a lengthy blackout. I skipped out on my job that dayand felt a panic creeping into my blood. I thought I had reachedmy bottom. Then my life-changing departure from alcohol justhappened and that was that. But Erick struggled for years andfound the bottle again and again through his various contacts onthe dark-side. That he would struggle with a heroin-addiction ontop of this was not doing him any favors, since it appeared thealcohol led him to smack at the same time the smack led him tomore alcohol and when one habit was stolen from him he lost hisbalance and fell to the other.

Erick Cooper was in the tracking room, drunk, under thedirection from Robbie to set up some microphones and equipmentto record a jam session. Erick had the long dirty hair of a surferand talked like one too. He always seemed to be wearing the same

blue t-shirt that said SAN DIEGO in large font with faded picturesof sail boats. Erick was an all-purpose handyman around the studioand knew his way around microphones and cables and a few piecesof recording equipment, but that was where his music studioexpertise ended. He opened a narrow door in the corner of theroom and got to work setting up microphones while I made my wayto the control room to plug in a few cables and get a tape recordergoing.

In a studio full of expensive equipment, most of the actualrecording was either to cassettes, cheap recording software onlaptops or DAT recorders. The common theme at that time wasthat none of the best gear was ever used for any recording for the


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simple reason that no one knew how to use it properly. There werenights when we would record some throw-away song, then forget to

turn off the machine and capture a night of conversation or peoplesleeping. The constant on every second of these recordings was thatevery person except myself was intoxicated by something,sometimes deeply, other times just getting going. I would sit in onbass or guitar on these sessions and after 45 minutes of playing thesame two chords in a kind of devolving dirge, I would enter atrance-like state, mercifully, sharing in the state of mind of mypeers.

This nights song was not as funereal as some nights, insteadtaking on a joyous tone for the rst portion. Everyone exceptRobbie and I had by then dropped acid and they were in thewaiting game for its effects. Erick probably had taken it as well, buthis normal behavior was impossible to separate from that of aserious trip. Robbie was just at-out drunk. He forcefully strummedhis old nylon string guitar. One microphone was centered in frontof him to capture both his guitar and his barking verse. Sean playedelectric guitar, painting major-key riffs repeatedly. Felix played thedrums, Lori a Casio keyboard that no one could hear and Sunshinesat near Robbie with a tambourine and tried to sing along to anywords she could decipher. Jane sat nearby on the couch lookingpleased. I played bass, sometimes wildly and adventurously to cureboredom, sometimes low and predictably to rein it back in. Themusic droned on and after about a half hour, every one of the girls

either lost patience or followed some acid-inuenced distractionand left the room. Erick disappeared somewhere.There remained four of us and Robbie showed no signs of

running out of steam. He was somewhere in his sixties, we gured,a former touring drummer, self-proclaimed rock star and sage ofTopanga Canyon, friend of many famous musicians and here hewas, strumming away while sitting in a folding metal chair. All of uswere strangers to him not long ago, his entourage here was arevolving cast. I looked at Robbie, seated in the middle of everyone,and thought he looked lonely somehow, all of his peers either deador moved away from him.

Robbie sang on, occasionally revisiting a verse in his damaged


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growl of a voice that must have required a great volume of air touse in the manner he sang. Sean, Felix and I knew that we could

only politely play along. We dared not quit on Robbie. This was histrance and his mantra and none of us could ever gure it out or getthe same thing out of it as he did, but to Robbie these jams werealways a success. Even in their stupefying repetition and out-of-tunekeys, we would conclude with high-ves and celebration. Thosemoments showed Robbie at his most friendly. He beamed love andappreciation, and we all shared in his delight.

Eventually, Robbies high settled. We moved into the living area

and Robbie sat down in his chair, drank some more whiskey fromhis mug and quieted down a bit. The three girls, now in full swingon some powerful acid, were nothing short of completely amazedby everything. Two of them sat on the oor near the bar while Janesat on a white leather couch. Exhausted, I grabbed a large glass ofwater and sat next to her. She was looking down at a button on herold cardigan when she turned to me and spoke in a delicate voice.

