Safe The thing about living in a small town is everyone knows everyone. That's what makes it a safe place to live. People assume they know everything about you. That's what makes it a safe place to hide. Your neighbours know what they see and hear. And fabricate. Your colleagues know what you want them to know. Your friends believe what you tell them. What none of them know is the truth. Who they don’t know is the real you hidden behind the facade - the you you’ve buried so deep you no longer remember yourself.
It was the phone call that slammed their fairytale life back into reality. Cheryl nearly jumped out of her skin when the voice on the other end asked, "Would you be interested in investing in coloured diamonds?" That one out of the blue question brought back a flood of images and memories that had been buried with the life they had shed all those years ago. Cheryl debated whether to tell Jim about the early morning wake up call. It was the need to ensure their son’s safety that led her to tell him and bring back into their lives the nightmare they thought they had escaped. The diamonds that were safely stored in their garage attic for their son’s future had been all but forgotten till that call. Jim climbed the ladder in the garage and checked in the attic. They were still there. “Maybe it’s just a coincidence,” he tried to convince her. *** It all started about 11 years ago - in a previous life. Before the name change, before the move to a small town in Northern Ontario. Svjetlana was studying communications at McMaster in hopes of pursuing a career in journalism. Her parents had passed away in a car accident the previous year, and it was their dream that she complete her degree and establish a successful career in the media. Janez and Marija, her parents, had been born in Croatia. Svjetlana grew up in Hamilton as their only child. Apart from having no parents and living in her house on her own, Svjetlana lived the life of a typical student. She studied as necessary, maybe more so than others as she didn’t want to disappoint her dead parents. She enjoyed spending time on campus and at the library. She held a part-time job at Tim Horton’s, even though her parents’ life insurance policy left her well-provided for. Svjetlana went out to the local bars with her few close friends she had grown up with, and some new acquaintances from her classes. She shopped, read, spent a lot of time online and in front of the TV. There was no boyfriend. Her parents had a circle of Croatian friends as well as Canadian friends from work who came to call on her during the few weeks around the funeral, but then she lost touch with them. Any relatives she had still lived in Croatia. Her simple life changed one night when she entered a bar in a seedy part of the city. Her classmates, Lisa and Kerry, thought it would be fun to try someplace a bit more exotic for a night out. Svjetlana protested at first when she saw that it was a Serbian owned bar. Her parents had always told her there was bad blood between Croatian and Serbian people. Svjetlana didn’t understand why, but it never really was an issue for her before that day. When her friends coaxed her in, they found a booth right next to the bar. It was dimly lit and noisy. TV screens with the ball game, billiards tables with games in progress, music from speakers, and groups of people sitting and chatting filled the room. “What can I get you?” asked the bartender. “Rum and coke all around,” spoke Lisa, the boldest of the three. As they sipped their drinks, Svjetlana scanned the room. She was usually rather reserved and was not in the habit of picking up guys at bars. Tonight, though, she was intrigued by the young man with dark wavy hair a couple of tables away. He sat with four others, chugging their beer between raucous laughter and comments. They all looked a bit tough, even scary, to Svjetlana’s innocent eyes. There was something different about the one who had caught her eye, though, and she couldn’t help but keep looking his way. “Cute bartender,” said Lisa, eyes fixed in a different direction. “Yeah, he is,” replied Kerry, “but take a look at what Svjetlana’s eyeing up.” “What? Oh, no I’m just…” started Svjetlana with a jolt, then she knocked over her drink. The wavy haired guy looked over at her with a rakish grin and they locked eyes. “Oh shoot,” she thought, “He knows I’ve been staring at him.” The cute bartender came to their table with a cloth and helped to wipe up the mess. “Hi, I’m James,” he said to them, paying particular attention to Svjetlana. Svjetlana blushed and thanked him for cleaning up her mess. Some time after James returned to the bar to serve his customers, the wavy haired guy from the other table sauntered over to Svjetlana and said, “Looks like you need a drink.” He placed a new rum and coke in front of her and slid into the booth next to her. “Hey, how’s it going?” he said to Kerry and Lisa. Up close, he was even more good-looking and mesmerizing. His longish black wavy hair and dark skin tone were complemented with brown eyes that seemed to see right through her. It was his knowing smile that really got to her. He introduced himself as Darko and said, “I haven’t seen you around here before.” Svjetlana explained that, yes, this was their first time at this bar. She introduced herself and her friends. “Well, I hope to see you here again,” he said looking directly at Svjetlana. “Meet me here tomorrow night? About 8?” When Svjetlana hesitated, Lisa spoke for her, “Sure. She’ll be here.” “Okay, see you then,” Darko said with that smile of his, and he returned back to his friends. And that was the beginning of the end. Svjetlana met with Darko at 8 pm the next night and almost every night for the next several weeks. They met at the same bar each night. Most nights James was there serving drinks and keeping an eye on them. One time he whispered to Svjetlana, “You need to stay away from that one. He’s bad news.” Svjetlana figured James was jealous, the way he kept looking at her when he didn’t think she noticed. But he seemed like a nice guy, just not as exciting as Darko. Darko told her about his Serbian background and she shared her own Croatian heritage. Although she knew her parents wouldn’t approve of her relationship with Darko, Svjetlana justified it to herself. “Any animosity between our people was a long time ago. Ancient history. Things are different now. ” Darko talked about his dad, but didn’t introduce him to Svjetlana. “My dad owns this bar, as well as a few other businesses in town. He’s into real estate, too, a developer. Mom left when I was little. Dad’s pretty busy with work, so he doesn’t show up here very often. I keep an eye on things here,” he told her. “So what exactly do you do?” asked Svjetlana. Although he was only a year older than her, she knew that he didn’t attend school. “Oh, I help out my dad. With the books and other stuff. Whatever needs doing, just boring stuff. I’m sure you don’t want to hear about it. He wants me to continue in the family business. There wasn’t really any need for me to go to university. I’ve been working with dad since I was a kid.” They talked mainly about Svjetlana and school, her life before she lost her parents, and the usual stuff kids their age discussed. Svjetlana started meeting him behind the bar so they could spend time alone. They would sit and talk for hours on the back step, and when the nights got colder, they hung out in his car. Eventually, Svjetlana invited Darko to her place. She was totally in love with him. Everything was great. Except when she asked about seeing his place and getting to know his family, he stalled. When she asked about their future, he changed the subject. When she persisted, he said, “Maybe we should cool things a bit for now.” Svjetlana was devastated. He was her first real boyfriend and she had thought he was the one. That was when she turned to James, as a friend. “What did you mean when you said he was bad news?” she asked James the day after her breakup with Darko. “You hear people talk when you work behind the bar,” he said. “You don’t want to mess with Darko and that gang of his. His dad’s with the Serbian mafia and he’s grooming Darko to take over his operations someday.” “What? That’s ridiculous!” “What do you know about his family?” continued James. “What has he told you?” “Nothing. I mean, nothing that ludicrous. His dad owns quite a few businesses, I think,” Svjetlana answered. As Svjetlana grew to know James better over the next couple of weeks, she tried to put Darko out of her mind. James was a terrific guy, reliable and considerate. She turned to him for comfort and she actually thought there might be a future for the two of them as a couple, but she couldn’t seem to forget Darko. When the pregnancy test confirmed her suspicions, she was scared and confused. She tried to contact Darko, but he didn’t respond to her attempts. She looked up Darko’s address with the intention of talking to him about the possibility of getting back together. She had no intention of telling him about the pregnancy just yet. The afternoon she drove up the circular driveway to his grand two storey home, she thought it was rather ostentatious, even for a business man such as his dad. Darko saw her drive up and met her at the door. “What are you doing here?” he said as he ran his hand through his thick head of hair. “It’s not a good time. My dad’s here.” “Well, what is a good time, then?” Svjetlana cried out. “I’ve been leaving you messages and sending texts. You don’t seem to want to see me anymore at all!” “Calm down. You’re hysterical.” Svjetlana pushed her way past him into the entrance hallway. “I’m hysterical, am I? I’ll show you hysterical.” She knew her hormones were getting the best of her, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “I’m not going to let you push me aside like some toy you’ve gotten tired of. I love you! I want us to be together, to be a family. When were you planning to introduce me to your dad? After our child is born?” “What are you talking about?” Darko asked, stunned. “I’m pregnant!” she yelled, “I’m pregnant! What are you going to do about it?” “What? How do I know it’s mine?” he asked. “Of course it’s yours! You’re going to be a dad,” Svjetlana insisted. At this point, a door near the entry hall opened, and Darko’s father emerged. He was a tall, dark, handsome, solemn-looking man in his early fifties. “Darko!” he barked, “In the kitchen, now!” Darko followed him to the back of the house, into the kitchen, leaving her behind in the hall. Svjetlana could hear the loud voices from where she stood, a mixture of English and Serbian. She caught snippets of the conversation. “...shame our family name…”, “...gold digger...”, “bastard child” were a few of the phrases she heard from his dad. When she heard Darko’s response, she felt her blood run cold. “...get rid of her…”, “deal with her”, and “...gone…” were words she hadn’t expected to hear him say. Alone in the entry, Svjetlana noted the sets of keys on the entry table. She cautiously walked further into the hallway and peered into the now open den. She stood frozen and gasped at what she saw. Then she pulled herself together and swiftly entered the room. Moments later, she ran out the door, started up her car, and headed back into the arms of the one man she knew would do anything for her. About 20 minutes later, Svjetlana sat in front of the bar waiting for James to get off work. She was surprised to see Darko enter with a pained expression on his face. He put his arms around her and said, “I’m sorry. We need to talk,” he said to her. “Meet me out back.” Before he could get any further, Darko’s father came storming in. “How dare you come running after her! I told you you’re never to see her again. What did I tell you? Sta sam ti rekao? Everything I do, I do for you. And how do you repay me? You bring this shame into our family.” “I need to take responsibility for my child,” Darko told his dad. “She means nothing to me, but the child…” “The child? The child’s bloodline is tainted. Get rid of it,” his father said, his voice loud enough for the whole bar to hear. “But what if it’s my son? Don’t you want him to continue our legacy? If he’s a Markovic…” “This girl is filth,” yelled his dad. “Never mind the girl,” retorted Darko. “I’ll deal with her.” Svjetlana got up and started to leave, but Darko grabbed her a bit roughly by the arm and whispered in her ear, “Meet me tonight, out back.” As Svjetlana exited the bar, James followed behind. The fight between father and son escalated as Svjetlana and James headed out the door and into her car. She started to drive to her destination with a purpose and in a fury, tears streaming down her face. The next morning, a body was found behind the Serbian bar. *** I knew it the moment I saw his photo on Facebook. There was that unmistakable resemblance, especially around the eyes. I had spent the last decade of my life with one all-consuming goal - revenge. My days were spent obsessing, plotting, planning everything down to the last detail. There's nothing sweet about revenge. To me, it was merely a basic necessity of life, like food or water. Although I was driven by the need for vengeance, I was kept on course by my sense of family pride. Family is everything. I would find him if I spent the rest of my life looking. I would bring him back into the fold where he belonged, where he had been denied access. It was his birthright. You can find anyone these days if you dig deep enough, and I had plenty of reasons to keep digging till the day I died. People just can’t resist posting photos of their kids and grandkids. When I googled the surname Babic, I eventually lucked out and found the photo his grandmother had foolishly shared with friends online. From there, I tracked him down. Once I found where he lived, I rented a place not too far outside of the town limits. Then I made the phone call, planting seeds of fear. I stalked, I watched, I waited for my opportunity. Blending in, yet remaining invisible wasn't that difficult. That’s the thing about small towns - people don’t expect anything bad to happen. They lower their guard. Once you establish your presence there, you become one of them. Having altered my appearance sufficiently and creating a new name, I went door to door with my bible and spouted my religious propaganda, steering clear of my target’s residence. I made a few other trips into town to purchase a few groceries, gas, stamps at the post office, some household items at the hardware. People got used to seeing me around town, and didn’t think anything of it. They just figured I belonged there. Gaining access to his home was easy. People are creatures of habit. Simple observation tells you everything you need to know. I drove by their house and called their home number just often enough to learn their work and school schedule, their routines, their habits. I checked their social media posts daily. Granted, I needed to be careful in my stalking. I drove a nondescript SUV with tinted windows. I wore a variety of disguises and work uniforms, from yellow vests to black coveralls, name badge prominently displayed. If any nosy neighbours happened to notice me around the house, they assumed I was there legitimately and didn’t look too closely. People are so trusting up here, really, it’s not that much of a challenge. No alarms, no video cameras, not even automatic spotlights. The key under the welcome mat was just too welcoming. I made a copy so I could slip in the back door whenever I wanted. Usually I did so during the day when no one was around, but one night I entered the house and found him sleeping in his bed, his thick wavy black hair against the white pillow. Watching him, seeing him so vulnerable, I was tempted to take him right then and there. *** But I had waited patiently all these years, and I had no intention of making a mistake for the sake of sentimentality. I had waited patiently in prison for years for allegedly killing my son. Now, I have no issues with a taking a life when necessary. A clean kill, no need for suffering. Business is business. But my son? My own son! I’m not a monster, for God’s sake. But they convicted me on the evidence they found, though I proclaimed my innocence throughout the entire ordeal. He had been shot by a Glock 17, which turned out to be my gun, the same model as Darko’s. Darko’s Glock somehow had disappeared that night. That wasn’t the only thing that went missing that night. During the altercation in the bar, I had received a phone call. There was urgent business I needed to attend to down on the docks. As I left the bar, I told Darko we would continue our conversation that evening. When I returned home that night just after 8 pm, I remembered that in my anger at that girl, the fancy coloured diamonds I had been admiring in my den that afternoon had been forgotten on my desk. When I opened the door to the den, the desk was empty. Of course I couldn't report the diamonds missing. So I went to the open safe to grab my gun (stupid, stupid - how did I let my anger make me forget everything else?) and found my Glock 17 was gone. I got into my car and headed to the bar, hoping to find the girl. I looked around the bar and saw neither Darko nor the girl. Then I headed out the back door. That was where the police found me, on the ground over my dead son’s body, his blood on my hands, my Glock on the ground beside us. They didn't believe me when I said I had just discovered his body. Numerous witnesses from the bar told police about the argument between Darko and myself. The police didn’t need much of an excuse to arrest me, as they had been after me for years. There were fingerprints on the gun - mine and Darko’s. I was judged and sentenced quickly. The prosecutor contended that our argument got out of control and I pulled out my gun. In my rage, I shot him. The verdict was guilty of manslaughter. I told the police my gun had been stolen, but of course, I couldn’t tell them about the stolen diamonds. And no one wanted to hear about that girl, the one that destroyed him. *** When the opportune moment came, I didn’t worry about being seen. Having planted a video camera in their home weeks ago, I was privy to their conversations. That afternoon, I went to his home, climbed the ladder to the attic, and drove off with the diamonds. Then I donned a mechanic’s overall, went to the garage where her car was parked after it had been serviced, and made sure she wouldn’t get home ever again. The boy himself had been at an evening baseball game with a friend and his friend’s mother. I sat close enough to observe, but far enough away so as not to be conspicuous. When he headed alone to the concession booth and bought a drink, I simply walked up beside him and said, “Hi Brent. I’m Mike, a friend of your dad’s from work. He was in an accident on his way home from work, and your mom asked if I would come and take you to the hospital.” The irony of that didn’t escape me as I said those words. Then I showed him a photo of James that I had stolen from his home, as evidence of my connection to his family. He came willingly, never thinking to ask questions. “But I better tell Luke’s mom,” he said with some hesitation. “No worries. I’ve already told her. We better hurry along to see your mom and dad.” Like I said, people are so trusting in a small town. As he drove away to a new home in a new city with his newly adopted boy, he thought about how he would groom the boy to be a Markovic. He would explain everything. He would tell him the truth. He would hope that was enough to keep him under his wing. After all, he was a Markovic. It was in his blood. It was his birthright. “Moj sinko, my son, my boy.” Family is everything, he thought. He would do whatever it took to take care of his boy. As he had always done. As he would always do. There was a code he had always adhered to in business and in his personal life - an eye for an eye. A life for a life, diamonds for diamonds, and a grandson for a son. *** The black Jeep Cherokee sailed south down Highway 400 at 110 clicks. It had been only two days since Jim’s funeral. She had been so stupid, she thought, letting her guard down. For one evening, for one moment, she had entrusted her son to the care of her neighbour after school. That one moment of trust and the hand of fate had cost her both of the men she loved, her husband and her son. That day at lunch, she had dropped by Jim’s office and asked him to pick up her black Rav4 after work at the garage where she left it for a service and oil change. She had decided she didn’t have time to sit and wait for it to be done, so she walked the short distance to his office and switched keys with him and took his Jeep. She had to head out to cover a news story just out of town and would meet him at home later that evening. On his way home in her car, he lost control and hit a tree. Cheryl knew she couldn’t tell the police her suspicions, given her history. Now, careful not to attract attention, she concentrated on her driving. Staying cool and calm was critical to the success of her mission. She had made mistakes before by acting too rashly. That last night in Hamilton played out clearly in her mind as she made her way back there. *** Svjetlana wasn’t thinking clearly that afternoon at Darko’s house when she stood in the hallway and heard him utter those words - “get rid of her”. All she knew was that she was afraid, for herself and her child. She saw the gun sitting in the open safe and took it. Then again, in the bar, she had heard Darko say, “means nothing to me...deal with her.” After she left the bar with James, she told him everything as she headed to Darko’s place. “I’m scared. I need to get away from here,” she added. Then she told him she was going to use the spare house keys she had stolen, go back for the diamonds and run away. “I’m going to need a lot of money to start a life somewhere else and raise my child on my own,” she reasoned. James said, “No, no you’re not. They’ll track you down before you can get out of the city. And you’re not alone. Here’s what we’re going to do. Turn the car around and let me off at the bar so I can pick up my car. Then go home and pack what you really can’t do without and leave the rest behind. I’m going to do the same. Be quick, and call me when you’re ready. I’ll come pick you up and we’ll leave together. I doubt they’ll follow us. They’ll just be glad to be rid of us.” But Svjetlana couldn’t quite bring herself to leave Darko. After she quickly packed a couple of suitcases with essentials and bags filled with family photos and mementos, she went to the ATM and took out what cash she had. Then she headed back to the bar to meet Darko out behind the bar at 8 o’clock. She locked her car and parked it a couple of blocks away, put on her gloves, then walked the rest of the way. He was waiting for her. He took her in his arms and said, “We need to hurry before my dad gets back and figures out what I’m doing.” “What are you doing?” Svjetlana asked, hopeful. “We’re going to run away together. Then once the baby is born, we’ll come back. I know my dad and how much family means to him. He won’t be able to say no to the baby once he sees him.” “Or her?” “Sure.” “What about your dad’s job? I know he’s into some bad stuff, Darko. I don’t want our child exposed to that.” “You don’t need to worry about the business. Just let us do our job and stay out of it. We’ll keep you and the baby safe.” “I can’t live like that,” Svjetlana told him. “Leave your dad and let’s start a new life, just the three of us.” “No, I’m all he’s got. My mom left because she couldn’t deal with it. I won’t leave him. He needs me.” “I don’t know. I just don’t know. He scares me.” “Trust me, he’ll come around. In the meantime, we need to leave now.” He led her to his car and opened the door. “Wait! I’ve got my stuff in my car. Can you help me get it?” asked Svjetlana. “It’s just a piece down the road.” Darko hesitated, then he slung his backpack into his car and said, “Yeah, okay.” As he did so, his backpack came open just enough for Svjetlana to glimpse the contents. “Is that…” she started. “I took them from my dad. So we’d have plenty to get by on until we move back in with him. He’ll be furious, but he’ll forgive me eventually,” he explained as Svjetlana rummaged through the packback, fingering the diamonds. Then Svjetlana saw the gun. Nestled in the backpack, with the diamonds, was a Glock 17. She recognized it as it was the same as the type she had tucked away in her purse since running out of his house earlier that day. “What’s that for?” she asked him. “Protection,” he explained. “From who?” He looked her in the eyes and at that moment she knew. She would never really be safe. Even if she trusted Darko, she couldn’t trust his father. Even if she and his father came to tolerate each other, she wouldn’t be safe with the lifestyle they led. Nor would their child. She reached into her purse and took out the gun, and pointed it at Darko. “What are you doing? Where’d you get that gun?” he asked, in shock. “It’s for protection,” she answered. “From who?” As they locked eyes, he put his hands on the barrel and said, “Careful with that. You might shoot me by accident.” “No, no I won’t shoot you by accident,” she promised as she pulled the trigger. She saw the disbelief in his eyes as he crumpled down to the ground. The bullet had pierced his heart. Thankfully, he died quickly. She didn’t want to see him suffer too long. After all, she loved him. Then she threw down the gun she had fired, picked up Darko’s backpack and walked back to her car. She called James and told him she was ready to leave. *** Svjetlana had learned her lessons the hard way, and she feared repeating the same mistakes over again. She would be careful. She wouldn’t let emotion rule her actions. She would do what needed to be done quickly and then get on with her life. In retrospect, it was very clear to her that there are lines that really shouldn't be crossed. You don't play games with the Serbian mafia. You don't steal from thieves. You don't shoot down a man in cold blood. You don't let others take the blame for your sins. You don’t let your emotions (neither love, nor fear) get the better of you. But above all, thought Cheryl, you do not get between a mother and her son. When you mess with a desperate, overprotective mother, you'd better watch your back. She would get Brent back no matter what she had to do. She knew the diamonds would be gone, too, but she didn't care about them anymore. All she wanted was her son, safe back home with her. As she eased up on the gas a bit, Cheryl's hand slid over to her North Face backpack on the passenger seat and felt the outline of the Glock 17 within. She would track him down, starting where it all began, and then see where that took her. Yes, Cheryl thought to herself, she would protect her son at any cost. My son, my son, she thought. She would do whatever was necessary, whatever needed to be done, to keep him safe from a life of crime and violence. As she had done all those years ago. As she would always do.
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What Matilda Wants, Matilda gets Terrence Roberts opened his eyes as the first rays of sunshine shredded through the closed blinds, heralding the start of a new day. He glanced at his watch: six-thirty. He took a few moments to oust himself fully from sleep, then slowly turned over to gaze at the woman lying next to him. His wife of fifty-six years was barely visible under the blankets. Matilda breathed slowly, deeply; he could see the blanket rising and falling slowly with each breath. As he gazed at her his heart swelled with love for this lady.
