textfiles/magazines/INTERTEXT/ITv7n2.etx

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InterText Vol. 7, No. 2 / March-April 1997
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  Contents

    The Mirror of Aelitz...................Ellen Terris Brenner

    Understanding Green............................David Appell

    Way of the Wolf...............................S. Kay Elmore

    Small Miracles are Better Than None..........Peter Meyerson

....................................................................
    Editor                                     Assistant Editor
    Jason Snell                                    Geoff Duncan
    jsnell@intertext.com                    geoff@intertext.com
....................................................................
    Assistant Editor                     Send correspondence to
    Susan Grossman                        editors@intertext.com
    susan@intertext.com              or intertext@intertext.com
....................................................................
    Submissions Panelists:
    Bob Bush, Brian Byrne, Rod Johnston, Peter Jones,
    Morten Lauritsen, Jason Snell
....................................................................
  InterText Vol. 7, No. 2. InterText (ISSN 1071-7676) is published
  electronically on a bi-monthly basis. Reproduction of this
  magazine is permitted as long as the magazine is not sold
  (either by itself or as part of a collection) and the entire
  text of the issue remains intact. Copyright 1997, Jason Snell.
  Individual stories Copyright 1997 their original authors. For
  more information about InterText, send a message to
  info@intertext.com. For writers' guidelines, mail
  guidelines@intertext.com.
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  The Mirror of Aelitz   by Ellen Terris Brenner
================================================
....................................................................
  Is true wisdom a knowledge of the outside world, or of the world 
  within one's self?
....................................................................

  The tale comes to us from the Younger Days of a small but 
  prosperous kingdom, nestled in a valley of the Cloud Mountains, 
  and bearing the name Aelitz. Its people were strong, and its 
  rulers wise; but the true source of Aelitz's prosperity (so all 
  the countries around them believed) was a magical mirror of 
  great antiquity.

  Many tales coalesced around this mirror. It was said that it had 
  fallen like a star from the skies in the Dawn Days, when the 
  Earth was new; when the First Woman found it, she was so moved 
  by what she saw in it that the tears she shed became all the 
  lakes and rivers and seas of the world. It was also told that 
  when the Second Woman stole the mirror for her own, what she 
  then saw therein caused her to tear open her throat with her own 
  hands, birthing all the animals of the air and the earth from 
  her blood.

  And many other such tales were told about this mirror, some of 
  which held more truth than their tellers realized. But only the 
  monks, who kept the mirror safe in their abbey overlooking 
  Aelitz, were allowed to look in it. And whenever they were asked 
  about the mirror, they only smiled.

  King Jeil of the neighboring country of Rigad envied the success 
  of Aelitz. His people were diligent, and he considered himself 
  an accomplished warrior and ruler, but his country remained poor 
  and struggling. So Jeil swore to get the secret of the mirror of 
  Aelitz for himself, one way or another.

  He dressed in pilgrim's garb, put plain harness on his best 
  traveling steed, and rode with a small retinue to the monastery 
  of Aelitz. There he beat on the great oaken door with the stone 
  club he found standing by the doorpost, and waited impatiently.

  The monk who opened the door looked at him with ancient eyes 
  that were not in the least surprised to see him. "All hail, King 
  Jeil of Rigad," she greeted him, "and blessings on the land over 
  which you rule."

  "All hail, Your Holiness," replied Jeil, annoyed that the monk 
  had recognized him. "I have come to learn wisdom of the mirror 
  in your possession."

  "Nobody possesses the mirror," said the monk, smiling. "We are 
  merely its guardians. And as such, I fear we must turn down your 
  request."

  "I am willing to undergo the proper initiation," stammered the 
  king, unused to being refused anything.

  "It would be no use for you to do that," said the monk, "for 
  your intention is wrong."

  "My intention is to improve the lot of my people," said Jeil, 
  growing angry.

  The monk smiled again, not unkindly. "The instrument with which 
  you beat on our door is not meant as a door-knocker, but is a 
  pestle with which we grind spices for our ritual incense." And 
  Jeil looked, and was mortified to see brown resins clinging to 
  the stone pestle, and smeared on the door where he had struck 
  it.

  "Why do you wish to look into ancient mysteries," asked the 
  monk, "when you have yet to learn to look at the world around 
  you?"

  "How can I hope to learn if you will not teach me?" shouted King 
  Jeil, but the monk had already closed the door.

  Enraged, the king took his retinue away from that place and hid 
  them in the wild woods of the mountainside. At midnight he rode 
  back to the monastery, his horse's hooves and harness muffled in 
  strips of cloth. Nobody stirred to stop him as he scaled the 
  monastery walls, crept amongst the sleeping huts, and slipped 
  inside the chapel. There in an alcove hung the mirror, a mere 
  two hands' breadth wide, covered by a dense dark cloth. For a 
  second he hesitated, surprised to find himself questioning his 
  resolve. Then he shook off his doubt, seized the mirror and 
  thrust it in his satchel. He was away and over the wall and 
  spurring his horse before he could think one more thought about 
  his deed.

  His retinue joined him at their appointed rendezvous, and 
  together they thundered for the border, looking over their 
  shoulder all the while for signs of pursuit.

  Meanwhile the monks, all of whom had been awake the whole time, 
  rose ten minutes after Jeil's trespass and rang the great bell 
  in the midst of their compound. The sound of it filled the 
  entire valley of Aelitz. Every mother's child of that kingdom, 
  from the smallest gooseherd to the aged King bolted out of bed, 
  crying "The mirror! The gods save the mirror!"

  The King's champion, Fatila, also leapt out of bed. Cursing, she 
  ran to the stables with her long dark hair streaming unbound 
  behind her, clutching sword in one hand, boots in the other. The 
  yard teemed with still-awakening creatures -- soldiers, 
  stablehands, and horses -- all stomping and crying after their 
  kind, as the great bell continued to toll.

  Fatila mounted her great war steed with a heavy heart. She had 
  won many glories in war and in sword duels, and defied death 
  many times. But for the past three moons she had been plagued 
  with dreams of disaster, and she wondered now if this was not 
  her death come at last. Her gloom only increased when a runner 
  came from the monastery saying it was Jeil of Rigad who had 
  brazenly stolen the treasure of Aelitz. She needed no mirror to 
  tell her that many lives would be lost before one such as Jeil 
  would admit defeat.

  Fatila led the first pursuit party, with more horsetroops 
  following swiftly behind. All of them knew the narrow mountain 
  roads like the faces of their father and mother.

  But so did Jeil and his band, and with their slim lead they 
  stayed ahead of their pursuit, arriving safely at the great 
  stone walls of their home city by dawn.

  No sooner was Jeil's party within the city gate than the king 
  wheeled on his sweat-drenched mount and cried out: "Close and 
  bolt all the gates! Prepare for battle!" Soldiers stumbled out 
  of barracks to the sound of trumpets and drums, and lined the 
  walls with the implements of war. When Fatila crested the hill 
  overlooking the great main gate of Rigad, her heart sank within 
  her to see the walled city-state already primed for siege. There 
  was nothing more she could do but wait for the rest of her 
  troops to arrive, and prepare for a long bitter struggle.

  Within the walls of Rigad, word quickly spread that their king 
  had successfully captured the pride of Aelitz. Every soul, 
  whether soldier or citizen, was alight with exultation. "The 
  mirror! Glory to the mirror!" was the cry from battlement and 
  square. Meanwhile, King Jeil had gone straight to his chambers 
  and locked himself in alone with the mirror.

  Many times during his flight had he thought to doubt his 
  impetuous action. Aelitz, after all, was mighty in war and had a 
  great champion in Fatila, and his country, being poor, might 
  come to great harm in a siege. But then he would slide a hand 
  down to feel the prize in his satchel, and all his doubts would 
  scatter like the gravel under his horse's hooves. The mirror 
  would make all right. The mirror would show him what to do.

  Now he hung the mirror on the wall of his chamber, paused a 
  moment to catch his breath, and then snatched away the relic's 
  protective cloth. He was startled to see how plain it was. Its 
  frame was unpainted wood, smoothed in the manner of driftwood 
  from the far oceans. The reflective surface seemed neither glass 
  nor metal but some other, darker substance he could not name. 
  Images swirled below that surface. The images drew him closer.

  He looked in.

  He saw the birth of this world, and the worlds that lived and 
  died before this one. He saw the nativities of the gods; he saw 
  the nests that hatched the stars. He saw First and Second Woman 
  arise from the mud in which the gods had sown them, to join in 
  their primal sororal struggles at the Dawn of our world. He saw 
  their blood and tears intermingle to give rise to all living 
  creatures, and their wombs (alive and dead) give birth to the 
  tribes of humanity and of the spirit world. He saw the human 
  generations rise, one after another, loving and fighting, mating 
  and killing, all unconscious of the consequences of their 
  actions. And he saw the gods walking among them, sometimes 
  recognized but more often completely unknown, and his heart 
  quailed within him to imagine what the Eternal Ones must think 
  of these sad, unmindful lives. And then it was as if the mirror 
  were an eye looking back into his eyes, into his own soul, and 
  he had no excuse to offer its implacable gaze.

  When at last he looked away, he was surprised to see the morning 
  sun still shining into his chamber.

  He walked to the window, feeling very much older, and with a 
  pang looked down on the hundreds of soldiers, his own and those 
  of Aelitz, which his folly had summoned here to kill each other. 
  War songs celebrating the mirror rose from his troops on the 
  clear morning air, full of the spirit of conquest. War songs of 
  righteous anger rose in response from the troops outside the 
  walls. And there, on the ridge overlooking the Great Gate, rode 
  a woman with long dark hair like a flag on the wind -- Fatila, 
  who never turned away.

  He saw that there was no longer any way to capitulate without 
  sparking either a rout or a riot. There was only one way left at 
  this point, and he had brought it on himself.

  Fatila was conferring with her generals over the reports from 
  their scouts when a shout drew her attention to the Great Gate. 
  The portals had opened a crack to let someone slip out: an 
  unarmed youth in green, the color of parley. He stepped forward 
  and handed a scroll to an Aelitzian captain, who came quickly 
  riding up the hill with it to Fatila. She felt her generals' 
  eyes bore into her as she read it, even as the words likewise 
  stabbed into her soul. Finally she spoke:

  "Jeil proposes a fair fight. He and I. To the death. Winner to 
  take the mirror, loser's side to withdraw unharmed."

  "It's a trick. He's learned arcane fighting skills from the 
  mirror," said one general.

  "You cannot learn such things from the mirror," said another.

  "How do you know?" snapped Fatila. "Do any of you know what the 
  mirror's powers are in the first place?" The generals fell 
  silent. She stared at them all, realizing that this question had 
  been boiling up in her for some hours now.

  "Just so," she spoke more gently, so that her generals now 
  stared at her in turn. "None of us know. Strange, that our 
  homeland had held this object sacred for all these years, and 
  yet nobody has a blessed idea what it means. Even we, who lead 
  our people to die for it."

  "Blasphemy--" muttered one general.

  "Enough." Fatila's voice grew hard again. "As I said, we do not 
  know what Jeil could or could not have learned from the mirror. 
  There are only two things we do know for certain. One, that a 
  siege would be the ruin of both kingdoms. And two, that a duel 
  might be the salvation of at least one."

  She spurred her horse, then, and left her generals gaping as she 
  rode down to the gate. The two armies on either side of their 
  wall sent up terrible battle shouts as heralds cried out the 
  terms of the fair fight.

  When Jeil rode out from the gate, Fatila barely recognized him 
  -- he looked like a man who had awakened from a fever dream. 
  Without a word, he dismounted and strode to a nearby tree; over 
  a branch he slung a satchel that sagged with the weight it 
  carried. He stepped away, and waited.

  Fatila gestured, and from amongst her soldiers emerged one of 
  the monks from the monastery. Calmly he approached the tree, 
  opened the satchel, and looked under the cloth shrouding the 
  object within. "It is the mirror," he announced in a clear 
  voice. His smile seemed to strike Jeil like a blow.

  The armies grew silent as the two combatants faced each other, 
  swords drawn, bodies still. Something in Jeil's eyes made Fatila 
  catch her breath: this was a man who had seen premonitions of 
  his death, just as she had seen foreshadowings of her own.

  Then with a whirl and clash of steel on steel, it was begun.

