Sticks to Lying

 

by Rick Hill

 

 

My 50,000+ word novel,

assembled and supplemented during the

2006 NaNoWriMo period,

1 – 30 November 2006

Published by

Tree Trunk Productions
261 Mohawk Road
Big Cove, Alabama USA 35763-9249

Cover design by Rick Hill
First Print Edition, November 2006 (e-Edition will be available soon)
Copyright © 2006 Rick Hill
All Rights Reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

 

For Wikipedia reference material only: permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify the Wikipedia references under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts.  A copy of the license is included in the section entitled “GNU Free Documentation License”.

 

 

 

To my wife for her patience, knowing that I love her and always will.

Even so, I still fall in love with almost every woman I meet…

…but I always come home for dinner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SELFISHNESS

 

I am tortured not by the emptiness in my head.

No, the dominance of my personality chases sanity from my mind.

When you’re left with yourself

And your self you don’t like

There’s only one thing to do —

Make a change

(but try not to be seduced by S).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Introduction

 

There’s no such thing as an innocent childhood.  My middle-class parents, perhaps, wish that I’d not been exposed to the less-than-pleasant, dark, nasty things that happen in life, but of course that is impossible, unless they would have kept their child locked in a room or house, where they could have controlled the stimuli.  But my parents didn’t do that.  Instead, they raised me like any other child, sending me to public school, allowing me to play with kids in the neighborhood, and using the television as a passive teaching tool.  I don’t claim to be any better or worse because of it.  I’m not here to place the blame on my parents for anything I’ve said or done.

 

What I do know that is the events, the episodes, the great discoveries and stupid actions of my late youth and early adulthood were directly influenced by my early childhood.  It may take a village to raise a child but who says the villagers have the best intentions?  And so it is that I have come to this point in my life, sitting here in this cabin in the deep woods, away from all the folks, both good and bad, who could influence me in any way.  I’ve got to take some time to consider who I really am and if I can’t figure that out (who can?) then I want to set the stage for the next act in my life, my post midlife years.

 

Getting the cabin was not too difficult.  Of course, I had to scout out available property, find one with an access road, a water source and a place to grow some of my own food.  I was easily able to do this while surfing the Net at my job.  After I found the property, I made a down payment on it from my cash reserves.  I’m no Paul Bunyan or Daniel Boone so I found a hardware store that would build a cabin for me on the property.  I set up a payment plan for it, too.

 

Then, I converted my 401(k) to an IRA and began making small yearly withdrawals so that I could not only pay for the property and cabin, I could have a budget upon which I would make a “living”.  Oh, I guess I didn’t tell that as soon as the cabin was built and I had moved my stuff into it, I quit my job.

 

For those who know me, you’re probably wondering about my wife.  Well, that’s a tale to save for another story.  Needless to say, Karen’s an important part of my life but I don’t want to give away the most important secret of my new existence, at least not yet.

 

As I was deciding what I needed to do to be able to stay within my new poverty-level budget, I quickly saw that some of my most time-consuming habits were not going to be supportable.  The hardest part was giving up television.  Seems ridiculous, I know.  But for a boy from the South, who has placed college football above God in respect to the amount of time and money I’ve devoted to the University of Tennessee football team, not being able to watch college football on TV is worse than being a hungry baby whose pacifier has been pulled away and there’s not a baby bottle to be found for what seems like miles around.  But college football was only part of my TV habit.  The next best thing to college football is NASCAR, with the mesmerizing travel of cars around a circle.  Think of it as my Mecca.  Only, instead of throwing stones into the center of the circle, I’m throwing expletives at my favorite NASCAR drivers to hate, including anyone with the name Earnhardt or Stewart.  In between those sports, there was this period I can only call my season of discontent.  Thank goodness, the season keeps getting shorter but God forbid I was ever going to fill the months of January and February with basketball – it’s just not my thing.  Sure, I’d cheer on UT if I happened to switch to a game where they were playing but in no way was I going to set my life around the game of hoops.

 

In between the sports, I’d skim past the TV comedy or drama series and see what documentaries or movies were on.  I’d watch movies, mainly.  Used to be, I’d catch every movie at the theater on the weekend it opened but I noticed that as I got older, I was less inclined to go to movies to see the same theme be played out with a different set of actors.  Typically, I’d see a movie when I was young starring actors my parents’ age.  Then, as I got a little older, I’d see the same kind of movie with actors somewhat older than me but younger than my parents.  After I got married, my wife and I would see movies, again with the same theme, but this time starring people who are our age.  Now, it seems that all of the big movies are starring actors who are younger than me, which means that if I haven’t been watching the latest TV series, I haven’t established a link with the TV actors and thus have no vested interest in them when they make the break to the big screen.

 

So, realistically, what I was giving up when I decided not to bring a TV to my cabin was not the TV itself but the pure pleasure of watching college football and NASCAR packaged as a television event.  I still have enough money in my budget to catch a UT football game or NASCAR race.  Doesn’t mean I will but at least I can.

 

Although it’s only been a few weeks so far, the absence of TV has been a blessing.  I no longer get drawn in to some late night documentary.  Thus, I wake up early in the morning because I’ve gone to bed relatively early at night.  I feel somewhat refreshed.  I don’t suffer from the compulsion to drive to the local big box store and shop for something I don’t need or want.

 

Occasionally, I ride my bike to the local convenience store to buy basic necessities (toilet paper and the like).  After all, it’s not that I’ve given up existing.  But I don’t spend time looking at electronic gizmos anymore.  I don’t purchase DVDs of movies I never really liked in the first place.  I don’t shop for anything I don’t need.  Who knows, maybe I’ll change my shopping habits.

 

So now that I’m sitting here in this cabin, watching birds and squirrels move from tree to tree, what do I want to do with my time?  Hmm…  That’s a good one.  For one thing, I do have to be careful about what I write.  Despite my finding this quiet out-of-the-way place to settle down for a while, I realize that I am not completely “off the grid”, as they say.  I know that Brian Chipmunk still has an interest in tracking me down.  But I’m getting ahead of myself, I suppose.  I must realize that you don’t know who I’m talking about and that’s not really why I’m here.

 

Why am I here?  Well, I want to record what I can remember from my early childhood so that my nieces and nephews understand a little bit about one of their kin.  Also, when I die and the remains of my estate go to them, I want them to understand that the windfall they’ll inherit comes with a price.  For my money did not all come out of a 401(k).  Some of it I got from hanging around with a buddy from my early childhood, who convinced me to buy shares of his company before it went public.  I think I did much better than he did.  He had greater assets than I did but his liabilities did him in.

 

 

 

Chapter 1

 

I was born in Bristol, Tennessee, in a hospital that no longer exists.  The year I was born, you could buy a Dodge Lancer with a 170 or 225 cubic inch engine.  What I found out from Wikipedia was that “Dodge Division applied the Lancer nameplate to its clone of Chrysler’s wildly successful Valiant compact. The model was introduced when Chrysler officially assigned the Valiant to its Plymouth division for 1961, leaving Dodge dealers without a compact to sell. Lancers were given round taillights and full width grilles, which differed from the Plymouth’s canted oval taillights and stand-alone grille. This compact Lancer used the Slant-6 engine, which could be equipped at the dealer with Chrysler’s Hyper Pak parts kit for a significant power upgrade. The Lancer sales didn’t meet expectations, and as a late part of the total redesign of Dodge’s compact car for 1963, the Lancer name was discontinued. Dodge compacts for 1963 through 1976 were named Dart, a name that had previously been assigned to a larger car produced by Dodge from 1960 to 1962.”

 

I owned a 2-door 1962 Dodge Lancer sedan for many years.  It was part of my midlife crisis.  Other guys bought expensive Corvettes or Porsches to pretend to extend their youthfulness.  Instead, I paid $1675 for a 1962 Dodge Lancer with bad brakes.  I drove the car for about a year and then after the brakes finally gave out, I parked the car in the yard and let it slowly sink into the dirt.  I think it was a pretty good ode to my life.  In fact, I ought to call this story, “Sinking Back Into My Roots”.  “Sticks to Lying” is much more appropriate, though.  You’ll see.

 

 

 

Chapter 2

 

I decided later in life that I would have to do something or else I’d just end up like so many of the folks I know who have accumulated an enormous collection of quirky, eclectic, funky stuff that looks like the back room of the fourth basement floor of a museum in some large city where all the “not so easy to categorize” material is stored for the time the curator wants to set up a general exhibit on the late 20th Century or early 21st Century.  Did I say I decided?  No, it was more like the monsters the material had become were leaning over me as I was writing, waiting for me to fall asleep in order to collapse on top of me and absorb me into their eBay-ready piles.  After a couple of times of falling asleep in front of the computer, waking up and believing that the stuff around me had crept a little closer, I gave in to my paranoia and started hauling random items out to the bottom of driveway.  I staked a sign in the yard that said, “Yard Sale – All Stuff is Free.  Price is not negotiable!”

 

Of course, there would be the inevitable curiosity seeker who would ring the doorbell and want to inform me that the item I had accidentally included in the pile, such as an electric pencil sharpener or worn-out automobile gearshift knob, was worth a lot of money.  The person would hold the item up to me like I was expected to pay him or her for it.  The first few times this happened, I told the person, “Oh gosh, you’re right.  Well, since you were so kind to bring this to my attention, I’d go ahead and let you have it for free.  But I sure won’t let that happen again.”  I’d close the door in their faces and go back to watching TV.  Then, one day, I thought, “Hey, this ought to be fun!”  I may have even said it because the cats leapt off my lap and hid behind the sofa.

 

Did I mention I used to have cats?  Probably not.  Well, it’s not important right now.

 

Anyway, one day, this old fellow knocked on the front door well after dark.  How he made it down the overgrown walkway, up the algae-covered stairs and across the leaf-covered deck to the front door in the dark, I’ll never know.  I answered the door and this old, decrepit hand held up a small audiocassette tape player I had thrown out the day before.

 

“Yes?” I asked.  “What can I do for you?”

 

“Did you know that they no longer make these?” the quivering voice of the old man shot back, more like a command than a question.

 

“Maybe.  Why?  Is there something the matter with it?  I don’t have any batteries, if that’s what you’re after.”

 

“No.  No.  I was just admiring the unit.  Did you know that they don’t make these any more?”

 

I began to wonder if maybe this guy had more on his mind than he let on.  Or maybe it was just the same stuff over and over.

 

“I think you said that.”

 

“Indeed.  I tell you what, the most I can give you for this is twenty bucks.  Of course, if you have any tapes to go with this…” he said, trailing off, his eyes oddly glimmering in the dark.

 

“I suppose I might.”  I decided to have a little fun with him.  “Do you have any identification?”

 

“ID?  What for?”

 

“Well, I just want to make sure your American accent goes with a valid identification card with a picture issued by a US or US state government.”

 

The old man fumbled in his back pocket for his wallet.  “Uh, here it is.”

 

I looked at his driver’s license and was suddenly dumbstruck.  The picture was a holographic image of him and when I turned the license over to the back I could see the backside of his head, where there was some sort of device attached.  “I…uh…”

 

“Well, you did ask to see my ID.  Mind if I step in?”

 

I stood there like a dead tree stump, wondering if my time had come and gone; if so, I was better off to let the bugs flying around the light lay eggs in me and eat my rotting flesh.

 

“I say, it’s a bit muggy out here.  Do you mind if I step inside?”

 

I looked at the license once more and realized that the name and street address were the same as mine.  I looked up at the old man.  “You…?”

 

“I think I better come inside,” he said as he put his hands on my shoulders, turned me around and pushed me into the foyer.  “Just like I remembered it!” he exclaimed as he continued to push me forward.  “Do you have any more of that homemade beer?  It sure would be good right now.”

 

I turned around and looked at him.  “You know, this is weird.”

 

“What’s weird?”

 

“I’m…well, fuck it!  Pardon my French but I’m confused.  Where did you get that ID card?”

 

“Oh, it’s standard issue these days.  Say, how about that beer?  Do you have any in the fridge or is it still stored in the laundry room?  Oh, and here’s your tape player back.  I’d love to keep it but it’s really not mine to keep, now is it?” he asked, winking at me and heading into the kitchen.

 

I slumped down into the recliner with the tape player in my hand.  The cats immediately started meowing, thinking that I was plopping down with a plate of food in hand.  They jumped when they heard me open the refrigerator door.  Well, I mean at least I think it was me in the kitchen, or some facsimile of me, at least.  My other self certainly had aged and not altogether well.

 

“Ah, here’s one in the back!” I hollered to myself from the kitchen.  “I can’t believe I kept these bottles so long.  Maybe I knew I was coming back for them!”

 

 

 

Chapter 3

 

I petted the cats’ heads when they rubbed up against my legs.  I sighed.  I closed my eyes.  I opened my eyes.  I thought maybe I’d just been taking a nap and had a particularly peculiar dream.  Then I saw the tape player in my lap.  Had I or had I not been dreaming?  I set the tape player down on the TV tray and stood up.  I was weaving on my feet a bit.  Had I been drinking, perhaps?  No, I didn’t detect alcohol on my breath or feel dizzy.  I guess it was just shock.  But from what?  I looked at the TV.  I could tell it was on but I didn’t recognize the show and didn’t understand why I would tune to some sort of TV shopping show.  I grabbed for the TV remote control but it was not on the end table.

 

“I’ve got it,” a familiar voice said to me from the sofa.  “You know, I forget how much you guys used to love to buy useless crap.  I mean, take a look at the poor workmanship on that necklace.  I’m surprised any decent person would wear it.  Of course, that lady who’s wearing it is pretty damn good-looking so maybe someone thinks they’ll look like her if they buy it…well, anyway, I’m glad you’re awake.  I think maybe you passed out or something.  Wanna beer?”

 

I looked at the old man sacked out on the sofa.  I can’t say I was looking in a mirror unless the mirror had some kind of age-defining power.  “Yeah,” I replied, “I think I will get something to drink.  But I’m going for the hard stuff.”

 

“Help yourself.  I’m going to sit here and see what else is on this old 2D TV of yours.”

 

 

 

Chapter 4

 

When I realize that all is not what it seems but it does make sense…

 

I woke up again.  How long had it been?  I couldn’t tell.  There I was, sitting over there on the sofa, watching TV.  Here I was, laying back in the recliner wondering what either one of me was doing.  I shook my head but the image of the old man was still there.  I rubbed my neck, leaned forward and cracked my back.  The image of the old man didn’t go away.  So I possibly wasn’t dreaming.  Surely, none of my dreams had been this real.  But what if I was deep enough into a dream that in the dream I was able to believe it was more real than normal.  After all, plenty of times I had woken up from a dream or been in a half-dream state, realized what a fantastic dream I just had and then jumped back into it as if it was real.  I just never remember thinking thoughts like these.  Usually, when I started questioning the reality of a dream, I completely woke up as if to tell myself, “Either dive into this fantasy wholeheartedly or stay out of it!”

 

“So,” I said from the sofa, “as interesting as this TV stuff is, it’s getting boring pretty fast.  You think you’ll stay awake long enough to talk?”

 

“I guess so.”

 

“Good, ’cause I don’t plan to stay here very long.  By the way, had you made any plans for the day?”

 

“Well, I was planning to go through the house and put more stuff on the driveway for people to take.”

 

“Hmmm…interesting.  I don’t recall doing that.  Isn’t that funny?  You’d think I’d remember something silly like that.  Well, anyway, we really need to talk.”  The old man turned off the TV and turned to face me.  “Do you ever have a sense, a feeling, that you’re being followed?”

 

“Not always, no.”  I petted one of the cats, Merlin, an orange Cornish Rex, who had just jumped into my lap, understanding that I was nervous or edgy or something and needed attention.  Or was it the other way around?

 

“Can you tell why you get that sensation?”

 

I blinked my eyes a couple of times to clear my vision.  I had not completely woken up.  “I assume it’s because of my guilt complex.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Sure.  I mean, I’m pretty sure that’s what it is.  Why would someone really be interested in following me?”

 

“Why wouldn’t they?”

 

 

“Look, I don’t want to sound strange but after all, I was…oh, never mind.  This is still a little bit too weird.”

 

“I know what you mean.  But hey, you don’t know what weird is, believe me.  Seriously, do you ever feel like you’re being watched?”

 

“Of course I do.  Who doesn’t have that feeling?  There wouldn’t be a history of religion without that feeling, would there?”

 

“Well, no, you’re right about that.  Anyway, I’m running out of time.  I’ve got something to tell you and I need you to remember it completely.”

 

“Uh, okay.  Can I record this?  I’ve got a video camera around here somewhere, unless I’ve thrown it outside, of course.”

 

“No, don’t record it.  It’s not like…wait!  Of course, that’s a great idea.  But instead of a video recorder, do you have a means to record my voice only?”

 

 

 

Chapter 5

 

I fumbled through the menu of my music player, pressed Record, and set it on a stack of books I had placed on the TV tray.  “Okay, there you go.”

 

“Great!  For the record, what I’m about to tell you is a fantastic story.  I don’t claim any of it is real but you may gain a lot of insight into what goes on around you…”

 

“This isn’t some sort of ‘Matrix’ story, is it?”

 

“Matrix?”

 

“Yeah, don’t you remember the ‘Matrix’ movies, where everyone shares the same fantasy but most of them are really just batteries for computers that have taken over the world?”

 

“Uh…no.  I’m not sure if it’s any kind of story you’ve heard before.  This one is as close to reality as it gets.  To be frank, it could actually be reality.  For the sake of grins, why don’t you pretend what I’m going to say has already happened or will happen in the near future.”

 

“I’m cool with that.”

 

“Okay, then.  Anyway, as you’ve seen today, it appears to be possible for people to travel back in time.  You’ve seen what you think is a version of you from some distant future.  But as far as you know, it’s just a fantasy.  You could be dreaming.  You could be pulling ideas and images from the inner reaches of your imagination, mixing them up and having one of the wackiest daydreams you’ve ever had.

 

“But then, you already do that.  You already imagine things like you’re being followed, and believe that some of the people around you have been hired by someone, anyone, to track your whereabouts.  It’s human nature, as you said.  But what if it wasn’t?  What if you weren’t so much as being followed as simply being recorded?  What if no one in particular cared about what you were doing at any point in time unless they wanted to find you when they did need to know something about you?  Or maybe they didn’t need to know about you but they needed to know about the environment around you?  Would that be possible?”

 

I looked up from picking my nails and turned toward the old man.  “You know, for some reason, I’m beginning to wonder if this is a joke.  You know what I mean?  Is there some hidden camera somewhere trying to catch me in a fool’s pose that’ll look good on TV?”

 

“Well, anything is possible, I suppose.  It could be me who’s being made a fool of, of course.  But no, I’m actually trying to be serious.  And I really do have a limited time I can be here with you.”

 

“Why?  Do we meld together or something?”

 

“No.  Why would we do that?  It’s…”

 

“Come on.  Surely, you remember some of the time paradox books we used to read?”

 

“But, of course.  I’m sorry.  This does sound like some sort of science fiction tale, doesn’t it?  I’m sorry.  I’m not trying to remind you…sorry, or us…of our junior high and high school reading.  I really don’t want you to believe this is JUST a story.”

 

“So, what is it, then?”

 

“Well, I’m here because…  Well, there may be no such thing as a future for humanity.”  The old man gave me one of those serious looks I used to try to give my employees when I wanted to make a point without the use of humor.

 

“I’m guessing that you’re trying to be serious?”

 

“Yes, I suppose you could tell that, couldn’t you?”

 

“And is there something I’m supposed to do?”

 

“Well, it might be good if I continued on.”

 

I sighed.  “Okay, go ahead.  It looks like you’ve ruined a quiet day, anyway.”

 

 

 

Chapter 6

 

“Do you remember Brian Chipmunk?”

 

“Yeah, of course I do.  He’s been my best friend since I don’t know when.”

 

“Have you seen him lately?”

 

“Yeah, just last week.”

 

“Did you notice anything different about him?”

 

“Well, he seemed a little older but then, hey, so do I when I look in the mirror.”

 

“I don’t mean his appearance.  Was there something in your conversation with him that didn’t seem right?”

 

I watched Merlin and Erin bat around a fake mouse on the floor.  I laughed silently to myself.  What if what I was telling myself was real then these cats could be a way of monitoring me, I suppose.  “I can’t recall anything specific.  Why?”

 

“Oh, nothing.  If there wasn’t anything odd, then we’re doing okay for now.  Maybe I mistimed myself but I don’t want to take that chance.  Do you remember a pledge by some of the richest people in the world to solve poverty?”

 

“Yeah, sure, who couldn’t miss it?  Bill Grates and Warren Boofay, at least.  It was like in the billions of dollars.”

 

“Well, there’s more than one way to solve the poverty issue.  You can find a way to feed millions of starving, displaced people, or…”

 

“Or what?”

 

“Or you could invest billions of dollars in a machine that would make those people go away.”

 

“Like time travel?”

 

“You said it, not me.”

 

“So that’s why you’ve come here, to tell me that someone invented a time machine?”

 

“Maybe…no, just kidding.  Time travel is not really why I’m here.”

 

“So you’re telling me that all these billionaires and celebrities who have been visiting Africa lately have really been time traveling?”

 

“Oh, right.  I see your point.  Of course, you don’t know what I’m thinking.  And I forgot what a shock this can really be.  So, yeah, it’s a distinct possibility that a time machine could be hidden in the middle of a continent of starving people and no one would notice it.”

 

I stood up and walked over to the cat stand where Erin was catching a bit of warmth from the heat rising out of the floor vent.  I stroked his head and he purred.  I leaned over and butted heads with him.  Nothing about him seemed unusual or out of place for a cat.  But then, didn’t all cats seem to have a sort of other-worldly personality, suddenly darting around for no apparent reason?  Would that be a sign that cats were monitoring me?  Is that why they were always following me around the house, why even the cat at my mother in-law’s house wanted to be in my presence all the time?  No, that couldn’t be it.  I had nothing special to want to be tracked or followed.  But, of course, I was standing in the living room with a version of myself, presumably from the future.

 

“So, what is it that I’m supposed to do, now that you’ve told me this ‘story’?”

 

“Nothing yet, I hope.  Continue what you’ve been doing.”

 

“I see.  Then why tell me anything at all?”

 

“Good point.  Right now, I’ve got to leave.  I’m going to come back soon.  In the meantime, I’d like you to find a way to take what we’ve recorded and turn it into a story.  You don’t need to change names to protect the guilty or even change the story in any particular way but I really want you to get this story published.”

 

“Well, there is this contest coming up.”

 

“Contest?”

 

“Yeah.  I mean, it’s not really a contest.  It’s a celebration of National Novel Writing Month.  It’s an encouragement for folks to write a fifty thousand word novel in 30 days.”

 

“So, how do you win?”

 

“You finish the novel.”

 

“Does it get published if you win?”

 

“Sort of.  You can post the novel on the Web.”

 

“The Web!  Of course, I forgot all about that.  I tell you what.  Get the novel written and post it on the Web.  In addition, get some paper copies made and distribute them to some friends.  In the meantime, I’m going to find some publishing folks I know and see if we can’t get your story published.  For now, I want you to feel free to tell anyone you know that you’re working on a novel but don’t tell them it’s about what I told you.  Tell them it’s about your early childhood or something.”  The old fellow almost jumped up from the sofa.  “This is better than I thought.  I’m going to make you richer than your wildest dreams and figure out how to stop Brian at the same time!”

 

“Stop Brian?”

 

“Ooh, sorry.  Forget I said that.  Or better yet, don’t forget it.  Just make it part of your story, somehow.  And if you see Brian again, let him know you’re writing a novel about your childhood, including him.  I want you to be as creative as you can be in describing the novel to him.  Even ask him for details of your time together.  Whatever you do, keep him focused on remembering the past.  And if for any reason, you suspect he is questioning what you’re doing, including even the slightest odd look, let me know.”

 

“Let you know?”

 

“Oh, yeah, right.  How are you supposed to get in touch with me?  Hmm… That’s a good one.  I’m not even sure about that.”

 

“Well, maybe I could just write myself a letter or post something in the newspaper that you could read in the future.”

 

“Oh, that’s a good one.  If only it was that easy.  Let me let you in on a little secret.  It doesn’t work that way.  It’s not like I can travel back to the future and just pick up a message from myself from the past.”

 

“Oh.  Then what?”

 

“It’s not time travel like you see it.  It’s…well, neither one of us is a scientist, are we?”

 

I laughed.  Then we both laughed.  “Not exactly!”

 

“Right.  Well, the best way I can describe it is particle displacement.  Do you remember that particle uncertainly principle?”

 

“Heisenburg?”

 

“Did they name it after him?  Well, yes, I suppose that’s the one.  Well, it seems that scientists have figured out a way to predict the location of all the particles in the near universe and rearrange them slightly.  There’s some sort of way to focus on pieces of the universe, predict what they’d be like or where they’d be and change those pieces to the predicted state.”

 

“So, if we can record what we’ve been like, why aren’t the celebrities changing to a younger state?”

 

“That’s a good one.  I don’t know, exactly.  Anyway, I’ve got to go.  We can talk about this later,” the old man said as he headed to the front door.

 

“Wait.  You never said how we’d get in touch.”

 

The old fellow opened the door.  “Don’t worry about it.  I’ll come back.  Do you have a hat or something I could wear?”

 

 

 

Chapter 7

 

Whether you could say I woke up from a dream or a nightmare, or never woke up from it…well, if you know what reality is, let me know.  An old friend named Helen once told me reality is only seven letters.  I guess she’s right.  She’s a lot like a new friend of mine, Eleanor.   I had written a story that involved some of what Eleanor and I had experienced in Germany.  The events in Germany were somewhat surreal, but then I always seem to have surreal experiences with single women I meet when I’m on the road.  I haven’t figured out why but it’s true.

 

In any case, I checked email and found that Eleanor had responded to my story.  She said that she thought it was a bit strange to see her exact words in my story (words I had used from an email exchange between us), “a story which I’m not sure is meant to be fiction or not…nor how those words are meant to be taken…”

 

And she was right in her conjecture.  How did I mean to take her words?  The recent death of my brother in-law had taken quite a toll from me.  So much so, that I was unsure of a lot of things including my relationship with other people, especially unattached women, and in so many words, I told her so in an email.  Well, really all I said was, “No writing from me recently – death of my brother in-law is still weighing heavily on me – my mind is unable to focus on the future (makes being a program manager right now very challenging!).  To be honest, I have thought about quitting my job and taking a sabbatical.”  I must have scared her a bit because just as I was getting up from the recliner to grab another beer in an attempt to erase the weird interaction with the old man, the phone rang.  Lo and behold, it was Eleanor.

 

“Hello?”

 

“David, is that you?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“You sound awful.  Are you okay?”

 

“I love you, too.  No, seriously, I’m fine.  I just had a strange character visit me and I’m still trying to figure out if it was real.”

 

“You mean a character in your story?”

 

“No.  Not yet, anyway.  No, this guy, he claimed to be…well, this is gonna sound weird, but he claimed to be me.”

 

“You?  Have you been drinking?”

 

“I told you it was weird.  So, how are you doing?”

 

“Great!  I’m just about moved in.  As moved in as I’m going to get, anyway.”

 

“That’s quick, but that’s you, I guess.”

 

“Sure.  But how are you doing?  I got your email and was worried about you.”

 

“Gee, I sent that email, like, what, a couple of days ago?”

 

“Boy, I do have delayed responses here, don’t I?  You know, I thought I’d have more ‘free time’ here in Europe…but the truth is that I don’t!  I’ve happily and willingly filled up that time with things that interest me.”

 

“Like what?”

 

“Oh…exploring southern Europe, meeting new friends and spending time with them…exercise…reading…and of course, figuring out the big web that makes up this new job of mine…”

 

“So much for free time, huh?”

 

“Yeah.  I have come to the conclusion that ‘free time’ really means what you think you want when you are doing something you’d rather not be doing.  Free time sounds fun…and then…when you see it coming up around the corner, you quickly pack that space with something you think will make you smile or reflect or think…in other words…anything other than working hard on something you don’t really care about.”

 

“Like work!”

 

“I don’t know.  Does that mean work can be part of this free time?  I have wondered…because when I was ‘working’ on my homework for my writing class…it didn’t feel like work at all!  So…I guess that’s a ‘yes!'”

 

“If you say so.  I have free time at work all the time and I get panicked if I think it’s lasted too long.”

 

“I know what you mean.”

 

“Does it ever make you feel guilty, having enough time on your hands to walk down the hall and talk to someone just for the hell of it?”

 

“Not really.  I can find a way to weave work and regular conversation together.”

 

“I can see you doing that.”

 

“But you know me, I like to leave work and then go and experience living in Europe, leaving my computer behind…”

 

“Not even your cell phone?”

 

“Oh, I carry that with me most of the time, you know that.”

 

“Oh yeah, our weekend in Munich.”

 

“Yep.  You, me and Bjorn.”

 

“That was fun.”

 

“It sure was.  Although I must admit that story you wrote was pretty good, mixing in fantasy and reality.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“You know, the part with the elves and stuff.”

 

“That was fantasy?”

 

“Haha.  I guess that’s why I like being here.  I have to repeat myself and tell you that my favorite part about this job is the people I meet from all over the world.  And when I think about how much of my time was consumed taking care of many of the necessary but sometimes maddening details that program management requires, it’s no surprise to me that you find the recent loss of your brother in-law to be a distraction from work.”

 

“It’s still hard to believe.”

 

“You are dealing with a very real loss of a person you loved.  Making it more difficult is the fact that this person was also very significant to someone you love very much…”  Eleanor paused.

 

I looked at the phone with raised eyebrows.

 

“Your wife,” she continued.

 

“Of course.”

 

“So you are dealing with the pain of two, and I can remember from the loss of my father, how unimportant work felt to me after that.  I felt as though I needed to step away from the money-making machine and the internecine squabbles at work and ground myself again.”

 

“I wish…”

 

“I ended up taking a week off and flying to San Francisco by myself, where I wandered through the parks and gardens and museums and along the shores of the bay, just thinking about my dad, and where I wanted my life to go.”

 

I nodded.  I remembered my trip to San Fran with my wife back in the mid 90s.  We enjoyed walking the streets and eating at out-of-the-way restaurants.  It seemed like there were five-star restaurants on every corner.

 

“Even then, the choice to make a change wasn’t easy…I guess I can say I was restless in my job from that point forward.  I wanted to experience life now, to fulfill some dreams, to quit putting thing off until my responsibilities lessened…and coming to Europe is something I’ve dreamed about for a really long time.”

 

“I’m with you there.”  Eleanor couldn’t see that I held my thumb and index finger a few millimeters apart.  “I was this close to moving to Ireland.  I still think about it and sigh heavily.”

 

“Well, I began to lay the ground for heading this way, though I had no idea how I would really make it happen.  For me…being here…and seeing what I’ve seen…well…”  Eleanor’s voice trailed off.

 

“Hello?  Are you still there?”

 

“Oh…you know, this has been a break from things holding me down.  As you know, I cleaned out my house completely.  But I did so both literally and figuratively, and I feel like now I have what I need to step back from a maddening treadmill and figure out what’s next…  So…I like the job, but truly I could be selling any widget.  It’s not the product that is important.  It’s the process of self-growth along the way – of challenging assumptions I had about myself and others and cultures…of being lost in the silence that comes of living in a world where you don’t understand the language, so the silence is created out of whiteness of indecipherable noise…and slowly finding your way out again and to realize how much you’ve discovered in the process!”

 

“What did you just say?”

 

“That moving here has been a discovery for me.”

 

“No, you said something else.  Something like, ‘silence is created out of the whiteness of indecipherable noise.'”

 

“Yes, I did.”

 

“Did you hear that somewhere?”

 

“I don’t think so.  Why?”

 

“I don’t know.  It sounds poetic…and true!  There is no need to make sense of the noise around you but rather use it as a comforting blanket with which to envelope yourself so you can meditate in silence upon what matters most to you.”

 

“I agree.”

 

“I was just thinking…”

 

“That’s a dangerous activity!”

 

“No kidding.  What if today was the last day of your life and you knew it?  What would you do?”

 

“Well, that’s partly why I’m here.  I’m worried that you do think today is the last day of your life.”

 

“Oh, no, none of that for me today.  But really, what would you do?  I mean, would it be important to say ‘goodbye’ to your loved ones?”

 

“Well, if it was important to you, I guess.”

 

“Well, I’m asking because you seem to live everyday like it was the last day on Earth.  Maybe that’s why you have no concept of time, no need for ‘free time.’  You seem to have found a way to live as if today is all you have.  I have been reading a set of interviews with mavericks of 20th Century music, including Milton Babbitt and Laurie Anderson.  From my reading, I have gathered that they figured out early in their lives that living for themselves was a primary driving force for living.  All of them overcame the ‘struggling artist’ phase to be able to support themselves as composers and/or players.  A few of them mentioned having friends, though, who were still struggling.  I feel like today is my last day on this planet.  If so, then tomorrow I would no longer be an active human burden on the ecosystem.  Perhaps that’s what I dream about most – finding a way to prevent present-day humans from destroying the usefulness of the planet for future human generations.”

 

“I know what you’re feeling.  I feel that way, too, sometimes, especially when I’m hiking or exploring the outdoors.”

 

“But then again, perhaps it is our destiny to wipe out the planet as we know it, and slowing it down is messing with the Great Plan.  Anyway, I’m glad you have found a way to enjoy life using the human socioeconomic system in Europe.  Even though I’m forty four, I suppose there’s hope for me yet!”

 

“Of course there is.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sure what I want to be when I grow up.  I feel this great need to explore and be challenged and to try to understand people and idea, and somehow help the people I care about, while keeping the door open to new ones that may impact my life in a positive way.  I find money nice to have, but it’s not an end goal worthy of too much thought or consideration, and more of a hassle…”

 

“Absolutely.  Karen and I have no credit card debt, no car loans and the house will be paid off in a year.  We have a home equity line of credit we use so that we can deduct some of the loan interest off our taxes.  I contribute sixteen percent of my salary to my retirement, so I’ve got a pretty decent nest egg.  Therefore, I can easily keep drifting into a middle class retirement.  Is it enough?”

 

“Is it ‘just enough’?”

 

“Is it just?”

 

They both laughed.

 

“Well, David, maybe you’re not in as bad a shape as I thought.  Here it is, I wanted to call you to find out how you’re doing and yet I’m finding myself opening up to you.”

 

“You are talkative tonight.”

 

“So why am I telling you all of this?  Okay, first keep in mind that this is basically unfiltered straight out of my weary brain…”

 

“What time is it, anyway?”

 

“Three o’ clock.”

 

“Wow.  I don’t want to keep you up.”

 

“No, it’s okay.  I’m enjoying our conversation.  I guess that I see in you someone who didn’t set out in life to be a cog in the corporation wheel any more than I did.  You are a writer…yet as we both know, making ends meet as a writer can send one scurrying back into the welcoming, sometimes suffocating arms of corporate America…or Europe, of course.”

 

“No kidding.  Say, Eleanor, this is amazing.  Oddly enough, this is just the sort of conversation I have sought my whole life – thoughts from the mind of another writer.  Do you remember that poem you told me about?”

 

“‘The Journey’ by Mary Oliver?”

 

“Yeah, I think that was it.  The poem was very strong.  I have often wondered if I should brush off those who cling to me in an effort to find myself.  When I was 23, I abandoned my life – my job, my apartment, my girlfriend (who’s now my wife, by the way)…and the rest of my family – and I drove from Kingsport, Tennessee, to Seattle, Washington, to Los Angeles and back in 10 days.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Yeah.  My parents debated reporting me as a missing person.  I returned home as the ‘prodigal son’.  The lesson I learned from that trip was that the love you hear sung about on the radio is really lust.  True love was demonstrated in the two hitchhikers I picked up, who stuck with each other even though they had nothing to keep them together.  I discovered that my life was not terrible, even if at that point I had done from a person with a full college scholarship at Georgia Tech in 1980 to a drug-dealing dishwasher at Steak & Ale who was living in a flea-ridden apartment in less than five years.  At least I had my writing.  And a loving family.  And a secure middle class life to fall back on.  Did I really want to be a struggling artist?”

 

“Ah, yes, isn’t that the question?”

 

I nodded and sighed.  “I guess the answer, twenty two years in the corporate and collegiate world later is ‘No’.”

 

“Is that bad?”

 

“I suppose not.  It’s just that it seems like it ought to be.  I look at the life of my brother in-law and he was living his life as he had imagined it as a child.  I always imagined I’d be a writer.”

 

“Do you remember writing me and telling me you were thinking of taking a sabbatical?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Part of me was saying, ‘Do it, David, just go!’  Because if you think you are in a place where you can make that break, the time you’ll receive will help you determine a direction that will make you happy and bring you peace.  By no means am I trying to get rid of you from the company but I think you need to take care of yourself now, so that you can give to and support the people important to you.  Am I making sense?”

 

“Yes.  Yes, you are.  I feel like I am treading in a pool of tears, tears of self pity and tears of sadness.  Every moment is difficult to bear, not knowing what, if anything, I want to say or do…or even think.  I can demean myself by comparing my state of mind to a survivor of the US 9/11 or UK 7/7 events, but why?”

 

“No reason at all.”

 

“I am not those survivors any more than I am anyone else.  Pain and suffering are personal, in any case.  Why should my recovery as a brother in-law be any better or easier than someone else’s?”

 

“Well, then…maybe instead of babbling, I should ask you what you want your life to be that it isn’t now, and what your dreams are?  And which of those dreams is most dear to you?  And then, you know what I’d do…that is, if we were sitting and having this chat over a cup of coffee instead of over the phone?”

 

“What’s that?”

 

“I’d start asking you what you thought you needed to do to get there.  I’d ask you what you think the first steps are…what you think the road blocks are…what your fears are about taking that step…you know we all have them…and then, if I could, I’d try to come up with counterpoints to help you see how this dream is possible.  Because you know what?  Dreams are only impossible when our fears get in the way of taking the difficult steps to start them.  Sometimes this means we ignore the voices of people around us who mean well, but can’t guide us because they don’t understand, and taking the steps you know you need to take.”

 

“I…uh…”

 

“David, I’ll say one more thing.  I understand a bit of what you’re going through, and the pain of the loss will come in waves for a while, with ebbs and flows, but it will lessen.  Along the way, please take care of yourself!  If there is anything I can do, if you want to talk or vent…or even tell me to shut up and go away…please let me know.”

 

“Eleanor.”

 

“Yes?”

 

“I’m in awe.  Now I’m middle-aged, at least physically, assuming this body won’t live much more past its late 80s.  You talked about dreams and fears.  Well, I’ve been lucky, I guess.  I’ve lived them both.  I’ve shared my writing with fellow street bums, had poems and short stories published in university literary magazines, written articles for newspapers and self-published my books.  My fear of failure has been justified in having my writing rejected, just once or twice to know how it feels.

 

“I have accomplished the dreams that are truly important to me.  The only thing left for me now is to repeat myself.  Do I really want to start over?”

 

“If you have to, yes!”

 

“I have no answer to that question today.  I think I can hide in suburbia a bit longer.”

 

“David, don’t short change yourself.  You’re a good person.”

 

“So are you.  In fact, I see you as a closer, a person who completes what she started, an excellent example of a professional.  Perhaps that’s what separates ‘struggling artists’ from successful ones?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Maybe it’s just a fact that successful artists know how to close a deal.”

 

“I see your point.  But in that case, what is success?  Did Van Gogh consider himself a success?”

 

“More of a hack, I guess!”

 

Eleanor laughed.  “You’re terrible.”

