 
PRESSED LEAVES

Short Stories

by

Jack Forge

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2011 John Stephen Rohde

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment. It may not be re-sold or given to others. If you want to share this book, please buy a copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book but did not buy it, please go to Smashwords.com and buy a copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

Stories

Chad 'n' Joey

Portraits

Lunar Vigil

The Old Man and the Blue Jay

Visitation

The Dying of Delores Price

Orion the Hunter

Bosch Garden

Meremade

The Shaft

Fade Out

Ex Libris

First Person Shooter

Bobby and His Bicycle

The Doll in the Garden

The Last Man on Earth

King of the Christmas Trees

Saving Monica

Spit

Universal Remote

RxAll

Retriever

Zombies

Last Confession

Purchasing Power

Castletown Quarry

Solo Fugue

Ground Zero

Waste Water

The Bus Driver

Woodwind

***

CHAD 'N' JOEY

Tobias led the hunt. His two brothers followed with the boys, Chad and Joey. Beneath a wall of towering granite, Tobias halted and scanned the slope. "Not hide nor horn," he said. They gathered upon great boulders buttressed at the base of high cliffs.

Joey was sweating in his jacket despite the afternoon chill, and the wind blew his hair into a blaze. The thin mountain air burned his nose; his tongue was thick from thirst. Staring across the canyon toward the jagged horizon, he imagined the great ocean thousands of miles beyond the Rocky Mountains.

"Beat already, kid?" Tobias asked his son and laughed. "Hafta perk up some, if you're gonna cut it in these mountains."

Joey shook his head. Shielding his eyes, he gazed down the slope to the old mine. From the decaying shacks, his eyes follow the gravel road uncoiling along Castle Creek through the forest and back toward the valley of the Roaring Fork.

Earlier that afternoon the jeeps had turned out of the ranch yard on the outskirts of Aspen and caravanned for miles up an unpaved road to the old bloodred buildings of the dilapidated mine. As the men and women unloaded iced boxes and kettles full of sodas, beer, and food, Joey and his cousins took off to explore the canyon.

Chad and Joey stuck together and avoided the girls gamboling after them. The boys strolled along a trail at the foot of a mountain and hurled stones into the creek far below, reveling in their tosses. When Joanie, the oldest, threw one far into the foaming rapids, the girls cheered. Her hair flashed in the sunlight, and her eyes mimicked the aspen leaf. "Betcha I can make it more times than you, Joey," she shouted.

"Shoot!" he shouted back as he launched a rock down to the swirling stream. The small gray speck submerged soundless into the white water.

"Wow!" the girls yelled.

"Yeah, Joey!" Chad shouted and grinned impishly. "Way to go, man!"

Joanie smirked and threw another stone, arcing it into the water. "There! Let's see you beat that." She turned her back on the boys and pranced back to the mine shacks, her long auburn hair whipping across her shoulders.

"Shit! I can beat that easy--" Chad said, as he threw one.

"Come on, girls," Joanie said. "Let's see what's going on inside."

"Hey!" Chad shouted. "You see that? Hey! Where ya goin'?"

The girls waved and taunted them and then disappeared through a doorway into one of the old buildings.

Some of the older folks were sitting on barrels and crates or standing around a rusty stove. Others were setting bowls of salad, preserves, and bread on tables against bare walls. Kettles of ham and chicken lay on a large iron plate beneath the stove. Pearl, Tobias's wife, stuck her head out a window and hollered. "Boys! Bring us some wood for the fire."

A few shredded beer cases lay scattered on the planked floor. Cans dangled from the men's thick fingers; their cigarette smoke drifted into the rafters. Behind them a door swung open, and the boys stomped into the building with armfuls of cones and branches.

"Right there, boys--" Pearl said. "Put 'em in that box by the stove."

"When do we eat?" Chad asked, his eyes glowing beneath dark brows and a thatch of black hair.

"Oh, run along now and play for a while," one of the women said. "We'll eat soon enough."

"Hey, Chad--" Tobias said. "Why doncha take Joey up the mountain?"

"Yeah!" Chad shouted. "Come on, Joey!"

"Nah--" Joey dropped onto one of the crates among the men.

"Go on with Chad, Joey," Pearl said.

Joey passed his hand across his brow. "I don't feel like it right now, mom."

"You go on with Chad, boy," Tobias demanded. "Do ya good."

Joey grimaced.

"We'll go with you," the girls joined.

"Aw, come on, Joey," Chad said as he jerked him to his feet and led him out the door.

They plodded up the trail to the base of a mountain, the girls running to catch up. "Wait for us--! They cried.

"Why?" Chad asked. "You girls'll never make to the top anyways."

"Betcha we can," Joanie said.

"Betcha can't," Chad retorted.

Up the mountain the children crawled over stacks of granite that jutted mossy out of dense willows, currants, and ink berries. They climbed the rocky face of the slope and headed through trees toward timberline. Where the conifers dwindled, huge pink rocks arose like the ruins of an ancient temple. At the base of a steep bank the boys stopped and looked down the slope at the girls ascending. Joey saw the mine shacks as tiny boxes on the canyon floor, separated by the creek that ran like a vein of molten silver. Chad spied Joanie leading the girls up to their position and whispered to Joey, "Watch this--" He hurled a stone over the girls' heads. Joey hesitated, grinned, and then tossed one himself. The small rocks crunched in brush behind the girls.

"Hey, you guys--" the girls hollered, "Watch out!"

"For what?" Chad asked as he threw another one. "I ain't gonna hit you scaredeecats." Again he whispered to Joey, "Look at this one, man!" And he struggled to dislodge a rock the size of a cannonball. Joey stood still and watched as the boy shoved and shoved and then rolled it over another rock. It tumbled down the mountain into some brush in front of the girls. Joey gasped.

"You're gonna hit us, Chad Moody!" Joanie screamed.

"Bullshit!" he hollered back. "Watch this one, Joey--" Chad put his hands on a bigger boulder.

"Maybe you better not, Chad--" Joey said.

"Don't worry--" Chad heaved against the huge monolith. "Help, me--Joey," he groaned.

"But...."

"Help me, will ya?! I won't hurt 'em. You too scared?"

"No, but...."

"Then come on and help me get this boulder movin'. It'll scare the piss out of 'em." He chuckled wickedly.

Joey put his hands to the boulder. Together they shoved the big thing until it rolled over a block of granite, bounded off rocks, leaped low spots, pounded into the turf, smacked the ground, and screeched through brush as it tumbled down the mountainside like a wrecking ball. Just before reaching the girls' position, it hurtled off a ledge and wheeled over their heads before crashing into a thicket below them. The crackle of smashed sticks and the clatter of shattered rock all faded into a scream that dissolved into a swift cold wind off the high snow.

Joey shuddered. He could hear the girls sobbing. "Hey, you girls okay?" he shouted.

Silence for a few heartbeats became the alpine wind.

"Darn you, Chad 'n' Joey!" Joanie bellowed through tears. "You nearly killed us! And I'm telling--"

"But I didn't mean...." Joey started to say.

"Go ahead and tell," Chad shouted. "We never hurt you, did we?"

The wind started blasting off the mountain top. The children stood motionless as if awaiting the voice of God.

"Come on, Joey," Chad said. "Let's go to the top and get away from these scaredy girls." He led the way up the steep slope toward the summit, Joey following in his tracks.

Not far below the summit Chad disappeared around an outcropping of rock. Joey, not having noticed which way he had gone, headed straight into a slot of ragged granite resembling a crack in a pyramid. Looking down he saw the girls traversing on a more gradual ascent away from the steep face as they angled toward the top. Joey turned and started crawling up the narrow crevice. As he climbed, he glimpsed the sky through the rocks and strained to spot the summit. He blinked, and a shadow rippled over him. A dark wing. It came so close he could have grabbed a handful of feathers but he froze. Glancing down he felt in his stomach the steepness crashing to the rocks below. He braced himself between the towering rocks. His knees stung, his hands ached. He felt a chill streak through his body and he stopped cold as if chained to a prison wall.

"Hey, Joey--" Chad called from atop the mountain. "Where are ya?"

Joey heard the girls' voices as they ascended on one side of the crevice. Soon they would see him frozen there. He could not move but clung to the great blocks on either side of him. When the girls appeared, he started to slide slowly down.

"Oh, there you are--" Joanie said, studying him. "What's the matter, Joey--can't you make it?"

He flushed and said hoarsely, "I made it--just before you girls got here." He was trembling.

"Aw, you didn't neither make it, you fibber," one of the younger girls said. "You're a chicken, Joey Rankin!"

"I am not!" he snapped. "I did make it to the top. You want--you want me to do it again and show you--right now?"

"Naw--" Chad said, looking down at him from the top of the crevice. "I know ya did it. Come on--let's beat the girls back to the mine shack. Last one down's a sissy!" He leaped off the crevice and started running down the mountain like a goat. The others scrambled after him. Joanie caught up to him at a patch of snow and skied across it on her shoes. All but Joey joined her.

"Come on, Joey--" Joanie yelled, "Try this! It's fun!"

"Yeah, Joey!" the girls jeered.

"Shoot," he said, "anyone can do that."

"Then go on and try it," Joanie said.

"I don't feel like it now," he said.

Sliding off the snow, the other children leaped over the brush and were running through the trees, when a porcupine appeared in front of them. They all stopped short and stared at each other. Then Chad cheered, "After 'im!" And they took off on the chase.

The porcupine fled through the brush and over the rocks down to the mine road. His pursuers slid in a gravel fall to the road and chased the bristly bundle toward a grove of aspens. "Get 'im!" Chad hollered. "Before he reaches the woods." He picked up a stone and hurled it, exploding in the dust right behind the animal. Joanie joined him and they hurled stone after stone at the terrified fugitive. Then Joey threw one that hit its haunches.

"I hit him!" he yelled. "I...." He stumbled on a rock and sailed into the gravel, flopping in the dust like a sack of sand. The girls ran past him.

"After him!" Chad screamed. "Git 'im! Get 'im! Get 'im!"

Joanie threw another stone and yelled, "I hit him too!"

Chad bellowed with savage abandon. The porcupine had nearly reached the trees but could not run fast enough, and the children caught up to him on the side of the road. It was hobbling and thrashing it spiked tail. Joanie picked up a broken spruce branch to protect against the long needles, while Joey and the other girls gathered around her.

"Hit 'im, Joanie!" Chad whispered at her. "Hit him in the head--but watch out for those quills."

Joanie looked at him, her eyes wide. Firing a critical look at her, Chad jerked the branch out of her hands and broke it into a smaller piece. "Here--I'll finish 'im if you guys don't have the guts to do it." Without another thought he swung the club at the animal and smashed its skull with three heavy blows.

The children looked at the dark pile of quills, twitching on the road, its blood leaking into the gravel and dust. Its muscles stretched slowly, its needles spread as a strange black flower, and then it lay still.

"Ugh!" one of the girls uttered.

Another started to sob quietly.

Chad congratulated them on their capture and kill. Grabbing the corpse by the hind leg, he raised it up to eye level. "Hey!" he shouted and led the group back to the shack.

When they burst into the room and showed off the dripping carcass, Tobias said, "What in hell you kids got there?"

"My heavens!" one of the women said.

"Is it dead?" another asked.

"Where'd you get that poor thing?" Pearl asked.

"Comin' down the mountain," Chad said breathless. "Spotted him runnin' for dear life and...."

"We chased him," Joanie said, "and hit him with a rock."

"Joey hit it first," Chad said. "If I'd had my rifle, I could've nailed 'im easy."

"And you know?" one of the girls said. "Joey fell down right in the dirt." The girls giggled. "Should've seen him, uncle Toby."

Tobias shook his head at Joey and clucked.

"We wanna skin it," Chad said, his dark eyes sparkling. "Show us how."

The men chuckled among themselves, and Tobias said, "We can't tell you how to skin a porky, Chad. Leastways not without a very long knife." The men laughed.

"You just better get shed of that thing," Pearl said, "Before it stinks up this whole place. And please find something else to play with that ain't so messy."

Their enthusiasm deflated by the chuckling elders, the young band of hunters moved silently, slowly apart. Joey stepped over to the stove and scanned the containers of food. He was hungrier than ever.

"Come on, Joey," Chad said as he carried the carcass to the door. "Let's get rid of this thing."

"Go on," Joey said.

"You go on with Chad, Joey," Tobias said.

"Aw, dad--"

"And no back talk, neither. Hear?"

Joey nodded, but his cheeks were burning when he joined Chad at the door and went outside. Chad led the way down a path beside the shack to the creek, Joey dawdling after him. Chad stopped and cast the body into some willows, its slack body tumbling into the dense leaves, the brush rustling and shaking from the dead weight of the thing.

Inside the shack the girls gathered with the men and women. Joanie was watching the boys through a dirty window. When they had thrown away the dead animal, she let her gaze rise up the mountainside across Castle Creek. Spotting something, she narrowed her eyes to see better then opened them wide. "Hey--looks like a couple of deer up there, uncle Toby. Look!"

Tobias rose from his seat and stepped to the girl's side. "What is it, sweetie? Whaddya see--a bear." He grinned and looked for himself.

"No, really, uncle Toby. Isn't that deer or somethin' up there?" She pointed.

Tobias followed her sight. "Uh--yeah, deer or--no, by God! Them's elk. They's a couple of elk up there. Sure enough! Movin' slow too. And one looks like a bull. Yep. Definitely a big bull. He whirled and caught his three brothers' eyes. "Well, whaddya say, fellas?" They grinned and nodded to each other the way of boys before a ball game. "Let's go get 'im!" Tobias said.

"Now, you men stay here," Pearl said. "We're gonna have supper soon, and we don't want you up on the mountain when it's time to...."

"Hold on, woman," Tobias said. "We'll be back before supper," he said on his way out the door.

Hearing the men, Chad looked up from the creek and saw them pulling rifles out of the jeeps. "Hey, what's goin' on?" he hollered. Without answering him, the men marched across a small wooden bridge over the creek and headed up the mountain. "Where ya goin'?" Chad shouted as he ran after them.

"After some elk," Tobias shouted back at him.

"Wow! Can we come along?" Tobias nodded and signaled for them to follow. "Let's go, Joey!" Chad ran to a jeep and pulled out his rifle, then ran up the road to catch the men. Joey trudged after him.

"Come on, Joey--" Tobias hollered and waved his rifle. "Get your ass in gear!"

On top of a boulder high above the others, Tobias set the rifle butt on the rock and surveyed the mountainside. "Damn! Musta missed 'im." He sighed and motioned for retreat. "May as well head on back."

"Aw--" Chad complained.

"Sorry, boy--" Tobias said, "ain't gonna catch that big guy today. Long gone."

"Damn!" Chad muttered.

"So--let's to supper," Tobias said. "Before the women start screamin'." His brothers heartily agreed.

"Okay," Joey said and joined the men starting down the mountain.

"Hey, Joey--" Chad said, "how 'bout you 'n' me go back this way?" He peaked his dark brow and motioned toward a spruce grove across the slope. "Okay we go that way, uncle Toby?"

"But...." Joey said.

"Sure, boys. Go ahead. Just be back before supper, or it'll be your hides." His brothers chuckled.

"Oh, we will," Chad said. "Come on, Joey. You 'n' me just might spot that ol' bull."

Joey hesitated a moment then, glancing at his father, slowly joined Chad in a descent into the dark forest. Tobias watched them walk on a moment, grinned, and then followed his brothers back down to the mine shack.

Before they reached the woods, Chad halted and looked at Joey. "Here--you take the rifle." His dark eyes narrowed. "I'm gonna take a short cut through those aspens there. Mebbe I can scare 'im toward ya."

Joey looked at the rifle. "But I don't want...."

"Sure ya do, Joey." Chad grinned sardonically.

"Besides--what if you spot him? It's your gun."

"Go on, Joey. I think it's your lucky day." Chad started into the trees. "Meet ya later--down below."

"But...."

"Good luck!" Chad waved.

Joey watched the dark shape of Chad clamber down over the gray rocks and disappear like a ghost into the dense trees, their leaves dancing in the sunlight. For a moment Joey simply stood still with the rifle dangling at his side. Shrugging with a sigh, he slowly stepped into the forest. Through a clump of small trees that bordered the woods, he entered into a deep cool shade.

Light played in mosaic patterns on the bark of the trees, ink berries leaves, and patches of grass. As the boy trod through the sylvan colonnade, the rifle hung club like from his arm. His hair, maroon in the shadows, flamed in filtered rays of light. The high conifers whispered in the wind and the soft loam crushed quietly under his feet, as he entered deeper and deeper into the heart of the forest. A vague sensation of voices flowed into his mind, but he was alone. His eyes, gray in the shadows, searched the hidden places in the foliage. As he meandered among the trees, his heart was pounding. Then he noticed something out the corner of his eye. He stopped and stared at it: a shape like a big inverted teardrop suspended among the flickering shadows. He peered into the deep green mass. An ear? Yes. And an eye gleaming just below it, bright as a tiny pool of water. Lifting the rifle slowly, without thinking, he rammed it against his shoulder and pointed at the eye. Straining to hold his breath, he sighted and jerked the trigger.

Crack!

His arm shuddered. The blast echoed among the trees and shockwaves of the explosion bounced between the canyon walls. The spruce needles seemed to quiver at the shot, and the dark leaves of the berry bushes fluttered like butterfly wings. The sound of the shot dissolved into a discordant wail that ripped through the air as if the cry of a banshee. A small, brown object was writhing and flopping within the brush. Joey murmured something to himself and to the wretched thing he had shot. His eyes glistered. He dropped the rifle butt and gawked at the wounded thing, as it tumbled out of the bush into the open forest. The little legs kicked the loam, the tiny hooves flashed in the broken light. Turf dust billowed up through shafts of light, and particles rained onto the hide, speckling the pale white spots and dulling the umber eyes. A small hole behind one eye oozed a trickle of red foam. Breathless, Joey started to shoot it again but waited and watched. The earth-laden body of the animal twitched a moment like a sapling struck by an axe then stopped moving. Joey noticed one ear pointing at the sky. A nauseating heat rose to his throat, as he stared at the corpse bleeding into the dirt. Suddenly the boy flung himself headlong through the trees and down the slope, the rifle in his hand, trailing as if a broken limb.

When he emerged from the woods at the creek bank, Joey swelled his chest to catch his breath then looked up and saw Chad waiting on the bridge, the sun setting behind him. Having heard the shot, Chad was looking for his cousin through the lengthening shadows that lay across the rippling water. Spotting him, he shouted, "Hey, Joey! Did ya get 'im?"

Joey looked down at the water and did not answer.

"Joey!"

"Yeah?"

"Did you get a shot at the old elk?"

"I--I missed him."

Chad stared at him, a faint grin on his dark face. "Huh. Well, come on." He continued across the bridge. "Folks prob'ly waitin' supper."

Joey watched him walk toward the old shack, their walls deep red in the darkening shadow of the mountain. He caught the scent of pinion burning and saw smoke from a black, bent chimney pipe winding blue-white against the granite of the mountain. Around the peaks the glow of dusk was coloring the high snow yellow and pink. He looked down at the creek and searched it for flat stones. He noticed the violet of the water as it flowed around the rocks. He carefully stepped onto one. Then another. Halfway across, he leaped for the far bank. But his foot slipped off a rock and slid into the water. "Shit!" He yanked his foot out of the chilling stream and slammed the rifle butt into the dirt on the other side. Then, shaking his leg like a cat and using the rifle as a stick, he climbed the embankment to the shack.

"Halleluya!" Pearl shouted, when Joey appeared in the doorway. "We was 'bout to send out a search party for you, Joe. She noticed his wet pant leg. "Whatcha do--fall in the creek?"

The boy nodded sheepishly.

"Tough ya missed that elk, Joseph," Tobias mumbled through a mouthful of food. He signaled for the lad to come to him and put his arm around the boy's shoulders. "Well, don't feel bad, son. You tried. That's the important thing. You'll get 'im next time." He smiled at him with pride. "Now lay down yer weapon and get somethin' to eat, young man. Ya musta worked up quite an appetite."

"Yeah," Joey said, handing the rifle to Chad. The young hunter ambled to a table laden with food and surveyed the bowls of potato and green salads and platters of meat. He stared at some chunks of flesh awash in juices. "I--I don't--I guess I'm not as hungry as I thought."

"Get some food in you, young man," Tobias said. "You got to be hungry as a wolf after hikin' all over them mountains."

Joey spooned some potato salad onto a paper plate and sat down on the floor against a wall. Joanie scooted close to him. Chad, sitting next to Tobias, said to him, "That ol' bull musta doubled back above us."

"Uh-huh," Tobias grunted. "Hell of a climb fer nothin'. Didn't hold them boys back though. Chad 'n' Joe stayed with us all the way."

Chad nodded enthusiastically, but Joey was distracted, dawdling with his food. Tobias glowered at him. "Daydreamin' are ya, Joe, or jus' tired?"

"Tired, I guess."

His father's glaring eyes softened. Joey looked out the windows into the purple light of evening. One of the men lit kerosene lanterns and hung them in the rafters. One of the women passed among the group and poured coffee into blue tin cups. The aroma filled the room, and steam enveloped the lanterns with halos. The room was quiet and warm. Dark faces tilted over their cups and sipped the coffee. Chad stayed among the men. Joey and Joanie together sipped their drinks. She looked at him and said quietly, "Ain't you gonna eat some of my good fried chicken, Joey? "I fixed it myself--specially for you."

He smiled at her. "I don't feel like any right now, Joanie. Maybe later."

She nodded and continued sipping her coffee. Joey looked at the flickering lanterns that cast long shadow shapes onto the floor and walls. He spotted a lone mouse scurrying into a corner. A gust of wind blew off the mountain, and the building creaked. Chad grinned strangely as he sat staring at the floor between his feet. Joey looked at him, then at Joanie. Her thick hair lay coiled over her shoulders; her lashes cast feathery shadows on her cheeks, warm in the lantern light. The boy leaned his head against the wall and stared into the rafters. His arms lay limp at his sides, hands on the floor. His wet foot itched, but he sat still. His gaze drifted through the darkness, out of the room, above the shacks and the trees, and over the mountains. He breathed slowly, swallowed once, and then closed his eyes.

PORTRAITS

Appearing radiant from within, the paintings illumined the stairway. Never in my years of collecting art had I seen such work. From the shadows at the bottom of the stairs I looked up to see a preternatural brightness emanating from the atelier of Randall Stone, as if a god dwelling there. "And these pictures, Randall?" I said while climbing to the studio. "I haven't seen them before."

"Portraits of my wife, sir." His voice boomed from on high. "Part of my private collection."

I could not, would not take my eyes off the paintings. A man uneasy with life, I had found a way to escape the miserable world and lose myself in the creations of artists. My father, who had become wealthy in real estate, left me a fortune when he departed this life; so for years I have been traveling to find and acquire the most magnificent pieces of art. After much time and trouble, I gained an invitation to Randall Stone's studio home. Speaking as dispassionately as I could, I focused on the extraordinary vibrancy of the portraits, rather, of their subject. "I didn't know you were married."

"No longer," he said. "She died about the time they were completed."

Blood in my face, I did not know what to say but kept scanning the sequence of portraits.

He seemed to sense the response in my silence. "That was a long time ago."

I spotted him fiddling with his canvases when I gained the top of the staircase but could not help gazing back at her images. "Beautiful," I heard myself utter.

"Yes," he said, stepping to the balustrade and hanging his imperious head over the well as he gazed upon the nudes, "Cynthia was a rare beauty indeed."

"The woman looks alive--the mouth, the eyes."

"Indeed."

I stopped my ascent as he pointed at the first nude at the top of the stairs, a picture in which Cynthia was smiling like a child at play. Her flesh radiated from the canvas. I became suspended between the vision of the young woman and the spell of Stone's mesmerizing voice. Hopeful he would not notice my enchantment, I allowed him the pleasure of hearing himself talk while I drifted back into a reverie. The embodiment of Botticelli's Venus, the woman whirled out of an ethereal sea, her hair woven from the sunrise, her skin hued to the inside of a seashell, her eyes transparent portals to an exotic world.

"How proud I am of you, dear, dear, Randall," I heard her say and was transported back in time.

"Your pride inspires me," he said to the young beauty while mixing pigments on an alabaster palette.

She twirled around him at his easel. "I thrill to think so, my darling."

"Your darling shall be rich and famous someday--all owing to you."

She caressed his cheek with her lips like pink rose petals.

"Cynthia, please--sit still now. I must work."

My vision of them retracted into the painting at which I was staring. I felt energy siphoned from my body as if caught in a magical maelstrom.

"She was my model," he said.

I nodded absently.

"My wife and my only model."

"How fortunate to have found such a portrayable creature in the woman you loved."

"Loved. Yes. Yet--"

I was unable to take my eyes off the paintings but noticed that he threw his arms into the air as if fending off some tormenting fly. "I paid an exorbitant price for love." Sentiment shook his normally stentorian voice. He led me down the stairs and proceeded to tell me more of a story that to this day I find incredible. Listening, I looked at the next painting to which he pointed.

The woman, a golden odalisque, lay among satin pillows the color of lapis lazuli. I expected at any moment an aboriginal eunuch to appear, waving a huge ostrich feather to cool her tender skin. For a moment I imagined that out of the past she could sense my watchful presence.

"Now you must be still, Cynthia--and relax," the artist said from behind his easel.

"But Randall, "she whimpered with feline guile, "I'm tired."

"Please--I need you to stay there while the light...."

"There will be light again tomorrow," she said softly. "You must be exhausted too."

"I have no time to be tired," he snapped. "I must work while the painting goes well--as long as there is time--now, today."

She squirmed, arching her slender back above her dimpled buttocks, her modest breasts glowing in the rays of filtered sunlight that outlined her body. I wanted to encircle her waist with my arms. Perhaps I even raised my hands toward her without realizing what I was doing.

"Cynthia--please!" he hollered. "It'll be dark soon."

She held motionless a moment as if frozen in time and space and then slowly withdrew, falling, collapsing into the cloud of pillows.

I nearly tasted her flesh through my eyes when Randall brought me back to the present.

"My work was selling. I was becoming well known--at last. There were gallery shows--cocktail parties with the haute couture." His long-fingered hand led my gaze from picture to picture, one more radiantly beautiful than the next but with something strange, barely noticeable, in each portrait.

"Cynthia--your wife must have been very proud of you."

"Yes, and I just as proud to--to have her."

I nodded to keep my mouth shut.

"She made my magic," he said, peaking one dark brow. "Painting her image onto canvas after canvas seemed to guarantee my success." He swept his arm toward another portrait.

I could not determine his mood. Was he admiring his handiwork or being nostalgic for his wife? I wanted to pry it out of him--with his own painting knife--but I settled for civility. "You--both must have been very happy."

"Happy?" he responded confusedly. "Well, yes, but--"

He irritated me. "Yes?"

"Of course we were happy. I was rising to new heights in art but I wanted to soar to a pinnacle no man had ever reached before. Greater than Raphael, Rubens, Rembrandt, Picasso--any of them!" He seemed to be trying to inspire himself with his own words.

"Such ambition," I muttered and then glanced at him, hoping he did not hear.

His eyes were red. About to cry? I could not have tolerated that so I returned my attention to the pictures and surprised myself by saying, "She must have loved you deeply." And I felt my face redden. I knew he was staring at me. I sensed his cobalteyes sear my face as if they were dry ice.

"She devoted herself to me."

I stopped and stared at a portrait he had been regarding intensely. My back pressed against the railing but I felt no discomfort.

"I could have enslaved her--if I'd wanted to."

"She wouldn't have rebelled?"

He glowered at me then looked down at the next painting, the edge of his profile stark against the dissipating light. The picture drew my mind to find his own. Depicted as a concubine, Cynthia looked pale and weak but alluring in a nymphic pose. I wanted desperately to touch her. I may have extended my hand to her pallid breast. I don't remember.

"Randall," I heard her cry, "I need to rest."

"Hush now," he said without regarding her, "or I'll lose the moment."

"But day after day we--"

"There! That's it! That's the look I want! The suffering seductress. Now hold it, my dear." He mixed pigments with his fingertips and caressed the canvas. "Good. Good. Very, very good."

My mind fell, loosened from the vision of her pale flesh to the seductive image captured on canvas. I stared into her eyes, into an incredibly vulnerable mystery. I could barely speak. "You demanded--much of her."

"Necessarily so." He drew me down the stairs with each painting.

"For you, Randall, art before love," I said. "True?"

"No!" he shot back at me.

"But...."

"Painting her was my supreme act of devotion. I worshipped her. She was my muse, my inspiration, my...."

"Goddess?"

He fell silent.

"And yet she yielded out of her own devotion to you." I clenched my jaw.

"We were bound to each other in different ways, my friend."

I cringed. As he descended to the next picture, a shadow crossed his face, surprisingly unaffected by the radiance of the painting. I shuddered then stepped down to the next portrait.

"But then--"

"Then?" I was aching to know more.

"Gradually--"

Cynthia in the next portrait looked like an ascetic saint, almost kneeling, as if collapsing into prayer at the moment of an ecstatic spiritual vision.

"Imperceptibly," his voice droned in the background, "she was changing."

"Changing?"

"Losing strength."

"Ill?" I nearly choked.

"Randall--" I heard her speak as if in supplication to a god.

"Cynthia," he and I said in unison.

"I feel so weak--" she sighed.

"Nonsense," he said. "You're full of vitality." He stepped back from the easel to admire his handiwork. "My paintings prove it."

"I--" she whimpered.

She. The word filled my mind.

"They are glorious," he said, regarding her passionately. "All because of you, my darling." He hurried back to work. "So you won't deny me now, love. Now that I'm at the summit of my powers."

"Oh, no, Randall--but I need sunlight--fresh air--laughter--friends--"

"Nonsense," he barked, feathering paint onto the canvas. "There's always time for idle nonsense. Now we must work before the flame dies."

Her head dropped to her hands. "But I'm growing old without having lived. Please, Randall--" Tears fell to her fingers and dripped onto the silk brocade around her slender wrists. "Please let me--"

"Let her!" I might have whispered.

"Let you," he laughed at her mockingly. "Why, you talk as if I were forcing you to model for me, keeping you here against your will."

"Oh, no, Randall. I didn't mean...."

"Art keeps us both, my dear Cynthia."

Her image, frozen on the canvas, was full of all the warmth and animation of a vibrant creature. My eyes burned with desire while sorrow choked me.

"We were cursed!" His voice roared in the stairwell, startling me out of my grief.

"Cursed?" I echoed hoarsely. "A strange description of talent."

"Talent," he groaned through a bitter laugh. "A gift from the gods--" He clenched his raised hand into a fist, knuckles whitening. "Or is it a spell--the curse of a demon?"

I wondered.

"She and I were merely tools, my good man."

Fools, I thought.

"Through my accursed hand on the tool of creation the demon becomes flesh--art."

I was breathless.

"Oh, I could have denied the demon any time and set her free."

"Then--why...?"

"Let her suffer?" His eyes froze the air between us. "I chose the curse," he hissed. "I relish the curse!"

"What a romantic!" I said. A maniac, I thought.

He seemed to be regarding the next picture longingly. Sadness did not become him. "And your wife, Randall--did she enjoy the curse too?"

Silence clung to the dimming light beyond the windows and skylight. I thought for a moment his face would disappear in darkness before he could speak again. Then the distant whine of a siren tightened the pause between us.

"She had no choice," he murmured. "I told you she was only a tool--like me."

"She was your wife, Randall. And she loved you."

"Yes." He stared at the last portrait.

As I followed his gaze, a laser of thought struck my mind: in either his eyes or mine she had become transfigured. Posing terminally ill as if on a hospital bed, her flesh dissolved into a pale green glow of haunting phosphorescence as though an illusory hologram. His voice again cracked my vision.

"I was finishing this last canvas of her, when--"

"The light, Randall," she whispered into my mind. "It's so dim--"

"Be still before--" He could barely speak for the fervor of his work.

"But I feel the darkness--"

"Still, I say!"

"I'm afraid," she whimpered.

He scoffed at her and painted feverishly. I did not know if she was crying but I heard her say, "Randall--" plaintive as prayer or desperate as a plea for life.

Still he worked to complete the last portrait. Then stepping back to admire the product of his genius he sighed heavily and announced, "There. It is finished! Cynthia! Look! Look at my masterpiece!" Randall stared at the last picture at the bottom of the stairs, a picture I could barely see now. I was certain he was going to cry when he spoke again: "I never--never knew--"

I still could not see but only ask: "What?"

"That, that she was...."

"Pleased?" I prayed against the truth of what I was going to hear from the man, but the imminent fact pooled in his eyes, narrowing above his bold cheekbones. "My god, man!" I shouted in a whisper.

The studio had gone dark except for that strange light emanating from the paintings along the stairway. Everything else had dissolved into a vacuous and chilling space. But the portraits appeared to float: orbital planes about which Randall and I revolved as satellites of despair.

"She was dead." He spoke as if spitting blood.

Hearing the words as though uttered from under ground, I could not breathe. A vacuum was sucking my senses. Randall Stone's face appeared like a moon half eclipsed.

"Dead?" I heard from my own mouth. "But she is--she was the picture of health." The words set my teeth grinding.

He gasped as if in the throes of death himself.

I followed his vapid sounds back to the painting. Cynthia now looked vibrant enough to step off the canvas--and into my arms.

"She was absolutely still," he struggled to say, "Face frozen, eyes glazed--motionless behind that soft earthy umber." I could not listen further but heard him say with disturbing exhilaration, "Yet she lives--on these canvases."

Engorging my grief, I pressed him sardonically. "As though you--you had somehow infused your paints with her vitality." He fell silent. I wanted to grip his throat. Suddenly he recovered composure as though a mild stroke had passed through his brain and vanished without a flicker, leaving him the man he had always been. "Let's go on." He glided into the darkest depths of his domain. "I want to show you my recent work." He switched on the lights in his lower studio. "Recently completed and ready to show." His voice echoed out of an abyss.

As I descended behind him, my eyes lingered longingly on the images of Cynthia that floated up the stairway and drifted into a fog flowing from the garret. His further words crossed my mind but they were elements of a code I did not care to decipher. I longed to escape this insufferable man and the horror he had caused this person. But I also wanted desperately for the nightmare to continue so I could imagine that the fascinating woman whom I would never know beyond those magnificent portraits was still alive in the room.

LUNAR VIGIL

In mother's house Jodi and I watched and waited. Our knees sank like stones into the sofabed beneath the front room window. Our hands crawled along the windowsill, our noses pressed against the cold autumn glass. The October moon lighted Jodi's curls silvery in the night, but I couldn't see her eyes peering into the darkness around the street corner glow lamp. I squatted behind her, my little hands trembling on her shoulders. I saw her head silhouetted against the moon and her pallid face reflected in the windowpane. We watched small shadow leaves outside float and plane like phosphorescent birds while we waited for Mother to come home from across the sea.

"Whoooo," said an owl in the avocado tree.

The jade leaves caressed our cottage cream walls and fondled moonbeams against the dewy glass. I wanted to pee but dared not go away from Jodi and the window and the sheltering tree. Mother was gone to wander, while Jodi and I only watched, huddling in our curdled cottage built in a wood, beside the big house--the gabled house of many stories among the brambly hawthorns.

"That escaped prisoner from the Sanitarium," a television voice said, "is heading home, we believe, to an old house on Allen Street."

Jodi and I froze in the cold light of the cathode rays.

"...over six feet tall, three hundred pounds...thick red hair and wild dark eyes. We'll have more news at the last minute on KRZY. Now, stay tuned for Souls of the Damned--brought to you by Caliban Cleanser--pure as the driven snow."

Still Jodi and I huddled on the soft sofa and waited for Mother, but now the Red Hairy Man would come too, home to the old story house beneath the round yellow moon. Jodi laved her lips with the pink tip of her tongue that flicked as quickly as the lids on my round eyes.

Creeeek--

Jodi's face quartered then halved and then fully brightened toward me as it shone in the amber light from a bare bulb glowing in the kitchen, where our back door was an uncertain barricade between us and the old story house. Our eyes flew to the brassy knob in the bulb light. Turning? We wondered in unison. The latch--locked?

Jodi and I looked together to see it locked. "Jodi," I said. "Is it--" She grabbed my leg and squeezed until I whimpered. We saw the knob floating in the cream color of the back door not yet turning.

Be still!

Its metal orb was dented and paint speckled with a spot of cream paint on the side of its golden sphere, a spot just below center and to the left--twenty minutes to the hour.

Creeek.

Jodi and I ran on a cloud in the tepid darkness too black to find our way to the open closet, fathomless beneath the dim soft clotheshapes hanging in the dark. Too far across the dismal rug land of roses on the floor. Too far. But the kitchen door still cream, and the knob still at twenty to the hour.

We listened to hear no footsteps outside where Mother had walked away to the light house across the asphalt sea ages ago. "I go to sweep the cobwebs out of the sky," she had said. "And I'll be with you by and by." But her footsteps were not yet sounding tap, tap on the pink flagstones interred beneath the giant avocado tree. No sound of Mother, but only lights from a car projecting a ghost dance across the walls. They waved and whirled around us, crept across the floor, and ravished the rug roses.

Jodi and I revolved in a spinning pool--walls turning round our heads, our eyes rolling round the kitchen door knob as if a top spinning in a field of cream.

Jodi's face glowed eerily between the shadows. I gripped her hands and wished we were not alone, wished we had not searched for mysteries in the back of the closet. Together we prayed in fear of breathing.

Knock, knock.

We listened not to hear the soft, solid tapping against our cottage wall.

"Whoooo--" said the owl.

A breeze shook the avocado tree into a giant witch, dangling emerald pendants from the tips of her bony fingers. And the shadows of the silver leaves flashed across the foggy windowpane. I looked into Jodi's eyes and saw twin seas washing toward me. "Do you think--?" I asked and could've drowned in them to see the memories of our nakedness in her mind.

Forgive us our....

Tap, tap.

We listened not to hear a soft stepping, not stopping, on the flagstone blocks outside our cottage door. Red Hairyman? We looked and screamed in silence: "Noooo!" Looking into the kitchen, we thought we saw on the door, the knob turned towards the hour. Opening?

"Whoooo?" cried Jodi and I with the owl too soon too late.

Pray for us!

Coming at us from the unknown: a face in the window like a movie then gone. The front door opened. A shape against the gloaming entered the room. Outside, the avocado tree shuddered and shimmered in the lunar light, and the shape in the doorway became Mother in the radiance of the moon. She at last. Not yet gone forever from the cottage and the home where the owl at the door for sentinel stood.

THE OLD MAN AND THE BLUE JAY

They hung around the city library like scarecrows. Enjoying the redeeming warmth of an Indian summer in November, some of them huddled in small groups with bottles of cheap wine. Others lay asleep on the grass. Many panhandled passersby, merely presenting to them the palms of their dirty hands as if in silent adoration of condescending gods. Much of the time, though, they merely sat and stared or spoke quietly among themselves.

The old man was there, tall as a tree, thin as a twig, sitting on a wall, his big booted feet dangling, and his hair bloomed from his head like a patch of frosted grass. He glanced up through the branches of a nearby sycamore tree and grinned at the bright blue air. His leathery cheeks framed a toothless gap and his eyes reflected the hue of the sky.

A young jay, haughty in his new plumage, bobbed and squawked on a topmost branch of the bare limbed tree. Cocking his sleek head to one side, he spied with one sharp, dark eye the old man thrusting a gnarled hand into a pocket of his tattered overcoat. As the old man slowly withdrew a peanut from his cache, the bird swooped down, snatched it from his fingers, and flapped back up to a high branch on the tree. There among the scant brown starshaped leaves, holding the peanut with his foot, he pecked open the shell with a few sharp, swift strokes, and gulped down the twin meats. The old man cried aloud, an animated gargoyle, laughing at the bird.

High white clouds were sailing over the cityscape, their pale violet shadows flitting across the wafflework of concrete and glass as though angels scanning the world for souls. The vapor shapes transformed slowly from nebulae to giants to ethereal spindrifts before dissolving into the haze on the horizon. In their wake, the wind swept the city streets and amputated a few remnant withered leaves from the sycamore. Then the bird disappeared on a gust.

The old man shoved a peanut back into his pocket and lowered his grizzled chin to his chest. Erecting his long frame, he shuffled among his fellows heading for the library door. As if a herd of decrepit beasts, they appeared to be drawn to a melody from some shepherd's flute. One by one they disappeared into the great stone book house to find places for repose in quiet rooms sacred as the chambers of a temple.

After using the men's room, the old man started browsing the shelves, his cold eyes lingering over titles and names. In one large room he sat at a long oak table and gathered some magazines to himself with his spidery arms. Momentarily his head dropped forward like a wilting dandelion, and soon he lay asleep among the pages of Vanity Fair. Not a muscle moved. Only his eyelids twitched.

He saw her beckon without moving away. Her eyes were languid seaflowers, drawing his soul out of memory into her nameless presence. He wanted to speak in words poetic to ensnare her heart and mind. She started to smile, yet when he reached for her, she pirouetted three or four times and spun away, spotting on his eyes as she left. Cackling faces harped at him from an audience that festered like a disease at the edge of his vision. When he looked for her again, she had disappeared out the back door of his mind and was calling to him from a shadow beyond his dreams. Then he felt the specter press at his back. Short quick thrusts. He quaked. Her voice came to him. Returning? To see her sweet young face again...?

"Sir--"

So formal she.

"Sir--" the sweetness soured into urgency. "Sir--the library is closing."

The old man lifted his haggard head from the slick pages of the magazine, the odor of ink in his senses.

"Sir, please, sir--you'll have to exit the library."

Awakening, he gazed over his bony shoulder in the direction of the voice and found the face. A plain woman with long brown hair hanging down to his neck, as a feather tickling his leathery skin. He could not hold on her eyes and turned away, then abruptly rose to stand like a spindly straw doll. She stepped back in response to his height looming as if out of fearful legend.

"I'm sorry," she added with a timid but concerned smile.

The old man grumbled something and smiled back at her, his gapped grin more frightening than friendly to her mind. As she retreated without another word behind a desk, he staggered through a doorway and descended the stone stairs, his heels clattering in awkward cadence to his departure.

Outside, a westerly wind was blowing off the sunset sea and chilling the city. People were scurrying hither and thither from office to home. Everyone was escaping the fray, except the people without homes who had succumbed to the limits of the streets.

On the library front steps, stacked between two stone sphinxes, the old man bundled himself against the wind and wobbled off the porch. He trudged down the sidewalk dim-lighted by electrostatic torches. Walking, he appeared to march with dignity as if a decorated soldier from an historic war for civilization. Street people hailed him as he passed, his head floating above them along the boulevard, his white hair flying. He acknowledged them with only a slight nod and marched on toward the local mission as though he were late for some important engagement that would change his future, since he had struggled to forget his past.

Inside the large room of a former store, a missionary was speaking seraphically. "I am here to save your blessed souls--" she said, "but also your sacred bodies--creatures of God--from the ravages of alcohol." Her sweet dovelike voice fluttered over the men and women sitting before her. "To that end there shall be no drinking or drunkenness here--if you want to eat, my dear friends of the Lord."

They all sat facing her but many not seeing or even hearing.

"Sobriety is your ticket, dear friends--not only to the nourishment on our tables--but also to the good grace of God."

Young and old--men, women, and children--desperate and hungry, they willingly surrendered their hearts and minds for a hot, full meal and would readily give over their souls.

"Now, let us pray--" She bowed her head in signal.

Many of the congregation were already bowed, had been for years, and others, who were proud but hollow of stomach, bowed in turn. The old man, however, held his head high, only staring straight forward, his eyes gone gray as the surrounding walls and as cold as the steel chairs around him.

The young woman mouthed some words that sounded like poetry out of a little black book, and many in her audience followed aloud. But the old man sat silent. After a momentary pause, the woman slowly raised her well-scrubbed face to them and smiled as sweetly as an angel imprinted on a page of the book in her hand. "Enjoy the meal in God's divine grace," she finally said.

The faithful jostled each other and pushed to find seats at long tables full of soup and bread. As they sucked and mangled every morsel, they scarcely noticed missionaries escorting the intoxicated ones to the door. No one laughed, no one smiled, and no one spoke except the attending soldiers of the spirit who watched over the tabled crowd.

Once out of the mission the congregation chattered amiably among themselves, laughed through coughing fits, and shared cigarette butts scavenged from the gutters. The motley crowd spread out along the streets, fingered coins in their pockets, and headed for liquor stores to buy bottles of fixer to ease the pain.

At a huge excavation like a bomb hole or a crater on the moon, the old man and a couple of pals found a cavern beneath an overhang of sidewalk where they sucked on their bottles. A small rubbish fire flickered at their feet and flashed on their grim bodies. They jabbered and cackled, their glowing faces macabre masks nodding socially in the darkening night.

"Y'ain't caught that fuckin' jay bird yet, have ya, Bill?" one of the younger men asked of the old man.

Old Bill shrugged and nursed from the bottle, his large Adams apple bobbing the length of his long neck. Bubbles rose through the liquid and burst into the vacuum at the inverted base as though glucose in an intravenous jar. The other men measured the old man's swallows through narrowing eyeslits. Passing the bottle, Bill sneezed like an old dog.

"I hear they make pretty good pets, ya know?" the younger man said to Bill as he reached for the bottle. "Kinda smart they are, ya know?" He hurried to gulp a slug then sprayed some as he hollered, "Ya know they do, they do."

"Can ya eat 'em?" Another one, a small fellow, asked. "Is they good in a san'wich?"