  The armies found their voices again and made the mountains ring 
  with their cries. Back and forth on the grass the swordfighters 
  strode, matching each other move for move. It seemed they were 
  more perfectly matched than any two warriors had ever been. 
  Wherever one swung or thrust, the other's blade was there to 
  meet it, and neither was succeeding in getting so much as a nick 
  on the other's armor. The armies shouted again and again; never 
  had anyone seen its like, and each onlooker began to feel even a 
  grudging admiration for their enemy's champion, so wonderful was 
  the fighting.

  But as the minutes wore on, and grew to an hour, and then two, 
  the cries of the onlookers faded again, replaced by mutterings 
  of dread. No normal warriors could carry on a fight this long, 
  and still move with such grace and ferocity.

  Fatila heard the mutterings as if from very far away. In every 
  duel she had ever fought, she had reached a brief peak of 
  transport, in which she and her sword were one, singing through 
  the air, a perfect balance of forces striking home. In every 
  previous duel that peak had lasted at most a few minutes, more 
  often only seconds, before she and her blade found their 
  opponent's heart. Now the transport was continuing for 
  unimaginable lengths of time. In fact, she had lost track of 
  time. All she knew was the singing blades, his and hers, and his 
  eyes that had lost all fear of death, and her heart whose fear 
  had likewise vanished. She felt that she might take a blade in 
  her own breast this time and bless it for a worthy death.

  But then, she felt herself transcending even this heightened 
  battle transport. As their blades continued to dance, she 
  thought she could hear the singing of gods and stars as they had 
  sung at the moment of their birth. As their feet trampled the 
  sward to dust, she felt them moving in the primal dance of love 
  and hate between First and Second Woman. As she looked deep into 
  her adversary's eyes she could see all the sorrow of the ages 
  for the forgetful generations of humanity. And his eyes looked 
  deep into her own also, and she could not hide her soul from 
  him.

  Three full hours they fought, neither gaining the advantage, and 
  then at last they paused, facing each other. Their mortal 
  fatigue was finally overwhelming whatever power had borne the 
  both of them this long. At this point, the duel would no longer 
  be decided by the most skillful play of sword, but by the 
  blunderings of exhaustion.

  Then, breaking into a frightening smile, Jeil planted his sword 
  point-first into the now-dusty ground, and knelt beside it in 
  concession.

  As the Aelitzian army broke out in cheers and the Rigadians in 
  wails of grief, Fatila looked on the surrendering king with 
  sorrow such as she had never felt before.

  "I cannot kill you," she said.

  "But you must." He looked up at her, still smiling that terrible 
  smile, eyes flooded with tears. "I beg you."

  "Forfeit his life to us."

  They both turned, startled, to find themselves looking into the 
  serene countenance of the monk. He already wore the satchel over 
  his shoulder. "It was us he wronged," said the monk. "It is we 
  who should decide how best to dispose of him."

  Fatila nodded, incapable of speech.

  In short order Jeil was mounted on a horse with his wrists bound 
  to the pommel. Fatila watched as he rode away, led by the monk 
  and a detachment of soldiers back to the monastery. He looked 
  back at her once. And then he was gone.

  There followed much conferring of emissaries and diplomats, and 
  many careful and tactful speeches, until eventually Rigad was 
  left in the charge of Jeil's younger sister and a regent. Both 
  armies withdrew without further incident, and so ended the war 
  -- but not our tale.

  When the party accompanying Jeil arrived at the monastery, the 
  monk dismissed the soldiers and led Jeil in alone. He then 
  dismounted from his own horse, took a knife from his belt, and 
  cut the ropes that bound the vanquished king.

  Jeil gaped at him. "What do you mean by this?"

  "I am disposing of you. Your old life is hereby over and dead. 
  You are now a monk of this order."

  "But I violated every aspect of your order."

  "I will admit," smiled the monk, "that yours was not the usual 
  way of initiation into the use of the mirror. But then, as one 
  of us told you, we do not possess the mirror, we are only its 
  guardians. This is neither the first nor the last time that it 
  has chosen its own initiates, in its own way and time."

  It was only a day later that the monastery received another 
  visitor: Fatila, also seeking initiation. She too was told she 
  had already been initiated by the mirror, having seen its 
  reflection in Jeil's eyes. Eventually Jeil and Fatila became the 
  abbot and abbess of the monastery, and the prosperity of both 
  their homelands became the stuff of legends.

  But as to the mirror, it is now lost to us, as is so much of the 
  wisdom of the Younger Days.


  Ellen Terris Brenner (brenner@wolfenet.com)
---------------------------------------------
  Ellen Terris Brenner is (in no particular order of importance) a 
  writer, computer geek, les/bi/gay/trans community activist, 
  Unitarian minister, singer, Clarion West alumna, and newbie 
  air-cooled VW camper enthusiast. She lives in Seattle with an 
  obstreperous cat named Jimmy Dean, the Rebel Without a Clue. Her 
  home on the Web is <http://www.wolfenet.com/~brenner/>.



  Understanding Green   by David Appell
=======================================
...................................................................
  "All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated 
  act without benefit of experience."
                                                   --Henry Miller
...................................................................

  When I returned from lunch there were two messages on my desk. 
  One was from my mother, calling no doubt to tell me about her 
  latest adventure with my father. The other was from Joyce, my 
  older sister. Joyce calls me perhaps four times a year, as if to 
  give me a quarterly report on her life, but rarely when I am at 
  work. I called her back immediately to see if her balance sheet 
  had made it to the black.

  As soon as I said hello she asked, "Did she call you yet?"

  I knew she meant our mother. I pretended I didn't get my 
  mother's message. This was sneaky but not really a lie, since I 
  didn't actually speak to our mother when she called. Besides, 
  this way I thought I could find out a little about what was 
  going on.

  "Well, we're invited to the house. For dinner. All three of us. 
  This Saturday. They have something to tell us." For an English 
  professor, she sometimes speaks in remarkably incomplete 
  sentences, especially since she doesn't have tenure. "In August. 
  Can you believe it? It's not even a holiday. Something's up." 
  Jumpy Joyce, we called her as teenagers. Always nervous, always 
  the first to conjure up suspicion.

  "I for one wouldn't mind getting out of the city on a weekend 
  day in August. At least it will be green."

  "Right," she said.

  "Besides, she probably just wants to show us a giant zucchini in 
  her garden. Or maybe she converted the den to a hydroponic 
  farm."

  "Right, Marc," she said somewhat coldly. I get a great deal of 
  pleasure out of showing my sister what it is like to be normally 
  weird. It is something she never got the hang of.

  "Well, I think something's up. But you obviously couldn't care 
  less. I guess I'll see you there then," she said.

  "Not if I see you first," I said as straight as I could. I heard 
  her sigh loudly before she got the handset back in its cradle.



  When I arrive at my parents' house on Saturday afternoon Joyce 
  and Pam are sitting on the back deck above the swimming pool. 
  Joyce is drinking an iced tea and Pam has a glass of wine. The 
  reverse might make the day go a little smoother, I think. Our 
  little sister Pamela can get pretty wild.

  "Where are they?" I ask.

  "Upstairs," Pam says with a bored toss of her head. "I think we 
  might have caught them in the middle of something." Since when 
  did she find sex boring, even if it was between our parents?

  I pull up a chair. We are each alone, two by choice. I'm 
  separated for nearly a year, after three years of marriage. We 
  are going through the legalities now. Pam is by herself today, 
  but she could have her choice of nearly any man, as beautiful as 
  she is. She usually sees three or four of them at once, and no 
  doubt they are all wondering where she is today and which of the 
  others she is with. I think she enjoys that. Only Joyce resents 
  the whole of mankind because someone had once fallen in and out 
  of love with her. Of course, it isn't that simple. She hadn't 
  liked it a lot before then -- mankind, that is -- but the 
  experience hastened her quest to find the worst in everything. 
  Now bitterness is turning her into a frump. It is not easy to 
  watch your sister turn into a frump, especially when she is in 
  her early thirties. She isn't unattractive, when she tries.

  But she has stopped trying. Perhaps she doesn't even realize it. 
  I would like to tell her this, but I don't know how to begin.

  I sit next to them and wait for our parents to come down. Joyce 
  is reading the _Times_, and Pam gets up to go into the house and 
  pour herself another glass of wine. "Need anything?" she says to 
  me.

  "Yeah. Peace, happiness and eternal life."

  She pauses for a few seconds, just the right amount. "Well, how 
  about a glass of white zin instead?"

  "Okay."

  She gives me a wink as she opens the sliding glass door.



  Pam comes out and hands me the glass and sits next to me. "So 
  how's it doing?" she asks. I know she means my heart. After 
  Laurie left suddenly for another man, Pam helped me more than 
  anyone -- listening, supporting, encouraging. She worked gently 
  but steadfastly to cushion me, then to pull me up, to reassure 
  me, and to help me through the last wintry year. A deep hole 
  opened in my life when Laurie left, and the trees dropped their 
  leaves and stood leaning into the brisk wind, so the landscape 
  seemed barren -- scorched and defoliated. I am still adjusting 
  -- hurting, lonely, but working now to be content with myself 
  first. I can feel small green shoots beginning to break through 
  the black ground, thanks mainly to my younger sister. She is the 
  strongest person I know.

  We live only twelve blocks apart on the Upper East Side, though 
  we see each other more often at my parents' than we do in the 
  city. We are both busy. But when my marriage ended I found 
  myself seeking her out, for companionship, but also because I 
  wanted to be with someone who understood me instinctively. I 
  missed that most of all when Laurie left, and yet now I'm not 
  sure we even had such an understanding, only having been 
  together for a few years. Perhaps I missed simply the idea of 
  it. At night, when the sun went down and the city became closed 
  and cold, and all I felt was loneliness, I would call Pam and 
  leave a message on her machine. I then waited until she came 
  home, and within seconds I would begin to pour out my pain to 
  her. She would listen and then ask why didn't I come over and 
  spend the night at her place? I would always joke and ask her if 
  she was sure she was going to be alone that evening -- with Pam 
  you could never be sure. And then I would jog the twelve blocks 
  to her building as fast as I could. Every time I stepped into 
  her apartment it felt in some ways like I was coming home.

  We would talk far into the night. She was a wonderful listener, 
  and when she felt the time was right she would give me her 
  thoughts. Laurie was selfish and wrong, she would say, you 
  deserve better, and you need to remember that. Get through this, 
  and you'll come back stronger for it. I needed to hear that, and 
  I wanted to believe her. She made it sound so simple, like she 
  had all the answers, as though life was a chess game and she was 
  a grand master. Just take care of yourself, she said, and the 
  rest will fall into place.

  "Be like a tree," she said once. "Keep your roots in the ground 
  and spread your branches and let your leaves soak in the sun."

  "And what about when autumn comes?" I asked.

  "Accept it. But most of all, don't forget that spring is just 
  around the corner."

  I began to stay at her place four or five nights a week, 
  sleeping on her couch. In the mornings I would rise early and 
  walk back to my own apartment to get ready for work. One 
  morning, as I walked sleepy-eyed into her elevator, I pressed 
  the wrong button and found myself on the floor that led to the 
  roof instead of the lobby. I decided to go out and look at 
  morning coming over the city. As I stood at the edge in the 
  early November sun and listened to the city wake up, as I felt 
  the chill and light in the air, I glanced to my side. There, 
  next to a ventilation shaft, pushing out of the gravel and tar 
  on the dirty rooftop, was a small sapling. It had perhaps a 
  dozen leaves, the tips of which were just beginning to turn 
  yellow. The leaves in the park had already turned and dropped, 
  and yet here, in the most unlikely of places, a small, lonely 
  tree struggled for life and clung to its green.

  I stood and looked at that tree for half an hour, and I decided 
  that maybe things would be all right. I rarely stayed overnight 
  at Pam's after that.



  We are in the middle of a conversation about whether Pam should 
  be wearing blush on such a hot day. Pam has worn blush since she 
  was eight years old. Joyce, who asked the question, has taken 
  the negative. "Especially out here," she says.

  "It's Long Island, for Christ's sake, not the Yukon," I reply.

  "Besides, there's a lot of pain in this face that I need to 
  cover up," Pam quips.

  Joyce takes her seriously. "You? Pain? Ha."

