WHEREVER YOU ARE

WHEREVER YOU ARE
  by johnny carlson


                           copywrite 2001 j.carlson


PART ICONNECTIONS

　It was to be a nine hour flight from Copenhagen to Seattle, and before boarding the plane John was apprehensive. He had tried not to think much about who might be assigned to the seat next to him as he ordered a third cocktail at one of the many small airport bars. But his preparation, which consisted of vigorous attempts at non-thought was, in the end, unnecessary.

Beside him, in seat 38E of the 767, sat a beautiful Danish woman with the sweetest disposition. Her name was Eva. Within the first hour, they had swiftly moved from friendly and jovial to something near intimacy. That safe intimacy of unfamiliar passengers bound together by their mutual flight which, in this case, consisted of a blatant deception of Time. Nine hours, to be exact, which would never be counted or registered -- since the flight left at ten-forty am, Scandinavian time, and was to land at eleven o’clock am Pacific standard time.

John had no specific plans upon arrival, nor before departure, but somewhere in the beginning of those nine missing hours, he decided he wanted Eva. It did not seem to him that Eva would be less accessible to his amorous desire than any other woman who, in real time, back on earth, might agree to a dinner date. And, as he told her about his experiences and reflections regarding his long visit to Prague, before coming to Denmark, his mind hovered over her like a bee over the most fragrant of flowers. Her full lips and small slightly turned up nose seemed a constant invitation to kiss passionately -- especially when her pale blue eyes, which were slightly too inquiring, were close to his own.

John was young, intense and ignorant -- or perhaps naive -- but no more naive than the young European sitting next to him, who he naturally imbued with a sophistication he assumed all European women might have. And no matter how his mind may have been swimming with vague awe and crude wonder of a land he had never before set foot on, it is common knowledge that sexual arousal brings itself into clear images even at the expense of all higher senses.

****** ******

Eva was completely, and happily, surprised by the appearance of the young American beside her. She was a spontaneous and “in the moment” creature, who hadn’t given much thought to the essential (and therefore to be tolerated) sprint from Copenhagen to Seattle. When he sat down, after stowing his carry-on above the seat, his vodka smile, mingled with a pleasantly masculine cologne delighted her. Was he a bit embarrassed? He seemed to be. Whatever might have caused his blush, she was enamored with it -- as if someone had unintentionally left a gate open on a dreary street which revealed a beautiful inner garden courtyard. She wanted to take a closer look, but carefully and slowly -- not to cause alarm or protest.

It was soon obvious that he had an easy sense of humor, and was not at all shy. The only type of person Eva did not like was the uptight or ill mannered. Everyone else, as far as she was concerned, was her equal. She decided she liked John very much.

After food had been served and the trays cleared, John ordered a cognac to top off his meal and innumerable shots of vodka already ingested. One of the two on-flight movies began. He dozed off with his face toward Eva. Something fluttered deep inside her.

********************

TERI --

Life is not a series of happy endings. Circumstances rarely lend themselves to the kind of orderly outcomes we wish. The kind of moral order which can be categorized, labeled and consigned to watertight compartments generally ends where it begins -- within the narrow confines of idealism. Life is messy, and our relationships with others are complex and subject to constant flux. This seems obvious, and yet most of us continually fight against the truth. We expect things to turn out the way we want them to turn out -- or at least better than they are, but there are many different answers to a question. The twists and turns and complications stemming from any single event are numerous and unpredictable.

Teri was one of those who believed in happy endings and in struggling to find answers, however preposterous, which would lead to happy endings. She wished to appease others and to experience closure on all troublesome issues. A blind faith perhaps, but her tenacious belief in eventual and inevitable Good was as fiercely guarded as a religious faith. Like all open caring souls, she was often met by those mixed mental conditions which do not easily resolve themselves into definite conclusions. Hers was a good will toward all people in all circumstance, but even the most embracing of arms and receptive of hearts sometime meet solid rock. In those cases, the impenetrable interiors must inevitably be skirted, and the best that can be left is a bit of graffiti to adorn the exterior of the unreachable.

There will always be lives near to us which remain emotionally remote. No matter how eloquently this reality might be presented to Teri, she was condemned to persist in her own expectation of all good. Optimism and kindness were deeply embedded in her psyche, her personality, her very genes. Perhaps you know someone like her and simply fail to notice the effect which that someone, with faithfulness and dependability, has upon your sense of self-worth. But if suddenly taken . . .

Being happy to be alive because of another’s presence in our life is an irrational but common fact. It is a magic we take small note of. There are, you see, and always have been, those rare individuals who make others glad that they were born. Teri Farley was one of those people. Her capacity to care and show genuine interest in others overstretched and overpowered the many negatives which continually bombard the average person. Yet her intensity in that respect sometimes brought with it unexpected hurt and bitterness.

I have always found it curious that the most loved and loving people are often misunderstood, but the reasons for this -- and the answers -- are not as enigmatic as they seem. Strange truths in life stand invisible before our eyes. Why we fail to see these truths is no more complicated than; “I wasn’t ready to see.”

Teri’s untiring interest and infinite desire to “be there” for others was a godsend to many. But any wise person realizes that they are neither infallible, nor all-knowing. No matter how “together” they seem, everyone is vulnerable. Even angels must fold their wings. Her relationship with a man who was to become part of her family at a seasoned point in her life, was to make as profound an effect on her as she had ever made on others. Two parallel lives had run along vigorously with no predictable reason why they should ever meet. Still, in hindsight, it seems inevitable and quite natural that they should. His fleeing of a communist regime, and her knowing nothing of state intrusion into her personal life did not erase the basic human qualities and feelings which they shared without having ever met.

****************************

JOHN AND EVA --

The first in-flight movie concluded, and two of the female flight attendants were stretching across groggy and sleeping passengers to open some of the still closed window shades. Eva had half-heartedly watched the film and was neatly wrapping her earphones to replace in the seat pocket before of her, when a “crew only” door directly across from her seat flew open and gave her a start! A male flight attendant burst out of the door. He was obviously amused and would surely have been laughing hysterically but for a mouth full of coffee -- some of which, despite his determination, spewed out in his hilarity. He bailed out slamming the door closed on the other laughing man sitting within.

The effect of this outburst caused Eva to violently jolt against John. John barely caught the tail end of the scene -- but after a brief puzzled look, as he took in the situation, he burst out laughing and was unable to stop for some minutes.

Eva looked at John incredulously, but his laughter was contagious, and she felt herself helplessly pulled into a giddy tidal wave of laughter. She had no idea what she was laughing at, but she gave into it completely. When the laughter subsided, she pulled in enough breath to ask; “What?!”

“I don’t know,” he chuckled. “It just struck me funny.”

“What? What struck you funny?”

“Those guys in there,” he said, nodding towards the “crew only” door. “The thought of two young men bunched up in that narrow compartment on the premise of napping, or whatever, only to have their privacy explode on to some of us passengers! The very people from whom they were trying to escape notice for a little while are, in the end, forced to see them!”

She shook her head, still smiling. “I still don’t understand what you mean.”

John’s face became serious. He wanted to kiss her. “Well, look,” he whispered, “those guys probably have something going on.”

She just looked at him -- not comprehending, but wanting to.

“I mean. . . you know; they’re probably gay.” He nodded toward the one attendant who was now far down the aisle serving drinks with one of the female flight attendants. “It’s obvious he is, anyway.”

“Oh,” she said. “I forgot that you Americans have problems with that sort of thing. Still, I don’t get the humor of it,” she said apologetically.

John protested. “No. No, I don’t have a problem with that at all. On the contrary! I was entering into their situation. You know, feeling their fun and then their embarrassment all at once. No, I think it’s great.”

Eva was still a bit confused by his amusement, but she told herself that it must be that her English was lacking. “Just because they were in there together and, even supposing they are both gay, I don’t see how you can conclude that they have something going on.”

John decided to give up. “True,” he said, “maybe they do, maybe they don’t, but I would have laughed even if it had been a man and a woman in there. The way he flew out spraying his drink!”

“Yes!” she said. And they both giggled.

**********************************

PHILIP AND MIROSLAV --

Miroslav had been with Philip nearly ten months, and in the United States only a few years. He met Philip in a bar, a place he hated but occasionally agreed to visit with friends. Meeting Philip was more than just the beginning of an intimate alliance: More than Love alone. When one person becomes involved with another, worlds open up and doors appear where nothing stood before.

Miroslav’s life had been, until now, like climbing down a rope; a cord braided by many and various strands. Born to a Czech mother and an Iraqi father, who the communist government would not allow to immigrate, he felt cursed early on. His mother had returned to Prague in 1968 to visit her parents bringing her children with her. A fatal mistake. The Russians came in that year, with a more relentless, even merciless brand of Communism. Things had become too lax in the former Czechoslovakia since the war, and they meant to put things in order -- and to ensure they did not lose this important strategic country.

The government would allow his mother to leave, of course, but not with the children. They would have to stay. She would not leave without them -- not even to join her husband. Mother and father were on separate islands. It was all a bad, but inescapable, dream.

His father died when Miroslav was thirteen years old. His mother said he died of a broken heart. Miroslav had only dim memories of the man. He had seen him only once, after they were separated, and knew nothing of his father’s pain. He would have liked to have forgiven his father for not doing more, or at least he would have liked to have understood him, but his father had left him no reason to forgive, nor any window to understanding.

Looking more like an Egyptian than his light skinned comrades, Miroslav always felt different, always the outsider. The fact that his mother refused to become a member of the communist party gave Miroslav a great respect for her, but her resolve did nothing to help him feel included. He dreamed of Love, and one of the strands of that rope he had been climbing was his strong belief, his faith, that one day he would meet his “other half.” Some of his dreams and ideas were fed by fairy tales and romantic pre-communist Czech films, but his belief continued in spite of all barriers which reality seemed to throw across his path. He was, in a sense, a throw-back to pre-Christian, Platonic thought; a young Plato searching for his other half in Communist Bohemia.

The end of that rope had led to Philip, from Seattle Washington. But the irony was not in that fact alone. It was that he met him in what Miroslav considered a sleazy bar, where sex rather than love was the general offering. Yes, he was finally able to let go of the rope to which he had so fiercely clung in the hardships of his youth. Now his hope was met, (not without fear and trepidation) but certainly with fierce determination, in the arms of Philip. That is how it came to pass that Miroslav met Teri, Philip’s sister.

Miroslav was immediately embraced by Philip’s family. Philip had told him that the members of his family were always polite and respectful, but that it might take them awhile to accept him on more than a surface level. “They’re not exactly cold, but our Baptist upbringing makes everyone want to ignore any sexual orientation that isn’t 101 percent heterosexual.”

But even Philip was surprised at the intensity of warmth shed on his new partner. You see, Philip’s father died a few days before Miroslav showed up on the scene, and some months before that, his eldest sister had succumbed to a long fight with cancer. Perhaps, because of their losses, they were in some way softened and more ready to assimilate newcomers. At any rate, Miroslav liked them all to varying degrees, but it was in Teri that he found the most interesting and pleasing personality.

Miroslav told Philip that Teri reminded him both of his mother, back in Prague, and also of his good friend, Jarka. Philip conceded that this may be true -- “but you’ve got a lot in common with her, yourself.”

“Yes,” Miroslav answered, “but I’ve got my moods, which she doesn’t have, and I think I’m able to be a bit harder on people than she is.”

Philip laughed; “like on me, you mean!” To which Miroslav gave him one of his favorite Americanisms; one that had become his stock answer: ‘Whatever.’

　

**************************************

JOHN AND EVA --

“I’d like to make love with you,” she whispered solemnly.

John tried not to show how excited her seriousness made him, although he felt his face burning. “Nothing would give me more pleasure,” he said just as soberly.

