JOURNAL

06/29/2004: Bending over backwards atop a ladder at my studio, I lifted the huge 6-foot sign into place above my head. I was making one last-ditch attempt to resurrect the weekly Sunday night coffeehouse, which had tapered off to less than a fifth of last year's attendance. After six months of appeals, I could not find even one person who was willing to join me in the 35-plus hours a week that I was personally investing in this venture. Not one person was willing to help, yet those very same people insisted that I continue making it happen for them, single handedly providing festivities at considerable cost to myself, week upon week, year upon year. That's right -- after six years not one person stepped forward.

So I stepped up that ladder on June 29th, only one week into my 64th year, knowing that things were about to change forever. Having completed a long cycle of sevens, nine times in the making, I was singing happily that old Beatle's tune: "Will you still need me... Will you still feed me... When I'm 64?" Even way back in the Sixties when they released the song, I knew it was prophetic, and I knew only a handful could see it coming, could keep it going. And it turns out I am one of the handful.

To make a long song short, the very minute I reached the top rung of the ladder, it shifted and my legs slid down behind the rungs, creating a tremendous force that threw me backwards onto the concrete several feet below. Crack! The neighbors heard it -- and continued with their dog-shit scooping. And the passers-by heard it -- and kept on passing by. Even the parking lot attendant next door heard it -- a young man working on his PHD for, of all things, the license to become a medical doctor! -- but he only checked silently to see if I had fallen on his side of the fence.

But most certainly I heard and felt it. Crushed -- the first lumbar at the base of the spine, a common landing place, I'm told. It will subtract an inch from my stature as the bruised tissues, tendons and ligaments realign themselves around the broken bone. It's a process that requires several months in the cast and even longer in therapy, if no complications result, if paralysis doesn't occur. But my doctor this week joyfully told me that I was healing like a man half my age, and I should be out of the cast in just 2 1/2 months at most. Then it's back it the bike saddle again!

A True Sign From God

08/02/2004: So I'm taking a well-deserved break from my work! But it's not the break that's important to this story... it's the 6-foot sign that God dropped on top of my head that day, driving it deep into my skull, until it resounded like a footnote to a symphony that Charles Ives might have been saving for the latter day Saints. Because when my back hit that pavement I knew I was damaged: my mind began to waiver, faltering from its familiar path, roaming the revelations between the knowledge of life and death, and slammed head-on into what the Ancients refer to as the void. But amazingly, within seconds of that sign crushing my head into the concrete, I awoke like a newborn, fully alive and aware of a future. Later I was asked if I had lost consciousness... perhaps there had been a concussion. But I only told them, "No... it was more like a sign from God." In truth, God told me right then and there: "Burkhart, don't ever try to put that lousy sign up again!" And yes, I understood instantly that I had a choice to make: "Oh yes, Lord," my soul cried... "I'll stand back up and testify to your greatness... I'll make the changes you want... I'm ready to learn how to walk again... Don't let me die such an ignoble death, broken and dying on the sidewalk like a derelict... Just plant my feet on the path again."

The entire scene reminded me of a story the Bible tells, about a meeting place where the derelicts and the down-trodden hung out, between the wee small hours, between the years BC and AD, when Christ walked the land and the world took notice of the awareness in its presence. One such invalid, unable to walk for years, cried out: "Oh good master, heal me!" And Jesus looked him square in the eye: "do you really want to be healed, brother?" "Oh yes Lord... yes I do!" So Jesus smiled on him calmly and told the man: "Pick up your bed and walk." "Huh?" came the dumbfounded reply, "You mean that's all there is to it?" "Of course," Jesus instructed him, "but go and tell no one you were healed... because they will only talk you out of your healing. Go... and don't climb up the same ladder again."

How true is the Christ in any age, my friends!

The Rape of Therapy

07/05/2004: The funniest episode thus far happened in the hospital soon after the morphine wore off. Under the guise of offering me therapy, the entire team was geared up to discharge me as quickly as possible. Although my condition was such that I was not ready to leave the hospital, I was not adequately insured either. So on the next two consecutive days, two young people (not much over 18) came to prepare the legal stage for my release. Young Person Number One showed up on Tuesday: "Hi, I'm Sally, and today I'm going to show you how to put on your socks, using this handy cardboard tube." Now at that time I was not even capable of rolling over in the bed or focusing my eyes, held perpetually in stasis between the effects of the medication. But then she enlisted a couple of attendants to maneuver me out of bed and lower me into a chair, at which point Sally delivered her best speech, maybe 6 minutes in all, put a checkmark on her clipboard and briskly left the room, never turning back, not even leaving the cardboard device. "Jesus," I thought, "this can't be therapy!" And Jesus agreed.

The next day Lance showed up: "I hear Sally worked with you yesterday... well today I'm going to get you up and walking! Do you have your slippers handy?" I was still wearing the $58 hospital socks that Sally placed on my unwashed feet the day before. Noticing my dumb stare, Lance quipped, "No?... well that will be okay..." and signaled for the two assistants to join him. This time they propped me up against a walker, their several arms underneath my shoulders to steady me. "Now," Lanced lisped, "try to move a few feet over to the door." I had no choice... I moved in step with the rest of them. "Fine... that's just fine... in fact from the way it's looking you'll be released from here by tomorrow afternoon!" checking the empty place on his clipboard and leaving me to the attendants to rearrange my twisted carcass back into hospital chic. Sure I was going to be out of their care in no time, but that's what scared me the most. If that bullshit I just went through was therapy, then indeed I had a lot to be concerned about. What the hell was I going to do when they put me out the door the following day -- actually, in retrospect, I made it two more days before the axe fell -- when I couldn't yet stand up of my own volition?