How long were you playing? She asked me while pointing tothe button. I did not answer at rst, wondering how this all relatedto the button.

Umm. I think it was probably around 45 minutes. Somehowmost of those end up being around 45 minutes before they runtheir course, I said. I took a large sip of the water and lookedaround, then turned back to her as she studied the button.

It just felt like it was, like, three hours, Jane said. I couldnt

tell if she was marveling at the apparent exibility in her perceptionof time or if she was annoyed by the monotonous jangling ofbluesy rock.

Yeah. Our conversation ended. We both shifted our attentiongradually to what the others were talking about.

Sean sat on the oor near two of the girls, speaking louder thanwas needed. but the other day, I saw it again. Im sitting outsideand in the morning it was a beautiful day, as usual, with a perfectblue sky, even surprisingly clean and crisp, then planes go by, not allat once, but one at a time, they start criss-crossing and holy shitthose arent normal plane trails behind them, they stay there andlike spread out a little, then eventually a couple hours go by and


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there are a bunch of these fucking chem-trails all over the sky andIm getting the same headache again, I can just feel it like its some

poison just being sprayed on us or like a pesticide and were just thecrops. Its disturbing, you know? This was Sean, full-on tin-foil-hatmode. I always tried to avoid pressing him on these issues, hopinghe would move on, but his audience was receptive.

I heard it could be a weather-control thing though, Loriadded.

Thats different, thats a thing in Alaska called HAARP, H-A-A-R-P, Sean spelled it out. But I think the chem-trails must be

medical or maybe this other crazy shit called non-discerniblemicro-bio inoculators, but dont even get me started on all that. See,the military Before Sean could continue, Robbie took one lastdrag off an old roach and stood up from his chair, where he hadbeen rather quiet.

Ahhhhh[unintelligible] Shit, yall, Im out. Goodnight andwhat a pleasure to meet you wonderful ladies. Robbie hugged eachone of them and left the building, walking to his private bungalowin the backyard to pass out.

Sean continued where he left off with his conspiracy freak-out.Id heard his arguments many times before and I tuned out.Sunshine left for the bathroom and I stood up to rell my waterglass even though my bladder could not deal with the excesshydration fast enough. Sunshine emerged and walked past me. Shesmelled like candles, owers and sage with only the slightest hint of

tobacco smoke. She was icking her hair around, adjusting thehardware pinned all over her head. With her arms raised halfway,her gure was accented. I tried not to stare, but I looked.

The acid was really working people over now, but the room wasmuch quieter and when the energy seemed to drain I gured thegirls were about to bail and I did not blame them for that. Seanmay have oversold our plans this evening.

I have a great idea, Jane said. It just came to me. You guyshave the recording stuff set up right? Well, we can go in there, andlike maybe turn the lights down, light a few candles, and roll thetape or whatever then, this is something Lori and I were talkingabout the other day, well all take turns recounting our past lives, its


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just too bad we dont have our tarot cards, but thats okay, it will befun to record it all.

I was about to poke a couple cynical holes into the idea, butwhen I saw the gears turning in the collective, acid-soakedconsciousness of everyone else in the room, I stayed quiet. Theyappeared to be sharing a moment and I chose not to ruin it.Perhaps because I wanted to be around Sunshine, or perhapsbecause I was just curious what this past lives business was goingto mean, I dismissed my desire to go to sleep.

At rst, everyone just sat around the living room in silence and

I thought the idea would be forgotten, but Felix turned to me andspoke in a slow, tired voice. We need to nd some candles.

Ill look for them, I said. I started the search in a closet in thelarger of the two bathrooms. There were three or four shelves fullof old soap bars, combs, clothes, Playboy magazines and otherforgotten bathroom items. Digging deeper, I found a box of rocks, acarton of Mustang cigarettes, a Quicksilver Messenger Servicerecord and small log, but no candles. I searched the studio roomsand the closet behind the control room before walking down thehall to the front reception room.

