Lenore And The Problem With Love

''When by mutation a new rose is born in a garden, all the gardeners rejoice. They isolate the rose, tend it, foster it. But there is no gardener for men. This little Mozart will be shaped like the rest by the common stamping machine. This little Mozart will love shoddy music in the stench of night dives. This little Mozart is condemned...

...Only the Spirit, if it breathe upon the clay, can create Man.''

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand and Stars / A memoir, 1939

tr. Lewis Galantiere

BLESSED ARE THE MEEK, for they shall inherit the earth.

Mathew 5:5-9

Lenore And The Problem With Love

A Novel by J.T. Blossom

Copyright © 2019 J.T. Blossom All Rights Reserved 

CHAPTER ONE

The counselor’s door flew open before I even touched the knob, and a large man in a white lab coat stood there smiling eerily. Startled, I jumped back with Brandon, stuffed my hands into the pockets of my jeans, and took a deep breath. The doctor’s frizzy white hair made him look a little like Einstein, or the guy with the bogus-looking time machine in that old movie, Back to the Future. A sweet wave of Enlightenment washed out of the red-lit office and hit our nostrils and mingled pleasantly with the aromas from Comey’s Coffee Shop downstairs. The counselor didn’t seem to notice at all that he had startled us.

Oh good, you’re both here! Pardon the incense. I can’t help myself.  Enlightenment doesn’t do anything significant for me anymore, but I just really like the smell, you know? It helps me keep my head straight and my memories fresh! I’m Dr. Pendleton. Sorry about the unorthodox greeting. I can’t afford a receptionist, but I did hear your footsteps! Come in, please, come in!

I laughed inwardly at the coincidence that Enlightenment was developed by my father after he left the same lab at Brecken University where Brandon and I now worked and studied, but Brandon just snorted sarcastically and said,You did Enlightenment, eh? Well, at least we know then that this explore-your-feelings gig of yours is really how your inner soul wants to waste your life.

My jaw dropped, but Brandon had warned me. He had said he was too busy for this, but I had insisted he come to this. I didn’t really like forcing him, but couples counseling was not going to help us get along better if he copped an attitude. Brandon knows very well that my dad’s pot product does indeed help people find their life’s passions just like its name implies, so why was he being this way?

"I rather like to think of exploring feelings as what makes life not a waste, but no matter, replied Dr.Pendleton, not the least bit fazed. You’re right, though, young man, and good guess! Enlightenment did help me know for sure that psychology is my calling. Amazing stuff, don’t you think? Like from another dimension!"

He stood aside and gestured for us to come inside, chuckling like our arrival was the best part of his day. Brandon moved past him but kept a snarky expression on his face. Sit anywhere, please, said Dr. Pendleton. No couches here! I long ago rejected Freud’s ridiculous couches and his short-sighted and depressing pessimism. It’s all Jung or nothing around here, my friends! Dr. Pendleton’s laugh was high and paired convincingly with his manic appearance.

I smiled at him and followed Brandon across the threshold into his office. There was no smile on Brandon’s face. His torso was tight and his biceps were flexing.

There was a circle of worn Lazy-Boy recliners, so I naturally chose the one that allowed me to look out of the only window in the otherwise Persian-carpeted and dark-paneled room. Brandon chose the one across from me with his back to the window while Dr. Pendleton shut the door and flung himself down in the recliner between us. His lab coat didn’t quite follow him fully into the recliner, but he didn’t bother to straighten it out any more than he bothered to brush his hair this morning or shave. Already I liked him. His enthusiasm and earthy disregard for personal grooming reminded me of the favorite men in my life: Dad, for one, who had a ragged ponytail; his winemaker friend, Bill whom Brandon and I worked for last summer; and also a few of the veteran teachers at our old boarding school, Wandering Pines. I could tell, though, from Brandon’s judgmental expression and head-shaking that so far he wasn’t impressed.  

Dr. Pendleton’s kooky but genuine smile was illuminated mainly by the light from the window. The only other light in the room cutting the darkness was a Tiffany lamp that cast a red glow on a little table next to the door. I saw gentle smoke emerging from an infuser next to its base and recognized it as one of my Dad’s latest models. I wondered if it really was just incense cooking away in there. It smelled like the real stuff to me.

