1477 lines
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1477 lines
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|___|___| | | | | | |__|__| | | | |___|
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An electronic literary magazine striving for the very best in
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contemporary fiction, poetry, and essays.
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Editor: Sung J. Woo (WHIRLEDS@delphi.com)
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VOLUME I NUMBER 3 NOVEMBER 1994
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Table of Contents
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Changes.................................................................xx
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_Fiction_
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"Cigars" by Keith Dawson................................................xx
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"Travel in Search" by Michael Gibbons...................................xx
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"Oranges" by Jonathan T. Drout..........................................xx
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_Poetry_
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"ER" by Thomas Bell.....................................................xx
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"Picking Lobsters in the Corner Mart" by Bill Dubie.....................xx
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"The Lord" by Mark Thomas...............................................xx
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Whirlwind cannot continue without submissions from established and amateur
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writers on the net. If you or anyone you know is looking to publish
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contemporary fiction, poetry, or essays, please don't hesistate to get a
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copy of the work to us. Mail submissions to: WHIRLEDS@delphi.com.
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Whirlwind Vol. 1, No. 3. Whirlwind is published electronically on a
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bi-monthly basis. Reproduction of this magazine is permitted as long as
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the magazine is not sold and the entire text of the issue remains intact.
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Copyright (C) 1994, authors. All further rights to stories belong to the
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authors. Whirlwind is produced using Aldus PageMaker 5.0, and WordPerfect
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5.1 on an IBM-compatible computer and is converted into PostScript format
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for distribution. PostScript is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems,
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Inc. For back issue and other info, see our back page. Send questions to:
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WHIRLEDS@delphi.com.
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CHANGES
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Hello, and welcome back. In my last welcome page (May 1994), I
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promised two things: to be in South Korea for the coming academic year and
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to take my summer off from Whirlwind. Come September, I was supposed to be
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an ocean away, but for various personal reasons, it did not happen.
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Something else that didn't happen was the September issue of
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Whirlwind. Because of the uncertain state of my life, I wasn't sure if I
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could continue with Whirlwind at all. In fact, sometime in August, I
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posted that Whirlwind was going to take an extended leave, probably for a
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year.
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But it is back. Skipping July and September, I greet you with the
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third issue of Whirlwind. It is still the magazine that strives for the
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very best comtemporary fiction, poetry, and essays from the net world.
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Enjoy.
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Sung J. Woo
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Editor
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CIGARS
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by Keith Dawson
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I was sitting in my room on a Thursday night in April, my freshman year at
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Amherst. I was watching Letterman on my roommate's black and white, Dave
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was wearing a velcro suit and jumping on a trampoline. Ted, my roommate,
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was in search of women, gone to Smith College for the night.
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I had the window open to catch some of the cool spring air. It had
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rained that night, the ground was wet and the fresh wind off the mountains
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smelled like nature. My fourth floor window faced the back of campus,
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toward the unused railroad tracks and the hills of Pelham. I could hear
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scattered noise from a party in B-dorm, but it was indistinct and far away.
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The room had two desks, two desk chairs, and a futon couch Ted's
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father brought him. Each of us had a book shelf with the semester's
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coursework stacked in rows. In one corner was my stereo, on the turntable
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were Ted's Grateful Dead albums, three of them. A doorway led to the
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bedroom where we both had beds and bureaus. The front door was closed. Dave
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leaped from the trampoline onto a velcro-covered wall. He stuck.
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I heard yelling coming up the stairs and down the hallway. Moments
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later, there was a solid pounding on my door.
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"Red the Ted, open up," said a voice. "We know you're in there Ted."
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It was rough around the edges. Old Milwaukee rough.
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"Where is that fucking Ted?" said another voice. "Is he hiding?" This
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second voice had a more clipped midwestern tone. It was a little higher in
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pitch.
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I opened the door. Two tall upperclassmen in black shirts stood
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leaning against the frame. The frame held. The shirts were emblazoned with
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three Greek letters: delta, kappa and epsilon.
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"Ted's not here," I said.
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They pushed past me into my room.
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"Come on out and take your punishment, Ted," said the thinner guy. He
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was over six feet (they both were) and shaped like an inverted triangle.
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The muscles in his neck and forearms were well-defined. The shirt, a large,
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was skin-tight. Clean shaven up to his non-existent sideburns, with dark
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hair and wire-rim glasses, he looked like Clark Kent. But George Reeves,
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not Christopher. He went into the bedroom and started poking through Ted's
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stuff.
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The other, hairier, fell back into my chair with a thick thud. He was
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built more solidly than his friend. I got the feeling that while Clark was
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a lifter, this guy was a natural heavyweight. He had dark hair too, but it
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was stringier. He wore a beat up wool baseball cap.
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"Oh no," he said. "Oh no oh no oh no." It sounded like a mantra. "We
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need Red the Ted. What did you do with him?" His eyes had a glazed-over
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cast I'd only seen looking up at me from the deck of a fishing boat. Over
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his head was a poster of the St. Pauli Girl. You never forget your first
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girl, said the poster. The girl was leaning over, offering a beer.
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"He's not back yet," I said. "I'll tell him you all stopped by." I was
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hoping they would go away.
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I knew them both, but only by sight. I'd seen them, together with
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other Dekes in the dining hall and on the Quad. I'd even been up to their
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house a few times, for open taps. Once I went with Ted. They poured him
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shots of vodka and made fun of his very red hair.
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Clark Kent stopped rifling through Ted's drawers and looked at me
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through the doorway. He stepped over a bag of laundry coming back into the
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front room. "We'll leave him a note," he said. "Paper?"
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I got him a piece of typing paper and a magic marker. He sat own at
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Ted's desk, dwarfing the little chair. "What should I say?" he asked the
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heavy one. The answer came in the form of a long belch.
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"Well spoken," said Clark Kent. He scrawled something on the paper. I
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looked over his shoulder, it said "Red the Ted -- rhymes with DEAD." He
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speared the note with Ted's scissors into the wooden desk top.
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"Come on Jeff, let's go with the one we got," he said.
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"Can't pledge hike with only one pledge. Breaks the rules." Jeff drew
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half a cigar out of the inside pocket of his denim jacket and put it in his
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mouth without lighting it. He leaned back in the chair until it was
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balanced on the rear legs, then plopped his size thirteen boots on my desk.
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Arms behind his head and cap pulled down over his eyes, I was afraid he was
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going tocome crashing to the floor.
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"Ted's not here, Jeff. We gotta go before the one in the car runs off.
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C'mon."
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"No. Need one more." He started to get up and pitched himself forward
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to roll off the chair. Just as it seemed he and the chair would lose their
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equilibrium, it skittered backwards across the wooden floor. He emerged
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standing in the center of the room, straightening his cap.
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"Well done," I said.
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"Thanks."
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"Who are we gonna get, then?" asked Clark Kent.
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"Try Skunkhead," said Jeff. Skunkhead was a guy in my class with a
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streak of white running through his hair.
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"He's gone too," said Mike. I saw him get on a bus to Boston this
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afternoon." He looked at me, glaring. "Someone tipped off all our pledges,"
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he said to me.
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"Gee, that's a shame."
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Jeff perked up. "I know what to do," he said. He pointed a hairy
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finger at me.
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"He's not even a pledge." I resented them talking about me as if I
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wasn't there. It was my room.
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"Let's take him anyway. He's been to the house, drunk our beer. I've
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seen him. " He stumbled over and put his arm around my shoulder.
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"What's your name?" he asked me.
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"Jim," I said.
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"Jim. You wanna rush Deke?"
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"I don't know. Does it cost money?"
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"Um, it might cost you some. How much you got?"
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"Not a lot," I said.
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"We'll worry about that later," said Mike. "My friend here is offering
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to pledge you into our house. You can say no, but you don't want to hurt
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his feelings that way."
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I looked at Jeff. He was smiling around his cigar. It could have been
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a cruel smile, I didn't know, but I didn't want to find out. "I'm not sure
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about that either," I said.
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"Here's how it is. You gotta let us pledge hike you," he said.
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I'd heard about pledge hikes. Ted had told me stories he'd heard from
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sophomores about how upperclassmen came for you in the night and drove you
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off. Then they left you to get back on your own. There were stories about
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pledges walking for days, trying to thumb a ride. Not many people will stop
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for a hitchhiker on a back country road in the hours before dawn. And not
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too many people appreciate college kids ringing their bell in the middle of
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the night, asking to use the phone. There were also stories about farmers
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with shotguns. Ted told me about one year they hiked two freshman to
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Bowdoin College in Maine. Three hundred miles away. That's why Ted wasn't
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around. Ted was hiding.
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"Forget it," I said.
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"Don't be such a pussy," Jeff said. "It's not so bad. We won't leave
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you alone. You'll be with the other pledge we got down in the car."
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Maybe it was the casual way they offered to pledge me that caught me
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off guard. Or maybe it was the thought that if Ted could go through this,
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it couldn't be so terrible. Maybe I was genuinely curious about what they
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were like, and what was going to happen. I don't know what made me say yes.
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Jeff took his cap off and put it on my head. It was a Mets cap.
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"Congratulations," he said, "You're officially a Deke pledge." Clark Kent
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reached out to shake my hand and introduced himself as Mike.
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"Got any money for beers?" he said.
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They led me to a tiny beige Subaru parked outside. Another freshman sat in
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the backseat. He was wearing a pair of red and blue 3-D glasses. I slid in
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next to him.
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"Hey, I know you," he said. I said hello back. His name was Bob and he
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lived on another floor in my dorm. He had a soft round face and a fluffy
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beard.
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Mike got in on the driver's side. Jeff took another pair of glasses
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from the glove compartment and made me put them on. They were cut from a
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cardboard cereal box.