When I switched on the light for the front room, I saw Ericklying face-down on the oor. With the light on, he mumbled faintly.

Whats that Erick? You alright? I bent to one knee and leaneddown to him.

Motherfuckers, he said.

Erick, Ill help you up and to your bed. Cmon lets go. Igrabbed him around the armpit and tried to pull but he stayeddown.

Adam? Jesus man. Leave me here. Im ne. Im ne. Dontmind the drunk. Hes just being a drunk and drinking andfuck,man, yknow I been tryin to leave this place for two years. I beentryin to stay away but I just end up back here and I end up backhere drinking and down on the fuckin oor like this. Same storyover and over.

I stood up and stared down at him. Do you know where I cannd any candles?


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SUNSHINE DAYDREAM

Okay, is it recording? Who wants to go? Actually, let me go rst.Lets seeI was a farmer. Yes, I was a farmer and I had to farmevery single day of my adult life. And I had a family. Big familywith, uh seven kids and my wife was just so beautiful. She hadblack hair that she almost always had tied up but when she let itdown it ran like all the way down her back. This farm was kind ofnear a hilltop. There was an old wagon trail up to it and thefarmhouse that I built was kind of up on the top of the hill thereand the elds rolled down the hill and spread out a little bit fromthe bottom out. Our farm never made that much money but itwasnt really about that. It was about feeding my family and tryingto get a good harvest every year and make a little bit of money tokeep up with the costs. And that was my life then. It was simple

Jane took a deep breath, stretched her back, played with her hairand stared at the window high above her. She looked back to thegroup, appearing confused. She was wondering what everyone wasso quiet for. Then she sat up straight, perhaps remembering that

she had been speaking. She shook her head a little, wrung herhands, and commenced once more. I think some time long beforethat I must have been a girl. A Japanese girl. She was always verysmart, much smarter than she let on to her parents and she did a lotof writing and stuff but it had to be in secret because she was sold


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by her father to a wealthy family in town so she was to marry a boyher age. She never saw her own family again but was forced into a

quiet life of obedience to her husband who was kind of a dick.Sorry, I guess this is a sad one. No, but she had many children andshe loved her children a lot and she became a kind of strong, steadywoman for her kids and their kids until her death. I think she diedin a re. Fuck it. Sorry guys. Someone else go and come back to meagain, maybe.

There were six of us sitting in various positions on the rug inthe largest room of the studio. The lights were out and a few

candles were glowing around the room. Someone had found nag-champa incense and it burned on top of Seans amp. There wasone microphone set up near the group, relaying past lives to a DATtape in the next room. When people spoke, the large room addedsome natural reverb. They were speaking at an incredibly slowcadence, thinking hard about their words as they came out. Aftermany sentences were long pauses, but no one seemed to mind. Theatmosphere made those pauses appropriate.

I was a bird once, Lori said. You cant imagine the feeling.Its like, as humans, were used to moving back and forth, left andright, but as a bird you can go up and up and up and down anddown. I was a bird in, uh, South America. In Peru. I ew aroundthe mountains there and found food for my chicks. We had a nestway up in a tree, tucked neatly into a safe place up there Upthere. Lori pointed to a specic corner of the high ceiling and of

course everyone else looked up and saw nothing but a water stainand cobwebs. Then she said nothing for about a minute beforecontinuing. And from the nest I could just take off and glide rightdown the mountainside without even trying, just open up my wingsand y. Well, glide, I guess.

Also, I was a, ummonk. I was a monk in Tibet, like wayback and I led a life of quiet devotion and I meditated for daysstraight and I made my own clothes and there were no materialpossessions of any kind. I wrote things down, I translated old textand I had a mantra and a guru and everything How many arewe doing?

Well do you have anything else? asked Jane.