All but Bill guffawed, and the one drinking nearly lost his swig, stopping his mouth with a dirty fist. His round shoulders bounced from silent laughter rolling through him. The old man cast his cold eyes balefully upon them all.

"Ol' Bill'd sooner eat you," one said, pointing his fingers like a pistol and laughing in short bursts, "than eat his mother fuckin' bird." Again they all laughed; all but Bill.

When the merriment fell out of their minds the younger one said, "Why doncha try 'n' catch the little shit, Bill? Be a dandy pet. Make ya feel at home, huh?"

The old man quietly and calmly took another turn on the bottle. Something crossed his mind as he watched the fire and he hung silent. Moments passed without any words. Then the younger one continued. "Ya know--I once shared an old car with a guy who kept a snake. Slept with 'im curled up in his coat pocket. And whenever he felt bad, he jus' reached in and stroked that old serpent. Stroked 'im and stroked 'im." He thought a second and then said, "Don't know whatever happened to that guy. Guess he finally crawled into a hole and died."

The stars were not visible; a cold, damp darkness swirled with the wings of a dark, predatory bird around the men. And their minds fell farther into a chasm. As the fire was fading, a garish genie arose with the last vapors out of the empty bottle. The pagan spirit cavorted silently around the men and cast the spell for nightmares. Oblivious to the full face of the world, the men's souls were caught in a fantasy fraught with distorted memory, terror, and frustrated desire: Acarouselofdumbchildrenspinninginafesteringmiasmawhereliquidwomendancenakedamonglandularflowersafloatinthicksilversyrupoozingoutofawarmcaveatthebottomofthesea....The bodies of the men curled up like aborted fetuses into hollows of the slimy soil, and their souls drifted away as fragile moths on a nocturnal escapade from the repertory of the genie in the magic bottle.

Day destroyed the night. The temple of knowledge stood still, despite the evening or morning stars. Several people of the streets had gathered around the old man sitting on a wall under the sycamore tree. The sky had been blown bright again by the steady fall wind. As if a fragment torn out of the blue, the feathery sprite dived down for a peanut out of the old man's bony fingers and then he flapped away to stash his treasure somewhere secret. Bill's pals laughed and urged him to give the bird another peanut, so the old man pulled out another one and laid it in the palm of his broad hand, holding it as an offering to the spirit of the sky. The jay swooped down to the wall beside him, squawked once and then jumped onto the old man's thumb. Snatching the prize, the bird winged over the library roof. Bill's pals applauded. "Ya got 'im eatin' right outta yer goddamn hand, Bill!" one of them howled. "Now give it 'im from yer mouth, give it."

The small crowd, as if at a sideshow, cheered this suggestion. The old man grinned broadly, his eyes twinkling. Watching the jay return to the tree, he pulled out another peanut and with a slight flourish of his long arm placed it between his thin lips. The bird swooped down to the wall. The onlookers hushed. The old man turned his head slowly to look over his shoulder at the bird. The jay eyed him warily then hopped toward his benefactor and bounded onto his shoulder with a slight wing stroke against the man's face. The old man froze, straining to keep the peanut from falling out of his grinning mouth. The spectators held their breath. The bird, turning his head sideways as if to kiss the old man, snatched the peanut and flew away. Bill's pals shouted with delight.

"That's it! That's it!" the young one shouted. "Now ya got the little shit where ya want 'im. All ya gotta do is reach out like I told ya--an' next time--grab 'im." He snatched a handful of air. "Then you'll have yerself a pet, Bill--or dinner--or somethin'." He laughed as if still a boy.

The others loudly urged on the old man like some sort of hero and shouted variously: "Go fer 'im! Get that goddamn bird! Grab the blue bastard! Catch 'im for it's too late. Catch 'im!"

The old man stared into the sky as though blind; his glassy eyes reflected the sunstruck windows that glared in the monuments to commerce. The castaway little group slowly encircled the old man, pressing him relentlessly and chanting: "Catchim! Catchim! Catchim! Catchim!" Their heads angled and twisted. Thick gray tongues waggled. Rheumy eyes bulged as if to spiral out of their ruddy faces. The old man stared blankly, his mouth a straight line. He rose to his feet and stretched his long lean body and stuck his white head high among the others as a towering totem. Gradually the chanting around him dropped into a low mumble that crept along the surface of the street.

The blue jay soared back into the tree and squawked once. The old man looked up at him and smiled. The rising wind tousled his hair, silvery fine in the crystalline light. He seemed about to address the crowd but said nothing; simply turned and walked away.

"Yep," one of the watchers said, "make a dandy pet--or somethin'."

Old Bill shuffled along the edge of the wall as if daring himself to topple off it. At the far corner in the rear of the library, he stopped and stared straight ahead, then jumped down to the grass. At that moment the blue jay appeared, rowing his wings rapidly to hover above the old man's head. Bill started down the sidewalk when he saw the bird flapping above him. Proffering a peanut as if an offhanded sacrifice, the old man cocked his free right arm above his head to shade his eyes with his hand. The bird hovered then descended out of the sun to take the offering in his long black beak. As he snatched the peanut, the old man lunged for him. Before his bony claw could close around the small soft body, a car horn blasted, and rubber shrieked in the concrete canyon. Thud. Pieces of glass sprayed across the asphalt. In one moment the old man was flying with the bird, his long arms and legs spreading beneath his winged overcoat like an X on the mind of God.

His body smacked the pavement; limply tumbled two, four times; slid among some bouncing peanuts; and rolled to the curb in a heap of rags and bones, the white hair dipping into the gutter. Except for one huge foot pushing and scraping against the asphalt for a few seconds, grinding one peanut into the black stony surface, the old man lay still.

The woman in car jumped out and rushed to the motionless mass at the curb. Shaking, the driver looked pale as death as she bent over the body of the prostrate man. A crowd quickly encircled them, a crowd now mixed and multiplied by others than the old man's kind. People gawked-- bloodshot eyes among clear eyes--and they muttered words of horror and pity. "Call an ambulance!" the driver hollered.

Something small and light fell from a nearby sycamore tree. High in the branches the blue jay was devouring peanuts in quick gulps. Then he wiped his shiny black beak on a twig and pointed it toward the sky. High above him, thunderheads were slowly exploding into the blue, rolling across the Earth, and mottling the cityscape with fleeting shadows. A siren shrieked through the darkening streets and stopped at the scene of the accident. Emergency medics lifted the body onto a gurney and shoved it into the van. Then they drove the ambulance away with no screaming sound, no red lights flashing. The crowd slowly dissipated, passersby resumed their journeys, but the ones that lived in the streets stayed and watched in silence without tears long after the waning of the light.

VISITATION

Waking, the old man could barely see through his bleary eyes. Pain rebounded in his head as he surveyed the littered street that split two rows of crumbling city buildings. Hearing only the same old voices surging back into his battered mind he did not immediately notice the beating sound above his head. When he looked up to find the bloodshot morning sun he cowered under an enormous shadow that flexed in passing over him.

"Eeeeee--!" The shadow's pulsating cry shattered the air.

A bird? Morgan sat up and tracked the apparition. What kinda god-damn--?

As the creature glided away, it lowered its silver head, and looked back with fiercely flashing yellow eyes at the man in the street. An eerie light glinted off its beak shaped like a golden horn. Feathers, draping around its head, shimmered in the morning breeze. Dew dripped off its wingtips in a glittery mist. The beast dipped its silver-white tail feathers, looked up, and stroked the air with a press of mighty wings to lift itself above the towers of concrete.

"An eagle?" Morgan shouted. His pale eyes widened; he flashed a toothless grin. But it drooped when he saw the great bird disappearing into a blur of polluted haze. The old man hauled himself to his feet and braced his scrawny frame against the back door of the bank building, his current home. His clothes greasy rags; his gray hair long and matted. He looked like an ascetic recently returned from forty days and nights in the middle of a wasteland. Shivering, he ran into the middle of the street to keep his eyes on the bird.

Screeching tires! Behind him a huge black vehicle stopped inches from him. But Morgan continued to stare into the slot of morning sky between the buildings. A horn blared loud and long. The driver, anonymous in dark glasses behind smoked windows, shouted, "Get out of the way, ass hole--or get run down!" Morgan stepped aside to let the monstrous thing roar past him. Catching his pant leg on a fender, the big car snapped him half around and ripped his pants from hip to cuff. Mindless of the damage, his thin white leg jerking, the old man dashed up the street to catch sight of the bird.

He ran downtown for blocks without stopping, his heart thumping in his chest. He gasped for air but kept going. He tossed his head from side to side to scan each labyrinthine street. Not spotting the bird, he cried out and swung his arms in frustration. People glared at him for an instant before hurrying past. "Where in hell is it?!" he shouted into the yellowing sky. After cursing himself again under his breath he shrugged and ambled to one of his favorite corners of the city where he could catch the morning crowds on their way to work.

The old man milled around to get a feeling for the crowd. Whenever he worked the people, he felt deliciously predatory, but not violent, for he was a peaceful man. He was hunting for his livelihood and that made him feel worthy to be alive. People avoided him, but he did not care. Wanting only their money, he was as unconcerned with their lives as they with his.

Gaining confidence, he spotted a young woman waiting for a bus. She glanced at him with soft round eyes that might have meant sympathy, an expression he had learned to catch and hold. Stepping past without looking at her, then slowly circling back, he stopped several feet away to avoid scaring her. He was acting very much like a hungry but harmless cur and he spoke so quietly he was barely audible: "Spare some change?"

The young woman cast her eyes in his direction with a question on her delicate brow. A little nervously she dipped into her purse and took out a single coin. Morgan reached out his open hand, took the offering, bowed slightly, and then walked away. She smiled briefly and then turned away to watch for the bus. Pocketing the money Morgan stopped in front of a battered newspaper dispenser and read the headlines:

PRESIDENT PROMISES AID FOR THE POOR

The old man stared at the words without expression. A fellow in an expensive suit stopped to buy a paper. Morgan was about to speak to him, when darkness passed over them like the shadow of a cloud. At the same time a bus ground to stop, swallowed the young woman, and roared down the street. Standing in the diesel exhaust, swirling dust, and bits of trash, he looked up and spied a dark golden under belly suspended between great wide wings gliding low between the buildings.

"Eeeeee--!"

Morgan's heart fluttered. Coughing, he dashed along the sidewalk to follow the bird. Its amber eyes scanned the streets as it stroked its way through the morning air like some messenger of a pagan god.

By now other people were noticing the phenomenal visitor. "My God!" a malevoice behind Morgan hollered. "Look at that!"

Everyone nearby looked up and saw the huge bird. Some pointed to it as if saluting. Others howled in shock or terror. Morgan grinned at their reactions as he took off running after the bird, gliding on thermals that arose from the concrete canyon. The beast was sailing slowly, so while running the old man could keep it in sight.

A sharp noise cracked the air. Morgan skidded to a stop. Listened. Looked around, up. The bird was still in flight. A backfire, he guessed and started running again. Feeling his throat dry and tight, panting heavily, heart pounding, he pushed himself onward to keep the bird in view.

Nearly out of breath, Morgan crested Nob Hill and looked in all directions over the city buildings. The bird was not visible above the skyscrapers and steeples that rose above the city, the sunlight glinting off their gilded domes and spires. A distant bell sounded the time, but Morgan did not count the tones. The old man cycled his life by light and dark, by the getting and the gone.

San Francisco seemed strangely silent now. The urban day was edging toward its middle as it had countless times, as if nothing extraordinary were happening. Morgan even wondered if the entire fantastic event had really happened. Everybody on the streets appeared to be acting normally--charging their cars into traffic, avoiding each other, struggling for their daily coin. Maybe the bird had been merely an illusion, and the poor old man had imagined the whole episode. Not the first time Morgan imagined things.

Unlike some of his fellow street people, Morgan did not deny his alcohol addiction. He believed he had no choice. It was costing him his sanity and eventually his life, but that did not matter. This the only way he had to get away from the world. And the never land he succumbed to in the midst of a stupor seemed far less threatening, regardless of its phantasmal terrors, than the slow agony of real time in a brutal world.

Morgan scanned the murky sky for the bird. Gazing across the bay to the east then looking west toward the Golden Gate, he strained to spot the creature.

Another sharp noise. He spun around to find the direction of the blast and spied a man on a roof. A rifle. Following the line of the barrel, Morgan caught sight of the great bird flying westward. "Hey!" he shouted at the exact moment the rifleman fired. Morgan ran toward the building and screamed, "Don't shoot!"

The sniper saw the man running in his direction and flailing his arms. He ducked out of sight. Morgan veered off in pursuit of the bird. Panting like an old horse, he ran. He rushed with no idea what he was doing; only that he had to do it. He ran until he came to parking lot where people were gathering. He stopped and gawked at them, searching for guns in their hands. Frantically he searched the sky.

"Eeeeee--!"

He spotted the bird circling above tall trees, spiraling slowly downward as if searching for a place to land. Morgan snapped a look back at the crowd and thought he saw something that resembled a rifle barrel pointing into the air. "No--! he screamed as he dashed into the crowd. "Don't kill it!" He heard another blast tear the air and ran into their midst to find the gun.

The crowd was growing rapidly into a mass of grotesque faces. "Please--" Morgan cried, "The bird means no harm. Don't kill it!"

Someone from the crowd shouted at him.

The old man struggled to his feet. "Listen to me, please! If you kill this creature, it may be bad--bad for us all." He looked into the sky and gaped in awe at the bird.

The great eagle kept circling overhead, soaring in figure eights, higher and higher above the buildings and the trees. But it continually eyed the people below as though searching for something. As Morgan stared at the creature, he wondered from where it had come. Some pristine place where life existed in the natural way of things? Morgan smiled to think of it and wondered if he could find such a paradise. Spotting a tall conifer nearby, he ran to it and leaped for a limb. Scrambling up the trunk he climbed into the branches. Glancing at the people below he worried for a second that someone would shoot him too but he continued his ascent. When he reached the top of the tree, he surveyed the city and the sallow sky. Looking straight up, he saw it as a speck hovering as if an angel. For a moment, Morgan felt as though he could rise into the heavens to join the spirit of the bird.

In a flash the eagle stroked its great wings and swept toward the ocean. Morgan stared after it and then scrambled down the tree. Dropping to the ground he fell in a heap but pulled himself to his feet and scurried away from the crowd. He knew on foot he would never catch up to the bird but he headed in the direction of its flight.

Morgan stumbled along for miles until he reached the Golden Gate. He had not sighted the bird for some time, guessing it might have flown back to its home, but he kept going. He found himself on the approach to the bridge and scanned the sky.

He saw it arcing and looping above the twin towers of the long span. The bird appeared playful in the high blown air. "There it is!" Morgan shouted and ran pushing people aside. Once on the pathway to the bridge he clambered onto one of the massive suspensions and started climbing to one of the towers. He was moving with strength beyond himself. His heart and mind had coalesced into a dynamo driving him to the top, to stand above the masses and salute the great bird. Wind blew his tattered clothing like flags, and he clung to the broad corroded curve of the suspension. A relentless sprite, he climbed farther and farther above the masses.

Looking up he saw the bird circling over his position. It peered down at him and its goldeneyes flashed in the afternoon sunlight, beckoning to Morgan like a beacon on the beach of his dreams.

Gradually the noise of the human throng below and the blare of police megaphones blended into the sound of waves breaking on the rocks at the feet of the towers. Morgan gazed down at them. Suddenly the sea and sky displaced one another in a vast centrifuge. He squeezed his eyes shut, shook his head, and looked straight up. Wind roared in his ears. His hands and feet were going numb. Straddling the suspension, he crawled like a snake on a limb.

"Eeeeee--!"

Morgan felt the draft of a wing beat on his face. He shivered at the bird being so close.

"Eeeeee--!" The bird spiraled down to him. With strokes that sucked the air around the crest of the tower, it waved its wings above its noble head and reached for the sun with their golden tips. Lowering its burning gaze it looked down to find the tower with its talons and dropped upon the top as if to its nest.

Fearing it would be spooked if he moved a muscle, Morgan froze. He stared eye to eye, thrilled. He studied its gleaming feathers, ivory talons, jeweled eyes, flashing beak. Then something buzzed past his ear, something fast, invisible. A bullet? He scrambled to the top of the tower, expecting the bird to take off, but it stood its perch. Morgan marveled at the animal and momentarily shrank in fear of its overwhelming magnitude.

The great eagle's fierce stare paralyzed the old man. He stood stark still in front of it and fixed on its flashing eyes. They looked at each other for several seconds--man and bird--and then Morgan forgot the height, the cold wind, and the world below. He thought only of the bird. The eagle did not fear or threaten the human but seemed to recognize him. Morgan relaxed in the presence of the splendid solitary spirit. The old man smiled and for the first time in his life felt strong, standing there in the sky with the bird. Suddenly, he savored a primordial power.

Another missile seemed to zip past his head. With it came reality and he tried to shield the bird. "No!" he screamed to the people on the ground. "Do not hurt...!" Suddenly the old man's mouth stuck open. His eyes rolled back into his head. He shuddered, teetered, and then toppled forward off the tower. Instantly the eagle leaped into space. Laying its wings back along its body it shot through the air like a mammoth arrow, swooped to the falling body, and caught it gently in its talons. Fluttering to halt its descent, it hung in the air just above the throng on the bridge and held the unconscious old man, his limp body aglow in the sunlight.

"Eeeeee--!" The eagle dipped, veered, angled through the suspension cables, and headed out the gate. Flying toward the open sea, it beat its magnificent wings in long heaving strokes and plied the offshore wind. Slowly it flew toward the horizon and then disappeared with Morgan into the soft blue union of sea and sky.

On the bridge people muttered and murmured to one another as they watched the bird fly away with the old man. Many of them waited there until the sun trailed a bloodred smear across the twilight horizon.

By the time darkness embraced the city and the moon rose, many people were speaking to their families and friends of what they had seen. They thought about it as they fell asleep that night. The next day they returned to their daily routines, but none of those that had born witness would forget the giant bird and the old man it had carried beyond the world.

THE DYING OF DELORES PRICE

Delores swallowed a few pills and lay on the aquamarine bed. The room was darkened by drapes. With the blue and green of the decor the space seemed to be a cool, deep suboceanic cavern where mysteries of life floated forgotten since an ancient age of myth. In her satin robe, the woman looked like an elder Nereid lounging alone on the floor of a silent sea.

On the broad bed around her lay an array of photographs at which she gazed languidly, her head drifting in slow motion from one to another. Among the pictures a rosary lay uncoiled as if a beaded snake resting on a mossy rock. She stared at one of the photos for a long time. Her red-dyed hair was reflected in the glossy patina, and her dark brown eyes looked glassy. The pain that had been searing her brow for half a century was slowly fading from the effect of the drug. For the first time in years she appeared to be finding peace.

She stared at the photograph and gently tossed her hand, casting a palm full of pills like tiny shells among the frozen images of people. Picking up one of the pills, she put it into her mouth as if it were candy, sipped some water, and studied the picture in every detail.

Delores is looking down at the infant in her arms as if a pieta. A slight, tender smile curls at the corners of her mouth. Standing beside her, a young man watches closely. On the floor between them a toddler plays with a windup toy. Behind them a small Christmastree, sparkling with shiny balls and colored lights, sits upon bookshelves made of boards and bricks. Bright wrappings lay scattered in crumpled masses beside empty boxes around the tree. Among the boxes a cat sits and stares, its eyes glowing as if those of a bewitched creature. On the end of a table, part of a fruitcake lies on a plate from which a long knife blade protrudes. Beside it stands a half-empty bottle of sherry. A clock on a rear wall shows one hand at 11, the other canceled by a reflection of bright light. In her hand Delores holds an empty wine glass that too reflects a spot of light. Her slender, tapered fingers hold the glass as if it were a lily. On her breast appears a flaw, yet it is not clear if it is on her flesh, on the film, or in the lens of the camera that took the picture.

Delores closed her eyes a moment and swallowed another pill. She moved the photograph to one side, perhaps reserving it for a special moment. Her breathing was slowing as though air were less necessary to her life. She touched the rosary and rubbed one bead with the tips of her fingers, her finely tapered nails tickling the bits of bone. The tiny silver crucifix at the end of the string of beads lay under another of the photographs. She mumbled, "I must--" and stared at the picture.

An older man is standing next to Delores. His hair is close cut and his horn rim glasses stick out on his round face. He stares straight ahead and shows no emotion, because the sunlight off his glasses erases his eyes. He sports a pale blue jacket and tie to match. He may be about thirty-five years of age. Delores looks about fifteen years younger than she did in the previous picture. Her mood seems youthful and elated. Smiling broadly, she has entwined her arm around the man's arm and holds them down closely between their bodies pressed against each other. The same young man as in the previous picture, now an adolescent, stands beside her. He looks shy and uncertain about his place in the group. The space next to him seems vacant, for his stance indicates someone is missing. Across from him and beside the man stand two girls wearing fancy dresses. The sun on their faces forces them to squint, and they hold their heads at awkward angles. On the steps behind these people several persons of no particular singularity stare out between the heads in front of them. Large doors yawn behind them all, opening into a dark cavernous room in which nothing shows but tiny points of amber light, apparently emanating from the farthest end of the mysterious space. Delores holds at her breast a bouquet of flowers that appear flawed. Whether or not the defect is on the flowers, though, or in the camera is not certain.

Delores held her breath for a while, simply looking at the photograph as though she were expecting the images to animate. Murmuring "Forget--" she rolled her eyes to another photo, her dark eyes that were gradually disconnecting from her brain. After an effort to focus, she looked closely at the picture and sighed deeply.

The adolescent of the previous picture is now a boy of about twelve. In swimshorts he is reclining on a lawn lounge. Next to him on another lounge sits another boy about three, also in swimshorts. Both are fair of face, bright of hair, but their eyes squint in the light of the midday sun. They appear to be playmates, so comfortable they are together. They do not resemble each other in any particular way. Nonetheless, they are lying together in the backyard of a house. A barbecue and patio stand behind them in the background, and behind those in the far distance the brushy side of a steep hill rises out of sight. One could imagine an intense bluesky overhead. Although there is no color in the picture, definite warmth exudes from the images the way heat does from the chemical bonding between two elements. Nobody else appears in the scene, but a shadow of a person falls partly over the boys, suggesting a rift in the earth. Yet in reality nothing lies between them but grass. On second look, the shadow is difficult to distinguish from a possible smear on the photograph, the negative, or in the eye of the camera.

"Oh--!" Delores cried softly. Tears fell onto her hand. She wiped them off with the rosary, but the beads merely streaked the water. She clenched the little string of bones until her knuckles paled. Then her head fell over the picture, as if her neck had suddenly broken. Her body shook gently for some time, until her breathing smoothed again. She swallowed more pills. Pausing, she stared across the bed at the drapes that hung against the daylight. The light outside flickered across them, as an afternoon breeze tossed the leaves of a mimosa tree in the patio below the window. Pushing her hands through the photographs, she found another one and stared at it, forcing her bleary eyes to focus on the little images.

The man looks good in denim, the way an actor looks in the role of a laborer. The way a young Delores holds onto him, one could think she were a groupie. She has one leg laid over his and has tossed her head back so that, on second thought, she more resembles a burlesque queen. They sit alone together on top of a picnic table. The boy from before, now several years younger, holds a baby in his arms on a bench at one side. A checkered cloth covers the table upon which sit bottles and bowls. Many other tables stand in the grass of a broad space, around which a few small scraggly trees have grown barely higher than the people in the picture. The sky is bright but overcast. The place is filled with men, all wearing the same denim uniforms. Women, children, and a few old men in ordinary clothes stand and sit among them. Most of the people seem to be talking and laughing as though at a company party. However, not a single can of beer or bottle of wine is on any of the tables. The edge of a large concrete building with small high windows in rows looms at one side of the picture. Stretching behind it and across the back of the picnic grounds is a tall fence topped with what appears to be wire. At the other side of the picture beyond the tables stands a tower in a corner of the yard. In the tower a shaded man in dark clothes gazes down on the people in the yard. Beside him the face of a searchlight radiates a blinding reflection off the sun as if it were a mirror for sending distant signals. In his hands the man cradles something dark, slender, and straight, and as long as his arm. Perhaps a rifle. Delores looks happy with everything under control. Nevertheless, on the front of her sweater a large stain appears; although, it could merely be a shadow or a mark on the film.

She did not linger over this photograph but uttered, "No." then pursed her lips as though biting back bitter words. Searching hurriedly she found another photograph among the disorderly montage on the bed.

The boy, now a baby, is lying on his belly on a white blanket on the grass. No more than twenty, Delores looks down on him and smiles but seems preoccupied. Sunlight fills their space; it must be a warm spring or summer day, for the baby is wearing only a diaper. He has raised his little arms and legs in such a way to resemble a comical figure fallen out of a rococo fresco. His mouth is open and a drop of saliva seems to gleam on his fat lower lip, so he may be caught in mid-gurgle or even suffering the eruption of his first teeth, for one cannot see clearly if the expression on his face is a smile or a grimace. His hair is stiff and wet looking, brushed up on his head. His little hands reach for the air. His eyes appear focused on something right in front of him, something that appears to be a small flower or a butterfly fluttering over the grass. The grass surrounds both Delores and the baby, and the lower limb of a conifer shades one corner of the blanket. Delores's blouse is open at the throat, and on her chest there appears to be a slight bruise or a rash. However, the mark could just as well be on the finish of the print or even on the glass over the shutter.

Delores sighed profoundly and choked on a sob. She swallowed more pills and gulped back her tears with water. Then she gathered the rosary to her breast and placed two photographs next to the previous one. Glancing back and forth among them she centered on the one in the middle.

Three heads look well together: a delighted young couple with a new baby between them, another family beginning with innocent bliss. Posed without a trace of trouble showing in their clean, handsome faces they look like the hope for the future, the fundamental unit with which a society builds a civilization. Delores and the man stare straight out of the picture, but the baby is looking slightly cross-eyed. The man, in his early twenties, is smiling broadly and holding his head close to the baby's forehead, his dark wavy hair in sharp contrast to the pale, thin curls of the child. Delores is also smiling in harmony with the man. So happy do they appear to be with each other as heads and shoulders, one could easily imagine them holding hands behind the infant. She too touches his little head with hers, so they both look supportive of their new offspring and utterly pleased with him. One would not likely surmise from this picture of familial fancy that the child could ever come between them--a permanent obstacle to any fusion of their own callow lives. In the thrill of enjoying the novelty resulting from their sexual love they obviously expect nothing of the agony of disenchantment, conflict, and division that lay ahead for so many like them. Regardless of the clarity of the images, the photograph is marred by a blurry spot in the foreground that could be either a vague object in motion, a smudge on the emulsion, or a limitation in the depth of field.

Delores was weeping now. "Oh, my darling!" she whispered. With shaking hands she gobbled more pills, dropping some along with tears upon the photographs. The droplets partly magnified and distorted first the man's, then the woman's, and eventually the baby's face. With swollen eyes she turned to the third photograph and stared through liquid vision as though peering at the picture underwater.

The couple looks no younger; only the baby is missing. Dressed in formal clothes they stand side by side before a curtain backdrop and pose as though directed. Their faces look less natural than before, and it is unclear if they enjoy the experience. Delores is wearing a satin gown that clings to her youthful body. Her belly protrudes slightly with a gentle bulge reminiscent of a medieval Eve. Her hair is carefully coiffed. She holds a small bouquet of pale flowers below her loose breast covered to the neck by the bodice of the dress. Her mouth smiles but her eyes stare without expression, looking dark and small against the pallor of her cheeks. The man is dapper in a black suit, though slender and small like a boy playing house. He smiles too and, his head tilted slightly, looks out of the picture as though hoping to be discovered by some movie producer happening through the room. The photograph is large and slick with a soft textured finish in sepia hue. A barely visible hairline follows an irregular filigree between the two images, yet it is difficult to discern if it is a loose thread dangling from Delores's bouquet or only a scratch on the film.

"Till death do us part," Delores said, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief and trying to snuff her tears. She gawked at the wedding picture for several moments without moving or even breathing. Then she shuddered once as though a cold current had passed the length of her body. Swallowing more pills and water, she kept these three photos in front of her and looked for another. Out from under those already reviewed she pulled one and nearly laughed when she saw it.

She looks her nubile best now, in the sunlight standing alone in front of a big building that may be a school. Light glints off the windows so that nothing inside is visible. She is wearing a sailor suit dress and her hair is hanging in two tails behind her ears. She is smiling and squinting into the sun, her pretty head tilted to one side. She stands with her arms behind her back and her young body shifted slightly, her long legs striking an alluring pose. Though she looks only about sixteen she seems well aware of herself. Indeed, she possesses a heightened sensuality that may be more than she or others can handle. Bright as a the wild, feminine as a feline, sexual as an animal in heat, the teenage Delores looks capable of starring in a major production, reproducing her own cast members, and taking over the head of a studio--all in half a lifetime. In later years one could see her as a granddame of society, guiding young pretenders to power, and granting aid to the success of people in arts and science. So magnetic her image, the hint of a shadow darkening her breast is scarcely noticeable. Besides, it could merely be a chemical stain from processing or simply the tip of a finger in front of the lens.

A near grin had frozen on Delores's face. Her eyes bleary, their pupils dilated from either the deep-sea darkness or the drug, she gazed across the photo display. With an unsteady hand she picked up two small, old snapshots and laid them in front of her. Without tears, without pain, without humor she stared down at these last pictures and, muttering the word "Home--", she sighed long and slowly like tidewater ebbing out of a lagoon.

A man is holding up a headless chicken, a trophy. He is looking directly forward with his head high in the manner of a farmer showing off the common but striking ways of life close to the earth. His hair is cut close and high on the sides of his large head and swept back on top. He seems tall because he stands straight as a fencepost. In his lower hand a hatchet hangs dead down by his side. Behind his leg and near the hand axe, a girl child clings to his pants. No more than four, she is hiding her face, but one can easily see a partly concealed look of tearful terror. Her hair is cut short in the style of a boy. She is wearing pants and a long smock. Both she and the man are standing among a small grove of young trees. Behind them, a garden stretches away to a wire fence in the background. To one side, the fence turns a corner into a line of chicken coupes. Other yards fade away into the distance in which no person or animal appears. Few visible trees reach above the rooftops. Scant light falls on this rural backyard site, because the sky is draped with low gray clouds frequent in the fall. The air appears still at the moment, for Delores's smock clings to her body as though wet. A few splattered spots show on the dingy white cloth; although, they may not be stains on the material as much as on the old photograph.

Delores barely twitched as she glanced from one picture to another. However, she was desperately trying to swallow something besides the pills, something she had been sick with all her life. Now the pills and water helped to keep it in its place like a coastal undertow holding off a mass of pollution. "I--can't--remember," she uttered. Then she swallowed and stared blankly at the final photograph.

The little girl looks sweetly calm as she poses for her picture. Not more than two, she is wearing a little dress that falls from her neck in a graceful triangle. Her pudgy arms cross down over the dress and her delicate hands enfold each other like tiny birds cuddling in a nest. Her hair is cut short around her ears as if she were an infant flapper. Her darkeyes are wide with wonder at the new world that she has recently joined. The bright purity of her innocence shines on her ruddy cheeks as ephemeral as a bubble in the foam of a pristine shoal. The background is dark and out of focus. The seat beneath her is not in view, so she appears to float freely in the carefully controlled space that the photographer prepared. Its age notwithstanding, the image is as flawless as the day it was printed.

Delores's eyes froze on this last picture, yet they no longer showed any anguish. By now the drug had extinguished any vestige of emotion. All that remained was a little life tracing her lips and her eyes. She did not notice or care to see the darkness closing in around her, the afterglow of twilight tingeing the curtains with a pale gold. The rosary fell from her fingers, the glass from her hand. Her head sank slowly to the suite of photographs lying as sunken debris on a mossy bed at the bottom of the ocean. The tide rose around her in warm soothing swirls. She made no effort to struggle, to swim, to breathe, but only stared at the portrait of herself as a baby, blurred by the salty sea. Then she merely made one slight movement with her moist lips, as if to say 'I wish--' but fell silently into the dark, warm, all-embracing sea.

ORION THE HUNTER

The football fell towards him out of the southern sky, like an eagle out off the sun, a jetfighter off the ceiling. Tommy hid his head under the pillow but caught the rifled ball in his autonomic arms. The strafing missed him this time. If he could get to his gun, he could fight back. A twenty-two against those machinegunslugs tracing out of the fuselage? Not a chance.

He ran for dear life.

Where's the goddamned goal line?

He stopped dead, spun around, and fired singleshots at the guys about to tackle him. The rifle cracked each time, but he could see no bullet strikes. Nothing seemed to hit the bastards. They kept coming. He looked for cover, but the land was wasted. Not a blade of green stuck out of the defoliated clay. He crawled on his belly across the carpet of roses, keeping his head down, and well below the tracers streaking over him. The guys kept coming.

Where was the line? Across?

He jumped up to run, when a sudden weight slammed into him from behind.

Hit? No.

Something had attached to him like a giant leech. He dragged the deadweight with him. Another hit him and hung onto his shoulders. He struggled for the zone.

Safe there. Cheered. A hero.

But another hit him, and he knew he would fall before scoring. He heard machinegun fire from above and behind and felt the heat of death tearing into his back.

"Arrrrghh!" he screamed as he fell forward onto a bed of devil grass that covered the open space. His face bounced off the bedspread.

Footsteps were stomping towards him from another room. He sucked his breath and froze to listen for the old man approaching in a storm.

"Turn that damned thing down!" the old man bellowed from the dark of the hallway, his big shape irradiating rage. Tommy ignored him.

The man moved quickly for his size Find smacked the boy across the back of the head.

"Ow!" Tommy cried.

"Do what I tell ya, kid. And be thankful somebody's tryin' to straighten you out."

When he had disappeared, Tommy sprayed him with rifle fire until the field of play was silent and all had gone home for the day. He stood in the end zone alone. The entire park was empty. Darkness was beginning to fade the blue and green. If night closed out the day before he got home, he would be late for dinner. And the old woman would be waiting for him behind the door of an only lighted room. He would be in trouble if he could not beat the darkness home, if the light in the garage became the only beacon by which to see across the terrifying field of play.

As he approached the house, he saw the garage door open and a light on, yet she had not appeared. He sprinted to the center of the light as the swelling night smothered him with fear. He stared at the door at the back of the garage to pray it would not open. He wanted his mind to keep it closed.

At the moment he crossed the threshold and the backdoor swung open, the outdoors disappeared into his memory. The old woman stood still, silhouetted in the doorway to the kitchen. She stared without smiling at him, as though he were a stranger to her aged eyes. He froze and feared her long arms would reach across the garage and grab him around the neck. As his throat tightened on a gulp, her face zoomed into his and enlarged upon his vision as if close upon a moviescreen. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words formed, and the black of her infinite maw swallowed him until morning.

Tommy crouched in the crevice, peered up at the gash of bright blue, and listened for their voices. The rifle connected his clenched fists ready to lift and fire.

If they have grenades and find me in this hole, I'll be finished.

Almost panicked he scrambled up the crack in the raw earth and spied across the weed-thick surface in all directions. A blond head bobbed above the far edge of the mound. Billy.

He did not want to wipe Billy out, wanted him on his side. But the rules made it everyone for himself. So he pointed the steel barrel of the rifle at the boy's head and pulled the trigger.

"Blam! Blam!" he shouted. "Got ya, Billy!"

The boy stretched to his full height, threw his arms into the air, his gun flying from his hand, and stiffened as if in mortal pain. "Arrrrghh!" he screamed and fell out of sight.

Tommy grinned at his buddy's play. Cool!

Then he remembered the other guys and sank into the crevice again to spy the terrain.

Buck heard that for sure. Be comin' around back, tryin' to o sneak up on me as usual, the bastard. Won't get me this time though. I'll blow his fuckin' head off. He tensed. What's that?!

He twisted around to look down and out of the opening on the side of the mound where he had entered. A shadow fell across the entrance. He jerked his rifle around and fired on a guess one was coming into view.

"Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam!"

The source of the shadow flew across the opening and screamed into the cave. "Bang!" Stevie the shadow shouted and rolled out of sight.

"You're dead, man!" Tommy shouted.

"No, I ain't!" the kid shouted back and stood up in the entrance, his small thin body framed by the dark, jagged edges of cracked earth. "You fired too soon and I got you when I--"

"Fuckin' A, man!" Tommy yelled at the boy. "I blew you apart right when you came across the front. Sorry, man, you're dead."

Stevie hung his head and sat down hard against the bank. "Shit!" he muttered into the dirt.

Tommy ignored him and sneaked looks in both directions outside the gap. Buck was the one he had to worry about because Buck usually won. But this time Tommy had to win. There was more at stake than the kingdom of the hill now. There were the guys in the platoon, the pride of the corps, and the right to democracy in a freeworld. And most of all, he had to save his god-damned ass.

He slipped along the embankment as quietly as possible.

Along about twenty yards, he realized he was a sitting duck on the lowland, so he scrambled up the bank. The slope disintegrated beneath his feet and the dirt slid down the hillside in a small avalanche of stones and clods.

Dammit!

If he made noise, Buck would hear and kill him easily. He flattened like a lizard and crawled up to the crest of the plateau. Raising his head just over the edge, he spied across the level surface. Peering through wild mustard and rye grass, he looked towards the dam directly across from his position. Nothing there. He looked left a moment to the distant brown mountains and saw nothing; then he snapped his head around the opposite way along the huge table off earth mounded up as if by a great mole. He gazed beyond the table coiling gradually up over the mountain pass to the sea and thought momentarily of the cold surf splashing over his feet.

The two pieces of her bikini bobbed in the water like ripe exotic fruit. Floating on her back, she lay in the water alone between the waves, her long tawny hair spread around her as if a creature of the sea. He could slip into the surf and swim out to her underwater. She would not know. He could rise beneath her and--

"Hey!" a voice behind him shouted, "Need help?"

Tommy turned around and shook his head. The lifeguard looked past him and raised a red float above his head like a giant bloody penis.

"Hey!" he hollered again. Getting no answer, he dashed into the surf, his brown legs flashing high over the foam, and dived into a caving wave.

Tom watched him churn out to the girl. She righted herself, as he reached her and laughed at something he said. They treaded water together for some time, facing each other, their chatting heads buoyantly riding the swells like a couple of seals at play in a spreading red tide.

When their heads disappeared beneath the glittering surface, Tommy headed up the bank with his rifle. Lying on his back, he squinted straight up at the sun spreading whiskers of light across the southern sky. A banshee flew out of silence in the south and tore the blue over the beach with a scream. The sand, sea, and sky exploded in a blinding white light as if some godson were ascending into heaven. Then the boy awoke with his body burned.

Napalm?

The sea withdrew into the sky and left a deserted turf covered with wild mustard and rye. The heat enveloped him and grime tingles on his flesh. As beads of sweat dripped into his eyes, he sensed the enemy behind him. He spun around and spotted Buck running towards him from the other end of the mound. Tommy yelled and hurtled toward him over the crackling bones of millions of dead warriors. Their helmets and weapons had long ago rusted into the redeeming earth, but their blood-sprouted flowers out of the tortured soil. Weeds lashed his legs as he ran and rocks crumbled under his pounding boots. His murderous cry met Buck's and together they terrorized the air. Birds flushed from the flanks of the narrowing gap between the two boys. Their panicked wings beat up the dust into thin clouds trailing the charging soldiers.

Tommy and Buck raced at each other headlong bent to kill. They lowered their guns waved above their heads like flag poles and pointed them at the bowels of one another. About fifty yards apart, they started firing. Tommy saw the ground pop around them. He felt hot wind blow past his face and heard the whiz of bullets by his ears. He did not care if a slug slammed into his chest. A hit to his face he dreaded, but to his chest, he felt he could handle and keep on firing valiantly before dropping dead.

"You're dead, man!" Buck hollered. "I put fifty slugs into you before you turned around."

"No way, fucker!" Tommy shouted. "You couldn'ta touched me at that range."

"You're dead," Buck yelled. "Dead, dead, dead--" and he kept firing until they faced each other point blank.

Neither would go down. The felt barbed wire wrap around their ankles, but neither would go down. If a temblor opened the ground around them, neither would fall.

Tommy had to make a stand against this guy; his reputation depended on it. So he began shouting shots at him that would have felled a monster. Buck shrank under the violence of Tommy's blast and then backed off laughing from the bottom of his belly.

"Fuck you, man," he said grinning and staring at him. "Come on. Let's get some drinks." And he backed away, waving his arm. "Come on, guys!" he yelled to the others. "Let's get somethin' cold."

"My mom's got lemonade," Billy said as he came over to them. "Cool," Buck said and he led them away. But Tommy lagged behind, his head down to avoid seeing them.

He was wishing he had the oldman's rifle.

The moon looked bloody that night as he lay on the roof staring into the sky. He spotted the three stars on the belt but could not figure out the body of Orion. Tommy knew from school the constellation carried a sword above its head as in the textbook but could never make the outline of its shape. He felt stupid and afraid other guys could see it all clearly and tell him about it. He searched the dark sky around the three-in-a-row, squinting as if to conjure the image out of sheer mind power.

Suddenly the stars extinguished, and the sky went blank as a room without windows. He gasped and tried to inhale the warm night air but could not breathe. All oxygen seemed sucked out of space, leaving him in an insensible void. He thought he might be dying and that the hand of God was going to carry him to heaven. But he felt no fear, only a warm soothing notion of eternity. He longed to see the Mother of God and touch the tip of her smile. He felt his throat thicken and the sobs seep into his mouth, but no sound came forth. His eyes watered and he saw nothing. He longed for the sun.

"Tommy? You up there?" The old man's voice boomed off the cavern of darkness around him. He tried to answer but could say nothing. He moved his jaw and opened his mouth to speak, forming the words, but no sound issued forth. Only the head of a reptile appeared just from beneath his nose and stared up at him. In its burning eyes, he saw the scenes of life and death yet unknown to him. He watched the two flickering eyeballs like a moving stereopticon: blood raining from a yellow sky. Charred treetrunks spindly against a burning horizon. Not a single leaf, flower, bird, or butterfly on the barren soil, yet the memories of millions of living things were imprinted on rocks strewn across the dry plain like cubist skulls. The movie was silent, yet the name "Tommy!" was heard echoing around the forsaken land.

"Tom--my! Tom-my! Tom-my! Tom-my!"

The word reverberated like a tom-tom pounding out a hopeless call to communion, sacrifice, or battle. The name shook the earth with each utterance in rhythm to a heartbeat or footfalls on a giant drum.

His teeth chattered. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head to make it go away. But the beat of approaching doom crowded his brain. And nothing green sprang forth to reassure him. No scent, no sound, no tender touch. He was witnessing his future in the eyes of the beast--a netherworld of solitary fear. And the giant was coming. Its meteoric head blew into the wasteland of his vision. Sparks flew out of its eyes like exploding vacuum tubes. The flesh on its bulbous body dripped in a putrefied slime. Its penis cannonaded laser blasts that pocked the crusted earth over which it strode. The monster advanced towards him miles per stride.

Tommy's long wailing scream howled into the windless air and dissipated into a silent space. Nobody would know his danger, no one come to save him. And the ogre was upon him.

As its ragged claws spread around him, he stretched his arm and reached for the sky. A sword of fire filled his grasp, the heat fusing his fear and pain to rage. Looking up, he spied the blade glittering with stars. With both burning hands, he swung the sword back and forth before him as if to blaze a trail home. The blade sliced into the giant's gelatinous belly, laying it open like a rotten melon. Its scream of agony filled the darkness above, as its innards filled the darkness below. The huge body collapsed like an exhausted balloon and spun off into space leaving a tortuous trail of sulphuric gas.

Before he could catch his breath, Tommy felt his legs seized from within the giant's remaining ooze, and he was yanked into the morass of peritoneal quagmire.

When he fell off the roof, the old man grabbed him by the hair and dragged him into the house.

"You come when I call, you little bastard! the old man snarled. "Off into your dream world again, eh? Who in hell you think's gonna clean up this mess? You eat here kid, you help. Now, get yer ass out there and get to work." He shoved the boy to the sink and left the room.

Tommy's mouth hit the faucet, splitting his lip. He winced and found blood with the tip of his finger. Running the water, he bathed it in the cold liquid and washed the warm tears off his cheeks.

"I'll kill that son of a bitch," he whimpered into his dripping fist.

Onto the backseat of the black and white car, Tommy laid his head. The periodic pulse of red light fired his soaked and matted hair. He peered out the window and stared up at the sky. Rotating his head slowly, he followed the stars until he finally spotted the three in a row. Then, as simply as connecting the dots, he traced the sword, the arm, legs, torso, and head of Orion the Hunter in the southern sky. He looked at the constellation as it glittered through the treetops, until it rotated out off view as the police car swung out of the driveway and headed up the street.

BOSCH GARDEN

"I will show you fear in a handful of dust."

\--TS Eliot

She has buried her head in the sand. Nevertheless, her naked ass is vulnerable to kicks and sticks and liberties. And her body looks like a barkless tree with limbs that will never bloom nor bear fruit. She has monumented herself.

The soil from which she protrudes is uncultivated and produces weeds of little worth: no flowers, no evergreens; only small, spare things with bitter sap and wiry sprigs that carry more thorns than leaves; and dead trees that give no shelter, dry stones no water. The air is hot and dry and cloudless but draped in a yellow pall hung to the narrow horizon. Swarms of insects flit through the air in search of food on this fateful land. Tough, determined animals live here: the kinds that survive holocausts, but no humanity. Even things that die leave no decay but dry up and blow away. So tilling the ground does no good when fertility is low:

The parched eviscerate soil Gapes at the vanity of toil...

