Advice to an 18-Year Old

You’re fresh out of high school and having a good time yourself seeing all your friends, before you go your separate ways into the world.  My last summer with my friends was fun and tough at the same time – I did my best to hang out with guys I always wanted to know and took girls out I always wanted to date because the way we’d heard it from our other older friends, as soon as everyone started getting jobs and going to college, you change.

We talked to your parents about you a little bit (just wait, you’ll catch yourself doing the same thing before you know it – there’s really truth in “the older you get, the faster the years go by”).  They love you and are concerned about you – I know at your age, I thought my parents were always trying to ruin my life by embarrassing me in front of my friends (here I was 18 years old, about to go out on my own and they were like, “If you need money for the movies, why don’t you get a job?” and I was like, “If I have a job, I won’t have time to go to the movies!”  I thought they were so stupid because they couldn’t see things my way; just because they were old and boring and out of touch didn’t mean they could stop me from seeing my friends for the last time).  It’s weird to see you going through some of the same stuff me and my friends did.  It’s weird because it means I’m part of the crowd of people who kids think are old, boring and out of touch.  It’s true I’m not 18 anymore so I have no clue about the latest music, fashion, etc., that defines who you are.

At the same time, I went through some of the stuff you did.  For instance, you got caught skinny-dipping at a young age; I got caught getting drunk at a young age.  I was all the time getting in trouble with my parents, just like you.  I know you’re not going to see it differently until you’re a lot older but I’m going to say it anyway: It’s better to have parents, friends and family who care about you than the other way around.  Like last night when your mom told you to be home before 2, she sounded like she was treating you like a little kid.  However, try to see it from my perspective – most of the stupid stuff I did happened when it was very late at night or I was too drunk to remember.  It took me several years – from age 18 to age 23 – before I realized maybe I should listen to the advice of some of my family (my parents weren’t the only ones who cared) and my real friends (my so-called “friends” who just wanted to party weren’t really my friends).

I hope you have the time of your life for the rest of the summer, despite your parents coming down on you.  Keep in mind that even though you live in your parents’ place, you are a grownup, an adult, an old lady, etc., ‘cause you have graduated from high school.  Sure, your parents are going to keep helping you out when they can.  They can’t help it.  They still think of you as their little girl (and always will, even when they’re in their 70s and you’re over 40).  What matters is that when this summer is over, you don’t have to let your parents think of you as a kid anymore.  You’re going to act like the 18-year old adult that you are.  You are going to look at yourself in the mirror everyday for the rest of your life and see a woman.  She is your only true friend.  Be kind to her and she’ll be kind to you.

Have a good time this summer but take a moment to be an adult who likes to look ahead, too.  Up to now, your parents and the school system have planned your life for you.  That ain’t gonna happen anymore because…well, you can just let stuff happen to you which can feel like life is taking care of you but that’s not being a friend to the woman in the mirror.  Instead of letting everyone and everything else lead you down the road of life, take a few minutes (say like just after you’ve waded through all the crap in this letter :)).  Don’t waste a lot of time asking yourself questions like “Who am I?” or “What’s my purpose in life?” or “Why does nobody understand me?”  If you want sympathy, look in the mirror!  No, when you take a few minutes, get an empty pad of paper and a couple of pens, markers, pencils, crayons – whatever you like to write with (use a mouse and a computer, if you like).  Whatever you use, just make sure it’s something that will last a long time.  Then, write down all the things you want to do, no matter how insignificant, things you just have to do before your life on this planet is over.  For me, at your age it was stuff like see certain bands in concert (The Clash, The Police, the Sex Pistols), get away from my parents, own a car that required no gas, date/kiss some girls I liked but hadn’t gone out with yet, and travel the world.

Next, write down stuff that you have to do, again including insignificant stuff, even things like brush your teeth, take a shower, buy new clothes, eat meals, go to school, breathe air, pay for your own car, etc.

Now, think about the last five years of your life in relation to the two lists you made.  How many things on your “want to do” list were there five years ago?  How many things on your “have to do” list were there five years ago?  If you live a fulfilling life the next five years, you should be doing all the stuff on your “have to do” list to be able to help you finish or get started on your “want to do” list.

Anyway, think about who you are today, an 18-year old woman, and who you’ll be, a 23-year old woman.  Before you know it that 23-year old woman will be looking at you in the mirror.  How do you want to remember the last five years when you’re 23?  At 18, the last five years have been defined largely by your parents.  At 23, the last five years will have been defined by you.

The summer’s almost over but that doesn’t mean you have to stop having fun. What it means is that you’re a little bit older, you’ve got a few more memories and most of you friends have gone their separate ways.  You’re gonna make new friends, you’re going to have more good times and life will go on.

I’ll leave you with these last thoughts.  Every now and then, I ask myself what day it is out loud.  “Today is Friday, August 1^st, 2003,” I say.  I remember the day, my age (I’m 41years old) and what I’m doing (in this case, writing a letter to an 18-year old stranger Ii see every few years when I visit her parents).  I try to remember the last time I asked myself what day it is and what I was doing (in this case, I had just finished watching “The Hulk” and I was driving out of the movie theater parking lot).  If I can’t be happy with who I’ve been between the two dates, then I realize I’ve gotta be nicer to me an not just let life treat me however it wants to – I go back to my mental lists of “want to do” and “have to do”.  I see what “’have to do” things I haven’t done which have prevented me from doing the things on my “want to do” list and then do them.

As my wise uncle told me when I was your age, “You’re on your own now, kiddo.  It’s time to let your parents go.  You can’t blame them for your life anymore.”

I hope the next time I get together with your parents, I get to hear that Amanda is doing a great job taking care of Amanda, no matter what she (you) is doing.

In closing, I don’t know what your religious beliefs are but if you feel alone, the best thing is to quietly pray.  Pray first for those around you who are in greater need and then pray for yourself.  You’d be amazed at the power of prayer (you don’t have to go to church or belong to an official religious group to pray.  In fact, you don’t have to believe in God, Jesus, Buddha or Mohammed, if you don’t want to).  Just realize you’re not alone – there are others who need your prayers, and vice versa.

— 19 August 2003

How are you?  & what is going on in your world these days?

Thanks for asking how I’m doing.  There is much that I would like to say in response to your question but the older I’ve gotten, the less I think that what I say matters (and the more I keep the “pity parties” I throw for myself to myself), because I just tend to repeat myself.  Right now, I am contemplating what I thought as a child — my dreams, desires, observations — and deciding how much I need to satisfy the dreams and desires of the child within.  One of the main thoughts/dreams I had as a child was wanting to be a hermit and dig ditches for a living.  As the world passes me by, I wonder if fulfilling that dream would be worthwhile.  Yes, it’s a form of escape (just like my life-ending thoughts) but I don’t know what else to do with myself other than watch movies/television or read magazines/books.  Another dream I had was to be known as a writer.  The more I’ve written, the more I’m convinced I have the talent but not the drive to keep my writing before the public.  Another dream I had was to own a greenhouse.  Well, I’m finally fulfilling that dream with a sunroom.  I’ve also fulfilled the dream of owning a motorcycle and an Italian sports car.

Toward the end of March, I was home sick one day and looked out the back window to see what looked like two mother deer walking through the woods with four baby deer.  I was so amazed that I did not think to pick up a video camera until the deer has passed by.  I thought about the video camera because I realized that I may never see something like that in my backyard again and the deer would probably be dead in the fall (deer hunting season).  A few minutes later, I opened the door and one of those large brown, flying roaches flew into the house.  I killed the roach without hesitation.  I then contemplated my actions.  Why did I feel remorse for the potential death of the deer by unknown human hunters at some future date but myself killed an insect (another living being) in an instant with no remorse?  Why do I value six deer, which have a greater potential for damage to humans through crop destruction and are good candidates for the creatures that ate all the trillium in the woods, more than one roach which accidentally flew into my house?  Why did I keep that information to myself until you asked how I’m doing?  Hmmmm….more about that later.

My father and I are planning to go to Ohio (the Mid-Ohio race track) next week to help celebrate the 50th anniversary of a car company, Triumph.  Dad had a Triumph TR3 when I was a kid and inspired me to get the Alfa Romeo Spiders I had a few years ago.

My sister and I are planning to go to Cullman, Alabama, on 22 June to skydive, a first for both of us.  We’re tandem diving; that is, each of us will be strapped to a certified sky diver.  We’re also getting the event videotaped.

As usual, I have more to say to you, maybe not as much as I used to or would like to think I have to say.  I’ve thought about you and wondered how you’re handling your life (or how it’s handling you?).  I wonder if your independence must be great, how traveling all the time probably opens your eyes to the good side of the diversity of humans, as opposed to the depressing side of humans depicted in the news.  I’ve come to the conclusion that like my diary/journal, you’re the one person to whom I can send these words without a worry in the world — I used to worry but what for?  Well, I always find it easier to “speak” through written words rather than speaking in person and I used to worry that something I wrote would be taken the wrong way and you would want to meet me to discuss what I wrote (part of the age-old male ego thing that forces a guy to think that just because a woman pays attention to him she must be interested in him on a permanent basis).  I know you better than that.

Another age-related event occurred the other day — my nephew graduated from high school a couple of weeks ago.

Life marches on.  I’m a middle-aged man now, for what it’s worth.  If I’m not careful, my life will be over before I decide if I want to live.

Where has life put you now?

— 6 June 2002

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I have let my life be explained away

“I have let my life be explained away.”  On the way home last night, I was hit by that thought.  I was driving down the road, imagining a conversation with you about why I am where I am instead of someplace else.  I took a mental inventory of the types of person I thought I might have become (writer, adventurer, tourist, executive) instead of who I am.  I then realized that I have given into the self-perceived notions of what I expect others think I should be.  I no longer know who I am except through others.  I have become what I disliked in my parents — worrying about what others think of me.  For example, when I think about what I would do if I was single again, I think, “Well, that would upset Janeil, my parents, my niece and nephew and I want everyone around me to be as least miserable as possible so I better not think about that therefore I will never be a single person again but I don’t want to be a married person anymore so the only way to not know if I have upset anyone is to end my life but I have never truly ended my life before because I believe that this collection of cells known as me has too strong of a will to survive but a true will to survive entails producing offspring to ensure the immortality of these cells but I’m not having children with Janeil and I’m getting older so that will to survive thing must really be a piece of crap so I could really end my life or become single again” and the cycle continues.

In the meantime, people say they hardly recognize me anymore because of my gray hair so I am getting older despite my indecision about who I’ll be which is pretty funny because when I was younger I never made the connection between what I would be like when I grow up and what being old would be like.  Not that I’m old, of course.

So, at age 40, I’ve come to realize that I will never be Superman, God, Bill Gates, Abbey Hoffman, Joseph Conrad, H.P Lovecraft, James Bond, Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey, Johnny Cash, Jello Biafra, Maya Angelou, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Frederick Exley or F. Scott Fitzgerald.  I am still just me, a person who has let the temptation of an easy life beat him down.  Some days, I can’t live with myself (and wouldn’t if I had a choice), disgusted at the person I have not become.  I used to magnify that disgust by imagining people out there who could destroy me by thinking about me with the same disgust (these people are the so-called “they” whom we often refer to when we want to add a sense of authority to a subject as in, “Well, you know what they say…”).  I remember a cartoon character named Captain Marvel who had a sort of committee of superhero peers that represent his various personality traits.  In the same way, I carry a group of people in my head who represent certain ideals.  Some of these people are from my life — a friend’s mother, a Boy Scout leader, etc.  Some of these people are societal icons (see the list above).  Others are fictional (same list).  In any case, as I’ve told you before, you are in this group.  You represent the person with a non-mainstream eye (always finding unique books to read, movies to watch, places to visit).  When I was young, I thought if I didn’t live in a cabin by myself, then the ideal life would be a college professor who lived in a smalltown cottage with his female college professor companion (or conversely, be a not very smart person living in a cottage with his housewife).  That way, I would work nine months of the year and travel the other three months, with or without my companion.  I envy you because you found a job in which you work and travel twelve months of the year.  It’s also like you’ve raised the standard of that ideal life I imagined.  Of course, the life you live is not ideal, I know that (you don’t get to see your dogs, for one).  Sitting in airports during layovers is not the most exciting thing to do in life.

— 11 June 2002

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What is a Church Lifestyle?

13 December 2001

Letter to Choir Director,

I have always appreciated the warmth and hospitality – the family environment – of the folks in the choir.  Whenever my wife and I go to Covenant, it’s like seeing relatives again at Christmas.  And you’ve been kind enough to say you’re still saving my choir robe for me so writing this letter doesn’t make sense in some ways but I’m here nonetheless.

I thought that after I finished my bachelor’s degree (21 years later) that I could get back into the habit of attending Covenant regularly and rejoin the choir.  However, that does not seem to be the case.

I have thought about the reasons I could give for not attending church regularly and most of them would fall into the category of excuses: not enough time, too tired, etc.  The fact is that my wife and I are not traveling like we used to, I have finished school and am back to pretty normal working hours (<50 hours/week) so there is nothing physically that prevents me from getting in my car and joining other Presbyterians on Drake Avenue for fellowship.

What keeps me from going, then?  Well, I guess it boils down to my not feeling comfortable around people whose goals are truly centered on the goodness of humanity.

It’s like the time that the minister’s wife commented to me that she could hear my voice in the choir on Sundays.  I realized then that I was standing out too much, that people were actually noticing me as a member of the choir.  Or the time that an elder asked me to consider being a deacon.  I realized then I was required to be a participating member of the church but I did not want be a person that others looked up to or came to for advice.  In other words, it dawned on me that I went to church to entertain and be entertained.

After concluding that church was a form of entertainment to me, I decided it was best that I not let myself be an influence on those at Covenant who might have my same inclination.  I have since turned to forms of entertainment that make me more comfortable, mainly college football and professional racing.

Does any of this make sense to you?  I don’t know.  You have worked hard to ensure that the church is a central part of your family’s life.

I will close this letter by saying that you have done a wonderful job as choir director and I wish you all the best in the future.  There is no reason to save a choir robe for me anymore.

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9 July 2003

Letter to Choir Member and Wife,

I hope this letter finds you in good health.  The two of you have always been a welcome sight for us when we see you, whether at Covenant Presbyterian or in passing at a restaurant.  From the moment we met you, you treated us like a member of your family and we’ve always appreciated that.

In fact, it’s the very feeling of being part of your family that makes it tough for me when I see you two and know that you haven’t seen us in church lately.  It’s like being invited to Christmas dinner by your parents, not showing up and then trying to explain why you don’t have a legitimate excuse for your absence.  We really don’t have a legitimate excuse for not going to church on Sunday.

It used to be that we were so exhausted from our travels that if we happened to be in town on Sunday, we decided to sleep in instead of going to church.  Certainly, while I was going to school (and finishing my bachelor’s degree, not master’s degree, I abashedly admit), I was unable to show up for choir practice on Wednesday night but it was no excuse for missing choir practice on Sunday morning.

I really don’t know what to say about our absence.  I guess that part of the problem, for me at least (I won’t speak for Janeil), is that as a middle-aged adult I don’t feel comfortable being a role model for the younger members of our church.  Janeil and I decided not to have children, which gives us the ability to do things that are not logical to children, such as enjoying a weekend going to a college football game more than enjoying a weekend church retreat – on a moment’s notice, we can put on our funny orange outfits, jump in the car, drive four hours to Knoxville, enjoy wine and cheese in the parking lot, join the crowd in the stadium yelling and screaming at the players on the field, and then drive home.  We can be as nice, mean or ornery as we want, without worrying about offending people’s sense of decency because they realize we are being rabid college football fans.  It’s hard for me to be that person and then try to be a nice, loving, cordial person in the crowd at church on Sunday morning for young people to see and look up to.