  Pam opens her mouth to reply, but I put my hand on her knee and 
  say quietly, "Don't get her started." Suddenly our parents show 
  up. They smile and hug and kiss us while we exchange greetings. 
  Even my father, who usually shakes my hand. Then he lingers 
  around Pam. She was always his favorite.

  "So what's up?" Pam asks.

  "You're not pregnant, are you?" says Joyce. Pam rolls her eyes, 
  but I think it might be Joyce's way of trying to make a joke.

  "Of course not," our mother says, laughing. "We just have 
  something we have to tell you. But it can wait until after 
  dinner."

  "Well, I'm certainly wet with anticipation," Pam says. Joyce 
  shoots her a glance. It seems the wine might be starting to go 
  to her head.



  I help my father get the barbecue going. He is wearing his tall 
  chef's hat and his apron. It has an inscription on the front, a 
  paraphrase of Descartes: "I cook, therefore I am." He loves it. 
  Cooking now gives him more joy than anything else in his life, 
  except my mother.

  Joyce insists we eat inside, "because of the flies." After we 
  are seated my father brings the food to the table: teriyaki 
  chicken, asparagus polonaise and a chardonnay he has picked. 
  Joyce has a glass, but Pam and I decline and stick to the zin. 
  My father pretends that he is upset at our lack of manners, and 
  my mother smiles to herself.

  One by one we finish and wait, as if a show is about to begin. 
  But first my father must serve strawberries and cream. Halfway 
  through my mother puts her spoon down, and we know that is our 
  cue to begin listening.

  "Your father and I have made a decision," she says.

  I look at Pam, then at Joyce. The last time my mother said this 
  they completely redid the interior of the house. We were all 
  still living at home then. We made it through that, but barely.

  She looks at my father. "Do you want to tell them, dear, or 
  should I?"

  "Go right ahead, dear."

  She looks us each in the face for about a second and says, "Your 
  father and I are going to get a divorce."

  I start to laugh but nearly choke on a strawberry. Pam raises 
  her eyebrows, trying to figure out the joke. Joyce reaches for 
  her glass of wine. My parents wait and watch us, but nobody 
  moves.

  "I told you they wouldn't believe us," my mother says to my 
  father.

  "Really, Mother," Pam says. "We would have come out just for a 
  visit -- you didn't have to make up some lame excuse to trick 
  us."

  "Darling, we're serious."

  "Right," says Joyce. "You've been married for thirty-three 
  years, happier than any couple I've ever seen, and now you're 
  going to get a divorce?" It is, for her, quite a long sentence.

  "Yes. Why not?"

  "Why not? Because people don't do that, that's why not! I 
  thought you loved each other."

  Finally my father says something. "We do love each other, Joyce, 
  very much." Simple.

  My mother embellishes. "Of course we love each other, 
  sweetheart. We always will. You can't stop that."

  "You're serious, aren't you?" I ask.

  She looks straight at me and her eyes ask me to believe her. 
  "Yes, Marc, we are."

  I stumble for a word. I ask a question, some combination of 
  _how_ and _why_.

  "Well," she says, "we've decided that it would be best if we 
  stopped being husband and wife and simply remained friends. Now 
  that you all are grown and we're both older, we want to do 
  different things. As you know, I've always wanted to take a few 
  years and travel around the world. Now finally I have the time 
  and the money. I might even settle in France. Who knows? We've 
  thought about it and talked about it for quite some time now. It 
  feels right."

  "And what about you, Daddy?" It is Pam.

  "Well, I have a chance to open a restaurant in California with a 
  partner. I think I'd like to sell the business and give it a 
  try. Maybe write my cookbook, finally."

  "How splendid!" Pam exclaims, too enthusiastically.

  Joyce interrupts. "But aren't you going to miss each other?"

  "Of course," says my mother. "It's not like we'll never see each 
  other again. It is possible to love someone without being next 
  to them every day. But after spending half your life with 
  someone, even someone you love, well... sometimes a change is 
  appropriate. Who knows what will happen? Maybe we'll each meet 
  someone and fall in love. Maybe we'll have dinner three years 
  from now and decide to get married again." She pauses, then 
  adds, "Wouldn't that be romantic?"

  None of us says anything. Finally my father speaks.

  "This may be hard for you to imagine at your ages, but a person 
  gets tired of chasing security their entire life. The familiar 
  can become the despised, if you're around it too long. The best 
  hitters go out on top."

  "What a terrible analogy," I say. "This is life, not a game." If 
  nothing else, my own divorce is teaching me that.

  "Well, I don't know if it's an analogy," my father says, "but 
  it's certainly like an analogy." He smiles. It is one of his 
  oldest jokes.

  After a short pause Joyce asks him, "Aren't you afraid of dying 
  alone?"

  "No," my father says, becoming serious. "I'm more afraid of 
  dying without doing all the things I want to do."



  After the dishes are cleared my parents tell us they are going 
  on a walk. I think they want to give us time to talk. We drift 
  to the den, where Pam begins to shoot pool. She has graduated 
  from wine to vodka and soda. I take a cue stick and join her. 
  Joyce keeps to one side of the room and paces.

  "I just can't believe it," she says.

  "I know." I don't know what else to say.

  "I mean, look at us. They were our last hope."

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Pam asks.

  "Well, look at us," Joyce says. "None of us has ever had a 
  successful relationship. At least they did. I always found that 
  comforting."

  "I resent that," says Pam. "Speak for yourself."

  "I didn't mean this week," Joyce sneers. Pam glares at her, but 
  having scored a quick point, Joyce keeps going. "I thought they 
  would never split up. I mean, of all the people in the world... 
  it's like they were made for each other." Joyce sits down, and 
  suddenly she looks very weary. It seems that she is taking this 
  the hardest of anyone. I suppose it is because she has the 
  strongest need to believe that things can work out between two 
  people. Misanthropes always do. She hides it extremely well, but 
  it only convinces me more. I know her too well.

  "Well, I can sure as hell understand it," Pam says. She puts her 
  head down and takes a quick shot, hitting the ball hard. 
  "Thirty-three years is a long time. Things would get pretty 
  boring after that long. Imagine sleeping with the same person 
  for thirty-three years. What could you possibly do that would be 
  new and exciting?"

  "They seem to suffer through it okay," I say.

  "Sure, but they must wonder about other people. They must want 
  the excitement of meeting someone, kissing them for the first 
  time, doing it with someone new."

  Joyce always responds to Pam's remarks like this, and she's 
  looking to score another point. "Not everyone thinks about sex, 
  you know."

  "True," Pam replies, as she sees an opening. "Some people 
  actually have it, too."

  Joyce leaves the room.



  With Joyce gone I try to sort through some of what has happened 
  today. I am still shocked about my parents. Like Joyce, I too 
  have often compared our parents' relationship to our own. Either 
  we missed something crucial, or they simply found the secret. I 
  am upset at them -- though proud too, in a way I can't quite 
  explain. But after a while I realize I also feel something about 
  Pam -- she has not said much about all this. She has been too 
  cavalier, too flippant. At the same time, I sense a tightness in 
  the room that seems to come from her.

  I have always been the only one who could ever really talk to 
  Pam. We are only a year apart, which is a big reason for our 
  closeness. I was her big brother -- not that I could ever teach 
  her much, because she always seemed to know more than I did, 
  about everything. But I could protect her or rescue her, 
  depending on the situation. Joyce was never able to do that, for 
  either of us. Joyce is four years older than me, but she has 
  always seemed like she was somewhere else, like she was from 
  another generation. Even now, when four years is not as long as 
  it once was.

  "Pook," I say, "aren't you the least bit surprised?"

  Now that we are alone I can use her nickname. She made me stop 
  using it in front of others when she was eleven, but she's never 
  objected to my using it in private. It is my way of letting her 
  know it is only me.

  "No," she says, acting tough. "Why should I be?"

  She seems prepared to dig in deep if I pursue this particular 
  line of the conversation, so I make a slight shift. "Well, you 
  certainly were surprised when I announced I was getting a 
  divorce."

  "That was different."

  "How?"

  "For one thing, you called me every night for a month and 
  cried."

  Pam has been slippery like this for all of her adult life. She 
  is the kind of person everyone wants to be around -- always fun, 
  with a twinkle in her eye. But if you ask her something deep, if 
  you get too close to her core, she jabs and darts and ends up 
  behind you, arms back down at her sides, smiling while working 
  to catch her breath. Everyone gives up at this point. But today 
  I feel that I should pursue her across the ring.

  We play nine-ball for several minutes, exchanging brief phrases 
  so that the game proceeds on course. I can tell she is thinking. 
  After she misses an easy shot she stands up and looks at me.

  "What was the first thing you thought of when Mother said they 
  were getting a divorce?"

  "I don't know. Disbelief, I guess."

  "No. I mean what was the first image that came into your mind?"

  I pause.

  "Laurie."

  What had flashed into my mind was how bitter I felt when she 
  left, and how much it hurt. It hurt because after everything 
  that happened I still loved her in many ways and yet I almost 
  hated her, and I didn't want to do that. And I missed her and I 
  wanted another chance, and I knew that was gone forever. It hurt 
  because I wanted exactly what my parents had, and yet every day 
  I wondered if I would ever find that or if I was the type who 
  would bounce through life without it, making do, bucking up, 
  falling down. I wondered how my parents could willingly give it 
  up. I still thought about her fifty times a day. I feel afraid 
  to try again. I didn't know how to get what my parents had, let 
  alone ever think about giving it up. It is strange that a single 
  name can come to symbolize so much.

  Pam pauses to let my feelings soften. Finally she says, "You 
  know what I immediately thought of?"

  "What?"

  "Miss Flowers."

  "Dad's secretary?"

  "Yes."

  "Why?" I am surprised. It has been years since we had last seen 
  her. On summer days when we were bored my mother would put Joyce 
  in charge and give us train fare to go to my father's office for 
  lunch. Miss Flowers was always the first and last thing we saw 
  there. She was a large woman who smelled funny -- in a former 
  time she would have been called a spinster. Even children could 
  tell she was lonely. She doted over my father, and she doted 
  over us because we were his children. Pam, especially, had never 
  liked her.

  She looks at me but is silent.

  "Why, Pook?"

  She puts her cue stick back in the rack and goes behind the bar 
  to mix herself another drink. She says nothing, and I look at 
  her but decide to wait. Finally she looks back and says what she 
  has been thinking. "Because she was an old maid who wouldn't 
  leave Daddy alone."

  Before I can respond she adds, "And because she didn't like me 
  either." I am surprised to hear her say this.

  "She liked you," I say. "She was just an old lady. She never 
  meant you any harm."

  "Like hell!" she says in a sudden burst that surprises me. "Like 
  hell she didn't. She never liked me because I was pretty."

  "Pam, really."

  "She didn't. She was a lonely old bat, and she wanted other 
  people to be unhappy too. Just like Joyce. I'll bet Joyce ends 
  up like her someday...."

  She is rarely so blatant. Suddenly I feel sorry for Joyce.

  "At least Joyce acts like she cares," I say coldly.

  "What other choice does she really have?"

  I am able to restrain myself. I let it pass and wait a minute. 
  "Pam, come on, this isn't about Joyce. It's not about you being 
  pretty either. What's the matter?"

  She swirls the ice in her glass, but it is clear she is only 
  stalling. I walk over near her and sit gently on a stool. Her 
  head is down. The room is growing dark as the day begins to end. 
  Quietly I say, "What is it, Pam?"

  She looks at me, and her eyes are moist. She starts to say 
  something, then stops. Then, quietly, she says, "I thought she 
  wanted Daddy for herself."

  "Miss Flowers?"

  "Yeah. I thought she wanted to take him away from us. And I 
  thought he was going to leave us for her, especially after he 
  and Mom would have a fight," she says. "In fact, I expected it." 
  Then after a pause during which she seems to go somewhere far 
  away, she adds, quietly, "They all leave you in the end anyway." 
  She looks away and says, "Every single one of them."

  I don't know what to say. Pam has always been so together that 
  I've never really had to comfort her before. She always seems so 
  happy that I thought she was, that she was living the way she 
  wanted to. I have always admired her because I thought she made 
  her choices for the right reasons, not out of fear like so many 
  other people. And now suddenly it is clear to me that she 
  struggles inside as much as the rest of us.