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No, I guess not right now, I dont, said Lori.The room remained quiet for a while. Sunshine, lying on her

back with her knees bent, remained quiet. Felix was sitting with hislegs out in a V shape. Sean had his eyes closed and was seatedIndian-style with his hands in his lap. I was on my side, proppingmy head up with my hand, dgeting and trying to stay comfortable.One of the candles was ickering, jumping back and forth and didnot want to rest. I stared at it, waiting for someone to speak, thenclosed my eyes and watched the after-image of the small ame fadeinto several colors on the inside of my eyelids.

Still sitting in the tracking room cross-legged, Sean appearedeuphoric with a buzzed smile, relaxed eyes and a carefree posture.Whoa, Sean said like a sigh. This is it. I was a deer and, uh, Iremember running at night. Man, it was amazing! I could jumpand frolic through the trees very quickly and I was running so fastbefore there was a set of bright white lights that came toward meand I froze up. The feeling was so unnatural and unexpected. Imean, shit, how would you react to something you cantcomprehend coming straight at you? Wow. Something that yourbrain wasnt meant to process at all. The lights slowed downthough. They just gradually rolled to a stop before me and sat thereand did not move. After half a minute like that I was able to run offinto the woods again

Also, I was a slave in ancient times. I think it must have beenRome or something, I was forced to move huge blocks of stone

along with many, many others to build for the Roman elite. I woulddo the work with the fear that Id get killed as Id seen happen toother guys. Throughout the day Id imagine, like, a family that Inever had. It was an imaginary family, yknow, with a girl that I sawworking in a garden in my youth. We grew up together and

JESUS. Did you guys see that ? Sean abruptly interrupted himself likehe had been shocked. He looked past the group to the area near theside door. Oh, man! There was a little guy sitting right there.Fucking serious. There was a midget and he was holding owersandgoddamn. I cant even go anymore. Im done. Holy shit.

While Sean continued to laugh about the little person with theowers, everyone waited to see if someone else would speak. You


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should go, Lori said, poking me in the arm while I lay with myeyes closed, though I was not sleeping. I wasnt expecting to be

called on. My hand wasnt raised. I was trying to sink into the oorand just listen and I certainly hadnt thought of any past lives.I smiled nervously and looked over at Felix and he nodded,

then returned his gaze down to his hands. Sean nally quieteddown and kept his eyes tightly shut, perhaps to avoid seeing thelittle person again. The people in this candle-lit room were waitingfor me, but not impatiently. I was allowed to gather my thoughts fora moment. I thought about the concept of a past life and I did an

honest search of my mind to nd anything close. I thought abouthistory and any events that had captured my imagination in strangeways.

Well, I think I was a soldier in Europe during World WarTwo, I said nally. I wasnt a hero. I was scared. From beingdrafted, to training, to being thrust into gunre on D-Day, to hidingbehind hedges, to nally being shot in the head, I was scared. I wasthis one particular soldier, but I could have easily been so manymore Jesus Christ. Let me think of something else. Hang on, Ifelt like I could have elaborated on the soldier thing for muchlonger as I was starting to feel more events coming to me suddenly.I didnt expect to take it seriously, but it started to make more sense,or, at least, become easier to bullshit. But the soldier story wasbringing me down and the acid troupe was letting every wordspoken penetrate their very being, so I didnt want to keep digging a

foxhole or lead them into an ambush and risk sending everyone intoa dark trip.The room breathed with me, sat leaning in, waiting for more

words. These people were connected and for the rst time I wishedI had taken the acid. But I couldnt think of how to proceed, if atall. Nothing further was coming to me. I looked around the room,studying, waiting for more thoughts. I saw a wooden beam near theceiling.