She chuckled at his response. Eva had grown up in the presence of frank discussions of sexuality, and although John was trying to remain calm, she could see that her statement was not what he was accustomed to -- and that he was aroused far more than need be. She didn’t mean that she wanted to do it on the spot, nor did she mean they should make love at the soonest possible moment. She simply meant it. She meant it as an honest statement and, in a way, as a sort of complement to him. She liked John, and saw no reason why she shouldn’t state the obvious. He was single. She was single -- or soon would be -- and sex, in her opinion, was nothing more than an enjoyable way to open doors to broader possibilities. If she could sleep with him, and like it, she would feel free to develop their friendship further. She would feel free, perhaps, to fall in love. And, too, a woman needed to be sure a man could make love to her and love her -- not just fuck her.

She put her hand on his and smiled.

John understood little of this -- little of what her words meant -- what they stemmed from. It did not matter though, whether he understood or not. She knew what she was about, and his integrity would speak for itself -- once his hormones stopped blustering. In the mean time, truth be known, she enjoyed thinking about him thinking about it. She did want to make love with him . . . but she was not opposed to plain old screwing if she could be sure it wouldn’t compromise better things to come.

Her initial amiability and pleasant superficiality (which served so well in relieving John’s anxiety when boarding the plane) was replaced now with a sly and intimate smile. A smile that went far beyond mere relief. It was an almost wicked smile which made his cock begin to stir. He smiled back at her. He asked a flight attendant to bring him another vodka.

****** ******

You will not be surprised that Eva and John, these two very different souls, came together. They managed sexual intercourse while still in flight. It was neither easy nor lengthy, but both bodies were drenched in the essence of the other’s. I can only allow you to surmise how they managed it; how it was for each -- without sullying a miraculous merger and the leaching of one into another. A leaching which was more than sex. At several thousand feet up they were too close to the angels to escape a strange (and inexplicable) blessing on their union.

How is it that a relatively unimportant trip could be the opening of an epoch change in the lives of both? While Time was fooled, even robbed of its importance, two ordinary citizens of the world were given a chance to come together like long lost lovers. To begin a lifelong dance which began outside of Time -- within the Eternal, within the Absolute!

**********************************

MIROSLAV AND TERI --

　

He waited for the second ring before picking up the receiver. “Hi Honey! How are ya?” He asked with genuine pleasure and interest at the sound of Teri’s voice. It was really amazing how quickly Miroslav and Teri had become fast friends. Phillip, who was sitting in the big overstuffed easy chair reading, chuckled to himself. Marking his place with his finger, he stopped reading and listened to this side of the telephone conversation.

“No, we’re not really doing anything at the moment. I’m just lying here on the couch watching TV, and Philip is reading one of his Greek, I mean geek, histories -- or something equally boring.

Philip looked up and crossed his eyes at Miroslav.

“Ya, sure,” he continued, “come on over! We’ll watch a movie or something.” At this point Miroslav raised his eyebrows questioningly at Phil. Phillip nodded. “Okay, Honey. See you soon then.”

Miroslav hung up the phone, and Philip teasingly said, “Watch a movie? Ya right!” He chuckled again. “You know that never happens -- so don’t go rent one. Okay? Just make sure we’ve got wine and extra cigarettes. Every time we get together lately, we end up talking (about basically nothing) until it’s too late to do anything but go to bed.”

Philip welcomed visits from his sister (and sometimes his brother-in-law) the way one welcomes snow. It’s always a welcome, beautiful sight -- but after awhile, well . . . And it wasn’t her presence, as much as his own alcohol-induced metamorphosis that became, over time, unpleasant. But let us not go too far into psychological mumbo jumbo. The core of his relationship with his sister was love and always had been love. Miroslav’s adoration of her pleased him.

“She’s coming over in a few minutes,” Miroslav said. “Don’t get drunk and start an argument.”

Phil gave him a dirty look. “Don’t you worry about it, alright?”

　

　

Two hours later they were in a deep conversation about love and caring and what those two terms mean. Philip was becoming annoyed and irritated. He had come to a point in his life when he no longer had faith in words and in talking about things. Perhaps it was only temporary -- a phase. But this attitude had lasted several years and if it was a phase, it should have finished long ago.

Teri was a good listener. That is why people liked her and one of the reasons they were drawn to her. But she also had a lot to say. Her gifts, the things that were best about her and most admirable were also the things that could cause her pain. She did not see this of course. The Good was always the thing. Philip may have his doubts, but Teri was firmly convinced, as if by faith, that communication was the key to the good in all people, circumstance, and situation.

　

Philip knew that eventually one subject would manifest itself in the conversation that he wished would not. Whether by accident or design, it seemed his continuing relationship with his ex, Paulo, would be mentioned. Because Paulo was a difficult person (to put it mildly) whose friendship Philip was committed to retaining, it was a sore topic with Miroslav. Miroslav uneasily tolerated the situation because of his respect for Phil, but he did not care for Paulo and viewed the friendship as suspect and unhealthy.

Although a large part of Philip’s very being was about unconditional love and concern for others, his explanations to Miroslav were met by a strong mental block. And talking about it no longer served any reasonable function. There was no beneficial purpose.

Miroslav, you must understand, exuded strength. His whole character -- his demeanor, his stance -- was of self enforced reserve and restraint. There were numerous reasons to explain why he was this way, but the important thing to note here is that Philip found it difficult to see Miroslav’s pain or hurt. It was beyond him, for some unknown reason, why Miroslav would feel resentful or wounded at having to share his new lover with shadows of the past.

For these very reasons, of course, Teri wanted everyone to be “okay” with it, and often tried to work as an intercessor or interpreter. But so far this evening the subject had not come up even as an aside. Ironically, Philip was becoming impatient that while talking about Love, no one mentioned Paulo and how his impervious position effected Philip and Miroslav!

At the moment they were discussing Teri’s relationship with her two teenage sons and one of her students who had been living with the family for a couple of months.

“You know when Joni moved in, at first it was great. I mean,” she hesitated, “not that it isn’t great now. We all love her, and as far as I’m concerned she could stay forever, but there’s just been a lot of tension between her and the boys -- especially Niles.

“Why especially Niles?” Miroslav asked.

“Well, she doesn’t think Niles likes her, so she’s always trying too hard around him -- and the more she tries, the more he ignores her.”

Miroslav nodded, “I hate to say it Teri, but I’ve said since I’ve known her, that she’s a bit of a manipulator. I think Niles probably sees that in her and won’t give her the satisfaction of any interest on his part.”

Teri looked into space with a sort of pained expression. “I don’t know if she’s a manipulator, but it is true that she has a real immature need to be the center of attention. And, too, you have to take into consideration that she is only seventeen years old. And we all know how screwed up her mother is and . . . her dad isn’t much better.”

There was a moment of silence before she continued; “The thing is, I really love that girl, and because I love my boys so much, it’s painful for me that everyone can’t love each other like family.”

Miroslav was thinking about his own experiences back home in Prague and the bitter jealousies he felt when one of his older cousins had come to stay with them for two months one summer. He thought about how mean he was to her for no other reason than that his mother paid her so much attention. Then he remembered the few men his mother had dated. How he and his brother, Honza, had tried to sabotage any chance of her getting really serious with any of them. Now, of course, he was ashamed of his behavior. But he still felt that old fear of losing his mother’s reliance on him as her oldest -- her best friend and protector. Yes, even now, childish though it was, his face flushed as he felt the old fear-induced resentment and hostility.

“That’s just it,” he said, “she isn’t family! And they want to make sure that she knows, and you know, that she isn’t. It’s only natural for Niles and David, because you are so close, to feel as though the love you’re shedding for her -- you know, like you said, staying up all night talking about her problems and stuff -- that love and extra care is rightfully theirs! You know?”

　

Here Philip interrupted. “Besides, Teri, love is a pretty broad word. Are you sure you love Joni, or are you just getting off on finally having a daughter? If you ask me, you and she are both getting something from this friendship. And I don’t know if love is what it is -- unless it’s self-love. The way she calls you ‘Mother’ instead of ‘Mom’ or ‘Teri,’ kind of gives me the creeps”

Teri felt defensive. “What do you mean? I think it’s cute that she calls me ‘Mother’!”

Phil shook his head in disgust. “Come on, Teri! She got that from you. You call our Mom, ‘Mother’. Joni is constantly imitating and emulating you -- even as far as the clothes she chooses for Christsake!”

Teri moved her hand as if to dismiss her brother’s words. “That’s what Miroslav and I have just been talking about, Phil! Love being a very broad and arbitrary term. There are so many kinds of love and ways of feeling love, that I don’t see how you can say that I don’t love her.”

“Okay, maybe you do. Maybe that’s my problem with this conversation -- because all love, at its root, is selfish. It’s a desperate bid to make sense of life and of who we are. The person you love defines you. You see yourself as ‘someone who loves so-and-so,’ and therefore you can preserve a nice little self-image of ‘a loving person.’ All this talk and lisping about Love is just so damn saccharine that it makes me nauseous!”

“Phil, Please!” Miroslav interjected. “Why are you such an asshole sometimes?”

“Ya, Philip! We’re having a nice discussion about something, and you’ve got to get ugly about it for some reason!”

“I’m not being ugly!” he protested. “That’s my opinion of Love, in general, not my opinion of just you, for Christsake!”

“Phil! That’s enough,” Miroslav pleaded, “that’s your sister.”



Phil looked at him angrily. “Right! It’s my sister, and I can say any damn thing I want to her. So just butt out.”

That comment hurt Miroslav and incensed Teri. She sat bolt upright in her chair. “Philip!” She and Miroslav both began scolding him and protesting his derisive language and saying he should stop drinking.

It is true that he was very close to being drunk, but anyone who has lived with a chronic drinker or an alcoholic knows that arguing with one when he is inebriated is futile. They continued arguing and scolding, however, because they were very near inebriation themselves -- though they would never have believed or admitted to it.

Instead of realizing that he had hurt both of them, Phil was only aware of his own hurt, which concerned his own irrational jealousies at being near, and at the same time very far from, the two people he loved best in all the world. Had he been completely sober, he may have felt the same inner alienation, but most likely would have apologized at once. Probably, had he been in a state of sobriety, he never would have said what he did. Certainly he would have been more careful in choosing his words and tempering his disdain. But he had too much to drink and only saw himself.

******************

At that moment they looked to Philip like animals -- small dogs perhaps -- yapping and snarling and waiting for him to fall like a wounded elk, which they would fly into and tear to bits! He felt cornered and defensive. He, after all, was the massive elk and normally would have dismissed their puny barking with a kick and a snort. They had him at a disadvantage. Suddenly a surge of pride blew in to aid his wounded power. He felt his power and superiority again. He felt it in his lungs. He bellowed at them -- which, of course, only made them start and jump back before they began yapping and frothing again in an excited frenzy!

He got up, like a thunderbolt, threw his glass against the wall, and as it exploded in a shattering rain, he left the house and slammed the door behind him. Outside it was dark and cold, and he had stupidly left his car keys upstairs, But his anger was still white hot and he did not notice the cold as he walked briskly down the deserted avenue.

　

**************************

Teri and Miroslav sat staring at one another for a few minutes in astonishment until Miroslav arose to pick up the shattered glass. Teri spoke first.

“Miroslav, we had better go find him. What if he tries to drive or something.”

“No. He’ll come back when he cools down. And he won’t drive because he left his keys in the bedroom upstairs, and I’m going to hide them just in case.”

“Yes, but we hurt his feelings I think.”

“Oh Teri, please,” Miroslav said, “what about our feelings, yours and mine? We didn’t do anything, for crying out loud! This isn’t the first time he’s gotten like this. It’s not him. It’s an aberration. The Phil we both love is kind and good-hearted, but if he’s going to behave this way, alcohol or no, he has to face the consequences.”