  After a speechless minute I get up from my stool and move behind 
  the bar toward her. She lets me hold her. At first her body is 
  tense and it feels awkward. But slowly she softens in my arms 
  and I feel her body begin to shake. I feel her fight it too. 
  Finally she lets out a long, soft moan and begins to cry, slowly 
  at first, then harder. For a moment I imagine it is Laurie I am 
  holding. I let her cry into my shoulder until she is finished, 
  until her eyeliner runs down her cheek so that she looks like a 
  sad clown. She looks up at me and I try to smile, but then I 
  realize that for the first time ever she is looking at me for an 
  answer.

  "Be like a tree, Pam," I whisper.

  She wipes her cheek and purses her lips and tries to smile. 
  "Marc, I'm so damn tired of autumns and winters and springs. 
  Whatever happened to summer?"

  All this time, I thought she had it all figured out. "It will be 
  okay, Pook," is the only thing I can think of to say. I am not 
  completely convincing, and I know she knows it.



  Just then we hear some shouting in the back yard, followed by 
  two quick splashes. Pam wipes her eyes and we leave the den and 
  go to the sliding glass door that leads to the deck. Joyce is 
  already there. The three of us stand beside one other and look 
  out -- the misanthrope, the clown and the... I don't know. The 
  wounded, maybe. The wounded who wants to heal.

  "Mom and Dad are back," Joyce says vacantly. "They're 
  skinny-dipping."

  We look out into the dusk at my parents. Their clothes are 
  hanging on the trellis, which stands among the lush, green 
  foliage of their yard. They do not even seem to think that we 
  might be watching. They splash and laugh and seem oblivious to 
  the world, as if only the two of them are in it. I wonder when 
  they will file the papers.


  David Appell (appell@usa.net)
-------------------------------
  David Appell types 500 characters a minute, 375 of which are 
  "backspace." The ratio of what he's learned to what he's 
  forgotten is still greater than one, but slipping. He currently 
  lives in Vermont, whose unofficial motto is "Nine months of 
  winter, three months of bad skiing." His home on the Web is 
  <http://www.together.net/~appell/>.



  Way of the Wolf   by S. Kay Elmore
====================================
....................................................................
  If empathy was our only guide, could we so easily separate 
  ourselves from the animals?
....................................................................

  The screen door slammed as Dina ran out of the house, her back 
  stinging with pain from her dad's slap. There had been no 
  warning this time. He'd lashed out at her almost casually when 
  she was too slow going out the door to do her chores.

  Her mother had told her softly not to cry. "Bug, honey, just go 
  take care of your animals, dinner will be ready soon." She 
  wanted to cry. She stuffed the cry down into her stomach and 
  promised to let it out soon.

  Her family called her Bug, but her dad called her awful names. 
  He wasn't her real dad -- she knew that because her real dad 
  died in a war when she was a tiny baby. Her mother had a picture 
  of him in the big photo album, and she liked to look at him. He 
  wasn't tall like her new dad, Tom. He was short, with dark hair 
  and dark skin. Her mom said he was an Indian, and Bug was part 
  Indian too.

  She stopped where she knew he could see her from the kitchen 
  window. She reached for the long wooden hook she needed to close 
  the tall chicken coop doors, and went around the building 
  slowly, closing and latching each door for the night. When she 
  was out of sight, she dashed to the low doghouse, built of straw 
  bales and plywood, and crawled inside the narrow entrance.

  Inside the doghouse, she could sense that Abi was there. The 
  aged wolf-husky mix had been with her for as long as she could 
  remember. The dog belonged to her real dad, and when he died, 
  she had become Dina's. Dina called her Abi, because her mother 
  said the dog's name was so long and complicated that only her 
  father could pronounce it right. Abi would do. She was stout 
  with age, and limped along on three legs. A coyote trap had 
  taken off one of her front legs halfway down.

  She found the wolf-dog asleep in the farthest corner. The girl 
  crept into the corner and buried her head into her warm side, 
  sniffling her tears into the thick fur. Abi sighed, rested her 
  head on the dirt floor, and closed her eyes. Bug put her grubby 
  arm around the body of the dog, holding her like a child grips a 
  teddy bear in the panic of a nightmare, and rocked back and 
  forth on the ground, crying.

  In her mind, Bug made a picture of a small puppy, wounded and 
  whining, curled between the paws of its mother. She sent the 
  picture to Abi, so the dog would understand how she felt. 
  Slowly, a picture came back to her: the puppy nestled against 
  her side, safe and warm. As if to punctuate her point, the dog 
  lifted her head and licked Dina's arm twice.

  Dina remembered the first time he'd beaten her. She had dropped 
  a jelly jar onto the kitchen floor. Her new father had taken off 
  his belt and put four red welts across her back. Four. She 
  remembered. She remembered standing in the bathroom with her 
  mother, looking over her shoulder in the mirror and counting to 
  four in a small voice. Her mother had put her in the bathtub and 
  washed her back with a soft sponge. Dina remembered her mother 
  crying.

  Bug stroked the thick ruff on Abi's neck, and the old dog 
  sighed. The dog's eyes flicked to look at her, then to look at 
  the open end of the doghouse, then closed to nap under the 
  welcome caresses.

  Abi's head lifted suddenly when the screen door to the trailer 
  slammed open. Mother's voice called out over the yard: "Dina! 
  Dina-Bug? Come to dinner while it's hot!" Her voice sounded so 
  normal, as if she were ignorant of Bug's misery.

  Bug crawled out of the tiny opening to the doghouse, followed 
  soon after by the old wolf-dog. Abi limped three-legged behind 
  her, holding up her bad front leg so she wouldn't have to stand 
  on it. Bug filled the water bucket for the other dogs, and set 
  it carefully at the edge of the two half-circles made by their 
  restraining chains. These were the sheepdogs, her dad's prized 
  Border collies.

  The wooden steps creaked as she stepped up to the trailer door. 
  She let out her breath, opened the door and went inside. Abi 
  scratched a little at the doormat, turned around three times, 
  and plopped down on the steps with an audible grunt.

  "What took you so long? We've been waiting dinner on you." Her 
  dad's accusing voice greeted her at the door.

  "I'm sorry. I had to give the dogs some water. Sandy knocked it 
  over again," She kept her eyes down as she stood, hands shoved 
  in her pockets, waiting for approval to sit at the table.

  "I don't like you being late. Don't make me tell you twice." She 
  winced inside, her face impassive. "Sit down."

  Tom was a big man, taller than her mother. But he was heavy set, 
  his stomach round and distended from drinking too much beer. He 
  had an orange stain on his middle finger from the home-rolled 
  cigarettes he smoked. He said it saved money that way.

  She pulled out her chair carefully, so it wouldn't squeak on the 
  floor, and made sure to pull it back up close, so she wouldn't 
  drop any food on her lap. She'd been yelled at for being messy 
  at the table. Mom dished out dinner, a stir fry of vegetables 
  and scrambled eggs, with enough ham hock mixed in to make you 
  remember the meat. She thought her mom was pretty. She had brown 
  hair falling down behind her back nearly to her waist. She was 
  small and thin, the lines of age just starting to show around 
  her cornflower blue eyes.

  Bug tasted her dinner and wondered what it would be like to eat 
  with chopsticks. Did kids in China eat food like this at their 
  dinner tables?

  "Mom, do you think I could carve some chopsticks out of cedar 
  wood?" She looked up.

  "Yeah, I guess so. You're getting to be pretty good with a 
  pocket knife. Just be careful, okay?"

  "Okay mom, I will," She put another bite of dinner in her mouth, 
  reached down to get another one, carefully, so the fork didn't 
  scrape the plate and make a noise. She chewed carefully, so she 
  didn't make a lot of noise with her mouth. She'd been slapped 
  for that. She didn't think chopsticks would make any noise on 
  her plate.

  "Do you have homework?" Tom asked.

  "Nah, I did it at recess today. Just some math worksheets. 
  Nothing hard."

  Her mother beamed "She's getting all A's in school, Babe. I'll 
  bet she's the smartest girl in her class." Mom looked at Bug and 
  smiled big, showing her teeth. Bug smiled back.

  "Mom, there's a science project due pretty soon. They are going 
  to have an alternative energy contest at school. We have to do a 
  project about energy and there's a fifty dollar prize if you 
  win. Can you help me with one?"

  "Sure, honey, what do you want to do it on?" Mother put down her 
  fork.

  "Well, since we have the solar cells on the roof, and I helped 
  to put them up, I wanted to do a project about that. Will you 
  help me? I need some pictures of the stuff on the roof and the 
  batteries, and that kind of stuff."

  "Sure, I can get the camera out tomorrow." Her mother's voice 
  held a note of finality.

  "Mr. Beals says that the project is due at the end of the month, 
  and I want to do a poster, and show what the solar cells do and 
  how they make electricity. They're gonna have judges come around 
  and look at all of them. Mr. Beals says that the President made 
  the contest up and it's goin' on all over the place."

  "It sounds fine, Bug." She heard the warning in her mother's 
  voice again. Mother looked over at her husband across the table, 
  hopeful.

  "And the prize is fifty dollars!" Bug continued cheerfully. "And 
  if you win, you get to go to Richfield for the next part of the 
  contest, and if you win there, you get two hundred dollars! He 
  said that the very best projects get to go to Washington D.C. 
  and the President will give you lots of money and you get to be 
  on TV and everything!" Bug chattered at her mother excitedly, 
  trying to win her approval. "Think what I could get with two 
  hun--"

  Tom crashed his hand down on the table next to Bug's plate, 
  "God! Shut up, willya?" Tom cut her off sharply, pointing his 
  fork at her for emphasis, "I don't want to spend my dinner 
  listening to your voice yap." The fork was inches from her face.

  "Tom..." Mother's voice trailed off, disappointed. "She's only 
  nine. Let her do a science project for school."

  "Yeah," Bug added cautiously, watching the fork, "I have to do 
  one to get a grade." She wondered, would she get away with it? 
  Maybe mom was on her side. Maybe.

  "Well, how much is it going to cost? I don't want to throw all 
  my money away on you, ya know." He went back to eating his 
  dinner, his threat made.

  Silently, inside, Bug sang victory. She sent a picture of a 
  puppy playing in the grass to Abi. She'd actually won this time.

  "Um," Bug started, thought a bit, then continued, "I need a 
  couple of pictures, and a piece of poster." Her voice picked up, 
  pleading, "It won't cost more than a couple of dollars, really."

  "Yeah, whatever. Go ahead." He reached over to turn up the wick 
  on the oil lamp.

  Nothing more was said over dinner.



  "Okay!" Mr. Beals walked around his desk to stand in front of 
  the class, "I gave you an assignment on Friday to come up with 
  an idea for the science fair. Everybody have one?" He looked 
  around at the faces of his students, "Mitch? You're first. What 
  is your science project going to be, and how do you plan to 
  research it?"

  He went around the room in order, the third graders stood one by 
  one and recited their projects. Dina couldn't help but snicker 
  inside at some of them. They were stupid, she could tell that 
  hers was good.

  "Dina? You're next." He motioned with his hand for her to stand.

  "Um, my science project is photovoltaic cells and how they 
  work." She used the big word, knowing that most of her 
  classmates didn't know what it was. She liked to show them up.

  "Really?" He smiled at her. She could tell he was surprised. 
  "Where are you going to get that information?"

  "Well." She took a breath, "We have photovoltaic cells at our 
  house, because we don't have power lines where we are, and I 
  helped put them up, and, um, my dad has all the books about 
  them."

  "Gawd!" A hateful voice came from the back of the class. "You 
  don't have electricity? No wonder you're so weird." The thin 
  blonde girl rolled her eyes.

  "Kim, that's enough." Mr. Beals warned. The tone of his voice 
  was just like Tom's. "Well, Dina, it sounds like you wont have 
  any problem with the project. Sam? How about you?"

  She sat, grateful that he'd moved on to the next person. She put 
  her eyes down to her notebook and continued drawing the unicorn 
  in the margin of the page. She tried not to think about Kim 
  Whittaker. She hated her, with her blonde hair and blue eyes, 
  her snooty voice. Kim always had nice clothes, bought at 
  Christiansen's and ZCMI. She had a little gold chain around her 
  neck. She lived in a real house and had a phone, and she was the 
  most popular girl in the class.

  Bug pictured herself as a big growling wolf, and Kim as a scared 
  rabbit. Her wolf-self pounced on the Kim-rabbit and tore its 
  head off. Bug smiled to herself.



