

## The Death of a Butterfly Man

### and other stories

### Jerry McIlroy

Copyright 2018 Jerry McIlroy

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever including Internet usage, without written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, or events used in this book are the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, alive or deceased, events or locales is completely coincidental.

E-book formatting by Maureen Cutajar

www.gopublished.com

### CONTENTS

THE DEATH OF A BUTTERFLY MAN

THE ARMS

PRINCE CHARMING

THE MYSTERY OF IT ALL

(humour)

THE LAST FULL MOON IN THE TROPICS

(a play)

A CONVERSATION

(a play)

THE DEATH OF A BUTTERFLY MAN

Lo, some we loved, the loveliest and the best.

Pattaya, Thailand, two-thirty a.m. Seaview Place, Soi one. The taxi ride from the Bangkok airport is a long one and he has dozed some during the last hour. That, combined with the twenty-four hour flight from Vancouver makes his feel groggy and somewhat disoriented. He pays the driver who says something to him, laughing and patting the man's arm as he says it, some joke about ladies, said in part Thai and part pidgin English. Of course, Thai ladies, the beautiful bar ladies of Pattaya, why else do farangs come to Pattaya? He smiles, shakes the driver's hand, gives him a tip and wishes him good luck. The night security guard, an older man, small, with a shy smile, is picking up the man's backpack.

"Sawahdee, krep." The man mutters it as he always does. "You have key for me? Bennett, Tom Bennett?" He mimes opening a door. The security guard nods, smiles again, and leads the way.

The Seaview has changed in the last year, it has a pool now and a small restaurant. It is moving ambitiously upscale. The room is on the second floor and is much as he remembers the rooms although they too have been improved, pictures on the wall, colourful rugs on the floor, sliding glass doors on the shower. The Seaview was not standing still, it was moving upward as were its rates. He showers then unpacks quickly. He always travels light and there is not much needed in the way of clothes in Thailand; shorts, tee shirts, sandals, a couple of hats and sunglasses.

Despite the long, mostly sleepless flight he now feels wide awake, one of those occasions, usually when travelling, that despite being physically exhausted he can not close his eyes. Had it not been so late he might have gone for a walk, stopped at a bar for a cool beer and a chat with a bar lady but instead he lies down on the comfortable double bed and watches a Thai horror movie with screaming ladies and murky shots of knife toting villains, all in Thai. This is how he falls asleep, still dressed, with the lights and television on.

When he awakes it is a little after ten and he has a slight headache. After two aspirins and a long shower the headache is gone, he feels refreshed and energized; hungry and anxious to be out and about. After shaving he studies his reflection for a few seconds then he says aloud but softly. "I have come to Thailand to die."

True enough, he thinks, but somehow it does not have the dramatic effect he thinks it should have and he rather wants it to have. True enough, those amazing little cancer cells deep in his interior were doing what they were so very good at doing and he probably will die in Thailand, but when he thinks about it, his impending ceasing to be, he thinks of it more in this being the place where he wants to spin out his allotted days. To spin out his days in a place where he has always felt most at home, and most comfortable. This is where it all finishes.

So here I am, he thinks, still staring at his reflection. I am sixty-six years old, sixty-seven in four months. Maybe. I will never reach that ninety-eight or a hundred and three plateau and so inspire a mild wonder at my endurance and possibly my ability to still form an understandable sentence, nor however will I have died tragically and dramatically young at twenty-four. Sort of middle management in the life game. Do I think about it often? Death. Not that much, there really is not much to think about, not for me anyway. I am, if I am anything, an agnostic, so I really don't ponder the possibilities of a Christian hereafter with harps and angels and heavenly choruses nor an Islamic one with its bevy of beauteous virgins.

One of his first thoughts, or rather feelings, when his doctor, with what he thought was a rather practised soberness, laid out the medical facts, was that that he had just been given something of an immense nature, that was how he recalled it, but that feeling was something he did not know quite what to do with, or perhaps was not up to dealing with. In any even those feelings were mostly gone now, replaced, most of the time, with a shrugged acceptance.

Outside the heat is Thai heat, enveloping him with its tropical heaviness, its refusal to be ignored, and almost immediately he begins to sweat, feeling the dampness on his brow and across his shoulders. He eats at the same restaurant where he has often eaten breakfast in his previous times in Pattaya; a large, American chain hotel on Soi Three. It has a good breakfast that is reasonably priced. Except for breakfast he mostly eats Thai food.

Coming home one seeks out the familiar; people and places, but here where once he had known four or five of the staff now there was only one familiar face. She remembers him and comes to his table to greet him; smiling and flirting just a little. She asks him how long he will be in Pattaya and expresses the hope that she will see him again. He does not remember her name nor she his.

Pattaya is a city always changing; people one looks for will have disappeared, gone to work in a different hotel or bar, or gone to Bangkok, or Phuket or Chaing Mai, or perhaps home to some village in Issan. New hotels and bars will have sprung up, a huge shopping centre is being built along the beach, and the beach walk will have been beautified once again. Pattaya, the tourist part of Pattaya, is a city of instant gratification, of fond farewells and broken promises, a city of the moment, cynically practical, 'No Money No Honey' is a popular tee shirt slogan.

The beach walkway runs from Soi One to Walking Street, about half a mile. It is concrete, concrete with maroon coloured tiles, benches, statues, palm trees, small grassy areas and a large flamboyant fountain. It too wants to be upscale; for the tourists, the tourists that now come from China and Korea and Russia, the tourists that will rent the big new hotels and take the boats to the island where the swimming is better, the water cleaner. At Soi Six there is a large Buddhist shrine.

Buddhist shrines are everywhere, every hotel and bar has one. Once, in a bar he watched a young bar lady as she knelt before a small shrine, head bowed, hands clasped together holding the burning joss sticks, a charming image of purity and innocent devotion; a typical Thai postcard. It seemed a long prayer and he asked the bar lady he was with what she thought the prayer was for. "A customer." He said it seemed a very long prayer. "She no have customer two week." She smiled and kissed his cheek. She had a customer. He liked that bar lady, she was twenty-seven or twenty-eight, had a nine year old son that stayed with momma and poppa up north somewhere. She was pretty, tiny, like many Thai women and she could make him laugh, and even better, he could make her laugh. He bought her something every day; a little present, usually flowers or a tee shirt or a bracelet or ear rings. She stayed with him for ten days then he went back to Canada. He phoned her once from Canada, there wasn't much to say, she had moved to a new bar and he wrote the name down. He looked for her the next time he was in Pattaya but never found her. She had told him he had a 'good heart', something many bar ladies had told him, and maybe for her he had.

What are the three main reasons so many older western men, farangs, settle in Thailand? Thai ladies, Thai ladies, Thai ladies. True enough, he thinks, but only a part, the main part, but only a part. In Canada one you hit sixty or sixty five your usefulness is over, you find yourself in a kind of limbo, put in a box, classified, beyond interest. Where else would 'old' be a derogatory word? You might be tolerated by your children and dutifully acknowledged on holidays, might even, if you are lucky, retain some kind of relationship with them. But for the most part if you refuse to fit into your box, if you refuse to 'act your age', you are regarded, usually resentfully, as either eccentric or senile.

That, he thinks, is why we white 'elderly' males come to Thailand, for a second chance, a chance to go on living. Here you can be whomever you want to be. You can create your own life; you can find love or companionship, peace or excitement, or you can, as the expression about Thailand goes, 'fuck yourself to death'. It is your choice.

It is low season and there are not many tourists on the beach walk, mostly old ex-pats, sitting together, talking, reading a newspaper, drinking a soft drink or maybe a coffee, meeting together as they do most mornings. Some beach ladies, hoping for a tourist or perhaps a regular that wants an early morning hit of sex to start his day. Even for low season there are not many farangs, something that everyone will comment upon, as they might comment upon the rice crop; farangs, like rice, mean money. A few of the beach ladies are old hands, veterans, but for the most part they are newcomers, young and thin and dark, mostly from the north. They sit quietly waiting on benches, or stand against trees, in mini skirts and high heels, with eyes that seek your eyes as you pass by. "Where you go? I go with you?"

He sits on a stone bench overlooking the water and smokes a cigarette. As always the beach is filled with umbrella shaded deck chairs, now mostly empty. The umbrellas are red, white, and blue, they advertise the Bangkok hospital. The overcast sky colours the water a dull grey-green and in the far distance a light haze makes it hard to tell where the water ends and the sky begins. There are a few small boats anchored, rocking gently, and some Thai children are playing at the water's edge. A beach vendor, with her stock of sunglasses and tee shirts plods slowly from occupied deck chair to occupied deck chair. Despite the heat she wears a heavy flannel shirt and blue jeans. The unrelenting heat of the day presses down on everyone and everything, draining the energy from conversations and movement. Only the children playing on the beach seem immune.

On the beach everything comes to you; vendors offer you every kind of food. From fried grasshoppers to ice cream, you can buy a belt or a hat or a massage. a hand carved elephant or a porno c.d. The lady that runs the deck chair stand will bring you a beer or a soft drink, go across the street to buy you cigarettes, or to the restaurant to bring you a meal.

He continues his walk, going almost as far as Walking Street, crossing the street once to a seven eleven to by an iced coffee. Before turning back to go home he stops to sit on a bench and chat with a beach lady. He tells her he does not want a lady this morning, he just wants to sit and have a cigarette. He offers her a cigarette but she refuses with a frown. She knows smoking is bad for you. She asks the usual questions. Where do you come from? Canada. Do you have a lady? No. How long will you be in Thailand? He lives here now. She is professionally but pleasantly flirtatious, smiling and joking, sometimes giving him a little nudge, always with her hand on his thigh. She knows how to take good care of a man, good at cooking, cleaning, massage, and giving sexual pleasure. Like most of the ladies she is from Issan, a northern, agricultural and very poor area of the country. She has a momma and a five year old boy to take care of, things have been very slow, low season, she has not eaten today. When he leaves he gives her two hundred baht, he knows time is money and he likes her. She kisses his cheek, tells him he has a good heart and hopes he will come and see her again if only just to talk. He tells her he will, and he intends to, although sometime these ladies are hard to find again, sometimes they go home to their village but more likely they go to Bangkok or Phuket hoping things will be better there.

When he rises from the bench he is suddenly very tired, a heavy weariness coming upon him all at once, as though a plug had been pulled draining him of his energy, sapping the strength from his muscles. He is about three quarters of the way home when he feels the onset of rain; a sudden strong cool breeze coming off the water, and a feeling of electricity in the air. On the beach umbrellas and deck chairs are hastily being folded, on the street people are hurrying and the open food stalls are quickly being encased in heavy green plastic sheeting. He is half a block from his hotel when the rain comes; first the large heavy drops making black circles on the dusty pavement then the torrent, and in only a few seconds he is soaking wet, but he does not run, he continues at the same pace. In his room he dries himself, puts on fresh clothes and goes to stand on the landing to watch the rain. In the courtyard below, beneath a small clump of trees there is a Buddhist shrine and a spirit house, in the shelter of the trees a Thai woman stands. She is as motionless as the spirit house she stands beside. She wears tan trousers cut off just below the knee, a brown long sleeve shirt, and a blue baseball cap.

Two doorways down a young Thai woman comes out to lean upon the railing and watch the rain; she is tiny and very dark, with long black hair that reaches the middle of her back. She and the man exchange a brief glance and nod then go back to watching the rain. In the courtyard below the Thai woman has decided to brave the rain, with a quick wah to the Buddhist shrine she hurries off, half walking half running, into the fierce rainfall.

After a few minutes he goes back inside. He lies down on the bed and half watches television, the BBC news. He is drowsy but at the same time a little restless, he wishes he had something to read, the one book he had brought with him he had read on the plane. He would have to email his children, Jeff and Michael, of course Jeff and Michael were no longer children, both adults with children of their own. He would say something like. "Well, here I am back in Thailand. Hope everything is okay with you, say hello to..."

We have drifted so far apart, he thinks, but natural, only natural, children grow up, they move away, physically and emotionally, they move away. It is the natural order of things he would say to himself. But at the same time this fact of life always carried with it a touch of sadness, of something lost, an opportunity missed perhaps, and the realization that his children were his children, but with them there would never be that indefinable something that exists in a close friendship, that they were connected only by accident of birth. It was not that he especially found fault with his children, only that they saw the world almost completely through their mother's eyes, not his. They were always closer to their mother he would say, yet never understanding why this should be so. He had done what he thought were all the right things; the hockey games and soccer practices, the homework and camping trips, but the connection he had once had with his children had disappeared as they entered adulthood so that now, when he saw them there seemed to be a gap that neither could bridge so that all that remained was a shared past.

He began to doze again, only half sleeping, half aware of the sound from the television then to come abruptly awake as if startled by some loud noise and to look at his watch and find that he had slept for an hour and a half. He took off his watch and left it on the nightstand, he rarely wore a watch here. He was a little hungry but not hungry enough for a meal. He walked down to the beach, the rain had taken away some of the heat and the air felt fresh now, there was a slight breeze coming in off the water and the rain clouds had completely disappeared leaving the sky a solid, bright blue.

He sat on a deck chair in the shade of a large blue and white Bangkok Hospital umbrella and ordered a Singha beer. On the beach some tourists, westerners, most of them overweight, lay in the sun, their bodies in shades of white, pink. and bronze, glistened with oil. Tourists seek the sun, he said to himself, ex-pats seek the shade.

He sat on the beach long enough to drink two beers, slowly, and to smoke three cigarettes, aware that he vague feeling he'd had since arriving, a kind of disorientation, of being slightly off kilter, had gone. He walked to the Big C shopping centre strolling through the main floor, not looking at the shops, aimed mostly for tourists, but more to escape the heat in the Centre's air conditioned interior.

In Pattaya the bars are open air, no walls, no windows or doors, usually a U shaped bar with stools and a few tables, often a pool table. As you walk by the bar ladies call out, "Welcome. Welcome." In the tourist bars pretty young bar ladies in mini skirts go-go dance on the bar or around a pole in the middle of the U shaped bar hoping to entice the loud and rowdy Aussies or Yanks, the glum Germans, or the sedate Brits A bar lady's fee for services, one night, is a thousand baht plus a bar fee of two or three hundred baht plus a drink or two. They also make a small commission on every drink you buy them. Some bar ladies, mostly in the non tourist bars, choose not to go with men, they struggle by on a small salary and drink commissions.

He went to sit at one of the tourist bars opposite the shopping centre, he was the only customer, it was too early for the tourists, most of the ladies were putting on their makeup, a long careful process he noted, or chatting quietly among themselves. He ordered a tonic water, exchanged a few of the usual pleasantries with the bar lady who then drifted over to continue her conversation while brushing the hair of a very young, very pretty, bar lady. Preparation. Preparation for another day at the office. Some office, he thought, seven days a week, twelve or fourteen hours a day, three days off a month.

He had forgotten to email his sons, tomorrow would do, and he would email Isabella in Paris, and he would look for an apartment, but not for a while, three or four days, for now he would enjoy the hotel. It had a good pool.

That evening he went to four bars, all bars he had known well before. There he found some familiar faces in all but one, that bar had been sold and no one could tell him anything about the previous owner. He had liked to talk to the owner, an American from Cleveland, mostly they had talked about music and movies. He was disappointed and surprised that the American had sold the bar for he knew how much the owner had loved living in Thailand, they had talked about it often. Perhaps he too had just moved on, perhaps to a new bar in Phuket or maybe to retirement.

Three days later he was walking the hot streets apartment hunting, he was looking at the other end of the beach because he wanted to be close to Mikes. Mikes was a large department store that had a swimming pool on its roof where for eighty baht you could swim all day. He liked to get up in the morning and start his day with a swim although he rarely swam at the beach.

He had looked at three apartments, all pretty much the same; one large room with a double bed, a small kitchen, a small bathroom with shower no tub, and a small balcony, attractive only because of their location and their cheapness.. The options were air conditioning or not, hot water or not. He knew from experience the air conditioning unit would be either ineffectual or too cold, and very noisy so he might pass on that, but not the hot water, he had done without before, but sometimes, mostly in the mornings, a warm shower was welcome.

He stopped to remove his sunglasses and wipe the sweat from his brow and around his eyes. A brown, limping dog ambled over to stand beside him, they regarded each other briefly neither with much interest in the other, then the dog moved on to find a small piece of shade to curl up in and contemplate the inequalities of the world. He decided to do the same.

