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Media Influences: Past, Present and Future

I grew up with TV. I don't remember not having a TV. I think that for as long as I have been alive my family had a TV set. That is saying something because in the mid 1950's, when I was born TV's were expensive.

The first TV I remember was a Philco black and white set that only had a VHF (channels 2 through 13) tuner. It was eventually replaced in 1966 with an Admiral color TV that had anadditional UHF tuner to receive channels 14 through 83) . Color TV had been around for a while but I think it wasn't until 1965 that it started to really become a standard all shows on the three broadcasting networks.

In rural Ohio, you had to erect a fairly tall antenna and use a motor to turn it to get the best signal. We pulled in TV from Columbus and Dayton. Springfield had a UHF station (Channel 26 as I recall) for a while in the late 1960's. It didn't amount to much.

I studied Radio and TV Production while I was at Purdue. The department at the time was relatively small, not well known and not all that well funded. The equipment that we had was fairly old but at least a and undergrad a student could expect to have hands-on experience with real TV equipment.

Later I interned at a TV station in Lafayette, IN which was the 192nd TV market in the nation at a time when there were 212 markets. In other words this station was in the minor leagues of broadcasting. I pulled AP and UPI wirecopy and composed a scripted version for the news anchor. I was very impressed with her professionalism and as a young man with overactive hormones I also had a tendancy to stare at her. At least I did not drool.

Early on in my internship, the sportscaster was editing a tape in the production machine that shared the same room where I not only pulled the wire copy but also typed up the script. We are talking old school typing here. He started to taunt me a little about the fact that I had to pay to work at the station, tehcnically the station was using the learning opportunity in exchange for some free labor and since I paid the university for the course, I was paying to work there. I fired back something to the effect, "Well this is the 192nd TV market in the nation and if we were all truly professional we would not be here, now would we?"

I did not know that the anchor had walked into the outer office until she came through the door. I thought I was going to be sumnmarily dismissed but instead she smiled broadly at me as she said, "You appear to have a quick mind. That is good. I am also impressed with the quality of the script you compose."

"I'm really in production so I am used to working up scripts, usually camera angles and lighting set-ups but there were no openings in the internship here for that and since I am also in journalism..."

"You are good with a camera, then?"

"Yes, very good actually."

"That's something good to know," she patted me on the shoulder as she walked by and checked the tear sheets that I had not yet had a chance to work up into a script.

I barely knew her before that. Even so she amazed me. She was the only one that worked at the station that I really sensed belonged somewhere else. Lafayette was a stepping stone for her, a line on a resume attenting to her having paid her dues in the minor leagues, a place to work up a decent porfolio tape.

On weekends and days when I did not have classes or did not have to work at the hi-fi store, I operated the camera for some of her on location reporting. She usually arranged for things like that in advance. She was very organized. Still, every so often she would call me on a moment's notice and ask if I was available to operate camera for her.

I did not mind. For one thing I was learning a lot more than my internship was supposed to teach me. The station did not have a large staff and so the anchor did a lot of her own editing and preproduction. She was competent at it but I was a little more experienced doing fancy electronic effects that made the finished product more attractive. In a way we each learned something from the working relationship.

I was glad to help her out. One time she was doing a remote near my fraternity and so she offered to pick me up. A couple of my faternity brothers saw her come into the frat house and even if they never watched the local news, they realized that she must be lost. No one that looked like her would ever end up in our fraternity. Ever after that they ribbed me suggesting that we were having some sort of clandestined relationship. Guys seem prone to jumping to that conclusion. I have to admit the first time she asked me to meet her on Saturday at the stadium on campus the thought ran through my mind. She was single, and only a couple of years older.
She had brown eyes and dark hair, was a little taller than my preferrence but every other box on the checklist was marked yes. It was not to be, though. She really respected me for my ability with a camera and the fact that she usually didn't have to rewrite whatever I typed up for the script copy.

I learned a lot about television from her but unfortunately I also learned that I did not want to be a broadcast journalist. I could not see me standing up in front of a camera. As I said I was very good at operating the camera, though. I was becoming more interested in advertising and public relations at that point and so I started to take a few business courses.

She went on to work for an Indianapolis station. I lost track of her after that. I don't know if she ever made it out one of the coasts. I am sure where ever she ended up, she dazzled them.

Anyway, that is why I know a good bit about TV.

The science behind TV had existed since my parents were young but it was not until the 1950's that TV became a major medium. When TV came into the mainstream there were all sorts of dire predictions that TV would supplant both movies and radio as entertainment media. I recall reading such predictions even into the 1970's.

Obviously TV did not replace radio or movies but eventually supplimented each and turned into a viable medium of entertainment and information all of its own. The reason radio and movies suirvived the onslaught and popularity of TV is that there was a process of adaptation that preceded a period of evolution. Prior to the rapid growth of TV as a medium both radio and movies were very different. TV actually served to define and customize radio so that it capitalized on its core strengths, immediiacy where pictures were not necessary. Movies were forced to improve, becoming larger-than-life, spectacular and entertaining in a big budget way that television could not afford to compete.

That is a brief even glossed over view of the power of the TV medium in the general context of influence. It is necessary to know about TV because it was at one time the killer cutting edge of technology, a place not held by The Internet. For about the last ten years or so I have been reading about how The Internet is supposed to somehow evolve into the be all and end all for information and communication. It has even been predicted that cyberspace will replace the VHF and UHF electromagnetic spectrum broadcasting, making all communications closed circuit, cable based or linked through the digitized microwave transmissions between a satellite uplink and downlink.

Former Vice President Al Gore referred to The Internet as 'the information superhighway' and was jokingly given credit for having even 'invented it'. The term that he coined was made in reference to the work of his father in the Senate in the 1950's for establishing the Interstate Highway System that was largely constructed in the 1960's and 1970's. Just as traveling in America by car these days would be a very different experience without the Interstate Highways so we are also becoming increasingly dependent on the instant communication and intimacy of the The Internet.

It is perhaps ironic that when the concrete and steel rebar of the original Interstate System was being laid down the infastructure upon which The Ineternet was based were also being put into place. Most serious geeks know that The Internet was created as a survivable means of communications after a nuclear disaster. It was designed with multiple routes and optimum redundency. Even though the military application was gratefully never put to the real life test for which it was created, the academics used the backbone of the system for a decade or more to transfer data across phone trunk lines even before the general public even had heard of personal computers.

Just as the Interstate Highways were considered a very expensive project and of dubious value people have often doubted the wisdom of allocating resources toward the further development of the underlying communication infastructure. It is shameless that our nation pioneered the technlogies in use in every country for accessing Ihe Internet. Even so we lag behind almost all other developed countries in the distribution of broadband access to the general public. When Japan and Korea were rewiring their entire nations our companies were counting up the epsnse of having to essentially rewire everything. We are a much larger country and the costs of the project are daunting. Even so investing in infastructure given impetus to growth and further development.

How much more advanced are The Internet 'pipes' in Asia? In Japan and Korea broadband Interet access costs the same or less than it does in this country while offering at least Ten times the bandwidth.

In my lifetime I have noticed that we invent a lot of things as a nation and within a decade or two the Asians teach us how to make it better and at a lower cost.

I have wondered who determined that The Internet should be capitalized. Maybe Al Gore did that too, as in The All Mighty Internet. If I ever meet him I'll remember to ask.

Somehow I have never been able to grasp how The Internet would replace any other medium. As was the case with TV it is more likely that it will redefine the place and nature of other media while it finds its own niche. The Internet will certainly force other media to evolve and it may actually take on a role that other media have inadequately served. The very ability to post a Blog and have almost direct and instant communication through something that is self-published is a mind boggling achievement. Blogger have already had some major impact in politics and the mere fact that news services pay attention to Blogs speaks for itself.

A few people have suggested to me that I am a futurist. I even cast my alter ego, Brent as a futurist. Anyone that has read much of the series knows that Brent has a slight advantage on other futurists. He speaks from direct experience as a time traveler.

I do not think of myself as a futurist. It is not because I lack Brent's ability to be in another time and place almost instantaneously. I am of the mind that we all do a little traveling in time, a point that you will unfortunately have to read One Over X in its entirety to comprehend. Even then I am not certain how clear it is stated. It is a very complex concept that is determined as much by perspective and aspect as point of view.

I am not entirely certain what the label futurist pertains to although it is something that others have pinned on to me. Maybe it is because I have always been able to see just a little ways ahead. I think anyone with an ounce of common sense could do as much. I base what I think might happen on current trends and knowledge of cutting-edge technology. I work with computers on a daily basis. I understand them and can usually repair them.

Predicting the future is risky. There are remarkable examples of myopic predictions recorded in the pages of newspapers and magazines. I spent a whole afternoon at the local library perusing archive copies of Life Magazine. Toward the end of my research, my daughter Sarah joined me and found it rather interesting seeing the fashions in the 1940's and 1950's while I was totally focused on the technology. There were things advertised in Life that I have never seen, technological advances that did not sell in the marketplace. That fascinated me.

For me, studying the back issues of Popular Science is even more interesting. Did you know for example that a prediction from the 1930's was that one day there would be a computer device that would weigh merely a ton and could occupy a single room. Imagine that!

I was telling Rob, my son that when I was in college a 128 kilobyte memory core was a huge thing that needed to be cooled from beneath the column where it rested in the floor. Even then it had to be exchanged out periodically to be given a rest so that it did not overheat and melt. I am presently using an Athlon XP processor to write this and it has 128 kilobytes in its level one cache which occupies the width of a few eyelashes on the actually core. In the course of 30 years memory has been compacted from several pounds to barely noticeable.

I carry in my pocket a keychain device that holds 128 megabytes of memory, or about the same capacity of 88 floppy disks. There are other devices that occupy the same physical space as my keychain device or even less space that contain up to 2 gigabytes. Eight years ago that was a huge hard disk drive. Ten years ago 1 gigabyte was just beginning to appear and very few systems could actually recognize the drive. You had to have one of those new Pentium processor based motherboards to address such a huge capacity.

It is dangerous to predict the future. It is unlikely to do so with any accuracy. You cannot possibly conceive of every variation and nuance of causality or the relationships between discoveries, needs and events that determine which products make it to market and which do not. This is the 21st Century. This used to be the future and when it was forty years in the future all sorts of really far out things were anticipated.

Case and point: The Jetsons was a mid-1960's primetime cartoon that was optimistically set in the 21st Century with flying cars and colonies in space. I suppose it is still possible that in the next 95 remaining years, the world may evolve into something that more closely approximates that of George and Jane Jetson but I reallty do not think that it is very likely. I do not think there will be cities suspended on towers and cars that navigate an airborne superhighway.

Today's space stations are a far cry from the optimism of Arthur C. Clarke's vision in 2001: A Space Odyssey that was based on his short story "The Sentinel".

I have always been reluctant to predict the future. Of course what does it matter whether is predict things that linger a century away. There is little chance I will ever be there to hear how wrong I was. I could profess that rhinos would dominate the earth in a hundred years and you could never disprove it in the here and now. You could cling to the unlikely aspect.

Today I have witnessed the most amazing thing I have yet seen in computers. I opened a Apple Mac Mini and set it up for a display. Hooking up a 20" Apple monitor to it dwarfs it on such a radical scale that it is almost laughable. It is a square that is roughly 6 1/2 inch by 6 1/2 inches, (probably an accommodation for the slot loading DVD/CDRW combo drive) weighs 2.9 pounds and is 2 inches high. Its processor (at least the one I was working with) is a G4 with the velocity engine for graphics and a bus speed of 167MHz running at a core clock speed of 1.42GHz. The system utilizes 256MB of RAM and a 80GB hard drive. It boasts a ATI Radeon 9200 graphics solution with 32MB of DDR dedicated video memory able to support up to the 23 Inch Apple monitor at 1920X1200 pixels. It sports a Firewire 400 Mbps port and two USB 2.0 ports for connecting external peripherals. It may not be the cutting edge in performance when compared to dual G5 Power Macs but it is well beyond the curve in utter coolness.

When you see this the marvel of computer engineering you will want to buy one. At $599 for this particular version or $499 for the lesser version I kinda think a lot of disgruntled Windows machine users that hate all the popups and the spyware that is plaguing Internet Explorer may migrate into the Apple camp.

We are almost at the design limits of the materials we are using to produce microciruits and processors. The next processors scheduled to be produced are to be 65 nanometers as opposed to the 90 nanometers and the 130 nanometers processors on the market at the moment. If I recall from the few engineering courses that I took at Purdue University, 65 nanometers is just about single file for electrons passing through a conductive medium. Both Intel and rival AMD plan to produce mutliple core devices on a .065 micron process. Initially Intel will produce multiple core Pentium 4 (32-bit) devices using 130Watts of power while AMD plans to produce multiple core 64-bit processors in their Opteron series for servers using 90 watts of power. Intel will migrate toward their own 64-bit x86 processor cores later in the year, but no power consumption specification are yet available.

Clearly, using electrons as a means of transferring data has been exhausted. We have only to stick the fork in it to see if it is done. There are alternative technologies which are being tested and developed. Photon technology is the most immediately practical and easily implementable as it has been under development since I was in my 20's. Photons weight a lot less than electrons, cause less friction and therefore generate almost no heat. If a processor core could be based on photons verses electrons a whole new world of processor development could evolve.

We will call that prediction number one as at this point I do not see how electron based processors can dip below say .05 microns which would necessary for power conservation and greater transistor integration.

Prediction number two: The Internet will collapse or at least frequently falter within five years. The Internet was designed to be survivable so to say that it will collapse is not really accurate. It will become unusable at peak demand times. It is a volume verses bandwidth issue. The solution is to protocol the bandwidth allocations for discrete transactions instead of letting the call go free form onto the Internet and access the maximum bandwidth available at the moment. That will require some heavy duty software to control everything from server to the end user so that packets can be sent from point A to point B with the maximum bandwidth allowed at the moment. This is a monumental opportunity for an innovative software developing company to get a foothold and dominate the world of communications as a result.

Pediction number 3: We will land a manned mission on Mars in the not so distant future. Such missions capture the imagination of many of the people and almost all of the children. Overall it is a good thing. It will be a internationally funded mission with a multi-ethnic crew and international funding and cooperation although the bunk of the expense will be covered by wealthier nations of course. The craft will be prelaunched into orbit and docked with the international space station where final fittings and supplies will be loaded. The nuclear powered booster that will power the craft into a trans-Martian projection will also be fitted at the space station, as the risk of a nuclear accident and launching that much hardware from Earth in one chunk will seem inefficient and unwise.

I will not predict when we will land a man on Mars only that we will. I do not know what will confront and frustrate us. I only know or at least feel that it has to come about. I sense that there is something important that comes from the human desire to test the unknown and cross the boundaries of a new frontier.


