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November 17, 2002 The sign says Bird Sanctuary but all I see is man's detritus & driftwood a graveyard of trash seashells in the knee high grass and the hollow bones of birds who'll fly no more but find new life in the alters on my car. For seven months, perhaps, I have carried it with me in
my green carry on bag through countless airport security checkpoints,
in the trunks of cars and stowed here and there, my clothing, now clean,
now dirty, stuffed overtop it in that bag which is my home. My script
for the someday, one-day blockbuster Wal-Mart Boy. I haven't touched it
the entire time. But here in this quiescence on the bay, this salty world
silent but for the occasional tug lugging freight up the intracoastal
waterway, I have found the peace of mind to pull it out and work with
it. It is, at first glance, a small task, one made easy by
the fact that some other me many month's ago went through this hardcopy
with a keen eye for deletion and wrote all over it, wrote the instructions
for the me of now. Just follow the scratches and scribbles, the marginalia
and arrows pointing this way and that: put this phrase there and cut this
and move this one up a graph. In reality of course it isn't so simple. It is hard work,
like any worth it's weight in gold spike finales and Oscars held aloft
in triumph before an audience a billion strong. I remember my mantra made
up specially for that first screenplay written all my own (I'd co-authored
one called "The Bridge" first with friend Ana Lia). I named my protagonist
Salem after the place of my birth, and called that frenzied effort composed
in just three weeks to meet the Project Greenlight deadline, I called
it "Salem and the Train." And my mantra, made simple enough to fit on the eight
fingers and two thumbs I possess, went like this: "The Oscar for Best
Original Screenplay goes to Rick McKinney." Mark my words, it is a mantra
you will one day hear, and if not, it is only because I did something
better, achieved some higher height loftier than oh-so-lofty Hollywood.
Back to Earth, I have Stefan Stout to thank for my script
getting so much attention of late. But when Pop! went the power this afternoon,
the computer down, the music off, zip, zap, lip, lap, the near-silent
silence of the bay waves lapping lightly on the shore now the only sound,
well.. I had no choice but to abandon the computer and the script
and do what I'd been craving to do every minute of this gorgeous Sunday
sunny day and get in the boat with a bucket and oars and row, row, row
in a 10 o'clock trajectory off the dock and straight for the rookery,
where I could have sworn I'd heard Stefan say something about "small animal
bones." I need them, you see. I simply must have small animal
bones. For I have caught the fever. And the fever pays, albeit modestly.
But this week my new art car The Chevy de Los Muertos will earn me gas
money aplenty to get not only to Alpine Texas where the event is, but
to Albuquerque where Duke is. I must have small animal bones because I
must make more alters on the Chevy de Los Muertos to prepare it for the
Alpine arts night, yes, must! Must I must! So I rowed. And I rowed. And once there I tromped around
in the brush and knee-high grass and searched through the dim last light
of the setting sun for BONES! Oh, how i love bones. And the god of bones
was with me, as were a hundred or so cranes circling overhead undoubtedly
pissed off at my presence on their bird sanctuary home. I collected wing
bones and vertebrae and skulls even of cranes and even PELICANS! Fantastic.
And always one to know when it is time to go, I returned to the boat,
tossed in my treasures, and.. before pushing off, stood solemn facing
the setting sun and all those birds circling nervously overhead and in
true Indian form, I saluted those birds and that sun and bowed to the
bay and gave thanks for this and every day I've been so blessed to spend
here in this fringe paradise. I assured the circling cranes that their
beloved relatives' bones were on their way to place of great honor on
my car, and that their winged souls would not object and would in fact
likely fly with me from that day. Oh, and that I was leaving, yes, tout
suite. Goodbye birds. I rowed home to the light of the rising moon, all the
while pondering unponderable Death, but feeling good, feeling young, knowing
what Joe came to know staring at that same big, bulbous blood-orange moon.
What did Joe and I know? We knew thanks. I walked back in the cottage and grabbed a beer and the
lights and music leapt back to life suddenly as though just waiting for
my return. I sat down then and made a call on the cell that I've wanted
to make for days but, for some odd reason, had a feeling I shouldn't make.
Or that I should wait. Hard to describe. Didn't understand it myself.
I dialed up Tinkertown, the stationary folk art world
in the Sandia Mountains of New Mexico that is to a house what Duke is
to a car. Tinkertown, created with love by Ross and Carla Ward over three
decades. I called to say hello to Carla, to ask after early-Alzheimer-stricken
Ross, and to express my condolences for her suffering and his. But I got
a machine. Always a machine. And the machine voice, a voice I believe
was Carla's own, said this to me: "Ross Ward, husband, father, visionary
artist, and creator of Tinkertown died November 13th after 5 years of
suffering with Alzheimers." The tears came on so fast I couldn't speak. I had to hang
up, unable as I was to leave a message. But I did call back. To my surprise
I called back only moments later, still crying, still stricken with the
news, and told Carla I loved her, God bless her and Ross, and that yes
I would be there in April when Tinkertown reopened in the Spring, for
the celebration of Ross' life. Yes, I would be there with Duke, with bells
on. I hung up the phone and cried awhile more. Then I began
to contemplate the alter I would make in Ross' honor on the Chevy de Los
Muertos. In closing, if you think you're life is rough, go where
life is rougher and watch the ill and addled hobble and fall. And if you
think you want to die, do as I did one day in New Orleans in a fit of
despair. Put a gun to your head that you've loaded and unloaded a hundred
times until you have no idea if there's one in the clip and pull the trigger.
No, on second thought, don't do that. I did that not out
of a WISH to die but out of a chemical imbalance in my brain. Instead,
go rent the film "Joe Versus the Volcano." If you decide that you, too,
have a brain cloud, call me. I've always wanted to go to Samoa, where
the locals laugh at tragedy and there are volcanoes aplenty. Love and pelican bones, Ricky McKinney, the little boy from Melrose who once held
puppet shows in the backyard for Salila, for reading everyday
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