 

“Whereas you’re a professional, I am a crafty amateur, or so I’ve been told.  I see myself as a dreamer or thinker.  I value time to free associate mentally.  I am only partially concerned with my thoughts becoming reality.  I’m pretty sure that a personality profile of me would show me not fitting into the role of program manager.  If not this job, then what?  You said you could sell any widget, as long as the people you meet help you grow as a person.”

 

“Yes, I did.”

 

“So is it necessarily sales that you need to be doing?”

 

“Not really.  But it’s what I seem to be good at and what seems to bring me the most personal satisfaction in my life right now…what I least call a ‘job’.”

 

“Ahhh…now you’re talking.  I see you in this job as a duck.”

 

“A duck, huh?”

 

“Yeah.  It’s like all the problems you’re facing roll off of you like water on a duck’s back.”

 

“I like that analogy.”

 

“You have little mental baggage.  I have little negative monetary baggage but lots of negative mental baggage.  To continue successfully into the second half of my life, I need to figure out if and how I want to reduce my negative mental baggage.”

 

“You know, part of getting rid of negative thoughts is to talk about it.”

 

“Yeah, even the preacher at my wife’s hometown church said that this past Sunday.  He told the congregation that if you have thoughts that are weighing down on you such as a guilty conscience, the best thing to do was pray to God and if that didn’t seem to work, he suggested you talk with a pastor, counselor or friend.”

 

“Well, that’s my I’m here.”

 

“Okay, in that case I’m going to tell you about my negative mental baggage.  Some of it you will not like…”

 

“Try me.”

 

“And you may be the one to tell me to go away by the time I finish telling you what’s on my mind.”

 

“I bet you’ll be surprised how much we have in common.”

 

“Maybe.  ‘Cause seemingly the number one problem for a testosterone driven guy like me is that I think about sexual activities way too much, especially when confronted by boredom, stress, waking up in the morning…exposure to TV, magazines, billboards, the Internet, et cetera.”

 

“And what are you saying, that women don’t think about sex?”

 

“Well, certainly from talking with my wife, women are more interested in romance than sex.”

 

“Have you read a romance novel lately?”

 

“I can’t say that I’ve ever read a romance novel.”

 

“Well, they’re not exactly innocent tales of romance.”

 

“I didn’t think of you as a romance novel reader.”

 

“Oh, well, I’m not.  I’m just trying to make a point.  I don’t think your sexual thoughts are as bad as you think.  In fact, I’ve been thinking about our conversation at the San Francisco Coffee House in Munich and I realize that maybe I was coming across to you as a prude.”

 

“You were a bit critical that night.”

 

“Well, it’s not that sex doesn’t cross a woman’s mind, it’s that it’s not dressed up in black and white, so to speak.  It’s more than just the thought of a particular act.  It’s also the events surrounding the act…I guess I’m trying to say it’s the whole thing, not just the pieces.  Am I making sense?  I’m pretty tired.”

 

“Yes, of course, it makes sense.  You’re just giving romance a different name, that’s all.”

 

“Precisely.  Anyway, I think if you worried less about it, then sex wouldn’t become that big a deal.”

 

“Well, to be honest, every time I see a woman I automatically think I have to put myself on display, like some robotic peacock.”

 

“But everyone is that way.  It’s not just you or just guys, it’s also women.  It’s also primates and other animals.  It’s our natural instincts.  In other words, you’re letting yourself be ruled by your animal self.  When you realize there’s so much more to you than that, you open yourself up to more possibilities.”

 

“I suppose you’re right.  It’s just that this job seems to get my hormones pumping like I’m a heroin addict or something.”

 

“Well, that’s something I don’t have an immediate answer for you.  It takes some amount of training, though.  What else is bothering you?”

 

“Look, Eleanor, I know it’s late.  To be as busy as you are, learning a new job and meeting new friends, and yet be able to find time to share your thoughts with me is nice enough as it is.  Don’t you think you ought to get some sleep?”

 

“Luckily, I don’t have anything serious to do until tomorrow afternoon so if you need to keep talking, I’ll keep listening.”

 

“I want to say that I wish you all the best.  You will surely continue to build upon your reputation as a reliable, funny person in whatever vocation you choose.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

“I hope you find enlightenment along the way that enlivens and enriches your circle of influence.  I saw in the news the other day that marriage is now a minority category for those who choose to live together.  Should you choose to settle down one day, I hope your partner brings you new surprises all the time.”

 

“We’ll see.”

 

“By the way, I know my moods and anticipate I am entering a long depressive phase.  Rather than drag you down with more words, I hope you will accept my invitation to say goodbye as an apology for the period of silence between this phone call and the next one we have.”

 

“So you’re really wanting to say good night?”

 

“Well, almost.”

 

“I thought so.  So what’s really on your mind?”

 

“Well, I’m pretty sure you call yourself a Christian…”

 

“And?”

 

“…and I don’t know that we have the same set of beliefs.”

 

“Well, that’s okay.  I’m not going to preach to you tonight, if there’s something you need to say.”

 

“Well, I’ve got a quote from Ben Franklin that I’d like to send you that sums up my belief.”

 

“Is it in front of you?”

 

“Yes, it is.”

 

“Then go ahead and tell me what it says.”

 

“Okay.  ‘As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble.  I see no harm, however, it its being believed, if that belief has the good consequence, as it probably has, of making his doctrines more respected and better observed, especially as I do not perceive that the Supreme takes it amiss, by distinguishing the unbelievers in his government of the world with any peculiar marks of his displeasure.'”

 

“Very interesting.”

 

“You read, you talk to others, you watch and learn from real people.  I read, I watch TV or work on the computer, I watch and learn from actors speaking lines.  Sure, we’re snowflakes but it’s still fall.  We’ve yet to blanket fallen leaves, our uniqueness hidden by the blinding reflection of our collectiveness.  I cannot hide here now, my energy pours out to you over the phone.  Words.  Sentences.  Paragraphs.  Ideas.  Emotions.  All that was and is David Colline.  All to the person that is and will be Eleanor Glass.  I cannot see you.  I cannot be you.  I can only be here, straining to remember a voice, a story or stride.  Too tired to think, too tired to remember and almost time for bed.  Driven to speak but nothing to say, just waiting for the next moment to weave these words into a story.  Such is the rhythm of life – nothing wrong with that, huh?  No need to be down!”

 

“Indeed.  Did Ben Franklin say that, too?”

 

“What?  Oh no, its me.”

 

“Gee.  Sounds like you’re on a roll here.”

 

“Sorry.  I just got a burst of energy there.  I wanted to get everything out.”

 

“You seem better or at least, you sound better, anyway.”

 

“I guess I am.  I bet you’re dog tired.”

 

“I don’t know about the dog part but I am tired.  Do you mind if we pick this up in a few days?”

 

“Not at all.  But I may write you an email in the meantime.”

 

“Have at it.  I’m going to bed.  I’ll talk to you soon.  And I’m really glad we got to talk.  I don’t know why we don’t do it more often.”

 

“No ‘free time’?”

 

Eleanor laughed.  “Yeah.  Something like that.  Good night.”

 

“‘Night.”

 

 

 

Chapter 8

 

I hung up the phone with a smile on my face.  I had even almost forgotten about my elder “self” visiting me.  While I was in the mood, I pushed the cats to the floor and walked into the front bedroom (my study), grabbing a pen and paper to draft a handwritten letter to Eleanor.

 

 

Eleanor,

 

We tend to read material that we deem will have some usefulness for us.  Today, I do not promise these words will or can be used by you.  I can barely keep track of the English grammar rules and word definitions necessary for communication between two American English users.  In other words, I won’t be upset if there’s no response from you to these words.  I’m sending them to you as a signal to me that it’s sometimes okay to exist without simultaneously having to find a reason to justify my existence by hoping for a response from another person.  I suppose I could just write these words and throw them in the trash but I know that I might find a use for them in the thoughts of an autobiographical/fictional character one day (and isn’t it interesting that we use the word “character” to refer to a person who exists only in an artistic work (short story, novel, movie, play, etc.) as well as a single letter in a computer file?

 

My mind, whatever that is, is numb today.  The numbness dulls my senses, leaves me in a state of near non-existence, where my societally trained persona does not know who or what it is.  There is a feeling of dissociation (or is that dis-association?).  Not only do I forget the meaning of words, I forget who I’m supposed to be.  I also can’t recall if I’m supposed to care who I am.  Certainly, I can’t change my physical existence very much while I’m sitting here writing.  Therefore, I can quickly assess that I look like a northern European descendant of the male gender who is medically obese and near the middle point of his natural life.  I will never escape that fact, no matter how much I want to pretend.  But what does that mean?  Sometimes, a saxophone sounds like something else entirely.  I am the musical instrument and musician and composer and audience.  What musical piece do I want to write and hear myself play?  ♫ ♪ Do-be-du-wah ♪♫

 

But right now I face a dilemma.  I know why I’m numb but I don’t know if I want to do anything to fix it.  I’m numb because my life is not very enjoyable.  I don’t want to do anything radical to change myself, or at least I think that’s true.  Many issues weigh on my mind, some of them at completely opposite sides of popular social issues, and few of which will never be recorded on paper.

 

I have your correspondence here in front of me as a reminder that you have and will respond to my writing.  I have warned you about sharing very private thoughts with me by promising to put some of our correspondence into a story.  I warned myself, also.  Our thoughts are the last bastion of freedom on this planet.  I value freedom of thought above all else.  I have sacrificed myself on the altar of middle class living so that I would have time to build a sanctuary where I could sit and think.  I have given up a life as a volunteer with public charities when I saw I was becoming a spokesman for the local botanical garden, appearing on TV several times.  I gave up being a reporter when it became obvious the editor wanted newspaper stories to contain more opinions.  I gave up the physical pursuit of women when I found out they wanted to know what I was thinking.  And now, I find that the job I’m in is requiring most of my higher brain functions, leaving me too tired to think or write.

 

I am numb.  I am numb and don’t know what I want to do with myself.

 

I discovered that numbness can be okay sometimes.  Or at least I think I discovered that some time ago.  I…well, it’s curiously funny, but…hmm…I can’t remember what I was going to say.  “Knowing that others can read these words” is a thought that pops up in my mind sometimes and startles me so much that I stop my train of thought and can’t recall what I was just thinking about.

 

When I was a kid, I dreamed of being a hermit who lived in the woods.  I even told my friends that I’d be happy as a ditch digger if I could just have time to read, write and live in natural surroundings.  In some ways, I’m close to that ideal – living in the woods with Karen, in a modest house that’s almost paid off – but what I’ve learned since my childhood is that my writing is directly tied to people I meet.  I enjoy meeting people who are a little bit different so that I have something interesting to write about.  What would I write about if I only lived in the woods?

 

So even in my numbness, I can write and read.  I have not completely lost my ability to focus and filter out all of my surroundings except these ink markings on pressed pulp.

 

Being numb is not the problem.  Deciding who will be the persona I project when the numbness goes away is.  Will I be bland/normal or slightly eccentric?  Will I hold a “regular” job or earn a living in some other way?  Today, I am numb and do not know.

 

 

David

 

P.S. The path of discovery is overgrown with weeds and the way ahead is completely blocked.  I think I’m lost.

 

 

 

Chapter 9

 

At work the next day, I got the funny feeling people were talking about me, especially since one of my coworkers joked about my being rich.  Even more odd, I was stopped in a stairway by a recently widowed coworker.  She gave me the look of lust and leaned very close to me.  I felt like she was insincere and trying to trap me.  Very odd behavior from her because she is usually so professional.  In any case, I decided to write a story disguised as a letter to her.

 

Dear Stranger,

 

I consider myself a writer because I like to write.  I do not consider myself an expert in anything but it doesn’t stop me from writing about what I don’t know.

 

For instance, I don’t know you.  That in itself should be reason enough to avoid an error in judgment by writing words for your edification.  With that said, I’ll write a story for your entertainment.  If you enjoy the words, keep them.  If you don’t enjoy the words, feel free to throw them away.

 

“A Place I’d Dearly Love to Be”

 

Some folks grab your attention and won’t let go.  Some aspect of their personalities, whether it’s a certain smile or perfume even, something about them tells you you haven’t seen the last of ’em.  Not even saying that’s bad.  It’s just a fact.

 

Do I remember the first time I met Na’radmi?  I was snared by the complex web of her personality traits, at least by the second or third time I met her.  On the surface, she was a typical gal from Texas.  Just trying to think back on our first encounter wears me out, like I somehow outsmarted a sly desert fox as a jack rabbit hopping across the dry plains of west Texas.  The funny thing is I’m an old boy who, like the character in a George Strait song, used to hang my hat in Tennessee, only I don’t have any “ex’s”.

 

Some might say this is a paradox to be wished for, to recognize, to enjoy, the attention of another while at the same time wondering if being ignored would have been better.  Kinda like an old cowhand who can’t decide if he should jump off the fence and rope the wild bronco or drop off into the pasture and walk the fence looking for breaks in the barbed wire.  Both need to be done at some point but not necessarily by the same person.

 

Na’radmi, though, is not just from Texas and she ain’t no Tejano, neither.  No, her blood line flows from the Orient, you can clearly see.  So what does that mean?  I cannot say (or rather, cannot tell).  Her personality does immediately give out a U.S.-centric point of view.

 

Even so, these are all just first impressions.  These are just the masks she wears.  When the makeup is off, when her guard is down, who is the person she sees in the mirror?

 

Certainly, she sees the mother of her children, and she gladly remembers being the wife of their father (perhaps sadly).  What does she wish for?  What future does she imagine?  What is in her head when her eyes light up at the start of a hearty laugh?  Does she know?

 

Most importantly, where does she call home?  What place does she feel most comfortable?  Is it physical or virtual space?  Would being comfortable in her presence be enough not to care about anything else going on in the world?

 

Life is not a mystery but it can be mysterious.  Wondering what pushes Na’radmi up out into the world every day will remain a mystery to me, and that saddens me a bit.  She has my attention, completely so, yet I know little about her and possibly never will.  Though I’ll never know all six billion people on this planet, I’d like to learn from those I’ve met.

 

Suddenly, I’m very tired, almost out of breath.  I’ve spent the better part of 24 hours pondering a pair of blue eye shadowed, perfumed eyes I met on the staircase of the front lobby at work.  I’m worn out from a lack of sleep.  Some folks would say I’m hiding from myself, but I keep a glowing ember burning alive and well for the feeling I get with I see eyes like hers, especially when they’re facing me from the next step up.

 

= = =

 

Well, I hope you liked the story, more like a prose poem, I guess, inspired by a girl from Texas I once met.  Suppose I should get back to work, such that it is.  The job’s not nearly as important as the people I work with.

 

Have a great day!

 

David

 

 

 

Chapter 10

 

The days at work went by in a blur.  I tried to write every chance I got, but it was difficult to come up with a storyline that I could follow in my head, let alone put into words on paper.  Eventually, I gave up.  I told myself that writing a novel was useless and would accomplish nothing.

 

I checked email and got a message from my father.  It simply read, “Son, you once commented about the joy of silence and I understood what you meant.  But if you are having trouble, silence is not always best.  We are concerned about you.  Love, Dad.”

 

I wrote my folks a letter.

 

Mom and Dad,

 

Several thoughts, themes and ideas running through my mind right now on this sunny late October day in northern Alabama.  For some folks, religious study is a matter of attending a social gathering and jointly coming to an understanding of a deeper meaning in their lives through the interpretation of ancestral text.  For me, I gain a better understanding of my condition by sitting here meditating on the written words about to be put down on the paper in front of you.  I do enjoy seeing the folks who gather weekly at the Presbyterian churches I have attended but I do not desire to see them on a weekly basis.

 

This morning, I went to the local chapter of the American Red Cross to donate platelets via a process nicknamed pheresis.  The nurses I see are just as much family to me as your friends at Colonial Heights Presbyterian Church.  In this life, I’ll never know if by attending church I have helped someone gain an eternal life in the presence of a Judeo-Christian God but at least by donating my platelets I know I have given medical personnel the opportunity to give someone a longer life on this planet.  Is one activity better than the other?  I cannot say.  All I can do is perform the act that I can best understand.  I do not understand the act of studying the same text over and over.

 

I sit in the sunroom of our house, my usual spot for meditating, with the usual sounds around me – the gurgle of the garden waterfall, the chirp of the chickadees, the soft sensation of music from the “wireless” speakers  and an added bonus this time of year, the rustle of autumn leaves.  Miniscule (sp?) insects hang in the air just as they hung around me while I was cutting out a dying set of euonymus bushes earlier today.  Forty or so feet in front of me I see the half-acre hole in the woods where our neighbor decided to clear off trees.  I’m sure that Little Mountain has been cleared of trees more than once because no tree appears more than 60 or 70 years old.  Even so, I understand the sympathy of our neighbors, the Rattlers, when they told us, “You killed all our flowers,” on our first visit with them, even though we had not yet purchased the property.  Our friend, Vincent, observed from Green Mountain the slicing and dicing of the southern end of Little Mountain.  Sigh…it certainly can’t be too many years before the land behind us is carved into lots.  I cannot stop the expansion of humankind so I am left to wonder when our pace of consumption will be slowed or stopped by the lack of material to consume.

 

Speaking of a standard of living, Karen and I met with a financial advisor this past week.  According to our counselor, we can retire at any time now, albeit on a limited income.  Karen figures we’d like to pay off the house (first and second mortgage) which we can possibly accomplish next year.  Then, we’d have no large outstanding debt and could afford to live on a smaller cost of living.  We haven’t worked out all the details yet but we’ll keep you posted.

 

[I just got off the phone a little while ago so my train of thought for this letter has been broken.  Elizabeth called because she misunderstood (or received misunderstood info) that I was traveling to Munich.  Assuming I’m traveling to Germany, I’ll be staying in the Paderborn area, several hundred kilometers north of Munich.]

 

Anyway, getting back to the current theme, Karen and I have been talking about taking a break from the high-paced, high tech work life and enjoying a semi-retirement for two or three years.  We haven’t decided yet what or when we’ll change but no doubt about the fact that we’re ready for a change.  We don’t have children so why should we work our whole lives?

 

I apologize if my writing seems stilted or contains errors.  Having gotten up early and donated plasma, along with an afternoon glass of wine, has hampered my ability to function 100 percent.  I did not want to miss this chance to write one of my rare letters to you.  It seems that handwritten letters are becoming an extinct species these days and it’s a shame, in a way.  Taking the time to think before writing is a luxury we should be able to afford.  Typing on the computer is easier, of course, but it doesn’t force the writer to compose thoughts, even ruminate upon them, before committing them to paper.

 

There are only one or two people who write to me in this way.  One is a fellow member of Kingfisher Presbyterian Church, Tracy Flaherty, who you may have met at Louann’s house after Karen’s brother’s funeral.  She has been kind enough to send us inspirational notes, on occasion.  Otherwise, our mailbox has had a pretty poor diet of bills and junk mail.  And to think, today’s generation of kids think that emails are a slow form of communication, preferring the “short” form of instant messaging.  Our mainstream society seems to spin faster and faster – are we really getting anywhere or does it just feel that way?

 

Last night, the time changed.  When I would normally sit here at four in the afternoon and enjoy the late afternoon sun glowing just over the top of the mountain, I now get to feel the coolness of evening settle in and see the early evening visitors eat at the bird feeders – the mourning doves, cardinals, and a few last-minute chickadee-dees.  Over the years of watching our backyard feeders, I’ve experienced many generations of young birds growing up.  As little ones, they will follow their mother to the feeder – some will wait for the mother to feed them and some will hope around in youthful energy grabbing food – chirping in their desire to eat.  As the seasons pass and some of the young ones disappear, the survivors appear more and more cautious, distinctly aware of the constant threat of predators.  By wintertime, the migratory birds are gone and all I’ll see and hear are the timid chickadees, titmice, flickers, cardinals and doves.  The chickadees are numerous this afternoon.

 

So, as I end this meditation session, what can I make of my place in the universe?  I guess I realize that there is no such thing as the natural world.  We humans are part of nature and our habit is to consume more than the local environment can sustain in order to gather up a bounty to protect us against future slowdowns.  We have no natural predators other than ourselves and the unintentional destruction of human civilization via natural disasters.  Karen and I have participated wholeheartedly in human civilization, gathering so much more than we need that we can contemplate dropping out of the mainstream consumption role during our midlife years.  We make no apologies for our behavior and hope that society stays constant enough to allow us to enjoy our bounty for a while.

 

Enough for now.  Time for a nap.  Talk to you soon.

 

Love, David

Chapter 11

 

After my nap, I thought about the events of the previous week.  The next day, I decided to write my father a man-to-man email.

 

Dad,

 

Just when I thought I could settle in to a nice, comfortable anonymous existence as some overweight, middle-aged man, I get untoward advances from women I work with or encounter at various places (even at the Red Cross yesterday while I was donating platelets).  I don’t know if you ever had those “problems” but getting passes from women is definitely not something I am used to.

 

As a comedian once said, “I can resist anything but temptation.”  It sure is interesting to lead a life where I don’t hold myself up to some high moral ideals but when a prime low moral issue comes up, I’m at a loss as to how to respond.  Drinking has never been a moral issue for me – I rarely resist the opportunity to get toasted at a bar (hoping that I’ll find my way home).  Sexual activities, in even the most casual non-contact form, are not so easy to resolve morally.  I’ve never denied myself the right to look at a woman’s body but I haven’t figured out a truly innocent way of complimenting a woman on the shape of her body so sometimes my comments are a bit crude or suggestive (in other words, I don’t see that I have to give in to recent social mores and be politically correct).  Recently, I have misled a couple of women in what I thought were innocent flirting conversations – one thought I was looking to take advantage of being in Germany away from my wife and one woman expected me to engage in a little hanky panky on the stairwell here at work – when they realized that I was just playing along and not being serious about their offers, they were put off (the first one was adult enough to recognize that I put my marriage in front of any casual sexual encounter; I have no idea how the second one has responded (I imagine she has made comments to her work colleagues)).  It appears that my geeky childhood when I didn’t learn the art/rules of flirting is coming back to haunt me!

 

Some days, being a “no holds barred” adult is not what it’s cracked up to be.  I suppose I shouldn’t have made James Bond my hero in my youth and dressed like him as an adult if I had known that I’d get married and lose the opportunity for a role in the hay with the women who see my as their available version of “Chuck Norris” or “Richard Branson”.

 

Kind of funny in a way.  I live in a society where divorce and adultery are acceptable, or at least forgivable in the “high moral” Protestant churches to which I’ve belonged.  Yet, despite my not being a strong follower of the Church’s teachings, I place the sanctity of marriage above nonchalant, adulterous sex.  I really should recognize that I am not the wild secret agent that my Walter Mitty mind imagines.  I may hold to the tenet that “live and let die” is not only a good title for a James Bond film but also a pretty decent guide to living; however, there are more complex/contradictory issues to resolve in my personal code of ethics than I let on.

 

In other words, I see another good story to write!  Attached are a couple of stories I wrote that addressed similar moral dilemmas when I was in Germany.

 

Thanks for listening.

 

Your son,

David

 

 

 

Chapter 12

 

I noticed that I had an email from Eleanor saying that although she was as busy as ever, she was still concerned about me, asking me to further detail my “negative mental baggage”.  Here’s what I said.

 

DAVID’S NEGATIVE MENTAL BAGGAGE

 

1. I already told you about my number one problem, too many sexual thoughts.  I’m working on getting that one off the list.  May have to quit job to get stress-driven testosterone levels down to acceptable level.

 

2. I categorize people according to physical stereotypes, including gender, body style, race and nationality.  I typically look at these as negative stereotypes, of which I am doubtful of their friendliness to me.  In a crowd, I quickly scare myself into a corner or out of a room.

 

3. I am afraid of money.  I do not like having money within easy reach of me because I simply want to spend it to get its thief-attracting, greedy capabilities away from me.  Automatic retirement savings account deposits are a godsend.

 

4. I have a chameleon personality and adapt to those around me, deferring to the opinions of others rather than stand out.  I have been told this is due to the lack of assertiveness skills – I fail to assert myself because I don’t want to offend others.  Some of this behavior has diminished with age (i.e., I have become a lot cruder than I used to be).

 

5. I feel guilty and cannot forgive myself for some of my past behavior, including drug use and sexual activity, and attitude toward my ancestors’ worship of an omnipotent being.

 

6. I would rather embellish the truth or lie in order to capture someone’s attention than tell the truth and have a person walk away disinterested.  I have been turning this behavior into short story writing ever since 5th grade.  I have been lying ever since 1st grade, however!

 

7. My first response to the feeling of being trapped into doing something I don’t want to do is have suicidal thoughts.  I have never seriously acted out on those thoughts but twice, once in 1985 and once in 1990, I ceremoniously acted upon suicidal thoughts (what I call “S”).  My coping mechanism has improved but I still have the thoughts.  To me, it’s like being an alcoholic craving the escape of a drink.  The desire is the thing, not the act.

 

Well, that certainly hits the highlights of the negative thoughts that spin in my head almost everyday.  So, if I should take up your offer of the virtual conversation over a virtual cup of coffee, I’d say to you, “Well, Eleanor, as one adult to another, if you were to look this over, are there any items on this list that are worth living another forty four years to overcome?”  If not, then what else can I figure out that is worth living for?

 

Thank you for reading through these words.  I am a difficult person to live with (just ask my wife) because I question everything with the sternness of an Army drill sergeant (remnants of my father, no doubt).  Many people spend their lives putting themselves down mentally.  I try to spend time finding out the good in myself and others – sometimes I succeed and sometimes I fail.  When I fail, look out!  The profanity flies!

 

Hopefully, we can continue this conversation, even with delayed responses (I call them timely silences).

 

Always seeking,

David

 

 

 

Chapter 13

 

After finishing the email, I realized that I’d better get busy preparing for my participation in the 2006 National Novel Writing Month event, which had started on 1 November and I was several days behind in my word count.

 

Basically, NaNoWriMo (or NaNo), as it’s called, is the following, in a nutshell:

 

GOAL: NaNoWriMo 2006 “winner” writes 50000 words by 30 November 2006

 

To achieve that goal, I set the following milestones for myself:

 

MILESTONES:

* Week 1, 07 November: 13000 words

* Week 2: 14 November: 26000 words

* Week 3: 21 November: 39000 words

* Week 4: 30 November: 50000 words

 

It seems that NaNoWriMo was started back in the heady days of the Internet boom, around 1999, if I recall correctly (and as tired as I am, I’m not sure).  A guy somewhere in California, near Silicon Valley no doubt, came up with the idea of writing a novel in one month, with the goal of writing 50000 words in that time span.  From the dullness of my mind, I seem to remember that he and a few of his friends actually wrote 50000 words that first year.

 

Since then, the event has become a phenomenon so that in 2006 at least 70000 people entered the world of the 30-day novelist.

 

I had heard about it several years ago and thought it would be fun and challenging to participate but never got the nerve to try it.  In 2006, I decided “What the hell!” and signed up for it.  After reading about the successful track to follow in the book, “No Plot, No Problem,” I wrote an outline to help me pace myself throughout the month, knowing that the death of my brother in-law would be a mental distraction, with its requisite feeling of despondency on occasion.

 

[In any case, I’ve put the original outline for this story in the appendix, just to show you I had good intentions of telling a satirical story about my early childhood.  Instead, I find myself here now wondering how I even survived to the point where I could tell you the real story about the past few years, and how a measly 30 days or so set the stage for the rest of my life, or at least my life up to this point.]

 

So, anyway, I guess I better back up a few days.  On Saturday, 21 October, I drove over to the Barnes & Noble bookstore on University Drive to meet folks for the pre-kickoff meeting for NaNoWriMo participants.  I arrived about 15 minutes of noon and ate a sandwich in the cafe.  I then waited for the leaders to arrive.  While I was waiting, I worked on my outline.  I saw a few other folks also typing on their notebook computers and assumed they were there for the same reason.  However, I didn’t want to interrupt so I waited.

 

About 30 minutes after noon, a heavyset fellow and an equally heavy woman arrived wearing NaNoWriMo shirts.  They recognized some of the people in the room and began to pull tables together.  I was in the middle of a brainstorm, remembering a good bit of my childhood, so I kept working on the outline.

 

After the group of would-be writers settled down, I walked over, introduced myself to them and asked if they were there for the NaNoWriMo event, just in case it was a coincidence that a bunch of people with computers were getting together at the same time and same place for some other event and the two most outgoing people there were also just happening to be wearing NaNoWriMo T-shirts.  Not likely, of course, but chalk it up to my normal reticent behavior.

 

I sat at the end of the table, next to a cute brunette on my left who had striking eyes and plucked eyebrows.  I instantly fell in love with her, dammit!  Yes, yes, I know.  It’s not supposed to happen to a married guy with a relatively normal marriage.  Even so, I was smitten, and looking back, I should have figured out that it was going to be my downfall.  But really, how could I have seen that falling in love with this particular woman was going to be different than any other man or woman I see and fall in love with the image of myself I see in them?

 

After introductions, the leaders, White Bear and Red Herring, told us a little bit about the event and what to expect.  They told the six of us that they were sorry they had not brought any “swag” from NaNoWriMo but promised they’d have some for us at the official kickoff dinner, which was going to take place on Friday, 27 Oct 2006, at Jade Palace restaurant.  The whole time they were talking I couldn’t help but notice that the brunette kept looking at me out of the corner of her eye.  I felt that she, too, had taken an instant liking to me.  I pretended not to notice and instead went around the table asking people how long they’d participated and what they’d written about.

 

The guy on my right, Sad Morgon, had written for a few years and only missed the contest once.  He tended to write about science fiction.  The guy next to him had long hair and looked like the modern hip IT guy most companies had.  He also liked to write science fiction on occasion but wanted to try something else.  Red Herring said she was going to write a story about a woman who was half white and half black (“White by Day, Black by Night” was one idea for her book title, although from her research it appeared other folks had written books with similar titles and similar story lines.  Even so, she planned to tell the story from her perspective, from the three years she spent living on the Alabama A&M college campus).

 

White Bear had perked up when I mentioned to Sad that I had a science fiction streak in me and had tried making a Borg costume for Halloween one year.  He turned his laptop around and showed us pictures from the Dragon*Con events he’d attended.  I told him that a former employee of mine had been to the Dragon*Con convention several times.  While we were sitting there, I Google’d my employee’s name and found that he’d been awarded the R2D2 award for his dedicated service during Dragon*Con.

 

For the life of me, I can’t remember much about the two people who sat between White Bear and my favorite brunette, whose name was Florry DeShy, by the way.  I turned to her to find out more about her, and then my cell phone rung.

 

My nephew called to ask me if I’d meet him at the local Toyota dealership to help him in the negotiation for the purchase of his very first new car.  I told him I’d meet him there soon.  While I was on the phone with him, Florry left the table.  While she was gone, I called my wife and told her that I’d told our nephew we’d meet him at the dealership at 1:30.

 

Florry returned to the table so I turned my attention to her.  Sigh…  I still remember her fresh, young face.  She seemed like an interesting person to hold a conversation with.  I was so wrapped up in my dreamy, love-induced state, that I missed much of what she said.  I did remember that she had cheated on the contest one year, using some of her old writing as filler when she was falling behind and really wanted to finish the 50000 words.  I thought it was cool that she had the courage to tell everyone that.  From what I gathered, she probably wasn’t the only one at the table who had cheated a bit.  In fact, Red Herring told us that it was okay to use some of our previous writing as long as it was used for building a character or adding to a scene but we couldn’t just willy-nilly copy some of our old writing or the flying monkeys would find us and punish us.

 

I wanted to stay there and hear more of what Florry had to say but time passed quickly, too quickly, and I had to go meet my nephew.

 

At the dealership, my wife and I helped him get several hundred dollars knocked off the final price so we felt we had performed a fairly decent job of helping him out.

 

That night, I lay in bed, realizing how much I was turned on by Ms. DeShy.  I kept thinking over and over:

 

1. She is pretty.

2. She is single.

3. I am married.

4. She looks like my wife.

5. Why do I keep letting myself fall in love with women I can do nothing about?

 

 

 

Chapter 14

 

The next day, I was extremely depressed, wondering if I’d ever stop falling in love with women or be able to do something about it.  Of course, I knew that I’d always find a way to express my life through words.

 

For instance, when I had first met Eleanor in Redmond, Washington, I had ended up going out to a local brewery with her and several of her coworkers.  Eve though I had a GPS system, I followed her to the brewery in my rental car.  When we first got there, I noticed that she positioned herself on a sofa arm so that her leg was naturally pressed against mine.  I thought it was a subtle signal that she was interested in me.  I didn’t want to tell her no so I left my leg pressed against her a little longer than I should.  In fact, it really was the wrong signal.  Eventually, I got up and mingled with the other folks there, since I was only in Redmond for a few days and needed to get to know as many of these long-distance coworkers of mine before I left Redmond.  As Eleanor left, I thought she gave me all the opportunity to leave the restaurant with her (“I can drive you back to your place,” that sort of thing) but I respectfully declined.  I stayed at the brewery and had a few more beers while getting to know some of the folks there.  After the crowd thinned out considerably, I left.  Back at the hotel, I drafted her the following letter, taking a chance that she understood I was a writer who liked to put his thoughts on paper and not necessarily a person who acted upon his thoughts.

 

 

 

Eleanor,

 

Thanks again for your hospitality this week.  After I left the Red Hook Brewery, I sat down at my desk in my hotel room and drafted the following letter.  Rereading it, I see that sometimes it’s best not to write when I have a few beers in me.  Oh well, the general sentiment is still the same so I’ll pass it on to you.

 

— David

 

 

 

Eleanor,

 

The first word is always the hardest to put down on paper so I decided that the infamous word, “teh”, would be spelled “the”, against the email spelling preference of our mutual acquaintance, Ramesh.  Wow, what a week!  Where do I begin to describe the roller coaster ride called, “Four Days with Eleanor”?

 

Right now, I sit here savoring the flavors of Red Hook, wondering what I’ll record this evening.  As you saw today at the office, I had a lot of gizmos – electronic doodads –  with me.  At this moment, I listen to some preludes and fugues of Johann Sebastian Bach playing from a 100-gigabyte portable hard drive into a cheap set of headphones I bought for the flight from Huntsville to SEATAC.  I tell you this so you know that there is a piece of Eddie from Engineering Services in me – in other words, well…anyway, as we said, I can understand Eddie’s language but I just don’t speak it everyday.

 

Can you believe you’re moving to Germany in a few days?  I’m so envious, I just want to die.  No, strike that!  I don’t want to die, I want to scream with joy for you!  Despite all the logistical stuff…cleaning, packing, renting, etc….  Forgive my French but fuck, you are leaving the US!  I want to say you are so lucky but what does luck have to do with it?  What about all the long hours you’ve put in?  Five and a half years, too.

 

I can’t say how long this letter will be because I don’t know – my earlier ambition in life was to be a writer but I gave it all up to make money as a project planner so length of this letter and quality of writing depend on at least two factors – topic of conversation and quantity of beer.  1) You’re a fascinating topic, and 2) I left 3/4 of a pitcher of beer at Red Hook so I could drive back to the hotel and write.

 

Eleanor, I’ve had the opportunity to get to know you in a very compressed timeframe.  I claim to know very little about you – what I do know about you could fill up pages, and will.

 

You, in turn, know little about me, so I’ll do my best to reveal myself with these words while I celebrate the ceremony of the passing of the OEM program management baton from you to me.

 

Eleanor, I doubt you need to hear it but I’ll say it anyway.  You are a beautiful person!  I’m a guy so my visual color palette is limited.  Based on what I’ve observed, your face (skin color and eye color) is best complimented by brown-toned clothes.  Up close, your freckles are cute.  Sorry if this sounds weird but I’ve had to sit next to you this week and observe every nuance and reaction to other so I can understand what the OEM program management job has meant to you.  In a sense, and I hope you don’t take it the wrong way, I, because I look in the mirror and am in love with the person I see, I have looked at you and learned to love you as a reflection of me.  The same goes for Ramesh, Jane, Kitty, Fred, Scott, etc.  You are an adult and I trust you know what I mean.  It’s like the old saying, “If you’re not with the one you love, love the one you’re with.”  Honestly, I wake up every morning wondering who I’ll fall in love with.  This week, it has been you.  But it’s also been Chris, Susan, Tony, Kris, Lisa, Linda and Kim.  But right now, because I’m not writing letters to Lawrence or Dianna, I’ll torture you about you.  All I can say is that I’m glad you won’t be at work tomorrow.  It frees me up to write these words so I can deposit them at the Redmond office and be on my way.

 

Earlier this week I saw the play, “Tuesdays with Morrie.”  It reminded me that I truly value every waking moment of my life and I value every person I meet because I may never see that person again.  As you know, our lives are about the people we know and what we do with them.  My God, Eleanor, to see your pictures today of the Munich light show in winter – to know that you were there, no matter how random your visit might have been, or even in fact because of the randomness, I don’t know.  To be able to share the beauty of the moment with you was special, you know.  You’ll certainly be able to share those pictures with your mother this weekend, and I hope you do.  I hope you take a moment to share the memories of the snow, lasers, and Germany with the part of you inside you that is your father.

 

You have incorporated your father into your personality very well – I see it as a silent tribute to him.  I have no idea what he meant to you, to be honest, but if what I’ve seen of you in the past few days is any indication of what he meant to you then he was a very special person, someone who you will NEVER be able to replace.  At least your mother has a lot of children to spend time with now.  I’m glad you’ll have this weekend to spend with her.

 

Eleanor, you can’t see it but I’m at the brink of crying now, seeing that picture of your large family, feeling jealous of not only all the wonderful siblings who you spent time with but feeling jealous of your life – your hiking adventures to Kilimanjaro, etc., and future adventures in Europe.

 

Anyway, I’m getting tired.  As much as I want to record the tidbits of conversation I’ve shared with you and your coworkers this week (how can I ever forget the honest shock on the face of Alex when you told him you were “abandoning” him to move to Germany?)…well, how many times do you get to spend a week long going-away tour with a colleague?  Let’s just say it’s been a privilege, blessing and curse, all in one breath!

 

You know what, I think I’ve figured it out.  I’m shell-shocked.  Either that or I’ve got survivor’s guilt.  You’re going away while I and your workmates in Redmond are still here.  It’s this strange combination of your friends in Redmond mourning your loss while coming to grips with a guy from Huntsville taking your place.  It’s only a matter of time before the death toll beats for the rest of the Redmond office (at least according to all the subtle messages I’ve received this week from your Redmond colleagues).

 

I envy you.  You have no TV in your house, which can only mean that actual interactions with human beings are the only interactions that matter.  I, on the other hand, can reference characters on TV shows as if they were human beings I’ve spent time with.  In other words, I have spent this week observing you like were a TV show character.  What I have learned is that you are more complex than you appear to be (or sound like).  You are an English major who took a calculus class for the FUN of it.

 

We are humans so we are all complex creatures, contrary to our desires for simplicity.  As this day winds down, or at least as I wind down and climb into bed pretending to sleep, I’ll wrap up this letter by saying that I’m glad to have met you.  I would have enjoyed getting to hear more from you, but I’ve chosen to pull back a little at the end of the week, mainly because I’m tired from all of the information I’ve had to learn and the people / personalities / connections that go with the info.  I don’t think I need to say it but don’t short change your life over the past few years.  From what I’ve seen, the folks in Redmond will be very sad when you leave.  Hell, I barely know you and I will be sad when you’re gone.  Maybe you can teach us all an African song to sing before you go!

 

Eleanor, I can’t believe you’re the same person to whom I pledged money sometime last year for some forgotten event, a long bike ride or triathlon that my tired brain can’t recall.  All I know is I went to the HR manager to make sure that the company was matching my donation and she told me that the company was taking care of you.  So I guess that meant you met your monetary goal.  You know what?  I bet you met that goal and then something inside you clicked.  It did for me at least 20 or 25 pounds ago.  I finished all the running goals (10K, half marathon and marathon) and now I’m hungry for something else but daggone it, you’ve beaten me to it – living outside the US – and I’m insanely envious!