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Mike drove out of campus on Route 9 toward Pelham, the undeveloped
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area. I didn't know the roads and towns out that way. The mall, stores and
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other colleges were in the opposite direction. I tried to keep up with the
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view, but Mike kept changing directions. Every time I looked out the window
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Jeff asked me a question or said something to distract me. Soon I gave up
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trying to get a fix.
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There were no other cars on the road, and very few lights. We passed
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farms. Sometimes I could see lights from the farmhouses through the trees.
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Other times we'd pass fields and I could make out the dark silhouette of
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silos or barns. Once, a car was parked by the shoulder. Jeff said it was
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someone out to tip cows.
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For an hour we drove around. Mike and Jeff spent most of the time
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telling us stories about the fraternity, then quizzing us on what we'd just
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heard. They'd yell at us for getting details wrong. Sometimes they'd yell
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at us when we got things right.
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They talked about how bad initiation was going to be for us if we
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didn't learn what they wanted us to learn. Ted lived in fear of initiation.
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He spent hours at a time studying his notes: upperclassmen's birthdays and
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home zip codes; the officers of the chapter, present and former; the cost
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of all the fixtures in the house and their dates of purchase; famous Deke
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alumni, and their years of graduation. That just scratched the surface. I
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knew a lot of it already, from quizzing Ted. Mike drank through a six pack.
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He threw every empty over his shoulder into the back seat. Once he hit Bob
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on the cheek. We were up to our ankles in empties. Jeff kept chewing on his
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cigar stub. Twice he lit it, but both times it went out.
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"This is good enough. I gotta take a leak," Mike said. Jeff nodded.
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Mike pulled over by the side of the road. There was no moon. The car's
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lights were the only thing cutting a night as dark as the bottom of a well.
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"This is where you guys get off," Jeff said.
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"Where are we this time?" Bob asked.
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"About 20 miles into Vermont," said Jeff. Mike unzipped his fly and
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sent a long, arcing leak into the bushes. Jeff put his arms around our
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shoulders and led us away from the car. I could hear Mike laughing.
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When we were about 25 yards down the blacktop, Jeff stopped.
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"Gentlemen," he said, "just follow that road." He looked at his watch. "You
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should be back at Amherst sometime around lunch tomorrow." We took off our
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glasses and gave them back to Jeff. He winked at Bob, put a pair on
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himself, then walked back to the Subaru. Both doors slammed and the car
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drove away. Soon the red taillights were out of sight and we were left
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alone in the dark.
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"Are they just going to just leave us here?" I asked Bob.
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"That's the general idea," he said. "Come on. We don't get anywhere
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standing around." He started walking down the road. I kept close rather
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than lose him in the darkness.
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"This is what I get for letting people into my room late at night." I
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said. "I'm gonna kill Ted." I was really furious. Ted should have been
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here, not me. I thought of him -- warm and cozy, bedded down with a Smithie
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-- and got very, very angry.
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My footsteps echoed on the asphalt. I realized sadly that my
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docksiders were not up to a night-long hike. At least I wore wool socks, I
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thought. My eyes had adjusted to the dark enough to see Bob clearly. He had
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a long, hunched-over stride. His corduroys made a swish-swish sound as they
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rubbed against each other with each step, and he walked with his hands in
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his pockets.
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"You don't understand what's going on, do you?" he said.
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"I'm walking down a dark road in the middle of the night." I shivered.
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"It's getting colder by the minute. Considering two hours ago I was sitting
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quietly in my room minding my own business," I told him, "I'd say things
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are pretty fucked up."
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"Yes, I'd have to agree with you." For the first time I noticed a
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touch of an accent in his voice was smooth and syrupy. Later I learned he
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was Canadian.
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"This is one of the things they like to do."
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"'This' meaning taking whatever random freshman comes their way if
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they can't find who they're looking for?"
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"Exactly."
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"We'll see about that." We walked on in silence for a few minutes,
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following the center line. It was painted with little reflective chips. I
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heard crickets -- and other things I couldn't identify -- all around us.
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"This is my third week of pledging, and my fourth pledge hike." He
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stopped to zip his jacket. I looked at him aghast.
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"You're kidding. You've done this four times? Jesus."
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"It's not as bad as it seems. Two weeks ago they left me at the
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Hampshire Mall. It was still open, so I bought this jacket." That was a
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good idea, I thought. We went on, picking up the pace. The road was
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getting a slight grade to it, and I could see a steep hill coming up on us
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around the next curve. It looked like it went on for quite a while. It also
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looked like the sky was lighter in that direction, like there might be a
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town out that way.
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The hill was steeper than it looked. I stopped to massage my legs and
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turned around behind to see how far we had come. Bob stopped too. I scanned
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the horizon for lights that might be from an oncoming car, but there was
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nothing but stars. We started up again.
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It took about ten more minutes. Just as I thought my legs would turn
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to jelly we crested the hill.
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The Subaru was parked at the side of the road. Mike and Jeff were
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sitting on top of the car drinking beers. A half-mile beyond them was a
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highway junction, the little road we were on turned into 116. I saw the
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tall UMass library, still lit at this hour, and not far away the
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illuminated clock tower of Amherst College.
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"You took longer with that hill than the last bunch," Mike said as we
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came up. "You'll have to improve."
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Jeff drew two fresh cigars from inside his jacket. He gave us each
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one, and lit them.
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"Come on up to the house," Mike said. "There's a fresh keg tonight,"
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Mike said. It seemed like a reasonable offer. He seemed like a reasonable
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person, and I was relieved. Bob and I both said yes. Jeff clipped the end
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off my cigar with his pocket knife. It was my first cigar. We smoked them
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on the short ride to Deke.
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"I can't believe I let myself get suckered," I said.
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"Don't worry about it," said Jeff. "Everyone gets suckered. That's
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part of the fun. We got suckered. Trust me, you'll enjoy it a lot more next
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year when you're on the suckering end."
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________________________________________
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Keith Dawson's (kdawson@panix.com) story "Barking Dogs and Flying Saucers"
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was published in the May issue of Whirlwind (Vol. 1, No. 1).
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TRAVEL IN SEARCH
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by Michael Gibbons
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Goodbye to California. Time to travel in search once again for the
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Real Meaning of Life. Jack and Emily's long-faced goodbyes had no trouble
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matching the cold foggy gray gloom of a Berkeley summer morning. One last
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breakfast at the Med. One last jay with Jack and Emily. Jack Kearny might
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have been crazy but so was I and he'll forever be my friend for introducing
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me to the ideas of George Gurdjieff. When I dropped them off on Rose
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Street, Emily gave me a kiss and a plastic baggie filled with rolled
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joints. We all had tears in our eyes. One life ending; another beginning.
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Such is the way with traveling people.
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I drove up and over the stony Sierra Nevada, which still had patches
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of snow at the tippy tops even though it was August, and across Nevada and
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the salt desert to Salt Lake City, stopping only for food and an occasional
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nap at roadside rest stops. I had decided to look up a Peace Corps friend,
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Ken Montgomery, who lived near the University of Utah, before setting out
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across the great plains. Ken was shocked to see me thinking that I would
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never have wandered into Mormon country in a million years. He was almost
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right.
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"You must be lost," he said, greeting me laconically.
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"I think I am," I said. "At least I thought I was two days ago before
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I left Berkeley. I'm on my way home to rest my mind."
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"What happened?"
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"My mind o-deed."
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"Drugs?"
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"Ideas."
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"Ever the mystic."
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"My grandmother once told me, after I returned from Africa, that you
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can send a jackass around the world for any reason and he'll still be a
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jackass when he returns."
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"Smart granny."
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I was pleasantly surprised by the beauty of Salt Lake and it's setting
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at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains. Salt Lake City has to be the cleanest
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city in America. All the non-white citizens and all the bars were neatly
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confined to a two or three-block area near some railroad yard. The bad
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part of town is what Ken said the rest of the noble citizenry called it. I
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lounged in a very comfortable couch in Ken's living room for the next
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twenty-four hours, alternating between sleep and reading my bible, In
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Search Of The Miraculous. Ken would bop in and out from time to time to
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see how I was doing. I told him about what I was reading and his only
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reaction was to look at me sideways and out of the corners of his eyes,
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without comment. But then Ken had only one expression and that was a dull,
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relaxed, stoic look of how much longer do I have to put up with this shit.
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||
Not just me, mind you, but all the events of a pretty boring life as a
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teacher and graduate student at the U. of Utah. Salt Lake City did not
|
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challenge one's intellect. I already missed funky Berkeley and its zestful
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zaniness.
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What was strange about visiting with Ken was that we didn't know each
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other that well. We were teachers in different parts of Sierra Leone and
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had talked only a couple of times at the yearly teacher's conference in
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Freetown. One night a group of us were partying at the Tropicana Club,
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which was the only place in Sierra Leone where we could go that had
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imported beef, and a disco. We were all eating steaks and french fries and
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drinking Bud and talking about our first-year experiences as teachers.