He had walked a little way past a bar and he now returned to it where he ordered a tonic water. It was a small bar, he was the only customer and there were only three bar ladies. It was early in the day, most bars were not open yet. After a little conversation, the usual questions and answers, the bar lady that served him, obviously disinterested wandered away to sit on a bar stool beside one of the other ladies, fanning herself with a magazine while she stared off into space. He lit a cigarette and the third lady brought him an ashtray and a small bowl of peanuts. "Cop kuhn krep." Then as she turned away he asked her name. "Nong."

"Nong, my name is Tom. Can I buy you a drink?" He ordered a gin and tonic for himself and went to sit at a table. He watched as she prepared the drinks and brought them to the table. She was tall, tall for a Thai lady, long legged and gangling, awkward, her hair was cropped short and she had a circular scar the size of a silver dollar on her left cheek. The skin inside the scar was whitish and puckered as if it might be the result of a badly healed burn. Sometimes while they talked her hand would rise to cover the scar at other times she would seem to almost thrust it forward, daring him to look at it, to acknowledge it.

He was intrigued by her although not sure why this should be so, other than his natural curiosity about people, especially women. At one point in their conversation he said. "I want to know you." realizing as he said it that it was exactly what he did want. She came from a farm near the city of Korat, had two older brothers both of whom left home at an early age to work in the city. "No good, never send money to mamma and poppa." She had worked in the fields until she was eighteen then she too had left to work in Bangkok. She had sent money, "little bit," home to momma and poppa. At one point he asked if she had a boyfriend. She looked away, arms crossed against her chest, and with an indifferent shrug said. "Man no like me. I work bar farang never want me, not pretty not sexy."

He ordered another drink for each of them, she drank tequila, and they talked for a long time. He came to understand that poppa was nice to her, momma not so nice, not that it mattered, they were family. After the second drink she did begin to relax some although he still sensed the anger always just below the surface, then just as he was thinking of leaving she asked him what his lucky number was. "Forty six. Although it never has brought me any luck."

"Oh," smiling and excited. "Four six good. My birthday day number four, month number six. Good number for lottery."

"Your birthday yesterday? You have party?" In many of the bars when a bar lady had a birthday there would be a party with coloured balloons and free food, often the birthday lady would greet the customers with a lei of hundred baht notes around her neck and a stapler in her hand. The customers were expected to staple another hundred baht note to her garland. But for Nong there had been no party, her boss did not give parties for the ladies.

As he was preparing to go, paying his bar bill she asked. "You come back to see me again?"

"Maybe. Maybe, I don't know." He would make no promises he was not sure he would keep. "Maybe."

Back at the hotel he took a long shower, changed his clothes and walked down to the beach. Sitting on a deck chair, sipping a beer, he thought about Paa. He thought about her often, they had stayed together on his second and third trips. Once, sitting together on the beach, in just about the same spot where he now sat she had walked down to the beach and gathered some shells for him, small perfect shells.. As he took them he had said he would keep them forever, that he would never forget her. She had smiled. "Maybe, maybe. But you never stay. Bar ladies know you, they like you but they know you. You never stay with one lady. You are butterfly man. It is your fate." She had cuddled up against him, kissing his cheek, her hand on his thigh, whispering in his ear. "But I don't care, I love you. The first day I know you I give you my heart."

Paa. Well, love dies, just like everything else, love dies, and it dies sometimes in pain and anguish and sometimes it drifts gently away in the night. But it dies, like all things. He and Paa had ended badly; jealousy, recriminations arguments, pettiness. How could it not? It had burned with intensity and drama, it could only end the same way. Or so he liked to think. Once, in bed together, having just made love, she had said she would tell him the five things Thai ladies liked the best. Counting on her fingers, "Number two, yak yak on phone, Thai lady love to talk, number three, eating, number four sleeping, number five watch t.v." He had waited a few beats. "Okay, so what number one?". She had laughed and rubbed thumb and forefinger together, the universal sign for money. "But where is man, what number is man?" "Oh, eight, nine, maybe ten." And he, feigning sorrow. "What, man only number eight, number nine, that is so sad." Then she, kissing him lightly on the lips, had said. "But sometimes Thai lady give heart, all of heart, to man, then man number one, very big number one, whole world number one. What can you do?" "Exactly," he had replied. "What can you do?" He thought of her often but he never went back to her.

He looked about him, at the others sharing the beach with him, not many people this time of day, mostly farangs like him, older white males, some reading, some with their eyes closed, some, like him, just looking out onto the water. All of us, he thought, not just on the back nine of life as they say, but in view of the clubhouse. Not just in view of the clubhouse but staring at it. And what are we to make of it, this tiny spark of life we are given? Nothing. There is nothing to make of it. We do what we do and there is no point in searching for reason or explanation, no point in regret nor in pride.

I have lived a careless life, he often thought, careless about friends and lovers, about his finances, even about his health, but he never thought of it with regret, if anything there was a hint of defiance, even pride in it. He did not believe in free will, like the soul he thought it a myth created out of human vanity. A careless man maybe, yes, a butterfly man, with a mental shrug of the shoulders, but like the story of the scorpion and the frog, it is just my nature.

That evening he performed a few errands, had two gin and tonics in his hotel room then began to walk, past all the tourist bars just now beginning to liven up, to Soi nine, Nong's bar. He bought drinks and they talked a little. She seemed shy, hesitant, this time, her left hand almost constantly covering the scar on her cheek. Then he asked her. "You want to go with me? Go out with me? Okay?" Then she smiled. He paid the bar bill and they left, she with whispered Thai words and smiles from the other bar ladies, congratulations he supposed, that was what it usually was.

He took her to the cinema, the top floor of the Big C shopping centre, eight movies showing; four Hollywood, four Thai. He let her pick. "Thai movie okay? " "Sure, Thai movie okay." "You sure?" "I sure."

The movie had everything; romance, good guys, bad guys, martial arts, special effects, even comic relief. She squeezed his hand in moments of tension, quite literally sitting on the edge of her seat and she laughed at the comedy, her hand delicately covering her mouth. He watched her more than he watched the movie. After the movie they went to a restaurant, she ate heartily, enjoying her food, enjoying her night out. At one point she gave a little laugh. "What?" It was something she remembered from the movie

In his hotel room she sat on the edge of the bed while he brought out the things he had purchased earlier in the day; a small round cake with a candle in the middle, an ornate and sentimental birthday card, a pair of earrings, and a small plush dog that wore spectacles and a top hat. He lit the candle and sang Happy Birthday. She thanked him with a long, low, wah, and a soft "Thank you." She tried on the earrings. "You like?" "I like, thank you." She spent a long time looking at the card, running her finger over the embossed lettering, she hugged the little plush dog to her chest.

That night he lay in bed and waited for her to come from the shower, it took her a long time and when she came wrapped in a large beach towel she ask him to turn out the light. She was, even for a Thai lady, unusually shy. It would be a week before he would see her naked, two weeks before she would shower with him. That night, their first night together, his attempt at sex was a failed attempt. He spent a mostly sleepless night filled with frustration and embarrassment. He held her, kissed her back and the nape of her neck, that was all. That was how they fell asleep.

When he awoke her back was still to him, holding the little plush dog tightly to her chest. She was awake but would not answer him at first then finally it came out, in mixture of anger and sadness, that he no liked to 'boom- boom' with her because she was not pretty, not sexy, he would look for a lady that was, he would not see her again.

He told her about his illness. "I have this sickness, down here, okay. I take medicine." He showed her the four vials of pills. "These two every day, one morning, one night,, these when pain come." She pointed to the fourth vial. "This when I want to go to sleep. But medicine make boom boom not work. Not your fault. Because of medicine. I will not leave you. You make me happy."

"Medicine make you all better?"

"Yes." he lied. "Medicine make me all better."

She would remind him every day to take his medicine.

She quit her job and he moved in with her, into her small apartment, similar to and not far from he had shared with another lady. It was basic, but enough, a roof, a bed, a one burner propane stove, and a small heater that warmed the shower water. No air conditioning, a ceiling fan and two floor fans. There was a table and chairs but mostly they ate on the floor, he struggling to sit in the lotus position that she fell into so easily and naturally.

Moving in together excited her but more than that, he thought, it relaxed her, she was more at ease. less edgy, less angry, never angry at him. Of course she had to show him off to her friends. "They all like you, handsome, nice smile, good heart, sexy man. I think they jealous me."

He laughed. "Nice smile, yes, good heart sometimes but no more sexy, old man now, no good at boom boom. Big butterfly man no can boom boom. Buddha play joke on me."

Most days he would awake early, between six and seven o'clock and walk for an hour along the beach. The beach would be almost deserted, a few farangs like him out for their morning walk, even the occasional jogger, and the ladies in their flannel shirts and blue jeans, the ladies that cleaned, that swept the concrete of leaves and sand and picked up and bagged the trash. The air was fresher then, the water smelled cleaner.

At home she would have made the bed, swept and mopped the floor, done the dishes if there were any from the night before, they often ate something at night. She would cook his breakfast, farang breakfast, bacon and eggs, mushroom omelette, instant coffee. Later he would teach to poach the eggs. She would have eaten a light breakfast, rice and some kind of greenery. She always waited for him to return before going to the market. He would stand on the balcony and watch her as she walked away, when she reached the corner she would turn and wave. At the market she would buy him The Nation, an English language newspaper. He would read of the political happenings, the convoluted stratagems for obtaining power, but aside from the prime minister he could remember none of their names. He liked the paper for its crossword puzzle.

Evenings they would almost always go for a walk along the beach then sit and watch, as did many others, the comings and goings, the ex-pats and the tourists, some with ladies some without, the actions and interactions that occurred. Most nights they would go the neighbourhood bar, 'their bar'. A non-tourist bar frequented mostly by ex-pats and their ladies. He would have two gin and tonics, she two tequilas, she would chat with the bar ladies. So he found himself in a kind of routine, but also found that he neither resisted nor resented it, not as much as he thought he would or felt he should.

They went to visit her village, to meet her momma and poppa, and spent three days there. It was, in fact, not really a village, just a scattering of farmhouses a few miles outside of Korat. That time of year it looked brown and bleak. Her mother was stooped and had trouble walking. Her father, just as aged in face, was spry and active. He was a quiet man, rarely speaking the whole time they were there. Nong said he would often go to sit, somewhere in his fields, alone, and stay for an hour or two.

He thought of Nong's parents as aged even though he knew they were roughly his age. Years of hard toil in the relentless sun, always the victims of the weather and the greedy rice buyers had hastened the aging process. But the thing was he was the man who had chosen their daughter and had come for their approval.

He cooked a huge meal of spaghetti, cooking a large wok of of sauce while nong cooked the pasta. Of course they all complimented him, parents and neighbours, uncles and aunts and cousins, he was sure most of them had never eaten spaghetti before. Nong was very pleased about everything. "Everybody like you, (by everybody she meant the women, the only ones, except for poppa that mattered) they say you very handsome, very sexy, everybody say you good heart, the all jealous me." Her pleasure at the perceived jealousy of other women bothered him a bit. But then what did he know? What could he understand of her life, this gangling, awkward women with the scarred face and the bad temper? Sure that no man wanted her, seeing other women, pretty and charming, find men, why would she not have been jealous? So now it was her turn. It made her happy.

She had asked him, more than once. "Why you want me? I know you have many lady, why you want me?" She would then list all her faults; the not pretty face, the too small breasts, the too dark skin. It was a serious question but he refused to take it seriously. "Because I crazy. I very crazy man."

Back home their routine changed in part, now most mornings they would walk together to a secluded part of the beach. It was strewn with huge boulders as if some giant God hand had dropped a handful of rocks on this one small portion of beach. It was not good for swimming though he sometimes went in but only briefly, mostly just splashing about a bit, just getting wet. She liked to dry him, rubbing him briskly then draping the towel around his shoulders, the way a mother does with a child.

Sometimes they would talk, other times hardly say a word, when they did talk it was mostly her and mostly about her childhood, the long hours and the hard work on the farm, toil that left her with a problem back and somehow a scarred face, but underneath all that was, or so it seemed to him, the fact that this had been the happiest time of her life. Maybe until now.

She had said to him, three of four times, not looking at him while she said it, usually with her head pressed against his chest, said it softly. "Buddha give me you. Now I have you I happy. I want to be with you forever (forever came out 'foe effa,', which always made him smile) I want to die with you." "No, you don't." he would answer. "I don't want you to."

One or two evenings a week he would go for a walk by himself, stop at two or three bars, usually just have one drink at each unless he found a bar lady he wanted to talk to. They would share stories, maybe play one of the bar games, he would buy her a drink or two. He would still want them, those ladies, the desire and the curiosity were still there. He supposed that would never end, but it had changed, it had become a kind of abstraction, like something done out of habit. He was never unfaithful though, he never butterflied Nong.

On his first time in Thailand an old hand, an Aussie, had told him. "When you first come here its like a kid in a candy store, all those pretty, sexy young ladies, you think you've died and gone to heaven then after a while they all start to look the same and you don't remember any of their names, then you start looking for something special; the one that makes you laugh, the one you really care for. We've all been there, mate."

Nong was afraid of losing him, that was evident and it made him realize how important he was to her, to her life. All her years of wanting, all the unanswered prayers, and now what if she should lose him? It gave her a kind of intensity, almost fierceness in her caring for him. She took great pride in his appearance, always making sure his fingernail were clean and trimmed as were his eyebrows and nose hairs, and always fresh clean shirt and shorts. It seemed to him she was always doing laundry. "Why you do? I take to laundry, not expensive." Without looking up she had asked . "Why you have me?"

He had always liked showering with ladies, especially Thai ladies, it could be very erotic; the soaping, the touching then fondling and kissing but with Nong it was all business, she scrubbed him from top to bottom, tight lipped, not wanting to miss a spot as if she was washing a car or scrubbing a floor. The most he got was a final hug. You miss the whole point he wanted to tell her but didn't. It would be another thing to teach her.

He could make Nong laugh of course, he did a lot of that, he was good at it; broad comedy, acting the clown, playing little jokes. It was one of the reasons the bar ladies liked him; he could make them laugh. He was good at the flirting game with its extravagant compliments, (honey mouth) and he was a good listener, a very good listener . It was not done in any calculating manner, if he wanted to take a lady home he would his thousand baht just like everyone else. He enjoyed it all. He wanted more than just the sex, It was who he was, it was his nature. With Nong it was a way of making her happy. Paa had once told him. "If you are happy it make me happy."

The first time the pain came, sudden and sharp, like a hundred piercing needles deep in his insides, he had been asleep. There had been hints before but this was different, this held him, obliterating everything else, doubling him up, making him gasp aloud. He had wakened Nong, he felt unable to cross the room to get the painkillers and too he wanted her beside him. He wanted her concern, her attempts at comfort. The painkillers did not work completely but they did blunt the pain and take away the sharpness and intensity. He would learn to take two of the pills and to always carry the painkillers with him.

The pain was a reminder too of course, a prediction of what was coming and that it would be coming sooner rather than later. It made him, at time, reflective, how could it not? He thought of the boys, his children, how they would take the news, in what way would they reflect on him and on their childhood. Perhaps they had, all three, missed out on something. On what? On knowing each other better, on being 'closer'? But he had come to believe that children really don't want to know their parents, and parents, most, want so badly to know their children and rarely do. Too, he had been the one that left the marriage, had broken up the happy home. Whatever it was it didn't matter now, not a bit, like so many things now, it just didn't matter.

There were times when he wanted so much for this not to end; the sun, the water, all the things that give pleasure to the senses, and of course the women, never again to be captivated by a look, a gesture, and the desire, not just the sexual desire, that was only a small part of it, the desire to know, to discover

Other times it seemed to matter not at all, just another light among billions going out, nothing more, nothing at all. At the same time he wanted those women, ex-lovers whom had become friends, with whom he kept in contact; email, postcards, phone calls, over the years, he wanted them to hear the news and pause, he had been an event in their lives as they had in his, pause and perhaps raise a metaphorical glass to his memory. He thought of them often. Love dies but it leaves something; an echo, a residue, more than a brief memory although contained in one, a brief postcard that somehow holds within it the sum of what that love had been for him. It had been one of those ladies, always trying to understand him who had asked, "When a woman tells you she loves you do you not believe her?" "Sure." He had replied quickly, a little flippantly. "Sure I believe they love me, just not enough. Never enough." One of those answers one throws off without thinking and later wonders if there might be some truth to it.