So, from your holotext, I gather you are here for consultation on how to survive Brecken mind games and horse crap, said Pendleton. 

You don’t like Brecken? said Brandon, his biceps flexing even harder.

Of course, I like Brecken, and I happen to know that the program at the bio lab is doing incredibly important work. That doesn’t mean the institution doesn’t fling a manure-spreader load of horse pucky at you on a daily basis. It’s a university, after all. It’s to be expected. How are you coping with it? 

I’m coping with it just fine, thank you, said Brandon. "And I don’t agree it’s horse pucky. What’s flung at us are opportunities and challenges. We’re here because Ella’s just not rising up to them, that’s all. If it weren’t for me, she would have flunked out long ago." 

Is that true, Ella? asked Dr. Pendleton, his eyes lingering on Brandon. He turned for my answer, his expression suddenly serious. 

We’re a team. He helps me study sometimes. So what? I’m trying as hard as I can. 

What do you mean you’re a team? Are you married? 

No, I continued. But we live together. It’s recent public knowledge, among those who give a crap, that we raised and freed the first quantum-augmented animals into the wild. You know, the new San Rafael Preserve? Dr. Pendleton nodded. We applied to the quantum lab program after the preserve went through last summer, and we got in. We’re just freshmen, but the Brecken lab needed us and our notoriety as much as we needed Brecken. 

"Does Brecken believe that, or is that your belief?" 

Ella and I were very lucky to get chosen, piped in Brandon. The whole thing was luck, really. We both adopted the Brecken lab’s cast-off experimental dogs by accident when we were in high school. Then we were just in the right place at the right time at Wandering Pines Academy to be the catalyst to actuate their incredible and unexpected development. But now luck won’t cut it anymore. We’ve got to prove ourselves. The news buzz has faded about the preserve, and Ella doesn’t realize that the lab doesn’t really need us unless we can actually contribute to the science behind what they created. It’s a graduate program, and we’re mere undergrads. It’s challenging. 

Hence, the horse crap, I see, said the Doctor. They have all the power. 

Right. They are the masters right now, whether we like it or not. Ella doesn’t get that, obviously. 

My fingers start tingling sharply, a clear sign that I was missing my psychic fiddle, Lenore, who speaks to me when I’m upset with the guiding spirit of my granddad. This was intense. Aren’t therapy sessions supposed to start off slowly? I guess not in Dr. Mad Scientist’s office, and with Brandon being his I’m-always-right self as usual, so I decided to salvage my dignity as best I could and just go ahead and say what was on my mind. "You are so full of it, Brandon. There’s more to life than masters and slaves, and I get way more than you give me credit for." My fingers closed into fists, and I had to force my teeth to stop grinding.

Brandon was not backing down. "Then why don’t you get with the program? There are two tests tomorrow and have you even opened one book to prepare for them? No!" 

I told you, Bryson and Vern are not on the right track. Testing us on facts and things that are already known that can be easily blinked on our phoneglasses is a waste of psychic energy. Somehow, you can tolerate those kinds of things, not me. 

"You’re so stubborn! Psychic energy has nothing to do with it. That’s just the way it is. We’re not campers at Wandering Pines anymore. This is college. You need knowledge, in your head, not just on your phoneglasses, to find wisdom," said Brandon. 

"That’s your mantra. Wisdom comes from all kinds of places, including Wandering Pines, which was a pretty good school, psychically and otherwise, and you know it. It may just be a no-name prep school in the boonies to you now, but the hills alone taught us more than this sterile excuse for a college."

I really needed to calm down, but how could Brandon dare discount everything we learned there together? I loved who he was at our old boarding school. He was so open and caring. What happened to the guy who loved animals and nature more than he loved himself? I looked out the window and squeezed the leather arms of my recliner.

Dr. Pendleton twisted a strand of his blond hair and inserted it in his mouth. He took it out and pointed its wet end at Brandon. Brandon, what do you really want to do right now? 

You mean with my so-called life? 

No, I mean literally right now. 

Go study, and think about the mp3 quantum sessions coming up tomorrow for the subjects. 