E

posted by Unknown @ 11:07 PM 2 comments

Connections

In the process of trying to figure out any number of the relationships between things, I have come to this conclusion: one of the things that helps us succeed on each of our individual journies through life is the set of connections that we have established, even from the earliest moments of life. I might venture that life is only about connections but I know that is not the case. Still, most everything in life is assisted through the network of important connections.

I spend a good bit of time in my early twenties establishing a personal philosophy. I had decided that at some point a writer must do that, so it was an imperitive. It would be a worthwhile endeavor for anyone to establish a philosophy as it is beneficial to establish the connections and and find the place in life that best suits us. That few ever perform this exercise shouts that the overall progress of humanity is hindered when there are people who do not care to know the truth let alone pursue it.

What I arrived at as a personal philosophy has served me well enough. It may not be a perfect set of goals as a condition for life but nevertheless I have been faithful to the overall objectives of my purpose.

I believe that it is the purpose of everyone to make life easier for everyone else. It is also the purpose of everyone to learn all that can be learned about the connections between things and other people.

What does it matter if I am wrong. It hurts nothing to have a selfless goal. I think that anything that is not totally focused on self interest is a pretty good thing to attach aspirations. I definitely invite comment. I suspect there is much greater wisdom out there because I am familiar with the depths of my own stupidity.

E

posted by Unknown @ 1:01 AM 0 comments

Nocturnal Delusions

I gave Sarah, my youngest, a ride home from school yesterday. I try to do that on my days off. It is only a little less than 2 miles from home to school so it is not impossible for her to walk home but it has been chilly in central Florida lately. What are dads for?

On the way home in my recently repaired truck, (replaced battery and alternator within the last month) we were listening to the radio that now worked for the first time in three weeks (it had Theft Lock activated by the loss of power -what a pain in the...) . A local Orlando DJ was mentioning nightmares. So it became a point for some brief discussion. I don't think Sarah totally believed me when I told her that I have not had a nightmare (at least that I remember) in over 25 years. Certainly I remember the last one and it was how that dream ended that may have fixed the internal wiring of my brain so that I do not have bad dreams.

I know, I know, you're all skeptical too. Some of you may be saying to yourselves that judging from the subjects of some of my stories I have my nightmares while I am writing. I suppose that is a possible way of looking at it. Writing is a cathartic experience sometime and moreover a very healthy way to exorcise demons. I was having a strange dream in early September, 1979, probably about 11 years before Sarah's birthday. I had recently moved to Austin and had just started classes at The University of Texas. I was a avid reader at that point. I had re-read Lord of the Rings over the course of the summer. I had just started to read Steven R. Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Convenant. To this day those are two of my favorite series of books.

In the dream that I had I was being chased through a parking lot, dodging between parked cars as viscious animals were biting at my legs. I ducked into an apartment complex that was oddly like the one in which I was living in real life and ran up a flight of stairs and along a balcony that overlooked a common area that contained a swimming pool around which a number of tenants that were sunbathing. Out of breath and panting, I looked back to see if the animals were still giving chase and suddenly I felt a tap in my shoulder. As I turned back I was facing someone that looked a lot like me, only a little older. It was only then that I noticed that I was no longer at the apartment complex but instead I was standing on the upper landing of a stairway in a campus bookstore.

For those astute enough to notice, some of this dream made it into Book 1.

The other 'me' explained how dreams work and how they are pieced together from the peripherally perceived but hardly registered fragments of daily experience. The mind accesses all those images as symbols to create a weird sort of strategy for filtering, sorting and otherwise dealing with unassociated thoughts. Whether that is the case matters little. From that morning onward I have not had a nightmare and whenever a dream even begins to venture toward the strange, I am able to wake up within the dream and tell myself that it is a dream.

I'll bet 'Freddie Kruger' wouldn't like having me around all that much.

As synchronicity would have it I had a strange dream last night that for anyone else might have registered as a nightmare. I was not in a panic at any point during the course of the dream. I seemed to be aware for most of the dream that it was a dream. And I do not become overly concerned that I am a character in my dreams and that I do things that I would not normally expect. I completely understand that I am a metaphore for the protagonist in the dreamworld. I have understood that for sometime. It might be news to some of you but whomever you seem to be in your dream is may not always represent you.

In the dream it seemed that I was staying in a house that had a floor plan was very similar to that of my childhood home near the village of Selma, Ohio. In that house there was a breezeway that connected with the garage. It had been enclosed, perhaps even when the house was constructed, I do not know. There were black and white pictures of me in little bibbed Osh Kosh overalls crying my eyes out because I had sat down in the glue that my father was using in order to apply black and while resilient tiles to the concrete floor in a checkerboard pattern. That 'breezeway' had a front door and a back door and decorative knotty pine walls. It served as the home's familyroom for the almost nine years that we lived there.

In the dream there was a drywall partition erected in the middle of the room, effectively cutting the room in half. On the backside of the wall was a matress that served as a bed, I seemed to know that it was my personal space. It had the feel of something temporary though, as if it were only a short term accomodation, for a summer perhaps.

I remember that when I was ten there was a bed set there, in the same relative corner of the room. It was for my second cousin Norman Daniels to sleep while he and his brother Marvin were there for the summer building our new family home on Jamestown Road, closer to South Charleston, on a parcel of land that belonged to a farm that my father had just purchased and much closer to the main farms concentration of farms that my father operated. I had to give up my bed to Marvin for the entire summer and so I spent every night sleeping on a piece of foam rubber laid down on the hardwood floor in the livingroom. Maybe there is some connectivity in there between the dream and the past but it is a stretch.

I think the next part was so out of place that it clued me into suspecting that I must be dreaming. There was a blood stain on the patition and several punctures into the wall that appeared to have been made with a hunting knife. The blood stain surrounded only one puncture that was to the right side but halfway between the highest and the lowest punctures. The blood had dripped down onto the floor that was carpeted in a sand colored berber, just like the carpet in my present dwelling here in Satellite Beach, FL. I was staring at the pattern that oddly looked like the outline of the State of Israel. The blood came from the puncture that roughly would approximate the location of city of Jerusalem.

As i glanced down to the floor I was wondering who could have done such a thing and where had the blood come from. I was very worried abouit the blood stain of course and how I was ever going to get the stain out of the carpet. I distinctly remmeber thinking that I do not own the house and I am a guest.

As I stood there my attention was drawn toward the glint of light that reflected from a full length mirror. There I saw my reflection, except that I was clean shaven (I currently have a full beard) and that the front of my shirt was soaked in blood, my own blood that in near disbelief I realized was spurting with the pulse of my heartbeat from my slit throat. I looked down at my hand that was also covered with blood and realized that I was holding the sort of knife that had stabbed the wall and that I had apparently used it to slit my own throat.

I staggered with the realization that I must have lost a lot of blood. I stumbled over to the matress and collapsed onto it, fully expecting to die from my self-inflicted wound. It did not make sense to me. Why would slit my own throat, what did it have to do with the wall or the apparent reference to Israel? Why was the blood dripping from Jerusalem?

Whatever the reason, I was still lying there and bleeding but I was not dying. I heard a car pull up and the commotion of others outside. Jina came into the room and I jumped up, startled to see her and the kids. She looked at me and said something very strange like, "Now you ahve done it."

I asked her to call for help.

It was about then that I woke up within the dream, detatched as if I was observing characters acting out their roles in a play. It was a vivid dream and it had elements that were troubling but it was hardly a nightmare, at least not by my standards. To me a nightmare has to startle you from sleep in a heart pounding panic and cold sweat. I awakened from dreaming much as I would at any other time that I am finished with my nap.

What I had was a nocturnal delusion, not a nightmare at all.

I am not one to long dwell on the possible reason or meaning of dreams. That is not to say that a dream like this one would not give me reason to wonder for a little bit. I know I could easily find all sorts of symbolism in it. Let's leave it at that for the time being.

Anyone that would like to interpret the dream for me, have fun with it. Let me know if you come up with anything prophetic.

As I suggested earlier, some of the strange dreams find their way into a book eventually, though they are usually so greatly altered as to hardly seem akin to the origin. The section of Book 1 titled Seawall is based on a dream that I had in the around the first of July 1977, eleven years before Rob, my son was born. I personally think it was a dream about the origin of life. I could be wrong, though.

When I was at The University of Texas, I had any number of strange dreams but one stands out only because it would present a very strong case for a dream serving as a promonition, soemthing that I am not sure I even believe in. It also stands out because it was a dream that I had recorded in my journals and by actual date. It happened on November 9, 1979, exactly ten years before the fall of the Berlin Wall. I have thought a little about this one becasue it was so vivid and realistic. Dreams usually aren't that way at all.

Let's begin with this: my birthday in 1979 was the 34th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe, which is pertinent in some way that I will suggest later.

I dreamed that I was in a room with people from several other countries. I particularly remember seeing the little flags sitting on a table in front of the other members of the conferrence and remember the Union Jack and the Maple Leaf so I know Great Brritain and Canada were there. It appeared to be a conferrence of some sort and we were discussing the problems associated with restructuring the German government to accomodate the reorientation of resources from the former Communist sectors that were to be annexed into a reunified federal republic. I was having a conversation with someone from Canada and said something to the effect that re-educating two generations of people that have never known anything except Communism would be the real challenge.

I remember being so taken with the clarity of the dream that following my next American Foriegn Policies class I discussed it with my instructor. He laughed in response to it and generally dismissed it as it was a dream anyway. He said, "A couple of generations, well that would put it in the next decade now wouldn't it? I wouldn't hold my breath that it was a premonition or anything that might prove true. It was only a dream. There is a very complex situation over there and not one that would be resolved even within the next two or three decades. I am afraid there will likely be two Germany's for a very, very long time."

I have wondered if that instructor even remembers the conversation that we had. When I was in the service I told a few people about the dream. I mentioned it to a couple of the people that I worked with in the intelligence community. The general concensus was that it was merely a dream and who in their right mind would put a lot of faith in the substance of a dream. No one expected what happened or that it could happen quite as rapidly as it did. After the fact it is pointless to say that I knew it would happen. I really did not believe that it was possible either. Except that I had a strange dream that made me ask if it was possible, I would have never believed it either. When it happened I remember thinking that I had been given a gift of premonition and had done little or nothing with it.

To complete what I suggested previously, there is another little synchronistic element to the dream about the reunification of Germany. I was 34 years old when the Berlin Wall fell. It was on the tenth anniversary of the dream.

Over recent years I haven't paid a good deal of attention to my dreams. I am really skeptical about dreams having relevance and meaning. I play with that idea in my books and I even sometimes poke some fun at it. I know for a certainty that people who focus only on their dreams are doomed to miss a good deal of the signals that come directly from life. I suppose dreams need to be put into context. It is all part of the information that you have to understand the world around you and your reaction to it.

Having said all that I write my dreams down and they often end up in my books, eventually. The impetus for much of the Wolf parts of the series One Over X were sourced in dreams. The inspiration for all of it was nevertheless Ela'na. Even so I had many dreams about Wolves during the summer of 2000. A lot of that made it into the series.

Sweet Dreams to one and all.

E

posted by Unknown @ 8:15 AM 0 comments

Another Few Things

I couple of days ago I became re-acquainted with a customer. There were some issues with the computer that she had bought in my store and since she and her husband are virtually neighbors of mine, I stopped by to have a look. I cleared up a few things and hopefully I fixed the problem. Working on a Windows machine takes patience sometimes.

If I could have afforded an Apple in 1994, I would have perhaps never learned as much as I have about computers. The fact that someone owns a PC with Windows on it forces the end user to learn how to maintain the operating system. Well, over the years I think I have confronted just about everything either on my system at home or in the process of trying to effect a repair.

So I am ambivolent about whether it was a good thing to start out on a PC. It led me toward another career. It perhaps even led me to writing the books. That might not have turned out in the same way had I bought an Apple.

I am tempted by the impending release of the Mac Mini's, though. $500 might be affordable for me. We'll see.

I digress.

I used to hate that expression: 'I digress'. I really haven't seen it much since college. I tried never to use it even then. The fact that I used it in this Blog disturbs me a little but it sort of fit.

Then again, how else do you return to the point after going off on some tangent without subjecting the reader mental whiplash?

Mental whiplash is how one reader expressed their emotional state while reading From the Inside To The Closer. It is not an 'Elgonism', though I may use it in the future. For those that have never known me I come up with expressions that are entirely mine and mine alone. Those are Elgonisms.

'Productive procrastination' is an example of an Elgonism. If you ever see that anywhere else you will know its source and that it has been hijacked in this electronically connected world. 'Productive procrastination' is continuing to work at accomplishing the overall task while having slipped into a much lower gear so as to regain strength or determination - as in you are moving between houses and have to unload three refigerators, a washer, dryer and a piano all on one load. After the piano and before the refigerators, you pick up a small box or two and carry those into the house. That is productive procrastination.

Anyway.

As synchronicity would have it, when I was out at the customer's condo I learned that her husband, Craig is a fellow writer and also a very talented illustrator. He gave me a couple of his stories to read and showed me many examples of his skills as an illustrator. Upon seeing his art and reading his text I suddenly feel so one dimensional.

I have to confess that I have been busy getting my truck repaired and taking care of everything else so just today I made the time to read the two examples of his work. I really do not read as much as I used to. I am busy with my own things, my stories and such and sometimes my publisher asks me to give him an opinion on a submission. So I am out of touch when it comes to contempoary literature except for the improptu reviews I get from my daughters on books that they have read.

One of Craig's stories is intended for children. It is quite interesting even for an adult reader. I find that it has a good deal of detail and shows a keen insight and wealth of knowledge regarding wild animals and their behavior. Even so most of it is written on a level that most 3rd or 4th grade children could read and enjoy. I would only suggest one change to it as it is a bit graphic in a medical way at one point regarding the sorts of things that come up from a Gorilla's stomach. I don't know maybe kids would be okay with that though. When they were younger my kids would think it was cool. My issue with it is that it does nothing to advance the plot and therefore by that simple rule, it could be eliminated.

Does it advance the plot? What a powerful editing tool to keep a writer's personal agenda in check! My undying thanks to my publisher and his friend the English professor at Yale for pointing that out to me.

Craig, in all seriousness, as delighted as I was with the quality of the first story I was blown-away by the second story, which was addressed toward a more adult audience. It shows a great deal of reasearch and for those of us that have had occasion to study some of the physical sciences, and have had to wrestle with the inconsistencies of our religious upbringings it is particularly apt. It is a short piece, 8 pages but I could see it as the foundation of an off-beat sort of movie. I think you are building on it, though. I think you have the makings of a great short story without too much modification.

Having been told that everything that I write is a little weird, I am not going to toss that label out lightly. The second story was well-written and I especially liked the dilemma for the main character Galileo, and how we are not quite certain of his choice at the even although we know that he found peace.