Sometimes, in the morning, because he always awoke before her, he would look for a long time at Nong's sleeping face, and always, as it had with other women, as it had when as a young father he had seen the sleeping faces of his children, it filled him with a feeling of awe, of great, great tenderness. Something about the openness of that sleeping face, the vulnerability, the hint of some deep innocence, was a kind of wonder, a knowledge almost but not quite gained. You will be the last woman I am with, he thought, and how much I want to make you happy. That had been his desire right from the first, more than anything else, not that he had not wanted to make the other women in his life happy, but this was different, this was almost, he felt, his reason for being. He told her many times he loved her, because she needed it, because it made her happy, and perhaps it was love, some variation of it. This sleeping woman beside him, all her life, the wanting, the hope, the jealousy and despair, to finally find it, and that it should be so short lived. But he did not think of it as a tragedy. It would be a gift, a final gift, that she had been loved. This made him smile at himself, always the romantic, always wanting the drama. Why not?

Sometimes at night, in bed, he would talk to her at great length; about his childhood, his mother, school, his marriage, his children. Knowing as he talked, too quickly and not in pidgin English, that she would grasp only only a small part of what he was saying, yet it was something he wanted to do. She would fall asleep listening to him as if it was a lullaby. One night he said to her. "I will tell you about the first woman I fell in love with." He was ten years old and she eighteen, her name was Mary and she lived six houses down from him on Victor Street. Some summer evenings and some Saturday and Sunday afternoons Mary, and usually one or two of her friends would the six blocks down to the park by the river, there they would sit on a bench with ice cream cones from the Dairy Queen for an hour or two. One evening, maybe because he was a neighbour and was standing by his gate when they passed by or maybe just an impulsive whim, or maybe, he liked to think, she sensed something, she invited him to come with them. This happened eight times that summer, sometimes she would be with friends, sometimes alone. She didn't like the name Tom, so she tried out different names for him, but mostly she called him "My hero." Her friends teased her for 'robbing the cradle' and she laughed and hugged him. When she was with friends he always sat close to her, thighs touching, her arm around his shoulders, while she and her friends talked and ate their ice cream. He never really listened to what they talked about nor would he have understood much if he had although, or so he now liked to think, he knew he was an eavesdropper, a spy in the secret and mysterious world of women. What he was immensely aware of was the touch of her thigh against his, her smell and the warm softness of her body, her delicate laughter, and the occasional press of her breast against his shoulder. He was in love with her and she became the centre of his life that summer; the centre of his fantasies; that he would rescue her from a raging river, a burning building, a depraved maniac, that he would grow up become rich and famous and marry her. He lived for the sight of her, for her presence. He took his savings and bought her a present; a toiletries set, with eau de cologne, powder and shampoo. He waited until it was just the two of them to give it to her. She thanked him quietly and with a gentle hug. Then she took his face, cupping it with both hands, staring intently into his eyes. "Oh, my hero, such a beautiful face. When you grow up you are going to break a lot of hearts." then she kissed him, not on the forehead or cheek but on the lips, a quick touch but on the lips. He saw her only one more time, that fall she and her family moved, not just to another neighbourhood, but to another city. The fantasies faded but the memories remained, remained still, drifting into his consciousness from time to time and always he wondered what had become of her, had she married, become a grandmother, and of course did he exist in her memory, did she ever wonder about him.

Often now, sitting on the beach, in bed before sleeping, these memories would come, uncalled for but welcome. They came like snapshots in an album, his boys in the water on a rubber raft, his wife before they married in a park in winter. And the women; at a beach, at a crowded bar, skiing, cooking, putting on makeup, crying at a railway station, gathering shells on a beach, even arguing. They came more frequently than ever before, these memories, filled now with a mixture of sadness and pleasure.

He made the necessary arrangements, he converted all his traveller' cheques which was all his money into baht, fifteen thousand three hundred and forty dollars. Not much of an estate, he thought, after all these years. Well, making and keeping money had never been a strong point. Simple instructions went with the money into a brown manila envelope, the instructions were that Nong should keep the money, and that she should advise all those on his email list the fact that he had died on such and such a date in Pattaya, Thailand. He had no idea what his children would do nor did it concern him

The pain come more frequently and with greater intensity. He would take two, sometimes three painkillers and he drank a lot of gin and tonics. Every day Nong prayed for him, with her burning joss sticks at the small Buddhist shrine in the apartment. It was a long prayer, and, he was sure, was filled with many promises to Bhudda.

He had been in Thailand ninety-three days when he died. For two days the pain had rarely stopped. On that night, the night of his death, the pain became so intense, so complete that nothing else existed for him. He took all the remaining painkillers and sleeping pills, then standing, as if he had decided to go somewhere, he collapsed on the floor. Nong awakened by the noise, held him, her face pressed against his as he died.

She prayed for him, prayed for his soul to be set free and for it to find peace. She prayed at the small shrine in the apartment and at the place at the beach where they often sat. Each prayer lasted about twenty minutes and she did this for thirty-three days.

FINIS

THE ARMS

The Alhambra Arms has seen better days. Not that it is a slum, just another old apartment building, a little decrepit and gone slightly to seed. The lobby is dim and needs painting, the carpets are worn and there is a crack in the ceiling. But even if all this was fixed, the floors carpeted, the walls repainted, everything made bright and shiny, I doubt that the character of The Arms would change. It would still be a weary old dowager spinning out the last of her days.

It was only the second apartment I had looked at since deciding to move and I knew right away I would take it. Not that I fell in love with the place or anything; I have never cared much where i live so long as it is reasonably clean and quiet. I have few friends and rarely entertain.

It is a solid looking three story brick building, U shaped with a centre courtyard that runs down to the river. It retains some of the trappings of a grander time; huge ornamented brass doors at the entrance, marble floors beneath the frayed carpets of the hall, and ornately carved oak banisters and railings.

When I entered the lobby I knew how the rest would be; the plumbing would be noisy and subject to frequent breakdowns, the heating system erratic, and few of the doorbells would work. But it was cheap and close to my work.

Thomas, the caretaker, showed me the apartment, actually he stood in the doorway staring at the floor while I ambled from room to room. It was on the top floor and overlooked the courtyard. Open the medicine cabinet. Flush the toilet. It was all right. It had a shower. The kitchen was small but the living room and bedroom were a decent size. I think we both new right away that I would take it but it seemed necessary to go through something of a ritual.

"Could use a coat of paint." I said.

"Maybe next year."

I could have bet he had said that a thousand times. "Well, it seems okay.".

"No loud parties, no noise after eleven. One month rent for damage deposit."

That was probably the longest conversation I ever had with Thomas. If you had a complaint you sought him out and stated your complaint; the faucet drips, the toilet doesn't flush properly, the window doesn't open. Thomas would stare at the floor and nod. Then one day you would come home to find your complaint had been more or less taken care of. Thomas was as much a part of the place as the huge brass doors and the strange nighttime noises of the heating system.

I moved in and was quite content. It was a quiet building and I liked my view of the courtyard.. The small trees in the courtyard were beginning to bud and the grass grew greener every day. As time went on I grew fond of the place; unlike most apartment buildings The Arms had a personality. It was tired and a bit frayed around the edges but it was a survivor.

Then I broke my leg and so was off work and on crutches for three months. I hated the crutches and never did get any good with them; going up and down the stairs to and from my apartment, on and off the bus when I had to go downtown was especially frustrating.

By then it was summer, my apartment was hot and felt confining so i spent a great deal of time sitting in the courtyard, usually with my radio and a book. It was in the courtyard that I got to know the Main Floor ladies. That was what I called them for all but one lived on the main floor. There were eight ladies, in age probably anywhere from sixty to eighty, all long time residences of the Arms. In the summer the ladies met in the courtyard, but rarely were they ever all there at the same time. There was a constant coming and going. Some would knit a bit, some read a bit, but mostly they chatted, they gossiped, for information was the coin of the realm. They sought it out, they exchanged it, flaunted it, and often embroidered it.

They welcomed me, after all I was a new ear, someone to whom they could recount their history of The arms; tales of strange tenants and odd events that might have happened last month or twelve years ago.

The relationships among the ladies was complex, puzzling to an outsider , like the dynamics of a family. The dominant figure was Martha, the queen bee of The Arms, a mean and spiteful little woman with a sharp tongue. She would ask the most personal and direct questions. Our first conversation, before my accident, took place in the lobby just as I was coming in from work. "What do you do for a living?"

I was surprised. "What? I work for a heating contractor, installing furnaces."

"Do they pay you well for that? Do you make a good salary?"

Days later, in the courtyard, her eyes direct and as hard as little brown stones, she said. "We never see any girls going up to your place. You're not one of those gays are you?"

I laughed at her. "Do you really think that is any of your business?"

Those hard, calculating eyes never left mine. "It doesn't matter to me anyway."

Later, some of the ladies, with don't-tell-anyone warnings to me, would relate horror stories about Martha's meanness and vindictiveness , stories always told in a half whisper, told with a mixture of fear and pleasure, daring perhaps, and never about themselves. The victim was always one of the other ladies.

Martha was a short woman with a dumpy figure and an odd walk, stride really, that was very masculine. Her hair was a frizzy brown without a hint of grey, her eyebrows plucked into thin black lines and always a slash of bright red lipstick. It was her eyes that you first noticed, they would dart to and fro, almost frantically, then settle on you with a hard, direct gaze. Her strength was in her mouth, she would be sarcastic and bullying, then suddenly joke or flatter to coax the person back into her confidence.

The courtyard stories and gossip became repetitive but all in all it was better than sitting in my room. My most constant companion was Miss Duvall, Agnes to the other ladies, although I could never bring myself to call her that. She would seek out my company every time she came to the courtyard, perhaps because the other ladies rarely listened to her. They would interrupt her, usually ignore her and talk right over her soft voice as if she didn't exist. They would acknowledge her arrival and departure but little in between.

Agnes was eighty-two years old. Almost everything about her was delicate; her skin, it was so thin, so light, as to be almost transparent, stretching over the fine nose and brow, the thin bones of her hands and arms. Even the thin white hair puffed up from the scalp was so fine it was almost mist like. Her eyes, by contrast, were so dark that at times they appeared black.

Agnes' conversation usually rambled and contained bits and pieces from something that happened at the grocery store that morning or seen on television the night before, mixed into a story that might have happened ten, twenty, or fifty years ago. Her favourite story, from some long ago time in her past, was about the time she had attended a party where she met the Prime Minister. "Not a handsome man, quiet and reserved, polite and very gracious." I must have heard that sentence ten or twenty times, always repeated exactly the same way, like a childhood prayer learned by rote. She remembered what she had worn, the food that was served, and her escort, a "Friend" named Arthur.

Sometimes in the middle of that story or some other she would stop and there would be a touch of panic in her eyes and I would know she had lost it, It was gone. Then she would turn with a quick little smile and say. "Well, I don't want to keep you. I'm sure you have better things to do than listen to a silly old lady."

One time, in the middle of her grand party story she turned to me, and with a little knowing nod, and said. "My mother knew a great deal about men, oh yes, they couldn't fool her. She was very wise."

Another time, early in the morning, I found her sitting in the courtyard silently crying, staring somewhere into the distance. I asked if I could help her but she didn't answer, I don't know that she heard me. She shook her head slowly from side to side as if saying 'no' to someone out there then spoke to me, her dark eyes filled with fright. "I didn't know. I didn't know." She got up to go and I not knowing what to do walked with her to her apartment door.

Agnes would often go to the grocery store and forget what it was she had gone there to buy, then in desperation would purchase the nearest thing at hand. Of course Martha would find out. "How many times have I told you, make out a list before you go to the store. Write things down. God, woman, can't you remember anything? Here give me that, I'll take them back for you but this is the last time.".

Martha would stomp to her car, and although the store was only a short block away, and drive off. She would return with the proper purchase and Agnes, with a flutter of her hand would say. "Oh, thank you, I just don't know what is wrong with me. I must have been thinking of something else."

That was the other side of Martha; she would often drive the ladies to downtown shopping, to doctor's appointments, or to visit friends. She was always willing to to fight for them in their dealings with the bureaucracy, the rental agency, or the caretaker.

Then Alicia moved into The Arms and, because she worked evenings soon became a courtyard regular. Alicia was about thirty, bespectacled and slightly plump. She marched rather than walked. She was a vocal supporter of causes; the environment, world hunger, women's issues. She always wore two or three buttons, one-liners for various causes, and often passed out leaflets. She once handed me three pages on the state of refugees in Turkey. "You should read this." she said in her always earnest voice. "It tells what is happening in Turkey."

"I know what is happening in Turkey." I said, but I took the leaflet anyway.

In the courtyard Alicia immediately became a force to be reckoned with; she defended the ladies against Martha's bullying and called her on every racist or sexist remark. For the first week or so the two clashed constantly and although the ladies loved it, for me it grew tiresome.

Then abruptly Martha changed her tactics, she was pleasant to Alicia, listened to her, tried to joke with her and finally offered her the use of her car should she need it. Bit Alicia would not be co-opted, would not be in Martha's debt; she kept on in her earnestly stubborn way. She refused all favours and defended all rights. She got on to me one day. "Why don't you stand up for them, you can see they are frightened of her. Why do you let that little tyrant bully them? They'd listen to you." Then she added, a little glumly. "If only because you're a man, its the way they think."

I said it was none of my business.

Some time later, Martha had just gone away for a two week holiday, that Agnes took a turn for the worse. At seven o'clock in the morning a neighbour found her, dressed only in a nightgown, standing in front of the grocery store waiting for it to open. That afternoon in the courtyard she was fine, recounting again the story of the party and the prime minister, but the next day Mrs. Simpson visited her and found her eating cold soup because she had forgotten to heat it. When Mrs, Simpson looked through the fridge and the cupboards she found there was absolutely no food.

Of course that was the talk in the courtyard that day. Poor Agnes, what would happen to her? "I think she should be in a home." Mrs. Simpson said. "She has no family and she can't manage on her own anymore."

The ladies couldn't argue but neither did they like the idea. "The poor dear, she'd be so unhappy in a home." "Of course she would, poor Agnes, we're her only friends."

Then Alicia spoke. She had found a cause more immediate than wearing buttons or passing out leaflets. She was enthusiastic. "Why should she have to go to a home? We all know she would be unhappy there, she'd be lost in one of those places. We could look after her here, not looking after really, just helping a bit."

Alicia convinced them. They didn't need much convincing, most were even enthusiastic, perhaps they saw themselves as the next Agnes. Alicia organized it all; delegating duties setting up a timetable, coordinating the project. There was not really that much to do; shopping, preparing or helping to prepare meals, a trip to the bank once a month to cash her cheque, paying the bills, half an hour a day per lady.

"What if she wanders away again? The ever pragmatic Mrs. Simpson.

"We'll convince her she doesn't have to go shopping anymore, we'll keep an eye on her. I'll get Thomas to help."

The project was not only greeted enthusiastically but was carried out enthusiastically. Much of the courtyard conversation was now about Agnes. Her diet; "She really must eat more. I made her a nice stew." Her reaction, "You know, I brought her some flowers yesterday just to brighten the place up and she was so grateful, the poor dear. I really do think she is getting better."

Agnes loved the attention and was flattered by it. "Such dear, dear friends I have." she told me.

Martha returned and found a whole new situation, a situation where she was only a bystander. For the first week that was what she remained, a bystander; she watched and listened and made no comments. Then, the second week of her return she decided to join the project, and being Martha she went at it with a vengeance. She had a car, she would drive Agnes to the bank, she would do the shopping, that day she would cook the dinner. Within two weeks she had taken over all the duties except the few Alicia performed. If any of the ladies objected to being eased out of the project they never said anything. They just let it happen.

I took to spending more time in my room, there was trouble with the leg, it was not healing as it should, and by now the ladies and their stories had become tiresome and only added to my irritation so I missed the fire but not the aftermath that took place in the courtyard. The fire, which was not really a fire, happened when Agnes put something in the frying pan to cook although she had just eaten breakfast an hour before. She forgot about it and it was Thomas who smelled the smoke coming from her doorway. When he entered the apartment it was filled with smoke and Agnes was sitting in the front room coughing delicately and probably trying to remember the party where she had met the prime minister.

That afternoon Martha entered the courtyard and sat down directly opposite Alicia. Conversation stopped and for three or four seconds there was complete silence. Martha hunched herself forward, her little chin sticking out and her hard tough eyes boring right into Alicia. "Well, that's the end of it. That fire did it. We can't look after her any more."

"It wasn't really a fire, Martha, it..."

"Don't tell me it wasn't a fire. Its fine for you, you're young, you could get out in a hurry. What about the rest of us? We'd all be burned in our beds. What about Millie, she wouldn't even hear the alarm."

"Well, lets discuss this then we can..."

Martha rode right over her. "And what if she wanders away again and something happens to her? She gets drowned or hit by a car? We'd all be responsible. I have a friend who is a lawyer and he told me that. We'd have the police down here and have to go to court. And what if there's another fire and the agency finds out what we've been doing? We'd all be evicted."