I thought the problem might be the type of service we attended.  I thought, “If I like yelling in a crowd at a football stadium, maybe I could find a place to yell in a crowd at church”.  Certainly my singing in the choir was the equivalent to singing the football fight song in the stadium but it got to the point where I realized people in the congregation were actually looking at and up to me as part of the official church, so I decided I would not sing in the choir anymore after I realized I did not want to be a role model.  We tried attending the “Maranatha in the morning” service but it was too informal for us – we felt like we were back at summer church camp, singing around a fire.  We even attended services at other churches but found that we like our “family” at Covenant the best.  Besides, there’s nothing like the traditional Sunday service of a Presbyterian church.  I grew up with it and will always think it is the best type of Sunday worship service.

Anyway, I just thought I’d drop you a line and let you know why you haven’t seen us at church lately.  You probably don’t think about us very often but if you do, please remember to pray for Janeil because her mother is getting older and although she’s in good health at 85 years of age, I know her death will be very hard on Janeil.

I hope that your son has found a viable vocation.  I know his decision to leave the church in Lenoir City was very tough.

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Why is Zelda Interesting?

B,

“In The Bedroom” was interesting. First of all, I can’t remember the last time so many people walked out of a movie. I don’t know their reasons for leaving but they could have left from boredom, being offended…who knows. For me, the movie was all too familiar – long passages of time during which both members of a marriage spend their energy on non-marriage activities and not communicating with other. Then, when an event occurs that forces the couple to spend “quality time” with each other, all the years of things left unsaid are expressed in a matter of a few emotion-filled moments. I saw it in the relationship between my grandmother and her husband, my father and mother, my sister and her husband, and my wife and me. I suppose these tense moments are part of what life is made of.

R
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Brenda,

Me again. Recently, I have been lost in a world of “what’s next?” because I am now a grown-up – I have a bachelor’s degree and I see a middle-aged person in the mirror with distinct [earned!] laugh-lines. Now that I know a person I respect very much has decided to join the world of the gay divorcee, I can look at the possibilities of what can be next by looking at what you (you as in Brenda, not a generic you) are doing or not doing. As a somewhat self-motivator, I thought I would do some virtual self-searching.

For fun, I searched the Internet for “what the future will bring”. Here are the titles/subtitles of some Web sites I found:
WHAT’S TRUE – AND WHAT’S NOT – ABOUT THE INTERNET?
THE INTERNET
IS IT STILL IMPORTANT TO GET BIG FAST?
SCALABILITY, NETWORK EFFECTS, AND CATASTROPHIC SUCCESS
LEADERSHIP AND THE MANAGEMENT OF LARGE ORGANIZATIONS
THINK GLOBALLY, EXECUTE LOCALLY
THE GOOD – AND BAD – NEWS ABOUT STRONG CORPORATE VALUE SYSTEMS
WHAT DOES THE FUTURE LOOK LIKE?
WHAT THE FUTURE WILL BRING
WHERE THE WIRED THINGS ARE: INFORMATION FORMATS
ISSUES IN GLOBAL EDUCATION – NEWSLETTER OF THE AMERICAN FORUM FOR GLOBAL EDUCATION
THE NEXT COMPUTER INTERFACE
GELERNTER: THE DESKTOP NEEDS TO BE REIMAGINED
LEXTROPICON
EXTROPIAN PRINCIPLES 3.0
INTRODUCTION
PERPETUAL PROGRESS
SELF-TRANSFORMATION
PRACTICAL OPTIMISM
INTELLIGENT TECHNOLOGY
OPEN SOCIETY
SELF-DIRECTION
RATIONAL THINKING
CONCLUSION
FURTHER INFORMATION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
COPYRIGHT POLICY
SHOP EXTROPY
THE ISLAMIC CONCEPT OF SIN.
AGINGHELP.COM
Self-Motivation: The Struggle with the Inner Guard Dogs
THE BEGINNING OF EVERY YEAR IS A FEAST FOR THE WEAKER SELF
TRICKS AND TACTICS BECOME MORE AND MORE REFINED
1) The fairy tale of impossibility
2) Just once won’t hurt
3) Sudden distraction
NO READY REMEDIES
THE INNER GUARD DOG’S POSITIVE SIDE
WORKING WITH PICTURES
DON’T FORGET THE FUN FACTOR
WHAT YOU CAN DO: HOW TO GET FROM HURT TO HOPE
THE RULES WE LIVE BY
MONEY TIPS FOR TRYING TIMES
1) RECALLING DEATH IN THE SENSE THAT WE DO NOT REMAIN LONG IN THIS LIFE
A) THE DISADVANTAGES OF FAILING TO RECALL DEATH
B) THE ADVANTAGES OF RECALLING DEATH
C) THE ACTUAL METHOD OF RECALLING DEATH
BREATHING AND BELIEVING
LEARN2 STOP PROCRASTINATING
DO THE NOW THING!
IDENTIFY YOUR SYMPTOMS
DETERMINE THE UNDERLYING CAUSE
DEVELOP A STRATEGY
 

For fun, I created a little booklet with the contents of these Web sites. Some of the contents are interesting and all of them provide useful information, especially for pushing through the fog of “what’s next?”

Whatever. I actually started this email with something else to say. In the meantime, I have been interrupted by work-related items. Hmm…oh yeah, today is Valentine’s Day. That was one thing I was thinking about. Happy Valentine’s Day to you. I hope you find a way to enjoy it. The other thing was…I had told you about the web searches…I glanced over the titles again…okay, the other funny thing I was about to say (still can’t remember what I started out to say) is the funny thought that came to me. After looking at the titles, I noticed all the Web sites I left off of my search on http://www.google.com of “what the future will bring”. I realized, too, that I’ve got to get outdoors more often.

More interruption…where was I? Today is apparently not my day to sit down and record a few thoughts. And more people who want to talk to me. Okay, so I must be a magnet for people who like to talk. That’s it! I remember why I started this email.

You said that after you spent six months learning new products, you did not know what you are planning to do next. I assume, then, that you will still be working for SCT? Do you like the company? Does it provide you enough? I mean, do you feel that you want to keep working or do you even feel that the function you perform for SCT is really work? Is it part of the big picture of what Brenda is all about? I ask you this because you are the only person I know who has traveled as she has and still has not settled on what she wants to do or who she wants to be. Other friends of mine have traveled overseas and said that they learned to accept or changed where they are in American society because of a) the cultural continuance represented by the ruins of Rome, b) the heritage found in ancestral homes of Ireland/Scotland/England/Germany, c) the tolerance of different backgrounds by other cultures, and/or d) the relative poverty of Third World countries. Because I have only traveled to parts of the U.S, Canada and Mexico, I have not been directly exposed to a lot of different cultures. The one time I took off with my parents’ car and drove from Nashville to Seattle to L.A. and back in 10 days, I did learn that I had roots deeper than I thought in east Tennessee and love that I know in my heart is not the same as the love/lust sung about on the radio. The most interesting lesson I learned was while watching a couple of young, down-on-their-luck, hitchhikers take turns pulling pieces of grass out of their hair after sleeping on the side of the road – a sophisticated system of communication does not completely separate us humans from the rest of the animal world.

Well, my dear animal friend, I am near departing the workplace to take my wife to the see the movie, “In The Bedroom” for Valentine’s Day. As usual, I have more to say to you but the interruptions of work have slowed me down today. Hopefully, tomorrow will be a bit more peaceful. What I want to talk about has not yet been said. Until tomorrow then!

Reeeeck
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B,
What can I say? I am happy for you, if that can be said about a person who has decided her life is more important than the legal contract called marriage.

I’m sorry to hear about your dogs. I remember the wonderful pictures of your back yard in Charleston — the camellias, your peppy puppy — and I wonder how you’ve found the strength to get both into and out of marriage. You have always been strong on the outside, however, and I know that the reaction of others to ourselves reinforces our outer shells so as always, you will be okay to the people around you.

But are you really okay, and if not, does that matter? Will what you do make any change to the Brenda inside? As the saying goes, “we do not know what the future may bring,” “the entire world is there for your taking, if that is what you want,” etc. As you said, though, what do you need to do with your life?

[Pardon me, although you cannot see it, I am taking a moment to flush all the cliches out of my head and see what my employees are up to]

I had noticed in one of your last emails that you said you were visiting a coworker/friend. The way you said that I thought you were trying to tell me something but I couldn’t figure out why (I felt the same way about your email from the Netherlands). Then you spelled it out this last time. I completely understand your need for freedom.

The only times I have felt that I could freely be myself, I have been away from my wife. Is that a good thing? I have debated that issue with myself, psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists, sister and friends. I have had ample time to draw a conclusion. With my wife present, I once told a therapist that I hated my wife. The therapist thought the words would be a revelation to my wife. Little did the therapist know that I had already told my wife that I was going to say those words when we sat down with the therapist. Yes, I was manipulating the therapist but I was also preserving my wife’s feelings. After all, Janeil has been a friend of mine since we met in the summer between 6th and 7th grade. I do not hate Janeil, my friend. I do not hate Janeil, my daily companion. I do hate the wife. My wife is the manifestation of all that I dislike about society and religion. I want to lose my wife, get away from her and let me be me. I do not want to lose my friend, Janeil, who gives more than she takes, who is considerate of others, who loves others around her unconditionally and teaches me to love in kind.

In March, I am going down to Florida to visit my parents while my wife goes to Monterrey, CA, for a nuclear physics conference. I will have time to my self to seriously ponder my future.

Over the past few years, I have told you about events I wanted to take place before I made any decisions about my future. Those events have occurred – I have completed my bachelor’s degree, I have straightened out my credit card debts, Janeil is financially secure (she has close to a quarter million dollars in stock/retirement/savings) and I have reached a point where I know what I can do with my vocational life. In the meantime, I have reached middle age. I will be 40 years old in May. In some countries, I would be reaching the end of my average life span. In the United States, I am halfway through with my average life span. In other words, I have my life to live over again, pending an unnatural event in the interim.

Up to and during my visit to Florida, I will consider the following:

1.         Do I want to stay married? If so, then I will establish a means of preserving my sanity.
2.         If I decide not to stay married, then I will work out my options and weigh the consequences.
3.         What kind of job do I want to have during the workweek? Do I want to get a master’s degree (and Ph.D.) and teach?
4.         What do I want my financial situation to be like? Do I want to continue to acquire stuff? Do I want to settle down to a meager daily life? Do I want to travel?
5.         What do I want to look back on 10, 20, 30 years from now and say I have accomplished?
6.         Am I willing to fall on my face? Am I willing to screw up and start over again?
7.         Where do I want to live? I grew up in the rolling hills of east Tennessee but have also enjoyed other climes – Anchorage, Alaska; coastal Washington state; Portsmouth, New Hampshire; central Florida; Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. What about outside of the U.S.?
8.         Do I get more involved with the local art scene?
9.         Do I just get wasted and piss my life away?

And in the midst of all these questions, the big question remains, “Who am I?” As a behaviorist, I would say I am the culmination of all my actions to date. It is not, “I think, therefore I am.” It is, “I am what I have done.” Some behaviors of mine are pleasant to think about and some are not. Aha, I have thought about my behavior so I am more than my actions. I am also my thoughts. Some thoughts of mine are pleasant to think about and some are not. I repeat, “Who am I?” Conclusion for today: I am pleasant to think about and I am not.

More later,
R
==========
Subj:Re: Why is Zelda interesting?
Date:2/11/2002 10:19:44 PM Central Standard Time
From:b
To:Rick
Sent from the Internet

I too wonder why I have always been attracted to the bittersweet. Did I mention that I have separated from Paul? I have been living in Austin since December. I am going to relocate temporarily to Columbia SC where my company is located for 6 months to learn some more products. Then where I am off to, who knows? There is a part of me that struggles to make the break, & then there is a part of me that is delighted with the freedom. I miss my dogs, but I need to figure out what I need to do with my life…
==========
FROM:Rick
02/11/2002 07:46 PM

To: b
cc:
bcc:
Subject: Why is Zelda interesting?

==========
B,

What is the story of Zelda? What does it mean to someone who has the luxury to look back at the life (and death) of a cultural star? How does Zelda’s relationship with her husband bring understanding about one’s spousal relationship? These are questions that I have pondered and from my pondering, I have suffered long sleepless nights and depressing, almost self-destructive, days during and immediately after reading the biography of Zelda and Scott. As time has gone by, the self-destructive tendencies have subsided but the feeling of regret has not. So, with that said, here is what has gone through my head and should explain the desire to know more about Zelda:

I have given up hoping to be a famous writer one day but I have not given up on my desire to put memories on paper, memories that I later turn into stories to entertain myself. I have known people like Brenda Faye whose lives of adventure, whose weeks, even days of adventure surpass the sum of what I have currently experienced (and yet, my experiences are often wilder than the ones of others I meet). Therefore, the memories from which I can draw interesting stories are few and the opportunities for interesting memories are getting fewer.

To see the way that Scott seemed to destroy Zelda was more than my weak mind could stand. Have I not also known this suffering? Have I not been caught in the trap of wanting to please me while ensuring that I am also pleasing others? Which master do I serve, my self or wife/family/society?

The act of kindness. What does that mean? I put a mixture of seed on the front and back decks to give outdoor birds a chance to eat something nourishing during the winter months but I do not send money to orphanages to feed and clothe undernourished children. Does that add up to an act of kindness? I cannot say.

Off to see “Big Fat Liar” with my wife (I wanted to see “In The Bedroom” but the wife has a headache).

More later,
Rick
==========
B,

I’ve always been interested in stories about the beginning of this country, which is really only a few long lifetimes ago (in other words, a person born in 1780 who lived one hundred years could have told stories to a hundred-year old born in 1870 who could have told stories to a person born in 1960 who is still alive today). Before my trip to south Florida, I picked up the most recent biography of Ben Franklin, called “The First American” by H. W. Brands. Ben was a remarkable person. I found out that his religious beliefs were similar to my own in a letter he wrote a few months before his death in 1790:

“Here is my creed. I believe in one God, creator of the universe. That he governs it by his providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable service we render to him is doing good to his other children. That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental principles of all sound religion, and I regard them as you do in whatever sect I meet them with.

“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, in it 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.

“I shall only add, respecting myself, that, having experienced the goodness of that Being in conducting me prosperously through a long life, I have no doubt of its continuance in the next, though without the smallest conceit of meriting such goodness.

“I have ever let others enjoy their religious sentiments, without reflecting on them for those that appeared to me unsupportable and even absurd. All sects here, and we have a great variety, have experienced my good will in assisting them with subscriptions for building their new places of worship; and as I have never opposed any of their doctrines, I hope to go out of the world in peace with them all.”

Interestingly enough, when he was 22, he wrote an epitaph for himself:

The Body of
B. Franklin,
Printer;
Like the Cover of an old Book,
Its contents torn out,
And stript of its Lettering and Gilding,
Lies here, Food for Worms.
But the Work shall not be wholly lost,
For it will, as he believed, appear once more,
In a new & more perfect Edition,
Corrected and amended
By the Author.

Hope all is going well in your travels,
R

— 25 Mar 2002

÷  ÷  ÷  ÷  ÷  ÷  ÷  ÷  ÷  ÷

To B

Yeah, the song by Jewel, “Who Will Save Your Soul,” brings up an interesting paradox — thinking about my life, and then hearing a performer say, “People living their lives for you on TV”…I guess “TV” could just as easily be “radio”, “CD”, “movie”, “church”, etc. — so the performer becomes part of the group that says it’s better than you, when in fact it all comes down to the individual’s choice.

Speaking of choice, how’s your search coming along?  Have you found meaning in your life yet?  I think I’ve given up on my life having a specific meaning or purpose.  Instead, I’m concentrating on what I can do that will simultaneously satisfy my desire to have fun and keep the people around me (family, friends, co-workers) relatively happy.  In other words, I’m continuing down the path of mutual compromise.  At one point in my life, I thought that compromise was equivalent to “giving up” but now I’ve found that compromise is really just living a life here on planet Earth.  We all make individual choices that we want to mesh with those around us (the ol’ self- versus species-preservation).  As for the card I sent you, it’s not so much about seeking an awe-inspiring after-life but creating a little bit of heaven for the folks around me while we’re alive.