“Oh,” she moaned, “I won’t be able to sleep now. I can’t stay here tonight. Not now.”

Miroslav walked over to her, pulled her from her chair, and embraced her. “Listen Sweetie, you aren’t responsible for the behavior of others. You have nothing to feel guilty about, and you know very well Philip loves you very much. Just go up and get into the guestroom bed and let him be for a little while. He’ll come around. I know he will feel really shitty about this tomorrow. And , Honey, you can’t drive home, you’ve had five glasses of wine since you got here.”

“You could drive me,” she sobbed, “you’re not even close to being drunk.”

“I know, but I don’t drive even after one drink, and I’ve had a couple of gin tonics myself. Come on,” he said, “I’ll help you upstairs.”

Miroslav led Teri by the hand, waited for her to brush her teeth and change into one of Philip’s big night shirts, tucked her in, and gave her a kiss on the forehead. The cat jumped up onto the bed and began purring and circling as if to find a comfortable place for a cat nap beside the floral scented visitor. “Can the kitty sleep in here with me?” she asked.

“Sure, Sweetie.” He turned out the light and left the room. Within seconds she was sound asleep with Bubba, the cat, purring softly and nuzzled into the crook of her neck.

She dreamt she was in a medieval castle which was being besieged by an army of merciless and fierce Celts. She was frightened and ran through the empty castle looking for anyone to save her. She soon found Miroslav on one of the crenellated towers with bow and arrow in hand and a cauldron of boiling water to pour over the frenzied army below. He turned to her, quoting Shakespeare:

“Beware, My Lady, of jealousy

for it is the green-eyed monster

which doth mock the meat it feeds on”

Then she saw her brother, Philip, and her two sons, Miles and David far below but away from the rest of the crowd trying, in vain, to climb the castle walls. Beside this group of three, there lay a woman in a motionless heap. And Teri had the awful feeling it was Joni lying dead.

　

　

　

　

PART II
Visitors

ELLEN --

Ellen was in a good mood. She had been for several days. It was May first and spring was daily gathering strength. Persephone was awakening, and Ellen was as expectant and happy as she could be. Nothing got her down. The winter months of overeating and hibernation had lifted. Her antisocial binges of disgust and disdain for the entire world had at least subsided -- but her repugnance was always for people, never nature.

She walked through her strange garden once more for the seventh time that day. Her hothouse poppies were safely replanted in the soft earth and budding like crazy. Other rare and eccentric seeds were beginning to sprout from the black soil as well. All the herbs, too, were tentatively testing the air.

Her garden was surrounded by a thicket of yew, black poplar, and cypress, but there were also climbing roses, clematis and honeysuckle vines which scaled one side of her barn in a lattice work of green tendrils not yet in bloom. Beyond the barn waves of new grass swelled and rolled like a green sea. She had gathered the yew and holly berries last fall, and many of her flowers and herbs were dried now and ready to process.

Ellen lived outside the town of Granite Falls Washington, about seventy miles northeast of Seattle. And east of her was the Robe Valley where the tiny towns of Robe, Verlot and Silverton clung to the banks of the Stillaguamish River among the black evergreen forests covering the foothills in every direction. She had lived there since the beginning of her failed marriage some ten years ago. She lived alone and in virtual isolation. She chose that isolation herself and had, over the years, come to believe she preferred it. Her choice to be left alone was a self imposed punishment that had become for her a kind of glory -- a silent source of pride.

Silence was what she craved -- or thought she craved -- and silence had become a sort of idol which she venerated. Ellen’s isolation, alienation, and her love of silence (or, better put, her distaste for the human voice) was as total as possible for someone living in the twentieth century yet still within the fringe of society. She had neither phone nor television. Even though her little tract of land was nearly self sustaining, there were always things she needed from town. But she had money.

One thing she could say for her ex, Sam, was that he’d done right by Danny, and she could always depend on child support payments. Even after Danny died Sam was kind enough to tell her at the funeral that he would continue sending a check. Had she not been in such a state of deep suffering she would have been taken aback by his kindness. As it was she did not know how to take that offering but simply nodded at him without expression. Then she got into her old black Nova and drove away from the cemetery numb and beyond grief for her only son -- her son who was separated from her by six feet of earth. They were large payments, most of which she saved.

Sam had kept his word, informing his accountant to continue mailing Ellen a check each month. She could always depend upon its arrival, and each time she retrieved it from the mail box she wept for her son. But the checks stopped abruptly a year ago last January. Her only link now to her past was a box of photos and two thoroughbred horses given Danny by his father five years ago; two yearlings who were now far beyond their prime, never having seen a race, but reverently cared for by Ellen.

The horses never spoke to Ellen, nor she to them. Their communication was one of nudges and pats and head rubbing. Conversation between them was strictly on the level of what one might call animal communication. They trusted and loved Ellen, and she revered them as the only loyal friends she had -- the only family she had, and besides her garden, the only things she ever worried over. Even her severe winter depression, which she knew only as her “dark mood” did not deter her from her devotion to Danny’s horses. It may seem strange to us that she had long ago forgotten their names, but no more strange than the fact that neither did the animals know hers. As I said, their communication was animal. Verbalization meant nothing to any of the three.

　

　

***************************

GUSTAVO --

If some people seem to embrace an isolation from people, from words, from having a future, Gustavo did everything in his power to escape being alone. And for the last fifteen years he had nearly succeeded. It was only in the last five that he had actually begun to believe he had an irrevocable place in the world, that his union with Lisa was an impenetrable fortress. He meant something to her (and she to him) which was too strong to recognize anything like Being Alone.

Now, unbelievably, she was gone. She was living with a new lover, a woman. Now Loneliness, like some forgotten specter was prowling furtively just outside his door. Without Lisa’s presence linked to his own, Gustavo felt the walls beginning to creak and grown. He felt his home, his very world, would soon collapse under the grip of his oldest fear, his oldest realization; No One Cares.



Just when he had finally given in to complete love, to complete trust in someone else, just when he felt a strength begin to take shape in his own heart, she was gone! If there was some sort of justice or deep meaning in this, he not only found it incomprehensible, he cursed it. For the first time since leaving Cuba, he wished he’d never been born.

A big part of Love, of feeling loved, is to ask and be asked questions -- to know someone is inquisitive about you. Someone said that love is a continual interrogation. There are many definitions of love, and Gustavo knew most of them. Whether he wanted a continual interrogation, he could not say. No one asked him anything anymore. At this point even a single question, from anyone, as to how he was getting along, would have been enough to bring tears to his eyes. He felt he was ready to bare his soul at the least provocation.

Sometimes what one thinks might be the answer, a way to escape the heaviness of sorrow, turns out to make things worse.

Two days ago he had phoned his mother in Havana. The first thing she asked was; “How is Lisa?” When he told her that Lisa had moved out, his mother began to cry. Then she asked, “Oh, what did you do to her, Son?”

He sighed internally at his mother’s reaction. She never surprised him, but he had always hoped she might. Instead of finding comfort from the one person all people should be able to count on, he ended up trying to calm her -- to play down the situation. He hung up more distraught than he had been before he had made the call.

No one knew, or cared to know, how completely alone he felt -- how unimportant, how utterly alone! Of course he would have been embarrassed by that, and he masked his unmasculine tenderness as a woman powders over the bruises which could only be seen as embarrassing evidence of an abusive husband’s strange gifts. No, Gustavo wanted Lisa’s love, her questioning, even her sneers, to prove that he meant something to someone. But he did not wish the world to see his vulnerability.

Not wishing to show one’s vulnerability may be seen, in some circumstances, as a noble quality -- but very often it is just the opposite. Pride is our last weapon against self-destruction. Pride can keep us from showing our need, but our need exposed to a stranger may be just the thing that touches the heart and allows love a foothold to grow.

　

***************************

ELLEN --

　

Why did she need words, anyway? Words spoken were only as permanent as thoughts. Once a word, a phrase, or a sentence was uttered, it lingered only a moment before vanishing into the air. If words hit her ear, they might enter the brain and become again a thought -- or a variation on the thought which inspired the word. Words could bring hope, they could bring false security and . . . If she thought hard enough Ellen could remember all the things that Sam had promised her -- like his eternal love. Ha!

“I don’t believe, I won’t believe, any of it any more,” she thought. Horses, animals, the winds, don’t lie. Children rarely do. She herself had been guilty long ago of talking too much. Talking too much to Danny. Talking, talking, blabbering, and promising things. Things that turned out impossible for her keep. Best to keep her mouth shut, best to guard against the flapping lips of others. Best not to love.

I can understand Ellen’s thinking. We can all understand. But most of us could not take the extreme view which she did. Most of us left off our angry vows not to speak when we were still children. But when an adult plays a child’s game of “I’ll teach you a lesson! I’ll show you!” it becomes a much more powerful and pitiable plan.

Yes, words vanish in the breeze the moment they are spoken. They have no essence, no smell, no texture. They are no better than private thoughts, but they are dangerous. Once the spoken word flies from the throat, over the tongue, escaping the teeth, it can be heard. That is the danger. That is when someone else’s idea finds its way, like a leach, into your own mind. If a speaker of a foreign language rambles on at length about uninteresting things, it is of no real expense. Since you cannot understand what-the-hell-he’s- talking-about, you simply smile and nod, or maybe shrug your shoulders. No danger; the words have no meaning to you, and you are not unwillingly polluted with things you care nothing for. Nevertheless language,(written, spoken, or signed) is a powerful and wonderful thing to most of us.. After passing the teeth, the human voice is little more than an annoying hum -- a buzz, a droning on and on until it dissipates into the weather. But the human voice has the flip side of providing us so much more than lies.

When the doorbell rang her whole body jerked. Her own startled reaction quickened her heartbeat. It rarely rang. When it did it was expected; a parcel ordered from a catalog for instance. It was after nine, but because the days were lengthening, she happened still to be up.

My description of Ellen may paint a picture of an extremely odd woman, but she was by no means crazy. Neither was she in mortal fear of human contact. She simply chose solitude, disliked company, and had grown so accustomed to relative silence that it had become a comfortable place. She walked to the door and opened it. A young man, but not much younger than she, stood on her porch with a troubled look.

“I’m sorry to disturb you,” he said. “Do you have a telephone? I mean . . . may I use your phone? I just totaled my car up the road a ways.”

At first she did not quite understand. The words did not penetrate, and when they did, she had no idea what “totaled my car” meant. She thought it must be some sort of mechanical problem. She shook her head.

His face was puzzled, and he spoke again too rapidly. His voice, understandably, after breaking her silence seemed unbearably abrasive to Ellen. “You mean I can’t use it, or you don’t have one?”

She nodded.

The young man looked down at his shoes and shook his head in disappointment and irritation at his circumstance. “Shit!” he said under his breath. Then he looked at Ellen again and raised his eyebrows as if resigned to bad luck. Ellen pointed at the barn which was set to the side and back of her house.

The young man misunderstood, and said enthusiastically; “Oh, there’s a phone in the barn!”

She shook her head ‘no’ again, sighed and stepped out onto the porch. She motioned for him to follow, and led him to the barn. She opened the side door and pointed to a heap of hay or alfalfa.

“Oh! I see,” he said practically yelling to the mute woman and thinking to himself that she was probably mentally deficient. “I can sleep here! Is that it?”

Ellen made a slight movement with her head, as if she’d been slapped, and furrowed her brow. He stood looking at her expectantly. So she nodded vigorously, and he thanked her.

He walked into the barn, threw his pack on the perfumed bedding, and then sat down himself with a sigh. She stood outside the door holding it open and watching him for a few moments. Then he said, rather too loudly; “Okay, thanks. I’ll be off in the morning.” He flashed her a forced smile, and she closed the door -- slowly and without a word.

