Horse Latitudes | Page 7

the
restaurant I couldn't tell if she knew who I was or not. She didn't look
crazy, but she still scared me. I'd gone to the funeral of more than one
friend who, walking home, had turned a corner and walked into his or
her own Mark David Chapman. Frida's smile made her look strangely
vapid, which surprised me because her eyes were anything but that. Her
face had too many lines for someone her age, but there was a kind of
grace in the high bones of her cheeks and forehead.
"You're not a cop or a reporter, are you?" I asked.
Her eyes widened in an expression that was somewhere between shock
and amusement. "No. Unlike you, I'm pretty much what I appear to be."
"You're a waitress who tails people on her breaks."
She shrugged and bit into her spring roll, singing, "Get your kicks on
Route Sixty-six."
"Now you're just being stupid, " I said. "Virilio didn't tell me that part.
He just said you were crazy."
"Did he say that?" She looked away and her face fell into shadow. I
leaned back, thinking that if she was crazy, I might have just said the
thing that would set her off. But a moment later she turned back,
wearing the silly smile. "Virilio's one to talk, playing Little Caesar in a
malaria colony." She picked up a paper napkin from the table and, with
great concentration, began wiping her hands, a finger at a time. Then
she said: "I'm looking for something."
"The Music of Jungles?"
"Jesus, did he tell you my favorite color, too?"
"He just told me it was something you'd told him."
"Red," she said and shrugged. "I am looking for something. But it's

kind of difficult to describe."
"California is on its last legs. If you want to play music, why don't you
go to New York?"
She reached down and picked up a wandering cat. It was a young
Abyssinian, and it immediately curled up in her lap, purring. "What I'm
looking for isn't in New York," she said. "I thought from your face you
might be looking for something, too. That's why I followed you."
"What is the Music of Jungles?" I asked.
She shook her head. "No, I'm sorry. I think I made a mistake."
I slid the hip flask from my pocket and took a drink. "Tell you the truth,
I am looking for something, too."
"I knew it," she said. "What?
"Something new. Something I've only seen in flashes. A color and
quality of sound that I've never been able to get out of my head. I
started out looking for it, but got distracted along the way. I figure this
is my last chance to see if it's really there, or just another delusion."
"You're a musician?" she asked.
"Yes."
She picked up the flask, sniffed, and took a drink, smiling and
coughing a little as the vodka went down. "What's your name?" she
asked.
"You already know my name."
"I know a name," she said, setting down the flask. "Probably something
store bought. Maybe from Virilio?"
I shrugged and took the flask from her. "Your turn. What's the Music of
Jungles?"

She looked down and leaned back in her chair, stroking the cat. "First
off, " she said, "it's not the Music of Jungles. Jungles are in Tarzan
movies. What you're trying to describe is a tropical forest or a
rainforest. I don't use rainforest sounds in my music because I think
they're beautiful, although I do think they're beautiful," she said. "I use
them because they're the keys to finding the Songtracks of a place."
Frida set the cat on the floor and leaned forward, elbows resting on the
table. "Here's what it is," she said, "Some of the tribal people in
Amazonia believe that the way the world came into existence was
through different songs sung by different gods, a different song for
each place. The land, they believe, is a map of a particular melody. The
contours of the hills, the vegetation, the animals--they're notes, rests
and rhythms in the song that calls a place into being, and also describes
it. Over thousands of years the Indians have mapped all the songs of
Amazonia, walked everywhere and taught the songs to their children.
"Where we are now, though, is special," Frida said, and she drew her
hands up in a gesture that took in all of our surroundings." The forest
that surrounds San Francisco, it's Amazonia, but it's new. And it has its
own unique Songtrack. That's what all my music is about. That's what
I'm all about. No one has found the song of this part of Amazonia yet,
so I'm going to find it," she said.
"When you find it, what will