For example, I saw Alison Krauss and Union Station last night — they were a good bunch of performers.  At one point, Alison said during a bit of talking on stage, “Well, I guess we better get back to playing.  That’s our job and that’s what you came here to hear.”  They were having as much fun on stage as they would working in a practice studio but realized there were a bunch of other people listening who might not get into all the banter on stage so they better find the joy in their instruments and start playing again.

Tomorrow, I have to give a presentation (i.e., performance) to managers from the corporate office (Newport Beach, CA) to demonstrate the capabilities of the test lab here in Huntsville so they can decide if they want to use the Huntsville test lab or the one in Newport Beach.  My boss wants me to put on quite a show so that we get more work here in Huntsville.  Now, all of sudden I’ve noticed a more competitive attitude in emails from the test lab in the corporate office, which implies to me that they feel some sort of pressure to prove they’re better than we are.  I don’t care who’s better.  I just want to make sure there’s enough work for my five workers and me.

BTW, Janeil and I are taking a vacation to Philadelphia this week.  I know this sounds corny but Philly will always have a special place in my memories after the good time I shared with you and Adam.  It’s too bad the pictures at the Philadelphia Museum of Art did not turn out well.  I’d love to go back and re-enact the goofy things we did.  I’d also love to go back to the area of Philly where we saw “Cyrano de Bergerac”.  The last time I cried like that at a public theater was when I saw “Metamorphoses” performed at a Seattle theater four years ago.

÷  ÷  ÷  ÷  ÷  ÷  ÷  ÷  ÷  ÷

Alzheimer’s

On Monday, I visited my Uncle Ralph, who is in a hospital in Maryville, TN, waiting for his kidneys to clear up and recovering from an urinary tract infection.   Then, he will undergo a heart catheterization procedure to see if his heart attack last week damaged his heart.  A few weeks ago, he had finally put his wife, Polly, in a facility called Asbury Acres for people with Alzheimer’s disease.  After seeing my uncle, I went to visit my aunt and here’s what I saw:

Yesterday evening, I was driving around Maryville seeing all the new subdivisions being built and I drove by Asbury Acres.  Against my better judgment (I was still a little nerve-wrecked from visiting Ralph), I turned around and drove back to Asbury Acres.  I walked into the retirement home and was told by the receptionist that Polly was in the medical center.  The receptionist then proceeded to give me instructions about access to the building.  Here is a summary of my visit:

I drove up to the medical center building, which is around the corner from the retirement home (from the entrance, the medical center appears to be a single story structure, although you can see there are what appear to be “underground” stories).  I entered the foyer and walked down the hall past an interesting birdhouse to the elevator.  Inside the elevator, I had to punch in a code on a keypad (*234) before the elevator floor buttons would become operational.  I punched the first floor button, and the elevator went down.

Upon exiting the elevator, I turned to a door on the left, where I had to press a button on the wall in order to unlock the door.  As I opened the door, I saw several people who seemed at least halfway coherent standing around or shuffling down the hall.  A floor nurse (I’ll call her floor nurse #1) stood behind a counter and gave me instructions on how to get to Polly’s section.  As I walked down the hall to Polly’s section, I observed two women looking at a picture of themselves posted on the wall outside a room.  I stood at entrance to Polly’s section and watched the two women for a moment.  One woman said to the other, “See, this is your room because that’s your picture.  My picture’s there, too, so I must live in this room, too.”  Floor nurse #1 kept yelling at me to press the keycode on the wall so I looked around and finally noticed a small keypad on the wall on the right side of the entrance.

I had to punch in the same keycode I used in the elevator in order to unlock the door.  As I opened the door, I saw several people (who looked liked ghosts of their former selves) standing or shuffling along.  My nervousness shot up a notch.  I asked the floor nurse of Polly’s section (floor nurse #2) where Polly was.  She told me that Polly had just been put to bed (it was around 7 p.m. Eastern time) and pointed me around the corner.  I walked through another set of double doors (these doors were already open and did not need to be unlocked).  Polly’s room, 132N, was on the right.  At the entrance to Polly’s room, a woman in a wheelchair stared at the nameplates.  She looked at me as if I was going to scold her and said, “Oh, I’m just looking at the names to see if it’s anyone I know.”  I nodded my head and walked into the room.

I had seen Polly recently and already knew how thin she was.  Laying in bed, she looked even thinner.  Her eyes were shut and she was curling into and out of a fetal position, while talking out loud.  From what I could tell from the words coming out of Polly’s mouth, there were several streams of conversations taking place.  In one stream, a mother and her young daughter were talking to each other.  In another stream, she was describing something she was seeing that I could not understand.  In another stream, she was just mumbling.  I stood by her bed for several minutes and listened to her, not knowing if I should speak because I couldn’t tell if she was in a dream state, in a state of delirium from drugs or wide awake.  In any case, she did not know I was there so I looked at the pictures on the wall.  The most touching picture was the one of Ralph and Polly from 1995 — they both looked very happy.  I waited until my nerves could no longer take it and walked out (I almost ran out of the room).  To calm myself down, I spent a few minutes talking with floor nurse #2 about the latest word on Ralph.  She had not seen any of Polly’s family yesterday and did not know if the heart cath procedure was a definite thing; she knew that Ralph was very worried about Polly.  I told her the heart cath was planned for this morning and asked her to pray for Ralph — she said she had been and would continue to do so.

After I left Polly’s section, I hurried to get…to get out of the next section but was blocked by a man in a stand-up wheelchair.  He insisted on shaking my hand and was mumbling.  Floor nurse #1 told me that he spoke only Spanish so I told the man, “Hasta manana”.  He shook his head as if he wanted me to stay and talk with him.  I nodded my head and repeated, “Hasta manana” and patted him on the shoulder.  Floor nurse #1 gave me a smile of sympathy and pointed me to the exit.  I punched in the keycode, opened the door and walked over to the elevator.  When the elevator door opened, two women inside were as confused and nervous as I was and we could not determine which floor led to the building exit.  The elevator moved to the third floor and a man stepped on who said he had been as confused as we were and had ridden the elevator up and down a few times himself.  We figured out that the building exit was on the second floor.

We all stepped off the elevator with relief.  I stopped to look at the birdhouse, which is like a glass aquarium except it has birds, mainly finches from what I could tell.

I got in the car and was ready to cry.  I drove around Maryville some more and ended up at the old Kay’s ice cream store.  I had a refreshing vanilla milkshake.  I called my sister and told her about the experience.  We decided that perhaps I shouldn’t tell Mom about the trip to Polly’s until after the outcome of Ralph’s surgery.

I can see why Ralph cries anytime he mentions Polly at Asbury Acres.  I’m sure it was a tough decision to put her away, so to speak.  I can also see why he’s able to get a full night’s sleep, if what I saw was Polly’s normal condition.

so, b, you’ve seen the world — what’s it all about?  i feel like we’re just supposed to live our lives and hope we aren’t too much of a burden on others.  but what’s the definition of a burden?  if we do something for someone out of love for that person, no matter how much we suffer in the process, should that be considered having a burden placed on us by the loved one?  no.  then i guess we’re supposed to live our lives and hope we’ve generated enough love that others will want to take care of us at our worst.  but what is love?  love is many things to many people, of course, but in this case, love is the…the biochemical attraction that makes us go crazy when we’re not with the other person, that makes us do what it takes to keep that other person with us…a mutual attraction…a positive reinforcing codependency, of sorts.  so why do some humans have this love for one other human and some do not?  if we’re just here to procreate, then this love would be beneficial to the whole species (and seems to be so for other species, as well).  why the disparity between members of our species?  in the end, when i’m sitting in some nursing home pooping in my pants, will anything i have said really matter, even if i have said something that has benefited our species?  after visiting my aunt and seeing the unnamed faces in the hallway, it sure didn’t feel that way.  but that’s just me, of course, i always look for ways to feel depressed, a kind of euphoria that’s down instead of up, a kind of emotion that’s addictive in ways that are detrimental to my daily living, a habit i have to constantly ensure i’m not picking up again, like some kind of ex-druggie surrounded by pushers i have to keep saying no out loud while inside i’m saying yes.

enough already, i have to get ready to go see A Mighty Wind.

– 28 May 2003

Chapter 9: Escape

I. Accept No Imitations
I lay on the wet pavement, with my head bent over the sewer manhole, my hands clutching to my head a hardhat designed for people with short heads, and my back soaking up the cold rain that splattered on the back of my coveralls. I lay there wondering what the hell a guy like me was doing watching another human being slosh around in the excrement of our fellow creatures. I lay there like an innocent victim of a cheap murder mystery with the potential murder weapons – a crowbar, manhole lid and climbing rope – spread out beside me. At any moment, the stranger in the dark trench coat would sneak around from behind the van, grab the murder weapon, bludgeon or strangle me, toss me into the sewer and fade away into a nearby alley, the only clue a drop of blood soon to be washed away by the rain and ground into the pavement by passing cars.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Russ yelled from below.

“What’s the matter?” I called back.

“Goddam drill bit broke again!”

“Okay, I’ll throw down another one. Hang on while I get it.” I walked over to the van and dug through the tools, screws, and other crap on the shelves for several minutes trying to find the drill bit.

“What the fuck’s taking you so long?” Russ screamed like a man burning in hell.

I walked back to the manhole. “If you’d organized your van before we left I wouldn’t have taken so long.”

“Shut the fuck up and throw me the drill bit.”

“I couldn’t find one.”

Russ muttered to himself, kicking his boot against the nearest wall and slamming the hammer in the tool bucket – obviously trying to keep his cool in the process. “Well, I can’t just sit down here all fuckin’ day. Pull me up and we’ll run to the hardware store for supplies.”

I attached the carabiner and ascender to my harness, part of a mountain-climber’s rope system we used, and began pulling Russ up out of the hole.

“Not so fast,” Russ groaned, “you’re crushing my balls.”

After Russ got out of the hole, he stood in front of me for several seconds, staring through his goggles with a look of disgust and hate and rubbing his tattoo of a roadrunner’s head on his right biceps. “If you hadn’t served in the Navy, I’d throw your putrid ass down that hole and weld it shut.”

“Yeah, well fuck you. You and your philosophy degree have really got you ahead in life, hasn’t it?”

“Ahh, just shut up and help me get this shit in the van.”

We decided to stop working and get cleaned up at the hotel. Russ wanted to eat somewhere and then later check out the local bar scene before it got too late. I wanted to see what life breathed in the little town of Harrisburg, with its quaint riverfront community of law offices and art galleries.

While Russ was taking a shower, I sat on the bed, absent-mindedly watching a movie on TV. Some muscle-clad android kept blowing people away with an endless arsenal of futuristic weapons. Between the noise of the TV and shower, I thought I heard a knock but I wasn’t sure.

“Hello?” a voice called out from behind the hotel door.

I waited.

Someone knocked again. Another pause.

“Can anyone hear me in there? I need help.”

“Who’s that?” Russ yelled from the shower.

“I can hear you,” the high-pitched voice of distraught woman called out, “Please come to the door.”

“What the fuck’s goin’ on,” Russ yelled again.

I opened the bathroom door. “I don’t know. Think I should open it?” All I could see in my head was a picture of the Sirens calling from a distant shore.

“I know someone’s in there,” the woman called out, the desperation rising in her voice. “My boyfriend’s dead and I’m scared as hell standing out here.”

Russ pulled back the shower curtain, exposing his drenched, stark white body, which often reminded me of one of those whitewashed statues with little dicks that stand in the middle of Italian gardens. “See what the bitch wants but don’t undo the chain. I wanna get dressed and ready to go while you talk.”

Putting a pissed-off look on my face, I opened the door. “Whatdya want?”

“Hey, look, sorry to ruin your day but someone just killed my boyfriend and I’m afraid to go back to the room.”

“Why don’t you just go to the front desk?”

“Dressed like this?”

I took the cue and ran my eyes over the woman’s body (not that I needed an invitation, either, cause she was damn good-looking). I first mistook her for a biker. Her hay-colored hair, though held back from her face by a leather headband, lay across her shoulders like she’d just stepped off a motorcycle and pulled off her helmet. Her black and white striped nightshirt had obviously worn thin over the years and the threaded ends stopped just above her knees (god, I hate to admit it but I wish she’d been standing in front of a light cause the shirt was almost see-through). Her legs…well, she wasn’t Raquel Welch but they were slim and firm and tan like the rest of her body (besides, I hadn’t seen my wife in a month, not to mention that our supervisor kept going on about the African belief that a male will die unless he has sex every two weeks).

“Yeah, maybe you’re right.”

“Hey, I just wanna come in for a couple of minutes. What do you say?”

I looked back at Russ leaning against the wall. He shrugged his shoulders and nodded.

“Okay, but just long enough to use the phone.”

“Thanks,” she said as she brushed by me, “I owe you one. By the way, my name’s Thrush.”

“No kiddin’,” Russ said as he looked up from picking his nails. He motioned her to the chair next to the night table, walked over and rolled up his sleeve. “Check this out.”

She leaned forward and looked at his arm. “Cool tattoo. I like it.” She winked at him.

“If you need to use the phone,” I interrupted, “use it. Otherwise, you’re about to head outta here.”

“Just hang on to your horses, mister. My boyfriend’s just been killed and you’re treatin’ me like a criminal.”

“For all I know, you did it.”

Her face scrunched up into an ugly ball and fell into her hands as she began to bawl. “You…you…” she stammered through the wails and sobs, “you bastards are all the same.”

I looked at Russ with a “What do we do now?” look. He just gave his usual shrug and pointed at his watch. I grabbed a tissue from the bathroom and dropped it in Thrush’s lap as her body jerked back and forth with her sobbing like a woman in her last death throes. I turned back to the TV and watched the android blow away more people, this time to the somewhat appropriate sound of crying in the background. Within a few minutes, I lost myself in the movie and forgot about Thrush’s throes.

Russ walked in front of me and broke my TV trance. “I’m going to smoke a cigarette. When the wailing wall stops, let me know.” He grabbed his daypack and walked out the door.

After Russ shut the door, Thrush sat up and cleared her throat. “Thanks for letting me stay…and thanks for the Kleenex, too.”

“Uh, you’re welcome. Look, if you’re boyfriend’s really dead…”

“Ah, come on. I just said that to get in your room. My old man’s just abandoned me and taken all my clothes with him. The fucker even turned in the key.”

“How…”

“All while I went to get a bucket of ice and some Cokes.” She wiped a final tear from her red, puffy eyes.

“Sorry,” I said, giving her a sympathetic look.

“You got any smoke?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know – pot – have you got any?”

“Sorry…”

“Whatdya mean, ‘sorry?’ I can smell it up and down the hall every night.”

“How long have you been here?”

“A couple of weeks.” Thrush shifted in the chair. “Look, I’m not here to play twenty questions. Have you got any or not?”

“How can I trust you?” I asked, standing up from the bed to turn off the TV.

“Yeah, right. Am I supposed to look like Cinderella and ask for some weed?” She stood up, walked over and opened the door. “Where’d your friend go?”

“I don’t know. He said he was going to smoke a cigarette.”

“Is he cool?” she asked, closing the door. She turned around, looking at me with raised eyebrows.

I shrugged. I didn’t know what she wanted but she was beginning to give me the creeps. Here I was, a married man alone in a hotel room with a woman who claimed her boyfriend just left her. I couldn’t ask her to leave without carrying out my Boy Scout sense of duty and at least get her some decent clothes. “Tell you what, I’ll give you a…”

“Can I use your bathroom?”

