Loomis and Lyndsey still had not come down from the intense rush of crawling the cables of one of America’s bigger suspension bridges. Now they were embroiled in a different sort of suspense. Where and when was the load of bathtubs in which they were entrapped going to stop and offload– and especially “Where?”
When they awoke, the driver, a hulking fellow whose features were to them a mystery, had pulled open the rear doors and prodded around with a stout wooden dowel–Loomis whispered hoarsely, “He’s
checkin’ th’ alignment, I suspect..”
Thru the opening, the floodlit City Hall Spire bearing the statue of William Penn betrayed the
locale as Philly, but our lovebirds felt the need to hunker down for the nonce. Then a SLAMMM, a
GR- ROAWRRR!!, and the semi was off again, bumperty-bump.
The next overwhelming THUDD!, found the pair slipping out the back in broad daylight, along
Independence Avenue in our nation’s capital, hard by the foot of Capitol Hill, with our beloved Dome looming o’er Loomis and his loving Lyndsey.
Their possessions much diminished down to a couple of faded cloth pouches, they melted into a large
and motley crowd of tourists waiting to enter the Botanical Garden conservatory to gain a big whiff
of the latest bloom from a slimy Rafflesia, or corpse blossom. “Phew, that Reeks,” observed Loomis,
although Lyndsey stifled his cry with one hand and cooed softly back over the din of the gawking
visitors, clicking their phone-cams and throwaways and digitals.
“That odor couldn’t be any worse than what we left behind in Doocey’s dumb bathtubs,” she gently insisted. Upon leaving the vaulted glass hall, and seeing no Legbas or other adversaries about, they hopped a Number 32 bus over to Loomis’ place of origin, the beautiful Foggy Bottom Hospital for Ladies. In the semi circular drive, Loomis sighed, and shrugged to Lyndsey, “Ahh, it looks to be condos now,” but they beamed at the gently restored Christ-like infant beatifically placed, arms outstretched in the tympanum over the arched doorway.
Loomis took Lyndsey wordlessly by the hand to a small, iron-enclosed columbarium, or graveyard
for cremated remains, back of Saint Paul’s Church. He stepped to the iron gate, lowered his head,
and bowed down with mumbled apologies.
“M-Mum, Dad Akula, I messed up. Shouldn’a left out so early like I did, but it just seemed as if I
belong in New Orleans. That’s all, hope I see ya in th’ next life if not this one…”
Lyndsey led him away, and soon they were sharing a PB&J in the George Washing- ton Hospital
commissary. She beamed with a strange sort of pride. “What you said back there in the churchyard,
wasn’t that like–” “Yas,” answered Loomis with a goofy crinkled grin. “Jimi H. said something like
that at the end of ‘Voodoo Child, Slight Return. I always felt my Mom was kind’a Cherokee at heart, too, like Jimi…”
By dint of blessed luck, and their slightly faded Akashic tattoos, Loomis and Lyndsey found a ride
board on campus, and a dot- ty retiring professor Mages, who actually needed people to help him
drive his worn yellow Audi down to his old alma mater–Tulane! Dat, exclaimed Loomis, was simply meant to be. Mages, was, like many of their contacts and benefactors, a true weirdo, and as it transpired, also a believer in the Akashic lore. But they needed no herd of Aurochs to help them leave DC. Merely. they emailed the Prof in a Wi-Fi café and received their immediate answer. Meet me at 5:30this afternoon at the cat- fish tank in the National Aquarium downtown. Naturally, with guards absent, they engaged in a quick wild thing with only the 28-foot moss covered Old Abel the Louisiana catfish watching as they coupled.
“We’re gonna need a Justice of the Peace,” sighed Lyndsey, real soon!” Shortly thereafter, a bespectacled and ponytailed little man of 69 tapped them gently on the shoulder. All three laughed and called out together, “New Orleans or Bust!!”
(to be continued)