**********************

GUSTAVO --

There has been much talk about how our personalities and basic dispositions are formed -- how they develop. The controversy among scientists over the importance of nurture versus nature, whether genetic or environmental factors have the most significance in shaping an individual. More and more, the preponderance of evidence shifts -- though environmental influences continue to play a large role -- especially in the field of Epi-genetics. And, of course, we all know that in order for the booming business of psychiatry and pop-psychology to continue to thrive, one of two things must happen. Either the status quo (from its Freudian and Jungian origins) must continue its traditional evolution, or psychology and psychiatry must embrace a completely new theory and begin a new kind of progression.

Why had Gustavo continued to suffer with this lifelong battle against Loneliness and discontent? Perhaps he had a genetic predisposition for depression and an emotional ultra sensitivity to “being alone”. Whatever the reason, it did not seem to matter much. He felt it. He never tried to analyze causes that were deeper than present circumstances. He was a simple person -- not stupid, but not prone to deep thinking.

Gustavo’s father had spent years languishing in a Cuban prison for political reasons. Gustavo had been raised, with his two brothers and one sister, solely by his over-protective but essentially selfish mother. And although his mother over dramatized her hardships and her husband’s cruel fate, everyone knew that the horrible life of a political prisoner in Castro’s prison could not really be overstated.

Sometimes they received letters from him. But of the few letters they received, they believed there were probably twice as many they did not. Mail could be used to taunt him and to aid in his torture. Thus, the letters they did receive were of the most mundane discourses, with basically nothing between the lines. Nevertheless, Gustavo’s mother, Maria, could make such a letter seem doubly chilling by the way she would read it aloud to the children. With just the right inflection of voice, long pauses and the clicking of her tongue, she caused the brown eyes of her kids to bug out as if they were watching a modern horror film. As anyone can tell you, not knowing, is sometimes worse than knowing the truth. Imagination and surmising what might be, or what might be hinted at, is what nightmares are made of.

When Gustavo was seven his father died. He had rotted in solitary confinement, apparently, for the last two years before he finally gave up the ghost. The fact that his corpse was severely bruised, many of the finger and toenails missing, and strange burn and welts all over it, did not cause his relatives to question the official cause of death: ‘self induced’ starvation and Loneliness. Gustavo was terrified and full of rage; rage toward Castro and the whole island of communist Cubans. His terror and his fear, however, kept his mouth closed and his mind far from political involvement. His father loved him, he was sure. And he loved his father, he thought, but the horror of his father’s “isolation” never left him.

These memories of events and early musings were a big part of Gustavo’s inner being, but only a part. Could the past events -- memories of things past -- and the present day nightmares of his father, which he occasionally had, align themselves with his abiding loneliness and pain? I can only guess. My own writing on Gustavo, Eva, John or any of the rest are meant to illicit a picture. They are my hieroglyphs, my picture language. For, unlike Ellen, I adore words and language. I use them as tools to unlock secrets. I do not know all of Gustavo’s past, only parts of it, parts I choose to know.

No doubt there are other significant experiences which could shed light on Gustavo. Perhaps, if we knew his ancestry, if we could trace a line in his family tree which manifested the same fear of isolation and depression, even more light would be shed. Maybe we would be blinded by the brightness of full understanding. Perhaps I could write a book of revelations.

Standing on the bookshelf there was a framed photograph of Gustavo and Lisa on a camping trip. He picked it up for the seventh time that day and stared at it. His eyes became moist, his chest ached, he kissed her tiny photo face, put the photograph back with a trembling unsteady hand, and wept like a child. Life was not worth living at the moment. He went to the bedroom, their bedroom, and flung himself on the bed. It was still early in the evening, but he fell asleep and dreamed of his father . . . among other dreams of lost things.

***********************************

ELLEN AND DANIEL--



Daniel awoke to the sound of birds singing. They were singing, chattering and making an amazing racket for such small things. His mood was gray, but as he stepped out of the barn, the cloudless sky and unseasonable warmth cheered him. He thought he saw the woman moving about inside the house, but it was early, and he decided to walk on without stopping. After the ordeal he’d been through the previous day, he did not want any unnecessary bother. He felt stiff and sore, and he was anxious to get to a phone as soon as possible. Besides, the woman was strange. He had to admit that she was attractive, and her body was ‘killer’, but she was deaf or mute or . . . well, who knew what!

As he walked down the driveway and along the side of the road, two beautiful animals trotted along beside him. They looked like race horses, but he knew little about such things. Still, they seemed extremely interested, and he felt strangely flattered by their hyper awareness of him. He stopped and spoke to them in a low friendly voice. They snorted and made strange noises with their lips, stretching their necks over the fence as if to make his acquaintance.

He stretched his own hand out to them as he spoke. “Hey, what’s up guys? You think you know me or something?” One of the animals muzzled his palm and sort of licked it. Daniel chuckled. “Now, that tickles,” he said. The other horse nodded his head in a sort of dancing movement, as if in agreement. Its massive neck shone beneath the sunlight in rich chestnut and sorrel tones. “Well, somebody takes good care of you, huh?” He looked back at the mute woman’s house and stared at it for a few silent moments. Then, turning to the horses again, he smiled, “see ya later, guys.”

He walked on with the odd but probably ridiculous feeling that they were trying to tell him something. He wished he knew what. He got to a gas station/grocery store about an hour later and phoned one of his brothers. He scrounged up some change from his pocket and bought a cup of coffee. He sat outside on a nearby picnic table sipping coffee, smoking, and thinking about his junk heap of a car, about surviving a wreck without a scratch to himself, about the silent pretty woman, and about the unusually friendly horses.

****** ******

Watching from behind the white shears of her window, Ellen was as surprised by the behavior of her horses as the young man they followed to the end of the property line. They had become skittish of strangers over the years -- even to the vet who they had been familiar with since little Danny was still alive, they seemed aloof. Now, there they were following him along and . . . touching him with their mussels. Ellen felt almost jealous yet fascinated. She wondered if there was something special about him -- something they sensed.

Anyway, she was glad he was gone. His being in the barn, separated from her own bed by only a wall and a few feet of ground, unnerved her. She did not sleep well. In fact, she arose several times during the muffled night to look out the window at the darkened silhouette of the barn. She did not want company, but what could she do when he was obviously in some sort of trouble. She had things to do tomorrow and hoped he would not hang about. As it turned out, he did not linger, didn’t even bother to say thank you. For all her dislike of people and her desire for him to be gone as quickly as he came, she felt something akin to disappointment when she realized he was walking away. “How stupid!” she thought to herself. But she tried to ignore her inarticulate hope for something more and refused her mind to dwell on it.

　

***************************

Everyone has a vision; a dream, a desire, a goal, a want, a perceived need. In varying degrees we all have a vision, though we may not recognize that vision as such. We may not see how desperately we are swimming toward something -- consciously or unconsciously -- happily with the tide, or struggling against the current. Sometimes our whole understanding is based on misunderstanding -- our running toward that invisible illusive goal is perceived as running away from its opposite. It is easy to see obstacles and spend time contemplating their quantity and quality forgetting, for a time, where it is we are off to. Or, likewise, we become so enamored with the outstretched rays of the corona, that we lose sight of the luminous orb which produces it. There are those who fly right on through the ethereal luminous beam only to circle round and round its source forever.

What is Ellen’s vision? She believes it is to forget. But to forget what? Should she forget the things that brought to her past the most happiness? She wants peace no doubt, but she is unable to find it because of her unwillingness to forget her failed marriage and the love she had for the man, unable to forget Danny, unable to forget her youth when she had taken so much pride in being able to articulate every emotion and thought she had ever felt.

She busies herself with forgetting, but it is the inconsequential symptoms she struggles with and not the cause. The only real satisfaction that could bring her the peace she so desperately strives for would be the reinstatement of a past unmarred by tragedy; the love and faith in the future which had been her rightful position in life and so natural to the essence of her personality. Ellen is looking for protection by forgetting the past. It is this which is barring her from the search for Love in the present which might give her the strength to stop running and to see all things in the light which is most natural to the true Ellen -- the Ellen who she daily bruises and pummels into submission.

****************************

GUSTAVO --

Gustavo’s vision is one of the oldest known to the human species; a pure and unbreakable union with another. He wants to know an unconditional love. He has spent his lifetime, however, too aware of his own impossible desires and has never taken the time to see what that “other” might need or feel. He rightly sees his own aloneness, but has somehow lost the ability (or never developed the ability) to see that every human being is, in reality, just as isolated and alone in the very depths of their individual body and soul as he. What Gustavo is really asking for is a Siamese twin. Because of this, he can succeed only in attaching himself to another as a sort of incubus, a kind of unnatural, unhealthy growth! Poor Gustavo.

All the people who I have been describing to you have their own peculiar vision of what they want. Some of them have been running in the wrong direction so long that they have become weak and crippled, others have a glimmer of what might be their saving grace. It is always possible that the goal aimed for is the right one, but many of these people, like all of us in the business of life and living, get lost along the way. Sometimes it is too late. Sometimes it is not too late. And sometimes the goal is reached in the very last stretches of a lifetime, which of course, makes the reaching of that peace no less wonderful.

But the problem of existence and of life in general is made complex by a multitude of forces and cannot be adequately described. Some of these forces we recognize; the history of individual countries, the history of society, the present forms of government, traditional values, economy, family and so on. But there are hidden forces as well which we may never see. And if by some divine miracle or curse we happen to catch a glimpse of those hidden forces, they are better left without description. But I must quote here a novelist who sees more clearly than I the paradox and irony of existence:

“. . . that life is a trap we’ve always known: we are born without having asked to be, locked in a body we never chose, and destined to die.” In that way, at least, we all resemble each other.

****************************

Gustavo was awakened by an unfamiliar sound. He lifted his head from the pillow listening intently. Nothing. But he was sure he had heard something like foot steps. His heart raced -- half in concern that someone had broken in, half in hope it was Lisa returning to his side. He listened for several more seconds and still heard nothing. Nothing but the distant sound of a few cars speeding down the freeway.

He nestled back into the pillow and vaguely registered the comfortable warmth of his bed and that it was Saturday morning. He fell back into sleep. He was soon awakened again by furtive rustling. But this time he started and sat upright in his bed.

At first he saw nothing, but the muffled sound continued. Then he saw. Someone was hunched over his desk writing! Confused and alarmed, Gustavo let out an accusatory “hey!”

The man turned, smiling. “Gustavo,” he said in a kindly voice. “Don’t be afraid, mi Hijo. It is your father. It is Pappi. I was just finishing up a letter to your mother while you slept.”

The light was dim in the room, and Gustavo could not make out any detail -- not that he remembered exactly what his father looked like. “Who are you? My father is dead!”

The man stepped forward, and suddenly Gustavo could see the scars and lesions on the man’s forearms and naked torso. “Dead,” he repeated. “That very well may be, but I am here with you now.”

However impossible the scene was, Gus suddenly wanted to believe. Yes, he did believe. This manifestation was his father. It must be -- he felt it. And with that surety came a rush of emotion, and he sobbed; “Father, Papa, why have you come? Why have you waited so long?”

Papa chuckled softly. “Not for lack of trying, My Son. The time wasn’t right. It’s difficult to get out of Cuba, you know, -- and I had to wait for the rains to stop --for the sun and the wind to carry me to you. But I’ve been with you every day of your life, Son.” He repeated, “every day of your life. And even in prison I spoke to you daily. Even from that locked and dark cell I told you many things -- tried to be your guide and counselor.”

A thousand questions ran through Gustavo’s mind, but he was so filled with love and gratitude he was unable to speak. Tears streamed down his face like silent words -- prayers of thanks -- but the disembodied spirit of his father could hear such words.

“All those things you want to ask me, Son, you already know. You’ve had the answers for a long time, but you haven’t trusted them. I came because it is time that you are set free of all the baggage of the past -- all the silly fears and misunderstanding of childhood. I give you permission to

sever the lines. I can help you cut the ties that have bound you for years.”