As I do not have your emails but I know you are going to check this Blog, you now have my opinion. There are some typos and some edits needed but generally the text was very clean. You have a keen eye for detail that comes through in your writing as well as your art work.

Honestly, you need to publish a collection of your ink drawing of animals. From what you showed me, you have a rare and perhaps singular gift in this age that rivals even the great John Audubon. Like him your love for wild animals comes through in your artwork.

E

posted by Unknown @ 5:37 PM 0 comments

Why I Even Bother?

It has always been a belief that I was intended to write. I am not certain where the impetus originated. I am not sure that it is even necessary to fully comprehend the reasons for what I choose to do in life. I have thought about it a lot and have yet come up lacking a clear rationale.

It is certain that no one in his or her right mind would ever write with the hope of making a lot of money. I think the odds are better for winning the lottery or perhaps being crushed beneath the mass of an elephant that just could not fly. Even for the writers that are fortunate enough that their skills and talent are appreciated and rewarded, converting any royalty income into an hourly rate would demonstrate the futility of writing in order to earn a living. There are far more lucrative ways to spend the time of day.

I write because the desire to write has generally been with me. It may seem very odd to read the confession that follows as I can generally claim to have been a writer or at least in the writing mood for most of my life. Still, for a very long time I chose not to write. I suppose that I was too busy with other things, among them serving in the military, learning Chinese Mandarin, and then later on making a living for my family. A little before any of that I had reached a point in 1981 when everything that I had written seemed trivial, thin and lacking of substance.

I destroyed most everything that I had written, except for a novel in progress that at the time I thought was completed and a few notebooks that I didn't realize I was keeping. Everything else, some 20,000 pages I would estimate, went into a dumpster at my apartment complex on East 38 1/2 Street in Austin, Texas.

I remember pretty clearly what triggered the great purge of pages. It all started when I was resting on the sofa in my apartment. As I was prone to do, I had CNN on the TV for background noise as I took a nap. I had just finished taking exams for the semester and I needed to complete four more courses to receive my degree. I planned to attend both summer sessions in order to accomplish that.

I had been interviewing for jobs and had even gone on a few trips to visit companies for follow-up interviews. Despite having interviewed with a good many companies only three went well enough that I felt I even had a chance. I flew to Ft. Worth for a tour of the facilities of a oil extraction company. Then I flew to Houston for an interview with a bank that knew that with the upcoming deregulation that they needed to get some marketing people onboard even if they didn't quite yet know what to do with them. They interviewed me for a personnel position. And finally had a trip to to Miami to interview for the international operations division a very large banking company.

I had been hopeful of landing the job with that bank in Miami. The job entailed traveling extensively throughout Latin America. I felt that I was uniquely qualified in that I had studied some Spanish and Portuguese while I was at Purdue University. I had more recently minored in international business. The problem was that had I known when I was at Purdue that spending a little more effort at acquiring Spanish and Portuguese might be a determining factor in landing a very good job, I might have opted not to attend this or that party in lieu of cramming for a foriegn language exam.

It was my birthday. I was lying on the couch, half listening to CNN, I was pretty depressed. I had been rejected in my bid for the job that I had really wanted. It was not a standard form letter, though. Someone had been concerned enough to have explained the reasons. In light of what I would do over the ensuing years, it is ironic that the reason I was not hired was that they doubted my ability to acquire fluent command of foriegn languages.

I took the rejection as a time for me to regroup, redouble my efforts and become even more focused on finishing my degree. I did not need the distraction of writing. I had already written a book. Someday I might go back into that book and have to revise it. Deep inside I knew that even though I was finished with the story, it was not a completed work.

CNN was in a self-congratulatory mood over having defied their critics. Hardly anyone except Ted Turner believed in the viability of a cable TV based all news network. Even so CNN had lasted longer than most industry experts had thought it would. Billionaire Ted had taken the risk and defied the odds, as billionaire entrepreneurs seem prone to do.

I don't know why but I took the CNN report as something of a personal call to action. I was 25. I had a degree and soon I'd have another. I was written a book. Those three things were the sum of my accomplishments. I had lived for a quarter of a cedntury and has not done much of anything at all. I felt that I should have been in a better situation. I had pinned hopes on landing a job and now that I had been rejected I was depressed and trying to nap on a couch in my apartment in Austin Texas. I felt like a total loser. I was a loser but I had not resigned to accepting defeat.

Disgusted with my response to the rejection letter, I got up and went to my desk in my room. I wanted to reassure myself that at least my writing was pretty good. As I began reading some of the drivel that when I was writing it I had thought was insightful and witty, I was mortified that I could possibly believe that it was even adequate English. It was vague, filled with typos and essentially pointless.

I firmly believe that an amatuer writer should never read his or her own writing. Having said that I know that it must happen and whenever it happens the reaction might be pretty much the same as mine. I was so disgusted with my writing to the point of destroying what I completely believed was everything that I had ever written, except for the novel. For some reason I did not have the heart to open the novel at that moment. Rest assured that it survives to this day only because I did not open and attempt reading it. The writing in that novel was no better than anything that I threw away.

The years that followed I had written advertising copy and stocked grocery store shelves. I lived near the beach and was pretty-much a health freak, the sort of annoying prick that always gave others advice on what they should do to lose weaight and exercise. All along I pretended to still be writing but in truth I was not.

I joined the military, learned Chinese Mandarin to a certain level of fluency, traveled to Asia and worked for a couple of years. While I was there I inadvertantly told someone that I had studied journalism for a while and suddenly I was given a desk job and the responsibility for writing a unit history. The previous unit historian had produced a marginal effort. I soon learned that all I needed to do was write a history was complied with the Air Force regulations and publish the required copies. It was like an open book test, really.

It took a lot of time and effort to compile the information and enter it into an old Wang computer for word processing. However I learned that it was much easier to write using a computer. It was my first experience with a personal computer. I had done a bit of programming in college but I was amazed at the power that the word processor had. The unit history was really the second book that I ever wrote. As it received an Outstanding rating I guess it was appreciated even if it could never hope to be widely read.

Somewhere along the way Jina and I finally decided to marry and start a family. Afterwards I had every reason not to write. There were other people that depended on me.

I returned to Texas and served out the remainder of my military service in San Angelo. From May 7, 1981 until January 13, 1987 I did not write much of anything in the way of fiction. There is amazing synchronicity in those dates, is there not? I remember it was a Tuesday when I started to write stories again. I had not felt well the previous evening. I woke with with a fever and so I had called off sick from work. I have to be very sick to call off.


I am not sure what compelled me to drag out my typewriter on 1/13/87. I certainly did not feel well enough to sit at the kitchen table and hammer out a page or two of nonsense. I remember that I wrote about how miserable I was feeling that day, fictionmalizing under the name of Andrew L. Hunter. Who would ever want to read that? Write about what you know, though. I knew I felt miserable; it was somewhere to start.

For a while I wrote a little something almost everyday. I was frequently interrupted, of course. Life as a father can be that way. That little baby that cried so much and kept me from writing is in college now.

Soon enough what I was writing turned into the foundation of a journal. I didn't intend to ever do anything with it. Perhaps I thought it might serve as a historical reference one day should my son ever want to read it. Jina thought it was pretty silly, really. She always thought I should have a purpose for whatever I was doing. Life to her was far too important and time way too valuable to waste doing something that had no focus or goal. She was right of course. Writing is probably the silliest thing that anyone could ever do. It is completely and utterly pointless and without worth, merit or value...that is until the writing is polished into something that approaches art.

The trouble is that in order for a writer to get to the point of taking raw text and transforming it into art, he or she needs a lot of practice and experience. That is why writers have to write - almost continuously. Writers have to find their comfort zone and adopt the craft of creating beauty with only the written word as the medium. It helps to have talent as a foundation. Some writers are born with more raw talent than I ever had. The only thing that I had going for me was a eye for the ironic, that and I could always find humor in almost any situation that was just short of tragedy. I do not laugh at the misfortune of others. Well, unless the other is a pompous ass deserving of a good firm god-smack.

The economics of writing has never made much sense to me. I haven't made much money from the endeavor but since I didn't expect anything, I have not been disappointed.

I probablywill never know why I write. What I do know is when I started, paused and then resumed writing. I know that whenever I wrote anything it was never with the intention of actually doing anything with it. The only reason that something I had written was published was as much the result of boredom with my life in the late 1990's as the need to rebuild my pride when Jina pretty-much removed the kids from my life for while. Out of that pain I had written a couple of things that I thought were pretty good. The books evolved from that.

E

For more information about books, go to www.acbooks.com

posted by Unknown @ 9:23 AM 0 comments

Excerpt From Upcoming Book 3

Notice: The following is a sample from One Over X Episode Three: An Extreme Departure. It is presented here for the promotional use of this Blog. It is copyrighted material (c) 2005, Elgon Williams and may not be used except for its expressed purpose without the written permission of the author, Elgon Williams.

Mang Bhong

Magus held his head in his hands, wondering what it could possibly mean. Could it be that another Wolfcat had died while accompanying him? Was his presence so cursed? Why did this simulation seem so bent on forever turning against him? How was he ever expected to learn if he was forever repeating the same failure?

He dangled his legs over the edge of the cliff. The spray from the waterfall soothed his sunburned skin. He leaned back on his hands and wrists and half expected or at least hoped to see the flapping wings of a dragon off in the distance. He needed to talk to Master Moe. What did Moe expect him to do now? The Wolfcat had perished once again, this time in a freak accident. As before death had come just before realization of her full potential!

It was his fault. How could he recover this scenario now? There were others of the Wolfcat blood. The Pack would have to choose another and he would have to hope beyond all hope that the next Wolfcat might have enough of the goddess in her to fulfill destiny. She would obviously need help. Somehow he would have to enlist the aid of the Mang Bhong, at least until the Dogs arrived.

Why was it so complicated? There were always variations. Damn Anseil for his attempts at managing the scenarios! He should have killed him. There had been a chance, once.

It was obvious that Moe was not coming. Perhaps the accident was really not intended. It might have caught the Master off guard as well. Magus stood up, turned back toward the mountains. He did not want to cross the mountains or even to negotiate the mazes that the Fenok had constructed beneath them. He withdrew a small Amulet from an inner pocket of his robes and clutched it in the palm of his left hand. He closed his eyes and threw back his head. The tails of his robes fluttered in the swirl of wind that surrounded him.

When he opened his eyes and was where he desired to be. He returned the Amulet to his pocket and continued toward the clearing of that lie just behind past the large boulders. When Magus entered the camp silence fell over the Wolf Pack. Even the young stopped playing to look up. Magus was well known to them even though he was rarely seen. Whenever he was seen, it was rarely for the good. Had something bad happened? Did this have anything to do with Ela’na’s disappearance?

Trip sent word immediately to the cave where Mang held vigil over Red. Mang emerged with Copter knocking out his steps as he came out to meet Magus. Mang had heard of Magus, not always good things though. In fact until he had met Ela’na he had never heard anything good at all about Magus. Like everyone else in the Pack, Mang felt this visit did not bode well. As his eyes met Magus’ his worst fears were confirmed. Magus could not bear to look Mang in the eye.
Magus held out his left hand. Mang just looked down at it. “It is a custom to grasp hands when meeting,” Magus said.

“It is a stupid custom,” Mang said. “Besides is it not the right hand that is custom?”

“So it is. Most respect the custom regardless. As I understand it, a hand that is in the grasp of another cannot brandish a weapon.”

“And if I needed a weapon to harm you, that might be important.”

Magus pursed his lips around a slight smile. “You know me?”

“I know of you. You are the renegade apprentice that likes to be called Magus, as if you are the only such being in the world. You are not even a full fledged Wizard!”

“It is apparently true what I have heard of the Mang Bhong and their conceit.”

“It is hardly conceit if it is supportable.”

“Arrogance then.”

“Arrogance I can accept.” Mang smiled though his face seemed to complain at the effort and emotion.

“I assure you that I am a Wizard.”

“That remains to be seen,” Mang said. “I assume you have news of The Wolfcat.”

Magus lowered his eyes for a moment but it was enough to confirm all that Mang expected, all but how it had happened. “You owe the Pack a story, then. I hope it is the truth.”

“First we will speak in private.”

“What purpose would that serve?”

“I have a proposition for you.”

Mang was intrigued. “Come to the cave, then. Perhaps if you really are a Wizard as you say there are some tricks that will aid Red.

“I have heard of his mortal wounds. He is yet alive, then.”

“Closer to death to be sure, but he is stubborn.”

Magus nodded. “I can do only what I can do.”

“It could do no worse than the c’eun of sitting here watching and unable to do anything. Come.” Mang showed Magus into the cave and bade Copter to remain outside. Copter waited for the others to enter before assuming his usual post across the threshold of the cave.

Magus went immediately to Red, studied the coloring of his tongue and looked at his eyes. “He is very near to death.”

“He waits for Ela’na to return.”

“He will wait for a very long time.”

“She is not dead?”

“I am uncertain. I saw events that must have killed her but there is no body. I searched long for evidence. I felt that the Pack needed to know. I have brought a similar message to them before. In that I delayed beyond need in my grief.”

“It is a story that the Elders often tell. For whatever reason, the Elders do not blame you for that death. It is obvious to me that if you were there, you were involved if not responsible for her death.”

“You are very astute.”

“I will trust you as far only as needs be. If you truly know the Mang Bhong then expect my skepticism.”

“Yet you trust the Wolves.”

“I trusted Ela’na, Red and a few others. Trust is earned. They deserved trust.”

“They trust you.”

“They accept me. Their acceptance was conditional, however. If Ela’na accepted me the others accepted me.”

“The exception was Red.”

“You are also astute.”

“The Cat seems fond of you.”

“Copter is a nuisance. Nothing more. Ela’na felt that he should belong. Perhaps she senses worth in him that I do not see. He is loyal. I will grant him that. In her absence he has seemed to cling to me.”

“Loyalty is important, especially toward a leader.”

“You are suggesting that I lead the Pack?”

“It was my thought.”

“I am neither Wolf nor Wolfcat.”

“You are beyond them yet they are within you.”

“You know the Mang Bhong better than I suspected,” Mang said.

“I have studied the events of Sabat from afar.”

“Their grip on the Mang Bhong is firm for now. It is tenuous, but temporary. The Mang Bhong live long and can be patient.”

“The Mang Bhong think themselves beyond their masters,” Magus said.

“It is obviously the case. The Sabatin surpass us only in their arrogance and numbers.”

Magus smiled. “But they band together to fight a common foe.”

“There is use in the way of the Mang Bhong as well. It is unlikely that there will ever be a last Mang Bhong.”

