Things Can Always Get Worse: A Memoir

Part 3 of 3

By Bob Boldt

Just as we reached the end of the hall, a door slid open. “Welcome to my study.” Frederic nodded to each of us respectfully, formally. Frederic de Arechaga was born in the Basque region riding the land between Spain and the sea. Fiercely independent, theirs is a history of struggles up to and including the present. Like Kim, whose history turned out a bit dodgy, some of Frederic’s history may be better left to speculation as well.
    Frederic was a short man. He had strong cut features, the kind due in part to a resemblance to silent film star Valentino and an equal part of his alleged aristocratic lineage. His manner seemed beautifully manifested in his costume of a Chinese Mandarin. I hesitate to call it a costume because he occupied it with such authority, like he was born to it. Everything seemed befitting a perfect Mandarin, including a ponytail braided to his waist.
    Kissing Regula on the forehead, he motioned to us all to sit. Three sides of his small study were lined floor to 12-foot ceiling with a most amazing collection of ancient books, manuscripts, and even curled edged scrolls on the topmost shelves. Settling into his own throne-like oversized chair opposite, he lit a Kool cigarette and exhaled an ectoplasmic smoke that slowly drifted up and out a high ceiling vent over our heads.

    “They say ‘Kool’s taste good like a cigarette should.’ It seems two things are obvious today. All of the best minds are working for Madison Avenue. And they are killing your American language. ‘Like a cigarette should’.” He laughed. “As if they didn’t know better.” He took another a drag, exhaled briefly and looked directly at me.
    Reaching into a box of small charcoal cakes, Frederic selected one and held it over the open candle flame. When it began to ignite, he placed it into a small brass skull-shaped burner. From a nearby cup, he spooned out a small measure of grains that sent woody smelling, pungent whisps that curled from the mouth and eyes of the skull.
    “What you are smelling is Copal, sacred to the Aztec god, Quetzalcoatl.” He prodded inside the skull. That apparently caused a few sparks to flare up like a mini-fireworks display over the top of the burner. He carefully re-placed the top.
    “We are called Sabaeans. Our origins go back to a time before the flood.” He smiled, pointing to a small plaster reproduction of Michelangelo Moses. “You know just because you read it in the Bible doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. All the so-called great monotheistic religions are cults. All a cult is, an organization of people who cultivate some thing as exclusive authority above all other proofs or evidence. Sabaeans cultivate the stars. Astrology is the true mother of all sciences, all art, and all religions. Our research, our understanding is measured not in decades but in centuries.” With that he stood up. “But I know this is all very unfamiliar. I would be remis as a host if I deprived you a moment longer of the event you came to witness.” He smiled as he led us back down the long hall of mirrors. “The main event is about to begin.

In the nineties, Frederic had completed his apprenticeship in Santeria. He was officially a Santero, which is like a high priest. Unlike the Christian priests, a Santero has supernatural power. It is said Santeros give way only to other Santeros. Their power is great.
    I counted myself enough of an insider, so I was shocked to find the temple building closed, not a shutter open after I got back in town after a business trip. I was gone two, two and a half weeks tops, and that’s all it took for the unexpected departure of El Sabarum. I learned from Charles Wilfong, who used to do audio work at the temple, that Odun—Frederic’s new name, pronounced Ordun—had purchased a large antebellum mansion in the Garden District of New Orleans.
    I finally was able to track him down on a trip to New Orleans in 2003. The Garden District has its own kind of magic. The haunt of Tennessee Williams and Ann Rice has a visual depth to match any description. Odun’s mansion did not disappoint. It really was something from Gone with the Wind tucked in like an old vellum volume next to its neighbors up and down the moss-draped branches of the street. I remember a trolley.
    A week before Katrina struck, Odun went in for dental surgery. He never recovered from the anesthetic. Whatever passes for spirit left him a year later. His survival was as miraculous as his coma was tragic.

Coroner’s Report Parrish New Orleans
Concerning the recovery of survivor of Ward 15C Mary Hospital after sustained isolation after being abandoned by hospital personnel. Of the fifteen wards who were on life support only Mr. De Arechaga survived the extended period of deprivation. It is believed he was able to survive solely by inadvertent hydration the result of a small amount of rainwater dripping onto his forehead and into his mouth from a crack in a skylight. Without the miraculous, lifesaving hydration, Mr. Arechaga would not have survived. At the time of this report the subject remains comatose and has been moved to Memorial Hospital in Dallas Texas. Family has requested transfer of Mr. Arechaga to a facility in Oak Park, IL, where he may receive more personal attention.

In 1983 Kim On Wong was in an assisted care facility in Palos Heights, Illinois. Dementia and alcohol had each taken their fair share of his brain and his consciousness. Gail, one of his former students drove me out for a visit. She brought me up to date on his history, his alcoholism, and the accident that ended his independence. I brought with me a thirty-minute VHS tape I had assembled of film clips of his dance films, beginning with his early days working out of the second-floor studio in the Loop. It was set up like a typical ballet dance studio with mirrors and bar, nice parquet floor and all. The light reflecting off the skyscrapers in the canyons of VanBuren Street suffused the second-floor space with a powerful amber, indirect light bouncing off a hundred westward windows.
   He seemed a bit confused when he recognized me, raising a somewhat noncommittal hand from his wheelchair. “Remember, Gail said she was bringing Bob over to see you this time?” The nurse wheeled him over directly in front of the Day Room’s Jumbotron. Others were filtering in, in curiosity. Some with canes, in wheelchairs, walkers, and some under their own steam. I figured my afternoon’s entertainment had a pretty low bar to clear when you are competing with episodes of Jeopardy and boredom. The two dozen residents settled in through the Academy leader count-down. Kim’s left hand gestured the nurse to move him closer to the screen.

From the Mandel Hall concert
featuring the Kim On Wong Ensemble
enacting The Tibetan Book of the Dead

    I had edited a series of the films we had produced beginning with his legendary 1967 concert in Mandel Hall. Kim suddenly broke out with a laugh I was more than familiar with but which no one in the home told me they had ever heard. It was a basso, smoker’s cackle that could rattle glass. I loved that laugh. A minute later he began a non-stop narration. His expletive-laden narration didn’t stop until the film came to the final episode, a filmic recreation of a eulogy Kim had danced in honor of Quan Duc, the South Vietnamese monk who immolated himself in protest of the US-supported puppet president and devout Roman Catholic, Ngo Dinh Diem. His wife stirred international outrage when she referred to it as a Buddhist barbeque. It was a filmed recreation of a live performance he did at the Buddhist Church in Chicago. In it he danced as the spirit of the immolated monk. He was made up in the stark white makeup style of the Butoh dancers of Japan who formed after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Kind of scary. In this final portion of the dance. Kim became one with the soul of the disincarnated, by dancing, first in the projected flame and finally in a perfect pas de deux with an incense plume. All gradually dissolved into a statue of the seated Buddha. When the lights came up, they all applauded and gave my friend a standing ovation. The nurse passed the Kleenex over to Kim. A month later he was dead.

Postscript
Paul Carroll, the unofficial poet laureate of Chicago wrote:

I cannot help but wonder if at our best we don’t cultivate that curious corruption I sought for in the others—the unspoken guarantee that regardless of how firm the present love it will become a gull abandoned in the fog.

    All I can do with a mouth full of fog is laugh.

Modern Gothic – My Mom and Dad

    Or like Mother also used to say, “Better than a mouthful of dirt.”

Copyright © 2022 by Bob Boldt