“Sure,” I said, rolling my eyes. The girl was too weird for me. I turned on the TV and sat back down on the bed. This time, I fell into some kung fu movie with lots of kicks and punches and dubbed English. Several scenes in the movie passed before Thrush finally came out of the bathroom. I looked at her and was shocked. She had tucked her nightshirt, now covered with green crisscross patterns, into a pair of tight, white, short shorts. Her hair looked neatly pulled back.

“I must say you don’t look half bad.”

“Thanks, my mother always said you get what you want when you look good to a man. I borrowed your toothpaste,” she added, pointing to her shirt.

A chill ran up my back. At that moment, Russ walked in the door. “Man, there’s some pretty weird shit going on out there.”

“Whatdya mean?” I asked, not knowing what was going to happen next.

“A couple of cops are rummaging through the dumpster out back and a couple more are going door to door asking questions.” We both looked over to Thrush.

“Hey, guys. I haven’t done anything. I swear. Just cause I got kicked out…”

Russ burst out, “Kicked out? I thought you said your boyfriend had just been killed.”

“Naw. I just said that to get in here.”

Russ looked at me with that stare again. “Man, I knew you’d get me in trouble.”

“But…”

“Look, I’m going to take Thrush here and sneak her to the van. You stay here and play it cool. I’ll drop her off up the street.” Russ walked to the door and peered out. He turned to Thrush. “Okay, let’s go and don’t start your mouth.”

“Okay, okay,” Thrush whispered.

As I sat back down to engross myself in the finer points of kung fu, I noticed Russ had left his daypack on the bed. Not wanting to leave myself open to prosecution, I opened the front pocket of the daypack and pulled out the baggie of pot. I flushed the pot down the toilet and burned the baggie in the ashtray. I threw the one-shot pipe out the bathroom window. I just sat down before I heard a knock.

“Hello?” an official sounding voice called out from behind the Pandora’s box of hotel doors.

I opened the door. “Yes,” I gulped, facing the two policemen in the hallway, “what can I do for you?”

“Have you heard any unusual noises in the last hour?” asked the policeman on the left with his neatly combed jet-black hair (obviously dyed), thick Tom Selleck mustache and deep facial lines. I looked down at his badge – Bowman.

“No, I’ve been watching TV the last couple of hours.”

The other officer – Krupkowski – looked past me into the room. His blond hair and blue eyes scared me.

“Do you mind if we take a leak?” Krupkowski asked.

“Uh, well, I guess not. Come on in.”

Krupkowski stepped in first, making a beeline to the bathroom.

Bowman stepped in and closed the door. “Appreciate it. We’ve been walking outside here for quite a while, drinking coffee like there’s no tomorrow.”

“Yeah, it’s chilly out there for this time of year,” I added, trying to keep the small talk going.

Krupkowski stepped out of the bathroom. “Do you smell something burning?”

“No,” I said in as natural a voice as possible.

“Yeah,” Bowman said, “I smell it, too.” He looked around the room. He pointed to the daypack and remarked to Krupkowski, “Recognize that?”

Krupkowski nodded.

I gave Bowman a puzzled look.

“See that patch?” he asked.

“Yeah.” I had seen the same emblem tattooed on Russ’ arm.

“Thrush mufflers. Bikers love ’em.”

Krupkowski reached over and squeezed his shoulder. Bowman turned and nodded to Krupkowski, then headed to the bathroom.

“If you’ll excuse me, I’ll take my turn.”

“I’ll be back in a minute,” Krupkowski said as Bowman closed the bathroom door. Krupkowski headed toward the hotel room door. “When he gets out, tell him I’ve gone down for more coffee. Want some?”

“No, thanks. I’m going to finish my movie.”

“What’s it called?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Funny name,” he muttered as he closed the door.

I sat down for more kicking and punching only to see that the kung fu star had been locked in the dungeon of a Buddhist temple. He sat in the lotus position for days, refusing food and water. He would not speak. I wondered what I would do in his situation. I was not a kung fu star, of course, but I could imagine being punished for my dissident ways as a Chinese student. Just as I saw myself blocking the path of an Army tank, Bowman came out of the bathroom.

“The other officer said he was going for coffee.”

“Okay. Mind if I wait here for him?” Bowman asked, leaning against the hotel door.

“No, go ahead.”

By this time, the kung fu star had fooled the guard that he was too weak to move. When the guard opened the door, he was karate chopped in the neck. “Kung Fu” grabbed the keys and opened all the dungeon doors. He led the other prisoners outside of the temple where they all overthrew the evil villain of the movie.

“Nice thing about these movies, they’re always predictable,” I said as I turned to Bowman.

My heart stopped. Bowman had his gun pointed at me.

“Don’t move,” Bowman growled through clenched teeth. “You’re going to sit right there till Krupkowski gets back.”

I sat and pondered the situation. I tried to figure out what to say to get Bowman to drop his guard so I could knock him out and run like hell. “Look,” I squeaked two octaves higher than my normal voice, “I know who did it.”

“Shut up!”

Krupkowski knocked on the door.

Bowman stepped aside. “Come on in,” he said, keeping the gun pointed at my head.

“You’re right,” Krupkowski said with a smile, “that Eric fellow’s been here a couple of weeks.”

Bowman spit out, “Never mind that. Search the bag.” He motioned the gun toward Russ’ daypack. “He says he know he did it. He’ll be confessing the rest of the story before we even get him to the car.”

“Hey, I never said I…”

“I said shut up.”

Krupkowski opened the front pocket, pulled out a lighter and threw it on the bed. Next, he unzipped the top of the daypack and turned it over on the bed. Out thumped a shirt wrapped around something heavy.

“Careful,” Bowman stated in his official voice, “we’ll need fingerprints.”

Krupkowski gripped the edge of the shirt, pulling upward and letting the object roll out onto the bed. I stared in disbelief at my crowbar.

Bowman stiffened his grip. “Handcuff him.”

I reached for the TV. “At least let me turn off…”

Bowman pulled the trigger.

“Pay attention and slow down. You don’t want the cops to pull us over.”

“Man, I can’t fuckin’ believe it,” Russ managed between laughs.

Thrush shook her head. “I know. Too bad you had to leave the pot behind.”

“After we get all the loot your boyfriend’s been making from those crazy mufflers of his, we can smoke joints from now until forever.”

“Yeah, Eric said he’d share it with me one day. He just didn’t know how.”

Krupkowski grabbed Bowman’s shoulder and spun him around. “What the hell did you do that for?”

“He was reaching for my gun.”

“I doubt that.” He looked at the blood on the walls. “Now what’re we supposed to do about this guy?”

“Who cares? I think I’ve got the murder figured out. He followed…” Bowman slid his gun back in the harness and pulled a small notebook out of his back pocket. “Eric something,” he said, thumbing through the pages, “yeah, that’s it – Eric Heffelfinger. Anyway, he followed Heffelfinger to his room, hit him over the head with the crowbar, dragged him to the chair and tied him up.”

“You’re forgetting one thing,” Krupkowski said as he stooped over to examine the body.

“What’s that?”

“Why’d he do it?”

“How should I know? I’ve got two bodies that aren’t saying a hell of a whole lot right now and…”

“Lee Colline.”

“What?”

“This guy’s name is Lee Colline.” Krupkowski continued to look through the wallet. “And get this, he’s from Landscape, Alabama.”

Bowman laughed, “S-s-sounds like a pretty place to be from. Look, I’ve got to get another ambulance here to pick this guy up. Why don’t you call down to the front desk and see if anyone’s reported any more strange sounds. I’ll meet you at the car.”

Krupkowski continued to look through the wallet. He found the phone numbers of a Russ Engquist, some notes dated the day before, a couple of canceled checks and a photo of a naked woman with black hair and a tan with no tan lines sitting on a motorcycle in someone’s backyard.

“Front desk, this is Bob. May I help you?”

“Yes, This is Officer Krupkowski.”

“Yes, sir, have you found anything? We heard a gunshot a few minutes ago.”

“I’m in room 215 with a possible murder suspect named Lee Colline. I’d like to know if he was registered here and if so, was there anyone else.”

“Hang on a second. I’ll look up the room…yes, Mr. Colline is registered in room 215 as a double occupancy. Is he okay?”

Krupkowski pulled his notepad from the left pocket. “We’re sending for an ambulance right now. By the way, do you have the other occupant’s name?”

“Not here but I can check the phone records, if you wish.”

“Wait. Before you check, can you tell me how long Lee Colline had this room?”

“Yes…two weeks to the day.”

“Can you tell me if he registered before or after Eric Heffelfinger?”

“Well, Mr. Colline registered at 11:00 a.m.”

“And Heffelfinger?”

“Just a moment, I’m looking…Mr. Heffelfinger also registered at 11:00 a.m.”

“Really?” Krupkowski quickly jotted down the dates and times. “That’s interesting.”

“Not really. We usually don’t let new guests in until 11:00 a.m. They were probably just waiting in the lobby.”

“Would you know who was on duty that day?”

“Yes, sir. My daughter, Suzanne.”

“Do you have a number where I can reach her?”

“Well, if you’ll come on down, I’ll have her meet you in the lobby.”

“Thanks. I’d appreciate that list of phone calls, too.”

“No problem.”

“What did I tell you?” Thrush yelled at Russ over the sound of the siren. “Now we’re in trouble.”

“Hey,” Russ said with confidence, “don’t worry about it. I can handle it.”

Russ pulled the van off the interstate freeway and onto the shoulder. He stepped out of the van and started heading behind the van toward the police car.

Bowman pulled the cruiser to a halt and turned off the siren and lights. He threw the door open like a shield, pulled out his gun and stooped behind the door. “Stop where you are!” He pointed the gun at the dark image of the oncoming man.

Russ continued toward the car. “Hey, man, be cool. It’s me.”

“I didn’t recognize you, Mr. Heffelfinger.” Bowman stood up and reholstered his gun.

“Don’t forget, man. The name’s Engquist.”

“Okay, Mr. Engquist. Look, I’ve taken care of Colline but my partner doesn’t accept Colline killed your brother. He’ll start snooping if I can’t give him something.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve taken care of everything. Thrush put some notes in Colline’s wallet that’ll implicate him, for sure. Just go back and make sure he finds them.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And remember, I’ll call you in a couple of days.”

“What about my money?”

“You’ll get it when I call you.” Russ walked back to the van.

“What was that all about, Russ,” Thrush asked as she turned up the radio. “That cop looked pretty pissed off at you.”

“He thought I looked like some convict they reported had stolen a van.”

Krupkowski surveyed the lobby. Three or four couples were sharing a couple of couches in the far right corner and watching the fourth quarter of a late college football game. On his near right hung photos of what he presumed to be the previous owners along with some smaller autographed photos of long-forgotten movie starlets. The dimly lit entranceway of a piano bar on his left beckoned the tired and lonely business traveler. A couple of coat racks with the usual array of forgotten raincoats and umbrellas stretched along the wall beside the bar. From there, the counter of the front desk covered the back wall ending in the right corner with the bathroom entrances covering the space between the corner and the football fans. Krupkowski estimated the distance from where he stood at the doorway to the counter covered about 30 feet. The carpet was spotted with old chewing gum and coffee stains.

“Officer Krupkowski?” a woman asked from behind the counter.

He walked on up. “Suzanne?”

“Yes, sir. Dad said you wanted to speak to me.”

“How are you doing?”

“Just fine, thank you.”

“Good. If you’ve got a minute, I’d like to ask you a few questions about some guests you checked in a few weeks ago.”

“Mr. Colline and Mr. Heffelfinger.”

“Yes.” He pulled out his notebook again.

“I don’t remember Mr. Colline very well except that he had red hair. The other man that was with him seemed to know Mr. Heffelfinger. In fact, while Mr. Colline was checking in, Mr. Heffelfinger took the other man into the bar. I could hear them laughing and joking for several minutes before they came back in.”

“Do you know the other man’s name?”

“No, but Dad’s checking the phone records right now. He may be able to find something. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go see how’s he doing.”

“Sure, go right ahead.” Krupkowski looked around the lobby for a place to sit and decided to walk over to the group watching the football game. As he approached them, he noticed the three men looked twenty to thirty years older than the women they were with, who were well dressed, but not like the hookers he was used to seeing in this part of town. They seemed cultured. Perhaps they were passing through town and were fooled by the exterior of the hotel, which still held its beauty as a riverside stop, although long since abandoned for the more lavish resorts in the nearby Allegheny Mountains.

Krupkowski nodded to the group, “Hello there.”

Every member of the group turned to nod briefly before returning to the game. The youngest-looking woman, perhaps no more than twenty years old, who wore faded jeans and a white T-shirt under a light-blue letter jacket, spoke in a manner befitting a well-refined matron, “Hello to you. Would you care to join this misplaced group of Syracuse fans?”

“Thank you, no. I was wondering if you could answer a couple of questions for me in the next commercial.”

The woman nodded and turned her attention back to the game.

Krupkowski sat in a chair between the two couches and glanced over to the counter. The manager’s daughter had not returned so he pulled out his notebook and reviewed the contents of Colline’s wallet. Among the credit cards, he had found a membership card to a private club called The Pink Poodle. Krupkowski wrote a note to remind himself to call the club and see if Colline had been a frequent visitor.

“Hey, Krupkowski,” a voice called from the entrance. Krupkowski turned to see Bowman striding toward the counter. “I loaded the bodies in the ambulance and sent them on…”

“But I never got a chance to look over Heffelfinger’s body,” Krupkowski said in astonishment as he stood and walked over to meet Bowman eye to eye.

“Don’t worry. I called the coroner and told him to remove any items from the body and send them to us at the station. Besides, I found this in Colline’s shirt pocket.” Bowman handed Krupkowski a folded sheet of stationery with an apparent blood stain in the upper right corner. “We’ve got Colline nailed. Looks like blackmail.”

Krupkowski unfolded the letter. A logo of a woodpecker’s head and the words THRUSH MUFFLERS covered the top of the page.

You have caused me much anguish in the past about which I can no longer tolerate. I have enclosed a check for $25,000. I consider this an adequate sum to settle our account and expect you to return the photographs which you have used so well to torment me these past few months. I shall meet you in Harrisburg per our last agreement. In case you have any ideas of causing further trouble, I have made arrangements to insure my wellbeing – you know my connections. Let us, instead, put aside our sibling rivalries and make amends.

Love always

Bowman slapped Krupkowski on the back. “Well, what do ya think? Have we got this guy or what?”

Krupkowski shook his head. “He…well, why don’t you pick up some burgers for us? I wanted to ask some more questions around here.”

“Why?” Bowman asked, flaring his nostrils and trying to control his anger. “Colline obviously was planning to collect his check and cancel this Heffelfinger at the same time.”

“I’m not sure yet. If Colline was getting so much money from Heffelfinger, why did he work for a sewer company? You smelled his room. Above that burnt smell, it smelled like someone had shit in the middle of the floor. It just doesn’t fit.”

“Aw, for Christ’s sake. You’ve been watching too many episodes of ‘Murder, She Wrote.’ So the guy was making a few bucks.” Bowman began to drum the fingers of his left hand on the counter. “If he was stupid enough to kill somebody, he was stupid enough to work in a sewer.”

Krupkowski shook his head. “Yeah, well…I just want to get all the details on this. I don’t want to have to come back and follow a cold trail.” Bowman frowned at him. “Look, I won’t be long. Go get the burgers – make sure they don’t put mayonnaise on mine – and I’ll be through by the time you get back.”

Bowman turned and walked away, muttering something about brown-nosing superiors.

“Officer Krupkowski?”

Krupkowski turned his head. “Ah, Bob. Have you found anything?”

Bob held up a computer printout several feet long. “Would you believe over a hundred phone calls have been made from room 215 in the past week, not to mention the week before?”

“May I see that?” Krupkowski asked, reaching over the counter.

“Sure, I can’t make heads or tails of all these numbers. I noticed one thing, though.”

“Yes?”

“Most of those calls go to about a dozen numbers.”

Krupkowski looked down the list. “So I see. If you don’t mind, I’d like to take this with me.”