  Since her family had the only farm up in the hills, there 
  weren't any other kids around for her to play with. After 
  school, she fed the dogs, and took care of the chores for the 
  night. She wondered why she had to work so much. She knew that 
  the other kids in school went to each other's houses, watched 
  TV, or played video games after school. She almost never had 
  time for that sort of thing, even if she had neighbors.

  The sun was still shining when she finished her chores, so she 
  slipped off to the green shade of trees down by the creek, 
  across the ewe's field, with her fishing pole and her dog. She 
  hardly ever had time left after chores to go play by the creek.

  She stopped in the ewe's field to call her very own goat, 
  Dancer. After Dancer's mama abandoned her in the field, Bug kept 
  her from dying and nursed her with a coke bottle and a rubber 
  nipple. The little doe was convinced that Bug was her mother. 
  Once she was across the field, Bug threw her head back and 
  brayed like a goat. A few seconds later, she was answered by 
  Dancer, running across the field and _maaaa-_ing for all she was 
  worth.

  The little doe slid to a stop in front of her, legs going in all 
  directions. She jumped up on her hind feet and pawed the air, 
  then pranced a little. Goats didn't understand pictures like the 
  dogs did. They talked to each other by dancing, by the way they 
  held their ears and tails. Her greeting dance was just that -- 
  it said how happy she was to see her and how much she missed 
  her. Bug set off across the field with her dancing goat and 
  limping dog, to see if Lost Creek would give up a rainbow trout 
  for her dinner.

  Her favorite place was a small grove of gnarled scrub oak trees. 
  Some of their branches bent so low to the ground they made a 
  fine place to sit. They sat on the creekbank for the rest of the 
  evening, pretending to fish. Bug had been fishing that creek for 
  as long as she could hold a pole, but had only caught two trout 
  so far. She sent pictures of squirrels and rabbits hiding in the 
  brush to Abi, who wandered off on her own small adventure to 
  find them.

  As the shadows of the trees lengthened across the grove, Bug 
  heard the rustling sounds of deer in the wild rose bushes. She 
  froze, and stilled the little goat beside her. In her mind, she 
  pictured herself as a goat, standing quietly by the creek. Deer 
  were easy to fool. If she thought very hard about being a goat, 
  they wouldn't be scared of her at all. It was almost as if she 
  were a goat to them. One by one, the big white-tail deer 
  filtered into the grove.

  The deer sensed them, and saw two goats lazing by the creek. 
  They stepped near the water to drink, unafraid of the two 
  creatures that shared the grove. They had seen goats before, and 
  these two were no threat to them. They picked their heads up 
  suddenly, alerted, and moved away from the open water.

  Crashing through the underbrush, Abi returned, barking wildly at 
  the deer. They bounded quickly across the grove, back into the 
  brush at the edge of the field. Bug, no longer a goat, called 
  out to her dog, but it was no use. Abi leaped into the brush 
  after them, her gait slowed by her bad leg. "Abi! Abi come 
  back!" She jumped from the bank, and followed the trail into the 
  brush as far as she could fit. "A-beeee!"

  A few minutes later, the wolf-dog returned, sending happy 
  pictures of a wolf pack chasing deer, the smell of hunting prey, 
  herself running at the head, running with four good legs. She 
  sent pleased feelings of full tummies and lazy dogs.

  Abi was right -- it was dinner time. The trio wandered back 
  across the field. This time they were fishless, but had two 
  handfuls of dried rose hips from the wild rosebushes by the 
  creek. They were old, hard and wrinkled from the winter, but 
  they would still make good tea.



  Two weeks went by, and her poster project was almost done. The 
  pictures her mom took were put away carefully in a kitchen 
  drawer, and she even bought a marker for her when she got the 
  poster paper. Bug had spent a long time carefully copying down 
  the information from the big book of her dad's. What words she 
  didn't understand, she looked up in the dictionary at school. 
  She used lots of words she didn't understand, to make it look 
  better.

  On the morning of the science fair, she got up at five, as 
  usual, and went about her chores with a sense of urgency. There 
  were eggs to get, and chickens to feed and water, endless chores 
  done every morning, rain or shine. Abi trailed behind her, her 
  placid eyes watching everything her favorite child did, her 
  limping gait steady, if slow. Abi followed her into every pen 
  and pasture, the sheep not giving her a second glance. They 
  knew, somehow, that the wolf-dog was no threat to them. She was 
  too old, and lame.

  Bug let the sheep out to pasture and filled their water tank, 
  making sure to turn the pump off. She once forgot to turn the 
  pump off, and she still had a scar on her thigh where Tom had 
  whipped her with a metal fly swatter.

  Her favorite part of the morning was milking the goats. 
  Sunflower and Terra were the only ones with milk to speak of. 
  Their kids had died at birth, so they were inside the barn with 
  the pregnant does, and needed milking.

  She liked the warm smells of the mama goats, she liked their big 
  keyhole eyes and floppy ears. They crowded around her as she 
  opened the gate, crying for attention. She got a cup of oats, 
  walked inside the milking stall and let Sunflower get in. Bug 
  pulled up the stool and got the milking pan from the wall. She 
  leaned her head against the warm side of the goat as she milked. 
  The clean swish-swish of the milk was calming, rhythmic.

  As she milked she sang to herself, following the rhythm of the 
  milk in the pan, "Gonna win, Gonna Win. I'm the best, I'm the 
  best." Abi sat to her side, tongue lolling, tail hopefully 
  thumping on the ground, sending images of a full milk pail, 
  herself drinking from it. The goats, too, did not fear the old 
  dog. She was as accepted as the child, a regular part of a 
  regular morning.

  Bug poured part of the milk into two beat-up pie pans on the 
  ground. The dog lapped happily from one, and she lifted up the 
  other to the hayloft. Barn cats materialized from the rafters 
  and meowed pitifully, then growled to each other as they 
  crouched together at the pan enjoying their breakfast.

  The long drive to school was silent. Tom did his best to 
  navigate the old truck down the muddy, rutted roads, ruined by 
  too much rain and too little care from the county. Her project 
  poster sat on her lap, wrapped in a black plastic bag to protect 
  it. She clutched her arms around it, protecting it from Tom. He 
  would ruin it and blame it on her if she gave him half a chance.

  She took the poster to the gym on time, and set it up with two 
  yardsticks her mom lent her so it wouldn't fall down. There were 
  other projects in the gym, so she looked at them. They were all 
  stupid. Hers was the best, she knew it.

  During third period, Mr. Beals came into Mrs. Conners' class and 
  called her name.

  Her heart raced. It was the judges! They had come to talk to her 
  about her project. She felt light-headed when she walked to the 
  gym with Mr. Beals. She talked to the judges, two men and a very 
  pretty lady in a suit. They asked her questions about her big 
  words, and smiled at her when she told them about the process 
  that turns light into electricity. She showed them the pictures, 
  and pointed out the different parts of the electric relay 
  system, the battery storage, the power gauges.

  They thanked her, shook her hand, and sent her back to class.

  At seventh period, the Principal got on the intercom and called 
  everyone to assemble in the gym. The whole school was there, all 
  four grades, sitting on the bleachers, teachers herding students 
  like Border collies. Bug sat alone at the bottom of the 
  bleachers, bouncing her knee nervously, her arms wrapped around 
  herself.

  Mr. Beals got up and talked about the science project, how the 
  President had made it up, and "the importance of alternative 
  energy resources for America."

  She ignored him. She watched the judges, especially the pretty 
  lady in the suit. Mr. Beals finished talking, and the lady got 
  up to the podium to speak.

  "The runners up for the Alternative Energy contest are..." She 
  called out name after name and Bug sat up straight.

  "Our winners for the Nadir Valley contest are," Bug heard every 
  word echo in the gum, "Samuel Johnson for his report on garbage 
  energy, Third place!"

  Bug swallowed. She had a lump in her throat, and she needed to 
  pee. She watched Sam walk up to the line of kids on the gym 
  floor, with his white ribbon in hand.

  "Second place goes to Amy Thorsen for her report on Nuclear 
  energy!" Amy got up, laughing, and bounced the step that Bug was 
  sitting on. She ran to get her red ribbon and stand in line next 
  to Sam. Bug couldn't breathe.

  "Our first place winner from the third grade, with a remarkable 
  report..." Bug trembled. She couldn't hear. "Photovoltaic 
  Energy, by Dina Cooper!"

  Someone was shaking her. Mrs. Conners laid her hand on her 
  shoulder, "Go on, Dina. Walk up there, hon!" Mrs. Conners gave 
  her a proud smile, showing her teeth.

  She didn't feel the floor of the gym. She floated over to the 
  pretty lady, who handed her a blue ribbon. She drifted over to 
  stand next to Amy and Sam. Cameras flashed. The runners up were 
  told to sit down, and the photographer from the paper took a 
  picture of her holding up her blue ribbon, Sam and Amy next to 
  her.

  One of the man judges came to talk to them. He said that he was 
  taking their projects to Richfield with him, and that the 
  contest for the county was going to be there. The contest was 
  going to be held on Tuesday, and they would be driven to 
  Richfield by the Principal. Amy and Sam were dismissed to go 
  home, but the Judge told Bug to wait, and that he had to talk to 
  her.

  He smiled down at her, "Dina, you are going to receive your 
  prize of fifty dollars at the county contest, along with the 
  winners from the other regions." He looked at her faded blue 
  jeans and T-shirt. "There will be people there from all the 
  papers, so can you dress nice?"

  She looked at the floor. "I'm sorry, Mister, Um," She looked up 
  at him, tried to look him in the eye. "these are the only pants 
  I have that don't have a hole in them."

  He looked at the floor. "Well." He put his hand to his glasses. 
  "I'm sure you'll find something," and turned to walk away.

  Bug felt suddenly stupid. She was ashamed of her clothes, ugly, 
  old and bought from the Goodwill. Her Gramma used to make her 
  pretty dresses, sewing them on the old Singer which stood now in 
  her mother's bedroom. She had a whole closet full of clothes 
  then, but she had grown out of all of them. Her mother put the 
  dresses in a big box, saying that she'd save them if Bug ever 
  had a little sister who could wear them.

  Mom was there to pick her up after school. The rattling old 
  truck looked out of place with the other cars at the curb, but 
  Bug didn't care. Mom hardly ever came to pick her up. She ran 
  out to the truck, grinning and yelling.

  "I won! I won fifty dollars!" She didn't care if the other kids 
  heard her. "Mom! I won! I get to go to Richfield on Tuesday! I'm 
  gonna win the two hundred dollars, I know it!"

  "Oh Honey! That's great! I'm very proud of you." Her mom reached 
  over the gearshift and hugged her daughter tightly. She laughed 
  with her, "Lets go get ice cream to celebrate." Mom put the 
  truck in gear, and they rattled off down the street. The little 
  burger stand on main street had the best ice cream in the world, 
  and the mini cones were a quarter each. Bug got two.



  "Richfield?" Tom yelled at dinner. "I don't give a damn what she 
  won, I don't want some bastard I don't know driving her to 
  Richfield!" Bug could almost see the chimney on the oil lamp 
  shake with the force of his words.

  "Tom! Dammit, she won the science fair! Can't you let her have a 
  little fun? Jesus Christ!" Her mother yelled back, pleading in 
  her voice.

  "But, Tom," Bug started. "They're going to give me fifty dollars 
  and I have to be there to get it." She looked at her dinner 
  plate.

  "Listen, I'm glad you won the science thing." He said it so full 
  of hate she winced openly, "but damnit, you have to go that far? 
  Richfield is an hour away! I don't want to throw my schedule to 
  shit to come get you in Richfield after this thing is over."

  "But... the principal is going to drive us back too. That's what 
  they said." She could feel the tears behind her eyes, making her 
  throat hurt.

  "Dammit, Tom," Her mother added "If it's that much trouble, I'll 
  go get her."

  "We'll see."

  There was no more said over dinner.



  Richfield was big, bigger than Nadir Valley. It had stoplights. 
  The school car pulled into the Richfield high school parking lot 
  and the three anxious students got out. Bug had done her best 
  with her clothes. Her mom unpacked an old dress that Gramma had 
  made, and discovered that if they took out a tuck here, and put 
  elastic there, the dress fit. It was a little short, above her 
  knees, but that didn't matter.