I was a carpenter. It was many many years ago. My tools weresimple. I worked with wood at a pace that would be consideredpainstakingly slow to our society today but to me it was just gettingit right. I took my tools and cut a tree, shaped it, cut it to boards


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and with my hands I built modest homes for myself and otherpeople I knew around the village. I bartered for things that I needed

and I possessed no currency. I met a beautiful woman in town. Shewas trading her familys bread and wine in the town square. Shehad light, pale hair, brilliant blue eyes and a warm face that greetedme with a loving smile and we were married all of two weeks later.She was a person that exuded positivity and she brought a certainsteadiness into my life. I remember we shared a strange sense ofhumor that we thought no one else in the world could possiblyunderstand. We worked very hard for a living, me building homes

and furniture and she caring for sick animals, though in those daysthere was no formal training for people to do so. She did her workwith her heart and a folklore-honed sense of well-being. We workedhard but had fun, buying a small amount of land of our own to useand to explore. We had two children. Two boys who eventuallygrew into compassionate, gifted adults. One became a performer, amusician that left home as a teenager and returned decades laterwith a family and told stories of the unthinkable lands he had seenin his life as a traveling musician. He explained how other peopleslived, how the sky looked different depending on where you were,how the wind can carry you across a seemingly innite ocean toanother world. He drew pictures of what people looked like all theway across the sea and we would all marvel. He spoke of greatstorms and trying years stuck in the grip of power-hungry men, of

years imprisoned, of bad guys and good guys and compassionate

women and innocent children. We never questioned these storiesand accepted everything as fact. My other son was a writer and hespent time relating his brothers stories to the page. They would sittogether at night drinking wine and elaborating on topics thateventually became fanciful and approached myth. As an old man Ifelt fullled having seen this, that my sons had contributedsomething to our world and left an impression in their own way.

Eventually, having decided I was done speaking, I couldnt takethe pall that fell over the room and I moved to a sofa near one ofthe walls. I fell onto it and sighed, looking up at the ceiling for amoment, eventually closing my eyes. Sunshine, who had chosen notto dive deep into her soul and reveal past lives that night, got up


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and sat down next to me.You played the part well, she said, amused. She seemed

surprisingly lucid compared to the rest of the group, which hadtemporarily moved on to synchronized breathing in a circle on theoor.

You know what, I replied. I enjoyed it, I may not be lettingany drugs do the talking for me, but I kind of get it. Its aninteresting concept, and something I remember my mom talkingabout one time.

Oh yeah? She sounded curious.

Yeah, we were on vacation in Washington, D.C. We never hadany money really so this was one of the few vacations with my momthat I can remember. She took me, my brother and my sister to thecapital. We saw all the good stuff. I think we spent about three daysseeing the Smithsonian, which left a huge impression on me.Another day we went to Fords Theatre where Lincoln was shot andI remember we were at the back of a tour group when she turnedto us kids and said something like, I feel something in here. This is

just so fascinating to me and I feel like maybe I was here in aprevious life. She was amazed by the tour and paid the tour guideevery attention she could afford while keeping three kids in order.Other times, in harder years, she would sort of openly long for asimpler life, like maybe something a couple hundred years ago inthe early years of the 1800s or something. She would talk about itso positively and mention that maybe that was what she did in a

past life. It wasnt that she was completely unhappy with us, sheraised us all just ne, but she had a strong connection to the pastthat I hadnt really taken time to notice until now.

Sunshine opened up a bit, and I realized while she spoke thateither she hadnt taken any acid or she had an incredible toleranceand could act straight when she wanted to. The latter was a strongpossibility.

She spoke of her struggles as an artist, how she thought she waspretty decent at painting and sculpting, but could never come closeto making it her life. She removed a few onion-like layers ofclothing, slimming down to the black leggings and a tight red t-shirt. She had a few bracelets on each arm, a couple beaded


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necklaces and the pink barrettes in her knotted brown hair. Herface looked tired, but her eyes were bright. She spoke about her

growing up in the area and how she had the cool parents. Theywere fanatics about The Grateful Dead, and thus they named herSunshine Daydream Lorent. When Sunshine was a high-schooler,her parents threw great parties in their bohemian compound anddid nothing to stop the kids from drinking, but by the time she was18 she was tiring of it. She noticed how immature her parentsreally were and how they had grown so attached to pot and evendabbled in harder drugs. She moved out when school was done.