So when "therapist" number three showed up the following day, wanting to walk me all the way to the EXIT door and up and back down a few steps, I quickly drew her aside and whispered: "Look, young lady, if you really want me to walk, then get me my fucking shoes and I'll meet your ass down on Halsted Street in about twenty minutes!" And wouldn't you just know it... within 30 seconds two doctors, a security guard and some onlookers from the staff entered my room: "What's the problem, Mr. Burkhart... are you being difficult again?"

So they released me on schedule, at least a week ahead of a properly insured patient. But you can bet your sweet ass I was ready to get out of there and take the next real step on my own. Of course I was grateful they sedated my pain and strapped the cast on for support, but I was also thankful to quit hanging around with those kids who had no idea in the world what they were doing, however sincere they were in their efforts to rehabilitate me. I don't think the hospital or their patents or anyone else ever told them the plain truth about their jobs -- that they are paid assassins, not therapists. And so I pulled on the only assurance I've ever had in this life, and recalled the words of Jesus: "Would you be healed... then pick up your bed and walk. "Yes Lord," I am fond of replying.

The Price of Fame

08/11/2004: Today I ran into a young girl from the suburbs, in tow with her assorted friends and family members. With the absolute charm of an innocent, she asked for an autograph, having recognized me from the Reader article. “Are you going to be famous someday?” she smiled. “I already am,” I returned her smile. And so I wrote: “To Mara… for caring enough to make me famous!”

On the other hand, I got a phone call from a middle aged man, residing in a single room occupancy hotel, wanting to come by and drop off a get-well card he was planning to mail, the stamp already affixed. I had a few minutes, so I invited him to stop by. After seating himself he began testifying and gesticulating in a softly glowing reverence: “I can’t believe I’m looking at the actual Burkhart… first I saw your photo, and now I am seeing you!” (Oh no, not another one…) I attempted to tell him it was nothing, that I’m really just an ordinary guy, the newspapers are full of stories like mine. But he wouldn’t hear it: “I’ve only met two other famous people in my life time… once I saw Nancy Kerrigan shopping in a mall, and another time, would you believe it, Joey Buttafucco was crossing the street on Michigan Avenue right where I was standing!” Then he commenced to find at least five points of identification between the two of us: 1: we were both in California once; 2: we are both artists; 3: we were both homeless in the past; 4: we have both suffered great loss; and 5: we were both obviously nuts for sitting in the same room having such a conversation.

The Lifting of Sadness

08/21/2004: Yet another day, and another reminder of how special the coffeehouse was, and the people who frequented it still are. Andrea Cobb stopped by on her way back to New York, after a six-month study in Brazil and Argentina. I remember when she first showed up at the coffeehouse five years ago, barely 16 and knowing all of the other 15 and 16 and 17 year olds that were frequenting the place at that time. They were a special generation of emerging artists, testing their new place in the community. For a few magical summers, the Burkhart Underground was their home away from home -- a safe place where they could practice being adults, in the relative security of a genuine artistic environment, in the home of an old hermit who has already made all the mistakes before them, and knows how to help them avoid those very same pitfalls as they grow into maturity.

Seeing Andrea today reminded me of so many of the others... Cecily and Dwyer and Emily, Carlin and Todd and Claire, Elisa and David and the students from the Chicago Academy for the Performing Arts. Mainly girls, with an occasional boy thrown in for balance. Young girls I most certainly fell in love with the moment I laid eyes on them -- not as lovers fall in love, but with a closeness like that I feel for my own daughter Trinity.

Yes, today I witnessed how in five short years they are so grown up, these children developing into the responsibility of adulthood, learning to function on their own in a world that I helped guide them towards... the world of their own making. And yes, I am proud to be part of their growth, I am proud to be visited by them, I am proud to be part of the memories they cherish. I am happy that they are taking up where I left off, correcting the mistakes of their ancestors and unfolding a more relevant future for the rest of us. I am especially filled with joy to have the wonderful love these young people have shared with me. It is the reason I heal so well.

A Sunday Without Coffee

08/29/2004: Precisely two months ago around 9pm I was lying wounded in the back of a city ambulance on my way to an unknown fate. My back was broken, there was suspicion of concussion, and the danger of complications with possible paraplegia. Yet tonight -- only two short months later -- I opened the door to the once-proud Underground, climbed onto my bike and rode off into the sunset. It was about the time I would usually prepare coffee for the predictable onrush of open mic fanatics and their followers. Smiling as the unswept sidewalk sped steadily along beneath me, I marveled at how wonderful the wind felt rustling my unkempt beard.

Well... it's really March 24th, 2005, and I'm writing this from a greater perspective. As it turned out, I removed the cast I was supposed to be wearing for six months to a year in less than three months. Why not? I felt sure of myself. I practiced my religion well, fasting and eating raw fruits for two months, supplementing my diet with calcium laden herbs and ancient alchemical truths, freeing my doctor to attend to more difficult cases.

My break is over, I'm reopened, everything is new and alive again!