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Most were still trying to feign the idealism and enthusiasm that we brought
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with us. But after a year of African realism had settled in, Ken and I
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were the only ones who admitted that we were going to go with the flow in
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our second year and not worry about much of anything with the single
|
||
exception of getting drafted into the Army when we were finished. We were
|
||
in the Peace Corps so that we didn't have to get shot at in Vietnam and we
|
||
weren't afraid to say it. Many of our friends were there for the same
|
||
reason but didn't like to talk about it. Many of them insisted on
|
||
inflicting their American culture and values on the Sierra Leonians. While
|
||
all the Sierra Leonians wanted was a way out of poverty and a boost to help
|
||
them enter the 20th century, idealism aside. That was fine with Ken and
|
||
me. Our colleagues were not impressed with our views of the African real
|
||
world.
|
||
The next morning we went to the Hotel Utah for a farewell breakfast
|
||
and he seemed sad that my unexpected visit was over before it had begun.
|
||
It was hard to renew old acquaintances and then just up and leave when we
|
||
could have talked about so many things for days. Life is funny that way
|
||
and I'll never forget that last moment with Ken.
|
||
Eye-Eighty and 2376 miles lay between me and Boston. As my VW Beetle
|
||
climbed over the Wasatch Mountains on the way to Wyoming, I thought that
|
||
four days at six hundred miles a day would do it. If I wanted to drive
|
||
more than ten hours each day maybe I could make it in three. During a pit
|
||
stop in Rock Springs, Wyoming, I met a college student who was hitchhiking.
|
||
We were sitting next to each other at a truck stop coffee shop and after
|
||
noticing his backpack laying on the floor next to him, I asked him where he
|
||
was going.
|
||
"Back to college," he said. "University of Chicago."
|
||
"I'll give you a ride," I said, glad at the thought of having a
|
||
companion. "I'm headed for Boston."
|
||
"That'd be great," he said. "I've had a tough time hitching since I
|
||
got to Wyoming. I had to stay here last night. By the way, the name is
|
||
Barry Langton."
|
||
"I just left Berkeley day before yesterday," I said, as we shook
|
||
hands.
|
||
"I wish I knew that. I started out from San Francisco three days ago.
|
||
It's been tough getting long rides."
|
||
"Well, you got one now."
|
||
We piled Langton's pack on top of my gear in the back seat and headed
|
||
off toward the Rocky Mountains and the breadbasket plains and farmlands of
|
||
Nebraska, Jack Kearny's Iowa, and Illinois beyond. We were quietly
|
||
reserved for about an hour as I rolled the Bug along at 65 mph. Then we
|
||
both started to talk atthe same time and by the time we entered Nebraska,
|
||
three hours later, we had both told our life's story.
|
||
Barry Langton was a third-generation San Franciscan, whose
|
||
great-grandfather had sailed around the horn from New York in 1882, amassed
|
||
a huge fortune in stocks and securities and then invested it in all the
|
||
land and real estate he could get his hands on. His grandfather and father
|
||
successively inherited the Langton fortune.
|
||
"I'll inherit ten million dollars on my twenty-first birthday,"
|
||
Langton said. "Ten months, exactly, from today. I'll be a rich son of a
|
||
bitch and then I'll be on my own. My father's bullshit at me because I'm
|
||
not the least bit interested in the family business. He's pissed off
|
||
because he can't do anything about my trust fund since it's under the
|
||
control of my grandmother."
|
||
"What's the first thing you're gonna do when you inherit the money?" I
|
||
asked.
|
||
"I'm going to hire a shrink and talk about my problems," he said,
|
||
proudly grinning, and looking out at the Nebraska grasslands, turning rosy
|
||
pink in the evening light.
|
||
"I figured you'd say you were gonna travel around the world."
|
||
"I will, but first I've got to talk to a shrink about my crazy fucking
|
||
family," he said. "Then I'll get my degree and then I'll see the world."
|
||
"What do you study?"
|
||
"Physics," he said. "I want to eventually go to graduate school and
|
||
get into nuclear physics."
|
||
He paused and ran his left hand through his sandy-brown, wavy hair.
|
||
His right hand tapped a rhythm on the dash to an old Jefferson Airplane
|
||
song on the radio. His head bobbed slightly to the music. A huge grin
|
||
broke out over his long, angular, waspy face.
|
||
"I just love the Airplane," he said, turning the radio up. "And the
|
||
Dead. And Quicksilver. Country Joe. Jimi Hendrix. Santana. Janis
|
||
Joplin. Creedance Clearwater. All the old groups from the 'Frisco scene.
|
||
Wow. They're all so great. Sorry I missed it, but had to wait for father
|
||
to figure out where to put it. You know, my father won't let me play rock
|
||
when I'm staying at home. What a stiff he is. It's classical music or
|
||
nothing with him. That's why I'm going back to school early. I couldn't
|
||
stand it at home. My father and me arguing all the time and my mother
|
||
crying. It was too much to take anymore."
|
||
I pulled out the baggie of joints and fired one up. We smoked in
|
||
silence as we drove along the South Platte River. The fast-fading twilight
|
||
cast a nebulous shadow across the prairie. Black river running silently.
|
||
Early stars twinkled faintly. Signposts and roadside trees looking like
|
||
lifeless soldiers lining our route. Tired and famished after a long and
|
||
hot day, the twilight of my mind hallucinated movement everywhere. Father
|
||
tree and mother shrub drinking from the river. Shadows swimming and
|
||
swirling and swaying. Purple dreamscape of nothing but my mind's
|
||
projections. Time to stop and eat and rest.
|
||
The lights of Ogallala ahead, like a spaceship moving through the dark
|
||
universe. Drawn to them like moths. My mind being pulled along by the
|
||
magnetic light.
|
||
Langton and I ate heartily at a great truck stop restaurant and then
|
||
camped out at a nearby campground. Falling asleep only after roasting
|
||
marshmallows, smoking a few joints, and talking long into a night that was
|
||
slowly and silently transformed from pitched blackness into a ghost-like,
|
||
pale hue by the rising moon. I remarked how much I was enjoying this
|
||
moment on the wide-open prairie and that I felt as much at home here as the
|
||
Cheyenne had for numerous centuries before me. A roof of stars and moon
|
||
and life's good light shining through the sky's tiny apertures, revealing
|
||
an immense and ancient universe. A bed of matted grass was surprisingly
|
||
comfortable. I no longer seemed like a traveler going from Berkeley to
|
||
Cambridge, leaving one place for the anticipation of arriving in another.
|
||
I was here now. There was nothing but this moment. And then the next
|
||
moment. And the next. I could see my life simply as a succession of these
|
||
moments.
|
||
"That book you're reading, In Search Of The Miraculous, is one great
|
||
book," Langton said, as he bent down to throw another log on the dancing
|
||
fire. The strange, dark shadow cast on his long face made him look much
|
||
older than his twenty years. "I read it this summer."
|
||
"That it is," I said. "A friend of mine in Berkeley thought I'd like
|
||
it because I'm a chemist. With all the numbers and charts in it. He was
|
||
so wrong, yet so right."
|
||
"I thought it was mystical physics," he said, laughing quietly.
|
||
"Mystical chemistry," I said. "Mystical physics. Mystical life.
|
||
Life. You can see it has nothing to do with...I just figured it out today,
|
||
driving along, the wind through the open window, the radio playing music,
|
||
that it's about a wild and weird way to live that lasts a lot longer than
|
||
an acid high, or low. Where you are free and don't have to take shit from
|
||
anyone."
|
||
"I enjoyed it as much because it drove my father nuts when he saw me
|
||
reading it," Langton gleamed, "as for any other reason until I really got
|
||
into it. Then it just grew on me and it read me more than I read it."
|
||
"I know what you mean," I said. "You can taste what it means but you
|
||
don't quite understand it. You're all around it, it's all around you, but
|
||
where is it?"
|
||
"My father always wanted to know why I didn't want to read the Wall
|
||
Street Journal and all those business rags. Why I wanted to listen to
|
||
rock. Why this and why that. I thought the kid was suppose to ask his
|
||
father all the questions. He's got it all ass backwards."
|
||
"It's kind of like thinking about some Indian camp here a hundred
|
||
years ago and you wonder what it was like to live here then and be a
|
||
warrior standing sentry in the quiet and reflective peacefulness of night a
|
||
few hours before the enemy attacks at dawn."
|
||
"My father is so full of shit, it's pathetic," Langton said. "He
|
||
thinks I'm weird because I love physics. He says, you'll be rich and have
|
||
everything you'll ever need. Why do you want to fool around with physics?
|
||
And I say, dad, I love physics and I'm not interested in your business. He
|
||
says I just want the money. And I say yes. Then I can build my own lab
|
||
and get back to the beginning of time. Figure out what happened when time
|
||
began."
|
||
"I wonder what it would be like to live a life of being awake and
|
||
waking up. What do you think he means when Gurdjieff says, `You have to
|
||
wake up'?"
|
||
"Yes, back to the beginning of time and the formation of the universe.
|
||
The universe waking up."
|
||
"If we have to wake up to something, then we must be asleep," I said.
|
||
"Are we only dreaming that we're alive?"
|
||
"Everything is locked up in tiny, subatomic particles," he said.
|
||
"We'll have to blow them up and see what's inside. The mind blown wide
|
||
open."
|
||
"Being fully conscious. To understand yourself. What does it mean?"
|
||
"I love to piss off my father," he said angrily.
|
||
"Is that what you think it is?"
|
||
"What?"
|
||
"I don't know," I said. "What do you think they mean by
|
||
self-remembering?"
|
||
"They're simple terms and phrases," he said. "But like particle
|
||
physics, you might have to work a lifetime to find the answers."
|
||
"Life itself," I said. "I think the only time I really saw myself was
|
||
on acid, a real bummer, and it scared the shit out of me. I don't think I
|
||
liked what I saw. You know how in the book Gurdjieff talked about
|
||
narcotics giving you a glimpse of what can possibly be attained. But you
|
||
can't attain anything with drugs. You have to go through some kind of
|
||
intense effort. What kind of effort, though? That's what I don't
|
||
understand."
|
||
"To get back to the beginning of time. Can you imagine that? It's
|
||
the dream of every nuclear physicist. What would it be like without time?
|
||
Jesus, I get goose bumps just thinking about it. A moment suspended
|
||
between time and space."
|
||
"I used to say to my friend in Berkeley, Jack, that I was looking for
|
||
the meaning of life. Yesterday, I asked myself if life has any meaning. I
|
||
mean, is life suppose to have a meaning and a purpose?"
|
||
"My father is such a fuckin' asshole it makes me sick," Langton said
|
||
angrily.
|
||
"Someday, I hope we can see into the future and see ourselves there."
|
||
"Our future is in the past," he said, tossing another log on the fire.