“Not at all. By the way, was Suzanne able to help you?”

“Oh yes, she was quite helpful. Thank her for me, would you? She walked off before I got the chance.”

“No problem.”

Krupkowski pulled a card out of his right shirt pocket. “And here’s my card. If you or Suzanne can think of anything else that might be helpful, feel free to give me a call.”

“Will do.”

Krupkowski folded up the printout and started toward the group on the couches.

“Officer…”

Krupkowski stopped and walked back to face Bob. “Do you remember something else?”

“Well, if you’ve finished with the rooms…” Bob asked, shrugging his shoulders.

“No, leave them as they are. We’ll have some detectives come in later to investigate.”

As Krupkowski retraced his steps, he noticed the group had turned off the television and left the lobby.

Out of the darkness, I felt a pinprick of pain in my head that grew into a throbbing that grew and grew and continued to grow as I gained consciousness. Suddenly, the pain exploded. I opened my eyes and cried out for help. In front of me stood a Doberman with a .38 caliber police pistol for a mouth. The dog was held inches away from my face by a blond-haired, blue-eyed man in a Nazi uniform, yelling at me, “You should have had some coffee!” Then the man let go of the leash, fire shot out of the dog’s mouth and I passed out.

I opened my eyes again to darkness.

“He’s awake,” I heard a voice say a few feet above me, “what do you want me to do?” Then silence wrapped me in the darkness again. I started falling into a bottomless pit with voices all around me calling me to reach out, begging me to grab hold but I felt no arms or legs on my body. In fact, I couldn’t see or feel anything as if I was a dot at the end of sentence that fell off the end of a page back into an inkwell.

“His pulse is normal,” the voice said, removing my quilt of silence and returning my body of pain. I screamed again and someone’s breath the smell of mint and gin brushed across my face and onto my neck.

“He’s attempting to talk. His bandages look pretty tight. Shall I…yes, ma’am. I’ll be right there.”

I blinked and the darkness began to fade. In front of me, I saw diffused light like the moon through thick clouds. The clouds began to clear away. The moon became a light fixture and the sky a dark blue ceiling.

“Hello there,” a voice called from far away. “We’ve been waiting a long time for you to wake up.”

I tried to pick up my head but the pain grabbed hold and knocked me out.

I woke up with a jolt and opened my eyes.

Staring down at me, the Nazi smiled. “You don’t give up, do you? I like that. I hope I can hold out if that ever happens to me.”

I closed my eyes but the voice continued. “We’ve been waiting a long time for you to wake up. Don’t worry, everything’s going to be just fine. We’ve got it all figured out. We know you didn’t do it.”

I opened my eyes and the Nazi was replaced with a police officer. “Oh, it took a while. I couldn’t figure out how you were related to the victim.”

A nurse stepped into my view. “Mr. Krupkowski, we’re not feeling well right now. You’ll have to come back later.”

The officer looked across the bed to the nurse. “Okay, tell you what. You call me when he’s ready to listen for a while.”

“You’ll have to ask the doctor,” the nurse said as another pinprick of pain, this time in my left arm, shot through my body and knocked me out.

“We’ve got a visitor today,” the nurse said in her now irritatingly patronizing voice. “I hope we feel good enough to let him in.”

I blinked my eyes once in agreement.

“Very well, I’ll let him in.” The nurse winked at me and left my view.

“Hello again,” the familiar voice of the officer called out as he entered my field of vision. “I don’t know if you remember me but my name’s Henry Krupkowski but you can call me Hank.”

I blinked.

“Good, good. I can see you’re in much better spirits. Do you remember me coming by the other day?”

I blinked.

The nurse chimed in, “Of course, we do. A gunshot through the cerebrum does not make us retarded, you know.”

I raised my eyebrows.

Hank winked at me and looked at the nurse. “Tell you what, why don’t you check on the other patients while I have a word or two with Mr. Colline here.”

“Very well, but I’ll be back soon.” By the sound of the swishing of her starched outfit, I could tell the nurse left the room in an agitated state of mind.

“Well, well, well,” Hank began in a relaxed voice. “I hope you don’t mind if I have a seat but I’ve got a long story to tell.”

I blinked. He disappeared from my field of view.

“You see, you’ve been the center of attention for the past couple of weeks. By all accounts, you should have been dead or facing the death penalty if it weren’t for me.” He paused. “I know, I would be speechless too, what with the good feeling that comes over you when someone does you an act of kindness that saves your life.” Hank leaned into my view and patted me on my right arm.

“If you could’ve talked a few weeks ago, I would’ve done my job a lot faster. Anyway, I better make this quick before that ol’ biddy comes back.

“Do you remember getting shot?”

I blinked and then winced from the memory.

“Hey, if this is going to bother you, I’ll come back.”

I blinked twice.

“Okay, let me get my notebook out and lay this out as best I can…okay, first of all, I figured out you weren’t the killer when I found out from some people who’d been watching TV in the lobby that they’d seen a woman come in and out of Heffelfinger’s – well, the victim’s room, you know what I mean – all night.”

I blinked.

“Hate to say it but when there’s women involved it’s always complicated. Besides, when the people identified the woman as the one in the photo in your wallet…”

I raised my right eyebrow.

“Oh yeah,” Hank laughed, “I guess you didn’t know that was in there. I kinda figured it was a plant, especially after I called the Pink Poodle and found out you frequented the place to help wives spy on their husbands.”

I blinked several times while trying to laugh.

“Hey, don’t exert yourself. I don’t want you to die on me. You’re going to help me out by appearing in court to point your finger at the bastards and put them in the electric chair.”

I blinked and yawned.

“So anyway, I decided to come to the hospital morgue and check the bodies only to find that you weren’t here. I called the ambulance company we use and they hadn’t received a second call. I called a couple of more and found that you had been registered in the county hospital as a John Doe. I called my partner at home the next day and he sounded strange. I drove over to his place and there was your company van parked in front of Bowman’s house.

“I called in a backup. Then, as I quietly walked past the van to the house, a woman called out to me, ‘Fuckin’ cops! Don’t you guys have nothing better to do than scare the shit out of me? Russ is inside giving your friend Bowman your bribe.’ Then a couple of guns went off inside the house. I ran back to my car and the woman took off with the van.”

I opened my mouth for a big yawn but closed it quickly when I heard the swish of starch come into the room.

“Mr. Krupkowski, it’s almost time for you to go. We’re getting awfully sleepy.”

“Okay, okay. I’m almost finished. Just give me a few more minutes.”

The swish receded out of the room and down the hall.

“When the backup arrived, we surrounded the house and went in to find both Russ Heffelfinger and my partner Bowman unconscious and bleeding. Another unit tracked down the woman a few hours later. She told us everything. She had drugged her husband Eric and then tied him up in the hotel room after she had had an argument with him about sleeping with the other brother, Russ.”

I blinked.

He nodded. “Yeah, I figured you knew about her sleeping around. Then, while you were taking a shower, Russ went over to Eric’s room and struck him in the head with the crowbar from your van. Unknown to me, Russ had bribed Bowman to be driving in the area when we received the call so we would be the first ones there and he could help Russ set you up. Even if the woman hadn’t confessed, the letter in your pocket proved that Russ and the woman – can you believe they called her Thrush? – had been extorting money from Eric.”

“I’m sorry but I insist you leave,” the nurse exclaimed, surprising us both by having snuck into the room.

Hank leaned down to my face. “Don’t you forget, Mr. Colline, that you and I will have our day in court.” He grabbed my right hand and shook up and down vigorously. I managed a weak squeeze and fell back into the darkness.
 

II. Bittersweet Revenge

“Murder is sweet. Murder is kind. Murder is a way to get rid of the deadwood so the rest of us can enjoy life. Yeah, I love a good murder, especially when it’s like, you know, committed by some mass murderer. I’ve been saving newspaper clippings on ’em for years. Now, I’m following this new guy down in Florida…”

“What did you say?”

“Shit, man, haven’t you been listening to a word I’ve said.” Russ scratched his newly shaven head with his right hand. “You’re just like my brother. He never took me seriously.” He looked around the room. Although he was supposedly in the high risk section of some psychiatric hospital, he had come to recognize this place as just another kind of prison with its bars in the windows and heavy steel doors with small windows so the guards and psychologists could peer in at night. So what if they kept the place clean and sterile, and gave him three meals a day? The beige walls kept getting smaller and closing in on him everyday. He glanced at his roommate, Mike, who sat curled up in his hospital chair with thin, stiff cushions and pumped his head up and down to the beat of the music he claimed he heard from imaginary headphones.

“Don’t you ever take those things off?”

“Shh,” Mike whispered, holding up his left hand, “the news just came on.”

Russ shook his head, slumped further down in his chair and propped his feet on the end of his bed, avoiding the touch of the straps which he had felt across his body on too many nights but which now hung limply off the sides of the bed. “Bunch of fuckin’ weirdos,” he muttered to himself and drifted off to sleep.

I shifted into fifth gear and pulled into the heavy traffic of people heading home for the day. I used to get uptight and dread traffic hour but my new Alfa Romeo Spider seemed to make traffic disappear. Well, the car’s not new, actually. Between my day job fixing sewers and my part-time job as a “family counselor,” I’ll never have enough money to buy a new car. I had made a small bundle of money during my last case, though, in which I had prevented the children of this naive businessman, Eric Heffelfinger, from losing their muffler business to Eric’s new bride and younger brother Russ. With the money, I paid off some bills and still had some left over to put in the bank. I spent a couple of days trying to decide how to invest the money – you know, what stocks or bonds I should buy for a good portfolio – and saw a lovely blond-haired female drive by in an Alfa Romeo Spider. I quickly invested where my money would have the best turnaround time.

Unfortunately, I had been too late to save Eric Heffelfinger. I should have taken Russ’s psychotic fits seriously. He had been working with me for a few months in which he told me how he was going to perfect all these hate crimes he had read about in the news. He kept a scrapbook full of newspaper and magazine stories of grotesque murders that he would read over and over every night.

In one of his drunk rages, Russ told me how he was going to murder his brother and take over the family business. I overheard him talking to his brother’s wife on the phone late one night while I was supposedly asleep. I called his brother the next day and told him about my family counseling business (I hate being called a private investigator). He FedEx’d me a check for $500 the next day and told me to keep track of Russ.

I felt better after Russ had been put away, although not for long, I’m afraid. You see, they determined he was psychologically unfit for trial and put him in the state psychiatric hospital for evaluation. For the past three months after recovering in the hospital from a gunshot wound to the head, I’ve asked myself every night before I go to sleep, “How secure are those facilities?” Why can’t they just put people like him in a dungeon somewhere and throw away the key?

I turned my attention back to the road and pulled off at the Landscape exit. I had decided to take a week’s vacation after the Heffelfinger trial and head back to my hometown for some rest and relaxation. As usual, I went straight to Little Mountain Restaurant for some good pecan pie. I parked right next to the entrance so everyone could admire my car whether they wanted to or not.

“Lee, glad to see ya. Come on in and sit down. I hear tell you’ve been to hell and back.” Billy Slayter greeted me at the door in his dark blue overalls and red flannel shirt. Despite his not having worked on a farm, Billy still insisted on “just being folks.” He knew his customers enjoyed the relaxed down-at-the-farm atmosphere and good barbecue of the restaurant.

“You might say that,” I said, closing the screen door behind me and taking a seat next to Billy on one of the cedar benches against the inside left wall. I nodded to the cashier, an elderly woman who had worked behind the cash registers since I was a little boy, back when the registers were simple adding machines and a cash box. Now, the glow of a computer screen reflected off the woman’s Coke-bottle bottom eyeglasses. I added, “I see the place has changed with the times.”

“You know how it is. Thank goodness, Ethel still has a head on her shoulders. Those new computers confound the daylights out of me.” Billy turned to the waitress sitting next to him. “Fetch this man some ice tea.”

I leaned back on the bench. “It sure feels good to be home.”

The guard stopped before the door to pull his pants up over his belly and tuck in his shirt. He grabbed the keychain attached to the retractable wire on his belt and fumbled through the keys until he found the one marked 1403. He opened a panel on the wall next to the door handle, punched in a security code, and then inserted the key in the door lock. Opening the door, leaned in, and grumbled, “Okay, guys, time for your exercise.” As he stepped into the room, he looked to his immediate right at Mike thumping the arm of his chair. “This time, Mike, see if you can keep from singing along with your music. I want some peace and quiet today. I’ve got a splitting headache.”

Russ woke up from his catnap. “What’s your problem? At least you don’t have to listen to him all fuckin’ day.”

The guard looked across the room at Russ. “And I don’t want any crap from you, Mr. Heffelfinger. Just give me anything today and I’ll beat you so hard you won’t know what happened to you,” the guard said in disgust while patting the billy club hanging from his belt.

Russ stood up, walked around the beds and stopped next to Mike. He automatically held out his left wrist, waiting for the guard to handcuff him to Mike’s right wrist.

Everyday, they got thirty minutes to walk in the little Japanese garden secluded behind a concrete wall from the rest of the hospital patients doing their afternoon calisthenics. Russ hated being handcuffed but he loved the smell of the different plants. He’d asked what their names were but no one had been able to identify the plants so he made up names for them.

Today, Russ chose to recite in his head the names of the plants he had discovered to keep his mind off his plan of escape so he wouldn’t blurt something out for the guard to take back to the psychiatrists. On the way to the elevator, Russ first pictured the garden. The entrance to the garden began with a bamboo arch shaped like the sun setting on the ground. Russ thought more about the entrance and imagined his life was a setting sun and he wanted to scream or tear somebody’s throat out. He decided, as the elevator door opened, that today was his day to begin anew. He bit his lip as they walked out of the elevator, through the lobby and onto the hospital grounds.

They took the path that led some two hundred yards to the concrete wall. As they walked into the garden, out of sight of the hospital grounds, Russ cleared his throat.

“Excuse me, but I want to look at the dragon fingers without dragging Mike along with me.” Russ pointed to a Japanese maple with his right hand.

The guard poked Russ in the back with the billy club before he stuck it back in his belt loop. “Okay, but don’t try any funny business.”

Russ turned around as the guard looked down to pull the keys up. Russ grabbed the guard’s keys in his right hand and jerked as hard as he could, snapping the wire from the guard’s belt. At the same time, Russ gripped the handcuff chain in his left hand and pulled Mike over toward the guard, who was spun around off-balance. Russ swung the end of the wire into his left hand and threw the wire around the guard’s neck. The guard groped helplessly while his face changed colors from white to red to a pale blue as he slumped back against Russ. Russ dropped the guard with a sneering laugh. He unlocked the handcuffs and looked into Mike’s eyes.

“Man, if you ever want to take off those fuckin’ headphones and run, now’s your chance.” Russ stuffed the keys in his pocket and ran toward the garden entrance. He stopped at the arch and broke off a two-foot length of bamboo, which he stuck in his back pocket. He spun around when he heard footsteps behind him. He kicked out with his boot before he realized who he faced.

“Whu…” Mike wheezed as he took Russ’ boot in his stomach. Stumbling backward, he continued, “Where are we going?”

Russ grabbed Mike’s left arm to keep him from falling in the bushes. “Why, you fucker, you aren’t crazy, are you?”

“Hell, no. I was put in here for rapin’ my mama. When I found out they was goin’ to put me in the state pen, I freaked.”

“Cool, I like it. Look, we don’t have much time to get out of here.” Russ kept looking from left to right nervously. “You know your way around?”

“Sure. I didn’t spend all my time in the hellhole. Just follow me.” Mike started walking toward the main hospital building.

Russ grabbed Mike’s left arm as he walked past and turned him around. “Wait a minute. I’m not going back in there.”

“No problem. We ain’t.”

“How can I know to trust you?” Russ reached for the bamboo stick.

“That’s your problem.” Mike looked down at Russ’ hand behind his back. “Look, you kill me and you ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

“Okay, okay. Just tell me where we’re headed.”