Then why don’t you go and focus on that important work. Ella, can you stay a little longer? I want to hear more of what you have to say about your particular sources of wisdom. Pendleton stood up and Brandon did too, surprised and visibly relieved. Pendleton moved toward the door. 

Brandon, thanks for coming. It’s been a pleasure meeting you, and congratulations on the research work you and Ella are doing. All of us are counting on that lab, whether the world or the bureaucracy of the university realizes it or not, and you’re sure to be successful. We’ll reconnect at a later session, perhaps. He shook his hand.

"Okay, Dr. Pendleton. Fine by me. See you at home, Ella, or at the lab if you make it back there." 

"I’ll make it back there, but take my babies for a walk today, please, if I’m late." Brandon’s opened the door letting in the harsh light from the hallway. 

"Sure, a walk, he said over his shoulder. That’s important if and only if Bryson asks me to do that." He shut the door firmly behind him, and I took a deep breath of Dr. Pendleton’s incense. 

Both of you are off the charts brilliant, aren’t you? Dr. Pendleton said, smiling and settling back into his recliner after Brandon’s strong footsteps faded down the hallway. 

I guess. Brandon is anyway. 

"Oh, and you are too, I can tell, and I agree that your energy is quite different than his. Your guiding sources are more, shall I say, holistic. Do you love him, this bulldog of a boyfriend you have?" 

I heard his question and my fingertips tingled as I thought about the history of our relationship, how it was true that I hardly paid attention to him when I first got to Wandering Pines because of his bulldog appearance and mannerisms even though he was the only one there who spoke honestly about himself and his passionate interest in helping animals. Then my whole body shivered as I remembered last year, our senior year at Wandering Pines, and how my feelings changed toward him. I remembered playing Lenore in the school’s garden when her magic was in full bloom. How Brandon was playing his banjo, and it was the night I first realized I loved him despite all his quirks. The tunes Lenore played for us in that garden, oh my! She literally gave me psychic permission to make love and guided me into Brandon’s arms. Then we flew on horses in a shared orgasm with nature. It was the most romantic experience so far in my whole life.

Then I remembered every detail about afterward helping him achieve his plan to release the abusive neighboring rap star’s captive and starving lions, and our shared feelings of sadness and fulfillment when our beloved dogs, Jenny and Max, chose to guide the lion couple away from Renegade into their new life together as a inter-species family in the San Rafael Wilderness. Because of all those amazing things that happened, we got to witness the creation of nothing less than a new order of nature.

Finally, I remembered our excitement at the word leaking out about what happened, the sanctuary being created, and us being invited to come study at Brecken. Things unraveled between us only when the academics under Professor Bryson started getting serious.

Do I love him? I suppose you could say that, I said with a sigh.

But it’s faded? 

Isn’t that what happens to all couples? That’s what I read, anyway. 

Well, sometimes it does happen, usually when pressures mount, kids arrive, and unforeseen challenges of life get in the way, but it doesn’t have to be that way. 

"How? How can it not have to be that way? We don’t even have any kids yet, and it’s already happening!" I was upset, but something in Dr. Pendleton’s eyes made me trust him despite his challenging and invasive questions.

When you nurture the individual connections and passions that originally fueled your coupling, then a partnership can grow and evolve. Have you given anything up recently that was a source of strength to you guys in the past? 

Now my fingertips were really on fire, and I remembered the sound of Brandon strumming his banjo. A lump formed in my throat. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard that. All he does now outside of school is self-readings with his tarot deck. 

"I still play a lot, but we haven’t made any music together since last summer at the winery, I said. I play the fiddle." 

Pendleton looked at my restless hands. The fiddle, huh? Try something for me, would you please? Show me how you hold your instrument, he said gently. Just pretend it’s here. It doesn’t matter that it isn’t. Do you mind showing me? It might be good to do that right now with Brandon freshly departed. You play it often when he’s gone away from you, right? 

I paused. "Not it, Lenore, I finally said, whispering to Pendleton as much as to her, and he’s right that I play her a lot when I am lonely and things aren’t going well. Her name’s Lenore." I looked out the window at the blue sky above the warehouse across the street. I hated being stuck in this university town of metal and concrete. What happened to all the trees? Pendleton nodded encouragingly. 