|
||
"When my asshole father knocked up my mother. That's when all my problems
|
||
began. That's why I've got to talk to a shrink."
|
||
"You are not alone on that score."
|
||
"We go back to get ahead."
|
||
"Or we go ahead to get back," I smiled a weary smile.
|
||
"Yes, it's a great book," he yawned. "Like no other." And he lay down
|
||
and fell fast asleep.
|
||
The moon reflected a string of light on the South Platte River. I
|
||
chuckled softly. Smoked another joint. The chemist and the physicist
|
||
alone on the vast Midwestern expanse of nothing.
|
||
The weight of the world drawing down sleep to dream of vast expanses
|
||
of timelessness.
|
||
I awoke to a beautiful, cool dawn of absolute quiet. A new group of
|
||
stars were playing in the sky. The moon now gone and the peachy Eastern
|
||
horizon glowing warmer. Langton stirred and rolled over in his sleeping
|
||
bag to the first birdsong.
|
||
Back to the truck stop for breakfast and the beginning of another long
|
||
and hot humid day on the road. The South Platte and the North Platte
|
||
rivers merged in North Platte, Nebraska to become the Platte River, which
|
||
adjoined I-80 for the next one hundred and thirty-eight miles. The river
|
||
rolled eastward with us as we headed toward Iowa. I tried to remember the
|
||
name of Jack Kearny's hometown with no luck.
|
||
Roll along through the prairie. Roll along to home. The dusty
|
||
tailwind blew us up to 75 mph and the Bug gasped for breath. Get along old
|
||
gal. Rolling hills of Iowa cornfields and hogs in every farmyard. Bacon
|
||
with my breakfast. BLT's for lunch. Salty ham for supper and a brew to
|
||
quench my thirst. Just after we entered Iowa, we found ourselves
|
||
surrounded by a group of four tractor trailers barreling down at 70 mph. I
|
||
felt like a sapling among redwoods as we were tossed about by the wind
|
||
currents and drafts as the big rigs rolled by us.
|
||
Langton said, "I was hitching back to San Francisco last year on this
|
||
highway and a guy in a VW Bug, like yours, picked me up. You know what he
|
||
was into? He'd get so pissed off when the big rigs pushed him around,
|
||
intimidated him, that he'd sneak in behind one and draft along behind with
|
||
the engine off and save gas. Seventy, seventy-five miles per. That guy
|
||
was crazy, but it was exciting. Told me it was greatest mystical
|
||
experience he'd ever had."
|
||
"What did you do," I asked.
|
||
"Nearly shit my pants. But after a while I got used to it. It was
|
||
kind of neat, in a weird way."
|
||
"On the suicidal side, don't you think?"
|
||
"Just think, if we die, what have we got to lose? You don't have to
|
||
remember where your home is. I don't have to talk to my father again. We
|
||
don't have to search for the truth of life anymore." Langton smiled. "You
|
||
want to try?"
|
||
"No."
|
||
"You sure?"
|
||
"Yes, well, maybe . . ."
|
||
"C'mon. It's boring out here. All we've done is talk."
|
||
"But I like talking. I want to live to talk a lot more."
|
||
"I'll give you ten thousand dollars when I get my inheritance."
|
||
"I'll try anything once," I said. "Wasn't it Rousseau who said that
|
||
when his students were shocked to see him coming out of a whorehouse. Once
|
||
a philosopher, twice a pervert."
|
||
"Ha, ha, pretty funny," Langton said. "I like that. Once a
|
||
philosopher, twice a pervert. What a great line."
|
||
"Ya, I like it too."
|
||
"See that rig coming up behind us," Langton said, after turning his
|
||
head around. "Well wait 'till he passes and pulls into the right lane.
|
||
Then we sneak up right behind him. You can feel it when your in the slot.
|
||
You won't feel any air resistance."
|
||
"How close do we have to be?" I asked, glancing at the truck in the
|
||
side mirror.
|
||
"Twenty, thirty feet. Maybe a little closer. You can feel the
|
||
vacuum. It's a physical law."
|
||
"Jesus, that's pretty close."
|
||
"We'll be all right except if the trucker decides to stop," he said.
|
||
"What he could do, what one trucker did when I was riding with that guy I
|
||
was telling you about, was to pull out into the next lane if he sees you
|
||
ducking in behind him. But that's all right. We'll just slow down. Don't
|
||
turn the engine off until we've gone a few miles. By then he probably
|
||
doesn't know we're behind him, or doesn't care if we are."
|
||
A tandem-trailer rumbled by, shaking the road and causing us to drift
|
||
to the right. He had barely gotten past when he ducked sharply in front of
|
||
us and without doing anything we were being sucked along in his draft.
|
||
"We're in the slot!" Langton exclaimed. "He put us there himself.
|
||
Amazing. I've never seen that. Now hold her steady. Can you feel the
|
||
vacuum?"
|
||
"Yes," I replied. "Jesus, it's scary. I can read the small
|
||
registration numbers next to the license plate."
|
||
"He must know we're behind him," Langton mused, rubbing his youthful
|
||
chin stubble. "He ducked in so quickly and he hasn't seen us. Maybe he'll
|
||
forget us after ten miles or so."
|
||
"Ya, but the other truckers can signal to him and let him know that
|
||
we're trailing him."
|
||
"We're dead if he stops suddenly," Langton said. "Otherwise it's no
|
||
sweat. This is great though, don't you think? It's like everything worth
|
||
getting in life, you get by living on the edge. You take risks for gain."
|
||
"But what do we gain, or learn, by following the screwball in front of
|
||
us?" I asked, with increasing fear.
|
||
"For one thing you're going to get ten grand. And don't think I was
|
||
bullshitting you. When I make a promise, I keep it."
|
||
"What if we die? Who gets your money then?"
|
||
"My sister. She's O.K. She'll spend it wisely."
|
||
We were keeping a steady distance of about twenty feet. I could feel
|
||
the tension in my hands as I had a death grip on the wheel. I glanced
|
||
briefly at my white knuckles.
|
||
"Look at your perception," Langton said. "Do you notice that all of
|
||
you is right there. On the line so to speak."
|
||
Langton was right. I was all right there. Attention very sharp.
|
||
Perception clear. Colors bright. Kind of like a sober acid high and all
|
||
the while we were being sucked along by the bouncing big rig at over 70
|
||
mph. I should have felt scared but I didn't. Why? Was I so crazy that I
|
||
had to fill my life with death-defying stunts to get to the edge, so to
|
||
speak, to feel alive? How did Langton know about what I was perceiving?
|
||
"How did you know?" I asked.
|
||
"Cut the engine," he said. "We shouldn't lose any power." I did and
|
||
we didn't. All there was was the big motherfucking truck rambling and we
|
||
in the Bug being sucked along in the slipstream, gliding over the rolling
|
||
Iowa highway. Two very crazy kids headed for...who knows what and where?
|
||
"But how did you know?" I repeated.
|
||
"It's what's in that book you're reading, isn't it?" he said. "Using
|
||
extreme conditions to test one's perception. Pushing yourself to the edge
|
||
to realize that you are alive. This is it. Mystical thrill-seeking. If
|
||
you can do this, you can do anything."
|
||
"But what about your father?"
|
||
"It's not the same..." Langton's voice trailed off.
|
||
"What isn't?"
|
||
"Never mind. I don't want to talk right now."
|
||
The truck continued to rumble along as we passed mile after mile of
|
||
endless cornfields in the golden glow of the late afternoon sun. Riding
|
||
comfortably in silence. My eyes glued to the license plate less than
|
||
twenty feet in front of us: MINN TRK A34507. So what if I die, I thought.
|
||
What difference does it make? Alive or dead, what am I? Who am I?
|
||
"It's better than drugs because it's real," Langton said, finally
|
||
breaking the silence.
|
||
"I feel hungry," I said, my fear suddenly returning.
|
||
"Hungry for what?" he asked. "If we hang on he'll take us to the
|
||
world's greatest truck stop just outside Des Moines."
|
||
We did and he did. Long truck shadows and the psychedelic lines of
|
||
flickering shadows of the corn. Not afraid to die, or wanting to die?
|
||
Which was it? Is it? After another ten miles, the truck slowed, flashing
|
||
right directional and we were out of the vacuum. He turned quickly off the
|
||
road and into the truck stop parking lot. At the same time, I had the
|
||
sight of another big rig in the rearview, barreling down on us as we slowed
|
||
and breezed by the entrance to the parking lot that our leader had taken.
|
||
"Start the engine!" Langton screamed.
|
||
I had forgotten it was off. I swerved to avoid the truck on our rear
|
||
end. When I hit the dirt and pebble shoulder it was like ice. In slow
|
||
motion we slid down a grassy embankment.
|
||
"Christ, that was close," I exhaled after not breathing for what
|
||
seemed like several minutes. "I guess it's not just what's in front of you
|
||
that you have to worry about."
|
||
"But you were right there," Langton said. "Right on the beam. You
|
||
knew exactly what you had to do. You didn't hesitate. Great driving that
|
||
was."
|
||
I shrugged and exhaled. "Yah."
|
||
It wasn't as bad as it seemed. We had been lucky. There was no
|
||
damage to the Bug. I managed to drive back up the embankment and on to the
|
||
shoulder with Langton pushing and laughing. I took the next exit ramp and
|
||
turned back toward the truck stop.
|
||
"That's enough of that shit for me," I said, as we ate.
|
||
"No point in over doing it," Langton said. "We have to savor the
|
||
moment. Digest the experience of what's happened."
|
||
"Only after digesting this hot turkey sandwich," I said, gobbling the
|
||
food.
|
||
"How much farther do you want to go?" Langton asked, looking out at
|
||
the parking lot full of big rigs with their powerful engines idling. The
|
||
truck stop's neon sign ("Open 24 Hours Everyday Of The Year") flashed more
|
||
brilliantly in the dark gray dusk.