Magus drew a pouch from the pocket in the lining of his robe. He shook the contents out into the palm of his hand, held it out. “This is a piece of The Foundation.”

Mang cocked his head to one side as he observed it, reared onto hind legs and assumed the form of a very different Beast. Magus withdrew the stone for an instant, somewhat startled by the ease with which Mang could transform. Then he offered the stone for observation anew.
“I have seen this before, “ Mang said.

“You have seen one quite like it.”

“The Wolf Stone that The Wolfcat wears.”

Magus frowned. “Wore.” He returned the stone to its protective pouch.

“You found her Wolf Stone?”

“No.”

“There are two?” Mang asked.

“There were seven. Four are outside this context. Three were resident.”

“I see.” Mang returned to his more familiar form. “Ela’na did not know these things?”

“She knew only what I told Eltath, and more recently only what I told her. Eltath knew the power of the stone upon the Bearer and saw it drain life from me. She also knew its healing powers. Ela’na seemed wise for her tender age. This was also an effect of the power.”

“Wise in Lore not in deeds. Still Red’s wounds were beyond her.”

“She was young after all,” Magus smiled, remembering her fondly. “Do I sense some jealousy?”

Mang coughed. “I had some feelings for The Wolfcat. And her cousin Jade.”

“Both of them?” Magus laughed out loud.

“As you have said there is both Wolf and Cat in the Mang Bhong.”

Magus shook his head. He conjured a comfortable, padded chair from nowhere and fell back into it, resting his hands on the chair’s arms, the stone floating in the air before his eyes, spinning and glowing ever so slightly. “Are you aware of the overall purpose you serve in the balance of things?”

“I am aware that the end times approach.”

“The end of some things but the beginning of others.”

“Endings and beginnings are consecutive points in a circle.”

“Yes, quite.” Magus met Mang’s eyes. “Take the stone, hold it in your hands. Feel its power.”

“It is your power. This is why you want to rid yourself of it. You desire to maintain what is yours not feed the hunger of the universe.”

“Then take it.”

“It will drain me as well.”

“Hardly. You are a Mang Bhong. I am, on the other hand, human.”

“Other than the relative frailty of your body, what is the distinction?”

“The Wizards are selected because the Masters can be control us.”

“The Sorcerers.”

“Never call them that. Yes, that is how some know them.”

“You rebelled,” Mang suggested.

“So I did. I learned much but hardly all that I needed to know. Life since my departing Master
Moe has been a process of discovery.”

“You have discovered what?”

“I have discovered that I am far too weak to be of any use in what I need to accomplish. I have sought more puissant beings to enlist in my cause.”

“Like the Wolfcats.”

“Yes, the Wolfcats.”

“Now you seek to dominate a Mang Bhong?”

“Dominate is such a harsh word. I assure you it would be more a process of collaboration. Your first deed could well be the healing of your friend.”

Mang looked toward the slab where Red’s body lay, nearly lifeless. “This is your idea of a proposal, tempting me with something that affords me no alternative?”

“What I propose cannot be done out of selfishness. This is why the stone drains energy from me. Yet out of sacrifice for the well being of another, your selfless act could grant you access to power beyond your wildest imaginings.”

Mang looked back at Magus. “It is not entirely selfless. Now I am aware.”

“You would do it to help your friend. That is the work of your heart and soul. That is pure. Whatever is done out of that selfless essence cannot harm you.”

“When I do something for myself...”

“You diminish your energy.”

“I see.”

“Now you understand.”

“It explains much. All Wolfcats knew these things?”

“A few. You know more. If you are to be my partner in this, you need to know all of it.”

“And what is withheld?”

“How to destroy me,” Magus said.

“Even so, you know the route to my demise.”

“Everything has a weakness, even the mighty Mang Bhong.” Magus smiled to reinforce his sarcasm.

Mang studied Magus but found no sign that he really knew the secret. It was a bluff, perhaps. Yet he could not see how he could not know. Nevertheless he did not trust this self proclaimed Wizard. It was uncomfortable for him to even be in the cave alone with him. He suspected that he was to blame for whatever happened to Ela’na and was certainly to blame for what had happened over an X’eun ago to Eltath. Still there was no alternative that would aid Red except for what was offered to him. “Will it work?” Mang finally asked.

“I cannot guarantee. I do not know how deeply your heart and soul are involved with this Wolf. If it is truly friendship that you feel, you may well save him. The choice is yours.”

“If I decline your offer?”

“It remains as it is. Red may hang on a few more c’eun. Perhaps I am wrong in assuming Ela’na death. She might return in time and be able to save him. Even if she returned…”

“A small chance.”

“A very small chance, yes. I know that is not what you want to hear my friend…”

“I am not nor will I ever be your friend.” Mang snapped.

Magus stood, and the chair disappeared from beneath him. “ A figure of speech. You may not want my friendship but you can ill afford to keep me as your enemy.” He held out his right hand. “Return the stone to me if you do not accept it.”

Mang stared into the self-proclaimed Wizard’s eyes. What purpose would his defiance serve but to doom Red? “I accept it.”

Magus smiled. “I thought so.” Magus said smugly. “Then, by all means, help your friend.”

“I get no instruction?”

“A moment ago you were so independent, so complete, so above any other…”

“Spare me the sarcasm. I do not know how to perform this level of magic.”

“Magic is illusion. In that sense it will work only because his wounds are as much illusions as his very being in this world. You must believe in the magic you conjure while you disbelieve the illusion. You hold in your hands a part of the Foundation of the Universe. It is what existed before anything that you believe might now exist and it is what will exist when all is one again. What further instruction do you need? The magic is within you and it is everywhere around you.”

Mang held the stone with arms outstretched, focusing in on the stone, concentrating and feeling the strength in his body flow down his arms toward the stone. It glowed dimly, then brighter after a few moments until it radiated so bright that it was like the light of three suns had entered the cave.

Flashes of energy discharged from the stone into the walls of the cave as Magus chided. “You are wasting energy. Direct it!”

The white light turned blood red and the air was thick with the swirling dense vapors that encircled the stone. The thick red vapor suddenly dropped into the still body of Red. Then all was black.

Red opened his eyes, slowly adjusting to being within his body once more. At first he had no idea where he was or how he had come to be there.

Mang stepped back, securing the stone and hiding it in a pocket.

“Mang?” Red whispered as he squinted. “Is that you?”

“Yes, my friend. Rest you were wounded very badly.”

“Wounded? How long have I been…?”

“A very long time, my friend.”

“Damon?”

“Dead.”

“The others?”

“Many died. Many lived.”

Red tried to move but could manage little more than his head. The long struggle had left him so weakened that he could barely even look from side to side. It was all that he could do to even talk. “Where are we?”

“In a cave in the mountains,” Mang replied.

Red closed his eyes once more, took several deep breaths and appeared to have drifted back into sleep.

“He will need food,” Magus said.

“He will need to be cared for as a pup for a while,” Mang said.

“Agreed.” Magus nodded. “In the meantime there are urgent needs to be addressed. First you must assume leadership”

Mang turned back to tend to Red. “I will ask Trip to call the others together. For the time being I will remain here. "

“You will need to come to the Council as well,” Magus said.

“I do not sit in Council. It will be by their decision alone that I will lead. If they do not want me to lead, then so be it.”

“Then the Pack is doomed.”

“How so?”

“There is no one left that can lead them. Do you honestly feel that Jade, Alina, Saffron or Tweety is worthy of the role that Ela’na served?”

“There are many males that …”

“That are not ready."

“And I am?”

“In your favor you possess detachment. To be effective a leader must sometimes take the difficult course that the majority would never choose. When the strongest leaders ruled, the Council defended the leader’s decisions. The Pack cannot always be ruled by consensus. This is the fundamental flaw of rule by Council. There were times like the times that are upon the Pack right now when a strong leader needs to tell them exactly what is necessary. Any of the Council that might be chosen to lead would lead by doing only what is popular. Such will invariably lead the Pack into retaliation against the Hovdin, a move that the Pack is not ready to make. The Pack cannot win against the Hovdin. Not yet.”

Mang turned away, hoping against all hope that the Council would defy Magus. What could he possibly know, anyway? The only thing that he had ever seemed to bring to the Pack was bad news. Still, what if he were right?

Mang did not want the mantle that Magus was forcing upon him. He wanted to be left alone. He wanted to do what he wanted. If that meant staying with the Pack, then so be it. When it came time for him to go he wanted to be free to depart, without feeling burdened with any responsibility.

“You will lead them, then?”

“I am an outsider.”

“Really. Well even if that were true before, that will change now,” Magus said. “I will explain what needs to be done.”

“I am not a Wolf.”

“Technically, neither is a Wolfcat.”

“I do not look like a Wolf. In no way could I ever be mistaken for a Wolf. How do you expect that I will lead them?”

“You made your choice.”

“I chose as I chose for his sake.” Mang looked at Red.

Magus smiled at him. “It was a good and honorable choice. And now you understand the power of an Amulet. In this you are advanced beyond any Wolfcat that has ever led the Pack.”

“They will desire one of their own to lead. Perhaps another Alpha as well as a Wolfcat.”

“I will speak with Gold,” Magus said. “Night and I had an understanding. I am sure that Gold will be as cooperative.”

Mang sat down on the floor beside Red.

“He will be fine,” Magus said. “He needs to rest and finish healing.”

“I will be along shortly,” Mang said.

“As you wish.” Magus smiled. He turned away and stepped lightly over Copter so as to not disturb the large purring Cat and made his way outside. After a time Mang joined him and together they sought Trip to gather the Council for a meeting.

* * * *

Some of the Council resented the presumption of Magus to call a meeting of the Council. Others were old enough to know that it was anything but unprecedented. Magus felt that they were his Wolves and that they did his bidding. For their part the Wolves did not see it quite that way. Even so, the members of Council, what remained of their former number, gathered together at Trip’s request to hear what Magus had to say.

In the absence of a Wolfcat, Gold had carried out the role of leadership for routine matters with the consent of the Council. Magus coming before the Council and in the absence of the Wolfcat concerned all and many feared what they were about to hear. Magus simply did not come to the Wolves unless there was a problem and often as not he brought with the most horrendous news.
Magus needed no introduction. Once the Council was gathered and Magus stood before them, there was silent attentiveness to his every word. “I bring word of Ela’na and a story that is difficult for me to tell. I do not know with any certainty except the circumstances and appearances surrounding the events. It is my fear that Ela’na has tragically died.”
He paused to allow the immediate response of the Council to subside. “How did it happen?” Gold asked.

“Ela’na left the Pack in order to challenge Death’s Shadow for the spirit of Red. This I know because she told me the story. She succeeded only in her own survival, which considering her adversary was quite significant. In due course as she attempted return she lost her way. She ended up on the eastern face of the Mountains, far from here.”

“Why did she not turn back to the West?” Trip asked. “Ela’na knows East from West. Surely she understood where she was.”

“Where she was there was no easy way to turn and go back. She could not return the way that she had come as she did not know the way and she had negotiated the darkness of caverns beneath the mountains to arrive where she was. She hoped to find a pass and was planning to travel south in order to find it when she was captured. She was taken far to the east over the plain and toward the great ocean. By her power and courage alone she survived the ordeal. Her captors tortured and tormented her yet she prevailed.”

“Where were you in all this?” Gold asked.

“I was in Vala’ha. It was there that we met. We left Vala’ha together and I was with her until the accident. It was not an easy course that we took and we traveled through the night to arrive at the cliffs near Mount Fenok. We climbed the cliff during the heat of the day. Something I would not recommend and we did only because of the urgency of our mission, to return here and care for Red. Yet we were successful in negotiating the cliff. Atop the cliff and across the plateau there is a mountain stream near to where we were. We were going drink and then look for a cave to rest. Tragically, the ground beneath her feet gave way and Ela’na fell into the rushing water and was carried downstream toward a great falls. I attempted a rescue but failed.”

“Where is her body?” Trip asked.

“I never found the confirmation of my suspicions.”

“Then she may yet be alive.”

Magus nodded. “It is possible though considering the situation that she was in, it is very unlikely. Even so, we were near to Mount Fenok. It is well known that the Fenok serve the will of Master Gawl. If she were alive and fell into their hands she perhaps would be better off dead.”
“The Wolf Stone?”

“I fear that the Wolf Stone was lost with her and may have found itself into the hands of its former Master.”

Gold shook his head. “Then it is clear that we must choose another Wolfcat to lead us. There are three among us that are mature.”

“If I may impose.” Magus began. “These are perilous times for the Pack. Ela’na told me of the migration and of the Hovdin treachery. The balance has been forever altered. The world has changed and never will it be as it once was. Dammerwald is a charred memory.”

“You tell us what we already know,” Gold said.

“I can only suggest as the Council makes the final determination. I suggest a radical change of thought. There is one that is more powerful among you than any may realize. I have given to him an Amulet very like the Wolf Stone that he may do with it what he will. He has already used it in order to restore the spirit of Red.” He paused for the murmuring to ebb. “Mang Bhong should lead.”

“Mang?” Gold scoffed. “You can’t be serious!”

“Without false bravado, who among you could defeat him in battle?”

Gold smiled. “Mang is a admirable hunter and a worthy adversary in any battle - but a leader? He has always been so, so…”

“Quiet?”

“Aloof is more the word.” Gold replied.

“He is an outsider. Ela’na chose to permit him entry into the Pack. For good reason.” Magus said.

“How could she have known?”

“She did not know. She knew only the quality of character within him. Mang is up to the challenge. Who among you had the faith that Red would hang on until the c’eun of his deliverance?”

“You delivered him not Mang.” Gold challenged.

“I assure you, Gold. The Magic in the event was all Mang’s. I do not trifle with such petty matters.”

“Bringing back the dead is petty?”

“Red was not dead. He was dying, yes. He was nearly dead, certainly. Still he was not dead. Bringing one back from the dead is something that even I will not do. I was tempted once...” He let the though trail off into silence.

“Then where is Mang? If he seeks leadership he needs to be here,” Trip said.

“Mang will come if you summon him,” Magus said.

“I cannot fault him for his loyalty to Ela’na and Red. If he wants to lead us he needs to lead!”
Trip growled. “I for one do not care who the leader is as long as the one that leads will lead in fact, not merely in name.”

There was general concurrence among the Council.

“Mang is such a leader,” Magus promised.

“It is unprecedented.” Trip protested. “I have nothing against Mang. He is without peer as a hunter, at least with the present complement of hunters. He is steady and reliable. To be our leader…”

“Requires what more?” Magus asked. “You want even now to retaliate against the Hovdin. You would not be Wolf to think otherwise. I say to you that to pursue this course is certain death for all. Mang is not Wolf. He is more rational in such matters. He understands that outnumbered is outnumbered.” Magus drew a deep breath, considering whether it was wise to say what he desired to say then, considering all that had gone awry, decided to say it anyway. “Wolf will fight along side Hovdin very soon. The common enemy will determine the alliance.”