'That's not true."

"Don't you tell me what's true. I talked to a lawyer about it. I'm not having any more to do with it. I won't be responsible and I'm writing a letter to the agency and tell them what has been going on. I'm not going to be blamed when something happens."

"If you want to drop out that's fine, but just listen for a minute..."

"We've listened to you long enough. We don't need you and your crazy ideas to tell us how to live. We've been here a long time and we've always looked after each other. You care more about those damn foreigners than you do about people that were born in this country. You'd have all the rapists and murderers out of jail and walking the streets. We don't need that here and we don't need you. Six months from now you'll be gone but we'll still be here."

The argument went on a bit longer but it was really only a mopping up operation. I had only to look at those frightened old faces to know Martha had won. She had pressed all the right buttons; fire, authorities, eviction, even Alicia's unpopular social views. At one point Alicia looked at me as if I might come to her aid, but there was nothing I could say.

Mrs. Simpson was the first of the ladies to respond. "Martha's right, we've done everything we could. She should be in a home. I said so right from the start."

Alicia knew she had lost. She persisted for a while, appealing to each lady individually but they would only murmur a response and look away. I thought Alicia was close to tears. Finally she said. "If that is how you feel i can't change your minds. I have to go now."

After Alicia left Martha's manner turned to one of cajolement as she comforted the ladies, her voice soft and soothing."We have done all we could do, we've all been good friends to Agnes, the best of friends. She will be better off and happier with professional people to look after her. We can visit her, we can go every day if you want. Its all for the best."

Martha was gracious in her re-ascension to the throne, allowing herself just a brief, smug little victory smile. When she saw me watching her she gave me a quick little look that seemed to say, 'you see how easy it is.'

I stopped going to the courtyard after that but I heard that Martha in what, i am sure, was a masterpiece of bullying and harassment, got an emergency order and within two weeks Agnes was in a home.

The ladies did visit her. A couple of weeks later I talked to Mrs. Simpson. I had heard the home was having trouble with Agnes; she rarely ate, often tried to leave, and cried a great deal. "Well, we still go to see her but there's not much point to it. Sometimes she hardly knows us and she's so unhappy, she cries all the time, the poor dear. But there's nothing you can do."

Two months later, for personal reasons, I sublet my apartment and left The Arms. A month or so after that i got a brief note from Alicia saying that Agnes had died. The note said where and when the funeral would be and nothing else.

I was out of town and so did not get the letter until a week after the funeral. I don't know whether i would have gone or not.

THE END

PRINCE CHARMING

It was late morning when the taxi arrived, the bright sun had already driven off the morning chill but there was still a cooling breeze coming in off the water. The woman that stepped out of the taxi stopped for a moment to look at the hotel, then with the taxi driver carrying her bag she entered.

The hotel was called Hotel Peurto Angelo, it was really more a string of cabins, seven of them, the hotel itself, a modest two storey building, had only two rooms that were rented out, the rest of the space was for staff and for storage. The main floor was almost entirely a bar and eating area that looked out onto the gulf.

A man sat at a small table by the entrance, reading a paper and drinking coffee. He watched as the woman checked in and went to her cabin, then he walked behind the registry desk and looked at the card she had filled out. "How long?"

The young Mexican woman was tiny, not even reaching his shoulder. "Two days, she said."

"That's all? Oh well.' He gave a small shrug. "Any new reservations?" She shook her head.

The man was handsome, tall and slim, in his late fifties. He pretended to study the young woman for a moment, frowning slightly, then with a slow smile, said. "You know, i swear that every day you get more beautiful." He sighed loudly. "I think you are the only reason anyone comes here, just to look at you."

The young woman rolled her eyes, sighed, and gave him a tiny nudge with her elbow. Although she had heard that, or a variation of it, a hundred times before, it always made her blush just a little.

At lunch time the woman sat at a table facing the bar. The man, helping out behind the bar, was aware that the woman was watching almost constantly. It made him a little uneasy, a slight tingle between his shoulder blades, he wondered if she meant it to have that effect.

When most of the lunch trade had gone he walked over to her table, he placed one hand casually on the back of the chair opposite her and leaned forward bending his body toward her. "Hi, my name is Jim Carter and i just wanted to bid you welcome. I trust everything has been okay so far, but if there is anything you want or need just let me know, myself or any staff member." The woman gave a small smile and nod, she was aware that behind the easy smile the man was studying her carefully. She never took her eyes off his face. The man made a casual gesture with his hand. "We have a nice beach, the swimming is good, we make a pretty fair margarita, and we have the most beautiful sunsets in the world. There is a little fishing village about three miles down the coast. If you'd like to visit it we can arrange the transportation." He paused but she made no comment, just gave another small nod. "I hope you have a pleasant stay."

A few hours later the woman left her cabin, and as the man watched she began to walk toward the beach. She was wearing a bathing suit and a floppy straw hat, she had a large beach towel wrapped around her shoulders and carried a small bag.

The man waited four or five minutes then went behind the desk and picked up the pass key. He entered her cabin and looked quickly about, checking things; the clothes, the luggage, even the toiletries. They spoke to him of money, not just money but old money, established money. It was a skill he had and one that he trusted. There was an unopened bottle of double malt scotch whisky on the dresser. He read one of her business cards; she was a lawyer and worked for an environmental organization. H searched his memory but her name meant nothing to him. Humming softly he left her cabin.

When the woman returned to her cabin she sat on the bed for a long time, every now and then she would take a sip of her double malt scotch whisky. I could turn around now, she thought, I could turn around and go home, maybe this is enough, I don't know what I want, what I expect. She lay down on the bed and closed her eyes. She felt as if she was the only person on the planet, that she was locked forever in this room and there was nothing outside, she would stay in this room for ever.

When she awoke it was a little after seven o'clock. She showered and dressed, hesitated a moment or two, standing in the middle of the room, then picked up a green file folder and left the cabin.

The man was seated at the bar smoking a cigarette, he watched her approach and noted the green file folder. He slowly ground out his cigarette. The woman said to him. "I wonder if I could talk to you for a few minutes."

He followed her to a table as far away from the bar as possible. She placed the green file folder on the table and looked across at him. He was sitting rather tensely, back straight, hands on his knees, his face completely expressionless. She took a deep breath and began to read from one of the papers in the file.

"James Reginald Carter, born August 22, 1956, St. Joseph hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Mother, Dorothy Jean Carter, Father not listed." She skimmed quickly and awkwardly through the file items; legal problems, failed business ventures. When she looked at him his face was still expressionless but his eyes never left her face. "Then a little over ten years ago you moved here. You were a little hard to locate." He gave a little shrug as if unconcerned.

She replaced the report in the green file folder then took out a photograph and an official looking document that she placed on the table. She clasped her hands in front of her and looked directly into his face. "Elizabeth Durham." There was no response. She repeated the name again then continued. You knew her, thirty four years ago, that is a photo of the two of you. You knew her, you were lovers, You knew four and a half months then you borrowed seventy five thousand dollars from here and you disappeared." She paused and looked away, suddenly flustered. Oh, God, why did I do it like this, it all seems so stupid now, so melodramatic. She closed her eyes, she felt as if she had been running and had to catch her breath. When she looked up she saw the man's position had changed, he was leaning forward now, his hands on the table in front of him, his expression had changed too, maybe softer she thought.

The words came out in a rush. "When you left she was pregnant. She tells me you didn't know." They were both very still, the man looked away for a second then looked quickly back. After a moment the woman said. "I am told there is a resemblance. The eyes she says." She put a finger on the document, the birth certificate, but she didn't push it forward.

The man stared at her then looked down at his hands, slowly nodding his head. He leaned back in his chair as if suddenly relaxed. When he spoke his voice was soft, a little curious. "What is it you want?"

"Just to see you, to meet you, hopefully to talk to you."

"Yes." He picked up the photograph and looked at it for a long time. "This was taken in Riverdale park on a Sunday afternoon. Your mother had brought her camera with her and she asked a passer by to take our picture."

"I know."

He put down the photograph. "How is your mother?"

"She's all right. Fine. She has a touch of arthritis in her knees but fine."

He made a small awkward gesture with his hand. "This is very... I don't know what to say. I wish..." He gave a little shrug.

In her mind she had asked this question a thousand times.. " If you had known my mother was pregnant would you still have gone?"

He stared down at his hands, frowning as if trying to remember. "Well...probably, I guess , probably." He leaned back in his chair. "Would you like a drink or something?"

She shook her head although she would have liked one, even needed one, needed the quick strong rush of alcohol, needed the strength to go into her stomach, into her bones. "My mother lead a very sheltered life, she was an only child and my grandparents were... were more than repressive, they were domineering and she... I'm sure you know all that." She felt a sudden flash of anger, she wanted, to yell at him, to curse him; this woman must have been such easy pickings for someone like him, hardly an effort. But the anger disappeared as quickly as it had come. "I know you know all this but... You were the first time my mother ever defied her parents, the first time in her twenty-four years that she ever went against their wishes. And they never let her forget it. And this is what I want you to understand." She spoke slowly, intensely, looking directly into his eyes as if from sheer force of will she could make him understand. "You were the one great romantic love in my mother's life. She loved you. She never stopped loving you, ever, she still does." The man looked away, frowning. "I know you find that hard to believe but..." She almost said if you knew my mother you would understand. "But it is true, it is. Four months. Sometimes I even find it hard to believe." She waited but he said nothing. "I know so much about you. I know the music you liked, the clothes you liked, you were a great dancer. I even know your favourite breakfast. My mother and I, you were such a large part of our family mythology, our wonderful, handsome Prince Charming." She looked away. "When I was fourteen I thought it was all so wonderful, so beautifully romantic. Then when I was eighteen I found out about the money, then i thought it was stupid and I hated you. Prince Charming took the money and ran."

A group of three couples entered the bar, they were loud and laughing, red faced from the sun and the alcohol. They yelled greetings to the man who responded with a small wave. He said to the woman. "Would you like to go somewhere quiet?'

"Yes, yes I would."

He gave a small shrug. "I don't know, my cabin?"

"No, not indoors I... could we go to the beach and I would like a drink, some wine."

"Sure." He went behind the bar and returned with a bottle of wine and two glasses. As they left the group yelled their good-byes and invitations to join them later. The man acknowledged them with a small quick smile. "It goes with the territory." he said.

"But you don't mind it do you?"

"Sometimes I do, sometimes it gets tiresome."

They sat on the sand, knees drawn up, the bottle of wine and the two glasses between them. The man filled the glasses. It was hard for her not to stare at him, to compare him to the young man in the familiar photograph, the mystery now flesh and bone sitting beside her. "You know," she said, "it is so strange, growing up you were such a big part of my life and you didn't even know I existed." He was why she never liked, never trusted charming men. Those charming men with their easy smiles and quick eyes, men that always knew the right thing to say, that knew how and when to reach over and gently touch your arm, to whisper in your ear some joke or subtle, offhand compliment. Charming men were always hiding something. Perhaps that was why she had chosen Victor, serious, awkward Victor. With Victor what you saw was what you got. She studied the man's face. "Are you married?"

"No, never been, just... casual things. You?"

"No, I have a partner, we're considering it. I probably will." Then she added, her tone slightly mocking. "His name is Victor, very straight forward guy. What you see is what you get."

"Oh, but the name...?"

"Mother married when I was seventeen, I took his name. A nice man, gentle, athletic, we skied together, he taught me to ride. I think she married as much so that I would have a father as for herself. He died four years ago." She took a deep breath and turned away, her hands were beginning to tremble. "The day she got married, on her wedding day and i said something to he about finding true love and she said to me, she said. "Oh, but its not like Jamie, darling, there can never be another Jamie." She began to cry, hard, racking sobs, her face pressed against her knees. She couldn't stop, couldn't slow it, as if her grief had a life of its own. It was what she had not wanted to happen, crying like a little girl, like a weak, stupid little girl.

Finally it was finished, done, all drained out of her. The man had said nothing, no words of comfort, had scarcely moved. When he spoke his voice had an odd wistful tone. "They are building a big resort hotel seven or eight miles down the beach. Forty-five million dollars, one man is doing it, one man. I wonder if i will be able to see the lights from here."

It was beginning to grow dark. She felt relaxed now, at ease at last, it was in the way she sat, in the tone of her voice. "She always, always defended you, once when I said something sarcastic about you loving the money not her she said i could never understand what it was like to have nothing." She stared out at the dark water hearing its gentle sound of the waves, "I suppose I tried to destroy you by destroying her memory of you. Now I don't know how I feel, what I'm doing here, if any of this matters."

"Yes, it matters." "In my work I come up against people like you all the time. The takers. You take and take and take and never give anything."

"You think your mother got nothing?"

"What? Four months? A lifelong illusion? Tell me something, its what I've always wondered about, what I could never understand. Why didn't you marry her? The money, you could have had all of it. Why didn't you?"

"It wasn't what I wanted."

She waited but he didn't continue. She leaned back, taking a deep breath. "You were right about the sunsets. It really is beautiful here." She was tired, tired of talking, tired of wanting to know. All the questions, all the recriminations didn't seem to matter any more. The increasing darkness felt strangely comforting, as if she might curl up under it, wrap it about her and sleep on the still warm sand, sleep for ever.

They were still and silent for a long time, looking out onto the water, black now, or up into the star filled sky, listening to the noises of the night, feeling the soft cool breeze that came in off the Gulf. At last she said. "I should go in now."

In her cabin she sat on the bed and stared at at her reflection in the dresser mirror. Her face was slightly sunburned. She poured some double malt scotch into a glass and sipped it. Victor will phone. Victor always phoned, always met her at the airport, always, with his serious, worried frown. When the phone rang she sighed and slowly picked it up. At first she had a hard time listening to him as if she was distracted by something.

"Are you sure you're all right, honey, you sound... I'm all right, Victor, really... Okay honey, was it all right, I mean what's he like... He's a fifty-nine year old man with a nice smile, I don't know, a little sad,,, Are you sure you're all right you don't sound... I'm just tired, jet lag, I haven't slept all day, just tired.... Get some rest, honey, you always push yourself too Bar, promise... I promise... Okay good-night, darling, I love you... Love you too."

She sighed and filled her glass again. Loveyoutoo, loveyoutoo, loveyoutoo, oh well." She raised her glass in a mock salute to her reflection in the mirror and said softly. I suppose i shall probably marry you." then aware that she had not told him the truth, she had slept that day, and wondered why she so often did that with him, meaningless, incongruous little lies, done without thinking..

She slept well, slept until ten, took along shower, washed and combed her hair and put on a little make-up. She was pleased with how she looked, the sun had given her skin a healthy glow.

She was just finishing her breakfast when the man arrived. He drove up in a dust covered jeep and was carrying a large flat box. He went behind the bar for a moment then came to her table, still carrying the box and with a bottle of beer. He sipped his beer, studied her for a moment then said. "You look very nice this morning."

"Well rested." She paused. "I leave tonight, about seven I guess, to catch my flight." She was aware of the male smell of him, of sweat and dust, tobacco and beer.

"Yes. Oh, I picked up something for you, in the village, a souvenir I guess, better than a postcard." He gestured toward the box.

She opened the flat box on the table. It was a black lace shawl, a mantilla. She took it from the tissue wrappings, running the delicate fabric through her fingers. "Its beautiful, it really is, really beautiful. Thank you."

"I didn't know what you might like. I had no idea what to get."

She was still holding the mantilla, she looked him, smiling, and in a slightly mocking tone said. "Oh, I am sure you always know exactly the right thing to get."

"I should go and get cleaned up, maybe catch up on a little work here." But he did not leave right away, instead they talked for a while, a casual, on-intrusive conversation; about her work, about Mexico, books and music. The kind of conversation one might have with an interesting stranger in the waiting room of an airport.

She went to her cabin, sipped some double malt scotch whisky, dozed for a while, then went for a long walk along the beach, walking barefoot at the edge of the water, feeling her feet sink slightly into the cool damp sand. She was sitting on the beach, almost at the water's edge, wrapped in her large beach towel, when the man came by.

Looking down at her. "Time for my afternoon swim. You coming in?"

"All right." She followed him into the water, he ran in quickly, his legs splashing water all about him then dived in and began to swim. She entered slowly, letting the chilling water creep up to her waist before diving in.

She left the water first and watched him as he came out, laughing, looking suddenly and absurdly youthful, walking quickly to sit beside her. His body, his hair, even his eyelashes, glistened with water droplets. He made no effort to dry himself and she had the sudden impulse to take her towel and briskly dry his hair then drape the towel about his shoulders, the way she had seen mothers do with their small children at the beach.