 

BOTTOM LINE:  Everyone sees that at your core, you are basically satisfied with who you are.  Many people want to be like you, and bet on the fact you won’t let them down.  I see there is nothing magical is what you’ve performed at work – it’s just a matter of absorbing it all and performing the same, if not more.  🙂  I hope you’ll remain on my list of “friends from forever,” even if we rarely communicate with each other.

 

Finally, you have lot on your mind right now but seem to stay focused well enough to be able to complete your exit from the US successfully, a remarkable feat in my book.  You will do well for yourself in Munich, of course.  Of that, I am sure.

 

As much as I want to live in Europe right now, I will not live there in the near future so I will have to be satisfied with temporary visits.  Good enough for now.  I suppose I will see you in Germany a few weeks from now during one of those visits.

 

Whether you have spent your whole life giving of yourself in such a way that those with you feel like they are the most important people in your life, I don’t know.  I do know that your personality is one that overflows with love and caring.  I have seen and shared this type or characteristic with others myself and have been amazed at the response.  It’s like waking up thinking, “Wow!  What a beautiful day!  What a beautiful world!  I want to share this day with everyone I meet, who all happen to be beautiful, too!”  Then, I bump into someone who genuinely believes the same way and BAM! I’m bowled over with appreciation for simply being alive.  ISN’T IT GREAT TO BE ALIVE?!

 

Hopefully, we can jog or run a few miles around town in a few weeks and you can tell me about Paderborn or Bielefeld or wherever (at least catch up on your moving-in adventure).

 

Talk to you soon,

David Colline

 

 

 

Chapter 15

 

Let’s see, where was I again?  Sorry, I was just reminiscing about my adventures with Eleanor again.  So great to spend time with folks like her and be relaxed, if you know what I mean.  No worries about ulterior motives.  Anyway, back to the night of the NaNoWriMo kickoff dinner.

 

When I arrived, I sat in the waiting area for my wife and a couple of friends of ours, Lavender and Dick.  Within a few minutes, our friends showed up.  I dreaded seeing Lavender, knowing what I’d become.  For some reason, when I saw Lavender, my testosterone-driven self took over and all I could see was a slim, nice-looking 50-something year old woman, not my dear friend, Lavender.  I closed my eyes for a few seconds to shake the image and couldn’t.  Why couldn’t I turn my lustful self off, at least for a few minutes?  Lavender’s a sister to me, for God’s sake.  Lavender asked me if I was all right.  I lied and told her yes, hoping that my wife would quickly show up, and she did.

 

The four of us made our way over to the tables set aside for the NaNoWriMo event.  One table was partially empty so we sat there.  My wife sat next to Sad and his girlfriend, Heather.  Dick sat next to me.  Also, at the table, sat a mother, Wanda, and her two children, Nyssa and Natalie and a doll named Elisabeth.  Eventually, White Bear and Red Herring joined us.

 

While White Bear handed out some goodies for us, including a NaNoWriMo themed word search and some NaNoWriMo writing suggestions, I looked at the folks at the other table and realized that Florry was there.  I told Karen about Florry’s decision to cheat one year.  A few minutes later, I saw Florry get up to get our real names, NaNoWriMo names and email addresses.  I also noticed that she was wearing a low-cut blouse and draped across her bared chest was a gorgeous garnet necklace, which highlighted her eyes.  I kicked myself mentally for two reasons: 1) I let myself fall in love with her again, and 2) I brought my wife so flirting with Florry was out of the question.  Good thing Ms. DeShy was seated at the other table.

 

White Bear and Red Herring took special pride in handing out a NaNoWriMo Survival Kit, which was a plastic bag labeled, “Do not open until 11-1-2006”.  Inside was a blue ink pen, a red ink pen, a bookmark, some Tootsie Rolls, a pen grip, some gold stars, a paper clip, a couple pieces of candy and a strip of “Admit One” movie tickets on which we were supposed to write each day the number of words we’d written.  Then, at some point, we’d gather and the tickets would be used for a door prize drawing.  The door prizes were to be supplied by us.

 

We ordered food and ate our dinner, talking about our lives to the folks around us.  Lavender and Dick filled us in on their daughter’s pending marriage.  It seemed their daughter was pregnant and marrying a fellow who did not have the best work habits, so Lavender and Dick were giving a lot of money to their daughter to keep her out of debt.

 

As I left the restaurant, I saw Brian Chipmunk sitting at another table with three other guys.  Although I was within earshot, I saw they were all talking but I couldn’t hear them say anything audible.  In addition, it appeared there were looking at a video project on the table.  They saw me and immediately the video projection disappeared.  Brian stood up and held out his hand.

 

“David!  Long time no see.”

 

“Hey.  You, too.”

 

“So how was dinner?  I could hear you guys were having a good time.”

 

“What?  Oh that?  Well, sure, it was a blast.”

 

“What was it all about?”

 

“I’m participating in a contest of sorts for National Novel Writing Month.  We have to write 50000 words in 30 days.”

 

“Sounds like your kind of challenge.  Whatcha gonna write about?”

 

“Well, I’ve been thinking maybe I’ll write about my early childhood.  I might even throw in a story or two about us.”

 

“Very interesting, indeed.  We certainly had some good times, didn’t we?” he asked, slapping me on the back.

 

“Yep.  I can remember some fun stuff.  I might need you to jog my memory for some of the details, if you don’t mind.”

 

“Sure!”  Brian looked at his watch.  “So what did you have for dinner?” he asked, putting an arm around my back and gently turning me away from his friends.

 

“Uh…vegetables and tofu.”

 

“Of course, the false impression of a healthy dinner.  That’s sounds like you.”

 

“What about you?”

 

“Me?  Well…oh, well, I had soup earlier.  I finished a while ago, you see…”

 

“Oh yeah?”

 

“Yep.”

 

“So what are you here for?  Are those out-of-town visitors from your office?”

 

“Absolutely.  No doubt about it.  That’s just what I was going to tell you.  Yep.  We were just making plans for a meeting tomorrow.  Hey, you don’t mind if I cut this short, do you?  I’ve got to get back to my colleagues.”

 

“Not at all.  Say, would you like to get together for lunch soon?”

 

“Absolutely.  No doubt about it.  You know me.  I always enjoy a good lunch with my ol’ buddy, Dave.”

 

“Well, great.  I’ll give you a call.”

 

“Great, indeed.  See you later.”

 

I turned and motioned to Karen to join me at the front door.  She broke off her conversation with Lavender and followed me outside.

 

“What is it, darling?” she asked.

 

“I don’t know.  Brian seemed a little weird tonight.  Or maybe it’s just me.  Maybe I’m just weirded out from sitting with all those would-be authors in there.”

 

“Could be, honey.  Why don’t you go home and go to bed early?”

 

“I think I will.  But I need to work on my NaNoWriMo novel first.”

 

“Okay.  See you at home.”

 

 

 

Chapter 16

 

Let’s start with the hardest stories to tell, the ones I haven’t heard about in lurid confessional columns of store magazines or celebrity breakdowns on national television.

 

These tales take place in and around middle class homes, if socioeconomic scales are important in placing these tales in context.

 

We don’t have a clock or set of calendars before us so we’ll just have to flash back in time with a paragraphical change.

 

Boone, North Carolina.  We moved here while I was in preschool, at least that’s what I remember, probably when I was four years old.  We lived in two different houses and frankly I can’t remember which one we lived in first.  What matters most is not the houses we lived in but the house we lived in during this tale.

 

The house had two redeeming features.  One, the garage had unpainted pine paneling.  Two, the property next to ours was significantly higher in elevation so a stone wall had been built between the two properties to support the neighbor’s yard.  A brave person could get a running start from the neighbors’ yard and leap from the wall onto the roof of our house.

 

One Easter, my sister and I got dyed ducklings.  Apparently, dye is inserted into the duck shells and the ducks hatch slightly pink or blue, depending on the dye.  My parents set up a pen in the backyard with plans to raise the ducks.  However, my sister and I decided the ducks were thirsty one day so we carried the little guys to the sink, opened up the faucet on full no less and pried open the ducks’ beaks, completely drowning one and nearly drowning the other.  When the other duck got bigger, we released it in the city park with the other ducks.  With the passing of years, I have forgotten how upset I was when we realized my sister’s duck was dead.  So much for live animals at Easter.

 

We had several kids in the neighborhood to play with, including our next-door neighbors, Luther and Diane.  Seems like they were a year or two older than we were –  when I played with Luther and his friends I had to act older than I was.  My only problem was trust.  I trusted that they told me the truth.  Only later did I realize that they made stuff up, like a lot of kids do, to brag or look bigger or smarter than the other kids.

 

For instance, some of the guys would use the word doo-doo or shoo-shoo to refer to feces, telling me that the words weren’t dirty, unlike what my mother said.  One day, my mother overheard me say shoo-shoo to my sister and she literally washed my mouth out with soap (essentially made me run a piece of soap in my mouth and spit it out in the sink).

 

I still have some of the same dreams from that time in my life.  In one dream, something hard is touching my body.  I can’t tell if it’s wood or stone but it’s cold.  Then, I realize I’m in a cathedral, which keeps getting larger (and thus me getting smaller) as my arms, hands, fingers, feet and toes feel like they’re turning into a spongy cold stone.  Sometimes, to this day, I have the same dream in a daydream.  It’s really two dreams – one, the dream about the changing sensation of my skin and two, the feeling of getting smaller in a large room (I overcame that second dream later in my life by learning to fly in my dreams).  The third dream is that of being chased.  When I lived in Boone, I was chased by monsters, mainly dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus Rex.  Some of these dreams I would have during my afternoon nap, which I would have in my own bed if I was feeling grown up.  Otherwise, my sister and I would find a way to have a nap in the same room as our mother.

 

For some apparent reason, my sister and I decided to cut each other’s hair, probably because we heard someone say it’s about time one of us got a haircut.  We knew where Mom kept sewing scissors so we ended up cutting each other’s hair with pinking shears.

 

We kids do funny things after overhearing adults talk.  A friend from school was visiting with his mother when we heard from my mother that they were having a tough time selling their house.  It was as if people were driving by and not noticing the For Sale sign in the front of the yard.  When my mother let us go outside to play, we gathered up gravel and threw the gravel at passing cars yelling, “House for sale!” at the top of our lungs.  For some reason, the drivers that stopped were not paying attention to what we said and were more concerned about their cars and the location of our parents.

 

Another time, some of us were climbing trees in another kid’s backyard (across the street from my house).  The trees were all pine so naturally our clothes were covered with sap.  We overheard the neighbor’s mother ask her husband how to get us to stop climbing in the trees, especially after she told us not to (well, she must have told her son not to but I don’t remember him telling us not to).  The father came to us and told us about the dangerous red spider mites that lived in the pine trees.  If we weren’t careful, we’d run into a nest of the spider mites, which are red and so tiny that we would miss them (“How tiny are they?”  “Well, they’re tinier than freckles or dots on a page.”).  Then we wouldn’t see them when they crawled under our skin and sucked the juice out of us.

 

We stayed out of the trees for a few days until an older boy called us chicken.  We had to climb back into the trees again.  Wouldn’t you know it that a boy did get red spider mites on himself?  The family then cut the pine trees down, which meant we had to play in another yard, mine.

 

None of the other kids really cared about the pine paneling in the garage (besides, it’s really hard to play with) so we concentrated more on the rock wall.  We’d climb the wall, pulling on loose stones.  We’d even walk on top of the wall (but some kids thought it was dumb, walking on top of a wall that was only half dangerous – if you felt like you were going to fall, you just simply leaned back and fell onto the ground in the neighbor’s yard that was even with the wall).

 

Have you ever had a neighborhood playmate do something totally odd?  I don’t know who first came up with the idea but it seemed to originate with an older kid (one of Luther’s friends) and one of my friends at the same time.  We were in the middle of a game of hide-and-seek.  Three of us were hiding behind the same bush, when the boy who was “It” found us and joined us behind the bush.

 

One of the guys broke off a piece of the bush.  The other two started talking about what the piece looked like and saying something about it looking like a device that was used to empty their butts when they were sick (I later figured out they were talking about an enema, which at the time I had never seen).  They suddenly became quiet.

 

Then Luther and his friend, Brian, did something I never expected.  They dropped their drawers and poked pieces of the stick at their butt cheeks, explaining that’s what their parents did to them when they were sick with diarrhea.  They told the other boy and me to do the same thing.

 

I lowered my pants, holding them off the ground with one hand and tried pushing a stick against my skin but kept hurting my butt cheek and stopped.  I threw the stick on the ground and said it was stupid.

 

Brian said he liked it and dared Luther to do like him.  Brian then broke off a very short piece, pushed into his butt and pulled on his pants.  Luther followed his dare.  The other boy looked at Luther, Brian, and me, not sure what to do.  I don’t think he even tried pushing the stick against his butt but he did pull down his pants.  After a few seconds looking back and forth at us, he pulled up his pants.

 

At that point, we got bored and headed back to our homes.  Later that night, my mother asked why there were pieces of wood in my pants.  I told her about pulling down our pants behind the bushes (but not about Luther and Brian pushing the sticks up their butts).  I don’t remember playing with all the guys together again so I guess the word got around to the other parents that we shouldn’t play together as a group.

 

I remember Brian at the other house I lived in in Boone.  He had bragged about finding a dead dog in the woods.  Then, a few months later he told us about the poison you could use to kill a dog or cat.  Coincidentally, our next-door neighbor’s two cats were found dead, poisoned.  Brian never said a word about the cats and we always wondered if it was him.  My parents wouldn’t let my sister and me play alone with him.

 

Little did I know that he and I would run into each other several times in life and live two doors down from each other at UT.

 

Greeneville, Tennessee.  A drive-in theater was located next to our neighborhood.  Some of the older boys cut a hole in the fence.  At the bus stop, I heard them planning to sneak out of the house one night to see, “Deep Throat.”  They thought I was a retard because I wanted them to sneak into the drive-in to see a Disney movie and tell me about it.  They told me several times I was stupid and didn’t get the point.

 

Other times at the bus stop the older guys would intimidate the younger ones, sometimes verbally and sometimes physically.  It was harder to get by with physical acts because inevitably some neighborhood lady would see it and word would get back to the kid’s parents.

 

Physical intimidation takes many forms, not just pushing and shoving.  The subtler kids would pinch your skin.

 

Verbal intimidation was worse.  Stuff like, “Wait till we catch you alone,” or “Better give your ice cream money now or you’ll die later.”  I could handle that because I could simply lie and say I forgot to get the money that day.  The really worse stuff was when an older kid would tell a story about some of our reclusive neighbors – the peeping tom, the lady who ate dogs that strayed onto her property, the old man in the woods, the crazy girl who wasn’t allowed out of the house cause she tried to bite your arm off.  It seemed like half our neighborhood was full of strange people.  I always made sure my curtains were completely closed to keep the peeping tom from looking at me in my sleep.  I also worried when our dog got too far away unless she might get captured and eaten.  I finally met the crazy girl.  She was about five years old (or at least she hadn’t started first grade yet).  She loved to take her clothes off and run out of her house, rain or shine.  I saw her run out of her house and under a tree as I was going home in the rain from a friend’s house.  Crazy?  Maybe.  That’s about as crazy as it really got in my neighborhood.

 

We were walking into the woods behind my house when we came upon an old baby carriage full of dirt.  One kid thought it was a baby the old woman had eaten, decided she didn’t like the taste of children and stuck to dogs.  Another kid said it was the baby carriage of the old man in the woods from when he was abandoned and learned to live off the land.  I thought it was an old planter that only looked like a baby carriage and had been dumped out here by my next-door neighbor (who also happened to be everyone’s favorite candidate for the peeping tom).

 

One day, my sister and I were playing with our other next-door neighbor.  He was a couple of years older than us and had just gotten a BB gun for his birthday.  He told us it was all right to shoot crows so we walked to the edge of the woods looking up the trees for crows to shoot.  He thought he saw a crow and fired the BB gun.  It turned out to be a robin.  We were all very upset.  He got a shoe box and we had a funeral for the bird.

 

Not long after that I saw a cat chasing a bird, catching the bird’s wing in its mouth.  I shooed away the cat, picked up the scared bird.  It looked dead but it was probably in shock or just playing dead.  I put the bird in a shoe box, hoping I could raise it to health.  I put grass in the box, carrying the box around with me, with the bird sliding back and forth in the box, finally waking up and looking scared out of its wits.  I thought it thought I was planning to eat it so I put the box on the carport and looked at it until my mother called us in to eat dinner.

 

I went outside after dinner to show the bird to everyone.  When I picked up the box, the bird flapped its wings and flew out of the box.  I was disappointed I couldn’t raise the bird.  My parents explained that I should be glad the bird healed so quickly, thanks to my quick thinking.

 

One morning, I woke up before my father so I ran down the hall and hid, in order to surprise my father when he got to the kitchen.  As he got to the kitchen doorway, I stepped out and yelled, “Surprise!”  He karate-chopped me in the throat, choking me, before he and I knew what hit me.

 

One evening, right before dinner, I caught a frog.  I brought it in to show my mother.  I strode into the kitchen.  She took one look at the frog and told me to get it out of the house.  The frog had peed on me and was slippery.  As I turned to walk past the dinner table, the frog leapt out of my hands onto the table.  I picked it up and it peed in my father’s tea glass.

 

Ahh, Greeneville, where all my neighborhood friends were white and my elementary schoolmates were mostly black – part of the whole integration experiment in east Tennessee, I suppose.  My elementary school, Crescent School, has subsequently been condemned, fixed up, and served as a community college extension, senior center and community center.  I don’t know if it exists anymore.

 

I was bitten by a neighborhood poodle while riding my bike – both of us had to be watched for signs of rabies.

 

I learned about buttercup reflection under your skin indicating if you liked butter.

 

I learned the taste of sweet yard clover.

 

I learned how to ride a bike before I learned how to use brakes.  Not knowing how to stop, I wrecked in a ditch at the bottom of the hill and bruised my crotch.

 

I learned that I better not play barefoot in mud or I might get worms in my feet.

 

I learned that teachers didn’t give grades for staring out the window daydreaming.

 

I learned how to act in a play – I learned I liked it, too.

 

I learned I liked girls.  My first girlfriend liked me.  My second one didn’t.  I tried to convince her that she liked me – I even used a crystal ball (the magic 8-ball you ask a question, shake, and turn upside down for the answer) – even though the ball clearly responded “yes” to my question, “Does Kim like me?”, she still didn’t like me and called off our relationship.  It didn’t help that we were neighbors.

 

I once insulted a friend by calling him a red-eyed salmon.  Where I got that, what it meant and why it offended him escapes me now but it was a pretty good quick comeback to whatever he called me (I think he called me a stupid redhead).

 

I learned that single children are spoiled more than families with multiple children.

 

I threw dirt clods at the entrance to a hornet’s nest in the side of a hill.  I was stung on the forehead and neck.  Rightly so, eh?

 

I was walking across the yard when I felt rain falling on me.  I ran across the yard and looked back to see a sheet of rain heading toward me.  The rain chased me under the shelter of our carport.

 

Our house was at the top of the hill in our neighborhood.  In the summertime, we’d make sleds out of cardboard and sled down the hill.  In the fall, the older kids would play football in the field below our house.  In the wintertime, we sledded down the hill when it snowed (although it was more fun to slide down the hill on top of a metal disc).

 

I built my first model, a plastic battleship, with my father’s supervision, while my sister sat with my mother and watched “The Wizard of Oz” on TV.  My sister kept asking me to join her but I acted like I was too old to watch a sissy kid’s movie.

 

For my sixth birthday, my father took me and some of my friends for a ride in his Triumph TR3.  I remember we were all thrilled when he spun the tires.

 

Early on Saturday mornings, my sister and I would get up before our parents.  It was our time.  Once, we made a real mess on the dining room table playing with “Silly Sand,” a product where you mixed special sand and water, put it in a squeeze bottle and squeezed out drops of sand to make little castles.  Another time, we stood behind the living room curtains and showed each other our body parts.

 

While sitting in a chair, watching TV with my father, the cat suddenly started jumping straight up and down for a few seconds.  They then announced on the TV that we’d just experienced an earthquake.

 

My father once gave me a telephone cord to play with.  I figured out that if I plugged one end into the wall outlet, I could make sparks with the other end, just like the showed us in Indian Guides, a YMCA-sponsored version of Boy Scouts, in how to start a fire from scratch.  I took cotton balls out of my parents’ bathroom and would set them on fire on the carpet in my room with the sparking telephone cord.  Of course, I had to be sure I closed the curtains so the peeping tom wouldn’t see what I was doing and tell my parents.

 

If we got home from school fast enough, we could watch “Dark Shadows,” a vampire soap opera on TV, before Mom would make us turn it off.

 

The first time I remember lying to my mother was when she asked if I had used my ice cream money to buy an ice cream bar.  I said yes when in fact I had given the nickel to a boy in my first grade class who couldn’t afford ice cream.  After my parents found out the truth (I think I couldn’t keep the secret of the lie to myself and finally told my mother), they insisted on punishing me for lying despite my noble effort.

 

A few days later, I heard my father bragging about my being an honest boy. He told the fellow with him about the ice cream bar incident.

 

The fellow shot back, “Well, you know some boys tell the truth and others’n’ll stick to lying.”  He pointed his thumb at me and said,  “I bet this one sticks to lying.”

 

Just for that insult, when he and my father walked away, I sneaked several big gulps from his can of Falstaff beer.

 

Later on, my dad let me try his Falstaff beer when I asked what it tasted like.  He told me it was an acquired taste so I better get used to it.  After drinking almost half a can between what I snuck from my father’s friend and what my dad let me have, I practically stumbled back to my house.  A drunk at six years of age!

 

One day, the Indian Guides held a big pow-wow, which including folks from all over the area.  I ran into Brian Chipmunk, the playmate from Boone.  He asked me if I remembered anything we used to do.  At the time, the only thing I could remember was going to his house and hearing his sister play a couple of 45 RPM records, “Georgy Girl” and “Downtown”.  I laughed when I recalled the way his father could make a monkey’s face by sticking his tongue up underneath his upper lip.

 

“What’s so funny?” Brian asked, defensively.

 

“Oh, the way your dad made the monkey faces.”

 

“Oh yeah.  He did, didn’t he?  So you weren’t laughing about anything else?”

 

“No.”

 

“Okay, well, it was good to see you,” he said and wandered off.  I probably wouldn’t have remembered that conversation except it was repeated a couple of more times when I saw him again in our high school years, once when we met during a DeMolay convention and another time when we met during a marching band competition.  I didn’t think it was odd.  I just thought it was his way of trying to find something common to talk about.  It was only when I went to see a girl friend of mine from church camp for the first time on a “non-date,” “friends only” visit in high school and Brian just happened to run into me that I began to wonder just how coincidental were our encounters (and by the way, speaking of good fortune, that girl friend is now my wife).

 

 

 

Chapter 17

 

As part of my job, I have to travel about once a quarter.  I like traveling because I meet interesting people.  Unfortunately, right after NaNoWriMo started, I had to take a trip to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

 

To keep up my word count, I wrote on an American Express application I ripped out of an in-flight magazine.

 

3 Nov 2006

 

Flying between Huntsville and Atlanta.  Sunny day.  Fun to watch the hills and valley pass beneath us.  Think I saw the Little River Canyon, a wooded, deep depression in the suburban, farm-dotted landscape.

 

We first flew over the Tennessee River.  I was surprised at the lack of development on the river – was it US government property, perhaps the Redstone Arsenal?  Or maybe it was the Wheeler National Refuge.

 

Large, thick white cloud of smoke, tinged with brown – looks like a forest fire, and could be, given the recent dry spells we had before the last rain.  Interesting, seeing how the smoke spreads along the ground, with light smoke carried several miles by the winds aloft.  We begin our descent so the smiling attendant will pick up our empty water bottles.

 

Even though subdivisions continue their creeping sprawl, several forested areas remain.

 

Wow, we’re descending fairly fast, with an accompanying sharp right turn – must be adjusting our approach.  Pilot comes on and says we’re 40 miles away, taking several turns to approach from the west (or was it east?).  I am part of all that I see.  I am not separate from it.  No escape awaits for me.  I cannot say, “I must participate,” because the statement implies I can say, “I must not participate.”  I accept my relative position in the universe (again, as if I had a choice).  For such low humidity conditions, amazing how humid it looks.

 

I remember a man my sister and I met in Knoxville, a former street poet who had decided to become a UT student.  He asked me if I let the size of my words and the paper on which I wrote influence what I thought the size of a poetic thought (i.e., poem) would be.  I told him no so  he asked me why I had never written any long poems.  His questions pops up in my mind when using a small slip of paper such as this.  Timing is nearly perfect – we approach the runway and land just as I finish this sentence at the bottom of the application form.

 

At the Atlanta airport, I received an email from my sister in-law, Louann.

 

=========================

From: Ferris, Louann

Date: Friday, November 3, 2006

To: Colline, David

 

I was wondering how the writing was coming.  I hope things are going well.  So far this had been a very difficult month for me.  I hope you guys aren’t expecting much of us for the holidays.  It is overwhelming right now just to think about.

 

I just started working in the financial department at the church.  I hadn’t planned on looking for a job until January but the opportunity presented itself.  The job is part-time but looks like it will be half days, Monday to Thursday, at least, and maybe on Fridays.  It is going okay – a lot to learn but I’m getting there.

 

LouEllen is doing okay but some areas of her life have become more challenging, as she tried to balance her school with spending time with Cooper.  I don’t worry about her relationship with Cooper, and certainly, at one point I would have welcomed her getting married but I think now it is important for the two of them to take their time.

 

Albert is enjoying his new car.  The Toyota Yaris is much faster than he thought it would be so he is enjoying the drive to work, being able to jump into the ever-increasing rush hour traffic on the way to work in the morning.  I remember when we first moved down to south Huntsville.  You could just about get to north Huntsville in 5 minutes.  Now, it feels like an hour.  It’s not that long but it feels that way.  Of course, the main reason Albert is enjoying the car is that the payments haven’t started yet.  🙂  His work is going well but he still thinks he will have to go back to Maryland.  We just don’t know when.

 

I never expected my life to change so much in four months.  The Lord is walking me through it but it is hard.

 

Anyway, I hope things are going well for you and Karen.  Hope you can come over sometime.

 

Louann

=========================

 

I sat there in the airport feeling suddenly very cold and lonely.  I saw Louann sitting in her house, typing the email with only the echo of the refrigerator compressor churning away keeping her company.  I thought back to my first few months after Renee’s death and the terrible, meat-grinding, foot-stomping, taffy-pulling sensations on my heart.  I just wanted to rip it out and make the pain go away but it wouldn’t.

 

=========================

From: Colline, David

Date: Friday, November 3, 2006

To: Ferris, Louann

 

Louann,

 

Thanks for the update.  When we saw LouEllen a couple of weeks ago, she did mention that she thought the last two months have been harder on you than the first two.  I’m glad you have gotten a job.  Although working is not always fun, it at least provides a social network you can participate in during the day, even if the connections are artificial sometimes.  At least for you, your job is at the church so that your social network is real and supportive, especially now when all the post-funeral details have slowly wound down.

 

The important thing is for you to develop new special memories in life while cherishing your memories with Junior.  It’s not easy, I know.  As you say, this holiday season will be difficult, maybe even more difficult than the last few months.  But we know you’ll get through it with friends and family.  It’s going to be good, too, so look forward to the moments when you can smile.

 

You said you waited five years to begin the grieving process for your brother.  I’m sorry you started grieving the same year your husband died.  In any case, allow yourself the time and energy to grieve for both of them at the same time.

 

Thanks for asking about my writing.  I am participating in the National Novel Writing Month (called NaNoWriMo, for short) in November this year.  “Winners” for this event are those who complete a 50,000 word novel in 30 days or less.  So far, I’ve written 26,136 words.  And in part of the novel, the main character talks, writes, and thinks about the recovery of the loss of his brother in-law.  It is my way of trying to heal from Junior’s death.  It also makes me wonder if it would help you to write down some of the things you remember about times you spent with him that you’d like to share with your kids and their kids one day.  I think it would be a good way of telling your grandkids about their grandfather and might also be a good way for LouEllen and Albert to understand what they’re going through when their spouse passes away one day.  In this way, you can take these quiet moments at home and spend time with Junior in such a way that his loss is a teaching tool, a facilitator, for someone later on down the road.  It is a way of turning the pain into hope.  At least it has been for me.

 

We’re actually in town next weekend – our Saturday is packed full (LobsterFest, wedding and UT football alumni gathering for UT-Arkansas game) but we should be able to stop by on Sunday.

 

Right now, I sit on an Air France/Delta plane parked at the Atlanta airport.  I had hoped to be in Ft. Lauderdale by now but the weather has backed up flights in and out of Atlanta so I sit here past my bedtime addressing a letter to my brother in-law’s wife.  So?  So be it.

 

What is there to say at this late hour?  Not much, really, especially since we saw you and your family recently.  Even so, I would usually find an engaging topic with which I would torture the reader.  Today, my well is dry, little to no ink to spill on this page, the normal wellspring plugged, half-drained by recent events.

 

Despite all the emotional turmoil you’re going through over the death of your husband, you probably still miss your brother, and feel he was taken away from you too soon.  I have recently suffered the loss of loved one, too, and have experienced loss, although not the same as yours.  Despite knowing that the loss was meant to be, I cannot help but feel cheated and misled.  In fact, I was forced out of my comfort zone and now, despite a few assurances, I wonder if I tread on the thin ice of uncertainty.

 

I sit here surrounded by clichés and stereotypes, wondering if the surroundings I see are but figments of my imagination just like my thinking this electronic paper I write on is floating vertically in front of me like the whiteness of a sky full of high, thin clouds.

 

We all have shown abilities we thought we didn’t have.  We sometimes think we’re capable of performing tasks we haven’t yet accomplished.  Since I was little, I always knew I could hold the attention of others and make them believe they were capable of tasks that they’d only dreamed of.  Yet, I never saw myself as a leader, more of an entertainer, a person who could divert the attention of others (sometimes for mischief, sometimes for the good of others but always for fun).  And so it is that I fell into the job of managing others, making people believe they were greater than themselves and getting them to show it.  I’ve given them hope.  In return, they’ve given me their trust, only to be laid off from the jobs I gave them when the company had to cut back.

 

My employees were my comfort zone, my foot soldiers who served as the buffer between working and managing.  When they were taken from me in a layoff (and in a way, I felt like the kid who had his toys taken away from him not because he was behaving poorly (in fact, he was quite well-behaved) but because the parents needed to sell the toys for money), I lost not only my comfort zone but also my innocence and naiveté.  I was shell-shocked, taken from Toyland to the Green Zone in Iraq, a leader who suddenly had lost all his troops but still with a mission to complete (albeit much smaller in scope).

 

The sudden death of your husband and brother has surely had the same effect on you.  For me, no longer do I feel disposed to spout philosophical essays to my friends.  No longer do I care to look up new words in the dictionary to use in my writing.  Why learn new words when one is almost speechless?

 

And yet, I cannot deny the pang of survivor’s guilt – I have survived the death of your husband, who had so much more to contribute to society than I did.  How do you feel?  How do the children feel?  How does your sister in-law cope with the loss of her husband while raising a young child?  Would either of you (or both) gladly trade places with your husband or brother?  Oh, how we play games in our heads at times!

 

But nothing in life is certain – death is our only guarantee.  I could pour blood, sweat and tears into this email to produce some of my best writing (if only I could!) only to have it destroyed in a tragic plane crash in a Florida swamp.

 

If we have only our selves, then we are alone.  But we are not alone, no matter how lonely we may feel at times.  Just walk through the mall with a smile on your face and see how many strangers smile back at you.  Therefore, I know that my experience at work is not unique.  I know my experience of the loss of Junior is not unique.  Even so…

 

In any case, I am numb.  I am dumbstruck.  I am at a loss for words.  I am not happy, unhappy, unlucky or blessed.  I am and today, that is enough.  The joy and sorrows of management can be just as wonderful or terrible as those we feel when we lose someone we love!

 

By the way, when we went out to dinner with LouEllen and Cooper, I had fun watching the interaction between those two.  I drafted the following letter to LouEllen but have hesitated sending it to her, not wanting to disturb her as final exams at UNA approach.  Let me know if it’s okay to send it to her.

 

LouEllen,

 

I’ll be honest.  I don’t want to be here right now.  Well, that’s not entirely true.  I do want to sit in the sunroom on a quiet Sunday afternoon, drinking a bottle of merlot wine, while the cats and I listen to the birds talk to each other when the birds fly back and forth from the woods to the feeders a few feet away from me.  What I did not plan to do today was spend time writing you a letter.  No, my plans included sitting down to a good book, read a while, probably get a little tipsy from the wine and then write a short story or two.  Instead, after my ritual of tuning to a digital music channel called “Atmospheres” and lighting a stick of incense, I have found myself watching the indigo bunting, chickadees and gold finches with you as a virtual observer.

 

I haven’t written you very many letters and apologize for the paucity of words.  Other than postcards, I may have written you one other letter (and I’m not sure I ever posted that letter – instead, it became a prose poem, if I remember correctly).  Therefore, other than a book of poems I gave you, I believe you are unfamiliar with my writing, and thus, my mind.

 

Because you are an adult, you are privy to the ways of the world, with only ignorance and inexperience preventing a full understanding of how the world works.  Even after 44 years, I realize I know very little – amazing what a sheltered, blissful youth will do – ignorance, after all, is bliss.

 

Knowledge is power, and not all forms of power are bad.  The strength that comes with power gives us the ability to handle the shock that hits when the knowledge we gain is unexpected or undesirable.  What we learn may knock us over.  What we do with what we learn may pick us up and make us stronger.

 

For instance, the other evening, while your aunt Karen and I were out to dinner with you and Cooper, I observed you pointing out to Cooper the possibility of him placing BBQ sauce on a potentially dirty plate that had been sitting on the table all day long.  You probably felt you were acting in his best interest.  Yet, from my perspective, I saw Cooper as a fellow who had eaten a bit of dirt on the football field, been deer hunting most of his life and hasn’t died from the experiences.  Also, from the look in his eyes, I imagined this was not the first time he had seen you gently trying to correct his behavior, and, well…

 

[A chipmunk digs through the leaves under the feeders.  A redheaded woodpecker taps at the block of suet.  For the first time, I see chickadees eat suet.  A house finch comes and goes.  I’m amazed there are many finches around here this late in autumn.  In the distance I hear thunder rumbling.]

 

There’s no doubt that life is full of compromises.  When two people decide to hang out together, whether for a day, a month or a lifetime, where they do not share similar desires they mentally take note of their own dissimilarities and decide to suppress undesirable traits to enhance their time together.  Where they differ in what remains…well, libraries and bookstores are filled with explanations of…no, not explanations…best-selling summer fiction!  Self-help manuals (“Men are from Mars…”, etc.)!  Even history books and of course, biographies.  In other words, I don’t want to give you advice about relationships.  I’m only in the 20th year of my marriage, after all.  A relationship or marriage counselor, I am not.

 

However, I am a male human and can tell you that a lot of us fellows don’t like being told what to do.  If we decide to pour sauce on a table and scoop fries into it, we’re smart enough to figure out the table might be a little dirty.  We’re tough.  Our stomachs can take it.  In other words, when you want to be helpful to Cooper, try to see him through Cooper-colored glasses.  Cooper thinks like a man, not a woman.  🙂

 

Hope your final exams go well,

Uncle David

 

 

Anyway, Louann, let me know if it’s okay to send this.  I won’t send it until I hear from you.  In the meantime, if you need someone to talk to (or at least write to), my email box is always open.  And I know that Karen will be glad to talk with you, too.

 

— David

=========================

 

I sent the email to Louann.  I saw that my sister had sent me an email while I was typing the one to Louann.

 

 

 

 

=========================

From: Elisabeth

Date: Friday, November 3, 2006

To: David

Subject: FW: hope the trip went well.

 

Bro,

 

Just got an update from Mark.  “Right now I am stuck in Istanbul, Turkey.  We are hoping that we can catch a flight to Tajikistan on Saturday.  If not we will try to catch the next flight on Thursday or we might be coming home and trying to do this again later.  We just ate dinner.  It was good just hope it stays down this time.  I will try to email you when or if I get to Tajikistan.”  At least I know somewhere in the world where he might be, and wanted you all to know, too.  Just forwarding this on to you – I had heard from the 1st Sergeant’s wife this AM that they had been delayed in Milan (which I had heard nothing about!), and this delay now in Turkey – maybe this trip wasn’t meant to be?? I’m thankful to have heard from him.

 

BTW, I don’t think I told you that Mark left at 12:30 on Wednesday for a 4-leg journey to Tajikistan, by way of Atlanta, Milan, Italy, Turkey and then Tajikistan.  I am asking for prayers for this trip to be safe for all of the people who are going.  Tajikistan is holding national elections next week, which have delayed what they are supposed to be doing over there.  Tajikistan is located right above Afghanistan, and is a former Russian Republic.  That part of the world is not the most stable.  Mark expects to return here on Nov 18.  We will have limited communications with him while he is gone so I’m glad he was able to contact us in Turkey.

 

My feeling is that if we can have prayers coming from all around the US, that surely they will reach over there!!  🙂  Thank you for your support of Mark and us!!

 

Sis

=========================

 

I sent Elisabeth an email telling her that we were praying for her and Mark’s acceptance of whatever God had planned for him while he was over there.  I never pray for God to grant favors because I don’t see why an omnipotent being would bother treating one part of the universe any more favorably than another.  We’re here like pool balls bouncing around on the table – gravity and other natural laws have been set in motion and we can only hope that what happens to us is not too far outside of the norm so that we can find it easier to accept the consequences of action and reaction.

 

On the flight from Atlanta to Fort Lauderdale, I used another American Express application form to take notes.  I couldn’t believe I had forgotten to charge the batteries on my laptop:

 

Sitting beside a quiet passenger, both of us keeping our thoughts to ourselves.  In the row in front of us, two people talk about the life-verifying merits of astrology.  The woman, in her 30s, a business owner (whose business was adversely affected by the 2005 hurricanes) is a Pisces.  The man, in his early 40s, has just recently completed an ugly divorce, having just taken an R&R vacation to Hawaii and New York City.  His mother has always been an avid astrology follower, and he had read his mother’s material as well as any other astrology material he could find from 4th to 8th grade (“remember we didn’t have the Internet back then,” he said).  His friends made fun of him so he lost interest.  With his personal and business life taking a turn for the worse he returned to astrology, not the fluff newspaper and magazines talk about, but the real deal.

 

“For instance, in the past two weeks, the planets have been behind him so he shouldn’t make any major business decision until December 20th so he postponed signing a contract until that day.  However, he’s free to buy personal items so he’s quickly returning to Florida to buy some major appliances.  He knows his mother was looking out for him and reading his charts because she suggested that he complete some business deals last year that happened to coincide with all the major hurricanes.  All his business deals took him out of town. “Of course,” he said, responding to the woman that he was concerned about his personal possessions including the new house and furnishings he has just bought as well as his car, but his mother told him not to worry.  Only recently did he ask her why and when she told him, he was stunned that he knew in the back of this mind that that was what she was thinking and he knew that she was right.

