Itz-ing

(For the full 'narrative of the voyage of the bloody, snake chariot'
see www.libbyhome.blogspot.com )

(Itz, is an ancient Mayan concept regarding the supernatural power
that emanates from the flow of life-effusing/life-dispersing fluids -
particularly blood.)

Why is this last April 20/(4/20) different from all other 4/20's?

On all other 4/20's there are memory issues. Memories of the day are hazy.

And yet I will not forget this past 4/20. Memories of the day retain
vivid clarity.

This last 4/20, for me, is more about being Hitler's birthday, the
anniversary of the Columbine Massacre, days that live in infamy. For
on this 4/20 I was hit (cold-cocked) to the head.

I was hit harder than I've ever been hit in my 56 and-a-half years.
And my head was broken open and I bled or itz-ed more copiously than
I've ever itz-ed in my life.

I'll start at the beginning.

It has been a terrible sadness to see my neighbor of the past nine
months, young Eric, sink into mental illness and violence.

It is often noted that our hometown, Nederland, CO, retains much of
the character of its wild, mining camp origins. And yet, 21st Century
Nederland is more like a wild, mining camp on acid. The wide-spread,
on-going use of LSD and other entheogens is perhaps the most defining
thing of the character of this place.

I am not being judgemental about entheogeons (molecules that bring us
to the infinite). I have partaken of them for over 40 years.

They work for some people. They could be an important agency for the
on-going evolution of our species.

And yet, entheogeons do not work for everybody

For many, entheogens can be a kind of miracle grow for any genetic
predisposition for psychosis that may exist in an individual.

And such is the case with my neighbor, young Eric.

In the beginning we were good friends. We spent many hours playing
music together.

And then the dark whispers in young Eric's mind began speaking to him,
all the time. The dark whispers spoke of dark, evil, nefarious,
over-arching, conspiracy against him.

When it became plain to me how deep into the sickness of the mind
young Eric had sunk, I recoiled from him. We stopped speaking to each
other. I tried to avoid contact with him, his violence, his mental
illness.

I hoped this would make me less of a target for his sickness of the
mind. But it made me more of a target.

On April 19, young Eric took our garbage can.

And yet, this garbage can was not just a garbage can.

When we first moved into our place in Nederland in August, 2010, there
was a putrid, malodorous accumulation of garbage and excrement on our
front porch.

Much of it was from the previous tenant. And yet, much of it was from
young Eric.

It required a Herculean effort to clean this squalor (an external
manifestation of the internal).

Putrid, festering garbage had to be placed in large, black, plastic trash bags.

Underneath the main pile of garbage we found two plastic garbage cans
with the most putrid, most festering of the garbage.

We gagged and some vomited in the effort to bag this slime.

After the garbage was bagged a heroic effort was required to hose the
garbage cans out, so they could be used again.

It was one of these garbage cans that young Eric took.

I flashed to the movie 'The Big Lebowski', and declared "This
aggression will not stand!"

The next day 4/20 I arose at the crack of noon and began preparing to
go to the big celebration in Boulder.

I saw young Eric on the porch, and in a voice that was more amused
than angry I asked, "Hey, What's up with the garbage can?"

Young Eric explained that he had bought the garbage can at the local
hardware store and that the garbage can was his.

I replied (with some heat) that it wasn't his garbage can when he had
left it there the entire previous summer full of disgusting, putrid
offal, it wasn't his garbage can when it was emptied, it wasn't his
garbage can when it was cleaned, it wasn't his garbage can for the
last eight months when it was being used by us.

Then young Eric began speaking in the tongue of mental illness. He
said that "the great Sam Libby was about to be unclothed, was about to
be made to stand before the world in his nakedness. He began rubbing
my stomach and berating me for not being an observant Jew, because I
ate pork. And then he called me a fat, Jew bastard. (Eric believes
that 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion' are the gospel truth.)

I began jabbing young Eric with my index finger telling him to get his
hands off me. Young Eric continued to put his hands on me.