I raised my arms to hold Lenore’s imaginary body in my hands. I felt a little silly, but Pendleton’s instincts were right to ask me to do this now. Even though it was just pretend, it felt like I was pulling shivering arms from cold quicksand and thrusting them into the cleansing warmth of the heavens. My left hand curled perfectly over Lenore’s smooth neck. I felt with relief the energy of her strings even as I looked Pendleton directly in his eyes. As I played, I closed my eyes, and I saw myself kneeling on the banks of a large slow river. My fingers were ancient Hindu saints caressing the power of lotus flowers before releasing their petals into the current of the Ganges. Petals floated off my fingers with each note like a promise. 

Ah, the music, whispered the doctor, listening.

Yes, I said. 

I can hear it, he said. It’s bluegrass. The fiddle, I mean Lenore, and something else ... 

Brandon plays the banjo, or he did, I said.

Yes! The fiddle is the key, the banjo a backup, like logic to intuition. He listened for a moment to the imaginary music, then sighed. Okay, you can release her now.

I put my hands back into my lap. Did we really hear the same thing? I felt the spirit of Lenore fly away from me back across buildings and busy city streets to the familiar sanctuary of her tattered case in our apartment. Now, there were not just tingles in my fingers. In the aftermath of her music, fire had erupted in my abdomen. Did Lenore and Dr. Pendleton just hypnotize me or something?

Dr. Pendleton sighed and cracked his own fingers. I think that’s enough for today, he said, looking at me carefully. But I’m going to give you an assignment. 

An assignment, huh? Will there be a test? Because I really have enough of those in my life right now. I shifted my body in the Lazy Boy, and the fire abated a little bit into something distinctly more pleasurable, maybe a mental release of tension like I get sometimes when I talked with Dad. I trusted this Pendleton. There was more to him than meets the eye. Who knows why, but whatever he’s going to give me to do will help, I think. There’s some connection between us. Perhaps he was a friend of my Dad’s, or maybe he’s old enough to have known my Grandfather? 

"No worries. No tests from me, and you’ll do fine enough on tomorrow’s tests, by the way, I am sure of that. Brandon needs to be perfect at them, but you’re beyond needing challenges in the same way that he does. Nor does he really need you to need challenges in the same way he does, although he can’t see that right now. He sees you as an extension of himself, not unusual in a bulldog. He’ll come around. Be patient with him. He loves you. It’s a worthwhile partnership. You’ll study enough tonight to pass, but the real work you have to do is your work, not yours and Brandon’s. When you meet them, all these Brecken challenges and horse pucky will fall back into the balance that is your soulful life. Brecken will suck up only the energy you decide to give to it to receive what you need from the experience to progress." As he spoke, I remembered my grandfather saying almost the exact same thing to me about going to elementary school a long time ago. 

I looked at Pendleton’s eyes in the darkened room, but his face had morphed, and I saw my beautiful grandfather sitting there instead. But only for a moment. I wiped away a single tear from my left eye and Pendleton was back. Lenore does things like that to my mind sometimes. So does my old golden retriever Jenny, as a matter of fact. Most of the time I have control over what I see and hear, but sometimes I most definitely do not.

Okay. Sounds good, but is this something I should discuss with Brandon? Somehow, I felt the need to whisper this, like to talk out loud would ruin a spell of some sort. 

You can or not, as you choose, but personally I wouldn’t waste the time and energy. He has a warrior’s focus right now. Let him do his thing. It’s admirable and possibly necessary what he’s doing there at that quantum lab. He’ll come around to you again when you regain your strength. The important thing for you right now is to do my assignment.

Okay, Doc. I’m all in. Spill. What do you want me to do? 

Get a gig playing Lenore downstairs in Comey’s. 

Chapter Two

COFFEE. WHY DO PEOPLE still insist it’s not a drug? My mother is a successful artist in Harbor View and drinks complicated lattes literally all day long. I used to think it was just because she liked rolling up her sleeves and tat-chatting with her friends in the Starbucks line, but I now understand the physical addiction. When I first started playing here at Comey’s, I took full advantage of the free cups for performers, but then my better Enlightenment sense took over, and now I only want coffee occasionally for the taste.  The drug doesn’t always work one hundred percent of the time that way for everyone, but when you do Enlightenment, it almost always prevents you from wanting or needing to do drugs ever again. Good thing these days. Classes at the lab never go so well when you don’t sleep because you’re wired on Comey French Roast from the night before. 