 

Now, he uses the Internet to keep up with his charts.  He doesn’t use them to make everyday little decisions but relies on them exclusively to help him understand when he should make serious moves, using sometimes, even, when he wants to make a large horse bet which has implications of their own when he understands that sometimes he’s supposed to win and sometimes he’s supposed to lose, which means that everyone’s astrology charts interconnect.  “Your life will only get better if you stick to your charts and not try to push your destiny,” he assured her.  He still doesn’t always understand it all so that’s why he uses the charts for general decisions for now.  He might change, though, but he can’t access his charts all the time and live all the time.  “You should try.  Don’t give up,” she says.

 

 

 

Chapter 18

 

After a long day at the Sunrise, Florida, office, I eventually found myself sitting inside Dicey Riley’s restaurant, at the bar, which was half open to the sidewalk so I could see the people passing by.  In front of me was a draft beer, Newcastle brown ale.  To my right, two guys in business suits were yakking about the cost of employees.  To my left sat an older couple.  The bartender was named Nolan and he was from Ireland – he told the businessmen that he’d been in the US for a year and seven months.  He turned to me after serving the businessmen fresh drinks.

 

“So, David, tell me.  Whatcha doin’ here yourself?”

 

“Oh, business.  Well, right now, I’m just sitting here enjoying my beer and then I’ll go see a bluegrass band.”

 

“Very good.  Meself, I’m only working at this pub until my friend opens up a new pub right on the beach.  Nothin’ like sittin’ around on the beach drinkin.”

 

“Nope.”

 

“You know I lived over in Galway land and where I’m from they won’t even speak English.”

 

The old fellow beside me perked up.  “Did you say you were from England?”

 

“NO!  Ireland!”

 

“Well, we have an authentic Irish bar where we live.”

 

“Authentic, you say?”

 

The old woman nodded.

 

“You don’t sound Irish to me.  What parts are you from?”

 

“We’re from Hartford, Connecticut.”

 

“Connecticut?  Do they speak English at the pub there in Connecticut?”

 

The woman smiled.  “Oh yes, but with an Irish accent, of course.”

 

With a slight twinge of anger in his voice, Nolan said, “Over in Galway land where I’m from, they’d rather spittle.  They won’t even speak English!”

 

The old couple immediately got up and left and Nolan smiled.  “English in an ‘authentic’ Irish pub.  You Americans know nothing about my culture.  You know that, don’t you?”

 

I just kept eating my fish and chips and nodded.

 

I drank a couple of more beers.  I thought about getting up to walk down the street to the Broward Center for the Performing Arts to see the bluegrass performer, Natalie MacMaster.  Instead, I looked up and saw a woman in her late 50s sit down at the outside side of the bar.  She had a few heavy wrinkles around her eyes, her hair was obviously dyed blonde but the way she propped her chin in her hand with her elbow on the counter made the beauty of her youth still reflect in her eyes.  She looked around the bar and stopped to watch TV over the bar for a while.  I just about stood up to go around to talk to her when another Irish fellow came up to Nolan.

 

“Does Martin still work here?”

 

“No…well, yes.  He works a couple of days a week.  He’s got a kid now, you know?”

 

“No.  I haven’t seen him in a year.  Fuckin…a kid, you say?”

 

“Yeah.  He works two days, Monday and Thursday.  My name’s Nolan,” he said and stuck out his hand.”

 

“Gary.  I work over at Kelly’s in Hollywood.  Martin worked there a few years ago and then decided he wanted to work here, for God’s sake, cause he said he felt like he was at home.”

 

“Home?”

 

“Hey, Nolan.  Where you from?”

 

“Over in Galway.”

 

“Yeah?  I used to work near there.”

 

“Nice place, that.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Near the ocean.”

 

“Yeah, but this time of year you’ll freeze your fuckin’ balls off.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Well, tell him that Jerry from Kelly’s said hello from Hollywood, Florida.”

 

“Jerry?  I thought you said Gary.”

 

“What?  Ah, no.  I’m from Hollywood, though.  You’ll tell him that for me, won’t ya?”

 

“Sure will.”

 

“Nice to meet ya.”

 

“You, too,” he said and shook hands with Nolan.

 

After Jerry walked away, Nolan turned to me.  “You know that fella?”

 

“No, I don’t.”

 

“Well, he just passed this note to me and I think it’s for you.”

 

I took the folded note from Nolan.  Scribbled on it was, “Tell the American redhead that I was paid to rough him up.  He owes me.”

 

Nolan leaned over the counter, pretending to wipe off it down and whispered in my ear, “Suppose he meant you cause you’re the only redhead I see in the place.  And before you ask, yes, you owe both of us a favor.”

 

“What do I owe you?” I asked, puzzled.

 

“Time will tell,” Nolan said, as he stood back up.  “Time will tell.”

 

Just at that moment, three skinheads walked into the bar.

 

“Hey Shane,” the cook yelled, who had stepped to one side of the bar for a smoke.  “Over here.”

 

One of the skinheads said to his pal, “Bud Light,” and headed over to the cook.  The other two stood at the other side of bar and nodded to Nolan to order drinks.

 

I sipped my beer, trying to soak it all in.  I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the middle-aged woman was looking at me.  I turned to look her straight in the eyes.  She broke into a smile.  I smiled back.  She broke into a grin.  I nodded to her.  She stood up and started walking around the bar to the front door.

 

As I turned back to see what Nolan was doing, a fellow plopped down into the barstool next to me where the old couple had been sitting.  I had really planned to let the lady sit there.  I looked at the skinny guy with his big, dirty black cowboy hat and wondered how I was going to convince him to move somewhere else.  Instead, he spoke first.

 

“Mind if I smoke?”  He looked at my plate of leftover cold fries.  “I know some fellas would rather I wait till they’re finished eating.”

 

“That’s okay,” I said.

 

“All right,” he said, and lit up a cigarette, his hands shaking slightly.  “You know, I smoke but I can still play these,” pointing to the harmonicas he had placed on the counter.  “I was hoping to come down here and play these for tips.  By the way, my name is Jawbone Willie.  I’m sure you’ve heard of me.”  I shook my head.  “Sure you have.  I have a band called the Brickyard Smokers.  I know you’ve heard of us.”  I shrugged my shoulders.  “Then I’m guessin’ you aren’t from around here, are you?”

 

“Nope.”  I figured some people mistook him for Dennis Hopper.  “I tell you what.  Here’s a couple of bucks and some change.  Why don’t you put it in your hat and set the hat out of the sidewalk in front of the bar and then play your tunes?”

 

“That’s a great idea.  Thanks for the money.”

 

“Consider it a sort of ‘priming the pump’ for folks to give you tips for playing.”

 

“I sure appreciate it.  I don’t suppose you’d buy me a beer before I go, would you?”

 

I stood up.  “Sorry, I’ve really got to go.  I’ve got to catch a bluegrass concert in a few minutes.”

 

“Bluegrass?  Well, hell, let me at least play you a bluegrass tune before you go.”

 

“Thanks, Jawbone Willie, but I’m already late.  Maybe I’ll catch you later on.”

 

“You bet.”

 

As I turned around, I bumped into the lady from the bar.  “Oh, sorry!”

 

“No problem.  You leaving already.”

 

“Yes, but you could maybe walk with me for a bit?”

 

“Why, thank you, I wouldn’t mind it if I did.  By the way, my name is Tiger Lily.”

 

“No kidding?”  I wondered if I’d just gotten mixed up with the local hooker.  I glanced at Nolan and he winked at me, giving me the guy sign that she was okay and not anything to worry about.  I opened the door for her and we walked out into the evening.

 

“So, I heard you say you were going to a bluegrass concert?”

 

“Yep.  I bought a ticket online earlier today.  I don’t know much about the artist except she’s Canadian and is supposed to be a real good fiddle player.”

 

“You like bluegrass?” she asked.  I nodded.  “Well, I like Irish music myself.  Guess it’s because I’m half Irish.  I bet you have Irish blood in you,” she emphasized, putting her arm around my waist.  “Why don’t we walk over to the park and talk for a few minutes.  You have time for that, don’t you?”

 

I put my arm around her waist and led us across the street.  “I hate to say this but I must admit that Irish tunes get to be boring to me after a while.  They all sound so much alike that I wonder if I should…”

 

“You really don’t like Irish music?”

 

I shook my head.

 

She started singing “Danny Boy” as we got to the sidewalk.  Her voice was startling.  A group of tourists standing nearby quickly quieted down.  Tiger Lily trailed off after the first verse and the tourists clapped.  She took her arm away from around me and bowed to them as if bowing to an audience.

 

“Well, you can’t tell me that song didn’t have an effect on you!” she said, pushing me in the chest.

 

I just smiled and grabbed her hand and led her to a park bench framed by a couple of flowering bushes.  We sat down and put our arms over each other’s shoulder and stared at the expensive yachts tied up to the shore.

 

I sighed.  Why did I always find myself in this position?  So easy to get together with a woman but not wanting to take it to the next physical level because of my strong commitment to the physical sanctity of marriage.  I decided not to turn to look at her because I knew she would take it as a sign I was expecting us to kiss.  “I wonder what one of those costs?” I asked her, instead, while still looking at the boats.

 

“Oh, it depends.”

 

“Oh, yeah?  Depends on what?”

 

“Depends on whether you’ve set your husband up to get caught cheating and take him to cleaners in a divorce.”  She then laughed and stood up.

 

I looked at her.  “What’s so funny?”

 

“This.  I mean, here I am, remembering how easy it was to set my husband up and here you are a married man, falling for the same sort of trap.”

 

“Trap?”

 

“Yeah.  Don’t try to look but there’s a guy across the water with a long-range camera taking pictures of us right now.”

 

I tensed up.  “What for?”

 

“Hell, if I know.  All I can tell you is that everyone you just met at that bar was paid to find some way to take you down.  The first person to win gets an extra ten grand.  I figured you were an easy target and you are.  But, the only problem is, you seem to be a nice guy and I don’t really need the money.  So here we are.  I’ve given that photographer a few pics he can use even though you’ve done nothing wrong.  Isn’t that something?”

 

I stood up and tried to peer into the darkness across the water but couldn’t see any reflection of a camera lens.  “Uh, look, all I wanted to do was go see the bluegrass concert and you invited yourself over.”

 

“You don’t have to tell me that.”

 

“Well, I’m just going to leave now and pretend this didn’t happen, okay?  I don’t know how much you’ve been drinking but it seems to me that you’ve got some sort of fantasy going here that I’m not privy to and don’t really think I should get involved.”

 

“You know a guy named Brian Chipmunk?”

 

I flinched.  I hesitated but went ahead and confirmed her question with a nod.

 

“Well, he’s the one who paid us to come after you.”

 

I thought about it for a few seconds.  If I wanted some people to make trouble for a guy, why would I want them to know my real name?  It didn’t make sense.

 

“I’m just telling you this so you know I’m not making this up.  Just so you don’t have your own fantasy thing going here, I could be trolling the bar for a real, young, good-looking hunk who’d love a hop in the hay with a mature woman but I picked you, instead.  Take a look at me?  Does that make sense to you?”

 

In the dim glow of the overhead lighting, I could see that Tiger Lily was wearing expensive clothing and real jewelry.  What she said made a little sense, except the part about Brian’s name.  “Can you describe Brian to me?”

 

“No.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“Cause I only talked with him on the phone and got cash in my mailbox from him.”

 

“Well, what did his voice sound like?”

 

“He had kind of a high-pitched voice with a bit of a lisp.  You’re probably too young to remember but he reminded me of Peter Lorre, an actor of my generation, if not a bit older.”

 

That sure didn’t sound like the Brian Chipmunk I knew but I didn’t want Tiger Lily to know that, if Tiger Lily was her name, of course.  “Well, it certainly sounds like him but he’s been my best friend for years.  Why would he do something like this?”

 

“I’d just watch my back, if I were you.  And if you want to catch that concert, you’d better hurry.  Most of the shows at the Broward Center start at 7 o’clock.”

 

“Thanks.  I think I will.  And thanks for the tip.  I’ll be sure to be careful from now on.”

 

“Good luck,” she said to me as I turned and walked up the embankment to the Broward Center main entrance.

 

 

 

Chapter 19

 

Let’s see…first of all, I’m tired.  I created another paper “art” piece for a work colleague in the Sunrise, Florida, office.  As usual, I made one for her as a sort of experiment, and then used the experience from that to make one for my wife, Karen.  Being on the road, by myself at the hotel, I ended the evening by masturbating.  Got to bed around 2 a.m.

 

Before I fell asleep, I set the alarm for 6 a.m.  I actually woke up to the alarm, crawled out of bed by 6:03, put on the underwear, running shorts and shirt I had set out the night before and was in the car and on the road by 6:30, so I could drive to Ft. Lauderdale Beach and take pictures of the sunrise.

 

The temperature was a bit cool so I was glad I put on some pants and the dress shirt from the day before.  I drove the dark, nearly empty streets back to downtown Ft. Lauderdale, having driven Broward Boulevard enough times to have almost memorized the businesses on my left and right.  I could tell I drove through the part of town primarily populated by African-Americans by two signs: 1) a road named Martin Luther King, Jr, Drive/Boulevard, and 2) several fried chicken restaurants, one soul food restaurant and the requisite billboards selling liquor.

 

Anyway, I drove through downtown and out to A1A, picked a spot where I could park along the beach, got out and walked out on the protected dune.  Boy, it was definitely cool out – probably mid to upper 60s.  I could barely see a couple of kids sitting in the dark.  I snapped various pictures of palm trees, lighted cruise ships out on the water, and the Fort Lauderdale skyline while waiting for the sun to come up.  Just before the sun peaked over the horizon, the kids walked up and asked me to take a picture of them with the disposable camera they had.

 

“Sure thing.”

 

“Great,” the young man said, shivering with excitement.  “We have just arrived here a few minutes ago from Pittsburgh.  This is so awesome!”

 

“Aren’t you impressed by the view?” the young woman asked, pulling a blanket more tightly around her.

 

“Totally,” I responded.  “Where do you want your picture taken?”

 

“Oh, get us with the sunrise behind us.”

 

I took their picture and handed their camera back to them.

 

As they walked away, I snapped pictures of the sunrise.  A few minutes later, another couple walked up.  I was startled by the fact that they looked a lot like the couple I had just seen, only older.

 

“Hey, we saw you taking pictures of that couple and wondered if you’d take a picture of us?”

 

“No problem,” I said, wondering if my lack of sleep was causing my mind to play tricks on me.  I joked with them about being the official photographer and that maybe I should start charging for taking pictures.

 

“Oh, this has already cost us a bundle,” the man responded, winking at his female companion.

 

The batteries ran out on my camera so I headed back to the hotel to shower and shave.  As I stood in front of the floor-length mirror in the hotel bathroom, I noticed another one of the interesting signs of aging.  It seems like the older I get, the longer the pubic hair grows in my crotch and “tween” area.  I dressed, packed and checked out of the hotel.

 

I left the hotel at noon and then drove to Target to get padded envelopes to mail the creative cardwork to my coworker and my wife.

 

After that, I started driving south, and after stop-start, stop-start traffic on I-95, I ended up driving over to Miami Beach and cruising the boulevard, admiring the view, as they say (meaning checking out all the beautiful young people crowding the sidewalks during college fall break).  Along the way, my mind would fade out, reminding me of my lack of sleep and need for food.  I drove over to downtown Miami via the something-or-other causeway, catching I-95N and more bumper-to-bumper traffic, deciding to head in the general area of the Ft. Lauderdale Airport.

 

So, there I sat in another Irish pub, this one called Waxy O’Connor’s.  The waitress was a no-nonsense kind of person, perhaps with an Irish accent tempered either by living in America for a while or living in a higher class status in Ireland than the working classes (say, one of the types who affected an English accent while growing up).  I figured I had to get over my fear of her tough exterior and ask where she’s from.

 

While I waited for her to come back by, I also watched the clock, so to speak.  I was supposed to turn in the Ford Taurus around 6 p.m. and pick up a Mustang at 6 p.m.  I’d then drive 3 hours from the Ft. Lauderdale Airport / Hertz pickup and go to Mom and Dad’s place in North Port, Florida, cross Alligator Alley in the dark.

 

A woman at the table not far from me had the same accent as the actress, Katherine O’Hara, so I presumed she was a Canadian.  And by the way, at that point I was working on my second Smithwick’s Irish ale (imported by Guinness).

 

Woody Allen once said, “Showing up is 80 percent of life.”  The waitress finally showed back up, unbeknownst to me, and was looking over my shoulder.

 

“Whatcha doin’ there?” she asked, nodding toward my notebook.

 

“Oh, I’m recording what I’m seeing and hearing.”

 

“Is that so?  Am I in there?”

 

“Yes,” I replied, and pointed to the sentence about wanting to get over her tough exterior.

 

She looked over at her friend.  “You think I have a tough exterior?”

 

“Depends…”

 

“That’s what I thought.”  She turned back to me.  “I’m not so tough today.  It was a mad lunch rush so I’m just sloggin’ my way through here.  I’m not tough.  I’m tired.”

 

I took note of her condition.

 

“Are you writing that down?”  I nodded.  She slapped her hand across my shoulder.  “Stop it,” she said, half-mockingly.

 

I kept writing.

 

“What are you writing now?” she asked again and bent down to read that she’s just slapped me.  “My, my, you are a feisty one.  I don’t suppose you’d still be here when I get off.”

 

“What time’s that?”

 

“Seven.”

 

“No, I’ve got to go in a few minutes and turn in the rental car.”

 

“A shame.  Well, you’re going to miss a smashing time, love.  There’s a wonderful writer’s forum taking place downtown.  I’m sure you’d fit in there and I could certainly give you something to write about.”

 

I flashed her my wolf’s eyes.

 

“And I don’t necessarily mean that, either.”  She leaned against me.  “But then I wouldn’t write it off just yet.”

 

I smiled and reached for my wallet, knocking her elbow off my shoulder.  “Sorry, but I’ve really got to go.”

 

She shrugged, reached into her back pocket and pulled my bill out of a credit card receipt folder.  I gave her cash and left.

 

 

Chapter 20

 

Back in Huntsville, I dove into my job.  Although it was exceedingly boring, at least it kept my mind from dwelling on negative thoughts.  But I was tired and it was hard to concentrate on all the incoming emails.  I decided to take a break after a few hours and IM a coworker who had handed over the role of customer problem-solving coordinator to me.

 

DAVID: You there?

 

JENNIFER: Yep.

 

DAVID: Got a minute to talk?

 

JENNIFER: Sure, go ahead.  I’ll multitask as usual. 😉

 

DAVID: Life is full of missed opportunities but I don’t want to miss the opportunity to get some thoughts out of my system.  I wouldn’t normally communicate with you in this way, outside of email, but on occasion I feel compelled…

 

DAVID: to say more, say something…or rather, write something that doesn’t require the formality of emails.

 

JENNIFER: I understand.

 

DAVID: So, too, I’m not a regular IM user.  In any case, I’m here so I’ll go on with what I had to say.

 

JENNIFER:  OK. BTW, did you see the email from Germany?  Looks like you’re going to have to go over.

 

DAVID: Yeah.  Did you hear on earlier today that George Kateze asked me to host and run the biweekly engr projects meeting for the MSB group?

 

JENNIFER. Yes.  You know that means having to keep up with the progress of the engineering projects for both Sunrise and Huntsville?

 

DAVID:  So you’re saying it’s not a good thing?

 

JENNIFER:  No, I thinks it’s positive.  You probably don’t realize it but you’re perceived as a person of highly positive energy.

 

DAVID: [blushing]

 

JENNIFER: Seriously, I think mgmt sees you spark good vibes in those around you, especially during meetings.

 

DAVID: So do you.  I have enjoyed watching you continue to grow into your new self and know that if your pace of growth is any indication of who you will be, then you might be a VP one day!

 

JENNIFER: My turn to blush.

 

DAVID:  When you hit the big time, don’t forget us little folk.  We’ll still want to know how your sons and grandchildren are doing.

 

JENNIFER:  Enough already!  You need to address the email from Germany.

 

DAVID:  OK – bye.

 

 

I read the email Jennifer mentioned and saw where the engineers at Cumulo Corp were having serious problems with the video resolution on the slim computer servers, called blades, and wanted someone in Germany within a week to resolve the issue.  I called our travel office and arranged the tickets, hotel and rental car.  I threw in a stop in Shannon, Ireland, in order to meet with some of the engineers there.

 

 

 

Chapter 21

 

“And so it is I find myself here,” a phrase repeated many times in my head through the years.  Repetitive though it may be, the phrase usually precedes a new thought or experience in my life.  And so it is I find myself here, sitting on a Delta flight from Atlanta, Georgia, USA, to Shannon, County Clare, Ireland.  At this moment, we hug the coast of North America, or at least we had been.  Approximately two and a half hours into the flight it appears we’re turning east over open waters.  Bye-bye, well-lit coastline!  Hello, Old World venture!  Would that I could share some well thought-out gem of a phrase that’d express my sentiments in a witty tome (or is it tone? either will do).  Instead, I sit here after a power nap, occasionally glancing up at the in-flight showing of some children’s movie, which I first mistook as “Angela’s Ashes,” wondering why I know so much about the professional gigs of actors and so little about the features of the products my company sells.  I know that it has to do with the basic fundamentals of the brain’s electrochemical use of the concepts of work versus play and the body’s reward for participation in them.

 

And so it is, my mind slightly seduced by the idea of sleep, slightly dulled by the digestion of the airline meal in my stomach, I’d almost rather catch another nap than spend time putting words down here.

 

Instead, I press on, slightly bolstered by the tea (rather than coffee) served by the flight attendant.

 

I sit here, with little motivation to put descriptive adjectives into use.  Some say it’s because I have no muse.  And I agree!  At 44 years of age, I feel I have lost contact with any one person for whom I’d compel myself to write well thought-out phrases full of meaningful words and descriptively delicious adjectives and adverbial phrases.  I suppose there’s nothing the matter with being bland if all I’m doing is writing in a novel-writing contest.  Alas, ’tis not so.  I will not allow meaningless, extended extemporaneous output to find its way out to these pages.

 

Instead, I will choose you, with the understanding that my choosing you is harmless.  My words may be flirtatious in that they tickle your fancy both by the fact they’re directed toward you and that the order of the words I use are meant for you as the sole audience, but they are words.  No action is intended or implied.

 

Okay, now that the disclaimer is aside, let me say I’m glad to know you and in my gladness, I wish to give you all that I have that really counts – these words.  They are yours in the eternity we call our lives, of which we never know when will end and thus are comprised of an infinite number of days (at least, for most of us).  These words do not mean the same thing today as they did yesterday or will mean tomorrow.  So, you see, these words are a never-ending gift from me to you.  You now possess an endless act of giving, which being all I have to give, is everything that describes you and me.

 

And so it is that I close my eyes and devote the next few minutes or hours to directionless daydreams.  Until tomorrow, then!  The rest of the trip was not very exciting.

 

After taking care of a crisis in the Shannon office the next day, I joined a US expatriate, Teri O’Halligan, for a few drinks at a local pub, appropriately called the Halfway House.

 

“David, I’m glad you have time to sit and talk with me tonight.  I was stood up by my girlfriend and just didn’t want to sit alone in my apartment and drink tonight.”

 

“Girlfriend?”

 

“Yeah, she works over at the…oops, I see what you’re saying.  I guess you think I still have a girlfriend in the US?”

 

“Well…yes!  She works in the sales office, doesn’t she?”

 

“David, I guess I need to let you in on a little secret.  What goes on in Ireland stays in Ireland, if you know what I mean.”

 

I raised my glass of freshly-poured Guinness and said, “Here’s to Irish women!”

 

“Hear!  Hear!” Teri replied, enthusiastically, getting the attention of several folk around us.

 

We guzzled down our beers as quick as we could and ordered another round.

 

“So, David, I gather you have something on your mind?”

 

“Well, I don’t know that it’s important but it’s important enough to keep in Ireland.”

 

“That’s what I thought.  So, spit it out.”

 

“Well, you’ve worked with Jennifer for several years…”

 

“Hmm…let’s see. Yeah, I’d say it’s about ten years.  Or is it twelve?  Hell, I don’t even remember and right now, I don’t even care.  So, yeah, it’s been a while.”

 

“What’s she like?”

 

“What do you mean, exactly?”

 

“Well, have you ever been interested in her?”

 

“Are we talking about the same Jennifer?  Tech Support, engineer, L3 coordinator, program manager…”

 

“Yep, that’s her.”

 

“No, I can’t say that I’ve ever been interested in her.  You stopped drinking your beer.  Drink up,” Teri said, tipping his glass toward me and downing his beer in a few gulps.

 

I looked at my watch.  I had three hours before I had to be at the airport for a night flight to London in order to catch a morning flight to Germany.  I knocked down my beer and ordered another round for us, in hopes that the beer’d give me more courage.

 

“Well, you gotta admit she’s a woman.”

 

“Oh yeah, David, she’s all woman, all right.”

 

“Well, I think I find her attractive.”

 

“You know, David, I’ve worked with a lot of people who’ve worked around Jennifer and I believe you’re the first person to call her attractive.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Yes, really.  You see, you’re seeing her now.  You didn’t know her when she was probably 300 pounds.”

 

“300 pounds?  You’re pulling my leg.”

 

“No, I’m not.  She’s lost well over 100 pounds or more since I’ve known her.”

 

“Well, like you said.  I didn’t know her then.  I only know that she is the woman I know now, and for whatever it’s worth or whatever it means, despite my having seen her struggling to finish a five kilometer road race or an attempt at the Huntsville Half Marathon, I have appreciated her for being her, no matter what.  I have not questioned her about the person she was who went through the birth of her children and the divorce of her children’s father.”

 

“And you’re lucky, too.  She was bitter about that divorce for a very long time.”

 

“I never knew that version of Jennifer.”  I drank down my beer and nodded at the bartender for another.  “All I can say, and I know I may be repeating myself, all I can say is that I may come close to repeating my thoughts but I wish you to know that if life were different than it is…you know what I mean…if I had even the remotest possibility of asking her out and have fun at the pub like we’re doing tonight, I would.”

 

“Well, David, that’s certainly something that won’t be leaving this pub.  In fact, I don’t think anyone would believe it.”

 

“No, seriously, I think she and I could have a nice evening out and when it gets down to it, sitting down with your friends for a fun conversation is what life is all about.  In other words, and this is where I hope you won’t tell anyone, I see her as this wonderful person, organized workmate, comforting companion, voluptuous female, engaging conversationalist… and … and caring mother … and I wonder what could have gone wrong between her and her ex-husband.”  I realized I was weaving a bit and subtly put my hand on the bar.

 

“Ohh, David, you don’t want to get me started on all the things Jennifer used to say about her ex.  I’d say it was a two-way street, though, when you get down to it.  It takes two to tango and all that.”

 

“Exactly.  Well, all I can say is that I appreciate her for who she is.  I can truly do nothing more but sit here and wonder, ‘What if…?'”

 

“And that’s a good thing, I’m telling you.  If your marriage is any good, I’d focus on your wife, if I were you.  And besides, you’d quickly find out that Jennifer is 100% focused on her kids and her job.  Don’t expect that she would think much about you if you weren’t somehow connected to a project she’s working on or something.”

 

“Wow,” I slurred, “I’m glad I talked with you.  You sure know how to burst a guy’s bubble.”

 

“Well, in this case, consider it a bubble well bursted.  Any fantasy about Jennifer is a thought wasted.”

 

“So, you were saying someting about your girlfriend?”

 

“I was?  Oh yeah, well, I don’t think there’s any reason to bore you with the details.  I’m guessing that you still have to get back to the hotel and pack.”

 

“Yep.”

 

“You okay to drive?”

 

“Sure.”  I stood up and leaned over a little bit too far but caught myself.  “Well, maybe a little bit.”

 

“Why don’t we both drink a cup of coffee before you go?”  Teri nodded at the bartender and pointed at some coffee mugs.  Teri grabbed the phone from his belt and frowned.  “I’ve got a boatload of emails to go through.  That’s the only thing I don’t like about living over here.  The girls are plentiful, but hell, the US keeps bugging me well into the night with demanding, ’emergency’ emails and phone calls.”

 

“So why don’t you turn off your cell phone?”

 

The bartender handed us our cups of coffee.  I took a quick sip of the hot liquid to try to steady myself.

 

“I wish.  No, it doesn’t work that way.  If you ever get a chance to move over here, you’ll know what I mean.  And if you move to Ireland, I’ll introduce you to the Thursday night club.”

 

“That sounds interesting.”

 

“Well, yeah, but it’s nothing much.  It’s just another way of saying ‘What goes on in Ireland…'”

 

“‘…stays in Ireland.’  Yeah, I get it.”

 

“Well, here, what goes on in the pub at night with your coworkers stays at the pub and does not get repeated at work the next day.  For instance, if I told you that a fellow named Brian had been here a couple of weeks before you, inquiring about your upcoming visit, you’d be a good fellow and keep your trap shut.”

 

“Absolutely.”

 

“Good.  Then we just didn’t have that conversation.  You ready to go?”

 

I pushed myself away from the bar and was able to stand still.  “Yeah, I think so.”

 

“Good, ’cause you better hurry.”

 

I looked at my watch.  “Fuck, you’re right.  Well, I’ll see you next time.”

 

Teri shook my hand.  “Be careful on your way.  The gardai love to pull over drunks this time of year.  Of course, they won’t give you a ticket but it might prevent you from catching your flight.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

“No problem.”

 

 

 

Chapter 22

 

Just like in Ireland, I met with the engineers in Paderborn, Germany, except these were engineers at our customer site, Cumulo Corp.  We were able to determine that the video resolution problem could be reduced by adjusting the manual settings of the remote KVM session.  However, the project lead, Peter, wanted a permanent solution for his end customer and did not want his customer to have to make manual adjustments.  We conferenced in their server operating system experts in Augsburg and determined that I’d have to see what they were working on in Augsburg, if my US team couldn’t figure out the video resolution problem.

 

I wasn’t sure if all German customers were like this, but the management team at Cumulo had a way of making us look foolish with more than one “top priority” problem open at a time, especially if they weren’t satisfied with the progress we were making on a particular problem.  I had gotten used to it but it was still a cultural or business relationship difference I was not accustomed to.

 

I briefly talked with the lead BIOS engineer and discussed a separate issue related to the KVM device not being able to be recognized properly during the BIOS bootup sequence.  We looked at some traces via WebEx and decided that the BIOS team would need to rework some timing of the bootup sequence.

 

After that conversation, I found out that my team back in the US would be able to include a default set of video resolution settings with the next firmware release that would please well over 90% of the customers.  Peter was satisfied that the settings would be accepted by his customers and requested that we include a detailed write-up of these default settings in the new firmware release.  I instructed my team to make the changes and then left the Cumulo Corp office a little early in order to catch up with Summer.

 

At the hotel that evening, I typed a few notes on the laptop computer:

 

Strong electrical storm passing through area.

Listening to Mysterious Traveler by Weather Report

on the laptop speakers.  Window open so I can also

listen to the thunder and smell the rain in this

Bavarian town of Schwaig-Oberding.

 

Oh well, the rain is blowing too hard so I’ve had to shut the window.

 

“Do I really talk with a slight lisp?” asked Summer.

 

I looked up from the laptop to see Summer was leaning on the chair, looking over my shoulder at the trees, which were performing calisthenics in the storm, perhaps doing their part in preparation for the winds of winter.

 

“Did I say that?”

 

“Yeth, you did.”

 

“Well, can I take it back?”

 

“Maybe.  I don’t know.  Do you still want to go out tonight?”

 

“I was thinking maybe not.”

 

“Me, too.  I think I’ll watch TV.”

 

I cringed but Summer didn’t notice.  I wondered what the fascination could be.  Here was a woman who had hiked through Ecuador, across the Cape Verde Islands, and up and down the mountains of Nepal yet here she was with nothing better to do than sit and watch TV.  But then again, I was sitting and watching my fingers throw black characters up on the screen.  Was one better than the other?

 

“Looks like the storm is passing.”

 

“Yeth, I see that.”

 

“There you go again.”

 

“What?”

 

“You just said ‘yeth’.”

 

“I did?  I think you are imagining it.”

 

“Maybe.  Or maybe it’s just the way some Germans speak English.  Seems like today I heard several Germans with the same lispy sound to their words.”

 

“Okay,” Summer said, her interest waning as she turned back to the TV.

 

I heard the quiet roar of an airplane taking off from the München airport.  I stood up and opened the window again.  I looked at the empty, wet soccer field below, only minutes before thriving with small children pretending to be world-class strikers.  The bells of a nearby church struck 8:45 p.m.  I turned around and wondered why there was a woman reclined on one of the double beds watching TV in my room.  Hard to believe that all the hotels in the area were booked, considering that the fall tourism season was not as heavy as usual.  Maybe a lot of travelers were like Summer, needing a hotel close to the airport in order to catch an early flight out.  I had not shared a hotel room with a woman before and wondered how it should work out.

 

“Do you want to go out?  The rain has stopped and it’s a lot cooler now.”

 

“Are you wanting to go out?”

 

“Not really but I thought you might.”

 

“No, no.  I am just happy here.  If you want to go out, you can go without me.”

 

“I might do that.  I’d like to take the Alfa Romeo GT I rented out on the autobahn.”

 

“Okay.  I will be asleep when you get back, probably.  So it will be good for you to enjoy yourself for a while.”

 

“Great, thanks.”

 

 

 

Chapter 23

 

A little disheveled, dragging my suitcase beside me, I walked out of baggage claim and into the front waiting lobby of the Paderborn airport.  Two and a half hours sleep at a London hotel, then the flight from Heathrow to Frankfurt and then to Paderborn.  The lack of sleep was getting to me.  Was I supposed to call Eleanor when I landed?  I looked around the airport waiting area.  Eleanor sat in a chair at an empty bar and waved at me when I noticed her.  She broke into a smile and let out a hearty laugh.

 

“Oh good, there you are,” I said with a sigh. “I wondered how I was going to find you.”

 

“No problem, Dave.  I’ve been here since 8:30.  Dave, this is Summer.  She just got here a minute before you did.  She’s one of those people who always arrive just in time.  Don’t you, Summer?”  Eleanor gave Summer a knowing look.

 

I looked at the woman standing next to Eleanor.  Shoulder-length chestnut hair.  A toned body like Eleanor’s and almost the same height.  A few wrinkles, enough to say she was definitely over 20 years old but was she over 30 or just liked to exercise outside and the tanned skin emphasized the lines?  I couldn’t tell.  I reached out and shook her hand.  “Hi, Summer, nice to meet you.”

 

Summer smiled, looked in my eyes, nodded her head, and then looked down as she let go of my hand.  “Yeth,” was all she said.

 

“Well, Eleanor, I guess you’re probably hungry.  Shall we go somewhere to eat?”

 

Eleanor looked from me to Summer.  “I don’t know Paderborn that well.  There doesn’t look to be much here in the airport I want to eat.  Does Paderborn have anything?”

 

Summer nodded her head.  “Well, Paderborn does have a few places.  We might as well drive that way since we’re going to the Cumulo office close by.”

 

“Great!  Dave, you got all your bags?”

 

I nodded my head.

 

“Then what are we waiting for?  Let’s go to Summer’s car.”

 

 

I looked at the scuff marks on the back of the front seats.  “Do you have any animals?”

 

Summer nodded and smiled slightly.

 

“Dogs?  Cats?”

 

“No.  Children.”

 

“Oh really?  What ages are they?”

 

“I have a boy and a girl.”

 

“No, I mean how old are your kids?”

 

Summer looked at me in the rearview mirror and gave me a questioning look.

 

Eleanor leaned over to Summer from the front passenger’s seat.  “How old are they?”

 

“The oldest one is four and the youngest one is seven…seven months.”

 

“Wow!  That’s a baby.”

 

“Yeth.”

 

“That’s great.  Do you get any sleep at night?”

 

“Sometimes, yes.  He likes to eat.  Eat, eat, eat.  When he was first born, I went to sleep at 2 each night.”

 

“Hnnh,” David said, turning his attention back to the car.  “So this is a 318…I have a 325 but it is not diesel.”

 

“For a diesel, this is very quiet,” Eleanor added.

 

I agreed.  “Yeah, I don’t hear the ‘packety-pack’ of a diesel.”

 

“This is a fine automobile.  You will hear no ‘packety-pack.’”

 

“A fine but dirty automobile,” I said, smirking.  I saw Summer’s slight frown in the mirror and decided to try a different line.  “You know, a friend of mine has a very fine Lexus but she has let her children tear up the insides.  I asked her why she would let her kids tear up such an expensive car.  She said I don’t know her priorities.  Her priorities were her children, not cars.”

 

Summer nodded.  “Me, too,” she said and gunned the car to 180 on the road.

 

 

Miraculously, Summer found an open parking spot on the street in downtown Paderborn.  “We can park here and walk to a restaurant.”

 

Eleanor turned to me as we stepped out of the car.  “Have you ever been to a biergarten?”

 

“No.”

 

“Well, it’ll be your first time.”

 

“I guess so,” I said, looking down the street at a group of young women crossing 50 yards in front of me.  I knew I was in Germany, the store signs and roadside markers had certainly told me that.  What I hadn’t expected to see were women dressed in jeans and T-shirts, as if I was cruising the sidewalks of New York City or New Orleans.  I then realized I was sweating in the warm, humid, fall air.  “It’ll be good to drink something cold.”

 

“You probably won’t drink a beer,” Eleanor said, with just a touch of a commanding voice.  Or was it just a friendly hint?  One of those paragraphs spoken in a few words, something like ‘Summer doesn’t yet know you.  We’re about to go visit the customer who is going to meet you for the first time.  I’m strongly suggesting you wait to drink until later this afternoon.’

 

I went ahead and said, “But you said it’s a biergarten.”

 

“Yeah.  But I’m going there to eat food.”

 

I got her point.  She abstained from alcohol.  “You don’t drink anyway.”

 

“No, I don’t,” Eleanor said as she turned to Summer and smiled, with just the faintest smudge of victory curling up in the ends of her lips.

 

 

We sat outside, on a table next to the sidewalk.  I picked up the menu, seeing what looked like the German phrase for “Do you lust for ice cream?”, under the picture of a woman’s pair of brightly colored lips shot just as she licked the edge of a cherry.  I wasn’t sure what the socially accepted definition of sex was but the picture was a little more obvious about lust than I’d see on an American restaurant menu, Hooter’s aside.

 

“Oh, I see you want the ice cream?” Eleanor asked rhetorically, interpreting my lusty grin for a desire for food.

 

“Maybe later.”  I set the dessert menu down just as the server appeared with lunch menus.

 

“Gut’ abend,” the server said and continued on in German, asking a few questions I didn’t understand.

 

I looked over to Eleanor with questioning eyes.

 

Eleanor turned to me and asked, “Would you like something to drink?”

 

“Drink?  Oh yes,” I burst out, ready to use one of the German phrases I knew.  “Ich möchte Tee drinken.”

 

The server pressed on the screen of the PDA in her hand and then held the PDA in front of me, reading off a list to me in German.  I was able to look over her at the PDA screen to see it was a portable food order system.  I figured out at least one word I could recognize.  “Pfeffermintz, bitte,” I said, not really wanting peppermint tea but trying to act like I understood her.

 

“Danke schoen.”

 

Eleanor and Summer placed orders for sparkling apple juice while I tried to sort out the lunch menu.  I knew some words right away and could figure out the gist of others.  From the words in one category, I thought the descriptions were associated with pizza.  “What is this?” I asked Summer.

 

“Oh…ah,” Summer said, setting down the menu.  She cupped her hands and then mimed a bowl shape in the air.  “Like pitza.  It is very flat and thin.”

 

“Pizza?”

 

“Yes, but the toppings are…cream…and…”

 

“Cheese?”

 

“Yeth.”

 

“This one looks good.  It has feta cheese and olives.”

 

“Yeth.”