His father smiled as if it were all an immense joke, but the son knew the father was speaking the absolute truth and, in some way, handing him the keys to his own life. “Hijo Mio,” the apparition continued, “you feel too much for nothing. You may be a part of the Great Chain of Being -- a link in the chain -- but you are not tied to the spot! The chain moves! Move with it, Son. Make new friends! We are all part of God’s Great Chain, we are all alone in a sense, but we rattle and move together.” Then he winked and chuckled.

Gustavo laughed too. “Yes,” he said, “yes! But before you go, Papa, how is it that you write letters to mother? I mean, you know, being dead and all.”

His father threw back his head in a great burst of laughter. “Why, I take it in my hand and wave it in the air like this,” he said, waving the letter about the room as if it were a marvelous fan. “And it comes to her in her sleep.”

**********************

DANIEL --

Daniel didn’t live far from where he’d wrecked his car. Everett was between Seattle and Granite Falls. He had spent the weekend camping and hiking near a small glacier lake. He liked to go early in the year before all the trails were packed with people. Anyway, when he left the trail head to drive back home, he would have been back within a couple of hours if it hadn’t been for the accident.

Now, he walked a little farther into town to a restaurant where he told his brother to meet him. As he waited, a local man struck up a conversation with him. When Daniel told the older man what had happened and where he’d spent the night, the man said he knew the woman. “So what’s up with her?” Daniel asked. “Is she all there . . . is she mute or . . . ?”

“No,” he said. “No, she certainly ain’t. She’s odd, I’ll say that, and kind of lonerish, but she can speak as well as you er me. Her names Ellen Stouffer. She’s had some rough luck is all. Kinda closed up you might say.”

When Daniel’s brother and sister-in-law arrived, his brother asked if Daniel wanted to go try and get his car started.

“Hell no. It’s totally smashed. Besides I’ve got the charger to drive. I’m just gonna forget it. It’s down in the bush anyway, and no one will care. Maybe I’ll go back up in a couple of days and remove the license plates to avoid a ticket. But I sure as hell don’t want to pay a tow truck for that piece of crap!”

“Didn’t you have any gear?” his brother asked.

“Oh, ya! I left most of it in the car. I guess I will be going back up there.”

When they got to Everett, they left Daniel at his house and drove off. It was not until he was inside the house and about to shower that he realized he’d lost something. “Shit!” he said, “my wallet!”

　

********************************

ELLEN --

Ellen walked out to look around the barn. Nothing was changed except for an indentation in the hay. It was as if no one had been there at all. She stood looking at it in her usual silence and that strange feeling of melancholy came over her again. She walked to where he had been sleeping and reached down to place her hand in the hollowed out spot where the visitor had lain.

She was about to leave when she noticed his wallet lying a few feet away. An immediate surge of something between relief and happiness shot through her. As she reached for it, knowing that surely he would return for this, she felt almost giddy.

She didn’t dare rummage through it, but it unfolded in her hand and his license shown through the plastic window. There beside his handsome face was the name, Daniel. Just like her son.

In some strange way, the name Daniel seemed to make everything alright. It was alright to like this man. It was alright to find him attractive. It was alright to wish for his return. She read his birth date and figured his age at thirty-five -- only three years younger than herself. She was suddenly overcome by a concern she hadn’t had for years; her appearance. She ran into the house to look for the cosmetics she no longer used taking the wallet with her and . . . humming softly to herself.

***********************

JOHN AND EVA --

Every time she had sex with John, he kept his eyes closed. She didn’t want to ask him why, but it bothered her. For all she knew, he was thinking of someone else (though she thought that unlikely) or maybe he didn’t like looking at her face as much as he liked looking at her body.

It was easy to make love to him because, with John, the whole day was a prolonged sort of foreplay. He kissed her often, or he would pull her to him at the most unexpected moments and hold her close. He was very conscious of her body -- very appreciative -- teasing her and caressing her buttocks and hips playfully. He watched during sex, too, up until the final entry when they embraced. As soon as they united in that way, his eyes would close and not open again until after, when he had to get up and pee.

He was more than attentive, and always made sure that she reached climax. In John’s mind, since men almost always came, women should too. “What’s the use of doing it if you don’t get there?” he would say. “A person should feel one hundred percent and physically spent. We aren’t doing it to have children. If the day comes when we can’t reach orgasm, we might as well pack it up.”

Eva did not agree with him, exactly, and the first time he said such a thing to her she was incensed and hurt. “You mean our relationship is based on sex?” she asked. Deep down she knew that was not the case, but she asked anyway because of the way he said it.

“No, not at all. That’s not what I’m saying.” he retorted impatiently. “I’ll explain it better tomorrow.” But not only was she blind to what other meaning he could have, she was unable to reach orgasm that evening when they went to bed.

Orgasm seemed to symbolize the whole for John. Orgasm was the big finale. Oh, he was always willing to keep her in his embrace as they drifted off to sleep -- but she would have liked to lie and talk afterwards as much as she would have liked to meet his eyes when they were copulating. His orgasms were blind orgasms. His eyes closed as if in the dark -- his eyes shut tight -- shutting her out. It was as if he worshiped the paroxysm, the spasms and pumping and ejaculation more than he worshiped her; her body, her beauty, her love.

**************************



The closing of the eyes was becoming more and more of an annoyance to her. She would go through her entire day knowing that what was waiting for her at day’s end was the closing of his eyes! A strange and really inexplicable resentment was building. Ugly feelings were accosting her. But from where? Was it really just that little thing that bothered her, or was that little thing a symptom of a larger irritant? Why should something like that bother her at all? She knew he loved her, and she loved him; but rather than simply ask him, she preferred to keep herself in a perpetual state of irritation. It was like suffering under a continuous low fever which would not break.

How could she complain though, really? He helped her with everything, he loved her, he wanted to live where ever she chose (Europe or in the States), he was willing to be a father but would not push the idea of parenting on her if she wanted to wait. They had lots of friends. He was self employed and made good money. He was not a woman chaser, yet she knew she inspired jealously in some women because she had him and they did not.

She could go on and on about his sense of humor, his good temper, and so on, but she hated the way he closed his eyes when they made love. It frightened her probably because she did not understand it. But she went on expecting it, hating it, and stupidly ignoring it. What was wrong? Couldn’t she just be happy with everything? She had never had a good relationship of any duration with any man. Was that the reason? Did she need to find something? No. She did not think that was the case -- not in this case. She just wished, for once, he would surprise her and look directly at her when they were face to face in love. She just wished he’d open his fucking eyes.

That night she rolled over and fell into sleep, fast and hard, as if she were on a ledge and had fallen into a deep ravine. With a thud she was in a dreamscape of vivid and beautiful colors. She was standing in a garden just outside a lovely white house. The door of the house stood open, and just within its threshold she could see John sitting in a pale wicker chair. He was beckoning to her.

She climbed the three porch steps, smiling at him as she approached. Just as she tried to enter, the door slammed shut as if by a sudden wind. She tried the handle but it would not budge. She shook it hard and called out. Nothing -- so she turned away.

The garden behind her was beautiful but so colorful it was almost garish. As she descended the small porch again to gather some flowers, the door opened. She turned quickly and saw that it moved of its own accord. John still sat there, like an idiot, beckoning. Two flight attendants walked by in front of John and waved at her. She waved back as if all were normal. Again she smiled and tried to approach John. Once more the door slammed shut. She was overcome with a sense of hopelessness and a certain fear that she was doomed to replay this little scene over and over; unable to pick or smell the flowers, unable to reach John.

In desperation, she pulled up her dress, squatted, and pissed on the porch. When the door opened again, John did not react, just kept beckoning to her. She looked down at the stream of pee. It was burning a hole in the porch as if it were acid, and she began to scream for all she was worth.

　

****************************

PHIL --

One day Teri and Miroslav decided to go shopping together. They did that often because they enjoyed each other’s company and because they had similar tastes and interests. Still, in another light, they were very different, with hugely differing experiences, memories, expectations and world views. The old saying that opposites attract maybe true, but likewise people with corresponding interests also hold an attraction.

Life is funny that way. You can say your clothes are like someone else’s because they are of the same color scheme, yet the cut may vary greatly, and the fabric be totally unlike. There are a lot of areas you could say the same thing about; there are differences so great that all similarity is lost, and there are similarities that so delight us we disregard the gargantuan disparities. It isn’t difficult to see in which of those categories Teri and Miroslav’s friendship fell into, but the differences always loomed in the shadows, and there was one area, a difference of opinion, that they could not ignore.

Phil’s past, which Teri had been very much involved in, was to Miroslav a thorn in his side. No matter how he tried, he couldn’t seem to get a handle on the situation. Since Miroslav had never had a serious relationship of any duration, nor one that he cared so completely for, it was only natural to feel a resentment toward Phil’s ties with his ex, Paulo. That relationship naturally frightened Miroslav and it seemed like a carpet under his feet which might be pulled out at any time. Or, to put it another way, it was the one thing that could drive a wedge between Phil and Miroslav.

Phil understood this very well, but he was unwilling and possibly unable at this point to completely abandon Paulo. Paulo was, in Phil’s mind, not like an ex lover, nor like an ex spouse, but rather like a brother or a good friend who he had hurt badly. He did not want to hurt Paulo, but after fifteen years of trying to be happy and to make Paulo happy, he realized it was useless, and that the only hope for either to gain a measure of relief was for Philip to physically leave.

For years, Philip had blamed the world for how it had treated Paulo. Philip especially hated Paulo’s father for the mental and physical abuse he had dealt upon Paulo and the other children in that family. Later, when Paulo lost his marbles, Phil blamed himself for not being able to help or cure him. Initially Paulo was incorrectly diagnosed with schizophrenia, then a manic depressive related illness, then finally with severe unipolar depression and a mild personality disorder. The horror of seeing someone you love suddenly drop into an abyss of mental illness is something that can hardly be told or understood by others. It is, in some respects, like watching a loved family member die of disease, and Phil never recovered from that horror. Philip cared for Paulo like a parent would care for a child. And although Philip and Paulo had not lived as sexual partners for some time even before Paulo’s decent into hell, Philip’s love for him was unconditional. Ironically his concern and care for Paulo was probably strengthened by the very revelations which would have crushed and broken other relationships.

After years of trying different medications, Paulo finally regained at least a vestige of what he had been before. But there were still times when Paulo had minor relapses, and these “spells” were always difficult for everyone. Philip eventually resorted to an anti-anxiety medication (prescribed by Paulo’s doctor) in order to cope. For the last two years Phil, himself, had been on an antidepressant which helped immensely and was probably one of the things which gave him the strength to leave. But both he and Paulo were tied together, both by their mutual suffering and their real care for each other. All vestments of any sexual attachment had long since ceased. Neither could ever be aroused by the other again. In fact, to Philip’s mind it would be akin to incest.

　

Teri had a specific gift she was looking for which they did not find in the local mall, so they decided to make a day of it and head for Seattle. After they had found the item she was looking for (and several that she was not looking for) it was approaching five pm.

Miroslav looked at his watch. “Do you want to go eat and have a drink before we go back to Lake Stevens?”

“What time is it?” she asked.

“About five.”

“Oh my god,” she said, surprised. “We left at eleven this morning! We better call our guys and tell them where we are.”

“Ya, sure,” he said, “but I’m glad to be out of the house today. Paulo’s calls are really getting to me, and Phil just gets upset if I show it.”

“I know, Sweetheart,” she said tenderly. “It isn’t right, his calling so much. In fact the whole deal is kind of a screwed up mess. But let’s get these packages into the car and go eat. We can continue our conversation somewhere we can sit down and relax.”

　

In the restaurant Teri brought the subject up again, but Miroslav was resistant. “Why talk about it, Teri? It doesn’t do any good and it won’t change anything.”