Now she was 21 and still lived in Topanga with Jane and Lori in asmall rented guest house.

After speaking, Sunshine looked even more tired and her eyesdrifted shut. I listened in across the room as Felix spoke about a pastlife as a Native American. After 10 minutes, Sunshines head driftedonto my shoulder. I looked nervously around the room then downat her. She was in a gentle sleep. I let my head fall back to thecushion of the sofa and closed my eyes.

I woke up a couple hours later to a wooden crash somewheredown the hall. On the other side of the room, Lori was sleeping ona very small sofa with her legs curled over the arm rest. There was alight on in the control room and I saw Sean and Felix staring into acomputer screen and laughing. Jane was sitting in a chair,abstractedly attentive.

Fuck! A deep and sudden shout broke the slumbered night-

time silence. It was Erick, far down the hallway, sounding like he fellinto something. It sounded like he was moving a piece of furniture,then the noise stopped and he shut the door to his room. I lookeddown and saw Sunshine. She had repositioned herself on thecouch, sprawled out, her legs resting over mine as I sat upright. Herhead lay on a small square pillow. She was awake, but foggy. Shelooked up at me and smiled, giving a look that questioned thecommotion. I shrugged and rolled my eyes. This is normal . I wasabout to lean back again and try to sleep when I felt her hand grabmy arm. She tugged at me, drawing me in. I leaned down towardher, bracing myself against the arm rest of the couch with one armwhile I lowered myself to her lips. She smelled great and kissed well


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and as we pressed our bodies closer she pulled away slightly.Do you have a room here?

Yeah, but its just the camper in the backyard, it might bechilly in there, I said.Thats okay.Quietly, I led the way, grabbing a glass of water from the

kitchen sink before walking across the patio, past two bungalows,the larger of the two being Robbies, the smaller claimed by Seanfor the time being. Across the dark yard, there was a smallAirstream trailer where I slept. I took her by the hand and led her

toward it.

Sunshine rose from the bed naked and walked to the tiny table toget her clothes. I could see on her body that she had many tattooscovering her arms, back and legs. She noticed that I noticed andpointed them out to me one by one like trophies. She got dressedand we walked back to the main building where the three womengathered up their clothing and swapped many of the items betweenthemselves, all of them being of the same thin, somewhat shortstature.

Felix was out of sight, probably sleeping in the Mariachi Room.Sean hadnt slept at all it appeared, and was trying to nd somecoffee beans but eventually gave up. We gave the girls a ride back tothe center of town. Saying polite goodbyes as they exited the back

seat of my car, Sunshine was the last one to get out, but she walkedover to my open window and leaned in.Do you have your phone on you?Yes. Right here. I pulled out my cheap cell phone and icked

it open with my thumb.She gave me her phone number, and I entered it happily. She

paused before walking away and looked over at me, smiling andwaving as her scarves apped in the wind. I smiled back and asheda sort-of wave that looked more like a V for victory or a peace sign.

Shit. Did I seriously just ash a fucking peace sign at her?Who am I? I said when they were out of ear shot. Sean and I werestill smiling and waving politely.


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Lets go get coffee. So howd that work out? Sean asked.Oh me? Yeah, just ne. Just wish it didnt have to happen in

that fucking camper. I just keep thinking of this stupid bumpersticker I saw on a shitty camper one time. I think it said If thiscamper is a rockin dont come a knockin or some shit. What about

you?Yeah. That chick Jane. Shes a little nuts man. But shes cool.

Hey, isnt this the rst one since you left Sarah?The reminder stung deeply. Frustration welled up, but I held it

back. In a rush, some locked up memories hit me.

Since I left her. Since I packed my car and left our apartment,our town, our state. Since I drove across the country and avoidedher calls. Since I panicked and wondered why I did it. Since Iremained here hidden away in the hills to cover up that pesky guilt.

Yup.

Reincarnation Tapes Excerpt (Prologue-Chapter 2)

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