Their marriage, like any other, had had its ups and downs but they had clung together through all adversities. Today was their wedding anniversary. They had met fifty-eight years ago and had courted for almost two years before Terrence had got down on one knee and asked her to marry him. She had said yes without any hesitation. They tied the knot four months later. Matilda had borne Terrence two children. Martin, their firstborn, had his own family now. He had married a sweet girl named Sarah. They had two beautiful daughters, both of whom were in their late twenties: Natalie and Amelia. Terrence and Matilda’s second child, Beatrice, had been born two years after Martin. Beatrice died at four months old. Matilda had discovered Beatrice dead in her cot one horrible, heartbreaking day. No reason was ever discovered for their daughter’s death. Nowadays, though, Beatrice’s cause of death would be labelled as SIDS, or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Matilda was a nurse when she and Terrence had first met. In the late 1970’s hospice became an established thing for end of life patients, and Matilda had decided that was where she was most useful. Matilda had truly loved her job. She had looked upon hospice as a calling. The fact that she could help her patients and their families in the darkest hours of their lives uplifted her and brought meaning to her own life. She would often sit with Terrence at the end of the day and tell him stories about her patients. These stories were not maudlin, but instead were full of hope for a future beyond death. Matilda sensed that in a dying person’s final moments, when they were almost free of the pain and suffering, a change would come over them. Matilda called it a spiritual awakening. She had come to understand that at the final moments of a person’s life they seemed to sense something, or someone, waiting to help them pass. The many end-of-life moments Matilda had witnessed over the years gave her total faith in some continuation of life after death. Matilda only hoped that when it was her time, she would be able to accept death with the same strength that she saw in many of the people who passed, under her care. Terrence had been a cop throughout his career. That was how he and Matilda had met. She had been on duty in the local hospital when Terrence had helped bring in a prisoner that needed patching up. Matilda had helped to clean the man up while waiting for a doctor. The pair had chatted and hit it off straightaway. They had been together ever since. -- Terrence sat up slowly, so as not to wake Matilda, and slid his legs over the side of the bed, feeling all his seventy-eight years. His whole body ached. Forcing himself carefully up off the mattress he took another look at Matilda. Good, she was still sleeping. Today, as he did on every anniversary, he would make her breakfast in bed. It was one of their rituals. Why should today be any different? He shuffled into his slippers, grabbed his dark blue robe off the chair next to the bed, and slipped it on over his striped pajamas. He made his way over to the bedroom door and pulled it open, slowly, trying to avoid the squeaking of the hinges. Matilda had repeatedly asked him to oil them, but he had never got around to doing it. Entering the kitchen, he went over to the window and opened the blind, letting a new day enter the house. He gazed out the window for a few moments, looking at the small garden full of flowers in full bloom. The flowers lovingly planted by Matilda. The kitchen was painted a bright, sunny yellow. Matilda loved bright, warm colors, as was reflected throughout the whole house. She felt that when the sunshine splashed through the windows, and lit up the brightly colored walls, the house truly became alive with warmth and life. Whatever his wife wished for he tried his hardest to make sure she got. That was just the way he was, and they both felt the same way towards each other. Martin had said once, with the unkindness of a teenager, “For god’s sake you wait on each other hand and foot!” and Terrence answered, “Just one of the many reasons our marriage has survived all these ‘years’. Nowadays, Matilda and Terrence often commented to each other, marriage just seemed to be another throw away commodity; couples would just cut and run to the divorce courts at the first sign of trouble. In the kitchen, Terrence first started the coffee. Then he went to the refrigerator and brought out four eggs and the orange juice, one of their many shared pleasures. He added four slices of bread into the toaster. While the eggs were cooking he poured two large glasses of orange juice. His eyes crept to a sheet of paper on the kitchen counter. Words written in Matilda’s now-shaky handwriting decorated the paper. The same handwriting which had once been fastidious now looked spidery on the paper. He let out a deep sigh and moaned, “Oh, Matilda.” Terrence picked up the sheet, read it over once more as he had the previous night, folded it and slipped it into the pocket of his robe. Tears came to his eyes, but he wiped them dry with the sleeve of his robe. He didn’t want Matilda to see him like this; he would be strong for her. “What Matilda wants…” he murmured. The eggs went onto two plates along with the buttered toast. Terrence finished making breakfast by pouring coffee for them. One sugar in each cup along with a splash of cream. Any other day of the year they used milk, but on their anniversary it was always cream. The cups he used were made of fine china, another tradition. The phone in the pocket of his robe buzzed, announcing an incoming text message. Terrence fished it out of his pocket and was prompted to enter the security code in order to read the message. 8869—his old badge number. Old habits die hard! It was from Martin, as he had expected it would be. ‘Hi, Dad. Happy Anniversary. Love you. Will call later. How’s Mom?’ Terrence was tempted to send a quick reply, but then shaking his head sadly he dropped the phone back into his pocket. There’d be time for that later. He fished out two wooden breakfast trays from the kitchen closet. The trays had handles and folding legs, convenient for breakfast in bed. On each tray he placed a plate of toast and eggs, the coffee, and the glasses of orange juice. He paused after completing this task—something was missing. Of course! How could he forget? He went to the back door and unlocked it. The door led Terrence into the garden where he went to one of the rose bushes that were currently in bloom. The day was already warming up nicely; it was going to be a beautiful day. He selected two perfect pink Parfait roses, Matilda’s favorite variety, and carefully snipped them at the stem. He delicately carried the two roses back into the house and locked the door behind him once more. Terrence placed them very carefully onto her tray. Roses were the perfect finishing touch! Terrence shuffled slowly back down the carpeted passageway towards the bedroom door, his slippers making swish-swish noises on the carpet. He didn’t look at the family photos hung along the passage wall as he passed them by. He didn’t need to; he had passed them thousands of times before. He had also lived each and every one of those moments that were captured for eternity. Finally at their bedroom door he carefully opened it, aware of the unoiled hinges. Matilda was still sleeping peacefully, the rise and fall of the blanket announcing her slow, rhythmic breathing. Terrence went back to the kitchen to fetch the tray containing her breakfast. He placed it carefully on the same chair that had previously held his robe. The stronger sunlight was now trying to force its way through the closed blinds, and it was winning the battle. The dark of the night had retreated in defeat. Terrence really did not want to wake Matilda, but he knew that this was only delaying the inevitable. So he went over to the bedroom windows and opened the blinds. The full force of the early morning sun entered the room with a suddenness that made him blink. Terrence went back to the kitchen to fetch his own breakfast, this time leaving the bedroom door open while he went. Matilda would be awake soon, whether by his hand or by the noisy door hinges. It really didn’t matter anymore. He returned with his own breakfast which he placed next to Matilda’s. His joints and muscles creaking in pain, Terrence slowly lay back down on the bed he had just recently vacated. He faced his wife of fifty-six years, the only woman he had ever loved, and burrowed his hand under the blanket until he found her warmth. God, he was going to miss this! Terrence embraced his wife and he felt her start to stir beneath his tender touch. “Good morning, darling,” Terrence kissed the side of her face. Matilda’s eyes fluttered open slowly. He snuggled up next to her and held her tightly, waiting for her to fully awaken. She smiled the beautiful smile that transformed her face and made her look like an angel. This was the smile that Terrence had fallen in love with all those years ago. “Good morning, my love.” Matilda turned over in bed to face him. She turned slowly and as she did so, a grimace of pain washed over her face, replacing the smile. Terrence saw this but chose not to say anything. Matilda embraced him with all the strength she could muster and stroked the side of his face. “Happy anniversary, Terrence. We made it through another year without you running off with a young swimsuit model.” “I have to admit, darling, it was tough. I had to fight them off.” They both laughed at this, and Matilda swatted him with her hand. A frown momentarily crossed her face. It stayed fleetingly, but was then gone. Terrence noticed it though, but once again didn’t mention it. He got up and brought the breakfast tray over to his wife. “I made you breakfast, sweetheart.” “I never doubted that you would for an instant, darling.” Her eyes fell on the two roses on the side of her tray. The smile returned to her face. “Terrence, you are the most wonderful man I’ve ever known. I have been so honored to be your wife.” Matilda picked one of the roses up and sniffed it. “I’ve always loved this variety of rose; it has such a beautiful fragrance.” “I know, dear. Now eat your breakfast before it gets cold.” He fetched his own tray and sat with it on his knee. While eating they reminisced. They spoke about Martin and the girls. They brought up Beatrice. Whenever they mentioned their daughter tears were always let loose. They would always wonder what would she have made of her life if God, in his mysterious ways, hadn’t decided that she was too good for this sometimes awful, but more often than not miraculous world. Matilda spoke through a mouthful of toast, “You do know that our Beatrice is almost certainly an angel. She’s probably looking down on us right now, telling you not to be sad.” “I really hope so, because it’s so hard not to be.” “Everything will be ok, Terrence. Please believe, like I do!” Terrence found Matilda’s hand and grasped it tightly. She could feel his hand shaking, while hers was totally steady. She had the utmost faith. He continued on with the reminiscing, trying desperately to slow down time. While she finished her breakfast and her coffee, Matilda let him carry on their conversation. She knew it was something he needed to do, though it wouldn’t change anything. Her mind was made up. She put her now empty tray on the end of the bed and asked him, “Terrence, what do we always say?” “I don’t know,” he remarked. But of course he knew. He just wanted her to continue talking. “What Matilda wants, Matilda gets!” She smiled that smile at him again. His heart broke. The tears came. His voice broke as he said simply, “No!” “Yes, Terrence.” Her voice was firm. “You have to fight it, Matilda.” Terrence was holding her hand tightly again. “There is no fighting it, I’m too far gone. We both know that, darling.” No matter what Terrence thought, he instinctively knew that Matilda was right. “Do you have the letter I wrote last night, sweetheart?” “Yes.” He fished it out the pocket of his robe. “Please read it to me. I want to make sure there’s nothing I need to add.” He unfolded the letter and, in a faltering voice, began: Dear Martin, As you know I have been fighting lung cancer for some time now. Despite the chemo it has developed to stage 3. What started out as a spot on my lung is now killing me from the inside. The doctors have been honest with me and told me that due to my age and health they do not give me much chance of surviving. They say I have six months at most. Morphine isn’t helping the pain anymore, and I know it is only going to get worse. The doctors have urged me to start thinking about alternatives. I have spoken at length with your father, and although he tried to talk me out of it, I have decided to go out of this life on my own terms. I write this letter to you, my son, in sound mind. Please give Sarah, Natalie, and Amelia big kisses from me. I love you all, and will forever. Please look after your father for me; he will need your help and support. I will see you all again, I promise, when it’s time. Please do not blame your father for this. He doesn’t know I’ve come to a decision. Much love, always, Mom. Terrence finished reading, and folded the letter. He handed it to her, she took it and put it on her bedside table. Matilda looked at him and said. “I can’t think of anything to add, can you?” “No.” “Then it’s time, my love!” “Please think about this again, there has to be something we can do. Other experts we can see, or other remedies we can try.” “Shh! Terrence, we both know there will be no reprieve. And I’m not putting myself or any of you through needless pain and suffering just for the sake of another few months of life. If you can even call it life.” Matilda shook her head, as if to shake that thought out of existence. He knew that nothing he could say would change her mind. He reached over to the bottle of sleeping pills on his bedside cabinet. He had given her two every night time since her sleep had started to become disturbed. It was a new bottle, he had taken the first two out last night. There were still thirty in the bottle. Matilda took the bottle from him with a tremor in her hand. She opened the bottle and looked in. “The pills won’t kill me you know, but they’ll start the process. There’s enough?” “More than enough.” “Good. Now walk out the bedroom door, and don’t look back. Then you can truly say to the police that you didn’t see me do it.”” He kissed her on the lips, and felt her respond. “I love you, Matilda. I always have and always will.” Then he stood and headed for the door. As he opened it, this time not caring whether the hinges squeaked or not, she called back after him. “Please remember that we won’t be apart for very long. I will be waiting for you on the other side, Terrence.” -- He closed the bedroom door and padded back towards the kitchen, his slippers making the same swish-swish noises as they had earlier. He made it only halfway down the passage before the shock of what was occurring in the bedroom hit him. He had to put both hands on the wall to support himself. If this was shock, what would grief be like when it finally arrived? The plan was simple: he made his way into the living room, sat down in his favorite chair and turned on the television. He was supposed to watch the news for an hour, then go get the breakfast dishes so they could be washed. He would then discover Matilda, alive but unconscious. He was to phone 911 first, and then Martin. After an hour had passed, Terrence made his way back to the bedroom, dreading what was waiting for him. His gaze rested on his wife, the sunlight washing over her, breathing faintly. An overwhelming sadness washed over him. Terrence called 911, then Martin. He sat beside the bed, took Matilda’s hand in his, and waited. What Matilda wants, Matilda gets.
Abigail's Army"There's not even a breath of air." Abigail turned from the window. "Might rain tomorrow, if the clouds come up."
Susannah sighed. "When did you ever care about the weather, Sister?" She fluttered her fan in the sweltering parlor. Abigail glared at her. "I've cared ever since I've had to go outside like a field hand and feed that wretched mule in the barn. With the war raging, I'm the one that has to do all the work around here." "Think about how hard all those slaves had it, working day and night with nothing but a sip of water and a kiss from McCormick's whip!" Susannah rearranged her skirt, sat primly at the edge of the sofa. "Why, you'd think it was you who toiled around here all your life. You did nothing but swan about in pretty frocks, waiting for a husband, but none ever showed." Furious, Abigail stalked out the door. The farm was quiet under the smoldering sun. Slaves had melted away at the start of the war. The women lived alone. Susannah's husband died in battle two years ago. The sisters hunkered down, reluctant to tell neighbors they needed help. Everyone was suffering since the war started. They'd find a way, somehow. In a thicket behind the barn, a man hid, blood oozing from a leg wound. When the Rebels shot Caleb, he'd staggered off the field of battle and deserted the Union Army. An old rutted path, overgrown with weeds, led him to this dilapidated farm.. The fields were silent, the stalls empty, except for a mule and chickens. Behind the building was a water pump. Caleb drank his fill, then settled in behind the shrubs. He had pried the bullet out yesterday. Now he needed to rest, get something to eat. It wasn't long before a woman stormed off the porch, walked briskly towards the barn. She was middle aged, with a spinster's face. To call it stern would be a kindness. Abigail muttered under her breath, angry blasts of words cutting through the afternoon heat. She didn't hear Caleb come up from behind. In one swift motion, he seized her, shoved his palm against her mouth. "Scream and you're dead. Understand?" Abigail understood. Her knees weakened, collapsed, and she floated to the ground. "I'm here for food and water. Then I'll be on my way." he said. Abigail found her voice. "Dirty Yankee! That's what you are! Why, I oughta call for my daddy! He'll run you off!" Caleb snorted, spit into the dirt. "Lady, there ain't been no man here for a long time, judgin' from the way this place looks. Who else lives here?" Silence. He aimed his pistol. "Speak!" " I don't have to say a thing to a Yankee soldier. Besides, you said you'd be on your way!" "Look here, I'll tell you when I'll be on my way! I need food. A basin to wash in. Fetch 'em and I'll spare your life and not burn the house down." He had small, mean eyes that glittered out from under a thatch of red hair. There was no doubt he meant business. Abigail softened her approach. "Sir, I'll wager you were raised a gentleman. Now, I'll fetch you that food and basin, even make a bedroll for you up in the loft." She twirled a strand of hair around her finger, peered up at him with a smile. Caleb lowered the pistol. Abigail stood, brushed at her skirt. "As you can see, my sister and I need help around here. How about you do chores for us and we let you stay a while? A little work will make you stronger. You'll heal just fine with my good cooking. If not, you'll have to fend for yourself." Caleb looked at her hard. He could kill the women, take what he needed. But what if a neighbor came by to check on them? If captured, they'd hang him for sure. There was still a chance he could slip home to Pennsylvania, hide away until the war ended. He nodded, rubbed his chin. "What is it you want me to do?" "Feed that blasted mule, clean out his stall, make sure the chickens are fed, plant seeds, hoe weeds. A little carpentry. Oh, and dig a big hole out yonder by the garden for manure that's piling up." Caleb worked hard each day, and Abigail brought him food. Sometimes they talked while he ate. The glow from the lamp softened the harsh edges from Abigail's face. She appeared interested as Caleb talked of his home, the war. She found more chores for him to do each morning. Caleb got his strength back. After three weeks, Caleb was feeling better. It was time to leave. He'd honored the bargain, and so had Abigail. The farm was in good repair, his wound had healed. With luck, he might be home before the first snowfall. That night, Abigail came to the barn with his supper, stood behind him as he ate, fussing with her apron while he talked. "Reckon I'll be leaving at first light. Gotta get home", he said, dabbing his bread into a bowl of stew. Abigail didn't answer. "Ya hear me?" Something pressed into the back of Caleb's head. He stiffened, dropped the bowl, half rose off the stool. A pistol shot pierced the sweltering night. The mule brayed. Then silence. * * * * * * * * * * * * * "Well, Sister", Susannah said, pouring tea into a china cup. "Looks like you're back to feeding that wretched mule again." They sat on the porch, watching the rain drip through broken gutters. Abigail shrugged, placed two sugar cubes on her saucer, reached for a cookie. "Yes, I guess that's true. But another one will come along soon. They always do." The sisters smiled, glanced towards the barn and the mounded dirt over the freshly dug hole by the garden, right alongside four others. David C Schwartz is:80 years young;a Ph.D.[MIT'65};author of 34 stories,poems and essays published in US,UK & Canadian literary venues. Paula Smith,CEO of the ElderCare Companies,is coauthor of 7 US,UK & Canadian publications. LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT, EVERY MORNINGA: Rescued Again
It was about 11 a.m. on the first Monday in December when I heard the door to my office at the London School of Economics open without a knock or prior telephonic notice from my secretary. Josh walked in, smiled, stared into my eyes as if he was viewing the most precious work of art imaginable… and my 5 years of hiding from my future ended in a dizzying, dazzling whirlwind of clutching, kissing, tender touching, and uncontrollable tears of utter “thank God you’re here” relief. I disengaged from his caress just long enough to close and lock the office door. Then it was my turn to let my senses bask in the just perfect sight, smell, taste, touch and sounds of romantic love. I looked at Josh the way he’d looked at me. I didn’t just love the way he looked. I loved the way he looked at me. His intense gaze showed he wanted to know the real me again; to care for and to possess me. He stared at me with an urgency that made me breathless, awed, dizzy, hot, wet and happy beyond comprehension. I literally didn’t want to blink, to take away his visual caress. Then, I saw a facial expression before me I had never known existed. It said: “I’m so vulnerable that I will not take you seriously if I have the slightest reason to think you might hurt me.” As we moved to the office sofa, I caught another special sight: the wall mirrors’ reflected golden sunlight. The image of the two of us looked just perfect. He was too short for me and I was too skinny for his muscular frame, and yet I thought we were in Divine light; that there was simply no other couple on earth more beautiful than we were. The black walnut caramel color of my skin blended with his tanned ivory coloring like an icecream sundae. The tender intimate fantasy in his eyes (yes, call it ogling) was more than flattering, it took my breath away. It still does. The sexual whirlwind which followed felt like a life-altering communion to me. What might have seemed “too fast” to others was experienced as “at last” to us. 1 Our intimate experience was, by turns, tender and frenzied, novel and familiar life affirming and desperate. Amidst all that, a thousand “I’ve missed you so muches.” led to 5,000 “I Love Yous” until I finally asked “how long can you stay in England?” “A month, this time” he said. I immediately picked up the phone, called the Deans office and announced that I was going to take a one month personal leave starting immediately. “This is very sudden and highly unusual Kendra,” the Dean replied. “Yes it is” I agreed “but I’m well published, well liked by the faculty, a popular teacher and I’ll have to resign if you don’t approve the leave.” “ If it is that important for you Kendra, of course I’ll approve your request.” “Thanks, and wish me luck sir”. “Yes, yes of course” he said. Josh and I spent the month together in wondrous love and lust, never really discussing the reasons for our separation. On his last night in London, he suddenly went to one knee and proposed marriage. “Yes darling” I answered without hesitation. Yes. Yes. Yes of course” I said . The diamond ring he put on my finger was exquisite... and huge. It was a perfect 5 carat, platinum, cushion cut heirloom ring that had belonged to Josh’s grandmother Paige Kenton. I told him that it was magnificent but that “I can’t accept this priceless family jewel. It should belong to your mother.” Josh smiled and said “when I told mom and dad that I was coming to London, mother went and got a blue velvet box and the ring. “This belongs to Kendra, the woman that has your heart” she said. B: Kendra’s Surprise HomeComing I had accepted Josh’s proposal of marriage in London gleefully and exulted in his week long visits from January to July - - agreeing to wed in November after his election as Governor. And now I was flying from Heathrow to Riverton City, Kentucky to begin a new life. As the flight neared the destination, I had: few expectations which I deemed realistic; lots of anxieties; and great wonderment about how I would be received by Josh’s family and friends. I knew that, as Mayor of Riverton, Josh (and his inner circle) had a city to run, a Gubernatorial election to conduct and busy, happy, successful lives to live. How would I fit in? How well? with whom? 2 I knew that I had not been there for Josh and his team for the 5 years of his Mayoralty. We had been lovers for three years after he graduated from law school - -living together in London and in Cambridge Massachusetts. Josh and I seemed to be getting over the fact of our separation but so very much had remained unsaid. The matter of our racial differences, his family’s Southern aristocratic status, the baby I lost without telling him of the pregnancy or the miscarriage… all of that was on my mind all the time. I had some good reasons, loving reasons, for not telling him everything (reasons that included his father’s heart attack) but I felt guilty all the same. My plane landed . . . and it was instant family, total welcome, more than reassuring . . . love! Josh was there with all the flowers that he and his driver could hold- - but so were his parents and grandmother and Freddy Gold ( who I had met) and Marissa ( my white-sister-to-be) and – oh I don’t know how many others. Of course it was overwhelming. It was a surprise party, a coming out party, a girl-meets-world event all rolled up in one smiling, sweet, embracing whole. I had never anticipated that greeting; I’d never seen it before. Hell, I never even imagined it before. I loved it!!! Amazing: They’d rented a bus so that all of us could be together for the ride from the airport to the Estate. It was a great decision. (I later learned it was the thoughtfulness of Big Mike, Josh’s father, who didn’t want any one of his crowd to feel excluded or to lose the authentic, enthusiastic, happy, friendly intimacy of the airport scene. On the bus, I sat between Josh and his mother, Lorena. She was more than pleasant, showing genuine warmth towards me, expressing the hope for grandchildren openly. Her authentic openness was impossible not to appreciate and to emulate. Big Mike, looked at me with a delight and tenderness and an interest in and about me which was delighting. Everyone wanted to know how I felt. Mike wanted to know, too, what I thought and what I thought about. 3 It was flattering. I knew that I’d call him Dad before long. Freddy Gold (Josh’s uncle) and Puppy (Josh’s driver) just smiled a lot- - showing me that they expected to be my good friends. But the surprise and star of my arrival was Freddy’s wife—Aunt Marissa. She was a one-woman bridal shower. She produced slippers and pajamas and lingerie and shopping expeditions and - -believe it or not she prepared a briefing book for me on the people, places and organizations I’d be expected to know and care about. I expected to be alone with Josh pretty quickly after we got to the Estate but Mike and Lorena had had a lunch prepared and I was suddenly ravenous and sensed that something important was supposed to happen. We ate, we talked, we laughed, we smiled and then, I found myself alone with the Big Mike on an open air balcony overlooking the river. He looked at me with such affection that I just melted. Then he told me that he knew a little about me, that he had heard my mother sing once, and that he’d read all of my books and two of Grandma Grace’s poetics. “ I want for you to be happy here, Kendra,” Mike said in an emotion filled whisper, which I knew to be uncharacteristically self-revealing. “ I know that you’ll want to continue your scholarly research - - even though I hope you’ll be a busy 1st Lady of our State,” he said. “So, for when you are ready, I’ve put some resources at the State University for your use in conducting your studies. You know, for research assistants, computers, travel, books, journals, that sort of thing.” I was speechless and I hugged him and cried and thanked him. “Now, this is not intended to buy your love, Kendra.” he said. “ It is just intended to give you some space if you want it.” I nodded: “of course, I am totally grateful for your wonderful thoughtfulness and generosity” I said “Good,” Mike replied smiling. “ The monies are in the hands of the President of the University in trust for you.” I believe we called it the Kendra Martin Meyerson Economics Research Institute Fund. “An Institute? How much did you put in trust?” “One million” I wanted to say that I couldn’t accept that much but what came out was “ Thank you, oh thank you.” I knew then that Mike had heard my mother sing more than once. It didn’t matter. I didn’t matter at all. Josh’s inner circle took good care of me. Lorena took me to church. Mother Meyerson took me to synagogue. Marissa took me into her heart - - and everywhere else. She arranged cooking lessons (at the farm, at the estate, at 4 Mother Meyerson’s for caramel marble cake). Councilwoman Donofrio was happy to see that the Democratic Committeewomen and female city workers made me welcome at their coffees, teas, bowling parties, golf outings and picnics. Marissa and Lorena invited me to serve on the board of several charities. Yeah, I was happy. It was expected that Josh would love me, ( and his love and his loving was wonderful) - - but the fact that Big Mike loved me made the whole City open up to me. The economics faculty of the University gave a welcoming reception in my honor. I was given a membership at the exclusive Riverton City Club. Josh’s inner circle was not very much racially integrated - - but the African American community found me quickly. I was glad to be found. Of course, I was aware that most of the people who were being so kind to me didn’t know the real me, and that I didn’t know the real me. Also I was very clear that the time and attention being lavished upon me was due to the respect and affection for the Meyersons. But I didn’t care because, whatever their insights and whatever their motives, they got it right. I needed to feel like I belonged somewhere and they made me know that my somewhere was here. More than once, in the very early days of my stay in Riverton, I found myself suddenly smiling or tearing up. I felt emotional arousal at a very high level constantly but was soothed by acceptance, approval, affection. Josh went campaigning for Governor 6 and 7 days a week ( and almost every evening). It was decided that I should not join him on the campaign trail until our engagement was announced. I needed him terribly, ached for his company but knew that the campaign’s decision was correct -- good for Josh, good for his candidacy, good for me. Lorena was hospitable but sometimes reserved. She would be a great mother-in-law and a truly wonderful grandmother but neither of us expected that I would soon call her “mother”. She accepted me as Josh’s choice and I had to respect that basis of her affection. She was more than pleasant - - yet, I couldn’t help but worry; I couldn’t help but wonder if she secretly thought Maria Iverson would have been a better life partner for Josh. Still: Lorena opened her beautiful 5 home and her vast circle of acquaintances to me - - and she had approved the $1 million for my Institute. So I got a lot from Lorena and gave her the deep respect and good will that I felt for her. The father-daughter thing with Big Mike was totally different. There was a bonding at the cellular level, a melding of souls across the generations that made me happy and amazed at the same time. “Josh is a very lucky man ,” Mike said every time he saw me. He appreciated me as a person. I wanted to say “I don’t care about what ever happened between you and my mother, I’m here now and I love you and I exult in your paternal love.” Of course, I never said any such thing out loud (to Mike or to anyone else). I intuited that no one would ever tell me any of Big Mike’s life secrets anyway but I quickly came to the realization that I simply did not need to know them. In Josh’s absence, Big Mike had us driven all over Riverton and conducted a daily tour and oral history of the city they knew so well. Marissa took me to her farm and showed me to a cabin - - away from almost all of the other buildings on the plantation. It was a one-bedroom log home, cozy- but -comfortable, with a study and a fireplace and state-of-the-art computer hookup. The Queen sized bed had a firm mattress which bounced just right when I flopped down on it. “Josh will enjoy you here,” Marissa said. I gasped “You mean…?” “Yes,” she said, “it’s yours.” She smiled. “Both you an Josh will need to escape from the Estate sometimes - - separately and together.” I wept with love and gratitude. The cabin was the scene of my first fight with Josh. It happened this way. The President of the State University at Riverton asked me to lunch at the faculty club. We had a private dining room. He asked me how I planned to spend my $1 million endowment from Big Mike. I told him that I don’t know yet. He suggested that I come up with an alternative spending plan quickly because “there is plenty more where that came from.” I chose not to be offended by the President’s crass attitude, but told him that I’d have my plans for the Institute ready shortly. Then he offered me a job: Senior Vice President for Intercampus Liaison. “You’ll be living in the State Capitol after all. Why not help the Riverton Campus and the Capitol Campus work together.” Why not, indeed. I all but accepted the well- paying job on the spot but promised to respond in a week or two. 6 Josh was against my taking the position. “It will look like the University is bribing me by hiring you,” he said simply. “Besides, isn’t the Institute my father funded enough to keep you busy? I said: “this is not about you, Josh, and respectfully, its not about your father either.” Well, we discussed it at length and several times. In the end, I took the job but agreed to wait on the announcement of my decision until after the election. C: An Identity Crisis Resolved But if things went very, very well for me in Riverton City, my world nearly fell apart in North Carolina. I had come home to talk to my Grandmother about the wedding. As soon as I walked in the door, Grandma Grace had a serious, “we have to have a talk, girl” face on. “OK.” I thought, “bring it on. I’m going to marry a rich white boy from a southern aristocratic family and you don’t like it one bit, do you.” I guessed wrong. “Have you told Josh that you got pregnant with his baby, got cold feet about marrying him, lost the baby, ran away and hid all this from him for 5 years?” she asked simply-but-not-harshly. “No grandma,” I said feeling sad, mad, bad and angry all at once. “I haven’t told him anything about all that. I don’t know what I think about all that. I don’t know what he’d think about all that. I don’t know what he’d think of me if I told him.” “Are you afraid that he won’t love you if you tell him, my sweet one,” she asked softly. “No. I mean yes, I guess. Yes, shouldn’t I be scared?” Grandma Grace had a smile on her lips and tears in her eyes. She shook her head. “No, baby You can’t walk down the aisle hiding behind your bridal veil. You can’t get married to a man you don’t trust to love you, warts and all. You can’t get married being scared of who you were and who you are or who you are going to be. If he loves you right and you love him right, you’ll work it out together.” I resisted her loving logic, “Does that mean that I have to tell him about his father and my mother?” Doesn’t he have the right to know that, too?” “No dear,” Grace said quietly. “That’s not about you. You had nothing to do with that and you don’t even know for sure what happened between them. But you do know what happened, and what didn’t happen, between you and Josh. So he has to 7 know that too.” She paused: “you didn’t want that dead baby lying in bed coming between you and your man. Trust Josh even if you don’t fully trust yourself. Trust Josh or give him up.” “And if I don’t Grandma? What if I don’t.” She got sad then but answered quickly: “I couldn’t come to your wedding, darling. I couldn’t bless you properly knowing that you were lying in silence.” That was enough for me. “I’ll tell him. I’ll go back now and tell him tonight…” Grandma nodded and smiled. “But you have to come with me.” “ Me? Why?” “To bless me if he loves me right…and to rescue me a second time if he doesn’t.” “Where will I stay,” Grace asked. “I have a cabin,” I said and was rewarded with my grandfather’s delightful facial expression of surprise, pleasure and admiration. I called Josh and told him I needed to see him, tonight and that I was flying back to Riverton City. “We need to talk” was all I could get myself to say in reply to his repeated, insistent queries as to “what’s wrong?” “Why the sudden change of plans?” “Are you alright?” “Is everything ok?” “Are we ok?” When I told him that Grandma was coming home with me he seemed to relax a little. I think the word “home” was appeasing to him. He told me that he would cancel his campaign schedule immediately and meet me at the airport. Thoughtful, even in his nervousness, Josh asked me where Grace would be sleeping. “At my cabin on the farm.” I answered quickly and got a response I hadn’t expected. “My mother will not hear of it,” Josh said decisively. She will have one of the guest suites at the Estate prepared. “I Love you.” “I love you too.” 8 Grandma Grace was packing her suitcase when my cell phone rang; it was Lorena. As Josh predicted, Grandma was invited to stay on the grounds of the Estate - - a guest suite? The gatekeepers’s cottage? Wherever she wants!” I agreed: I wanted Grace near me to catch me if I fell, but I was less fearful now. Lorena surprised me by saying “I want to love you Kendra, I want you to know that, and I hope that you will come to love me too.” “Oh wow,” I cried … again joy and gratitude. Grace hugged me. As we got into the taxi to go to the airport, my cell phone rang again. Big Mike. “I understand that there is to be a multi-generational beauty contest in Riverton City tonight,” he said happily. “Is that right?” “Yes,” I laughed. “It’s being held at the Estate, right?” He inquired, “Yes dad.” “Good, now tell me honey, has Josh done anything wrong? Is there anything you need? Can I help you?” “No, no and no. Don’t worry. See you later.” So now I was reassuring others but feeling anything but reassured myself. Grace fell asleep on the plane and snored through the whole flight. The ride was smooth but my stomach did flip flops all the way. We landed and there were two greeting groups. Big Mike, Lorena and Puppy were there to take Grandma Grace to the Estate. Josh was alone to take me wherever I wanted to go. I chose the cabin at the farm: My turf. In the car we kissed but not passionately. Then we suffered through an hour of awkward silence and even more awkward small talk. One step inside the cabin and I collapsed into his arms sobbing uncontrollably. I wept myself into the dry heaves and couldn’t get my breath. I struggled to speak for an hour or more. Josh was beside himself but terribly patient under the circumstances. When, at last, I could speak words, they were words of guilt and shame and sorrow, guilty grief for the lack of trust I had had in Josh, unreasonable but guilty grief for getting pregnant, for not telling him, for losing the baby, for living somehow during and after that, for not being there for his Mayoralty. 9 My emotions were genuine but even as I expressed them, I realized that I was being manipulative and strategic. I was blaming myself before he could blame me. I went on talking and crying for a long time but ultimately I had to stop the filibuster and find out if I was going to be married or jilted, forgiven, abandoned or adored. ADORED, ACCEPTED, UNDERSTOOD, BEFRIENDED, KISSED, CARESSED, MADE LOVE TO, FUCKED HARD, HELD, SLEPT WITH, LOVED AGAIN. When we woke up, Josh whispered the words I most needed to hear: “we will overcome the past, darling. We have a whole lifetime to make babies.” I wept again feeling warm, understood, accepted and at peace. And than I began to feel sexy too when he said “and we do it very well don’t we?” I agreed “Yes yes of course.” Back to the estate by noon, both of us were exhausted and relieved. We met the family at a pool side lunch. Grandma Grace and Grandma Meyerson were crooning over baby pictures of Josh and me. In attendance was the family: Big Mike, Lorena, Freddy, Marissa, Marissa’s father and Puppy. As we approached the party, Josh whispered . . . “So, will you still marry me?” “Yes, yes, of course.” Josh was elected Governor by a landslide. The wedding ceremony and receptions were splendid. The inauguration and the Governor’s Ball were fun to plan and to attend. Life in the State Capital was interesting. But those are other stories. 10
HE HAD SOMETHINGThe phone is ringing ,I look at the clock and it's 1:35 a.m. or close to it. I crawl toward the sound in a daze searching for the phone wire in the dark. I locate it and pull reeling it in like a fish. I can't imagine who would be calling me at this hour on my landline. Very few people have this number and I convince myself it can't be good news. No one calls at this time to give you good news. Maybe the birth of a baby but, I'm unable to think of any other reason.