Still, her head is stuck in the sand. Just as well, for she probably has nothing to say. No point planting flowers in her ass: they'd simply wither and die. Garbage in, garbage out. Little grows in a dump ground.

I'd better not take root in her either. Could be the death of me and mine. Tempting though, despite my breeding: that ass in the air. Epigamic pink of politeness. Or is that incipient sunburn? If so, perhaps the pain will cause her to notice what is going on.

Let's wait to see what happens. Sooner than later, she must come out to breathe. Scarcely the best atmosphere in the world these days, but a slower death than suffocation in her own grave.

Dante neglected this place where all the circles begin. No need to dig to find Beelzebub. And heaven is only a state of mind regardless of the action. Strange creatures here--products or our fantasies and fears: sewers for rivers, broad carcinogenic highways, toy stores instead of forests, bombs utilized as wombs, acid ponds for bathing, animals more at slaves than fellows, playgrounds for paradise, days cloudless and stifling, nights of unknown violence, robots personified as friends. Funny if you think about it, frightening if you care.

Do you? I say I do. But the one who made me seems indifferent. The Omniscient Author of It All may be present in every word made flesh, may have a rationale for this vague plot, but cares not a jot that we comprehend--you all, perhaps, but not those of us going through the moves. Been so since the first garden. And that was a setup. They were destined for a fall.

The creator is a master trickster. No one but an arch deceiver would put a pair of innocents into paradise, and then admonish them not to eat the fruit of the knowledge tree. What hungry naïf could resist the temptation to bite into the juicy flesh of the first apple on the Earth? No satanic serpent needed to seduce humans to indulge themselves. Never has. So, tasting the sweet and the sour opened their eyes to the possibilities for achievement. And we have been striving ever since. God disfavored our wising up, but Satan knew. He saw the potential allies we would become in his war of attrition to master the universe. Taste it, hell, they gobbled it up, ravaged the tree, and followed it with a good fuck. Had to be the moment when Cain was conceived.

Good and evil are all there is to know. And what use being homosapiens without knowing anything? Despite the ignorance pervading the minds of man, the human brain thrives on satisfying its curiosity. The creator knows this as well as the consequences of restriction. Rebellious by nature the human species will not neglect a mystery. But who is writing this story? I, as mere narrator, would not presume to know all, though I have been accused of pretending such. Nevertheless, dangling a magical fruit in front of someone, and then forbidding hir to pluck and munch it smacks of more than deception; it suggests masterful sadism. Godism. Only omnipotence could get away with such a game for millions of millennia. Yet, more to this than meets the eye. Foresight is myopic; hindsight perceives best. Thus, we blame it all on our progenitors, preferably dead. The dead do not retaliate.

Then, if we can generally see so much, why does this woman, who hides from dirt by digging her nose into it, insist on staring close-up at the particulars? Your answer is as good as mine, and neither can be certain. So, let us hear it from the whore's mouth. Maybe a simple matter of taste.

I tickle her ass with a round number 10 sable brush. (This curiosity). A screech. Her head pops out of the sand; her eyes cast about frantically as if to spot some treasure. Silica falls around her naked body like crystallized gas. Roaring, she turns on me and spreads her arms: great featherless wings that rotate as if to take off. No lighter than before, though, she steps towards me, and the ashen Earth quakes under her footfalls. But I stand my ground however buckling beneath me. Her sagging breasts sway from east to west to east in time to her steps going south. Though not allured, I cannot take my eyes off them: pendulums pointing out the far latitudes of escape. What is this being? Some beast in the desert? Some riddler for a tragedy?

She opens her mouth to curse or to speak, her fetid fumes blowing back my senses. Back against the page, I face her head on. She roars again and stops dead in front of me, her toes overlapping mine, so I cannot flee.

WOMAN: Hwat--haz befala n me?

Fortunately, I understand fenetiks but cannot speak it. So, when the ill wind dies down, I try my most polished poetic prose on her.

NARRATOR: Lady, you need not have uprooted yourself at my humble behest.

WOMAN: Hu tikalz mi ars?

NARRATOR: Must have been a fly.

WOMAN:Yu wud nat tak advantij av a defen(t)slas wuman, wud yu?

NARRATOR: The advantage would be yours, madam.

WOMAN: A klevar raskal, ar yu?

NARRATOR: Not as clever as you, dear lady. I never thought to bury my head in the sand. Tell me, what made you behave so?

WOMAN: Klos eps ar betar than long shats.

NARRATOR: You like it there.

WOMAN: I wud be thar stil if yu had nat batard mi but with that fethardustar.

NARRATOR Paintbrush.

WOMAN: War yu gon to pant mi ars?

NARRATOR: With words perhaps.

WOMAN: Hwat du yu men--with wardz?

NARRATOR: I am a simple man of words.

WOMAN: Hau simpal?

NARRATOR: Stories and...

WOMAN: Tel me a store then.

NARRATOR (looking up): Okay, boss?

No answer as usual. The ill-humored woman looks at me as though I am crazy. To allay her anxiety I hastily begin.

NARRATOR: It's titled THE LAST CLASS. Once there was an old teacher—

WOMAN: O I lik fa(a)re talz. Ane drugz?

NARRATOR: You must not interrupt. Spoils the effect. A teacher was challenging his students' vocabulary.

WOMAN: I hat tests.

Ignoring her, the narrator continues. "He asked them if they could define one of his favorite words: culture. Several of the fifty-three students raised their hands eagerly. He called on one who said, 'Civilization.'

"The teacher snickered and said, 'I wish it did.'

"Another student said, 'Art.'

"The teacher nodded, his baldhead flashing, and said, 'Good. Now, what do you mean?'

"Another shouted, 'Music!'

"'What kind?' the teacher asked.

"'Rock'n'roll!'

"Raucous cheers.

"The teacher wanted to spit but shook his head, compared such popular art to the stuff around untidy toilets, and added: 'Is there nothing else in your furry heads?'

"Such disharmonious howls bellowed from the students that the teacher like a conductor had to raise his hands to quell the cacophonous chorus. Reluctantly they quieted but continued a low grade grumbling as an organ about to erupt into a dissonant forte.

"He shouted over them: 'Art is an element of culture but not as you know it, for you know nothing. You see nothing. You remember nothing.'

"They grumbled more loudly and shouted back: 'We know all we need to know.'

"He turned his back on them and wrote on the chalkboard the word growth. The grumbling continued. And when he turned around to face them again, he slapped his hands together, the clap echoing off the walls, and he recited a poem.

THE PROFESSOR'S POEM

Blame not the Earth for the failing flower

what is sown will not grow from uncultivated soil

no bursting seed born

no fruiting tree

for a land generates history

when tilled from day to day

fertility is rooted in a matrix

where luck and will allow the world to turn

Cry not for memories

beg not for dreams

dig into the here and now

by the light of dedicated fire

to make a home for us

and those yet to run the relay race

to rise above our fallacies

to raise a garden of the mind

from germinated thought

growing with the teem of life

thriving from plain to peak

river to sea

where unity is everything

balanced by the timing of the heart

Fruits of intellect nourish more than any root

or adoring leaf

or flowers of the vine

for even their sweet decay yields to the soil

a richer revenue for seeds

to spring into the air

and flourish with a perennial of deeds

branching into shapes

defining progress for the soul

"When he had finished, they all had fallen asleep. He clapped again like a gunshot, at which they all got up and left without another word.

"The teacher stood alone in the room until long after the janitor was gone. He stood there until his shabby clothes fell to dust and his voice failed. Silent in the dark, he attempted to light the room with his mind, but no one there to kindle. He groped for the blinds, but no light shone from outside. He stumbled to the door, but before he could reach the knob, he fell and uttered: 'Living or dead, I know nothing.' Then he disintegrated upon the stony floor.

"The door swung open and a gust of wind blew his particle remains across the room like ashes from burned books. No light followed the wind, only silence. No family to mourn his passing. But no tragedy that he died before the door opened. His exit to find his way would have been futile, for the low-pressure vacuum inside had simply been displaced by the high-pressure vacuum outside. The darkness within as black as the darkness without.

"Stability achieved, the atmosphere remained silent and dark and still for millions of years, until once more God would decide to electrify choice molecules by chance, and the changes would resume. Then the eagle would fly again to find another sun."

Deeply moved upon finishing the tale, I regain a presence and expect a response. But the woman has gone back to the sand. She appears the same as before: bent over, naked; however, her buttocks are covered with both hands this time, as though she fears I am going to beat her. I do not intend to violate her person for I aspire to virtue, but I am annoyed with her for not responding to my story. Personally, I always remain indifferent to the response of the audience, but the Author becomes upset when they say nothing for or against a piece, as if they had never heard a thing. Consequently, the Big Know-It-All pushes me again and again to try harder and harder. Frankly, I could not care less. I simply exist to tell stories. If people do not like them, I remain indifferent. But conforming to the vicissitudes of an unrequited omnipotent being can be exhausting.

So I tickle her ass again and ask her what she thinks of the story. She pops up once more, tells me that she hates sad endings, and burrows back into the unregenerate soil. Now, that poor woman's return to hiding signals me to prime myself for another storm of relentless creativity. The big 0, you know.

If only he would try another approach. Perhaps next summer he will lighten my load. Then I may be ready to rejoice and retire: lie on a tropical beach and let miscellaneous thoughts drift over me like breezes off the sea. Ah, to become one with the Earth....

Meanwhile, during this seemingly endless winter, I continue looking for the right characters to bring it all to life. None of those with their heads in the sand will do. They must be young, innocent, and tripping on the wind. Only they who can see a garden in this forsaken land will make the needed sacrifice to cause it to grow again. And they will more appreciate the new tales I have to tell.

Then I saw the mob, turned tail, and ran away. No demagogue am I, or member of the crowd. I prefer the periphery to the center of the barbarian swarm. Thus, I leave alone to narrate another day. But I wonder: will anyone be able to read what I have to say, or will I have to draw pictures again instead of words?

MEREMADE

"The waters compassed me, even to my soul."

\--Jonah

I write only what the swimmer told me. His tale that follows could just as well have been read thousands of years ago. The messages of humanity repeat with variations like waves breaking against the gradually decaying shore. Moreover being hopelessly addicted to writing, I quite naturally have modified the story to suit my own quaintly aesthetic notions. So then, if you can tolerate rather profligate artistic license, read on. One could do worse by television. His story thus begins.

Viewing suicide from a cliff overlooking the western sea, I glimpsed her dive into the surf. Her naked bum flashed in the foam, her feet waved goodbye. When she did not soon emerge, I leaped down the steep bank to save her. Pulling off my shoes, I spied her emerald eyes sparkling in the brine. She was smiling coyly as her breasts bobbed upon the swells. Stripping off my clothes, I ran to her beckoning hand and dived into the yawning curl of a cresting breaker. As I rose through the calm between two waves, I peered around to find her, but she had submerged into the gulling tide.

Waiting for her reappearance, I treaded water until the sun had disappeared beyond the tormented sea. A chill struck my feet and crept up my legs. Cold and numb. Having found a reason for clinging to life, I caught a comer and let it carry me to the sand.

As I lay there staring up at the darkening sky, I felt the nagging impulse to let the tide shelter me into the good night. But the surf kept nudging me awake to remember the girl who had dived into the sea. And the cry of a bird far out over the ocean sounded like a soprano song to which my heart lent lyrics. I thought she was calling me to the rhythm of the waves, so I scanned the scalloped water for the siren but found her not among the many voices of the sea.

Venus was winking at me, though, and darkness was upon the deep, for the moon had not yet risen and promised no fullness. It looked liked a dark night coming. So, unable to materialize the song, I dragged my chilled body to the dry sand, still warm from the heat of the day, and nestled into a depression on the beach. Lying on my back, I covered my naked body with sand and watched the stars appear and listened to the music of the sea until, resignedly beneath the sky, I fell asleep.

I heard the swell of brass heralding Kublai Khan's voyage to Byzantium where he wrecked his ship on Hubris and sank to the floor of a silent sea salvaged by a dolphin and carried to a warm cavern unexplored by man in a palatial sanctum sanctorum of dripping lapis lazuli and phosphorescent luminance where turquoise pools teemed with sealife long extinct coral crab and salmon air scented with salt stirred by warm drafts from deep fissures in the Earth as he and I transformed to Tristan wailing for his leman lover who came to him from a cleft in a roseate stonewall and we knelt before her to pledge his knightly love despite her marriage vows she poured upon his golden head a libation of ambergris that splashed his armor and dripped like a Spring shower around our feet and pooled with the turquoise tide....

My cheeks tingled from sand in my face, and I awoke to see a dog gamboling after his master.

"Sorry 'bout that," he called. Without looking back, he held out his right hand and then his left in repetition and finally sauntered off.

I spat the grit and started to leap to the offense when I found my face dripping with a brine more uric than oceanic. But I turned from the violence that was in my heart, and, cursing the soul of humanity more than the dog, I ran to the surf and dived into it. Feeling purified, I rose amid the morning foam and blew like a seamammal; however, I found small, ugly, grey things floating all around me. As I looked more closely to confirm my engorging disgust, right behind a swelling wave a small head caught my eye. Trying to avoid the suspicious debris, I broke the crest before it crashed. From its momentary height, I spied again the little black thing there, apparently the head of a perky mammal, facing me from just beyond the arcing swells. When it did not go under, I slowly swam towards it to know if by wild chance I had found the mysterious young woman who had dived into the sea. As I closed the watery space between us, I could see it was she--a nymph.

Her hair the amber of seaweed hung into the water about her pallid face and swirled around her body in long filigrees. Her eyes, a garibaldi green, sparkled in the morning light. Her smile invited me to speak to her, though I felt the tingle of anxiety in doing so, for I sensed not only mystery but also treachery in the seductive look of this Oceanid. Seeing no point in departing from my usual response to such beauties, I ignored the hopelessness of happiness with such a creature and accosted her with the cleverest opener I could think of at the moment.

SWIMMER: Howdy.

NYMPH: How-dee?

He nods and looks for comprehension. She cocks her head, lifting part of her tresses out of the water which bejewel, drop, and shatter beneath her tender throat.

NYMPH: What is how-dee?

When she speaks, her jaws quiver with her words and her voice gurgles like a water whistle.

SWIMMER: How do you do--you know, like cowboys say it.

NYMPH: Cow-buoys? Where the seals lie?

Confused, he grins awkwardly and speaks carefully as if to a child.

SWIMMER: Do you live near? You seem so used to the water.

NYMPH: Here.

SWIMMER: Here? But where do you come from?

NYMPH: Your daughter.

SWIMMER: My--!

She nods reassuringly and her hair lightly whips the water into a slight effervescence. He simply stares at her, stops treading for a moment, and almost sinks.

SWIMMER: My daughter?

NYMPH: Yes.

SWIMMER: But I have no daughter.

NYMPH: You are the writer, are you not?

SWIMMER: Yes, a teller of tales.

She cocked her head in curiosity and proceeded to tell me.

NYMPH: The daughter of a writer or a painter or something--she created me in her wishful dreams. And she told me that he often plays on the beach. Or was that her brother? Oh, now I'm confused. Well, there's nothing to do but dive when that happens. Clears the mind. Bye.

With that, she curled into the water like a seal so fast I lost my breath and instantly found myself treading alone amid a flurry of tiny bubbles, bumping and bursting down along my body to my toes. A pleasurable feeling that ceased too soon.

I remained waiting in the water for her to emerge, but she was gone. So, tired, thirsty, and hungry, I swam back to shore. I sat upon the beach with the wasteland behind me. An old dejection invaded my mind but I ignored it, for I believed I would see her again.

No point in going home. I had never been happy there. The place could have burned down for all I cared. The beach was my home now. And my present purpose: to know the young woman who lived in the sea. Curiously, I felt no libidinous desire for her. She was fully appealing as a female--sensually nubile--and normally I would have been drawn to her horizontally regardless of our age gap, but this woman struck a more sensitive yet vague nerve in my being that had never before been touched. Untouched but not unnoticed. Diotima's message had imprinted on my soul the idea of a spiritual beauty. Now, this amphibious darling had fleshed out the form.

I hoped it was not too late for me. So long I had searched for the ideal. So many years wasted on self-delusion. So many early years mesmerized by the spell of Eros. My soul had been captivated by desire, and I had believed in it religiously. A carnal affliction of the loins that poisoned my brain to paralysis. The ecstasy sufficed. But as with most illnesses, this too passed away, and I was left with spiritual scar tissue and a profound resistance to courtship that I call toxic immunity.

In recent years I have protected a simple life: passing incognito between job and home without significant incident, approaching strangers and leaving them as such. I have been content to earn my keep and live for the comprehensive comfort that reading provides. Books have become my family, my friends, my lovers, my teachers, my temples, my museums. Risking the sloth that Francis Bacon condemns, I prefer to read than do almost anything else. I read at home, on the bus, on the job, on the toilet, in the tub, in a waiting room, in the hospital, in jail.

No audio or video experience can satisfy me as does reading alone at home. Music stimulates me to action, placates me to relax, or draws me into reverie. Movies stir me to laugh or to weep but more often lull me to sleep. Only books do all of these plus challenge my intellect to its breadth and depth. Books conjure the music and the visions as well as the symbols that mean beyond the mind. If not for books, I would long ago have leaped to my death.

Sex, fame, and fortune mean nothing to me now, replaced by books and the ideas they bring. Such an idea is Beauty. Besides Love, it is all that makes life worth living. Since Love is lost in mystery, Beauty remains an ideal reflected everyday in the world, especially the natural world. I have seen beauty in the cosmos, the dawn and the dusk, the mountains, rivers, trees, flowers, and all the animals that creep and run and fly, but never have I seen such beauty as that in the shape of the young woman who dived into the sea. With the bow of her lithe body linking air and water to the gleam of sunlight, I glimpsed a moment of eternity I may never see again. This the reason I live at the beach.

For the rest of the day among the homeless, I combed the strand for food. Possessing nothing but the clothes I wore and unconcerned for shelter in this Tropic, I committed my life to foraging and watching for the woman in the waves. However, my vigil was surreptitious because I feared revealing her existence to others that roamed the beach. For all I knew, many had already seen her; perhaps they knew her; perhaps....

I kept the ugly thoughts out of my mind. Too much ugliness all around me. No tolerance for tainting the one true ideal I had found worthy of belief. So, like a man with a secret mission, I scanned the sand for any recently discarded morsel, all the while keeping a weather eye on the water. I wasted little time on the trashcans. They were always cleaned out by other scavengers. I followed the cries of gulls and joined them in their pursuit of manna. They know best where the next fresh food is likely to be tossed from the hands of some indifferent tanning zealot. And I was readier to compete with them than with the can divers.

Fortunately, I could avoid the anxiety that rules these poor men, women, and children for whom survival has become the primary drive. I had chosen to live destitute and disenfranchised and I could always return to the mainstream because, unlike these wretched people around me, I was unafflicted by illness, addiction, or ignorance. So I strode along the strand undaunted by my poverty, even reveling in the temporary simplicity of my life now, and altogether focused on my goal.

Almost dark when I saw her again, riding shoreward on the waves. Twilight was glowing upon the water as I sat gazing over the great glassy expanse. Unusually calm the sea, so her little head was visible just beyond the low breaking surf. Without waiting for a signal this time, I stripped and leaped into the tide. I met her again about fifty yards out and, when I saw her eyes bright in the gloaming, I wanted to shout for joy. What a creature! An electrifying presence that seemed the personification of pure spirit.

NYMPH: Cow-dee!

SWIMMER: That's how-dee, but never mind. Tell me. So a writer's daughter created you.

NYMPH: Yes.

SWIMMER: Not by the writer himself--?

NYMPH: She made me in the sea.

SWIMMER: In the sea--?

NYMPH: In her dreams.

SWIMMER: She made you.

NYMPH: Yes.

He looks quizzically at her.

SWIMMER: In her dreams--?

NYMPH: Yes.

SWIMMER: We are such stuff.

NYMPH: Well, I am anyway.

He is silent, waiting for an explanation. She lets him languish until he is about to speak.

NYMPH: I am her fantasy.

His heart sinks to the bottom of the sea like a lump of lead.

NYMPH: Her fantasy made flesh.

His heart rises like a balloon of helium.

SWIMMER: And spirit?

NYMPH: If you like.

Elated, he treads water so fast a pale green foam billows around him. She laughs delightedly.

NYMPH: Will you join me?

She holds out her hand for him to grasp. He looks uncertain, apprehensive but he acquiesces to her wish. When he touches her long, slender fingers, she dives and yanks him down with her. His feet follow hers like flukes into the bloodark deep.

I awoke suddenly on the beach. Inhaling, I choked and coughed violently to catch my breath. I was gasping, unable to clear my lungs or fill them with air. My mouth yawned like that of a fish out of water and my body shuddered with shock. So preoccupied was I with the struggle for life I neglected to notice the giggling girls standing around me. They could have been an illusion, though, for when I rolled over and pushed myself to my feet, they were nowhere in view.

Must have been long before I realized my clothes were gone and I was sitting naked in the sand. Luckily, the sky was dark, so I was not easily seen. Otherwise, I surely would have had to tell this story from jail again. I remember only the vague sketchiness of a dream, yet I believe I lived every moment of that experience in the gathering waters where some great soul lay hidden beneath the waves.

O

see and us

today

yes

an arch woman washing

all our sins away

in the circling river

one

mirror call beyond death by birth

to be

mereternal!

In the oceanic realm, where spheres of life circulate in and out of mystery, an abundance of beginnings flows from an abundance of endings; color disappears in depth; sound is silenced; the taste of blood permeates the air; sex and violence compete unchallenged by morality as appetites in life or death. Sanctity pervades the space between extremes of good or bad, so equilibrium prevails in a matrix for renewal.

Three days and three nights within this matrix I dwelt united with Beauty at last. No beast in her aqueous lair, I was accepted regardless of my flesh. I felt no fear in her medium for I had become suspended between coming and going. Drifting from deep abyss to mountain crest, I sailed as a bird wafted by great watery hands from pole to pole and round the equatorial ring. I surfaced to view the stars and then sounded to flee the light. As I rose and fell, I passed the stages of age. Euphorion could not have known a greater joy than I, lesser parentage notwithstanding. Sleek of spirit, I swam with her among the whales of memory. I swelled and shrank with the tide, skirted beach and shore, forgot the day and night, passed through timelessness, and touched immortality. She did not kiss me, or I her; I never touched her but knew her presence as close to me as my own heart. Her warmth infused the primordialiquid in which we swam. She spoke not a word, yet I knew her mind as my own and swam in unison as if in a dance: a sort of fin de duet. Two bodies of the same being. My half found its whole. Truly, man is but a demi-creature without woman, a halfshell stuck in the mud. But together we make a sphere as solid as an egg, as fragile as a star that turns and returns, unlimited by anything, save the new and the old.

We sang to each other as I lingered in the chambers of the sea with my seagirl wreathed in seaweed. I could have forever lingered in that memory of the womb, for we are born again by the sea and we survive by the sea--but then human voices woke me.

The swimmer only came out of the sea to tell this tale and then returned. I only forge what he told me for you to decide the truth of his story. But be advised, should you decide to believe: the reader and his daughter fantasize, so one would have to be a bigger fool than I to put any faith in what one writes. No evidence can verify the case one way or the other, for I never saw the nymph and I never saw the swimmer again; although, I often wander alone along the edge of the land and find myself spying the endless ripples of the sea.

THE SHAFT

for

Probe Magazine

Goodwood, California. They had been digging the hole for forty days and forty nights before I arrived. Since then the entire world, previously scattered, has been converging on this now famous coastal city to share in the excavated wealth. The people with big money of course control the center of the operation, but little people of all kinds scurry around the circumference to gain access to this greatest of all mining projects. Truly an equal opportunity program! Anyone with at least one hand can work, scratching away at the crumbling earth like a dog digging for bones. Day and night, these dedicated Cimmerians labor; their dark hours lit like daylight by huge lamp banks bigger and brighter than even those that illuminate our numerous playing fields across the country. Indeed, this has recently become our favorite pastime, replacing games with ball, puck, and bullet that have constantly enthralled us in our penchant for vicarious violence and victory. Yes, we may have finally found our purpose as a people. Our indomitable species, ever striving for bigger and better things, has found a focal point (though 100 yards in diameter) upon which to converge our hearts, minds, and souls.

Now for some background. A few months ago, a hapless homeless soul was drinking from an apparent stinking sewer, which for him was a spring bubbling up in the middle of the plaza in front of City Hall. Suddenly, he raved about striking it rich, but attention to his ecstatic screams went ignored until someone of a more credible position in society corroborated his claim of both oil and gold bubbling to the surface. In fact, later assaying proved the spring to be disgorging not only black and yellow gold, but also uranium, molybdenum, coal, diamonds, smoked salt, and natural gas. However, the apparent diarrhea of Mother Earth later proved to be sewage from a broken pipe.

Consequently, all diggers--rich and poor--must pay for their proximity to wealth by handling toxic fluid and breathing bad air throughout their labors. Expectedly, the financially resourceful among us purchased heavy rubber gloves and gas masks to protect them from the subterranean waste. However, many of the masses simply dig in with bare hands and hold their breath for long periods. Many have already pitched headlong into the pit, their senses reeling from oxygen deprivation. But they soon scramble back to join their industrious comrades. Such the fortitude of these fortune hunters--a breed abreast with explorers, pioneers, and great American entrepreneurs.

To watch these people of all colors, creeds, and sexual inclinations amassed in common effort to find their respective pots of gold is to witness humanity at its best--people pulling together in dominion over a patch of Earth for personal improvement.

Naturally, altercations break out from time to time. Soon after I reached the hole, an argument erupted between a man in a three-piece suit and a shopping-cart woman over the ownership of a garden spade. Had the woman not been used to fighting for her life in the urban streets, she would have succumbed to the storm of curses and blows the gentleman stormed upon her. Nevertheless, she ended up with the spade, while he resorted to diddling the soil with a gold pen from his patent leather carry-case. Curiously nobody gathered around the fracas to prod the combatants as usual in a public fight. Here all keep to their own pursuits, either indifferent to ordinary disputes or oblivious to such conflicts.

Generally, these adventurers have worked in peace but not in quiet, though little crosscourt communication occurs, for numerous small language groups of diggers chatter continually among themselves in divers tongues: English, Chinese, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, Yiddish, French, Korean, German, Tagalog, Italian, Arabic, Hindi, Vietnamese, Swahili, Esperanto, scat, rap, and vocalized sign--to name the most noticeable. The cacophony raised by such a conglomeration of chitchat competes with the power tools that growl day and night in a deafening din. The noise annoys even more when one discovers the conversations to be widely pointless, the majority merely small talk to pass the laborious time and maybe ease the apprehensiveness accompanying a treasure hunt.

Consequently, I often seek the periphery with a buffer zone of about five yards from the edge of the turmoil. Not bad to be so situated, though, for I can remain observing from the outside before making occasional forays into the thick of things to know any first person tales of recent strikes. One such recent tale bears reporting.

A man had been digging before my arrival. I noticed him working vigorously with a long shovel. Everyone prefers one's own tools: one a jackhammer, another a spoon, and many between. But this fellow stands out among the burrowing masses. Tall and solid of body like a Viking crested with red hair that flames day or night, Thorvak, was working like a machine while I interviewed him.

"Where's your home, sir."

"Michigan," he grunted.

"Any family?"

"Wife--unh, and two--sons."

"What kind of work did you--?"

"What work?" he asked, staring sharply at me. "Laid off, unh, a year ago. Factory--left, unh, the country."

"So prospecting seemed like a good idea?"

"Beats, unh, looking down--dead ends, unh, for work that--pays enough, unh, to feed a family--or sittin' around, unh, waitin' to waste away on--unh, dwindling--meager welfare."

"What do you think your chances are here?"

"Here?" Thorvak laughed sarcastically. "Same as, unh, anyone's--lookin' for--pot o' gold."

Two days later Thorvak struck the pot, his pot, or a piece of the pot. Who knows? The whole load could be as big as that gigantic subterranean mushroom found in the plains. But he had to fight for his piece--apparently a ritual around here: defending your strike with your life. As soon as he revealed by his excited behavior he had hit pay dirt, scores of people surrounded him and threatened to steal his find. And he isn't even black. Being an imposing man, he fought most of them off until police joined the fracas with their riot sticks. Overwhelmed by murderous assaults, he grabbed handfuls of treasure-laden sand and stuffed them into his pockets just before the mob displaced him. Scrambling to the sidelines next to me, he grimly watched his fellows fighting over his claim--people of all colors, sexes, creeds, and nationalistic origins. Greed does not discriminate.

Cautiously sidling over to Thorvak, I started to ask him one more question. When he stared at me, I could see the answer in his bloodshot eyes. He said nothing but turned and slowly walked away. I have not seen him since.

Such are the stories of striking it rich in the big dig. Yet the struggle goes on; a demonstration, I suppose, of the indomitable spirit of the human species. And such the prevalence of this spirit that the hole predictably has become a pit of perfervid chaos.

Not even rain would wash away the enthusiasm of the masses. The discovery of the load occurred in the summer. The bright sunny days enlivened everybody with the joyful zest of the season. I understand from first witnesses to the activities that the atmosphere was actually festive--like a grand holiday. But now Fall prophesizes the storms of Winter with wind and rain. And the people have sunk into the mire of their single-minded endeavor; yet, none mourns the lack of true light. Fortunately, the occasional downpours dampen the flagrant competition carried to violence. In wet, windy weather, they work even harder to satisfy their lucrative desire rather than fighting their fellows for it. A man laboring for wealth mired in mud and muck is a man of simple virtue.

With all the apparent fortune to be found, one wonders why the powers that run things have not occupied the circle of interest, driven the common people away with law and order, and restricted the area for themselves. The reason is simple. Revolution. With the mass millions so long deprived of living wages adequate to feed, clothe, shelter, and care for themselves, together with the hording of monetary wealth by the chosen few, the time is rife for revolt. All needed for a popular explosion is either a tyrannical demagogue to ignite their short fuse or for the current establishment to deny them such a golden chance as lies within this hole. Shafted for so long they are determined to sink on their own for a change. Ah, the pendulum swings for thee and me!

So they come: not to play, not to watch, but to act upon the moment. From all over the world they come. A thorough multi-cultural conglomeration of color, feature, and language. A varietal stew slogging in the black sauce that overflows this great tub of opportunity. What a melting pot!

In the artificial daylight of the huge lamp banks moved in from the local ballpark, all these ingredients appear to be simmering throughout the day and night. Their bodies glisten monochrome from a continual coating of gray muck. Their flailing into the hole in the Earth, deeper and deeper each hour, reminds one of toads struggling to survive in a savannah mud pan. Equality here--challenged only by the success of the fittest. Physical beauty goes unnoticed. Intellect is useless. Virtue a handicap. Primitive primate traits most become a person in this endeavor. Strength and cunning the qualities most needed to succeed in this place--plus a lot of luck.

Some are lucky. But their luck falls in two places: getting and keeping. A few strike it rich, but even fewer keep it. A jungle in there with too many monkeys desperate for too many bananas. But the strong and the quick have the best advantage. Thorvak was strong but he lacked the wits to keep much of his treasure. He left with only two hands full but he left alive. His living remains to be seen.

Already I have heard of many disappeared ones reputedly in the tailings of other diggers buried, the mine becoming a mausoleum to their memory in dark negative space. This could account for the preponderance of the young and vigorous toiling relentlessly into the entrails of Mother Earth, an effort that is achieving an excavation rivaling the magnitude of a meteor crater and a descent to the devil.

The pit has sunk so deep that visibility is lost in a cloud of dark vapors. From the peripheral vantage point where I watch every day, one with an allusive mind could imagine an infernal circle demarking the damned--the deepest diggers.

When they rarely come up for food and sustenance, not to forget air, only their bloodshot eyes define any identity or emotion. From head to foot, they are coated with the dark, gray slime of the hole. Zombies, they ascend slopes strewn with people working like brasseros searching for golden potatoes in rain soaked rocky soil. These walking red-eyed ones say nothing in their stumbling determination to keep their bodies fueled for more digging. They stuff into their mouths stale bread from lunch trucks that encircle the pit and they gulp down filthy water hastily to return to the lower depths. Only bone deep hunger brings them up from their living burial in the bowels of the Earth. They would dwell down there until they found wealth or death. What an existence--to live on the edge of two conditions simultaneously!

And the flesh? The prospect of sex never seems to distract them from the hope of lucre. Of course nobody looks attractive in these conditions. Besides, males cannot easily be distinguished from females--curiously causing no consternation among them. A few people seem to couple socially on their regular ascents for food and drink. Occasionally I hear them speak to each other, not converse but more a spontaneous exercise of speech, much to show they can do it.

"I don't know."

"Either do I."

"What?"

"I can't remember."

A long pause may follow during which they would stare straight ahead.

"No."

"Nothing to it."

"Nothing?"

"But anything will do."

One of them may nod to no apparent purpose. "Anything."

"I see."

A few grunts may round out the exchange, but not an important word can be heard among these devotees of the deep. Certainly nobody emits any seductive expressions; not even a furtively licentious glance enlivens their eyes with deviltry. Dirty looks abound, but dirty thoughts seem to have vacated their minds. Perhaps population numbers may finally be controlled by turning people to golden opportunities for personal wealth--an obvious dynamic of human nature we could put to advantage. For now, this pit would have to be bigger than a moon crater and deeper than the Mindanao trench to hold all the people of the billions that look to crowd the city and leap into this hold of happiness. A megaforce.

In fact, the force in the wake of their massive migrations draws into the pit with a tremendous suction all who pass by or merely stand and watch. Like a great maelstrom of humanity in depth, the spiraling of embodied desire captures the uninspired and coils them into the relentlessly descending cyclone of earth. No tornado could be more irresistible than this, no whirlpool more captivating.

I, too, feel the urge. Incredible. Having prided myself on never capitulating to the seduction of the story--a primary precept of my profession--dismayingly, I find I am losing my objectivity. My usual position as third person chronicler is slipping away. Admittedly I have often allowed my personality to show through; not to the extent that other journalistic wolves have gone; but little quips have slipped through here and there, tiny barbs of criticism, minor opinions on a variety of incidents and activities in our complicated society. Can't be helped. I'm human, despite the persona.

And so I am drawn into this pit along with everyone else. And why should I escape to tell you? Who is going to be left out there to read my words? Who will be left to observe, think, and evaluate or even to watch? The television reporters have already succumbed to the magnetism of the mine. My colleagues are coming to answer the call of Plutus. So why should I be any different? The excitement to exploit the Earth is infecting everyone. The sight of people with flashing eyes who have struck it rich and are hauling their treasures through the robber-gauntlet of competition to clamor over the edge and run off to stash their newfound wealth drives all reason out of the mind.

I know it's foolish but I can't help it. The attraction undeniable. As the people of biblical legend built the tower of Babel to reach heaven, the people of today dig a hole to Mammon regardless of hell. We are making a new legend, a fresh fiasco for future generations to look back upon and smirk at our infantile credulity. But those who make myth live it for good or bad. And I am no exception.

I feel the urge to merge with the masses and submerge in the mire of materialistic desire. Who am I to dissent from conventional wisdom? Millions of people cannot be wrong. Maybe the secret to happiness actually lies at the bottom of this hole. I will soon find out, for I am writing my last words. Too long have I stood on the sidelines only watching other people living and dying. Too long have I merely reported the human actions great or small that change the world. Too long have I refrained from indulging in the frequent sexual diversions and perversions occurring across our land, denied the thrill of willful violence condoned by our everlasting penchant for warfare, refused to grab for monetary gains while the wheels of fortune have been spinning madly around my head. But now I feel like a post-modern mercenary.

Relinquishing responsibility to both my publisher and my public, I shall leap headlong into the melee. I shall fly from the edge of my security and career down these slathered slopes. I shall dive to the center of iniquity and become one with the denizens of devotional greed. Not gluttony, lust, ambition, or even morbid love for a Eurydice would have driven me to try the limits of the underworld as much as this one cardinal sin. The unfathomed circles of hell beckon me like coiled fluorescent snakes, nine neon tubes showing the way down with an endlessly spiraling glow of electrified green. How can I resist? I am a writer of little virtue, little use. As an observer and reporter of human events, my character has remained dormant during the good and bad that men do. Now my chance to be more than a recording machine for the voyeuristic delights of the public.

With one giant leap into Hades, I finally become a man of action. I leave behind nothing but my words on paper--trash. What I am about to do is far, far better, for my essence will be evident from this grandly daring deed. Forget the examined life. Forget duty, piety, and love. Forget the ineluctable modalities of the mind. Forget everything I have written. Forget the flow of noble dreams, for now is the time to dive. I shall seek the King of Hell with no Savitri to plead for me. And I shall come up full-handed and beloved by all when I return. I am to descend.

Now the darkness becomes thick around me....

FADE OUT

Early fall when I began to change. It started at the end of a fateful conversation with my wife. Something I can't bring myself to describe. I first noticed myself altering while walking down Market Street to lunch at the Decadent Delicatessen. Along the way I sensed people were ignoring me. Their neglect of my presence was too obvious to be dismissed as urban anonymity. Not homeless or even particularly common, I expected the usual glances, eye meetings, occasional half smiles. But nothing. I felt like an invisible man. That observation strikes me as sardonic now, and I would have laughed if not for the queasy sensation of my innards sloshing around in their juices.

When I got to the Deca Deli, my juices were gurgling with hunger. Turns out--for the last time. And people continued to ignore me, as if I didn't exist. The line at the counter crawled along until I stood before a pretty young Asian woman. "May I help you?" she burbled, staring through me.

I started to speak, when someone behind me said, "Turkey and cheese on wheat, please--and a chili pepper slaw."

"Yes, sir," she said, jotting down the order. Looking to another customer, she said, "Next--"

After a moment of incredulity I stepped aside, while she and the person behind me continued their transaction. I wanted to protest, demonstrate, anything to get some attention. Strip. That would do it. Pull down my shorts and show off my fellas.

My fingers were playing with my fly, when fear seized my throat. I became nauseous. Maybe if I threw up on someone, they would notice me. But I could not stand there any longer. Whirling on my heels, I swept out of the deli. I fairly flew for a block against crowds on the sidewalk, touching none of them. Not as if I didn't try, though, for I was craving any kind of human recognition, even a frightened reaction. But I could make no contact. Not the slightest tingle of arm hair. Stopping at a corner, I looked into the sky and remembered my morning shower.

"Don't be long in there, Chris," my wife's voice came from nowhere. "I don't have much time."

I could nearly feel the soothing spray on my flesh. I wanted to be adrift on a balmy sea. Embracing, cleansing, buoyant. Carrying me beyond....

Gong!

The big clock in the ferry building tower struck one, thundering in my skull. Momentarily I lost track of time. Shadows without sunlight. I strained to see bluesky, but the great canopy was dark, flat, and gray--tarnished. Everything alive or animated appeared absolutely still. I sensed movement but when I looked at people, they were motionless, one-dimensional cutouts against a movieset backdrop. My internal organs churning, effervescent, I panicked. Desperate to take off and fly.

I ran down the street, flapping my arms to ascend. At one moment thought I would become airborne but remained earthbound. Curiously I was neither panting nor sweating, not even slightly fatigued. My new lightness of being was exhilarating. Dancing into the ferry building, I leaped effortlessly over a railing and bounded onto the boat. No one stopped me or looked my way.

As the vessel was cutting through the olive-green swells of the bay, I hung over the bow and spread my arms in line with the wings of a hovering gull. My body pressed against the rails but I felt no pressure. I leaned out to look across the oily surface. Through the Golden Gate, the haze-veiled horizon lured me into its murky illusion of infinity. I suddenly wanted to be home, to lose myself online.

Arriving without any memory of the journey at my house in the fairy tale hills of the North Bay, I peered through a window to see my naked wife on the living room floor doing pushups on her lover. Her daily calisthenics. As I stood unreflected in the glass, her last comment before I left that morning exploded in my mind: "...another man."

The words buzzed around my brain like a bray of insanity and then flew out of my ears to dissipate on an ocean breeze. While I was staring at her lissome body, she raised her head and looked straight at me without seeing. Yet I glowed. When she looked away, I dimmed. Then I knew. I was leaving her forever.

Flying to the front door, I entered the house. I wanted to speak to her once more before going. When they were about to step into the shower, I caught up to her. She glanced in my direction. My electrons gyrated. I moved close to her, coincident, and felt her body inside me like a warm transfusion.

All the deeds of the flesh came back to me in a rush. Nausea replaced the warmth and I felt as if I were suffocating. Terror gripped what was left of my guts. I stepped back, and she closed the bathroom door on me. Relief! As I stood there bisected by the wooden panel, I thought I caught her muttering my name. Or was it merely more of the coincidence?

When I heard her singing a song of love, I paused for a moment of proper regret before contemplating my last will and testament. Then, alternating among my X, Y, and Z axes, I slowly took off on cue.

Spinning aimlessly, I sensed I could fly. Rather, I was more like floating disembodied among the atoms, ions, microbes, and other invisible inhabitants of space. Any contact with the reality that I had known was falling away like autumn leaves. I realized then it was time to go.

Unable to deny a shadow of sadness I drifted into my study. I turned on my computer with a shock of energy from my vestigial fingers and, diving into the display, uploaded myself. While awaiting my total integration into the world of electrons, I lingered on these thousand words, left behind as my only remains.

EX LIBRIS

"Reader, look not on his picture, but his book."

\--Ben Jonson

When the larceny began, people barely noticed. I certainly did not detect it, not even when a textbook disappeared from my desk. Unsurprising. Those academic tomes cost enough to keep a student in pizza for nearly a week. So I accepted the fact and rationalized it as charity for some needy young scholar. Besides, an academic publishing company had provided it to me without charge. I simply called for another copy and continued to teach my classes.

Even when a book I had left on a bus never showed up at the transit company lost and found, I still did not cry thief. Again I excused some rare and avid reader who could not resist the temptation of a literary classic within easy reach. Being a volume of the complete works of William Blake, the book was possibly desirable to some kindred spirit who wanted to explore the world of artful words. One of the dwindling few who continued to appreciate written expression for the sake of beauty and enlightenment as much as entertainment. So I shrugged off the second loss and headed for my favorite used-book store to buy another copy.

As I entered the shop, Thorsen, the ancient bookseller, looked gravely down at me from his tottering height, his gaze fraught with worry and confusion. The bright blue light that had always snapped joyously from his eyes was dim. A shadow veiled his pallid face; his long white beard drooped as if drenched in tears. Even the ceiling lights appeared to fade as he spoke: "Mark, this is a time to try a man's god damned soul."

"Tax trouble, old friend?" I asked with regrettable flippancy.

"Would that the worst of it." Thorsen's long fingers trembled as he took money for the Blake. "Maybe never to book another mercantile transaction--that would be unbearable."

"Business poor?"

"A business for the poor." His sad eyes flicked between me and the door. "Doomed to die on the job--"

"You're not ill--"

"Illness or illusion--either better than my fate."

I studied the old bookman to know the reason for his sudden despondency. "What's going on?" I asked while looking over the store.

"It passes understanding, my friend. Daily events leave me in total dismay. The center cannot hold."

"The center?"

"Call it faith."

"Faith in what?"

"Reciprocity. The system of give and take."

"Ah, yes--greed." I knew the system too well.

"But no. How could such events occur, Mark? I had almost become used to the decay, the cultured few, fewer and fewer--but not this."

"What?" I was still in the dark.

"This--where liberty has taken us? Never would have expected--" The old bookman broke down, his face smothered in his large but delicate hands. "Look at my shelves. Just look at them! Used to be crammed full. Couldn't even wedge in a pamphlet. Took in more than I sold--"

"If you're selling more now...."

"Selling?!"

"Then you should be pleased, man. Profit, you know--the name of the game: Ledger de main. You want to get rich, don't you? Live the American Dream?"

"That fiction has taken a dark twist. I'll be destroyed!" Thorsen trembled as he sneaked glimpses of the doorway. "You'd better book, Mark, before another of them enters. Don't want anybody hurt."

"Hurt? Somebody bothering you, old friend?"

"Never seen such bother before." The old man crouched below the counter and mumbled. "Thieves! Ruin!" Perhaps to find a book, maybe to hide his tears, he stuck his head into a shelf. "Go now!" he sighed.

As I was leaving, a fellow pushed passed me. Glancing at him suspiciously, I noticed a frighteningly determined look on his face, like that of a deprived addict. I wanted to turn around and look after the old man but thought it none of my business. So I went home with Blake.

My neighbor, Tony, noticed the book under my arm and further aroused a sense of trouble in the air. An assistant in the city library, he had witnessed the loss of books, periodicals, and disks over the years, especially those about sex, money, and violence. But he was surprised to see a recent rise in losses; almost as surprised to see an increase of patrons in the staid book house.

"Of course," he said, "The homeless, the mindless, and the aimless had frequented that quiet comfortable space for years but seldom cracked a book. Now somebody is ripping them off, somebody different. And they aren't swiping the usual pages out of PLAYBOY, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, or GUNS & AMMO, but whole volumes. Not only the pop fiction or the feel-good books but any kind of publication. Classics too--old poetry, drama, fiction, philosophy, polemics, history. Anything. Even encyclopedias and atlases. One week the entire Oxford English Dictionary disappeared. Next, the complete works of Shakespeare." My neighbor, though relieved at having less shelving work to do, fulminated for several minutes about the losses.