 

“So, guys,” Eleanor interrupted, “what are the plans for the day?”

 

“We have the meeting at 3…”

 

“Are you guys staying in Paderborn?”

 

I looked over at Summer.  “I don’t know.  I couldn’t clearly tell from Summer’s email.  Are we staying…”

 

“We are leaving for Augsburg after the meeting.”

 

“So you guys aren’t spending the night?”

 

“No.”

 

“Then I better cancel my hotel reservation and change my plane flight for tomorrow.”

 

“If you wish.”

 

“Or we could stay the night here,” David suggested.

 

Summer shook her head.  “We have a long train ride to Augsburg and an early meeting tomorrow.”

 

“What time is the meeting?”

 

“Nine.”

 

“Oh, yeah, I guess you’re right.”

 

 

 

Chapter 24

 

I quietly opened the hotel room door.  I had had five, maybe six beers, enough that I was not staggering down the hall but to the point where I had to concentrate on simple tasks.  The door creaked as I opened it and I heard motion coming from inside the dark.  At first, I thought it was Summer.  Perhaps she had been awake, wondering if and when I would return.  Perhaps…then I realized the church bells were tolling.  Ten o’clock.  Had I only been gone an hour?  Well, the band in the bar had made the time go by so fast, helping me forget that I’d been upset that the rain had picked up again just as I started to walk out to the car, preventing me from taking the drive on the autobahn.

 

I shut the door as quietly as I could.  I heard the steady sound of rain coming from the open window.  Even though it was one of the warmest days of the fall, it was still cool at this hour.  I debated feeling my way along the beds but decided I didn’t want to grab Summer’s ankle and be unable to make another move.  My eyes adjusted to the dark and I could see some light bouncing off the ceiling.  I saw a flashlight pointing at me and realized it was a plane coming in for a landing.  I took a few baby steps forward, passing by the toilet.  I kept my eyes focused forward, even though I wanted to look over and see if Summer was asleep.  I wondered if Summer was even in the room anymore.  Perhaps she’d called the front desk and found an available empty room.

 

I took a few more steps and stumbled into a chair I’d forgotten about, hidden in the shadows beneath the window.  I scooted around the chair and leaned out the window.  I could just make out the edges of the soccer field.  Small waves of rock music crashed around me.  I remembered why I’d left the bar – I’d gotten tired of hearing the old pop tunes, songs I’d not liked when they were first released and not any better being song by a local bar band.  The band was cranking out “Achy Breaky Heart,” a crossover country song that played well at both discothèques and Western dance halls.  The band announced they were taking a break.

 

I turned around.  I wanted to test myself.  Who was I?  Was I truly deep-down a trusty soul, a regular guy who certainly recognized good-looking women when I saw them, who liked to window shop but still made all my purchases at only one bride store where I had publicly signed a marriage contract over 20 years before?

 

I fell in love with women at a drop of a hat.  I saw divine, angelic beauty no matter what, even though no woman was angelic and certainly everyone was far from perfect.

 

In the gray shades of the room, I could see a charcoal outline on one of the beds.  Or was it just my imagination?  Lightning flashed and I distinctly saw that Summer was laying still, sleeping on the bed next to the wall, her body resting on her right side, her back to the other bed.

 

Did maturity have anything to do with growing older?  Did forty-four years on this planet mean one thing to the man standing by an open window, the cool breeze clearing up his head, giving him the opportunity to calculate his next move?

 

I sat on the window sill, feeling the rain water that had pooled on the granite ledge soak into the seat of my pants.

 

The bell tolled 10:30 p.m.  I closed my eyes for a moment.  The only thing I knew was that I’d have to remove my pants and hang them up to dry.  And to think, Summer had teased me the day before about only bringing one pair of trousers for the trip.

 

A series of lightning flashes and subsequent thunder jarred me.  I wacked a knee on the chair and grunted, waking Summer.

 

“Hallo?”

 

“Sorry.  I was trying to be quiet.”

 

“What time is it?”

 

“I don’t know exactly.  Sometime after 10:30, I guess.”

 

Summer rolled over to face me in the dark just as the band starting playing again.

 

“Did you have a good time downstairs?”

 

“Downstairs?”

 

“Yes, with the band.”

 

“How did you know?”

 

“I heard you laughing before I fell asleep.  It was easy to hear from the open window.  You have a very distinct laugh.”

 

“I do?”

 

“Yeth, but not with a lisp, though.”  They both laughed.

 

“Mind if I turn the chair around to face you?”

 

“Mind?  Why would I mind?”

 

“Oh…well, I don’t know, really.”

 

“No problem.”

 

 

Chapter 25

 

Even though Peter made a big deal about the fact that his child’s football match started at 16:00, the meeting lasted until past 17:00.  No one had anticipated such a late end to the meeting.  Dinner was no longer an option.  Summer drove Eleanor quickly to the airport so that Summer and I could get to the Kassel train station before the train to Augsburg left at 18:15.

 

We got to the train station and purchased our tickets in time for us to stand in front of a train schedule to see if the train that had just left the station was the one we wanted.

 

I watched as Summer read the schedule and tried to listen to her explain that the train that had just left the station was not the one we wanted even though it pulled out at the time that was printed on our tickets.  I tried to calm my mind so I could rationalize the situation.  I had worried about the meeting with the customer but the meeting went smoothly.  I had worried about not making it to the train station on time, thinking the autobahn was crowded but hearing Summer comment about how deserted the road was, presumably because of the nice weather so everyone was probably home early.  I had worried that we were not going to figure out the automated train ticket machine at the status but we had printed the tickets and had made it to the train platform in time to ask a porter if the train was the one we wanted and been assured it was not.  Now, I was catching my breath and trying to remember what Summer had said while she stood next to the train schedule information poster, talking quietly, with me behind her trying to figure out the pictures and listen to her at the same time.

 

I only heard a few of the words Summer had said and was confused.

 

“So help me here.  This is the first time I have come to Germany.  Even though I learned German in school, it is still different than standing here, wondering what the symbols and time mean.  Can you show me that the train that just left is not the train we needed?  After all, it is past 6:16 and I think we were supposed to be on the 6:16 train.”

 

Summer turned her head to the side the way she liked to do and smiled a non-worrying smile, an expression that I assumed was often used when Summer tried to explain something simple to her children.  “Oh, don’t worry.  This is Germany.  The trains are never on time.”

 

I looked from Summer to the train schedule and back.  “Okay.  I can handle that.  But you said something about car number 10 or track number 10.  I look at the trains here and see a car number 10 but how is it associated with the Augsburg stop.”

 

Summer stepped back up to the schedule.  “Augsburg,” she mumbled to herself in her lispy voice.  “Augsburg…see, here it is.”  She put her finger on the glass.

 

“Yes, but that’s the 17:25 train.  I can also see Augsburg on the 20:27 train but I don’t see Augsburg on the 18:16 or 18:24 train.”

 

Summer nodded her head from side to side, probably mimicking her little girl.  “Well, yeth, it’s not there, but don’t worry.  That is the train we’re supposed to take.”  She pointed to the map and then stepped back.

 

I squinted, trying to figure out how not to worry.

 

“Here, I will show you.”  Summer reached into her bag and pulled out a crumpled printout.  “Augs…burg…here!  See, Augsburg is on the 18:24 train.  It is just like I told you earlier today, a train through Augsburg every hour.”  The sound of brakes pierced the air.  “See, here is the train.  We can go now.”

 

======================

 

The bells tolled 11 p.m.  I opened my eyes.  How long had I been asleep?  My head was tilted to one side and my legs felt cold.  I had just heard the sound of a roaring train.  No, it was just the sound of another jet screaming past.  How late did the airport stay open?  And boy, it sure had gotten cooler.

 

In my half-asleep state, my thoughts wandered.  I tried to remember what I’d just been doing but something was blocking my thoughts.  I then realized there was something pressed against my right thigh.  More importantly, I realized I wasn’t wearing any pants.  I quickly reached my right hand over to my left and felt my wedding band on.  That was a good sign – I always took my ring off before I crawled into bed for the night, even at home with my wife.  So either I hadn’t crawled into bed for the night or I hadn’t crawled into bed with the intention of staying in bed for the night.  What was the last thing I remembered?  Ooh…I wasn’t sure it if was a good memory.  Summer had said…well, at least I thought she said it…she approved of me taking my pants off.

 

 

“That’s no problem, David.  I cannot see you in the dark anyway.  I will probably be asleep again in a minute.  I will turn around and close my eyes, though, anyway.”

 

“Thanks, Summer.  I’m still almost too drunk to stand up so I’m just going to sit here and take my pants off.  God, I’m so embarrassed.”

 

“That’s okay.  I should have closed the window before I went to bed.  I didn’t know the rain would keep falling.”

 

“You know, back home, this would look really bad if someone walked in right now.”

 

“Well, it would look bad here, too, probably, but I think we are all right.  Many people are sharing rooms this week that would not normally do so.  I think…if somebody walked in…we…would…be…”

 

I could hear the quiet sounds of Summer sleeping.  I’d just close my eyes for a few minutes and rest before I got up.

 

========================

 

“So what do you think about the train?” Summer asked after we’d settled into seats in car number six.

 

“This is great.  It sure beats driving.  And thanks for driving here, by the way.”

 

“No problem.  I think we could have flown from Paderborn but it would take just as long to fly as to take the train or drive.  Or maybe we could have gotten there faster by driving but then again we could get on the autobahn and the road would be filled with cars and we would take five or six hours to get to Augsburg.  It happens sometimes.”

 

“I bet.  Hey, are you hungry?”

 

“Are you hungry?”

 

“A little bit.”

 

Summer nodded her head and stood up.  “Well, then, let’s get something to eat,” lisping the word ‘something.’  I then figured out that part of what I thought was lisping was really just some Germans’ way of trying to pronounce the letter ‘s’ as an English ‘s’ instead of an English ‘z’.

 

I led the way to car number 10, stopping at the toilet, after which Summer was walking in front of me.  It dawned on me that Summer had a typical post-birth runner’s body.  A slightly wider set of hips but not really wide in the sense of being overweight.  I envied her figure, knowing that the wider stance gave Summer an advantage in keeping her balance.  I felt like my hips were narrow and thus I looked heavier because of the extra fat bouncing around my waistline.  Heaven forbid I let someone see my bouncing shape and yet I insisted on running road races with very little exercise in between the events.

 

==========================

 

So there I sat, the bells tolling 11:30 or “half midnight” as some might say, and I was sitting there in my shorts, listening to the constant stream of planes flying into Bavaria.  And the steady rhythm of the bar band.  How late did they play on the weekdays?  But then again, it was a nice fall night.  Maybe a lot of people stayed out late on nights like this.  Maybe folks got an early start on the weekend around here?

 

I shook my head.  There was no more dizziness, no more feeling the room swirl or spin.  I stood up and beelined for the bathroom, suddenly sensing a full bladder.

 

==========================

 

We both ordered our meals, with me stumbling through my German.  The server smiled politely and complimented me when I correctly pronounced the beer, “Kernig Loodvig” for the König Ludwig hefeweisen on the menu.

 

Summer put her elbows on the table, leaned forward and gave me a warm and friendly smile.  Despite knowing better, despite trying to turn Summer into an other, an undesirable person of some sort, I instantly fell in love.

 

“Thank you,” I said, although I wanted to say, “Thank you for being such a wonderful companion whose pronunciation of German is so cute and appealing at the same time that I forget my desire to learn the German language and lose myself in the song of your voice, instead.”

 

Summer raised her eyebrows.  “Thanks for what?”

 

“This.”

 

Summer shrugged her shoulders and then nodded her head.  “Yes…this.”  She turned to look out the window at the trees passing by.  “Yes, this is nice.  The last time I took the train, it was raining.  Not so nice.”

 

I sighed and Summer turned to look at me.  She broke into a big smile.  I looked at her face and wondered how old she really was.  She had a youthful spirit about her and probably always would.  And yet, her face was framed by more wrinkles than I had first noticed.  My own wife had wrinkles but they were not as deep, partly because…frankly, part of the advantage of being overweight was that your skin is stretched out a little and hides wrinkles around the face.  Summer had a slender face.  So was Summer the same age as my wife, Karen?  Would Summer be in her 40s?  Any time the subject of years came up, Summer always seemed to find a way to hide the passage of too many years, as if she was thinking I was calculating her age.

 

The server handed us our drinks.  I took a big swallow of beer.  “I used to brew my own beer, very similar to this, slightly cloudy.”

 

“It is legal to do so in the US?”

 

“Well, at least in Alabama, you can brew up to five gallons of beer before you have to pay taxes.”

 

Summer raised her glass, ‘’Cheers.”

 

I reached across and clinked the top of my glass to her.

 

“No, no.  You hit it here, on the bottom,” and Summer clinked the bottom of her glass to mine.

 

I took a gulp and put the beer back on the table.  I thought about the situation, laughing in my mind at the comparison of the situation to one of my favorite movies, “Before Sunrise”, starring the French actress, Julie Delpy and the American actor, Ethan Hawke, where the two meet on a train as strangers and decide to spend the evening together until the woman has to get on a train to Paris the next morning and the man has to fly back to the States.  In this case, I was not romantically interested in Summer.  I was riding a train with a business companion.  And yet…oh, the imagination runs wild sometimes, doesn’t it?

 

===========================

 

The stroke of midnight.  Somewhere, Cinderella was running away, leaving her glass slipper behind.  I leaned against the bathroom door.  I was tired.  I had not gotten much sleep on this trip.  I looked across the room at the incoming planes.  They seemed to land in bunches, three, four or five at a time.  Between the roar of the jet engines, I thought I still heard the band.  Were they saying goodnight?  No, they were strumming another dance tune into action.  David decided to step into action himself.

 

I tiptoed to the foot of Summer’s bed.  “Summer,” he whispered.  He waited a few seconds.  “Summer?”  No response.

 

I walked back across the room and felt around the base of the chair for my pants.  I picked them up and they didn’t seem especially wet, more damp than anything else.  I sat in the chair and pulled on my pants, clasping the belt buckle in one hand so that it wouldn’t clang and wake up Summer.

 

I let himself out of the hotel room and locked the door behind me.  As I did so, I heard the band announce that they had just performed their last song.  “Perfect!” I thought while I walked down the hall to the lift.

 

By the time I got to the bar, several people had left and the band members had stored away their instruments.  I plopped down onto a barstool.

 

“So, you are back?” the bartender asked.

 

“Yes, I am.  And I’m still in the same predicament.”

 

“Well, until you leave Germany and return, this is still your first time here in this hotel.  As you say, there is a first time for everything.  Everything!” the bartender exclaimed as he placed a beer in front of me.  “Here, this one is for you.  It is on me.  It was actually ordered by a man who just left but I am giving to you anyway.”

 

One of the band members stepped up to bar and stood next to me.  He nodded at me.  “So, we never saw you dance on the floor.  Did you not like the music?”

 

I smiled weakly. “Oh, yeah, well, you guys are fine.  I just don’t have anyone to dance with.”

 

“That is no excuse.  There were plenty of dance partners here tonight.  You could have picked any one of them for a dance.  I think you just did not like the music…”  I started to speak but he went on.  “No, no, that is okay, I am just kidding with you.  I don’t really care if you like my music or not.  Dieter here will pay me either way, won’t you, Dieter?”

 

The bartender turned to face me.  “Did you hear someone speak?  Do you know anyone who shows up an hour late but still wants the same money?  I don’t think I would pay someone like that.  Would you?”

 

I shrugged.

 

“Of course, you are the guy who is a million miles away from home, who thinks that being a goody two-shoes may or may not have to do with your work, your wife, your family and all that other stuff.  I say just drink beer and forget it.  But I bet you are still debating yourself about sleeping with the woman in your room upstairs.”

 

“I…uh…are you going to pay this guy or not?  Even though he was an hour late, I bet you still sold your quota of drinks.”

 

“Yes, that may be true but he did not know that before he was late.  You see, there always consequences for our actions.  For me, I lose a few customers early in the evening because there is no band as promised.  It is not for me or him to say that their music drew in more customers later on or got the same customers to order more beer.  Or even, the early customers may have been driving by later on, heard the music and brought back more friends with them.  I cannot say that the band had anything to do with the sale of beer.  It could just have easily been the rainy weather that forced people into here when they would rather have sat at a biergarten in town.”

 

“So you’re saying that you’re not going to pay me a share of tonight’s good time?” the band guy asked, sounding pissed off.

 

“No, I am saying that this customer here can sit and drink one beer with me or he can drink six beers with me or he can even go somewhere else to drink beer but when he goes back up to his hotel room, there will be a woman sleeping in the bed next to him who is not his wife.”

 

“So that is not my problem.  Pay me now or I will never come back.”

 

“Are you serious?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Even after I pay you sometimes when no customers show up?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Well, then don’t waste my time anymore.  Pack up your stuff tonight and leave.”

 

The bells tolled 12:30.  I counted on my fingers and figured I had about five and a half or six more hours before Summer would get up.  I looked up to see the band leader hurry over to his bandmates and make big gestures.  “Oh, to be young, stupid and invincible again,” I thought.

 

==============================

 

We finished our meals and I ordered dessert – ice cream with strawberry topping.

 

When the dessert arrived, I looked down at it and saw not a sumptuous end to dinner but an oblong lump of frozen cow cream covered with high fructose corn syrup mixed with soggy, pureed strawberries.  I smiled, internally laughing at how quickly I could turn a simple dinner car meal into a disappointment when what was really important was the few scant hours I got to spend relaxing on a train with someone I could trust, amazingly enough a person I had seen for the first time that day.

 

“That looks good,” Summer said, her eyes moving from the ice cream to my eyes.  My first impulse was to look for another spoon on the table and offer her a bite.  I then saw that I had the only spoon.  I took a bite.  It tasted just as wan as I expected it to.  I could offer her a bite using my spoon but then I’d be offering her a bite of something that I didn’t really like.  If somehow she could read my mind or read my thoughts on my face, then what would she think?  After all, it is just dessert.  But then, are there cultural differences at work as well?  Even if Summer read my thoughts, would she understand the rationalization?  Would it be a natural reflection of my German ancestors?  I decided to eat the whole thing to prevent Summer from having to eat any of it.  I even ate the crunchy freeze-dried pieces of strawberry pressed into the sides of the ice cream.  By the time I finished, I knew two things.  One, I would not eat dessert on the train again and two, Summer would probably not expect me to share my food with her.

 

==========================

 

Instead of taking down their stage equipment, the band got out their instruments, turned the volume all the way up and started playing old German polkas.  They were on their third horrible rendition of traditional German music by the time Dieter stepped around the side of the bar and flipped the power switch.

 

“If you do not go home now, I will get the polizei to provide a personal escort to your private jail.”

 

Dieter walked back to the bar.  “So, it is now 10 minutes before I close the bar.  Do you stay here and drink more beer with me?  You can drink it free.  You will be my defense when the band decides to attack!”  Dieter laughed.  “Maybe that will convince you to go back up to the hotel room!”  Dieter bent over as he guffawed with laughter.  A few seconds later, he stood up.  His eyes lit up as he looked past me.  “Hallo.  Who is this?”

 

I swiveled the barstool around to follow his stare.  Summer walked toward me.

 

“So, David, are you not going to go to bed?” she asked.

 

“Summer, this is Dieter,” I said, sweeping my arm around in the air.  “Dieter, this is Summer.  She is the account manager I mentioned to you earlier tonight.”

 

“Ah, very good.  So you are the person who causes him to have to fly all the way over to Germany while his wife has to be alone with her sorrow at the loss of her brother?”

 

“Was?”

 

“So you know nothing about this?”

 

“Nein.”

 

Dieter turned to me.  “You see, this is the source of your problem.  You do not share your personal troubles with people who should know more about you.  I have seen it too many times.  You get your real problems off your chest and the small ones disappear.  Otherwise, you will never get to sleep at night.”  Dieter nodded and winked at me.

 

The bells struck 1 a.m.  Dieter looked at Summer.  “Well, it is time I have to close the bar.  If you wanted to join your friend in a beer, you have a problem.  Or you could say that people like to drink beer to celebrate summer but as we know, Summer never gets to drink beer with them!”  Dieter snorted.  “If Summer’s here, the fall is far behind.”  Dieter walked away and turned toward the band.  “HEY, I SAID OUT!”

 

I looked at Summer and rolled my eyes at Dieter’s puns.  “You ready to go?”

 

“I don’t know.  Maybe I would like to stay here and be insulted some more.”

 

“Well, no offense but I think Summer in Bavaria may be overrated.  Or on a day like this, ready for the fall.”  I raised one eyebrow, indicating it was not my best pun.

 

“I can tell you that there is always rain around Summer and rain cools down Summer.  So since the rain is over, maybe we can cool down on the puns and get you upstairs so I can try to get some sleep.  I cannot stay asleep, wondering if you leaving the door unlocked or perhaps fallen down the steps unnoticed.”

 

The bells tolled 1:15.  Summer grabbed my arm and pulled me off the barstool.  “You are almost as bad as my baby.  Only instead of eat, eat, eat, you drink, drink, drink.  I will drag you upstairs and lock the door but don’t think I will tuck you in.  You can sleep on the floor or wherever.  I just want some sleep!”

 

I let himself be led to the lift.  “And what do I want?” I asked himself.  “I really just want to know if my wife’s mental recovery is going okay but I’m afraid to ask.”  I sighed with relief.  Somehow, I knew my wife would be fine.  When we got off the lift, I laughed quietly to myself, hearing the band had somehow started up again and were singing a bad version of “Let Me Love You All Night Long.”  I wondered if there was a song called, “Let Me Worry All Night Long.”

 

 

 

Chapter 26

 

Eleanor called me in the morning to say that she and Bjorn would be able to meet me the next day near Erding at the Alterding train station.  I had not planned to have a day to do nothing.  Although I was in Germany and was on the company dime, so to speak, I felt ill.  Not so much a physical illness.  More like it was a day for working on healing myself mentally, not engaging folks socially, so I could have a day to meditate on my inner self and what, if anything, I can do to better understand why I was dredging up all the same horrible, world-ending feelings I had had when my girlfriend, Renee, died.  She and I were in the fifth grade at the time.  So something like thirty-three years have passed since then, but the feelings were fresh once again.

 

I killed time.  In other words, I checked email, surfed the Web for a few hours, showered, skipped shaving, and headed down to the hotel bar for a drink.

 

“Hallo.  May I help you?”

 

“Yeah, I’ll take whatever Erding beer you have on tap.”

 

“Sehr gut.  Would you like something to eat?”

 

“Not yet.”

 

I sat at the bar and looked around.  It was a typical business day at the hotel bar/restaurant, with only one or two people sitting at tables.  At one of the tables, I spotted a familiar face.  Or at least I thought he looked familiar.  I could swear it was an old buddy of mine from college, Vincent, who also happened to settle down in Huntsville.

 

I accepted the beer from the bartender.  “Excuse me.  Do you see that fellow over there?  Can you make a Long Island Tea and take it over to him and say it is compliments of a friend from the Copper Cellar?”

 

“The ratskeller, you mean?”

 

“Ah, no, but I know what you mean.  No, the COPPER CELLAR.”

 

“Copper cellar?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Danke schoen.  I will.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

While I sat there, I pondered death, trying not to think about my own for once but think about Renee and Junior, instead.  I do not expect to find a pattern in the activities of the universe to say that an omnipotent being is trying to tell me something by taking two important people away from me at two different points in my life.  I can accept the pure randomness of the timing of the deaths of Renee and Junior.  I just wondered if I could speak with them right now, they’d probably say I needed to live a little bit more and quit waiting for the rest of my life to happen.

 

A few minutes later, Vincent walked up.

 

“Man, what a coincidence,” Vincent said, shaking my hand.  “So what brings you to this hole in the wall?”

 

“Business.  How about you?”

 

“The same.  So what are you doing at a bar in the middle of the day?  I bet your company didn’t send you all the way over here to drink fresh German beer.”

 

“But why not?”  I smirked and Vincent snickered, too, at the thought of company paid-for drinks.  “Seriously, I came here to help Cumulo on a problem with their new server line.”

 

“Cumulo?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“No kidding.  I was here to see them, too.  I gave a training session to them on the software they’re installing on the new EverEl server blade system.”

 

“Hey, that’s the same one.  Pretty funny, huh?”

 

“Yeah. So whatcha been doing?  I mean, why aren’t you working right now?”

 

“Oh, well, I’ve finished up and have a day and half to kill.  I’m meeting some friends tomorrow for a day in Munich and just relaxing today.”

 

“Well, I fly out in about an hour and a half.  Since we’re so close to the airport, I thought I’d just sit here in this hotel bar for a little peace and quiet.  Kinda nice, isn’t it?”

 

“Yep.  So how’re your kids?”

 

“They’re great.  Cain is ten and he’s doing really well in school.  My ex is screwing me over and not helping out with payments for Cain’s therapist but other than that it’s going great for him.”

 

“And Ashley?”

 

“Ashley’s eight.  Can you believe it?”  I shook my head.  “Of course, she’s getting super grades.  We’ve never worried about her.  Did you know my ex got remarried?”

 

“No, I didn’t.  Anyone I know?”

 

“I don’t think so.  He’s a guy named Brian Chipmunk.”

 

I was in the middle of taking a sip and spilled my beer.  “Brian who?”

 

“Some hotshot.  He claims he’s going to make her the richest woman in the world, next to Bill Grates’ wife.  I think my ex is just trying to rub it in that she’s whoring herself for some guy who has more money than me.  That bitch was always about the money.  I bet you didn’t know that.”

 

“No, I didn’t.  So, how did Carol meet Brian?  Was it at her church?”

 

“Hell, if I know.  I don’t give a fuck.  I haven’t met the guy and don’t care to.”  Vincent downed the Long Island Tea and ordered another.  “Gotta loosen myself up before I get on the plane.  God, how I hate those long, crowded flights back to the US.  Of course, my company has to save money and send us via cattle class.”

 

“I know what you mean.  But I think my company will spring for business class, if I insist on it, ’cause it’s over an eight-hour flight.”

 

“That’s cool.  So how are you and Karen doing?”

 

“Oh, all right.  Did you know that her brother died?”

 

“No. I’m sorry to hear it.”

 

“Thanks.  She’s not talking about it a whole lot but I know it does bother her.”

 

“What about you?  I bet you’re taking this pretty hard.”

 

“Well, yes and no.  I’m participating in a novel writing ‘contest’ this month, so I’m trying to use my writing skills to work through the healing process.  This morning, I just surfed the Web, looking back on some of the artists who have influenced me, included the band you introduced me to, the Dead Kennedys.”

 

“Cool.”

 

“Perhaps, after spending this morning going through the Internet looking at some of the artwork that influenced my thinking years ago, such as J.G. Ballard, William S. Burroughs, RE/Search magazine, Jello Biafra, and the Dead Kennedys, I should no longer be surprised that as a human being, my only desire is to find something to strongly engage me…to entertain me…to keep me occupied and prevent me from taking my life out of sheer boredom.”

 

“Perhaps.”

 

“Perhaps not.  It’s been nice coming to Europe recently and seeing what other cultures are like.  As always, I have nothing to keep me rooted to this spot except the perceived fear that I will not be able to survive in a foreign environment that excludes contact with my wife, mother, father and sister.  In other words, the rest of the world outside my family and friends is quicksand into which I would quickly drown and disappear.”

 

“I don’t know about that.  I run into friends over here all the time.  Just like you and me now.”

 

“Well, that’s another interesting thought I’ve had.  What if I’m invisible to others?  Well, no, that’s not a question.  It’s a fact.  I am invisible to all but my friends and family and vaguely remembered by others I’ve met throughout my life.  So, if I come over here, it’s like I don’t really exist unless I run into folks like you.”

 

“Well, you’ve got a point.  By the way, did you do a lot of drinking last night?”

 

“Well, a little bit.  I don’t know, I guess no matter what I may think or say, I am here because of me and that’ll have to do when I don’t have you guys around.”

 

“Well, don’t drink too much today.  I’d say you just have a basic case of the hangovers.  Hey, I’ve got to go.  Call me when you get back to Huntsville, will you?”

 

“Sure thing.”

 

So maybe I just had a hangover.  But no, this feeling had been going on a long time, for months.  I walked back to the hotel room.  I needed to sit and think, try to catch up on my writing, and didn’t want any interruptions.

 

 

 

Chapter 27

 

The fact that I’m sitting here in this hotel room is a positive thing.  My command of the English language, slightly better than average on the best of days, is less than that today.  I feel like I can’t speak, like viscous fluids have filled my head and are keeping me from saying or doing anything.  And yet the pain in my mind is driving me mad for I do have a lot on my mind that I want to get out.  For instance, I am of two minds.  First of all, I want to complete my “novel”.  I want to say that I took the challenge of NaNoWriMo and met the challenge head-on, writing an honest-to-goodness first draft of 50,000 words in 30 days or less.  Secondly, and most important, I feel that I haven’t paid enough attention to my wife during her silent suffering.  Would I be able to do both and at the same time, find a way to self-discovery, learning that that the differences between Karen, her brother and I can be worlds apart and yet be able to…what?  I don’t know.  Be able to care a bit more each day about the world we’ve all lived in?

 

Although my wife’s brother was not a close friend, we still shared the desire to do well, to give our families what they needed to survive into the future.  Unfortunately, my brother in-law is no longer here, no longer living, that is.  He died on the 28th of June at 2:14 p.m., after what appeared to be cardiac arrest.  Blood clots in his lungs and other parts of his body prevented him from being able to pump enough oxygen-carrying blood through him.  When I saw him at the hospital the night before he died, he was taking very shallow breaths.  His wife, Louann, thought he was doing better the next morning, having been able to sit up.  Then sometime after lunch he started coughing, couldn’t catch his breath, and then his eyes rolled back in his head.  Louann screamed for a nurse.  The staff came in and revived him.  They rushed him from the regular hospital room to CCU.  On the way, Junior squeezed Louann’s arm and told her he was okay.

 

Louann called Karen at some point during this time, probably after Junior was placed in CCU.  According to my cell phone log, Karen called me at 13:37.  I was just finishing up a late lunch at a Sonic drive-in.  She told me that Junior had been placed in CCU, that Louann was very upset, and Karen was on her way to the hospital.  I asked if I should join her and she told she’d let me know if I needed to come.

 

At 14:24, Karen called me to tell me that Junior hadn’t made it.  I told her I was on my way to the hospital.  She asked me to call my mother in-law’s minister in Hogtown, to get his assistance in telling Mrs. Ferris about the death of her son.  I finished up a couple of tasks at work that would allow me to take the rest of the week off.  I then tried calling the minister’s house and got the answering machine.  On the way to the hospital, I called the Hogtown Presbyterian Church office and reached the minister’s wife, telling her that Junior had died and that we wanted her husband’s assistance to help.  I gave her my cell phone number and asked her to get her husband to call me back after he’d finished a consultation with someone in his office.

 

I can think of a lot a little details right now, and as usual, do not feel like writing them down, knowing that I’ll forget them in the future; despite their insignificance (like telling the minister’s wife that my cell phone battery was running out), they would contribute to my remembrance and full understanding of the day’s events.  The only important thing that matters is that Junior died.  All else truly pales in comparison.

 

At the hospital, luckily Karen was in the lobby talking with a couple of women from Louann’s church.  We went back up to the “Consultation Room” where Junior and Albert were sitting.  I still recall lots of ABC (Adobe Baptist Church) folks hanging around, all of them part of Louann’s church family, but giving myself a feeling of being crowded in.  Neither Karen nor I are used to being around a lot of people, especially strangers, when we need time to soak in the emotions of loss.

 

I wasn’t at the hospital when Louann, Albert and Karen got the news of Junior’s death so I did not see their first reactions.  So what I remember most is when LouEllen came to the hospital, looked at her mother asking, “What’s the matter?” and then bursting out loud when she found out about her father’s death.  Since I’m writing this for myself right now, I can selfishly tell myself that I didn’t feel like I deserved to be in the room with them.  They are such a loving family and I am such a cynical, sarcastic clownish guy, I realized just how little a comforting person I am.  I couldn’t look any of them in the eye during that time.  I was frozen in place, looking down at a crumpled piece of paper in my hand, covered with the scrawled-down, nearly illegible, minister’s phone numbers.

 

“Brother Phillip” and “Brother Luke” (senior ministers at ABC) came into the room at some point to comfort them and have prayers.  So did other folks, Louann’s best church friend being the one I remember the most.

 

The whole afternoon at the hospital was beyond surreal.  In fact, I don’t even know what surreal means anymore.  I’m sure that it includes the adjective “unfair”.  Eventually, we went back up to the CCU room where Junior’s body still lay dead in bed.  His face was smooth, devoid of wrinkles.  His jaw lay askew, off to one side.  He had a several-day old beard.  Just as I had noticed the day before when he was alive, he had much less hair on his head than I had seen a few months before (I am more aware of men losing hair, now that it has been shown that hair loss is attributable to heart and blood circulation problems).  I thought about touching him to say goodbye but decided I didn’t deserve to say goodbye to such a God-fearing, family-oriented man.

 

Later, after Louann had signed release forms (including an organ donor form), I stood in the hallway with the nurse while the rest of the family – Karen, Louann, Albert and LouEllen – saw Junior’s body in the room one more time.  The nurse explained to me that even though Louann had signed an organ donor form, about the only thing they could take were the bones and maybe some ligaments or tendons, because most of the tissue would be full of the drugs that had been pumped into Junior’s body over the last couple of days.

 

I sit here writing about the day Junior died when I had hoped to be able to sit down and write about anything else.  But I need to remember.  If not for anyone else at least for me to look back and say that Junior was a man who lived each day as if it was his last.  No regrets.  Doing what he believed.  Sigh…

 

The rest of the week after Junior’s death had been a blur, more so for Louann, I’m sure.  We spent time on Thursday and early Friday planning for the funeral, visiting Maybelle Mills Cemetery to pick out plots, going to the funeral home to pick out a coffin and plan the memorial service, visiting Dr. Larson (Brother Luke) at ABC to plan the funeral service and have a heart-to-heart talk about the days/weeks/months ahead.  That Friday evening, family gathered at the Optimist Funeral Home to receive friends and family (including Karen’s and my favorite couple from Kingfisher Presbyterian Church; some of Karen’s coworkers; my favorite former employee and his wife; others who I should remember but can’t).  Saturday was the funeral service at ABC and subsequent burial at the cemetery.  Saturday night, Karen and I took my parents and sister on a tour of Big Cove and then had a late snack at Nippon Restaurant – Roger and Nina were such gracious hosts to spend time with us, feeding the fish in the atrium.  Sunday, Karen and I sat with her mother at Louann’s house while Louann and her kids went to church.  We also visited with Louann’s family, who showed up at the house after Louann had left.  The next night, Karen and I went to see the movie, “The Devil Wears Prada”.  The next day, Karen rested in bed watching TV while I can remember doing very little but sitting in front of the other TV.  I watched the movie, “Before Sunset”, which triggered this writing session, remembering the past day with Summer.  After watching the TV, I think I went out in the warm sunroom with the cats sleeping in the sofa across the room from me, all of us listening to the gurgle of the waterfall outside and the music playing from a nearby wireless speaker.  Pretty much the same thing I always do to relax and meditate at home.  Did I burn incense?

 

I do remember one thing that day that took my mind off of Junior’s death.  I saw a small hawk sitting in the branches of the fig tree that grows over the waterfall next to our house.  The hawk had been there the day before, also.  Did it sit waiting to pounce on a bird sipping water from the base of the waterfall?  There was a turtle that lived in the upper part of the waterfall – I wonder if it has fallen prey to the hawk.  I never saw the turtle again.  I hope it was not eaten but if it was, such is the way of life.  I guess the hawk had to teach its children to hunt for food because there were two juvenile hawks in a nearby tree.  The parent hawk was bigger, brown with a white chest, while the other two were mottled brown and white birds.

 

The wooded hill behind our house is slowly being divided up into housing areas for humans.  We live on the northeast end.  A subdivision at the southern end of the hill was built a year ago and now roads from the subdivision are being extended into the woods.  Perhaps the construction/destruction is pushing the animals this way, and thus the hawks are forced to hunt for food around the backyard pond.

 

After listening to the accolades that Junior received for his dedication to what he loved – God, family, work – I have pondered my life’s record and what I would be remembered for.  I’m not a big participant in any part of north Alabama society so I expect low participation in my funeral, and thus, little public record to go over.

 

So what do I want to remember of my life in the days/weeks/years ahead?  I have spent the majority of my life since high school performing functions that were not my desires.  In other words, my adulthood has been more compromise than personal promise.  In my brother in-law (and in many of my fellow Eagle Scouts), I have seen the example of a person who led a life full of integrity.  In the newspapers and TV news channels, in my work life, and in most other places, I have seen more than my share of people who have exhibited no central guiding set of moral values or desire for integrity.  What I have figured out is that we are born with an internal set of rules that changes very little.  I am the same person I remember being when I was four or five years old.  I remember looking at kids beside me in kindergarten and Sunday school, being able to pick out those who cared for and enhanced a personal belief system tied to the church.  I have no way of knowing how much was nurture or nature.  A mixture of both, to be sure.  At an early age and even to this day, I fascinate myself with the ability to think thoughts incongruous with a way of life that ensures the best path to a long, safe passage to the end of a long life.

 

 

 

Chapter 28

 

 

“You know, people are going to say I am repeating myself…but…I…SIGH!  You see, I think it must be my fault.”

 

“You think so?” Darlene asked in her syrupy, Southern drawl, while ringing up a man’s haircut on the register.  “That’ll be 12 dollars.”

 

“Well, it must be so.  Otherwise, the legends would be true.”

 

“And if they are…”

 

I handed her a $20 bill, slightly brushing her fingers as she pulled the money from his hand.  “Then anything is possible,” I continued.  “Even an omniscient being…God and all that.  Hell, even your astrological predictions.”

 

Darlene pulled the hair from her eyes and winked at me, “Perhaps anything is possible.”

 

“If that’s the case, then God help us all.”

 

“Help us?”

 

“Yes, because only a fool would want to live without protection in a world full of creatures with no end to their mischievousness.”

 

“Only a fool?  Honeycakes, you don’t even know what you’re missing.”  She handed me eight dollars.

 

I looked down at the money.  I pocketed the fiver, folded the three dollar bills and handed them to her.  As I did so, I looked up at Darlene and smiled, but then suddenly winced.

 

“What’s the matter, pumpkin?”

 

I stood motionless.  I stared in the mirror behind Darlene, seeing what looked like a hollow depression in Darlene’s back.

 

 

Lake Storsjön, located in the northwestern province of Jämtland, Sweden, was once said to be host to the Storsjöodjuret, a lake monster.  According to Wikipedia, “the first description of a sea creature in Storsjön was made in a folk-lore tale by a vicar in 1635. A common interest was not sparked until the 1890s, however. After several reports, an enterprise of locals was founded to catch the monster, even drawing the support from King Oscar II. Since then hundreds of monster spottings have been made. No scientific results have been made however, but the supporters have never lost faith.

 

“It is described as a serpentine or at least reptilian creature with a dog’s head, and it is said to be about 6 meters long. Some say it has humps. Some people describe the creature as a snakelike animal with a dog’s head and fins on its neck.

The ruthless attempts to capture the animal had upset many people, and in 1986 the Jemtia county administrative board declared the still unverified animal (having become something of a tourist attraction) to be an endangered species and granted it protected status. However, it was removed from the list in November 2005.”

 

 

 

A year later, on a relatively warm night in early November 2006, in a small group of rocks on the shore of Lake Storsjön, a council meeting was called to order.

 

“Enough is enough!” shouted a troll.  “I can’t take much more of this abuse.  It’s one thing to completely ignore our existence anymore but it’s another thing entirely to say the Storsjöorduret is not worth protecting.”