Mike turned back toward the hospital and pointed to a ten-foot tall brick wall that ran the length of the hospital. “On the other side of that wall is where the food trucks come and go. I figure we wait till a truck comes through and hitch a ride.”

“It’ll never work. They’ll know we’re missing in an hour or two and tear this place apart looking for us.”

“Hey, you do what you want. I’m headin’ for that wall.” Mike walked on.

Russ stood for a few seconds and thought about Mike’s plan. He looked in the opposite direction at the nearest security fence several hundred yards beyond the Japanese garden. Russ shrugged his shoulders and ran to catch up with Mike.

“Those doctors fell for the fake headsets?” Russ asked, slightly out of breath, as he caught up with Mike, walking next to the wall.

“Not at first. A friend told me about this book called The Cuckoo’s Nest where this guy fakes like he’s real stupid and they keep him in the hospital where things is real cozy. I played stupid like I couldn’t hear nobody and then came up with the headphones when I wanted to hear some tunes late one night.” Mike stopped at the end of the wall and leaned his head around the corner. “Hey, we has a ride.”

Chapter 7: 1201 Pollyanna Avenue

Do you ever think about how your past has an iron-grip on your future? I mean, no matter how hard you avoid it, in fact, especially the more you resist doing it, you repeat something you’ve done before. You see your mom lecturing a girl for using foul language in the playground and you tell yourself you’d never embarrass someone like that in public. Years later you catch yourself telling a little boy to quit calling his sister dirty names in the grocery store checkout line.

I should have seen all the signs this time. I’d been there only fifteen years – a lifetime – before. There was one big difference this time – I’m married. Actually, marriage isn’t always a big difference, but in my mind it’s night and day. After all, I only make that promise once in a lifetime – you know, till death do we part and all that. Of course, marriage doesn’t stop you from making new friends and saying the same thing over and over. Sure, I’ll keep telling my new friends, “I’ll love you until the end of time,” like another annoying Greek chorus popping up at the end of each scene, so I know love…well, actually something between agape and Eros, is the sort of thing I’ll keep sharing in the future. It’ll always be there for me to pass out like wooden nickels (more like the old wooden round tuits my aunt and uncle used to give me that said, “I’ll love you when I get a round tuit.”). A couple of new friends of mine from work, Fredirique and Josef, brought out a lot of the old emotions I thought I had put away for good a long time ago.

Fredirique told her ex-boyfriend to keep his motorcycle stored next to his workout equipment in the garage. [Now that I look back at this, I should have kept the bike there myself because now it just sits in my backyard rusting and rotting away, but hey, I’m getting ahead of myself.] Although Fredirique and Josef had broken up months before…well, they didn’t actually break up cause they were never actually together but…well, let’s just say they quit going out together and he kept his stuff at her house and slept in a bedroom behind the kitchen until he could find a place of his own. Anyway, Josef asked me if I knew anything about motorbikes and I, in my Super-dude-knows-everything disguise, said yes. So off I went on a few quiet Sundays to help, like the blind leading the blind.

By chance the first Sunday, Josef and I figured out how to change the oil. By luck, I also got to see Fredirique’s pad for the first time. She had bought this really neat three-bedroom clapboard cottage in the (dare I say chic?) medical district. In her spare time, she had remodeled the postage-stamp kitchen by opening up the ceiling with a skylight, which added a natural highlight to the ivory tiles she had mortared over the old counter. Like a good writer, I should take you on a tour of the rest of her house but suffice it to say the house looked like the perfect single gal’s hangout – warm and cozy without feeling too much like home.

Fredirique opened the back door. “So, Lee, do you think he’ll ever get his motorcycle fixed?” Fredirique asked as she handed me a fresh glass of tea while I sat in the shade on the steps outside and Josef cleaned up the garage.

“He’d rather sell it to me but my wife won’t let me buy it before I sell the old computer.” I took a sip of the iced tea, thankful for the cool liquid running down my throat on such a hot day.

“She won’t let you?” I inhaled half the tea. “You don’t really let her make the decisions for you, do you?”

“Well, we have this agreement. If it costs over fifty bucks, we have to both agree to buying it.” I gulped down the rest of the tea. “I’ve always wanted my own bike but…well, this one needs some work. If I buy it, do you mind if I keep it here for a while?”

“Mind? No, I don’t mind,” she said with a knowing grin.

Over the next few weeks, Josef and I struggled to get his bike working. We figured out, after he had ridden it two miles away from the house and couldn’t get back, that something went wrong when the engine got warm, probably from the rubber pads over the carbs. In any case, it was more than we wanted to tackle. The next Monday, Josef got a job that required daily transportation – pizza delivery – so I bought the bike for $150 and he bought an old pickup truck. He delivered pizzas for two days and then disappeared the next night, taking his clothes and most of his workout equipment with him.

I spent the following Sunday at Fredirique’s house trying to get the bike working. She wasn’t home so I had the garage to myself. Big deal. I didn’t have anyone to talk with and had no knowledge of things mechanical so I just sat on the workout bench, staring at the handlebars, wishing for a miracle but knowing the angels didn’t help Harley wannabes. Needless to say, I left in frustration.

A few weeks later I found myself at home alone, with my wife gone on a business trip and my cats just wanting to be left alone sunning in the dining room. Bored, I drove over to Fredirique’s house so I could once again heave open the ancient garage door and face the daunting task of solving the mystery of Japanese rice burners. I knew Fredirique wasn’t home so I could work on the bike in meditative peace, sort of like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, only I haven’t read the book so I know about as much about it as I did fixing the bike.

Sitting on the concrete floor in the suffocating heat of that day was bad enough but here I was trying to be a backyard mechanic, skillfully whacking at a stubborn bolt with a broken pair of pliers. After two hours of banging and cursing, I leaned backed, letting my neck rest on the cool vinyl of the weight bench. I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep, but only momentarily.

In my half-awake state, I heard the sound of an approaching vehicle whose engine noise reminded me of an old Volvo. Didn’t Fredirique own a Volvo, I wondered. The engine stopped and a door opened. With my eyes closed, I couldn’t see the person coming but I imagined someone getting closer.

“Lee, are you all right?” a concerned voice said into my left ear. I looked up to see Fredirique leaning down over me. Caught as I was half-asleep, my mind raced through a multitude of personalities like a cat in a room full of catnip. In the same moment, panic swept through my mind, then relief when I realized I was not under attack by an invisible voice. At first, my platonic self looked at her sisterly eyes but then my caveman self took over and I glanced down at her shirt hanging open, exposing her white bra which, of course, led down to her hips shrink-wrapped in a pair of tight shorts. My eyes continued to slide down her thin white thighs until my self-conscience self took over (pretty well stereotyped by the psychiatrist-obsessed Woody Allen) and I found myself looking down at my hands stained with grease and engine oil.

“Uh, yeah, I just can’t seem to get the engine case open,” I managed to say out of my dried-out throat.

“Why don’t you come inside for a minute and cool off? I can turn the air conditioner on for a little while.”

“Okay,” I mumbled.

“I’ve got some juice leftover in the fridge, if you want some,” Fredirique yelled from her bedroom as she unpacked her suitcase. “There may be a beer or two in there, too.”

“No thanks,” I managed to say, sprawled out on the couch.

“Are you sure?”

I lay there in the cool silence.

“I’ll get it for you, for a price,” she said as she walked up to the couch from behind.

I leaned forward, craning my neck and cocking my eyebrows. “Like what?”

“Well, considering that I’ve let you keep your bike here for over a month and…well, you can see that the air conditioner doesn’t do that good a job.”

“It feels fine to me.”

“Lee-e-e-e,” she said in a nasally, whining voice, “I mean it. When you stop sweating like a pig on my couch, you’ll see what I mean. You won’t feel cold anymore.”

“So, uh, you want me to fix your air conditioner.”

“No, I had something else in mind,” she said in a quiet voice, while beckoning me to the bedroom hallway with her finger.

I sat up on the couch. “So what do you have to drink?” I said as I got up and walked toward the kitchen.

“Lee, come here for a minute, will you? I have something to show you.”

I stopped at the kitchen doorway. What exactly was going on here? Either I was misreading the signals or Fredirique didn’t know when to stop teasing me. I shrugged my shoulders and turned back toward the living room. “What do you want?”

“Come on into the bedroom,” her voice called out.

I stepped into the small hallway and stuck my head in her bedroom. Seeing her unmade bed with the covers piled up made me smile. Miss Architectural Digest didn’t make her bed.

“No, over here,” she said behind my back. I turned around to see Fredirique standing in the bedroom at the other end of the hallway.

I walked up behind her.

“Give me your honest opinion of what you think,” she said, putting her hands on her hips with pride.

“Of what,” I asked timidly.

“Of the room,” she said in an equally quiet voice. “What do you think?”

“Uh, it’s okay,” I said as I walked up to the door.

“Okay?” she asked, dissatisfied with my opinion.

“Well, it’s definitely…green.”

“Is that all you can say?”

I responded in a fake cockney accent, “A lovely shade of hunter green, milady, but your orange and white pool light’s what’s exquisite.”

“Oh, I’m taking that light down. What do you think about the trim?”

“Hmm…a green room with red trim. Is this going to be the Christmas Room?”

She hit me on the arm. “What do you want to drink, silly?” she asked as she bounded out of the room.

A few weeks passed while the world kept spinning and I kept going to work, eating lunch with my wife and contemplating what my next step would be. After all, in a way I was entering new territory. Fredirique presented a predicament – she was younger than I and single. Just because she was a woman and I was a man in this new friendship didn’t necessarily mean anything, though. I had had female friends before. But this time, I’m the one who’s married and it had been so long ago that I last had a close female friend that I had no idea if the rules had changed.

Fredirique poked her head into my office. “Lee, how long do you plan to keep your bike at my house?”

“Why?”

“Well, you can keep it there a little while longer if you want, but I’d like a little something in return.”

“Do you have another room you want me to criticize?” I asked, laughing.

“No-o-o. You know that old light fixture you saw at my house that you liked? Well, I’ll give it to you if you’ll put a ceiling fan in my house.”

“Uh, you’re kidding, right?”

“No, I’m not tall enough and since you’re a guy I figured you could do it,” she added with a smirk.

“Flattery will get you nowhere.”

“Even from me?” Fredirique asked with her puppy dog look.

“Okay, okay, I’ll do it. Karen and I are busy this weekend so I’ll come by two Sundays from now.”

Fredirique spun around in the doorway. “Great, I’ll throw in lunch and you can invite Karen, if you want to,” she emphasized as she turned her head, tossing her hair, and disappeared past the doorway.

I waited a week to tell Karen that Fredirique wanted the two of us to go over to her house so I could put in a ceiling fan. As I expected, Karen gave me a neutral reply. She always says I can find any excuse to get out of working in the yard, like a modern-day Rip Van Winkle. When Sunday rolled around, she feigned feverishness and told me not to stay gone too long. I went through the routine of trying to get her to go but she gave me her best “I know when I’m not invited” look, the same look I got whenever I invited her to go bike riding with my college buddy, Vincent.

“Oh, there you are,” Fredirique said in surprise when I knocked on the door. She lay down the book she had been reading and stood up from the couch. “Come on in, it’s unlocked.”

I opened the screen door and stood in front of her in my best handyman clothes – a blue plaid, half cotton, half polyester long-sleeved shirt, a faded-red baseball cap with the insignia of an old resort called Little Switzerland, and blue jeans that covered the top of some old work boots I found in my garage earlier that day. I had dreamed the night before that I had to climb up into the attic to put the fan in and didn’t want to coat any exposed sweaty body parts with fiberglass so I spent that morning looking around the house for used but reliable clothing.

“Well, here it is,” Fredirique said, pointing to a box on the floor. “But before you start, I want you to look at my ‘Christmas Room.’ I finally finished the paint job and put in a new light fixture.”

We walked over to the new bedroom. I was immediately impressed. “You know, the way this looks now, it could be used as a den or something. It’s looks too good to be a bedroom.”

“Yeah, I thought of that, too. By the way, there’s your light.” Fredirique pointed to a fake pool table light sitting on a couple of newspaper pages. “I didn’t dust it off but I did put the screws in with it.”

“Thanks.” I walked back to the living room and looked at her ceiling where two wires hung from a hole in the middle of the room. “So that’s where you want me to put it.”

“Yeah.”

“You know, I may have to go in the attic to secure the fan to the roof beams.”

Fredirique scrunched her eyebrows in a puzzled look as she leaned over the coffee table to pick up a leaflet. “I read the instructions and saw nothing in here about securing the fan.”

I pulled the instructions from her honey-colored hand. “Let me see. I tell you what – if you’ll go ahead and start lunch, I’ll put the ceiling fan in.”

“Okay, but I don’t think it’s going to be that easy.” She walked out of the room while I pulled the ceiling fan parts out of the box. Fredirique returned to the room a few minutes later and started some idle conversation about current movies and such while she sat in the rattan easy chair next to the couch and watched me like…well, I don’t what I looked like to her but she gave her undivided attention to my work, making suggestions when I struggled to fit a fan blade in backward or obviously used the wrong decorative screw.

After wading through the instructions, I managed to get the fan together in about 45 minutes and finally got to the part where I needed an extra pair of hands. I pulled an old wooden chair from next to the fireplace and placed it under the hole in the ceiling. For several seconds, I mentally wrangled over what I should do next because I knew Fredirique would have to be close to me, perhaps even standing on the same chair with me, to help hold the fan in position. Because I valued my personal space, I did not look forward to giving up that space to anyone but my wife. At the same time, I knew I’d look silly trying to put the fan up by myself, especially if I dropped it. I also knew that Fredirique would get a sadistic pleasure making me uneasy by invading my personal space and that at the same time, I would enjoy her sadistic playfulness. Oh, what complex humans we are.

“If you don’t mind getting your fat butt out of that chair…” I quipped.

Fredirique jumped out of the chair, put one hand on her hip, turned and cocked her behind toward me as she looked down. “Is my butt really big?”

“No,” I abruptly replied, angry that she had gotten the best of me already. “If you don’t mind, come over here and hold the fan for me while I put the wires together.”

Fredirique hopped onto the chair with me and looked at my eyes just eight inches away. “What do you want me to do?” The chair creaked in protest. “Do you think this thing will hold the both of us?” she asked nervously. I quickly shook my head and she nodded in reply. “I think I’ll get another chair,” she yelped as she jumped down to the floor.

Phew! The moment of my personal space invasion solved itself. Sometimes, I can’t believe how I value the security of my personal space over the spontaneity of bumping into someone else, no matter what the circumstances.

At that same moment, someone knocked on the door. “Hey Fred, are you home?” a winded voice called from the front door.

“Ed!” Fredirique exclaimed as she sprang for the door. “What have you been doing?”

Ed stepped into the house, gave Fredirique a hug and looked up at me with curiosity. “I just finished a twenty-five mile bike ride with Chuck. He’s taking a cool-down lap around the block. I ran out of water a while back. I hope you don’t mind if I fill up my bottle.”

Fredirique noticed Ed staring at me. “Lee, this is my old boyfriend from college, Edward McLane. Ed, Lee is a friend of mine from work who’s helping me with the remodeling.”

“Nice to meet you, Ed. I apologize for not shaking your hand but I can’t lay this fan down right now,” I said to a perfect specimen of college-age athlete with walnut-colored hair.

“That’s all right,” Ed replied, nodding in my direction. He turned to Fredirique. “I guess I’ll catch up with Chuck. I can see you’ve got company.”

“No, stay if you want. Lee and I are almost finished.”

“I’d better catch up with Chuck before he decides to go twenty-five more miles.”

“Come back when you’ve finished.”

“I’ll see what I feel like,” Ed said as he headed into the kitchen.

Fredirique looked at me, shrugged her shoulders in a “What can I say?” pose and followed Ed into the kitchen while I stood on the chair holding the fan.