Tony had always been possessive about the objects in his charge, so his reaction was extraordinarily strident. I too was concerned about the missing books but could not suppress my incipient joy in the prospect that someone might have been so desperate for knowledge and inspiration they would steal them. Long past being free, knowledge has become a premium, available only for a price to the privileged few. Predictable, I thought, the Temples of Knowledge be raided for their treasures.

When the independent bookstores and libraries reported robberies, no outcry arose. But when the major chainstores began losing bestsellers, the call for law and order bellowed like a stockbroker in a market crash. To staunch the thefts, high-tech alarm systems were installed, storm trooper security guards hired, automatic weapons stashed under salescounters, and cruel and unusual punishment considered for the offenders.

Rising crime in the good old US of A had been tolerated for decades. Everyone had come to expect the child abuse, gang murders, hijackings, and corruption of the rich and famous. All part of our way of life for so long we had become almost proud of it. But now that those dear scriptures of human history had become coveted objects, people seemed to be roused to protest. I was thrilled. The elephant could be slaughtered to enhance our shelves with trinkets, eagles could be deprived of their nests in trees to cover our hills with condominiums, butterflies could disappear in the wake of coast to coast exploitation of the earth, but threaten the existence of literature and we would put our collective foot down.

Newspapers printed the outrage of the righteous and refined. Television surveyed the empty shelves of libraries, bookstores, and supermarket checkout stands. Police detained toddlers with copies of Dr. Seuss in their backpacks. Eventually, the presiding figurehead of the nation expressed his concern about the ill effects the loss of books would have for the economy, national security, and the upper class. "The country is stricken with the terrorism of literary larceny." His words were apt.

Ironically, these were dangerous times to be literate. Even if we could afford to buy books on the black market, the threat of theft was driving us underground. We would have to illumine our basements like catacombs and gather in them to share the word, more precious than ever.

I could not believe it. For most of my life I had proselytized for more book learning. I had even peddled great books door-to-door. Made a career of trying to open the eyes of the ignorant to the glow of thoughts on a page. I had written poems, plays, stories, and essays, and novels to make improvements in the human condition. But all my efforts to further the cause of literature had been in vain. Until now. These days I looked forward to selling a story for thousands, a poem for hundreds, even a word for a fast buck. I would not be able to type them fast enough to feed the masses starved for more to read.

In my basement flat, I set up a small publishing center with computer equipment appropriated from the school. Seeing the widespread clamor for printed pages, I decided to go into business, to become an entrepreneur, to pursue the fabulous American Dream. Yes, yes, I had no mind for money. Besides, the price of printer paper had been inflating at an astonishing rate. I had never published a word in my life; never thought of myself as a great writer. But none of these painful facts made any difference. I was inspired. I had been called to serve my fellows and make a fast fortune in the deal. Having stockpiled paper from the campus computer lab for years, I was ready to publish--in volume. Without notice I walked off the campus and straight into my dream.

No sooner would my desktop publications be distributed as chap books on consignment in depleted bookstores all over town, than I would be famous. The money would rise in my bank account to previously unimagined levels. Visions of hilltop mansions, luxury cars, corridors of clothes, beautiful friends and lovers, and media attention intoxicated me. I would luxuriate in the great fortune I deserved. As the pages accumulated on my desk, I counted them as paychecks.

I nurtured no illusion of being as rich as a corporate chief executive or famous as a popstar. My name would not likely be a household word like that of a professional ball player. But I would be notable among the throng. I could envision my work on shelves side by side with the low and high of culture. A shepherd of taste, minister of art, prophet of entertainment. And I would owe it all to the benevolent madness driving people to value books above everything else, risking violence, arrest, and imprisonment to satisfy their craving for the word. I was basking in my imminent success, full of myself and my mission to make millions, when free-market reality hit me like a slammed door.

Returning from my usual evening of a massage, sushi, and lots of sake, I found at the entrance to my flat a darkly handsome young woman dressed as an investment banker. At first flattered to think she wanted me for some deliciously intimate purpose, I quickly became disillusioned when she pumped one well-manicured fist into my belly and hammered the back of my neck with the other. Flat on the pavement I felt her stiletto heel in the middle of my back.

"Nothing personal," she said. "Just business." She yanked me to my feet and faced me with a pair of thirty-eights. A tall woman--the way I like them. When she unlocked her grip on my jacket, I found her dark eyes and made the mistake of demanding an explanation. She did so by kneeing me in the balls. As soon as I could speak, I kept my mouth shut. She seemed to want to dominate the conversation. "Capital Publishing," she hissed. "We want your work. All of it."

"For the Book of the Month Club?"

She tweaked my nipples with her finger hooks and snarled bitterly, "No, worm--your god damned inventory. Make it easy or hard--your choice."

"How much in recomp...?"

With all the panache of tractor shovel, her steel-toed pump caught me beneath the chin and laid me out again on the pavement. She watched me drip off the top of the stairs and ripple to the bottom, my head bouncing on each step. "I'll be back for the lot of it," she said. Before blacking out, I thought I heard the word "kiss" slip from her botoxic lips.

I awoke to the jingling of keys as they fell from my pocket. My entire body throbbed with pain. I felt a large knob on the back of my head. Grabbing the front door handle, I fell into my flat. "What an Amazon!" I whispered and locked the door. Not that I believed for a second it would do any good against the broad. She could probably walk through walls. Then I passed out.

Light in my eyes woke me. I looked out a window. The morning sun was incandescing a layer of fog. I stared at the miasma until sure I was breathing regularly. Stiffly I hobbled through my bedroom and tumbled into a hot bath. As I lay watching steam condense on the tile, I thought about the moll from Capital Punishment. I was scarred shitless of her but not about to give up my book breeding without a substantial price. This was war!

Tuesday before I felt like going out again. But I had books to deliver. And I was determined not to be intimidated into giving up my work by some big time publisher's hooligan. I was going to be an author, and my readers were waiting. After stuffing a few dozen chap books into an old duffle bag, I went to call on bookshops.

First, to my old friend's store. But it was closed. In the middle of the day? When I peeked through a window I saw the place ransacked: empty shelves and scarcely a torn page on the floor. The door unlocked, I stepped inside and called out: "Hey, Thorsen!"

No answer. The silence was threatening. I stepped farther into the shop and called again. Nothing. The store was empty. I went to the rack where my books had been displayed but found them gone with all the others. As I trod among the empty cases I saw no trace of literature. Only dust. A few literary discs without labels lay stacked neatly in a box. But all paper bound volumes had disappeared; even the calendars that had lain on the counter as gifts for valued customers, the free bookmarks, and the little receipt pad were missing. Dejected, I staggered out of the shop.

As soon as I hit the sidewalk, four arms grabbed me. "Drop the bag, sir," a male voice growled.

"Hands against the wall," a female said. "What's your name?" she demanded.

"Mark Loden--" I reached for my wallet.

"Hands on the wall!" the male cop snapped.

"What's in the bag, sir?" the female asked with affected aggression.

"Books."

"Uh-huh," they said in unison.

"Where'd ya get 'em, Mister Loden?" she snapped.

To prevent misunderstanding, I bent over to open the bag and show its contents. But before I could do so, a blow rocked my already rattled brain. They cuffed me and threw me into the back of a police car, my bag on the floor beside me. The female took out one of my books. After a few moments of silent reading, she blinked her paleblue eyes in my direction and smiled. Or smirked. "Your words?"

I nodded and tried to smile back, despite my agony. She shook her butched head and clucked. I could not decide if she was being sardonic or sympathetic. I started to ask what she thought, but the cop behind the wheel was firing shots through the rearview mirror at me from his narrow eyes. I continued to look at the policewoman. Maybe I was hallucinating, but she resembled the rep from Capital Publishing.

At the police station, I talked myself out of an arrest, but not before they confiscated my chapbooks, bag, and all. I protested to the officer at the desk that I needed them for my livelihood, but he advised me to incite no further trouble for myself and find another way to make a living. When I explained I had already given up teaching to follow my muse, he glowered at me as though I were a street cur and snarled, "Shaddup--or I'll trow de book atcha."

I watched the two cops lift my bulging duffle bag onto a cart and wheel it down a corridor. They glanced back at me and whispered to each other, the female grinning. I was right about her. They hauled the bag into a room and shut the door. Quick to the defeat, I dug my hands into my pants pockets and stomped out of the station.

On the way back to my flat, my mind was swirling with foreboding, anxiety, and wonder. Distracted, I boarded the next bus. After dropping onto the nearest seat, I glanced along the advertising panels above the windows and found them bare. No useless public service announcements or cheap ads. I looked out the window at passing storefronts. No tawdry paper signs in windows. Newsstands were empty. No one on the bus was reading papers, periodicals, or pulp novels. When the driver collected transfers, he quickly stashed them in a metal box below his seat.

Once in my apartment, I felt crushed with dejection. I stared at my computer for a while but decided it was a waste of time to reprint the books. Besides, I had suffered a big loss of spirit. Another hot bath was tempting, but I chose instead to bathe my brain. After pouring my favorite goblet full of the champagne I had been saving to celebrate my success, I collapsed onto a lounge in the patio and stared up at a piece of yellowish sky barely visible among the buildings. As I sipped the bubbly, the bruises on my body hurt less. The yellow canopy turned to dark brown and dankness dropped over me like a soggy veil. The alcohol having numbed me, I lay in a stupor. I last saw one faint star flicker in the night sky and then die.

I awoke shivering. Head ached from ear to ear. The new moon had come and gone. No birds chirping. Dawn still a matter of hope. When I raised my head, a sharp pain in the back of my neck angered me. Hankering for bed, I rolled off the lounge and stumbled into my rooms.

Out of habit, I turned on the TV news. The modulated information drifted past me. A cultivated voice spoke out of a thin-lipped mouth: "...so paper joins platinum, silver, and gold as precious items on world markets." The screen lulled me to sleep before I could make any sense of it.

At midmorning I awoke to more news of another massacre somewhere in the world. But something about the price of paper tickled a nether part of my mind. I could not decide if it had been a dream or a TV show--I so often confuse the two. While waiting for the business segment, I was startled by a brief environmental report. Something about the last few valuable trees left in the world.

Distracted, I missed the business report. A dismal picture was forming in the theater of my mind. No trees. Of course! No fresh wood. No paper. Thus, the run on books. People were stealing them for the paper. The words in them meant nothing. They simply wanted to hock the last remnant of a valuable resource.

I wanted to vomit. My writing had been in vain. What a goddamned fool! I had quit my job. Fantasized about moving the mind of the world, when all the time the world's mind was on greenbacks. Business as usual.

Outrage burst through my self pity. I would not cater to the insanity of mass consumption. So I gathered up the excess paper in my flat--bond, newsprint, toweling, toilet tissue--and lugged them outside as an offering to a demonic god. No sooner had I locked the windows and doors than I heard scrambling footsteps outside. Then voices squabbling like a pack of rats fighting over a pile of garbage. They could have it. But not my private library; that I kept. I shut the blinds and drew the curtains.

After blocking the door and windows with furniture, I wandered around the space for nearly an hour trying to figure out what to do. Absently I searched for pens, pencils, markers, crayons, and chalk. Tools in hand, I strolled from room to room and surveyed the walls. I ran my hands over their cool smooth surfaces and relished their height and breadth. The beige color was just right. I kept walking until a good idea came to mind. Then I scrawled it across a wall and continued pacing for more words.

Waking each day with the birds, I work until long after dark. Yesterday, Private Gas & Electric cut off my electricity for non-payment of bills, so I light candles. A good thing. My shadows now dance upon the walls in step with my inscriptions. I feel as though I were reaching back to the beginning of my species. Not with pictures, pictographs, hieroglyphs, or runes on my obscure walls but with words--words that mean something basically human, something that no one will likely thwart. Aware that few if anyone would ever read my lingual mural after I am evicted and the building refurbished, I continue to scribble my thoughts day and night on the bulwark of my private space, my cave, my tomb. Seldom stopping to eat, drink, or sleep, I write as fast as I can to get my soul down as text before I waste away forever.

With no offspring other than these creations and no expected existence beyond these physical elements, I hereby seek my immortality. To make these graffiti last forever, I strive to infuse them with the spirit of my best nature, to bind my soul to my words.

Should the wrecking ball be suspended or some vestigial publisher refuse to give in to the caprices of the marketplace and discover my story on these walls, a last tableaux on Earth, perhaps you are reading these inscriptions. If so, I might not have died in vain but as one who commemorated a bit of the best we have been and could become.

FIRST PERSON SHOOTER

Call me a dead man. If not yet, soon. As you read these words, remember that a man's life lies in your hands. Unless you believe what I tell you, verifying the truth for yourself, then motivate others to save me, I will die by lethal injection.

I am guilty. But not of murder. I would never go that far. I'm guilty of abusing my child. My son. And if I am executed, even as a man innocent of the crime for which I was wrongly convicted, I will accept some measure of it as retribution for the hateful cruelty I inflicted on Dalton, causing his--well, you decide.

The misery began with that cursed computer game, BALDY BANDO. You probably know it. A player puts himself in the shoes of the shooter loaded with weapons of mass destruction that would make a gang of terrorists envious. The avatar slaughters all kinds of living things and always gets another chance to kick ass. That's where my blame begins. I gave the damned thing to my boy on his twelfth birthday. Could have given him a dirt bike, a drumset, or even a target pistol, and he may still be with us. But no. I had to screw things up with something so beguiling to the kid, so endlessly bewitching, that he made it his religion.

I should have known trouble was about to hatch like an alien creature when he stayed in his room every possible minute to play the game. By hindsight, I realize he found it a good way to stay away from his nasty old man. Damned sad. I never meant to scream at him so much, definitely not to smack him around. Just got so exasperated with his pre-adolescent shenanigans. But no excuses. I was wrong. It looks like--dead wrong. But I didn't kill my son.

Here's what happened the last time I saw him. Dalt was perched on his favorite chair and absorbed in his stupid game. I stood outside his room, eavesdropping.

"Here ya go, Baldy," he said, choosing a shotgun from the incredible cache of weapons. "Do your thing."

In his chopped and juiced pickup truck Baldy Bando approached a sport utility vehicle as it pulled to the side of a desert road. A young man stepped out to take an open-air leak. Baldy stopped his truck and jumped out with the weapon cocked.

A flash. A blast exploded the young man's body. A woman screamed, jumped out of the car, and ran for a pile of boulders. Another burst, another blast cut her in two. The weapon cocked again, as Baldy jumped into the couple's vehicle.

Dalton was right with him. "Now you've done it, Baldy."

Baldy of course did not respond or acknowledge his operator's presence but stomped the accelerator. The hunky SUV, color of cold steel in the garish sunlight, spun out over the man's dismembered remains and roared down a two-lane highway.

I couldn't keep quiet. "You gonna play that damned game all night?!" I yelled from the doorway. Dalton spun around in his chair to see me spit more words at him. "My God, Dalton--shut that thing off and go to bed before you turn into a psychopath!"

While returning to his partner in crime, Dalton threw a cocky laugh at me and muttered, "It's probably the only thing keeping me sane."

I grunted disdainfully and left the room but stopped right outside. Dalton laughed again, his mind falling back into the game, the veins in his neck bulging.

Immediately sirens screamed. Spinning Baldy around, Dalton saw scarlet light pulsating like the breakout of war. "Cops," he snapped. Baldy crushed the accelerator, and they both rejoiced in the noise of screaming tires, as the machine rocketed into the future.

Catching sight of a dirt road, Dalton pointed Baldy to it. Always obedient, the big man jerked the massive vehicle off the pavement, roared among the creosote brush, with dust blowing out the rear like the exhaust of a quarter-mile dragster. Baldy laughed maniacally and shouted, "God, what a monster! Those shit heads have a helluva time followin' this baby into the wilds." I knew Dalton was grinning silently, blood flushing his face.

All four wheels of the vehicle tore into the desert sand, kicking up a storm cloud of dust. The eight-piston beast took a hillock as if it were an ejection ramp and barreled toward a chain of barren peaks. The floor of the bedroom was rumbling from the big bass speaker. "Reach the badlands, buddy," Dalton shouted, "We got it made!" Bando said nothing.

They violated the mountains through a narrow canyon pass. The wheels of the big vehicle kicked the crust off the edge of road hanging over a three hundred-foot drop to a torrent of water like a flood of diarrhea.

The sirens soloed at a glasshattering pitch and the flashing lights bled into the sky. The cop car gained on them.

"Those bastards ain't gonna do nothin' but inhale our dust, eh, buddy," Dalton said.

I was jealous. The affectionate word for his alter ego was barely out of the boy's mouth when machine gun fire crackled and slugs zoomed past. One shattered the rear window of the SUV. A second tore off a side mirror. Another exploded into the dashboard, launching plastic splinters through the car.

Dalton grabbed his arm, as if one of them had actually bitten his flesh. "What a bitchin' game!" he shouted, rubbing his vicarious wound and panting like a beast.

That did it. "Dalton--!" I stormed into the room. "Turn that god damned computer off and go to bed." Insolent in silence, he kept playing, ignoring me. My hand rose like a club belonging to somebody else, some primitive beast, and struck him hard on the head. The boy howled and whirled and then froze me with his bitter gray eyes oozing hatred.

"Leave me alone, you bastard!"

Again the fist reared. But this time it faltered and fell to my side, slapping my thigh with a dull, dead sound. Sucking air, I stepped back, blinded by rage scalding my brain, and fled the room. That was the last I saw my son. In this world anyway. The rest is the unraveling of my life.

I didn't know what had happened until my ex-wife came to pick Dalton up the next morning. I still did not know, when she stomped out of his room, shrieking that terrifying question at me. The one the police and the DA and the judge later fired at me. "Where is Dalton?!"

At first I couldn't answer. Resented being asked. I knew I had not killed my son. But I was beginning to believe I might have hurt him during some kind of psychotic rage. Admittedly I had struck the boy--to my everlasting shame. My wife had been trying to keep me away from him because of it. Now neighbors were spying on me. Police patrolled my street. I was the prime suspect in Dalton's disappearance. I'd have gone crazy if I couldn't find him, but that made no difference. He was gone. I didn't kill him. I swear it! He could not have been dead but might as well have been for all the good it did me. So, despite the absence of a body or a weapon, I was the obvious suspect.

Knowing I would be arrested at any time, I frantically looked everywhere: the neighborhood, the city, the countryside. I even cruised the dark streets of the night, hoping to find him among the runaways. But no sign of him. Not until, when I least expected it, I was playing BALDY BANDO. I don't know why I turned it on. Nostalgia maybe. Sentimentality. Curiosity. Self-torture. Mourning. Longing for something left of the boy. You see, I loved him. Despite my stupid cruelty to him, I loved my son. So I bellowed with joy when I finally found him.

You're gonna think I'm crazy. And I'm not sure you're wrong but I would swear before God that I saw my son, Dalton, alive, at least an image of him--in that god damned computer game. I couldn't be sure but my gut told me. He had become the character. Dalton was Baldy Bando.

At first I thought I was hallucinating. But after studying the screen for hours, stopping the motion, examining the character with a magnifying glass, I could discern the familiar features of my son. Wild hair like mine, athletic build, cocky grin, eyes as bright as light bulbs. But no longer the prepubescent boy; now a full-grown man. A man of war.

Absently, automatically I whispered to him. "Dalt--" No response. Some impulse made me utter the other name. "Baldy?"

Then he responded. The screen was still. Not a flicker of motion. But Dalton turned his head slowly and stared right into my eyes.

Gasping, I fell backward over the chair and sprawled onto the floor. But somehow I kept my eyes nailed to the monitor, on the character dominating the screen. He was still staring at me. And when I moved, his eyes appeared to follow me. I couldn't breathe. Thought I would faint. When I regained some balance, some sense, I believed I was saved. The proof that I had not murdered my son lay in the very game that had taken him away from me. I would be exonerated. Free. If I could only find a way to get my son back into my arms or, at least, proving he existed, even in the digitization of cyberspace

Predictably, no one believed a word of it. When the cops came to arrest me, I showed them the game. They watched but they were only humoring me or themselves. They didn't see Dalton. Only Baldy. All I got were sidelong looks as if I was already preparing my insanity defense.

Insane or not, nothing worked. Twelve angry souls found me guilty of murder and recommended death. The judge agreed. My wife did too. So here I am on death row. All I have left of hope for me and my son is your belief in this crazy story.

BOBBY AND HIS BICYCLE

On his sixth birthday Bobby got the best gift of his life--his first bicycle. Inexperienced with riding anything more exciting than his father's foot, the boy did not of course know how to make the shiny new thing go. So his father, Tom, attached training wheels. Then with encouragement from Mary, his mother, and a little push from his father the boy could pedal the bike up and down the driveway in front of his house without falling over. When he would tip to one side or the other, the wheels would touch down and keep him upright. In this way he always rode on a funny slant, right or left, but never fell.

That manner of bicycling worked so well, one bright day Bobby decided to take his bike out onto the street to join his neighborhood playmates on their bikes. Some were about his age and a few had bikes like his with training wheels. Naturally, he rode with them--all going on a slant back and forth, up and down the street in front of their houses. For a while Bobby was happy doing this; he was a cyclist among cyclists. And he could ride as fast and as far as any of the slant riders. But soon he began to admire other children who rode their two-wheel bicycles faster than he could ride his four-wheeler on a slant. They would fly past him, their young bodies perpendicular as posts on their straight-up bikes. They were the fastest kids on the block. He longed to ride as fast as they and he tried to catch up to them. Despite, pedaling as fast as he could, slanting left and slanting right, he could not keep their pace.

On one occasion, after nearly exhausting himself in his frantic struggle to ride like the fast ones and feeling exasperated, Bobby questioned one big boy who stopped nearby.

"How come you can ride so fast?" the small boy asked breathlessly.

The big boy laughed. "'Cause I don't have training wheels, stupid. Those things are for kids. They only slow you down. You'll never ride as fast as me if you keep usin' 'em." And with that the big boy jumped on his pedals and sped away--straight as a telephone pole.

Bobby watched him get smaller and smaller, slicing down the street as if a blade cutting through the summer air. The boy pondered things a moment and then reluctantly rejoined the slanters. He doubted he could ever ride a bicycle like the slicers, but he wanted to try. So that evening he asked his father to remove the training wheels. The next day he would ride with the slicers and leave the slanters behind.

Early in the morning Bobby dashed out of the house to try out his improved bicycle in the warm sunshine. He knew he was in for trouble, though, when as soon as he got on the thing, he lost his balance and crashed onto the grass. Luckily he was unhurt, only frightened, but enough to become tearful. Worried that his playmates had seen him fall and cry, he hurried into the house and called for his father.

"Daddy, daddy--I can't ride my bike at all now--"

"Now, now, son--let me help you." He took the boy back outside to the fallen machine.

Wiping his eyes, Bobby got onto the bike, while his father held it up for him. When set, his father pushed him and held him at the same time. As his father started running, Bobby felt himself going faster than he had ever gone before. He got to the front gate of the driveway in no time. And even though he was a little scared by the speed, he felt like a slicer.

"Daddy," he said excitedly, "could you push me up and down the street, so I can show the other kids how fast I can go?"

"Sure, but I'd be doing all your work, son. You've got to learn to ride this thing all by yourself, you know."

"I can't. It's too hard and I'll fall."

"Of course you will--a few times--but if you take it easy, go slowly and carefully till you find your wheels, you'll soon be racing along like the other kids."

"Will I?"

"Certainly. Now go ahead and play. I've got work to do."

Bobby was left standing on the street beside his bike, while the slanters were pedaling by him and the slicers were racing past everybody. How he wanted more than ever to join those slicers and leave his old slanter friends in the smoke of burning rubber.

Determined to join the fast ones, Bobby pushed his bike to the curb, straddled the seat, and jumped on the pedal. For a hopeful moment he balanced straight up and slowly rolled forward. Could he do it? Yes! No. His momentum was weak and he fell over like a toppling statue. Fortunately he could step onto the curb to stop his fall so he did not land in a heap in the gutter. That would have been too humiliating to bear. As it was, the other children were watching him closely. They knew what he was trying to do. And more than a few of them hoped he would fail. Many people are always ready to laugh at somebody else's expense. They saw Bobby as a prime candidate for a hilariously humiliating pratfall, so, while confidently wheeling up and down the street themselves, they kept their eyes on him.

Bobby, however, was aware of their treachery. After all, he had not been a boy for five years for nothing. He knew the ropes because he had been on both ends of them. So, pretending something was wrong with his bicycle, he very carefully walked it back to his driveway and up to his house. After nonchalantly laying it on the lawn, he went back into his home.

"Daddy!" he cried as he hurried into his father's study. "I can't do it."

"Can't do what?" Tom replied distractedly as he was writing at his desk.

"I can't ride that stupid bike by myself. It's much too hard."

"Bobby, you're not...."

"Could you please come out to the street and push me till I get used to it? Please, daddy, please?"

His father laughed. "What am I going to do, son--run up and down that street all day, pushing your bicycle for you?"

"Not all day, daddy--just till I get used to it."

"And how long do you think that will take?"

"Not very long."

Tom laughed again but thought momentarily. "Tell you what--" he said putting his pencil down and turning around in his chair. "I'll show you how it's done just one time. Then you'll have to figure it out yourself from then on."

"Okay," Bobby said, believing he would soon be flying along with the slicers. He hurried outside and leaped in front of his father to pick up the bike.

They tried the father-pushing/son-riding routine two or three times up and down the driveway, but the distance was too short for Bobby to get going. So out to the street they rolled, where the other children were riding. The others watched the pair pass up the street and down the street like a circus act. And they hollered whenever Bobby's father released him to ride on his own.

"Pedal, Bobby--pedal--!"

The spectators started to laugh each time Bobby's father had to run and catch his son to keep him from falling. Tom soon got weary of the exercise and finally told his son to take off on his own.

"You can do it, son--I know you can."

But Bobby did not believe him and kept asking for one more push. Tom obliged. And eventually a few mean young observers shouted derisive remarks at the cycling duo:

"Hey, Bobby, I didn't know you had a motorbike."

"Bobby why doncha get off and push your old man for a while."

"Bobby, ask your father if he'll push me up and down the street. I'm beat."

And they all laughed. All except Bobby. He did not think it was funny. His father was not amused either. But the spectators were enjoying themselves immensely. The more Tom tried to get his son going, the more they laughed. Finally, the youthful attention became too intense, and Tom pushed the boy to the curb.

"This is no good, Bobby. We're getting nowhere. And I have a lot of work to do. You'll just have to figure it out yourself. I've shown you all I can; the rest is up to you." Tom studied him for a moment. "You want me to get the training wheels?"

Bobby sharply shook his head. He said nothing but only stared down at the pedals, while his father walked away.

"Good luck, son."

Bobby watched his father enter the house and then looked at the slicers. He watched them pedaling up and down the street with ease. He studied the way they operated their bikes. He noticed their body positions, how they started themselves, how fast they pumped the pedals. The fluidity of their movements nearly amazed him but he was determined not to be dismayed. He would become a slicer if it were the last thing he would ever do. His reputation was on that street. For the last year, he had been holding his own position among the other children fairly well, and maybe even rising in the neighborhood juvenile hierarchy. But if he did not learn to ride his bike the way the bigger boys were riding, he could bid farewell to any good name he had established among his playmates. If he failed to do this one act, he could forever be known as a slanter, the boy on four wheels--the one who could not become a big boy.

So grabbing his bicycle firmly by the handgrips, Bobby yanked it straight up beside him, threw his leg over the crossbar, and stood on the high pedal. With one relentless push, he forced the pedal down and beneath him and then the other. Slowly the bike rolled forward. Again he drove the pedals down, and the bike rolled onward. But he did not push hard enough or fast enough to pick up enough speed. The machine faltered; the front wheel wobbled. The boy tried to keep his balance, and for one suspended moment he looked like a slicer, a frozen one. But then he toppled over. A pedal jammed into the asphalt, and the boy tumbled onto the street. Chagrined and skinned, Bobby shrugged off his red face, rubbed the raspberry on his elbow, and blinked the tears from his eyes. The children were waiting for him to bawl and break for the house, but he would not satisfy their expectations. They would not be able to laugh at his expense. A few titters squeaked out of them, but before anyone could say much, Bobby was back astride his bike and ready to try again.

The brave boy pursued this procedure of mounting, pedaling, and falling until dusk. The other children eventually gave up watching him; they were bored, because nothing amusing was happening, nothing sensational. So they went on racing, chattering, and showing off until the summer sun disappeared behind the houses.

Soon the neighborhood parents were calling their children in for evening meal. And Bobby knew his mother would be calling him soon too, so he worked all the faster to accomplish the daunting task. He must have crashed ten times that afternoon. And sure enough, just as he was about to crash for the eleventh time, his mother called.

"Come on in, Bobby--time for dinner!"

Bobby pretended not to hear her and got on his bike again.

"Bobby--Come on home now," she said and looked at him a moment. "We don't want to wait for you, and it'll be dark soon. Come on--this minute." Then she went back into the house.

Knowing this to be his last and best chance to ride the mechanical monster, Bobby leaped onto the pedal, drove it down, and followed through with as much force as his little legs could produce. He would not fall this time. He would keep his balance, keep the bike moving, and ride the beast. Slowly, gradually, then faster and faster the bicycle rolled forward. Wobbly it was, but rolling forward farther than the boy had ever made it go on two wheels alone.

Was he going to crash again or would he succeed this time? Would he be able to keep it going long enough to call it his first good ride? Would he--?

Bobby struggled to keep his balance, picked up speed and actually sliced down the street like the big boys and girls. He could barely believe it. He felt the wind in his face as he had never known on his slanter bike. He was virtually flying. Nothing could stop him and nothing could catch him. He was the master of his machine. Even the birds seemed slow as they flew by him. Sure enough, his father was right. He could do it after all. He could ride his bike the way it is supposed to be ridden. He was finally in full control. All he needed now to make his feat complete was for all the neighborhood children to see him slice past them.

Heading to the end of the block, Bobby carefully made a wide turn to ride back down his street. He wanted to slice the length of it, cut into his driveway, and roll into his yard with bravado. He negotiated the turn surprisingly well and drove the pedals hard to pick up speed. Cutting through the early evening air as a cycling dynamo, he straightened his back and stood up on the pedals, so the other children would notice and be amazed.

However, to Bobby's sudden deflation, not a single child remained on the street. All had retired for dinner. Even the unruly kids who were usually late going into their homes for dinner had disappeared. Collapsing onto his seat, he reduced his effort and slowly veered into his driveway. He felt like crying. All that struggle and success had gone entirely unnoticed. Crestfallen he rolled to a stop beside the garage and as if in slow motion fell over to one foot. He was about to throw his bike down in a tantrum when he looked up and saw his mother and father on the porch. They were smiling proudly.

"You did it, Bobby," Mary said. "You learned to ride your bicycle all by yourself."

"Good work, son," Tom said. "I knew you could do it."

Bobby's mood suddenly changed. He felt bigger and taller than ever. A smile spread across his face like the rising sun. He stepped up to the porch with the swagger befitting a six-year old boy who had just learned to ride his first bicycle. Passing between his parents, he felt their congratulatory hands on his shoulders. His father squeezed his neck firmly, and his mother tousled his hair and kissed his forehead.

As he entered his home and became absorbed by the warm encompassing sphere of his family, he was thoroughly satisfied with himself. He enjoyed his meal with unusual gusto that evening because he was looking forward to the next day when he would ride his new bike out to the street and join the neighborhood children. This, he thought, would be the best year of his life.

THE DOLL IN THE GARDEN

Every Halloween the scarecrow had been fun for our family. Practically a Kingsley tradition. Gorgee, as we called it, had never done much of a job scaring away crows. They actually seemed to enjoy perching on its floppy hat, its crooked outstretched arms. That big, old, tattered mannequin stuffed with rags was better used for scaring kids. That most fantastic of holidays to kids had always been grandly improved by Gorgee. I say had. My twelfth Halloween was very different.

Our family first got the idea to make the scarecrow part of the holiday when my sister and I were children. I think my father was the one with the bright idea. He was always coming up with practical jokes and crazy antics for celebration. Whenever a birthday or any holiday occurred, dad would always make a big production out of it, not in the ordinary domestic way of cake, gifts, and costumes, but in the most outlandish scenarios.

So we were not surprised when dad turned the scarecrow into a Halloween creature. That was not exactly its birth; it had been hanging futilely in the garden for years. But that October he embellished it as a thing in keeping with the season and the day of all souls--that most wonderful time when the whole world seems orange and black and sweet, and when darkness means both fun and fear.

This particular garden dummy began in the style of all scarecrows: worn out clothes stuffed with dry grass. My mother sewed my father's castoff long-sleeved shirt and pants into one continuous garment. My father molded it to resemble a man and then stuck it on a stake in the garden to keep the crows away.

Crows are scared of humans but quickly learn the difference between a flesh and blood human and a fake one. And before three days their cacophonous calls were scoffing at my father's effort. They appeared even to enjoy the new decoration in the middle of their vegetable plot. They would perch on the pathetic bag of weeds while resting from their systematic plundering of our cornlets and salad green sprouts. So my father had to devise another use for the "unscarecrow", as he started calling it. Being the imaginative man he is, he naturally turned it into the perfect Halloween fixture.

First, he motorized the thing--the funniest part of the Gorgee episode. Using a small battery motor, dad made the stake impaling the thing rotate back and forth, causing the dummy's joint less limbs to flop and its head bob crazily. That was the first thing dad did to make Gorgee scary, and it worked well until the kid's figured out its movement. When my father added the sound effects, though, the scariness reached another level. Then we started calling the thing Gorgee.

My father had the sound system rigged so the dummy seemed to howl in a reverberating noise: "Gor-gee! Gorr-geee! Gorrrr-geeee!" I never could figure out what it was supposed to mean, but it was terrifying, especially after dark--on Halloween. When the thing not only danced maniacally on its spike but also hollered in the chill blackness, we all got goose bumps. And the costumed kids, hopeful for bags full of sugar in various forms, turned tail and ran, until the spine-thrumming noise faded behind them. All much to my pleasure. During the Gorgee years, little of the candy in the bowl by the door disappeared, much to my and my sister's delight. A bountiful bonus for having the scariest house on the block. In our neighborhood, I felt like a prince of the unholy night. But then the tide of terror turned. And for some reason, it turned on me.

After a particularly prodigal Halloween night, I was lying in bed, my belly stuffed with candy corn and licorice sticks. My bedroom looked out on the garden, so I always had full view of Gorgee beyond the giant oak tree that framed my window. After his annual horror show, he would hang on his spike like an executed man. I used to feel sorry for him--alone and dampened by the chill cusp of November. But I was more preoccupied with my sadness at the inevitable end of the too brief holiday frolic. In the midst of my centripetal focus it happened.

Nearly midnight. A full moon like none I had ever seen illumined the land around our house so brightly I could see dew forming on the rim of Gorgee's old Stetson. Besides being quite dyspeptic I was rapt. The scene was so gothically intriguing I had no interest in sleep. But then, just as a warm drowse was overtaking me, something happened that would keep me awake for hours.

I thought I saw the scarecrow move. Of course I was imagining it. But I swore Gorgee moved. Subtly at first. So subtly I wanted to believe it merely my eye twitching. But then he moved again. His pillow head dropped slowly to his chest as though he had died. I focused my eyes, trying to figure it out. What in hell--? Had the thing simply fallen off the spike? Did dad do it? Had to be so. My father was the master of such machinations. And I would have made him responsible for it, had I not suffered the next hours in fear for my life.

Gorgee's head lay still as stone on his distended breast for several heartbeats, when slowly, as slowly as the turning of the Earth, he swiveled and faced me. I swear to God! He looked straight at me. I use the word looked figuratively, for he had only outlined eyes. Still, the scarecrow faced my window and looked right into my eyes with his blank face.

I had to watch to see if he would move again or to know if the whole episode had been my over sweetened imagination. Apparently not. The thing raised his shapeless arm and waved his limp white garden glove, the boneless fingers foolishly flapping around his pudgy face. That was it. I dived under the covers like a squirrel into his hole. What I could not see could not hurt me. Right? Panting and trembling, I lay there, waiting, listening. But nothing happened. Calming down, feeling confident, and gasping for air, I dragged the covers from my face.

Bang!

Gorgee's face smashed against the windowpane, its fabric squeezed to form what appeared to be eye sockets. Worse, he was smiling! Not happily but madly! And his flimsy hands were rattling the glass. I could not believe my eyes. But he was there. Somehow he had unhooked his back from the nail on his post, scrambled across the garden, over the fence, and climbed up to my bedroom window.

With my eyes attached to Gorgee's bobbing head, I backpedaled out of my bed and then slipped and slid backward to my bedroom door. I dared not let the thing out of my sight for fear he would enter my room. Irrationally I thought he would stay where he was, if I kept him in sight. Maybe my hiding under the bed covers had allowed him to move. I was not going to let that happen again if I could in all my boy-power prevent it. I struggled to find the door knob. Locked. I had been lately given to locking my door at night. Privacy. Now I was trapped by my own fixation.

I reached around and behind my head frantically and futilely but could not find the lock. I was going to have to turn my head. If I could escape the room, I could escape the scarecrow. Calculating as quick a move as I could muster, I spun my head around, spotted the brass fixture, unlocked it, and then snapped my head back to find the scarecrow. Still at my window?

No. Gone!

Had I been seeing things? Had the whole episode been a movie of my sugared brain? He was not at the window. I stretched my neck to see, to make certain the thing was back on his pole in the garden where he belonged. But I could not clearly see. Without taking my eyes off the window, I wobbled toward the bed. Then something long and slack caught the blurry edge of my vision.

Not thinking, only sensing, I shot a look at the bed and instantly flew backward, landing on my butt and sliding across the floor. Gorgee was lying on my bed sheet, his limp legs crossed, his loose arms folded behind his head. Looking straight at me and about to speak.

I flew to the door, flung it open, and ran with terror powering rubbery legs down the hallway to my parents' room. I pounded on their door and pushed it open without waiting for an invitation. This was a dire emergency. No time for protocol. A matter of life and death. A big stupid doll stuffed with weeds was all it was, yes, but one that had apparently developed the ability to move around at will.

Before my father could blast me from the room for invading their privacy, I screamed my reason for it. But I could barely get the words out of my mouth, as I felt a paralysis overtaking my whole body. "G-g-gor-gee!" I gasped.

"What?" my father snapped.

"G-g-gor-gee!" I squeaked.

"Gorgee!" he cried. "What in hell has that damned scarecrow got to do with you coming into our room without permission, boy?" father bellowed. And he was flexing to fly out of bed, naked or not, when my mother stopped him.

"Wait, dear." She scrutinized my expression. "What is it, Ronnie? What about Gorgee?"

I could barely catch my breath. "He, he--" I tried to point my meaning in the vague direction of my room.

"He what, son?" my father said.

"He moved!"

"He moved!" my parents said in unison.

"He jumped off his pole, walked to my window, and climbed into my room."

"Jumped! Walked! Climbed!" My father was on the verge of blowing his top.

"You must have been dreaming, Ronnie," my mother said.

Maybe it had been only a nightmare. I have always had a hyperbolic imagination--as my mother says. Maybe the whole incident had been simply a Halloween fantasy. Yes, that was it. Of course. What had I been thinking? Climbed into my window--bah! Gratefully, I smiled at my mother's wisdom. She knew. My father knew too but he was not going to let me get away without a tongue-lashing. So I turned tail and sped out of their room, mortified to have invaded their holy of holies. They could have been in the middle of--well, luckily they were behaving themselves.

I trudged back to my room but before bounding into it I peered around the door carefully to make sure Ol' Gorgee was not still taking a nap on my bed. He was not there. Whew! I had imagined the whole thing. And I could verify it by looking out the window to see him hanging where he belonged--in the garden. But I did not do that. I was certain he was there, just as mom had implied. Deep inside me, though, the residual fear had not dissipated. And it prevented me from making rigorous confirmation. I preferred to dwell in the comfortable reassurance my mother had offered without knowing any other possibilities. She was right. Always right. Had to be right this time too.

But when I slid into bed, I sensed something wholly unsuitable. I knew my bedroom like my own body. Something was amiss--out of place or--I stared into the blackness for a few moments and listened the way a prey animal listens. Nothing. Not a sound. Not even my own breathing. Slowly I reclined and laid my head on the pillow. Still I could not relax. I felt that something or someone was in the room with me. Was it the memory of Gorgee? Or my imagining of Gorgee? Or was it--?

I could not allow my mind to go where it was heading. And I desperately wanted to return to the sweet oblivion of sleep, hopefully a dreamless one. So I buried myself under the covers and huddled as a fetus. I struggled to clear my head of any fantastic fears but the more I tried, the more awake I became. No use. I was condemned to wait restlessly for the dawn. I would be exhausted but then I would be safe. No scarecrow or any other monster would dare walk the Earth in the true light of day.

Then it happened. I am to this day not sure what actually occurred. All I can remember is that I was lying there, hoping the morning sunlight would soon illumine my bed covers. But some time during those cold, dark hours before dawn, my fantastic fears became real, embodied.

I felt a tugging at my covers. At first I thought Trixie, our Spaniel, was pulling on them, so I looked out of my hiding place and over the bed side to see if she was there. No. She seldom left my little sister's bed at night. They were inseparable. Seeing nothing in the darkness, I retreated to my makeshift womb.

Presently I felt something tickling my feet. I scratched it as if an itch that would go away. And to my immense dismay I touched a coarse material that could not be part of my bed. I jerked my feet up as close to my butt as I could place them. Maybe my foot was going to sleep, having been motionless for so long.

Then something grabbed my ankle and pulled me to the side of the bed. I latched onto the other side of the mattress to keep from sliding. I knew what had me, who had me. It was Gorgee! He had hidden under my bed, a wild animal lying in wait until I was completely vulnerable and to make sure my parents were not going to show themselves in my room. He was a shrewd scarecrow.

His grip for being a sack of weeds was that of a shackle, one with stickers in it. I could not free myself no matter how much I yanked. He was pulling me off the bed to get me under it to commit some horrible act on my tender young person. I was helpless. I was going to die--be beaten to death, eaten alive, or worse by a rag 'n' weed doll. I could not believe it.

I tried to scream for help but could not fill my lungs. I only gasped and choked on my terror. And I was weakening. I could not hold on for long. Even though my grip was supercharged with adrenaline, I was failing. If I lost my tenuous hold I would be at his mercy. But Halloween monsters show no mercy.

With untapped strength I stretched my arm across the bed and grabbed the side of the headboard with my fingertips. Clawing and scratching at the polished wood, I curved my trembling fingers around the edge. There I found a renewed passion to survive. "Daddy!" I screamed. "Daddy! Daddy! Help--me! Daaddyy!" I knew my father was the only one on the planet capable of fighting off a maniacally animated scarecrow and saving me from odious ruin. I held on bravely until he could come to me, burst like a knight errant into my room, and tear Gorgee limb from weedy limb. He had created him, he could destroy him. "Daaaaddyyyyyy!"

The thought of succumbing to that garden variety incubus underneath my own bed charged me with superhuman effort. With all my might I pulled my body to wrench it loose from Gorgee's grip. Miraculously I felt him give way. Could I escape his hideously unholy intentions? Could I, a mere child, break free from the clasp of this demon?

No. I was being dragged under the bed despite my super boy efforts. And when he gripped me with his other ragged hand, I knew I was lost. I felt, I watched myself being hauled into the bowels of iniquity. Securing me with one hand, he grasped my pajama top and yanked me down, down to the pit of horror that I knew had always lain under my bed. I was going to die, not only die but be defiled by the hand of the most horrible monster I had ever read in books or seen in movies. Most horrible, because this one was real. "Daddy! DADDY!" I screamed as loud as I could, making my throat raw.

I turned to look at my attacker. Now that I was done for, I felt a strangely numb indifference surge through my being. Since I was going to be killed, I wanted to spit in the eye of my murderer, go out with a little pre-adolescent spunk. But Gorgee had no eyes in his sack face. He had, however, developed a mouth. It was smiling and it had become full of big sharp teeth. "Daaddyyyy!" I was desperate to know why my father was not there yet. He had always come to my rescue when I was having bad dreams. Why not now when my nightmare was real?

Gorgee opened his mouth like a garmented gargoyle and lunged at my mid-section. What? He was going to take a large bite out of my belly. Oh, God! I could not stand a bite out of my belly. That would really hurt. I tried to kick him in the crotch the way I had seen women and boys and some unfair men do in the movies. But he gripped both my ankles with his huge hand, actually an old garden glove stuffed with weeds, yet red as if covered with blood. I was amazed that something apparently so flimsy could grip so tightly and hold me fast.

As his round head full of musty grass pushed toward me, I sucked in my belly and prepared to scream like the devil, one last scream to wake the living and the dead, since I was about to enter their dark domain. At the moment Gorgee was about to bury his straw-yellow fangs into my quivering flesh, my father crashed through the door of my room. He always entered rooms that way, as if to save someone in danger, and at last he arrived in the nick of time to save his only boy-child from a certain and disgusting demise.

Now I was convinced I could escape the fiend. With renewed energy I yanked at my captured feet, shoved with my hands against the scarecrow's soft head, and waited for my father to attack the monster, tear him to shreds, and bundle me in his arms.

"Ronnie! What in hell are you screaming about?" he bellowed. I had not expected to be the target of his wrath. I had thought he would see my predicament and assail the bag of evil attacking me beneath my own bed. But no. My father lit into me--not Gorgee--as I lay under the bed. "You're worrying your mother, sick, son. Now, get into bed and go back to sleep."

