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8. Casting epitomes

Merilee got up and dressed in pants and a shirt smelling of Sam's sweat, in her own headed bag found only shreds and seeds and three big Australian pennies, weighty ones and-

Cross-legged on the floor she threw her three times three and scratched her hexagram in purple ink on the tail of a sheet which had dribbled down off the bed and looked it up in her ancient yellow pages. What was she asking? About what to do now, or what to do next.

The mensaje a long one and not all valuable. But oh yes here: THE RICE PLANTER AND THE RICE GLEANER ARE ONE. THE GATHERER-AND-GLEANER FEEDS US AND SO IS NAMED "THE LOVELY ONE." BUT THE LOVELY ONE STANDS IN DANGER OF HUNGER AND OF LOSING HIMSELF WHILST WE GROW PLUMP.

This much Merilee had always known. So be it. This much she was just beginning, through Sam's sweetness, to get over fearing. She found her lover's wallet and carkeys, ran Sam's comb through her long hair. Six twenty dollar bills.

She brought one of the greater temple bells and hung it over his head and told him he was the clapper and the world rang with silver sound when he wanted it to, a thought which had long ago been enough to content her for days on end and should keep Sam busy until he crashed.

She bent over him. His face rounded with a big doubtful smile. "Who are you?"

"Am the clapper. Am the bell."

"Are the tiger," said Merilee, kiss-kiss-kissing him goodbye. And off she toddled to the circus.

9. Simultancity. Cause of the Great Migration. Flies put in ointments

It was a bad summer in southern California and all their hopes were blasted by the wrath of the sun and of the wind. The drought came, and though they carried water to their virtually inaccessible fields, still their crops withered: potatoes came forth shriveled from the ground, the feathery tops of the carrots appeared to be molting and the very grass drooped sadly.

A little wetness in the form of three mornings' blessed dew descended in answer to fervent prayers and several moonlit ceremonies of great duration. The more hopefully-disposed members of the Tribe perked up, but their wise men, Alyosha and the others, and their horticulturists, remained wary. If the wind began too soon now, they said, a worse catastrophe yet would befall them and squaws awoke in the night at the slightest rustling of mice or whatever it was that made the sound like wind outside their teepees.

The tribes of the north, aware this year more than ever of their dependence on the south, watched the L.A. weather reports and when the traitorous dew raised the precipitation level yea even a quarter inch, the northern tribes sent scouts to the south, chanting as they came, to ask the southern chiefs if relief from famine could be expected. And Io, hardly had the bikes of the emissaries been spotted on the horizon by the eagle-eyed and sleepless watchers, when the hay in the fields began to move and sigh and the Great Hot Wind from the Desert began to blow. Wind which in September would have been a sublime blessing, which would have caused the flowers to produce resin to coat their sacred leaves, the same hot wind in August brought about the calamity which led to the Great Migration of our Southern Brothers.

10. Proposals

When Merrily came back to her little house stuck like a book in a shelf above the sea, she found brave Sam had turned on the radio and was smoking a lethal straight and listening sagely to a commercial in Spanish telling you how you could improve your husband's disposition and the quality of your home life by serving tortillas hocho in the hogar.

Sam, who did not know Spanish, sat cross-legged on the wrecked cama nodding. To Merilee he said. "Will you be my esposo?"

"Who are you?"

"I am the clapper and you are the bell."

"OK," she said, "I'll do it."

And then dread. Of two things. Merilee clambered over Sam and searched for the beach below. No Girl, no Alfred. "Hey keeds!" she bellowed, waking the canary to ruffle and gurgle once in its throat. "Sorry. Birdie," she whispered. "Chow down, keeds!" But no Girl and no Alfred appeared.

Almost all of us do come back, Merilee. Wait.

The second dread. "Hey Sam, I spent I-don't-know-forty-maybe-fifty-goodies on cosas."

"Hey good. But did you have a good time?"

"Yes."

"That's important. And did you spend good?"

Yes. Three hours and $72.47 spent at the Alpha Beta. 2 cases of dog food, a 75 pound sack of Keeble she had struggled out to Sam's TR herself. Inorganic vegetables, spices, a 5 pound bag of peanuts. More, much more. She knew the checkout boy-a novice at the Tribal hunting grounds, or from a novena at Alyosha's-and he had asked her, "Hey lovely one, you sure when you come down you're going to want all this stuff?"

The good thing about Sam, (and a reason to become his wife forever and ever?) was that he denied her nothing. Every penny he earned out there in the circus was Merilee's if she wanted it. And also she liked his square ways. The tab collars and the cufflinks.

Merilee got up and skinned out of her clothes and put on her silver dangles and her musky Java perfume and her man made love to her in his old-fashioned crashing way, kneading her like putty, softening the art gum of her self and spreading her out in a thin layer to the far corners of the world. Coming,