|
||
"Let's drive until we can't drive any more," I said. "Until we're so
|
||
tired we only have enough energy to pull over to the side of the road, get
|
||
out the sleeping bags and fall asleep.
|
||
Langton took the wheel. He wasn't a very good driver. Said he found
|
||
it boring. But who couldn't drive on a super interstate. We bought a
|
||
thermos and filled it with coffee.
|
||
Langton had some bennies to wash down ith the coffee. I smoked a
|
||
joint. Langton pulled cautiously out of the lot and entered the flow of
|
||
traffic.
|
||
"I could never see you following the draft of a big rig," I said.
|
||
"Neither could I," he said. "Too chicken," he added with a laugh.
|
||
"Then what was all that business about being in the slot? About being
|
||
right there? On the beam?"
|
||
"I don't know," he said. "I like it better when you're driving.
|
||
You're one of the best drivers I've ever ridden with."
|
||
"Well, you'll just have to stay away from the trucks until I get some
|
||
rest. Then I'll take over."
|
||
I dozed off only to be awakened by Langton pushing my arm. He'd
|
||
already had enough of driving and since I was still too tired to drive we
|
||
stopped at a campground for the night. No fire. No reflective chat. No
|
||
meaning of life rap. Bone tired to sleep. Four days on the road and
|
||
anxious to be home.
|
||
One life ending, another beginning.
|
||
|
||
________________________________________
|
||
|
||
By Michael Gibbons <mgibbo@netcom.com>.
|
||
|
||
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
|
||
|
||
ORANGES
|
||
|
||
by Jonathan T. Drout
|
||
|
||
|
||
I am lying on my bed tossing an orange over me. I throw it upwards and it
|
||
rises toward the white ceiling.
|
||
My roommate has left the dorm for the evening.
|
||
The orange hangs for a split second, completely motionless.
|
||
The mattress of my uncomfortable bed hurts my back. I want to roll
|
||
over, but I still have to catch the orange.
|
||
It starts on its way down.
|
||
The overhead light has burnt out, leaving the room darker than I'd
|
||
like. I bought the last bulb. Stuart will have to buy this one. We have
|
||
split all the expenses that way. It eased the cost of living.
|
||
About halfway down now, the orange spins lazily as it falls.
|
||
Today marks the quarter point of the semester. We are halfway to
|
||
spring break. Most of the students have left for the weekend.
|
||
Three quarters now, and I want to get up, but I have to catch the
|
||
orange.
|
||
With little to do, I have scrounged together my remaining friends and
|
||
we are going to hang at the radio station and spin some platters. There
|
||
probably won't be many people listening. Less than a third of the parking
|
||
lot was full at dinner time, and kids were still packing to go.
|
||
I open my hand, the orange almost in my grasp.
|
||
This semester life has been boring. I have completely lost interest
|
||
in working. My focus has shifted from academics. I have been perpetually
|
||
tired. No matter how many hours I sleep at night, I still nap during the
|
||
day and doze through class.
|
||
I can see the reflected light from the orange changing my hand's
|
||
colour. The orange still won't finish its fall.
|
||
Today I dozed during physics. Somewhere after quarks. Whatever a
|
||
quark is, however, I did learn that it comes in a group of colours that
|
||
aren't actually colour.
|
||
I could reach up and grab the orange, it's so close.
|
||
The clock reads seven forty-five. Its old second hand barely ticks
|
||
around these days. Lately everything moves slowly for me. I feel like I'm
|
||
perpetually on speed, except that I can't stay awake. Constant
|
||
hyperactivity coupled with almost uncontrollable sleep urges. I thought I
|
||
was a bipolar manic depressive for a few days. Then I became thirsty.
|
||
I catch the orange, its bumpy skin finally coming to rest on my open
|
||
palm. I can't wait to eat it tonight.
|
||
I get off of the bed and it groans goodbye. The wind keeps yelling to
|
||
me through the cracks in my window. They moan their warnings of cold and
|
||
snow. I grab my parka and my bag and head out the door. No sense locking
|
||
it. There's no one around.
|
||
|
||
The radio station is across campus from Darlington Hall. Most of the
|
||
school buildings can be reached through a group of steam tunnels. The
|
||
tunnels house the steam pipes that bring heat to the aging dorms. In the
|
||
late seventies, after student petition, the tunnels were opened to people
|
||
who wanted to avoid walking in the cold. With security prowling the halls,
|
||
there have been no murders, rapes, or any other problems in thirty-five
|
||
years.
|
||
The cellar of Darlington has a large grey doorway in one wall. At one
|
||
time the door was sealed, but now only empty screw holes in the frame
|
||
betray the existence of the once locked doors. In the tunnel, new
|
||
fluorescent lights fit snugly into the medically white drop-ceiling. The
|
||
entire hall glows with the eerie colour of artificial lighting. The stairs
|
||
down to the tunnel are painted a cheery yellow. They dare me to rush, to
|
||
fall onto their cement teeth and be ground up. I smile back at it and go
|
||
by. Gaily coloured leaflets are taped to the walls, advertising all the
|
||
events that no one will attend this weekend.
|
||
|
||
Party at the !Grind! - $5 cover charge
|
||
Film - Jaws Gerard Auditorium, 9 PM
|
||
Skis For Sale !! Call 6558
|
||
I need a ride to Maine. HELP!
|
||
Two for one deal at CMJ's this Friday!
|
||
|
||
A lot of exclamation points waving to no one's eyes. The posters are
|
||
fluttering in the warm breeze of the heating system. I feel nervous, and
|
||
maybe it's the warm breeze playing around my ankles. I pick up my slow
|
||
pace.
|
||
My backpack jounces with each step. A faint jingling comes from
|
||
inside as the crystal bounces up and down. I have to walk carefully so
|
||
that nothing cracks. With a little concentration my footsteps ease. I can
|
||
control my body when I concentrate. Bring about fluidity.
|
||
The walk to the radio station seems to take forever. My mind is more
|
||
hyper than it has ever been. Everything is drawn out, every detail etched
|
||
into my awareness. I can't stop noticing the scrapes on the walls and the
|
||
dust motes drifting about the lights. The corridor stretches for under a
|
||
hundred yards, but I feel trapped. I can't do anything at a speed fast
|
||
enough to keep pace with my thinking.
|
||
To get to the radio station you must pass underneath it and come up in
|
||
Mary Donlon Dormitory. The station was built five years ago, and wasn't
|
||
connected to the tunnels. Before that we broadcast from the student union
|
||
and barely had enough room for our equipment, let alone our library.
|
||
I walk outside into the blustering wind. The snow assaults my face
|
||
and builds up on my blue pullover. The walk is only forty feet to the
|
||
station door, but I am already shivering. I begin to look like some
|
||
grotesquely smeared American flag, my blue pullover the field and the dots
|
||
of snow some foreign constellations. I bend into the breeze, tipping my
|
||
face to avoid the tearing wind. Suddenly Gregg throws open the station
|
||
door.
|
||
"Come on Scott, move your ass! My blood's going solid in this
|
||
weather."
|
||
I move quicker now, and am inside the door within seconds. Gregg
|
||
pulls the door closed behind me and he wind howl ceases. The smell of the
|
||
station comforts me; old vinyl records in musty jackets have a way of
|
||
caressing me, of soothing me.
|
||
I can't help smiling at seeing him. I've been looking forward to this
|
||
evening for so long. "Hi Gregg, sorry I'm late," I mutter, "delicious
|
||
weather."
|
||
"It's all right, I've only played two songs. Great weather
|
||
predictions. Damn weatherman told me it was going to rain. And speaking
|
||
of delicious, Heather's coming."
|
||
I put on a surprised look, as if I didn't know this.
|
||
"The snow kept her from leaving for the weekend," he continues. "Her
|
||
little sports car can't handle it. Anyway, she'll try and get over to do
|
||
the show with us."
|
||
"Cool. I'm just gonna go into the library and pull some music. I'll
|
||
be right back."
|
||
The station library is an L-shaped room. Records fill the wall
|
||
shelving from floor to ceiling. The room is poorly lit with once bright
|
||
overhead lighting. Most of it no longer glows, and what does casts a dank
|
||
light over the place. Humidity has wreaked havoc among the thin album
|
||
covers. Many are tatter, barely recognizable without the small stickers
|
||
adhered to each that identify group and album names. In the sleeve of each
|
||
record is a piece of white lined paper with the song list hand written.
|
||
Keeping a written list of everything was my idea when I joined the station.
|
||
I didn't want to see anything lost. Vinyl without a title will never get
|
||
played, and the music will disappear into nowhere.
|
||
I sit down on the floor to browse through the C section. I pull out
|
||
some Curve, an old nineties pop band, and something by The Church.
|
||
Suddenly I can't stay awake. It feels like I'm floating on the floor. The
|
||
same feeling as when an elevator first starts to move and the bottom drops
|
||
from beneath you. I can't focus, can't read the songlist from the Church
|
||
album. The gray carpet extends itself across the room, blanketing my
|
||
vision until I fall asleep.
|
||
* * *
|
||
Cradled in the light doze of my nap, I remember when this all started. I
|
||
was nineteen years old and my parents were going on vacation. It was the
|
||
beginning of the summer, a week after summer break started, and my Dad
|
||
asked me to come into the house to talk to him and Mom. I had been seeing
|
||
a lot of my then-girlfriend Colleen back at that time, and things had
|
||
seemed pretty serious. We spent most of our days together, laying out at
|
||
the beach and going on field trips to the Cape May Point nature reserve.
|
||
Sometimes my parents complained that I shouldn't be so attached to her this
|
||
early in life. I would always just nod and shrug, thinking how soft her
|
||
touch felt and how soothing her laugh was. When Dad called me inside I
|
||
figured that I was going to get 'talked to' about seeing Colleen while they
|
||
were away. My parents were always very secretive about their house and
|
||
didn't like me to have guests that they didn't know were coming.