  The day passed nervously for Bug. She walked around, looking at 
  the other entries from all over the county. She was in the 
  junior division, and the projects from the high school students 
  looked so much better than hers. About noon, somebody's 
  experiment on chemical energy blew up, creating a bad smell in 
  the gym. Bug informed Mr. Beals that it was a _noxious_ smell, 
  hoping that he would notice her vocabulary. He laughed.

  At two o'clock, the award ceremony began. She didn't win the big 
  prize, but was a runner up this time around. It didn't matter, 
  she had won at her school, where it counted. She was called up 
  with the other Junior division winners, and got her fifty dollar 
  check. It had her name printed right there on the line. It was 
  hers.

  At three, the ceremony was still going on, the high school kids 
  lined up on the gym floor. Bug was worried. She needed to get 
  home.

  "Mr. Beals, when can we leave? My mom is supposed to pick me up 
  at school, and if I'm not there, she's gonna get worried."

  "Oh, dear." He looked genuinely concerned. "We can't leave until 
  this is over, because they still have to take pictures of you 
  for the Richfield paper. Can you call your mom and tell her 
  you're still here?"

  "Mr. Beals, we don't have a telephone. They don't make telephone 
  lines that go out as far as we are." She said it apologetically, 
  then quietly, "Besides, my dad says we cant afford one anyway."

  He looked at her and bit his top lip. "I'm sorry, Dina."

  She stood for her picture in line, trying to smile. She was 
  late. It was 3:30, and her mom would be waiting for her. The 
  cameras flashed in her face, making red spots on her eyes. She 
  hoped that her knees wouldn't show in the picture.

  It was five o'clock when they got back to Nadir Valley. She 
  looked around for her mom, but she was nowhere to be found. She 
  sat on the step and put her chin in her hands.

  The principal looked at her. "Do you need to use the phone?"

  She thought. Her mom's friend, Sara, lived near town and maybe 
  she would be nice enough to drive her home. "Yeah."

  He unlocked the school and was opening up the door when she 
  heard the truck's engine at the curb.

  "Oh!" she said, "There she is. Thanks, Mr. Carter." She ran down 
  the steps.

  She stopped. It wasn't her mom. It was Tom. She slowed and 
  walked up to the truck.

  "Where the hell have you been?" He demanded as she got in. She 
  could feel his anger. He was furious, and she could hear the 
  buzzing cloud of pain starting in her head. She was going to get 
  it this time.

  "I'm sorry, they had to take pictures and we couldn't leave 
  until they were done" She talked quietly, carefully, trying not 
  to make too much noise. She looked at the floorboard, she 
  wrapped her arms around her bookbag.

  "Look at me." He demanded. She looked at the floorboard. "Look 
  at me!" He screamed at her, picking her head up roughly by the 
  chin. "I have been all over town looking for you, and I don't 
  appreciate it, goddammit." He spat out every word, every word 
  clear and ringing in the cab of the truck. Spit hit her on the 
  face.

  "I'm sorry..." she squeaked. She couldn't breathe. She wanted to 
  pull away, to run out of the truck back into the schoolyard, but 
  if she did, he'd kill her. She wanted to wrench her face out of 
  his hand, but she couldn't move.

  "Right. You'll be sorry." He tossed her head to the side with 
  his hand, hurting her neck and bruising her chin. He put the 
  truck in gear and drove. Bug looked out the window, thinking 
  about the fifty dollar check she had in her bookbag. Would it be 
  enough for her to live on if she ran away?

  He drove in silence as she looked out the window at the passing 
  roadside. In her head she made pictures of a wolf pack 
  surrounding a bear. She made the wolves attack the bear, tearing 
  gashes in his sides and arms. Her face hurt, and her throat was 
  full and sore from choking down tears. She put the cry back down 
  into her stomach, trying to save it for later, but the cry made 
  her stomach hurt, too. She sent the pictures in her head away. 
  She sent a picture to Abi, a pup running fast, tail between its 
  legs.



  Home loomed in the headlights, the soft glow of the oil lamp 
  coming from the kitchen. Mom opened the door as they drove up. 
  Abi lurched up from her place on the porch and stood next to 
  her, tail up, ears forward. Guarding. Abi sent Bug a picture. 
  Wolf on a rock, looking over the valley.

  "Well? How did it go, Bug?" Mom smiled at her, calling from the 
  porch. Her voice was cheerful.

  Bug climbed out of the truck and walked up to the porch, 
  dejected. "I didn't win the big prize mom. I was a runner-up." 
  Her voice was restrained, quiet, meek.

  "Aw, honey, that's too bad." Her mom made a sad face. She 
  reached down to caress Bug's face. Bug winced as her hand 
  touched the bruised spot on her cheek where Tom had grabbed her. 
  "What's the matter, Bug?" Her mom turned her cheek to look.

  "I'm okay." Bug whispered. "Please, I'm okay." She thought, 
  Please, please mom, don't make him mad... he'll hurt you too.

  Her mother's eyes, her beautiful cornflower blue eyes, turned 
  the color of ash. "He hit you, didn't he." Her mothers voice 
  held a tone that scared her. Please don't make him mad, Mom.

  "No, mom... I'm okay!" Her voice rose, pitched in fear.

  "You son of a..." Her mother cursed, stepping around bug to 
  confront her husband, "How dare you!" Her voice was cold, 
  frightening.

  Abi's picture was of a wolf pack surrounding a bear. Bug threw 
  her arms around the wolf-dog, trying to keep her back. All she 
  thought to send to her was no, but she didn't know how to say 
  it.

  "That ungrateful bitch of a daughter made me wait two hours for 
  her to get home." Tom pointed his accusatory finger at the 
  cowering child, "She took her sweet goddamned time getting 
  there. I don't want to hear any shit from you!" He shook his 
  finger in his wife's face, "This is _my_ house, by god, and 
  you'll do whatever the hell I tell you to do!" He yelled so 
  loudly, so full of violence that the words were nearly tangible 
  in the twilight air.

  Her mother's words came out quietly, she stood with her hands on 
  her hips, facing him down. "If you ever lay another hand on my 
  daughter, I'll kill you." She stood in front of him. She looked 
  him in the eye. Dina was suddenly very scared of her mother. Her 
  face was cold, her eyes narrowed in rage. She started to walk 
  toward him. He backed up a step, his face caught in disbelief 
  that his wife would dare threaten his sovereignty.

  "You bastard." She hissed, almost whispering. "You." She backed 
  him up another step, "How dare you call yourself a man when the 
  best you can do is beat up on a nine-year old girl." Dina had 
  never heard her mother talk like that. Mean. She sounded like 
  she was growling. She stood petrified on the steps as Abi 
  wriggled out of her grip.

  His face reddened with rage. "I'll do whatever I want in my 
  house. I pay the bills, I put clothes on her back and food on 
  the table!" He screamed into his wife's face, but for the first 
  time in her life, Bug heard the sound of fear in his voice.

  He shoved his wife aside, knocking her into the gravel. In quick 
  steps that took hours he crossed the driveway. Bug couldn't move 
  fast enough and he grabbed her by the hair.

  "Stupid!" He pulled her up from the ground, dangling her in the 
  air with her hair in his fist. "Don't you appreciate what I do 
  for you?" He shook her. She put her hands to her head and tried 
  to pry loose his fingers, tried to get away.

  She tried to nod, or say something -- anything -- to make him 
  let her go. Her head was filled with the pictures of the bear, 
  the bear killing her, killing all of the pack. Somewhere in the 
  back of her mind, behind the cloud of pain, she heard a low 
  sound.

  Tom dropped her onto the gravel and kicked her where she lay. 
  "Are you grateful? Huh?"

  Her mother was screaming. Bug realized that out here, there were 
  no neighbors, nobody would hear her. Nobody would come to help 
  them and he would kill both of them. She struggled to rise, to 
  run away into the hills to hide.

  "When did you ever thank me? Huh?" He knocked her down with the 
  back of his hand as she tried to crawl away. He kicked her in 
  the ribs, rolling her over on the driveway. She tried to 
  breathe, tried to make her mouth form words. He kicked her in 
  the stomach, and she collapsed, choking and vomiting. Her mother 
  had stopped screaming but the air was full of bees.

  The low sound in the back of her mind got louder. Vicious. It 
  was a terrible sound, like a horror movie she wasn't allowed to 
  watch. She didn't have time to think about it because the sun 
  was setting, and she could hear the darkness as it rolled over 
  her.

  The old wolf on the doorstep abandoned that part of her which 
  was still a dog. Inside, there was a heart there that knew 
  nothing of humans. She let it come rushing out into her teeth, a 
  snarling growl. The smell of blood in her head and the screaming 
  infuriated her. Her precious child, her pup, lay whimpering in 
  pain on the ground, and the enemy stood in front of her.

  The wolf launched herself from the ground on three bad legs and 
  ripped all of her good teeth into the enemy's thigh. She tasted 
  blood, and bit down again. She tore through jean and flesh, 
  maddened with instinct. She smelled the terror in him and it 
  made her bolder. She attacked him again, throwing all her weight 
  into his legs. She heard the sound of metal, and could tell the 
  man had been hit from behind, good strategy to her wolf-sense. 
  She lunged for his throat, for the kill. The smell of blood was 
  good.

  The woman stood in mute horror, the shovel in her hand 
  forgotten. She tried not to register the image of her daughter's 
  old, lame dog, and what she had done to the man on the ground.

  Abi limped to stand growling over the body of her child. She 
  licked at her face, then lay down beside her, nudging her. Her 
  pup wouldn't wake up. She flicked her eyes to look at the woman, 
  trembling and stinking with fear. The woman dropped the long 
  metal thing in her hand and fell to her knees.

  Abi heard her name, spoken softly. She understood her name. The 
  woman crept forward, hand outstretched, the fear-smell fading.

  The old wolf-dog licked her chops, her hackles lowered, and she 
  lurched painfully to stand protectively beside the girl. That 
  part of her which was wolf went quietly back down into her old 
  heart, and she wagged her tail a little, to let the woman know 
  she should not be afraid.

  Dina's mother came slowly toward her and reached out for her 
  child. She didn't want to think about what she had just done. 
  She didn't want to look at the bloody man on the ground. Abi 
  whined, her eyes flicking between the child and the man. Her 
  mother knelt beside the barely conscious girl, and picked her up 
  gingerly.

  The old dog followed them with her limping, if steady, gait. 
  They climbed into the cab of the beat-up truck, and the woman 
  helped the dog up into the cab. She scratched at the floorboard 
  once or twice, and plopped down with an audible sigh. The woman 
  put the engine into gear and screeched away.



  "Your name?" Deputy Hank Olsen asked kindly, trying to catch the 
  woman's eyes. She was shaken and crying, and he didn't blame 
  her. Her daughter was in ICU a few rooms away, with eight broken 
  ribs and severe internal injuries. The local doctors weren't 
  sure if they could handle the job alone, and a pediatric 
  specialist had been 'coptered in from Richfield. Last word, she 
  was in critical condition.

  "Catherine Coop..." She let out a little breath, "Cooper."

  "What happened, Catherine?" He put his pen to the paper quietly. 
  He needed her calm, but he also needed the report. A fat woman, 
  a friend of Mrs. Cooper's, stood behind her, her hands resting 
  on her shoulders.

  "Um." She wiped her eyes. "My dog... she killed my husband." She 
  wiped her eyes again. "He was... he was trying to hurt my 
  daughter. He beat her up all the time." She broke into sobs, 
  leaning against her friend for comfort.

  "Uh, Missus..." He looked at the friend, searching for her name.

  "Rasmussen. Sara Rasmussen. My husband is taking the sheriff out 
  to the farm."

  "Sure, Jay and I are the volunteer firefighters together." He 
  tried to smile at the women. "Mrs. Rasmussen, was Mr. Cooper 
  often violent? Would you say he beat the child?" He made notes 
  in his book.

  "Officer, go look at that little girl in there and have the 
  doctor tell you how much of that damage was done tonight, and 
  how much was there to begin with. He had no business hitting 
  that child." She looked disgusted. Her voice, however, spoke of 
  more than disgust.

  "Where's the dog?" His brow furrowed. The dog could be rabid. 
  The family lived pretty far out in the boondocks, after all.

  "She's out in the truck." Catherine looked up at him. The woman 
  understood his concern. "No, mister, she's not a bad dog. She 
  was protecting us." Mrs. Cooper spoke haltingly through tears. 
  "She saved Dina's life."