I stared at him in disbelief. Did he not see the seedy thing about to devour me? Could he not notice that the beast was trying to feed upon me? It was dark in the room, but full moonlight illumined enough space for anyone to see even the filigree patterns on the rug that lay between my bed and the door. Why could my father not see the macabre monster that was threatening to ravage my tender person? Why would father not save me from evil? He was my protector. He was supposed to keep me from harm. And this was harm in the first degree. "Daddy!" I screamed with the full force of my terror. "Gorgee is trying to eat me!"

"Gorgee!" he said curiously. "That old scarecrow again?"

I felt a firm human hand grasp my arm and yank me from under the bed. I expected Gorgee to attack my father for trying to deny him his supper. But miraculously the thing let go of me and withdrew like smoke sucked into a vacuum. My father picked me up and lifted me onto my bed. I saw him look out the window. After he had stared into the garden for a moment, a slight smile crept across his shadowed face. "So he got to you too, eh?" He was stifling a laugh. I could not believe it. My own father was making light of my terrifying and near fatal collision with the unholy. "I guess he did his Halloween job this year," father said. "May not be much good for scaring away crows but he sure does well scaring kids." His smothered laughter was utterly annoying.

I wondered what my father appeared to have seen in the garden that made him so gleeful. How could any father be gleeful after seeing his firstborn nearly consumed by an agent of the Night of the Dead? Unbelievable. Unable to contain my curiosity and starting to feel safe once again, I peered through my bedroom window and surveyed the garden in the waning moonlight. What?! Could my eyes be trusted? Had I been dreaming afterall?

There in the middle of the small patch of desiccated vegetable plants right beside the house, Ol' Gorgee hung on his stake just as he had hung for years. Not a monster. Not a bloodthirsty destroyer of little boys. Not even a puppet that could move all by himself. Only a stuffed thing on a stick. An object that frightened away no birds but only boys and girls with big imaginations on the night when the souls of the dead rise from their graves and walk the Earth with witches and goblins and countless other beasts born from timeless human fears.

I looked at my father's face. He was smiling at me with reassurance. I threw my arms around him and denied my tears. He patted my back, stroked my head, and lay me on my pillow. "You have a wonderful mind for the fantastic, Ronnie, my son. But remember--this is real. Here with your mother and your sister and me. He kissed my forehead with his bristly face. "I know you may not be able to close your eyes for the rest of the night," he said, "but try to go back to sleep. I want you rested so you can help me in the yard tomorrow."

I did not want to let go of his big hand. I wanted him to stand guard over me for the rest of the night, the rest of my life. And when he turned and walked away from my bed, I held my breath with residual fear. But when he stopped in the doorway, turned, and again bestowed on me that worldwide smile of his, I knew I was going to survive.

When he was gone, I turned toward the window and gazed into the glowing night sky. The great oak outside my window framed Gorgee in the middle of the garden where he belonged. I kept my eyes on him for a long time to confirm his stationary position. Not once before my eyelids became too heavy to sustain further vigilance did he as much as flinch in my direction. Only an autumn breeze tousled his rags and the weeds that stuck out of his neck. Straightening the bedsheets and sweeping off a few small sprigs of grass, I let go of my fear for the season. And as I let myself fall into that sweet warm void, I thought I certainly must have been dreaming to think a dumb old thing had become spontaneously mobile.
The scarecrow was on his stake where he belonged. My coffers were filled with candy. My family was asleep in the house. And my father was ready to drive away the ghouls and ghosts, should I beckon. All was well in the Kingsley home for another night. Nevertheless, every fall season I always recollect that particular October holiday with a shiver from head to toe. Gorgee the Scarecrow's imagined attack was so vivid I will never look at another big stuffed doll in a garden in the same casual way. From then on they were mysterious things that could incorporate strange powers only children on Halloween would ever know.

THE LAST MAN ON EARTH

A cataclysm has wiped out nearly all the human species. A lone man wanders the wasteland searching for water and food. Unfamiliar with the natural world while trying to find sustenance, he destroys some surviving plants and small animals. Much of them are inedible, beautiful creatures that could have helped remake the planet into a vibrant wonderland. During his reckless search and destructive behavior, he happens upon a placer full of gold nuggets. He cheers and celebrates himself as the richest man on Earth. He passes days and nights admiring and dreaming about his treasure until hunger drives him to find nourishment. After hiding his cache with dry brush, he searches far afield for food. When he returns with something in his stomach, he stops short on a hill high overlooking the place of his gold. He panics. A person is milling around his hiding place. Fearing the theft of his wealth, he starts a landslide toward the person. Tons of rock slide to the base of the hill. When the man runs to the bottom, he finds the person's mangled limbs sticking out of a huge pile of rocks. He discovers the dead body to be that of a young woman, once pretty, and possibly the last one on the planet. Her lifeless body lies crushed amid scores of enormous boulders enclosing his fortune.

KING OF THE CHRISTMAS TREES

Long ago in a great rainforest of northwestern America a rare tree was born. The newborn broke ground in spring before all the snow melted, and its first tender shoot gleamed in breezy sunlight shining through the broad, lofty boughs of its parent tree and many ancestors surrounding it. Naturally, countless trees have been born in the forest, but few of them have been of such fine fir lineage, for this little tree's predecessors were some of the oldest, biggest, and grandest trees in the world. So when the young tree looked toward the sky and saw all those giants around it, it felt both awe and immense pride.

"What wonderful trees!" it cried, and its little stalk trembled.

While an infant tree, it enjoyed the protection of the rich forest floor, for, although deer, bear, mountain lion, and many other animals inhabited the woods, they were no threat to the little tree, so sheltered was it among the titans of the dense grove. Even though the tasty shoot of a young tree is a favorite food for deer and rabbits, the little one grew through those vulnerable first years to become a sanguine sapling.

Happy were the days of childhood for the little tree as it grew among its siblings and neighbors. It delighted in the woods: the brilliant moss, the textured lichen, the strange mushrooms, and the delicate flowers--even the slugs and spiders and other little creatures crawling around it. Plenty of sunlight and rain trickled through the branches of its extended forest family, and abundant fertile soil spread around its feet, so that it grew fast and strong. It soon outstripped its numerous fellows ranging around the foundations of the full grown trees.

"Look how big and strong I am!" it showed the others.

The other trees swayed in amazement around it and with the wind whispered about its stunning growth. Even the big, old trees murmured about the surprising sapling, their admiration carried on the wind to the highest treetops. All the forest was swelling with pride for this promising royalty of the evergreens.

However, as life does not always go the way one would hope, something happened that changed the little tree. In becoming very different from the others, it began to look over-grown and awkward. None of the symmetry graced its shape that made its young fellows so charming. This fact alone might not have affected the tree in any significant way if not for the attitudes of human visitors to the forest.

Humans came to the woods for several reasons: to enjoy Nature, to log for lumber, to sightsee, and to find Christmas trees. And they made their visits seem so important by how they studied, judged, and selected the trees that many of the firs in the forest seemed to want to please them. Many but not all. The older, bigger trees knew better. And, although they could do nothing about the attitudes and actions of humans, they looked down upon them with severe disdain.

The young prince, however, was not experienced enough to know this and it wanted ardently to be admired by the humans. Yet, when the admirers and selectors of trees walked through the woods, they seldom paid any attention to the awkward young fir. And when they did so, they mocked and rejected the poor tree.

"Oh, see that strange-looking tree!"

"What a monster!"

"Hee-hee!"

"That looks more like a big old briar than a Christmas tree."

"Hee-hee-hee!"

And laughing so, they would all saunter past the tree to find those most cone shaped, not too short and not too tall. The prince of trees would watch them pass and it would sag sadly. These visitors to the forest did not know the tree they rejected was royalty of the realm. If they had, though, they probably would not have believed it.

When the humans left the forest every year before Christmas, dragging beautiful young fir trees behind them, the young prince always became morose, its branches hung to the ground and its crest drooped. It had never felt so bad and never known life could be so miserable. It felt a failure. All of those important-looking human animals had not only turned their backs on it but also derided it for being so ugly. When rain dripped off its boughs and snow clung to them, it relished the experience for it wanted its sadness washed away and concealed. Even the long sheltering branches from the giants around it did nothing to assuage its profound self-pity.

So infamous had the evergreen prince become among the humans who visited the forest that word of its ugliness spread to photographers, painters, sightseers, and even to loggers. One by one, group by group, they all ignored the young tree, considering it deformed and therefore worthless to their respective interests. The prince did not see this neglect as anything but a major affront to its coniferous dignity, especially being shunned by the loggers. If the lumberjacks did not want it, it must be useless. And, as if to make things worse for itself, it grew even bigger and taller each year; consequently sadder. If it had become disease-ridden, insect infested, or struck by lightning, or even burned to the ground, it would not have cared. It had seen the big, old dead snags in the woods and had always shuddered at the sight of their bare, pale carcasses. Now it was seeing them as its destiny and was ready to resign itself to it for the rest of its life.

Then, as life has a way of turning up a surprise, something further occurred to change the world of the tree prince; something it never would have expected in scores of season cycles. But the occurrence was so slow it scarcely noticed it.

As the decades rolled by and the tree grew, it gradually stretched out of its awkward shape, left its youthful asymmetry beneath it and became one of the most majestic fir trees in the forest. After a hundred years its girth was as big around as three mature firs standing together and its height was promising to poke a hole in the blue sky. Its bark was powerfully plated as roughhewn armor, its limbs were muscular and numerous, its dense green needles were lustrous, and its stature was straight and tall, taller even than one or two of the hills around it. The prince of the Christmas trees was growing up to be the king.

Now the humans were beginning to look upon it with awe instead of scorn. Beyond their simple covetousness of trees to decorate their winter holiday they admired it for its absolute grandeur. Humans visited it from all over the world to see the new majestic tree. And its royal highness was so pumped with pride that sap raced up its trunk, spread its branches wider, and pushed its glorious head even higher, so that one day it rose above those of all the trees in the forest, even close to those of the eldest ancestors, and the new king's crown showed above the treetops, its royalty visible for miles.

The king basked in the sunlight high above the swarming adulation below and not once again did it feel sorry for itself as the tree nobody wanted. Now it was sought by sightseers, by photographers, by scientists, by historians, and particularly by certain others who had rejected it in the past. Now it was worth money, lots and lots of money. And when something in this world is worth money, humans pay attention.

So they came as an invading army. First, the estimators, then the salesmen, then the bidders, and then the tree cutters. They came to compete for the opportunity of felling this treasured tower. The great new king of the forest was flattered by the overwhelming attention of all the humans scurrying around its massive base the way ants had scurried around it when it was only a sapling. It might have been more flattered if it understood what the phrase "hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of board footage" meant. But, if it did not fully understand the extreme consequence of the phrase as it applied to it, it had an inkling, for it had seen its brethren fall at the hands of the tree cutters. It had heard their branches breaking on the way down. It had also heard the human cry of "Timber!" It had felt stricken tree crashing to the Earth, shaking the ground around them, causing even its lower needles to tremble. It had witnessed all of this but now laughed at it from its deepest roots to the tiptop of its trunk. It was the king. Nothing like that could happen to the king. Or so it imagined.

"Take 'er down!" the humans cried.

When it heard that command, the venerable king believed they were referring to some other tree, not to it. It did not realize that its magnificent physique made the tree cutters crazy to cut it down, chop it up, and saw it into pieces. It did not know that in their collective but single-track mind they would drop it, make a thunderous death-knell on the ancient forest floor, and cheer its demise. Fortunately, its grand presence also found meaning with those humans who want trees of its ilk to continue standing, humans who see them as monuments to the glory of Nature.

When news of the threat to it traveled around the world, humans came to save the tree. "God save the king!" they cried, fully realizing that help from a deity would be most likely forthcoming if they themselves helped to save the tree.

So, growing a campaign from the ground, they recruited thousands of humans who wanted to keep the great tree standing. With pressure targeted on both commercial and political interests, they convinced enough of the powers of money and position to join them against the lumber companies. Despite their resentment at being pressured by a bunch of "tree-huggers"--as they call them, the plutocrats and the pullers of their purse strings knew how to keep their bread buttered and on which side. So the humans who wanted to keep the trees won the contest with the humans who wanted to cut the trees, and they saved the old giant.

For centuries thereafter the great fir stood above the tops of all the trees around it in the rainforest of the Pacific Northwest. Although most of its kin were decimated by holiday and logging hosts out to adorn their habitats or fatten their bank accounts, the evergreen fir that had sprung from the wooded soil centuries ago, stretched into a gangly youth, and had matured to touch the sky--the great tree survived. The King of the Christmas Trees endured for a thousand years before it finally fell, toppling from old age to the forest floor with a thunderous boom that resounded throughout the land. For decades more its massive carcass provided a home to animals and smaller plants. Out of the fertile decay of its magnificent body into rich loam countless offspring have sprouted and flourished through the years. And the royal heritage would continue. Among those saplings reaching to the sky a new prince would soar above the others and in time become the new monarch of the northwest woods.

"God save the king!"

SAVING MONICA

Vapor enveloped the buildings like the ghost of a demonic python crawling out of a subterranean cavern. Martin Ray liked this kind of atmosphere in stark contrast to the environments he usually searched. Weary from trudging through the drifts of filthy urban debris to find the right subject for the day, he was close to giving up and returning to his car when he spied a young woman walking out of Riverside Mall. A long-limbed creature in a black leather pantsuit, she bore substantial hips yet small breasts--the shape he preferred. Her slender hand rose to sweep a coil of chestnut hair from her eyes and she randomly looked his way. At that moment he took the first shot then fired off several more in a row before she turned a corner.

Martin dropped the camera to his side and ran after the woman, hoping for two or three more takes before breaking off the hunt. Following her into a parking garage, he adjusted the exposure and caught her a few more times before she reached her car--a sleek silver thing, exactly what he expected her to drive. In his enthusiasm to see her in as many frames as possible before she left his sight forever, he became careless and moved too close.

The buzzing film advance alerted her. Turning her head sharply, hair eclipsing then revealing her face like a cloud across the moon, she spotted him. With one hand on something in her bag, she let the window down and smiled as though tempting a priest to break his vow. "You the press or a pervert?" Despite the challenge her mezzo-soprano voice sang across the space to him, her breath visible in the chill of late autumn.

Bringing the rest of his body from behind a pillar, Martin turned on an ingratiating smile and said, "Neither. Freelance journalist. And I photograph beautiful women on the side. Thought I'd immortalize you."

She laughed as though the meaning of life had become a stupid joke and then said, "And invade my privacy in the process." When she pulled her hand out of the bag, it held a gun with enough power to shatter the camera, shred Martin's inner organs, and knock a chunk out of the concrete wall behind him.

Martin swung the camera to his rear and raised his hands. "Whoa there, lady! I didn't mean to...."

"Give me the film and maybe I won't call the cops."

Martin started to turn away but, sensing a definite determination in her gun hand, he stepped forward while manipulating the camera at his side. Handing her a roll of film, he said with a look that imitated anger, "You're taking bread out of my mouth, you know."

Firing the engine, she shouted, "Look at it this way, cameraman--I'm allowing you to zoom another day."

While raising her window, she backed out of the space and on squealing tires raced to the exit. Martin watched her car disappear in traffic. "What a goddamned princess!" he said and grinned all the way back to his car.

In his darkroom as Martin developed the slides, he was pleased with the cleverness at his little gambit of surrendering a phony roll of film. Studying the photos on a light table, searching for the gem that makes art worthwhile, he felt he could become an acolyte in adoration of this new woman in his visual life. He was becoming aroused, when something in one of the frames caught his eye: an unexpected shape. Glancing over the other pictures on the roll, Martin saw the same shape in others. Using a hand viewer, he could barely make out a distant image, humanlike and secretive, as if someone spying.

He selected the slide with the best definition, made an inter-negative, then a large print. Using a magnifier, he saw the stronger suggestion of a human face with big black eyes. To get better resolution he scanned the slide into his computer and with a special program enlarged the image. A face. But not big eyes. Binoculars! Someone apparently had been spying in the garage.

Martin paced his studio from the darkroom door to a big bay window in his living room. When he stopped to stare aimlessly over the distant sea, his eyes reflected a little worry and a lot of wonder. Who was the binoculars watching? The woman, him, or both of them? Martin felt a rush of chivalry, a surge that could simply have been a pulse in his loins, but he liked to think of himself as a knight with a camera. Martin noted the time and place he had first spotted the woman in the mall and then, projecting the best slide onto his ceiling that night, he lay in bed and stared at the woman's beautiful image, fantasizing about saving her from the clutches of a murderous stalker, a feat for which he imagined she would be immensely grateful and reward him with her undying lust. After the climax and denouement to his private film about sex and photographic art, Martin Ray fell asleep and dreamed of nothing nearly as exciting as the woman in black.

Several days passed before he saw her again. When the gorgeous woman walked into the garage almost as if promenading in a fashion show, Martin stayed out of sight and kept his camera ready. Now interested more in a threat to her life, he jumped into his car to follow her. But before he reached the exit, another car cut in front of his. The driver was a blur, but Martin had a hunch he was a flesh and blood version of the strange image in the photos.

The three of them traveled down Ventura Boulevard a mile or two until she turned onto Coldwater Canyon Drive and cut into the underground garage of a posh apartment complex. When the stranger's car wheeled in after her, Martin parked on the street. After he turned off the engine, he could hear only his pounding heart. Who in hell is this guy? An old friend? Family? A lover? Martin realized he was involving himself in a situation that might lead to big trouble or at least major embarrassment. But he had gone too far to care about that now.

Leaving his car, he crept along a low wall around the building and hid among a clump of bottlebrush. From there he scanned the dark space. Nothing but cars. He was about to return to his own, when he heard a scuffle.

A scream.

Electrified he leaped over the wall and dashed among the cars, searching for the woman. As if on stage, she appeared beneath an elevator light. The man was gripping her face with one hand and her leather belt with the other. He seemed to be whispering something into her ear while she struggled. Her bag at her feet, she was stretching one arm to reach it.

With a burgeoning interest in saving the captivating young woman, Martin flew at her assailant with both hands like talons and grabbed his bald head, fingers locking onto his ears. Faster than Martin could blink, the man let go of the woman, spun out of his grip, and drove a huge fist into his face, another into his throat. Martin gasped and crumpled to the concrete floor. About to kick his head with a steel-toed boot, the attacker froze at the same instant as a sharp cough echoed off the concrete columns. He jerked once, stood stone still, mouth open, eyes bulging, and then fell forward onto Martin with blood oozing out of his nose onto Martin's chest.

"Jesus Christ--!" he hollered, pushing the twitching body off him and crawling out from under it. "You shot him!"

The woman glanced around the garage and said, "Damn right--he was going to kill me!"

"But...!"

"Maybe you too." She waved the gun at him but then shoved it into her purse and zipped it closed with a snap of her wrist as if an old hand at closing body bags. "I might have saved your life."

"But you murdered a man--right here where people live--in the middle of the day!"

"You would've preferred night?" The shadow of a grin flickered across her lovely face.

Martin kept focused on her as he got to his feet. "You act as though you swatted a bug."

Long lashes slowly dropped over her dark eyes then lifted like veils. "Look. I've gotta call this in before someone else does. You all right?"

Martin nodded with little certainty as he licked his bloody mouth and swallowed hard.

"Then you'd better take off--" she said, "unless you wanna be involved."

He thought about the suggestion but quickly convinced himself she did not need his testimony. His eyes asked the question before his mouth: "Who...?"

"Monica." Her full lips seemed to caress the first letter of her name then pucker into a kiss, as she asked "And who are you, my hero?"

He answered and waited for her surname.

But she only thanked him for the help and then pulled out a phone and punched a call. "You mind?" She turned to walk aimlessly across the garage as if phoning for a grocery list. Martin heard her mumble something about a "crew", "blown cover", and "assassination". He strained to hear more but, when her brown eyes hit him like a 1200 volts, he kept his distance. She nodded for him to leave. Hearing a siren, he obliged.

When Martin got back into his car, he did not drive away, being too eager to see what the cops would do to the woman who had executed a man as if a paper target on a shooting range. He saw the police question her, the emergency medics haul away the body, and Monica step into the elevator, the doors closing between her and the law. When they left the scene without speaking further, the word "Wow!" fell out of Martin's mouth. She must have the right connections, he thought. Sensing a good story, he switched into career mode and hunkered down behind the steering wheel, hoping to see her again before dark.

Deep night before she reappeared. Martin, halfway into a dream about a world gone mad, nearly missed her. She moved like a cat in the shadows. An alluring and dangerous predator. The images of her in his photographs were branded on his mind. The memory of her killing a man made him shiver. The sight of her in the flesh swelled his pants.

Staying about a block behind her car, he followed north across the San Fernando Valley and crawled into the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. Near the end of a winding road in the Big Tujunga Canyon, she stopped at an iron gate in the middle of a high stonewall. When she said something into a speaker, the gate opened, and she drove up a long driveway to a doublewide mobile home set among some diseased trees. Martin passed the gate and watched her graceful legs move out of the car. Parking about a quarter of a mile up the street, he grabbed his camera with a telephoto lens and trotted back to the corner of the wall. Luckily the moon was new, so he could scramble onto the barrier at a place where eucalyptus branches concealed him from neighbors and passersby. Through the long lens, he aimed through a window and watched Monica talking to several people, mostly men, mostly big, and one small woman. Instinctively he worked the shutter.

Encircling Monica, the group all appeared intensely interested in a story she was telling them. Or were they suspicious? Martin zoomed in on each of their faces but could not be sure in the light of the room. When she stopped her tale, the small woman rushed her, waving an automatic pistol. Monica stood her ground, one hand crawling into the bag at her side. A big man tried to calm the attacker, but she would not oblige him. Thinking Monica might be in trouble, Martin was considering calling the police when he saw the man put his arm around her and smile. The angry woman spun away and stomped out of sight.

When the rest of them walked into the kitchen and sat around a table, Martin scooted along the wall to keep them in view. Through the lens he found a large sheet of paper, a map, spread among them. All were looking at it and listening to the big man speak as he slowly dragged his finger across the paper. Martin strained to see details on it. With the darkness of the night sneaking into his mind he whispered, "What is she--a gangster?" He believed his question answered when one of the men set a bundle of weapons onto the table and each of them took one as if arms for a platoon. A slender fellow laid a briefcase onto the table and flipped it open. Inside, a wired mechanism. Martin held his breath and worked the camera until panic stopped him.

Grabbing his phone, he tapped 911 and breathlessly asked for the police. When they balked at coming to the scene, he raised his voice. He told them about suspicious men and women in a remote house. Lots of weapons. Maybe a bomb! Still they expressed surprisingly little interest but plenty of doubt. Was he a prankster? Did he realize he could be prosecuted and jailed for falsifying an emergency? As a journalist Martin Ray knew all that. Would they come to the address in the Big Tujunga or not? When they told him to call back if he saw anyone breaking the law, he knew that further conversation would be futile. He had to prove it with pictures.

Before he could return his camera to position, something shoved it into his face, jamming his eye. Something else clamped onto his hair and then dragged him off the wall to hard ground. Before he could see his attacker, he felt a massive fist slam into his belly and another smash into his face. Before he lost all sense of time and place, his one open eye caught the shape of a giant as he picked him up and carried him to the house. The next Martin knew he was looking up at a circle of heads silhouetted by a ceiling light and faces staring down at him like ringside spectators at a knockout.

As if underwater he heard a familiar woman's voice say, "I know him, Mega."

All heads turned toward Monica.

"He's been stalking me."

"A cop?" the big man asked.

"Naw. Just a guy who likes to take pictures of women. Probably jerks off to them every night."

Martin gulped.

She tried to laugh, which provoked throttled laughter from the group but failed to divert their attention from the captive on the floor.

The small woman who had previously challenged Monica said, "How do we know he ain't a cop and that you didn't lead him right to us, bitch?"

Monica laughed loudly. "This punk?"

"Whoever he is, he's seen too much," the small woman said. "We got to vanish him."

Martin felt like a rabbit in a kennel of feral dogs. And he was conscious enough to know he was probably going to die after suffering a hell of a lot of pain. "Wait--" he whimpered. "Take my film. You can have it. What do I care about a bunch of gun collectors? Here--" He tried his maneuver with a blank roll, but the small woman caught it and grabbed his hand before he could make the switch.

He nearly cursed out loud and then forced a quick short laugh to defuse the bomb he believed was about to explode all over him.

But it kept burning.

"Goddamned press!" The small woman sprayed Martin's face with spittle. The others looked at her as if surprised. "I know about his type," she said. "Always lookin' for a story. More dangerous than the feds." The others thought about it and nodded. They were closing on him when Monica spoke up.

"What--you all gonna whack him right here in the middle of the house? Then clean up all the blood and shit? Carry the body to a car? Drive it somewhere in the mountains? Or dump it into a reservoir?" She directed her words at Mega. "That would be way too much work, too messy, and very stupid."

"So what you got in mind, girl?" Mega asked, holding the others back.

"Lemme take him to a place I know--spot where only vultures and coyotes could find him."

"Need some help?" Mega asked, more telling than asking.

"Hell, no. Just be more witnesses to deal with. I do it alone, no one knows but me."

"If you do it," the small woman said.

Monica seared her with a look. "Why, Doris--you want him for yourself? You must be damned lonely nights, huh?"

Doris flew at Monica and would have sunk her nails into that gorgeous face, if Mega had not stopped her with a forearm like a crossbar. "I'm gettin' damned tired of breakin' you broads apart," he shouted. "We got work to do. Either one of you wanna be cut loose, I can arrange it." He nailed them with his flint-gray eyes.

The women stopped cold, exchanging venomous stares. Doris backed down first, knowing what Mega meant by being cut loose. She did not hate Monica enough to throw her life away. Watching Doris wilt, Monica grinned but only at the corners of her eyes.

"Monica wants to cancel this guy," Mega said, "Monica can do it her way." He focused his death beam on her. "Just be quick and get back soon. We got little time to do the job."

"Right," she said and yanked their captive to his feet, sticking her gun in his face. "Where's your camera, fool?"

"What--" Doris snarled, "you gonna take snapshots to remember him by?"

"Something to bury him with," Monica fired back at her.

All but Doris and Martin shared her mockery.

"You guys can have the camera and the film." Martin said. "I haven't seen a thing."

"So you're blind, huh?" Mega said. "You take pictures by Braille?"

The others, even Doris, laughed loudly. Monica squeezed out a sneer, jammed Martin's camera into his belly, and shoved him toward the door without another look at Mega and his crew.

In the driveway Monica kept her mouth shut and the gun on Martin until she had pulled out of the driveway and traveled a half mile up the road. When she put the weapon back into her bag, he finally let his breath go and started running escape plans through his mind.

As they ascended the mountains, Martin began calculating the time it would take to open the door and roll out of the car, guessing the damage his body would suffer when it hit the shoulder and tumbled several yards. Worth it? He figured he had a better chance to survive outside the vehicle, even with the sudden impact of flesh on stony ground.

With her eyes on the rearview mirror, Monica said, "Don't even think about it, cameraman. If the fall didn't kill you, it'd cripple you for life."

When Martin's heart slowed a little, he said, "Better than certain death."

"What makes you think I'm gonna kill you?" She pulled out a phone and punched some numbers without looking.

Martin turned to study her face to find the truth behind her words. He was surprised to see the hint of a soft smile in her eyes despite the poison they had shown at the house. Hope flickered in his breast as he waited to hear more.

"Tony?" she said into the phone. "Change of plan. Lock onto my position. I got a hunch they're on to me." Switching off, she rolled her eyes at Martin. "Don't worry--the government doesn't kill journalists--not yet. Not usually. Well, maybe only those that make us look too bad." She laughed like a schoolgirl on a date, an event right now utterly remote from the mind of Martin Ray.

"Government? You mean...?"

She looked at him with a face full of pride, playfulness, and deadly determination then nodded back to the mirror. "Thanks to you I had to compromise my cover."

Martin kept his rollout plan in mind, while asking, "Cover?"

She nodded again, her hair dancing beside her face.

The silver car climbed into the high mountains, through the haze that perpetually hung over the valley, and ascended to an altitude full of stars.

"What are those people up to?" he asked.

She turned to stone. "You know too much already. That's why I've got to make you look dead." Her eyes were often checking the mirror.

The breathless chill crept back into the center of Martin's chest.

"But I should kick the shit out of you anyway just for making me kill Cue."

"Cue--the guy in the garage?"

She snapped a brief nod and said, "Locking on to me, but I could've handled him, if you hadn't butted in...."

"I was trying to save your life."

"Yeah? And he probably would have killed you in the process. All you did was make it damned difficult for me to explain everything to Mega."

"Look, I...."

"Sure, you're sorry and all that wimpy crap but you screwed up a sting we been planning for months to bust those guys."

Martin said nothing for nearly a mile, only stared at the mountain slopes bristling with dead and dying conifers. Inwardly he was cursing himself for having blown a hot story for the sake of a beautiful woman.

"Look--" she said, her tone lightening. "I'm gonna take you to a place in the mountains and call for an agent to pick you up later tonight. Hope you're not afraid of the dark."

"I'd like to get my car back."

"Car! You're lucky to get away with your ass. You think you been to a wild frat party? Those guys would have cut your tongue out, strapped fifty pounds of explosive to your chest, flown your over LA, and dropped you like a bomb in the middle of the civic center. Forget your fuckin' car."

Reaching Charlton Flats, she swung into an empty campground. Because of the off-season, the place was devoid of other signs of human life. Jamming to a stop, skidding up a dust cloud, she pulled out her phone and punched another call. Martin studied the silhouette of her profile, watched the flutter of her lips as she spoke. She had no sooner described Martin Ray and where he was waiting for rescue, when lights flashed across the back of their heads. In her mirror she spotted two pairs of headlights coming fast. When Martin spun his head around to look, the lights nearly burned his eyes.

"I knew those bastards would follow me," she said. Accelerating behind a big cedar, she whipped the car into a one-eighty, facing them. Pulling the gun out of her bag, she snapped at Martin, "Get down and stay down." As soon as she opened the door and crouched behind it, Martin heard a helicopter hashing the air above their heads. In a moment a searchlight sprayed the two cars.

"Give it up, Mega!" Monica shouted.

Mega answered with bullets.

When both sides started blasting, Martin put his camera to work, shooting pictures as fast as the gunshots echoing across the flats. He snapped Monica firing, Mega firing, his gang firing, gunners in the chopper firing. He heard screams of terror, pain, or madness. His body zinged with adrenaline. He caught a flash of Mega aiming at Monica and yelled through the din: "Watch out!" She ducked behind the door as a slug whistled overhead. Martin waited for her to acknowledge him, but she stayed focused on the fight.

Volleys cracked the night--a deadly kind of fireworks--for several minutes before subsiding. Silence then but for long reverberations. White smoke billowed among the wash of lights then rapidly swirled away, as the copter settled onto a space among the trees. Several men in body armor, toting assault rifles, surrounded the two cars and checked the bodies in the dirt. "Five down, three dead, two wounded," one of the armored warriors shouted to someone in the copter. He stuck his thumb up and called out in a high-pitched voice: "Keep one for seed."

"Who is it?" Monica shouted, running to the captives.

A gunman said, "Man and a woman."

"Mega?" Monica asked.

"No."

Martin's camera buzzed.

"Keep the woman," Monica said. "We can use her."

One more shot fractured a volatile silence, and then Doris howled, "Murdering bastards!" The gunmen laughed, jerked her off her feet despite her wounds, chained her hands and feet, and threw her into the belly of the copter with the others in bags.

The man with the commanding thumb looked at Monica and said, "You all right?" She nodded. "Comin' with us?" he asked. She shook her head. He glanced at Martin then signaled for takeoff. When the men had scrambled back into the aircraft, the rotors accelerated with an ear-bursting scream and lifted the machine above the trees, their needled branches whipping in a savage wind.

In a few heartbeats Martin and Monica stood alone in the car headlights, as the helicopter banged away to barely a stir in the distance. Then silence returned to the mountain forest. Monica turned off the gang's car lights and shut the doors as if parking it for the night.

She did not speak until she and Martin were back in her car and halfway down to sea level. "Think you saved my life?"

He grinned and nodded like a schoolboy.

"Think I owe you?"

Again the grin and the nod.

"How 'bout we settle this once for all?"

Unsure of what she was thinking, Martin shrugged and waited for his breathing to return to normal. "So--who were they? Gangsters? Terrorists?"

She swung her head slowly and rounded her eyes at him. "What? You want a story, cameraman?"

"It's what I do."

"Interfere is what you do." She sank into thought then muttered. "Let me just say--they had plans--big, bad plans for LA."

"Hell of a sting."

She laughed with odd levity. "We have potent stingers." Her eyes gleamed in the dash light as if starting to tear, but she was smiling. "Where do you live?"

He mumbled the address then added, "But my car...."

"Forget your stupid car. You can pick it up tomorrow."

They did not say much more until Martin's place.

Parking and stepping out of the car, she said, "Got anything to drink?"

"Coffee and...."

Her blast of laughter interrupted him. "A bottle of champagne more like it."

As he opened his front door, he said, "Sorry--only a half bottle of wine."

On the way up the stairs, her laughter turned derisive and then dissolved into his ear, as she lowered her head close to his.

In Martin's kitchen he filled two glasses with dark red liquid. When he brought them out to the living room, Monica was barefoot and unzipping her leather body suit to her navel. Noticing her bare breast, his hand went a little astray when she reached for a glass.

"Can I see them?" she asked softly.

"Huh?"

"The pictures you took of me." She drank her wine and made a face. "That was a cute trick--switching the rolls of film."

Martin swallowed some wine and tightened his face to hide his chagrin as he selected the photos on a computer and set up a projector. After adjusting system, he turned off the lights and played a slideshow starring Monica.

"Nice memento of our meeting." She poured the remains of the wine into their glasses and snuggled next to him onto a couch, purring, "Violence always makes me horny."

"Scares the piss out of me."

"Luckily that's not what I want from you." She emptied her glass and slung her arms around him, a few droplets falling down his back.

Martin could barely believe it. He had escaped a brutal death and was now apparently on the verge of a sexual encounter with one of the most beautiful and dangerous women he had ever seen. He was feverish to see her naked. Knowing his mind, she unzipped the suit to her crotch. On his way to her mouth, he glanced down at a red patch of cloth pretending to modesty. Like a snake shedding skin, she slipped out of the leather and uncoiled around him. Martin yanked off his shirt and kicked out of his pants. In a moment they were fused and he was fighting back an undeniable force. Valiant but defeated. Unperturbed, she lay back and smiled, waiting for him to rejuvenate.

"So--who exactly were those people--" he asked unexpectedly, "and why were you after them?"

"Bad guys. Couldn't you tell?"

A short laugh burst out of him like a cough. "Terrorists?"

She smiled like a princess in an Egyptian mural. "You can sleep safe and sound knowing the protectors of your country are working day and night to keep you free."

He laughed again but lost it in realizing she was serious.

"Speaking of working, you wanna--?"

Squirming with renewed vigor, he drew her off the couch and pulled it out to a double bed. "Thought you'd be exhausted after all that killing."

She lay back languidly. "Not yet--" She stared at him and spoke in her catlike way, "But I'd like to be."

When they recoupled, Martin held his fire until she spread open like a grand anemone and stirred the sea-dense darkness around them. Together they swam off the crest of a wave and glided into a tropical tidepool. By the time her body had relaxed, he was drifting into oblivion.

After a brief lull on the edge of the same void, she eased out of the bed and quietly erased the photographs from the computer. Stuffing the original into her bag with the gun, she dressed in the dark. No more intrusive than a shadow, she bent over to kiss Martin lightly on his cheek, whispered, "Enjoy the show," and then crept out of the apartment.

Martin Ray slept uneasily. Before dawn he was startled by images flickering on his TV screen. He knew Monica was gone, probably with the goods. And she knew he had videotaped their tryst. He cursed the loss of his work but inwardly cheered when he thought of what remained, something he could savor with every rewind. Strange she did not take it too. He told himself she meant it as a memento. Naturally it lacked the intimacy of the live act but would be a fine feature to save for his collection of erotica. And what a back story!

While the sun brightened his room, he watched the instant replay of the Martin and Monica show. So enthralled with the writhing images, he at first failed to notice something or someone in the background, a vague shape resembling a human skull that appeared to have been lurking outside the window behind his bed, maybe having watched the entire performance. As if spring-loaded Martin sat up, stared at the screen a few seconds, and then slowly turned his head toward the window. Seeing only the branch of a fruitless pear tree pressed against the glass, he imagined the array of leaves could resemble a human face. With an uneasy chuckle he turned back to watch himself making love to the magnificent Monica.

SPIT

When the intern got sick, none of us at the Crooked Creek Lab took it seriously. Mid-winter. Naturally I thought she had probably caught a cold. But fearing the flu, I sent her home. Could not afford to have any of my staff laid up for days. Shorthanded enough at the lab since the latest round of budget cuts in congress. Now I curse my ignorance. I had no inkling of the demonic event that would completely overshadow my concern about mere money.

Melissa Finley, the intern, had been working in the Monkey House, our name for the room where the primates lived. In exchange for graduate credits, she cared for our collection of rhesus monkeys. While feeding, watering, and cleaning the animals she often played with them, cuddling her favorites. Melissa had been working at the lab fewer than two weeks when she became ill.

Unable to spare one of my scientists to take over her job, I stopped the maintenance man in the hallway the evening Melissa left and asked him to help. "Please don't feel obligated, Henry," I said. "But I could use you in the Monkey House for a while." Having always shown a desire to be more useful to the lab than keeping floors clean and locks working, he brightened to the task. "Melissa Finley went home sick today," I said, "so I wonder if you could look after the animals for a few days. Until she feels better."

Henry's smile widened his face, his head bounced. When I started to tell him I wouldn't be able to pay extra wages, he interrupted me by asking, "What'd you like me to do, Doctor Vane--clean their cages?"

"That and see to their food and water."

Henry's eyes flickered. "Yessir."

"Fine--" I pointed toward the lab with more authority than intended. "Maybe you could look in on them before you leave tonight."

"Sure thing, doc." With the delight of a boy going to the zoo, Henry Trask headed straight for the Monkey House.

I knew the animals trusted him as the one person in the entire laboratory who did not yank them from their cages, strap them to tables, stick them with needles, inject them with chemicals, attach recording devices to their bodies, and open and close their flesh. As I was walking away, I heard their chittering and chattering in wild chorus to his laughter.

Three days later Henry was getting used to his extra duties when he too began to feel sick. He probably guessed that by working in the same room Melissa had occupied he had picked up her germs. Not a man to succumb easily to sore throat and sniffles, though, he kept on working around the lab without letting anyone know he was ill.

However, I soon became aware of Henry's condition and suggested he take a few days off work. I didn't tell him that Melissa had been hospitalized. To deflect my concern about numerous members of the staff becoming infected, I focused on the primates. "And how are the animals?"

"They lookin' better than I've seen 'em for a long time, doc. No offense."

I shook my head absently, less to reassure him than to unravel a web of concern weaving in my mind. The health of the primates was a priority, since the experiments we had begun several months earlier, but I was also beginning to worry about my people. If Melissa and Henry had the flu, as it now appeared, they could have spread it to everyone else in the lab. "Go on, home, Henry," I told him. "I'll see you get paid for the time."

Happy to hear that, he spoke hoarsely, "Thanks, doc. Think I will."

As he left the building, I noticed I'd never seen him look so bad. Skin scarlet but clammy. Eyes glazed. Shivering. Seeming not to hear or at best to register information in a kind of taped delay.

After I found one of the new biochemists, a young man named Jared Trolley, to look after the primates for the time being, I left the lab early to visit Melissa at the hospital. I felt a little responsible for the kid but also very curious about her illness. Was it contagious? Infectious?

Black of night by the time I walked into Mercy Memorial. When I asked where to find Melissa Finley, a nurse sized me up as if to determine how I would receive bad news. The nurse asked, "Are you a...?"

"I'm her, well, sort of a mentor. She's an intern at the laboratory on the edge of town. "I'm, Doctor Benjamin Vane, the director of the lab. Is she all right--?"

An elderly man in a white lab coat with a nametag that read: B. T. Stokes, M.D., overhearing us, stepped to the counter and spoke in a carefully modulated tone, "She's in the ICU."

"Can I see her?"

"I'm afraid she's isolated, doctor--until we can determine the exact nature of her illness."

"Nature of her--I thought it was only a bad cold."

He jumped onto the end of my words with both feet. "She's in critical condition."

"Critical!" I practically bit the air to get enough of it. "My God! What's wrong?"

"We don't know--yet," he said, leading me down a long echoing hallway. "At first we thought like you that she'd caught a bad respiratory infection, maybe pneumonia. But her symptoms don't fit anything I've ever seen."

Countless notions were spinning in my head like particles in a cyclotron ready to explode. The dross spilled out of my mouth. "She's not in any danger of...."

His caustic look told me the answer.

When we reached the ICU, I caught sight of Melissa through a glass partition, machines attached to her young body, life indicated by gauges. The word 'cadaver' came to mind. Pale as milk and wasted, she resembled one of the terminal primates at the lab after a prolonged series of potent tests. My next thought was to notify her family but I turned to the doctor for confirmation. "Is she going to make it?"

He did not respond or move for several seconds. I thought he might not have heard me and started to repeat the question, when he said, "I don't think so," his dark eyes nailing me. "What kind of work are you doing at that lab, Doctor Vane?"

Defensive, I inhaled deeply and stretched to my full height. "I'm not free to discuss it, Doctor Stokes."

His stare became inquisitory, almost incriminating. "You mean I'm not authorized to know."

"Exactly," I heard myself say dryly.

"Well, that's a shame, doctor, because without knowing what ails this poor young woman, I may not be able to save her."

I had to ask, "What have your labs shown?"

"Some kind of virus." He kept his coal-dark eyes on me, unnerving. "But, as I said, nothing we've ever seen."

"Virus."

"Yes."

"Could I have a look at the culture?"

He studied me a moment, as if at an undergraduate, and then said, "Sure. Maybe you'll recognize an old acquaintance."

Resentful of the remark, I ground my teeth to keep from revealing too much and followed him to the pathology lab. On the way neither of us uttered a word, but I had an anxious feeling Doctor Stokes was trying to read my mind.

In the lab he asked a young woman for the Finley case. Placing a specimen under a microscope, she offered me a look. I gazed at the most elegant but strangest organism I had seen in twenty years of biochemical research. Like many viruses it was spherical, but also pearlescent and radiating cilia like threads of light. The minuscule thing appeared rife with energy, as if it would suddenly and vigorously mitosize, escape its glass confine, and envelope me with billions of chain-linked cells. I backed away quickly from the scope and tried to conceal my incipient panic. "What in hell is that?"

His dark stare searing my face, he said, "I was hoping you could tell me."

In decades of scientific studies I had never seen such a microbe but dared not reveal this fact to the doctor. "And how are you going to...?"

"Nothing knocks it down. At least nothing in our arsenal of treatments. Of course, as often with microscopic parasites, it can't live outside a host. But inside, it's impervious to everything we've thrown at it, short perhaps of chemicals that would also kill poor Miss Finley."

Poor Miss Finley. The adjective made me squirm. Then her name instantly morphed into that of Mister Trask. I had to know his condition. Along with a series of futile exchanges with the doctor about aggressive medications, twenty-four hour care, and pronouncements of faith and hope, I left the hospital and drove back to the lab in a state of blistering dread. Without knowing the location of Henry's home and secretly glad of it, I called him from my office, holding my breath at what I would hear. His wife answered the phone.

"Oh, I'm so glad you called, Doctor Vane. You must do something for my Henry. He's terrible sick. Spitting up blood. I'm afraid he...."

I almost told her to call an ambulance before thinking better of the idea. "You may want to take him to the hospital, Mis'ess Trask."

"Hospital!"

"Just to be safe. I don't want anything to happen to the best maintenance man I've ever had." I chuckled foolishly.

She tried to laugh politely in return, but anxiety ruled her mood. "But we can't afford no hospital, doctor. We got no insurance."

I swallowed a surge of guilt. "Take him to the Emergency Room, Mis'ess Trask. They have to treat him there."

"Oh—oh, I will." She dissolved into weeping. "Thank you, doctor."

"Take him to Mercy Memorial. And let me know how he's doing-- when you can."

"Sure thing, doctor. I'll let you know--soon's they make my Henry well."

"Fine." I was eager to hang up but afraid of offending the woman. Stupid. If her man was sick with the same virus that had attacked Melissa, she would have far more on her mind than ordinary resentment. Spitting up blood. The phrase chilled me to the spine.

I wondered who else on my staff would become ill but I was also concerned about the monkeys. If only a few were to perish by acquiring some rampant human virus, I would have to explain the loss to the government and beg for another substantial stipend. Crooked Creek was merely one of many on the Pentagon's list of favored biochemical labs. And my contract was up for renewal.

When I peeked into the Monkey House, I felt relief and surprise. The animals appeared completely healthy, even those we had recently treated with enough virulent microbes to drop a football team. Strolling among the cages, I trod softly to keep from disturbing them. God knows they deserved at least undisturbed sleep. I could not see them clearly in the dim night light of the lab but noticed their glistening fur, their striking vitality. Curious.

Soon after coming to live in the lab, all lost their natural luster. Their tongues were always coated. Eyes clouded with mucous. Reflexes failing as if gradually being drained of energy. Far from the wild beasts that used to flourish in the life and death struggle of remote jungle worlds. But now they seemed full of vigor as though untouched by our science.