|
||
The air was warm, even out of the sunlight. We had all the windows in
|
||
the sitting room open and a box fan blowing air out the propped front door.
|
||
Mom and Dad were seated on the couches when I came in from the yard. Mom
|
||
was wearing her especially morbid summer outfit that day, a dark blue dress
|
||
that clung to her shoulders and hid every pretty part of her. Dad looked
|
||
more relaxed than her, but still awfully tense for a little conversation
|
||
about my girlfriend.
|
||
"Scott, your mother and I have held off talking to you about this. We
|
||
felt that it should wait until..."
|
||
"Until you were old enough, " my mother continued, "to understand what
|
||
we were going to say." They looked at each other, Dad nodded, and mom
|
||
continued. "Your father and I are going away tomorrow. For quite awhile.
|
||
We've never left you for this long before. And with you being older now,
|
||
well..." she trailed off.
|
||
"Mom, I can take care of myself with Colleen. We know what we're
|
||
doing, we're not going to get in any." I stopped, because Mom was laughing
|
||
at me. Not a laud laugh but a petit one, as if she knew things that I
|
||
never could.
|
||
"Honey, it's not that at all. Your Dad and I trust Colleen very much.
|
||
We find her -- realistic. Not like a couple of those plastic girls you've
|
||
dated with the blank eyes and that stupid grin all the time."
|
||
"We have no doubt in your handling yourself appropriately, Scott," Dad
|
||
finished off. "We just want to prepare you. We want you to know how we
|
||
care. To know that we have thought of you, and we think this is the best
|
||
way to handle this."
|
||
"Handle what, Dad?" I was beginning to think that my father was
|
||
babbling. What were they talking about?
|
||
"It's all in this," he said, gesturing to mom. She had lifted a
|
||
leather bound book from next to the couch.
|
||
"A book? You guys are this serious about a book? Dad, I got a 3.8
|
||
last semester at school. And you two think I need to be sat down to be
|
||
told to read a book?" I couldn't believe they thought I was that
|
||
irresponsible! After all the years of excelling at school.
|
||
"We just want you to read this," Mom said. Her smile had broadened.
|
||
She was trying to comfort me, to assure me they were serious. "And to know
|
||
that we are totally serious, and that we feel this is the best way to tell
|
||
you."
|
||
"Tell me what? Wouldn't it be easier to just tell me?"
|
||
"No," they chorused. "Just read this after we go."
|
||
"OK," I said. I stood back up, thinking this was all absurd for a
|
||
book. "I'm gonna go down the beach now, so can I start reading today if
|
||
its so special?"
|
||
My parents denied my request, telling me that I could read it after
|
||
they left for the West Coast tomorrow.
|
||
A couple days later I started the book. The pages were old and dry.
|
||
I didn't want to take it outside after I opened it. The dryness threatened
|
||
to change the book to dust if the sun exposed it. The cover was supple
|
||
leather, kept well-oiled by all the people who had owned the book. The
|
||
opening inscriptions were faded beyond recognition.
|
||
I couldn't read anything until about the thirtieth page. Then the
|
||
writing became dark enough that I could figure some of it out. It was
|
||
scrawled penmanship.
|
||
"Fleeing the town," one of them read, "for the peoples here have
|
||
turned against our healings and helps. They see not where we gaineth
|
||
the..." The rest of the page was blanked.
|
||
I spent the next two weeks reading the book, while my parents
|
||
travelled out west. I never received word from them, but in my family 'no
|
||
news was good' when vacations were concerned. Each night I would put away
|
||
some pages, reading under my desklamp until I couldn't focus. After a day
|
||
or two I became enthralled with the work. It appeared to be a collection
|
||
of diaries that some ancient family had written. Some entries were simple,
|
||
dated journals of daily life. Crop timings, municipal actions, and family
|
||
recipes took up pages of the volume. Here and there dates were
|
||
indecipherable, as was much of the test. I learned that on May 3, 1534 a
|
||
young woman named Martha had given birth to a young boy.
|
||
It wasn't until the sections penned during the mid 1700s that I
|
||
started noticing something odd. Each entry was still in the same hand.
|
||
Elias, the main writer for this part, had evidently lived a long life,
|
||
though it seemed impossible that the same man had been around for so much
|
||
time.
|
||
One evening I came across a page titled "A letter to my son." At the
|
||
time of reading it I did not know this would be the last entry by Elias.
|
||
|
||
Dearest Philip,
|
||
I do not know if what your mother and I told you will be taken
|
||
seriously, so I have left this letter for you. I know you thought us
|
||
crazy, but you will seen what appeared to be the ramblings of your aged
|
||
parents was indeed the truth. You mother and I will have left you by the
|
||
time you read this. We regret that we could not part happier, but we feel
|
||
that when you know the truth you will again love us for what we are and
|
||
what you are. We are not normal. Normal people do not know their death
|
||
date. They do not know that they will live for over two hundred years.
|
||
They do not know that they will never see more than twenty years of their
|
||
child's life. Your mother and I have grown up knowing this since our
|
||
youth. We have taken part in ceremonies most people are horrified by. We
|
||
have known what you would become, just as we have known what must come of
|
||
us.
|
||
The most important thing is that you realize you are not like those
|
||
around you. No one will understand your existence. They did not in
|
||
ancient Scotland and they will not even here in America. The other thing
|
||
you must take seriously is the ceremonies spelled out throughout this book.
|
||
Within one year of today, your birthday, you must perform them and then
|
||
hide yourself. School yourself with this book, for it explains who we are.
|
||
Nothing like your family history can prepare you for your future. The
|
||
ceremonies you will read of in the next few passages are tested and
|
||
necessary.
|
||
As you feel the changes within you -- the tiredness, the quickening,
|
||
the thirst, the loneliness -- you will accept what this tells you. You
|
||
will see that we acted as we did because we felt you would understand more
|
||
if you found out when you were older.
|
||
Live on, and continue the family with honor.
|
||
|
||
Here the letter ended. The next page was dated several years later.
|
||
The writers name was Tom. At first I thought it interesting that this
|
||
person shared my father's name. It took many pages of reading and
|
||
exploring his character before I realized that it was my father. When my
|
||
parents died on their trip, I began to assign credence to the book. When I
|
||
started to change, I believed.
|
||
* * *
|
||
"Hey Scott, you okay?" Gregg asks from above my. I open my eyes and find
|
||
him looking down on me. He's wearing a puzzled face not betrayed in his
|
||
voice.
|
||
"Yeah, sorry. Bad week, exams and such. Guess I just needed a
|
||
catnap."
|
||
"Great," he says, shaking his head and rolling his eyes
|
||
melodramatically. "Think you want to wake up before the show ends?
|
||
Heather just got here and I could use some music."
|
||
Still a bit confused from my nap, I yawn and get up. I grab the
|
||
records I had, pull a couple more, and go to the on air studio.
|
||
|
||
There are fifteen minutes left on the radio show. The next DJ called to
|
||
say he wasn't coming. No one felt like staying on the air for an extra
|
||
four hours. Gregg is in the office photocopying the song lyrics to some
|
||
old music.
|
||
I fold my hand around the orange again, feeling its bumpy skin under
|
||
my nails. I toss it into the air.
|
||
Halfway up.
|
||
I can't wait for the taste of the orange to fill my mouth.
|
||
Three quarters, its shadow expanding as it reaches for the track
|
||
lighting above.
|
||
Afterwards, I need the orange to get out the other taste.
|
||
Heather has her orange with her.
|
||
I don't know why only oranges work. Some things in the book are never
|
||
explained. But over and over, my family has used them to purge the taste.
|
||
It crests near the ceiling. A dot way above my head, the orange sits
|
||
perfectly still on a column of air.
|
||
My heart beats.
|
||
The first squirt of juice, flowing into my mouth, cleansing it.
|
||
My heart beats.
|
||
The orange falls.
|
||
I can't wait.
|
||
Halfway down now, bee lining for my hand.
|
||
Tonight. Soon.
|
||
I catch it.
|
||
Heather laughs, knowing what I am thinking.
|
||
"Tonight, as we planned, darling?"
|
||
"Of course, Scott. Everything set up perfectly?" I nod. "Did you
|
||
bring the crystal?"
|
||
"Yes, its all packed in my bag. I just hope the decanter didn't
|
||
shatter or anything. After hundreds of years, I'd hate to be the one to
|
||
destroy any of this stuff."
|
||
"I'll be in the library," she says as she leaves the room.
|
||
"Well, its time to close down the 'Slide Show' for this week. If
|
||
anyone out there is still up, we'd like to thank you for tuning in to 104.5
|
||
WXXS, your listening choice for all the right tunes. I'd like to say
|
||
goodnight to everyone out there. I'm gonna sleep a lot tonight. Gregg?" I
|
||
ask, for he had come back into the room while I was talking into the mic.
|
||
"Alright. Well, this is Gregg and Scott, and we now turn you over to
|
||
dead air, because the next radio show never showed up this evening.
|
||
Night."
|
||
Gregg slips the microphone off and shuts down the broadcasting board.
|
||
Anyone turning to 104.5 on the FM dial would hear only a fine lulling
|
||
static. "Nice show, Scott. Except for playing that new release by James
|
||
Skies on the wrong speed we lived through another Friday."
|
||
"Yeah, I thought we were pretty good, to be a bit cocky."
|
||
"Hey, Heather," Gregg calls out, "did you put that New Order album
|
||
back? I don't see it out here."
|
||
"Yes, I put it with the rest of their stuff. Did you want it left
|
||
out?"
|
||
"No, I just couldn't find it and worried a tad. Thanks."