  He got what statement he could out of the badly shaken woman. It 
  looked fairly clear to him. Rabid dog. No charges. He doubted if 
  the local court would even want touch it. He said as much to 
  Mrs. Cooper and her friend.

  "Do you have a place to stay?" Hank asked Mrs. Cooper.

  "She's staying with us. Jay's going to bring some of her things 
  from the house when he comes back with the Sheriff." Sara 
  offered.

  "And the dog?" He raised his eyebrows and looked dubious. "We 
  might have to run some tests on her to confirm the rabies. You 
  all being out in the country and all, that might be a 
  possibility."

  "The dog will stay with us," Mrs. Cooper spoke up defiantly. 
  "I'll take her to our vet, Officer. He can run the rabies test. 
  We'll pay for it."

  Deputy Olsen sat with them for another two hours, keeping the 
  curious out of the waiting room. In such a small town, this news 
  was going to be all over by morning. Doctors came and went with 
  reports on the child's improvement. She was going to be all 
  right, but she faced a difficult recovery.

  Jay Rasmussen came in with a small suitcase of things for 
  Catherine. He spoke in low tones to the Deputy, relating the 
  scene at the Cooper's farm, nodding his bearded head slowly. 
  They found the body of Tom Cooper in the driveway, his throat 
  torn out, apparently by the dog.

  "I've never seen anything like it. I've seen dog bites, but this 
  one, well, that dog's got some wolf blood." He shrugged his 
  shoulders. "Nothing like it I've seen."

  "Jay, could you show me this dog? My god, he must be huge. Part 
  wolf? Jesus."

  "She." Jay corrected him.

  The men shouldered through the swinging glass doors of the ER 
  into the parking lot. Jay walked up to the truck, and a large, 
  grizzled head poked up out of the open window.

  "Hey Abi." Jay stuck his hand through the window of the truck to 
  scratch her around the neck. "C'mon out, girl." He opened the 
  door, and the wolf-dog struggled to rise from the car seat where 
  she had been sitting. She looked dubiously at the ground beneath 
  her, then looked up at Jay and whined. He understood, and 
  reached carefully around her body to lift her to the ground.

  "This dog?" the Deputy looked at the old, three-legged dog. Even 
  through the blood dried on her muzzle and chest, he could see 
  the gray of her fur. She was stocky, overweight and moved 
  painfully with age. "Damn, are you sure, man?"

  "Had to be, Hank. The other two were chained up out by the 
  shed." Abi sat on the asphalt drive, and tilted her head up to 
  look at Jay.

  "She's no more rabid than I am. She was just protecting her own, 
  I guess."

  They stood looking at her for a few long minutes. Jay patted his 
  thigh and called her over to the back of his own pickup. He 
  lifted her into the back and closed the tailgate.

  "Jay," Hank began. "You know the department is going to want 
  this dog put down."

  Jay said nothing. Abi rested her head on the tailgate and nudged 
  Jay's hand for attention. He absently put his hand on her head, 
  brushing the dried blood from her fur.

  "I gotta get her cleaned up." His voice choked out of a closed 
  throat. "Can't have her this way when we take her to the vet."

  Hank waved to his friend and tapped his hand on the side of the 
  tailgate as he stepped out of the way. He watched the dog in the 
  back of the truck as Jay backed up and stopped to turn out of 
  the parking lot.

  Hank nodded his head toward the pickup truck, "Good dog."

  He heard the thumping of her tail on the truck bed.


  S. Kay Elmore (zill@airmail.net)
----------------------------------
  S. Kay Elmore is a graphic artist and writer from Fort Worth, 
  Texas. This is her first published short story.


  Small Miracles are Better Than None   by Peter Meyerson
=========================================================
...................................................................
  The definition of "parent" may be a little more flexible than 
  you think.
...................................................................

  After an awkward, desultory meal at a beach front restaurant in 
  Santa Barbara, they continued driving north along Interstate 
  101. The boy was too big for a child's car seat and too small to 
  see properly out the windows. Robert had bought a special 
  booster for him to sit in.

  "Look at that," Robert said, pointing to a row of oil pumps 
  paralleling the highway. The rigs were rocking back and forth 
  like davening Jews winnowing secrets from the heavens.

  "Did you ever see a praying mantis?" Jonah asked.

  "Yeah! That's what they look like!" Robert said a little too 
  eagerly.

  Jonah glanced at him, looked out the window and lapsed into 
  another of his long silences. They were neither surly nor 
  rebellious; rather, it seemed to Robert, the child fell into 
  states of meditative repose, an unsettling quality in a 
  six-year-old. Once again, Robert thought, the trip was a 
  mistake.

  When they reached San Luis Obispo, he suggested they continue 
  north along Route 1, the coast road.

  "How come?" Jonah asked.

  "Well. It's longer, but it's more beautiful. We'll see cows 
  grazing right on the beach and there are tide pools with little 
  animals in them. After that, we go up into the hills. It's 
  slower driving because the road's twisty, but it's fun, and 
  we'll see way out into the ocean. What do you say?" Jonah 
  shrugged and Robert took the coast road.

  Later, crossing a broad stretch of grassy flatland, Jonah rose 
  out of his seat and looked over Robert's shoulder toward the 
  sea. "Those aren't cows. They're cattle," he observed, breaking 
  another silence.

  "And you know the difference." Robert was impressed.

  "People kill the cattle and eat them, but they're nice to cows 
  because they give us milk."

  Robert smiled. "So you and mommy don't eat meat?"

  "Mommy doesn't. I like Big Macs."

  "And she doesn't mind?"

  "Uh-uh. Even when I leave some over. We bring it home for 
  Merton."

  "Merton?"

  "He licked your hand when you came to pick me up," Jonah said, a 
  hint of disappointment in his voice. Robert wished someone had 
  told him the dog's name was Merton.

  He parked by a narrow strip of beach and they headed for a rocky 
  outcropping. An early afternoon wind bullied the tide toward the 
  high water mark, and above, more powerful gusts shepherded a 
  swollen flock of black-bottomed clouds toward the mountains to 
  the east. Rain tonight, Robert thought. He hated driving in rain 
  and was glad they would reach their destination before it 
  arrived.



  Jonah clutched his little stuffed duck as they walked along the 
  shore searching for shallow pockets of life among the rocks. 
  Sandpipers, pecking at the ever-changing margins of the sea, 
  scattered before them, and gulls, like gulls everywhere, dipped 
  and wheeled in raucous disputes that circled the earth. Robert 
  didn't care for gulls; they stole the eggs of birds who mated 
  for life.

  Jonah found a glistening basin of shallow water and was kneeling 
  beside it concealing his excitement as Robert came over.

  "That's a sea urchin, right?" he said, pointing to a black ball 
  of quills.

  "Uh-huh. I know this sounds weird, but some people, like in 
  Japan, eat them."

  "That must hurt," Jonah said, frowning.

  "They don't eat the spines," he laughed, lifting the creature 
  gingerly and exposing its underside. "It's this soft part that's 
  supposed to taste good. Almost everything gets eaten somewhere. 
  In Asia they eat dogs and snakes and make soup out of birds' 
  nests and shark fins. And there's a tribe in Africa, the Masai, 
  that drinks a mixture of cow blood and..." Robert grinned, 
  "...pee pee."

  "Pee pee?" Jonah, who had yet to crack a smile, roared with 
  laughter. Robert remembered his son Eric at this age and how the 
  mere mention of a bodily function would guarantee an outburst of 
  hilarity. It was a cheap victory, he thought, but a victory 
  nonetheless.

  "How come you know so much?" Jonah asked after a while.

  "I don't. Not really. But I find a lot of things interesting. 
  Just like you."

  "How do you know I find a lot of things interesting?" It was a 
  question, not a challenge.

  Robert looked at the boy and saw everything around them -- the 
  ruffled sea, the hot blue sky, this very moment by the tide pool 
  -- residing in the child's luminous, green eyes, eyes that were 
  refracting light into memories, memories that Jonah would carry 
  long after Robert was gone. Aching with a loss too deep to name, 
  Robert turned and started back toward the car.

  "Because we're so much alike," he said.

  "...I told him there is no Ultrasaurus, they only found some 
  bones they think is maybe an Ultrasaurus, but they don't even 
  know yet. But he won't believe me. Colin thinks he knows 
  everything about dinosaurs, even when I showed him in a book 
  that he's wrong. He said we don't read well enough to understand 
  all the big words. Well, I do and I think what he says is 
  dumb..."

  Jonah had been talking nonstop since they left the beach. Robert 
  concentrated on the road, endlessly weaving among the massive, 
  splayed fingers of the Santa Lucia Range. It was tiring and 
  irritating and the mountains seemed to be clawing at the sea.

  "Are we almost there yet?" Jonah asked.

  "Another, oh, hour or so."

  "Is that long?"

  "Not to me. But it's probably long for you."

  "Why?"

  "Time goes more slowly for kids."

  "Huh.... How long is an hour?" Jonah mused.

  "Hmmm. As long as it takes to watch four cartoons, including 
  commercials."

  Jonah laughed. "You're funny," he said. Then, scrutinizing 
  Robert as though for the first time, he asked solemnly, "Are you 
  really my father?"



  Robert had met Irene at a downtown bar. He and his friend Tommy 
  had dropped in for a drink after seeing a play at the Marc 
  Taper. Robert had been there a few times before; it was a 
  hangout for L.A. artists, and he liked it because it reminded 
  him of his Village days when he was a graduate student at NYU. 
  Had he been thirty, or even forty, he would have instantly 
  dismissed the place, seen it as a buzzing hive of artsy frauds 
  flaunting their mediocre talents. Now, having passed fifty, his 
  major choices behind him, he envied them their youth, their 
  future, and their natural sense of community.

  Tommy had spotted a woman he knew and had gone over to say hello 
  when Irene slid onto an empty bar stool and introduced herself.

  "Hi. I'm Irene," she said pleasantly, then nodded to the 
  bartender who began making a tequila gimlet. Robert studied her 
  for a moment. She had large, almond eyes set in a strong, 
  heart-shaped face, straight, raven-black hair and a perfect 
  olive complexion. She appeared to be around twenty-five, but 
  Robert guessed she was in her mid-thirties and had at least one 
  American Indian somewhere in her family tree. She's one of those 
  women who will always look ten years younger than she is, he 
  thought.

  "A baby's ass would envy your skin," Robert said.

  Irene chortled and shook her head. "It never fails," she said. 
  "I always know when there's someone around I should meet."

  "Ahh," Robert sighed, looking at her fondly. "I'm in trouble 
  again."

  He was.

  Three months later Irene came over to Robert's house to tell him 
  that she was pregnant. He pleaded with her to have an abortion.

  "I'm not asking you for anything," she said.

  "That's not the point," he argued. "I've just finished bringing 
  up a kid on weekends and holidays. I don't want to go through it 
  again, not at my age."

  "I'm not asking you for anything," she repeated pointedly.

  "Don't you, I dunno, take precautions or something?"

  "I see. That's supposed to be my responsibility," she said.

  "Goddamnit!" He felt like hitting something. "You know, I've 
  never been accident-prone before."

  "Me neither. Maybe it wasn't an accident," she said.

  "Please! It's bad enough. Don't lay any Freudian bullshit on 
  me."

  "Whatever." Irene shrugged. "I only came by because I thought 
  you should know."

  Nothing Robert said -- and he threatened, cajoled and begged -- 
  could convince Irene to terminate the pregnancy. It wasn't a 
  matter of principle; in fact, she was ardently pro-choice; she 
  wanted to mother a child, even the child of man with whom she 
  had slept only twice before he said they weren't destined to be 
  a couple.

  He had ended their liaison four weeks after it began. One 
  morning over coffee at her loft, he told Irene -- rather 
  apologetically since he had quickly grown attached to her -- 
  that for him love required an abundant future, time spread out 
  before it like a variegated buffet. One needed to sample the 
  possibilities, he said. And, Robert claimed, he didn't have 
  enough time left to learn what worked and what didn't.

  "Are you ill?" Irene had asked, concerned.

  "No," he replied. "But I don't think I have time to love anyone 
  new as fully as I have in the past."

  "Oh? And how `fully' have you loved someone in the past?"

  He shrugged. "Not fully enough," he answered. "Which is another 
  reason I don't think it would work between us. I'm just no good 
  at it."