"Hello please tell me it's good news" "Hey is this Santiago? It's Dasheil you know your son." "Ya Dash it's Santi, I know you're my son. What's going on? Please tell me some good news. "I need to tell you something and I want you to listen." He requests "It's so important it couldn't wait until morning? You sound a bit diminished Dash are you high?" "Ya I've been drinking with friends did some Coke and shit. That has nothing to do with it. Let me explain the reason I called." "Go ahead cut to the chase. I'm listening you know you can tell anything that's on your mind." "See that's an example of part of the God Damn problem. You always listen objectively without making judgments, never voicing a discouraging comment. No matter what my predicament you're constantly supportive." "I'm not sure how this is a problem that warrants an early morning discussion. Have you considered discussing this with your mother?” "Just shut up. She'd think I was being dramatic. Listen to me I need to tell you...I'm Gay and don't comment with any of your trite witticisms, this is serious. I want you to understand that I'm Gay." "Dashiel I've known of your sexual preference since you were in High School. I never addressed it simply because I didn't consider it as important. Now bestiality I might have to think about that. Secondly I was raised Catholic, that's not an easy thing to deal with your entire life. Now I'm a Recovering Catholic." "There you go with your sarcastic antidotes that only you think are humorous." "You have my approval if that's important to you son." "I'm not asking for your approval. Will you please just listen to me?" "Take it easy Arbolito (little tree) No me gritas. ( Don't yell at me) Ok I'm listening." I head to my bed and fall backward landing on top of Pilgrim my Yellow Labrador Retriever my bunkmate. It causes him to jump up knocking over the lamp and other items on the table next to me. "Son of a bitch! I'm sorry Pilgrim." I apologize petting his back. "Is everything ok? What's going on?" "Fell on top of Pilgrim in bed. Hold on a second." I set the phone on the floor and walk in the dark to the switch on the wall to turn on the overhead light. "Damn it!" I scream I step on various items that had been knocked onto the floor while in bare feet. I crawl on my knees to the wall and flip the switch. Pilgrim has commandeered the entire bed lying cross ways on the mattress. "Hello Dashiel you still there?" "Yes I'm here. Are you ok?" "Absolutely dandy. Just being my usual clumsy self. You were saying?" "The thing is, we were sitting around getting high partying and then everyone began telling stories about personal experiences that happened when they first "came out." Ya know, told your parents and family you were a Homosexual, Gay. Some told stories where they were hit or beat by their father or brothers. Others told of how entire small towns persecuted, harassed or mocked them. In one instance, parents sent their son to a sexual reorientation retreat to cure him. Mothers cried in disbelief not able to accept the truth. They were disowned, thrown out of their homes, banished." "Jesus Christ that's horrifying. Shauna and I never considered punishing you for what's a natural occurrence of birth. Who you fuck is your business. You're blessed to be the person that you are and Shauna and I couldn't be more pleased with the man you've become." "And therein lies the source of my quandary." "What? I don't understand what you're trying to say Dashiel?" "I've got nothing! Understand I've got nothing! When I was asked to relate my story I declined saying I didn't want to talk about it. No one is interested in how their parents and family accepted their homosexuality without prejudice. Who wants to hear shit about how my family never treated me with disrespect or disapproved of my lifestyle. Tell them my family knew it wasn't a choice but a genetic trait. I feel uncomfortable with expressing my experience. Do you get it? I've got nothing!" "So let me understand. You're upset with me because I never reacted negatively to your lifestyle? Hey Dash, if they're your friends it shouldn't matter that your family was supportive or how you were perceived by them. Should I be apologizing for having not acted like an asshole?" " No Santi I'm just apprehensive about relating my experience I guess. I don't know. Well they're not all my friends just people from the film industry." "Oh really. Since when have you given a shit about what other people thought about you? That California mentality is starting to mess with your sense of identity. To hell with those self righteous hipster snobs. If you're bothered by the truth then make something up. Damn son you're a Movie Director, you write Screenplays and Television Scripts use your imagination. Make me out to be an Ogre, I don't care." "Not sure I'm comfortable with lieing." "It's not actually lieing , it falls under the category of embellishment. Say I am a bigoted, macho, asshole, I won't be upset. And if anyone thinks your story is Bullshit, just say you were testing an idea for a new movie you're writing. Although, possibly by having said nothing was actually saying something. You created a mystery by holding back. Understand?" "Ya that's it! You're the best Santi. Thanks man, I knew I could count on you. And thanks for almost creating a great childhood. Don't get all full of yourself, there are still some things you're going to have to answer for. I love you Santi." "I love you....." He dial toned me that little shit. Hung up before I could finish my response. I sat on the bed with the phone receiver still in my hand. I try to make sense of what just happened. Did Dashiel actually call me to voice his displeasure with my demeanor concerning his Homosexuality? He was upset because he didn't have a horror story to tell his San Francisco hipster friends? What the Hell? I decide not to contemplate the reason or purpose of his inquisition. I dismiss it as a result of him being drunk and high. The fallout from the earlier fiasco has claimed a small night stand lamp, now in pieces on the floor. A ceramic coffee mug that had been filled with tea, an alarm clock that never rang and ran fast rarely displaying the correct time, all victims cracked and broken. I'll take care of the mess in the morning. "Hey Pilgrim are you going to share the bed?" He pretends to be sleeping , his eyes closed while his tail wags thumping the mattress. I'm not going to wrestle an eighty pound ball of hair out of bed only to be stared at with a sad, pouting expression of disappointment. " I feel like having a snack. Maybe a Gringo Taco or scrambled eggs. What do you think buddy?" He immediately responds standing and stretching as though he's not excited about an early morning treat. I suspect otherwise. We've been acquainted for eight years and are aware of each other's idiosyncrasies. The only request I made in my divorce with Shauna was custody of Pilgrim. We settled on joint custody. I would have him on weekends or when my former wife was out of town or spending time with her boyfriend. The children I decided were better cared for with Shauna than with a drug runner and part time father. She is a wonderful mother and much better disciplinarian. The court granted Joint Custody of our two boys and girl. It was never actually enforced. I can't think of an instance when she denied me spending time with them. Holidays, Birthdays, School functions we discussed and were usually spent all of us together. The house, car, furniture, TV, stereo system, killer vinyl album collection and antiques I willing gave to them. I didn't like the idea of disrupting my children's home environment by taking articles I really didn't need. Although I ended up with a variety of mismatching single socks. Pilgrim I determined would be better off with me or more so me with him. In the years following that night Dashiel became a recognized talent in the Film Industry. He won numerous awards for his Directing and Screenplay Writing. The story that catapulted his career into the spotlight was based on a young man that continually grew more mentally unbalanced. The cause of his illness was that he was unable accept the tolerant and supportive attitudes of his family and friends to his Homosexuality. It was the fact that he never paid the price, experienced the emotional pain for his lifestyle. Somehow he had been cheated and was not worthy of being Gay. He became so distraught by the guilt that he orchestrated a mass shooting. Turns out the seven victims of the massacre were terrorists preparing to blow up the building that he chose for his assault. The young man became a Hero and was awarded many honors. He also became a recognized celebrity in the Gay Community. His notoriety created a greater acceptance of Homosexuality worldwide. The destiny of the story's protagonist was blessed with compassion. Dashiel finally realized there was a story to tell. He had something! #END#
TreasonI’d seen the bear scat earlier. A pile of half-digested berries in an untidy heap in the middle of the road. I saw lots of things on the roads during my early morning bike rides. Although I preferred seeing live things like the white-tailed deer or an elusive fox, I usually had to settle for a flattened snake or twisted dragonflies.
A real bear, though, I’d never seen during my morning rides, but bear scat was a pretty common sight. Only out on the Bay would I see them; on the islands, swimming across a channel or lolloping up the granite rock to disappear into the pine forest. Mostly brown bears, but they’re shy and only appear near civilisation when the wild berries shrivel up during a drought. I’d taken a job up here in the North when the ice went out and the tourists came in. They fish in the spring, then holiday in cottages in the summer, arriving with jetskis and sailboats and all manner of equipment. In the fall they hunt. I’d been working construction mainly, hearing the kids screaming as they were pulled behind a boat on an inflatable tube while I hammered in the shingles on a roof. Sometimes the local government hired me to go around checking the channel markers and buoys, to make sure they hadn’t shifted after a storm. That was the best, out in a boat on the water, on my own, watching the eagles circle and hearing the loons call. My sister calls me a loser when she can’t get hold of me for weeks but I think she understands my need for space now. Plus, I don’t do well with city people. They ask too many questions, I feel as though I can’t breathe. I bought a road bike after high school with money saved from my first real job and would spend hours stripping it down and cleaning it. I love the precision of the gears, the balance of the ride. My bike hummed beneath me now, I was warmed up. The pre-dawn start had been chilly as September usually is but the sun was out now and the breeze was light through the trees along the road. A few of them were turning the golden yellows and rich reds of the fall but most of them were pine, ever green through the coming winter months. I hadn’t seen a car yet today, which wasn’t unusual. Most of the summer folk had left a week or so ago. It was also Sunday and I’d noticed that the bars in the nearby town had been pretty raucous last night when I’d driven through from dropping my sister at the bus station. Wasn’t really my scene. In fact, none of that stuff interested me, the sports bar down by the Rotary Club, deer hunting in the fall, hanging around and whistling at the girls by the movie house. So I just stayed my course, did my own thing, and got up early for these long bike rides, looping up and down the little paved roads that led from marina to cottage through First Nation reservations, crossing and recrossing the main highway that cut due north. Pssssst. Damn! My front tire was flat. I stopped the bike, and silence wrapped itself around me. The steady whirr of the pedals and the wind across my ears was gone, leaving nothing but the sound of crickets in the long dry grass at the side of the road and a whisper from the nearby poplar trees. I spun off the front wheel, unsnapped my seat bag, and pulled out a new inner tube. Looping it around my neck I used the tire levers to get the tire off the metal rim. There it was, a tiny sliver of metal embedded into the rubber. I carefully removed the shard and flicked it into the ditch. I could patch the tube when I got home but for now I would just switch it out. As I fed the new inner tube back into position and got ready to lever the tire back on I heard a noise that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I turned slowly and spotted a bear maybe thirty metres away, a yearling, I would think, judging from his size, which meant he may still be living with his mama. With rich dark fur and rounded body he looked pretty healthy. Fortunately, bears have notoriously bad eyesight, and he was busy searching for berries, pushing his nose through the low shrubs growing out of a small rock face, huffling loudly, filling himself in preparation for the long winter’s hibernation. With a wheel in one hand and tire levers clutched in the other, I had to think fast. Running was not an option. Bears can easily outrun a human. And they climb trees, too. I slid one lever under the rim, and then another farther around, without letting my eyes leave the bear, and slowly slid the tire back onto the rim. Moving slowly, I picked up my bike and put the forks back onto the axle of the wheel. I leaned down to tighten it. Good, except there was no air in the tire. I needed my CO2 cartridge and the attachment in order to fill it. The cartridge clicked as it locked into the inflator and the sound must have carried in the still air as the bear suddenly turned his head towards me. I kept working as fast and calmly as I could; unscrewing the black end of the valve, loosening the locking nut and jamming the mechanism on to inflate the tire. The bear started moving towards me, slowly at first, and then as the CO2 blasted into my tire with what seemed like a shrieking whistle, the bear broke into a lope, running down the middle of the lineless road. I unclipped the cartridge and took two seconds to tighten the air valve so that it didn’t deflate the moment I climbed on. As the bear approached I threw the old inner tube in his direction hoping that would distract him. It was a good shot, dropping right in front of him, and he stopped. He picked it up and sniffed it. I could have sworn he licked it and then stretched it between his paws like a kid with a bungie cord. But for now I just felt as though my feet were leaden and my hands covered in sticky syrup as I gripped the handlebars and threw a leg over my bike. I needed to move away slowly yet steadily. I lifted the bike and started to pedal. The bear saw me take off and dropped the tube. He was about as tall as me, although decidedly thicker and heavier. Now that I was mobile I started to think about his mama. I kept pedaling but my heart rate eased as I moved away from the bear, scanning the sides of the road as I went, wanting to hold back a burst of speed in case mama bear appeared. The yearling dropped onto all fours to run and although I was surprised by how effortlessly he picked up speed. I felt curiosity more than fear, as if we were playing a game. There! What was that dark shape at the edge of the trees? Only fallen tree roots covered in heavy moss. The bear wasn’t getting any closer, so I started to breathe easier. He would lose interest soon and drop out. I glanced back at him, still loping behind me and smiled, then laughed out loud. The adrenalin had eased and I felt a shiver of excitement over the close call, the strange encounter. Suddenly, I became aware of a noise in the distance, a thrumming growing steadily louder which I couldn’t identify. I glanced over my shoulder and could see that the bear had slowed down to an amble. The noise grew into a grey Chrysler Lebaron appearing around the corner, a car from the ‘80s with mismatched paint on the doors and jacked-up back tires. A couple of guys, remnants of last night’s drinking sessions at the bars, were hanging out the back windows, pointing at nothing with beer cans. This was the only drawback of going out really early on a Sunday morning – there were times I’d come across drunken partiers, probably not even able to walk, weaving their cars home, and they’d drive beside me, shouting things like “nice outfit, faggot” or “let your balls breathe!” So I watched the car warily as it approached and felt a claw of anxiety rake my chest. They must have caught sight of the bear then because one of the guys in the back thumped the car roof, and the driver swerved and stopped halfway into the shrubs on the side of the road just in front of me. I stopped my bike. “Hot damn, look at that son of a bitch!” all the doors flew open and four guys half tumbled to the ground. The driver stood holding his door with both hands while his legs weaved beneath him in the early morning sunlight. The bear sat in the middle of the road, maybe thirty yards away, picking at something in his fur. “Hey, man,” a dark haired guy waved a beer can at me, “you okay? That bear chasing you?” “No, you dickhead – he was chasing the bear. What d’ya think?” and the other guy from the back seat threw his empty can at the dark-haired boy and they both clutched the car, laughing hard. A crack rang out, and I jumped. The boy from the passenger seat was holding a rifle, taking careful aim using the top of the door. He’d missed. Bang. Another shot. The bear flinched visibly and got to his feet. “Hey!” I shouted, getting off my bike. “What the hell are you doing?” “Man, that bear was attacking you. I’m going to make hamburger out of him,” and the boy finished reloading, took aim and pulled the trigger again. The bear had made it to the side of the road but I could see he had been hit in the shoulder. When the next shot came he let out a bellow and collapsed on the ground. I dropped my bike and ran towards the bear. The sudden shift in scene was ripping my heart out. I wanted to be playing our game again as we moved along the road together, dancing to the tune of the wild, the wind and the north. A final shot winged past me, and the bear became a pile of sticky fur at the side of the road. A shout went up from the car and I could hear the engine starting up. “Man, Jeff, you are good! Jesus! Wait ‘til I tell your old man. That was awesome.” The shouting washed over me, and I heard the car back up with a squeal and a spin of its tires, and then roared past, just missing both me and my bike. Their whoops disappeared down the road and the silence closed around me. I crouched next to the crumpled bear, his once-playful heft now still and lifeless. He had fallen on his side, a limb twisted under him, his head heavy on the gravel spat amongst the wildflowers. Sadness and helplessness washed through me as I squatted and laid a hand on his still-warm fur. A deep-throated growl came from the woods beyond and made me look up. A massive mama bear appeared and came towards me, stopping every few feet to shake her head from side to side and let out a roar, mournful, echoing in the still morning air. She was beautiful, and alive, and angry. I stood up and watched her approach. She stopped and looked at me, her eyes small and glittering, her ears pulled back. I felt the spirit of her cub rise up between us, and I felt no fear. I stepped back and turned away. Towards my bike and a day with all its beauty stripped away to reveal the bones of death. Time to move on.
Tickle, tickle I have this world. Slip into it when I want to. I’ve no idea how and I can’t remember when I found it. I imagine it behind the bookcase near the bed, open all hours as the saying goes. So I can get there in a jiffy. Out from under the covers, quick slide over the books and there I am. The seasons are faithful there, stay put like they should. Always late summer when I’m outside that old church with the wall full of ivy. Winter when I stand at the gate to that huge wide field and step forward, just a little way, no further. The gate’s never shut as far as I know. Held open, it is, by something in a sack. Could be big stones, though I think I’ve spotted a screw-cap. A can, then, full of stuff that you need on a farm but has gone out of date. Not oil or petrol, I’d say. Think of the risk, however long it’s been standing. Even I wouldn’t do something as daft as that, leave flammables out in the open, and I’ve been daft enough in my time.
I’m there a lot, at the gate, in winter. Always arrive just as the first snow falls. The flakes dip about like butterflies over the grey earth, then the earth sucks them in. Who knows, they might have been real butterflies once, they might have flown to the field from the grasses round that old church. I couldn’t say. Actually, it’d have to be further back than late summer for butterflies. Wouldn’t it? And I’m never outside the church before the last of August. But the field’s my favourite. Me off down behind the bookcase, standing by the sack. Silence. Bit of wind sometimes, though, bit of a creak from the latch-end of the gate. And somewhere far away, his nibs, turning a little in his sleep, flinging out an arm, muttering though he swears he doesn’t. Because I’m there too, of course, beside him, even when I’m not. I say I have this world. Had, really. But I might again. Fatal, maybe, saying about the field and the church to Trish. But that’s Friday evenings for you, the extra bottle, the two-for-one job, the shame-to-waste-it looks going back and forth. Like it wouldn’t keep. But I told her and she said it was fantastic, I should write it down. I didn’t want to write it down. I was scared that if I did it’d vanish, I’d lose my sense of it, it’d be like pushing a pin through one of those off-season butterflies, watching it crumble in a glass case. That’s how I felt then, anyway, so I mumbled something, the usual, not one for words, not fussed about writing in school. Anyway, they’re not about words, the field, the old church, the gate and the ivy. They’re about being there, knowing they’re there even if you close your eyes, especially when you do, maybe. Fair’s fair, Trish didn’t press it, that’s not her way, bless her. If she thinks she’s buttonholing she steps back, says something more general, so you don’t feel on the spot. The buttonholing is still in there, I suppose, but it’s, you know, tucked in, part of her wider tack. I knew what was coming. She cracks open the two-for-one bottle, the one we didn’t need except it was Friday evening, what the hell, and says ok, but I should still come along, I’d really enjoy it. I read. Easy reads, mostly, some would call them. Thrillers are a big thing but the old-fashioned kind, country house weekends, murders in Mayfair, detectives stuffing pipes or knocking them out on their shoes. Not the modern ones, the strong meat stuff, set in Swedish wasteland as likely as not. If I see adverts for them on platforms, I start shivering, not just because of what’s probably inside them but because of the feel they give off. Hot day in mid-July and those ads can still make me feel like I’m stuck in my own fridge. The snow on my field, that’s quite different. A friendly cold and much of the time I hardly notice it. Sometimes, too, I’ll have a yen for something seasonal. Christmas I’ll have a go at one of Dickens’ stories. Summer, Laurie Lee. I’ve even dipped into a poem or two at Easter. Devotional, you’d say, certainly old, sixteen-hundreds. Is that sixteenth century? I always have to think when I try and match those up, the century, the hundreds. Gives me a funny feeling, reading them. I don’t understand a lot about them but I imagine standing behind the poet, quiet-like so as not to disturb, while he’s writing and crossing out, trying again, getting it right. I can almost hear Aha! when that happens, hear the quill, I suppose it’d be, going mad across that dusty paper. Some people say they admire such-and-such when what they mean is, I’ve less than half a clue what it’s about but there it is, it’s finished and complete, someone put in the time on it. I suppose that’s how I admire the Easter folk, the scratchers and crossers-out. They wanted to get somewhere, writing. Like I love arriving at that open gate. I never figured Trish for a reader. Well, it doesn’t come up on Friday nights. Indirectly, maybe, sometimes. She might ask if I’ve seen such-and-such on TV and I might say, that was a book, I think, to start with, and more often than not she just does that thing people sometimes do with a glass to their lips, a flick of the head to say, well, fancy, and then back to what Friday nights are for. Loves song lyrics, though, Trish. Fastens onto what she likes and can’t understand it if you don’t. Loves classic stuff. Roy Orbison, In Dreams. Had it played at her wedding, even though I said, and I wasn’t alone, look, it doesn’t work out well, that song, there’s no woman there with him, no dream-girl come true. She said it didn’t matter, and anyway, there is because he’s thinking of her, singing of her, making her real. Life isn’t always how it appears, she says, even in a song. Procol Harum, A Whiter Shade of Pale, that’s another big fave and, all right, it’s pleasant but don’t tell me the words mean a thing. She won’t have that. Poetry, she says it is, though it’s about as far as you can throw from what my quill-merchants ever came up with. Maybe that was what did it. Her idea of what poetry is, plus her never-ending hunt for groups and clubs, which I can’t blame her for, her bloke being all sorted and scheduled with his interests, hence the Friday evenings, the bottles of two-for-one. Anyway, she saw a notice, might have been in a supermarket entrance, even a library, who knows, somewhere with stuff about adult courses, volunteering, self-help. This bunch of writers, alternate Wednesdays, centre of town, an old hall, I know the place, just about keeping on its feet with ping-pong and old-time dance, talks on this and that. So off she trots. She’s been a few times. Awoken her, she says it has. Surprised her. Surprised me, a word like awoken on her lips. Started writing poems and found she was full of them. So yes, I daresay all those song lyrics made her think she’d have a go at scratching and crossing out and trying again, if she does all that, if they don’t just pop up, which by the sound of it they do. You should come along, says she again, the Friday after she first said it, or maybe the one after that, with the bottle on the tilt and that broad happy grin. You’d love it, she says. I had tried asking to hear one of her poems, even part of one. I mean it’s great that she’s found this in herself, all power to her. But she wouldn’t, not even helped by the far end of the second bottle. Then it was, okay, you’ll hear if you come along. I should have expected that, probably did. She wouldn’t want me not to hear but now she had this gentle Friday-night leverage. I know her of old. Finally I did go, sort of. We’d arranged a drink in town for when she was done so I just slipped in the back at the end and waited. I’d never been in there before though I must have passed it scores of times. Dismal old place, it is. You’d need to be drunk on words. Kind of place that, as soon as you go in, you think it must have started raining, you wait for the spatter on the panes. Bit of a stage at one end, fol-de-rols either side, leftovers from some jubilee, Victoria’s, I shouldn’t wonder. Door on the left into one of those kitchens that doesn’t want you to bother with it. I said I slipped in at the end. Another bit of Trish mischief. Six-thirty to eight, she said, but it was gone eight-thirty when it broke up, I had words later, teasing really but still. So I found myself sitting through the three last turns. An old chap in a paisley cravat read a bit from his memoir. He was nice, a looker in his time, I’d say, only his face was thin and collapsed now, his voice wavered and he sometimes had a rest-up in the middle of a word. A work-in-progress, he called it, and by the look of him I’d say it was a race between the two of them. The bit he read was about Dauntless Dougie, an uncle I think, or godfather, a padre in a war, the First I suppose, though I didn’t recognise any of the place names he mentioned but maybe it was the way he said them. Bit of a character, Dougie. Got the men to pray with him in little groups and then slipped them big goes of rum from his secret store. Told them a nip of that on Calvary and Christ would have been down from the cross and making short work of the guards, which isn’t the kind of message you expect from a man of the cloth or, come to that, his nephew or godson in the kind of hall Christ might just rush into. Then it was Trish and I have to say, she was good. Poem about finding herself following an old lady round the supermarket aisles, just coincidentally, watching what she dropped into her basket and picturing what the things said about her, where she’d come from, where she’d go after the check-out. A Life In Perishables, she called it and it didn’t rhyme, which was a surprise, what with her and Roy Orbison and Procul Harum and what-have-you. Last up was a young girl with what she called a dialogue of trespass, between her and the wounds of self-harm. Everyone got a bit uncomfortable at that. The motherly-looking sort next to her kept furtively looking her over as she read, trying to see if it was autobiographical, I suppose. But she didn’t seem the type. Blonde hair and drape-y blouse. Could have done with a square meal but nothing strung out about her, as you might say. But then, what is the type? The motherly sort, who looked and sounded like she led the group, asked her straight up once she’d finished, but the girl said no, it came out of things she’d read, a documentary she’d seen. She didn’t talk like round here. Student, I thought, which was half-right because Trish said later she’d started and abandoned a degree, which is more than I’ve ever abandoned. Rolled that one round her tongue, Trish did – abandoned. Like awoken. It was funny, really, seeing your best friend in a new place and saying things in a new way, like half of you is rooting for her and the other half doesn’t know her at all. ‘In go the peas,’ her poem about the old woman said, ‘and she’s back at the long, long trestles in a Wiltshire street, tee-bar sandals and diluted squash and cheering and Churchill all over the air.’ Sight better than sixteen vestal virgins hoofing off for the coast. When they broke up I headed for Trish with my cod-daggers look. Finish at eight on the dot, my eye. That’s when I saw a figure on the far side of the hall. Waiting for someone else, I assumed, apart from which, I had to admire his brass neck. Togged up like the cravat gentleman might have been when he chatted with Dauntless Dougie way back when. I thought he might have been a manager of one of those retro shops, ration-book chic from war-torn Blighty. I couldn’t see his face but that was no surprise. Probably less than a half-dozen lights in the place and three of them were round the writers’ table. But he didn’t come to claim anyone and after I’d got to the table and Trish had done that blurry introductions bit, all those names and no hope of remembering, I looked round and he’d gone. Fair do’s, Trish didn’t announce that I wanted to join. But naturally, when we were in the bar, she asked what I thought of it, meaning her. To which I asked who the hand-me-down bloke was hanging about in the gloaming and she said what bloke? Oh well, I said, never mind, and he got lost in the chat, me telling her how impressed I was with her poem, her raising an eyebrow and saying, well, how about coming for the whole thing next time, then me raising my glass and assuring her I’d need several of these inside me to so much as consider it, and her laughing and the chat going elsewhere. Only on the bus home did the bloke come back into my mind. I wondered if there was some themed thing on after the writers, a charity-shop jamboree, and he was early for that. I’d have thought it was pushing it, squeezing another event in that evening. Then again, hall like that, they need all sorts in, maybe even get special late licences. It has to keep going somehow. One of those jumpers the bloke was wearing, greyish, different colour edging to the vee. Dad used to wear something like, no shape to them at all, mum was always on at him to get rid of them, so he would, well, get rid of one, but another one just the same would take its place. Odd, really. She always took him clothes-shopping so he must have got them on the quiet to snape her. I wondered if they were made ready-shapeless, like drip-dry. Georgie and me, we’d dig each other’s ribs when he came to the table in the latest, then mum would get in between him and us, leaning extra low to put out the food, mouthing at us to shut our yap before it started, but you could tell that she was quivering, you could see her twinkle, how she swallowed the laughs I’ll never know, except I do, all composure she was. Later on I imagined her taking herself off now and then to somewhere quiet, a forest or something, so she could spend the whole day hooting her socks off at a lifetime’s idiocy from dad. It’s about fifty yards. You get off the bus, into our avenue, the Bartons first on the left with that saggy side-fence they’ll never replace no matter what they keep saying, then us. Always someone about, a neighbour, dog-walker, but that night there could have been a cast of thousands and it wouldn’t have made a peck of difference. Something was at me as I got off the bus. Behind me? Around me? All I know is, I legged it like a greyhound, straight round the side of the house, too, no faffing with the front door because I knew he’d be up and the back door’d be open. Just at the back I stopped, thought of mum, got myself composed. Listened. Nothing. I wondered if the drink had got to me, cheaper than usual that night it was, probably a dodgy off-load, nothing to do with special midweek offers. Of course he didn’t notice anything. I love him dearly but, if shapeless vee-necks were still the thing…it took me a dog’s age to wean him off those sky-blue tracky bottoms. Superior lounge-wear, the sales bloke had told him. Those folk, they see him coming. That night I got myself to my open gate. Stole away upon the midnight, I suppose I’d say if I was a quill-merchant or even, maybe, in one of Trish’s poems. The gate was shut and the sack was gone. The field looked as though some giant badgers had been at it, heaps here, gouges there. The snow-butterflies came dipping and weaving but they didn’t fade into the earth as normal. A blizzard came on, proper fierce, fistfuls of it, and swallowed them up. And the cold…nothing friendly about that, not like I knew before. I felt like a human thermometer with the mercury plunging, I felt like I’d been thrown in the sea on New Year’s Eve. Shook my arms and legs, not a ha’porth of difference. I stepped back and nearly went over on an ankle: another deep hole, must have opened up while I was standing there, and the sack that should have propped the gate open was half-buried in it. Stuff this, I thought, where’s August, where’s my old church? But it was snowing there, too, back-end of summer covered in white and the ivy had been half-dragged off the church wall and the wall was skewed fit to tumble. And never a leaf on all the trees in the churchyard, no, just one clump on one branch, and a little bird dancing this way and that, trying to stay hidden behind the clump like the snow had made it too scared to fly and all it could do was hop and let its wings go useless. What could I do but get away? I tried to cry myself to sleep and I might have got an hour. The rest was him twisting, muttering. I got a shove to the back of the head at one point. I remembered the girl from the writing group, the student as was with all that chat, her and her self-harm going back and forth. A dialogue of trespass, she’d called the thing. I felt I’d turned into a trespasser in my own world, except maybe it wasn’t mine, never had been, and I was like a kid who could play somewhere only because no-one notices, because everyone’s forgotten wherever it is, till they remember and move in with their big signs, their fences, their snow, and shoo the kid off. But no…this was my world, just as it was, you might say, the kid’s proper place. Finders keepers. But that hadn’t stopped something from being what it was and doing what it did. Because apparently it could. Couple of days after I was late home. Customer looking for some special turmeric they’d heard we’d just got in but could I find it? Could I find any of the spices and stuff? That’s that new manager, can’t be more than fourteen, head full of changes, must have got the night-stackers to switch everything around on the dry food aisles just for the hell of it, and of course a queue as long as your arm when I got back and Julie hopping about too, waiting to take over the till and then of course she forgets her code and the person after the turmeric says, actually, this isn’t really what I want so I spit invisible nails while I’m seeing to his other stuff and then his phone goes and he paces about while his stuff piles up on the chute and then it’s, actually, do you have a couple of bags? So I sort him out and see him off by which time Maureen’s poled up with Julie’s code so that’s all right at least and I go sloping off with the turmeric and find I can’t find where I found it till that nice new woman on the deli counter comes out and helps and we locate its context as that kid of a manager would say and then when the deli woman gets back she finds she’s got a queue out the door and her weigh scales won’t display properly but luckily Maureen’s just dealt with someone at the express counter shouting the odds about a lottery ticket he’d bought last week and the express is just round the corner from the deli so she nips out and gets the deli woman sorted, honestly, Maureen should be running the whole place not some toddler brought in over everyone’s heads. So it was gone six-thirty when I got through the door and he says Mrs Barton’s been round. So I thought, oh, right, they’re seeing to that fence at last, want us to move our stuff away from the boundary, in which case why hasn’t he done it? Fifteen, twenty minutes’ work? Alright, it was getting dark but everything looked to be where it was when I came in and him working at home that afternoon, phoning and computing and insuring away. Flexi-schedule, he’s got, which is all very nice but sometimes I could flex his neck, dishes still piled up from our breakfast and his lunch, stuff still lying about. Just occasionally he’ll have a mad tidy-up like one day’s heavy industry is quite enough for the whole month. But it wasn’t that. On the hall table, he says, adding that I was lucky, Mrs B was just going out that morning, a couple more minutes and they’d have taken it back to the depot, which is the other side of town, car or two buses. No card through our door, mind, telling us. And the Bartons might have been busy for days or put it down somewhere and clean forgotten, and I’m not hot on telepathy, nor is he, however much he can make his numbers dance on his screen. Bulky, it was, properly padded, a row of stamps, maple leaf here, profile of Queenie there, Charlottetown postcode on a white strip, with ‘Prince Edward Island: Canada’s Ocean Playground.’ Our address all neat on the front, sender’s address all neat in the top left corner. Always partic about her writing, Georgie. Well, she married someone with a partic life, flight lieutenant on some exchange thing at Brize Norton, draughtsman originally, then re-trained after he’d whisked her away over the water and finished his time, went into landscaping and cabin design, well, they’re big on all that over there, they’ve got the space. And it is lovely, where they are. Anne of Green Gumboils, Georgie calls herself, says her eldest coined it, well on the way, he is, just finished whatever they have to do, articling and such, and got snapped up by a law firm in Ottawa. Makes up for their girl, I suppose, though, God bless her, she can’t help it, who knows what demons can get in your head? Has her own little place at the back of their house, goes out with her mum now and then but that’s about it. Mind you, our Christopher looked to be going that way in his last year at uni but then the exams came and went and he turned himself right side out again, which was a mercy, though that’s not what his sister said. Too much of those dates and battles and kings and priests, she says, enough to send anyone off the deep end, he needs to get back in the now, she says, be a grown-up. It’s West Hampstead, mum, she kept telling me, Borough of Camden, all because I told folk it was Camden Town when she moved. Wash my mouth out. Town-house, she calls it. You could fit three of them into ours, just about, and ours is no palace. Something in management, she is, which could mean anything from director of Selfridge’s to what Maureen does at our place. Human-facing, apparently. She and our kid of a manager would get on no messing. Never goes into details, likes to keep it impressively mysterious. Hang ‘Em Flog ‘Em Rachel, his nibs calls her. Don’t you ever let her hear you saying that, I tell him, though of course he’s the only one who could get away with it, with his little chuckle and nod of the head. The sad thing is, though, she’d probably grin and look all cat-with-cream if he said it. I don’t know what’s happened. She’s just gone very hard and I don’t know why, it isn’t as if she’s had any more knocks than most as far as I know. Marriage is out, she’s said so. Flings, I think she has, nothing that lasts, a few weeks, a couple of months and pfff, it’s over. She seems to take pleasure in that, like making best friends in school just to duff them up. Brought a couple of victims here for visits, nice lads, he took to them, up the pub and that, but she laid out the eggshells round them, slightest thing and she bit off their heads. Maybe that’s what you’ve got to be seen to do in human-facing management. No way to live, taking your work home like that. Laughed like a drain when I told her our Chris was going on to a Master’s, all funded, mind, some History council or group or something, well, he’s bright. What, she says, he’s putting himself in for more punishment? Has to go down to London now and then, he does, British Library, archives and that. Phones her for a drink. Never convenient. I thought I’d scan these and email them to Brainiac – Georgie’s time-honoured name for his nibs – but that’s not the same. They’re all copies and I’ve been promising. I still don’t know how I ended up with most of them. I was thinking we could divvy them up last time you were here but I guess the trip down to Nova Scotia put paid to that sister-time we’d been hoping for. Then I just forgot and you seemed easy either way about it. But finally I told myself, this is no good, so I freed up some time – Richie was away on a job over to Cape Breton – and I hope you like the result. Say hi to Brainiac for me, give that Chris a huge aunty-hug and tell Rachel I hope some prime catch sweeps her off her feet before she can open her mouth. Just kidding, kind of. Miss you everso, Helen. Get yourselves back over here. Love and love, the Gumboil One xxxxxx. PS. Crazy no-shape jumpers galore inside. See how many you can count. The album was really plush, and Georgie had gone to town on the packing, not a dent anywhere. All nicely presented inside, that sticky plastic smoothed down over each photo, I can never manage that, the ruckle queen, me, or I couldn’t when I had actual photos, he saves everything on files and disks now, keeps promising to get hard copies done, dream on, I tell myself, dream on. Chronological, too, by the looks of it, soup to nuts as Richie the cabin-man would say. But I didn’t have time then for a good shufti, it was Friday evening and I needed to have a bite and change or Trish’d be sending out the bloodhounds. I phoned her to say I’d be running late and she said if I’m not completely starving don’t worry, she’d got enough for a scrumptious party-tea, which sounds like it’ll pitch up in one of her poems if it hasn’t already, so I splashed a bit of water here and there and got on some comfy old mis-matches and, hoopla, his nibs said he’d give me a lift over and taxi fare back and it didn’t even cross my mind to say, alright, who is she? We were just reversing when I remembered and leapt out and grabbed that wine off the kitchen counter, our kid of a manager’s choice for some autumn promotion, and it’s pretty good, a tasty Australian red, Vasse something, with a bouquet that does all sorts, not that it dawdles in my mouth long enough to oblige, Trish’s neither, still, fair do’s to the toddler for choosing it, maybe he’s not completely useless Eustace. And Trish had a red to match and I can’t fault her party-tea, so it was a happy evening after all the turmeric kerfuffle. I think I might have even said I’d go along to her next writers’ do without her having to do her grin and top-up routine. Never crossed my mind, my churned up field or my churchyard with that little bird scared to death among the bare branches. Or that bloke all shadowy at the side of that cave of a hall. At some point I think I pictured myself turning the pages of Georgie’s special album one by one, finding what she’d put where, seeing it all in right order. But yet another top-up must have carried that away. Saturday’s his training. Well, not his but the shivering bunch in the youth team that he’s assistant coach for. Been doing it for years, though he could barely run twenty yards now to make a useful delivery or collection or whatever those herberts call them on the Saturday night tv round-up. Mind you, he admits it. I’ve met the coach, northerner, played for Accrington Stanley back in the day or nearly did, or his brother did and he was in the reserves, his nibs gave me chapter and verse but it slid off as quick as a mouthful of that Vasse. Hot on the offside rule, apparently, the coach, which probably means about as hot as my determination not to understand it. So, house to myself and the Saturday morning ritual, phone call to Chris, who sounded under par, to be honest, though over the years I’ve weaned myself off the third degree about proper food and exercise and giving his eyes a rest. Nice flat he’s got himself, right near the Bristol campus, sharing with an Indian lad, physics or maths, I can’t remember, Naagpal, only Chris calls him Nag which is a bit disrespectful but he’s a whiz with the food, his nibs and me, we eat like royalty when we visit, so you’re Nag, I said, first time we met him, well I hope you’re nagging him to stay off the burgers and chips, and Nag, Nagpaal I really should say, he laughs fit to burst and says please be assured so, he talks so nice, better than most English people, better than me. Then Rachel, which of course was just the answerphone, well, who’d know where she was and who with, so I left the usual, all well here, hope you are too, phone when you can, love from us. His nibs keeps threatening to leave her a message all spooky-foreign, Rachel, thees ees your consheeience speeeking, wish he would, she’d phone back like a shot and tick him off in that giggly way she has, like I say, he can get away with stuff. She does phone, once in a while, between important things, all breathless and sorry-gotta-go, usually to tip us off about a forthcoming northern progress, as he calls it. I suggested we should just go down sometime, unannounced, but he gave me an on-your-head-be-it look. I just hope she never has another conquest in tow so I don’t have to feel what the poor bloke’s going through. After all that, a cuppa and the album. Wine-red, the cover, which tied in nicely with last night at Trish’s. And there it all was as I turned the pages, me and Georgie from when we were kids, and mum and dad and cousins and uncles and aunts and best friends and Christmases and holidays and rubbish hairstyles and clothes, ours as much as anyone’s. At one point I stopped and looked over Georgie’s note and thought a bit but I couldn’t remember either how she’d ended up with all these photos, two of each into the bargain. Mind you, she did come back to help with the house after mum and dad passed, dad then mum that is, about a year between, but I was focused on the bigger stuff, probate and such, putting the house on the market, well, I was local so it made sense. So stuff like photos, non-probate, so to speak, I didn’t pay much attention to. Like she said, I must have been easy either way about things like that, and she’d brought a couple of whopping suitcases and hardly any clothes and I could imagine Richie and her kids, no, not them, they’d have been far too young at the time, I could imagine Richie telling her that he wanted a real feel for her life before they met, well, they’re big on all that over there, where people come from, loved ones or the last generation or the one before that, all that interest in the old country, whichever one it happens to be, and he’d said to me once, us and the Americans, we’re all orphans when you get down to it. Anything you can bring back, I could imagine him saying, I’d love it. Dearly love it, that’s his phrase, beautiful voice he has. It was funny, going page by page, I mean nice-funny not odd, or I suppose I do. A life coming back like a trick of invisible ink, oh, look, that’s what it says here, that’s what it says there. It’s not the whole story, I know that, but I felt tempted more than once to close the album and lift it on the palms of my hands and say, here’s me as was, I’m as red as that Vasse Trish and me made short work of and I’m this wide and this deep. I could have thought, blimey, is this it? but the trouble Georgie had gone to ruled that out because her tidiness was really saying, look, it was all worth taking care of. Each photo had a neat little sticker. I could remember the details in bits and bobs but not how she’d managed it, if she’d remembered it all, maybe not, maybe she’d gone on some site and found our family, Your Ancestry or Remember When? or however they’re called. I can imagine Richie encouraging her that way, gently telling her to do a thorough job, his partic-ness meeting hers, telling her to remember that she and me weren’t like him or the Yanks, orphans. The stickers made me feel like I’d come out of a coma, or awoken as poet-y Trish would say, and things were dropping into place in their own good time. So that was how the garden looked at Merriman Rise in 1958, with the swing (I think I could just about remember it) and the cold-frame (I couldn’t). And that dog, more Georgie’s than mine, less hers than dad’s, called Sputnik (I didn’t remember) not Dusty (I did but he was two dogs and four pages later). Comical effort, Sputnik, mongrel, a Heinz 57 job as dad said, well, they all were, though Dusty was almost sort of a Border collie, sharp muzzle like they have, like I think they have, a sweetie he was. As for dad’s shapeless wonders, Georgie was right, I counted five in those home photos before I was three pages in. It was good to get the holidays lined up. So Rhyl was 1960 not 1961, which was Dawlish which I thought was 1964 but that was Majorca, how could I have forgotten the year for that? Big to-do, injections and new shorts and cozzies and the passport rigmarole and Georgie and me giggling at the photographers’ and mum hissing what-for at us and us almost behaving and then Georgie whispering shouldn’t there be an aspidistra behind us? and both of us in a heap again. Shame the photos can’t show all of that instead of the four of us looking awkward outside that hotel, Mimosa, the sticker says, Cas Catala, or mum looking petrified with the sea-water round her ankles, or me and Georgie in those shorts, mine stripes, hers plaid-y, mind you, we thought we were the goods, and Georgie was, or nearly, already getting a feel of what was what, boys trailing after her, getting their eyeful, so much so that mum gave them a piece of her mind once, I remember that, then rooted in her bag for a towel and threw it over sis. Big dark thumping silence from Georgie after that and I was meant to take her part, solidarity, unspoken, but I thought it was funny, plus I was probably jealous that I wasn’t old enough to be almost the goods in the way she almost was, so I got the mardy treatment from her too, a good couple of days it lasted. Dad was oblivious to it all, of course. Spent a lot of his time trying to perfect that thing where you pour wine from a tight spout onto the bridge of your nose and it runs down and you push out your lower lip and catch it, all the folk in the bodega egging him on, local regulars, those pop-up holiday pals you always get, specially in pubs, ruined three shirts he did, I remember that, and I remember the hotel manageress sucking her teeth, eyes like saucers, and gesturing that the laundry’d have the devil’s own job with them. At least the shapeless wonders were nowhere to be seen at Rhyl or Dawlish or Cas Catala. But they were back on him with a vengeance for all the Christmases, even with stars and reindeer in 1967 (‘Larkspur Road, just moved’ said Georgie’s sticker) and we were into colour by then so they looked even more gruesome. A moment of dad-madness, that camera, I remember, with mum going on about how the cost of it would put us on the parish. Then the work photos started popping up among the gardens and dogs and tinsel, headed by a close-up of an invoice, which seemed all odd and modern, the kind of thing someone would get it in the neck for wasting film on back then but at least saved Georgie a sticker. Wm Mostyn, Electrics and Mechanics and the Larkspur Road address and the number of our first phone without a party line. Electrics and Mechanics. Mum, that would have been. Dad would’ve been happy with Car or Lights up the Spout? I’ll sort it. Then a big house the sticker says was out Church Stretton way, 1968 (Georgie must have done some proper digging, or Richie) and dad by a ladder with a jazzy-coloured shapeless in full sail, must’ve blown his overalls apart. He got a lot of work like that, I remember, old mansions in need of rewiring, new monstrosities where he had to go from scratch, always broke his heart that he couldn’t get in on the council estate scene but big firms had the dibs there. Similar snap for Monmouth, same year, only the shapeless was bright green and the sticker said ‘Family excursion’, so he must have been doing a job near Uncle Dai and Auntie Eva and we all piled down together. That would have been not long before Georgie left home with her secretarials and got that job at Carterton. No idea why he had work photos taken, in situ as our kid of a manager would say, unless someone told him it’d be good to build up a stock and show them round like you’d have a website now. I can just imagine how flummoxed he’d be confronted with a website, he was impressed from the off that his nibs knew his way round personal computers when we got that first one, 1984 or 5, must have been. Commodore was it? Apple? He’d ask his nibs to go through something, whatever computers could do back then, and just stare while he did it. Yes, I’d say someone told dad to get a bunch of photos round him, ‘Me and my work’, probably a bloke in a pub, treated drinking pals like Moses with his tablets, he did. I went to turn the next page having a quiet bet with myself. A Fairisle shapeless coming up? Something in manky yellow? But two pages stuck together and as I was about to run my finger down the edge the phone rang and I dropped the album on a chair and it was his nibs saying he’d be back later than usual because the head coach had some news about a change of ground for their lot and other teams that had been on the cards for ages and he wanted to talk it through. When I got back the pages had unstuck themselves and were open on the chair. Four photos over the both of them but I only saw one, a pub bar with a bunch of faces in the background and two to the fore: Seven Stars, the sticker said, New Year’s 1969, Dad and his apprentice, Alex?? It was the only sticker in the whole album that was short on firm detail. Two questions marks must have meant Georgie was proper flummoxed. But it didn’t matter. I knew. After all this time, I remembered with knobs on. I stood stock still and sipped at my tea. Lukewarm by then and I’d usually pop it in the microwave but I didn’t bother, I hardly noticed. Then I got my coat and went out for a walk that got longer each time I thought of turning back, all round the estate and up to the by-pass, along the cycle-paths and through the little short-cuts. I remembered that the nice new deli woman lived somewhere near, on the part of the estate that’s all wild flowers, Trefoil Close, Willowherb Rise and such and I was pretty sure she was on Bluebell whatever it is and I know she’s got one of those Smart cars so I thought, find Bluebell and a lemony shoebox-y car and I could call in but then I thought, no, she told me she always signs up for weekends to fill the time, hubby’s away a lot, metals rep or something, one son in Carlisle, another at uni, daughter in the Signals or maybe that’s the Carlisle son, still, it’d be nice to have a cup and a chat with her sometime, I’ll ask her when we’re not having to hunt the aisles for something’s flaming context. So when I felt I had to turn back, when I pictured the last of my tea all cold and scummy in the cup, I went round by the playing fields and watched the kids. Mainly toddlers with at least one parent, a rare old time on the swings, or primary kids on the climbing frames. But some were older, getting on for the age I’d have been when dad watched the birdie in the Seven Stars on New Year’s. Alex Kinsella, his apprentice. With dad about, what, four, five months by then? Two considerations brought him on the scene. Mum’s words, two considerations, and sure as eggs it was mum’s notion and she wouldn’t back down till dad saw the sense of it, which he soon did. For one, he wasn’t getting any younger and for two, wasn’t there some grant or such he could get for training a lad up? (Of course there was: she’d done her homework.) Perhaps the idea was that any lad would sort of take over and dad would become less pressed, the side partner but still senior on the invoices, and yes, Mostyn and Kinsella would have had a ring to it, only it turned out it wouldn’t be Alex, he devilled off a few months after that Seven Stars photo and dad soldiered on alone but with smaller local jobs, enough to see him through and not so far to travel, well, the big houses were drying up smartly by then though he did get a lot of flat conversion stuff, steady earners, and some pals helped him out on the car side, cash in hand, they weren’t as crackers about rules and regs back then. Actually it was May 1969 when Alex went. Long enough before my school exams that I was able to concentrate. I wouldn’t have otherwise. Scouser, Alex, though you’d have been forgiven for thinking he was a bloke with a Scouse part in a play or on telly and couldn’t get it quite natural. Overdid it, too many ‘fabs’ and ‘gears’ and all that had gone out by then, it wasn’t the Mersey Sound any more, it wasn’t the start of the decade, the Beatles were getting a bit strange, I bought that White Album and dad said, waste of money as he’d done for years to Georgie and me but this time I mainly agreed though I’d never say it, well, you wouldn’t, parents and kids, the unwritten rule, ‘Honey Pie’ was nice, though, and ‘Blackbird’, and George’s ‘Weepy Guitar’ or whatever its full name is got me weeping along with it but as for stuff like ‘Don’t Pass Me By’, best to stay sat at the back, Ringo. And of course I can’t listen to ‘Dear Prudence.’ But Alex traded on all of that and lots of folk still loved the Beatles enough that he did all right with the girls as far as dad’s hints about it went, elliptical intimations his nibs would call them and maybe one day one or two such will surface in a Trish poem. The girls. His own age or round about. Which he bloody well should have stuck with. Maybe one or two of them could have tried drumming some with-it dress sense into him for when he was clocked off and in civvies. Maybe some of them did but I think he was pushing the Scouse thing again, the Beatles, how they looked around the time of ‘Penny Lane’, and anyway Carnaby Street was still coining it then, the Regency look, the idea that all oldies were natty dressers. So if he came round or went out with us, and it happened a fair bit thanks to mum the clucking hen, poor lad far from home, square meals needed, he looked like a mini-version of how dad’s dad must have turned himself out for his courting days. With dad’s fatal weakness thrown in, too, though Alex’s shapeless wonders at least looked like they might have had some design to them once. And as I stood and watched the kids on the fields, I realised. I pictured the one he was wearing three nights before, there in the shadows at the side of that grim old hall. Positively spruce, what I could see of it. Of him. Because it was him, sidling back through time, standing, waiting. And waiting when I got off the bus and got my Olympic gold racing for the house. Loved the waiting, Alex did, loved his shadows. Loved that he just knew I’d never say. I took it slow from the playing fields back to home, thinking, if I can just run it all through before I get to the front door, maybe it’ll all be gone, done like a dose of salts by the time I’m washing my cup and starting to think about our tea. Daft hope for something that’s been biding its time but you hang onto things like that, don’t you, like when you’re a kid playing hop-skip and thinking if I miss the cracks in the pavement I won’t die. So I kept hoping as I left the kids further and further behind because I couldn’t not. All please-and-thank-you Alex was when he came for a meal or met up with us wherever it was, the Legion or a pub where I could be parked with a Vimto in what they called a children’s room, honestly, some of the other kids I passed my evenings with, you’d shudder. I was at that odd age, I suppose, too old to go out on my own, too young to stay in alone of a night, wouldn’t have been so bad if Georgie had still been at home but then nothing would’ve. I went over to friends but their folks were much the same, none too happy at the idea of girls unwatched of an evening and as for staying over, well, you can imagine all that was stacked up against that, school nights, other stuff on at weekends, the faff of arrangements and a lot of my friends’ folks either didn’t have a car or their dads were out or back at some ungodly hour, like mine often was, so it would have been all too difficult for pick-ups and drop-offs. So if we were going out I could go over to a friend’s for an hour or so but then I had to be back and scrubbed up for the Legion and the Vimto. I was at a stuck age in a stuck time, you might say, no wriggle room as our kid of a manager declares if you ask why a display has to be right here and not somewhere where folk don’t have to dance round it when they’re in a rush. Always helped me with the wash-up, Alex, if he had a meal with us, always ferrying Vimtos or lemonades to me in those smelly pub rooms. That’s how they start, I suppose, taking chances, feeling out how much time they have, figuring how it could be stretched a bit more and a bit more. Finding out stuff, too, like once in some pub when he came in with yet another awful Vimto I asked if they had Coca-Cola, forlorn hope but I wanted to show I wasn’t keen to end up made of cheap pop and he twinkled and said, Coca-Cola? Ooh, Prudence, Prudence, you’re not in Majorca now and I’d never mentioned that holiday to him, I’d mentioned nothing but he must have done some nosing when he was with dad and not only about Majorca, it turned out, he had all sorts up his sleeve, my birthday, how I used to go a bundle on tee-bar sandals when I was a kid, that I’d bought the White Album. I could have throttled him then, in that pub room because after he’d gone the other kids fell about thinking my name was Prudence. He started early with that name. I’d lay the table for the evening meal and go upstairs to wash my hands and he wouldn’t be there when I went up but he would be when I came down, it was like he knew, like he’d been watching the house for a bit of movement at the landing window and made his guess and rang the doorbell. So when I came down it was mum with well, look who’s called, like she couldn’t have known, like she hadn’t made enough for four, and he’d twinkle and say, ah, dear Prudence, and stretch out the ‘dear’ like a sarky rhyme for sneer. Full of chat he was during the meal, work things with dad, who clearly thought mum’s apprentice idea had paid off in spades, compliments galore on the food for mum who needless to say thought he was the bee’s knees from the off. Not so full of chat when he was with me for the wash-up, not at the start anyway. Made out like he’d been struck shy which wouldn’t have fooled anyone and shouldn’t have fooled me but what could I do one way or the other? There I was, washing up, an agreed chore like with a thousand other kids at that time, like you’d get a contract and write where it says ‘your signature here’. I could hear mum and dad in the living room, dad riffling the paper or faffing with the telly though mum would say, honestly, Will, not with a visitor, and then her tapping and clinking, fetching the Drambuie or the Tia Maria or the Double Diamond out from that tiny little almost posh bar they’d put in the corner of the room because she said it reminded her of the one in the corner of the dining-room at that hotel in Dawlish. And Alex on the drying up, real slow, five goings-over with each thing till you could see your face in it, even the ones you couldn’t have anyway. School, he started with on his first visit, how’s all that, then? I said what I liked and what I didn’t and he said that was just like he was, Geography, loved it, French, for the birds, Art, what was the point? Everything an agreement, like Rachel and the way she used to drive Chris mad sometimes when he’d be trying to talk and she’d repeat the last few words of all he said. Then there was an outing to one of dad’s awful watering-holes and in came the Vimto with some crack about how budding geographers needed a clear head and this stuff would sort me out. Next time he was round and I found myself becoming Prudence, it was school again and I immediately thought of the science lessons, the labs, all that writing down, what we did, what we observed, what we concluded. Method and evidence. Try it now, I told myself. So when he asked how the studies were going I said, thinking about it, if there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s Geography, and he said that could have been him speaking, what do you need to know beyond your own world and your own place in it? I love Art, though, I said and he said Art was gear and if there was one thing he loved it was a good painting, like the ones you saw in Woolworth’s, a Spanish donkey or a woman with a jug on her head. I had it in mind to say I love Maths and I hate it but what further proof did I need of his caper? Then on the next expedition to a pub he came bearing the sacred Vimto and saying something about it was for the dusky lady’s jug, which made one of the other kids ask if he was mental and he said, no, just in love and they giggled and one pointed at me and said, Christ, not with her? and he just twinkled and vanished and left me to face them, if I’d said Christ out loud in public it would have been mum’s hand at the back of my head. Same with boys. So who do you fancy? he said at our first wash-up, making long, long work of a side-plate and I’d say no-one and he flicked my arm with the cloth and said, ah, go on, bet you do. Next time I had someone at the ready, well, two people in one, Neil Hughes a couple of years above me who was really nice and good at sport and Graham Bentley who was in my year and a whiz at Art, so I mixed them together but I didn’t give a name, I thought it best not to. But even as I was talking about him, well, them as him, I thought I might have been saying too much and I was right or I guessed I was, well, I was sure I was from the way that he reacted. A look like thunder then like dismay and then kind of sorrowful. He could have been Mrs Appleby, our sort of head of girls, the one you were meant to go to if you were having private problems, not that they were private for long, mouth like Blackpool Tunnel she had. Now, he says, I was just funning when I asked you before, but, Prudence, you’re far too young, there’ll be time enough for all that, boys and such, and won’t you know it. Then it was like he shut his face up and the thunder vanished with the rest and he twinkled and said, I won’t breathe a word and nodded his head back towards the living-room, where the paper was rattling and the glasses were tinkling their way out from behind the bar. And it was like mum and dad were twenty miles away, even though I could hear them, and each time after, when he took as long as God’s beard with the crockery, it was like they were another twenty miles off again. I can see now. I can see it’s all grist to the mill. You say you like this and then say you don’t, you say you fancy a boy and then say you don’t, you say anything at all, and they’ll say, well, that’s what she told me, her being all butter-wouldn’t-melt, playing games, leading on. And of course the other stuff started early and kept pace with the rest. Tickle, tickle, Prudence, he’d say, and I knew we were done with just words. The flick of the cloth became a flick across the chest which became a hand on the arm which became a nudge of the leg which finally became a finger. Now Prudence, don’t you be thinking about the other boys. But it wasn’t particular boys he meant, not even the boys in my year or our street, no, he was pushing the very idea of them into the shadows, getting himself out front. Like I say, he loved his shadows. And the finger would travel and soon enough a mate joined it. Tickle, tickle. I remembered when Georgie visited one time, just after she’d met Richie, and I overheard her and mum having a good old giggle over what Richie said about how the blokes on the base would try it on with the local girls (‘But not him’ Georgie said, more than once) and about how, in Richie’s words, the blokes had Roman hands and Russian fingers. Alex’s roamed and rushed, all right. It probably excited him, the notion of mum and dad only a couple of doors away, but then again he was a fast worker all round, because one time mum came in for something and his hand was back round the cloth round a saucer in a trice. First time I was struck all of a heap and stop it, stop it was on the tip of my tongue but it never came out and I tried to move away but he moved too and I moved again but I could only do it so much because after that I’d have had to climb onto the draining-board. Same game the times after and he’d keep the chat going and somehow so would I because I thought, maybe there’ll be a last question and I’ll give the last right answer and he’ll just stop. Or maybe he’ll think I can’t feel him, that I’m making like there’s not enough for him to be felt, and he’ll throw down the cloth and go in and tell mum and dad, lovely meal, thanks ever so, but I have to go and he’ll tell his mates that his gaffer’s daughter’s a real ice maiden and get roaming and rushing elsewhere. But saying stop would have stopped nothing. I tried thinking of Neil Hughes and how I wouldn’t mind him doing all that but then I thought, no, I don’t want anyone doing that, not just yet, maybe not ever. I asked mum if I could wear my jeans for the next visit but she said not on your nelly, guests for a meal means doing things properly. I thought of speaking to Mrs Appleby but that would have meant a whole school hooting and falling about like the kids in that smelly room when he called me Prudence. So I just stood there. God help me, I just did. And it was a blessed relief any time a visit coincided with Georgie coming home for a day or two off. Those times he’d give the lot a quick spit and polish and be out of the kitchen before you could say, well, Woolworth’s donkey. Maybe he thought at least there’s me to fall back on if no headway was forthcoming with her, which there wouldn’t be, because quite apart from the fact of Richie we were all in the hall one time saying our goodnights to Alex and Georgie turned away behind mum and dad and caught my eye and rolled hers. And then she inevitably brought Richie over and dad must have told Alex and invited him too but then he reported back and it was, sorry, no show from the lad this time, he says an old friend’s passing through. But that didn’t throw him for other visits. Finally he got his finger in. Tickle, tickle. A dead awkward angle and I didn’t help by not moving. Some might call it standing your ground, not giving him the satisfaction of a response, but it was nothing to do with thinking, it wasn’t another school lab experiment. How can you think when you’re frozen and scared and all alone? When the nearest to thought you can get is to feel that it must be happening to someone else a million miles away and somehow it’s got mixed up with you right there with a spoon in your hand? Scraped his bloody nail getting in and his nails weren’t like a film star’s, that’s for sure, I’d have thought mum would have noticed and had a quiet word with dad about that but maybe she thought, mucky nails, honest toil and let it go. Stung like billy-o, it did. No, more than that. You can draw a sting and the red goes. It was like he’d emptied me out and that finger was the whole size of me. Then there was mum’s voice in the hall and she was opening and closing the cabinet with the phone on top and saying, well if it isn’t here I’m blessed if I know where it would be. Out comes the finger and he dunks it in the suds like I was dirt on it. That’s it then, I thought, hoped, when I came back to myself, he’s hit his target for now, please God forever. Silly sod, me. But in fact he didn’t turn up for a while after that, nor at the pubs, and mum and dad didn’t mind overmuch because there was Mr. O’Byrne to think about. I could say it was Mr O’Byrne’s fault, what happened after, and I did think it at the time, but even then I knew it was daft. The O’Byrnes lived across the street and along a bit and Mr O’Byrne had a clerical job but he was a dab hand at all sorts and got to helping dad out with the car repairs. A miracle-worker, dad called him, on account of being round there one day and watching him take a mantel-clock to complete bits, even the gilt off the casing, which of course was dad all over, his love of exaggeration, but still, everything came out and was arranged perfectly on a newspaper and Mr O’Byrne cleaned and oiled each bit like you’d bathe a baby (dad again) and put it all back together sweet as a nut. Not one piece left over, not a screw or spring, which in dad’s view separated Mr O’Byrne from every other fiddler and fettler on the planet, himself included. Dad said he was a cut above, that he had a saint’s touch, which was more than exaggeration, actually a bit poetical for him, but that was perhaps the result of exposure to Mr O’Byrne’s patter, the old blarney. If he came round and saw me, he’d start on with some old Irish song ‘Saint Theresa of the Roses’, only he’d change it to Helena, or ‘She Moved Through the Fair’, which he never sang all the way through except the once, him and dad coming back from the pub one summer’s night, everyone’s windows open, till Mrs O’Byrne collared him at their garden gate with ‘I’ll be moving ye through the fair in a box, ye goon.’ Lovely voice, he had, though not for gone eleven of a weeknight in the street. Mrs O’Byrne made the loveliest deep pancakes, hot cakes she called them, and insisted we all call her Caitlin. Older than mum and dad, they were, and I think they had one of each but they’d left home an age before. Then Mr O’Byrne retired and out of the blue they were packing up. Going home as Caitlin put it. Westport, home was, County Mayo. They kept in touch, though, and mum and dad said more than once that a holiday over there was on the cards. But then it wasn’t because Caitlin phoned one night sometime after Alex had fetched up on the scene and the next thing was that mum and dad were dusting off their mourning wear and arranging for me to be farmed out to Mrs Pooley, a widow two houses down. Very end of April 1969, that was, and mum and dad had decided that it wouldn’t be seemly just to go for Mr O’B’s funeral and shoot straight back so I suppose you could say that they got an Irish holiday of sorts. Anyway, a week they were gone, and it was half-way through the week, the Spring bank holiday Monday, in fact, that I remembered I didn’t have my gym kit for next day. The house was all locked up but I had a key. Mrs Pooley offered to come back with me, like it was a hundred miles away, but she probably had visions of me waltzing back with the front door still wide open. Bless her. I could have said yes. And I could say it was my gym kit’s fault. Well, it could have helped by being where I thought it was, or in the second most likely place, or third or fourth. But what am I saying except it was my fault really? Hark at me, pinning it on myself. That’s all part and parcel, though, isn’t it? You think it’s all down to you. If you’d been here not there, if such-and-such hadn’t happened then but a bit before or a bit after. But it isn’t all that, it’s what Richie calls it, dumb luck. Anyway, I wasn’t all that untidy then, unlike Georgie, who created clothes-bombs all over the place, so you’d think things were simpler now she’d gone. But the kit wasn’t in its usual drawer or in the one above or the one to the side or the wardrobe. By then I was into the where-did-you-last-see-it? bit where you try and think clearly but know that from then on you’ll just go dipping in any old place. I wondered if mum had put it in with some of her stuff by mistake, which wasn’t likely, and I wasn’t keen on riffling through her smalls and hangers but I gave it a go. No joy, of course, though at least I had enough presence of mind to get her things looking as I’d found them. I should have looked in the scullery soon as I came in because that’s where mum kept the stuff-for-the-iron basket but I was sure as sure the kit was ready and put away because mum had got me into the way of ironing my school stuff and I was convinced I had. I nearly didn’t look there, I was heading for the door with some lame excuse forming for Miss Aldridge, our tartar of a PE teacher, when ‘scullery’ popped into my head and chased out the realisation that I’d left the front door ajar in my rush, so instead of shutting it I nipped round the corner of the kitchen door and sure enough there was a pile of stuff in the ironing basket, well, you couldn’t blame mum, all the preparations for Ireland, she’d had her hands full and decided that whatever was in the basket would keep. Not too much in there but I could see an arm of my gym-blouse hanging out and I found the skirt just under. My pumps were lined up in the hall so I suppose at some point I must have told myself to remember to take my kit to Mrs Pooley’s but anyway, job done at last, and I remember having a quick look through the living-room window as I headed for the front door and thinking, oh, sun’s going, could be rain but it’s only a short sprint to Mrs P’s if it comes on. And I remember I’d put all the kit in a Mac Fisheries bag, the only one I could find, and it didn’t smell of fish at all but the very name made you think it would, or should, but again, I thought, no distance to Mrs P’s, she’ll have a better bag because she swore by that new Tesco’s that had opened near us. Late afternoon it was by then, going on five, and I thought, any minute now I’ll see Mrs P at the front door checking all was well. But she’d probably gone out in her garden when I said I’d be ok, especially if this was the last of the sun, toast of the street her garden was, neighbours helped when they could, dad sorted a rockery for her. Funny what you remember. Funny what glues itself to a time and a place. When the cravat gentlemen in Trish’s group read about Dauntless Dougie, his uncle or godfather, there was one bit where he said Dougie could throw his cassock over his head, shoot his cuffs and scoop up his prayer book in one unbroken move. Like a running tide, he said the man was. That was pretty much the way of it when I checked I had the house keys and reached to pull open the front door – the door pushed wide, me knocked off balance, the Mac Fisheries bag flying, the door shut, my kit on the floor, his voice saying, ah, thought you’d dress up special for me, nice, nice, me dragged along the living-room carpet kicking and pummelling, then his hand on my face, other hand clamping my legs, my head banging against the corner of the little bar, stuff clinking and rattling, him pulling and grunting, me trying to lift and punch, his hand down double-hard on my mouth, the chill where my knickers had been, his knees squashing the inside of my legs, me with no help in the world, him sort of in, tears in my eyes and my stomach on fire, him in for certain, me bone dry, his johnny like rubber cable, me splitting in bits, him slobbering, me scared and mad and scared and mad and his hand like a vice but me still trying to get the screams out, for mum, for dad, for Georgie, still making their names against his bony fingers, his long man-cry like I’d actually been one big bloody disappointment, the weight off, the no-knickers chill again, my eyes tight shut, the sound of stumbling, something bumped into, a quick ‘oh, fuck me’, the front door opened and slammed. I lay there for an age. All I could think of was how disgraceful it was, me with my knickers down in our living-room, me almost damaging the little bar that mum had set her heart on ever since she saw the spit of it in the corner of the dining-room at that hotel in Dawlish. Then I got up and, slow as a snail, moved but couldn’t feel myself, watched but couldn’t feel my hands as they got me together, folded my gym stuff and put it back in the Mac Fisheries bag, checked that nothing was broken in the little bar. Watched but couldn’t feel my feet as they got me from here to there, smoothed down the pile of the carpet, got me round to what Alex had stumbled into, the hall cabinet. Watched but couldn’t feel my hands again as they pushed it back against the wall and put the phone right and checked that all was tidy inside, as first one hand then the other went to the back of my head where it had hit the corner of the bar. Waited, as you might say, for them to tell me it was wet there, sticky, or a bruise was starting. Nothing, my hands said. But there could have been everything. How would I know with feeling gone? Of course I checked and re-checked a score of times later, angled my hand-mirror in front of the mirror in the room Mrs P had put me in. Just a bit of tenderness and a throbbing that was gone by the night. That was luck at least. Thank God for thick hair. Like I thought, Mrs P was in her garden when I got back. I lifted the bag and managed a thumbs-up and she called that there were some Tesco bags behind the kitchen door if I wanted something roomier. I sort of nodded because blood was on my mind again and I should have checked earlier but I just wanted to get away from the house and a few seconds later I was sat on the edge of her bath with my knickers off and loo roll at the ready. I hadn’t felt anything but then I wouldn’t have, running back to beat the band, to get in safe at Mrs P’s before my legs gave way. A mercy that there was just spotting, well, I say, just, there was one ugly dark patch but at least it wasn’t a river, still, that was those knickers gone for a burton so I rolled them up tight as tight and put them in the Mac Fisheries bag to get rid of on the way to school. Mrs P called up that she was just popping to see Mrs Maidment, another lonely lady, widow for longer than Mrs P, a bit younger too, according to mum, but Mrs P was a spring chicken compared to Mrs M which was why she looked in now and then to see if there was anything Mrs M wanted. Steak and kidney pie and veg when she got back, she called, so could I set the table? I got myself sorted as best I could and went to sit on the bed. Finding things weren’t a calamity down there started to bring feeling back properly. And thinking. Of course he knew mum and dad were away. Dad would have genned him up on their current jobs and probably let slip that I wouldn’t be going. At a neighbour’s, I could hear him saying in his airy, hail-fellow way, few doors down, and just as well – what’s the betting our Helen’ll have to nip back for something? Her own head, as like as not. And so he’d been waiting, maybe all weekend, blending in like some spy, watching like he seemed to watch the landing window when he came round for meals. Ah, there she goes, I imagined him saying at those times, there’s my Prudence on the landing, and his ring of the bell would be full of what I’d had dished out that afternoon. Downstairs I laid the table extra-neat like that was something I could put between me and the afternoon. I thought of some of the girls in my class, old campaigners they were, even at that age, talking at lunchtimes about when they’d had it and who with. I’d say sometimes they’d got caught like me but they were fly beyond their years and I’ll bet they turned it around, took control. I tried to imagine myself talking to myself that way, tricking myself into the cool and easy, oh yes, me too. Tried to place all that alongside the neatness of the knives and forks, the glasses and the squash, another bit of distance. I knew it wouldn’t work but it kept my mind busy. Well, they got exactly what they wanted, those girls, which wasn’t the sharp corner of a bar and bloody knickers in a Mac Fisheries bag. Marathon tomorrow, is it? Mrs P asked when we were eating and I smiled and said long jump and sprints, weather permitting. She started on about what they had to wear when she was a girl, PT they called it, near enough boots and overcoat compared to what girls could wear now. But netball was her favourite, she said, and she wasn’t half bad though she said it herself. Nifty at tennis, too, fancied herself as another Helen Wills Moody, whoever she was. I was glad she was off on one. All I had to do was nod now and then and say, yes, lovely pie. The rest of the time I was like when the telly shut down at night and you just had that high-pitched noise. Just at one point I wondered if I’d got everything as it should be in the hall cabinet. But that was it. I knew exactly what he was banking on and I didn’t disappoint. I told no-one. By the time mum and dad came back I’d pieced myself together, so to speak, as the girl they’d said goodbye to. It was a sight harder back then, out and saying, not like with the girls today though it costs them dear enough, poor scraps. I suppose I imagined the worst. Dad was out of the question, though I loved him a bundle and I’d called for him with the others against that bony hand. Mum would be tender and horrified but maybe the horror wouldn’t all go where it should. I could imagine her reminding me at some point of the time I’d wanted to wear jeans for an Alex meal, seeing that in a new light. Oh, yes, wants to show off what’s coming, wants to be like big sis. Maybe a score of other little things would add themselves to that and bring her to a verdict. I’d been hurt but I’d been stupid and the stupid trumped the hurt. Plus there’d be, now don’t you tell a soul, which would be all about shame and I felt that as it was, plenty of it, far more than spots on a pair of knickers. Georgie would have been the best bet in other circumstances but she was gone, she wasn’t in my world any more, she was all her job and Richie and the big life. And anyway, she might have taken her own version of mum’s line, which, God knows, I’ve taken enough with Rachel. Giving off vibes, they say now, though she’d have had her own words. Were you trying something on without knowing it, Helen? Making out something you hadn’t a clue you were making out? What could I have said to that? What are you supposed to do? Lock yourself away? And anyway, I wasn’t, I know I wasn’t. I didn’t ask for him to be at the dishcloth. I didn’t beg for the finger. So yes, I imagined the worst, but maybe too that was a way of protecting myself from what I felt I just couldn’t do anyway. Say it out loud. Find the words that didn’t in any way make me sound like a tease or a scrubber. I wondered what Alex was imagining. Nothing much, I guessed, except that he’d scored but I was a bit of a crap shag so he’d have to gild the lily when he and his mates got into bragging. Chris used to have this daft little game with his soldiers. For ages there was a hole in the hallway skirting board round where a heating-pipe came down. His nibs finally sorted it but till then Chris used to set up his battles there, his offensives, and the side that lost a soldier down the hole lost the whole war. Except that he made sure he never lost one because it was all about symbolism, notional loss, his words, he’d swallowed his dictionary by then. So a soldier’s head over the hole meant peril for that side but shoulders over meant defeat and no messing. One time, though, a soldier landed half-and-half, like that van on the cliff at the end of The Italian Job. I think I was outside, pruning or some such. Easy-peasy just to slide the soldier back gently by its feet or that funny little plastic stand they all had, and that’s just what Chris’d been about to do, he told me, when Rachel comes tripping down the stairs, sees what’s what, rushes over and flicks it down the hole. He didn’t get in a strop with her, he didn’t cry. I’ve never known a child to cotton on so quick about satisfaction and how not to give it. But there it was, gone. I think that’s what I did with that afternoon, as time passed, as another term went by and we sprinted and high-jumped and took our exams. Eased the soldier to halfway over the hole, looked at it and flicked it to its death. As for Alex, he didn’t turn up for work half the time after mum and dad got back, maybe more than half, and dad got narked and mum got anxious and then he phoned with a tale about some family illness, all looking pretty bad, and vamoosed. * By the time I’d finished thinking it all through I found I’d gone past our house and was on the main road, nearly at my bus stop. That put the wind up me, not so much missing our house as remembering how I’d felt the night of the writers’ meeting, after the drink with Trish, when I’d stepped off the bus and straight into whatever wanted to get me. No, not whatever, no point pussyfooting. Mr Patience. I didn’t dash back to the house like I had that night but I took it pretty smartish. In the living room I saw the album exactly as I’d left it only now I wouldn’t have been surprised if the sticker under that photo from the Seven Stars had changed itself to New Year’s 1969, Dad and his apprentice, Alex Kinsella, tickle, tickle. But I didn’t look, I just took my cup through to the kitchen and chucked out the last of tea and washed it and turned it upside down on the drainer and stared at it. That bit of fancy about the sticker turned my thoughts another way. Mrs Barton had brought the album round yesterday. I don’t know the ins and outs of international post. Stuff from Georgie just arrives when it arrives, like mine to her, but let’s say the album reached this country by Wednesday and then hung about a bit. Wednesday night was the writers’ meeting, Wednesday night was the retro bloke at the side of the hall with his greyish shapeless effort and his face in the gloaming. Carnaby Alex come back from the mists in the hold of a plane. And Carnaby Alex having a savage go at my field and my church before I got to them that same night, gouging, blizzarding, tearing down the ivy, stripping off the leaves till there was just the one clump to hide that terrified little bird. If anyone had told me a story like that before I’d have said God help us, you’re proper gone out. But it made sense to me right then, staring down at the drainer, at the maker’s doo-dad on the bottom of the cup. And it seemed to me that, though I could never have known it, he was part of why I’d found my world in the first place, my field and its butterfly snow and my old church with its wall and its trees, and why I’d needed to. And now he’d done for them and had taken about as long over it as he had over me with his hands and his grunting and his cable-rubber johnny. I was half way through thinking, well, at least he used one but I scotched that. I wasn’t giving him everything. Of a sudden there’s his nibs in the kitchen and just in? he asks and I realise I’ve still got my coat on. He starts on about his chat with the head coach, the new ground for their team, how the coach is all for it but he has his doubts now he knows which one it is, near the valley on the far side of town, low-level, possible flood-risk, and anyway he’s sure he read somewhere that the conservation bods were bidding to have it zoned off to encourage this and that to come there, which would make sense since that stretch of valley’s wild enough and without thinking I start to talk, so for a bit the kitchen’s full of the cons about the new ground and the Seven Stars on New Year’s Day 1969 and Alex’s first couple of meals with us and how he hopped to it with the wash-up without being asked. And then his nibs stopped and let me talk how I hadn’t meant to except I’d been through it all to myself round to the playing fields and past our house and nearly down to the bus stop where he’d been waiting on Wednesday night, Carnaby Alex, having skedaddled there after the writers’ do had broken up and while Trish and me were raising our first glass in the bar, and since I’d been through it all to myself I just couldn’t stuff it back into my mind unsaid or deep in my heart like some of those posh debs who get all deceived and horrified in my murder mysteries. Why didn’t you tell me all this before? He didn’t say that, fair play to him. Instead he put the kettle on and then started to unbutton my coat with one hand and stroke my arm with the other till, bless him, he stepped back like he suddenly thought he was doing what he shouldn’t and I started blinking, harder and harder the more my eyes stung, and I got hold of his hand and guided it back to the buttons still waiting. That made for a complete silence till I said about the hole round the heating pipe and Chris’s game of soldiers, which he nodded at, and how Rachel had put the kibosh on it that one time, which he shook his head at, and how I’d copied her if he saw what I meant and done it pretty bloody well, too, till the album and the Seven Stars photo knocking the breath out of me like the front door had that afternoon. So I suppose I answered what he didn’t ask. When he’d got me settled with a tea at the kitchen table he went through to the hall. I heard him talking to the head coach, cancelling what was apparently meant as a surprise for me that evening, a meal with the coach and his wife at that pub they’ve just reopened near the farm shop, top chef, rave reviews. I got myself ready to start feeling bad but then realised I didn’t have to, I’d done all that kind of feeling, that game was played out. It was nice, though, to hear him say how about next Saturday evening instead and it must have been all right because he said good good good in that quick way he has which used to get on Rachel’s nerves and of course he’d add another ‘good’ each time she complained. Down goes the phone and I check to see if there’s another tea in the pot for him but he doesn’t come back and I’ll bet he’s looking at the album, that photo, and he starts his sort of breathy whistling which always means he’ll be an age with whatever he’s about. So I go drifting, back to Rachel this time. Wondering if something like that ever happened to her and if that explains her rigmarole, get a bloke keen and treat him like dirt. If that’s her way of dealing with it, though, it’s too sad for words because, for one, it’s like she’s getting it all back in her head each time she gives a bloke the push and, for two, she’s probably lost any number of good ‘uns that way, especially if they were like the ones we met. I hope some prime catch sweeps her off her feet, said Georgie’s note, before she can open her mouth. You know your niece a treat, Georgie. She can’t not open it. I should really talk to Rachel. I’m not my mum though they say that’s who daughters always turn into. But not me, not for this. Maybe if I mug up a bit on human-facing management and a few facts about West Hampstead, that’ll get her off guard. Then his nibs is in the kitchen doorway and Kinsella, you say? he asks and I nod and notice the time on the clock and make to get up, hoping I’ve remembered to defrost those drumsticks but he bends down and gets me back in the chair and tops up my tea and says how about a Chinese? which sounds lovely because the Golden Boat on the main road’s just gone under new management and it’s a hundred times better than before. Good good good, he says and kisses the top of my head and I can feel my eyes come on to stinging even more and he kisses me again and finds the Boat’s menu and puts it by my arm and tells me to take my time. Then he’s off to the phone again and this time it sounds like he’s calling one of his colleagues because it’s pauses and then his hmm-hmm-hmm, like his good good good, so I can tell he’s jotting stuff down. And I realised something. Not once did I say to him I’d rather try to forget it now because not once did I say it to myself. It’s like whatever the reverse of the law of diminishing returns is, which is another hot catchphrase with our kid of a manager when all he means is some this-week-only dodge from head office didn’t work and their new dodge is double the rubbish, but of course he’d never actually say that because what head office comes up with is holy writ so the fault must lie in another quarter, which is another of his faves. Doubling, yes, let’s call it that, the law of doubling returns. I know you’ll never tell, said every finger of the hand on my face, every grunt, every push. But I told it clear through to myself on my walk, start to finish. I shook his hiding-place loose, you might say. And it fell to bits when I found myself telling his nibs. So I suppose what I’m saying is that, sitting there with the last of the tea, hearing his pauses and hmm-hmms, I proper astonished myself. I didn’t want anything to diminish. Double away, I said to myself, and I raised my cup in a toast. And after that I made a lovely choice from the Boat menu, for him too, well, no choice as such there because I knew he’d say the usual, and I walked through the living room and squeezed his shoulder where he was sat on the sofa with a note-pad and I went to phone in the order and I said, yes, half an hour will be fine, and then, almost without thinking, I phoned Trish. A one-hour Poirot on the telly that evening and then, just in time, another channel for a full-length Morse. And we make the Chinese last nearly all of it, sitting side by side on the sofa, him squeezing me now and then, taking up my fork hand, which I’d usually get ratty about, say something about, oh yes, and who has to get the covers cleaned? But not this time and he even takes the containers to the kitchen once we’re all done and I can hear him washing them out and that’s love, laugh if you like. I don’t push him about the call to his workmate and he doesn’t say because he’ll tell me in his own time and anyway this is simple and safe, right now, like Mrs Pooley’s house, and I want it to stay as such. And that night he doesn’t mutter or thrash about, he holds me like he used to in the days that turned out to be Rachel coming. And it’s breakfast all sorted next morning, eggs and toast at the ready when I come into the kitchen. As we’re finishing up he starts rubbing the backs of his hands which always means he’s about to get serious with either DIY or the laptop. So, Kinsella, he says and goes into the living-room and in a bit, sure enough, I can hear the tapping on the keys and those little wind-bell noises that tell you something’s leading somewhere. About half an hour later, after I’d done the wash up and got myself ready to face the world, he called me to come and sit with him at the living-room table. He had the laptop in front of him and the note-pad at his elbow with a list on it. Business sites, it turned out, Link-this-and-that, Find a Tradesman, most all of them crossed out except for one. He’d got them from his mate, he said, and, ok, he could have found them himself but the mate was more on the commercial insurance side and had them at his fingertips. As I got myself proper comfy he gave me a look that was sort of worried and chuffed together. Then he angled the laptop my way and I saw the name along the top of the screen, Sunlight At Your Service, the one he hadn’t crossed off, and the site was about Port Sunlight, civic amenities in that part of the Wirral, tradesmen and what-have-you. The page he’d got to was a list of electricians in the area. And there he was between a Kinross and a Kinsey. Go on, says his nibs and pushes the mouse my way. So I clicked him. Well, he’d already been through it himself because he pointed at this and that but mainly he just let me look. So, then. Mr Patience had scuttled back home, near enough, and done alright for himself too because Port Sunlight’s on the posh side. Looked like he’d had his page done professionally or got a son to do it or a grandson because that’s the joke these days, isn’t it, how they’re all born to it while the old ‘uns look on all baffled. Logo very fancy, A and K intertwined with a plug rising up between them like the head of a snake, which said it all. Halfway down was a list of where he’d been for his trade and when, reverse order, and his nibs scrolled it slowly so it was like the credits at the end of a film. Just as well I wasn’t drinking tea when he got to the bottom or I’d have splattered a mouthful all over everywhere. 1968-1969: Lead Technician, William Mostyn, Electrics and Mechanics, Biddulph, Staffordshire. For a moment there I was madder than that afternoon had ever made me. Lead technician was bad enough but putting it before my dad’s name and having the entry there at all, like my poor trusting dad was just a rung on his ladder, that was the old tin lid. I know, tradesfolk have to do it, everyone does and the truth of such lists might be a case of more or less. I’d give anything to see what fairy-tales our kid of a manager smuggled in on his cv. Still and all. I think that entry decided me. His nibs said nothing, then or after, but that was showing love again, daft though it sounds. He’d found him, he’d sort of brought him to me. Now, as you might say, the man was mine. Probably he’d had to do some scrabbling in his time, who didn’t? but the screen said he’d done all right, maybe wasn’t working at all or not much, because what would he be now, late sixties? easily that. Probably had chaps under him, son or sons, at any rate blokes who worked an honest day and didn’t just clear off after they’d dealt with a kerfuffle in their trousers. You’d hope. No photo of him, thankfully, but an email and phone and house address. Playford Way. Come out to play. Dear Prudence. Power. That’s what I felt out of nowhere. Never in all this world did I think I’d feel it about that afternoon. And his nibs not saying a word, just putting it in front of me like a box of chocolates with the lid off, that made it all the stronger. No, not power, that’s a bloke’s word. So’s control. Let’s say possibilities, possibilities at my fingers’ ends, arranged like that, no, arrayed, that’d give poeting Trish a run for her money. Because the story isn’t meant to end like this, is it? It’s meant to end with oh, all a long time ago and it was different back then and bit late to be dredging it up, look at the age of you, and anyway, your word against his. Which he might say, probably would, in his older voice, maybe full of years of beer and fags, if I phoned him, or with lots of exclamation marks and dot-dot-dots if I emailed him, or with eyes like razors and a good showing of his tribe round him, wife included, on the door-step at Playford Way. Or maybe not wife included, maybe he’s a widower or divorced two, three times over. A maintenance-man. Or just, I never did, it didn’t happen, you know you, you’re a liar, missus, money is it? You don’t want to come it with me. Prick-tease to end them all, you were. But all that, it doesn’t matter. In one of those Easter poems I dip into, the devotional ones, the quill-merchant efforts, there’s the line ‘I see you as you stand.’ That’s where it all comes from, they come from, the possibilities, the tingle at the ends of my fingers as you might say. I see him as he stands and he hasn’t a clue I see him, he’s bat-blind. I could be walking up behind him, he wouldn’t know. I could be stepping in front of him in a park. I could be pushing open his front door when someone forgot to close it, one of the grandkids, someone the age I was when it was the Mac Fisheries bag and Mrs Pooley saying PT. Yes. I can choose my time, tomorrow, next week, you name it, to lift the phone or get his nibs to crank up the laptop or shake the travel-rug and check the mileage from here to there. Or all of same. Choice and possibilities. I should write that on a scrap of paper, shove it under our kid of a manager’s nose and say, there you are, Sonny-Jim, this month’s slogan, I’ve worked out my commission. And the smile his nibs gave me when he closed the laptop, it said I know, I see you see him. Person of interest located, as Morse’s Lewis might say. Whatever you want. Whenever you like. Nothing, everything. Come lunchtime he says, never mind waiting for next Saturday, how about giving that refurbished pub a dry run now? Trish phoned back as we were getting our coats on. She’d already got hold of the motherly sort, who was delighted and said of course, of course I could read at the next meeting, a couple of folk would be away so no problem with a slot. Any time now Georgie will email his nibs or phone when it’s midnight there and cockcrow here and ask. Did it get there safely? What did I think? All our yesterdays, eh? Famn damilies, as Richie would say. I’ll have to look through it to the end. When I feel able. Or maybe she’ll write, she’s one of the few who still go for letters. That’ll be better. Give me time to work out what I want to say. Because, I mean, after telling myself all through on that walk and telling his nibs, it’s only right that she should know, certainly before he does, with his Carnaby years long gone, jabbing his finger into my face on the doorstep at Playford Way. His old finger now, maybe his arthritic finger, good for not much except, as you might say, tickling the air. But I wouldn’t want Georgie to feel bad, to feel like she’d stirred things up by sending the album. Awoken them. Thanks, Trish. So I’ll be careful. In fact I might not say a dicky bird to her yet. There’ll be time to say it in the best way it could be said. Choice again. Possibilities. The refurbished pub’s lovely. Tasty savoury biscuits for afters and it turns out they sell them, they sell all sorts, some deal with the farm shop, so I got a packet to take over to Trish’s next Friday night. I’ll have to see what wine our kid of a manager’s pushing at the moment, too, and if it’s anything less than that Vasse I’ll diminish his returns. Speaking of Trish, when she phoned back she was full of oh, Helen, let me hear it next Friday night, what you’re going to read. A dialogue of trespass, I nearly said, but to be honest I don’t know what it might be. I might not even have anything for Friday night. I’ll need to take my time. It won’t be the whole kit and caboodle, obviously. But maybe something that says without saying, which seems to be what gets a lot of writers in a holy fizz. Elliptical intimations, to pinch his nibs’ phrase. I know I said I didn’t want to write my world down. But maybe, how things are, it could be a way to get it back. Or start to. So something about a field with deep gouges but where snow-butterflies are already dipping about, against the time the ground levels itself up. Or a churchyard with one streak of ivy already on the wall and leaves enough on the trees, and birds enough among them. The End November-December 2018.