 

“Here, here!” the Storsjöorduret said in agreement, splashing its tail in the shallow edge of the lake.

 

Conversations of excited voices drowned out her voice at first.  She tried to get their attention but a recent case of laryngitis was still making it difficult for her to talk.  She stood up, reached behind her back and pulled out a gavel.  She gazed around the group and not one troll, fairy, elf or tomte was paying attention to her.  Torborg smashed the head of the gavel on top of the tree stump in front of her.  A hollow boom rang out among the rocks.  Everyone turned to look at her and stopped talking.

 

“Thank you for being quiet.  Now, I agree with Stig that what the humans did was deplorable.  At the same time, I see this as a great opportunity.  I was given a secret by a human named Brian Chipmunk that many of the humans are gathering in Tyskland…”

 

“Tyskland?” asked a rather hairy ape-like being.

 

“…including some of the provinces such as Brandenburg and Bavaria.  I’m sorry, Sasquatch, what did you say?”

 

“What was the country you mentioned?”

 

“Oh, I’m sorry.  You’re new here, aren’t you?”  Torborg nodded to Sasquatch and an American Indian ghost, “Well, for you folks across the Atlantic, Tyskland is our word for what you call Germany.”

 

“Cool.  Thanks.”

 

“No problem.  Now where was I?  Oh yeah, you see, with all these humans gathered, they’ll be primed for information about what’s going on.  Humans are quite amazing when they bunch up.  It’s like a bunch of bees in a hive, all excited about the prospect of a field of newly-opened flowers.  They all want to take off and get the nectar.  If we can…  Yes, what is it, Trind?” Torborg asked a rather heavyset female dwarf holding up her hand.

 

“Uh, does this mean we’re going to get honey from the humans?”

 

“Honey?  No, I can’t say that we’d be doing that.  Why?”

 

“Well, if they’re all flying off to the field of flowers, I just thought maybe they were going after some clover.  There’s nothing like good, fresh clover honey…”

 

“No, no.  I’m not talking about anyone getting any honey.  It’s just a figure of speech, that’s all.”

 

“Oh, well, I see.  Would we be eating them, then?”

 

“No, I don’t think we would.”

 

Trind looked down at the ground, rather glum.

 

Torborg rolled her eyes.  “Okay, Trind, we might find one or two of them for you to nibble on.”

 

Trind looked up with a big smile on her face, drool oozing out of side of her mouth, and clapped her hands.  “Oh goody!”

 

“Not right now, though.”

 

Trind frowned.

 

“For goodness sake, Trind, did you not eat dinner tonight?”

 

“No, Father said we had a big meeting to attend and had to miss supper.  Are you sure there’s not a small human I could snack on right now?”

 

Torborg turned to a group of nasty-looking trolls who were napping along the shore.  “Hey fellows!”  The only response was snoring.  “Could someone smack those guys on the head?”

 

Sasquatch picked up a rock and threw it at the trolls, knocking one of them into the water. Storsjöorduret sucked it into his mouth and spewed it onto shore next to Torborg.

 

“What the devil?” asked the troll Helmar, while picking himself up off the ground.

 

“Helmar, do you have any foodstuff in your bags?”

 

Helmar nodded his head and looked around.  “Well, if I could figure out where I was sitting.”

 

“Over here.”  Everyone turned to look at Hjalmar, standing next to a burlap sack.  Hjalmar reached into the sack and pulled out a half-eaten leg of meat.  “Not sure what this is but it’s yours if you want it, Trind.”

 

Trind rumbled over and grabbed the leg from Hjalmar.  She sniffed the raw flesh before taking a big bite.  “Tastes Ukrainian to me.  Or maybe some human from the Ural Mountains.  Hard to say, exactly, because Helmar’s stench is all over it.”  Everyone laughed.

 

“Okay, folks, now that Trind’s been taken care of, let’s get back to the matter at hand.  Recognition!”  The crowd murmured.  Torborg raised her fist in the air.  “Respectability!”  The crowd hummed a little louder.  “And more importantly, our fair share of tourists!”  The crowd cheered in unison, “Fresh food!  Fresh food!  Fresh food! Fresh food!”

 

Torborg banged her gavel.  “That’s right!  But first, we’ve got to make a plan.  Who here knows anything about how the humans communicate with each other when they’re not together?”  Everyone stopped moving.  “No one?  You mean we’ve lived among these awkward animals for hundreds of years, watching them tear down our forests and cover our rivers and not one of you knows how they coordinate their activities.”

 

“How about you?” someone yelled anonymously.

 

“Me?”

 

“Yeah!” several people said at once.

 

“Why do I have to be the one who knows all this stuff?” she retorted.  “Is it not sufficient that I spend all my time keeping track of you?  Do you think I have any time left after I maintain the roll, recording our births, deaths, address changes, and loss of territory?  Do I have to do everything?”

 

“Why not?” asked a gnarly, old giant between puffs on a long pipe.  “Before you and your mother came around, we were just happy to creep around, hiding from the humans, who’d rather set traps and kill us or shoot us if they saw us in the woods.  With all your lists and noisemaking, you might as well put targets on our backs and place us out in the middle of the road.  I say we put you in the middle of a human settlement and let you figure it all out on your own.  We’ll keep your lists for you.”

 

“For safekeeping, of course.”

 

“Of course.”

 

“Until I come back.”

 

“IF you come back,” the giant emphasized.  Several grunts, snorts and head-nodding indicated the rest of the crowd agreed with the giant.

 

“Well, Lage, if I take on your challenge, and if I come back, you will be the first woodfolk I visit.”

 

“And you, dear huldra, will be welcomed into our home, as long as no humans are on your heels.”

 

“Okay, I will consult with Yngve, my friendly will o’ the wisp, to see if he can put my spirit into the mind of a vulnerable human.  I will learn the ways of these strange animals and see if there is some way for them to be more attracted to us.  The more of them we can get to come our way, the more fresh food and better protection we will have.”

 

Everyone chanted, “Fresh food!  Fresh food!  Fresh food!”

 

“Yes, yes!  Meeting adjourned!” Torborg yelled, banging the gavel one last time.

 

= = = = =

 

I stood on the train tracks and waited for Eleanor and Bjorn.  While I was waiting, some people bought tickets and joined me on the platform.  I overheard some speaking German, which was expected, of course.  But I also heard three guys speaking American English.  When I looked at them…well, I guess I was really staring at them…they walked away from me to the other end of the platform.  I call it a platform but it was just a slightly-raised concrete sidewalk next to the track.  The sign across the tracks said “Altenerding”.  Eleanor and Bjorn said they’d join me at 8:45 and yet here it was 8:55 and they were not there yet.  Oh well, I tried not to worry.  I would depend on the German train to be as late as everyone else expected it to be.

 

A few minutes later, Eleanor and Bjorn arrived.  “Sorry we’re late!” Eleanor yelled as she came charging in my directions.  “We were confused about who was going to pick up whom.  Let’s get our tickets.  The train should be here soon.”

 

 

After we boarded the train, Eleanor and Bjorn sat next to each other and I sat in a seat facing Bjorn.  I had not really known Bjorn that well.  I knew he was Swedish, had gone to Japan to work and married a Japanese woman.  They had a baby not too long ago.  I picked up this knowledge after I interviewed him for a job in Huntsville.  Luckily for him, I couldn’t hire him.  I say luckily because the job position was eliminated in a general layoff about a year back and I had to lay off the person I hired.

 

“So, Bjorn, are you moved in yet?”

 

“Well, I don’t have my full set of papers so I can’t get a bank account.”

 

“But of course.  It’s always paperwork with our company, isn’t it?  What about your wife and baby?”

 

“I…my in-laws are happy to keep them for a while.  I don’t want them to come over here until I have a permanent place to live.  I’m in a hotel right now.”

 

“Okay.  So, tell me, Bjorn, as you know I’m interested in moving out of the US.  You have lived in Sweden, Japan and now Germany.  What’s it like to be a Swede in Germany?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Well, you probably grew up with a good understanding of the Swedish culture.  How difficult is it to adopt new languages, having to learn the aspects of cultural meaning through the definition of words?”

 

“It’s not too bad.  Most cultures are very similar.  At least the ones I’ve been exposed to.  Plus, most everyone can speak English.”

 

“I see.  So you learned English growing up?”

 

“Yes.”

 

I noticed Bjorn was blinking his eyes as if he was bored.  “I’m sorry if I’m bugging you…”

 

“That’s all right.  It’s just a little early in the morning.  I’m still tired.  I was up late working on emails.”

 

“Can you tell me about growing up in Sweden?”

 

“Sure.  What would you like to know?”

 

“Did you play outside a lot?”

 

“Of course we did.”

 

“Did you tell each other ghost stories in the woods or anything like that?”

 

Eleanor cleared her throat.  “Bjorn, I just want to warn you.  I can see the wheels of David’s mind spinning from over here.  He’s got some idea for a story or something and he’s using you to gather facts.  Be careful what you say!”  she said, bursting with laughter.

 

“Oh, that’s all right.  I don’t mind.  It gives us something to talk about.  So, David, what do you mean by ‘ghost stories’?”

 

“Well, when you and your friends were sitting alone together, I’m sure you tried to scare each other with frightful tales.”

 

“Oh, I see.  Yes, we had woodland creatures that we told each other about.”

 

“Perfect.  So what kind of woodland creatures?”

 

“I knew you were going to ask that question.  Let’s see…well, it’s been a long time, of course, but the one I remember the most is the huldra…”

 

At that moment, a young woman turned to look at them and smile.  She was glad to see everything was going according to plan.  She laughed to herself, knowing that as Bjorn described each creature, he was magically calling forth spirits of each creature onto the train.

 

“…the huldra is a seductive forest creature. Other names include the Swedish skogsrå, which means ‘lady or queen of the forest’ and Tallemaja, which translates as ‘pine tree Mary’.”

 

“So what’s so scary about her?”

 

“Well, she looks like a normal Scandinavian model, with long brown hair covering her naked body.  But from behind she is empty.”

 

“Empty?”

 

“Yeah, she is like a skeleton or a hand puppet.”

 

“That’s pretty weird.”

 

“Yes.  She also has a long tail.  We always told each other not to wander too far into the woods because the huldra would drag you into the forest and keep you forever, or maybe even eat you.  That’s what we said when someone would go for a hike and get lost, that the huldra had gotten him and might not give him back.”

 

“That’s a good one.  Anything else?”

 

“Well, I remember the lindworm.  It was sort of a dragonlike creature but it mostly lived around lakes.”

 

“Sort of like the Loch Ness monster?”

 

“Yes, but not nearly as famous.  The only one I can remember is the Storsjöorduret.  But unless you were fishing or something, you didn’t have to worry about it.”

 

“I guess you didn’t fish much.”

 

“No, too cold.”

 

“I see.  Anything else I should know about?”

 

“Well, there was the creature who was like your Santa Claus, only much smaller.”

 

“You mean the elves?”

 

“No, but much like it.  They were the tomte.  The tomte would sneak into your house and do good things for you.  Or it would feed your horses when you were sick.”

 

“Well, that doesn’t sound very scary to me.”

 

“That’s the thing, you know, the tomte would only be nice if you were nice.  So if, for example, your mother told you to do something like clean your room and you didn’t, then the tomte would come in in the middle of night and clean your room but then turn into a giant in the closet and slowly open the door to wake you up and then scare you to death with its big ugly eyes staring at you from the dark.  Or it might whisper to your mother that you’d been misbehaving so she could punish you the next day.”

 

“I can see how that would scare you.  It’s the Santa Claus from Hell.  It would be as if Terminator did the Santa Clause movie instead of Tim Allen.”

 

Bjorn laughed.  “Yes, that’s a good one.”  He turned to Eleanor, who was staring out the window half-asleep.  “Sorry, Eleanor, you wouldn’t get that one.”

 

“That’s okay.  You guys have fun without me.”

 

“So are there any others I should know about?”

 

Bjorn turned back to me.  “Oh, I think the rest of them are like what you have – dwarves, fairies, elves, trolls, giants, will-o-the-wisps…”

 

“What’s a will-o-the-wisp?”

 

“I think you call it swamp gas in the American South.  It’s those lights you see in the deep woods or bogs that you think are moving around.  I don’t think they were really bad.  Just spooky.”

 

“Yep.”

 

“Do you have nacken?”

 

“No, I don’t think so.  What do they do?”

 

“Well, they’re the spirits who live under water who pull you in and make you drown.  At least, that’s what our mothers warned us about when we went swimming.  ‘Don’t stay in the water too long or you’ll wake the nacken and drown.’  We lost a few boys one summer to the nacken.  Don’t know what they were doing but they were all dead when a fisherman found them at a lake near our house.”

 

“Another thing I remember is that trolls steal your babies.  They always warned young mothers not to leave their babies too close to open windows in the summertime because the trolls would steal them and swap them out for troll babies.  I’m not sure but I think some people blamed their baby’s crib death on trolls.  So what about you?  You have any scary creatures in the US?”

 

“Well, I don’t know about scary.  We told ghost stories under the street light in my neighborhood.  It was stuff about dead American Indians, stuff like that.  There were also regular ghosts that lived in people’s houses and walked across the rafters at night, causing the house to creak.  Or monsters hiding underneath the bed and in the closet.  But they didn’t have any names that I can remember.  It sounds like they were just carry overs from European wood creatures.”

 

“Could be.  But didn’t you have a creature that lives in the woods?  When I visited the Huntsville office one time, I saw a TV special about a Canadian who’d caught a film of a wood man.”

 

“Oh, you mean Bigfoot?”

 

“Maybe.  He had a name, though.”

 

“Sasquatch?”

 

‘Yes!  That was it.”

 

Torborg smiled once again.  She was able to call forth almost all her friends, some of whom joined her, hiding in the bodies of the people on the train, and some who went on to Munich.  She told them not to appear in humans until she gave them the signal.

 

= = = = =

 

After we got off the train, Eleanor led us to Marienplatz.  Although not as crowded as summer, there were still a good many tourists wandering about, as well as teenagers who always showed up in Munich on the weekends.  So, too, locals came to take advantage of the crowds and try to make some money.

 

A young couple in traditional Bavarian dress stood below the clock tower, letting people take pictures with them in the hope of making a few Euros.  I snapped a picture of them from a distance and then thought it would be cool to have my picture taken with them to show my father.

 

“Eleanor, do you mind taking a picture of me with those two over there?”

 

“No.  But you realize they’re not doing it for free.  They expect you to give them some money.”

 

“But of course!”  I walked over to the young couple, who had stood up on a fountain at the request of a Japanese man.  “Excuse me.  Can I have my picture taken with you?”

 

“Sure.  Just a moment.  Let us finish with them first.”  The Japanese man handed his camera to his wife and jumped up on the fountain.  After his wife took the picture, he jumped back down.  The young woman reached for my hand to help her down.  When I grabbed her hand, I felt an unusual electrical shock but she didn’t seem to notice or say anything about it.  When she stepped off the fountain, she seemed a lot shorter than I thought.  And even more odd, her skin had an slight green sheen to it and I swore her eyes were slightly pointed.  She smiled at me and the world around me disappeared.  In my mind’s eye I saw an open circle in the woods.  There were fairies dancing around, singing and playing as if the modern world didn’t exist.  I lay down on the grass and looked up at the stars.  It was so peaceful…

 

The young man broke my dream.  “So, where would like us to stand?  Next to the fountain or somewhere else perhaps?”

 

I blinked my eyes a couple of times, feeling disoriented.  “Oh, right here is fine.”  I stood next to the couple while Eleanor took a couple of pictures.  “Thanks,” I said and gave them a couple of Euro coins.

 

 

Eleanor explained that a lot of rallies took place here but they were always peaceful.  She then said she was hungry and wanted to see if there was anything in the open market for us to try.  We walked out of the Marienplatz and around a couple of streets to an area with permanent-looking booths set up.  At the first one, we stopped to look at some of the fruits and vegetables the seller had.

 

I pointed to a small translucent bunch of grape-like fruit.  The middle-aged female vegetable stand seller nodded.  “What are these?”  She shook her head, indicating she didn’t know what I said.

 

Eleanor spoke to her in German and then turned to me.  “They are Johannes berries.  I think you’ll like them.  They’re very tart but delicious at the same time.  Sorry I didn’t recognize them at first.  I had never seen them that clear before.”

 

“No problem.  So the sign there says they’re a Euro, seventy-five?”

 

“That’s right.”

 

I handed the vegetable seller a couple of Euros.  She grabbed them from my hand.  Again, I felt a strange electric shock.  When the seller turned around, her face looked horribly wrinkled and when she smiled at me – or rather, grimaced – her teeth were rotten and her breath foul-smelling.  She actually looked like she had turned into a troll.  She then mouthed words to me that made me wonder if I was having flashbacks or something: “Brian wants to zee you.”  I was beginning to wonder why it was that Brian Chipmunk kept coming up in conversation.  I mean there sure are coincidences in life but this was just a little much.  Was my normal paranoia about people being able to read my mind and talking about me all the time somehow warping into thinking that they were all in cahoots with Brian Chipmunk to come after me?  It just didn’t make sense.

 

As we stepped away from the vegetable stand, we saw that a small oompah band was walking our way and seemed to be ready to play something.  The band leader placed a suitcase on the ground and opened it up.  Inside were CDs and tapes, presumably of the band playing.  I thought my father would enjoy the music so I walked up to the band leader and asked him how much for one of the CDs.  When he leaned over to get a CD, his elbow brushed against mine, sending a shock up my arm.  It sure seemed strange that everyone I touched was shocking me.  Even more strange was the fact that as he stood up, the band leader seemed to grow in height.  He went from being shorter than my 6’1″ frame to standing well over seven feet tall.  It just didn’t seem possible.  Was I dreaming?  I looked around me and no one else took notice.  I handed the man a ten-Euro note and took the CD.  Eleanor and Bjorn nodded at me to follow them over to a nearby coffee shop.

 

Inside the coffee shop, I could see the three Americans I had spotted at the train station.  They acted like they were having a good time so I tried to keep my paranoia radar in check, despite the words from the vegetable seller earlier.  I mean, if my paranoia was real, then these guys would somehow be connected with Brian Chipmunk.  I told Eleanor and Bjorn to order me a coffee of some sort and headed over to the Americans.

 

“Hi.  I’m David Colline,” I said, startling the guys.  “I couldn’t help but notice you at the train station this morning.  Are you guys from America?”

 

“Oh, hey.  Yeah.  I’m Andrew…” said one, holding out his hand.  Getting no further surprise out of me, I felt a shock as I shook his hand.

 

“I’m Thomas,” said another, as I shook his hand and got a shock.

 

As I reached out to shake the hand of the third, who introduced himself as Huey, I noticed that Andrew had grown significantly shorter in stature.  Thomas, too, was shrinking.  And lo and behold, Huey wasn’t much farther behind them.  Not only were they shrinking but their noses and ears appeared to be getting fatter.  I was really looking forward to drinking a coffee and clearing my head, hoping that these illusions were just my lack of caffeine.

 

“David, we’re glad to meet you.  Are you here on business or pleasure?”

 

“Oh, business, I’m afraid, although I do have today as a day off so to speak.  How about you guys?”

 

“Strictly business.  Strictly business.  In fact, we were just having a business meeting.  You don’t mind if we get back to it, do you?  I’m sure you’d like to rejoin your friends over there.”

 

“Sorry.  You’re right.  Nice to meet you.  Have a pleasant time here, if you can, between ‘meetings’ and all.”

 

“So what was that all about?” Eleanor asked as she handed me my mocha latte with a splash of white chocolate syrup and a dash of cinnamon on top of the whipped cream.  “Don’t tell me you know them?” she asked.

 

“No, I don’t.  I just heard their American accents and decided to go over and say hello.  I guess it’s the friendliness of my father in me.  That’s all.”

 

“Are you sure?  You have the most worrisome look on your face that I’ve ever seen.  If this is too much for you, we can cut this day short…”

 

“No!  I’m fine.  It’s just been…well, I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

 

“I’m sure you do.  After we finish our coffees, why don’t we go over to the Frauenkirche.”

 

“What’s that?”

 

“It’s an old church that survived the bombings of World War Two.  It has a great view.”

 

“Sure.  Is that okay with you, Bjorn?”

 

Bjorn nodded.  He was leaning back in the chair, appearing to be getting a quick nap.

 

 

I walked ahead of Eleanor and Bjorn, keeping myself on the lookout for anyone who might be following us or wanting to stare at us for a long time.  I felt comfortable no one was following us, bought us three tickets to see the church and ran on inside.  I assumed Eleanor and Bjorn were behind me but when I got to the elevator at the top of the stairs, I noticed no ringing of footsteps behind me.  By the time the elevator arrived, two German couples had joined me.  We waited for the other folks to get off the elevator and then stepped on.

 

The elevator operator turned to me. “Excuse me, I will explain the history of this church to these folks in German first.  Then I will explain it to you in English.”

 

I nodded my head, wondering if my American-ness was that obvious.  I also tuned the operator out, even as he explained the height of the tower we were in and the height of the one beside us, using a map on the wall as an aid.

 

At the top, we stepped out into the tower room.  There were windows all around, giving a sweeping view of the city.  As both Eleanor and the elevator operator had both told me, there was a law that no building could be built taller than the church towers.  I walked around and glanced out the windows, taking several shots with my camera.  I stopped at a small souvenir stand and bought some postcards, getting them stamped and cancelled in the towers.

 

As I stepped away from the stand, I saw an old woman sitting on a bench by a window.  She was mumbling to herself.  I walked up to the window beside her to hear if she was speaking German.  Within a couple of seconds, she noticed me, grabbed my arm, shocking me, of course, and starting gesturing and talking, pointing to the buildings below us and saying something in a sad voice.  I figured she was describing some of the tough times from the post-war years.  She didn’t look quite old enough to have been an adult during the war.  I looked at her while she talked, fully expecting her to change shape or say something seemingly important to me but she just kept on talking and gesturing, rarely looking me in the eye.  I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking maybe my other illusions had been just that and the coffee had fully woken me up from my occasional habit of daydreaming.

 

After she let go of me, the old woman calmed down.  It was then that I noticed she had changed.  When I first saw her, she was a heavyset old woman.  She was still old, but she had gotten slimmer and her eyebrows were just slightly arched, giving her an elfin appearance.  Would my imagination just go away!

 

I hadn’t noticed that Eleanor and Bjorn were already in the tower with me.  Eleanor walked up and pointed across the room.  The Japanese couple I had seen at Marienplatz were motioning to me.

 

I walked over to them.  “Are you ‘Walker, Texas Ranger’?” asked the Japanese man.

 

“Huh?”

 

“You are American TV actor.  Will you take picture?” he asked, as he snapped a picture of me and then handed me the camera to take a picture of him and his wife.  And yep, he shocked me when our hands brushed each other.  I used hand motions to get them to center themselves on one of the window frames.  I looked through the viewfinder and took a picture.  I swore the Japanese man had gotten smaller and had grown a small white beard.  He motioned to me to take another picture.  I looked through the viewfinder again and noticed the man was wearing a peaked red cap.  My god!  He looked like one of the tomte that Bjorn had described.  I quickly set the camera to review mode and sure enough, there were the pictures of the man changing shape.  I pretended to fumble with the camera, taking the memory card out in the process, and handed the camera back to the Japanese man.  He bowed and thanked me.  I bowed in return and silently thanked him for giving me evidence that my illusions were no hallucinations.

 

 

After we left the tower, Eleanor suggested we go over to the English Garden to see the surfers.

 

“Surfers?”

 

“Yeah, believe it or not, there is surfing in the middle of the city.  I can’t really describe it to you so you’ll have to see it to believe it.”

 

“Yeah,” Bjorn joined in, “this I have to see, too.  I thought surfing was only in the ocean.”

 

While we walked through the city, I enjoyed the various architectural features, including large door arches, and several buildings that looked like they belonged to a different era, of castles and kings and such.

 

Entering the English Garden, I understood what Eleanor had said about it being like Central Park.  Even though it was warm for November, it was still a little on the cool side.  Even so, people were out with their children, sitting on blankets and having meals.  Lovers were walking hand-in-hand.  It was a nice respite from all the crowded buildings.  We walked in and out of the English Garden and eventually found our way over to the surfers.  Sure enough, there were some brave fools surfing some waves that were generated by the rush of water that came out from under a bridge over the East River.

 

I walked down the embankment to get a picture of the surfers, holding onto trees for support.  I reached for one tree and nearly slipped on the wet mud.  A surfer was just stepping out of water and grabbed my leg to keep my feet from sliding.  The electric shock I got was extra strong, I assumed, because he was wet and still had one foot in the water.  I half-expected him to turn into a water creature but as I watched him get in line with the other surfers, nothing seemed to happen to him.

 

I stepped back up the slope to stand beside Eleanor and Bjorn.  We watched the surfers try tricks, flipping around, hopping and other stunts to entertain those of us gathered to watch.  The surfer that had helped me finally got his turn.  He stepped into the water and jumped on his surfboard.  He performed a couple of swift turns and then an arm appeared and pulled the surfer and surfboard into the water.  Although the water was only a couple of feet deep past the waves, there was no sign of the surfer.

 

“Did you see that?” Bjorn exclaimed.

 

Eleanor held her hand to her mouth.  “Yes!  I’ve never seen that before.  He completely wiped out.”

 

“No.  I mean, did you see that hand come out of the water.”

 

I let out a deep breath, fully relieved that I wasn’t completely crazy.  “Yes, I saw it, Bjorn.  Do you all know if there is a drain or something under the water?  Maybe another surfer got trapped and was grabbing for help?”

 

Eleanor gave me her serious look. “And why would that be?  Wouldn’t there be a lot of people down in the water looking around if someone else had fallen in before that guy lost it?”

 

“You’re right, Eleanor.  Bjorn, I know this is going to sound weird but do you think a nacken got him?”

 

“A nacken?  Come on, David, there’s no such thing as a nacken.”

 

“Then you tell me where that guy went.  Look, they’re already way down the river looking for that guy and there’s no sign of him.  Even if he fell, his surfboard would have resurfaced.”

 

“I don’t know, David.  I can’t say I believe in that stuff.  It’s just kids’ stories.”

 

“Well, maybe.  Anyway, let’s get out of here.  I’m getting the creeps.”

 

 

The end of a long, hot November day, after wandering the streets of downtown Munich.  Of all the places to stop and rest, Eleanor, Bjorn and I chose an American cafe, the San Francisco Coffee House, to grab a late evening drink.  Eleanor trotted off to the rest room, and Bjorn stopped in the doorway to look at the crowd so I stood in line with the other tourists, looking up at the menu on the back wall, noticing that all of the ice-based drinks were marked out.  Yes, it was still warm and muggy but here there were no cold ice-cold drinks to cool folks down.

 

I sighed.

 

“So what are you thinking about?” Bjorn asked as he stepped up beside me.

 

 

“What am I sinking about?” I thought and laughed.  I remembered a video Eleanor had played for us on her computer.  In the video, an older man in a uniform pointed out a stack of electronic equipment in a small room to a younger man in uniform.

 

The older man left the room.

 

Then a desperate voice called out, “Mayday!  Mayday!”

 

The young man reached down and pressed a button on a microphone.  “Hello?  This iz the Gherman Coazt Guard.  May I help you?”

 

“Yes!  Yes!  We are sinking!” the voice responded.

 

The young man looked up for a second or two and then spoke into the mike, “What are you zinking about?”

 

 

I looked up at the menu.  “Well, that vanilla cream cake sounds appetizing.”

 

Her face shiny and her pulled-back blonde hair stringy with sweat, a young woman behind the counter said, “I’m sorry.  We are out of the cake.  Can I get you something else, instead?”

 

I looked down into the glass display case to see some old sandwiches and brownies that had obviously been made fresh first thing that morning but suffered the heat like everyone else.  I looked along the counter past the display case and saw that water bottles were stacked up in a cooler.  “Yes!  I’ll take three of those,” I said enthusiastically, pointing to the bottles.

 

The woman wiped her forearm across her brow and nodded.  “Good idea,” she replied with a smile.  “What else?”

 

“Yes, a white chocolate latte…”

 

“Make that two,” Bjorn added.

 

“Okay.  What else?”

 

I shook my head.  “Nothing,” I said as I reached into my pocket and pulled out a 20 Euro bill.

 

“Want me to help pay for this?” Bjorn asked.

 

I shook my head.

 

“What about Eleanor’s water?”

 

“She can owe me.”

 

I handed the note to the woman and lightly brushed her fingers.  We both looked at each other, noticing the shock.  I saw immediately that her face was gorgeous behind my wildest dreams.  She looked at me and batted her eyes, almost in slow motion.  She opened the cash register and counted out my change.  She dropped a coin on the floor to pick it up.  My heart skipped a beat when I saw a tail sticking out behind her.  She put the change back in the drawer, pulled out my 20 Euro note and handed it back to me.  “Courtesy of Brian,” she said in a soft, sensual voice.

 

As I got change, Eleanor returned.  “Can you believe it?  My cell phone number has been turned off by Vodafone.”

 

“What?”

 

“Yeah, isn’t that crazy.  I’ve just spent the last few minutes not going to the bathroom but trying to resolve the issue, instead.”

 

“On a Saturday night?” I asked, handing Eleanor a bottle of water.  “That’s what you get for talking on the phone so much!”

 

“Yeah, like I said, crazy.  What do I owe you?” she asked.

 

“You can just owe me.”  I opened the bottle of water and gulped down the cool liquid.

 

“Sure.  No problem.  Is that it?” she asked, as she started to turn around.

 

“No, I also ordered a couple of lattes.”

 

“Did you get one for me?  Oh, in the meantime, they gave me an alternate number if you need to reach me.”

 

Bjorn leaned forward.  “I’ll get a latte for you, if you want.”

 

Eleanor looked at Bjorn.  “So neither one of you got me a latte?  I see how it goes.”  Eleanor smirked.  “Anyway, I’ll let you know when the other number is back up.”

 

I took another long swig from the water bottle.  “So how does the alternate number work?”

 

“I think it’s some form of voicemail.  The voicemail box is free.”

 

“Hmm…interesting.  Do they have pay phones here?”

 

“Oh, I’ll just use my personal cell phone to dial in.”

 

“You mean it was your work cell phone that went out?  Who cares?  It’s Saturday night.  Who’s going to call it, anyway?”

 

“Well, I thought you might have it mem…”

 

“You know, this water’s filling me up.  I think I’ll go to the bathroom.  Hey, where’s Bjorn?”

 

“I think he already went.”

 

“Well, okay.  Here’s the ticket for the lattes.  I’ll let you have mine if you’ll pick them up.”

 

“Sounds like a plan to me.”

 

 

I stepped into the bathroom, passing Bjorn as he was going out.  “Crowded in there?”

 

“Yep.”

 

I stepped into line behind a couple of guys dressed in yellow and blue at the last urinal, wondering if my bladder would hold.  I then realized the stall door was open so I walked in and lifted the seat to take a pee.

 

One of the guys in the bathroom sang in a German accent, “Sweden sank like a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine.  Sweden sank…”  His voice was soon drowned out by laughter.

 

I laughed so hard I misaimed and briefly peed on the floor before correcting myself.  I was glad to see the Germans and the Swedish were having fun with each other, despite the Germans defeating the Swedish two to nothing in the World Cup match earlier that year.

 

 

I strolled back into the main area and looked around.  Through the back window, I noticed an arm waving at me and saw that Bjorn and Eleanor had found a table outside the back of the coffee house.  I walked out, hearing and then seeing the large water fountain in the middle of a square.  Several tables were perched around the perimeter of the square, some belonging to the coffee house and some to other establishments.

 

“Hey, great spot!”

 

“We thought so.  Here’s your latte.”

 

“I said you could have it.”

 

“Bjorn got me one, too.”

 

“Cool,” I replied, plopping down into a chair.  “This is great.”

 

“Absolutely.  I’ll tell you what, though, I’m sick of this…I’m still getting the runaround and the phone is only one of a long, long list of items.  Ah well.  I’m building character…”

 

“Whoa!  Where did that come from?”

 

“I don’t know.  It’s just that…well…never mind.  So, David, how are you?  I’ve been thinking about you the last couple of days as I know how hard it is to lose a loved one.”

 

“I…it’s…”

 

“It’s no easy road, dealing with the grief.  As I’m sure you’ve heard or know, it’s time, and sometimes a lot of it.  I hope you and your wife can lean on the memories of good and precious times with her brother as you slowly continue life with him gone.  You’ll need to take care of yourself…and her.”

 

“Yeah, David.  If there’s anything we can do.”

 

“Well, you guys have been great today.  I’ve gone long periods without thinking about it. Thanks for your concern…I really appreciate it.  I feel guilty as hell right now, being here, but Karen insisted that I come.  I’m doing what I can for her.  As you say, it takes time to heal.  Karen is also providing emotional support for her sister in-law.  Her sister in-law is just beginning to realize that she’s got some financial burdens to shoulder now that the sole breadwinner is dead and there’s a kid in college.  It’s not going to be easy for her at all.”

 

“Wow, I didn’t know that your brother had…”

 

“Brother in-law,” Eleanor interjected.

 

“Yes, that’s what I meant.  I didn’t know he had children.”

 

“He’s got two.  His oldest graduated from college last month with a degree in computer engineering.”

 

“That’s wonderful.”

 

“Yes, we’re very happy that his father got to attend the graduation ceremonies. He also got to know that his son had just accepted a fulltime job.”

 

“How many did you say he has?”

 

“Oh, just the two.  Hey, do you guys wanna eat the chocolate we bought earlier?”

 

“I thought you were saving it for your office mates back home.”

 

“I was,” I said, looking into the bag as I dug around.  “I think I’ll open this one.  Dolci Pensieri.  Isn’t that a grand name?”

 

“You’re going to open that one?”

 

“Why not?  It’s obvious to me now that I’m not going to live forever.”

 

Eleanor gave me a sympathetic smile.

 

I sipped my latte and noticed something in the shadows.  “Did you see that?” I asked.

 

“What?”

 

“Did you just see a mouse run by the side of the wall there?”

 

Eleanor and Bjorn looked over to where I was pointing.

 

“I don’t see anything.”

 

“Well that proves it then!”

 

“Proves what?”

 

“I’ve lost my mind and haven’t gotten it back.  You know, I literally lost my mind during the time of my brother in-law’s funeral services – I went temporarily insane, so to speak, having to deal with strangers and all their emotional outbursts for personal loss of their friend or coworker or fellow church member, et cetera, knowing how much more they were connected to my brother in-law than I and I had no corresponding words of encouragement to offer them while I was standing there scared to death, so to speak.”  I shook my head, thinking that I saw the mouse again.  “It’s amazing how fragile I am right now, how mortal this makes me feel, seeing that death could be tomorrow and not 30 or 40 years from  now.”  I broke off a piece of chocolate and nibbled at it.  “I can’t control what others think of me so I won’t concern myself with what people would say at my funeral but I sure would like to say I’ve accomplished all my dreams before I died.”

 

Eleanor nodded.  “Who wouldn’t?”

 

“Sure, I’d like to say I owned a Ferrari, the last materialistic goal of mine.  Bjorn, Eleanor knows that I’ve had three of them.  My first two materialistic goals were having been skydiving and living in a foreign country.”

 

Bjorn looked puzzled.  “I thought you were still trying to move to Ireland?”  Eleanor tapped Bjorn’s leg with her foot.

 

I continued.  “Okay, so I’m cheating a little.  For now, I count staying in Ireland and Germany for a few weeks on business as accomplishing that goal.”

 

Bjorn nodded.  “Sounds okay,” he said to me.

 

“I’m still a long way away from completing the only thing important to me – writing my life’s stories.  Guess I better sit down at the keyboard and start typing, huh?”

 

“You do like to write…”

 

“Of course, I know we all die with our last thoughts unspoken but I’d like to get most of the rest of my story ideas down on paper before I die.  I don’t need to be a published writer in a commercial sense but I would like to leave my stories to my friends and family so I can serve as an example to others.  There!  I saw it again.”

 

“I think I did, too.”

 

“Where?” Bjorn asked.  “Oh wait, there it is.”

 

They watched as the mouse timidly hopped from a smaller planter and scampered into a small crack of a granite block at the base of the building beside them.

 

“So, David,” Eleanor asked, “you said you would cheat on your dreams?”

 

“At this point, yeah, I would.”

 

“Well, I know that you’ve just had a rough time with the death of your wife’s brother…”

 

“Yes?”

 

“But you shouldn’t sacrifice your integrity.”

 

“Integrity?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“What’s integrity got to do with it?”

 

“Everything.  I mean, look at our society today.  There are magazines that display…I mean these magazines.  Well, Bjorn, you know what I’m talking about.”

 

Bjorn arched his eyebrows, as if he’d just woken up.  “Did you say something?”

 

“Tell David what we saw last weekend.”

 

“Oh yeah.  We walked into a store where there was a mother and her children standing at the counter and…”

 

“And clearly you could see magazines on display that had naked people on the cover.  And not just naked but obviously advertising sex.”

 

I nodded my head, trying to make a connection.  “And this is tied to integrity, how?”

 

“Well, in a society like this, how can we control what we teach our children?  I mean a mother should have a right to take her kids out shopping with her and to not have her children exposed to that sort of thing.”

 

“So you mean that the mother should be teaching the children that those magazines are unacceptable?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“I don’t agree,” Bjorn said.

 

Eleanor snapped her head around.  “What?”

 

“I mean, what’s the matter with the magazines?  You never said.”

 

“Well, it objectifies women.”

 

“But there were also magazines with men on the cover.”

 

“And I guess it objectifies men, too.  But you must admit there are a lot more of those magazines with women on the front than men.”

 

I scratched his head.  “So what would this woman be teaching her kids?”

 

“Well, that a young man and a young woman should not have to feel pressured to have sex, despite the societal cues for them to.”

 

Bjorn looked from Eleanor to me.  “But sex is natural.”

 

“No doubt about it,” I said.

 

“That’s what I mean, David.  You’re willing to compromise your dreams.  So naturally, someone like you would be willing to compromise a woman’s future dreams in order for you to have sex before she’s ready.”

 

“Huh?”

 

Yes.  It’s a matter of integrity.”

 

“How old are you?”

 

“How old do you think I am?”

 

“It’s a trap, David.”

 

“I can see that.  Hmm…so how old are you?  Well, if I use Bjorn as a comparison.  How old are you, Bjorn?”

 

“Twenty-eight.”

 

I looked at Bjorn’s smooth, light-colored face.  “Well, as a Swedish engineer, you probably don’t get out much.”

 

“Good guess.”

 

“And I know that Eleanor is an outdoors person who likes to climb mountains…”  I leaned over to get a closer look at Eleanor’s face.  I noticed a sprinkling of freckles I hadn’t seen before.  Small hairline wrinkles popped out from the corner of her eyes when she suddenly smiled at me.  “Okay, based solely on the comparison to Bjorn’s face, I’d say you’re thirty-two.”

 

“Pretty close.  I’m thirty-one.”

 

“Eleanor, I appreciate your candor, and respect your perspective on the concept of integrity.  You certainly make me realize how much I have changed through the years, going from an Eagle Boy Scout to who I am today.  I hope that thirteen years from now you can have the same conversation when you are forty-four and the person beside you is thirty-one – I believe that you will be able to look back over the last thirteen years and smile with joy and feel no regret.  I have not been so lucky – although I do not regret my choices (since regret implies the ability to go back and change), I do realize that some of the choices in my life were not the best ones I could have made at the time.  It reminds me of a story my cousin sent me in an email.  It’s one of those Christian feel-good allegories that I don’t always forward on but it definitely applies here.