  Irene was relieved that Robert had revealed himself early on. 
  She had no intention of knocking on a door that would never 
  open. After suggesting he give some thought to the idea that he 
  was terrified of women, she let him slip out of her life without 
  a trace of remorse or grief. As he left her loft, Robert 
  wondered whether he had made the right decision. By the time he 
  reached his office, he decided he had.

  Irene was prepared to bring up her son on her own (she knew it 
  was going to be a boy). She wasn't asking for support or for 
  Robert to take on the obligations of fatherhood. He could have 
  any relationship he wanted with the child, from joint parenting 
  to never seeing him at all. Robert chose the latter, but 
  insisted that he assume financial responsibility for the boy. 
  Irene was a potter who hovered just above the poverty line. 
  Robert ran a small company that made informational videos for 
  doctors. He lived modestly, had few expenses, and had put away 
  enough to retire even now if he chose.

  Irene wasn't sure; she needed a few days to sort out the 
  conflict between her instinct to remain independent and the wish 
  to give her son the things she couldn't afford. Two days later 
  she accepted his proposal. Robert was pleased. He genuinely 
  wanted to help a woman he liked and a son he would never know.

  "Aren't you even curious to see what he's going to be like?" she 
  asked.

  "I wish you both all the best," he replied. He meant it.

  Two weeks later, Robert began taking Prozac.

  Actually, he did see the boy once before. It was on a Saturday 
  morning after his weekly half-court basketball game in Roxbury 
  Park. He was walking toward his car and had entered the parking 
  lot when Irene, emerging from her battered, antique van, 
  suddenly popped up in front of him, surprising them both. She 
  was carrying her year-old son in a sling, papoose-style on her 
  back. It was too late to avoid her, or, rather, to avoid the 
  child; they were standing right in front of him.

  "Thanks for the money," she said. "It really helps."

  "Good," Robert said, helplessly beaming at the fat, flushed, 
  bundle grinning at him from over his mother's shoulder.

  "You can touch him, you know."

  "No... I can't do that," he said. He hurried past her, fumbling 
  for his car keys, afraid he might hyperventilate before reaching 
  the safety of his car.

  Irene called after him. "By the way, his name is Jonah!"

  A few years later Irene sent Robert a letter thanking him for 
  his generosity and telling him that she no longer needed his 
  support. After a recent gallery exhibit, her work was becoming 
  somewhat fashionable and she expected that soon she'd be earning 
  enough to bring up her son by herself. Robert read the letter 
  again and again over the next few days trying to figure out why 
  it filled him with so much sorrow.

  However, having given up Prozac a year earlier, he decided 
  against taking it again.

  "...Two reasons," she said when she telephoned Robert at his 
  office a week ago. (It was the first time they had talked since 
  the morning in the park.) "One, he's my father, and since it 
  often takes a while for people with brain tumors to die, I'm not 
  sure how long I'll be away, and I'd like Jonah to finish the 
  semester. And, two... well..." Her voice faded.

  Though Robert knew the second reason, he couldn't bring himself 
  to ask.

  "...And two, he's been asking a lot about his father lately. I 
  know the pros call them, excuse the expression, `age appropriate 
  questions,' but that doesn't mean he shouldn't get some answers 
  from you."

  "He doesn't even know me!"

  "That's the point."

  "And you don't have a problem leaving him with a perfect 
  stranger?"

  "Come to think of it, you are the perfect stranger, aren't you?" 
  She laughed.

  "Irene! He's not going to feel safe with me!"

  "Listen. Jonah's... unusual. He's a very adaptable kid. For 
  chrissake, Robert, it'll only be for two weeks; then I'll come 
  and get him. And who knows? You could get lucky. My father might 
  die in two days and I'll be back by the weekend." She sighed. 
  "Look, this isn't a ploy, okay? If I was gonna lay shit on you, 
  I would have done it long before now. So, c'mon. I've never 
  asked you for anything before, and it's not for me, it's for 
  Jonah."

  Robert was unnerved by what was quickly becoming an 
  inevitability. "What... what happens if he gets attached to me?"

  "He'll deal with it."

  Robert escaped into silence and Irene waited, allowing him to 
  agree at his own pace. "Okay," he finally said. "Memorial Day's 
  coming up. I suppose I could take some time off and we could go 
  up to Santa Cruz. My son and his family are living there."

  "That's right!" she recalled. "Eric. I'd almost forgotten. And 
  he's married now? A father? That's great."

  "And... uh... I'm... obviously... a grandfather."

  "Hey! Congratulations!" There wasn't a trace of irony or 
  derision in her voice. Then, laughing: "My God, Robert, that 
  makes my six-year-old an uncle!" Robert laughed too.

  The following morning Robert and Jonah left for Santa Cruz.



  When they pulled into the driveway of the tiny cottage near 
  Santa Cruz, Eric and Grace were waiting for them. Robert 
  embraced them both. His son was a lean, muscular, 
  twenty-seven-year old who taught drama at the university and 
  raced ten-speeds on the weekends. He was the only person in 
  Robert's life whom he loved unconditionally. His 
  daughter-in-law, a sunny, spirited young dancer, also taught at 
  the University. Until recently, he had liked her without paying 
  much attention to who she was. He liked her mostly because his 
  son loved her. But, on a previous visit, after she had put the 
  baby down, he overheard her whisper to Eric, "I love my life." 
  Since then, Robert adored her.

  Jonah stood behind Robert and was staring at the ground as Eric 
  walked over and lowered himself onto on his haunches.

  "So you're my little brother," he said cheerfully.

  Jonah, still looking at the ground, nodded. Eric glanced at his 
  father, then picked Jonah up.

  "Well. Welcome to the family," he said.

  For a moment, Jonah looked wary and confused. Then, suddenly, he 
  threw his arms around Eric's neck and cried without constraint.



  It didn't rain that night or the next day, and they decided to 
  go fishing. Jonah was ecstatic. He had never been deep-sea 
  fishing and, with a bit of discrete help from Eric, he landed 
  two of the four salmon caught by their party. By late afternoon 
  a heavy fog forced most of the day-fishing vessels and private 
  boats to return to the Monterey docks. Finding no quarry on 
  shore, it rolled back out to sea searching for stragglers to 
  envelop and beguile. They drove back to Santa Cruz, their catch 
  temporarily laid to rest in an ice chest in the rear of the 
  Jeep.

  "They really put up a fight, huh?" Jonah said.

  Eric put his arm around him. "They were no match for you, 
  mista." Robert was touched at how easily and simply the two had 
  taken to each other. He also found it odd that while he was 
  still certain the trip was a mistake, he no longer regretted it. 
  Indeed, he was relieved, even comforted, which baffled him all 
  the more, since everything he feared was undoubtedly about to 
  happen, perhaps had already happened.

  That night the weather was warm and clear and the family 
  gathered in the yard for dinner. Robert was charcoaling the 
  expedition's bounty while Grace fed the baby on her lap. Jonah 
  was stretched out on a lounge chair next to Eric, utterly 
  entranced by the brilliant array of stars. Robert wondered how 
  often, if ever, the boy had seen a night sky like this, a sky so 
  vast and dazzling, it dared the eyes to turn away -- so unlike 
  the milky gruel above L.A. where stars kept their distance, 
  hiding their radiance from the lingering blight of day.



  "Are we eating my fish?" Jonah asked. "I mean, you know, one of 
  the ones I caught."

  "Absolutely," Robert reassured him. "I cooked yours first."

  Jonah grinned slyly. It reminded Robert of how Eric looked when 
  he'd made his first catch. It was the look of a boy who has 
  glimpsed his manhood and is relishing the moment before it fades 
  into the future.

  "Can Katy have some?" Jonah asked, anxious to share his prize 
  with the world.

  "Hmmm, she doesn't have enough teeth to chew," Grace replied. 
  "But tomorrow I'll put some in the blender for her."

  "And can I feed her?"

  "Well... sure." she said, surprised. The adults laughed.

  "Why's that... funny?" Jonah asked, flustered and hurt. Robert 
  moaned softly to himself, reached out and caught Jonah's hand, 
  resisting his effort to withdraw it.

  "Jonah, we laughed because what you asked was... so... sweet. 
  Boys your age don't usually care about feeding babies. We were 
  surprised, that's all. Nobody was making fun of you, if that's 
  what you're worried about." Jonah nodded, accepting the 
  explanation, and Robert let go of his hand.

  It's the first time I've touched this child, he thought. A line 
  of Hart Crane's came to mind, something like, "Your hands in my 
  hands are deeds."



  Just before bedtime, there was a crisis: Jonah couldn't find his 
  beloved duck. Frantic, wild-eyed, trembling, he ran from room to 
  room rooting about everywhere, under furniture, behind curtains, 
  in closets, even yanking off bedcovers and sheets. The adults, 
  too, spread out and began searching the house. Convinced that he 
  had left his duck on the boat and that it was gone forever, 
  Jonah buried his face in a cushion and sobbed inconsolably. His 
  grief was beyond the reach of Eric's gentle reassurances.

  "Jonah," he said, recalling. "I'm sure I remember you holding 
  your duck at the dinner table. It has to be around somewhere."

  It was; Robert found it in the yard under a chair. Jonah pressed 
  the frayed, dew-damp, one-eyed handful of stuffed fabric to his 
  face, nuzzling and sniffing it like a she-wolf reuniting with 
  her lost pup. His relief was as profound as his despair and for 
  the rest of the evening he smiled radiantly at everyone. Because 
  he refused to give up the duck long enough to bathe and change 
  into pajamas, he got into bed suffused with the scent of the sea 
  and salt and the salmon he'd caught.

  They were sharing a large convertible sofa. After whispering to 
  his duck, Jonah told Robert he was too tired to listen to a 
  story tonight. He hugged his father, said goodnight, closed his 
  eyes, and instantly fell asleep.

  Robert was bewildered, not by the child's affection, which moved 
  him deeply, but by Jonah's breezy assumption that Robert usually 
  told him stories. Robert had never told him a bedtime story; the 
  only opportunity would have been on the previous night when all 
  Robert could think of saying was that they were going to have a 
  terrific time fishing the next day. Then they had gone to sleep 
  without another word.

  The clean, pale light of a full moon filtered through the gauzy 
  curtains and caressed the boy's face. A sculptor polishing a 
  masterpiece, Robert thought. Something about Jonah was unusual, 
  unique, something beyond his intensity and directness and 
  brooding meditations. Many children, Eric too, as a boy, 
  possessed these qualities. It was something else, something 
  Robert hadn't encountered before.

  He lay awake rummaging his mind for clues, turning over the 
  events of the last two days again and again until, at last, he 
  saw it: Jonah, in the driveway, sobbing in a stranger's arms. He 
  lives with his pain, Robert marveled. It was his gift, a talent, 
  a treasure, the source of Jonah's special knowledge of a world 
  from which Robert, whose misery was fueled by flight, was 
  barred.

  Of course Jonah knew there would be other stories, Robert 
  thought, and other trips like this one, days of fishing and 
  nights under the stars with his brother and Grace and the baby. 
  There would be movies, picnics, ballgames and much more, all 
  with Robert, the father he had culled from dreams and fantasies 
  and gathered into his arms for good and forever. Jonah had made 
  a father of his own.

  A surge of wind raised the curtains, allowing the moon to feed 
  more fully on Jonah's brightened features until, sensing the 
  light in his sleep, he raised his arm and covered his eyes. 
  Robert half-hoped the moon would wake him. He urgently needed, 
  now, this very second, to speak to his son and, as Eric had, 
  welcome him to the family. But it would have to wait until 
  morning.

  He leaned over and kissed Jonah's forehead, then closed his 
  eyes, fell asleep and dreamed of Irene.


  Peter Meyerson (pteram@tribeca.ios.com)
-----------------------------------------
  Peter Meyerson has only recently begun writing fiction and just 
  completed a novel narrated by a disaffected rat. He previously 
  worked in book and magazine publishing in New York. He has 
  written many TV shows, mostly half-hour sitcoms and, a long time 
  ago, developed and produced _Welcome Back Kotter_. He also 
  writes plays. Other parts of his past: multiple marriages, 
  multiple divorces and multiple offspring -- boys ranging in age 
  from thirty-two to nine.


  FYI
=====

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  InterText's next issue will be released in May 1997.
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