Chapter 2: The Birds, The Cows, And The Monkees

here is a great wisdom in each of us, hidden, in the oldest and most innocent part of our psyche. Knowledge gained and kept while we are children is often outwardly forgotten as we pass into young adulthood; in time, as we relearn these truths, we congratulate ourselves in out newfound education, never realizing that these truths have been silently with us for decades.

At the age of four, I spent an entire autumn afternoon with my next-door neighbor and best friend Albert, lying on our backs in a grassy field in Flushing, New York, trying to feel the world turn. We would watch the clouds slowly move from west to east, each separate and yet turning in harmony with the others as if in some unspoken communication.

Suddenly, in the corner of my peripheral vision, I caught movement in the sky -- dark against light, and then sound upon silence. A flock of black cowbirds, numbering perhaps fifty, were flying in a "V" formation across the field of clouds towards Flushing Meadows Park. As I watched, the lead cowbird became noticeably flagged, weakened by the weight not only of the air she was pushing through but of the pull of the cowbirds behind her, drafting her, each one resting up muscles that would be needed for the long migration ahead. The lead cowbird flew forward away from the flock, then -- free of the additional pull -- pulled back to the right, back until she took a trailing position at the end of the "V". Soon enough she would lead again, but for now she needed to rest her wings in the airflow behind the flock.

The Monkeehead caravan had been on its way on Route 44 for several hours when we in the lead Microbus felt it was time for a rest stop. We took an exit that promised food and a chance to walk around, and pulled up to a fast-food place just to the left of a stop sign that stood at the end of the exit ramp.

To our surprise, the restaurant -- a Denny's -- was apparently closed for renovations, but since by this time we had all creaked out of the VW, we decided to stretch our legs a bit before rejoing the end of the caravan back up on 44.

There was a phone booth up on the corner, the old kind that still had a bifold glass door, and I went over with the sole purpose of placing a crank call to PBS's 800 number. My walkman was playing some forgotten overproduced songs from some guys named Bill Fries and Chip Davis as I removed the headphones and struggled briefly with the door. The door at last folded open; I entered, and closed the door again in an effort to block at least some of the road noise. As I stooped to read the placard for directions on what access numbers were necessary to put through a call without a quarter, a nearly illegible scrawl caught my eye. Hand-written on a torn page from the front of the weather-beaten Yellow Pages, beneath an advertisement for Spam, was this:

"For an interesting time, call the Recycle Babes. You know the number."

I grabbed the page and spun around to show the others what I had found, but was surprised to see that the glass booth had disappeared, and that I was standing at an unenclosed phone stand in what appeared to be a busy train terminal in some dark, multilevel granite building.