“Well, it is good though -- to talk about things. You need to get your feelings out and off your chest. I mean, sure, it’s true that there isn’t much I can do. But I can listen, and I certainly won’t repeat anything you say.”

Without further ado, Miroslav unloaded his pent up anger, and his dark eyes seemed to burn like coals as he spoke. It was a natural thing for Miroslav to be totally and brutally honest, once he decided to let go. Teri understood, but the intensity of his rage frightened her a bit.

She wanted to be supportive, for she really did feel how it must be for him. On the other hand, she understood her brother Phil infinitely more, mainly because she’d known Phil all of his life. She also had a long history with Paulo, and she knew that the whole relationship was very complicated. Besides this, she had developed, over the years, a love for Paulo. Though she felt Paulo was socially retarded and lacked a lot of the skills which a better endowed person takes for granted, she cared about Paulo and ached for him too. It was not impossible to explain all this to Miroslav, nevertheless it wasn’t what Miroslav needed to hear at that moment.

She was between a rock and a hard place. There was no way to please everyone, and she so much wanted to be a help, to fix everything. Instead, out of shear desperation, she began trying to explain the unexplainable -- how things were between Paulo and Phil.

“You know what, Teri? I don’t want to hear all that crap anymore.”

“Well,” she said, “I guess you had better leave Phil then. I mean, if you’re that unhappy.”

“Oh, ya right!” he said sarcastically. “When you and Dale had similar problems, did Dale leave you?”

She nearly laughed out loud. “Well, no. But that was different. I’ve been with Dale for thirty years. We have two sons. You’ve just begun something. You can still walk.”

“Ya, right!” he repeated. “Whatever.”

Suddenly Teri, too, became impatient and more than a little peeved. She was tired from running around shopping all day, and also, she felt cornered. “Look, Miroslav, I’ve tried to explain things, and Phil has tried to explain. You’ve met Paulo, and you can see he’s basically like a twelve year old child -- if that -- and now it’s up to you to accept the situation and love Phil the way he loves you!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He was almost shouting and some of the other patrons had turned to see what the couple were fighting about.

“Jesus Christ, Miroslav! He left Paulo for you! Can’t you see that? Phil practically idolizes you, and he wants to live and grow old with you! But Phil is still human, and he has his own reasons for what he does. All this stuff with Paulo will diminish in time -- believe me. But you can’t erase Phil’s past.”

“I know that! I don’t want to erase it. But it’s my turn, and it’s Phil’s turn now for happiness. I’ve given him time, and it hasn’t diminished!”

“Miroslav!” she retorted, “a year isn’t time. Give it at least three or four, for heaven’s sake -- you haven’t even reached the ‘seven year itch’ period yet. Relax!”

“Nothing makes me tense up as much as the word ‘relax’ does!”

They finished their meal in relative silence. She eventually apologized. He never. He hadn’t learned to yet. “Don’t say your sorry, Teri. My grandmother used to do that after she’d beaten us for no good reason. And then she’d turn around and do it again the next month or the next week.”

“I’m not your grandmother, Honey. I’m your friend. If I apologize, it is because I mean it and will do my best not to repeat my error. Besides, in most cases it takes a bigger person to say ‘I’m sorry’ than it does to remain angry.”

“Whatever,” he said.

　

***********************

DANIEL AND ELLEN --

Daniel parked his charger close to her house and walked up the crushed gravel drive to her porch. He hesitated momentarily. He was neither in the mood nor had the patience to go through another guessing game with this odd woman. But there was no way out of it. If he went directly to her barn without knocking at the door, she might become frightened. “Anyway,” he reminded himself, “she isn’t deaf or mute or mentally deficient, just non communicative.” He knocked.

After a brief wait he heard her approach. The door opened and the unexpected sight brought a huge grin to his face. It was her alright, but her aspect had changed.

“Hello,” she said. She was smiling widely at him. “Come in.”

“Thanks,” he said. Her face seemed to radiate warmth and a strange sensuality he had not seen before. She wore tight jeans and a low cut sleeveless summer top. As he followed her lead into the house, he couldn’t help admiring her figure and sudden easy nature. He chuckled in happy disbelief.

“Would you like some coffee, Daniel?”

“Sure. Thank you!”

She showed him into the kitchen and pulled out a chair for him. He could not stop smiling as he watched her pour the two large cups of coffee. Finally he asked, “How’d you know my name was Daniel?”

She sat the cups down, grinning at him, walked out of the room for a moment, and returned with his wallet. She handed it to him. “Does this answer your question?”

The most extraordinary thing happened. They connected. They spent the next hour talking. She was less forthcoming than he regarding the past few years, but the wall which she had spent time constructing now had a gaping hole in it. A hole she was ready to open wider rather than to patch up.

Miraculous transformations are rarer than a return to what a person had been at an earlier time in their life. Still, she was only beginning. There could always be a retreat and the building of a stronger wall. It made little difference to Daniel. He was simply enjoying what he had not realized was there, just as he often enjoyed a mountain view after hiking through a wall of trees and mountain shrubs.

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

INTERLUDE;STACEY --

　
Stacey was the older sister of Phil and Teri. I have left this part of my narrative out until now because her story, in itself, represents a synthesis of the other characters’ pain confusion and suffering -- but also their ultimate successes and reconciliations with what it means to
be.

Stacey was the oldest of seven children -- Teri was the fifth and Phil the last of seven. She should have been the leader, the matriarch so to speak, the surrogate mother, the one who advises and encourages all. But Stacey could never be all that. She had children of her own, a husband, a home, a career, and in many ways she was indeed a success, but she was inexplicably wounded. She had emotional scars (or perhaps congenital deficiencies) which condemned her to be Momma’s girl forever. She was needy -- all her life she needed more attention and affection than the world was capable of providing.

To the rest of the family (except her young daughters) Stacey became an enigma of discontent. Everyone of her siblings, at one time or another, tried to help her, lectured her, talked until they were ‘blue in the face’ in order to get through to her. But no one could change her, and if there was any relief gained from talking, it was short lived. Every one of her brother’s and sisters loved her dearly for numerous reasons, but she often exasperated them. She remained unchanged and unhappy. Oh she had a great sense of humor, and she truly cared about others, but those qualities could not save her from her own discontent.

She had read, over the years, every self help and new age thought book she could lay her hands on. She got more relief in the long run, however, from reading Stephen King novels and the Bible.

Over the years she suffered a multitude of ailments, some real, some not, and had been prescribed every sort of pain pill and anti-depressant. She had battled her weight from the time she was a child. Being a generation too early perhaps, she got the modern message of body image acceptance to late. Her family, too, had the habit of encouraging weight loss but never encouraging her to simply accept herself the way she was. Being heavy lends itself well to complaining and self pity and in Stacey’s case had become a catch-all to explain her unhappiness and negativity.

When she found a lump on her breast she was frightened and rightfully so. The doctor told her it was cancer and her reaction, of course, was no surprise to anyone in the family. “It just figures,” she said, sobbing to her mother, “nothing has ever gone right for me. And now this! Now I get to die!”

Her mother, always the optimist, was just as frightened for her eldest daughter as Stacey was herself, but she was also annoyed and irritated at Stacey’s attitude. “Now, Sweetheart, just because they’ve detected cancer does not mean you’re going to die! For heaven’s sake, Dear, they have a lot of really good aggressive therapies now days. Why, you know when Grandma Jensen got it, she was ready to fight! And that was years ago. It’s true they removed both of her breasts when she was only fifty-five years old, but she lived to be ninety-nine, for heaven’s sake!”

“Oh, I didn’t know that, Mom,” she said.

“Well, it’s true. Now, you’re not going to die. Your going to fight this and live. I don’t want to hear any more negative stuff. God isn’t finished with you, and maybe he wants to teach you to appreciate living or something. We can’t know these things, but, by Golly we are not going to give up.”

“Oh, Mother,” Stacey said, “I’m probably better off dead anyway. I only feel bad that I might not be around to see my grandchildren grow up.”

“Hush, now Stacey. You are going to be around. But you’ve got to put your trust in the Lord. Come on now, Honey, let’s kneel right down here and pray.

“Dear Father in heaven, Stacey has had some awful news today, Lord. Please be with her now, and all of us, and give her the strength to face this terrible disease. Give her courage, Lord, and the desire to fight and to live for you. She’s given her life to your son, Sweet Jesus, and we ask now that you help her in her time of need. Thank you Father. And we ask these things in the name of Jesus. Amen.”

When they had finished praying, both women were in tears. Still kneeling, they embraced and wept together. “Thank you, Mom.” Stacey said. “I hope you’re right. I’m just so scared.”

“Of course, you are, Honey. But I’m here for you, and now we’ve left it in His hands.”

“I love you, Momma.”

“I love you, too, Sweetheart. You’ll always be my little girl, no matter how old you are. You’re my firstborn and I’m not going to let you go before me. It just wouldn’t be right.”

　

**********************

PART III
UNBOUND;
the wings of Nike

GUSTAVO --

　

Gustavo began to question whether his father’s visit was real or some strange dream. He had never been analytic, and it was not his habit to replay events over and over in his mind. Gustavo’s world view was far more visceral than intellectual. But the vision which had appeared to him was so very different than anything he’d ever experienced, and felt so much more real than dream, that he could neither ignore it nor accept it unquestioningly.

He did know one thing for sure; his father’s visit had made a difference. For the first time since Lisa made her announcement about finding love elsewhere, he was not distraught. He felt light, buoyant, hopeful, almost giddy with anticipation. Of course he could find happiness! he thought to himself. He could find love elsewhere! He was handsome, young, financially stable! If he did not find a partner -- big deal, he was not without friends. He could make new friends, too. Everyone was a link in the chain, everyone rattled and jingled, and he was just as much a part of it as anyone.

It was as if he had been shaken loose from his own idiocy, and he wondered how he could have been so foolish. It was laughable. His father must have, somehow, come to him; dreams don’t transform one’s outlook so drastically. Do they? Lately, when he awoke mornings, he felt a happiness and promise he did not remember ever having felt. He could hear his father’s laughter, and he repeated his father’s words like a mantra; “...the chain moves! We all rattle and move together!”

*************************

DANIEL AND ELLEN --

　

They took turns driving. Daniel was asleep slumped against the passenger door of the cab with a big blanket wadded up between his handsome head and the window glass. The sun was just rising to the rim of a vast and unfamiliar landscape in shades of searing orange, gold, and rose. Ellen loved her home in Washington state, but this landscape was so unfamiliar and beautiful that it seemed a mystical place. As the light continued pouring over the landscape she thought that perhaps she wouldn’t want to live here, but it was awesome. She was glad they were making this journey together. She still was not certain that what they were going to do was the right thing, but since Daniel had appeared in her life, he had done nothing but good for her.

The land they were driving into at this pre-dawn hour was fantastical; strange outcrops, mesas and deep valleys. They were driving down further into the foothills of the Prior Mountains which straddled the Montana Wyoming border. They had been skirting the range, looking for a likely place to camp for a few weeks -- or however long it took for them to complete their mission.

Ellen bumped Daniel with her arm. “Daniel!” she said, “wake up.”

“What?” he said, sitting upright. “What is it?”

She pointed ahead and to the east. “Look over there. Isn’t that familiar to you? I don’t know where I’ve seen it, but I . . .”

“Ya, sure!” he interrupted. “It’s Devil’s Tower. You probably saw it on TV.”

“No, Daniel. You know I don’t have a television. I haven’t watched one for years.”

“Oh. Well, I don’t know. But it was the rock formation everybody was obsessed with in that movie . . . oh, what was it called? Oh, yeah, Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”

“Aha,” she said. “Yes, I remember that. I took Danny to see that when it first came out. Sure!”

“Cool, isn’t it?”