She asked him. "So tell me, are you really that great a dancer?"

He laughed. "I don't know that i ever was. Not something I do much of these days." He lit a cigarette. "You know, I was wondering, I was wondering if you had any pictures of yourself, you know, as a kid, growing up?"

"Of course. Oh, no, not with me. I didn't bring any."

"Your childhood, growing up, it was happy, a good childhood?"

She was quiet for a few seconds. "Yes, yes I think it was, it was mostly good."

They were silent a long time then he said, turning to look at her. "You know when I met your mother, when we first got together i didn't know she was rich, so terribly rich. That is not an excuse, not that at all, it is just something I wish your mother could know."

She shrugged, it didn't matter whether he was telling the truth or not. "I don't know if I will tell her about this. I haven't decided yet." Knowing as she said it she would not tell her mother. "And how about you? Are you happy here?"

"Here? Mexico? I don't know, I guess this is as good as it gets." He shrugged. "This is where I wound up. This is where I am."

Later, when the taxi arrived, they stood facing one another on the hot dusty roadway. "Well..." she said.

"Yes, thank you for coming. I hope you..." He shrugged.

"Good-bye then." She extended her hand and when he took it she realized it was the first time they had physically touched.

They stood motionless for a few seconds, then she turned quickly to enter the taxi. In the taxi she never looked back, but she knew he would be standing there, watching the taxi disappear. If only, she smiled to herself, in case I do look back. Oh, those clever charming men.

Later on the plane she thought of him sitting on his beach, looking at the lights of the million dollar resort, only seven or eight miles away.

She closed her eyes and tried to sleep.

THE END

THE MYSTERY OF IT ALL

The evilly grinning face suddenly exploded in front of me. At the same instant I heard the sound of a gunshot. As I turned she was slowly lowering the gun to her side, then with a toss of her head she walked slowly into the bedroom. She was completely naked.

That, dear reader, is what is called a "hook", and a pretty darn good one it is too, if I do say so myself. I know that I would certainly keep on reading, if only for the bit about the naked woman and the bedroom. Unfortunately it has nothing at all to do with this story. I suppose i put it in partly to prove to my creative writing teacher, Miss Fitzgerald, that I do not always doze off in her class.

Miss Fitzgerald is, as far as I know, not related to the famed author, F. Scott. That same F. Scott, who, according to Ernest Hemingway, worried constantly about the size of his penis. It does make me wonder. Poor old F. Scott: a loony wife, a drinking problem, and constantly worried about the size of his penis. I wonder how he ever found the time to write. And I wonder if there was some connection between the three, you know which begat which what, or whatever. I once raised this interesting question at my creative writing class. I suppose I didn't state it too clearly or I put too much stress on the penis part, anyway no one said anything for a long while. Finally a poet spoke up. "Perhaps," she said. "you should write a poem about his penis." I must admit I was rather taken aback, I always think of poets as rambling about writing of sunset, daffodils, lonely clouds, and the like. But then I don't read any modern verse, perhaps there is a whole "penis poetry" school out there of which I am not aware. Or perhaps she was only kidding. It is so hard to tell with poets.

I digress. I know. It is a fault to which I most readily admit and for which, dear reader, I most humbly beg your forgiveness. People are always saying to me. "For God's sake, George, get on with it." Even Miss Fitzgerald has said that. Even Mrs. Blumker, my therapist, which I consider most unprofessional of her, seeing as how she is getting paid rather handsomely to listen to my ramblings.

Anyway I am what is called a private investigator, a P.I., a shamus, a private eye. Now, dear reader, if you have read any Chandler or Hammet, or seen any private eye movies an image will immediately spring to mind. The clever, strong silent type with the mysterious past that has left behind him a trail of broken heads and broken hearts. Well, I'm afraid i don't quite fit the mould, as a matter of fact I could hardly be further from the mould. I have broken neither head nor heart. The former because I detest physical violence, involving as it so often does, severe pain, the latter because, well, because I have never had the opportunity to.

Unlike the stereotypical private eye I have never had much luck, all right any luck, with those of the opposite gender. It isn't that they really dislike me, well not all of them anyway, its more that they tend to ignore me and to quickly forget me, usually in about five minutes. I don't think I'm that bad looking, a little pudgy maybe, and my ears are peculiar, but all in all. I dress okay and I shower regularly, I think it is more that I say the wrong thing or just say nothing. When I was in high school boys used to measure their progress with girls in baseball terms; first base, second base, home run, etc. I was the guy that never even got off the bench. College was more of the same, only worse. I really don't like to talk about it, not even with Mrs. Blumker.

I now measure my progress by the length of time it takes before my date's eyes begin to glaze over and wander idly about the room, usually about fifteen minutes. The record is thirty-two minutes, but that was with a lady from Albania who didn't understand English very well.

My last date was with a young lady named, oddly enough, Zelda, who, even more oddly enough, had never heard of F. Scott. Of course I sought to enlighten her, but instead of going on about "Gatsby" or Paris in the twenties, I somehow found myself trying to explain the penis thing' Obviously a little confused the young lady asked, rather loudly I thought, why I was so worried about my friend's penis. More than a little irritated I replied, definitely too loudly, that i was not worried about my friend's penis, that I didn't care about his penis, that I even hated his damn penis. As we were in a crowded restaurant many curious heads turned our way. Shortly after this Zelda was suddenly taken with a severe headache and had to go home, alone, she said. Ah well, as we writers like to say, "ships that pass in the night". I only wish one of those damn ships would stop long enough so that I could climb on board.

I know, I know, once again I digress and once again, dear reader, I most humbly, etc. etc. etc. I also worry that you might be beginning to think that I am just a wee bit obsessive about F. Scott's penis. Let me state, emphatically and unequivocally that I am not now, nor have ever been, obsessed with F. Scott's penis, nor with anyone's penis for that matter, not even my own. So let's have done with it. Let us take this penis thing firmly in hand and have done with it. Let us, so to speak, take Mr. Fitzgerald's penis and put it behind us. Let us get on with things.

FOOTNOTE...I know that in the future some diligent and unsung editor will delete all the penis references anyway, that is what they are paid to do. So you, dear reader, will not even know the penis references ever existed. That being the case, why am I writing this footnote?

All right then. My name is George Murkin. I am thirty-three years old, an only child. My father, who is continually depressed and disappointed in life, made a good chunk of money in the advertising game, writing those cheery ads and jingles. My mother is also continually depressed and disappointed in life, although as far as I know she never wrote a jingle. She did once have an affair with our gardener, something I like to think my father never did. In any event when i was eighteen they divorced. It was what is called an amicable divorce, both of them being too depressed and bored to argue about anything. They moved to separate parts of Europe where they continue to be depressed and disappointed in everything, even Europe.

Dad was good enough to set me up with a yearly allowance, stating as he so often did, in his fatherly way, that I was, "too bloody incompetent to survive". Both my parents, singularly and in unison, have imparted to me the information that I have been great disappointment to them. Dad often mentioned, "six bloody wasted years at university", although for the life of me I can't understand why that upsets him, after all they were my six years that were wasted. But then i suppose i will never understand Dad, or Mom, or anyone else for that matter. I guess that is what makes life interesting, I guess.

In any event Dad's brother, Uncle Ralph, runs a small detective agency. Uncle Ralph is independently wealthy so I guess this is a kind of hobby for him, like collecting toy trains or growing orchids, also it gives him a captive audience. In any event he agreed to hire me on.

Uncle Ralph is one of that rare breed, unfortunately not extinct, that must qualify as the most boring species to have ever existed on this planet. He is a self styled philosopher, and a garrulous one to boot, be begins every rambling discourse with, "An interesting thought occurred to me this morning..." Of course the thought is never interesting, nor intelligent, nor even fathomable, and always takes the best part of an hour to spin out. I found these sessions so stultifying that I sought out sort of Yogi or Tantric method of sleeping with one's eyes open, but to no avail. At the risk of offending all you philosophy aficionados out there I must say that I think the whole philosophy business is more than vastly overrated. I mean really, just look at all those old philosopher types, nutty as fruitcakes, complete loons every one. Blathering on forever when a sentence or two would suffice. Old Socrates would seem to be the exception, he spent his time wandering about Athens asking a few questions while probably fondling some handsome Greek youth. But then he came to a bad end as I recall. In any event if I must have philosophy I like it short, concise, and to the point. You know what I mean, one liners, "play the hand you're dealt," "here for a good time not a long time," that sort of thing. Bumper sticker philosophy.

FOOTNOTE. I know, I did it again, got a bit off the point, but I did want to get that whole philosophy thing off my chest and i do believe that as the author i have certain rights. I mean I am going to all the trouble of writing this damned thing while you only have to read it, and you must admit it is not as bad as the penis thing. Sorry if I sound testy.

In any event, as I mentioned earlier ours is a small agency, there is Uncle Ralph, myself, a tall , muscular, but very nice, young man named Stephen O'Reilly, and there is Bridget O'Shaughnessy. Bridget O'Shaughnessy is heart breakingly beautiful with red hair, green eyes, and, as we guys like to say, a bod to die for. Not, of course, that I have any personal knowledge of the aforementioned bod, but I am not without an imagination. Needless to say I am madly, desperately, passionately, and probably hopelessly, in love with Bridget O'Shaughnessy.

Thus it was that one sunny April morning with a spring in my step, a smile on my face, and a song in my heart I entered my workplace, albeit a little late having over slept.

Uncle Ralph was in his office with of all things, a client. "Ah, come in George." He waved me in. "This is Mr. Fuller, Mr. Fuller's fiances has gone missing and he wants us to find her."

Mr. Fuller was somewhat on the short side, about five foot, I would say, but what he lacked stature he made up for in bristliness; his hair bristled, his moustache bristled, even his eyes, beneath their bristly eyebrows, bristled.

Uncle Ralph handed me a photo, on of those 8 x 10 glossies celebrities use. "This is her picture."

Two things immediately struck me about the woman in the picture, well more than two actually, but anyhow, first; she was absolutely Amazonian in proportions, at least six feet tall, second; she had a great mane of bright pink hair, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth she was... well to say that she was voluptuous would be like saying Mt. Everest is a slight elevation. Her costume contained almost enough material to make a handkerchief for a good sized mosquito, and her name, according to the black print on the bottom of the photograph, was Inky La Boom boom.

"She's a dancer." Uncle Ralph said.

"Ballet? I asked.

Mr. Fuller jumped to his feet. "Okay, just find her, and quick. Remember what I said, time is of the essence." And with that he stalked out of the room, he even managed to walk in a bristly manner, I noted.

That afternoon Uncle Ralph took me to lunch and over the appetizers he announced. "I'm giving you the Pinky La Boomboom case, George. Its yours, just yours. Find her. It will be a great test for you. And speaking of tests I'm reminded of a rather interesting thought that occurred to me this morning..."

When we had finished the dessert and I thought that Uncle Ralph had more or less run down I thought I'd interject a comment. "You know, Uncle Ralph, I think..."

"Shut up, George, you don't know how to think and you've spilled soup on your necktie." That is dear old Uncle Ralphie for you, lovable, crusty, irascible old curmudgeon whom I would dearly love to smother with a pillow in his sleep some night. I must say though, that the spilling of food upon my person is something that has long bothered me. It doesn't happen when I eat alone, 96% of the time, but when in the company of others, especially a date, it never fails. And why does that tumbling piece of soggy dessert always land directly on my crotch and always I try surreptitiously to remove it by scrubbing away at it with my napkin, attracting many curious gazes from my fellow diners until my date finally asks, in a very suspicious tone. "Just what the hell are you doing down there?" And why when I spill a glass of water, as I invariably do, does it land, of course, right on the old crotcheroo? This has happened more times than I care to recount and not only does it lead to acute embarrassment but it puts a damper on, among other things, the rest of the evening.

Thinking the whole thing had a somewhat Freudian ring to it and probably sprang from some deep rooted completely repressed childhood trauma, I raised the subject with my therapist, Ms Blumker. She, however, seemed rather disinterested, so disinterested in fact that I had the impression she had dozed off, although her eyes were open. I wondered if she had discovered the secret I had long sought; how to sleep with one's eyes open. But of course, I reasoned, it must be something they learn at therapy school. How else could they not go completely bonkers listening to all that drivel day after day. I know she will never tell me though. I'm sure it is a professional secret.

Yes, dear reader, once again, you may be thinking, I digress, wander off track a bit. Well, let us look at it this way, d.r., what I am trying to impart to you, what I am trying to do, is to give you a vision of the rich, multi-hued tapestry that is my life, made up, as it is, of a million diverse and colourful threads of... of whatever.

In any event the Pinky La Boomboom case was now my case and I was determined to solve it. There was not much to go on, she had a friend, an ex-roommate, also a dancer, named Chi Chi La Bangbang. I determined to interview Miss La Bangbang the next day.

I spent the rest of the afternoon mooning about the delectable Miss O'Shaughnessy. This mooning is something I am really quite good at, able to do it any time, any place, at the drop of a hat, and able to sustain it for long periods of time. So what with the mooning and a short nap in the coffee room the afternoon passed quietly and uneventfully. Little did I suspect that by the next day my life would be changed dramatically, completely turned upside down. (This is called foreshadowing, something writers are supposed to do and something I had completely forgotten about so I thought I had better throw it in now.)

That evening, in preparation for the next day's interview with Miss La Bangbang, I practised being a private eye: smoking a lot, asking direct questions but giving only terse non-committal answers, and always, always look inscrutable. I thought I had it all down pretty well.

The next morning I phoned Miss La Bangbang, said I had a couple of questions I wanted to ask her. "Sure." she said, most cooperatively. "Hurry on up." When I knocked on her apartment door a sultry voice invited me to enter. So I did, slowly and inscrutably.

She was seated on a pink love seat and wearing a flimsy and very abbreviated negligee. She acknowledged my gaze at her attire with a small shrug. "I was going to get dressed but I thought putting clothes on might just be a waste of time."

I nodded and lit a cigarette. I knew how to handle broads like her. "Let's cut to the chase, Boomboom. I'm looking for Bangbang."

"No." she said softly. "I'm BangBang, you're looking for Boomboom.

I nodded and lit another cigarette. She was clever, I hadn't tripped her up. I noticed a book on the coffee table; The Great Gatsby.

"Good book?" I asked.

"My favourite."

I walked to the window, lit a cigarette, and looked out. Night was falling rapidly, but even the night could not hide the stench and corruption that oozed from every concrete pore of the city. This was the place for it; the place where the flotsam and jetsam of what we sometimes call the human race had gathered, the place where everything was for sale except hope, the place where desperation walked the streets and violence lived in the alleys. Yet there was something wrong with this picture, something I could not quite put my finger on. How come night was falling rapidly when it was early morning? Could this be some kind of break in narrative structure?

My thoughts were interrupted by the soft, purring voice of Miss La Bangbang. "Did you know F. Scott Fitzgerald worried constantly about the size of his penis? At least that's what Ernest Hemingway says."

I nodded and lit a cigarette. "I've heard the story."

"And what's your take on it?"

"I'm not here to chew the fat about penises, Bangbang."

We stared at each other in silence for a moment or two then she slowly stood up. She stretched her arms above her head languidly thus raising her rather abbreviated negligee to absolutely indecent heights. "You know," she said in her usual soft, purring tones. "I haven't had any sex in a long time."

"Really," I asked. "How long?"

She looked at her watch. "Oh, about..." There was a knock on the door. I noted the slight look of surprise that crept into her heavy lidded, azure eyes. "That might be someone."

Thinking she was probably right about that I flung open the door. A young man stumbled in moaning loudly and holding his stomach in agony. He collapsed to the floor in a moaning mass. As I knelt before him he rolled over and moaned his last. "He's rolled over and moaned his last." I said.

"No, I haven't." the young man moaned. "I've just got these awful stomach cramps. I think I've got food poisoning. It must be that shrimp in garlic sauce I ate at Hop Low's."

"That was your first mistake, punk. You never order the shrimp in garlic sauce at Hop Low's. Try the Golden Bowl, also their spicy noodles are better, I'm not so crazy about their chicken Gum Wai but cut to the chase, punk. What are you doing here?"

"I have a message for you, its about the Romanoff tiara." He stopped moaning for dramatic effect. "The message is in my pocket." I fished a piece of paper out of his pocket. It was a Chinese restaurant take out menu, puzzling. "Not that pocket, stupid, the other one."

"Right." It was a small square of white paper on which was typed, all in capital letters, just the way that i am going to type this. FIND FAT TONY.

I stood up. "What do we do about the punk?"