Glad my lab creatures were in good condition--at least for the time being, I went home exhausted at nearly two in the morning. But I could not sleep for worrying about Melissa and Henry and the rest of my staff--one long insomniac sequence intercut with periods of profound terror. Was I next? I had been in the breathing space of both victims of this strange and dangerous affliction. Even though I had no official word that Henry Trask suffered from the same virus as did Melissa Finley, I suspected it was so.

As soon as I arrived at the lab the next morning, I found my suspicion verified. Doctor Stokes had left a message in my phone mail. The blinking red light signaled to me of his dire words before I heard them: "Henry Trask almost certainly suffers from the same ailment as Melissa Finley. Call me immediately."

I could not breathe. What was happening? The word 'epidemic' flashed into my mind but I forced it into a cold corner. I had to check on my staff. How many more would be coming down with this thing?

When I greeted them at the front door that morning or found them already at work in the lab, I allowed a rare breath of relief that all were present. But that not to last. Before lunch three asked to go home early, including Jared Trolley. I feared that more than half would call in sick the next morning.

My hands shook as I punched Doctor Stokes's number on the phone. As soon as I identified myself, he bit into me. "I asked you to call back immediately, doctor. What in hell you doing?"

"Looking after my people."

"You'd damned better look after their next of kin. We could have a serious situation here."

I knew his next words before hearing them.

"Your young student, Miss Finley, died this morning. And Henry Trask is probably going to the morgue before sundown. Bleeding out through his mouth, nose, ears, and eyes--the way the young woman went."

"My God!"

"If you've got any clout with your god, Vane, now's the time to use it. But until you hear back, you must quarantine your personnel at once. All of them."

"But...."

"They could inflict this lethal bug onto every relative, friend, and neighbor they know. We're looking at a possible pandemic here. I've never seen such a swift microbial assassin in twenty-five years of medicine. And I've been personally acquainted with AIDS, e-bola, SARS--the deadliest diseases of our time. None of them destroys as fast as this one."

My hands were so sweaty I nearly dropped the phone. "But I can't keep everybody here," I said, whining. "Some have already gone home."

"Well, get them back if you have to tie them up and drag them. I also suggest you prepare your records for review. The Department of Public Health is going to want to see what you've been up to, doctor. What kind of microscopic monster you've bred in that lab of yours."

I could not bear it. The tests we had been running for the government were flickering through my mind like binary data. I felt ill. Not like the others. But sick to my heart that one of the lethal strains of single cell life we had developed had escaped his container.

After contacting people I had let go early and directing those still in the lab to remain until further notice, I tore through my files to find some indication of the culprit. But how in hell could it have escaped? If I did anything well in my life, it was to maintain a clean and healthy working environment for my people and my animals.

Racing through the building, I glanced into the Monkey House, praying my lab animals were unaffected by the disease. I entered the room almost afraid to look at them for fear they would all be mortally ill or lifeless lumps on the bottoms of their cages. One sight of the creatures and I took a deep breath of relief. Alive. But that not the word to describe them. Vibrant a better one. Vigorous. Despite their confinement in the astringent laboratory environment, they were thriving, apparently as healthy as if living in their jungle home. Healthier. The most rubicund monkeys I had seen in twenty years of science--in or out of captivity. And happy. Contrary to the laconic sullen things I had come to know as lab specimens, they seemed utterly content. Some were sleeping peacefully. Others were chattering amiably to each other as if at a simian social club.

Most surprising, though, was their attitude toward me when I entered the room. Gone the fear in their eyes of us, the big primates in white smocks. Gone the timidity, the defensive posturing, and the huddling in cage corners. Now they were indifferent. Nearly blasé with a supercilious air like a halo. When they looked at me, the suspicion in their eyes was entirely gone, replaced by another new attitude: contempt. Not hostile but domineering.

"So, little guys--how are you tonight?" I half expected them to answer with words I could understand. But they merely stared at me as though I were an alien from another world.

Up close I could see how sleek their bodies, how clear their eyes. Strange eyes. I found it difficult to hold on them for more than a second. They stared at me intensely: hypnotizing, withering. But I would not look away, as they seemed to want; instead, I examined the creatures. I was fascinated by their obvious excellent health, despite all the torture we had inflicted on them in the name of science for humanity. Now that I knew my animals were all right, I had to check on my colleagues.

Running through the lab, I found many of them gathered in the lunchroom like hostages. Seriously ill hostages. I nearly screamed at the sight of them. Upon seeing me lurch into the room, my right hand assistant, Marie Kressly, confronted me. Feverish, her face glistened, eyes glassy. "What in hell's going on, Ben?! What's happening to us? And why can't we go home, for Christ's sake?"

"Doctor Stokes's orders," I could not keep my voice from quavering.

"Stokes? Who's he?"

"A doc at the hospital who tried to—who treated Melissa--and Henry."

"Tried? What happened to them, Ben?"

I desperately sought some explanation, knowing it hopeless. "She's...."

"She's dead, isn't she?" Marie was always a stalwart individual. Remarkably calm, even with what was lately happening at the Crooked Creek Lab. I nodded, trying to conceal my response from the others.

She covered her face with quivering hands, inhaled deeply, coughed, and emitted a sound that made me shiver. I grasped for some way to console her. "Don't worry," I nearly hollered past her head. "It's probably just a bad flu." As I scanned the room, I saw death in the faces of those brilliant men and women I had worked with for years.

"What's going on?!" shouted someone in the back of the room.

"I don't know yet."

A gasp of nearly visible fear blew through the space.

"Doctor Stokes at Mercy Hospital says both Melissa and Henry were--are infected with a virus. A very strange virus." The fear became electrical, but I had to continue. "He thinks it might have originated here."

The one in the back advanced: Doctor Robert Slade, a rival for my job for the last five years. "Here? In the lab?" he shouted. "What in hell you saying, Ben? One of those goddamned bugs get loose? I thought you assured us the security was flawless. Now you tell us one of those damned organisms we've been playing with for the feds has broken loose in our own goddamned working space?!"

Trying not to betray my feelings, I said nothing and stood still, robotic; but my body language revealed enough.

"I see," he said and fell into a chair.

"Are we going to die?!" an intern screamed at me.

"No. Of course not," I mumbled with crumbling conviction. "Some of us may need hospitalization. Others may not." Adding weakly, "We're doing all we can."

This ignited a wave of anxious murmuring throughout the staff that exploded when a person fainted in the back of the room. Rushing to him, I saw the terrifying signs of the morbid disease I had seen on the faces of Melissa and Henry.

My phone startled me. I knew who was calling.

"CDC there yet, Vane?" The doctor's voice crackled--from either a bad connection or his fury.

"Listen Doctor Stokes, I don't think this situation requires...."

"That man you sent to the hospital, Henry Trask--"

"Yes--" My gorge rose at what was coming.

"He's near death. And we just admitted three others of your lab."

I could utter only meaningless noises.

"Let me know when the CDC arrives."

I hung up without another word. Amazed at how quickly and deeply my people were succumbing to the uncanny disease, I began to wonder when I would be stricken. I kept seeing in my mind the experiments we had run during the last week.

One particular microbe stuck in my head. VT-20. The most powerful strain we had developed in the history of the lab. We had injected the entity into one of the monkeys, Spit, expecting it to devastate him within twenty-four hours. We chose the big rhesus male because of his nasty nature. Always firing gobs of saliva at anyone who ventured near, even Melissa. But before we could test him, she became ill. As I remembered from my visit to the Monkey House, Spit was still healthy. That was the first time the horror struck my mind, but I pushed it back into a dark corner. Being an empiricist, I would not allow for science fiction. With the ramifications of VT-20 unraveling in my brain, I ran back to check the monkeys, to see how, if the virus had affected Spit. By now it should have laid him low.

Peering into the Monkey House, I expected to see Spit dead or at least suffering painful agony. When I spotted him perched in his cage and chatting in that domineering way of his with the other monkeys, my breathing halted. The animal appeared in perfect health. Certainly not ailing from the kind of viral infection we had prepared for him. When I pushed open the door, he turned and pinned me with his eyes, strange eyes for a rhesus, reptilian more than simian. A chill froze the back of my neck. "God!" I exhaled.

As if on cue from the word, the monkeys all looked at me and started caterwauling. Like maniacal laughter. But I did not see the joke, rather the irony. Every animal appeared healthy, more like well-nurtured pets than lab specimens. My eyes rounded, jaw dropped. We had put those creatures through more misery than a ward full of terminal patients. Even those that had three days ago collapsed from our latest experiments were now bouncing around their cages like kids at the zoo. What in hell was going on here? The answer was as near as my cell phone. I could barely hear its eerie sound. Fearing the message it bore, I was compelled to answer it and heard my name in the mouth of Doctor Stokes. I barely responded.

"You'd better grab hold of something solid, Vane."

I shrugged impatiently and uttered a disapproving grunt.

"Henry Trask just died. A death I wouldn't wish on a man who raped and murdered my youngest daughter."

I could only invoke the deity again.

Ignoring my response, he continued. "Doctor Alice Warden from the CDC has been here for the last hour. She tells me your people appear to be infected with some exotic new virus recently discovered in India. Airborne. And here's the kicker: found only in Macaca mulatta--till now."

"Impossible," I nearly shouted, surveying the monkeys. "My animals are descended from generations of lab animals. Even their grandparents never knew any environment beyond stainless steel cages in a sterilized world."

"You should know better than I, Doctor Vane, about the mutational and dormant possibilities of those monocellular little monsters. Maybe you've inadvertently activated one."

I knew that viruses could lie asleep in a host before emerging, sometimes simultaneously, the way hibernating animals awaken to the spring. But I could not face the terrifying fact. Instead I repeated my meager denial. "Impossible." But my hand started shaking so much I had to ask Doctor Stokes to repeat his last words.

"Extermination, doctor. The only way to stop it."

"Isn't that a little severe?" I struggled to keep from trembling.

"Your people are dying, man. Maybe you too. You've got to protect yourselves and destroy those animals-- decontaminate your entire building before this thing goes national."

I would not accept it. Too many years building my biochemical business to demolish it in a day.

He pressed. "No telling how many friends and relatives of your staff have already fallen ill. Could be a calamity for everyone of us."

In the midst of my growing fear a twist of glee uncoiled. I reveled at my perverse power and the way of life so lucratively appreciated by the barons of Earth. But, when Spit fired a wad of sputum at me, survival overwhelmed my pride.

Racing back to the locker room I stepped into a protective suit and sealed it air tight from head to foot. Clambering back to the cafeteria, I found more of the staff ill. When they saw me suited up, their faces paled even more. "Get into your protective gear," I shouted, "immediately!" After directing the still healthy staff members to help me decontaminate the building, I ran back to the animals. In panic, my people rushed to the locker room, one or two of the healthy ones muttering curses at me as they passed.

In the Monkey House, one by one I injected the animals with lethal doses of tranquilizer. One by one they dropped into oblivion. Until I reached Spit. Out of a vague revenge I had saved him for last. When I approached his cage, he fixed me with those diabolic eyes and crouched as if to strike. As soon as I opened the cage door to inject him, he barked, spit at my faceplate, and flew past me into the open room. The spittle distorted my vision until it dripped onto the floor.

Seeing the door open to the hall, I ran to close it, but the animal was too fast for me in my clumsy gear. Once out of the Monkey House he sprinted down the hallway, screeching, nails scratching at the linoleum. Passing the locker room, he veered into it, startling those putting on their suits. Hoping to trap him in there, I hollered for them to leave the room. Before I could close the door, Spit tore past the last one coming out and followed them down the hallway, driving them into the cafeteria. But he veered off and cut toward the front entrance to the lab.

"No!" I screamed. "Don't let him get away! Stop him!"

Spit hit the door lever with the force of his body and pushed it open. Scrambling down the steps, clambering across the lawn, he disappeared into a grove of trees on the back edge of the property.

The grounds were surrounded by fencing laced with razor wire; a barrier I prayed would contain him. After calling the cops, I searched the perimeter but could not find the beast. When the police and animal control arrived, they too searched the property. But no one could find him. Spit had escaped into the community, a carrier of perhaps the deadliest virus known to human history.

The next day, animal control officers cornered and killed Spit. But within a week my colleagues at the lab were also dead. All the people in Cripple Creek have fallen ill. So far, I alone have escaped to warn the world.

UNIVERSAL REMOTE

The control shattered against the wall, its plastic pieces raining onto the floor. "Damned foreign junk!" Stanley Hatch shouted. "When I gonna find something that works in this messed up world?!" As he flicked through the yellow pages, his eyes landed on an intriguing ad: VEX VIDEO Fantastic Service, Incredibly Cheap. Being a man who followed the latter word as gospel, Stanley went to a little store in a deadend alley south of Market Street. A sign in the window: Elmer Gin, Proprietor.

An old albino working on a VCR behind the counter did not look up when Stanley entered but said with conspicuous familiarity, "Nice to see you." Stanley stood motionless in the doorway, trying to place the man in his memory. "Your remote control stop working?" the old man asked.

"Yeah. How d'ya know?"

Gin looked over the tops of his bottlebottom glasses and smiled impishly. "A seasoned guess, that's all. Lots don't work--since we stopped making 'em here."

"Amen to that, old timer. Country goin' down the tubes."

The shopkeeper did not seem to appreciate the geriatric address and grumbled back into his work.

Stanley stared at him, waiting for the sales pitch. When it did not come, he said, "So--got any?"

The old man looked up from his work, pinkeyes burning into his customer like lasers. "Of course. Whaddya think I'm in business for?" He continued manipulating wires on the machine. "You want a universal--or one that controls only your TV?"

"A universal."

"Control everything?"

"Yeah, even the weather." Stanley delighted in mild sarcasm. "So what, old man--got somethin' to sell me or not?"

Gin burned him again. Stanley squirmed at the intensity of the look and was about to leave the store, when the shopkeeper set a bright silver device on the counter and said, "Try this one."

Stanley eyed the object that resembled a small spacecraft and then started to pick it up, but the old man pulled it away and pointed it at a digital monitor on the back wall of the store. A click, a flanging noise, and an image spread across the screen. Stanley grabbed the thing and tried the controls. The monitor instantly responded to every command: color, brightness, contrast. "How much?"

"Three hundred."

"Three hundred bucks! You nuts?! I thought you sold things cheap. I can get one for ten."

The old man snatched it out of Stanley's hand and sputtered, "Fine. Get it. But if you want an out-of-this-world device that controls every damned thing known to man without fail--forever--then you'll pay three hundred bucks--cash."

Stanley spun around to leave. "Forget it, old man. You ain't rippin' me off. I've been cheated by the best, and you ain't one of 'em." He stomped out of the store.

After buying a discount remote control at Shop 'n' Save, Stanley Hatch tried it on his TV. It worked for three weeks and then quit. He threw the bits and pieces into the trash along with the remains of the other one. Reluctantly he returned to the strange little shop in the deadend alley.

The old man knew it was Stanley without looking at him. "Figured you'd be back, young fella. Coulda saved yerself sixty bucks, bought mine when ya had the chance."

"Sixty. I only spent ten. And you said three hundred."

"Inflation. It's now three-fifty. Be four hundred you wait another day."

"Why you cheatin' old bastard. I oughta...."

"Forget it then." The white-haired shopkeeper slipped with surprising speed into a backroom.

Stanley twisted to turn away, but stayed put as if his shoes were nailed to the floor. He dropped his head, shook it, and mumbled foul language. "All right, you old trickster," he shouted. "I'll pay what you want. But the damned thing better work like you say it does, or I'll...."

"It will," Gin said, reappearing suddenly.

"I'm comin' back for my money if the thing as much as burns out an indicator light. And what about batteries? You oughta throw in a lifetime supply at this gouging."

"You got it."

"Huh?"

"Power to last a lifetime--and beyond."

"Humph. We'll see."

"Yeah, you will." He gently set the remote control into a black metal box and locked it with a key. "That'll be three-fifty cash."

Stanley chortled and pulled out his wallet stuffed with bills. "I should keep it in a vault." He slapped the money onto the counter, picked up the box, and reached for the key.

The shopkeeper kept it while counting the money. When finished, he handed the key to his customer and went back to work, a smirk curling up one corner of his mouth.

As soon as Stanley got home, he took the remote control out of the box and pointed it at his TV. It worked but also turned on the VCR, DVD, DA, tape deck, the turntable, and a lamp on an adjacent table. "God damn it to hell!" he hollered. "Gypped again!" In the act of condemning this device to the fate of the others, he absent-mindedly pointed it at the balcony glass door and pressed the fast forward button. A sudden darkening outside. Thinking the moon was eclipsing the sun, he stepped onto his balcony to scan the sky. Same bright star but it seemed surprisingly low. "Did I waste that much time today?" He looked at a clock in his living room.

In an unconscious impulse he pointed the remote control at the timepiece, pressed the reverse button once, and then released it. What? The hands moved? He again pushed the button and held it. Sure enough--the hands were moving counter-clockwise and fast. He hit stop then play. The clock resumed his normal progression. "Amazing! I don't believe it!"

He surveyed the neighborhood. Everyone he saw appeared not to have noticed the change in daylight. Spotting an attractive young woman getting out of a car and walking to her apartment, Stanley succumbed to another impulse and pointed the remote control at her. When he pressed the fast forward button, her pace quickened. When he hit the stop button, she halted. "God, almighty!" he whispered breathlessly. He hit play and she resumed her gait. When he punched pause, she froze in mid-step. Seeing another person enter the parking lot, he let the woman continue walking.

Stanley fell into a chair and stared at the device gleaming in his hand. "What in hell is this thing?" His curiosity sharpened, he stepped to a front window and pointed it at a passing car and punched FF. The car shot forward out of view. In the next second Stanley heard a crash and slunk away from the window. Once beyond the initial shock, he giggled and cradled the new and delightful toy in his hands. Now he had an overwhelming desire to tour the city. Dropping the gadget into his coat pocket, he left his apartment and drove with mock disinterest around the crash scene at the corner.

Driving to the crest of Twin Peaks, he could look down on people, cars, boats in the bay, and even observe planes flying to and from the airport. Parking at an overlook he stayed in his car and furtively withdrew the remote control from his pocket. Pointing it at a car passing on a street below he made it stop, go, speed up, and slow down. Losing interest in that, he fixed the magical beam on a passerby and made him run down the street so fast he fell on his face.

When Stanley stopped laughing, he mumbled to himself, "Wonder what kind of a reach this baby has." He gazed over the bay. Spotting a large freighter approaching a dock slowly, he hit the forward button. The ship churned up a boiling wake and slammed into the pier, the structure splintering, pieces flying in all directions. The vessel kept plowing into buildings until jamming against landfill, beaching like a profane leviathan. "Wowee!" Stanley shouted and slapped the steering wheel. "What a range!"

Directing the instrument at a pile of clouds over the east bay hills, he made them tumble and roil until they drifted eastward beyond view. "That's better. Clear skies make happy lives." His gaze caught the flash of sunlight off a jetliner heading south over the city. Aiming at it, he pondered what button to push to get the most dramatic effect. Shrugging, he hit stop, and the airplane froze as if in a snapshot. After hitting play, he paused the plane then repeatedly punched the button to watch it lurch in stop motion. When he hit the fast forward button, he could barely follow the craft, as it zoomed beyond the airport and out of sight. "God!" he murmured. "At three-fifty this baby was a supreme steal."

All that day Stanley Hatch controlled the movement and pace of countless people, dogs, cats, cars, trucks, birds, boats, planes, traffic lights, and backed up the sun to make the fun last longer. At evening he drove to the west side of the Peaks and slowed the sun over the oceanic horizon to extend the blending swatches of red and gold. At night he ignored the gradual rise of voices and rush of people in the streets. Focused on the dark sky, he played with the passage of the moon and the twinkling of the stars. In one of his grandest moments he stopped a meteor in mid-arc, making a white scratch across the blackened firmament.

So elated was Stanley with his newly found power that he scarcely noticed the traffic accidents, crowded streets, frantic people, or screaming sirens. He was only annoyed at the obstacles they presented on his way home. Too many people in this world, he thought. That's the problem.

That night Stanley could not sleep. Sirens tore up the night until dawn. His alarm woke him at six o'clock for work and he was groggily reaching to hit the snooze button, when his mind flashed. "God, I wonder if--" Crawling out of bed, he picked up the remote control and ambled to a window where he could see the rising sun. Pointing the gadget at the great orb, he hit reverse and watched it stop and then slide back toward the horizon. He stopped it and hit play when the eastern sky turned to mauve. "Perfect!" Then he reversed his clock accordingly and jumped back into bed.

When Stanley did arrive at his post on the production line of Emery Peripherals he knew he could make the day pass more quickly. Using the remote control periodically on all the clocks in the building, he cut off an hour. All his colleagues commented on how fast the time had passed. Stanley grinned and agreed.

On his way home he mused on how much better life would be now that he could control it, especially since the world around him had deteriorated markedly in the last couple of days. Cars were colliding at intersections. People were rioting: breaking into stores, and starting fires. "Never a cop when you need one." Brandishing his blessed gizmo, he stopped congested traffic and clogged people so he could pass.

As soon as Stanley stepped into his apartment, he turned on his TV to see if National Network News was reporting the strange situation. He sat back in his favorite rocker, stunned to see images of rampage and mayhem across the country and all parts of the planet. The traffic accidents, fires, and looting in his town were but one scene in a worldwide panorama of calamity. He watched agog as the NNN talking heads delivered terrifying statements: "Time itself seems to have gone awry!" "Mother Earth appears to be in the throes of a cosmic cataclysm!"

Some left-leaning scientists were blaming global warning. Right-leaners claimed an altered solar system. Religious zealots condemned humanity for his wicked ways and predicted the end of the world at last.

"What in God's name--?" Stanley Hatch muttered as, slack-jawed, he watched all this happening. Annoyed by a shaft of evening sunlight slanting through his window and obscuring the TV screen, he zapped the daystar forward, until it disappeared behind a building. "That's better," he said, ignoring a discordant chorus of dismay from people in the neighborhood.

"...end of the world...." Stanley heard repeatedly from outside. Clucking at them, he stepped onto his balcony and scanned the vicinity. Crowds were gathered in large groups in the parking lot, some shouting inaudible questions, others crying, a few screaming madly. They were not admiring the rosy sunset. They were shrieking in terror. "The sun! The sun!" they screamed. "Did you see the sun?" Stanley simply stared at them, an anonymous observer of collective mania, and grinned smugly but nervously. Their strange behavior did not bold well for one's safety, he thought. Better check the locks.

Like a flash of solar light through his pupils, igniting his brain, the reality struck him. He stiffened, petrified. Snapping his head around, he fixed his eyes on the remote control lying on the coffee table. Suddenly its sleek silver shape seemed as ominous as a bomb. Afraid to move, afraid to think, despite the synapses firing throughout his system, he simply shook his head in denial. "No--it couldn't be!"

But it was. He knew it just as sure as the sky growing dark. Nausea surged in his belly. Spinning around, he glanced out the windows, at the TV, the RC. Unconsciously his hands leaped to his mouth. "What have I done--?"

The question vibrated in Stanley's mind, sounding more and more like an accusation. His rationalizations burst like bubbles. When he reached for the remote control, it seemed to jump into his hand. "Damn!" He dropped it and rubbed his palms together as if soothing scalded flesh. He looked down at the thing on the floor, one of its buttons flickering. "That god damned old man. Some kinda evil wizard?" Snapping up the demonic device, Stanley put it into a plastic bag and stomped out of the apartment.

The city streets were one big jam. Signal lights blinking. Emergency and police vehicles screaming, blocked from their destinations. People dashing helter-skelter. A din more disturbing than usual pervaded the city. Stanley gaped at the chaotic scene and felt a spasm of guilt in his gut. But he was less regretful than terrified.

Leaving his car as no use in the melee, Stanley ran to the deadend alley to find the little shop. He found a TV repair store but no Vex Video. Stepping tentatively into the establishment, he saw not an albino shopkeeper but an unremarkable middle-aged merchant with a friendly face full of cheeks.

"Help you, sir?"

"No. Uh, you have another man working here. Light hair? Pink eyes?" Stanley knew this would go nowhere, especially when curiosity screwed up the merchant's face.

Yet he tittered through a mercantile smile. "No one but me. Something I can...."

Stanley fingered the remote control in his pocket but left it there and spun out of the store. Glancing at the front window with utter confusion, he hurried back home.

Panting, sweating, he burst into his apartment and hurled the remote control across the room; it struck the wall, hit the corner of a CD case, and bounced onto the floor in one piece. The TV turned off. Stanley gaped at the RC. Unbreakable? Figures. Instrument from hell. His blood-shot eyes drifted to the television screen. He turned on the set. NNN was showing scenes of chaos. Stanley thought they depicted another civil war in some obscure country in the southern hemisphere. But then he recognized San Francisco and New York, even Paris. "What in hell...?"

The face of the news showed unusual discomfort in reporting:

President Leonard Prattle, speaking

from a clandestine location somewhere

in the South, had this to say: "I urge my

fellow Americans to remain calm in the

midst of this, an insinuous attack on our

country--an act of outrageous aggression

that some terrorist gang has perpetrated

against the free and good people of these

United States." Later the Commander-in-

Chief launched a full scale attack on the

nation of Petrolamia, long suspected of

building weapons of such massively

destructive magnitude as to knock the

planet off its axis.

Realizing his likely culpability for the international event, Stanley at first thought to repair the damage with some further adjustments to the solar system. But when he picked up the remote control, held it hot and humming in his hand, he realized he had to destroy the monstrous thing. But how? It had suffered no perceivable damage from his collision with the wall and still turned off the TV.

Yanking a hammer out of a kitchen drawer, Stanley placed the device on the linoleum floor and pounded it several times. But the tool leaped back at him, its steel claws clipping the end of his nose. "Sonofabitch!" Crouching over the contraption, holding the hammer with both hands, Stanley beat the silver case until he could not raise his arm. The device did not break, dent, or scratch. Not the slightest scuff. Stanley fell back onto his haunches, flabbergasted. He watched the buttons on the thing blinking as if communicating some inner code. "What the devil--?"

Stanley waited until nightfall and then sneaked to one of the apartment dumpsters and dropped the mechanism into the plastic recycling bin. When it hit the bottom its buttons flashed again, but Stanley dropped the lid and immediately felt better. Scanning the grounds for witnesses to his deed, he crept back to his unit and double-locked the door.

With the lights off, he turned to the TV. Work it manually from now on, he decided. And he settled into his favorite chair to view the sensational news about conditions around the world.

Stanley did not go to bed that night but fell asleep in the electric glow of the tube. Right before dawn a garbage truck rumbled and roared into the parking lot outside his window. As the slam-bang-crash of the hydraulic arms lifting, emptying, and dropping the trash bin assailed Stanley's ears, for the first time he relished the noise and smiled broadly with satisfaction.

Gradually Stanley Hatch and the world returned to their usual levels of discord. Pundits and politicos on NNN rehashed the spectacular event and debated its cause. As civilization resumed its career, the bizarre remote control device lay buried beneath tons of trash in a landfill far from the heart of the city, its rubbery buttons still blinking as if calculating endless possibilities.

RxALL

The psychiatrist spoke quietly, calmly, despite an accusatory air. "You haven't been taking your pills, have you Mister Hart?"

Melvin Hart leaned back on the table, his body tense, yearning to escape the small, windowless room. He searched the doctor's hands for a syringe. Not seeing one, he relaxed a little. "Don't need them, doc."

"Make you feel better," the clinician said with artificial sweetening in his voice.

"But I feel fine. Always have."

"You're delusional."

Melvin's eyes sharpened.

The doctor read his mind. "We're all delusional these days. You're no exception."

"But I don't see things or hear voices. I...."

"Let me do the diagnosing, if you don't mind."

"Sure, doc. I only...."

"You'd better get with the program, young fellow, or--"

Melvin knew what was coming. He had been dodging the program all his life. The Drug Enforcement Agency swamped his mailbox, spammed his inbox beyond capacity, and harangued him with phone calls. Even came to his door at all hours. He was afraid any day they would break into his place.

"If you don't," the doctor continued while jotting notes into a hand computer, "I'll have to administer your meds intravenously." When he stepped to the door and put his hand on the knob, Melvin inhaled deeply and held it. "I want to see you again in a month," the psychiatrist said, leaving the room. "In the right state of mind."

As Melvin was exhaling and buttoning his shirt, he thought about life before National Care. Millions of people had lived with illnesses and injuries they could not afford to have treated. So they were glad to see the president sign a law that guaranteed everyone coverage from womb to tomb. Melvin had been glad too in the beginning, until he realized what was happening. Now he took pride in being non-medicated. Sometimes he wondered if he were the only sober one alive.

While driving home from the clinic, he avoided looking at people on the sidewalks and in their cars. The omnipresent stupid grin on everyone's face infuriated him. He wanted to slam his fists into their simpering mugs.

Nobody got angry these days. Nobody griped about anything. They simply worked to pay for copious food, comfortable housing, formidable vehicles, and an abundance of entertainment to keep them contented like bovines. And they took drugs from a medicine chest full of every psychoactive chemical known to humanity--all to nullify any discomfort that might disrupt their lives. Rowzidine to wake up in the morning. Voracon to stimulate appetite. Slackerol and Angstex to quell physical and emotional distress. Zestocin to energize. Magnipan to work hard. Carnalium to enliven sex. Bridlen to make kids behave. Quelleron to relax. Napenor to sleep. Refecundar to conceive. Endidol to die. He thought they might as well have one for when they are dead, such as Rapturease.

Melvin snickered at his joke and sneaked a look at himself in the mirror to make sure his own face was not revealing any emotion that could get him in trouble. He had performed fairly well in front of the psychiatrist, concealing his feelings. But he feared the man had seen through the mask. Seen his anger simmering below the surface.

He had lost everyone near and dear to him to this popular plague: friends, colleagues, family. All he had left was Eliza. And he knew it was only a matter of time for her. He had asked her to spend the weekend with him, but she begged off with an excuse as transparent as a politician's promise.

"I'm going to a prescription party," she said. "You should come too. Do you some good, Mel."

Her hooking his name on the end of a line like that always annoyed him. "Prescription party," he muttered as he swung into his apartment lot. "Lotta stupid junkies playing Pass the Pills." He grumbled to himself: Drug companies got everybody by the medulla oblongata. "Not me!" he shouted, braking hard in his assigned space. If Melvin had not been so agitated, he might have noticed his girlfriend peaking out from his bedroom window.

When he opened the door to his unit, Eliza was standing in the doorway. She was completely naked except for a glass of water in one hand and a palm full of pills in the other. "Thought you'd like a special homecoming." Her eyes like bottomless wells.

The sight of her incensed more than aroused him. "Thought you were gonna dive into Lalaland tonight with your doper gang."

"Don't be nasty, Mel. I changed my mind--to be with you. Here."

She stuck her breasts at him and thrust the glass and pills into his face. "I got a new sensualizer. Much better than Carnalium."

The sight of her, the scent of her perfume, the feeling of her urgency made Melvin want to spit. "I wouldn't know about your chems--and I don't care." He tried to get around her, but she blocked his way, straddling his leg, rubbing her labia on his thigh. Aroused, he panicked. "I'm not in the mood, Eliza. And you know I don't want any damned drugs."

"Well, I'm in the mood. Enough for both of us." She smiled like a voodoo spirit. "Make you feel better."

Terrified, Melvin backed out of his apartment and nearly fell over the railing. "Fine. Why don't you call one of your drug buddies to keep you company. I'm leaving."

"Leaving!"

"I need a major change of scene." Without another word or a glance at her, he ran to his car. Speeding out of the lot, he headed for the freeway. After ten miles traveling east, he turned north toward the mountains. "Get high in my own way," he declared at the windshield.

Several thousand feet above the sprawling city and its noxious fumes, he rolled the windows down to let the alpine air clear his head. Thrusting his face out the window, he admired the big cedars tracking by on his way to the summit. At 8000 feet he swung into a snowplow turnout, jumped from the car, and started hiking a steep incline to one of the peaks. Taking a rock-strewn ravine, which he guessed to be a tumbling cascade during spring thaw, he danced from boulder to boulder among throngs of scrub willow, higher and higher, until the conifers were as thin as the air.

By the time Melvin gained the top of Ram's Reach, a thousand feet above the black snake of road below, the sun was starting to set beyond the Pacific Ocean. Imagining himself the last human being on the planet, he sat on a broad flat rock, crossed his legs, and mused about taking off on a gust of wind and joining a flock of geese on their migration to Canada. He suddenly wanted to pick up and move his life to the great northwest. He had seen a site on the web that showed acres of rainforest clinging to the flanks of mountains rising out of the sea like a great breaching behemoth. He wanted desperately to be there, be part of that grand terrain.

Soon his flesh began tingling from the evening chill of high altitude, and he shivered at gusts swirling around the peak, howling up through trees that studded the slope. The biting air refreshed him, but he knew he would have to return to his car before dark. Night would descend on the high mountains with a massive black blanket, lighted only by the moon and navigable only by the stars.

When he tumbled down onto the road and slid back into his car, he had already decided to continue to the other side of the mountains, pick up the Interstate, and drive nonstop until he could see the Northern Lights.

Distracted by the wild darkening nocturne on his way down the curling highway and still feeling a little like the last man on Earth, Melvin did not see the big SUV whip around a curve and encroach on his lane. He heard and felt only a brief crushing blow then immediately knew nothing.

Nearly an hour passed before he awoke in the back of an ambulance. When he regained his senses, he saw a young medic injecting something into a tube that ran into his arm. "No--" Melvin cried feebly. "I've got to go north...."

"Morphine, man." The medic smiled. "Make you feel better wherever you go."

Tears forming in his eyes, Melvin Hart imagined countless stars above the flashing red lights of the van. At the moment he found the polar star, a dense warm fog blocked his vision and enveloped his mind. Before passing out, he mumbled, "North...."

The medic heard him but did not answer, keeping his attention on metered vital signs that ticked and traced in rhythm to the engine and the wheels, as the screaming ambulance descended into the city.

RETRIEVER

Late afternoon sunlight was liquid in Darren's eyes when he walked into the park. That happened every time he set foot in the place but he had to return. Tears came often these days. Kept him awake nights. Distracted him from his work. Spoiled his appetite. The man was losing weight but did not seem to care. Grief had overwhelmed him like a virulent fever.

As if bewitched, he headed straight for the big rock and the gnarly old buckeye tree that grew out of it on the far side of a broad open space. Climbing the mossy granite surface, he perched atop the great monolith and peered through the tangle of silvery branches at the broad sweep of grass below him.

Darren's sister had been worried about his obsession with this park but she knew as well as he the impulse for his recurrent pilgrimages. Neither her concern nor the thirty-mile trip every week restrained him from his appointment with this quiet spot that for him had become a sacred piece of Earth. And every time he sat there on that big rock, he watched the same film run through his mind.

The man sprinting, stretching his body to reach the orange disk afloat just overhead. Bright against the electrifyingly blue autumn sky, the Frisbee spinning aloft on a light breeze. Darren hearing his own voice yelling, ''Run! Run!'' The young golden retriever bounding next to the man, mouth open, tongue flapping, yellow coat waving, shimmering in the sunlight, big browneyes following the disk with the same zeal he would fix on a bird in flight. The man reaching, straining, snagging the plastic lip of the soaring saucer with his fingertips. Darren applauding. The dog leaping around the man. He trotting in a victorious arc then twisting his body to hurl it back to his son. The dog chasing it again, challenging Darren for the whirling platter, sustaining the energy of the one who had given it flight.

Darren watched the movie of himself and his father and the nameless dog from the neighborhood playing with the aerial toy. A film he kept locked in the vault of his memory. A memento in motion. A look backward into days of flesh and blood, at a time when the best in life was current but as brief as a glimpse of sunlight through the amber leaves of fall. Famous days of joy in a romp across a field of grass, a manicured meadow among tawny hills of bay, oak, and madrone.

Father and son had played this way with the dog in that park for many hours but never enough. Outwardly reasoned as a good way to exercise, the simple activity of two men running around with a dog after a spinning disk unconsciously became an informal ceremony of life, a rite to perform as reliably as the sun. Within minutes after Darren and his dad stepped into the park, the dog appeared as if he had been on the look out, greeting them like old friends, and joining the play.

Year after year for nearly a decade the trio cavorted together. The boy became a young man, his father gradually aged, and the dog lived the rest of his life before their eyes. Tragic, Darren thought, how such a good-hearted beast could pass so quickly from youth to old age. As Darren perched on the rock, a solid monument to the remembrance of good times, he could hear dialog from the film loop in his mind.

''He's gonna snatch it away from you, if you miss it, Dare. We'll have a helluva time getting it back.'' And the old man would throw it as hard as he could to make his son run the length of the park, the dog right with him.

''You want him to get it, don't you?'' Darren complained through enfeebling glee.

And sure enough the old dog would snag the disk a few times every day they played in the park. Darren pretended resentment but openly celebrated the retriever's swift agility and incisive accuracy. The dog never stole the disk but only ran just ahead of their feet pounding behind him, their bodies quaking with laughter. The exhilaration graced the cycle of seasons and made life seem endless.

As he sat on that great rock like the heir to a pastoral fortune, Darren remembered the day when the dog failed to join them in the park. He and his father had been expecting it for weeks. The grizzled old fellow had stiffened so much he could not chase the men and their toy but only watch them, as he reclined in the shade of the grand old buckeye tree. Darren's vision blurred. He had loved that unknown dog. And when he no longer appeared in the park, he knew something heavier than he wanted to bear was descending upon him.

While replaying the film, now drenched with the rain of sorrow, he witnessed a strange transformation in the dog. He was suddenly flashing forth in all the glory of his vibrant youth. And chasing a red Frisbee thrown by a young woman. Darren closed his eyes and opened them to restart the film. But when he looked again, he saw a new moving picture.

When he spotted the man on the rock, the dog ran barking at the base, bringing the woman with him. ''Hi!'' she said, smiling. ''He seems to know you.'' Automatically Darren wiped his eyes, hesitated, but slid slowly off the rock. When he hit the turf, the dog jumped and laid his front paws in his hands. ''He loves the park,'' she said. ''Always wants to play here. Just like his father.''

Darren heard the question spill from his mouth. ''His father?''

''Used to come here all the time.''

''So did we. My father and I.'' A tingle traveled the length of Darren's body.

''Really! You must have met him. Lancelot. He died about three years ago.'' Her eyes shone.

''So this must be--''

''Wrangler. Galahad would have been too obvious, don't you think?''

Darren nodded politely.

The young woman looked around. ''Is your father here today? I always like to meet Lance's buddies.''

Darren's smile collapsed; he tried in vain to buttress it with a false facade. ''No. He--he's not.'' His throat locked and he choked on words unspoken.

The woman stared at Darren without speaking for so long he aimlessly scanned the park. Her voice sounded like a gentle brook. ''Now I see why Wrangler is drawn to you.'' She extended the crimson disk to him. ''Want to pick up where you left off?'' The dog pranced around them.

Darren froze and then reached for the disk as if for a lifebuoy. Snapping his wrist, he tossed it with the breeze. Wrangler's spirit ignited his body, and he sprinted after the airborne prize. Timing his attack perfectly, he leaped and snagged the saucer as it hung aloft. When the young woman applauded and cheered the dog, Darren unconsciously did the same and felt a smile stretching muscles in his face that he had not used for a long time. ''He's an expert,'' he said.

''Like father....'' She found his eyes and held them. ''My name's Melinda.'' She extended her hand, and Wrangler put the disk into it just as Darren touched her fingers.

''Darren,'' he said.

She grabbed the disk and hollered, ''Go for it!''

Darren took off running across the park after Wrangler after the saucer. When it was two feet off the grass, they snagged it at the same time, Darren tumbling to the ground but keeping his grip. While they tugged on the disk, Melinda ran up to them, her laughter bubbling into the bright autumn air, filling Darren with joy he had not known for a long time.

ZOMBIES

At first nobody paid attention to the strange man walking through town. Friday evening, and the streets were crowded with all kinds of people. So the stranger went practically unheeded until he passed the cafe, where Solomon Skyte and his buddies were hunched over an outdoor table. A crew of comely young men, dressed in sleek blue and gold sweat clothes, they looked like a ball team before a big game, as they were gulping pitchers of microbrew. Sol was the first to spot the outsider. "Hey--look at that guy!" he said, pointing. His friends followed his finger. Their heads, barbered to matching style, turned in unison; their bloodshot eyes scoped the unusual man.

The stranger walked by slowly, as if riding a moving sidewalk. He wore simple clothes: blue jeans, red T-shirt, and white athletic shoes. His arms hung straight by his sides, his neck stiff, eyes forward. The eyes were the oddest thing about the man. Dark and lackluster as if blind. Yet no dog, no cane, and he moved as deliberately as someone heading for the most important appointment of his life. Or death.

"Must be a tourist from Transylvania," Derek Toll quipped.

Tommy Wertz slapped him on the back and said, "Yeah, man--probably one of your relatives."

More guy glee spewed into the glaring light of late afternoon, as Derek deflected the insult with: "Prob'ly some crack-head lookin' to connect." The last words echoed out of his beer mug, as he slugged the frothy dregs. "I hate those bastards. Turnin' this town into a slum." The guys grunted a good ol' boy kind of accord.

They had blown their self-righteousness blimp size, when Sol spotted a second peculiar fellow walking up the street. Peculiar but strikingly similar to the first. Same jeans, shirt, and shoes. Same mechanical gait. Arms down, rigid. Leveled look. Blank stare.

"What is this--?" Derek shouted. "A convention of the walking dead?" More laughter from his comrades, spiked with gall. "Whaddya say we roust them weirdoes," Derek snarled. "Give 'em a getouttatown message that'll keep 'em awake nights." His buddies howled a blusterous cheer.

All but Sol. He had other things on his mind. "What in hell's the good harassin' a couple of harmless dudes?"

"Looks like we can have it both ways," Derek said, pointing a finger at another stranger passing, a woman dressed exactly like the other two.

Wertz was the first to point out the similarity and muttered something about it. Derek ran with the observation. "Like I said. A gathering of creeps."

By now the young men had descended into alcoholic doldrums. And the lingering heat of the August day was evaporating their spirits. The whole street scene was blurring in their eyes, so they lost interest in the catatonic characters. "I'm outta here," Sol said, rising with a groan. "Gotta call Rissa."

"You gettin' soft as whipped cream over that chick, man," Derek said. I thought we was gonna hang out tonight."

"Yeah, well, I'm gettin' a little tired of hangin' out, drinkin' myself sick, then wakin' up with my head in a vice." The other guys hooted at Sol and made some carping gestures. But he ignored them. And when Derek rousted the others to go after the weirdoes, Sol waved them off and wobbled down the street.

"Yeah, you're whipped, man," Derek hollered after him, but Sol made no reply, did not even look back.

The guys grunted their repertory of rude expressions, illustrated with offensive hand signs, as they drained the last of the suds. Almost simultaneously they too rose from their chairs and sauntered up the street, weaving into each other like bump cars.

At home Sol sprawled on his bed and called his girlfriend and responded to her sparkly greeting with inebriated verve. "Hey, Riss."

"You've been drinking, haven't you?"

"Just a few brews with the guys after a little B-ball, hon."

"I told you I wanted to go dancing tonight."

"I thought we could keep it simple. Tangled but simple." He laughed alone.

She held a silent moment like a rope tightening then said, "Come on, Sol. It's the weekend. Time to party."

He said nothing for a few seconds and then muttered, "You party, babe. Maybe I'll do some readin'. Catch up on my journal."

"Reading! Journal! Jesus, Sol! You're getting nerdier every day."

"Just a little tired of the same ol' shit. Time to turn the page."

"Yeah, well--maybe you'd like to close the book on us--"

They listened to each other breathe for several moments. Then she whispered, "Guess I'll go."

"Call ya tomorrow--"

"I'm going shopping tomorrow."

"Call me when ya get home."

"Okay."

The complete lack of conviction in her voice chilled Sol but he did not really care. Their relationship was dying but it had never really been alive anyway, more of an unconscious carnal duet. After barely audible last words, they hung up on each other, the disconnect more than telephonic.

Of late, Sol Skyte had experienced something of an awakening. Long resistant to anything remotely educative, institutionally or otherwise, he had recently discovered the fruits of imagination. One night as he was making himself a toasted cheese sandwich and a cup of tomato soup for dinner he caught glimpses of a TV program about great poets. Intrigued, he began browsing bookstores.

So this evening he fell asleep reading an anthology of absurd drama, recommended by a pretty salesclerk in Bloodshoteyes Books. He blew through a play by Pinter but sensed a quality in the characters with words and images curiously familiar. While he slept with the book on his chest that night, oblivious to the world around him, it was changing too.

Not until late the next morning, when hauling his monthly mountain of clothes to the laundromat, did he see the turn of events. He could barely keep his eyes on the road for the sight of people in the city, wearing the same jeans, shirts, and shoes; all in the same entranced condition. They seemed everywhere. Seized by a confusing anxiety, he rushed through his chore and raced back to his flat.

He called his girlfriend first. Answering machine. "Rissa. You seen these weird people in town lately? Oh--sorry 'bout last night." Frustrated, he hung up and immediately called Derek. Again a machine. "Hey, Dere--those creeps of yours are multiplying, man. Call me."

While putting his clothes away Sol caught something on the National Network News that stopped him in mid pile. Breaking News. A pretty head talking:

From the far-out file, a new fad is

sweeping American cities. People,

maybe in some crazy club or gang

or protest movement, have taken to

strolling through our major cities,

wearing the same casual but patriotic

clothes. They carry no placards and

utter not a word, marching through

town as orderly as soldiers on patrol.