“M-m-m-m!” she agreed, looking at it almost worshipfully.

They stopped in a town called Lovell for breakfast. “You go on in Daniel. I’m gonna check on the girls.”

“Ya, and after we eat, lets go find somewhere to walk them a bit. Huh?”

He sauntered into the restaurant, and Ellen walked back to the old trailer and had a silent reassuring conversation with the horses. It was that communication they were used to, coming from her, patting, nuzzling and cooing to each other.

　

****** ******

As they ate, Daniel said; “We’re getting close now, Ellen. I hope you’re fully convinced by now that this is the best thing.”

“I think it is. But I still worry. I mean they’ve lived a pretty sheltered life with me. I just don’t want them to be hurt.”

“No, Ellen, they’re mares. They’ll be herded in, maybe fought over, but I doubt they’ll be hurt by their own kind.”

“But they’ve never been bred, Daniel. My ex-husband said that they are sort of delicate, and that they sometimes need help giving birth and . . .”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s gonna happen,” he interrupted. “Anyway, you said they were past their prime.”

“I meant for racing, not breeding.”

　

It was strange how he had talked her into this. It was funny, too, that even before he appeared, the thought of letting her animals go had crossed her mind. But it had been merely a thought -- a whisper -- there was nowhere these days that horses ran free. Now she knew different. She and Daniel were on their way toward one of the few places where such animals (whether wild or feral) were protected.

She was, in one sense, excited at the prospect, but she was also afraid for them. She knew many would judge this act to be wrong, even cruel, and there was a part of her that felt something akin to guilt.

“Such beautiful animals,” he had said months ago -- meaning, she supposed, all horses, not just hers. “It’s a shame to keep them imprisoned for a lifetime. And in your case, why? For what? Just for your son’s memory?”

She had bristled at his logic. “What do you mean ‘imprisoned’? They are taken care of like children are taken care of! Thousands of thoroughbreds are loved like family members.”

“Yes, yes I know,” he agreed, “but they aren’t are they? They’re not family. They’re not human. They’re animals.”

“But, Daniel,” she had argued, “these animals have been domesticated since the time of the Greeks and maybe before. They know nothing else.”

“Exactly. We keep them in a state of perpetual adolescence -- having to be led and fed and cared for and watched every minute. We’ve been doing what we like with whatever animal species we chose for centuries. When is the human race going to release the earth from its clutches!”

He made a kind of sense, but it’s too late for that sort of idealism, she thought. He was the one who was thinking like an adolescent. Still, she had her own very good reasons for thinking that freeing them would be a good thing, even if those reasons were her own selfish ones. And when he had mentioned the Australian Brumbies, the Tarpans of Poland, the Przewalskies of Asia, the horses of Sable Island and the Mustangs of the Western United States, her interest mounted.

“After all,” he had said, “all those horses were domesticated. But they somehow won their freedom back, didn’t they? Don’t tell me that many of those animals weren’t at one time treated like family. I suppose, yes, a few died, and a few still die, but lots more live!”

****** ******

Another beautiful morning was about to break over the horizon. They had set up a campsite near a wide stream. It was mid summer, and the river itself was at its low point, strong but not very deep. On the other side was a sloping meadow which leveled off into an expanse of grassland that stretched a long way before meeting more forest and rocky foothills. They had been there nearly a week and had seen no other people except a lone hiker in the distance, nor did they see any of the famed wild mustangs. But the place they had chosen was not a public campsite -- they were not sure if it was legal to camp in the area, but it was an ideal spot, and they could always claim ignorance in the unlikely event that they should meet a ranger.

The two animals had been skittish that first day, but had seemed to calm down and accept this strange new environment. The plan was to simply allow the horses to wander away as they realized there were no fences. But they lingered near the truck and trailer, happily grazing on lush summer grasses, and drinking from the river. In the evening they stayed very near the truck and sometimes wandered over toward the campfire to nuzzle and push at Ellen and Daniel. Ellen had gradually stopped their feed supplements of grains and alfalfa weeks ago in preparation for this event.

Last evening Ellen had suggested that they lead the animals across a shallow area of the river and up into the meadow. Now, as the sun announced its presence just behind the mountains, the chatter of jays and other birds awoke her. Daniel was already awake drinking coffee and pondering the horizon.

Ellen rose noiselessly, smiled at Daniel, but said nothing. She slipped a bridle over each animal and then stood waiting for Daniel to join her. They led the horses across the stream, removed the bridles and walked up the slope hand in hand. The animals followed willingly.

Steam rose from the wide grassland which skirted the foothills, and the lower sky was an awesome red which bled into an unreal spectrum of pastel hues. It was like a scene from the dawn of Time.

They walked all morning, slowly across the meadows to the tree line and back again. “They don’t seem to be getting it,” she said.

They stopped and studied the animals, and Daniel said; “If we can gradually get out of their view today, maybe we can sneak back across the river and they’ll forget us.”

He spoke too soon. As if Fate had heard them, something happened. Both horses lifted their heads suddenly and watched the distance with ears pricked forward. Daniel and Ellen scanned the area in which the animals were looking but could see nothing. The two unridden thoroughbreds became visibly more excited and alert. One trotted over to Ellen and Daniel nodding its thick neck up and down, hoofing the ground and emitting those soft indescribable equine sounds with which they had first greeted Daniel so long ago.

Daniel chuckled. “Something’s got their attention.”

Ellen stroked and patted the animal’s neck and muzzle. It trotted back to its companion. Then, as if drawn but undecided, the two began trotting. With ears still pricked toward a point in the distance, they made a wide circle around the humans. AS they completed the circle, one broke from a trot into a full gallop toward that invisible destination. Her companion followed suit.

The scene was beautiful, and Ellen knew this was it. She knew she would likely not see them again, and that she would never ever forget this particular dawn as the animals took their magnificent flight into the unknown.

The rising mists and graduating stages of color and light over the rugged silhouette of the Prior mountains looked, to Ellen, like a scene from the first day of creation. To Daniel, it was the awesome beauty of Nature, earth and sky, and life’s wondrous evolution.

As she watched little Danny’s girls race toward a new life and the freedom that lies always over the horizon, tears streamed down her face. Daniel noticed, smiling, and threw an arm over her shoulder, pulling her close. As they turned away from those moving specks in the distance, back toward the river and campsite, a shiver ran down Ellen’s spine. She thought she heard a child’s happy laughter. It was her son’s voice, she was sure. And it could not have been more clear to her than if she’d heard little Danny in the distance saying; “thanks, Mom! I love you!” Her sweet child was locked in childhood forever, and now, perhaps, his friends were galloping toward him.

******************

EVA AND JOHN --

　

One Saturday Eva decided to spend the day at the museum and then walk through Pike Place Market. John had work to do, and the weather was so lovely she could not stay inside. She started off fairly early in the morning wondering what the day would bring.

She had a relaxing time by herself, and in the afternoon she walked to a small park just to the north of the market. The park overlooked the Bay. It was so crowded with people that from a distance it seemed to be filled with nervous, squawking, flapping birds ready to migrate. Nevertheless, she joined the strange flock and found a seat on one of the benches. There was an updraft off the water below the park, and the breeze was delicious. When she closed her eyes, she was in Denmark again on summer holiday with her parents.

Something wet touched her leg and broke her reverie. She gasped audibly with surprise and opened her eyes. It was a dog -- a guide dog.

“Fritz!” the dog’s companion said sharply. “Pardon me,” he said to whoever gasped, “Fritz is a bit too friendly. He always has been.”

“Oh, no!” she laughed, patting the dog’s head. “I just had my eyes closed and didn’t expect that wet nose.”

“May I sit down here?” he asked.

“Of course, yes. Please do,” she said to the blind man standing rather awkwardly before her.

He sat, and they were silent for a while. The man was very handsome, and his sightless eyes were nonetheless rather liquid and dreamy, she thought. “How long have you had Fritz?” she asked, in order to break the silence.

“Going on seven years now,” the man said smiling at her. “He’s a great dog.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful. It must be nice to have a pal who acts as your eyes too.” She felt immediately embarrassed and stupid for saying such a thing. But the man did not appear displeased or offended.

“Yes,” he said, “it is. But Fritz is limited. I mean having him is not like having human eyes. Not like the sight I had. He’s the best, as far as dogs go; a great friend and loyal to his core, but . . .”

Eva’s curiosity was piqued, and it overpowered her reserve. “Oh, I see. So you weren’t born blind then.”

“No, I wasn’t born blind, but that isn’t what I meant.” He patted the dog’s head and smiled into the soft salt breeze without elaborating.

Eva looked at him puzzled. Perhaps he felt the stare.

“No, what I meant was I had a much better set of eyes until two years ago. I had a wife. I lost her to cancer, but for nearly twenty five years she was my eyes. Oh, I’ve always had a dog, since I lost my sight I mean, but my wife would describe things to me. She was tireless. I often told her to give it a rest, that I didn’t need to ‘see’ everything. But she loved to do it, and she could depict a scene or a person so beautifully that I sometimes had trouble believing her. Ah . . . she was a poet -- through and through.”

“You must miss her terribly.”

He chuckled. “‘Miss’ hardly begins to express it. Oh we loved each other so.”

To be able to say ‘we loved’ with such certainty rather than simply ‘I loved’ seemed glorious to Eva. She spent the next hour talking to this fascinating man. She told him some about herself, and it seemed that they really communicated. All in all, she thought as she drove home, talking to him was by far the best part of her day.

Later that evening when Eva joined John in bed, they read for a while, but soon were entwined in each other’s limbs. The books dropped and lay helpless on the floor. Eva liked it. John liked it. As always they liked it, but deep within Eva’s locked room was a tight ball of nerves which was ready to ruin their post coital sleep.

Before that time came, though, something else happened; something unusual. She remembered her talk in the park, and a flash of illumination filled her with happiness, with hope, and most of all, with a new insight.

Although she did not articulate it in her mind, something told her that if John was blind at the moment of copulation, she could open for both of them. Perhaps touch was what mattered to him. She closed her own eyes. She embraced him, caressed his back, his arms, his hair, felt his eyes with her fingers, drug her tongue across his face, breathed his exhalations. She felt a completeness which she had not allowed herself before, and waves washed over her, again and again -- so quickly one after another that all she could do was gasp and suck in deep breaths. She felt his ejaculation within her and suddenly realized he, too, was moaning and thrusting with a force she could not remember.

Eventually they came to a slow peaceful rocking embrace. She opened her eyes to meet his. “Oh, my God,” he exclaimed, “that was incredible! Where have you been hiding all that passion?”

She began to laugh -- half in joy and half in relief. He laughed too, for he was pulled into her laughter and they had never -- since the plane -- felt so in sync, so fulfilled, so absolutely, so totally in love ; in love and in tune and one.

　

*********************

PHIL, TERI, MIROSLAV--

“So tell me why you left?” Teri asked.

Her husband (who had uncharacteristically accompanied her to visit Phil and Miroslav) looked up from the football game he was watching on TV. “He didn’t just leave, Teri, he escaped. Right Miroslav?”

Miroslav smiled and nodded, but he was always a bit put off when people asked ‘why’ he left Prague. It was at those times he was often overwhelmed by a mixture of contempt and pity for American innocence and ignorance. To his mind, only two types of people were capable of asking such a question; those who had never lived under totalitarianism, or those who had but had no dreams or needs beyond serving as mindless drone to a Queen bee system. A system which had no respect for human dignity or individuality. But it was useless, he had found, to expect the average American to understand.

“Oh,” Teri said, a bit embarrassed, “I can’t believe I asked that. I mean how did you do it. How did you get out!”

Phil, who was sitting near by sketching a study of the Parthenon, chuckled softly to himself.

“Be quiet over there, Phil,” she said playfully. “You know I speak before I think sometimes.” Then turning again to Miroslav, “I must be getting senile.”