She was already kneeling beside the young man, she had ripped off his shirt and was now undoing his belt, obviously so he could breathe easier. In her haste to render aid to the poor fellow she had inadvertently let the shoulder straps of her negligee slip down revealing a considerable amount of her quite interesting anatomy. "I know how to look after him, hmmm, oh yes. I'm going to begin with a little mouth to mouth resuscitation."

Good, I thought, feeling relieved, she obviously knows first aid and seems to be a more caring person that I initially gave her credit for. One never knows about people, does one?

"Well, sister, " I said, lighting a cigarette, "I'd like to stay and chat but I've got a lead to follow, wherever it takes me; through this stench filled sewer of depravity, this deadly swamp of corruption where you learn that you have to dance with the devil and always watch your back, where violence hides behind every lamp post, where treachery is the code, and the double cross the answer.. No, I can't stay to chew the fat, I have a destiny out there waiting for me and I have to meet it. No, I; m sorry, sweetie, I've got places to go and people..."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever."

As I closed the door behind me I noticed that although the young man was still moaning his moans now had a distinctively different sound to them. Puzzling.

There was a note under the windshield wiper of my car. I waited until I was inside my car before reading it, you never know who might be watching. This was the city for it; flotsam and jetsam, stench filled sewers and all the rest of it. The note said; For a good time phone Betsy at 434-7675. Threesomes our specialty. I wondered if it was a clue. Even if it wasn't I decided to keep the note. Threesomes. Puzzling.

Driving back to the office my thoughts turned, as they so often did, to the delightful Miss O'Shaughnessy.

FOOTNOTE: Earlier in this narrative I had expressed some thought about Miss O'Shaughnessy but you, dear reader, won't know about them because the editor has chosen to delete them, on the grounds, she says, of good taste. End of FOOTNOTE.

Anyway, as I was saying, my thoughts had turned to the delightful Miss O'Shaughnessy. Although in the three months I had been with the agency we had exchanged no more than three or four words I felt that I knew her. Indeed I could picture her back in the "auld sod," (Ireland) with her dear, sweet ma, silver haired and black shawled, her da would have been a poet or a rebel, about the only career choices there at the time, and young convent raised Bridget, rambling silently about those cloistered halls while the strains of Ave Marie were heard in the background.

And so it was that as I entered the agency office I made a determination regarding the delightful Miss O'Shaugnessy. I would, as we writers say, "make my move," confident that in my new persona as private eye I would, again as we writers like to say, "sweep her off her feet."

I sauntered casually but inscrutably to her desk, lit a cigarette, gave her a quick, terse, but somehow charming smile and asked. "Bridget O'Shaugnessy, that wouldn't happen to be Irish, would it?"

She never stopped typing. "No, its Mongolian, you fucking twit, now piss off."

Returning to my desk I thought how endearing it was that such a beautiful young woman should also be possessed by such a deep and lively wit.

At my desk I began to mull over my notes on the LaBoomboom case, then I began to moon about the engaging Miss O'Shaugnessy. What to do, to mull or to moon. The mooning soon won out however and as i gazed longingly at the always enchanting Miss O'shaugnessy busily typing away it occurred to me that she was indeed. almost always typing busily away, which was, in fact, rather odd because there was scarcely ever anything to do at the agency as we rarely ever had a client, but yet there she was, as I noted before, forever typing busily away, and the thought occurred to me, just like that, in a flash, that perhaps the gorgeous Miss O'Shaugnessy was also writing a novel, just as I was writing a novel, the one you are reading right now in fact, and what if I was a character in her novel just as she was a character in my novel, and what if those two novels somehow melded together would that then raise certain obvious questions; the uncertainty of identity, the inherent fallacy of narrative structure, perception and reality, life imitating art imitating life, the meaning of art, the meaning of meaning, etc., etc.

I must say none of those questions interest me in the least, as a matter of fact they are the kind of things that, should I choose to mull over them, would probably give me a headache. No, in my world life's questions are more of an existentialist nature; where can I find a really good dry cleaner that does not lie to me, why is that no restaurant knows how to make a good club sandwich any more, and why are women so enthralled by shoe sales. Whatever.

Later that afternoon I entered Uncle Ralphie's office and sat down, determined to "bring him up to speed" on the La Boomboom case. "I've determined to bring you up to speed on the Boomboom case." I said, and then recounted my morning's adventures. Uncle Ralphie's usual dour expression perked up at my description of Miss La Boomboom, asking me to repeat it in detail then making a note of her phone number. "For future reference", in a small notebook he carried with him.

"Gee whiz, Uncle Ralphie, just think about it, the Romanoff tiara, Anastasia, the tsar of all the Russias, the missing crown jewels, all that, wow!"

"Sorry kid," he growled. "But you got it all wrong, you're chasing a dead horse, its got nothing to do with the Ruskies. Sit down, kid, and I'll tell you a story, a legend really." He put his feet up on his desk, opened the bottom drawer and took out a bottle and a glass. He poured himself three fingers of Pepto-Bismal and downed it in a gulp. "Its a famous private eye legend, one of those legends that if private eyes ever got together to swap legends which of course they never do, this would be one of the legends they would swap." He took another drink, straight from the bottle this time. "It all began about twenty years ago, the tiara was made for a fellow named Rudolph Romanoff, owned an umbrella factory on the east side, it was made of gold, inlaid with diamonds and rubies, the tiara not the umbrella factory. It was to be a gift for his young bride on their wedding day so of course it had great sentimental value. But on the wedding day it disappeared, no one knows how. Rudolph offered a reward for its return, one million clams, no questions asked, but no one has ever been able to claim it. Oh, its shown up from time to time' the Fat man located it in Tangiers but he was found stabbed to death in a Turkish bath, the sinister Count Mijinski found it in Istanbul but he fell or was pushed from a very high cliff, then Pierre the Monkey man came across it in Marseilles but he was found drowned in a tureen of pea soup. So you see, kid, everywhere the tiara goes death and destruction follow it like water off a duck's back. Maybe if you find Pinky La Bangbang you'll find the tiara, or maybe you'll wind up like the Count or Pierre the Monkey Man."

"What about the Fat Man?"

"Him too."

Back at my desk I continued to mull over the case and my meeting with Miss La Boomboom. I had the vague feeling that I had somehow missed the boat there, a feeling I very often have. Then, after really intense mulling it came to me. Of course I should have asked the moaning young man who had given him the message. Damn. Yet the vague feeling was still there, something to do with Miss La Boomboom, ships that pass in the night, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Puzzling.

FOOTNOTE. All you creative writing students out there might note how I have used two similes or metaphors, whatever,, ships passing, missing the boat, and that hey both have a nautical reference. This is something we experienced writers often do although for the life of me I have no idea why. It might mean that the water or the ocean symbolizes something, just what that is we never tell you, it is up to you, dear reader, to try to figure it out. Truth be told I think we writers have no idea what it symbolizes, nor do we even care. Its kind of an inside joke among us experienced writers. By the way if you are not a creative writing student don't bother reading this footnote. End of FOOTNOTE.

Anyway I decided to seek out the moaning man. He was just where I thought I would find him; at The Golden Bowl, wolfing down a double order of spicy noodles. I can read these street punks like a book. I sat down opposite him and let my gaze wonder hungrily toward his spicy noodles but he didn't offer me any. Of course not, I thought, these dirty rotten sleazy little street punks are all the same.

"Well, you dirty rotten sleazy little street punk, you seem to have made a complete recovery. I presume Miss La Bangbang was able to offer you succour in your time of need."

"Offer me... oh yeah, did she ever, man oh man, did she ever, wow... fantastic, you wouldn't believe it, what a woman, you know she can...?"

"Let's cut to the chase, punk, somebody gave you a message and I want to know who, even if I have to beat you to a bloody pulp to find out."

"Hey, no problem, ace, Guy called Left Handed Jack. He's six foot four inches tall, 167 pounds, bushy red hair and a large handle bar moustache, one green eye, one blue, has a snake tattooed on his forehead, the Eiffel Tower on his left arm and the Parthenon on his right, wears three gold earrings in his left ear, had his nose bitten off in a fight and always wears a toga."

"Not much to go on is it, punk."

"One more thing, ace, you should try the hot and sour soup here, absolutely the best in town."

It wasn't mush to go on but what can you expect from a dirty sleazy little street punk. Still he was right about the Hot and Sour soup.

That night i walked the lonely, desperate streets of the fetid, squalid jungle of a city, mulling over the case. It got darker and darker every time I thought about it. Now I had to find Left Handed Jack and Thin Tony. This case had more twists and turns than a hula dancer with an itch and a plane to catch. But I knew I would pursue it, no matter how long it took or where it led. It is what we do. And I knew, that as all private eyes know, that if you turn over enough rocks something will crawl out. Thus began my search.

Night after night, from sleazy stinking bar to sleazy stinking bar I went, always asking the same questions: who is Thin Tony, where is Left Handed Jack? And always I got the same answers. It seemed like everyone knew a Fat Tony but no one had ever heard of a Thin Tony. The same for Left Handed Jack. I described him to a lady of the evening as we sat side by side in a smoke filled den of iniquity. She laughed bitterly. "Guys like that are a dime a dozen, I see a hundred of them a night." She laughed bitterly again.

Night after rain drenched night I sat in scummy bar after scummy bar, sipping my drink, smoking my cigarette, looking inscrutable. There are some that might think that mine was a vain, foolhardy, even incredibly stupid pursuit but I knew that one day the big break would come. And it did.

I was seated by myself at a table in a small but incredibly squalid bar when I was joined by three extremely muscular young men. The first looked casually about while he kept bending and straightening a two inch iron bar he carried. The second man smiled as he used his switchblade knife as a toothpick. The odd thing about that was that he was using his knife to pick the teeth of a patron at an adjoining table who responded, quite aptly I thought, with screams of anguish. The third only stared distractedly at the table in front of him. They introduced themselves.

"I'm Tony The Horse." said the first.

"I'm Tony The Pig." said the second.

The third muttered sheepishly. "I'm just plain Tony." obviously embarrassed that he didn't have a nickname.

"We hear you been asking a lot of questions." said Tony The Pig.

"Yeah, a lot of questions." said Tony The Horse.

They turned inquiringly to Just Plain Tony, but Just Plain obviously lost in thought failed to pick up his cue. Instead he asked. "What about Tony The Ox?"

"Naw, taken years ago."

"Geez fellas what am I gonna do? All the good Tony nicknames is taken, I'm down to small furry animals and Tony The Chipmunk just don't have the right ring to it."

I scowled and lit a cigarette. "Let's cut to the chase. I don't have all day."

"The boss wants to see youse."

"The boss?"

"Thin Tony."

So there it was. The big break had broken. I followed them up a narrow stairway, through a narrow lobby,, and down a narrow hallway. The deathly quiet was broken only by the sound of our footsteps and the screams of anguish coming from the closed doors along the hallway. We reached the final door. "Go inside." said on of The Tonys. "Go inside." said another Tony. The third muttered something that sounded like muskrat.

I opened the door and entered. The man behind the desk said. "Come in and sit down, Mr. Private Eye. I'm Thin Tony."

I sat down. "Thin Tony? But you must weigh at least three hundred pounds."

"Three hundred and fourteen pounds to be exact. Rather clever disguise, don't you think?" Rather diabolical, I thought. He continued. "It has recently come to my attention that you have been seeking an audience with me pursuant to certain information of which you feel I might have some knowledge."

"That's right, Thin Tony, and I am prepared to beat it out of if I have to."

He sighed. "That event is so unlikely that it scarcely bears contemplation, so ludicrous that it doesn't merit a response, however out of my innate sense of courtesy I shall respond by advising you that should you even contemplate for one second any such physical act I would, without a moment's hesitation, rip off both your arms and beat you into a bloody, mangled pulp with them." I nodded, he had a point there. He continued. "The information that I shall divulge to you is given because I choose to give it. It is my choice to do so. The choices that we make each and every day, large and small, are not only what define us as human beings but define the reality we both create and inhabit. As Jean Paul Sartre once so eloquently stated..."

I leaned back in my chair and probably would have dozed off had it not been for the blood curling screams of anguish coming from the next room. Despite my outwardly stoic composure I did find those screams, blood curdling as they were, slightly unnerving. At last I felt he was finally beginning to run down. I looked at my watch, seventeen minutes, not up to Uncle Ralphie's level but probably quite acceptable for a sleazy underworld kingpin.

"...and while one must acknowledge the eternal pessimism of a Hegal or a Schopenhauer, one is always in awe of their clarity of thought. However to better understand the human condition one must always turn back to Kant, and of course Plato." He began to pace wildly about the room. "Them old guys, they was giants, you know what I mean, giants. They was really something those guys, not like the punks we have today, no sir, giants. What what do we have today? Some wimpy 20th century novelist that goes around worried about the size of his penis. You know the story?" I nodded. He continued. "Naw, them guys was real giants. None of them went around worried about the size of his penis. Well maybe Schopenhauer, a little. But Immanuel Kant, never, Plato, no way!" He sat down. "Let's cut to the chase. Miss La Boomboom, yes I knew her once, we had a brief, how shall I say it, dalliance, and then we parted, ships that pass in the night sort of thing. I haven't seen her in years and as for the Romanoff tiara, I never heard of it."

I stood up, stifling a yawn. "Well, thanks a lot, Thin, you've been a great help but I really must be..."

"Sit down, gumshoe, don't you know the first law of the underworld?"

I sat down, having always assumed that one of the unassailable credos of the underworld was its complete lawlessness, this piqued my interest.

Thin Tony paused for dramatic effect. "It aint over till the fat man sings. And have I got a song for you." And so saying he picked up a violin from the top of his desk and began to play while singing an aria from, I believe, Carmen. Frustrated with his musical attempt he smashed the violin to the floor. "Aw, screw it, I'll just tell it to you." He paused again for dramatic effect. "If you go to The Blue Parrot tonight you might be pleasantly surprised . Or unpleasantly." He gave a brief, but extremely effective, maniacal, bone chilling, laugh.

So once again I walked the lonely, desperate streets. Of all the gin joints in the world I was going to have to walk into The Blue Parrot. In a city famed for its sin filled cesspools the Blue Parrot stood head and shoulders above all the rest in its sin filled cesspooledness. I thought I'd seen the worst of the worst; the Green Flamingo, the Purple Owl, the Yellow Mallard, the Brown Blue jay, and the Plaid Mudhen, but the Blue Parrot. I could not help but shudder.

But I knew I'd go there, when destiny summons you can't put it on call waiting. There was nothing to do but do it, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, when the going get tough the tough get going, and all the rest of it.

And so it was that I entered the Blue Parrot. The place was almost deserted, a few motionless bodies on the floor and a couple sitting at a table. I sat down at their table and checked them out; the guy was about six four, maybe 167 pounds, wore a toga and it looked like he'd had his nose bitten off. Just another face in the crowd.

I turned my attention to the woman; she was truly amazonian in stature, to say that she was voluptuous is like saying Mt. Everest is a slight elevation. She had stringy black hair and red pouting lips. The woman spoke. "I wondered if you'd drop by, Georgie."

I was quick to pick up on that. I lit a cigarette. "All right sweetheart, you seem to know my name, if that really is my name. How be you tell me yours."

They both seemed to panic for a moment then had a long whispered conference. Finally the man spoke. "Okay, sure, ahh... my name is Alexander Graham Bell." I nodded. The woman said. "Right, right, and I'm Gloria Vanderbilt." I nodded again and lit another cigarette. I didn't know what to make of this, these two seemed on the up and up, I wondered if this was another false lead. I lit another cigarette and waited.

Suddenly the woman cried out her voice filled with some deep hidden anguish. "Oh, I don't know how long I can keep up this charade.. this lie, this deception."

The man stood up abruptly. I snarled inscrutably. Where you going, punk?"

"I have to make a phone call." He hurried away. These dirty rotten slimy little street punks, they're all the same

"Oh, Georgie." The woman cried out. "I can't keep up this deception any longer, living a lie, this sham, pretending to be someone I'm not. And all the time knowing I'd be found out, that one day you would find me."

"Yeah, yeah." I aid, scarcely listening, wondering how late my dry cleaner was open, if I could pick up my shirts that night.

Then abruptly, and to my complete surprise, she tore off what what turned out to be a black wig revealing a flowing mane of bright pink hair.

"Hey, wait a minute." I said. "Are you...?"

"Pinky La Boomboom. I knew you'd find me, Georgie, you're too good a private eye not to. I give up I'll do anything you say." She placed her hand on mine. "I'll do absolutely anything...anything...you...want...me...to...do...anything."