 

“Years ago, a farmer owned land along the Atlantic seacoast.  He constantly advertised for hired hands.  Most people were reluctant to work on farms along the Atlantic.  They dreaded the awful storms that raged across the Atlantic, wreaking havoc on the buildings and crops.

 

“As the farmer interviewed applicants for the job, he received a steady stream of refusals.  Finally, a short, thin man, well past middle-age, approached the farmer.  ‘Are you a good farm hand?’ the farmer asked him.

 

“‘Well, I can sleep when the wind blows,’ answered the little man.

 

“Although puzzled by this answer, the farmer, desperate for help, hired him.  The little man worked well around the farm, busy from dawn to dusk, and the farmer felt satisfied with the man’s work.

 

“Then one night the wind howled loudly in from offshore.  Jumping out of bed, the farmer grabbed a lantern and rushed next door to the hired hand’s sleeping quarters.  He shook the little man and yelled, ‘Get up!  A storm is coming! Tie things down before they blow away!’

 

“The little man rolled over in bed and said firmly, ‘No sir.  I told you, I can sleep when the wind blows.’

 

“Enraged by the response, the farmer was tempted to fire him on the spot.  Instead, he hurried outside to prepare for the storm.  To his amazement, he discovered that all of the haystacks had been covered with tarpaulins.  The cows were in the barn, the chickens were in the coops, and the doors were barred.  The shutters were tightly secured.  Everything was tied down.

 

“Nothing could blow away.  The farmer then understood what his hired hand meant, so he returned to his bed to also sleep while the wind blew.  The hired hand in the story was able to sleep because he had secured the farm against the storm.

 

“Eleanor, I believe you’re prepared, spiritually, mentally, and physically, so you have nothing to fear. I bet you sleep when the wind blows through your life.”

 

“That’s nice of you to say, David.  Thanks for the story, and for the extra time you spent in Munich today.  I think Bjorn would agree it’s been a pleasure exploring ‘my’ city with someone whose eyes are wide open to the possibility of all that it can be, and not entirely jaded with the American culture from which we come.”  Bjorn nodded.  “As I have spent time in the last few weeks wandering through Munich and other cities of Europe (most recently Montpellier, France), I often think that ‘people are people everywhere’, which is an oversimplified way of saying that there is so much to be learned and gained by putting ourselves out upon the edge of our comfort zone, and exploring the potential for beauty and growth beyond our small experiences.”

 

Bjorn laughed.  “I’m sorry but I’m definitely out of my comfort zone.  You guys are on a roll.  It’s obvious you are both Americans.  In Europe, we do not place as much importance on sex or religion, which is what this seems to be what you are talking about.”

 

I turned from Eleanor.  “You’re right, Bjorn.  We definitely treat sex as a taboo subject.”

 

“But it’s not the case with drugs.  You seemed to have experimented with drugs and it is okay with you.  Here, drugs are against the law.”

 

“You’re right, in some ways.  But it’s Eleanor who puts sex in the same category as your drugs.  I cannot say the same for myself.  I guess I am ‘experienced,’ if you know what I mean.  Sorry, Eleanor, but it’s true, but only before I got married.”

 

Eleanor gave me a nonchalant look.  “That’s okay because that is what our lives are, an accumulation of our experiences, coupled with or perhaps more accurately guided by the choices we make as we go from one experience to the other.  Humankind…wait, did I just say that?”

 

“What?”

 

“I almost said ‘mankind’ but opted for the more PC version…though I don’t know why that matters so much?  If words are metaphors for thoughts and things, where does the significance between word choice of things ideological lie…except in individual opinion?  And if to me, Mankind equals Humankind, to whom am I making concessions by saying one rather than the other?  But I digress…”

 

“The political correctness is an American thing that’s being forced on the rest of us,” Bjorn muttered.

 

“Anyway, we are not perfect, so each of us makes mistakes along the way…choices that we would make differently were we to go back and live our lives again.  The choices we have made were of importance in their time, but as time moves on, what is more important is what we do with the knowledge gained by those choices, good or bad.  If we could travel backwards, would we say something else, do something different, reach out a hand here and avoid a bad situation there?  Would we give more of ourselves to others, or to ourselves?  Would we spend more time working on things to benefit others at work or in our personal lives, and where do the two blur?  I mean, is hard work in the office necessarily entirely separate from time spent with loved ones if there is a way in which one benefits from the other?  Does time spent alone pursuing our personal goals and desires necessarily detract or detrimentally affect those we care about?

 

“I can’t claim to be wise, nor free of mistakes, nor entirely kind and understanding, open-minded, happy…wouldn’t that be nice?”

 

I snickered.  “Happy?”

 

“Exactly.  Often I feel the opposite and have to turn away from the world at large and back into myself to re-evaluate what is important, and to clear my mind to learn again – which is another reason to spend time in the mountains!  I find I learn the most not from what I have done well, but from what I have not.  It is the burning memory of my mistakes that inspires me to be better next time, though I must say it doesn’t always work out so well!  So…sometimes the best we can do is do the best we can do…which is to say we get one life to live and we might as well go full gusto and let the mistakes come as they may.”

 

“And don’t forget my brother in-law.  He did not have a full life.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“He lived to fifty-one.”

 

“So?  Didn’t he live life the way he wanted to?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Then isn’t that a full life?  I mean, he didn’t hold back, did he?”

 

“Apparently not.”

 

Bjorn sighed.

 

Eleanor looked over at Bjorn.  “What’s the matter?”

 

“It’s been a long week.  I’m tired.”

 

I nodded.  “Yeah, I guess I’m a little tired, too.  Plus I have to get up in the morning.”

 

They sat in silence for a minute.  I reached down, grabbed my bag of chocolate and stood up.

 

Eleanor leaned forward.  “One last thing before we leave.”  She looked up at me, making sure she had eye contact with me.  “I’ve been sitting here thinking.  Your comments on your thoughts of what your brother-in-law’s death meant in your life and what you’d want to accomplish before your time is up has made me think that the question ‘what do you want to do before you die’ or ‘what would you do if you only had a few months to live’ are the hardest to answer, because what do we want to stand for in the end?  I guess that if we make a difference in our small circle of family and friends – if they can remember us with a smile, if only for our quirks, and if we are at peace with God in the end, then that is enough.”

 

“Perhaps you’re right.”

 

Bjorn pushed his chair back and stood up.  “I’ll even agree to most of that.  Oh, look!  There’s the mouse.”

 

We all turned to see the mouse race across the square and jump onto the lip of the water fountain.  It sniffed the air and then appeared to dive into the water.

 

Bjorn shook his head.  “I hope he’s just going for a swim.  Surely, our conversation wasn’t that depressing!”

 

 

 

We arrived at the Munich train station.  I bought a ticket to take me to the Munich airport.  Before I got on the train that began my first leg on the trip back to America, I hugged Bjorn and Eleanor.  I noticed a twitch and mischievous sneer in Bjorn’s grin that reminded me of the erotic aspect of the nacken that Bjorn had described earlier in the day.  When Eleanor turned to walk away from me, I noticed what looked like the end of tail dangling from underneath her overshirt.

 

 

Back in the US, I stopped at the barber shop on the way home.  I sat in the barber chair, talking with my hair stylist, Darlene.  I told Darlene that I had been back in the US for approximately two weeks and it seemed to me that everyone I touched took on new characteristics, especially my wife, who had gotten into the habit of playing very cruel tricks on me for no other reason, she said, then to get a good laugh.  Darlene, who despite being a strong believer in astrology, discounted my story as paranoid delusions.  That is, until I touched her as I handed her a $20 bill to pay for my haircut.  Her attitude changed very quickly.  And I swear she was sweeping the floor with her tail by the time I walked out.

 

I took one more look at her on the way out the door.  She was definitely not the Darlene I used to know.  I hadn’t yet looked at the memory card I’d swiped from the Japanese tourist.  I wasn’t sure if I wanted to.  I knew I either had to stop having paranoid delusions that people were after me or I’d have to accept that what I observed was real and the world was a lot stranger than I thought or cared to know about.

 

 

 

Chapter 29

 

I have written the first draft of “Sticks to Lying.”  I have to…why do I start the sentence with, “I have to”?  I will edit the book, clean up day/week/month/season/year continuity discrepancies.  But not right now while I sit here.

 

Instead, I sit here with the computer screen in front of me, the cursor flashing and waiting for input, like a good dog ready to play fetch.

 

It’s mid-morning and I’ll be going to lunch with Karen in little over half an hour.  From now until then, I’ll torture myself with the sultry scent of perfume, worn by an IT employee who’s setting up a computer and printer in the cubicle behind me.  She wears the most “loud” perfume in the company.  She’s also a lot of fun and I’ve joked with her in conversation on occasion.  She wears tight-fitting clothes and doesn’t mind being looked at.  In fact, today, when I was turned around to my desk with my back to her, she instructed me to look at her while she was talking.  I snapped around and gave her a funny look.  “I wasn’t being serious,” she joked, and walked away.  I used to indulge her exhibitionist tendencies but after we were all forced to watch an online HR training video about harassment, I worry that my consensually enjoying the view of a woman’s body at work will offend an unknown third party who’s watching me.  Crazy corporate world, huh?

 

Perhaps I worry too much.  Do I worry too much?  Why the fear of being caught being a natural guy – a guy the way nature intended me to be?  Part of it is the understanding there is nothing but a social training that keeps men from publicly displaying their desire for women.  I was born in the “free love” 60s, grew up in the “equal rights for women” 70s, and turned into a consenting adult in the post-AIDS 80s.  No wonder there is a battle in my mind over how I’m supposed to react in the presence of women.

 

I thought that writing my novel would be therapy, and help relieve some of the tension, pressure, fear, concern, boredom, etc., in my mind.  It has and has not.  Partly, I am relieved because I am out of words to use.  I am reduced to using one, two and three syllable words, which means my fear of sounding unintelligent is lowered, that’s all.

 

However, I can’t change the fact I’m a changed man.

 

I still feel like I have nowhere to go in this society.  I am interested in knowing what I can do to reshape my mind to get to a more peaceful state of mind before I get too old to care before I die.

 

Louann told us about an interesting saying someone put on the bulletin board in her Sunday school class.  “Some people’s minds are like concrete – all mixed up and permanently set.”  I’m definitely all mixed up – I just/must/should/could find a way to change the mix (or consider rational-emotive behavior therapy).

 

Will my path of discovery take me through the land of getting more public recognition of my writing?  I’m leaning toward doing so.  I’m just not interested in whoring my writing for a living.  But if I have no personal agenda, no deep set of guiding moral values, then why am I stuck on the idea that getting paid, earning my food money, so to speak, for these words is a bad thing?  Of course, there’s fear of failure – less of a concern as I get older.  But what else holds me back?  Need to think about it for a while…

 

I know that people all around the world are facing serious threats to their lives everyday and would envy my being able to sit here and contemplate my life of low activity.  Some people like me would be selfless enough to get out of this funk and offer to help others.  They would not fill this time with flights of fancy, wild imaginings or other such mental nonsense.  But I enjoy living in my mind, even when I’m physically active.  The only difference is that my thoughts incorporate the conversations around me when I’m active and incorporate the conversations within me when I’m not active.  I do not stop thinking, either way.

 

So how do I turn this desire for thinking into a way to live?  How do I make my thinking and writing the only thing I do?  Could I break through to another level of living, putting my fears behind me because I wouldn’t be afraid to be who I am?  I would no longer be living a lie but be living for myself, other people’s sensitivities be damned.

 

What can I do if I don’t plan to die?

 

What if I’m losing my mind and I don’t know it?  Well, I’ve lost my mind – who am I kidding?  What if I’m just plain lost?  Can I find my way back?

 

How do I stop worrying about others’ feelings and just be myself?  Stop worrying about rejection!

 

As I contemplate where I am, I look back on what turned me into who I am at this moment, especially the events over the last year and half:

 

1. Stress from the shutdown of the Avocent test lab, and my having to deal with the layoff of my employees, while I stayed on.
2. Stress from the offer of a job to move to Ireland and then having it taken away from me, forcing me to explain to everyone I told I was moving why I wasn’t moving overseas.
3. Stress of moving to smaller and smaller office.
4. Stress over accusation of stalking by a coworker’s husband, although it turned out the coworker made up the story and was subsequently let go.
5. Stress from first trip to Germany (first trip to a non-English speaking country (outside of Mexico, that is)).
6. Stress from death of Junior.
7. Stress from too much multitasking – brain seems to be rewiring itself, strengthening short-term memory and erasing long-term memory.

• Too much stimuli (e.g., dozens of emails per hours I feel I have to answer right away).
• No end in sight (or it feels that way, at least)

1. Stress from family’s continued recovery from Junior’s death

 

Stress that is out of sequence, out of time, continuous – trying to get past middle-age issues that I think I “should” be over already:

1. What is acceptable behavior?
2. Why do I look for parameters within which to bind my behavior?
3. Why can’t I do what I want?  Maybe, because I must control my anger/rage, and sound like a rational person, or because there are laws against many behaviors.

 

Maintain a sense of humor.

 

I am actively moving toward a state of being myself.  I am not taking care of my ability to slow down when meeting others – I have to see what it is I do (using for example a meeting with strangers, three visitors from a power supply vendor that I was hosting first thing this morning):

 

• Why do I act panicked? [and see it reflected in the eyes of the visitors]
• Why do I act afraid?
• What am I afraid of?
• Why do I feel rushed, as if I want to escape?

 

I am afraid that someone’s going to see I don’t really care about whatever it is I’m participating with them in and thus the person will think I’m a fake or insincere.  But what if they feel the same way and it’s a relief for both of us?  How many of us really consider our jobs part of who we are?  How many of us simply identify ourselves by our jobs because that’s supposed to be what we do/say when someone asks us what we do for a living?  Why can’t I say I think for a living and sometimes write down what I think?  Wouldn’t that about cover it?  Something to think about…  ;^)

 

What about my relationship with my wife?  I take us for granted, which is good and bad.  I assume a lot.  She, too, assumes a lot, like she assumes I know what she’s said to others, as if I was there by her side when someone was speaking to her.  Other than giving her more listening time and more physical TLC, is there anything else I need to do?  We’re both so worn out from the continual emotional roller coaster ride after Junior’s death that it’s difficult for both of right now to prop up our psyches, let alone reach out to one another.  For me, there’s even the fear that I’ll reach out to Karen and then she’ll die, ripping apart and leaving the partially healed wounds of my raw emotional state more exposed to the elements.

 

Of course, talking about it helps, more so out loud to family, friends and coworkers than writing about it but if I write it down, I’ll have these words to use for later.

 

Found out at work today that we’re not supposed to write emails that are critical of coworkers – sniping them, in other words – more signs that corporate life is consensual participation in mind control.  Shades of “1984”.  Of course, I started my corporate job life in 1984, so today’s behavior change request is no surprise, just reinforcement.

 

Chapter 30

 

In one last attempt to see if I could live in the corporate world, I attended a party at the house of a coworker, Carlotta, toward the end of November.  I was familiar with the setting.  Carlotta and Glenn had been hosts of another party back in the summer to give an Irish coworker a fond farewell since he was leaving America to return to Ireland after getting his layoff notice.  I enjoyed that summer day at their farm.  It’s as fresh in my mind today as it was six months ago, mainly because I was challenged by a guy at the party to write about what happened.  I’ll save that twice-told tale for the next chapter.  The one in November is still fresh in my mind.

 

Carlotta’s husband, Glenn, has owned and run his own business since high school.  He learned he could perform repair and installation jobs for businesses, let the businesses owe him money for the job and then eventually come back after the businesses when they owed him too much money.  They were either forever in his debt and would give him goods and services at a much reduced rate or he would simply take over their businesses.  “No hard feelings for these folks because they know it’s only business,” he told me in the summer, sounding like some sort of organized crime character from the movies.  Glenn is not the sort of person I would want to have on the other side of the table during a business meeting.  He knows he always has an extra ace up his sleeve.

 

When Karen and I arrived at the farm, the sweeping driveway was already packed with cars.  I tried not to let the claustrophobic panic set in but I could feel it inching its way up my spine.  On our way to the house, I looked up into the cold, clear sky, hoping a meteor or two would go streaking by, since the Leonid meteor shower was supposed to take place over the next day or two.  Alas, no streaks or flashes did I see.  But I knew that should the necessity arise, I could step out of the house as an excuse to see meteors and take a break from any overwhelming, crowding conditions.

 

I led Karen around the back of the house, knowing that the party would be going strong in or around the kitchen.  And of course it was.  In fact, we had to crowd our way into the kitchen in order to be able to close the door and keep out the freezing air.

 

I hesitate, wondering if I should describe the folks at the party.  Many of them I had seen at Carlotta’s house before so it felt like we had fast-forwarded six months from the party in the summer and were trying to pick up where we left off.  The main difference was that this time most of our spouses were there.  I didn’t know how I was supposed to behave.  Would I be able to openly flirt in the presence of my wife?

 

After we stepped inside, I decided I wasn’t ready to face a bunch of people until I knew which personality of mine I wanted to present.  I left Karen to talk with Zoe’s husband while I wandered around the house.  I walked through several rooms which probably had names attached to them – dining room, living room, den – and felt as if there were simply part of the house plans but not actively used by Carlotta or Glenn.  I laughed, realizing how big this house was, probably four or five thousand square feet, and marveling at the fact that Karen and I probably only actively use about half of our two thousand square feet home.  So why are we all building houses too big for our needs?  Empty houses, empty souls?

 

I returned to the kitchen, listening to conversations that didn’t really interest me.  I tried to act interested as long as possible but soon found myself wandering outside, looking at the stars once again.  Which way was east?  Wouldn’t that be where most of the meteorites would come from?  I stood in the cold for several minutes, frustrated.

 

Returning inside, I found out that the party had taken on a theme of sorts.  Carlotta had forgotten to invite one of the senior managers, Will, and was worried that Will would hold it against her.  I grabbed my camera out of the car and took pictures so that we could superimpose pictures of Will to make it look like he’d been to the party.

 

As Karen and I left the party, Karen told me that Will had actually gotten Zoe to make it obvious that Carlotta had forgotten to invite him.  Exciting stuff, that.

 

Speaking of Zoe, there’s something about her that is attractive.  Hmm, what could it be?  Well, much of it is superficial – nice eyes, nice body, that sort of thing.  What else is there about her that would make her specifically attractive to me?  I’m not sure and perhaps that’s part of the attraction.  At the party, I think she wanted to know more about me, since I was a mystery to her, and struck up a conversation or two.  I just wasn’t in the mood.    I’ve just had too many ongoing conversations with women at my company in which I wasn’t sure if there was an unspoken subtext.  Instead of bringing it forward, I’ve decided to find a way to end the conversations.

 

As the night progressed, I decided that I needed to focus on the images on my female radar, so that I could locate and check Zoe off my list as hostile or neutral.  I wanted one less “friendly” target to be aware of.  When Zoe and her husband left, I made sure she saw me participate in “alpha male” mode, similar to Glenn, making aggressive biting gestures into the face of Carlotta’s little dog.  From the look of disgust on Zoe’s face, I know she now has an easy excuse to give herself for why I’m not a person she’d want to talk with in the future.

 

How quickly things change.  She wasn’t like that at a party a few months ago.

 

 

Chapter 33

 

What do I remember about the last party at Carlotta’s house?  Let me think…

 

Wednesday afternoon.  I had a couple of free hours between meetings and decided to distribute some company gifts I’d received.  I grabbed a couple of cellophane-wrapped pens from the pile of gifts on my desk and headed down the hall, running into Beau and Dale chit-chatting about recent company news.

 

Beau turned to see me coming toward him.  “So which chapter are you on now?”

 

“I’m not.”

 

“Which book, I mean…”

 

“No, I’m not.  I’m on the next series.”

 

“Volume 4, huh?”

 

“Yeah, something like that.”

 

I turned to Dale.  “You see, it’s like this…”

 

Beau grabbed my arm.  “Don’t bother, Dave.  He wouldn’t understand.”

 

“…I’m working on a story that you’d only understand if you were…uh…if you were enjoying a particular herb.”

 

Dale laughed.  “Oh, I get it all right.  A special kind of ‘erb.”

 

“Yep.  Well, I gotta deliver these pens to Belinda.  See you guys later.”

 

Beau jostled my arm.  “Let me know when you finish the story.”

 

“So you can prepare the herb?”

 

“Yeah, I’ll have to get the mortar out and grind it up a bit.”

 

“Oh wow, a real special herb.  Well, this pen’d make a really good peace pipe.”

 

Beau laughed.  “Just let me know when you finish the story.”

 

“Sure thing.”

 

“Me, too.”

 

“I’ll be sure to share it with you, too, Dale.  But Beau’ll hafta supply the ‘erb.”

 

 

 

I walked on down the hall to the Tech Pubs office area and stepped around the corner looking for Belinda’s office.  Petite, brunette, piercing blue eyes, cute beyond words but professional as hell.  Hardly a flirtatious bone in her body.  I never fully looked forward to seeing Belinda.  Difficult to get excited when there was very little “tit for tat” conversation to think about later on.  For all I knew, Belinda felt the same way.  I stepped into her office.

 

“Hey, Belinda.  Have you seen Lyle?”

 

“He’s not here today.”

 

“Oh, okay.”  I rolled the two pens, left over from the set of pens his colleague Eleanor had sent me from her office in Redmond.  Remnants of her office, anyway.  Eleanor threw a bunch of crap from her office into a box and shipped it to me a week before.  She dumped her job and her stuff on me before she flew to Europe to begin work as a sales account rep in the Munich office for the next couple of years.

 

“Here, have a pen.  Thanks for all the work you’ve done for me.”

 

“Oh, thanks Dave.  Hey, I’ve been thinking about you.  I mean, I’ve been meaning to call you…that is, I wanted to tell you that…”  Belinda took a breath.  “Speaking of the Box project…I did tell you about that, didn’t I?”

 

I just stared at Belinda’s ocean blue eyes, thinking about the fact that Belinda’s face was round, so her eyes were like two marbles sitting on a plate.  One could just reach out and grab her eyes and push the marbles around the plate.  But no, one couldn’t do that because there were those lips.  And hey, wasn’t it interesting that the blue lamp on her desk was the same color as the pen he just gave her but a deep blue, a cobalt blue, nowhere near the color of those eyes.

 

“…named Hamid.”

 

“Did you say Sam Meade?”

 

“No, Hamid.”

 

“Sam Mid?”

 

“No, one word.  Hamid.  He’s Iranian.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“I won’t begin to try to spell his last name but it’s pronounced like piranha.”

 

I kept staring, wondering if Belinda was thinking of anything besides work.

 

“Like the fish.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“You know, just look it up in the directory.  P-i-r-h.  That should be enough to look up his last name.  Then just look for Hamid.”

 

“Sure.  Okay.  So he’ll be working on the Box project?”

 

“Yep.”

 

I wondered whether Belinda was pushing the project off on Hamid because she didn’t want to work with me.  And what would I be getting out of this?  Besides the fact that Belinda was damn good-looking, but not necessarily a great talker, she was an excellent technical writer and editor.  “So, how much does he know about our products?”

 

“Well, his division did create the Sago Palm products.”

 

“True.  But is he technically proficient.  I mean, I won’t have to train him from the ground up on our products, will I?”

 

“Oh no, not at all.  Look, Hamid and the other Tech Pubs folks from Fremont will be here in a week or so.  If you don’t mind, I’d like to introduce him to you.  That is, if my boss still plans to assign Hamid to the Box project.”

 

“Sure, why not?”

 

“Okay.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“Well, thanks for the pen.”

 

“No problem.”  I almost asked if Hamid’s English skills were good but decided against it.  I knew the main point was that I’d not be communicating with Belinda as much as I used to.  Of course, because she was good at her job, it was much more important to assign her to the high volume sales lines and everyone knew that the Box products were slowly winding down.  “Well, you said that Lyle would be back when?”

 

“Tomorrow.”

 

“Oh, okay.  Guess I’ll see him tomorrow.  See you later.”

 

“Bye.”

 

I walked back out to the main hallway and saw that Beau and Dale were still talking.

 

“Well, guys, looks like I’ve still got a peace pipe with me so I’m ready to smoke that stuff anytime.”

 

“Hey, Dave, you just finish that story.  I’ll have the stuff ground up by the time you finish.”

 

“No problem.  See you soon.”

 

“You, too.”

 

= = = = =

 

I sat down at my desk and pondered for a moment.  I tried not to look up because I’d then realize for the thousandth time that day that within six months I’d gone from a 13 by 12 office to a 10 by 12 cube down to an 8 by 9 cube but hey, it had a door, right?  No, I closed my eyes and cleared my mind.  Where was I going to go, or better yet, where was I going to escape to for a while?  Perhaps back up a few days and unwind by rewinding my mental tape recorder to the party the previous Friday.

 

= = = = =

 

“Hey, Dave, welcome to the party.”

 

I looked up from the cracks in the concrete I’d followed with my eyes while traversing across the large concrete pad next to the backyard swimming pool.

 

“Oh, hey Walter.  What’s up?”

 

“A little late, aren’t you?”

 

“Well, I’m just getting away from work.”

 

“Dave, it’s 6:30, man…on a Friday.  What could you possibly have to do at work to keep you so late…especially with a party to attend?”

 

“Jerry came by at four and said that I could move my stuff back to my ‘new’ office, if I wanted.  I figured a late afternoon Friday move would be perfect since I have so many meetings to attend on Monday.”

 

“You gave up the party to move your office?  Well…anyhoot, you just about missed the party.  I’m outta here.”

 

“Leaving already?”

 

“Yeah, gotta get home to the wife and kids.”

 

“We’ve all got our excuses.”

 

“Hey, I’m not the one who sacrificed an early afternoon of drinking to MOVE.”

 

“You’re right.  Well, seeya later.”

 

“Yep.”

 

 

I stepped up on the back porch.

 

“DAVE!” Miriam called.  “Where you been?”

 

“Work.”

 

“Okay, now you’ve proved it.”

 

“Proved what?”

 

“Proved that you’re crazy.”

 

“Like I had to prove that.”

 

“What was I thinking?  Of course, we already knew you were crazy.  You gonna have a beer?”

 

“Yeah, what’s there to drink?”

 

“Dunno.  You’ll have to look in the tubs to see.”

 

“Okay.”  I stepped back off the porch and looked into the shadows of the large plastic tubs.  I squinted in the bright sun but couldn’t make out the brands of beer stuck in ice, only colors – green (Heineken?), brown (Michelob?), more green (Corona?).  I saw a second tub full of carbonated sodas.  I grabbed a bottle from the beer tub.  Michelob Ultra.  Well, at least it was some sort of alcoholic beverage.  I picked up the bottle opener and popped off the top.

 

“Oh, hey David.  I didn’t know you were here,” RJ said.  “This is my wife, Susan.  Susan, this is David.  He’s one of our new program managers.”

 

“Hi, David.”

 

I shook Susan’s hand, trying not to grab it too sternly.  “Nice to meet you.”  I took one look at Susan and immediately knew I’d not remember her face the next morning.  She seemed to fit RJ’s personality perfectly.  Although RJ was a marketing manager, his appearance gave one the impression of an energetic engineer more than a person in marketing.  Bald head, thick glasses, leering smile.  And Susan seemed to be the perfect engineer’s wife.  Nice, but easily forgettable.

 

“David, can’t believe you’re just now drinking.  We’re just now leaving.”

 

“So soon?”

 

“Hey, gotta get home to the kiddies, you know.”

 

“Sure, I guess.  I don’t have any of my own.”

 

“Well, you’re missing out.  Enjoy the party.”

 

“Seeya Monday, RJ.  If you’re lucky.”

 

“Oh, luck’s always on my side.”

 

“Dave!” called out a familiar voice.  “Where’s your wife?”

 

I looked up and saw Carlotta standing at the top of the steps.  “Oh, she’s on her way.”

 

“Well, gosh, when will she be here?”

 

“Oh, I mean she’s flying from New Mexico to Huntsville.  Her plane’s supposed to land at 8:41.”

 

“Well, sorry to hear it.  You want some food?  I’ve got plenty of food.  And beer, of course.”

 

“Of course.”  Realizing that I was visiting Carlotta’s house and seeing that Carlotta’s husband, Glenn, was sitting a few feet away, I did my best not to check out Carlotta’s body.  Not that I needed to.  I had seen her plenty of times and her body never changed.  A domesticated Sophia Loren, perhaps, or a classic Jane Russell, attitude and all.  That’s all I could think about when I saw her (or sawr her, as she would say).  A domesticated, Massachusetts-bred, Italian beauty.  With a smart mouth and a twinkle in her eye that could draw you in and slap you across the face in one look.  “I’ve got one.”

 

“Well, you wanna go ahead and open another one while you’re standing over the beer?  Or are you gonna get some food?”

 

“Guess I’ll get some food.”

 

“Well, okay then.  There’s the snacks over there by our honored Irish guest and there’s real food inside.”

 

I looked across the porch to see Sean sitting off by himself.  “Hey, Sean, congratulations.”

 

Sean stood up off the sofa.  “Thank you, Mr. Colline.  Thanks very much.  I see you’ve got a beer there, have you?”

 

“Aye, but it’s no Guinness.”

 

“No, no Guinness a’tall.  But tasty all the same.”

 

“So, tell me, Sean, why is it you Irish like the Corona so much?”

 

Sean looked down at his bottle.  “Can’t say, Dave, can’t say.  It’s beer, that’s all.”

 

“Indeed.  So how’s your party been?”

 

“Not so bad.  Just sittin’ here takin’ it all in.”

 

I sat down on the sofa next to Sean and looked around him.  Two lovebirds, Mike and Caroline, sat in a loveseat nearby, cooing like two pigeons in heat.  Standing in the doorway to the house stood Glenn.  Sitting in a circle next to the pool were the gals from the training department – Zoe, Renee, and, of course, their boss, Carlotta – talking up a storm with Miriam and Beau.

 

“So what are your plans, Sean?”

 

“My plans?”

 

“Yeah.  Are you moving back into your house in Ireland?”

 

“As a matter of fact, I am.  I’m kicking my nephew out in a couple of weeks and takin’ over the place again.”

 

“That’s great.  And what about your car?”

 

“Just sold it this afternoon.”

 

“Fantastic.”

 

“Yes, it is.”

 

I leaned back on the sofa and looked past the pool at the horses standing next to the perfect white fence.  “Lovely day.”

 

“’Tis, indeed.”

 

“Would have been a great day for golf.”

 

“A bit windy but yes, indeed, it would.”

 

“So when do you move back?”

 

“The fifth of June.”

 

“A couple of weeks away.”

 

“Indeed.  Say, whatdya say we go over and chat with the ladies?”

 

“Sounds good to me.  Think I’ll grab something to eat first.”

 

“Fair enough.”

 

Glenn saw them stand up.  “You guys want beers?”

 

“Yeah, sure.”

 

“Well, don’t move.  I’ll grab them for you.  What’ll you have?”

 

“Guess I’ll have another Mich Ultra.”

 

Sean waved his hand.  “None for me now, right now, thanks.  I’m doin’ fine.”

 

“You going inside?” Carlotta asked me as I headed to the door.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“I’ve got margaritas as well as food.  You want a margarita?”

 

“Sure.”

 

“Honey, hold off grabbin’ a beer for Sean and Dave.  Dave wants a margarita.”

 

I walked inside and looked around the house.  I was tempted to take a personal tour but decided the prospect of seeing their large house and then mentally comparing it to the prison cell of a cubicle I was about to move into would be too much.

 

“You like that kind of cheese?”

 

I turned around.  “What kind of cheese?”

 

“That right there.”

 

I stared at the young man.  Was he a son of Carlotta and Glenn?  “Dunno.  I’ve never tried it before.”

 

“Well, I don’t like it.  You probably won’t like it, either.”

 

“Guess I’ll try it and see.”  I scooped some of the warmed over cheese dip and plopped it on a plate.  Not only did it not look appetizing, sitting on my plate like poop from some orange creature but there appeared to be bits of sausage in it.  I shook my head at the memory of making sausage while working at a pizza restaurant when he was about the kid’s age.  “Then again, maybe you’re right.”

 

“I told you.”

 

“Well, I’ve gotta eat it now.”

 

“I wouldn’t bother, if I were you,” the kid said and stepped outside, holding the door open for Carlotta, as she stepped inside.

 

“So you gonna have a margarita?”

 

I looked up from the food table to see Carlotta standing in front of me.  If it weren’t for her smart-ass attitude, she might be more appealing.  But then again, maybe that was her point.  Wear PMS like a bug spray and the flies don’t get close enough to the fly paper to stick.  “No, I’m sticking to beer.”

 

“Thought so.  HONEY, GO AHEAD AND FIX DAVE A BEER!”

 

I stepped back outside with Carlotta and grabbed the beer from Glenn.  “Thanks.”

 

“Hey, no prob.  I didn’t think you were a margarita man but Carlotta wanted to make sure.”

 

“Well, if you insist, I could wash down a margarita with this beer.”

 

“Stay with the beer.”

 

“Good idea.”

 

“And by the way, that cheese sucks.  It sucks even more now that it’s been sittin’ around for a few hours.”

 

“So I’ve heard.”

 

I set my food and beer down on the edge of the porch and grabbed a chair, which I placed between Beau and Zoe, making sure the chair was slightly behind Zoe’s chair, so I could observe her out of sight of her probing eyes.  However, just as I sat down, Zoe noticed me and moved her chair beside mine.

 

“Hey, David, about time you joined us.”

 

“Yeah, Dave, we thought you were ignoring us on purpose,” Renee added.

 

“No, Renee, just you.”  I looked at Renee and wondered what was so appealing about her.  Well, sure, she had red hair, fake though it may be, and sleepy basset hound eyes.  She wasn’t bad-looking, but not a head-turner, either.  But there was something about her.  Perhaps it was the “I can play dumb if you want” attitude that said she was hiding a good bedroom game up her sleeve.

 

Beau bumped my arm.  “Hey, how’s it going?”

 

“Pretty good.”

 

“Better late than never, huh?”

 

“I suppose so.”

 

I stood up to get his food and beer.

 

“You leaving so soon?”

 

“No, Zoe, just gotta get what I left behind.”

 

“I know what you mean.”

 

“No, I mean my beer.”

 

“Oh, that.”

 

“Yep.  That’s all.”

 

“Okay, then don’t let me stop you.”

 

I grabbed my beer but left the cold lump of cheese sitting on the porch.  “So, Sean, tell us, what’ll you do when you get back to Ireland?”

 

Sean looked at me, narrowing his eyes a bit.  “What exactly would I be doing?”

 

“Well, are you taking a few days off or going straight to work.”

 

“Straight to work, of course.  What sort of question is that?”

 

Glenn turned to me.  “Yeah, Dave, what sorta question is that?”

 

“Well, it’s just that every time I go to Ireland and plan to meet up with Sean at a pub, he calls at the last minute and says that he’s got a cousin to meet.  Or it’ll be midnight and just when the party’s going strong and everyone’s breaking out singing, Sean’ll say that he’s got to go to meet a cousin of his.”

 

Renee winked at Sean.  “A ‘cousin,’ eh?”

 

Sean glared at me.  “I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

 

“Ah, come on, Sean, surely you can tell us about your kissin’ cousin, can’t you?”

 

Carlotta put her arm around Sean.  “Yeah, Sean, this is Alabama, after all.  It’s not like these folks have never heard about this sort of thing before.”

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.  This ‘sort of thing’ only happens in the States.”

 

“Well, we had to get the idea from somewhere.  Surely you Irish taught a thing or two to the Mormons in Utah.  They couldn’t have thought up the whole bigamy thing on their own.”

 

“Bigamy’s one thing but kissin’ your cousin’s something else.”

 

“Well, you give bigamy long enough and pretty soon you’ll be doing more than kissing your cousin.”

 

Everyone laughed.

 

Beau nodded to me.  “So, David, if you were writing this story, where would you take this?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“I mean, this whole evening’s been like this.  One unrelated topic on top of another.  It reminds me of a college professor I had who made everyone read this book, his book, where every chapter was different than the rest.  Then, after we’d read the book, he asked us how we would end the story.  Obviously, he’d smoked a little too much of his own stuff.”

 

“Couldn’t psych out the professor on that one?”

 

“Not unless we smoked some of it, too, I guess.”

 

“Hmm…yeah, that’d be a tough one.  But it would be fun.  I mean, how could you go wrong?”

 

“I don’t know.  So, where would you go with this one?”

 

I looked around the group.  How would I end this story?  Well, I’d have to get rid of my fellow Eagle Scout, Mike.  And Mike would have to take his lovey-dovey, Caroline, with him.

 

= = = = =

 

“Well, folks, hate to leave so soon but I promised to take Caroline to see the new ‘Poseidon’ movie.”

 

“Gosh, Mike, leaving so soon?”

 

“Yeah, Dave.”

 

“Well, I enjoyed meeting you, Caroline.”

 

“You, too.”

 

I shook Caroline’s outstretched hand.  “Mike has said so many things about you…”

 

“Same here.”

 

“…and I can see he was being modest.”

 

“Oh…uh, thanks.”

 

“Yeah, Dave, thanks.  Thanks for whatever that meant.”

 

“No problem.  I’ll talk to you Monday.”

 

“Yep.”

 

I turned to Zoe.  “You want something to drink?”

 

“Oh, no thanks.  You know, I couldn’t sleep last night.  I woke up at four in the morning, still fuming.”

 

“Fuming about what?”

 

Renee laughed.  “About their argument at 10 o’clock.  Right, Zoe?”

 

“Yes, can you believe my husband turned to me just as I was falling asleep and announced that he planned to build us a seven-thousand square foot home?”

 

“Really?”

 

“Yes.  For the two of us.  And our dog.”

 

“Well, how big’s your dog?  And pardon my saying it but how small’s your husband?”

 

“Exactly what I was thinking!  Did he think that a bigger house was going to make up for…well, you know.  Not to mention the cleaning.”

 

“You could hire a maid.”

 

“Or a kissing cousin.”

 

“I will not have a seven-thousand square foot home, no matter what.”

 

“Well, then, how do you propose making up for the difference?”

 

“Difference?”

 

“In size…that is, size of the house.”

 

“Well, sure, there is something to be said for the size.”

 

I looked more closely at Zoe but I couldn’t see her eyes through her sunglasses.  What the hell?  Did it matter what her eyes were saying?  “What about Carlotta and Glenn here?”

 

Glenn stood up.  “What about us?”

 

“Well, look at the size of your place here.”

 

“What about it?”

 

“Yeah, Dave, what are you fishing for?”  Carlotta stood up and walked over to Glenn, putting her arm around his waist.  “What’re you trying to say?”

 

“Just that you two look pretty happy and you’ve got this large ranch.”

 

Glenn stood up straight.  “And two very grown up boys, I might add.”

 

“That’s my point.  I don’t think the size is an issue here.  Of the house, I mean.”

 

Glenn nodded toward me.  “What he said.”

 

“So, Zoe…”

 

“Yes, Dave?”

 

“Did you get back to sleep?”

 

Zoe poked me in the arm.  “Did you say you wanted a margarita?”

 

“Umm…yes, I believe I did.”  I turned to Beau.  “Can we pick this up on Monday?”

 

“What’s that?”

 

“How your college professor’s book would end.”

 

“Oh, that.  Yeah, sure.  Of course.”

 

Zoe stood over me.  “You coming?”

 

“Yeah, why don’t you go inside and pour us a couple of margaritas?  I wanna say goodbye to Sean first.”

 

“Oh, is he leaving?”

 

“Well, probably soon.”

 

“Good idea.”  Zoe walked over to Sean.  “Hey, Sean, have a safe trip to Ireland tomorrow.”