Miroslav grinned wickedly. “Getting?”

Teri flung a throw pillow at him in mock anger. “Seriously, though, do tell me how you got out.”

“You know, I tried for years to get out legally, to get an emigration passport, but every time things began to look as though they were going well, my application would be rejected -- and always for some idiotic or infinitesimal reason -- and I would have to begin the process all over again.”

“Why?” she interrupted. “I mean, why start all over? Couldn’t they just ask you to fix whatever and continue?”

“No, no. Because the communist system is just a big bureaucracy in these cases. It’s way worse than it is here -- and everything goes from one office to another, from one state worker to another -- and another, and no one wants to take responsibility, no one can. And, furthermore, no one really cares. It’s worse than a Kafka novel.”

“So what did you do? Did they finally just let you go?”

Miroslav laughed, “are you kidding? No way! No, I told my mom and my brother that I was tired of it all, and I was going to run. Mom cried. She was out of her mind with worry that I would be killed trying to escape. But she knew. She knew my mind was made up.

“I just packed a few things in a back pack one afternoon and boarded a bus out of Prague. I caught a train at a certain point and got off near a village close to the border.

“It was one of those small towns where practically everyone knows everybody else. So I walked around as if I belonged there and tried not to be noticed by any diehard communist ‘do gooders’ who might report a stranger. Luckily, it was after dusk when I arrived there so it was not long before I slipped out of the village and walked through the woods toward the border.

“After a while I came to a fence which was pretty easy to get through. That’s where you see a stone that says you’re at the Czech border. Once you cross that first barrier there’s about two miles of no man’s land which is not really anybody’s soil. I knew there was another fence ahead, so I ran like hell to get there.

“Just as I reached it, I tripped one of the wires, or whatever they were, which sends up a rocket flair. The whole night lit up around me, and an alarm started to scream. Sometimes they are set off by animals, and the tower was a little ways off, but I panicked. This fence was a type of barbed wire with razor sharp barbs! I couldn’t see how to get over it, so I climbed under. I cut my arm crawling through and had to leave my knapsack on the other side in order to squeeze under. I pulled at the bag once I was through, but it was still too big, so I yanked some things out and pulled it through.

“You can’t imagine how pumped with adrenalin you become. (I was out of my mind with fear.) I got up and just started running and running, but I felt like I just couldn’t get any speed. It was as if I were running in slow motion.

“Spot lights from the towers on either side were flashing all around. I could hear the Czech guards yelling and looking for me. Then I saw the Austrian guards ahead -- seemed like miles -- but they were beckoning to me and yelling and cheering me on.

“Finally I reached them and practically fell into their arms. I just collapsed from the effort. They were patting me and cheering and yelling at the Czech guards -- mocking them and laughing. I knew I was safe -- home free at last -- and my body was numb. I was absolutely spent from the emotional effort to get out of that country which had for so long been my jail. That country, or it’s government anyway, that had ruined my family and brought misery.”

After Miroslav got to this point in his narrative, he paused remembering as if it were yesterday. The room was absolutely still. Teri’s husband had turned the TV off and was starring at Miroslav -- rapt in the story. Teri was in tears and could barely speak when she said; “Oh, Miroslav, I’ve never heard anything so wonderful and frightening. The Austrian side cheering you on like angels on the other side.”

　

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STACEY, et al --

　

Sometime after Miroslav’s escape from that now defunct government, and sometime before he met Phil, Stacey was experiencing the difficulty of leaving home for somewhere better. She had not planned her emigration however, and it was difficult for her to say goodbye even to a world which had shortchanged and mistreated her from childhood.

Her radiation, chemotherapy, and efforts at positive imaging did little to stop the growth of cancer. It had left its point of origin in the breast and infiltrated the rest of her.

Something, finally and tragically, wanted her heavy body, wanted her abundant flesh, unconditionally.

Unlike Miroslav, Stacey had not desired to go to her heavenly home. At least not yet. She expected to reach those shores after a long life, regardless of how unhappy her life seemed to be.

She had deteriorated swiftly. She had become so difficult to move and care for that she decided, with her mother, that she would go to Bethany Nursing Home. She had worked there as a nurse; she knew many of the employees, and she wasn’t afraid to stay there until the end -- as long as mother would visit her every day.

What had surprised her the most, however, was the tireless visits from all her family. She had not expected her sisters to be there every day as they were. She had always thought they were embarrassed by her and that deep down they did not love her. And of all her siblings it was Teri and Janice that were there most. Those two were closest in age to Stacey, and she was happily surprised to see that there really was an unbreakable thread which tied, especially those three, together.

She was drifting in and out of consciousness now. The cancer was gradually affecting her brain. Her mother told the other children that perhaps it was a blessing for her to lose touch steadily and gently like this, although Teri wondered if there was a blessing to be had, why didn’t God just heal the poor thing!

Sometimes Stacey saw her mom, or her brother, Phil offering her spoonfuls of food -- helping her eat. Then, the next minute, it seemed, someone was helping her on to the portable toilet or carefully wiping her. She would feel tired and confused and want to get into the bed. Then she would want out again. Even in her most demented state, the vague knowledge of death looming in the room alarmed her. She instinctively felt the need to “be up and about”, to be doing something in order to cling to life.

Towards the end, when the dementia and the morphine were almost constantly in control, when the cancer ravaged every inch of Stacey’s unwilling body, she would have flashes of clarity. She would see her mother sitting there telling her not to be afraid -- that it was okay to go -- that the angels were waiting to help her across. And at those times, those moments of lucid thought, she became very frightened and clung to her momma’s arm. “Help me, Mommy! Oh, please, I don’t want to go yet. Please Mommy.”

These words, of course, would break her mother’s heart. Stacey seemed to revert to a time when she called out for ‘Mommy’ as a child. But Mommy could not help her now, at least she could not stop the process, only console.

Stacey’s own daughters lived out of town and got there whenever they could manage. And on the last day, Stacey swam to the surface of her unconsciousness to ask if her girls were in the room. “They’re on their way, Sweetest,” said Stacey’s mother, which was true. Her oldest came into the room not ten minutes later and kissed Stacey on the mouth.

Stacey looked up at her daughter with the confused face of an old woman who can not see well. “Julie? Oh, Julie, where is your sister? I need you both to help me choose a hat and shoes today.”

This made no sense, but Julie understood. “She’s comin’ Mamma.”

A few hours later both Stacey’s children were there. All the family had been called and told that Stacey was about to go. Whoever wasn’t there at the moment was on the way. Stacey was about to leave, to board the bus, to run and run and run and make her escape.

Suddenly and unexpectedly Stacey sat up. “Mommy!”

Her mother came to her, put her cheek against Stacey’s. “Oh, Mommy! It’s beautiful! Beautiful! They’re reaching for me, Mom.” Then Stacey let out one long last breath of air and expired, and her mother, still pressed against her eldest’s cheek, wept and wept.

　

A moment later Stacey was in the dark. She was frightened for a moment because she had lost sight of those beautiful beings who were beckoning her. But then, in a flash, her eyes focused again and two of them were at her side holding each of her arms. “How will we get across?” she asked. “I’m afraid of the dark, and I can’t get through those barriers!”

The angels smiled and made soft indescribable whispers that she did not understand at all. But then they lifted her. She was floating, flying over the barriers and through the darkness to . . . to . . . “There!” Stacey pointed to a distant light. “There! That’s were I live. That’s my home!”

And the two beings who escorted her laughed. They laughed and laughed and Stacey laughed too. For the first time in months, Stacey laughed with absolute delight.

　

　
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PART IVCONVERGENCES

　

I want to tell you now of a party. A birthday party given to a man named Benjt Pearsson. He will be sixty, and its the biggest birthday party he will ever have had -- though not the biggest party he has ever given. He was born in this country to Swedish immigrants, but has visited Sweden so often through the years that he has become what his friends call; ‘more Swedish than the Swedes.’

The man is a retired professor. He is extremely gregarious, and his house in Seattle has, over the years, been a haven for hundreds of people and an international Mecca -- all of which adore him, like him, or simply are amused by him. He regards this broad group his friends.

He has not had an intimate companion or partner for years -- no significant other -- but he is seldom alone and as far as I know feels no need for what most of the rest of us want; a lover. He has shared his house, however, with an old friend, Gosta Hagg (from Sweden) and an old military buddy by the name of Art. Downstairs of his three story house on Latona Ave, in the basement, many different guests have lived -- staying from days to years depending upon the circumstances. And, too, some friends have come to stay when they were ill or diagnosed with disease, who have died in the house -- just to be near Benjt.



I want to tell you about this extraordinary party -- this birthday party -- in order to let you see how natural it is for the most unlikely convergences to occur in a house like Benjt’s. Wonderful convergences have reverberated through this house -- this man’s house. This man who was the child of Swedish immigrants, this man whose genetic disposition allowed him to enjoy life and love people and rarely complain or expect more than he was given. He was more than a lucky man, he was rich as a result of his own acceptance for all and resignation to the truths of ‘being’, both good and bad. Every emotion has been felt there -- predominated by friendship and laughter and easy living.

In some cases it might be said that weary visitors and travelers have come to the house for rejuvenation -- revivification, as one might who attends a religious convention and leaves feeling full. But Benjt was not religious, and the metaphor only goes so far. Many associated the house with the week end, and never with the mundane workweek.

Although those of his friends who instigated this party meant it to be a surprise -- it couldn’t be. Too many people had been called to talk to Gosta. Benjt was naturally suspicious and stocked up on booze. By two o’clock in the afternoon the house overflowed with guests from the front yard to the back yard where barbeque would be served. It was a warm sunny summer day and, as usual, Benjt had an open bar both in the kitchen and on the patio in back. These two facts were not just good omens -- for Benjt they were prerequisites. At any rate, it was a relaxing place to be. Every age group was represented. Later in the evening Benjt would be presented with his gifts -- enough it seemed to open a gift shop.

But the point is, and the reason I want to tell you about this birthday party for a sixty year old who was ‘more Swedish than the Swedes’ is because all the characters in this book (with the exception of Stacey) were there. Does it seem strange and contrived? It isn’t really, since I know Benjt as well as every character I’ve described -- (they are, after all, composites of actual people who are close to me). Some of them know each other, some have never met, some are connected to each other, some only connected through Benjt! But none of them, none of them have a clue as to what life really means to the others. Every man and woman has been swimming against or with their own personal current.

You would be surprised, I think, at who talked to whom. Who knew each other and who did not. Who looked forward to being there but ended up drunk and depressed -- and who were afraid to come (but went out of respect for a faithful friend) and ended up having a great time. I will tell you that as the day progressed, Eva was very much attracted to Daniel and Ellen -- their very simple dress and unpretentious style. And having made light conversation, Ellen wondered what life must have been like for Eva growing up in Denmark. Phil had long been friends with Benjt when he was still with Paulo. And Benjt had been a true friend to Paulo after they split -- yet held no grudge against Phil. John, who had met Eva in the air returning from Europe, talked to Miroslav about Prague.

Gustavo was there with a buddy he’d brought from work. Lisa and her new girlfriend was there too, but Gustavo only said, “nice to see you” and wandered into the laughing crowd. He told jokes, talked to several people he did not know, drank a lot of beer, made toasts and often met John’s glass of vodka-coke with his own beer because John was always near by with Eva, and because John was Lisa’s brother.

Lots of people toasted Benjt and sang to him as well. Gustavo lifted his glass and said; “here’s to the Great Chain of Being . . . of which we are all links.” Nobody knew what the hell he was talking about, but everyone laughed and lifted their drinks. The jingle of glasses meeting after such toast sounded like wind chimes. When Benjt said that they should all get together every year, everyone cheered. But for all our good intentions, such hopeful expectations rarely happen. Life is too full of surprises and unforeseen circumstances.

THE END