After Ed left, Fredirique and I finished putting the fan together. We didn’t know it then but the agape/Eros balance had permanently shifted. Plato looked at us from beyond the grave with interest – he had a new experiment to observe.

Fredirique stopped by my office a few days later. “You know, you did such a wonderful job the last time, I wonder if you would mind putting another ceiling fan in my house.”

“Where could I possibly put it? Every room in your house has a new fan or light fixture.”

Fredirique gave me a perky look before she responded, “My bedroom, of course. And please tell Karen she’s more than welcome to come over.” Oh god, I thought, here we go again, in one moment exhilarated and frightened.

“Okay,” I said, “I think I can come over on Saturday this weekend.”

“Great, I’ll have lunch ready for you two when you come over.”

Once again, on the designated day, Karen found a reason for not going to Fredirique’s house. I tried to persuade her to go, if not for herself, then for our marriage, but she rolled her eyes and told me to get out of the house.

When I arrived at her house, Fredirique was pulling weeds out of the liriope lining the walkway that ran from the street to the front porch.

“Hey, Lee, you want to help me?” she asked. I shook my head. “I hate this stuff. You remember my last housemate, David? He used to do all this for fun. Can you believe it?”

“No.”

“Where’s Karen? You did invite her, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, she’s not feeling well today and sends her apologies.”

“Well, I fixed enough stew for an army. I hope you’re hungry. I’m starving after being out here for so long.”

Fredirique decided to go ahead and serve the meal at the antique oak table in her dining room, even though it made the meal seem more formal with just the two of us eating there. Between bites, Fredirique talked about the years she’d spent with her ex-boyfriend, Ed. I stared at the dried flower arrangement in the middle of the table while slowly eating the stew and stewing over the day’s possibilities. What bad outcome, if any, would result from my spending time in her bedroom, standing on her bed, especially when I would need her to stand on the bed with me to hold the fan while I attached the wires?

“Do you mind if I get another bowl?” I asked as I stood up.

“I’ll get it, you just sit down. Besides, you’ll be doing all the hard work today, so you might as well rest now.” Fredirique grabbed my bowl and walked into the kitchen while picking back up on the good times she’d had with Ed at Ole Miss.

“Fredirique,” I interrupted. “if you enjoyed being with him so much, why didn’t the two of you get married?”

“Well, Lee, he…I don’t know. He’s not the same guy I first met.”

“So? Neither is my wife. We all change. Besides, he seems like a great guy with his head on his shoulders.” Unlike your recent boyfriends, I told myself. I tried to remember if there was something about him I missed when I met him. The more I thought about it, he seemed to treat her like he took her for granted the other day. In the middle of all my thinking, I realized I missed what Fredirique had said. “What did you say?”

“Oh, forget it, I don’t want to talk about him anymore. Finish your stew so we can get the fan done.” Fredirique shoved the bowl in front of me and walked away. “I’ll take the parts out of the box for you. This fan’s a little different than the last one so you might want to read the instructions all the way through before you start. They’re on the coffee table. And hurry up and finish, will you, I don’t have all day,” she called out behind me.

I wolfed down the stew as quick as I could and grabbed the instructions on the way to Fredirique’s bedroom. When I got there, I found she had moved the junk she’d had piled up at the end of the bed and replaced it with the same chair I had used to put the ceiling fan up in her living room.

“Uh-h,” I stammered, “I thought I could use your bed to stand on.”

“Well, you thought wrong. I don’t want your dirty shoes on the bed unless you plan to take them off.”

“If you insist,” I said grinning, making a motion to remove a shoe.

“Ha, ha, not funny. Just use the chair.”

“Okay but I still think your bed’s gonna get dirty just from the stuff falling out of the hole in the ceiling.”

“Oh, yeah. I’ll get the bathmat to cover the end of the bed.” While Fredirique went to the bathroom, I looked around her room. Against the wall next to the doorway sat her vanity with the usual female props – a hairbrush and old facial makeup items – strewn across the counter. Taped to the vanity mirror were postcards and pictures from around the world. Through a half-open door on the wardrobe against the adjoining wall, I could see a few suits hanging up. I could also see where she had moved the junk – magazines like Good Housekeeping and Interior Design as well as some dress shoes – she had shoved them into the bottom of the wardrobe.

I was removing my last shoe by the time Fredirique got back. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Well, if you look at the hole in the ceiling, you’ll notice it hangs over your bed, not the chair.”

“Oh, okay, but you still have to stand on the bathmat. While you’re putting the fan together, I’ve got a couple of phone calls to make. If you need my help, just holler.”

I watched Fredirique walk back to the living room. So that’s how we solve this situation, I thought. We spend a minimum amount of time together in the bedroom. Smart thinking on her part.

Although this fan was more complex than the last one, I had already figured out the theory of how fans worked so I finished the assembly process in less than 30 minutes. During that time, I listened to Fredirique’s conversation with her sister. I couldn’t hear every word but I could tell she was upset about something. I assumed Ed’s visit a few days earlier and her discussing him with me had made her upset. Whatever she was talking about, I knew that the phone call with her sister was good therapy for Fredirique. She brightened up in a matter of minutes.

“Well, are you done?” Fredirique asked, practically skipping into the bedroom.

I stood up from the bed with the fan in my arms. “Yeah, I was just sitting here waiting for you to get off the phone.”

“So you waited for me? That’s nice. You know, I ought to give you a neck rub for all the work you’ve done.”

I mentally blushed. “Thanks for the offer but we’re not done yet. I still need your help holding the fan.”

Fredirique stepped onto the bed and started jumping up and down. “Okay, where do you want me to stand?” she asked in midjump.

“How about on the chair? I need to connect the wires from the bed.”

“Oh yeah,” she nodded in agreement as she stepped down to the chair. “Give me the fan.”

While we were putting up the fan, I looked out the front bedroom window and noticed an old woman looking back at me from the sidewalk.

“You have curious neighbors,” I whispered.

“Oh yeah, Mrs. Duquette,” Fredirique said in a loud voice. “She has nothing better to do but nose into other people’s business.”

Mrs. Duquette walked on while Fredirique and I finished putting the fan together.

“Well, Lee, I thank you once again for your help,” Fredirique said as she held the door open for me. “I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“Oh, you’d find someone else to help.”

“Yeah, but no one as fun as you.”

“Thanks. Hey, do you mind if I come over tomorrow to get the motorcycle?”

“No, just call me before you come over.”

“Be careful,” Karen said, as I left the house on Sunday. “I wish you’d get someone to help you lift the motorcycle.”

“Oh, I’ll manage. Besides, your brother said he might meet me there after church lets out. If it’ll make you feel better, maybe you can give me a back rub when I get back.”

“Only if you hurry home.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too,” I responded with a kiss as I stepped into the truck.

When I got to Fredirique’s house, I could hear the shower through the screen door. I knocked as loud as I could but got no response. “Anybody home?” I yelled.

“Lee, is that you?” Fredirique yelled back.

“Yeah.”

“Come on in. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

I walked in and sat on the couch. A few minutes later, I heard footsteps behind me and turned to see Fredirique standing over me. She was wearing a terry cloth wrap and had a towel wrapped around her head. “Turn around and I’ll give you that neck rub I promised.”

“That’s okay,” I said, embarrassed by my automatic lustful thoughts, “Karen’s already promised to give me a back rub when I get home. I can wait till then. Besides, if you’re going to help, I don’t think you want to load the motorcycle in those clothes.”

“Oh quit being such a fuddy-duddy and turn around. It’s not like I’m going to attack you or something.”

I turned back around to face the fireplace. Fredirique placed her hands on my neck with an iron grip and began to massage my neck like an eagle grabs its prey.

“Ouch, that hurts,” I said.

“This is a Singaporean massage. It’s supposed to hurt,” she responded as someone knocked on the door. Fredirique walked over to the door. “Yes, may I help you?”

“Uh…I was supposed to help my sister’s husband move a motorcycle.”

“Oh, you must be Junior. Come on in. Lee’s here waiting for me on the couch. I was just getting changed,” she said as she walked back to the bedroom. I cringed, imagining what was going through Junior’s mind.

Junior sat on the couch beside me. “Hey, Lee, what’s going on? I thought you’d be ready to move the motorcycle. Karen said you called Fredirique ahead of time to tell her you were coming over.”

“I, uh…I don’t know. I just got here and found her in the shower.”

“You found her where?”

“No, I mean I could hear the shower from the front door.”

“And you walked on in?”

“No, she told me to come in.”

“While she was still in the shower?”

“Well, we’re good friends.” Junior gave me a questionable stare. “I mean, she’s like a sister to me.”

“What was it I heard her say when I came to the door – something about hurting you?”

“She was giving me a neck rub.”

“Like a sister?”

“Exactly.”

“Okay, I won’t say anything to Karen about this. I don’t think she’ll understand.”

“Oh, she knows all about this. Uh, I mean, she already knows what Fredirique is like.”

“So that’s why she called me to remind me to come over here?”

“No, she’s concerned about my back. I hurt it the last time I was here.”

“You what?”

“I pulled my back in Fredirique’s bed.”

“I don’t think I want to know about this.”

“Oh…oh, it’s not what you think. Fredirique asked me to put a ceiling fan in her bedroom…”

“And you ended up on her bed?”

“Well, sort of. I guess I shouldn’t have taken my shoes off.”

“Lee, I don’t need to hear anymore. We all make mistakes. I’ll pray to God for forgiveness, if you’d like, and you do the same.”

“Why? I had to take my shoes off to stand on her bed to put the ceiling fan in. That’s all.”

“Then how did you hurt your back?”

“Well, my socks were slippery and after I finished putting in the fan, I slipped off the bed and pulled my back. I didn’t tell Fredirique at the time because I didn’t want her to give me a hard time about being old and out of shape. Besides, it was bad enough that a neighbor saw us together in her bedroom.”

“I still don’t think you should tell Karen.”

“Oh, she already knows.”

“No, I mean about the neck rub.”

“Well, if you say so.”

“Hey guys,” Fredirique said as she stepped out of the bedroom, “why don’t you get the motorcycle out of the garage and I’ll fix you some lunch.”

“Sounds like a great idea,” I said, as Junior and I stood up to leave the house.

Chapter 8: Celestial Realm Coffee House

Lee leaned back on the couch and counted under his breath while he cradled the phone receiver against his ear. “She’s got to pick up by the fourth ring, or her answering machine will turn on,” he thought.

“Heh-looo,” a familiar voice cheerfully intoned through the earpiece.

“Hey, Fredirique. It’s Lee.”

“Lee! How great to hear from you. I was just thinking I could use a little cheering up right now.”

“Is something the matter?”

“Oh no, I just…well, it’s been a long week. I’m glad Friday’s finally here.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. So do you have any big plans for the weekend?”

“Well, I was thinking about meeting Phillip buck naked at the front door.”

“What?” Lee asked, his thoughts momentarily interrupted.

“Haha. I mean, don’t you think that would be cool?”

“Well…”

“Oh come on.”

“Of course, any guy would be stupid not to like his girlfriend meet him at the door with no clothes on.”

“I might not do it but I still think it would be fun.”

“If you want to give him a heart attack.”

“You’re so funny sometimes, Lee. I’ve got to go right now but will you give me a call in a couple of days if I don’t call you first?”

“Sure.”

“Thanks. Well, I’ll see you later.”

“Good luck with Phillip. I hope he doesn’t attack you at the door.”

“Why? That’s the whole purpose,” she emphasized. “Seeya.”

“Bye.”

Lee paused a moment to see if he could imagine Fredirique meeting him at the door buck naked. Yes, he’d be a bit embarrassed and would do his best to turn his head. Now, if his wife met him at the door, that’d be another matter. She wouldn’t do it anyway. Why encourage Lee’s already strong sexual drive, she would say, he gets excited just by waking up in the morning.

Lee called Fredirique at work on Monday. “She’s gone for a few minutes,” the receptionist replied, “would you like to leave her a message?”

“Yeah, just tell her that Lee called,” he said, hanging up the phone and diving back into the report that had to be finalized that day.

“ADS. This is Lee. May I help you?”

“You called?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Business or pleasure?”

“Business, I’m afraid.”

“Awww.”

“Sorry. Hey, I don’t have the address of the guy who’s supposed to get this report,” Lee said in a serious tone of voice. He knew that Fredirique kept up with the names and addresses of all the Southeast clients. Although her sales territory only covered Georgia, she still kept in contact with clients in other states as well.

“Oh yeah, you’re supposed to send that report to Phillip.”

“Your boyfriend?”

“Yes, yes. As that hair replacement commercial goes, he’s not just my boyfriend, he’s also a client.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?”

“Not really. Now do you want the address or don’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Good. Just send it to the treatment plant in Charleston.”

“But the project name is St. Charles…”

“I know, but our client is really Charleston.” Lee just started to let a word out of his mouth. “Don’t ask any questions or make any smart remarks. Just send it.”

“Okay. Hey, did I tell you I’m being sent to Birmingham for a few weeks?”

“No, when did you find out about that?”

“On Thursday. I leave tomorrow.”

“Really? That’s awfully sudden.”

“You know our company. At least they let me know I was going.”

“Yeah. Oh, hey, have you gotten anything in the mail from me lately?”

“No, was I supposed to be expecting something?”

“Uh, no. I just wondered.”

“What should I be looking for?”

“Oh, you’ll know when you see it. Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay,” Lee replied, knowing something special must be coming for Fredirique to try to downplay it. “By the way, speaking of Birmingham, did I tell you that Pam and Carl are leaving the company?”

“No!”

“Yeah, they should be leaving in a couple of weeks.”

“I’ll have to call them before they go. Well, I better go. Have a safe trip to Birmingham. If you get a chance, you ought to stop at the Celestial Coffee Shop in the little Five Points area. There’s also a neat restaurant there called Bottega’s. Let me know if you try them out.”

“Sure.”

“If you would just transfer me to voicemail.”

“No problem.” Lee pressed a few buttons and lay down the phone. He began wondering what Fredirique could possibly be sending him in the mail without telling him what it was. A surprise from her recent trip to Ireland, perhaps?

A few weeks later, Lee called Fredirique from Birmingham. “It’s me again.”

“Hey, Lee, you sound so glum. Don’t let work get you down. It’s not worth it. It’s just a job.”

“I’m just tired, that’s all.”

“What’s up?”

“I was just checking to make sure everything was going well with the Dekalb client.”

“They must be doing well. We just signed a new contract for eleven more flow monitors in the Dekalb County basin.”

“That’s great. Hey, I’ve never received anything from you unless you put that job posting for Hong Kong in my mailbox.”

“No, that went out to everybody.” Fredirique’s voice trailed off. “It figures someone must have done something with it.”

“What?” Lee asked, not sure whether Fredirique was talking about the unknown package or something she was looking at in her office.

“Never mind. Hey, have you been by the Celestial Coffee Shop yet?”

“No, but I did look it up in the phone book. It’s called the Celestial Realm Coffee House.”

“Yeah, that’s right. Well, you’ve got to go there. I know you’ll like it. It tends to get a little crowded on the weekends but it should be all right during the week.”

“I want to get to it but I’ve been spending time getting this corporate apartment cleaned up. It was a pig sty when I got here.”

“That doesn’t sound like you, Lee. You usually get out at least one night a week.”

“I know. I do my best.”

“Well, call me when you make it by there.”

Although they only saw each other on the weekends, Lee and his wife, Karen, still quarreled occasionally. Lee and Karen had just finished having a big fight so Lee was thinking, “Oh, how I’d like to call this whole thing quits right now.” They drove into town to cool off and do some errands. Lee dropped Karen off at her office and stopped by ADS to check his mail. Lo and behold (to the satisfaction of his long-running curiosity that started when Fredirique asked if Lee had received something from her in the mail), there lay a card containing the words, “L- Isn’t it funny how we always gravitate back towards one another? Thanks for being such a good friend who understands where I am coming from… F”

Lee spent the next day and a half waiting for his return to Birmingham so he could call Fredirique. He left her a voicemail right away thanking her for a wonderful card.