"Sorry sweetheart, I'm gonna have to turn you in, another time, another place, two other people, things might be different. But you killed my partner, he wasn't much of a partner, but its what you have to do when someone kills your partner. Yeah sweetheart, I'm turning you in. I know that some day in the future I'm going to regret it, maybe I even regret a little now, but its what I have to do."

"Hey, George, I never killed your partner, you don't even have a partner."

She had a point there, but I loved that speech and I'd practised it for hours. I had it down just right. It wasn't my fault I didn't have a partner and that she hadn't killed him. I supposed it was all too late to do anything about it now.

"Well all right, I suppose that is true." I said, more than a little miffed over her obsession with details. "But I'm turning you in anyway, I mean that's the point of whole damn story isn't it?"

"All right Georgie, but let me change my clothes first. My apartment is just upstairs."

"Okay but no funny business, sweetheart, I won't let you out of my sight."

"Hmmm, I hope not."

I noticed when we entered her apartment she locked the door and threw the key out the window. Some cautionary habit I guessed, well, when you live in a crime-ridden stinking cesspool of a city like this caution must be your middle name.

"Oh, Georgie, would you mind unzipping me?"

As I did as she asked I wondered why it was that women put zippers in the back of their dresses. It seemed to defeat the whole purpose, I mean men don't put zippers in the back of their trousers, at least not the men I know, yet women... It was indeed a question to ponder. However I felt this was neither the time nor the place for any real heavy duty pondering.

"Oh, that feels better. While you're there would you mind unhooking my bra?"

Damn it how are these things supposed to work, granted I was completely inexperienced in this area but still you would think they could design something better. I vainly fumbled about, at a complete loss.

Sensing my frustration Miss La Boomboom said, "Maybe it would be easier if I turned around." As she turned and leaned her body into mine she whispered in my ear. This whispering beside its main purpose of imparting information had a secondary effect, producing a kind of tickle, yet not a tickle, that I found quite pleasant and even a little distracting. "You know, Georgie, I've always admired you; your hard, rigid, sense of commitment, the deep, thrusting probe of your intellect, the throbbing, unquenchable force of your determination."

How the hell was this thing supposed to come undone. Have these people never heard of Velcro. Thinking to make a little small talk I said, "I'm sure Mr. Fuller will be glad to see you."

"Mr. Fuller left me days ago, he went to Istanbul to look for the Romanoff Tiara. He just used me, Georgie, he took advantage of me, as so many men have so many times. He never saw me as flesh and blood, especially the flesh part. He never saw me as a woman, filled with yearnings and desires, passion and lust, urges and needs, almost insatiable needs i might add. Oh, Georgie, he looked at me but he never saw me as a woman."

I had to admit that was something of an oversight on his part. Then, Eureka,, the damn thing had come undone and fell soundlessly to the floor. "There we are at last, now you can continue... Miss La Boomboom, you've ripped all the buttons off my shirt... what are you ...really... oh my... oh... oh... Miss La Boom... boom... boom...oh my.

Twenty four hours later I left her apartment. As i crawled down the hallway to the elevator I knew those had been the greatest twenty four hours of my life. A whole new world had opened up to me. Oh brave new world.. Although my weary body was exhausted, completely spent, drained of every drop of... of energy, my heart sang. No, more than sang, it sang and danced, Like Gene Kelly in the rain. Like old Ludwig Von conducting The Ode To Joy. My heart soared, my head was in the clouds. Finally I knew what that phrase, "a man's gotta do what a man\s gotta do," really meant.

I had decided not to turn in Miss La Boomboom, in one of our brief, infrequent rest periods she had confided in me that her aim in life was to work with children , bring an end to all wars, and feed the hungry. To further this I loaned her a considerable sum of money to open an escort service. I didn't quite see the connection but I was sure, aware of her incredible talents, that she knew what she was doing.

When I entered the agency there appeared to be some kind of celebration. Uncle Ralphie had popped a couple of bottles of bubble juice. He handed me a glass. About Miss La boomboom..." I began.

"Miss...? Oh that, I forgot, I meant to tell you weeks ago. No case, forget it, his check bounced. But the good news is I am closing the agency. Miss O' Shaugnessy and I are getting married. Tomorrow as a matter of fact, and the next day we go on our honeymoon, to the Swiss Alps. Miss O'Shaugnessy is going to teach me mountaineering. And speaking of teaching an interesting thought occurred to me this morning..."

Some time later I sauntered over to Miss O'Shaugnessy's desk. She was studiously buffing her nails. Even her nails were shapely. I lit a cigarette and put on an incredibly stoic expression. "Well", I said. "I suppose congrats are in order but I must say, and please don't take this as a criticism or a questioning of your choice of mate, but you must admit Uncle Ralphie is an ugly, mean spirited, selfish, gross, incredibly stupid, boring, insipid weasel with terrible table manners."

"You forgot the bad breath." She said, not looking up from her buffing. "Yes, that is the physical Ralph; the nauseating, grotesque, repulsive, distasteful, unbearable slob, but I see the deep and thoughtful intellect, the brilliant insights, the subtle wit, besides which he is worth between four and five million, is seventy-eight years old and has a heart condition."

As I returned to my desk I thought, oh the mystery of it all. I gave a small rueful smile. As someone once said, the heart has its own reasons.

That was many years ago and now as I walk this rural lane, set in an equally rural countryside, the leaves of autumn, brown and curled, crunch beneath my feet. In the distance the towering mountains have turned azure in the fading light of day, their tops crowned with delicate wisps of cloud. The air is crisp and clear with just the hint of wood smoke from some far away fire.

My head fills with memories of those days, all the people, they are all there; the beautiful Miss O'Shaugnessy, Pinky La Boomboom who taught me so much, Chi Chi La Bangbang with whom I severely missed the boat, even Uncle Ralphie who died in a tragic mountain accident on the second day of his honeymoon, the moaning man with his spicy noodles, Thin Tony and all the other Tonys, yes they are all there, in my memory, jostling about and elbowing each other, like a bunch of suburban housewives at a garage sale.

I think most often of Miss Chi Chi La Bangbang and what might have been. I like to think that some day, one day, in some dimly lit bar, or some sidewalk cafe, in some elegant ballroom, or perhaps even in the frozen food department, I will look up and there she will be. Our eyes will meet then turn quickly away as we find ourselves flooded with poignant memories and thoughts of what might have been, but our gaze meets again and this time there can be no turning away, our eyes hold one another and the smallest of smiles dances across our faces, we know, we both know,, without a word being spoken, that this time there will be none of that ships that pass in the night business.

I turn up my collar against a breeze that has sprung up from the west and begin my way homeward. The sky has turned a faded grey and the breeze has a sharp, icy edge to it. Yes, I think, it will soon be winter. Winter. And after that what? Spring I suppose, and then summer I guess, almost as if there was some kind of cycle. Oh the mystery of it all. I hurry the last few steps to my cabin.

Yes, the mystery of it all, but I guess that's life and what can you do about it?

THE END

THE LAST FULL MOON IN THE TROPICS

### a play

A cottage with the appearance of being in the tropics. A woman stands looking out a window. It is evening. A man is seated, he opens a newspaper, stares at it then throws it down.

**Man:** You did the crossword. You didn't even do it, you just put in anything, gibberish, profanities.

**Woman:** The moon is up now, a perfect full moon. Have you seen it yet?

**Man:** No, not yet, thank you. (pause) Damn you. Why do you do things like that?

**Woman:** I was tired of watching you do the puzzle every damn night.

**Man:** You don't have to watch me do the puzzle, as a matter of fact you never watch me do the puzzle. You never think of anyone but yourself.

**Woman:** How very quiet it has become. It was only a puzzle.

**Man:** Yes, well I enjoy doing the puzzle. That's the point. Its the principal of the thing.

**Woman:** There's no principal, only a puzzle.

**Man:** Yes, I'd completely forgotten, principal is not a word that exists in your vocabulary. You live on some other plane. Well I'm going to have a drink. Would you like one? (goes to the side table and pours himself a drink.)

**Woman:** No, maybe later. Its so quiet out there, such complete silence, not a breath of a sound. All the night noises of the jungle, nothing now. I'd grown accustomed to them.

**Man:** So accustomed that you never heard them. I always heard them, every night. I hated them. I could picture what was happening out there... death and terror.

**Woman:** Only nature going about its business. I think I will have that drink, (goes to table, pours drink, sits down) I didn't know you were so sensitive, though God knows you've told me often enough.

**Man:** You never understand do you? You never try.

**Woman:** Oh, I understand sensitivity, at least yours, and it is very limited my dear. It doesn't extend beyond you, it doesn't include other people. It has never included me.

**Man:** What are you going on about? I don't know the real you? All that again. I know you better than anyone. Listen to yourself. After all these years. You sound so trite. What shall we discuss next, your inner child? My God, you are so self centred, like this thing with the puzzle.

**Woman:** Oh, damn the stupid puzzle. You resent me because I'm still alive inside, not dead or filled with self-hatred or whatever your personal anguish is this week.

**Man:** (after a pause) Okay, okay...please... we're like a couple of dim witted children poking one another with sharp sticks... tonight... tonight, let's not.

**Woman:** You're right, this is a special night. Let's drink to something. To our last night here? The last full moon in the tropics? No, let's drink to us, to nineteen years of us.

**Man:** There were a couple of intervals.

**Woman:** Yes, but still nineteen years of us.

**Man:** All right then, to nineteen years of us. (they click glasses)

**Woman:** The first time we came here we didn't know each other did we, not really and we sat together on the beach till three in the morning. What was it that attracted you to me?

**Man:** Oh, for God's sake, you asked me that a thousand times.

**Woman:** And you always make it into a joke or evade it. Tell me truthfully, please.

**Man:** (pause) All right then, truthfully, I don't really know. I suppose you made me laugh and had beautiful skin... I... well, you were always an attractive woman.

**Woman:** I don; t know how I feel about that, (pause) I was intrigued by... I guess it came from that first night on the beach, there seemed to be all these things going on inside you, churning about, and I wanted to know all about them, all about you. It was quite romantic. I think you brought out the maternal in me.

**Man:** There was a full moon that night too. That was a hundred years ago, wasn't it? I remember sitting there and my feeling... feeling that we were touching some great beautiful mystery... something... now I don't know if it was real or if I imagined it, imagined what you were feeling. What were you really thinking, that your dress was getting wrinkled, the sand was cold, you'd forgotten to bring your shampoo, or were you just impatient to get into bed ?

**Woman:** We were so young. (pause) Another thing I found attractive was that you liked to make love on the carpet.

**Man:** Yes, of course, fucking on the floor, the way to your heart. That's what it always comes down to with you. Well we don't do that anymore, do we?

**Woman:** No, we don't and no I wasn't thinking about my dress or my shampoo that night.

**Man:** I don't know whether to believe you or not, or if it matters. Its all changed, everything has changed.

**Woman:** No, my dear I haven't changed, neither have you. We've just lost a few illusions.

**Man:** Really, and what illusions have you lost?

**Woman:** You. You with your troubled sensitivity to all the world. I admired that, I really did. But it wasn't real was it, just a romantic image that you put out, along with a well developed hang dog expression. I'm sure it got you into a lot of bedrooms.

**Man:** I'm not a fake.

**Woman:** Yes you are, though I don't mind so much anymore. I just wish that every now and then you could be honest with me.

**Man:** What's all this honesty business? Is that tonight's topic for discussion? God you are so self righteous. Honesty? From you? You're hardly the one to preach on that. It was you that deceived me, and with Richard, my so called friend. How honest was that?

**Woman:** Oh, I knew we'd get around to that, we always do. I slept with an acquaintance of yours. God, how many times will you spin that record? It was six years ago. You know what I think? I think you were glad. It let you feel so self righteous, so dramatic. Forever the injured party. Well, my dear, I'm sorry but the whole subject has become tiresome and boring.

**Man:** (goes to window and looks out) Now who's playing a role? So strong, so self contained, well not to me. I have a few memories too. That little incident with the sleeping pills, do you recall? And all those nights I held you while you cried yourself to sleep, do you remember that? Crying, afraid of the world, of losing me, of dying alone, afraid of... You needed me you said, you couldn't live without me, you needed me, over and over again... needed. It didn't matter about me, just your need.

**Woman:** That's not true. (pause) Oh, Jesus, you've never really loved me, have you?

**Man:** (pause) I never said that.

BLACKOUT

**Man:** I remember we thought about children once, talked about it even... we...

**Woman:** (cuts him off) Thank God we didn't make that mistake. We'd have been terrible parents.

**Man:** Maybe, sometimes being a parent changes people.

**Woman:** Not us, darling, not us.

**Man:** Oh, we're not so bad.

**Woman:** No, I don't suppose so. Its so quiet out there, so still, not a sound.

**Man:** (long pause) You know, one time, I don't think I ever told you this, four or five years ago, but its always stayed in my mind. At the airport, waiting to board a flight. There was a kind of line up, mostly just people milling about and all of a sudden there's this loud kind of moaning or sobbing and there is this man, a big man, and he's making these terrible frightened sounds and he's flailing his arm like a little kid, Downs or something, and this middle aged woman, his mother I guess, she takes him and leads him to a bench and she sits with him and she strokes his arm and says a few things to him, softly, and after a while she takes a handkerchief from her purse and wipes his nose and he's okay And I wondered how many thousand times has she done this, his whole life, the same thing. Once when he was a baby she made this decision, not to put him in an institution and he has been almost her whole life ever since. But it was her attitude, so calm, not irritated, not resentful, not even defiant, just this beautiful calmness about her. I mean that kind of love, that asks and gets nothing in return, for most of her life. There was something pure... about love like that, don't laugh, yes, pure, really, that's what came to mind. I found it beautiful.

**Woman:** Oh, my dear, you just love to romanticize everything don't you?

**Man:** I suppose. Is that so bad?

**Woman:** It isn't realistic.

**Man:** And is that so bad?

BLACKOUT

The woman is at the window, looking out, the man is seated

**Woman:** Come here and see the moon, its magnificent, there is nothing else in the sky, not a star, not a cloud, nothing.

**Man:** I can see it from here. It is only a cold and lifeless piece of rock that reflects the rays of the sun.

**Woman:** It will be dawn soon, we can walk to the beach. You know after we split up.

**Man:** Which time?

**Woman:** The first. Just about a month after. Some friends; the Sullivans, you remember, rented a place here and they invited me down for a week. I've never told you this before. Their cabin was just down the road from this one and every day I'd walk past here going to and from the lake. The thing was I couldn't walk past this cabin without looking at it, not just glancing but really looking at it, staring. Sometimes I would stand there staring. I don't know what I expected to see. It was odd... eerie, but sad too. I cried a lot that week, every night I think.

**Man:** No, no you never told me that. I remember that was a rough time. You started going out with that guy that looked like a male model; I knew that wouldn't last It was that same time, I saw you one day, shopping in the market, the street market on Wentworth, buying apples and oranges. You were alone. I followed you for three or four blocks, from the other side of the street like it says in the spy novels, just watching you. You bought some flowers. You were wearing that long olive skirt with the black tee shirt, sunglasses and a big straw hat. That was what was so... so touching or whatever, the familiarity of your clothes, that outfit. After all I'd danced with you in it, I was with you when you bought the tee shirt I'd watched you take it off at night... lying in bed waiting for you, watching you undress. I followed you until you went into a restaurant.

**Woman:** Did you think about speaking to me?

**Man:** Yes, I thought about it, but I think I felt a little embarrassed. I remember saying to myself I'm acting like a sixteen year old. Perhaps if I hadn't seen you that day...

**Woman:** (sits down opposite) I'm sorry about the puzzle, really. (he gives a little silent laugh and shakes his head) What?

**Man:** You. You can apologize so sweetly for the puzzle, a crossword puzzle, yet you and Michael, you could never apologize for that, you never did. That made it even worse, as though it wasn't even important, just some little thing.

**Woman:** My God, you are obsessed. Actually, my dear, it was quite a little thing, quite little and quite inept as I recall. Another one of life's disappointments.

**Man:** As usual your attempts at humour leave me cold.

**Woman:** You were born...never mind, sorry. Oh, come on. You always said I made you laugh.

**Man:** Only when you're not trying to be funny. Another drink? Another thing I remember, when we were separated...

**Woman:** Which time?

**Man:** The other time, the last time, you had one of your friends, your best friend at the time, spy on me. That's right, your good friend, Nadia, that earth mother figure with the clangy jewellery. You asked her to spy on me. I'd often run into her and she'd quiz me; who was i seeing, was it serious, what did i think about you, etc. etc. As if i didn't know what she was up to. So one day I had her up to the apartment for a glass of wine and she told me. Told me you asked her to do it. Told me quite easily, no urging, even joked bout it. Your friend, Nadia. I always thought that was deceitful of you.