A hush fell over the gathering. So silent were they that Magus waited for a good, long time before uttering even another word. He chose exactly what he needed to say. “If you could see the future and still not understand it because of your closed minds, what good would it do. This c’eun all Hovdin are your enemy. In due course they will save Wolf and Wolf will save Hovdin. For it to be otherwise would be disastrous to both Hovdin and Wolf.”

“I will not dispute what you see in the future. What do I know?” Gold said. “If I am to fight beside a Hovdin I would prefer not to know the circumstances just yet as that must be the most dire and desperate of situations.”

The Council laughed although Gold had not really intended anything that he said to be taken in a humorous way.

Magus simply nodded toward Gold. “Support what I request then.”

“I will,” Gold said. “With one stipulation.”

Magus looked deeply into Gold’s eyes. He saw that it was nothing beyond what Gold expected to be salient. “Name it,” Magus said.

“There must be a Wolf in a leadership role. There will be a Wolfcat, an Alpha Female.”

“Of course,” Magus said.

Gold lowered his head. “I love Saffron like a sister but she could never lead. Alina is by far the most intelligent but she is too quick to leap to conclusions and at other times she can still be indecisive. Ela’na was the best choice for Wolfcat. Yet I labored over the decision for a great while. Jade was as good and at times the better alternative. In other considerations Ela’na was best. In my mind Jade is not a second choice but an equal in every way to the choice that I made previously."

“You would have Jade as Wolfcat?” Trip asked.

“There could be no other,” Gold said.

“If there is objection.” Gold challenged the Council. No one spoke out.

“Then Jade is The Wolfcat,” Magus said. “She will rule alongside Mang.”

There was no protest or objection. Magus smiled broadly and he cleared his throat before speaking. “You have this c’eun determined that the Pack will survive in some way.”

At Magus’s request Mang had come forth. He stood before the Council in silence until the remaining whispers of discussion ceased. Every eye was upon him. It was unthinkable. Although a member of the Pack he was not a Wolf at all. How could Mang lead the Pack? Despite the prior determination, some of the Council wished to reserve judgment until there was proof of his abilities. Their consent was provisional, and only because Jade was chosen to stand beside him.

“I do not desire leadership,” Mang said. “There is no ambition in me for a long-term role. I can only contribute what I may contribute. When it is time for me to step aside, I will.”

“Then why lead at all.” Trip asked.

“If any other will lead, then let him lead,” Mang said.

“I chose him. “Magus said. “There are many tests ahead of the Pack. I do not see success without Mang’s leadership.”

“He does not sound like he wishes to lead.” Shadow spoke out. Magus immediately shot a glare in his direction.

“What if Ela’na returns?” Trip asked.

“What if she does not and we are without leadership?” Shadow asked. “If Magus believes that she is dead. That is good enough for me.”

Magus smiled in his direction restoring faith in his secret apprentice.

Mang cleared his throat and waited for the entire gathering to become silent again before speaking. “The moment I fail to lead you challenge me, any of you. I will accept any challenge. If I am wrong I will step down. That is my promise. I will serve well and lead well. I will not be anything that I am not.”

“And if Jade differs with you?”

“That may happen,” Mang said. “She is a Wolfcat. I am not. She may be right. I may not. I suspect this will be a very rare situation. I cannot defer to her in all situations but I can promise to listen and between us we will decide. Ela’na did not always agree with Damon else this Pack would no longer exist.”

Gold smiled broadly as Mang stepped to one side. “We have an Alpha Male and a Wolfcat. Any opposition, speak now.”

There was no debate, no discussion nor any dissent. What had been decided stood. The Council looked at one another and Trip suggested adjournment and even without a vote the gathering dissipated. Mang went back to the cave to be with Red. Magus followed a short distance behind. The only one that was oblivious to the Council’s proceedings was Jade.

When Jade heard she believed that it was a joke. Yet the ‘joke’ persisted and no one was laughing. It was not until that she heard that Ela’na had perished that she believed the rumors. She then sought confirmation. When she approached the first Council member that she found and he bowed down before her she knew that the rumors were true.

Jade cried. Ela’na had been like a sister to her. To have lost a sister…Jade was inconsolable.
Magus had transformed into a Wolf as he followed Mang back into the cave. When they had arrived Red was still resting and so they chose not to disturb him. Even so Mang obtained some milk from a nursing mother and fed it slowly to Red, in hopes that it would help rebuild his strength.

Mang resumed his place beside Red while Magus took up a post near to the cave entrance but away from the swirling breeze that sometimes swept into the entrance. He was tired and wanted nothing so much as to rest. He cared not at all that he had to sleep as a Wolf, on the hard ground inside a cave. He was so tired and so accustomed to traveling that the ground felt as if it might be a comfortable yet firm bed. Moments after he stretched out he was snoring lightly.

When Magus awakened in the morning, Mang was already chatting with Red. As he sat listening it became clear that Mang had not been awake for all that long either.

“Ela’na brought us here?” Red was asking.

“Yes,” Mang said.

“It is good, then. We can plot strategy and we can…”

“You rest. There is much to discuss later.” Mang interrupted.

Magus tried not to speak. He really didn’t want to be noticed. There was a time and a place for everything and he had assured the pack of Red’s survival and of Mang’s leadership. It was time for him to leave. Yet leaving unnoticed was impossible. Red had caught glimpse of him, “Who is that?”

“Magus,” he replied. He returned to the light and he transformed into a human again.

“Magus? Where is Ela’na? Something bad has happened to her?”

“We hope not,” Mang said.

“Something has happened, then.”

“What is important is that you are well now. Rest. We will talk more later.”

“Tell me!” Red tried sitting up but succumbed to the weakness that remained in of his body.

“I cannot say for certain what happened to her. She is missing,” Magus said.

“Missing? What is that supposed to mean?” Red asked.

“We were traveling together. We were coming here to save you.”

Red shook his head.

“Don’t try blaming Red for what happened.” Mang protested.

“I was not blaming anyone. I was stating simple fact. The reason Ela’na left the Pack was to face Death’s Shadow in order to regain your spirit, Red,” Magus said. “The sad truth is that she had it in her power to do that all along and she never needed to leave you.”

Red laid back and stared at the roof of the cave. “She is not dead,” Red said.

“I hope you are right,” Mang said. “But…”

“I am right.”

“We all hope that…” Mang began again.

“Damn it Mang. I know what I am talking about. Ela’na is a goddess. She cannot die!”

Mang stared at Red but when Red felt the heat of his friend’s eyes and stared back Mang averted his eyes.

“You can’t possibly believe that she is dead, Mang.”

“I do not know what to believe.” Mang turned to Magus. “What happened exactly? I have to know.”

Magus untied his robes and let them fall to the floor around his ankles. The scars on his bare chest and arms echoed the agony of unimaginable tortures. He turned slowly to reveal the stripes of the taskmaster’s lashes on his back.

“You were a slave?” Mang asked.

“The Master Moe freed me of the bondage on Ea. So I believed. I was not so young then, when he took me as an apprentice. It is dangerous to teach the art and craft to one as old as I was. I was a willing and eager pupil, though. I learned quickly and learned much. Then I was tempted. I wanted power beyond that of my Master. He possessed an Amulet, what you call the Wolf Stone. He claimed it was the key to unlocking the powers of the Universe and yet he refused to use it. I could not understand. I thought in my youthful arrogance that Moe was a fool. Surely to have the power and not use it was folly!”

“What does any of this have to do with Ela’na?” Mang asked.

“It has to do with the Wolf Stone. The Wolf Stone has everything to do with Ela’na!”

“Let him talk,” Red said. “I’d like to know the secret of the Wolf Stone.”

“I’m afraid you won’t learn the secret from me.” Magus said. “ I do not know it. What I know is that Moe was wise not to use the Wolf Stone. I was the fool. I gained immortality because of the Wolf Stone but I lost my desire to live forever. A cruel irony is it not?” Magus drew a deep breath and the scars on his body vanished. “The scars are no more for any to see. Are they not still there? They are there for I remember each of them too well. What difference does any other’s perception make to me? Does anything exist without someone to perceive it?”

“You teach us philosophy,” Mang complained. “You wish to confuse us until we have forgotten all about Ela’na.”

“Ela’na is important in all this. At least she was. I fear that if she yet lives she lives only to carry out the dark will of Master Gawl.”

“Ela’na evil?”

“Evil is within each of us,” Magus said. “It is a very short path to take us toward serving Evil.”

“Good as well.” Red challenged.

“We exist in a balance between the extremes,” Magus said. “Yet having each within makes the turning toward darkness easier as the universe tends toward chaos and that is the negative direction. Once the turn is toward evil all the ill forces conspire to prevent the recovery toward good. I was evil. I should know.”

“How are we to believe that you have now turned toward the good?”

“I am uncertain that I have turned,” Magus said. “I will not lie to you. I am yet fighting. I will forever be fighting.”

“How can there be uncertainty? You do not know whether you are evil?”

“No. I do not know. The deception can be perfect. Ela’na could serve evil unwittingly. She could have also served it willingly without anyone else knowing. If she lives then she might live to further evil aims,” Magus said. “She might never know. We have both fought the same enemy. I am not sure that I won. I cannot speak for her but doubt that she knows the outcome of her bout, either. Evil covets the Wolf Stone. Possessing it and the potential that it represents would tip the balance in nature toward the negative. So devious was the scheme, and so confusing the maniacal design. For one to believe that progress is moving away might be precisely what serves evil best.”

Mang looked to Red then back to Magus. “How did she get lost?”

“She fell into a river and was carried down stream in the rapids. I tried to save her but she passed beneath a ledge and over a great falls. She must have died in the fall or drowned. I cannot say. I did not see the body.”

“She could live,” Red said, clinging to the hope.

“She could,” Magus confirmed. “It was a terrible fall and surviving it would be a miracle.”

“There is no way to know?” Red asked.

“Or even whether you are evil?” Mang added.

“There is no way except to trust your own instincts,” Magus said. He knelt down to pick up his robes from the floor. “I go now. You have matters to tend to and so do I. You will inform the Council as need be. They will decide what they must decide. In all things Mang and Jade now lead.” Magus stepped over Copter’s purring, slumbering body and disappeared into the shadows outside the cave's mouth, leaving Mang and Red alone to wonder about the future with a different Wolfcat.

posted by Unknown @ 11:04 AM 0 comments

Truck Problems

Since I do not believe in coincidence, I will not claim that it was conincidence. I have owned two Chevrolet products in my life, not counting one that my father bought for me when I was 16. Both vehicles within the first 3 years of their life had faulty alternators. It is just enough that I will not be buying another Chevrolet.

I do not think there is grossly less quality in a Chevrolet it is just from my experience I have had fewer problems with other brands. My son Rob reminded me of something someone came up with that turns Chevrolet into an anagram. Constantly Having Every Vehicle Recalled Over Lousy Engineering Techniques. Apparently some satisfied Ford owner did that in response to the Found On Road Dead anagram.

Rob has helped me deal with the inconvenience. I am using his car to ferry the girls to school. As I do not expect my truck's repairs to be completed today it is likely that I will be using his car to get to work.

I posted a short story a couple days ago. I have edited it a bit since and have made the changes to the text that appears in this Blog. As I warned, it is a work in progress. It is getting better every time I read through it. When that ceases to happen, the story is finished. That is how writing works.

E

posted by Unknown @ 6:51 AM 0 comments

Tribute to the Soul and Spirit of a Great Man

As a tribute to a great man that humanity lost in 1968, I am posting in its entirety an as yet unpublished short story that I have been working on for several months, titled "In The Way of Humanity":

(Disclaimer: what follows may be revised later on as it is technically still a work in progress.)

The Story:

He remembered the way. During the first eighteen years of his life Brent had been over this very same road many times, having driven on it to and from school for the last two of those years. Even in the worst conditions he knew what was just ahead. After all the time that he had been away, he still remembered.

His first home was nearby. He expected that some things had changed but hoped that some things still remained. At least the course that the road cut through the gently rolling hills of the farmland was the same. At the bottom of the ridge just ahead was a bridge that spanned the river that had formed a wide and fertile valley. He pulled off to the side of the road and carefully steered the rental car onto the berm to park. Wisps of pre-dawn mist hung low clinging to the tops of trees on either side of the river transforming the innocence of the rural valley into a dark, forbidding fantasy world where some unexpected evil might lurk. He remembered a similar morning in his youth when he had imagined seeing dark, shadowy beasts that dwelled in the fog. They had turned out to be only cattle but in his mind they seemed a legion of demons.

The low beams from the rental car’s headlights illuminated the feathery bottom of the low hanging clouds, lending a surreal quality to everything. He shivered and smiled as the sensation of fright passed leaving gooseflesh even more so than the chill of the air.

He walked over to the edge of the abutment. Despite the inconsistent eeriness of the mist-diffused light from the car, it was pretty much as he remembered it except that it seemed much smaller and was just as weathered and cracked with age as he felt he had become. Brent had crossed the bridge a thousand times but this time he had come a thousand miles just to confirm that it was not just a fragment of memory. The bridge was unimportant to him except that it symbolized a period in his life. Recently he had been reminded of something that had happened when he was very young. He did not need to return home; no one was expecting him and frankly he doubted anyone would even remember him. He had come to confirm the validity of the place as well as the memory he had recently revived.

He had fished from the edge of the abutment and several times he had actually caught fish. He didn’t recall ever landing anything larger than a silver-sided minnow but for a five and a half going on six-year-old it still counted as an achievement that made getting up early in the morning well worth the effort.

Bill, the man who took him fishing, had always climbed down the side of the abutment and onto the bank of the river where it passed beneath the bridge and from there he seemed to catch a few mud cats every trip. He’d fill an old five-gallon metal paint bucket up to half witrh river water to keep his catch alive until he could take them home and clean them. Bill was good at fishing but in Brent’s opinion he was much better at cooking.

Bill was a good friend of Brent’s father. At least that was how Brent perceived their relationship. He was too young to fully understand the intricasies of roles and relationships. As anyone his age might think, he believed that others were there for the sake of his care or amusement. Even if he had known that Bill was a hired hand who worked on the farm that his father operated it probably wouldn’t have mattered much.

He was best friends with every one of Bill’s seven children, their two hunting hounds, and three barn cats. He was closest with Beverly and of course her favorite cat, Lulu. It was natural enough. Beverly was his age and since the cat was with Beverly much of the time, Brent played with Lulu as well.

Not only did Bill take Brent along fishing with whichever of his kids that wanted to wake up in the dark before dawn and join them but also Brent spent most every summer afternoon playing under the cool shade trees in Bill’s yard. In Brent's mind Bill was an uncle, one that happened to live close-by and not in that faraway place that his parents referred to as Kentucky.