The Jerusalem HotelChapter I: Home At Last
Even though he wasn’t born there and had never visited, Adam always felt a Palestinian at heart. His parents had immigrated to Canada as a young couple just one year before the 1967 war, before the fall of East Jerusalem to the ‘yahood’ Jews, before a million Palestinian were forced to flee for their life to become refugees scattered all across the globe. But not his parents, they had escaped all of this. They were already in Canada when the rest of Palestine was lost. They had left Palestine, a newly wed couple in search of a better life, in search of a dream, a new promised land, a land far away from all the troubles of the Middle East. They were no different than the millions of immigrants from around the world that had made the move to North America. Except they were his parents, and it was his beloved Palestine that they left behind. They left it for a new promised land. In their place came the Jews in search of a historic promised land. Adam thought of his parents as cowards and never forgave them for willingly leaving Palestine. For him not only he was denied a homeland, but to make it worst, he couldn’t call himself a refugee like other Palestinians in exile. Even though he barely spoke Arabic, he told everyone he was a Palestinian. ‘Ana falastini aeish fi kanada,’ he would always say in his broken Arabic, I’m a Palestinian living in Canada. And so it was that as soon as he finished his university studies, he booked a one-way ticket to Palestine via Amman as Palestine had no airports and so he had to enter by Allenby Bridge from Jordan to Israel. ‘I’m studying international law to help Palestine,’ he was often heard saying through his university years. Before leaving Canada, he arranged to volunteer for Al Haq, a Palestinian NGO that specializes in monitoring Israeli violations of international law. His parents tried everything to convince him to abandon his crazy plans. How could you waste your career volunteering? You can get the best job here! How is Palestine going to help you? No one can fight the ‘yahood’. They even control all of America. They tried everything. They wondered ‘where did he get those ideas about Palestine?’ They knew better. They knew that their youngest son was doing what they really wanted most, but also what they feared most. Adam himself was not afraid. Well, maybe a little worried of what to expect and on how he was going to react when he sees Israeli soldiers walking around with their machine guns, smug, arrogant and entitled. But when he boarded the plane, he felt at peace. He was finally going home. He wanted to live in Jerusalem, and in particular in the old city, something told him that this is where he belonged. He found a small room in a boarding house in the Armenian Quarter, owned by an Armenian woman, Ayda. Three years on, he was still living there. Ayda usually rented out three rooms to pilgrims on short-term bases but she made an exception for Adam. Ayda was in her sixties, had never married, and had no children so she treated Adam like family. She gave him reduced rates, stating between heavy buffs on her cigarette, ‘I give you discount only because you live here for a long time and never trash the place like those damn religious nuts.’ In truth he couldn’t afford to pay anymore and she knew that. She loved having him there and he loved being there. The house, like all houses in the Armenian quarter, was old yet solidly built from thick mud walls and a beautiful white limestone exterior, the signature of Jerusalem. His room had a window with a thick cushioned ledge. Outside the window, an exuberant vine tree somehow created a perfect frame from which the sun could shine. Adam often would sit on that ledge drinking his Arabic coffee and listening to Ayda complaining about her boarders. The warmth of the gentle sunrays of a Jerusalem spring morning, peeking through the glass and the vine leafs, is something he will always feel in the deepest places of his soul. His everyday commute to the small Al Haq office in Bethlehem was always painful, always full of images of Palestinians waiting on the checkpoint, of Israeli soldiers stopping young and old refusing them entry to Jerusalem. Some would have too much pride to show any emotions and would just silently turn back, others would openly cry. Jerusalem was only a ten-minute drive for them, but most had lived their entire adult lives without once getting a permit. While Adam’s foreign passport let him travel freely, others were imprisoned in their own city. The silently turning back locals was an image that would haunt him all his life On the days when the Bethlehem checkpoint was closed and he couldn't commute to his work, he would walk to the nearby Jerusalem Hotel. The hotel was located just outside Damascus gate, not far from the shared taxis to Bethlehem. Its vine-covered courtyard and fast Internet always attracted expats calling back home on Skype in all sorts of languages. The courtyard quickly became his favorite place to write. As a volunteer, Al Haq did not pay him and so his freelance journalism was his only way to make money to pay for rent and food. The background noise in the café helped him write, and having fast internet meant he could Skype with his editors, often living in far away places totally shielded from life in Palestine. With time the staff knew his favorite table and allowed him to sit there all day writing. He would buy one pot of Arabic coffee and sit there writing for hours. The courtyard in the Jerusalem Hotel became his second home. Only on Friday night with the live oud player was he asked to vacate the table to the many local guests that came to listen to the magic of live oud and sing along to old classic songs as they smoked their shisha. As a foreigner, Adam was forced to renew his visa every three months by existing Israel back to Jordan and re-entering. Jordan never interested him, so he would cross the border and immediately turn back. This comfortable existence came to an abrupt end on one of these visa trips. The Israeli border soldier, a curly-haired young blonde who must have been no older than eighteen, stamped 'denied entry' on his Canadian passport when he tried to enter again. This was a merely one hour after he existed. He was given no reason and told that he is now persona non grata. This, to him, was the end of a life long dream of living in Palestine – a forced exile from a homeland he never had. Chapter II: Love At First Sound It was 20 years ago when I first met her. It was on my last day in Palestine, and I didn’t know it then that I would be denied entry on that same day. I had been writing an article for a Canadian online magazine at the Jerusalem Hotel. Usually when I got into my writing groove, the world around me seemed to stop, the background noise helped me write, and tune out from the outside world. At the Jerusalem, Arabic mixed comfortably with English, sometimes other languages, Italians were particularly loud and their laughter would fill the place, and even – but rarely – some Israelis would venture from west Jerusalem to the Hotel. I was planning to cross the border to Jordan to renew my visa, and decided to squeeze in a few hours at the Jerusalem Hotel finishing an article before taking the last shared taxi - Nigme Taxi - to the border at midday. I had been writing for over an hour when the background noise suddenly leaped to the foreground in the form of a French accent. I don’t think it was the accent that made me stop. It was more the way the words came out effortlessly. Poetic. It wasn’t what she was saying. Something else caused her words to come alive and magically separate from the background noise. I needed to look up, see how she looked like, to talk to her, but I knew I had to correctly choose my moment. I waited for the waiter to go and come back with the coffee she had ordered. By then, I had stopped writing and listened to her conversation. She gave a long monologue about a new play she was writing. So she must be a playwright then. If I'd fallen in love with her voice, it was nothing compared how I felt when I looked up and saw her face. She was the splitting image of the ‘Laila Khalid’ poster I had on the wall of my room. I can’t explain it in a more elegant way but she was a walking cliché image of the woman of my dreams. I was, in many ways, seeing her every morning, drinking my coffee on the window ledge, staring at that poster, partially obscured by the shadows of the vine tree. Now she is right here in front of me, a French version of my ‘Laila Khalid’ poster. She was beautiful, and not in a subtle way. She had dark skin with bluish-green eyes. She wore a white-checkered scarf loosely warped around her neck, so as to show a bit of cleavage. She used her hands when she talked like most people from the Mediterranean. I thought she looked Italian, but her accent told me she was French. She must work in one of those NGOs, I thought to myself. I was to leave for the boarder in an hour, but I had this sudden, inexplicable desire to walk up to her table and ask, who are you? Are you a dream? Have you escaped the poster on my wall? Back then I was shy, and so instead of talking to her I just ordered another coffee and tried to go back to my writing, but in reality time had frozen. I was frozen with love, fear, or was it desire? I looked up, and there she was alone staring into the distance. Her companion had left and she was deep in thoughts. Then she suddenly looked directly at me. I was caught staring and I instantly blushed. ‘Hi. I’m Rita, you seem so engrossed in your writing, may I ask what are you writing,’ she asked with a kind smile as if to say ‘don’t be embarrassed’. Now in retrospect, I think she started the conversation to cover for me getting caught red handed – and red faced. In my confusion, I forgot to introduce myself or reply to her question. ‘Can I order you anything?’ I asked. ‘No, thank you, I’ve just had my coffee and I’m about to leave.’ About to Leave! No don’t leave, not yet! I was thinking fast and her words had put me off balance even more. I mumbled something about needing to go to Jordan soon. Again she came to my rescue. ‘I just noticed you writing so passionately. Can I know about what?’ She gave a little smile of entitlement as if it is natural for her to ask a stranger any question she wanted. I told her that I was a lawyer, but wrote in my spare time. I told her about Al Haq, we talked without a sense of time until I realized that I had just missed the last shared Taxi to the border. I'd need to pay the fare for a private taxi now - four times the cost of the shared taxi. I didn’t care. I wanted to hear her voice. I learned that she was half-Palestinian, half-French, born in an African country that no longer existed. She laughed at this fact, and said that both her place of origin and place of birth no longer exist on paper, but only in her heart. She was a playwright living in Ramallah, an expat - like me. She told me of her decision to dedicate her life to Palestine. For her, telling the Palestinian story was all that mattered. ‘Ana mish bint imi, ana bint falastine - I’m not the daughter of my mother. I’m the daughter of Palestine.’ It must have been three hours later before I realized that I had to leave immediately or I would miss my chance to cross the bridge today. I told her that I had to leave. I asked her if we could meet again. ‘Yes. Yes. Here tomorrow,’ she smiled and then she was gone even before me. I quickly paid the 16 shekels for two coffees and hurried to the Nigme Taxi. As expected, I paid four times the cost of a shared taxi for a private one, which somehow took two more people. I was sure each had to pay the full price of a private taxi too! At least I was on my way to the border. I had done this trip many times, and every time I did it I felt sadness as we near the border. Even though I knew I'd be back in the evening. It was that psychological thing of crossing the border to another country, of leaving my beloved Palestine, which made me sad. This time there was more than just sadness. I had this unexplained feeling of emptiness – as if I was the last person on earth. Tears were falling freely on my cheeks, but I only noticed them when I tasted the salt on my lips. Perhaps I was crying over the fleeting love I had just experienced. Perhaps it was the built-up anger from what I'd seen while working for Al Haq over the last few years - from all the injustices I witnessed against my people. I don’t know why, but I cried and cried until I reached the boarder. Luckily I was sitting in the back seat and the two passengers didn’t see my moment of weakness. I think the driver glanced in the mirror but pretended not to notice me crying. I got there with only two hours to spare. I crossed the bridge and I quickly turned back with the next bus. I had to make it before the Israelis closed their borders for the day. There is a silver lining for being late, I thought. At least they can’t make me wait for hours on the border, which is what they did every time I did this trip, four times a year. ‘Security check,’ they would always say. I made it back to the Israeli side half an hour before the border closed. When the 18-year-old looked at the multitude of stamps in my passport and asked me to wait, I knew this meant I would be detained and questioned, as always. They would make me wait, but this time they could only make me wait for thirty minutes, as they too needed to go home. I sat on the bench, reading my book, and waited for the security officer and the familiar routine of meaningless ‘security’ questions. Within a few minutes, the same young woman, who I now have seen three times in one day, appeared with my passport in her hand, which I thought was unusual. Usually the process involved long questioning by at least three officers before I even get a glimpse of my passport. She looked at me with a blank expression, then casually stamped my passport and said in her strong Israeli accent, ‘You have been denied entry to Israel’. ‘Wait, What! Why? I’m a Canadian citizen. We have a reciprocal visa agreement!’ My words were useless. They had stamped my passport persona non grata. I was denied entry to Israel because of my Palestinian background and my work with Al Haq. I felt an urgent need to be in Jerusalem - my small room, the smell of the Armenian sfeha that Ayda used to bake. Is it really possible that I will never again walk at night in the coble-stoned lanes of the old city? And Rita. We just met and I was going to see her tomorrow at the Jerusalem Hotel. Was it by chance that I met Rita, the daughter of Palestine, the living image of the poster in my room? Was it by chance that she was the last person I saw before I was denied access to my homeland? Chapter III: A Chance Encounter Through the years, I have accepted two facts: I will never again visit Palestine, and I will never see Rita. I worked for a big law firm in Canada. I married a Lebanese-Canadian, and had two beautiful daughters. Life goes on, and we adapt. I adapted to join the crowd. No longer was I that young man with the unrealistic dreams of liberating Palestine. In truth, I still had dreams, but they shifted. I had plans to start an NGO. I wanted to call it JOE, short for Justice On Earth. I worked hard saving money, and believed that one day I would create my own NGO. One day, I would change the world. In reality, I was all talk and no action. I was sucked into the cogs of the machine. Saving money to change the world turned to saving money to buy a house, to pay the bills, to pay for my daughters' education, to take my wife on a romantic holiday to a Mexican beach under the blazing sun and by the warm waves. Life was normal. I was normal, and my parents were finally happy. Though I had long forgotten about my days in Palestine and my fleeting love with Rita, distant memories would hit me in the most unexpected times. I would be with friends in a bar, or walking by the beach, or watching my daughters’ soccer game, or on a flight to a business meeting. I would taste the tears before I would realize that I’d been silently crying. It was exactly fourteen years later that I met Rita again. I was in New York, walking down Broadway, heading to the Tribeca Tavern to meet an old friend that I hadn't seen in years. Suddenly, there she was. I was sure it was her because she hadn’t changed a bit. She was exactly the same, but more matured and without a scarf around her neck. I panicked. I didn’t know what to do. I don’t know why, but I wanted to turn around and pretend I didn’t see her. I think I wanted to preserve the Laila Khalid image that I'd kept of her in my mind to stay mysterious forever. Was I afraid that if I met Rita again, that the fleeting love story would shatter in front of my eyes, that I would either fall out of love, or fall deeper in love. Either prospect scared me, and now that she was in front of me I just froze. Her eyes fell on me and glinted with recognition. ‘Where have you been, habibi? I thought I would meet you again in the Jerusalem Hotel’, she asked, as if it was yesterday. Her words brought me happiness, unexplained, deep in my soul, but a sense of trepidation. People change. I wondered if she had changed. I had changed. ‘I missed your voice,’ I blurted out, taking her and myself by surprise. We sat down on a bench. Our shoulders touched lightly, casually. She placed her arms around me and hugged me as if we were two old lovers. Her warmth and the smell of Jasmine had melted my heart and I felt warmth in spite of a cold winter wind and all the New York snow all around us. Time had stopped, and right there in the cold winter of New York, I was back in Jerusalem, in the warmth of the sun shining through the vine-covered courtyard of the Jerusalem Hotel, in Rita’s arms. We talked freely like any two friends that just met after a long separation. I was happy in ways hard to explain but I also felt angry. I was angry with her for still living in Palestine, at myself for forgetting Palestine - and for fantasizing about abandoning my family and following her to Palestine. I had to respect her enough to tell her that I was married. But, again, why would she care? True, she was the poster woman in my life. True, she was the only love I knew. Granted, our love was a poem, a romantic tale of two strangers whose only shared moments are the coincidental run-ins in far away cities spanning decades of change, and decades of sameness too. Was it just a far fetched story that should have never been written? But no I was sure that we had some sort of a magical connection. I didn't know what to call it, but for lack of better terms, I called it love. But how did she feel about me, I wondered as I looked at her eyes that would not tell me her secrets? Did she call every acquaintance she met a Habibi? Did she remember every love-struck face, and I’m sure many would have confessed their dying love to her? Did she feel the electricity I was feeling? I looked at her and didn’t know what to say more. She had told me that she will be flying back tomorrow to Palestine. But that Palestine is lost. ‘There is no hope’, she said, ‘every one is there just to make money and pretend to be doing it for Palestine.’ I told there are still people that believe in fighting for Palestine. She gave me that look as if to say what do you know anyway. I told her there is always hope, but she laughed at me. She called me an idealist. I was late for my meeting, so we exchanged numbers and promised not to leave it for another fourteen years. I walked away, conflicting feelings brewing in my head, but all I could think about is how much I miss Palestine. Chapter IV: The Days That Remain Adam was no longer the idealist. He lived a practical life. He had a wife, two daughters, and a good job. But deep inside, he never forgot Palestine. He never forgot Rita. But he was afraid to go back to Palestine or to meet Rita again. He was afraid that reality would not measure up to his imagination. He had met Rita last year by chance in New York but he wasn’t sure what to make of that chance encounter. Was it destiny? Was it a sign that he should go back to Palestine? He wanted to be a warrior for justice, but he had also wanted a family, to be a faithful husband and a loving father. He wondered if he could be the hero and still a loving family man. Meeting Rita made him think hard about his life. Is it really possible to be multiples of identities? She had been truer to herself than he would ever be. She didn’t just love Palestine, but she lived her life for Palestine. She was a true daughter of Palestine, but he was just an idealistic fool. It would be unfair to contact her again, to go back to Palestine. But Adam found himself with a ticket straight to Palestine. As he watched the clouds pass beneath his tiny plane window, he dreamt of his homecoming. He thought about that vine-covered courtyard of the Jerusalem Hotel. He wondered if he would see Rita there. He wondered if the Jerusalem Hotel would even be still there. It was. Michael Pasley grew up in Southern Indiana and briefly attended Indiana University in Bloomington. His publications include “Vanishing” in the Virginia Normal.“You Just Don’t Get It” which was published in Germ Magazine and Dirty Girlz Magazine. His story “Double Zeros” which was featured in The Avalon Literary Review. He also the winner of Causeway Lit’s 2019 summer fiction contest. As a young African American growing up in the housing projects, Michael often felt alone in his love of poetry, Sci-Fi, and fantasy. He began at the age of eleven to write poems and short stories. Michael now lives in Jeffersonville, Indiana where he spends most of his free time attending book club meetings, hiking, playing with his kids, and writing. The Music Box (A Love Story) Before I kill myself, I need to explain how I got here because, when we die, our worlds pass with us into oblivion.