Debbie Stark is downtown now trying

to get an explanation for the mass

demonstration that is growing every

hour. Debbie--

Sol stared at the live videoshots and guessed it all had to be part of some kind of art happening. Reminded him of a conceptual event when a film artist had directed scores of naked men and women to lie down in the middle of a bridge. He had enjoyed that one and hoped to see more like it. This episode lacked the allure of the other but he assumed it part of the same strange artistic concept. Determined to be more broad-minded in keeping with his discovery of the creative mentality, Sol shrugged off any judgmental notions and stashed his clothes.

When he jumped on his bicycle for a ride through the park, he had nearly forgotten the whole thing, more concerned about his relationship with Marissa. But he had not ridden more than a block from his building when he saw them again. Scores of them. Some on foot. Most in vehicles. But all the same: dressed alike, silent, facing forward, and meandering through town. Apparently looking for something but showing no sign of finding it.

"Like a bunch of zombies," he said and wondered at his trembling. Noticing their awareness of him, Sol stood on the pedals and pumped into high gear. He wanted some space, some distance from this eerie congregation. He flew down the street, cut into the middle of the park, and headed for the beach. Saturday afternoon. Crowds would be thronging both popular places, but he longed for sight of the open sea. Get a breather at the edge of it all.

When he found his favorite place on the cliffs overlooking the ocean, he slugged some water and lay back to watch seabirds gliding over the whitecaps. A westerly wind scented with salt and marine life soothed him. Before he knew it, his eyelids were descending on the horizon.

Sol awoke to a broad swath of sky on fire. He waited until the great star squashed and slipped to the other side of the globe then he inhaled deeply and remounted his bike. Renewed, he forgot about the crowds, assumed the event had passed and they had all returned to their mundane lives.

Interesting, he mused. Bunch of people doin' something bizarre breaks up the monotony of the ol' day in day out. Sol smiled and resolved to write about it in his journal. He was in the middle of running a phrase through his mind, when he saw them again. The catatonic ones. Now by the hundreds.

As he rode home, he spotted them entering and exiting buildings, riding in buses and cars, strolling the boulevards. Adrenaline charging his veins, sweating from both strain to his body and fear in his mind, he pounded up the streets, raced home, dodging the weird wanderers all the way. "What in hell is going on?" he shouted to no one but himself, as if trying to clear his mind. But his cognitive power was no less sharp than usual. And the more of these lost souls he saw, the more fear shot up and down his spine. "These guys--aliens or some damn thing?" The idea struck him as silly. He enjoyed science fiction but never really expected it to become reality. Not in his lifetime anyway.

Aliens. The more he thought about it, the more plausible it became. Some kind of invaders, body snatchers infecting us? "Well, if that's who they are, they ain't gettin' me!" As he wheeled home, the wind in his face refreshed and invigorated him. Sol always felt better after a bike ride. Strong. Once safe in his flat, he stripped and jumped into the shower. Nothin' like a cool rinse after a workout.

Lolling under the stream, he heard the doorbell ring. Wrapping a towel around him, he ran to answer it and was glad to see Marissa. "Hey--" But he nearly dropped the towel when he saw her jeans, shirt, and shoes, especially her vacant eyes. Before she could speak, he slammed the door on her, stumbled back, and gasped. "What in god-damned hell is happening?!" Art event? Bullshit! More like a cheap horror movie from Mars.

Struggling to understand the situation, he reached for the NNN rationale--a fad. Yeah, that's it. Some trend like backward baseball caps and pants hanging off the ass. "Well, I ain't playin' that game anymore!" Stomping into his bedroom, Sol put on black pants, black shirt, and black shoes. The weather was hot but he had a statement to make.

As soon as he pushed past Marissa and stepped outside his building, he stopped short. Throwing frantic looks up and down the street, he saw only people in the same uniform with the same entranced attitude. Worst of all, he felt every one of them was staring at him. An outsider, a misfit. Desperate to find a single soul like himself or at least someone in different garb, he ran for blocks in all directions. After stumbling to a halt, stooped from fatigue, panting hoarsely, he realized that among the hundreds maybe thousands of people he had not seen one dressed or behaving differently. Apparently the whole city had gone mad. Maybe the entire country. The world!

Sol had not completely caught his breath when he sensed an ominous change in the scenario. At first he thought the others were staring at him by chance or out of cold curiosity. But now it struck him that some of them were advancing toward him, and he was getting the tight feeling in his gut that their intentions were not friendly. He trotted away but discovered them coming at him from all directions. Anxiety shifted into terror that burned his tongue and clamped his chest. He took off running aimlessly. Sol had no reason to think this strangely kindred pack would harm him, but something about their relentless pursuit linked with the look in their deadeyes made him run for his life.

Questions flew through his mind like debris in a whirlwind. What's with these ass holes? They on drugs? Everyone crazy? Am I the only normal human being left?

Sol wound up in front of his building. The mob swarmed around him, not running but still walking in the same robotic way. Bounding into his flat, he shoved the door closed on their arms and legs and jammed it hard until they withdrew their limbs. When he threw the lock, he could hear them pressing against the door and, fearing they would break through it, he moved his couch against it and piled on chairs.

Out the corner of his eye he saw them at the windows. Darting from room to room, he checked the locks and then pulled shades and curtains. Now afraid they would break the glass, he called 911. No one answered. He hit redial again and again. Nothing.

Faintly, as if from blocks away, a chorus of voices erupted into a chant. At first he could not discern any words. Then it grew louder. "Jibe! Jibe! Jibe! Jibe!" The chanting surrounded him. Deafening. Maddening. He saw Derek, Tommy, and his other buddies crowding around a window. They too were in uniform with the same empty look in their eyes. "Jibe! Jibe!" they yelled. Derek smashed the glass with his forehead and stuck his face through the jagged opening, blood streaming from his brow.

"Hey, Sol--" he said, grinning.

"You nuts, Derek?!"

"Come join us, man. It's a rush!"

"Join you in what? Lunacy?"

"Naw, man--we're all doin' it. It's cool."

"Well, I'm not."

"Gotta be different, eh? Don't worry--you can be an individual if ya wanna be." Derek snapped off the remaining shards, unlocked the window, and crawled through it.

"Get outta my place, Derek! And stop bleedin' all over my carpet!"

Sol cast around for a weapon. Spotting a brass lamp, he yanked it out of the wall and pulled off the shade.

When Derek stepped into the room, Sol swung the lamp and caught him at the temple. His body went slack and crumpled onto the floor. Tommy crawled through the window. Sol bashed him too. But the others kept coming. After Sol had laid up a pile of bodies, his arms were weakening. He tried to fight them with his bare hands, but they overwhelmed him. The last thing he remembered was a smear of red, white, and blue and a swarm of dull, unblinking eyes staring down at him.

Sol awoke naked on a cot in a small dim cubicle. Scanning the space, he noticed a peephole in a steel door and one little window high in the southern wall. A long band of sunlight shot through the room and illumined a spot on the dirty cement floor. Shivering, he rolled off the cot, his body aching from numerous cuts and bruises, and crawled to sit crosslegged in the light. Turning toward the door, he saw in the peephole an eyeball spying on him. In a moment a drawer pushed into the room. On it lay a bundle in brown paper. Curious and hungry, Sol tore open the package. Blue jeans, a red T-shirt, and white athletic shoes tumbled into his lap.

Sol stared at the clothes that had become a uniform.

The eye in the door kept watch.

LAST CONFESSION

Like clockwork in a Dali painting, the bad dream had disturbed Michael Rent nearly every night since childhood. The nocturnal scenario always starred a dark ogre like the witches, goblins, and parent-disguised monsters that had permeated his young unconscious mind. He had suffered with the horrible fantasy for a decade. Not until manhood did the nightmare become reality for Michael, corporeal as a permanent scar.

To anyone passing Saint Basil Elementary School it appeared like any other bastion of parochial education on a suburban boulevard. Provincial. Safe. A staid institution of stern priests and taskmaster nuns: celibate men and women, strangely remote from the crass world beyond their religious reserve. Most of Michael's memories of those years swam in visions of pencils and paper, girls in plaid, playground heroics, push fights, foolery, pepper trees, drought, and the passage of time at the speed of light.

Around the tidy asphalt school grounds, the people in black and white would walk among the children like animated figures in a medieval painting. The nuns dwelt in a large two-storey house; the priests in a sprawling rectory--both suggesting a holy hierarchy. Michael never thought of it that way until he went to college, when his blind belief was finally illuminated by knowledge. He awakened to the realities of the world unlike any since the virginal days of his eleventh year.

Father Ronald Boggs was the favorite cleric of the parish priests because of his youth, bright smile, and gaiety. The boys reveled in his vigor, the girls in his dark good looks. Popular with the parents he would often grace their homes for evening meals and celebrations. "Come for dinner, Father Boggs," mothers would say through ingratiating smiles. He was to them a consecrated celebrity. Like all the children, Michael trusted him without question and, being fatherless, the boy was easily drawn to this friendly priest. So, while playing foursquare on the school grounds one warm spring afternoon, the lamb was pleased when the shepherd beckoned.

"Mickey," Father Boggs said, "come see me before the bell rings, will you?"

As the priest walked away, Michael's playmates congratulated him. And he grinned happily, for a visit to the rectory often meant candy or cookies. At one time or another, many of the children had been invited into that domicile of God's disciples. Michael Rent, like other boys, was looking forward to his turn.

When Sal Costa knocked him out of the game, Michael strode to the priest's house in the shade of a venerable sycamore tree. His little knuckle knocking on the screen door barely rattled into a short entry hall. At the end of it a door opened onto Father Boggs sitting behind a big mahogany desk in a dark room, his head lighted on one side by a reading lamp. When the priest looked up, his face in chiaroscuro, Michael felt a surprising impulse to flee.

"Come in, Mickey, my boy." Father Boggs waved his swarthy hand.

Michael slowly pulled open the squeaking door and stepped into the hallway. Religious pictures lined the walls, but he did not bother to look at them, too intent on spotting some confectionery treat. And when he stopped just inside the priest's room, his eyes scanned the space to find it.

"Come here, son--close to me." The priest leaned back in a high leather chair and smiled strangely.

Michael tried to speak but only grunted and bowed his head as he ambled around the desk and stood at the knees of the big man in black. The boy's eyes avoided the priest's and fixed on the square patch of white gleaming below the man's chin.

"What do you know about boys and girls, Mickey?" Father Boggs asked as if administering a quiz.

Uncertain how to answer, Michael nodded agreeably as he caught a glint in the priest's darkeyes.

"Here--let me show you--" the priest extended his hands, palms up, supplicant, the grin warping his florid face.

Michael took a half step forward and felt the massive hands grasp his arms as he heard--

"Unzip your pants, child."

The boy flushed and tittered; surprised a man of God could be playing a naughty game. But when he examined the man's face, he detected no playfulness, no humor, and no warmth. Fear freezing his heart, Michael shook his head bashfully.

"Relax, Mickey. It's all right. I just want to explain something about boys that's different from girls."

Michael nodded absently, wondering why anyone would think he did not know such things.

The priest caught the gesture and mimicked it. "Go ahead, lad--take your pants down--"

While watching a TV news report one evening in a Milton College dormitory, Michael Rent finally awoke from his bad dream into daylight as if to an alarm continually ringing. And when he saw those men and women, heard their stories bitter as poison in their mouths, he recalled the encounter, his own infamous experience, as the crux of his chronic phantasm. Like flashbacks from a terrifying accident in another lifetime, images obliterated the screen and slid across his mind: massive hands, bulbous face, pitch-black eyes, and the saccharine voice of a false prophet. Then he understood the silence endlessly echoing. Knew the darkness in daylight, the petrifying fear, and the lifelong discord of cold rage without words. At that moment Michael comprehended the ironic portent of the last confession he ever made in his life.

When the boy entered the small chamber inside the Saint Basil church, knelt on the hard cushion, heard, and then saw the shutter slide open, he trembled to see Father Boggs's face glowing yellow in the cloistered light behind the screen. The priest's voice rumbled as if out of a painting by Hieronymus Bosch: "Now, tell me your sins, my son."

Michael held his breath. Dropping his head, lips to tightly joined fingers, he murmured, "Bless, me, Father--for I have sinned...."

PURCHASING POWER

Police cars were prowling the city streets like panthers. Nathan knew he was their prey but could not believe it. As he ducked into an alley, stumbled over a trashcan, and disappeared into shadows, a patrol car cruised past, its spotlight crawling along the wall behind him. Curling into a ball next to a dumpster, he prayed through his panting that the car would pass. Looking for a way out, he caught the glow of a TV in an apartment two stories above his head. Despite his terror at being discovered, a snicker sneaked out of him. "I wonder what they're telling us now," he whispered to himself.

Nathan Rush had always been crazy about television. Watched it whenever he could. People called him a video junkie, but he didn't care. He learned a lot from TV. Besides simply being there, the audio-video device that occupied the most important place in his living room provided all the information Nathan wanted. And believed. To him the machine was a cyclopic oracle that he practically adored. For information on political issues, facts about foreign wars, weather around the globe, movies to see, vicarious thrills in fear and sex, ways to live his life, Nathan found them in the cathode ray revelator. Then one day he was surprised to hear a stunning report on National Network News.

The anchor suavely related the information that the mass media conglomerate provided the citizenry. All government approved. With impeccable enunciation the talking head announced: "To revive the slumping economy the president today submitted a bill to congress that would require each individual in the country to spend a minimum amount of money on commercial products throughout the year."

Nathan would never forget that statement; actually it had branded his brain. Normally he followed every word to keep his daily fixation on current events up to date. No good socializing at parties without appropriate contributions to the nodding and shaking heads that shared the latest tittle-tattle. But this time he was too concerned to collect his daily quota of news about the world among the usual consumer messages. With his chest seizing up, he had called his girl friend. "Becky--you watching NNN?"

"Duh! What else would I be doing at this time, Nate? Aren't you?"

"Yeah. Sure. But d'ya hear the bit about that spending bill?"

"Course I did and I think it's a great idea. But I don't know why they need a law to make sure we shop. I'm glad to do it every chance I get." A short cackle burst out of her. "I should get some sort of commendation for supporting the national cause."

"Well, I don't like it."

"Why not?"

"For one thing it strikes me as, well--dictatorial. I thought this was a free country."

"It is. We're free to buy almost anything we want, anytime we want, anywhere we want. That's freedom, if you ask me."

"But they're talkin' about forcing us, Beck."

"They shouldn't have to. It's the American way. All of us should be doing our part for the good of the country. Wicked not to."

"What good is it to make people spend money on stuff, when they may not have it to spend?"

"Have you forgotten one of my favorite words in the language--?" She paused to snap it. "Credit?"

"So--they max out their cards and can't get anymore. What then?"

"First, I don't believe that would ever happen. We can always get another credit card--sooner or later. And if not, well, then there's always...."

"Debtors' prison?!"

Derisive laughter from her. "This is the US of A, darling. We don't put people in prison for not paying their bills."

"No? I wouldn't be so sure. I heard something in that report about penal colonies to support the manufacturing effort."

"Yeah, well--just do your patriotic part and you won't have to worry about it, will you?"

In recalling that conversation Nathan shivered, despite the 80 degrees in the middle of the LA night. That was months ago. He had not talked with Becky since then and had a sick feeling she had turned him in to the Purchase Police. "Un-American!" she had shouted at him when he told her he was not going to buy things just to keep the fat cats happy.

Funny, he had never thought of himself as Un-American. He had always tried to obey laws, pay taxes, vote, and agree with the conventional wisdom. Now he was running from the law. For his freedom. Maybe his life.

The police car passed the alley. Nathan was safe. At least until dawn. Then where? Not home. They would be watching. Same as at work. He flashed on a temporary solution. If I simply buy a few things. A book? No, too subversive. Clothes. Yeah. And some popular music. Maybe a ticket to a Lakers game. That should do it. Keep them off my back for a few days. Then I'll figure out what to do. Time. Just to buy a little time. First thing tomorrow. Go to the mall. That's the place. They see me there, I'll be safe. Figure things out.

Nathan leaned back against the wall and folded his arms. Just get through this tight spot and then I'll be okay. Glad for a little relief, Nathan looked at the nightsky between the buildings and tried to see some stars through the smog. The effort made him sleepy. Curling up beside the dumpster, he pulled a cardboard box over him, stuffed his coat under his head, and tried to get comfortable. Not so bad, he thought. Sort of like camping out. Could buy some gear for that too.

While inventorying the items he would need to live in the woods, Nathan Clocke fell asleep in that deadend alley off one of the busy boulevards that crisscrossed the teeming metropolis between the mountains and the sea. And the blaring TVs in apartments around him eased his slumber.

CASTLETOWN QUARRY

"I'm in big trouble, man," Dick said, as he and Stan Slayter sat zip-coding letters in the Castletown post office. For ten years working together they had been wallowing in commiseration about their unhappy lives. Today Dick Foon was taking his turn.

"Yeah--well, I got troubles of my own," Stan snarled.

Dick resented the intrusion on his time for pity but let him go on. "Like what?"

"My god damned wife--the cheatin' bitch!" Stan's dark eyes slowly slid onto Dick and held him fast.

Dick looked away sharply and shifted on his stool. "You gonna listen to my problem or not, Stan?"

"Okay, okay--what is it?"

"You know a lot about insurance companies, right?"

"Been fightin' for settlements most of my life."

"And you're not particularly against screwin' 'em a little, right?"

Stan grinned. "Go on."

Dick drew a deep breath. "Well, I gotta cash in, man." He bent his head toward Stan and whispered, "Gotta get ridda my car."

"Ridda yer car?"

"I'm in over my head. If I don't find a way out soon--I could go bankrupt."

"Bankrupt!" Stan Slayter shouted, not the soft-spoken type.

"Shhhh--" Dick said glancing around the big room.

"Not your car, man? She's a beaut."

"Yeah--and I hate to do it. Like givin' up a sexy mistress. But, damn it, I got no choice. Can't make the payments."

Stan nailed him with deadly eyes then grinned like a gargoyle. "So what you do? Get into one of those zero, zero, zero deals?" Dick did not reply. Stan shook his head and muttered, "Stupid--"

"Look, man...."

"Okay." Stan started working faster. "So what in hell ya want me to do?" He stopped short. "Hey, you're not leadin' up to a touch, I hope."

"No, Stan, I ain't gonna hit you up for cash. But I do need to stop bleeding it. And the quickest way I can think to staunch it is by dumpin' my car."

"Put her up for sale." He turned sharply toward Dick and hissed. "Just what I oughta do with my ol' lady."

Dick squirmed again and muttered breathlessly. "No, no, I owe too much." He too started working rapidly.

"So what you mean--dump your car?"

Dick checked to see if anyone's ears were on fire. He whispered, "I need you to make it disappear, man."

Stan stared at him. Dick met him with his pale green eyes. They stayed that way until Stan broke the trance. "What in hell makes you so cock sure of me, Dickie, boy?"

" 'Cause there's money in it."

Stan's face tightened. "Yeah? How much?"

"A grand."

"Thousand bucks ain't much. What exactly you expect for it?"

"I told ya. Dump my car."

"Just like that."

"Yeah. I got it all figured out." Dick bent close to Stan's ear and whispered his plan.

One moonless Saturday night at a quarry outside of town, a silver sedan shot off a cliff and plunged one hundred feet into stagnant water. After bubbling boisterously for several seconds, it sank out of sight. That night Dick reported the theft and then called his insurance company.

A few days later a suited agent came to Dick's house and questioned him for more than an hour. "So, Mister Foon--you have no idea how your car was stolen."

"No. Like I told the sheriff. I locked it up tight when I went to the movies. When the show was over, I came out and found it gone."

"Uh-huh," the agent searched his eyes. "Well, most likely you'll be covered for the loss--once we recover the vehicle."

"Recover?"

"Yes. We have to know the final disposition of the property before we can make a decision."

"Oh."

"Have you heard lately from the authorities?"

"No."

"Well, I'm sure you will. In this county law enforcement avidly pursues auto theft. Nearly as much as murder."

When the agent left, Dick was elated. So certain was he of the insurance company finding in his favor that he bought a bottle of champagne to celebrate. He was halfway through it and feeling very self-satisfied when he decided to call Helen Slayter. See if she could sneak out to share in his good fortune. As soon as he punched the number, a knock on his door startled him. He did not hear it ringing.

"Open up, Mister Foon--county sheriff!" a voice demanded. "Open up!"

Dick dropped the phone, stumbled to the door, and looked through the peep hole. Two deputies. After frantically looking around as if to find something to cover his ass, Dick slowly opened the door.

The peace officers pushed their way in, guns drawn. Dick jerked his hands into the air. "Turn around, Mister Foon," one of the deputies said with an ominously calm tone.

Dick obliged and, as they were cuffing him, tried to be amiable. "What's goin' on, fellas?"

The other deputy barked, "You're under arrest for the murder of Mis'ess Stanley Slayter."

"Murder! What in hell you talkin' about? I didn't kill anyone. I only...."

"Yeah?" the deputy's eyes narrowed. "Then, why'd we find her body in the trunk of your car?"

Dick's face went anemic. "My car?!"

"Yeah," the other one said quietly. "Where you left it--at the bottom of the Castletown Quarry. Couple of divers found it this morning."

"But I...."

"Mister Slayter reported her missing about the time you reported your car stolen," the loud deputy barked.

The calm one put Dick into the back of the police car and said, "Told us you been stalkin' her for months, Mister Foon."

"That sonovabitch!" Dick mumbled, as the car roared away from his house.

Inside, on the floor lay the telephone, gushing a torrent of laughter.

SOLO FUGUE

For years Homer Dodge had watched the prison population explode. Gotten used to it. Escalating war on crime, he figured. Lots of sociopaths captured and confined. But lately something had changed. Guys were breaking free. Never been anything unusual in that. Always a few who couldn't do the time. But in recent days they weren't coming back. Rarely, as long as Homer had been locked up, did he see a bird get away for good, unless he died in a shoot-out or killed himself. Most of them returned for even more time inside the walls. Until now.

Homer had never thought of running. Sentenced to five years for burglary, he was behaving himself and hoping to get out in two. He seldom griped, worked hard in the shop, and generally cooperated with the guards. So, when cons started disappearing from cells around him, Homer Dodge kept his head down and his mouth shut. Besides, being alone in his cage could be a luxury by prison standards.

Unsurprisingly, when Turk Thomson and a couple of men in the adjacent cells surrounded him in the yard one day and demanded he join them in a one-way hike, Homer tried to pass on the opportunity. "Too short, guys," he said. "Don't need another nickel tacked onto my time."

Turk, towering over the other men, cut into him with his narrow eyes and whispered in a hoarse way that rattled even the bulls: "Yeah, Dodger? And how do we know you ain't gonna rat us out?"

Homer knew he was trapped but tried to wriggle out of it anyway. "No percentage in it, Turk. I stool for the man, I never live to see another day. That simple."

"Not simple enough. You with us--or not."

Homer weighed his choices: go with them to almost certain capture and more prison time or stay behind and maybe fail to wake up in the morning. He tried to rationalize his chances, given the shortage of returning runaways. Maybe they were getting lucky. Still something about the situation was crawling around inside his head. Something insidious he could not identify.

"Make up your mind?" Turk growled, presenting a more imminent danger to Dodge.

"Yeah--okay," Homer grumbled. "When?"

"Friday night," Turk said. "Make it a party time weekend."

His comrades chuckled in obliging chorus. Homer tried to join them but could not summon the enthusiasm any more than he could shake the bug in his brain. After they told him the plan and left him alone, he panted for five minutes to catch his breath.

Just what I god-damned need, he thought. Get caught breakin' outta the joint, right when I'm beginnin' to see light on the other side of the walls. Damn it to hell! On the way back to his cell, throughout the rest of the day, and late into the bright prison night Homer strained to find a way out of the trap.

When the sun had collapsed on Friday, Homer Dodge was thrashing with Turk and his toady, Little Dick Petty, through dense brush in a patch of woods that stretched south of the prison for more than ten miles. Homer had made the trip from his cell to the cargo truck to the main gate more as the dissolving details of a dream than action in real time. But now he was actually escaping. How in hell could it be so easy? The question fluttered in his mind like a moth in a jar. He was so focused on this, as the others were on their getaway, that he failed to notice tiny red dots dancing on the leaves around them.

A loud pop, shattering the air and driving birds from the trees, punctuated an imperative answer to Homer's unsettling question. The fugitives dived into a thicket and grabbed the forest loam. "Jesus! That a shot?" Dick cried softly.

"Wasn't the warden breakin' wind," Turk shouted in a whisper. "Stay down and keep quiet." They listened, their faces twitching, dirt-peppered, and sweat-blistered.

Distant voices bounced off each other in the middle distance. "This way, Marvin," someone hollered in a hush. "They're leavin' tracks like a bunch of cattle."

"More fun, though--ain't they?" Marvin answered.

"Shut your holes and stay focused," another voice commanded. "We didn't pay you to screw around."

"Yes, sir," Marvin said sarcastically. "But I still think we shoulda brought some dogs."

"No sport in that," the commanding voice said.

Deeper in the woods the three men straining for liberty looked at each other baffled. "That don't sound like bulls," squeaked Little Dick.

"It don't," Turk said, his narrowed eyes black marbles.

"Who in hell--?" Homer sputtered.

Turk replied with his customary stare of superiority by brute force. "They sure as hell ain't from the god-damned Welcome Wagon." Dick giggled until Turk grabbed his nose and mouth with one big hand and squeezed, bringing tears to the little fellow's eyes. When the giant finally let go, Dick's gasping for air sounded like a rusty compressor. "Listen up," Turk yapped. "We split up. They ain't gonna catch us--not all of us anyways. Them that gets away meets up at Clattville like we planned."

"Like you planned, Turk," Homer said. "Every man for himself now."

"Suit yerself, jerk. Let's go, Dick."

The big one started crawling commando style through the brush, Dick slithering behind him. After some hesitation, Homer followed. They scrambled to a dry wash and tumbled down a slope. Feeling out of sight, Turk stood up, yanked Dick to his feet, and ran. The sand slowed them but they moved surprisingly fast. Homer watched until darkness swallowed their shapes and then he inhaled deeply and cast about for another way. Spotting by half-moonlight a cleft in the slanting wall of the gulch, he scurried into it and gathered himself into a ball. His eyes on the few dim stars visible in the sky, he waited, wondering what to do, trying to think, but finding only confusion.

More popping noises simplified his thoughts. He heard a bunch of feet clambering down the bank and grinding the sand. Peeking out of his hole he tried to spy his pursuers. Catch a glimpse of their direction, attitudes. He nearly thanked God aloud when he saw them turn away from his position.

"I see one breakin' that way!" Marvin hollered. "I'll take him out!" A few shots cracked the night air. Then a feminine scream tore it open.

"Little Dick--" Homer whispered.

"Ya hit him?" one of the gunmen shouted.

"Think so," Marvin said. After a moment: "Yeah, gut shot."

"Finish him, Marv. We don't aim to make 'em suffer."

Homer, having held his breath, let it go through trembling lips. Then he jumped at another shot. "Jesus Christ!" he whispered.

"Tony--you and Charlie see the others?" Marvin asked.

"We're on their trail," Charlie said. "One of 'em anyway."

Others! Homer thought. They got a head count? Who in hell--? Can't be cops. Wouldn't shoot us down like rabid animals. Before he could find an explanation, more shots popped about a hundred yards away. Turk? Homer listened. Impossible. Turk Thomson was one of those bastards that held the power of life and death over other people and always seemed omnipotent.

"Watch out, Tony! This one's charging us. Big dude. Must've taken three slugs but still on his feet. Like a god damned water buffalo."

"Put a round into his head," Tony said coldly. "That'll stop him."

"Almost on top of me!" Charlie howled.

A group of shots exploded. Then silence for several moments until one of the gunmen grunted, "I hit him good!"

"So did I!"

Crazy laughter spluttered into the darkness.

"Blew up his head like a melon," Marvin bellowed.

"Flag these two," Tony said. "And we'll get the other one?"

The other one. Homer, the last escapee, curled fetally into the bottom of the hole in the ground and shivered at the realization that he was the other one. Listening for their approach, he spun a few notions of survival through his mind. But they all trailed off like smoke from a dying fire and dissipated into the night.

"Think he made it outta the woods?" Marvin asked.

"Naw--" Charlie said. "Probably hidin' in the brush somewhere."

"Well, let's find him," Tony said. "I want a hunert percent tonight."

As the three men headed in Homer's direction, he looked frantically around and saw nothing but blackness. They would catch him sure and kill him like the others, if he did not find a way out of the trap. Turk dead. God almighty! Never woulda thought--

Homer, holding his breath again, heard a sound that quickened his pulse. Dripping water. Fighting despair, he searched for the source and found a culvert emptying into the grave-sized furrow in which he cowered. Without a thought to his destination, he crawled into the large pipe and scuttled along the cold, dank metal ribs.

As he scurried farther and farther into the foul tube, he wondered what kind of thing he had entered. A sewer outta some nearby town? Maybe from a local factory. Probably oozing toxic waste. Panting so hard, he could barely sniff the air. But he caught enough. It stank of chemicals and dead things. No matter. Better take a chance getting sick from pollution than dying from a cluster of bullets. Breathing so loudly, he could no longer hear the receding voices of the men searching the wash for him.

A hundred yards Homer crawled like a baby and cursed himself for joining the idiots in trying to escape in the first place. What in hell was I thinking? Coulda been lyin' on my bunk soaking up a novel. His fury at himself drove him forward to find an exit, escape from the jam.

Glancing backward, Homer neither saw nor heard a sign of his pursuers. Maybe they missed the culvert. Maybe he would get away afterall. The thought of freedom excited him and made him nearly forget his imminent parole and the looming threat of death. His imagination was beginning to form pictures of leisure and tranquility in a remote part of the world, when he passed a vertical opening in the pipe. Stopping in the juncture he tried to calculate how far he had come to this point. Was he under a street in town? How far from the prison? Would the men hunting him see him emerge?

Peering up the pipe he saw nothing. Finding metal bar steps ascending the pipe, he climbed into the unknown. In less than a minute he reached the top but bumped into a steel disk. A vehicle rumbled over it. The noise jarred his head but it meant a street.

Wanting desperately, daringly to see what lay above, wondering whether or not he could actually be free, Homer Chase pushed open the heavy metal stopper and gazed three-hundred-sixty around. He saw many things in a blur, but one caught his eye. The prison.

Without realizing, he had doubled back underground to the street that ran past the front gate. "Son of a bitch!" He wanted to beat his head against the pavement. "What a god damned dumb ass fool!" Glancing around again to see if any chance of freedom lay within reach, he glimpsed a sight that chilled his blood: three shapes stepping out of the woods. Coming his way.

Like a rat Homer ducked back into the hole but quickly realized he had no idea where the pipe went. Maybe down the street. Maybe into the prison. Then it hit him. Jerking his head around, he spotted the front gate. With another quick turn, he glimpsed the approaching men. He had to act fast one way or another. Instinctively choosing the familiar, he crawled out of the pipe and ran for the prison.

"Tony! Look!" one of the men shouted. "That him?"

The fugitive kept his head down and ran like a halfback headlong for the only safety and security he could find. He heard shots and felt bullets zing past his head. Afraid to look back, he kept running. Gotta reach the gate, a guard, before they nail me. He waved his arms wildly. The prison was lighted like a power plant. Some bull on the wall would have to see him. The gunmen would not dare fire in front of the authorities. But more bullets zipped past him. Any second one would find his flesh.

"Guards! Guards!" he shouted. "Lemme in!"

Search lights played on his position. Finding him by the front gate, they held him in a glow as if a star on stage. I'm a perfect target now, he thought. "It's Homer Dodge!" he cried.

"Homer Dodge?" one of the turret guards said. Laughter swept along the top of the wall.

"Open the god-damned gate!" Homer screamed. When he reached the towering steel doors, he fell to his knees and banged on them with his fists until they ached. "For God's sake--let me in! Somebody's tryin' to kill me!"

After Homer had aged eons, the gate came alive, clanked, grinded, then slowly broke open enough to let three guards exit. The first one, a big guy the inmates called Ape, grabbed Homer's neck, and shoved him onto his belly. The next one cuffed him. Then the three picked him up by the shoulders and dragged him into the prison. "You the first, Dodger," Ape said, grinning, his snaggle teeth like broken limestone.

Homer, gulping air, tried to look up at him. "First what?"

"First bird to get back alive," Ape said, his cohorts murmuring in mock admiration.

"Who in hell are those guys?" Homer asked, a guess at the answer skittering around his mind.

"Group call themselves Bloodhounds," Ape grunted. "Pay the state big bucks to let a few cons bust out every year. Works out pretty good. Thins out the prison population. Cuts down on penitentiary overhead. Saves the taxpayer some dough too." When he laughed, his teeth clacked.

"You're shittin' me," Homer said, unsurprised.

"Looks like you done that yerself," Ape quipped. The other guards cackled.

Homer had been so fixed on escaping death and then so ecstatic about reaching the safety of the prison that he failed to notice the stench from his pants. He chortled to deflect any more attention to his lapse and felt like celebrating his far greater relief at being alive. "Just lemme back inside. I'll clean up and...."

"Don't go feelin' too comfortable, Dodger," Ape said, as he and his fellows hauled the prodigal below the main cell blocks. "You in deeper shit than you think."

Homer avoided the big man's eyes for fear he would see in them something like the last judgment. When the solitary cell door clanked shut behind him, Homer heard Ape say something about him knowing too much. As Homer removed his clothes and cleaned himself in the toilet, it flashed into his mind and then into his gut that he would either be held in solitary or be presented with countless ways to escape.

Forget about parole. The rock hard fact hammered in his head. They would never let him walk now. He was in for life--or death. They would manage one way or the other.

By the time dawn brightened the gray concrete walls of the compound, a light that Homer Dodge could not see, he was still figuring his options: one deadening, the other deadly. Without any medium of entertainment he spent the long string of hours contemplating his situation. Take another chance at running if offered? Or stay put where he would live and die an old man? The two questions swam in his mind like fish at the bottom of the ocean.

As the indiscernible days dragged past, he knew his cell as a tomb. Buried alive. A hunk of animate flesh pulsing a countdown to oblivion. He envisioned himself withering, shrinking, exhaling one last time, slowly collapsing into himself, stinking, moldering, and finally staining the concrete floor. His last trace eventually worn away by mops and shoes. Finished. Forgotten. Simply a statistic in the Department of Corrections official record.

No. He abhorred the image. Wanted to tear it out of his mind. Grind it into dust. Not the way a man should die. Gotta go out shining. Like a nova. Since his forty years of life had come to this eight foot cubicle, he had no choice as a sentient being but to strive for a better world that had always lain beyond him. Maybe he would die under the merciless rifles of the Bloodhounds. But then again he might miraculously escape to freedom. Freedom. The word suddenly meant more to him than ever. Always a hollow refrain in times of national crisis or political oratory, the word had rarely passed his lips. But now the seven letters transformed into a line, a mantra, a prayer, a reason for taking another breath. "I will escape--" he told himself.

Chances came, as he knew they would. Ape, pretending security checks on him daily, carelessly left the cell door unlocked. But always returned to lock it after a few hundred heartbeats, pretending lapse of memory and fear of the superintendent discovering their negligence. "God damn, Dodger. I just about gave you a free pass." And he chuckled the way a boy does after setting a trap from some hapless animal.

But Homer knew the ploy. They wanted him to escape. Easier to report. Dead cons on the run demand no explanation. Shot while trying to break out of prison--again. Wouldn't make more than a short column inside a newspaper page or a brief dose of sensation on the evening news. Photos of his bullet-torn body, his head a wad of paste. Well, they can have their lurid story, Homer thought, as he made plans. All I need is a bit of luck. Avoid those god-damned guys with guns. Yeah. Luck and a good strategy what I want.

Three days later, when Ape again left the door unlocked one moonless night, Homer made his run for freedom. He slunk through the prison like a spirit, sailed over the wall, and darted into the woods. Behind him, rifleshots shattered the night, bullets trimmed his hair, one nicked his ear, and the Bloodhounds screamed for his outlaw hide. But as he scurried deeper into the forest, the threat of death diminished. His flaring nostrils sensed fresh air yonder. His fear-fraught eyes witnessed the lavender glow of morning. Meeting a slow river on the far edge of the forest he swam across and found another world.

There Homer Dodge discovered a place where he could work with his hands, live in a quiet simple unfettered way alone on the land, and grow his own food; his only companions the living things that skittered, fluttered, and slid around his home. His entertainment the music of wind in the trees, rhythm of rain, silence of snow--the seasonal rise and fall of Earth's great breast. He dwelt in a small cottage in the middle of a wall of woods on the banks of the river in view of monasterial mountains. There he became a new man. All danger disappeared. When he retired each day and lay in bed to read before going to sleep, his pulse would slow in time to the steady comforting cadence of water in the creek and words on the page.

Homer lived in this idyllic place for the rest of his life. By the time he became an old man and died he had come to know this world as well as the flesh and blood of his body and his fellows of earth, water, and air as brethren of the sun and moon. When anyone looked upon his face in death, he would see neither fear nor rage nor desperation. Even the young guard who found Homer's cold withered old body in the cell bunk had no idea that the former man, now a hunk of decaying flesh, lying before him had been the only one ever to escape the prison and enjoy true freedom.

GROUND ZERO

Capitan was the greatest city on Earth. From a distance the golden metropolis resembled a huge fabled castle where wizards might work some glorious magic. At night its myriad lights, encased in their towering monuments to power, seemed captured out of the infinite starry sky. From high altitude the urban grid appeared as a blueprint for the dynamic flow of endless energy. Across its canyon floor lay a foundation for the contemporary human condition. The international capitol of commerce, its concrete hives teemed with the ebb and flow of the human struggle--great and small.

The famous megalopolis attracted people from all over the world. A Mecca for the grandest of aesthetic and material values, it stood upon the planet as a splendid shrine to civilization. Capitan was the latest center of the civilized world in more than 5000 years of human history. Everything cultural flowed from its core, as if an archetypal matriarch bore from her endlessly fertile womb all sights and sounds imaginable. Those who traveled the city streets moved with an electrified air, exuding performance or process or promise. Never mind the wasted souls that littered the paths to fame and fortune. Every gold mine yields slag. The ambitious inhabitants of this urban constellation were generally riding a wave of prosperity that seemed to rise more than fall. They never expected any kind of calamity. Impossible in Capitan, for it was the new eternal city. So, when its center erupted volcanically, the citizens of the fabled city understandably thought the world had come to an end. For thousands of them it had.

Morning in early fall. Clear sky. Bright sun. The languor of the summer was refreshed by autumnal air. Everyone was looking forward to a record-breaking season of indulgent celebration. Then it happened. An enormous explosion jolted people's brains into an epidemic of stroke and shattered their vision like pulverized glass. The earth trembled as if liquefied. A gigantic cumulonimbus of smoke surrounded a fireball of mercurial heat. An inexorable din boomed through the urban buildings. Three colossal structures disintegrated. Living things vaporized. A windstorm sucked air from the very edges of the city. Smoke turned day to night. Gray dust enshrouded everything for miles in all directions. Human artifacts blew into the sky and floated on the tormented air as if in perverse revelry. When the reverberating roar subsided and debris settled, a towering snake of smoke uncoiled out to sea, as fire consumed the last physical entities in the devastated zone, cauterizing the ragged ends of life.

When the shock had passed, and only cackling flames lingered over the complete destruction, people began to speak, mostly to wonder and weep, but also to utter spontaneous questions.

"What?"

"How?"

"Who?"

But most of all "Why?"

Receiving no answers, they turned to each other for comfort, sought the remnants of their dead, and tried to mitigate their grief with common ritual. Temples of supernatural faith overflowed with followers for the first time in decades. Pundits of the mass media savored every drop of the heart-twisting sentiment of the tragedy. Demagogic writers found ready words to put into the mouths of politicos. The gentry blamed foreigners for an unspeakably monstrous and completely unexpected act of terror that demanded nothing less than total war.

Nearly as soon as the buildings collapsed, while wreckage was being cleared and cadaverous particles claimed, voices arose among the cries of grief for something new to replace the devastated old. Something monumental and memorial that would signify the persistence and permanence of humanity. A ratified resurrection.

People debated. Disagreed. Arguments rushed around like wasps competing for a bowl of honey. Some wanted to fill the void with the tallest building in the world, others the grandest memorial on Earth, others the liveliest chamber of commerce ever known. While people discussed one structure against another, city engineers encompassed ground zero with a temporary wall of white to preserve memory as much as noble intentions.

Days passed into weeks, months, and years. The scar of the horrible civic wound lay exposed to the elements. Wind swept the plain. Sunlight baked the soil. Rain cleansed it, leaving shallow pools to reflect the sky. Then snow quietly and completely enshrouded the scene of unbearable sorrow as if putting all agony to rest. Day and night, week after week, the land lay silent and apparently barren. Then in April things changed.

First, imperceptibly, came the microbes. Then seeds. Insects. Invertebrates. Within days pale green shoots broke ground. Barely noticeable weeds to anyone who happened to glance into the vacant lot. Land gone fallow. Wild. During that spring, native creatures were born upon the parcel of exposed earth: mosses, lichens, grasses, vines, brush, and sapling trees; ants, beetles, and spiders; worms, mice, and sparrows. Neighboring beasts of air and land arrived. Raptors gliding above the tower tops, eyed the small budding pasture for signs of the vibrant.

Unhampered by human touch, the place roared back to a life of its own design. While people continued to talk and plan redevelopment of the site, grasses carpeted the ground, shrubs clustered in random patterns, trees thrust their leaves above the walls, reaching for their god. When flowers decorated the wildwood, bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds sought their nectar. Some made nests in thickets and shaded branches. Others crept along the tender ground. The plot of Earth hummed with life.

When autumn came, living things readied themselves for death and dormancy. Grasses went to seed. Leaves lost their green to yellow, orange, and crimson. Sap retreated to the earth. Animals died and decayed into the nurturing soil. When snow fell again, all but a few rodents and birds scratched the frozen ground to find seeds. The field of white and the icebound trees reflected by turn the sunlight, the moonlight, and the countless lamps of the city.

Around the winter solstice, folks often peeked over the walls from nearby buildings and stared at the feral space. Many took to watching the variety of living things that inhabited and visited the environment. The sight of that piece of land in the middle of their busy metropolis calmed people's hearts and minds.

When spring brought hope back to the city, builders put windows into the surrounding wall, so people could stop on their way to and from one activity or another to gaze into the awakening world and observe the regeneration of life. The spontaneous vigor vested the plot of land with a perfect balance for centuries unknown on the planet. The energetic essence of the vernal season stoked the habitat during subsequent long days of heat. When creatures of leaf and petal and feather and fur burst into the center of the lunar year, the impromptu garden flourished within the enclosing walls and began to challenge the barrier itself.

As the plans for civilized development settled into action, people changed their minds. They began to look differently on the piece of land in the center of the city and a strange attitude arose among them. Hands off. For a reason they did not fully understand, they considered any refashioning of the wild place a violation. They knew instinctively, if not consciously, the uncultivated natural energy that captivated the hallowed spot had to continue. They knew a true monument was in the making. Earth was taking back its own. In their souls the people of Capitan knew the untamed garden was memorializing their tragedy better than any artful thing they themselves could construct.

Then some anonymous individual referred to that wild part of the city in a mythical way. And the word spread. The mass media picked it up and made it renowned. From that time on the place was distinguished by that term.

"Eden," people called it. And when they uttered the name, it meant something spiritual but also primordial, something fundamentally profound. They thought of it as symbolizing their own country but knew without saying that this tract of urban land, which had born the most devastating destruction the country had ever endured, was more than property. That natural garden represented the world. Earth: the only known planetary home for life surrounding the great daystar.

So, when plutocrats in the city pushed for the redevelopment of ground zero, the residents of Capitan resisted. And a huge majority decided that section of earth, gone wild for years, would remain untouched by human hands. The little square of land, that unforgettable wound to one of the greatest civilizations in history, that transformed zone of horror would be preserved as sacred to the purest power in the universe. This new Eden would be an artless memorial, a fragment of primeval millennia, and a natural temple to the universally invincible trinity of chance, choice, and change. And so it is to this day.

WASTE WATER

A skulking shadow grabbed the woman from behind, lifted her off the ground, feet kicking nothing but air, one shoe dropping to the dirt. Massive arms around her neck, she opened her mouth to scream but made no sound, her face pale then blueblack, eyes bulging. A huge vulture descended out of an amber sky and landed nearby on the limb of a dead oak tree. An uncanny cry. The bird's bloodred eyes fired laser looks at the woman's limp body. When a few rays of dawn burned through the skeletal tree, the killer covered his face like a vampire and disappeared in a point of light. After a sudden sweep of fog the woman lay floating in a lake of stinking black water.

Daniel's mind fixed on the corpse as if fearing, expecting, wanting it to stand upright and lurch away undead. "Mother!" he whispered and then sank into gut twisting sorrow, weeping until exhausted. Awakened by the full morning sun on his face and worried about his sanity, Daniel would have called a psychiatrist but believed he already knew the cause of his repeated nightmares. Tumbling out of bed, he yanked open the drawer of a nightstand and flipped through the yellow pages.

When the phone rang in his office, Mark McQuade jumped to catch it before the second ring, glad for what could be signaling the end of long dry spell.

"McQuade here."

"McQuade Investigations?" Daniel asked in a voice tissue thin.

"What can I find out for you?"

"Do you investigate murder?"