Bill had already played an essential role in Brent’s early life, having saved his life. It happened when he was a toddler and therefore he was too young to personally remember the incident. Still he knew what had happened. The story had been retold so many times that he knew every detail from as many different perspectives as there had been observers and participants.

His father had been standing on the far side shoulder of US-42 talking to Bob Ingles, a seed corn salesman and brother of Jim the mortician in nearby South Charleston. As a young child might want to do Brent had wandered away from his mother in search of the father that he idolized and managed to open the front door that had been left ajar when his father had gone outside. He made it all the way down the driveway undetected and ventured out onto the highway, trying to cross over so that he could be with his father.

Bill had been thrusting and hauling a rotary mower up and down the banks of a ditch cutting the tall grass that had been allowed to grow there since the last time that the county had trimmed the roadside. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed where Brent was and the proximity of a rapidly approaching tractor-trailer rig. By the time that the driver of the truck saw what was happening, it was too late to stop. He tugged an overhead the cable to sound his air horn as a warning even as he applied pressure to his brakes and downshifted in an effort to at least slow his progress. Bill had thrown all caution aside and assumed that the agility and speed that had once been almost legendary when he was in high school could successfully tempt fate one last time before he once again accepted that he was getting too old to try such crazy things. He ran out in front of the oncoming truck, snatching-up little Brent in his arms before diving headlong, rolling down into the ditch on the far side of the road and narrowly averting tragedy. Had Bill not acted as fast as he did, Brent would have surely died.

Brent’s parents were extremely grateful, even expressing their undying gratitude to Bill. Although nothing had ever seemed to come directly from expressed gratitude, Bill continued his employment until his untimely death some ten years later.

As Brent grew a bit older, he was very fond of playing with Debbie, Bill’s niece. Debbie was large for her age and outweighed Brent by at least half. She loved to wrestle him and, of course in the end she would always triumph just by sitting on him and laughing as he pleaded with her to get off. Unable to accept the humiliation and being too immature to understand the meaning of a lost cause, Brent would wrestle her again and again expecting a different result but always suffering an all-too familiar outcome. It was crazy but it was not in Brent’s character to give up.

As his school years approached, it was Bill’s next-to-the-youngest daughter that had really caught Brent’s attention. He had decided to his immediate satisfaction that Beverly was the prettiest girl he had ever seen. It was possible that she was the prettiest girl he would ever meet. It seemed very likely that she was the prettiest girl in the whole world. Of course Brent had not consulted with others for their opinions, but he knew what he liked. She had wonderful freckles adorning her cheeks and reddish brown hair that she usually braided into pigtails. What he liked the best of all was her eyes. They were as dark and rich looking as a Hershey bar, almost black as they were so deep brown. Whenever he was around her he could not help but look into her eyes. He could lose himself for moments at a time locked in her gaze. Sometimes his attentions made her uncomfortable but other times she rather liked it even if he was staring.
In his youthful innocence he even fancied that one day he would marry her. It seemed natural enough. They were neighbors, really. They were growing up together and were already inseparable friends. They got along so well. She was incredibly pretty. It seemed to Brent that it had to be their destiny.

He remarked to his mother something that he would later and forever regret. He had learned the hard way that words once uttered cannot be taken back. He made a huge mistake and because of it his world changed abruptly. It turned out to be one of the greatest errors of his childhood if not his life but it was said and so he had to live with the fact that he had confessed, “When I grow up I think I’ll marry Beverly.”

He couldn’t understand why his mother was so adamantly against the prospect. He didn’t understand her objection at all. Didn’t she always like having Beverly around the house whenever she came for visits? Beverly always helped her in the kitchen. What was it that she meant when she said: “You and Beverly are from different races.”

“She sure does run faster than I do,” Brent confessed innocently misunderstanding.

“Her skin is darker than your skin. She is a colored girl, a Negro.”

“I like her skin, especially her freckles.”

“You can’t marry her. God never intended for white people and colored people to marry.”

As Brent finally began to understand, he was devastated. He even tried to defend his case for a while but his mother was adamant.

He ran off to his room, closing the door, burying his face in his pillow so that no one would hear him cry. When he had cried about as much as he could, the thought of the pain he felt returned and from somewhere deep inside him, more tears came but thoughts accompanied them He began to reason as best a six-year-old could manage. For the first time he allowed that his mother could make mistakes, that in this instance she was wrong. Even so he would not confront herdirectly. For the time being he had to obey.

Of course he had noticed that Beverly’s skin was a little darker than his. He wasn’t blind. He kind of liked that about her. It suited her very well. Her skin matched her enchanting eyes and her auburn hair. He wasn’t even certain if his skin matched his blue eyes and almost white hair. He suspected it was normal as no one had ever indicated that it was not. Still his skin hair and eyes didn't seem to be a color-coordinated as Beverly's.

Beverly certainly didn’t get sunburned as easily as he did. He envied her that. She could play longer in the direct, west central Ohio summer sun. That seemed like a pretty neat thing to him. He even wished he could be more like her in that way because whenever he was outside without having applied lotion to his skin he immediately turned pink and very shortly it turned red and soon after that it started to hurt. After an hour it would start to blister so badly that he had to stay in bed for a day or so and writhe in agony as his raw skin clung to the bed sheets every time he moved.

As pretty as Beverly was it was her personal charisma and charming smile that had really completed her perfection. He would always regard her as his beautiful even if forbidden soul mate. He had to be content to watch from the sidelines as the events in her life passed him by. He did not accept the pseudo differences that his mother had determined were grounds to keep them separated but he did not know how to fight back. How could it be that in his mother’s mind such a good girl was excluded from any consideration of suitability? She was Bill’s daughter! That was his uncle, the very same man who saved his life and to whom Brent’s mother and father had expressed their undying gratitude. Had all that been merely a platitude?

It wasn’t until school started that he even saw her again. When she asked him why he no longer came to play, he had resorted to using the convenient excuse that he was getting too old to play with girls anyway.

Over the years, he had never really forgotten the pain but he had to set it aside. Many times he had probed his mother’s logic but it always came back to what she had told him.
“God never intended white people and colored people to marry,” his mother’s words echoed. Had she presumed to know God’s exact feelings on the matter? Why was it even possible for members of different races to conceive a child? Immaculate Contraception has to be at least as simple a feat for the All Mighty as Immaculate Conception.

Even as a youth, Brent knew the way of humanity. People largely have no power over nature. When someone is compatible, there is no resisting the physical and emotional need for companionship. He had heard about something that was supposed to have been hushed-up. In the community there had been an interracial baby. He had even seen the little girl before the girl’s mother forced her to give her up for adoption. She had darker skin and very curly hair but everyone said that she was cute. Apparently it was not only possible for different races to conceive children but very often the resulting offspring was amazingly beautiful and often gifted as well.

His elementary school teachers used to boast of the American 'melting pot', stressing the importance of cultures intermingling in American society to give the United States a unique character as a nation and a people. Strength comes from the synergy of multi-ethnic diversity. It was a lofty ideal but made a good deal of sense to Brent. As he matured he decided that it was also largely a myth. In the America of his youth anyone was welcome as long as they were willing to learn English and adopt the prevailing majority’s values.

By the time that Brent was a teen he was mature enough to understand that his mother was human and not only was she capable of making mistakes but like anyone else she was the flawed product of her upbringing. He suspected a lot of things that he had previously accepted at face value. He had to wonder if it was only the darkness of Beverly’s skin that offended his mother. What confused him was his father’s proud assertion of his Native-American heritage. The inconsistency was perplexing. Even though the ancestor was sufficiently remote on the family tree to have rendered the relationship statistically if not genetically insignificant, it was an historic fact. Still, he wondered why to his father and implicitly his mother as well Native-Americans were more acceptable than anyone of African descent. To be considered worthy of association, how light would skin need to be? Would someone that looked white be okay or was it just the stigma of slavery that superseded any other consideration in the overall appraisal of a person’s worth?

There was something in his mother’s logic that just didn’t jibe. To Brent it was as irrational as it was indefensible. His mother was a decent and devoutly Christian woman. She had always insisted that he be honest and truthful. She told him that he should treat others with respect and dignity as that was also the way he would want to be treated. She had taken him to Sunday school throughout much of his childhood and so he had read a good deal of The Bible even before he understood much of its meaning. He had read enough to know that the people of the Old Testament were once slaves and that Jesus of the New Testament was born of those people. Brent had to assume that God must hold a special place in His heart for the souls of those that through no fault of their own except for the accident of birth were bound to serve others. Even the idea that God might condone treating another race differently smacked of self-serving hypocrisy. Of course slavery had existed for a very, very long time and barely a hundred years before it had been defended as a right even in the America of the free with the shed blood of thousands. Obviously the hypocrisy of one human owning another was not at all beyond humanity’s periodic tolerance if not outright acceptance.

As Brent went away to college, he allowed some wiggle room in defense of his parents and especially his mother. There might be something that he had missed. After all, what made him an expert in all things? Maybe there was segregation even in Heaven. What if a part of it was under the power a White God while another part was under the rule of a Black God and for whatever reason the two Gods just hadn’t been on speaking terms for eons? There might even be a separate Heaven for each of mankind’s other races. There could be Heavens for other religions as well. If that were the case then there could easily be a Heaven for every species? As best anyone could tell, there had always been lot of emptiness in space, or rather a whole lot of nothing in the Universe. There was certainly more than enough room to accommodate all sorts of separate, extra and special-condition Heavens.

Brent shook his head within the recollection of the troublesome and sometimes painful confusion that he had wrestled with even until his early adult life. Inadvertently perhaps, his mother had passed a life sentence of frustrated confusion upon him and the only reason for it was that he had confessed sincere love for someone that was only a little different. The difference was less than a fraction of one percent of the human genome, he had learned in the process of researching a book that he was writing.

As a man he was rather proud that he had once had a certain kind of blindness. It was a gift, not a disability. Until his mother had exposed the harsh truth of the way the world to him, everyone was a person first and foremost. Until she had pointed out that there even was a difference called ‘race’ he had believed that people were just people; all the same except that each was a unique minority called a person. The blame for the loss of his innocence to the way of humanity was all his. He should have never said a thing. Some secrets were intended to be kept from a man’s mother.

He could have lived very well without thinking that his mother was racist. Until the fateful moment of her decree he had not even known there was such a thing and certainly it was some years before he knew the label for it. After he knew what to call it he denied that his parents and especially his mother could be so unenlightened, so deviated from the truth that he knew deep in his being. Certainly his parents were the products of their environment and their upbringing. They had been children in Kentucky in a time when segregation was not only accepted but considered a proper solution to the dilemma of dealing with Whites and Blacks in the same community.

He had never broached the subject with his father but Brent had always doubted that his dad would have had the same issues with his intentions toward Beverly. He might have been concerned with the social stigma for the sake of any children. The social climate at that time was hostile toward interracial relationships and was not forgiving of those that decided to buck traditional values.

Even his mother may have had the same best intentions to protect him from the hurt that society might inflict. Who else but his mother would ever matter enough to him to stand in the way of whatever he desired, of whatever would make him happy? Perhaps it was that his mother was thinking of her embarrassment. Had she not raised him in the right way? Then he considered that his mother might find any woman unacceptable for her son. It was finally that answer that allowed him the delusion to deal with the otherwise blatant bigotry. His mother had some personal reasons for not accepting Beverly.

Too many days had turned into weeks, months and finally years as his path diverged from Beverly’s. She grew-up to be more than just pretty; Brent had become merely another young man with aspirations as yet unrealized. She matured with elegance and style that transcended her modest, rural upbringing; he had left the community and except for brief visits with relatives he had become a stranger in his old hometown.

The last time that he returned home to see an infirmed aunt, no one outside of his cousins and siblings recognized him. Even then some had commented as to how much he had changed. He had matured and filled out. It was understandable. Ten years was a long enough time to become a stranger in appearance. His hair was much shorter than it had ever been since he was a child. He was a little taller and much more muscular. His stint in the military had hardened his body and stiffened his resolve on many things that were immediately and suddenly relevant to him, such as standing up for and defending what he believed in.

It was during those years of absence, away from the direct and continual influence of everyday American culture that Brent had lost track of Beverly. He had thought about her often enough to rekindle some of the hurt that he had endured, but each day seemed to separate him even further from the places and traces of his origin. The hurt was hidden away, behind obligation, service and duty. Memories of the past and the dreams that he had once held dear were locked away or perhaps buried along with the passing of this or that relative. Such things mattered only marginally to his maturation and integration into the mainstream of the gainfully employed society of which he was a military member.

Over the course of his experiences in the larger world, occasionally there had been some news from home. For instance, he knew that Beverly had been something of a track star in high school. It had been all over the local papers even when he was attending another school. She even set a state record in a couple of running events. That didn’t surprise him at all. As fast as he was, he could never keep up with her.

As she was somewhat tall and lanky as a teen, she had played basketball on a district championship team that in her senior year had competed in the state tournament and made it to the semifinals. Somewhere along the way when he was starting college his sister had told him that Bill’s daughter, the girl that he used to play with had won a state beauty pageant. As pretty as she had always been the news did not surprise him.

She had earned scholarships for her academic and athletic accomplishments as well as the awards won in several beauty pageants. Wisely she had stockpiled her cash prizes and consolidated the scholarships. She had applied for study grants to help her pay for tuition, room & board and expenses in pursuing a degree that she could fall back on for whenever her speed and beauty began to fail her.

Brent did not know the extent of her success as he didn't have the time or inclination to really followed such things. If it had not made it onto the front page of a national newspaper or onto the national news that he might have seen on the Armed Forces Network he would have never known about it. He was narrowly focused on surviving and accomplishing his mission as his chain of command defined it.

Although it was largely obscured from Brent at the time, while he was outside of the country she had not only won a statewide pageant but also had gone on to finish second runner-up in a national beauty competition. He only heard about it in passing well after the fact and then only because his oldest sister had sent him a newspaper clipping. The article was enlightening for him and served as a way for him to catch up on some of her recent accomplishments.

While Beverly was in college she accepted modeling jobs in order to make some extra spending money. By the single accident of showing up for a specific modeling shoot, she had learned that she had perfect feet and her ankles were exactly suited for modeling shoes. For a couple of years, modeling new shoes led to a fairly steady income.

One of the other models that had become her friend told her that she had the sort of face that the camera would appreciate and suggested that she attend a facial makeup seminar. As a result she met an internationally known and respected photographer that wanted to work up a portfolio for her. Later, because of the pictures that the photographer had shown to an agent, she obtained representation. Within a few weeks, she landed a photo shoot for some facial makeup products that were directed at the ethnic market. All along the way she was making contacts, remembering people and more importantly their names and the commitments that they had made to lend her support if she ever needed anything…anything at all.

