The Road to Ash Fork
After twelve years on the high wire, Bergamo was lean and taut
Bergamo’s face, reflected in the window of the train as he stood in the narrow passageway, was mixed with flashing lights from the Poppy Trail over which the train appeared to glide. In the darkness of the train window the poppies began to dance and glow in his reflected image, millions of them, rolling like a blanket across the high desert, giving off a photon of light for every quantum leap of a molecule, so that the road to Ash Fork became a Chinese dragon dancing along a bed of diamonds, exuding the rock and roll melody of the railroad cars.
It was an imprint on a field of consciousness. Bergamo had learned from James Joyce that beneath all the pornography of good guy and villain, virtuous woman and whore, there is a secret cause, and inside the secret cause there is light. From the outside it is a literal flash of light. From the inside there is passageway.
Quite narrow.
Bergamo found that once he could remain conscious he had an extraordinary degree of control over what manifested. His only rule for his exploration was that inside the mind of the creator, nothing is true, and therefore, everything is permitted. This technique stops the head, which seeks the truth by a process of elimination of everything else so as to get to the point. When everything is permitted the law is not from outside yourself. You’re the only cop in town, and you’re the only priest.
For several years Bergamo dreamed of crossing an abyss on a high wire, sometimes with a balance bar, sometimes with only his outstretched arms for balance. One night he lost the terror and realized he could think about his balance independently of his location. Then it was like walking on a four by four instead of a rope.
When he woke up he lay in bed absently thinking about how long he had operated under the assumption that the important thing was what he was going to do next. He saw that the dreams had shifted his perspective. While walking the high wire there was nothing to do next. There was only keeping his balance. This never changed. That night he dreamed he stepped off the wire onto the opposite side.
When he turned around and looked back at the wire he had crossed, after so many years, the dream shifted, and he was looking at a trail of poppies. They were blinking off and on like fireflies. He turned back around and he was standing in front of a railway station. He looked up and the sign read, “Ash Fork.” The train pulled in and he got on. He woke up and remembered the dream. He stood naked in front of his bedroom dressing mirror. His body was lean and taut from twelve years of walking the high wire.