The most valuable possession I ever owned was an old scoffed and scratched Swiss music box. In soft, melodic tones, the music box would tinkle out the tune for the Christmas song “Carol of Bells.” Even now, in this horrid place, I can hear that haunting melody. The music box was not ornate or ostentatious. It was blood red and classical in style, the box was an anachronism, a throwback to a simpler time. It was a little more than thirteen inches across, with a large, silver comb of ninety-eight steel teeth. Small pins on a brass cylinder plucked the teeth to summon the music. The cylinder detached to allow for different music selections. I had only the “Carol of Bells” cylinder, Anna’s favorite song. If you looked closely enough at the music box, you could see several of Anna’s fingerprints had stained the wood, little maps of her uniqueness. A worn, gold-painted crank handle with a black wooden grip adorned the music box’s side, and on its lid was the embossed letter “A,” displayed in gold filigree. The box smelled of old, smoky mahogany combined with faint traces of Anna’s perfume of jasmine and clover. Sometimes I would lift the box and breathe in the scent, taking long, sensual inhalations. “Anna.” Even now, saying her name sends a rush of shuddering pleasure through me. I first met Anna around Christmas time, not long after I buried my wife, so I was still in mourning and the holidays had me blue. I was leaving a movie theater, having watched a god- awful film about a serial killer Santa Claus. The maniac sang Jingle Bells while chopping his victims up with an ax. Anna was standing with her (I would come to discover later) abusive boyfriend, Todd, by the drink station, smiling brightly. She was an ethereal woman, slender, and only a bit over five feet tall. Her pixie-cut hair was cobalt black. Her body was gorgeous, but what stood out for me were her ice gray eyes. Eyes you could fall into for a million years and still want to peer deeper. Eyes so very, very much like my late wife’s. When Todd stepped away for a moment, I introduced myself. At first, Anna was shy, afraid to talk because Todd might return at any moment. She seemed worried, timid, she drew away from me. So I stepped away. When she left, I felt as if she signaled me with a look to follow her home. I was, of course, a bit taken aback by such an overt gesture from such a seemingly shy girl. But she was so lovely, so spectral in her beauty that I had to follow her lead. Usually, I wouldn’t have pulled such a disturbing move, but her crooked sideways smile convinced me. I waited outside her apartment in my car. The cold February wind howled like a starving dog. I shivered and cranked up the heat. I can’t even tell you how long I was out there—it felt like forever. When Todd finally did leave, I crunched through the snow and knocked on Anna’s door and invited myself in. I found her hesitant to engage with me at first, but after some gentle coaxing on my part, we began to talk and found ourselves conversing all night. We spoke about her favorite things and my favorite things, her family and my lost wife. At some point before sunrise, she showed me the music box and played its haunting and bewitching music for me. Anna told me that the music box had been in her family for decades and it was her grandmother’s before she passed it on to her. Anna’s mother had died at a young age and had never gotten the chance to own the device. Later, after we finished talking, things became heated between us. I know it was sudden, but there was such a spark of attraction. Our connection was so strong, so powerful, and so real. Now you must understand that I’m a gentleman so I won’t go into detail, but I spent the night at Anna’s. And yes we made love, and yes, it was the most exceptional experience of my life. When I left in the morning, Anna insisted I take the music box to remember that magical night. When I was alone, I would crank the box and listen to the music, stare at the snow falling outside, and relive that magnificent night of passion. After that evening, Anna and I became inseparable. I would phone her begging her to leave Todd, and I thought she had agreed because I saw her every day. I walked her to her teaching job at a nearby elementary school and waited for her when she got off; to make sure she was safe. I felt as if Anna had chosen me, but Todd was becoming a problem. He was a pretty boy—tall, blond, with rugged, movie-star good looks. He worked out in the morning, and in the evening. Todd was an attorney and had many friends within the police department. His connections forced me to avoid law enforcement for fear of harassment. The real problems began when Todd started showing up where ever I was and causing trouble with angry outbursts and threats. He would follow Anna and me, taking pictures, and send me threatening text messages. I can’t say how he got my cell number, but I had photos and texts to prove his stalking. I wanted to put a restraining order on him, but Anna wouldn’t hear of it. Either she was afraid of his police connections or her heart was too kind. One day I was waiting for Anna to leave work when Todd showed up and attacked me. He punched me and screamed at me to go away and leave him and Anna alone. He said he would kill me if he ever saw me near her again. He said the police were searching for me and he hoped they would shoot me. That was the last straw. I’d had enough of Todd. Because law enforcement couldn’t be trusted to handle this problem, I decided I would. I went to Todd’s home to confront him. He rented a houseboat on the Ohio River. I went at night, dressed in all black and waited for him to arrive. Todd’s car approached. What was this? Anna and Todd were arriving—together. How could this be? They exited the car, holding hands. A twisting sickle of rage sliced my chest. In my sight, the world bled. I rushed them, striking Todd with a pipe I had found. Anna screamed, and in my anger, I accidentally shoved her. She fell backward onto an escarpment that sloped down to the banks of the river. She splashed into the icy water and struck her head on a jagged shard of driftwood. Unconscious, she sank fast, her heavy winter coat pulling her down. Todd was yelling something. I heard nothing. The world had narrowed to only my fury. To my eternal shame and regret, I had lost my head. Instead of leaping after Anna I turned on Todd who was still dazed by the blow I had dealt him. My hands found his throat, and I squeezed, my black gloves closing off all oxygen to his body. His hands groped at my face ripping away my ski mask. His legs kicked and his body bucked. But I squeezed all the harder. Todd’s frantic jerks ceased. I still bear the scars on my face of his fingers ripping and scratching at me as he strove to survive. So focused on choking the life from Todd was I that I didn’t hear the sirens approaching. I didn’t see the lurid flashing red and blue lights orbiting the world around me. However, despite my best efforts, Todd lived. And he convinced a jury to buy his half-mad and convoluted side of the story. I must admit, he lied in a most eloquent manner. He had that slick attorney’s tongue. He used that car salesman speak. Todd was so convincing on the stand that I must admit there were times even I found myself questioning my version of events. Todd lied repeatedly to the court, saying that Anna and I were never a couple. He said she had rebuffed all my advances that first night we had met at the theater. He said that I had broken into her home assaulted her, and stolen her grandmother’s music box after a night of trauma and torture. Todd, that liar of liars, said Anna had been living in stark fear of me ever since. He told the jury that I, not he, was her stalker and that I had been stalking her at work and spying on her from the bushes. Todd told them that hardly a day went by when she didn’t spot me watching. Finally, he testified that I, in a jealous rage had slain her and tried to kill him too. Of course, friends of Todd’s, so-called police officers, got on the witness stand and perjured themselves. They lied and said they had been hunting me for weeks. As it turned out, I had to discharge my own counsel after the fool tried to convince me I needed to plead not guilty by reason of insanity. Can you believe that? My own counsel! The idiot said that Anna, my sweet Anna, had taken a restraining order out on me and was planning to flee the state to escape. Supposedly, he had interviewed her friends and family, and they told him she had feared me returning to assault her again. He said the authorities had found my dead wife’s remains buried in my basement and that the autopsy had shown death due to blunt force trauma. He told me things didn’t look good for me. I fired my counsel after he said the police had found pictures on my phone shot from across the street of Anna’s apartment and Todd’s home. He showed me threatening text messages I had allegedly sent to Todd. He said she had not given me the music box but rather that I had stolen it. I, of course, decided to defend myself in court. Casting aside all notions of propriety, I told the jury how Anna and I were in love and even described how we had made love that first night. I went into painful and exact detail of every aspect of the love-making. My description of our union had been so powerful that one juror fainted and another, for some strange reason vomited. No doubt she was swooning at the romance of it all. I spoke of how Anna had gifted me the music box as a sign of her love. It was at this moment that the infuriating man that was Todd stood screaming to the courtroom that I was a liar. In a wise move, the judge had him escorted out of the proceedings. Seeking empathy with the jurors, I played the music box in court, closing my eyes and dancing to the soft music. But Todd’s family had stronger connections than I, strong enough to sway a jury, apparently. The false jury sentenced me to death, but the judge sent me to Mayfair, a home for the criminally insane. I was to be housed there for the rest of my life. And in truth, I could’ve dealt with living inside a padded cell. But they took from me my darling’s music box, and that would never do. So last time I was outside, I retrieved a small rusty nail from the asylum yard, a place we strolled in for an hour a day. The nail is not big enough to use as a weapon, but gazing down at the big veins in my wrist, well I think it will work just fine.
Consequence of a Poor ChoiceMiami is experiencing a beautiful balmy day, making it easy for Mary Hardin to elect to walk home from her exclusive private school, rather than to ride the dedicated bus. As she walked the eight blocks to home, Mary was daydreaming about her 15th birthday party last week, and how much fun the party had been. Her parents arranged to have the party on the beach in front of their beach house in South Beach, a posh residence away from the less desirable parts of Miami. The party was a surprise and was attended by several family members and fifteen of her friends. Basking in those beautiful thoughts, She had no idea of what lay ahead that would change her life forever. Jill, Mary’s best friend, shared with Mary during lunch break how to find an online site where she could chat with good-looking boys and young men. According to Jill, the site was awash with handsome males and was completely harmless. +++ Mary said “Hi” to her mom, grabbed a popsicle from the fridge, dashed upstairs to her room, and turned on her computer. Minutes seemed like hours waiting for the machine to boot up, but, finally, the site appeared. She could hardly contain her excitement and anticipation. The screen came to life with the promise of a gallery replete with “Dream Males.” She skimmed the site instructions and hastened to select a “friend” with whom to chat. Mary had no concerns about visiting the site; the slight feeling of guilt she had dissipated as her excitement grew. She was in control of picking the person she wanted to befriend, and what might happen after that. “If the chats become uncomfortable, or scary, all she would have to do is to turn the computer off.” Satisfied with her thinking, Mary went through the photo gallery and selected a gorgeous young man. The information under his picture said he was 19 years old. The only other information available for this young man was an email address and the hours he would be available to chat Mary’s excitement waned, she would wait an hour and a half before Robert Smith would be free to chat. She rearranged things in her room, straightened clothes in her closet, cleaned out her Chester drawers—anything to kill time. She squirmed, bit her nails, and thought she would wet her pants. The time came to get on the site and chat with her handsome new friend to be. She selected Robert's name, went through the keystrokes, and the light blinked, showing he was ready to talk. There he was, smiling, and he said, “My name is Robert, who are you, beautiful?” Mary blushed and giggled, “My name is Mary, glad to meet you… handsome.” They chatted for about ten minutes then said goodbye, promising to talk the next day, and they did—every day for six days. During their last chat, Robert suggested they meet so they could get to know each other. Mary was 5 feet 5 inches tall with blond hair and a knockout figure. She looked twenty years old and presented more maturely than her age. These attributes appealed to Robert and made him eager to pursue the relationship, and Mary responded by agreeing to meet him at a restaurant in the nearby suburb of Avondale. He continued to flood her with compliments and gave her directions to a restaurant in Avondale near the bus stop she would use. He continued to talk at length to praise Mary’s beauty and innumerable attractive qualities. Mary became so excited she felt moisture and warmth between her legs. Nothing was going to keep her from meeting with him “Jill, you did me such a favor by introducing me to the Dream Male website. I have met a dreamboat—oh, he takes my breath away. I’ve decided to meet him in person, Jill, he lives in Avondale, just ten miles from my house, a bus ride of about twenty minutes. I’m going to meet him for dinner tomorrow night, Jill, and I need you to back me up. Mary was so excited she hopped around the room and waved her arms while talking at a machinegun pace, Should my parents call you, we’re studying for two important exams coming up. Will you please do it, Jill? Please?” “Well, you know I don’t enjoy lying and liars, but if it means so much to you, then I’ll do it. “ “Thank you to the moon, girlfriend, I’ll not forget this. Oh, Jill, he’s the most handsome young man I’ve ever seen, and he told me how beautiful he thought me to be. He just makes me feel wonderful all over, Jill. But, I want your thoughts on my decision before I talk to him tonight. Well, what do you think, girlfriend?” “Wow. All that has happened so fast, Mary. It sounds to me like you’ve already made your decision. What will your parents think about you having a relationship with a man five years older than yourself—since you’ve just turned 15?” “I’m not going to tell them, Jill. What they don’t know won’t hurt them.” “I don’t know, Mary, I think you’re taking a chance this person will be Mr. Nice Guy, and everything will work out just fine. Mary, I think you are on fragile ice, and that’s all I have to say about it, but ‘best of luck.” “I trust him, Jill, and I don’t think he would harm me. I feel okay about meeting him, and I intend to do it.” “Well, you asked me what I thought, and I told you. Please be careful.” “Okay. I’ll be careful, and I’ll call you after my date.” During their next chat, Robert gave Mary the address of the restaurant where they would meet to have dinner. Deep down in her conscience, Mary knows she has no business meeting with a stranger she knows very little about, but he has captured her heart. She has become enamored with Robert, and she is throwing caution to the wind. Mary’s feelings for this person have overcome her better judgment. Mary is now deaf to all the warning bells and whistles. +++ The meeting date has arrived, and Mary is dressing in her most provocative clothes and sprays perfume on critical points of her body. She says goodbye to her parents and somehow avoids their gaze as she goes through the front door. Mary told them earlier she would study at Jill’s for two important exams coming up. Mary also told them Jill’s brother, Mike, will pick her up and bring her back home when they were through studying. And Mike was waiting for Mary in front of her house and drove her to the bus stop. Mike offered Mary one piece of unsolicited advice as they reached the bus stop, he said, “Mary, please don’t do this, it’s too dangerous; you don’t know this person.” +++ Mary got on the Avondale bus and began daydreaming; she pictured Robert and herself in myriad romantic situations—all good. The dreams led her to believe in her heart that some of the dreams would come true. She has nothing but warm fuzzy feelings about the evening, but little does she know… The bus stopped, and Mary took the short walk to the restaurant in five minutes. Robert had chosen a restaurant near the bus stop. How sweet of him, she thought. +++ She told Robert what she would wear so he would recognize her. As she walked through the restaurant door, she was trembling and pumped with happiness as she had never known; the evening seemed to be almost bizarre. Then a man approached her. He was nicely dressed, in his early fifties, balding, and wore a beard. “My name is Robert; I assume you are Mary, he said, taking her hand and kissing it. I know you are confused and disappointed. You were expecting a much younger man. I’m genuinely sorry for deceiving you, Mary, but would you have come if a true picture of me was posted to the Dream Man website? Please sit down, and let’s get acquainted,” he said with a broad smile?” Mary regained some of her composure, and her shock lessened. At least the man good manners. “I’m sorry. Yes, I was expecting someone younger. I was expecting the 19-year-old young man on the website who said his name was Robert. Who are you, and what do you want with me? Why have you deceived me?” I’m furious about this; I don’t enjoy being deceived. You have upset me a great deal,” said Mary as she cries. Robert was afraid Mary would make a scene in the restaurant; he was making every effort to console her and to put her at ease. “Please don’t cry. I’ll drive you home this instant if you allow me. I can see that I crushed your expectations and that I have upset you and caused you significant emotional pain. Shall we go?” said Robert as he stood. “Yes, please take me home now,” said Mary as she stood and walked to the door, tears flowing. +++ They drove in silence several minutes. Mary cried until she spoke. “Why have you deceived me? Who are you?” She tried to retard the waves of raw emotion that swept through her body. The anger she felt towards this man was intensifying by the minute. She spoke through clenched teeth, and her fists were so balled that her knuckles turned white. After a few minutes, Mary noticed Robert had changed driving direction and was no longer headed toward South Miami. “I asked you where we were going?” “Shut the fuck up, bitch. One more word out of you and I’ll put a real bad bruise on that pretty face.” Now Mary was in real shock and felt nothing but stark terror. She could not believe this was happening. Her entire body shook with fear. “Please tell me where you’re taking me—I want to go home, please,” sobbed Mary, now in hysterics. Out of the blue, Robert backhanded Mary across her mouth, splitting her lower lip. Blood gushed over her chin, neck, and clothing. Mary froze with fear. No more tears, no nothing. She was being kidnapped! She was experiencing the most horrible sensations of raw fear spreading throughout her body. Her heart raced, and her ears rang. “What will happen to me? What can I do? She said out loud. As she sat bleeding and in pain, all she could think of was wanting to be with her mother. +++ They arrived at a large building resembling an abandoned warehouse. When Robert stopped the car, two thuggish-looking men opened the car door and shouted, “get out, bitch.” They pulled Mary from the automobile, dragging her by her arms, kicking and screaming. “Please take me home, whoever you are, please,” “Yeah, well, it’ll be a cold day in hell, if ever, when you see home again, bitch.” Mary sobbed as they half-dragged her to a dark room. They pushed her inside and locked the door. A single light bulb hanging from the ceiling illuminated 15 or more girls about her own age. Somehow, the presence of these girls gave her a weird sense of not being alone. +++ “Jill, is Mary with you? She didn’t come home last night, and we’re worried sick,” said Beth Hardin over the phone. “No, mam, I have not seen her since school yesterday. She said she wanted to walk home because it was such a nice, balmy day.” “Has she called you, or did she mention going somewhere after school?” “No, mam, is there something wrong, Mrs. Hardin?” “If you hear from her, Jill, please let us know—we’re frantic with worry. We have no idea where she is, Jill.” Beth Hardin laid her phone down and turned to her husband. “Bud, we have to do something, please call the police>” “I just did, sweetheart, they are on their way. Try to calm down, the police will sort this out. Did you finish calling Mary’s friends?” “Yes, and no one has heard from her, or seen her, since school yesterday.” +++ “Mary asked some of the girls in the room if they knew what was going on; she wanted to understand what was going on, but none seemed to know. One of the older girls, who said her name was Amanda, volunteered that she and several other older girls thought someone had kidnapped them and were going to sell them to sex traffickers. “Oh, my God no.” cried Mary, sobbing into her hands. This cannot be happening.” “I’m afraid it is happening,” said Amanda as she put an arm around Mary’s shoulder. Looks like we’re all in this together, We’re all victims,” said Amanda shedding a tear. Mary learns that most of the girls have been captive for three or four days; she also learned that they were fee only once a day, usually a cheese sandwich and a bottle of water. It seemed the guards were not allowed to hit the girls in their faces—to not spoil their appearance probably. They left the single light bulb in the ceiling on all the time. There was no way of telling what time men came and went because they stripped the girls of all their belongings when they were put in the room with the others. “They take one or two girls a day off to somewhere, and they never return. Maybe one or two new ones, like yourself, arrive daily. You were the last to arrive, and there have been no new ones since,” said Amanda. +++ Dr. Bud Hardin answered the front doorbell. “It’s probably the police, Beth.” A tall, thin middle-aged man stood at the door holding his credentials in front of him for Dr. Hardin to see. “Good evening, Dr. Hardin, my name is Special Agent Oliver Halperin, FBI, may I come in?” “Yes, of course, special agent, please do come in an take a seat over there in the study with my wife, Beth.” “Mrs. Hardin,” nodded Special Agent Halperin as he removed his hat and took his seat. “May I get you coffee?” Offered Mrs. Hardin’ “Thank you, no.” Special Agent Halperin came right to the point and told the Hardins of the 24-hour wait rule before a person can be officially considered missing, and they begin serious police work. But because of Mary’s age, he said he will gather information about Mary: her friends, activities, places frequented, and boyfriends. Setting the information gathering talk aside, Special Agent Halperin grew somber, and a serious, almost like a mask, crossed his face. He took a deep breath then spoke in a low, gentle voice. “Dr. and Mrs. Hardin, I don’t wish to alarm you, but I feel it only fair to share certain information with you won't enjoy hearing, but please hear me out, it will help you prepare for what might happen. Okay, here goes. A sex trafficking gang has been operating in the Miami area for over five months. I have been assigned as the agent in charge, heading up a multi-agency task force to locate and destroy the ring. So far, about 40 local girls, all between the ages of 14 and 17 have been kidnapped from the Miami area, and we think they were subsequently sold into sex slavery. You might have read about this in the papers and seen news of it on television.” “Yes, sadly enough, we have—since we have a young teenaged daughter,” said Dr. Hardin, shaking his head slowly to add emotion to his reaction. Mrs. Hardin said nothing; she simply dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. “Let me hasten to add that we don’t know Mary is a victim. We will trace her steps as best we can before jumping to that conclusion. I only want you to be prepared.” “Oh, my God. Can this be happening to us, ” cried out Mrs. Hardin as she slumped over in Dr. Hardin’s arms. “I’ll take my leave, Dr. Hardin. No need in showing me the door. I’ll be in touch every day.” Bud and Beth Hardin held hands and looked into each other's eyes. “Bud, what are we going to do? Tell me what, you have the brains in the family?” “We will pray, Beth. We will pray.” Day Two “Off your asses and on your feet, bitches,” shouted one guard as the big light in the ceiling was turned on, causing the girls to squint and cover their eyes. A guard appeared and yelled: “Line up along the back wall. Come on, you’ve done this before! Move! Move! Move!” Once the girls were all lined up, the well-dressed man they had seen before entered the room, and slowly walked down the line of girls stopping before each one and staring at every inch of them. He went so far as to open one the girl’s blouse to inspect her breasts. “You, he pointed to one girl. And you, and you,” he pointed to Amanda and me. He then left the room without saying another word. Three guards grabbed an arm of each of us three girls and guided us roughly from the room. One of the girls resisted and was struck severely across her back with a long stick-like object. “Remember, not the face,” reminded one of the guards. Mary was really in a state of panic, she had difficulty breathing and wet her panties. She had no idea where they were taking her or what would happen to her. Day Three “Thank you for coming by, Agent Halperin. Do you have news for us?” “No, I’m afraid I don’t—not yet, but I remain hopeful, Dr. Hardin, and I hope you and Mrs. Hardin doo as well.” Dr. Hardin leaned forward in his chair; he appeared haggard and drawn with dark circles under his eyes. He bravely asked: “Be honest with us, Agent Halperin, what are the odds of us ever seeing Mary again? What do you think has happened to her?” Tears flowed freely down Beth Hardin’s face. Bud Hardin took one of Beth Hardin’s hands and tried to soothe her. Agent Halperin fidgeted nervously in his chair. He felt great reluctance and sadness to say what he was about to say to these parents. He knew so well how they were likely to react; they would respond like dozens of parents he had worked with on other missing person cases. They would pass into a state of deep grief, feeling helpless and hopeless. They would likely be filled with denial and would wait for their daughter to come again as though none of this had ever happened. But she will not return. “Dr. and Mrs. Hardin, this is my gut feeling based on 17 years of experience, most of which have been in missing persons. Our collective experience with the kidnapping of pretty young girls like Mary is that they are most often sold into sex slavery and are never seen again. Less than 2% have been able to escape their owners and find their way back to their homes. When they are lucky enough to escape and reunite with families, most are severely traumatized and require extensive mental treatment. “Dr. Hardin, you asked me the odds of Mary returning. I can only share these statistics with you. 7,255 cases of child kidnapping into sex slavery were reported last year, and about 72% of those cases involved young girls between the ages of 14 and 17. We think72% of the hookups between victim and perpetrator were made on the internet, And nationwide, between 2007 and 2017, 40,987 cases of sex trade kidnapping were reported. I know that information sounds brutal—even mind-blowing, butI’m sharing it with you so may know what we know. Hopefully, this information will assist you in coming to grips with your situation.” Mrs. Hardin was to overcome with emotion and left the room without hearing Agent Halperin’s explanation. Dr. Hardin was speechless; his mouth moved, but no words came out. He could only shake his head from side to side and mutter a few profanities under his breath. “Yes, thank you, Special Agent.” “I’ll take my leave, now, Dr. Hardin. No need to show me out. I’ll be in touch the moment we hear something. In the meanwhile, try and get some rest, you’re going to need it. By the way, we’re still going through Mary’s things, her computer, in particular, to see if she made contact with anyone the day before her disappearance. Goodnight, doctor.” +++ “Amanda, I’m so glad I found you, I don’t know what I would do if I were totally alone; it helps to have someone who is more mature than I, and who I can trust. You are certainly helping me to cope, but I’m still frightened to death. What do you think they will do with us, Amanda, do you think we’re going to be sold to a sex ring?” “I believe you’ve hit the nail on the head, Mary, these people will sell us to sex traffickers; I think that’s what happened to the other girls. I think tonight is all about seeing how we will react to these men.” Mary and Amanda were separated from the others, and placed in a small room by themselves; there was no window, but there were a toilet, washbasin, and a pitcher of water. One washcloth and a single thread-bare towel hung near the water basin. Amanda had no sooner finished her last sentence when they hear loud noises and laughter outside their door. Soon the door was unlocked and flung open with a loud bang. A guard entered the room and tossed a bundle of clothes on the floor. “Put on those clothes, now. And hurry it up, Mr. Wu is waiting. Here is a box containing makeup, Mr. Wu wants you to look sexy, do you understand?” “We understand,” said Amanda picking up the clothes. The guard left and locked the door behind him. The girls struggled into the skimpy, tight-fitting clothes and applied the makeup. “I’ve never worn spike heels in my life,” said Amanda. “Well, I sure haven’t,” said Mary. We surely must look like prostitutes. Oh, my God, Amanda, that’s what they will want us to do!” “I think you’re right, girlfriend, and I’m a virgin. Oh shit!” Mary began to whimper. “I’m only 15, Amanda, it will hurt me to have sex. Oh, my God! No. No. No. I will just refuse to go through with it.” Their door opened again. “Come on, bitches. Move your asses. Mr.Wu wants to look at you.” Mr. Wu was waiting outside their room and gave them each a once-over inspection. “Now, listen to me. You will entertain a group of Japanese businessmen. I will expect you to comply with anything they want to do to you or with you. These men are valuable clients, and you will show them a good time. Whatever they want to do with you, or to you, you will allow, You will not refuse or balk at anything that occurs during the evening. Remember, you must do anything asked of you without complaint or protest. If you do not, your punishment will be swift and severe—punish could even extend to your families. Now go! If you do a good job, maybe I will not sell you to these men. Two guards drove them perhaps five miles to a posh hotel. They were escorted to the 22nd floor. The door was opened to reveal at least six drunk Japenese businessmen. Both girls trembled. “Sweet Jesus, I’ve got an awful feeling about this,” whimpered Amanda. Mary grabbed Amanda’s hand; Mary was literally shaking with fear. She felt nauseous and thought she might pass out. Amanda's face was a study in terror. Both were frozen where they stood. As the men approached them, the girls got an ugly idea of what lay ahead for them—a long night of terror and broken hymens. Day Four Miami FBI Office Office of Special Agent Halperin “Thanks for coming in, Dr. Hardin, take a seat.” “Have you news for me,?” “A little. Here’s what we know so far. doctor.” The information on Mary’s computer, coupled with a second thought confession from her friend, Jill, we could trace her steps to a fellow posing as a much younger man. This man lured Mary to a meeting with him in Avondale at Fat Jack’s restaurant. We arrested this fellow posing as Robert, and he told us a lot about how the sex slave ring operates, but I’m afraid we got nothing from him beyond that. They assigned him Mary as his target, all by telephone, so no identifications were possible. He gave us the location of the abandoned warehouse where the girls were taken. We raided the warehouse only to find it empty. We were not surprised, these scams change locations every few days to avoid detection and capture. And I’m afraid, Dr. Hardin, that’s where we are—at a dead end. “Agent Halperin, do I understand you correctly; you’re saying Mary will never come home?” “There is always that slim chance we talked about, doctor, but as you will remember, the odds are less than 2%. I’m so sorry.” “So, Mary is now one of those statistics, just another missing teenager?” “yes.” Author’s Note: This story is narrative fiction; however, the several statistics used by the author are real and were taken from the United Nations 2002 Office on Drug and Crime Global Report, The Ark of Hope for Children Records, and the National Human Trafficking Hotline. The Last RideI had no specific itinerary in mind, no particular list of destinations in mind, nor had I set a time limit in which to complete the trip I was about to take. However, I had an insatiable urge to travel the back roads of the western United States, something I have longed to do for a long time. Loosely, I intend to follow US Highway 84 for most of the early trip.