 

“Tomorrow?  I’m not leaving for Ireland until the 5^th of June.”

 

“Oh, well, then have a safe trip home tonight.”

 

“I plan to.  So are you leaving right now?”

 

“No.  No.  I…I’m just going inside to get Dave and me a couple of margaritas.”

 

“Good, well I’ll see you in a few minutes then.”

 

“Maybe.”

 

“Maybe?  Oh yeah, I see what you’re saying.  It could take a while to mix a new batch, couldn’t it?”

 

“Precisely.  Dave, I’m going inside.”

 

“Okay.  Be there in a minute.  Just gotta finish up here with Glenn.”  I turned back around and leaned over to Glenn.  “So is there a comfortable place where I could discuss house plans with Zoe?”

 

“Well, Dave, if that’s what you wanna do, that’s fine with me.  Just don’t tell the Mrs.  If you want, you can just walk over to the spare garage and take the stairs up to the studio.”

 

“Is there any way to the garage from the house?”

 

“Well, if you’re going inside, you guys could go down through the basement and walk around back.  It’ll take you straight across the driveway to the garage, without being seen from here, of course.”

 

“Perfect.”

 

“No problem.  Just remember to take your stuff back out with you.  I don’t need Carlotta thinkin’ I’ve been spending my time drinking when I’m working in the studio.”

 

“Understood.  See you later.”

 

 

 

Beau stood up to leave.  “Well, Glenn, thanks for that story of how you met.  I can see why you two hit it off so well.  Anyway, it’s getting late.  I guess I’ve had about as much fun as I can take.  Thanks for inviting me, Carlotta.”

 

“You’re quite welcome.”  Carlotta looked over Beau’s shoulders as she hugged him.  “Hey, honey, why is there a light on in the garage?”

 

“A light?”

 

“Yeah.  I can see a light in the garage from here.”

 

“Maybe Eric went in there.”  Glenn shook Beau’s hand.  “Thanks for stopping by.”

 

“My pleasure, Glenn.”

 

“No, honey, he did not.  He went straight upstairs to his room.  I saw him.”

 

“Can’t say.  Maybe one of us left it on last night.”

 

“But it wasn’t on a little while ago.”

 

“No, it could have been on and you couldn’t tell when the sun was up.  Now it’s gettin’ dark and you can see the light’s on.”

 

“Maybe.”

 

“Okay then.”

 

“So, are you going to go turn it off?”

 

“After our guests leave.”

 

“Why not now?”

 

“Renee, tell me you want me and Carlotta to stay here and talk with you.”

 

“Glenn, I want you and Carlotta to stay here and talk with me.”

 

“See, darling.  Renee does not want me to leave you guys right now.”

 

“Sure, honey, I heard Renee, too.  Wait, the light just went out.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“Yeah, look.  It’s no longer on.”

 

“You’re right, it’s off.  Guess I don’t have to go over there and turn it off now.”

 

“What do ya mean?  Now you’ve got to go over there and see why it went off.”

 

“I will, I promise.  Oh hey, look.  There’s Dave.  Dave, where you been?”

 

“Where have I been?”

 

“Yeah, you just missed it.  Carlotta here is imagining that the light in the garage has been going on and off.”

 

“No, I haven’t.  You just said it yourself that you saw the light was on and then it was off.  Renee, you heard him, too, didn’t you?”

 

“I can’t say…”

 

“I don’t mean to pull rank here but I am your boss and I want you to answer truthfully.  Did you or did you not hear Glenn say that he saw the light go on and off?”

 

“Oh look, there’s Zoe.  Hey, Zoe, you’ve missed all the fun.”

 

“I did?”

 

“Yeah, Glenn was giving us a charming rendition of how he and Carlotta first met.”

 

“I’m sorry I missed it.”

 

“Okay, you guys, you are not going to change the subject.”

 

Zoe raised her eyebrows and looked at Carlotta.  “Why not?”

 

“Oh, I see.  I guess you want me to change the subject.”

 

Zoe put her arm around Glenn’s waist.  “No, I thought maybe Glenn could fill me in on what I missed.”

 

“What you missed?  Yeah, I guess you have been gone a while…oh, wait a minute.”  Carlotta looked over at me.  “Dave, did you miss out on Glenn’s version of how we met.”

 

“I suppose I did.”

 

“I see.  Well, honey, I’m guessing that you don’t have to worry about the garage light.”

 

“I thought so.”

 

I held my hand out to Glenn.  “Hey, I really appreciate you guys inviting us over.  It was a wonderful evening.”

 

“No problem.  You’ll have to stop by sometime and let me show you around the place.”

 

“That’d be great.  Zoe, Renee, I enjoyed talking with you guys, too.”

 

“Don’t leave without giving me a hug.”

 

“I couldn’t do that, Carlotta.”  I hugged Carlotta and gave her a strong pat on the back.

 

“Ouch.  What was that for?”

 

“For not getting my attention earlier so I could hear the real version of how you met Glenn.”

 

Sean stood up from the sofa, weaving a little.  “Well, I can tell you there were no kissin’ cousins in that story, unlike tonight,” slapping me on the back at the same time.

 

“There are no cousins of mine here, Sean.”

 

“Oh, we’re all cousins of one sort or another, kissin’ or otherwise.”  Sean winked at Zoe.

 

Zoe looked at Carlotta.  “Is someone driving Sean home?”

 

“No, he’s staying with us.”

 

“Good.  Renee, I think you’re going to have to drive.  I’ve had one too many margaritas.”

 

Renee grabbed Zoe’s arm.  “Okay, kiddo, let’s get out of here.  See you later, Dave.”

 

“See you Monday.”

 

= = = = =

 

I stopped by Beau’s office when I got to work on Monday.  “So, did you have a good time on Friday?”

 

“I suppose.  I’m guessing that you had a better time than I did.”

 

“Why would you guess that?”

 

“Oh, something to do with mysterious disappearances and unexplained lights going on and off.”

 

“I didn’t see anyone disappear.”

 

“No, you wouldn’t have.”

 

“Enough said.  Hey, I was just thinking over the weekend.”

 

“A dangerous activity.”

 

“Yes, indeed.  No, seriously, I was wondering if there was more to the story about your professor.”

 

“Professor?  Oh yeah.  Well, I seem to remember we all got As.”

 

“That’s interesting.  So do you remember what you wrote about?”

 

“Yep.  I said that life was like an experimental jazz tune, where sometimes it seemed like you could hear a steady beat and get a sense for the rhythm of the whole thing and then all of sudden it would break out into this syncopated riff, where everything was off-kilter but still sorta tied together in a weird sort of way.  That’s why people liked reading newspapers and watching the news because it gave them a sense of narrative in their lives, knowing that the news they were watching was going to become something that they or their kids could read about in history books but really what it all was was a bunch of disconnected nothingness and that’s why all the chapters of the novel were unconnected because no one had had a chance to see the stories in the chapters as a future history of their or someone else’s lives and society.”

 

“And how many other kids in class said the same thing?”

 

“Well, if they were smoking the same thing the professor was…”

 

“Say no more.”

 

“So, if I remember correctly, you were going to write a story about the party Friday.”

 

“Did I say that?  In that case, I guess I am.”

 

“When can I read it?”

 

“Gotta think up a story first.  Of course, with all the material I have, I could knock out a few chapters.”

 

“Even a book?”

 

“Maybe.”

 

Chapter 32

 

I have realized that my wants and dreams are incompatible with the American corporate life and the seemingly conservative mindset of many Americans I encounter in my social life.  I have decided that I need to get serious about my plans to withdraw from society.

 

My wife and I have created wills and set up a trust.  Now we just need to:

 

* Pay off our house loans (first mortgage first, and then home equity line of credit)

* Buy a cabin in a remote, wooded location

* Quit work

* Convert our 401(k) plans into 1) two IRAs (one to turn into a 72(t) for a mortality/life expectancy-based annual income distribution from age [45-50] to 59-1/2, and a second one to use after age 59-1/2), or 2) a split annuity

* Sell all the useless crap in my house on eBay

* Sell my house and at least two of my three cars

* Figure out what I’m going to do the rest of my life

 

I don’t plan to write much else down, not knowing if Brian Chipmunk is really after me.  If he found these notes, I’m afraid he’d have an easier way to find me.  In any case, I’m going to post this story on the NaNoWriMo website.  It’s about the only real thing I think that exists.  Or at least the only thing my mind can comprehend.  I reached the 50,000-word hurdle and need to focus on more important goals.  My sanity, for instance.

 

 

Chapter 33

 

Sanity?  What’s sanity?  A few nights later, what began as a relatively simple evening turned into something so horrible, so bleak, that I can hardly believe I’m able to sit down here to describe what happened.  Or rather, what is happening still.

 

I sat in the chair that once belonged to my grandparents.  The chair covering always reminded me of burlap but instead of the light, dusty brown color of the burlap sacks in my grandparents’ barn, the chair covering was gold and black, decorated with antique brass tacks and torn on the edges by the years of cats using the chair as a scratching post.  In fact, that first night, one of our cats, Erin, sat in the sunroom with me.  One of the sunroom windows was pulled open so Erin whacked at the moths that landed on the window screen.

 

Typical summer sounds permeated the late Alabama fall night – chirping crickets, roaring motorcycles, rumbling pickup trucks and the occasional helicopter chop-chop-chopping overhead (probably the sheriff’s patrol looking for marijuana crops).  Most everything seemed typical.  Even the truck slowly driving by spraying mosquito repellent in the ditch.  It wasn’t until I started to stand up from the chair that I noticed anything different.

 

Sure, I was a little bit dizzy from the shots of Celtic Crossing liqueur I had been sipping all evening.  No, it was more than that.  It was the…

 

Sorry, I didn’t mean to stop in mid-sentence.  It’s just that…well…they’re back.  Maybe they’ll leave me alone for a little while tonight.

 

They.  Them.  If only one existed, perhaps “it” would be a better description.

 

In any case, the sunroom was surrounded by them.

 

I’m not a kid anymore so I have no real excuse for irrational fear.  The days of creatures hiding under the bed after the lights go out have long since passed.  There are no unspeakable beings trying to get me from behind the half-opened closet door.  I need no longer fear turning the page of National Geographic to find my hand touching the picture of a South American poisonous spider.

 

Yet…

 

Yet…

 

Yet I screamed nonetheless.  I screamed at the top of my lungs.  I admit it.  The panic and dash of Erin from his perch on the cat stand was ample proof.  Even though I was scared out of my mind, even though my fight-or-flight syndrome was all for getting the hell out of there, my feet felt glued to the tile floor.  I couldn’t move.

 

Thank goodness, neither did they.

 

They didn’t leave, either.

 

I guess you could say they held their ground.  Or not.  It’s not like they were an army holding a strategic position.  Well, how many does it take to form an army?  Of course, that’s assuming you know how many of them there are, especially in the dark, when you can barely see them and they don’t make a sound.  The creaking of the sunroom cooling down was louder than them.

 

The dogs barking in the neighborhood was a sign something was amiss.  But that could simply have been a deer or rabbit passing through, assuming there were any wild animals left.

 

No, from what I can remember, and I know my memory is less than half of what it was, these things, these beings, these…I shudder when I even try to describe what I’ve since found out…these unknown entities made as much noise as smoke rising from a candle.

 

= = = = =

 

Have I been gone a long time?  I can’t tell.  I’ve been tending to my wounds.  I want to go to a hospital.  I NEED to go to a hospital but with the phones being dead, even the cell phones, and no power, I figure it’ll do no good to go out of the house tonight.  Normally, my wife would take care of me.  Normally…hahaha.  That’s a good one!  As if there’s any such thing as normal anymore.  Or a wife.  Or…no, I’ve got to hold on to my sanity.

 

Where was I?  Oh yeah, the blood.  How much blood can one lose and still be alive?  Thank goodness, there’s water in the toilets and lots of old bags of ice in the freezer.  Maybe I can sneak out to the pond in the morning and scoop up some water.  The pond looks clean during the day and they don’t seem to want to bother me in the daytime.

 

At least not yet.

 

Sigh…I’m tired.  There’s so much I want to say.  And to think, I was just contemplating suicide a few days ago because my life was so boring.  Now…well, boring has a whole new meaning.  BORING=PARADISE!  And what if I’m one of the few survivors of this ordeal?  Do I give a damn if the human species is now down to a few of us lucky ones?

 

So many movies I can think of now that started badly but ended up with the so-called American ending, “Dawn of the Dead,” “War of the Worlds,” etc.  I can recall my grade-school study of storytelling, with the “deus ex machina” rescue at the end.  There will be no rescue here.

 

Only death.

 

If I could be so lucky.

 

I could go outside at night, I suppose, and end it all.  If only they’d let me out.  Why do they block all the doors and windows?  Why do they send their probes in to torture me after I’ve collapsed from lack of sleep?

 

Why does any of this matter?!

 

= = = = =

 

I found another laptop battery.  Got to try to get everything written down before they come back.

 

They are part of my dreaming world now.  Asleep or awake, they are with me.  They are able to penetrate the layer between consciousness and subconsciousness.  They can represent whatever they want.  To me, they are monsters.  To a neighbor a few houses away, they are angels come to save the planet from ourselves.

 

What I see is not what they are so should I waste time trying to describe them?  They say they are not real in the sense I think of as real.  They are dimensionless.  They are beings that live on the dark matter of outer space.  They are interested in our world because of the noise we make.  They destroyed a lot of us not because they wanted to kill us but simply because they needed to cut down on the noise in order to understand us better.  They didn’t realize until most of us were dead that we are creatures of sound.  They’re thinking about leaving us alone but they’re not sure.  Their probes are still taking data from me after I pass out.  It’s only after I pass out that the entities are interested in learning more about me.  They know enough about me and my kind from the noise we’ve made here in this part of the galaxy.  It’s our quieter moments they’re interested in now.

 

Quiet being a relative term.  To them, our heartbeats are like giant drums reverberating in a canyon.  Our breathing is like wind tunnel tests pushing air back and forth.

 

= = = = =

 

They’re back.

 

I don’t see them anymore but I can sense when they’re testing the air for my presence.  They know where I am at all times, probably, but I get the feeling they only care about my existence when this part of the world is hidden from the Sun and the noise of solar radiation.  Then they can explore me with their invisible probes.  At least, the probes are no longer making large gashes as they enter my body.  Now they seem to enter me with no visible signs.  Perhaps that’s why I’m still alive.  Maybe the probes missed major arteries and veins on the way in.

 

The only good thing about the probes is that they seem to clean up my insides.  I feel like I can pee more freely.  My breathing isn’t as labored as it used to be.  I don’t feel whooshing in my neck anymore.  It’s still hard to walk, though, since the leg muscles were so cut up.

 

= = = = =

 

They’re gone.  And it’s not even light outside yet.  Is that good?  They never leave at night.

 

No, wait.  There’s something going on in my head.  I can see them in my mind’s eye but I can’t sense their presence.  Am I just finally going crazy?  Can what I see be real?

 

= = = = =

 

I sit here in my grandparents’ chair.  “Sit” is not the word that fits here.  I should say that I float here over my grandparents’s chair.  I write this journal entry directly onto the computer hard drive, using the archaic human method of aligning magnetic bits so that the next human that comes along will be able to read what I’ve written.

 

For you see, I have discovered who “they” are.  The fact is that there is no “they” to begin with.  Somehow, and I’m not sure if I’ll discover how, since my concept of space and time has changed, somehow I have become part of the universe that is invisible to humans.  The creatures that I thought I saw, the probing that I thought I felt…could that have been my body dying?  Or is there a me that still exists on the physical plane?  I suppose I could detect the presence of myself…surely I could, even if I no longer have a body that can see, hear, feel, smell or taste myself.  Surely, there’s a way to tell.

 

If only I could pull back the curtain separating my current existence from my old one.

 

Am I dreaming or am I dead?  What if…

 

 

Chapter 34

 

“She better be good-looking.”

 

“Hunh?”

 

“She better be gorgeous!”

 

David looked at Rae with a curious grin.  “Well, I guess,” he responded wryly.  “Anyway, you can just go to imdb.com and look up the last film Hitchcock made.  The main female character’s the one I say you look like.”

 

“All right.”

 

“I’m just glad I finally figured out who you look like.”

 

“Well, she better be, that’s all I’m saying.”

 

“I..uh, yes.  I’d say she is.  She’s a psychic.”

 

Rae wasn’t sure if he said “psycho.”  “A what?”

 

“She plays a psychic that has to fake being a psychic or something like that.”

 

“Oh.”  Rae turned to look at her husband, Carl.  “So, where do you guys want to sit tonight?”

 

“Well, I was just talking with Larry about the raccoons.  Why don’t we sit in the rafters tonight?”

 

Rae looked at David’s wife.  “Is that okay with you?”

 

Karen nodded.  “Sure.”

 

 

After they were settled, David observed the folks gathered at tonight’s event.  Was it just him or did it seem that almost all the folks there were middle-aged or older?  Here it was a mid-October Thursday night in Madison, Alabama, and the most exciting thing for them to do was go to an old cotton market barn and listen to bluegrass music, eat BBQ, and participate in a silent auction.

 

One Grade-A redneck and his wife sat not far away from them.  As soon as the bluegrass band struck up “Rocky Top,” he fidgeted and fussed, which just drove Karen to start singing the lyrics.  Not one to miss out on the fun, Carl joined.  David and Rae tried to sing the words but didn’t know enough to make a difference.  The redneck just shook his head while the color of his face turned red.  He puffed up like a peacock getting ready to display his feathers.

 

“Well, the only thing that’ll make up for this song is for them to play ‘Sweet Home Alabama,’” the redneck said to no one in particular.

 

Everyone laughed.

 

 

 

Rae looked at David.  “So Carl says you’re entering a writing contest next month?”

 

“Yeah.  It’s for National Novel Writing Month, better known as NaNoWriMo.”

 

Karen joined in, “But it’s not really a contest.  You don’t win anything.  You just get the personal satisfaction that you finished a novel.”

 

“So there’s no reward?”

 

“No,” David and Karen said in unison.

 

“Then I don’t get it.”

 

“Well,” David explained, “have you ever heard of the ‘One Day’ novelist?”

 

“No.”

 

“The world is full of would-be novelists who think, ’One day, I’ll write a novel…if I only get the time.’”  Rae nodded her head in recognition of the joke.  “Exactly.  Of course, no one writes a novel in one day so this event gives you 30 days to write a 50,000 word novel.”

 

Rae stared at the ceiling for a second or two.  “And how many pages is that?”

 

“About one, seventy-five. “

 

“50,000 words?  Wow!” Carl exclaimed.  “So how many words a day is that?”

 

“One thousand, six-hundred and sixty-seven.  I’ve already practiced and it takes me about one and a half hours to write that many, with some time for sitting and scratching my head while thinking about what to write.  I can actually write the words in about an hour.”  David looked at Rae.  “So, you said your son is the writer in the family.  Do you write?”

 

“Not really.  Well, yes, I have written a few poems.  I even won a poem contest.”

 

“Oh yeah?  Let me guess.  Did they promise to publish your poem in a book?”

 

Rae gave David a questioning look.  “Yeah…”

 

“And all you had to do was pay for the book?”

 

“Uh-huh.  And you know what, I never got the book.”

 

“So you fell for the scam?  You know your poem didn’t really win a contest, don’t you?”

 

Rae sighed.  “I guess you figured it out.  You know, I would have been fine if they had just sent me the book.”

 

“Sorry to hear it.  I was lucky.  My fifth grade teacher warned the creative writing types in class that we’d see ads in magazines offering a poem contest and just to save our money because it was a ripoff.”

 

“You know, for the longest time, I still thought I had won the contest.  I suppose I still do, in some ways.”

 

David fixed his eyes on Rae’s, not wanting to say or do anything.  He knew that for a writer, it was one of the most heart-wrenching things to realize your work had not been recognized.  Kind of like a ghost that flies through an empty house, with no one to feel the bone-chilling cold when the ghost slipped past.  He finally nodded his head to encourage her to go on.

 

Rae averted her eyes from David.  “I was in my 30s, too,” Rae added.

 

David tried not to laugh.  “I’ve had my work published in literary journals.”

 

“Literary journals?” Rae asked.  “What’s that?”

 

David turned to Karen.  “Literary journals, right?” he asked, making sure he’d gotten it right.  Karen nodded in agreement.  “Literary journals, literary magazines…uh, college publications.”

 

Rae pursed her lips.  “Oh, I see.  So, tell me, Mr. Writer, where do you get your ideas?”

 

“Oh, just anywhere.”

 

“Is that right?  So, how about now?  Where would you get an idea for a story at this very moment?”

 

“Gosh, that’s an easy one,” David said, glancing around the barn.

 

“Prove it.”

 

“Okay, I will.  Can you see the folks down at the table over there?”

 

“Which ones?” Carl asked.

 

“The two ladies in blue jeans and matching jackets.”

 

Karen snapped her head around and gave David a “No, don’t say it!” look.

 

David just shrugged and continued, knowing he wasn’t going to mention to Carl and Rae that it would be obvious to David and Karen that the two women were lesbian companions. “Well, if you look closely, you’ll see that they’re both drinking tea.”

 

“How can you tell?”

 

“Another easy observation.  See the teabag on the table next to the lady with the baseball cap?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“I’d guess that both of the women are into alternative religious study or at least a non-Christian religion.”

 

“You can tell that from a teabag?”

 

“Sure.  Just look at the text on the teabag.  “’TAZO, The Reincarnation of Tea.  Throughout India, chai wallahs can be found serving up steaming cups of sweetly spiced chai to wandering souls.  You’re with them now,’ it says.  I love the part on the bottom.  ‘To ask questions, share observations or simply have a bit of human contact, write us at Tazo.’  The person who buys that tea is definitely looking for a religion with an Eastern flavor to it.”

 

“So,” Rae said, after a moment of silence, “we all agree that you have an interesting insight into the women down there, but how does that lead you into writing a story?”

 

“I’ll give you credit,” David said with a laugh.

 

“What’s that?”

 

“You are persistent.  Carl, is she always like this?”

 

“Oh no.  Only when she’s on the warpath.  You ought to see her when she’s out to get a petition signed.  Well, I guess I get petitions signed, too, so I suppose she’s not too radical.”

 

Rae smirked.  “You aren’t trying to avoid the question, are you?”

 

“No, no,” David responded quickly.  “Here’s the story I’d tell.  Two sisters were separated at an early age when their parents divorced.  However, with their parents’ permission, they kept in touch through correspondence.  One day, when they were teenagers, they were allowed to meet in the town where they were originally raised.  From then on, they made an effort to meet the same month each year at the same spot.  Because businesses came and went in the small town, they chose different restaurants or venues for their meetings.  Tonight, they were meeting at the first annual Historic Huntsville Foundation Cotton Ball.  They loved to share new discoveries with each other.  For this year’s meeting, unbeknownst to each other, they had brought a kind of tea that they liked.  The one with the hat, Amy, had brought the Tazo tea.  If you look into the other one’s purse…well, let’s call her Della…if you look into Della’s purse, you’ll see she has a bag of Thai ground tea.  I love the ingredients for that one, ‘Thai ground tea, sunset yellow 3340.’  It doesn’t get much simpler than that, huh?  Anyway, as it turns out, one of them will have purchased tea that contains a poison.  They both will drink the tea but only one of them will die.  I’d end the story in such a way that the reader would have to decide which one dies.  Along the way, I’d describe characteristics about the sisters, both good and bad, that would allow readers to choose which sister to die, based on the readers’ life experiences and exposure to people they didn’t like who had some characteristics of the sisters.”

 

Rae winked at Carl.  “I knew there was a reason we brought them here.  David, thanks for the story.  If only our son could hear you tell it.”

 

“Yeah, you’re welcome.  You know, it’s a shame we all died when that car plowed into the front of the Bandito Burrito while we were sitting there a few weeks ago.  Do you think we’ll always be stuck haunting the buildings around Main Street?  I’d really like to visit east Tennessee again.”

 

“I don’t know.”  Rae tapped Karen on the shoulder.  “Hey, whatcha thinking about?”

 

“Oh, nothing much.  I was just wondering why I hadn’t seen my brother yet.”

 

“Your brother?”

 

“Yeah, he died a few months ago at Huntsville Hospital.  You don’t suppose he’s over there, do you?”

 

“I’m not sure.”  Rae put her arm around Carl.  “So far, I’m just glad that I’ve got Carl.  And of course, you guys, too, I mean.  It’s just strange, you know.”

 

“Yeah?” David asked.

 

“Well, don’t you think it’s odd that if we’re dead why is it that we seem to not be awake 24 hours a day?  It’d seem to me that we’d have no reason to sleep…”

 

“Sleep?” David asked in a perturbed voice.  “You call it sleep?”

 

“Well, what else would you call it?”

 

“Suspended animation, perhaps.  It’s like I stop being a human and am just sitting, standing…uh, floating, if you will, in a cloud of ether with no thoughts, feelings or anything.”

 

“Well, that’s like sleeping, isn’t it?”

 

“No, it’s not.  When I sleep, I dream.  In fact, when I was alive, one of my favorite activities was to dream.”

 

“Oh, well, then,” Rae responded, trying not to act put off, “I suppose that would be a problem.”

 

“Maybe we’re like honey.”

 

“What do you mean, honey?” Karen asked with a laugh, hugging David.

 

“Look at the label on that bottle of honey from Greenbrier Honey Farm on the counter at the front.  See what it says, ‘All honey crystallizes over time, this does not indicate spoilage or age. To reliquify, place container in a dish of very warm water until liquid. Do not microwave. Never feed honey or corn syrup to babies under 1 year of age.  Pure, Raw, Local Honey.’  Maybe we’re like that.  Maybe we were humans for so long that we’ve crystallized into some semi-permanent human form and it takes a while for us to reliquify.  I mean, maybe we’re in some kind of transition phase where we can still get together and talk like humans but we’re slowly turning into something else.  Maybe the sleeping time, as you call it, is really what we’re like but we’re just not ready to go into it fulltime.”

 

David looked around him and realized that Karen, Carl and Rae were no longer with him.  He looked down at the folks dancing to the bluegrass music and felt like a succession of opaque veils were appearing before him, the dancers and barn slowly fading away.  He felt like he was floating, he felt like he was…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EPILOG

 

Brian Chipmunk had been planning an IPO for his company, which provided support services for what some were calling the “fountain of youth” machine because of its ability to analyze your DNA, determine the propensity for disease, reprogram your DNA, reset your stem cells to produce new DNA and set your DNA replication process up so that you lived many more years (not too many, so that you’d have to come back and be reprogrammed under the maintenance support agreement Brian’s company would offer).  To avoid causing an uproar, Brian’s IPO submission simply called the device a supercomputer, similar to IBM’s Big Blue.

 

Because he was going to become an instant public figure, Brian knew that he needed to project as positive an image as possible to increase the worth of his company.  He was as paranoid as Andrew Groves at Intel, if not more so, so he decided to seek out all the people from his past who might have something on him and still held a grudge – people who would want to take advantage of Brian’s sudden popularity to drag his name through the mud.  Like all investors in the supercomputer, including Bill Grates and Warren Boofay, Brian was allowed to use the machine so he decided that of all the people from his past, I was the most likely to damage his reputation so he used the machine to alter people, send them after me and test me to see if I held a grudge.

 

Although he kept sending people after me, Brian had stopped paying attention to me when he read a report that everyone he had sent to find me reported that I had no desire to cause him harm in any way.

 

What he didn’t know was that this very novel would be his downfall when it was randomly picked by a publishing house as the next national bestselling “postmodernist pop novel,” and was highly touted on talk shows just as Brian was publicly launching his company.  My description of Brian in this novel was picked up by several reporters, who portrayed Brian as being out of touch with reality, and thus his company must be a sham.

 

Brian increased his effort to find me.  I had heard through an anonymous friend (thank you, Tor anonymizing service) that Brian had sent more of his minions to find me.  But the damage was done.  Although his company didn’t collapse, it didn’t take off in the astronomical manner he had hoped.  At least I was able to sell my shares while they still had some value.

 

I’m sitting here in the cabin, writing the second edition of this book to meet the insatiable demand of the tree-killing, book-reading public I’ve always dreamed about.  I’ve got my cabin in the woods and I’ve got my loving audience.  What more could I want?

 

Wow!  What dumb luck.  I just got a newspaper from a neighbor.  He walks by occasionally and lets me have whatever he’s been reading that day – a newspaper, magazine, whatever.  Anyway…sorry, I’m still laughing.  According to this story, Brian Chipmunk was out dove hunting with the Vice President and…no, he wasn’t shot.  He was stomped on by Sasquatch.  The VP injured the big hairy ape and pinned him down until the Secret Service arrived.

 

Under questioning, Sasquatch said that he killed Mr. Chipmunk while Mr. Chipmunk was distracted by an American Indian ghost. The ghost was upset for being ignored by the huldra, Torborg, when she was sending signals for her friends to take over human bodies, while on the warpath for me!  Sasquatch said the Indian, named Friend of the Big Hairy Ape Guy, thought that getting Sasquatch to kill Mr. Chipmunk would be getting revenge on Torborg, since she had set up a sweet financial deal with Mr. Chipmunk’s company to send secret cash payments to Torborg and to preserve forest land in Scandinavia in exchange for Torborg to harass people on a list that Mr. Chipmunk sent to her periodically.

 

I don’t know what to do with this news.  Would Brian’s cohorts be looking for me even more if they think I had anything to do with his death?  What a crazy, fucking world I live in!  Living in the woods ain’t so bad after all.  If my ancestors and my cousins can do it, so can I.  The secret to this living is having a loving companion beside me (and I don’t mean my cats) – my wife.  After all I think and dream about, after all the fantasies and dreams I’ve had, there has been one constant that hasn’t changed – the presence of my wife in mind and body.  Sure, I can’t live with her sometimes.  But I sure can’t live without her, either.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

APPENDIX – Skeleton of a Story

 

The theme for this year’s novel was supposed to be about my childhood, revealing that my childhood was not necessarily innocent or perfectly sheltered from non life-enhancing activities or thoughts.  But life gets in the way of telling a story sometimes.  Had I not discovered what I have just told you, this is what I would have written about.  At least I got through some of it.

 

Outline:

 

1. Timeframe of where I lived.

1.a. 1962-1964? – Bristol, TN;

1.b. 1964?-1966? – Bartow, FL;

1.c. 1966?-1968? – Boone, NC (two locations);

1.d. 1968?-1970 – Greeneville, TN;

1.e. 1970-1980 – Kingsport, TN

 

2. Early childhood memories of Bristol and Bartow.

2.a. Bristol – nothing.  My parents were raising me but I don’t consciously remember what they taught me.

2.b. Bartow – a few memories.

2.b.1. Flying cockroaches coming out of cabinet in kitchen.

2.b.2. Standing in driveway while looking at kids across the street.  Did Mom or Dad drive over my tricycle at that point?

2.b.3. Standing next to chain-link fence with basset hound while watching kids play on other side of the fence.  Running home when my name was called.

 

2.c1. Boone, NC; Location 1 – most of my early thinking.  First memories of popular music, including “Downtown” and “Georgy Girl”.

2.c.1. Brian Chipmunk and his father with the monkey-face look.

2.c.2. Kindergarten.  Miss Carpenter (cute/pretty/young).  Mrs. White (older librarian type).  Another one whose name escapes me now.

2.c.2.1. Picking up our shoes from pile – first time I remember thinking of girls as being special.

2.c.2.2. Knocking over a big set of construction blocks and having to restack them while other kids got to go to recess.

2.c.2.3. Trying to recognize smells of objects in plastic container and paper bag.

2.c.2.3. Hatching chicken eggs with an incubator.

2.c.3. Finding out about someone in the neighborhood who killed a dog (or dogs) with poison meat.

2.c.4. Playing in the snow outside and walking further in the neighborhood than I was supposed to but having fun anyway.

2.c.5. Going to a cookout, seeing a satellite pass overheard, and cooking food on a stick (hotdog? marshmallows?).

 

2.c2. Boone, NC; Location 2 – witnessed death firsthand.

2.c2.1. Received baby ducks for Easter.  Elisabeth and I tried to feed them water from the sink and ending up drowning one of them.  The other duck we kept for a while in the backyard and then released into the town’s duck pond.

2.c2.2. The babysitter who raised animals, including a raccoon.

2.c2.3. Luther and Diane, our next-door neighbors.

2.c2.4. The strange boys across the street who liked to do weird things.

2.c2.5. The red spider mites in the pines across the street.

2.c2.6. Throwing rocks at passing cars in an attempt to get someone to look at our house for sale.

2.c2.7. Elisabeth and I cutting each other’s hair with pinking shears.

2.c2.8. Taking afternoon naps.  My first dreams/nightmares.

2.c2.8.1. Dinosaurs.

2.c2.8.2. The feeling of numbness in my limbs, like thick/heavy pillows, something I can still feel every now and then, especially when sick.

2.c2.8.3. The overwhelming feeling being small and growing smaller while looking up from a pew into the ceiling of a cathedral.

2.c2.9. Saying dirty words – shoo shoo and wee wee – and getting my mouth washed out with soap.

 

2.d. Greeneville, TN – first interaction with older kids.

2.d.1. Moved to Greeneville with my father.  I remember eating simple meals with him.

2.d.2. Crescent School – left Boone halfway through school year and started at Greeneville halfway through school year.

2.d.2.1. Waiting on school bus.  Kids calling each other names, fighting, pulling hair, threats, etc.  One boy bringing dead frog to bus stop.

2.d.2.2. Daydreaming in math class, looking at bees flying around Abelia grandiflora (Glossy Abelia; a hybrid cross between A. chinensis and A. uniflora) outside the window.

2.d.2.3. Taking Spanish classes in 1st and 2nd grades.

2.d.2.4. Drawing race cars with another kid in class.

2.d.2.5. Playground/recess time.  Falling and scraping my knees a lot. Red Rover.

2.d.2.6. Getting paddled for interrupting a class.

2.d.2.7. Not wanting to do my math class work.  Mrs. Winehurst telling me, “I know you’re very capable so I don’t know why you won’t do your class work.”  Very likely I was daydreaming or drawing because the class work seemed like too much repetitive nonsense.

2.d.2.8. Getting a part as an owl in a class play because I could turn my head around enough to appear that I was looking down my back.

2.d.2.9. A black kid in my 2nd grade class, Kevin, having a crush on my sister, Elisabeth.

2.d.2.10. Finishing my tests in class so quickly that I could spend time doodling on them.  In fact, one teacher refused to accept my test because it was covered with lines and stuff.

2.d.2.11. Barely remember other subjects but I’m sure I must have studied spelling and reading.

2.d.3. Indian Guides – YMCA based program, similar to Boy Scouts. Nolichuckey tribe.

2.d.3.1. Dad had a shoeshine box that he kept things in.  His name was “He who sits by the fire”  Tems-kwah-ta-wah.

2.d.3.2. My name was Thunder Hawk.

2.d.3.3. We had name tags made of construction paper cut out to look like canoes.

 

2.d.4. Drive-in theater next door.

2.d.4.1. We used to sneak through a break in the fence to walk into the drive-in theater lot.  I never went at night time because I was too young.  The other kids would sneak in at night and describe some of the movies.  Seems like there was “M*A*S*H”, which came out at 1970, so it is quite possible to have been the movie I remember.

2.d.5. The Hogan Drive neighborhood.

2.d.5.1. We lived on a hill.  There was a field below us you could roll down, slide down or sled down.

2.d.5.2. Kids played football in the lot at the bottom of the hill.

2.d.5.3. I had my first taste of beer at the neighbor’s house just past the lot.

2.d.5.4. We had a playground set in our yard, including a “jungle gym”.

2.d.5.5. A kid saw a garden spider and told us that if your name was whispered in the presence of the spider, the spider would write your name and then you were doomed to die.

2.d.5.6. There were woods behind my house.  I remember hearing a whippoorwill.  I think there were other birds I heard too.  Sometimes I hear a bird and think I heard it before.

2.d.5.7. There was a baby carriage in the woods.

2.d.5.8. There was a story about a Peeping Tom who lived on the other side of the woods.

2.d.6. The house.

2.d.6.1. I used to set cotton balls on fire by plugging a telephone cord into the wall outlet and make sparks by clicking the two wires together.

2.d.6.2.

 

Wrap childhood back around to trip to Munich:

 

Bjorn, Eleanor and David get on the train from Altenerding to Munich.  On the train, they discuss the plans for the day.  Then, David asks Bjorn about life in Sweden.  Bjorn describes modern life but for some reason, David feels compelled to ask about Swedish folk legends.  Bjorn tells about huldra and tomte.

 

When Eleanor spoke to Bjorn and me about integrity, she knew very little about my life.  the day I spent in Munich with Eleanor and Bjorn – a wonderful memory of walking through the streets the day of the World Cup match between Germany and Sweden.  Alas, death has overshadowed that warm, summer day in Bavaria.  I’ll always have dim memories of Swedish wood creatures, American coffee shops (Starbucks and San Francisco Coffee Company), Johannes berries, funny costumes, a phone conversation between Eleanor and my father in broken German, chasing down a couple of bicyclists in the English Garden in an attempt to return a dropped overshirt, watching surfers in the middle of the city, looking out over the city from the towers of the Frauenkirche by myself while waiting for Eleanor and Bjorn (with an elderly lady telling me her memories of the city, all in German, with me only being able to say “Ja, ja”, and wishing I could say something more comforting), eating ice cream next to polizei cyclists, then cracking a joke in bad taste, seeing the look of alarm/disgust on Eleanor’s face, sensing something wrong and then hours later having a conversation at the end of the day in the courtyard outside a San Fran ‘offee House where Eleanor laid it on the line about integrity, flirting, sex and everything else that that dirty joke seemed to embody (certainly including some of my writing, no doubt).

 

STORY SUMMARY.  The three humans head into Munich.  Each scene in the story describes the trio’s encounter with a person who David touches and who subsequently takes on the spirit of one of the creatures that appeared on the train with them.

 

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF ENCOUNTERS.

 

1. Brush by elbow of young adult female in traditional Bavarian dress.

2. By Johannes berries and touch hand of middle-aged female vegetable stand seller.

3. Shake hands with middle-aged male oompah band leader.

4. Put arms around teenage male Swedish soccer fans during photo of them in their outlandish costumes (gorilla outfit and female impersonator).

5. Touch shoulder of old lady while standing with her in tower of Frauenkirche when she describes life in Germany before the war.

6. Touch arm of old male Japanese tourist when handing a camera back to him after taking picture of he and his wife by request.

7. Slap back of young adult male surfer in congratulations for flouting the law.

8. Brush fingers of teenage female counter person at coffee house when paying for latte.

 

 

EXPAND THIS THOUGHT:

Should I try to understand what would cause a coworker to say her husband accused me of allegedly stalking his wife?  Once HR found out the coworker lied, she was allowed to leave and the subject was dropped.  Then maybe there wasn’t much to understand.  Perhaps the coworker was just an attention-getter.  Even so, what makes one person and not another blow innocent flirtations in the hallway and via email out of proportion?  How sensitive are guys supposed to be?  Studies have recently shown that single sex schools are better for kids’ self-esteem.  I wonder if single sex workplaces would be better for adults’ self-esteem.  Perhaps I’m just out of touch with modern society, or simply a Hooters man in a Better Housekeeping office.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Silence Can Be Deadly – A Lot Left Unsaid

 

If I’m not entertaining others or informing them in any way

When I give them my thoughts and ideas on paper

(And thus, giving them nothing new to consider),

Then what else can I desire to do?

 

– 18 July 2006, Rick Hill

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t worry about being a success.

Be a contributor or one who is contributed to.

Success is the byproduct of an effective life.

 

— Ben Lander, conductor