Following Pendleton’s order was easy in one sense. Comey’s has an open-mike every night. Sign up and play. That’s it. No try-outs or agents needed. The hard part was right now in front of the microphone. I’ve been playing every night for three weeks, and you’d think it would get less nerve-wracking the more I bare myself to the eye-boring scrutiny and musical judgment of complete strangers, but sadly it was still terrifying like those dreams where you are stupidly and self-consciously naked while interviewing for an important job or meeting your boyfriend’s family for the first time. 

Lenore’s mind seemed to be focused elsewhere too. I mean once I start playing her, she goes through the motions well enough, and the tunes rock, but I kept expecting to float out of the window and over the ocean for a little flight with her over the bay, and it just never happens like that in this coffee shop. It’s a little disappointing, but controlling her is like controlling inspiration – good luck. Sometimes I fly with her and sometimes I don’t. She obviously has a mind of her own. For a while I thought the no-flying thing might be because Brandon wasn’t playing his banjo with me, but I couldn’t test that theory because he refuses to do anything but study, care for the test animals, do tarot readings on himself, pet Sybil, and lift barbells in our living room. He tried once to talk me out of Pendleton’s assignment for me at Comey’s when I asked him to cover my night shifts at the lab, but after I passed all my tests with high B’s and paid for our next three month’s rent in advance from my trust fund, he backed off. 

I looked out over tonight’s crowd. As usual it was bigger than the night before. I can’t tell if it was my act they liked, or the combination of comedians and other musicians on the program, but the crowds kept getting bigger and bigger, and the manager kept upping the length of my gigs. I don’t let it go to my head. If anyone was responsible for it, it was Lenore. 

I lifted Lenore to my chin and positioned her in front of the microphone. I noticed the manager turning away people at the door. One of them was a bald administrative-type guy whom I vaguely recognized from Brecken. Somehow, despite his advancing middle age and un-hipster attire, the guy talked his way inside and found a place leaning against the table with the recycled paper napkins and cream and sugar dispensers. 

I never know ahead of time what Lenore is going to choose for a set. Tonight she guided my fingers through Big Sciota, Cherokee Shuffle, The Girl I Left Behind, Laughing Boy, Take Me Back to Georgia, and a modal tune without a name I heard one time on a YouTube hologram. People were a little dazed at first as they took it in. This usually happens – old time tunes are not the usual coffee shop fare – but by the end everyone was clapping and stomping their feet. I encored with Year of Jubilo, Cripple Creek, and Sally Anne. I finally stopped and people were beaming. The room smelled of Enlightenment rather than of coffee to me now, but, as usual, I didn’t see anybody smoking anything. Lenore messes with my olfactory senses that way too sometimes, just like my old golden retriever Jenny used to do. I rubbed my nose with the back of my hand and moved to the side of the stage to make room for the next performer. 

Nice tonight. It was the barista manager also rubbing their nose - unlike mine, they have a bunch of rings in it that itch a lot, I think. They ran their hand through their purple and orange hair and handed me a decaf. Their name is Kanda. 

Thanks, I said. Kanda’s always trying to get me to go out with them after their shift, but I told them I was with a hot banjo player and unavailable. Kanda’s a sweet person underneath all the hardware, but I’m not sure I could deal with the pronoun thing on a long-term basis. Also, I’m a pretty committed sis-gendered hetero, so I’m sure they would get bored with me fast on a date.   

I noticed the balding guy at the condiment table was squeezing his way through the crowd toward me, but before he could reach me, a hot guy in his thirties dressed in jeans snuck up on me as I put Lenore back into her ragged case. I hadn’t noticed him before when we were playing. Was he behind me somewhere? 

"That’s some fine fiddling," he said to me smiling. His teeth were amazing – just the right amount of white without being blinding. The razor shadow on his strong jaw made his blue eyes sparkle even in the darkened cafe. My breathing stopped a moment as I took him in. I know I shouldn’t be so affected by things