Moreover, to me, my ripe old age of 78 has nothing to do with the trip—god or bad. In my estimation, it is not an issue. Following is my vision for the trip. Twenty-six years in the US Army, going through some tough training and combat, has encouraged me to stay in fairly good physical shape, especially for my age. In consideration of my physical condition, I’m prepared for a motorcycle excursion into the western states of this country. I’ll start my ride in Thomasville, Georgia, and the Good Lord willing, will return to the same spot at some time in the future. My wife is not entirely happy about this trip, but she supports me and understands my motivation for doing it. Secretly, I expect, and even hope, to encounter adventure and situations that will test my metal as a man who has not given up on living. I don’t fear danger, nor do I expect to shy away from it should it be visited; I want to look danger in the face once again to see, for myself, if I can still handle it. There is only one thing I fear—spiders. Arachnophobia has terrified me since early childhood; the reason has never been explained to me. As a matter of fact, that being said, I mostly want to experience the sights, smells and sounds of being on the road on a motorcycle—wonders and experiences that cannot be duplicated in an automobile. My duffel for the trip, while most important, is Spartan consisting of two sets of quick-dry clothing, riding boots, a toilet kit, medicine bag, sunscreen, sunglasses, leather vest, and a 9mm pistol I will carry concealed in a holster inserted into the back of my jeans. Satisfied that I had everything I needed, I stowed the duffel in the Harley’s trunk. I was ready to ride. So, on the morning of June 30, 2013, six months after my 78th birthday, I mounted my Harley Davidson Electro-Glide Limited Motorcycle, listened to the engine roar for a moment, and headed west on US Highway 84 from Thomasville, Georgia. My wife gave me a teary-eyed farewell, with admonishments, for attempting this motorcycle trip at my age--and alone. When you are my age, you grow weary of hearing at your age. When I reached Laurel, Mississippi it was dusk. The ride here was uneventful, but uit taught my body what to expect from consecutive long rides. A cheap motel, a hot shower, fresh clothes, and finding a suitable place to eat, were next on my agenda. Travel experiences have taught me the best way to find good food in an unfamiliar town is to ask residents where they eat, a practice I have found to be reliable. When I travel solo, I usually have a piece of fruit and a pack of crackers for lunch, not much, but a heavy lunch makes me sleepy; I have to be 100% alert when riding.. To get a sample of Laurel, to stretch my legs, and to garner a sense of the history of this old town, I walked the streets for an hour. If only I could have been an observer during the town’s heyday. My recall of American history facts was enough to encourage me to seek monuments, and other reminders, of the events that took place in and around Laurel. An elderly gentleman on a park bench caught my eye during my walk, so I stopped, introduced myself, and took a seat next to the old fellow. He must have been at least 90 years old, but he was a dapper dresser and carried a walking cane. The walking cane immediately caught my attention because I collect canes—particularly olds ones. My decision to stop and talk to the man proved fruitful because he gave me an hour and a half lecture on the history of Laurel’s growth, development, and rise to glory in a world economy. His looked like the pictures of Mark Twain I’ve seen, in voice sounded like he had a mouth full of gravel, he was a virtual encyclopedia of local facts, and he lectured non-stop for over an hour holding me spellbound. It was almost impossible for me to get a question asked. His knowledge of the economic development of Laurel was as detailed as a chamber of commerce director could have flaunted. For instance, he told me the details of how Laurel’s location in the pine belt helped to put them on the map economically, and as a result, the railroad coming to Laurel. He told me how the Eastman-Gardiner Company led the way for giant lumber companies. Then in the early 1900s, he related with great animation of his arms and hands, Laurel mills shipped more yellow pine lumber than anywhere in the world. His face filled with pride as he told how the lumber business was revolutionized again in 1899 when John Lindsey invented the eight-wheel wagon. I thought the old man had finished his lecture; he paused to wipe his face with a fresh handkerchief and to catch his breath, but I was mistaken. He pointed to a statue nearby, took a noisy breath, and insisted on relating the story of William Mason’s invention of Masonite sheeting, a major enhancement for the building industry. I stood and offered my hand to shake hands with the old fellow. “Sit down, young fellow I must tell you of when oil was discovered near Laurel. In 1942, and continued by telling me of his work in the oil fields where he labored until his retirement in 1980. I did not want to ask the old fellow’s age, but sim one of the dates he recited in telling his stories would place him at about 95 years old. What an interesting character. I wondered if the old man had anyone to take care of him, and my mind suddenly made the old man an issue of concern. But what could I have done? Anyway, what I had hoped to derive from the trip was already coming to fruition. I made the mistake of asking the old man about his walking cane. As if our economic development discussion had not satiated me, the old fellow joined me in a lively diatribe about antique walking canes. I had met my match, this gentleman’s knowledge of walking canes boggled my mind, and I considered myself an expert on canes circa European turn of the century. I thanked the old man for adding to my meager knowledge of American History, as it happened in and near Laurel, Mississippi, and new walking cane knowledge of the European genre. I returned to the motel to wash my clothes, and to get much-needed sleep. My ability to ride long distances depended on my getting seven or eight hours of sleep; good sleep equals good riding stamina. I chatted with my wife for a few minutes and told her that I loved her, Day Two At 6:48 am, after a high protein breakfast, I mounted the Harley and headed west on US Highway 84, refreshed and eager to experience day two of my trip. Whatever the day might bring, I was ready. Normally high blood pressure and blood sugar levels had normalized, and I had the energy of a twenty-year-old. That I remembered to include my diabetic testing kit and blood pressure monitor was a blessing. I wanted my health to be manageable so I could enjoy the wonders of the open road, and the secrets of the small communities yet to come. +++ The further west I rode, the higher the temperature climbed. By ten o’clock in the morning, perspiration soaked my bandana and shirt. The thermometer on the Harley registered 102 degrees, and the air running over my body was repressively super-heated. I stopped for gas at a convenience store and met my first unexpected heart-stopping incident early into the trip. The Harley was full, and I replaced the gas tank cap and went inside to pay for the gas. I was halfway to the register when I realized a large man was in the process of robbing the cashier. His back was towards me; about ten paces separated me from the robber. The cashier, a young girl, had frozen in fear, and the robber had become enraged because the girl was not responding to his demands. Now what in the hell had I walked into—what do I do now, I asked of myself? It appeared the robber was about to shoot the cashier; he had raised the pistol to firing position. Old training surfaced from the depths of somewhere, and I quickly, but quietly tried to slow my breathing, unholstered my 9mm, and crept forward until I was within one foot of the robber’s back. He still had not detected me, and I placed the muzzle of my 9mm at the base of his skull and quietly demanded that he drop his weapon to the floor and place his hands behind his neck. I told him that if he did not comply with my demand, I would blow a large hole in his head. My nerves were on high alert. Would I pull the trigger on my pistol if he did not comply? Thank God, he complied so I didn’t have to get an answer. The cops arrived, the cashier, two other witnesses and I gave statements to the police, and the ranking policeman allowed me to leave pending recall of my presence if necessary. I was shaken somewhat, but I was more surprised at how well I handled that situation. I was proud of myself and thankful for my training. The journey continued. Several miles later I vomited my breakfast. Huge rice patties, one after the other, lined both sides of the highway for as far as my eyes could see. It was a beautiful sight by any standard. Elaborate irrigation systems kept the rice patties adequately watered, and that appeared to be a major factor in an operation of such magnitude. I surmised it took huge amounts of water to keep up with the evaporation rate generated by a hot sun? A fortuitous way to get that question answered appeared a few hundred yards up the highway where a work crew was busy in the patties near the highway. Curiosity got the best of me, and I stopped on the roadside to briefly ask questions of a man I thought to be the work crew foreman. The gentleman I thought to be the foreman turned out to be the property owner. When I parked the bike and introduced myself, he said his name was Bennet, and that he and his father owned this rice field and several more nearby. He impressed me as pleasant enough, a burly farmer-businessman, so I asked him questions about growing rice until I had satisfied my curiosity. Mr. Bennet patiently answered all my questions showing satisfaction that I was interested in his livelihood. The fact that the sun evaporates one gallon of water per acre per hour blew my mind. That is a hell of a lot of water—this one field alone was 800 acres. Mr. Bennet explained that the main irrigation pipes lay on the ground in trenches between the plant rows. Water is dripped directly into the earth, so the plant roots can soak it up before evaporation takes it all. Wow! Mind-boggling. I almost forgot to take pictures of the field, the irrigation equipment, and Mr. Bennet, but I remembered my camera and took pictures during the last ten minutes of my visit. I lost valuable riding time visiting Mr. Bennet, but in retrospect, I’m glad I made the stop because my brain soaked up a lot of rice growing history. Gaining new knowledge and information is a satisfying experience for me; it’s like new information somehow extends my life so I might enjoy the new brain food. The gas gauge read nearly empty, and on this bike, when it says empty, that’s what it means. It was time to look for a service station, and that’s no easy task when one is on back roads in this sparsely populated country. It’s a good idea to start looking for gas when the gauge is on one-third full. Finally, the sign up the road advised me gas was only four miles away—my lucky day. The only working pump, judging by its design, appeared to be at least thirty-five years old, maybe older, but it satisfied the Harley’s thirst with 5.4 gallons of high-test fuel. The old girl had averaged 35 miles per gallon. That was above average for an 835-pound bike carrying 250 pounds of passenger and luggage and cruising at 70 miles per hour. The place looked abandoned—like a ghost town. There was no one in the streets, no children playing in the vacant spaces—or anywhere. There is only the sound of a brisk wind blowing copious amounts of dust. A water hose and spigot caught my attention at a corner convenience store, and I soaked myself with the lukewarm water. The water cooled me for about an hour before it evaporated. My stomach complained, and no wonder, I had been riding for five hours, and for lunch, an apple and a pack of crackers had sufficed. A chat with the proprietor of the station proved educational and worth the time. In appearance, he reminded me of Ichabod Crane, but he had a voluminous knowledge of the station, and shared it with me telling me stories about the passing of ownership of the station. His great-grandfather started the business in 1921, it passed to his father, and then to him thirty-four years ago. He admitted neither owner, including himself, had done much to improve or keep up the property. Everything in and around the place looked at least one hundred years old. The paint had long ago peeled from the building’s side, and thick vine covered the entire structure, leaving just enough room for the front door and the windows. Sympathizing with the fellow was easy; I thought it would be a sin to disrupt the natural beauty of this old place by making repairs. The station conjured up visions of being transported in time to another era. The proprietor’s story was fascinating and entertaining; obviously, he told the truth as he had experienced it. We shared several beers as Sid, the proprietor, told one story after another. For example, his great grandfather was not only the first proprietor of this store; he was involved in human trafficking for ten years or more. His handlers brought women, some as young as 12, to Sid’s grandfather, Abraham, and he would house them temporarily in shanties out back of the station until they were sold. The women had no possessions, only the clothes on their backs. Abraham fed them just enough to keep them alive. There was no heat in the shanties, and in the winter it was not uncommon for several women to die of a combination of hypothermia and consumption. Sid even went so far as to show me an old, faded dusty ledger recording the sales of girls by the old man to buyers from Mexico and even the United States. According to the ledger, Sid said over 250 women were sold into the sex slave market by his great grandfather. He showed me the vestiges of the only remaining shack where the women had been housed. As I stood amid the shack, I could almost sense the pain and hopelessness the women must have endured. Anticipating my question, Sid said it was not his plan to offer the ledger to anyone or any organization. The ledger was not for sale. He did not see what value the ledger could have to anyone but himself. Pity, I thought. “The less attention this story receives the safer the ledger,” said Sid. “But, Sid, you deny history a rich story.” “I don’t care about all that. Besides, I would have to put up with a bunch of tourists; No thank you.” It was getting late, I thanked Sid for sharing the stories, we shook hands, and I walked away from the station shaking my head—unbelievable. Sid was a colorful storyteller. He knew how to bring characters to life, and how to keep his audience interested. One cannot learn how to be a great storyteller because it is a gift—one does not acquire it. An image of Sid will fondly remain in my memory. The two extended visits made my day but prevented me from covering the distance I had hoped to ride. I later found a motel from hell in a small town. I do not remember it well but, I think the name of the place was Oliver. The carpeting was threadbare and exposed the sub-floor. The banana-shaped mattress rested on a genuinely old, exposed coiled springs. There was only one light in the room, a single naked bulb hanging from a moldy ceiling. The bathroom furnishings I’ll leave to your imagination to picture. One could read a newspaper through a single bath towel, and the bedclothes were suffering from a lack of soap. I was too tired to care. The proximity of these civil failures was two miles from Lilly Ville and the border of the US with Mexico. Cell phone reception was not possible in Lilly Ville. I rode down the highway several miles and finally found a pay phone. It was pretty beaten up, but I got a dial tone and decided to call home. My wife and I exchanged reminders and love. Day Three The next day I rode across northern Louisiana and into Texas, but I could not make it through Texas— too far, and the day had been long and hot. I could not believe it, but I covered nearly five hundred miles in a little over twelve hours, enough to convince me to find a motel and go to sleep. My old bones ached. The bike thermometer registered 104 degrees when I pulled in to Dillard, Texas at 6:45 pm. The town was composed of only a crossroads and four corners. One derelict Seven-Eleven store, a hardware store of the type that featured one of everything, a pathetic-looking grocery store, and a medical clinic housed in a mobile home occupied the four corner spaces of the little community. Approximately a dozen houses scattered within thirty feet of each other represented the residential part of town. A largely deserted silo covered in rust and vine dwarfed the other buildings. Two gas pumps in front of the Seven-Eleven store appeared operational, and as had become my habit after I fueled the bike, I found water to soak my clothes. Inside the store, among the well-stocked shelves and bins, there was a wonderful ancient-looking lunch counter complete with marble countertop and leather-covered stools. A cold ham sandwich and a coke had to do for my lunch. The proprietor cast a quizzical eye at me, no doubt trying to figure out why I was soaking wet. There could not have been many history lessons hidden here, so I paid for my purchases and looked for a motel. To my surprise, a rather good-looking family owned motel was on the outskirts of town, I rented a room and settled in for the night. Day Four The entire day included long stretches of empty road, the stench of cattle feedlots along the roadside, and extreme heat. A one-pump service station materialized in the middle of nowhere where I topped off with gas and wet myself thoroughly. There was nothing to see, nothing to do, nor anyone interesting to talk to about history. The bike thermometer registered 104 degrees when I arrived on the outskirts of Euclid, Oklahoma at 6:10 in the evening. While enjoying good vibes from my body, I was also sensitive to the wear and tear on my older body. The need for sleep annoyed me through a great steak dinner. I found a nice air-conditioned motel room, and the rest is repetitive history. The quiet surroundings of the small community were conducive to eight hours of a sound sleep. I called my wife before retiring, and we had a long chat about the children, grandchildren, and my trip, but mostly about our love for each other. I missed her even though I was thoroughly enjoying my trip. Day Five At six o’clock this morning, the temperature was a brisk 65 degrees, and the forecast called for gusting winds, a heavy overcast and temperatures reaching only 97 degrees—a cool day for a change. I shared my breakfast time with twenty other early rising workers in the only place to eat. I enjoyed my meal of bacon and eggs and listening to the others. Their talk included the price of cattle feed and low on-the-hoof prices for beef. It was common to use feedlots to fatten cattle the last few weeks before taking them to market. While a little costly, this practice saves the cattlemen money in the long run. I asked one of the cattlemen exactly how this practice saved them money? He replied that it saved them money because eating the rich fodder for several weeks’ quickly added weight to the animals thus increasing the on the hoof sales price. I found it particularly interesting that most cattle gain up to ten percent in body weight during the intensive three-week feeding period. The increase in on the hoof weight made the cow worth more than the cost of the feed. His explanation almost made the stench more durable for me—not. If only they could find a way to make money off the stench of the feedlots. Feedlot stench could mean a lot of money to the right entrepaneur. +++ Entertainment for my ride this day comprised two 18-wheelers that played with me by hemming me in with the aid of a third18-wheeler. The result of such a game creates a rough air pocket for the rider who gets caught in the trap. If the rider is fortunate enough to be riding a powerful bike, he can accelerate out of the pocket and save himself. And that is what I did. The Harley responded when I opened the throttle, and I quickly slipped out of their trap leaving the trucks far behind. They showed their displeasure at my escape by honking their horns. The horns sounded victory–for me. The rest of the day’s ride bored me. It’s difficult to get the stench of the feedlots out of one’s nostrils; it just has to neutralize over time. +++ When I crossed the Texas border into New Mexico, it was time to look for a motel. I checked into the Silver Moon Inn, the only lodging around, paid for a $30 room and asked the proprietor for his recommendation for a good place to eat. “There haint no good place ‘round here to eat, but if it were me decidin’, I’d pick Maude’s Kitchen down the street.” “Why pick that one?” “For two good reasons, stranger. First, I’d eat there ‘cause it’s the only place in town, and, second, ‘cause my wife owns and operates the place.” “Well, that’s good enough for me. Thank you, sir, I’ll go that way right now.” +++ The restaurant was easy to locate. It sported a modicum of design and decor. Someone who knew what they were doing had decorated the small building and made it blend into the local western landscape. The place was whistle-clean inside and out. While looking at the Remington prints placed so artfully on the walls, I had not noticed the woman standing at my elbow. She was a waitress. I suppose I had been too focused on the prints and their power to transfix me not to notice the woman. Being in this place made me think of what life must have been like one hundred years ago. “May I show you to a table, sir?” “Yes, please do.” The hostess seated me at a table on a wall at the back of the room. It was a good vantage point. I could see the many patrons, and many of the wall decorations that were western prints by well-known artists famous for their interpretation of life in the old west. A handsome young man of apparent American Indian decent presented a menu, took my order for a drink, and waited at a distance for me to choose a meal. His attire was in keeping with the well-executed interior décor. He recommended the daily special of pot-roast served with a local lager beer, and his recommendation proved outstanding. I ate the seasoned meal and enjoyed its perfection. The good meal foretold a good night’s sleep. I passed on the beer. While walking back to my bike, I noticed a young girl, perhaps 15 or 16 years old, sitting on a bench near the front door. She was holding a baby that could not have been more than a few weeks old. They both appeared malnourished and in need of a bath and fresh clothing. They conjured an image of inmates at the Nazi Treblinka death camp. I passed by them on the way to my bike without taking further notice; after all, they were none of my business. However, by the time I reached my bike, my heart was putting a real guilt trip on me. I did not want to admit it, but my heart was breaking for them, and I knew nothing of them or their circumstances. Why am I reacting this way? A higher power pushed me most of the way back to where they were sitting. For all I knew, they might have been waiting for someone. I approached them not knowing what I would say to the mother because I didn’t understand how to handle this situation; it was a new experience for me. However, something, or someone, put words into my mouth. When I spoke, my words sounded as though they were being spoken by someone else. Nevertheless, when the young woman smiled at me, I became calm. “Mam, if you don’t mind my asking, are you waiting for someone? Are you and the baby OK? Do you need help? Are you having difficulties, Mam?” I was made nervous by her reluctance to answer my questions. Could I have caused her concern because I asked too many questions at once? He knew his initial attempts comforting the woman must have sounded clumsy. He used a gentle tone of voice when he spoke. She finally spoke in a guarded backcountry manner. “Thank you, mister, but you don’t want to get mixed up with me, my ex-boyfriend would hurt you real bad for helpin’ me.” “Well, let me be the judge of that. When did you and the baby eat last, Mam?” “I must admit it has been a while, maybe two days. The baby ain't had no milk in three days. I’m awful worried ‘bout her. She don’t even cry no more.” Tears flooded her cheeks as she spoke of the baby not having milk. “I’m sorry, mister, but please don’t fool with us. We’d jest get you cross-wise with my ex-boyfriend, Buford. I don’t know why you even care, mister, but the baby and I will be jes’fine, thank ya anyways.” I was close to tears. Never have I seen someone so needy, right here in the USA, and right in front of a restaurant full of people, go without help. It didn’t compute in my head. Oh, I was aware there were poor people, but this was up close and personal—in your face. I was a witness to shamefulness and physical abuse. Watching the young lady more, closely I could see bruises on her arms, and scars from what might have been cigarette burns on her neck. Seeing the condition of this woman and child made my blood boil. Anger overtook me, and I tensed up because I wanted to find and hurt the SOB who did this horrible thing and make the rest of his life miserable. “Mam, please come inside with me, and I will get you a decent meal and milk for the baby. It’ll be OK. You come on with me, please. Don’t you worry? Forget your ex-boyfriend; he will not be allowed to harm you or the baby.” Hampton shuffled his feet in a circular motion and lowered his head as he spoke to the woman; his voice became softer but higher pitched. He had difficulty making and keeping eye contact with her. The woman reluctantly allowed me to escort her into the restaurant. She walked behind me with her head down and covered in a shawl. I heard several grunts come from the woman as we were being led to our able. Many eyes followed us as we made our way through the crowded restaurant. The waitress who seated us looked condescendingly at the woman, but the woman did not take notice. The waitress’s behavior made me wonder how often this young woman had suffered from abusive treatment. Surely, she must have experienced love and kindness at some time in her life? The waitress took our order—steak for the woman, milk for the baby, and coffee for me. The man at the cash register caught my attention and motioned for me to join him. I excused myself telling the woman I wanted to pay the bill. When I approached the man, he stood close to me and whispered into my ear that the woman’s boyfriend was an extremely dangerous man. He had been in prison and might cut my throat if he found out I helped his ex-woman. He advised me to leave the premises as soon as possible. Taking his advice was the prudent thing to do, he probably had personal knowledge of this character. Before leaving, I tucked five one-hundred-dollar bills into the baby’s bib and cautioned the woman to use the money to put distance between her and the ex-boyfriend. That act of kindness left me barely enough money to make it back to Georgia, but I figured they needed it more than me. I left them pondering their future, and what else I could have done? Day Six I slept later than usual not getting on the road at 7:30. The temperature was a modest 69 degrees and felt wonderful. Traffic was again light, and the sky was overcast with scattered showers predicted for later in the afternoon. Good news. It was going to be a good riding day. I wanted to spend a few days in Santa Fe, so I connected with the interstate just before noon to make better time. Traffic resembled an army of busy ants, with 18-wheelers dominating the road. I rode most of the afternoon weaving in and out of trucks and avoiding truck traps like the one I encountered in Texas. The interstate in this area was void of places to eat and to rest until I saw a roadhouse up the road and I stopped. There were many bikes parked around the place–all of them Harleys — not a good sign. My stomach knotted up, and I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand at attention. Well dam! I had stumbled upon a motorcycle gang, and I hoped they surprise me with friendliness, and do not turn out to be of the Hell’s Angels variety. However, I was in the west, and some motorcycle gangs out here are notorious for their rowdy and dangerous behavior. Hunger and fatigue clouded my better judgment, and I chose to visit the place. I said a short prayer, parked my bike away from the others, and went into the bar. The biker’s colors, displayed by the monogram on the back of their leather vests, identified them as the Desert Mayhem Riders. I had never seen those colors, nor had I ever heard of that group, but then I’m no authority on biker colors. To see how this situation might play out, would test my patients. Coincidentally, I had worn my Christian Motorcycle Association colors, and as is my habit when traveling, I had on my person a concealed lightweight 9mm semi-automatic pistol. I prayed silently that I would not have to use it. I could feel the hair on then back of my stand. My mind automatically went to the worst cate scenario. I got a lumpy feeling in the pit of my stomach, and I could tell my adrenaline spiking. There was just enough space at the bar for me to slide in and order a diet coke and a chef’s salad. When the waitress placed the food in front of me, the biker on my left shouted in a loud voice: “Well, look what we got here, gents. We got in our presence a gen-u-ine old fart pretendin’ to be a biker, and he’s drinkin’ a soda pop.” “Yeah, where you from old-timer, you’re not from ‘round here for sure? And what are you doin’ in this place, another biker asked?” “I want a snack—no trouble. After I’ve eaten, I’ll leave—no trouble, please.” My hands were sweating profusely; I rubbed them down my pant legs slowly and repeatedly, a habit acquired in Vietnam before a firefight. “What if you’re eatin’ and then leavin’ ain't all right with us, you ancient piece of crap?” “That would be unfortunate. I told you I would eat and then leave and that’s what I intend to do.” In the blink of an eye, a calm settled over me, and I knew I was in total control of my emotions and body. Without warning, the biker on my left swept my food off the bar with his heavily tattooed right arm. “What are you going to do about that, you piece of dog crap? I think you’re so old you can’t even get it up anymore.” I lapsed into an automatic response mode ingrained in me by military training many years ago. With my hand closest to the offender, I hit his Adam’s apple with a crushing blow that sent him gagging to the floor, and I drew my pistol with my other hand. “I might be old, but I assure you, boys, I can take care of myself. Now, I know I’m outnumbered, but you boys should know I will put a bullet in the forehead of the next man who makes a threatening move towards me. Who will be first?” I waited, thank God no one moved. “No takers? Then stay where you are and I’ll leave. If I see a hand reaching for a weapon, I will shot to kill. I’m leaving now; if you follow me, you might live to regret it. The bartender reached for and was shouldering, a double-barreled shotgun. I fired a shot over his head into the mirror behind the bar, and he chose to lay the shotgun back on the bar. I exited the bar walking backward, watching their hands, mounted my Harley, and sped away. Once on my bike and heading down the road, I noticed that my entire body was trembling, and I found it hard to breathe for several minutes. Luckily, no one followed me. My body soon regained normalcy. Days Seven, Eight and Nine I always enjoy Santa Fe; I have visited the city before, and it still reminds me of a large sprawling country town, yet it’s modern and progressive. The price of property in Santa Fe helps to keep the growth of the city manageable. The cost of visiting here is much less expensive than the cost of living and owning property here. Visiting this beautiful and historic town a few days I thought might erase the sting of my confrontation with that biker gang. I booked a room in the Eden hotel in the old section of Santa Fe where the shops and restaurants I wanted to visit are located. A distant church bell chimed the time to be half-past eight. I showered, dressed, and walked along the main street looking for a familiar restaurant. As I remembered, it’s not possible to make a wrong restaurant choice in this city. The restaurants here are cutthroat when it comes to competitiveness, and to survive a restaurant has to produce high-quality cuisine and exceptional service consistently. As I finished that thought, I saw the Shed Restaurant, a wonderful beef oriented menu boasting old charm ambiance, a lot of mahogany wood, and large cloth napkins. I was in God’s country again. A wave of calmness enveloped me as I was being seated by a hostess. I was thinking of how blessed I was when my cell phone rang. The sound of my wife’s voice intensified my euphoric moment. She said she could tell by the sound of my voice that I was a happy old man. For three days, I visited my favorite places and ate well at The Pantry, The Ranch House, El Callejon Taqueria Grill, and The Loyal Hound restaurants. The episode with the bikers several days ago remained with me but was growing steadily dimmer. On the morning of day four in Santa Fe, I reluctantly headed for home. My reasons were several. First, while my riding skills are still sound, I found my coordination and timing had slowed significantly because of my age—something I cannot fix. I had become a danger to myself and to others. Second, the mileage I had been accumulating every day in sweltering heat had taken too much out of me, and exhaustion had made me a road hazard. Last, my finances were now five hundred dollars less than I had planned, and I had spent excessively on restaurants. I realized I had no choice but to accept my limitations and end the trip. Hell, I am old. Days Ten, Eleven, and Twelve The Decision to use interstate highways for the trip back home was a good one; it made the trip back to Georgia shorter and safer. Good road time and mileage were possible without so much exertion, and the decision encouraged me to splurge for better lodging and to din along the way. I made four hundred or more miles a day riding so long as it felt comfortable; I stopped riding when I grew tired. There were probably many gems of visitation that I missed along the way but perhaps next trip. Day Thirteen The skyline of Atlanta looked good, but I found the glut of traffic intimidating. I thought the best solution to dealing with the traffic problem was to go straight through Atlanta on I-85 and I-75, avoiding I-285. A good idea. The ride from Atlanta to Thomasville proved uneventful but the six hours required seemed prolonged. The bike clock registered six-fifteen o’clock as I pull into my driveway. Fatigue had overtaken me, but in a strange and gratifying way. I couldn’t help smiling in a hot shower as I recalled the high points of my trip. It had been an exciting two weeks for this 78-year-old man. I’ll bet my coffee club buddies will be jealous—if they believe my tale. Day Fourteen (at home) Sadie Grace, gave a surprise welcome home party for me the second night after I returned home. The coffee club fellows were invited along with our children and grandchildren. There was plenty of food and drink, but everyone was in a hurry to hear of my adventures if any were had. So I agreed to answer all questions to the best of my ability, but I was uncertain if I could tell everything the way it happened. Truthfully, I was getting a little emotional just thinking about some of my encounters, but I promised myself to do my best to be factual, truthful and accurate in the telling of incidents. Our guests must have seen the pensive look on my face and grew quiet. “Well, who will ask the first question? Yes, Henry.” “Did you have an encounter on the trip that stands out in your mind?” The young woman and the child immediately came to mind, and surprisingly, my eyes moistened and I needed to clear my throat. It took me a few seconds to regain composure. “Yes, Henry, I did have such an encounter.” I related the story of the young woman and child, and the more I talked about that little family the more emotional I became. I almost couldn’t finish the story. Tears flowed freely now, I excused myself and took a short break to the bathroom to regain my composure. After five minutes, I returned to the living room and encouraged questions again. Bill Kelly asked: “Hampton, was there a time when you were in real danger?” You do not have to answer the question if you had rather not.” “No, I’ll answer the question,” and I told them of the biker gang and the convenience store robbery. They were in awe and near disbelief. Their hometown boy, an ordinary friend, did those things? Wow. They were impressed, and I could tell that my family members were impressed. I was not impressed with those incidents; I was just grateful that I lived to tell the tale. I went on to tell them about the positive aspects of the trip, the rice fields; the hole-in-the-road store that had been a sex slave market; and Laurel, Mississippi and the walking canes; I related it all, how much I had learned about myself on the trip and what blessings I had received. I asked them for their attention once more because I wanted to add something gravely personal to my comments. Everyone immediately grew quiet eagerly waiting to hear what I was about to reveal that was so personal; their curiosity peaked. “I learned things about myself that I did not know. I learned I have a good heart,.I learned that I’m capable of unashamedly identifying with the pain of others and that it’s Okay. Moreover, I learned that it’s Okay to reach out to those who are suffering. I also learned that I am a brave person who values the lives of others, and I can face danger on their behalf when dire circumstances threaten their lives. Now, you all know who I am, and I’m pleased to have shared these things with you.” “There is one more thing I would like to point out, and I do so in full awareness that it regrettably took me a lifetime to learn. I found out that one can gain so much information and hard knowledge about something, or someone, by just listening and earnestly showing interest. I remind you of the storekeeper whose grandfather bought and sold women into slavery. He opened up to me because I expressed a genuine interest in the history of the store and his family, and because I listened with a genuine interest in what he had to tell me. The rice farmer in Mississippi was eager to share his knowledge of rice farming because he thought I was genuinely interested in learning about rice farming. The more questions I posed, the more he was willing to share his knowledge. I learned true compassion from the young mother with a small infant because I showed a heart-felt interest in their predicament—that I cared about them.” “Friends, my only regret is that I did not learn these lessons until my 78th year, and I am profoundly astonished at my failure to learn them sooner in my life. I admonish you all, my blessed grandchildren, take heed of the lessons I learned on my trip; your lives will be all the richer for having done so. Allow my last ride to be a valuable lesson for you.” END |
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