Her image had already adorned the pages and sometimes even the covers of catalogues and several trade publications that were directed at the fashion industry. Even as she was finishing her degree and graduating cum laud, she had wowed a campus recruiter and landed an entry level position with a major fashion design firm. Even though she pursued two careers, one official and one unofficial, she never really focused on modeling. It had always been a temporary job, something to tide her over until something better came along. To her amazement, even after she had landed what she considered a dream job with wide-open opportunities, she was still offered modeling jobs.

Within six months she had advanced three rungs up the proverbial ladder. She was an administrative assistant to an executive director. She barely had a moment to herself to feel as if she had arrived when suddenly she realized that time had blown right past her. For the most part it was her routine that carried her along. She was a very busy young lady and had been ever since she had started to support herself. She hardly even noticed when she turned 25. She might have even forgotten about her birthday altogether except that her mother called her to express her well wishes. Every weekday was filled with activity except it was largely indistinguishable from any other day’s tasks. Had it not been for the modeling jobs that she took on weekends or evenings, she might have submitted completely to the routine and totally lost sight of her overall dream.

Another promotion came as her boss moved up and he brought her to the next higher floor with him. In only three years she had scaled the virtually unassailable wall to become an administrative assistant to an executive vice president. She did eighty percent of the work and as he had learned that he could trust her to look out for him, he merely glanced at most of the operational memos and status reports that she produced before he signed to release them into distribution.

Although the modeling opportunities had diminished in number the quality of the work had improved dramatically. Whenever an offer came she was flattered. She felt that she was already past her prime and she was pushing the age that most fashion models expect to retire to start another career. Despite people telling her what great shape she was in and that she still looked 19 or 20, she was already beginning to have doubts. She was the one that had to deal with her face everyday in the harsh florescent light reflection of the unforgiving morning mirror. She had to apply more makeup than used to be necessary for her to present the look that she desired. With every ache and pain that she felt, she was certain that soon the camera would not be as forgiving or tolerant as it had thus far been.

More than anything else modeling had forced her to exercise regularly, which contributed to the energy that she felt throughout the day. As long as there were offers and she could work her other career around them, she intended to continue modeling. Still she did not count on it lasting for much longer.

As cautious as she had been there was one time when a modeling job had nearly interfered with her other job. She had some problems with a flight back from photo shoot in Cabo San Lucas. It was an important event and she stood a very good chance of getting into a national magazine if she was there, else she would have never risked it. However, getting back to New York City for work on Monday created anxiety of a sort that she had never expected or ever before had endured. Fog in Los Angeles had delayed a connecting flight in Dallas-Ft. Worth. As she sat alone at the gate in the terminal she was so worried that she might have to call in sick for work for the first time in four years that she could not sleep. Even though she could have used a few hours of rest, she was unable to relax.

Even when she was finally on her way back home she could not unwind. Anyway, she had never been able to rest well on a plane. By the time that she arrived at La Guardia she was physically exhausted. She had thought again of calling off sick but as she was bucking for a promotion that would have not been a good thing on her record. Even though there were only a couple of hours left before she needed to be at work, barely enough time to shower, get dressed, put on her makeup and grab a cup of yogurt as breakfast for the train ride into the city, she stayed awake. Once she made it to work she had to fight the misery of the sleep she had missed.

The reason that she was still modeling even as she was approaching the dreaded age of thirty was that Beverly had ‘the look’. As nebulous and intangible as 'the look' might be, some had it in ample supply while others came up lacking. The exact nature of it changed from time to time and from generation to generation. She was one of the fortunate ones that happened to have ‘the look’ that was exactly right for her times. Because she had it, the more that she modeled the more popular she became until finally, with some of the photos taken in Cabo San Lucas adorning the pages of a national magazine, she broke through into the mainstream and finally landed on the cover of a popular national publication.

It was more than coincidence that around the time that she was becoming a highly sought fashion model, the unofficial tolerance for her two careers changed. She had never kept her modeling career a secret. Early on it was even lauded. After all, she worked in the fashion industry and her presence had been used on several occasions to legitimize the firm’s presence in some key and very lucrative ethnic markets. She was a high profile example that they were attuned and in step with the culture. However once she had become too large for the corporation to control, a promotion that she had been desperately seeking, certainly deserved and was very well on her way to achieving was suddenly and unexpectedly awarded to another. Even her co-workers were surprised. Her immediate supervisor told her off the record that it was because they were afraid that she was using the company as a stepping stone for her modeling career. When she asked for the official rationale she heard for the very first time that it had been determined that her attentions were largely focused elsewhere and such distractions could not be permitted at the level of the organization that she was seeking. Even though she had never missed a day of work since being hired and had always worked her modeling career around her primary career’s schedule they suddenly suspected that all that was about to change. They needed someone totally dedicated to the corporation and willing to devote full energy to advancing corporate interests. They wanted to enslave her soul as well as her body and mind. She was not willing to give them what they expected. So they had chosen a less qualified candidate to fill the vacancy.

Despite her immediate disappointment and overall anger she maintained focus. She quickly made some plans and within the week she had tendered her resignation. In the following two weeks, on her time-off she made calls to the people who were in her address book, informing them that she was leaving the firm and that it had been a pleasure to work with them. She did not venture anything beyond that.

The way that she had been sidestepped was clearly in anticipation of her resignation and that might have been what really infuriated her the most. It wasn't that she was unprepared for the eventuality. In the back of her mind, maybe she even sort-of expected it. She had saved some money, lived in a nice but modest apartment, rode the train, always wore very nice clothes but it was usualy the articles donated to her in lieu of partial compensation for modeling.

She lived very comfortably even by Manhattan standards. She had considerable assets for a single person her age and had already thought of striking out on her own. Although the firm's treatment had come as a surprise, she had been ready. She made calls to friends and acquaintances. She called in all the favors and promises from the people that had told her along the way that if she ever needed anything to let them know. She had already assumed that most of the offers lacked substance. Much like promising to have lunch together sometime most had been vague and there was never any intention of tangible support even at the time that they were uttered. Still she tried them all, even suspecting which ones had been sincere. Even so, the support that had been offered in earnest was ample to establish the necessary foundation for a viable business. Along with the support of her six closest friends donating a week of their vacation time she was able to launch the enterprise, her own line of clothing.

At first she did photo shoots for the signature products that she designed, developed and planned to bring to market. Her image brought customers to the market and helped bring buyers to her company’s doors. It was hoped that within a year, just having her name on the label would sell the product. It was a lofty goal in a highly competitive business but she was determined to succeed, even if she had to compete against fashion industry giants, including her former employer.

After a few months, the insightful genius of her entrepreneurial efforts became evident. The fledgling business that had struggled for a few weeks was clicking just about according to the business plan that she had first created on a bar napkin. Due to her professional experience she had anticipated many of the potential pitfalls and difficulties. She refined her plan midstream to offer a somewhat detailed and intuitive approach to make necessary interim course adjustments in the future.

The company began to connect with distributors and wholesalers. Soon after, the initial orders turned into reorders and several supply contracts were signed with some essential outlets for factory-direct shipments. Her personal image and her promotional efforts created a sustained demand for anything with her name on its label. Cross-licensing ventures with exclusive distribution were further explored and several lucrative deals were inked.

In the first year the company turned a small profit while still expanding the business base and production capacity. In the third year the business incorporated. By the fifth year of operation stock was issued to fund further expansion into international markets and the stock was listed on a major stock exchange.

That also coincided with the official end of her modeling career. At age 33, she was apparently well past her prime and the offers for any photo shoots were mostly gone. The end of that portion of her life was bitter sweet. Fame ever fleeting and fickle had always been expected to end so when it came there was no surprise. Even so it was ironic that it was her products that she was now hiring other models to represent.

Despite the meteoric success of her company she was still the same ‘good girl’. She would forever be the little girl that had blossomed into a beautiful, considerate woman. She had never forgotten her roots or how hard she had to work at establishing her place in the world. She always made a point to look behind her and give back to those that needed a break or some help in getting a start.

In contrast Brent’s life had been anything but simple. He did not care for the comparisons to others that he had known in high school or college as he almost always came up looking like the lacking loser. Despite his failings he had served honorably in the military and experienced the sights and sounds of parts of the world that otherwise he might have never visited. What had he ever done in his life? At that point he was serving in a lower echelon component of a military intelligence unit 13 thousand miles away from home. All that he ever knew about Beverly was what little had filtered to him through the media or his sister.

Around South Charleston, Beverly was about as famous as anyone had ever been. Most everyone that lived within ten square miles of town knew a little something about her. Some things that people thought they knew were true while other things were fabrications or myths. Success was generally attributed to Beverly’s luck and to her looks. Most of her accomplishments were on a scale that invited abject disbelief and dwarfed the success of any other. The only other celebrity that had ever emerged from the town was Wayne, a basketball player in the late ‘50’s that had been a star for The Ohio State Buckeyes and had gone on to play professional ball for a couple of seasons.

Brent understood how hard she must have struggled to become who and what she was. He was not particularly amazed as it was her quality of character as much as anything else that had played in her favor. She was not a quitter. Like her cousin, he had wrestled her on several occasions and just as her cousin Debbie had forced him into submission so he had always pinned her. It had to do with size, weight and strength. Even so Beverly would always take on the challenge and fight hard. She never gave up. Brent had to tell her to give up. Even then she wanted to wrestle again. At the time he thought she was crazy to want to be punished again and again. But over time he began to understand that he had confronted her indomitable spirit. It became one of the lingering memories that inspired him whenever he confronted difficulty.

Beverly may have been born to be famous. It was even possible that she could have done anything at all and have still been successful. Still, it did not diminish her travail. Even if the force in the Universe that determined the allocation of good fortune had favored her, she recognized and seized the moment to exploit it. The success belonged to her.

When Brent returned to the States he heard the full extent of her accomplishments it stymied him. She had become a superstar, famous beyond anyone else that he knew and while she was only in her thirties she was already a successful CEO. He lamented not having kept in touch with her. There was no graceful way that he could congratulate her. He suspected that she had forgotten him, anyway. Had he stayed in touch maybe things would not have turned out differently but it bothered him that he did not even know her well enough to have her phone number to call and tell her how important her example was in inspiring him. If she could attain her dream then there was a chance for anyone with the determination. He had to get back on track and start writing again.

Despite the discouragement his parents, siblings, teachers and finally his wife, he had persevered with his dream for a very long time. He had made attempts to write even while he was away in the Service. When he returned home there was every excuse not to write. He had a family to support. Now that his marriage was over and his kids were grown-up there was no excuse. He found a day job to tide him over with his expenses even as he rejoined the course that he had long ago departed.

He wrote. In the warped way that he looked at the world, even the initial rejection of his material was an inspiration. Brent had already amassed a collection or polite rejection letters from every major magazine and publisher in the nation and hung them on the walls around his desk. He knew that when he became famous that he could point to each one of them as an example and inspiration to others that struggle. He found strength and resolve in that goal.

Most of the rejections were obvious form letters. More than likely his submissions were not even read prior to the edict of summary rejection. He wondered how many unsolicited submissions and spontaneous rejections letters it would take before someone actually bothered to read one of his stories.

Brent figured that as he had a relatively easy childhood so his adult life needed to be less facile and forgiving. Nature had always defined the quality of life through balance. Since leaving home his life had always been a struggle from one day to the next. Even so he kept faith. He did not have nearly the number of obstacles that Beverly had already negotiated and overcome. Her example and his knowledge of any portion of it continued as an inspiration to him. Whenever his troubles depressed him he had decided that he needed to take a hard and realistic look at himself before assigning blame for any failure in attaining his goals. He had determined that failure was beneficial in lending character to his inevitable triumph. He merely had to keep working at getting past the failure. Failure was usually set squarely in the path that would lead to eventual success. It was there to dissuade the faint hearted and prevent success from coming to easily to those that did not deserve it.

He had walked out onto the bridge and stood at the guard rail, looking down through the wisps of fog into the dark waters. A smile tickled his lips and finally emerged as a slight laugh. He was never one to show much emotion but as there was no one to see, what did it matter? He laughed about how seriously he had taken things. He had wasted enough of his life worrying about the next moment and finding a suitable destination. He had always believed that he was on the right course. He had decided that life was all about the challenge or the journey and not about arriving at all. With Beverly as his inspiration, he began every day with the faith that he would make it. There had been other people that mattered to him and almost all of them were gone from his life, either through death or the distractions of making a living. He was certainly on his own. Despite everything that he had been through he still had his dignity and his pride.

He was tired of trying to please everyone else. Some people just refuse to be impressed. It was just as well as everyone except for Beverly was gone. Maybe Beverly was the only one from his past that had mattered anyway. He had buried both of his parents, and the few aunts and uncles that he had known in childhood. There really was no one else that he was in touch with except for his two sisters, his children and on a rare good chance, his ex-wife. Except for birthdays, holidays and emergencies he barely spoke to any of them anymore. They expressed their love for him as a brother, a father or an ex-husband while ignoring much of if personal agenda and the irony that he found in an uncaring world to write about. They didn’t quite understand him and never really had. Once upon a time when he was too young to know any better maybe he had actually cared what others thought. Even so they all expressed their pride for his having finally finished some of his many projects.

As he stood upon the bridge a memory of a moment in the recent past warmed away the chill of the otherwise cool, wet morning. He had finally found the real Brent again, reconnecting with the curious little boy that he had once been as he looked into the eyes of someone he had once hoped to marry one day. After all the time they had been apart he had a freshly updated pretty face to associate with her name. He had been surprised and almost appreciative that someone of Beverly’s stature would even remember him at all.

After all of the expired and largely wasted time when it happened she might have been the very last person that he would have ever expected to see. Even so there was coincidence enough that if he had believed in such things it might have amazed him. There was an essential truth that served to bond them and in a saner world they might never have been apart. Each of their lives would have been different had they been together. Perhaps neither of them would have arrived at the levels of success but really did that matter? It was the cruelest sort of irony that unbeknownst to one another destiny along with whatever other forces of nature had finally conspired to bring them to the same place at the same time just to see what the two of them might make of the once in a lifetime, special made-to-order, gold-plated opportunity.

Unexpectedly, the keynote speaker for a seminar on technology and small enterprise had taken ill and regrettably he had to cancel. As a result an unexpected series of last minute urgent messages and frantic phone calls went out to publicists across the nation. In response Jonathan, Brent’s publicist had called to present him with what he considered a rare chance to expound his point of view to a number of influential people.

As a novelist and futurist, Brent had attended a few seminars and at times he had even been called upon to give a presentation. As a rule he hated giving speeches and despite his publicist’s insistence he avoided any chance of public humiliation. For whatever reason, this time was different. “It is a very important organization that is heavily involved with several important charities,” Jonathan said.

