I had finished the Koontz’ clown book, Life Expectancy, the previous week. I was quite prepared for...the inevitable. Or was it the anticipated? In the Koontz’ book, Jimmy had no time to remove any objects from his house before an insane clown blew it up. Only three items were recovered from his house in that book.
Knowing that “they” were after me I acted before the fire. Don’t laugh, I’m no conspiracy theorist, but I do remember Mel Gibson in the movie Conspiracy Theory. He actually had been turned into a trained assassin by “them”. I’m no trained assassin (to my knowledge), but “they'' do exist and they did have nefarious ideas concerning me. Don't laugh, their plans for you are insidious as well.
With this sure knowledge, I pulled my valuables out of the house. I removed my necessities. I removed my papers, important electronics, pictures and three of the 5Gs, my guns, gold, and groceries.The other two necessary Gs, guts and God, were already in me, in Spirit and in Truth.
You ask why I had pulled out my valuables? The answer was that I had a premonition about “them”. I had been receiving far more robocalls than normal on my smartphone. So many, I had lost the ability to block fast enough. On normal days I receive five. Lately, the number had jumped to ten. These calls were no longer from credit card people, warranty on my auto people, or from hotels. These new calls ended with clicks after either heavy breathing or faint groaning.
On the basis of the calls I removed my valuables from the home. I did not know if my house would blow up or not, but I took no chances. My wife reminded me that I had prepared for the apocalypse before and wasted resources. But this time I was sure that the world as we know it, at least for us, was about to end.
Three days later, my house started on fire. It did not blow up as in the insane clown book. But it did catch on fire. I am sure it was “they” that did it. The fire raged, out of control. The good part was that I was at a neighbor’s house and was able to get into my own house one last time. The bad part was this: I could not think of the one precious item that I had missed in vacating my domicile.
In Koontz’ book Jimmy did not have this option. His house was blown to smithereens. Nonetheless, there were three mementos that somehow did not totally burn: a cameo pendant Jimmy had bought for his wife, a Christmas-tree ornament from their honeymoon, and a free pass to the insane clown circus. All of these were very important to Jimmy. What item could be important to me that I might have missed? What would I jump through the flames to rescue?
I raced through the burning house, through the upstairs, then into the basement. Embers fell all around me. The heat was oppressive. I had little time. As I headed to the music room, thoughts flashed through my mind. What important item have I forgotten? I glanced along the shelves I had bought from Wayfair. The shelves were too heavy to pull out of a burning house. On the second shelf was my marshmallow guitar player. I certainly loved that item but that wasn’t the item I wanted.
I have loved music since possibly before my birth. Of all my family members I am the one that has been most rooted in music. I always loved to listen to the radio. In my pre-teens, I spent hours forming my own “top 40” charts based on the playlists coming out of KXOK, St. Louis with Johnny Rabbit as the DJ. Of course, my top 40 lists were never the same as Johnny’s. And before that, when much younger, I would listen to the Happy Hollisters, and Tubby the Tuba, children’s albums over and over. Later I graduated to spinning Dinah Shore, Gene Autry, and Doris Day records on my grandmother’s record player. Sound quality increased as I snuck into Uncle Max’s bedroom. He had high fidelity albums and a super stereo system. I listened to his Spanish albums and The New First Family, a satirical album that imagined movie stars in the White House cabinet. When I stayed at my grandmother’s, I listened to the popular music of the 50s. And, this was still in the 50s, first time around. The teenagers would dance to the new sounds in the outdoor dance hall at the city park across the street. It was Nirvana for me, well before the group called Nirvana. While I never became proficient as a musician, I played violin in a children’s orchestra. Of course, like most kids I also took up piano (we all had to, right?). But, my real instrumental fun started with the guitar. That was in my Freshman year of college. It was fun because I was learning an instrument on my own. I would spend hours learning America songs, CSNY songs, and anything else that caught my fancy.
But back to the fire. It was not music albums I was looking for but a memento, and the 3D guitar player wasn’t it. But I was on the right track. And there was little time.
I’ve always admired great guitar players. I especially like to listen to lead players. Of course, the best guitarist in the world is Phil Keaggy. I always admired his playing because he could sound in concert precisely like he did in the studio. No one, to this day, can do as long and rapid runs up and down the fretboard as he can. And it didn’t matter if he was on electric or acoustic. This was something Jimmy Page never achieved. Phil has produced over one hundred albums over fifty years and continues to this day. Now, I had my other favorites not often on the Rolling Stone top 10 list : Danny Kirwan, Frank Zappa, Duane Allman. Some of these made the list. But my list, like my top 40 lists, always differed. I include Jimmy Messina, a natural, Neil Young and his buddy Stephen Stills and at the top, always, Phil Keaggy. And, I never cared a whit for most of Rolling Stone’s articles or opinions any more than I did for Johnny Rabbit’s playlists.
These thoughts all exploded through my brain as I ran past the falling embers into my downstairs office, and there it was. There the memento sat by the window facing north. It was, of course, the guitar player from Picasso’s blue period. The very Picasso my wife had considered tossing out. This was it!
Somehow the melancholy nature of the picture depicted the present time. This guitar player has a sadness that epitomizes my current situation. I have always treasured this picture. I haven’t the slightest remembrance of when or how I received this picture. I am not a fan of Picasso. I abhor his cubism period. Artistically I love most art periods: expressionists, impressionists, Salvador Dali-ists, certainly Van Gogh (though I’ll keep my ears, thank you), but not cubism! I love the simplicity of the guitar player in this picture. He is bent over his guitar in a sadness that makes the blue period blue. He has lost everything except his guitar and music, which means he has everything. The simplicity melted my heart. I grabbed the picture and ran out of the burning house. I rejoiced that my home did not explode like the house in the Clown story.