Being a former homicide cop, Mark had an urge to make a smart remark but kept a professional tone. "Why--?" The big man swiveled his chair to watch the traffic jam on Ventura Boulevard. Unlike sheep, cars seemed to help him concentrate. "You got one?"

"I'm not joking."

Mark thought he heard a faint sob seeping through the phone. "Look, mister--"

"Fletcher. Daniel Fletcher."

"Mister Fletcher--you should be calling the...."

"Waste of time--the police."

Mark waited a beat then asked, "You the killer?"

"Do you want to help me or not. Because if you don't, I can find a lot of other private investigators in the city."

"Sorry, Mister Fletcher. Old cop habit." Mark listened through a strained silence. "So--what say we get together--discuss the details?"

After a pause that Mark thought might lead to a disconnect, Daniel said, "Can you come to my place right now?"

Mark did not make house calls without a retainer in hand, but the thought of his dwindling bank account motivated him to make an exception. Besides, he could be, had to be flexible now he was in private practice.

Daniel Fletcher's apartment, a stucco compound with the usual scrawny palm trees in front, was on one of the many nearly identical complexes that jammed the suburban grid of the San Fernando Valley. Mark parked his beat up sedan across the street and studied the place. He often tried to figure people out from the buildings in which they lived. It never really worked.

When young Fletcher opened the door he was wearing only undershorts and a telephone. Mark ran a quick visual check of his sex type. The big guy had nothing for or against alternate sexual preferences but he made the guy's image part of his mental inventory. With an equivocal grunt, he identified himself.

Fletcher nodded his visitor into the living room while speaking into the phone. "Look, dad, someone's here now, so I have to go."

Mark's brow peaked.

Tossing the phone onto the couch, Fletcher said, "Lemme get some clothes on," and trotted into another room.

While he was gone, the detective's gray eyes scoped the living space. Small, simple, plain, but tidy. No pictures or decorative objects. Couple of chairs and a couch. Table and a lamp. Purely functional. The way a cell for a reclusive monk might look.

In another moment Fletcher appeared, wearing sweat pants and saying as he rounded a corner, "You heard--that was my father on the phone."

"Yeah."

"Interesting he should call at this time."

Mark stood in the middle of the room like a bell hop waiting for a tip but kept his hands pocketed.

Fletcher caught the gesture. "So what do you want for your time, Mister McQuade?"

"Mark."

"I've been saving up for this."

The big man tried to keep his need from showing all over his face. "You know how much I charge an hour?"

"No, but I've got a few thousand."

Mark stopped breathing a second and then said, "You get this conversation free, but next time we meet, I'm on the clock. Hundred bucks an hour."

Fletcher swallowed heavily but nodded. "It won't matter, if I find out for sure who murdered my mother."

"Your mother! You got a suspect in mind?"

"Yes. My father."

Mark winced but not so his client could notice. As a homicide detective for enough years to make him cranky and cynical, he had heard all kinds of sad, sick stories. Those about murdered wives and mothers never his favorites. "What makes you think your father killed her?"

"They used to fight all the time."

"Lotsa couples fight, Daniel. He beat her up?"

Fletcher considered this a moment and then shrugged. "Not really."

"She wanna leave him?"

"Yes. But he threatened to kill himself--even them both--if she did."

Mark felt sorry for the man as well as the woman. He had manhandled one or two women in the line of duty but never made a habit of it. A slap here, a swat there. More reactions to their assaults on him than any commitment to battery. "When she die?"

"Ten years ago."

"Ten!" Mark ran it through the memory of his later years on the force. But the name Fletcher attached to a dead female came up blank. "Cops investigated, eh?"

"Yes."

"What they come up with?"

"They said she was probably mugged and thrown into Balboa Lake. When they could not find her attacker, they closed the case."

The thought of dying in that particular body of water made Mark shudder, "She drowned."

"That's what the autopsy--"

Seeing the young man's throat tighten and his eyes redden like a smoggy LA sunset, Mark considered ending the interview but the dog in him kept digging. "So how do you know your old man killed your mother, Daniel?"

"I don't. If I did I wouldn't need your services, would I?"

Mark dug his heels into the carpet. "Maybe not." It was time to leave. "Tell you what. I'll check my sources and try to dredge up some secrets. Gimme your old man's address and a photo of your mom."

When his new client gave them to him with a check for five hundred dollars, Mark glanced at the woman in the snapshot, stuffed the papers into his wallet, and left the apartment without showing too much glee at getting the first money he had seen in weeks. Outside, he studied the photo. No Hollywood beauty but damned attractive. Mass of auburn hair. Round eyes the color of jade. Smiling like a homecoming queen. He hated probing into the lives of dysfunctional domestics. Too many tragic stories came out of homes like the Fletchers'. All the way to his office Mark brooded about them, his broken life, and the rest of the screwed up world.

Back at his desk he telephoned his former partner at the downtown station and called in a promise. In a few minutes, email arrived on his computer. Opening an attached file, Mark began reading a long report on the discovery and death of Sandra Connolly Fletcher. First reported missing by Daniel Fletcher. Found three days later in Balboa Lake, slightly devoured by the unearthly creatures that exist in the black reclaimed water of that weird pond. Autopsy revealed only a blow to the head, not necessarily inflicted before immersion. No identification papers. No money. No jewelry. Robbery the supposed motive. Perp never found.

Mark backtracked into investigative notes made from interviews with the son and the husband. She had been in Ely's Bar & Grill, one of the old-fashioned little sleazy joints wedged between boutiques and trendy restaurants on the boulevard. Last seen walking out of the place after two in the morning. Never made it to her car. Vanished without a hint of perfume until found floating in the lake.

An infrequent patron of that particular dive, Mark dropped by to quiz the bottle juggler, one Mark knew from the down days when he broke up with his wife. After slugging a shot of JD, he asked, "Ever see this broad, Jake?" and slid the photograph through a wet ring.

Jake Trammel put his middle finger on the face, slid the photo back to McQuade, and said, "Not since she croaked--years ago. What--she rise from the dead or somethin'?"

Suppressing his usual urge to put down a smart ass, the big detective said, "See anyone leave with her that night?"

"Nope." Jake turned his attention to another customer. "Surprising too."

"Whaddya mean?"

"That chick had more guys on her ass than a starlet. First time I seen her alone--that night. Nearly sober too. And grim. Blue as a rain-soaked peacoat. Like she lost her whole family in a fire."

Mark paid for his drink with some extra change for gratitude and was spinning off his stool when he spotted a woman in a corner booth lift her head and jerk it her way. A one-time beauty in the body of a burned out human being. Sliding next to the woman, his thigh against hers, Mark tried to guess her real hair color.

"What you wanna know 'bout San?" Her mouth made a weird smile, nearly pleasant, when she talked but her dark, weary eyes reflected a different mood.

Mark disliked cute moniker clippings. "You mean Sandra Fletcher?"

"We was gettin' pretty close before she died." He watched her hand snake toward him. "I'm Jen. Seen you in here before."

In no mood for coy banter, Mark ignored her gesture and asked, "I gotta buy you booze to make you talk?"

"Prince of Personality, huh. I shoulda figured. You must be a cop or war vet or somethin'?"

"Neither. Name's Mark McQuade." Then to the bartender, "Bring the lady another."

She laughed sadly despite his attitude. "I don't need to be bribed to talk about San, Mister McQuade. She was a doll. Wish I had in one strand of my bleach-blonde hair what she dripped off her whole body. Guys attracted to her like monkeys to mango."

Another image snapped into Mark's head but he let it fade.

When Jake delivered the gin and tonic, Jen began her story. "You can guess San was miserable at home. Loved her old man, but the stupid slob didn't treat her right."

Mark's ears heated up, expecting to hear more about Fletcher abusing his wife.

"Jerk was talkin' 'bout leavin' her for another woman. Some teen probably. That's when I met her. She'd just found out about the affair." Jen tittered and strained her next words between her teeth. "Affairs more like it," she hissed. "Ass-hole thought he was some kind of Casanova, I guess. Broke her heart. San blamed herself."

The glassiness of Jen's eyes suggested to Mark something else going in this woman's heart more than sorrow at the loss of a drinking buddy. Something in which Sandra Fletcher probably had no interest. He figured this woman for ambidextrous but made nothing of it. People find their own ways through life. Mark T. McQuade was no judge. He would leave that to the gods. A new notion about the Fletcher woman's death prompted his next question. "You see her leave that night with anyone? Anyone pick her up outside?"

"Like I said, guys were always sniffing up her skirt, but she never more than flirted. Always went home alone." Jen slugged her drink. "I know the cops think some junky robbed her and threw her into Balboa Lake. Yeah. I saw it all over the news for days. But I got a different theory."

Mark caught a hint of where the woman was headed and leaned forward to humor her but backed off when he inhaled the sickening combo of cheap perfume and booze. "Yeah?"

"I know 'cause I've walked around that lake many times myself at night, wondering if life was worth wakin' up another morning."

"So she killed herself."

"Hell no. Her old man killed her--just as sure as if he'd shot her in the heart."

"And her purse?"

"Coulda dumped it somewhere to make it look like a mugging gone wrong. To protect her kid maybe. How in hell should I know?!"

"Your theory, eh?"

"Right." She let her head drop, face in her arms. "Look, Markie Boy, I'm gettin' a headache talkin' about this. Thanks for the drink. Unless you're gonna buy me another one, I'd like to be alone."

"Sure thing, hon." Mark hustled out of the booth. He had spent most of his life around losers and lowlifes but never got used to it. Always felt their condition might be contagious. Anyone could succumb to it between two full moons. He tossed some bills on the bar with an indifferent glance at Jake and left the place.

Ten minutes later he pulled in front of a ranch style house in Sherman Oaks. One of those sprawlers that go for a lot more money than they are worth. Again he watched the house from his car before knocking on the front door.

As soon as the detective's eyes scanned Leroy Fletcher he knew the barfly at Ely's had a point. Body built just to the edge of natural but gone flabby, hair wispy from too much dye, face once handsome, but now sagging south. His blue eyes behind glasses rapidly ran Mark up and down. "What is it?"

"Lookin' into your wife's death, Mister Fletcher. Mind a few questions?"

"What? Where've you been, man? Your buddies closed the case years ago."

McQuade kept Fletcher pinned with his eyes. "I'm not a cop."

"Then I have nothing to say to you."

He was swinging the door shut, when Mark tossed in, "Your son hired me."

Fletcher looked down as if to vomit on his shoes.

"Seems to think you killed her."

"I know."

"Did you?" Mark had a look that could peel the veneer off a liar.

"Of course not," he said with strange reserve. Then with more guts, "I loved her."

"Her and a lot of other women, the way I hear it."

Fletcher lost his cool and flushed with anger--or humiliation. "Okay. I sucked as a husband but I didn't kill her. She was the best woman I--"

Averse to maudlin bullshit, Mark blurted out: "Maybe you drove her to it, eh?"

"No way."

Mark arched one of his dark-dyed eyebrows.

"Oh, she was pissed off--hurt that I was...."

"Fuckin' another broad?"

Fletcher sucked in air to challenge Mark with more than words but sighed before the big man and nodded sheepishly, the remains of his debonair patina tarnishing. "Yeah, but Sandra was too strong to let my infidelity undermine her stature."

The woman in the photograph flashed into Mark's mind. At that moment he knew Fletcher had not killed her. A womanizer, yes. Possibly even a brutalizer. But not a killer. His taste in violence obviously ran no farther than a bout of boisterous sex. But murder his wife? Not a chance. The poor fop probably adored her--nearly as much as himself.

As Mark left the widower standing alone, fighting back tears, an abandoned soul in the black hole of the doorway to a big empty house, he knew something, probably someone else, had caused the death of Sandra Fletcher. The possibility of suicide was fading with the evening light. Almost without thinking about his destination, he drove to Balboa Park.

The artificial lake was black as a tar pit when the sun went down. Walking past roosting clusters of overfed waterfowl that made this chemistry experiment their home, Mark wondered what kind of deformed creatures hatched out of their eggs. Even more, he wondered how any of them could swim in such muck? Noticing the thin film of mucous that covered the water, he imagined that stepping foot in it could trap some unlucky creature forever.

Circling the putrid pool, Mark ran the story through his mind: woman miserable at home, betrayed, seeks the comfort of strangers, drinks too much, gets involved with the wrong types, goes to the wrong place at the wrong time, winds up face down in a big poison puddle. The fumes alone were enough to make him nauseous, so Mark went back to his car and drove home with the windows open to replace the disgusting odor in his nostrils with the familiar engine exhaust from traffic. One way or the other doomed to a toxic world.

As he cruised along Balboa Boulevard, he evaluated the suspects both usual and unusual. Daniel not far off in blaming his father. First one to like for it. But Leroy Fletcher wanted it both ways: woman at home, women on the side. One look at him and Mark saw no killer but a poor slob doomed to a lifetime of grieving.

Jen the bar moth a vague possibility. Wanted Sandra Fletcher to fill the empty space in her burned out heart. Might have been devastated when her advances rejected but not hopeless or murderous enough to eliminate her from her life.

A mugger always a possibility. Except muggers don't usually kill their prey. Too much to lose. Desperate for a few dollars, snatch a purse, maybe knock a victim down, and take off.

Suicide still in the picture. Broken hearted woman. Drinking too much. Reluctant to go home. But she had a young son to look after and plenty of suitors waiting in bars to take her away from one misery and put her into another--for better or worse.

When Mark got back to his car he found the photo of Sandra Fletcher in his hand and stared at it as if to read her mind. Her allure radiated from the two dimensional image. Reminded him of his ex-wife. Lots of women did these days. Easy to identify with Daniel's father. Deciding to back track, Mark drove to Ely's for a nightcap and another view of the place where anyone might have last seen Sandra Fletcher alive. Besides, he wanted another look at the bartender.

When Mark sat down at the bar, Jake Trammel ignored him and kept gabbing with a customer at the other end. Without trying Mark caught bits of their carping on homosexuals, sluts, whores, and anyone else not up to their moral level. Not a patient man for a drink, Mark watched the bartender without blinking, eyes like electrified ball bearings. Perhaps picking up on the intensity, Jake backed out of the chummy calumny and, while scanning the few customers in the room, slowly strode the length of the bar.

"The usual, McQuade?"

A certain disquiet heating up his head, Mark only stared at the tall, bony bartender without a word. Then, "Yeah. And your ear--for an extra tip."

"What--some sob story? Sure. Part of the job."

Mark's stare held the bartender's eyes, as he set a shot of JD on the counter. "See ol' Jen's not here tonight," Mark said, wrapping his big hand around the glass.

Jake nodded. "Good thing too. Gives the joint a bad rep."

"You got something against people lonely for love?"

"Not when it's sick."

"Sick, eh. That what you thought of Sandra Fletcher?"

Jake's face paled to a sickly color in the amber light and he started washing glasses as if they had been sprayed with agent orange. "Never thought nothin' of her--one way or 'nother, Mac."

Mark tossed his drink down to quell his reaction. He hated being called Mac. "Ever hit on her, Jake?"

"Fuck no."

"Why not? Seems like everyone else did."

"No shit. But I don't get hard for sluts."

"Specially not switchers, eh?"

If Jake's molars had been chalk he would have powdered them. "Specially not them. Look--I got work to do. You want another drink or you just like my looks?"

"It'd take more drinks than I could stomach for that to happen, Jake my boy." Mark slid off the stool, tossed a few bills across the counter, and walked out of the place.

Inside his car he again pulled the picture of Sandra Fletcher from his pocket and held it up to a street light. Noticing Jake Trammel's fingerprint still on her face, he carefully put the photo back in his pocket and drove home with a hunch crowding his mind like a tumor.

The next day he persuaded one of his old colleagues in Homicide to check the print. Several hours later he got a call in his office. Robert F. Trammel had no criminal record but had been dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Army. The report did not state the reason, but Mark guessed it and, when he entered Ely's that evening, he was itching to jaw again with Jake the bigoted bartender.

When Trammel saw McQuade, the bartender made a trip to the men's room. Mark followed him, found him enclosed in a stall, and slammed his fist on the door.

"Hey! What in hell ya doin'?" Trammel shouted. "You don't want yer ass kicked, get the hell outta here!"

"You never told me you got kicked out of the service, Jake."

"Yeah. What of it?"

"Why the DD? Lemme guess--flagrant homosexuality."

The stall door flew open, barely missing Mark's nose. Jake followed fast, his face aflame with rage. "What you think you're doin', ass-hole--digging into my private life!"

Mark set himself. "It's what I do, remember?"

"Then remember this--" Trammel threw a piston punch at McQuade.

His reflexes slowed by age, the big guy took it in the face but escaped the full impact by jerking his head to one side, so Trammel's knuckles glanced off a cheekbone. Using his attacker's momentum, Mark grabbed him by collar and belt and threw him into a urinal. Trammel's head slammed against the porcelain rim, bone on rock. Dazed he wobbled to his feet and spun around swinging. With a sledgehammer blow Mark clipped his chin, rattling his jaw, jamming his teeth, and making the lights in Trammel's mind flicker like a faulty neon sign. The lanky bartender's body hung backward in a suspended arc for a second then crumpled to the tile floor. Mark picked him up by the ears and crammed his face back into the urinal and flushed it. Letting him fall to the floor and dropping a knee onto his chest, Mark slapped him rapidly several times and screamed in his face. "You went after her too, didn't you, Jake! Be her alpha stud! Matter of machismo, right, jerk?!"

Jake Trammel only spluttered watery blood-soaked words that made no sense.

"Talk to me, Jake, or you'll be eating the rest of your teeth."

"What! You gonna kill me over some floozy."

"How you rate all women, eh, Jake? Hunks of flesh for you to get your rocks off and make you feel like a man. Stupid fucks like you give guys a bad name. I oughta...." Mark raised a fist as if to pound a piece of trash.

"What in hell you want me to say? I did the broad?"

"Already know that, you piece of garbage. What I want to know is how long I should let crap like you go on livin'."

Trammel's eyes, swelling shut, fixed on McQuade as if he were the angel of death. "You crazy. All this over a piece of ass?"

"A wife and mother, you shit. A woman who should be alive today--instead of you." With the weight of long frustrated rage driving his fist, McQuade piled it into middle of Trammel's chest.

A groan erupted from him and he gasped for air. In barely a whisper, "You crazy!" When McQuade raised his fist again, Trammel opened both hands over his body in a pitiful attempt to ward off his execution. "Yeah, yeah--I messed with the broad. But I didn't kill her. I saw her hangin' with that lesbo and them drunken dudes prowlin' round her like rats. Wanted to show her--"

"Blew you off like a pesky gnat, didn't she, Jake?"

"Stupid broad!" Jake kept spitting blood. Mark backed off but kept a knee on his chest. Jake could not stop talking. "Offered her ride home, when she was too drunk to drive. Ungrateful, bitch! Not even a good night kiss and quick feel. Wouldn't get hot, even with my hand rubbin' her crotch. Started screamin'. Drove me crazy. Shoved her against the window. Banged her head and went out like a rag doll."

"So you panicked and dumped her into Balboa Lake. Stole her purse to make it look like a mugging."

"You got the ending wrong, man. Pushed her out the car. Last I saw the bitch she was lyin' in the parking lot. Never touched her after that. Never saw how she got into the goddamned lake. I swear!"

The big man raised his hand again, let it hang over him like an ax, and then slowly brought it down to his side. "'Course you forgot to tell the cops your part in her last day alive."

"I ain't gettin' blamed for killin' nobody. Hell, I feel 'em up and fuck 'em whether they like it or not but I don't kill 'em."

Mark's eyes pictured death for the prostrate bartender momentarily and then shoved off him as if pushing away a polluted pile of rubbish. "Kill 'em or not, the cops are gonna know about your little escapade. Creep like you belongs in a cage."

He left Jake Trammel on the floor of the toilet, walked out of Ely's, and called the police from his car. He also called Daniel Fletcher and told him to meet at his father's place for important information about his mother's death.

When Mark arrived at Fletcher's, the car headlights spotted Daniel pacing in front of the house, his guts knotted with foreboding. He ran to Mark, shouting, "He's not here. Must've taken off, knowing you'd be after him."

"I'm not, Danny. Good news--if you can call it that. I figured out who killed--at least caused your mother's death--and it ain't your old man."

Relief replaced disbelief on the young man's face. "Are you sure?"

Mark nodded but a notion was nagging at him.

"Who then?" Daniel asked, a haunting tone to the question.

"A guy at a joint your mother used to--well, that doesn't matter right now."

"You said he caused her death. What do you mean?"

"Come with me. I'll tell you about it on the way."

"Where we goin'? I've got to find my father."

"So do I." Mark fired the engine and shot down the street.

When Daniel saw the Balboa Lake in the light of a yellow moon, his nightmare came back to him like an hallucination. He even cast his eyes over the starless sky for black wings. Staring at the dull, dark water, he nearly choked. "This--this is the place my mother died. Why did you bring me here?"

Mark was too busy scanning the area to answer, fear flickering in his eyes. When he spotted what he was looking for, he leaped out of the car and started running. "To find your father before--"

Daniel looked in the direction Mark headed and saw a shadow, a figure like a ghost hovering over the edge of the black water lake. Jumping out of the car, he hollered, "Before what? Is that--?" And he was running fast, gaining on the big man.

Before they reached the lakeshore, the man on the edge of a dock wobbled momentarily and then fell face first into the water.

"Shit!" Mark shouted. The last thing he wanted to do on Earth was to touch that putrid lake. When he reached the bank he faltered, staring at the man in the water, his clothes swelling around him, bubbles billowing around his head, as he floated away from the dock.

Daniel screamed. "Is that my father?"

Mark said only, "God damn it!", as he dived long into the lake with his eyes tightly shut, lungs full of air. By the time he reached Fletcher, the man was sinking, and Mark could grab only the tail of his jacket. He heard Daniel splashing behind him.

"Have you got him? My father? Is he all right?"

Mark did not answer. He held Leroy Fletcher's head above water and tried to see him breathe. Too dark. "Still with us, Fletcher?"

No reply.

"Dad?!" Daniel swam up to Mark.

Leroy Fletcher was not moving.

"Out of it," Mark said. "Drugs or booze--maybe both. Help me get him to shore."

The two men pulled the limp weight through the inky water, dragged him over a concrete sidewalk, and turned him onto his back on a patch of grass. Mark started to resuscitate him but Daniel pushed him aside and took over. Mark stood up and watched the son trying desperately to save his father.

When Leroy Fletcher gasped for air, his son cried out to the night sky. Mark too breathed heavily. For the first time since arriving at the lake, he sensed the dreadful stink, now issuing from his own clothes. Shivering more from disgust than cold, he shook like a big dog to wring the filthy liquid from his body. Realizing he was stuck with it until he could get home and shower, he watched Leroy Fletcher rouse enough to recognize his son, hear Daniel tell him the news, and watch the two men embrace, probably for the first time in years. Mark left them with a tacit farewell.

As Mark McQuade rolled slowly out of the park, he calculated how much to charge Daniel Fletcher for finding the truth about his mother's death. For an instant he thought he might settle for the five hundred dollar advance but quickly dropped that notion. The guy deserved a bill for blaming his father for the death of poor Sandra Fletcher. Her husband was definitely a jerk but less for cheating on his wife than for not realizing in time his good fortune being married to her. While Mark cruised along the freeway to his office on the boulevard, he scanned the passing neighborhoods and wondered what his ex-wife was doing at the moment.

THE BUS DRIVER

On a hot summer morning, people were waiting at a station in Flagstaff, Arizona, for a bus to take them on a tour of the Grand Canyon. Men, women, and children of various ages were mostly strangers to one another. Still, they behaved in friendly ways because of their vacation mood.

When the man who was to take them on their day trip appeared later than expected, they did not complain but cheerfully handed him their luggage to be stowed in the bus. So distracted were they by their holiday attitudes they either did not notice the driver's dour demeanor or simply ignored it.

The driver was a middle-age man who carried about fifty pounds of excess weight. His moon face was bright red. Although he had not lost his hair, his head was shaven. His thick fingers bore no rings, his only adornment a wrist watch. He wore dark gray pants and a pale blue shirt like all the drivers of that charter bus line. Ordinary in appearance, he showed neither friendliness nor hostility, nodding to the passengers while they boarded. As they stepped into the bus, they smiled at him despite his sullen expression. Some of them being used to such a look on the faces of public conveyance operators, they accepted it as normal too for a driver of a private transport.

One of their group, an elderly woman, dared to comment on the driver's tardiness, saying, "I was expecting a ten o'clock departure, young man."

The driver looked as if he had not heard her or she did not exist.

Other passengers regarded her with mild disapproval. A younger woman even said, "I'm sure he was detained for a good reason."

The elder woman shrugged with a quiet grunt.

Sitting across the aisle from her, the younger woman said, "Don't worry. He'll get us there on time."

The old woman smiled politely and said nothing further. No one else uttered a sound of complaint.

When the driver pulled onto the highway and immediately accelerated beyond the speed limit, one man noticed it and started to say something, but his wife urged him to refrain from making a scene. Second guessing him, she said, "You want to get there in a hurry, don't you? You're usually in a hurry." She smiled to blunt the barb she had delivered. "Just let him do his job, Frank. He is the bus driver. Probably been driving buses for many years."

"Maybe he started today, Francine, and knows nothing about it," Frank quipped.

"Silly," she said, but thinking the word 'stupid' in her mind, "he wouldn't be driving all of us on this trip today if he knew nothing about handling a bus. He knows what he's doing. Let it alone and relax."

As the bus barreled up highway across the northern Arizona desert, the sun was approaching its zenith. The interior of the vehicle heated to an uncomfortable degree, and the passengers began to squirm, especially the children. Two small twins, boy and girl, who had sat quietly during the trip so far, began fidgeting and whimpering. Trying to soothe them, their mother whispered in their ears, patted their legs, and offered them juice. These comforts calmed them for several minutes, but as the air in the bus became hotter, they started crying. Their voices escalated with each minute. Other passengers regarded them with concern, compassion, and annoyance. The twins' mother tried to open a window but found it bolted shut. The children started howling, their distress feeding off each other. Frustrated, their mother, a pretty young woman in a yellow sunsuit, called out to the bus driver. His name being unknown and unreadable on the small document clipped to the windshield shade, she addressed him as everyone knew him.

"Driver, would you please turn on the air conditioner?" she asked with a pretense of respect tinged with charm. "It's sweltering in here," she added for emphasis.

The driver ignored her so she repeated her request. Meanwhile, the other passengers watched and awaited his response, some mumbling among themselves. One other young woman alone on the trip also mentioned the discomfort but no one else supported the mother's request. Only when she stopped her entreaty, did the driver respond.

"The end of the line is coming soon, my dear," he said. "Then you won't be concerned with temperature." He paused briefly and then added inaudibly under his breath, "Or anything else." His dark brown eyes did not avert from the black ribbon of road. Nor did they seem to blink. A strange grin cut across his ruddy face like a gash in a ham haunch. His thick fingers gripped the wheel so tightly his knuckles whitened. A hum arose from his throat but was undistinguishable under the grinding of the engine.

When the young mother saw the driver was not going to oblige her, she slouched in her seat and tried to soothe her whining children while glancing around to see if other passengers expressed the concern she felt. Most were mute and blank-faced; although, irritation probably seethed beneath the thin surface of their apathy. The dank, hot, heaviness of the air combined with the growl of the engine and the whine of the tires induced a trancelike state among them. Those sitting by the windows gazed upon the passing panorama of blood-red earth as if yearning to escape into it, despite the scorching sun.

Suddenly the bus swerved, slinging the passengers from side to side, as the driver whipped the wheel ostensibly to avoid something in the road. Passengers gawked out the windows to see the cause of his action. A few of them might have seen the rabbit dashing off the highway through clumps of sagebrush and associated it with the erratic path of the bus. One man pointed out the rabbit to his teenaged daughter but said nothing and revealed nothing of what might have been running through his mind about the driver's action. Since the bus continued steadily, even though approaching eighty miles per hour, the passengers settled into inert attitudes and let their minds drift through incoherent thoughts.

The bus reached halfway on the trip when a horn blared from an approaching car and continued to wail as it passed. The bus driver yelled a garbled curse out his window. In his mirror some of the passengers saw his face redden and contort with rage. One of them commented on how difficult driving a bus must be but no one vocally disapproved of his belligerent behavior. Nonetheless, a vague tension invaded most of the passengers, as the metallic beast barreled up the two lane highway at a dangerous speed. Still, they tried to relax and enjoy the journey. They were in a celebratory mood despite the anxiety chewing at their innards. As people do, they assumed the trip would work out well, that they would soon arrive safely at the magnificent natural wonder, find the place spectacular, take a lot of photographs, return home satisfied with the excursion, and bursting with vivid memories to share with friends and families.

Whatever pleasant reveries any of them entertained, however, did not last. Without warning the bus again veered, this time accelerating into the opposite lane to pass a truck. The truck driver sounded the horn but the bus driver ignored it and pushed the behemoth past the truck so fast the bus groaned under the strain. This disturbed many of the passengers. They squirmed in their seats and some looked as if they wished they were somewhere else. One of the men mumbled something about slowing down but did not raise his voice enough for the driver to hear him. A few other passengers heard him, though, and shot him dirty looks as if to say, "Don't cause any trouble." "Leave the driver alone."

The truck driver slowed to let the bus pass, but a car coming from the opposite direction was bearing down on the bus before the driver could cut in front of the truck. Horns blasted together dissonantly, the bus driver leaning on his and staring forward, the truck driver holding his and shaking his head frantically, and the car driver pounding the horn and waving his arm out the window. The bus driver bent farther forward as if to make the bus move faster, but it was already going ninety. The passengers' eyes did not blink as they tried to see through the windshield. Their faces froze in fear. They stopped breathing; their hearts hammered in their chests. Air whistled at the windows. The engine growled like a great mythic beast struggling through a wasteland for water. The bus swerved again, tossing passengers from side to side, throwing a child to the floor, as the driver cut in front of the slowing truck at the moment the oncoming car passed. The gap between the left front end of the bus and that of the car at the moment of passing must have been only millimeters.

As soon as the bus driver maneuvered back into his lane, he threw both hands into the air and howled in triumph as if he had won a race. This prompted applause from some passengers as though he had saved them from disaster. But not all of them praised the driver. Some were dumbstruck, a few dismayed, and others infuriated by his maniacal behavior. Yet, none of them said a word of complaint to him. One or two mumbled angrily to themselves but not loudly enough for anyone more than a seat away to hear.

Generally the mood was one of gratitude as if the passengers had achieved salvation from the evils of the world by the strange heroic handler of a speeding steed. The collective mood of joyous relief at having escaped death captivated them. Even those passengers who felt no joy but only contempt for someone in charge of other lives taking reckless chances were relieved. And most of them chose to honor the driver as a hero, a deliverer from evil. Their man behind the wheel was the captain of their ship, even though it might have been a ship full of lost travelers. They depended upon him and trusted him because he had been given the task of holding the wheel and controlling the speed of the huge vehicle that rocketed up the highway like a juggernaut.

The late morning air was bright and clear, glinting off the silver bus as it approached the great canyon. The passengers ogled the scenery and anticipated their arrival at the natural phenomenon. Like many people in such a situation they felt aggrandized by the opportunity to stand upon the edge of a vast gash in the crust of the earth. Although one or two of them might have planned an overnight stay so they could descend on horseback to the remains of the Colorado River carving the trench ever deeper, most of them were simply tourists who would stroll along the canyon rim, stare into the distance, and photograph the panorama of colorful rock and spacious sky.

Some of them would find interest in the canyon for its geological and topographical features. A few would see it as a subject for art. Most would content themselves with merely being there. Simple existence for many means everything. And doing something is irrelevant when simply being someone is just the same. The result is complacency. So the passengers sat quietly letting the driver race up Highway 64 at a dangerous speed and trusting him with no more hesitancy than they would have joining a good friend for a jaunt in the country. When the bus gradually accelerated rather than slowed as it approached the canyon, only those passengers in the forward seats noticed. They looked apprehensive but said nothing and only sat as if bolted to their seats, their breathing so shallow they appeared not to breathe at all. One of them looked at the driver and noticed his usual glum expression had changed to one transfixed. Not in a spiritual way, but more disturbed--the way a mentally ill person may look when falling into a dissociated state of mind. But the driver was not detached from his own reality. He was gripping the steering wheel tightly, sitting upright and slightly forward, and staring straight ahead with a blank face. Unblinking too, his black eyes were neither wide nor narrow but constantly open to what lay before him.

When the driver turned the bus onto Desert View Drive, he did not slow, which caused the lumbering vehicle to tip, forcing the passengers again to slip to one side of their seats, bump each other, and mumble apologetically. Only a few of them rolled their eyes. Most of them smiled or giggled self-consciously as if embarrassed for having inadvertently touched another person. They failed to notice the bus accelerating again, this time toward Mather Point, dodging cars, and heading directly toward the canyon.

The driver is trying to get us as close as possible so we won't have to walk far, thought some of the passengers. They even stretched their necks to see how near to the chasm he would put them and grinned with excitement to be finally reaching their destination. But not all passengers were so excited. The elder woman who had complained scowled at the driver, her eyes widening with fear. She had seen enough of life to know the danger in which they were caught. Trapped. At the mercy of the bus driver, a stranger whom they respected with complete confidence simply because he was in charge of the machine that carried them on a journey. For most of them, though, excitement overwhelmed worry. Soon the bus would stop. Soon they all would debark and happily start sightseeing.

But the driver had a different destination in mind, a destiny of his own design. Only when the bus ploughed between the buildings of the Information Plaza, did the passengers know something had gone wildly wrong. A chorus of howls arose from them and a woman in the back shrieked. Her voice blended into the crackling of brush that the bus demolished like a tank in war. In shock some passengers were petrified, others trembled, and the children wept. Only when the bus neared the rim of the ravine did they begin to scream in horror. Two men toward the front, finally realizing the driver was out of control, rushed to stop him. Too late.

The bus tore through the guard rail that separated visitors from the canyon, roared off the cliff edge, hung in the air for an instant as if suspended by some magical force, and then plunged straight down, its heavy rear end tumbling slowly forward. With its wheels and drive mechanism churning in a noise strangely harmonious to the screams of the passengers, the bus fell a hundred feet before striking a rocky ledge and bouncing crazily.

Among the cries of the passengers, a few curses and condemnations of the bus driver could be heard but were soon drowned out by the noise of the bus smashing into the side of the canyon. The huge metal monster bent and twisted like an ancient saurian haplessly falling off some mountain cliff in a mad rush to escape a Pleistocene predator. Despite being made of metal, plastic, rubber, and glass, this monster had life in its belly, some of it innocent life.

The red soil of the canyon exploded around the mangled bus and billowed into the bright sky as if war had erupted in the national park. Diesel smoke and fumes spewed from the tumbling wreckage, poisoning the air. Reptiles and birds in the path of the crashing vehicle scurried and flew for safety. Horses on a nearby trail bellowed and reared in terror, threatening to throw their riders. People witnessing the disaster clustered along the cliff edge of the canyon and watched in horrified fascination as the bus mowed down trees, gouged the canyon flanks, and set off landslides. The witnesses peered through the dust and smoke expecting at any moment an explosive inferno. Those with cameras captured the calamitous descent in still and motion pictures. Those with binoculars or scopes focused for glimpses of details that would intensify the scene of the collision between machine and rock-solid earth. All the people watching, spectators to the massive destruction and death, wondered if anybody could survive such an accident. None of them knew it was not an accident any more than murder and war are accidents. None of them knew the reason the bus had taken flight off the south rim of the canyon. None of them knew what the driver had in mind that morning before assuming his seat of responsibility and authority on a bus.

When the wreckage finally settled on a lower ledge about half way down the canyon, the noise of the crash gradually faded as it echoed off the canyon walls, and the smoke and dust slowly drifted away. Witnesses, police, firefighters, and rescue crew members speculated on the cause of such a crash. As cadavers were pulled to the surface by ropes, people wondered how such a tragedy could have happened. Some thought the bus had failed mechanically. A few guessed the driver was at fault but when they voiced that notion, many others shook their heads in doubt and said nothing.

According to the conventional wisdom and consensus of those at the scene, the likely cause of the deaths of so many people was terrorism. A suicidal terrorist must have hijacked the bus. The government would investigate. The media would report the facts. Eventually people would become weary of talking and thinking about it and come to the conclusion they were blessed or at least lucky not to have been traveling on that bus that day. They would not be surprised if the investigation revealed a terrorist had indeed planned and executed the murders of two score and ten men, women, and children. Some disgruntled foreigner who, hating the United States of America, connived his way into the country, settled into Arizona as an ordinary newcomer, and planned the monstrous deed.

People had so completely accepted this rationale for senseless death that nearly everyone was surprised when a local TV station reported that the driver of the bus, one Thurston Goody, had apparently been despondent for months, had repelled his family by his habitual violence, had a long history of alcohol abuse, had mentioned to acquaintances a wish to "end it all," as he phrased it, "and take a bunch of ass holes with me."

People were shocked to learn the bus driver had actually caused the deaths of so many people. They could not understand such an outrageous act. And they wondered if anyone on board had attempted to stop the maniac before he plunged the bus off that cliff into the Grand Canyon. Many of them fantasized they would have stopped him had they been in the same situation. The driver probably revealed very clearly his unstable state of mind. A strange look, a distracted attitude, or a negative remark. One person alone could have spotted it and forced the driver to stop the bus. Two or three persons could certainly have done so. Many people imagined how those unfortunate people could have been saved but few if any of them realized the paralyzing power of a person in charge. No one really knew that not a single passenger, despite the warnings, tried to prevent the man from killing every one of them. Not a one. Not a single lost soul tried to stop him before it was too late, because he was the bus driver.

WOODWIND

When old Martin Ledge played the flute, even wild animals paused to listen. His music filled the little alpine town of Cottonwood like soft, invisible arms that embraced every living thing. At times it sounded the way snowmelt tumbled in the creek running through town. Other times the song of birds. Most often the way wind caressed the old growth conifers that dressed the surrounding mountains.

Folks in Cottonwood called him Artiste, because he used to paint houses for a living and always did such a fine job of putting a new face on a weatherworn structure. His specialty was painting the homes and shops where families lived and worked. Did so for nearly fifty years--until his wife died. Then he stopped painting and disappeared for more than a month. Everyone thought he had left town--maybe to die. But before long he reappeared. Carrying a flute.

No one guessed old Martin was musical until one day he walked into Cottonwood Park with a battered leather case, sat on a weatherworn bench beneath a grand cottonwood tree, joined the tarnished tubes, and played some of the sweetest strains anyone had ever heard. People passing by slowed down to listen. Even adolescents in their fast cars. The saddest individual fleeing some treacherous fangs in life found reason to dally on the edge of the park when he heard Martin's music. But people dared not say anything to him, fearing the fellow had lost his mind from grief.

The mayor was the first to share words with Martin Ledge. "Hey, Artiste," he called to the old man one day while walking his bristly little Scotty dog in the park. "Cottage in back of my house could use a new coat of that pearly white paint of yours. If you aren't busy."

Martin smiled and kept playing to a tender coda before speaking. "Naw--I'm retired from paintin', Mister Mayor. Thought to make myself another career since Jenny died."

The mayor uttered his disappointment into inaudible grumbling but quickly regained his cultivated charm. "Mighty nice music you're playin' there, Martin. Didn't know you were an artiste with that too." Martin nodded and put his mouth to the flute as if to kiss it. Momentarily a bright air unraveled from the pipe to challenge the sunlight beaming through the heart-shaped leaves. That was the beginning of the old man's new life.

Martin played his flute every day in that park for several years and quickly became a living monument that no statue or shrine could replace. People came there as they always had to relax in the quiet shade of the whispering cottonwood trees and to picnic with their friends and families but mostly they came to bask in the beautiful melodies that flowed like birdsong from Martin Ledge's flute. Even children, when walking home from school, found their slow dawdling way past the park to hear a few notes from the old man. "Play that funny one, Artiste," they would say. Or, "Do you know this one--" and they would hum a few measures of some popular tune. Martin would quickly catch on and send them home whistling.

As the old man's music wended into the minds of the townsfolk, it worked wonders on their attitudes. A sonorous balm to the emotional strain of daily living, it calmed their nerves, damped the fire in their hearts, and blessed them with the belief that life could be good. And the sweet softness of their smiles was signature to the faith.

About that time people in town were excited about a prospective windfall. Sackes Lumber Company had appraised the virgin coniferous forest around Cottonwood and offered them a lot of money for the timber. The townspeople had long made a modest living from visitors who came to the mountain village for the fishing, the snow, and the picturesque alpine vistas. Few of the residents were affluent but comfortable and content with their livelihoods. Now some of them, those who owned large parcels of the forest, stood to make fortunes. And the rest of the people in and around town expected the wealth to trickle down to them, to enrich their own lives.

As the people of Cottonwood were celebrating the advent of their good fortune, they attended less and less to Martin Ledge's music. Took it for granted. He had been such a pleasing fixture in the park for so long they assumed he would go on playing his beautiful music for them forever. So used to hearing the fine balanced measures of his work they did not notice his absence. Guessing he might have been under the weather or taking a deserved day off they also did not notice him heading into the forest with his flute case in hand.

Tom Jenkins, the grocer, in the store across from the park was the first one to speak of it. "Haven't seen old Martin for a few days," he said to Mrs. Guzman, one of his regular customers, buying a few pounds of potatoes. "Hope he isn't sick."

"Probably just takin' a breather," she said, paying for her groceries. "Sure deserves one. Never seen a man work as hard at one thing or another as that old fella."

That triggered the watch. Everyday people deliberately passed the park to see if Martin Ledge was there again. But day after day they failed to see him. The sheriff even stopped at the old man's little house on the edge of the forest to find out if he was well but found nothing but a tidy lodging full of signs of the long lives of Martin and Jenny Ledge.

When a serious concern began to burgeon among the people that maybe something very sad had befallen the old man, a curious thing happened. Little Billy Barrett picked it up initially while playing with his friends in the forest. When he got home he said to his mother, "I think old Martin Ledge is playin' his flute in the woods."

Of course Billy's mother considered his remark simply childish imagination. But when the rumor wove through town like one of Martin's melodies, people began to pay attention. Evenings after work many of them would stand still in their yards, face the forest, and listen.

"Sure does sound like old Martin's music, doesn't it?" the mayor said to his wife while they were sitting on their front porch, sipping wine, and watching the sun disintegrate behind the great conifers that lined the mountain ridges.

Day after day the people of Cottonwood heard the music in the trees. The simple alpine concert gently roused them mornings, pleasantly distracted them from their daily toil, and lulled them to sleep nights. Soon everyone in town was awakening each day to listen for the music that drifted out of the forest on the aromatic scent of Douglas fir and yew. By popular urging, the sheriff led several searches into the woods to find old Martin. They found the constant echo of his handiwork. But not the man.

For months people talked with wonder about the disappearance of Martin Ledge and how the beautiful music he had played on his flute had been captured by the wind in the evergreens around Cottonwood. Although not given to superstition beyond traditional religious observations, the people believed something extraordinary had happened in their small part of the world. Something that to this day the folks in that village cherish as much a part of their history as the founding of the settlement, the raising of their families, and the beauty of the landscape around their homes.

A month later, when Sackes Lumber Company trucks growled into town to devour the surrounding trees, they confronted a blockade on Main Street. Hundreds of people were thronging the only way through town to the forested hills. The drivers blasted their horns, but the townspeople stood their ground in front of the diesel behemoths. The leader of the crew shouted through a bull horn for the crowd to disperse, to let the men do their job. But the people did not move. The mayor climbed onto the hood of the lead truck and said, "Friends, neighbors--let these people pass. They have work to do--from which we can all profit."

To the mayor's disappointment, the people were adamant. Billy Barrett's mother stepped forward and shouted above the diesel engines, "We've changed our minds, mayor. We don't want to lose our trees." The crowd around her cheered.

"Please be reasonable, Mis'ess Barrett. Why, only last week you and the other folks were counting the money we would make from this venture."

"No amount of money in the world is worth more than the sight and sound of those beautiful creatures," she said. They been here since before the first settler in this town--and we want them to be here long after we're gone." Another cheer in chorus to her words.

"Now don't make me call the sheriff and have you people forcibly removed--" the mayor hollered, his face flushed. But when he saw Glenda Barrett lie down in the street in front of the trucks and the others cover the pavement for a block with their bodies, he was clever enough to know the will of his constituency. With a quiet word to the crew leader, the mayor jumped off the truck and reluctantly waved them out of town.

Old Martin Ledge never came back out of the forest, never returned to the park to play his flute. Yet, the people of Cottonwood swear they hear his music in the great groves that sweep up the mountainsides around the village. And when anyone visits the little alpine town any time of the year, they too can hear marvelous melodies in the forest, melodies that calm their nerves, dampen the fire in their hearts, and bless them with the belief that life can be good.

###

LUNAR VIGIL first published by  T-Zero   
A DOLL IN THE GARDEN by Twilight Times   
KING OF THE CHRISTMAS TREES by Mocha Memoirs  
PURCHASING POWER by Quantum Muse

CASTLETOWN QUARRY by Orchard Press Mysteries  
WASTE WATER by SDO Detective

WOODWIND by Pen Himalaya

Surviving early life in Los Angeles, Jack Forge has been creating art since childhood. After college, he taught English for many years. His poems, stories, graphic art, and novels have been published on the internet; one novel as a paperback. Despite the storm and stress of the world, Jack lives for art, nature, and love.

Cover by Jack Forge.

Sample Jack's other writing and connect with him at  Smashwords.