|
||
In the backroom, Heather finished returning albums several minutes
|
||
ago. She now had a crystal knife in her hands. She wipes the blade clean
|
||
with a tack cloth, bringing it to a gleam. Though basically ornamental and
|
||
unable to have a sharp edge, the knife held a fine point.
|
||
"Ready to go, darling," I call to Heather, as if it were a question.
|
||
My body is keyed up beyond anything I've experienced. Everything I touch
|
||
feels hot and sharp. My nerves are raw, as if my hands have been thrust
|
||
into ice.
|
||
"Sure, let's do it."
|
||
I pull my gloves on and look to Gregg, who is rearranging the desk and
|
||
cleaning up his personal CD collection. "About ready to lock this place
|
||
up?"
|
||
"Yeah, I just need to grab by jacket from the library." Gregg rises,
|
||
turns his back me, and walks toward the library. As he comes to the door,
|
||
I reach into my pocket and grab what looks like a tarnished piece of guitar
|
||
string. Sliding up behind Gregg, I loop the garat around his neck.
|
||
Gregg stands perfectly still, unsure of what exactly is going on.
|
||
"One," Heather whispers from in front of him.
|
||
Gregg tries to turn, but I press him face first against the wall.
|
||
"Two."
|
||
Heather smiles at me, happy but jealous that I'm getting to do this.
|
||
"Three."
|
||
Gregg thrusts his fingers toward the garat, probably hoping to pry
|
||
open an airway. I pull him away from the wall and knock him back into it.
|
||
"Four."
|
||
Gregg is slowing now, so I press my knee into his back to keep him
|
||
pinned.
|
||
"Five."
|
||
Gregg's scrabbling hands catch my belt in an attempt to pull me away.
|
||
I wish I could see his face now.
|
||
"Six."
|
||
His grip falters as he became dizzy.
|
||
"Seven."
|
||
Gregg drops limp, unconscious.
|
||
"Seven seconds without blood to the brain and the human body passes
|
||
out." Heather rises and walks over to where I lowered Gregg to the floor.
|
||
"You may have been a great DJ, but I never quite could get along with you
|
||
after you tried to rape me." She bends down, grabs Gregg's head, and snaps
|
||
his neck in a quick hundred-eighty-degree turn. I smile at her. The
|
||
thirst makes the murder seem inconsequential. All I can think of is
|
||
finishing this, of the taste, of the acidic juice washing my throat. Of
|
||
Heather taking part in this, of her sharing what I understand and love. I
|
||
still amazed that she decided to take part in this, to believe me. No
|
||
matter how much the past assured me of this, I was still doubtful.
|
||
|
||
She and I were spending Thanksgiving break together the day she decided to
|
||
do it. She didn't actually say so that day, but looking back I think it
|
||
was when she realized it was what she wanted.
|
||
"Scott?"
|
||
"Yeah, Heather?" I called out from the kitchenette of my apartment.
|
||
"If all this stuff is true, this book I've been reading, doesn't that
|
||
make your family a bunch of murderers?"
|
||
"You can look at it that way. But think about it as survival. Its a
|
||
tad animalistic, but it comes down to us or them. Either I kill or I die.
|
||
When it's your own life that's at stake, things tend to seem clearer.
|
||
Also, once the desire sets in, there's really little choice."
|
||
"Hmm?"
|
||
"It was like, the ultimate lust. I had to do it, to satisfy myself.
|
||
I knew I was doing it to survive, but there was a sick pleasure in it.
|
||
Sort of the perfect combination of pleasure and pain. It hurt so much,
|
||
that easing the pain was perfect."
|
||
Heather sat across from me. I couldn't help but stare at her for a
|
||
few moments. She is tall, a slim and pretty five foot ten. Even sitting
|
||
down her long legs show her height. She's not the type of girl that has
|
||
looks to make others jealous. Her strawberry blond hair merely falls about
|
||
her shoulders, nothing outlandish or against the fashion of the time, and
|
||
her green eyes aren't of the glowing radiance associated with beauty
|
||
queens. Instead, she's like a watercolour of someone beautiful. Odd at
|
||
first glance, washed out looking. But when you see past the blurs of your
|
||
vision there's a lot more there.
|
||
"I don't understand why all this affected me. How did I get these
|
||
urges too? Why do I read this and feel that it would be a total thrill?"
|
||
"It doesn't seem anyone's figured this out. It has to be combined
|
||
with sex. All the writers hinted at that. But there's something else,
|
||
something inexplicable that draws the person in. And only a certain
|
||
person. The first girl I slept with didn't feel it. Neither did Jannel,
|
||
the girl you stole me from." I smiled, because one of her favourite
|
||
stories was about meeting me skiing and deciding that the girl I was with
|
||
wasn't good enough. Heather is very aggressive.
|
||
"So there's no reason why, it just happens?"
|
||
"I don't really know. I can only guess from what we've read. You
|
||
should have more of an understanding, because you're the one who has found
|
||
the start of the thirst. You're the one who accepts what anyone else would
|
||
call fiction."
|
||
She didn't answer me, just got up and ran herself a glass of water
|
||
from the tap.
|
||
|
||
I sit in the middle of the floor, the now dead body of Gregg sprawled
|
||
between us. She opens the Kenya bag and empties the contents onto the
|
||
floor. A crystal decanter, a roll of silk tape, several lengths of
|
||
surgical tubing, and a small fishtank pump.
|
||
Heather plugs the little air pump into a socket near the floor. It
|
||
hums and vibrates quietly, a slow stream of air hissing from a side mounted
|
||
nozzle. She hooks one length of the tubing onto the nozzle, and hands the
|
||
end to me. I place it next to the body. I then slide the other length of
|
||
tubing into the stoppered top of the decanter. "Ready, Heather?"
|
||
"Come on, its just like cutting bunnies or frogs, for all this bastard
|
||
was worth." She grins over him, a jack-o-lantern smile telling just how
|
||
much fun this is to her. Like myself, she enjoys every sensation, every
|
||
taste and smell and touch.
|
||
With a careful slip of the wrist, Heather repeats the cuts that I had
|
||
once made twenty years ago when I first did this. I reach across with the
|
||
tubing and slide it into the carotid on the left of Gregg's neck. The
|
||
other piece of tubing I slide into the other cut, thus creating a means for
|
||
filling the body as the blood drains. The little pump strains and begins
|
||
to fill the decanter with blood.
|
||
The blood has taken on that deep brilliance that only oxygenation can
|
||
give it. Darker than any red wine, it swirls sluggishly in the decanter.
|
||
The faceted sides reflect my face back to me. Twisted from both the glass
|
||
and the please I am feeling, my features have look horrifyingly ecstatic.
|
||
Heather and I pass the jug back and forth, a draught at a time. The
|
||
rightness has filled me. I know that what we have done will continue my
|
||
family, my people. I love Heather for this, and for joining me. I can not
|
||
even speak for I am so happy. Instead I just keep swallowing. Heather is
|
||
as greedy as I, her eyes focussed on me and the decanter every second that
|
||
I hold it aloft and drink.
|
||
Heather and I finish the ceremony and leave Gregg lying in the middle
|
||
of the radio station floor. No other shows are scheduled until early
|
||
Monday morning, and by then she and I will be well hidden. Joking as we
|
||
walk back through the tunnels, I notice that the overhead lights are much
|
||
warmer than they had been. Twelve inches of snow has fallen over the
|
||
course of the evening. A light and powdery snow, it covers everything,
|
||
giving the land around the college a rebirth in virgin white.
|
||
After drinking the blood I feel high and carefree. We walk along and
|
||
laugh. Everything seems funny to Heather, and I can not help but laugh and
|
||
revel in her. Never before have I felt so secure and loved. Heather makes
|
||
joking airs of smacking me, but it turns into an embrace.
|
||
"Come on, we only have a few hours to finish the ritual of our
|
||
marriage."
|
||
"Yeah, and how do I know that part's necessary?"
|
||
A smile. "You'll just have to trust me."
|
||
"Even if it's not, come on."
|
||
She grabs my hand and we walk off through the now happily lit tunnels.
|
||
"As soon as we get up tomorrow morning we have to head out. Just in
|
||
case someone finds Gregg. We'll go where I hid last time. It was
|
||
comfortable, and perfectly safe." I laugh, and kiss Heather again as we
|
||
hurry to my room.
|
||
"Yeah, we just have to make sure to ditch my Alfa in the lake. I hope
|
||
it falls through the ice. You did measure it, didn't you?"
|
||
"Yeah. Those two days last week that were above 40 were enough to
|
||
thin it out. At the edge its only an inch or two."
|
||
"One last question. What is this orange you had me bring for? You
|
||
never did let me in on that."
|
||
"In about two hours you are going to get the world's worst taste in
|
||
your mouth from the blood. I tried toothpaste, mouthwash, water, and soda
|
||
last time. The book said use oranges, but I figured modern times had come
|
||
up with something better. The only thing that cleaned the taste out of my
|
||
mouth was an orange."
|
||
|
||
The next evening the gate is unlocked as usual, and we simply push it open
|
||
on its black iron hinges. Not squeal emits, proof of the fastidiousness of
|
||
the maintenance crew. I inhale the deep-night air. We are tired, more so
|
||
than we had ever been. Now, however, we could truly rest. The fifteen
|
||
year nap after the marriage ceremony needs security.
|
||
Two years ago I had made most of the necessary arrangements. Only the
|
||
securing of finances had to be taken care of, and that I handled the week
|
||
before. The worn path beneath my feet leads through the dark copse of
|
||
trees, winding and curving enough so that we can see only a few feet.
|
||
We silently walk through the still falling snow. Our footsteps have
|
||
already started filling. A few minutes of walking brings us to a small
|
||
bower. The door is set into the hill and inscribed with some plain
|
||
carvings. I unlock it and Heather pushes it open. We step inside and lean
|
||
our weight against the cold iron of the door. The door moves, and thunks
|
||
shut. I lock it from the inside and drop a bar across it. Extra security
|
||
wouldn't hurt. I need sleep.