“Thanks again for the card,” Lee said, when Fredirique answered the phone.

“Oh, you’re welcome.”

“You know, I don’t always know how to interpret our friendship but I know better than to dissect it – after all, the whole is lovelier than the parts much like a cardinal in a tree is much lovelier than one dissected in a laboratory.”

“You sure are poetic today.”

“Well, when I found the card in my mailbox, I…well, I was pleasantly pleased, to begin with. Here was a card from…I’m having trouble with descriptions today…my confidant, my playmate, my friend, or as the French would say, mon ami.”

“Thanks. I guess that was supposed to be a compliment.”

“Yeah,” Lee said, wondering how much more he should say. “I’m in a strange mood today. As always, my mind is filled with a myriad of sensations, expressions, and vague notions, some of which I would like to share with you, some of which I should never say to you and some I don’t know what to do with.

“Okay,” Fredirique said, with reserve.

“Can I be honest with you?”

Fredirique paused. “Of course you can. Why wouldn’t you be?”

“You know what I mean. Do you mind if I share some stuff with you I wouldn’t normally say otherwise?”

“It sounds like you’re going to anyway. You know you can’t embarrass me, so don’t even try.”

“Well, first of all, I wasn’t even sure if the card was meant for me. This card contained words that I appreciate greatly.”

“Is that all you can say?”

“Well, that’s one way to put it, anyway. I never expected to see something like that from you. Needless to say, the card caught me at a vulnerable point because Karen and I had just had a fight. The I-want-to-escape-this-trap-called-marriage part of me focused on the first sentence and immediately interpreted that you were signaling me to gravitate closer to you but then I remembered that you once said you would never marry a divorced man. The I-want-a-playmate-for-life-not-a-wife part of me read the last sentence and sighed, ‘Ah, someone to have a good time in the city with.’ At once I cherished the card and feared the repercussions should my wife find it.”

“Why should you worry about her seeing it? I just wanted you to know how much I appreciate your friendship.”

“Well, maybe I should apologize for making so much out of a two-sentence postcard but I only get a few personal cards and letters a year and practically celebrate the arrival of every one. Of course, getting one from you is extra special, I must admit.”

“Yes, you are in a strange mood. Are you going to see Karen this weekend?”

“Probably.”

“Hmm…”

“What?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we should sit down and talk sometime.”

“We can talk now.”

“No, I’d rather see your face so I can see what you’re thinking.”

“I’m glad that we are still friends.”

“I am too. We just accept each other…”

“As we are. Yeah, I know. I haven’t had a lot of true friends like you. Since you and I have been together as good friends from about 1992 on, we have seen ADS go through a number of changes. We are still here to talk about the changes, which says something about us.”

“That’s true.”

“The only thing is, I don’t whether it’s perseverance or perversity. What about the way we change? Have we changed or stayed the same?”

Fredirique, lost in thought, took a few seconds to answer. “I guess it depends. What are you doing this Thursday?”

“Well, I’ll work all day, go home, cook dinner, and relax, I suppose. Why?”

“I was just thinking, I could leave work early that day and meet you at the Celestial Coffee House around 6 p.m. What do you think about that?”

“Uh…”

“What?”

“That would be cool.”

“Good, I’ll see you then. I’ve got to go right now. Seeya.”

“Bye.”

That night, Lee went home and wrote in his journal, “Although we’ve known each about five years, I feel like I’ve known you for a lifetime. I know the you who is woman (the caretaker, the flirtatious one, the sympathetic person), and the you who is man (cut to the chase, tell it like it is, no nonsense). You see the corresponding traits in me. This recognition builds the foundation for a lasting friendship because our personalities flow throughout the yin and yang of the swirling patterns of persona. Yes, my favorite broom-straw headed Southern woman, I, too, thank you for letting me be myself with you, without having to worry about whether you’ll respect me in the morning or any of that other nonsense that so many male-female relationships get bogged down in.”

Lee left work right at five ‘o clock Thursday afternoon to drive to the Celestial Realm. He wanted to check the place out before Fredirique got there. Following the directions he had gotten earlier, Lee passed by the UAB campus and turned into what looked like a slightly upscale off-campus student housing area. The old Victorian houses looked well-maintained. Although the apartment buildings were obviously of pre-Depression construction, they, too, were good-looking for their age. Ivy-covered lawns lined the small, winding, two-lane streets. Lee knew he was in the right neighborhood. He could see Fredirique living in a place like this. In fact, he could see himself living there. It reminded him of his college days in the student slums of Knoxville.

The Celestial Realm Coffee House looked like the old bottom floor or lobby of an apartment building. A yellow neon sign in the window advertised the name of the store along with a bright, smiling sun. Looking inside the windows, Lee noticed a typical 90s-style college clientele. Everyone wore loose, baggy clothes, long hair, and rings piercing various parts of the body. Lee walked inside and looked around. In the low light, Lee could see that the furnishings looked like the leftovers of an old antique shop — chairs that sagged, old blue and red glass plates lying around, and pieces of art that could have been created anytime in the last century. Light jazz played in the background while the sounds of a cappuccino machine emanated from the brightly-lit kitchen and bar stand in the back.

“This is the first time I’ve been here,” Lee said to a guy with a two-day old stubble of growth on his head, “Do I sit down somewhere or do I order at the bar?”

“Well,” the guy said, obviously amused, “you can sit down somewhere and order or you can sit at the bar and order.”

“Thanks.” Lee noticed a couple of old wingback chairs that faced each other near the front. He picked out the one with the garish red upholstery and sat in it so he would be facing the door.

Fredirique walked in a few minutes later. Lee waved at her and they both smiled at each other in recognition.

“It’s cold out there,” Fredirique said, as she sat in the chair Lee pointed out to her.

“It’s been cold and rainy for the past couple of days.”

“So what do you think of this place? Isn’t it great?”

“It’s actually better than I expected. I’ve been so used to those designed-for-engineers coffee houses in Huntsville that I forgot what a truly cool hangout these places can be.”

“I thought you’d like it.”

“So, what brings you all the way to Birmingham that you couldn’t discuss on the phone?”

“Nothing, really.”

“Nothing?”

“I just thought it would be neat to do something crazy on a weekday. I can’t stay too long.” Fredirique picked up a menu. “Have you ordered yet?”

“No, I just got here. What would you suggest?”

“Just whatever you like. You do like coffee, by the way, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

Fredirique laughed.

“What’s funny?” Lee asked, smiling back.

“Oh, I just thought it would be funny to meet you at a coffee house and find out that you don’t really like coffee. I didn’t think you were drinking coffee.”

“Well, no, that’s true. I had cut back to help me lose weight.”

“How’s it going?”

“Well, I’ve dropped two belt sizes since I’ve been here.”

“That’s wonderful. Hey, let’s order before it gets too late.”

“Sure.”

“Do you know what you want?”

“I’ll figure it out by the time the guy gets here.”

Fredirique waved to get the attention of the waiter sipping coffee at the bar. “Actually, I think I’ll just have water and a little dessert,” she said to Lee.

“So, now that you’ve sold your house, what are your plans?”

“I don’t know. I’m so excited. I’m not tied down to anything right now for the first time in a long time.”

“Not even to Phillip?”

“I’m never tied down to those guys. You know that,” Fredirique said in a confiding voice.

“I thought you were in love with him.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“Of course, I hope you don’t leave ADS just yet.”

“What do you mean?”

“Call me insecure if you want. I’m just worried that we’re only work friends.”

“What makes you think that?”

“I don’t know. How are you doing with Phillip? I hope that your personal relationship with him does not conflict with your business relationship with the former municipality of St. Charles.”

“Oh, pshaw. There’s nothing to worry about there.”

“I was actually happy to hear that you and Phillip are in love. I remember the last time I was in love. Everything else just faded away around me except for her. You know, I’ve been in love with Karen about three times.”

“Really?” Fredirique asked, nodding her head.

“Well, I’m not one of those people who nurtures a constant staying in love with the person who’s near me. As the saying goes, familiarity breeds contempt. Too many times, I’ve seen the process of being in love ruined by seeing too many of the other person’s quirks. You like the athletic types so I’m sure that Phillip is right for you. I can’t say much else because I haven’t met the man.”

“He’s great. He treats me right. He doesn’t hang all over me nor does he ignore me. Hey, I’ve got a question for you.”

“Shoot.”

“Have you ever thought about what it means to be in love? I mean, other than a longing, a burning desire, or…a physical attraction, what, Lee, defines that intense state of mind, body and soul? Some nuns claim to be in love with Jesus. In a class in college, I remember some psychologists claimed that any one person can be in love, that the process is simply a surrendering of one’s desires to another. In part, I agree.” Lee nodded his head. “But I think the true state of in-loveness occurs between two people who simultaneously surrender their individual needs and desires to the whole. I suppose two people could be in love all their lives but if they were too deep in love, they would probably starve to death or go broke.”

“Hopefully, you and Phillip will not starve to death.” They both laughed.

The waiter showed up and took their order.

“While we’re waiting, I wonder if you could tell me something.”

“What?” Fredirique asked, with a smirk on her face.

“If you can believe me, your voice told me the gist of the postcard a few weeks before I got it.”

“I kind of figured that.”

“Do you remember the conversation we had about Josef? You mentioned that in some ways you would rather not know what he is doing so you could go on pretending to think that he is doing well with the little coffee shop we last heard he was running. I know that speaks volumes about you and about life as well. After all, aren’t there a lot of things we’d be better off not knowing so we can go on pretending, wishing for what we want to happen? So, too, I don’t know if I want to know everything that you think about me but (there’s always a but) I don’t want to go on pretending to think something that’s not true. I hope you feel the same way.”

The waiter handed Lee his cappuccino and put the water and baklava on the end table for Fredirique.

Lee sipped his cappuccino.

Fredirique looked at Lee’s eyes for a moment. “What kind of mood are you in tonight?”

“Actually, I feel kind of daring right now.”

“Like you just want to get out of here and do something crazy?”

“Well, we could do that if you want.”

“No, not me, what do you want to do?”

“I want to really and truly talk to you.”

“You know, those guys over there look like they’d be a lot of fun to hang around with. Should I go over there and invite them over?”

“Only if you want a couple of moochers tagging along with us. They look like they’re fresh out of money and are trying to figure out where to get some.”

“What harm would it do to ask them over?”

“None, I suppose, if that’s what you want to do.”

“Seriously, should I or shouldn’t I?”

“Go for it.”

“But you said you wanted to talk to me.”

“What is this, some kind of test? If you really feel inclined to ask those guys over, go ahead. We can always talk later.”

Fredirique grabbed Lee’s arm and walked over to the other table. “Hi there. I’m Fredirique and this is Lee. We’re just here for tonight and are wondering if there’s anything to do tonight.”

“Well,” the guy with shoulder-length, chocolate-colored hair began, “I hadn’t really noticed. There’s probably some narly band playing down at Nick’s.”

“Yeah,” said the blond-haired guy. “I think it’s Wet Mattress Bed. They’re pretty wicked, if you like hardcore.”

Fredirique looked at the brown-haired guy. “So what do you guys do on a Thursday night?”

“Well, I’m just taking a break before I finish studying for my finals.”

“Me, too. We’re roommates over at the Russell Hand Apartments.”

“Good luck, you two. We’ll pass on that kind of fun tonight.” Fredirique grabbed Lee’s arm and dragged him back to the chair. “I forgot that spring break is almost here.”

“Some schools have already had spring break.”

“Well, do you want to see Wet Mattress Bed?”

“Not really.”

“Oh, come on. I didn’t come here to just sit around.”

“I thought you had to leave?”

“No, I just can’t stay too late.”

“Okay, so what do you want to do?”

“Well, if we drove around, you could talk and I could look for something for us to do.”

“Okay.”

“Great, let’s go.” Fredirique stood up and grabbed Lee’s hand. “You don’t mind if I hold your hand, do you?” Lee shook his head. “I don’t mean anything by it. It just keeps the riffraff from asking me stupid questions.”

Lee paid the bill at the cashier’s stand while he looked at the jewelry in the old candy display. Beaded bracelets and other 60s-era items covered the shelves.

Lee walked Fredirique to his car and opened the door for her. After they were both situated in the car, Lee drove out of the parking space.

“Head northwest. That’s where a lot of the action is.”

“Okay.”

“So, what’s on your mind? Apparently, you want to tell me something so spit it out.”

“I think you know that I love you…”

“In what way do you mean, exactly?”

“A part of me loves you like my sister, Elizabeth. Elizabeth and I grew up doing almost everything together until I reached the fifth grade, although she was a couple of grades behind me. Therefore, we have always been very close. I know that several guys, including me, say their first love was their mother and their second love, their sister. Elizabeth knows everything about me, and loves me unconditionally. I would do anything for her and would deal harshly with, more like kill, anyone who would dare to harm her.”

“Well, that’s sweet. I’ll have to meet her sometime.”

“The majority of me that is you, though, the part that constitutes our verbal and physical communication, considers you a mirror reflection of myself. I cannot look in the mirror without breaking into a smile. For this reason, I know we are lifelong friends. Our paths may diverge but we will always be able to pick back up whenever we run into each other.”

“That’s exactly how I feel. Only, we seem to keep running into each other.”

“Yeah, but that’s on purpose.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, somehow I do. That brings up another thing I wanted to say.”

“What’s that?”

“A part of me, not a major part nor an insignificant part, is in love with you. Oh, to be sure, there are parts of me that are in love with a lot of people, based on your theory of surrendering one’s desires.”

“Turn left here.”

“Okay,” Lee replied, turning the steering wheel. He continued, “Because this part of me exists, giving itself up unselfishly, I write stories about you. I don’t believe I am telling you something you don’t already know but I just wanted to say this while I have a captive audience. I hope I’m not scaring you off by this.”

“Not exactly.”

“Unfortunately, there have been others in my life who were not willing to admit they, too, have such feelings for many people at once, not just their loved ones. I am not declaring my love for you or anything like that. I am simply letting you know that a friendship is made of many different outfits and not all of what you and I are made of is Emmett Kelly or Bozo the Clown material.”

“Thanks, Lee, I really appreciate what you are saying. I hope you know that.”

“Well, at this point in my life, you are the person whom I can share everything with. If I am depressed and feel suicidal, I can tell you this without alarming you – you will know I am simply going through a phase. I don’t know that I am the person you share everything with but I believe I will always be around when you have no one else to turn to and will listen to you without judging what you do. What are friends for, after all?”

“That’s true.”

“Well, I hope I haven’t startled you too much by rambling on simply because you took the time to send me a postcard.”

“You’re saying all this simply because of that postcard?”

“I guess so.”

“Do you always react this way? I mean, I didn’t say a whole lot.”

“That’s not what I thought.”

“Well, maybe you’re right. What time is it?”

“It’s almost eight o’clock.”

“What? Well, we better go back and get my car. I’ve still got to drive back to Atlanta.”

“You could stay at the corporate apartment.”

“Is that where you’re staying?”

“As a matter of fact, yes, but it has three bedrooms.”

“That’s all right. I can make it back before it gets too late.”

“Are you sure? I promise I won’t bite. I’m not Dracula. I won’t enter your room and attack you at night while you’re sleeping.”

“Yeah, well, thanks just the same. I don’t have to be in work first thing in the morning, so if I leave now I can still get plenty of sleep at home.”

“Okay, but you’ll miss a great breakfast of shredded wheat, sliced bananas, half a grapefruit, toast with honey, and grapefruit juice with Barleygreen.”

“Mmm, it sounds yummy but I think I’ll pass. Hey, are you working on another story?”

“Yeah, it’s about you, me and Josef in Harrisburg, only I’m kind of the Sam Spade of the sewers.”

“Well, send me a copy when you finish.”