**Woman:** Did you sleep with her?

**Man:** No, but I could have, easily. So much for sisterhood.

**Woman:** Why not?

**Man:** She didn't appeal to me.

**Woman:** It would have been revenge for Richard.

**Man:** No. No, I never saw it that way.

**Woman:** You are old fashioned aren't you? Yes, Nadia, always telling me I should drop you, you were no good. I always wondered if she was sincere of if maybe she had her eye on you. Yes, I asked her to spy on you. You found that deceitful, I would have found it touching, certainly flattering. That's the difference between us.

**Man:** Just one of many, oh so very many. Don't you ever wonder... I mean you must have thought...well, you could have chosen someone else. I could have too.

**Woman:** Why me? Why you? (shrugs) Who knows. Your friends all think you could have done better. My friends think I could have done better. But they don't know, they can't possibly know.

**Man:** Yes, but still... with someone... better suited, we might have been happier.

**Woman:** It would have been different but I don't know if it would have been any better. We all get found out at the end.

**Man:** But it would have been easier, less abrasive, and that could have led to some kind of happiness, contentment at least. They say you can learn to love someone.

**Woman:** Not us, we're too impatient.

**Man:** I don't know. (laughs) You know its just us again, we've talked so much, most of the night and as usual gotten nowhere. I had thought we might make love, our last night and all.

**Woman:** Have sex you mean.

**Man:** Sometimes we've done both at the same time, sometimes we still do. There's always that part of it, isn't there? Sex, the physical... a large part I suppose... sometimes its a refuge from the rest of it, at least for me. (pause, then laughs) I don't know, is it you that makes the sex attractive or is it the sex that makes you attractive.

**Woman:** You're not kidding are you? Oh, my dear, you really do try to think too much... relax. Why don't you just be, that's all, just be. At least for tonight.

**Man:** Oh, I think too much, that's my fatal flaw is it? I should just be, like a flower, or a lizard. I should just be. The depth of your thinking never fails to astound me. In what woman's magazine did you find that gem of metaphysics. The secret of life as told by Oprah's hairdresser? A final drink?

**Woman:** Well, my dear, when all is said and done, here we are.

**Man:** With us nothing is ever all said and done.

**Woman:** When all is said and done here we are. You and I.

**Man:** Yes, here we are, doing the same old dance, picking and scratching at each other. I don't know.

**Woman:** It is only self defence. (stands) I think its time to start out for the beach, its almost dawn. Will you promise me one thing?

**Man:** What's that?

**Woman:** Silence.

**Man:** Oh, well all right, fair enough. One last drink then. I'll give you the last word. What do you want to say?

**Woman:** Shhh.

**Man:** Shhh. Yes I suppose

**Woman:** Shhh.

THEY EXIT. BLACKOUT.

A CONVERSATION

### a play

Dietrich Bonhoffer was a noted German theologian. He was imprisoned by the Nazis and convicted of participating in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. He was executed in April, 1945.

Set: a small sparse cell like room, a picture on a shelf, a small table and two chairs. A prisoner is seated at the table, there is a Bible on the table. A German officer enters. He is dressed rather casually, no jacket

**Officer:** Were you praying?

**Prisoner:** No.

**Officer:** (as he moves about the cell) I'm interested in you, Dietrich, curious Do you mind if I call you Dietrich? I hope you will call me Ludwig. Yes, yes, named after the composer I'm afraid. My mother had hopes of a musical career for me but I chose the law, and then of course the military, (pause) You must miss your books.

**Prisoner:** Yes.

**Officer:** Still you were allowed a Bible, that's a privilege Dietrich, a privilege.

**Prisoner:** Thank you for that.

**Officer:** Not my doing, but I don't disapprove. I'm not a cruel man. Cruelty for its own sake is pointless and barbaric. (picks up picture) Who is this?

**Prisoner:** My sister.

**Officer:** Ahh... good looking woman, very... German looking. Are you close?

**Prisoner:** Yes. Are my new interrogator?

**Officer:** No, not at all. That is all done with, all settled. I am here unofficially, out of curiosity you might say. Look at me Dietrich. I'm not a sadist, not a monster. I too had a sister, dead now. An air raid. I loved her very much, we were almost like twins. I simply want us to talk together, honestly. Two educated, intelligent men at a particular time in history' Can you do that? Are you agreeable? (pause) The other is all finished, done with. As far as you are concerned the file is closed. There is no one left to comprimise and there is not much time left. Not for either of us. We may as well talk, for there is little else left to do. I may be the last person you can talk to about it.

**Prisoner:** This is not to be an interrogation you say.

**Officer:** No, you have a choice. Only a conversation. That is if you want to.

**Prisoner:** Only a conversation, a discussion, one that might lead anywhere, that is what you have come for? A sharing of ideas? I see. You are curious about me. Well I too am curious, about you, all of you. You would like to know about me? very well. Quid Pro Quo.

**Officer:** Exactly.

**Prisoner:** All right, then. Well, you have all the files, you know my backgound, my friends, the events of my life, but still you are curious. I will try. (pause) I suppose my faith , my belief, is what interests you. Very well. When I found God, and there is no other way to describe it, when I found God it was a great revelation, but it was something more... to love Christ as the son of God and still to see him as an individual man, to truly love Him, to understand Him, a man in the world as I am. I wanted his teachings put into an understanding that would be translated into our daily actions, our daily lives. In a way I suppose I wanted to simplify things for in the end it really is quite simple. I would be his great messenger. I was young, I wanted to move mountains. Now i would feel fulfilled to have moved just one grain of sand.

**Officer:** You almost changed the course of history, that interests me. I wonder how a good German, blessed with everything, a man of God, a noted man of God, how could you conspire to assassinate the greatest leader this country has ever produced? How does a man of God, how can a man of God, conspire to kill another human being?

**Prisoner:** When a man sees evil he has a duty to do everything he is capable of doing to stop it, nothing less. If we see a car speeding out of control, killing people, we must try to stop the car.

**Officer:** Even if it means killing the driver?

**Prisoner:** Yes.

**Officer:** Did you really think that by killing one man you could stop a movement, surely you if anyone, should know better than that. I have read some of your writings and as I recall there was much about the sacredness of human life. Yet you chose to kill this great leader. You chose to take a human life. Or did God choose?

**Prisoner:** Yes, of course, that is the question isn't it? Was I an instrument of God? Following God is not lke following Hitler? Hitler makes a speech, gives instructions, you know exactly what to do. Following God is not like that. It is a constant search. You doubt, you wonder, are you really doing God's work. Perhaps it had been too safe and comfortable for me. Everything had come too easily. I talked with missionaries, doctors, nuns, that did God's work under the most horrible conditions... sacrificing their health, their lives sometimes. I think I had feelings of guilt, yet I knew it was not my calling, not my purpose. You cannot desire to be a martyr for the sake of martyrdom. That is just another vanity.

**Officer:** But you... what you did?

**Prisoner:** Suddenly I found myself in a real world, a terrifying world where innocent people, thousands of innocent people, were routinely tortured and murdered, It was a madness, a plague, and those questions of ends and means, categorical imperatives... what do you do in the middle of madness?

**Officer:** And did you pray? Did you ask God for guidance?

**Prisoner:** Of course.

**Officer:** And God told you to kill this man?

**Prisoner:** I don't know. The decision came from within me. I don't know.

**Officer:** One other thing, Dietrich, and you must pardon my ignorance, but isn't there something called the soul, the immortal soul? Is that still taken into account?

**Prisoner:** Yes.

**Officer:** Yes, Yes, I see... so in fact you risked something much more than your life, much much more. you are a true believer, aren't you?

**Prisoner:** Yes, and so are you.

**Officer:** Of course, that is why we are both here.

**Prisoner:** And if we know anything of history we know it is always the true believers who are the first to die.

**Officer:** And the first to pull the triggers. (pause) We do share some things, Dietrich, I too came from a middle class, traditional, German home; an artistic mother, Beethoven, Schiller, Goethe, a religious father, he admired your writing I believe. A good man, a saintly man, as everyone said, but that was not what I saw. I saw only weakness, and I despised the weakness. (pause) I soon discarded religion. I saw it for what it was, a weak and corrupt power structure in its death throes. It had nothing to say to me. University? Intellectual eunuchs standing in a thunderstorm while they debate reality of rain. (pause) The first time I heard Hitler speak, on the radio, I was intrigued. I listened again. I read his writings. I knew there was something there. I went to see him speak, a great rally. And then I knew beyond any doubt. The joy of complete commitment, perhaps that is something else we share. The purity of it, absolute, no ifs ands or buts, absolute. You don't understand do you? You think of him as a politician. A rabble rouser, that's what the papers called him at first, a rabble rouser. But who were the rabble, Dietrich? It was the German nation. We were unsure, directionless, floundering in self doubt and self hatred. He taught us to love ourselves, he gave us power and a destiny, a destiny beyond beyond the insignificance of our lives. That is why we will die for him, for the idea, for the truth he gave us.

**Prisoner:** Men have always died heroically for bad causes as well as good ones.. Your leader, he is clever, and charismatic certainly, but to what end? He is a false prophet who tries to disguise evil as virtue. You say he gave you truth, he gave you falsehoods. What kind of truth contains in it murder and oppression. That is not truth.

**Officer:** Truth, what is truth? Your truth, my truth, the truth of the marxists, the truth of some primitive savage in a jungle somewhere. You never understood because you never needed him. We needed him. We needed him and he was there. We still do. More than a man, Dietrich, much, much more than a man. That is what you have to understand.

**Prisoner:** More than a man, of course. But you make this all sound like some great metaphysical movement, but it is not, it is as old as time itself. What it really is is evil. Evil, nothing more or less. Something that has been with us almost forever and perhaps will always be with us on this earth. But we have... as human beings we have an obligation to try to overcome evil wherever we find it. not just in this huge, monstrous evil that engulfs us all now, but to overcome, to change, those mundane little individual acts of evil that we encounter in our every day life. That is our duty. (pause) You said you were not a monster, not a sadist, then tell me, Ludwig, did you never wonder, witnessing all this, all the horror, did you never doubt? Never?

**Officer:** Certain things... certain things have to be done, that is the way it is. Yes, and for some of us it would be difficult. But we do them because we know they must be done, and in doing them we prove our belief, we prove it and we strengthen it. It is the world, Dietrich, the world, we all of us have a little blood on our hands.

**Prisoner:** Yes, Ludwig, it is the world, but it is the world we made. yes, we all do have a little blood on our hands but there is a difference. Some have blood on their hands fropm human failings, our imperfections as human beings. But other, others have blood on their hands from intent, and there is all the difference in the world beetween the two.

**Officer:** You and your friends came so close, so very close. Its interesting isn't it? Had luck been on your side and not ours... Do you believe in luck, Dietrich? In any event had you succeeded you would have gone down in history, not as some obscure scribbler of religious tract but as one of the men who changed the course of world history. You must think of that often. It does not happen to many of us.

**Prisoner:** No, I think of other things.

**Officer:** Ahh, yes, your immortal soul, and your mortal sin, the blood on your hands.

**Prisoner:** No, not even that. I think often of the things I did not do. Sins of omission... always so difficult. We overlook, we pass by. The beggar in the street. We think it is a minor thing but it never is. We see a world so filled with brutality and suffering that we become overwhelmed. But that is only a poor excuse. I know, I have come to know, that I am of this world and in this world. The Kingdom of God is here and now. In this camp, in this cell. I know that I must try to be in this world as a Christ. You can find that amusing but you must think about what it means. In every action, no matter how small and seemingly inconsequential, I must be in this world as a saint, that is the only way.

**Officer:** I don't find it amusing, only foolish. But foolish or not you have a belief, a commitment. I give you that. Most people go through life like sheep because it is the easiest thing to do. You and I are different. We found something real and we were not afraid. Yes, yes, I give you that. But you are still a fool, Dietrich, because we have won.

**Prisoner:** How can you say that? One of the guards tell me the Russians continue to advance, and now you fight on two fronts. It could be just a matter of months.

**Officer:** And we have won. At this moment there are still trains running, carrying undesirables to the camps. You know about the camps, the extermination camps. Still. Trains and railway lines that could be used to move troops and supplies are used for this. For this purpose. Even now. Do you appreciate the significance of that? It is the great point, the great statement we have made. Above all else it what we have shown the world, and the world will absorb it. That is why we have won.

**Prisoner:** There is no victory. there is no defeat. It is not the end nor the beginning of anything. You said you were interested in seeing me because I almost changed the course of history. I do not think that was the reason. No, you had to see me, Ludwig, with your own eyes, you have stared so intently at me. But it is not me, it is what I represent, however poorly and inadequately. That is what you really want to understand; the mystery, the x factor in your blueprints, the enduring mystery beyond your logic, beyond your mathematics. But I had to look at you, yes, I had to see you It was important for both of us.

**Officer:** (stands, moves about the cell a little then faces the prisoner) Let me tell you something. A month ago I visited a camp, an extermination camp for Jews and other misfits. They come in by the hundreds, in freight cars. And as they walk the camp a man stands there, he wears white gloves and as a pencil in one hand. As each person passes he moves his pencil, this way or that way. This way the person dies, that way the person lives. And that is all there is, Dietrich, that is all there is to God and mercy and justice, just a man with a pencil. But you are no different, my friend, we kill to make a great new society, you would kill to prevent it. We are really the same you and I. This morning I signed the formal order for your execution. I did not agonize over it. There were no feelings of mercy or pity. It was only a matter to be tidied up. Just the movement of a pencil, this way or that way. That is why we have won.

**Prisoner:** The lawyer pleads his case but there is no winning or losing, just the continual ` struggle. Your people have made a statement, but it is an old and familiar one. Now let me tell you something, something you already know. All throughout Europe, now, all across Europe. Jews are being hidden; in attics, in barns, in cellars. Saved from death. Danish fishermen risk their lives to take them to safety. Why? Why is this being done? Why do they risk their lives? Not for gain or politics or ideology, but for something else. And it is that something else that does not fit into your equation. i am sure the world will long remember this time of horror and madness and so it should, but it should also remember the other side of the coin, they risked their lives because of something else.. (pause) Why are you here, Ludwig? You have never answered, not truthfully. What worries you? That the weakness you despised in your father was really a strength?

**Officer:** Come, come, you haven't made a convert. I am not your grain of sand. You are a clever man, Dietrich, but you are a fraud, yes, a fraud. You talked of nuns and missionaries risking everything but where were you? You were in in your comfortable home with your books and your morality while in some distant country little children starved to death. You ate well, Dietrich, while little children starved to death. Sins of omission?

**Prisoner:** I know my faults and my shortcomings, even better than you, but my failings prove nothing. Nothing. But you are right, it is what I have come to know. Evil exists in what we do not do as well as in what we do. We do not move the mountain with one grand sweep but with a million individual acts, a million grains of sand.

**Officer:** (the lights flicker and go out for a second) The generators. Damn, we have talked too long. They will go out soon. We must hurry.

**Prisoner:** What now, Ludwig? I am so tired.

**Officer:** I, too, am tired, but this will be our last... last meeting. (He takes a gun from his pocket and places it on the Bible) Yes, it is loaded and if you choose to take it up I shall not try to stop you.

**Prisoner:** You would put a loaded gun in my hand. What is this now?

**Officer:** You and I are about done, Dietrich, you will die tomorrow at noon, if not before, and I... the Russians will be here soon, days rather than weeks. I have chosen not to run, to escape, not like the others, and of course the Russians will kill me.

**Prisoner:** (studying him) I see.

**Officer:** What we do now will be of no consequence to the world, we will not rate a line in the history books, (smiles) two grains of sand in a vast desert. And here we sit, two intelligent men at a particular time in history, two men who truly believe in something.

**Prisoner:** We have talked so much, what is the point now?

**Officer:** Yes, Dietrich, we have talked enough. Look at me. You know who I am. I have tortured and murdered hundreds of people; innocent people, men women and children. You must hate who I am and what I represent, to you I am evil, evil plain and simple. And opposite me a man who believes so strongly in the sanctity of human life, so fervently. And a foot away from his hand is a loaded revolver. So, there is a choice to be made. You betrayed your belief once before.

**Prisoner:** Yes, yes, perhaps it was a betrayal. (pause) You have turned this into the personal. (pause) Perhaps it always is... in the end... something personal.

**Officer:** The lights will go soon, Dietrich, you must make your choice.

They stare at each other as the light slowly dim to blackout.

THE END