|
||
My vision is grey, as if I were lost in the snow outside. Heather and
|
||
I lie down to sleep, the walls of my family's crypt protecting us. Where
|
||
else to hide after a murder than with the dead?
|
||
|
||
________________________________________
|
||
|
||
Jonathan T. Drout <JDROUT@delphi.com> lives in Virginia.
|
||
|
||
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
|
||
|
||
ER
|
||
|
||
by Thomas Bell
|
||
|
||
|
||
3 a.m., went after his brother with a knife.
|
||
15, thin, black, "Don't need no help."
|
||
Lives in guns, drugs, mother has two or three men over every night.
|
||
"Gonna kill myself - can't help my mother." An hour ago when they picked
|
||
him up.
|
||
Hasn't slept safe for months. Could go off any minute here.
|
||
Smiles, jokes.
|
||
"Just said it. Don't need no help. Can't make me. I aint crazy."
|
||
What's his name: Conduct disorder, undersocialized? Depressed?
|
||
Who owns him: State Department of Human Services.
|
||
Who'll take him: Unit's full. Vanderbilt's full.
|
||
UMC doesn't like his insurance -- none. The Pavillion can't
|
||
Take adolescents. They're all very nice. The police are sympathetic.
|
||
Doctors and nurses want to help but don't know how either. The Institute
|
||
has
|
||
|
||
To take him. They've been full for days.
|
||
We can't find the right language tonight.
|
||
But night noises never cease.
|
||
|
||
________________________________________
|
||
|
||
Thomas Bell <tbjn@well.sf.ca.us> is currently a clinical psychologist in
|
||
private practice. In former lives he was a librarian and an editor.
|
||
|
||
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
|
||
|
||
PICKING LOBSTERS IN THE CORNER MART
|
||
|
||
by Bill Dubie
|
||
|
||
|
||
Those plump commas of claws
|
||
can lean and wave at us
|
||
their eyestalks blind
|
||
to the unchanged water
|
||
|
||
They scuttle
|
||
robotic in the fusia
|
||
oxygen bubbles are
|
||
degree symbols superscripting
|
||
their worth
|
||
|
||
when we barter and choose
|
||
among the corn chips
|
||
and frozen food
|
||
I open my billfold
|
||
and taste the salt in my blood
|
||
|
||
_______________________________________
|
||
|
||
Bill Dubie's <dubie@tnpubs.enet.dec.com> recent publications include poems
|
||
in CORE, The Northern New England Review, and The Fever Dream. His
|
||
collections include Closing the Moviehouse (Wings Press, 1981) and The
|
||
Birdhouse Cathedral (Connected Editions, 1991).
|
||
|
||
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
|
||
|
||
THE LORD
|
||
|
||
by Mark Thomas
|
||
|
||
|
||
I have been looking for The Lord.
|
||
|
||
|
||
You see, it goes like this:
|
||
|
||
This morning I woke up and opened the blinds
|
||
Hoping to find The Lord out there,
|
||
Grinning, glowing, whatever.
|
||
But no, there was no Lord.
|
||
|
||
At work, sometimes I go into other people's offices
|
||
And I ask them, I ask
|
||
"Would you like to come with me
|
||
To the church across the street,
|
||
So that we can find The Lord?"
|
||
They have all said no.
|
||
They have all shaken their heads.
|
||
|
||
And later I am walking, I am walking and walking and walking,
|
||
And along my way I pull at people's coats and ask
|
||
"Are you The Lord?"
|
||
They all say no. They walk away.
|
||
|
||
And once I saw a friend from college, I met her on the street.
|
||
We hugged and chummed and promised things, and I said
|
||
"Do you know how I could go about finding Jesus?"
|
||
She said "Jesus?"
|
||
There was a long, long, long silence
|
||
In which was sparked a rotten chain between us both.
|
||
The winds on 2nd Avenue tossed
|
||
Soily questions at her face and mine.
|
||
What wrong had I said?
|
||
I turned and left that silence there,
|
||
And I remember now that quiet in her eyes.
|
||
|
||
There have been other things, as well.
|
||
I thought I heard The Lord announce the news last month on 1010 WINS radio.
|
||
I thought I felt The Lord tickling my stomach once when I drove 112 miles
|
||
per hour.
|
||
I think I saw The Lord sitting and grinning on an awning at West 98th
|
||
Street.
|
||
I think I felt The Lord in my breath and in my eyes once when I got into a
|
||
cab.
|
||
And once on York Avenue I thought I saw The Lord standing at the bottom of
|
||
a big hole.
|
||
|
||
When I drive past a church I ask the person I am with, I ask
|
||
"You wanna run in there and see if you can find The Lord real quick?"
|
||
They always refuse. They always shake their head.
|
||
And so I have parked the car, left the engine running,
|
||
And dashed into these churches to see if The Lord was there.
|
||
But The Lord was never in any church in any city at any time,
|
||
And I have seen a thousand churches, hundreds of cities, across all times.
|
||
|
||
Sometimes I am jerked awake at night, and I think
|
||
"Was it The Lord that woke me?"
|
||
And other times I can not sleep, and so I think
|
||
"It must be The Lord keeping me up."
|
||
|
||
I walked into a library once and I thought out loud
|
||
"It feels just like The Lord is here."
|
||
But no, The Lord was not in that library
|
||
Reading magazines or killing time.
|
||
I do not know where The Lord was that day,
|
||
But certainly not with me.
|
||
|
||
And once on the bus I swear The Lord walked in.
|
||
I stood up and looked around.
|
||
"Is it you? Are you The Lord?" I asked a man.
|
||
"Are you The Lord?" I asked a little girl.
|
||
"You? Are you The Lord?" I asked a blind old lady.
|
||
"No," they all replied. "I am not The Lord."
|
||
And they were not The Lord.
|
||
|
||
I do not think I know The Lord.
|
||
I don't know where It is, or where It lives.
|
||
It is not in the phone book,
|
||
It is not in the kitchen, It is not in the rug.
|
||
If you also are looking for The Lord,
|
||
Do not look in the Empire State Building,
|
||
Because the Lord is not there.
|
||
Do not listen to the radio,
|
||
Because I did that, and found no Lord.
|
||
No need to check Tiffany's or Coney Island,
|
||
Don't bother Trump, and forget about this poem _
|
||
|
||
I have looked in all these places, and did not find The Lord.
|
||
|
||
But every day the same thing occurs:
|
||
I am with someone, or by myself, and a funky itching whips me.
|
||
I look into my mailbox and think I see The Lord.
|
||
I tap someone on the shoulder and ask "Are you The Lord?
|
||
Do you know where I could find The Lord? Have you found The Lord?"
|
||
Every day, I tell you, the same things occur and occur.
|
||
So do not mind me if I ask you for The Lord.
|
||
If you have not found It, simply say so, and I will walk along.
|
||
|
||
I long to say "Hey look! That's It! The Lord!"
|
||
And leap in exaltation, shouting in accord.
|
||
|
||
Maybe today I'll turn on a light, and there will be The Lord _
|
||
Shining, bright, whatever.
|
||
Maybe tonight I'll sit by the river and
|
||
The Lord will come and talk with me.
|
||
|
||
Or maybe tonight some beasts from Mars will glory me away in a flying
|
||
machine,
|
||
Or maybe St. Peter in his craft will pluck me from this earth and fill me
|
||
with Heaven.
|
||
Then I will know The Lord has seen me all along, and sees me wandering now,
|
||
Numb and gaping, body stopped and stranded, desperately looking to the
|
||
skies.
|
||
|
||
________________________________________
|
||
|
||
Mark Thomas <sorabji@panix.com> lives in New York City.
|
||
|
||
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
|
||
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
|
||
OTHER MAGAZINES ON THE NET
|
||
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
|
||
|
||
InterText, a bi-monthly magazine publishing fiction of all types,
|
||
edited by Jason Snell. Back issues are available at network.ucsd.edu,
|
||
under the /intertext directory.
|
||
___
|
||
|
||
Quanta, a science fiction magazine. Each issue contains fiction by
|
||
amateur authors and is published in ASCII and PostScript formats. Back
|
||
issues of Quanta are available from export.acs.cmu.edu in the
|
||
pub/quanta directory.
|
||
___
|
||
|
||
The Sixth Dragon, an independent literary magazine devoted to publishing
|
||
original poetry, short fiction, drama and commentary, in all genres. In
|
||
addition to 3,000 paper copies, The Sixth Dragon will publish ASCII and
|
||
PostScript editions. For more information, e-mail
|
||
martind@student.msu.edu.
|
||
___
|
||
|
||
Unit Circle, an underground paper and electronic 'zine of new music,
|
||
radical politics and rage in the 1990's. On the net, it is available in
|
||
PostScript only. If you're interested in reading either the paper or
|
||
PostScript version of the 'zine, send mail to kmg@esd.sgi.com.
|
||
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
|
||
|
||
BACK ISSUES
|
||
|
||
Back issues are available at
|
||
|
||
ftp.etext.org
|
||
|
||
via anonymous FTP/Gopher under the directory
|
||
|
||
/pub/Zines/Whirlwind
|
||
|
||
|
||
SUBSCRIPTION
|
||
|
||
If you wish to be on the Whirlwind mailing list, all you need to do is send
|
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|
||
WHIRLWIND" and nothing else in the body of the message.
|
||
|
||
|
||
FURTHER QUESTIONS
|
||
|
||
If you have any other questions, you can reach us at WHIRLEDS@delphi.com.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Whirlwind apologizes for any errors in this issue.
|
||
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
|
||
That's it! Thank you for reading.
|
||
|
||
NEXT ISSUE OF WHIRLWIND:
|
||
JANUARY 1995
|
||
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