I had brought my lunch out on the porch and left it on the railing.
Young Eric flipped the plate off the railing to the ground.

I then went toe-to-toe with young Eric and shouted loudly, in his
face, that he was a "white devil fuck." (Young Eric wears his hair in
dreads, he poses as a Rastafarian, and yet, he is a mentally ill,
white devil fuck. I was feeling it.)

My arms were at my side. There was no way I could block the punch.
Young Eric punched me right between the eyes.

One of those vivid, clear memories I retain of the day is seeing young
Eric's clenched, ringed fist the moment before impact

My head snapped back. It was as if a blood-bomb had gone off. The
blood was gushing from my head.

There was a moment when I thought I was going out. And then I
surprised the shit out of young Eric (but not half as much as I
surprised myself) by coming back with a right to young Eric's mouth
that busted his lip open.

Young Eric is 24 years-old. Young Eric is about six foot three. I'm
five foot eight. Young Eric's arms have at least a foot of reach on
me.

Young Eric was wearing a ring with a sharp metal edge that had gouged
me to my sinus cavity (later, at the hospital in Boulder, the guy who
was sewing me up with 16 stitches said "Dude, I can see into your
sinuses.")

I immediately tasted my blood. I went to a very primal place.

I raged and I charged.

For every punch I landed, young Eric landed two. He kept his aim on
the place where he had already busted my head open.

Where I was standing it felt like he was trying to kill me.

Still I raged and charged and backed him up to the door of his apartment.

Then he grabbed my shirt with his left hand, and kept me a young Eric
arm's length away from him, and began punching me where the blood was
gushing with the other hand.

I kept on swinging but I couldn't reach him. I tried to break his
grip, but couldn't.

There was a moment when I thought, "This is me being kilt."

And I thought, "We die alone."

Young Eric was laughing the way a white devil fuck laughs as he
pummeled me where he had broken my head open.

But then my friend Josh intervened.

He tried to pull young Eric off-me.

Young Eric punched Josh.

And then I broke young Eric's grip and got inside, and got my weight
behind punches that began the beating of young Eric to the ground.

Josh and myself got on either side of young Eric and beat young Eric
to his knees with his shirt over his head.

I pulled back and began aiming a kick to young Eric's ribs (My plan
was to scientifically, methodically kick every one of young Eric's
ribs in - I was still tasting my gushing/itz-ing blood).

But when I began to put my kick in motion, my entire leg went into a
prolonged and agonizing spasm.

The fight ended with young Eric on his knees pitifully (like a
bee-otch) begging us to stop hitting him.

We did.

But my bleeding/itzing didn't stop.

My blood covers the porch that was the arena of these events just
described. There is a trail of blood from our house to the Nederland
Police Department. I bled all over the Nederland Police Station, until
the Nederland Ambulance crew finally stopped most of the bleeding.

The Nederland Ambulance crew wanted to just pile me into the ambulance
and take me to Boulder Community Hospital, and yet I have no health
insurance and I was told the ambulance ride would cost me $3,000,
which I don't have.

I finally got a ride to the hospital from another neighbor, the E-man,
got stitched up, and hitch-hiked (even though I looked like I just
escaped from Victor Frankenstein's castle) back to Nederland.

When I returned to my place, young Eric was waiting on the bloodied
porch and threated to "Fuck me up good if I ever set someone on him,
again".

Young Eric is charged with 3rd degree assault (a misdemeanor).

His mentally ill narrative of what happened is that he was attacked by
Josh and myself and that we should be charged with assault.

When he see's me he yells, "Tell the truth old man!"

So I have - the whole truth and nothing but the truth - so help me God.

The stitches have been taken out of my head and I now wear a scar that
goes from my forehead down the bridge of my nose.

It looks like an ancient rune whose meaning has long been lost.

And yet in this runic scar is young Eric, naked in his violence and
mental illness for all to see.

And what of the supernatural power that emanates from the flow of
life-effusing/life-dispersing fluids, particularly blood.

All I can tell ya is that in my chest I feel this supernatural joy and
amazing grace in being still alive.