“Why call me? Is the organizer that desperate for a speaker?” Brent asked, just wanting to confirm his suspicions.

“He told me that he has read your books and feels that you think along the same lines as his organization.”

“Even if that were true, why would he ask for me? If he has really read my books then he obviously knows…”

“That you hate crowds. A lot of people hate crowds? Look Brent, here it is, plain and simple. Paul’s in a jam and he is a personal friend of mine. We went to high school together. He sat next to me in English and world history. The fact that I remember that trivial fact is an indication of just how well I know him. You know I am in a bind or I wouldn’t even call you. You are the last person on Earth I would normally impose upon to go off on short notice and pontificate on some subject that I am certain you can fake with one of your wonderful but meaningless speeches. Regardless what you think he had read your book and he did specifically ask if you were available. I wouldn’t ask at all if I didn’t think you were up to it. It is a subject that you enjoy even if you know next to nothing about it. It is a chance to promote yourself and your writing to an audience that probably thinks a lot like you do. To me it seems like a perfect situation for both you and the promoter.”

In the past whenever Brent had given a speech, most often it had been well received. At times he could seem brilliant and sometimes he was even entertaining. Jonathan turned down requests for him to speak on a fairly regular basis. Still Jonathan knew it was a gamble, putting Brent in front of a large group on such short notice.

Brent had always been odd. He was prone to say and do some rather bizarre things, depending on his mood and which version of him showed up at the event. At times he had been known to simply throw away his prepared notes and attempt to ad lib an entire speech. Often as not that meant utter disaster as the presentation disintegrated into the ramblings of a middle-aged man whose mind was operating at a level that was somewhat beyond the audience’s appreciation, tolerance or ability to comprehend.

“So where’s the event?” Brent finally asked.

“New York City.”

“Well, then that is a ‘definite not’,” he replied

“You told me you have always liked New York.”

“I do but for only for fun not for work and especially not for giving speeches. Put me in a room of real people and I can connect. There are too many phoney people in the big city.”

“Are you afraid they will detect you for the charlitan that you are?"

"Something like that," Brent laughed. "I might have to do some research."

"Brent, as your publicist I am giving you the offer but as a friend I am telling you that this is precisely the sort of thing that you need to be doing. The exposure alone would sell a few books. If you come off sounding like you know what you are talking about it might actually establish your credibility and may get you onto some national talk shows as an expert of this or that subject.”

“I am eccentric, aloof and all that. Whatever became of that image?”

“That is your goal, not mine. When you are more successful there will be ample time for you to run away from publicity. For now you can’t afford to be eccentric. Just for your future reference it takes a cadre of expensive lawyers to establish real eccentricity while keeping you out of mental institutions. You are not quite there yet. Take my advice, please. This is a onetime opportunity.”

“The reason I need a publicist is not to make me famous. I am already famous,” Brent said as he laughed.

“You could have fooled me.”

“Well, it is just that I have neglected to let anyone else in on the secret.”

Jonathan laughed in relief knowing that he had finally reached the innermost sanctum, the kernel of Brent’s strange logic that was the last refuge of the real Brent. It was the self-deprecating sense of humor that he hid behind concealing the writer within as he jealously clung to the curtain in the shadows off stage protecting a great intellect but also a tormented mind. “That is why I am here,” Jonathan continued. “Your previous publicist failed to properly promote you.”

“Is that what happened? Then, I should have fired him, er uh me a long time ago.”

“Well rehire the part of you that writes, just for me and get his butt up to New York City, please.”

“Whatever you want Jonathan,” Brent sighed, resigned to take the offer and the advice but then he also laughed. “God, do I have a great idea for a speech.”

“Keep it relevant and on the subject please.”

“Well it is I just need to research it a bit.”

“Good, then you really are going to make an attempt to sound like you know your stuff. Just to confirm before I tell Paul it's a go, you are completely on board with the presentation, right?”

“The hotel must be close to the venue, though. That is a requirement,” Brent said. “I hate riding around in the city, especially when I do not know where I am.”

“The seminar is in the very same hotel where you will be staying.”

“Okay, that is good. Book it then."

"Great!"

"You seriously owe me, though.”

“How is that? I am getting you some rare and very important publicity.”

“I am sorry. Did I miss something? I thought that I recalled accepting the offer as a personal favor to you for your dear friend Paul, the promoter.”

Jonathan laughed, “Well, whatever it takes.”

“I am appalled that you attempted to take advantage of me.”

“You can believe anything at all as long as the writer will make it to the engagement.”

“The writer will be there,” Brent affirmed. “I dare not speak for the rest of me at the moment. The multitude that is us isn’t completely on speaking terms.”

“You will make the flight to New York City, right?”

“Jonathan, I will be there. I promise. I will even be prepared and they will all be asking for copies of the books, begging for more words of wisdom and fruits of my diseased mind.”

“Great. That would work out beyond my wildest dreams.”

The presentation that Brent was expected to deliver was on the advancements in automation that would help control startup costs for small businesses. He had spent the better part of three days perusing the Internet and creating a rough draft of a speech. Even on the flight up from Florida he was on his laptop still revising the speech.

It was good that his itinerary had been arranged for him. He did not like to be bothered with the details of coming and going. It was enough for him to make a scheduled appointment. Brent was a little early when he arrived at the hotel. Even so the staff expected him. While the desk completed his check-in the staff took his bags up to his room. Afterwards, he went up to his room to check out the view, which was nice enough for a night stay over and then he spent some time walking around determining where the important things like ice and vending machines were located. Then he went back to his room and showered.

He arrived at the auditorium precisely on time. The organizer met him at the reception table outside and immediately ushered him off to one side, thanking him for coming on such short notice, the asking him for a quick personalized autograph for a copy of one of his books. “You really are a fan.”

“You have remarkable clarity of insight,” Paul said.

“Thank you.”

“I can’t believe you are really here.”

“Jonathan can be very persuasive,” Brent said as he sat down the leather case containing his laptop and projector.

“Well it is an honor. I know you hardly ever give speeches.”

“Let’s just say that Jonathan owes me for this one,” Brent replied. “He said you are a close friend.”

“I dated his sister for a while.”

“Oh, really. He mentioned something about classes you were in together. Somehow that never came up.”

Paul forced a smile. “He set me up with her and…well lets just say that it did not work out at all.”
Brent pursed his smile. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“His sister was very pretty at the time.”

“At the time?”

“Well I haven’t seen her recently. I assume she still is pretty.”

“I’m sure that she is,” Brent said.

“You’ll need to get set up before we start. I’ll make a few opening remarks then you can begin. I’ll show you where to go.”

Brent had crammed a crash course on the emerging technologies that could impact small business and had become remarkably conversant in a relatively short time. On some key points his knowledge even bordered on expertise. Even before his research Brent had some familiarity with associated technology and what he didn’t know he was quick to assimilate. Brent had always had the ability prep late for an exam and preparing for the presentation was hardly any different.

The moment that he stood-up from his chair and walked across the stage to the podium Beverly felt that she recognized him. As a key contributor to the foundation, she had been invited to attend the conference long before any of the slate of speakers was announced and she was sincerely dismayed when the keynote speaker had cancelled. She knew him personally and had always looked forward to hearing a refresh his points of view. She had not even known that Brent was to be the surrogate speaker and even if she had she might not have registered knowing him simply from seeing his printed name on the program. It had been a very long time.

For whatever reason, she had not associated the Brent that was going to speak with the author that shared some of her rural roots. It was only after he had started to speak that she made the associations. He was in the process of recanting an anecdote from his elementary school experiences that compared acquiring a new technology to the overall learning process. Of course Beverly remembered the incident. She had even been there to witness his first experience at making copies of a school newspaper the old fashioned, messy way - with a mimeograph. It was the reason that Brent had purple hands and a purple mark on his right cheek for a few days afterward.

Of course she had heard something about the books that her childhood friend had written. She had been meaning to make the time to read his work and suddenly felt guilty for not having found the time.

His speech was exactly the correct length and it was generally well received. Despite a couple of bizarre anecdotes, an outlandish proposition and a few farfetched predictions he had the attention of everyone in the room. Many of the things that he had said caught Beverly a little off guard. She was not certain what he favored in the balance between technology and humanity. At the conclusion when he asked if there were any questions, she stood and he immediately looked her way.

His first impression of her was that she was very well dressed and highly attractive. As she stood there before him she posed a question that cut to the heart of the social dilemma: “If automation controls costs by eliminating job opportunities for people, should the social cost be weighed prior to implementing automation?”

His answer was certainly not contingent on his failing to recognize her. He was halfway through answering her question before there was any suspicion that he might know her. “I believe that the intended purpose of technology should be to improve and enhance the lives of all people at every level of the social strata. Technology should never be used to replace productive individuals or eliminate opportunities for meaningful and productive employment. Technology should focus on the elimination of the menial jobs that hinder human progress, thus freeing the hands and minds of talented people to express their wealth of ingenuity and creativity in other more socially beneficial and productive ways. Technology should be used to encourage and even foster greater human development.”

It was the smile that she flashed in response to his answer that finally confirmed his recognition and afterwards he had great confidence that he knew her. Even so he doubted that she remembered him.

After the final speaker had spoken and the assembly broke out into the large ballroom across the hall for the reception, he had lost track of her. It was not until he had made his rounds, meeting and greeting others that he worked his way across the floor to where he spotted her.

As he approached, she was talking with a group of her friends and Paul, the organizer.

“Oh, Beverly,” Paul said as he tapped her on the shoulder to gain her attention. “Have you met Brent?”

“I feel like I have known her all my life,” Brent said.

“Because you have,” she said with a broad smile. “How have you been?”

“I wasn’t sure you would even remember me,” he confessed as his smile grew with his self confidence. He was exactly where he wanted to be, talking to the most beautiful woman in the room.

“How could I forget you?” she asked as she laughed.

“I must say I miss you in the braided pigtails. But this look is good, too.”

Beverly grinned in response before admitting, “I didn’t match your name on the program with the Brent that I grew up with.” It seemed that each of them had changed just enough that the other had not realized their relative proximity. She turned to her entourage of assistants and proclaimed, “We used to play together when we were kids. We were neighbors and our fathers worked together.”

Brent smiled and nodded in confirmation of what she said. Even when she was a little girl she had always said that their fathers worked together. When he was young Brent had not even realized that Bill worked for his father. Even after he knew it had always seemed to Brent that their fathers would have worked together regardless who was nominally in charge. They were both decent, hardworking men that respected one another.

Beverly’s father had worked with Brent’s until the tragic car accident that took Bill’s life when she was only twelve. Brent remembered that he and his father had attended the funeral in South Charleston. Brent had come to pay his last respects to a man that to him had always been his uncle. He was grieving as certainly as any other family member. He needed to be there. He had been unable to offer any comfort to Beverly, though. He had not known what he could say to her. He should have offered something. He should have told her how sorry he was for what had happened, for how her life was suddenly inverted.

“You’ve done very well by yourself,” Beverly said finally deciding that changing the subject altogether might lead beyond the uncomfortable silence of recollection that each of them had experienced for a few moments. Her words shook him from his reliving the past.

“You have done well too,” Brent returned the praise. “I am very proud of you. I always have been. I admit that I have even bragged about our past relationship. Admittedly knowing you when we were both six-years-old is hardly the basis for a good story or the sort of relationship that seems significant to others but it was the best I had and it was what it was. Anyway, when you became famous, and I heard about it no one believed that I knew you. I mean even though someone somewhere has to know the pageant queen or the cover girl, what are the odds?”

He could tell from the blush of her lightly freckled cheeks that he had embarrassed her but fortunately all the others that had been standing around them had taken their cue and migrated on, leaving the two of them alone near a corner of the ballroom.

"It was not all fun and glamour, and there was some air brushing involved with that magazine cover. I am surprised you even recognized me," she said.

"I know. They removed your freckles. That made you look unreal. That is really your most endearing quality, well, that and your eyes.”

“Thank you,” she shyly demured.

“You always had to work hard for what you achieved. Even so you did it."

"It makes it seem all the better to be enjoying the benefits of it now. I'm sure you know that feeling. When you accomplish a goal that you have been going after for a long time, for a while nothing can deflate your bubble."

He shrugged. “I was lucky to get a few key breaks. I had some good experiences in college even though I never felt like my education did much in preparing me for the real world. I guess college is what you make of it, though. I accept the blame for never using my education to it fullest. Even when I was in the military I had some good times and worthwhile experiences. Then I eventually realized how ill suited I was for the structure and tasks. Maybe it was a good thing that I learned about myself early enough to be able to adapt. It all served as experience and gave me material to write about. It was scary when I first got out of the Service. It was the middle of a recession.”

“I had some scary times, too. Starting a business and having people depending on me for their livelihood was a lot of responsibility.”

“You were good at it, though.”

“I am sure you were always good at whatever you did, too.”

“I guess I was, for the most part. Well, at least I was to some extent but I hated doing it. I did what I needed to do. I guess I made the most of it. You have done much better than I have, Beverly. You have made a difference in other people’s lives. Not only have you created jobs but you have also given advice or guidance to so many others. You have benefited many people.”

“A lot of good people look out for me,” she admitted. “I choose my friends wisely and always trust in the friends that I choose. To say what I have done benefited many people, well if that is the truth then it is gratifying to know. But look at yourself. You write books. I am certain that the people that read your books feel the same way about what you have done for them. You never really know what affect and influence you have on every person.”

“Sometimes at signings or events like this I get to talk to real people that have read some of my stuff. Sometimes it is scary what they derived from my writing. It’s like they read a completely different book than I thought I had written. I doubt I have affected very many people with my writing, though. I am not all that famous.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Well, it is like I was telling my publicist, I am famous except it is just I have neglected to let anyone else know. I am pretty much an obscure writer. Ordinarily I am fine with that. I avoid large gatherings. I always was shy if you remember.”

“We both were shy.”

“You know that I missed the point of a lot of things in life but lately I have been reflecting on some of the really bad things.”

“I try not to dwell on the bad parts,” Beverly said. “You learn what you can from the bad things and move on. The bad things that happen to you in life will destroy you if you let them.”

“I never wanted anything so much as to be around you, even if it was just to be friends,” Brent confessed with a flash of a smile. “It is probably the worst thing that ever happened to me, when I couldn’t even talk to you anymore.”

“That’s sweet,” she choked back the emotion of the words as her voice cracked.

“It’s the truth,” Brent looked directly into her eyes. After a few moments she had to look away. It was not one of those times that she desired that level of his attention.

It was a couple of minutes before she regained her composure. Again it felt like she was changing the subject but then again, it was on point. “I remember the day that your mother called my mother and they were both against, well...I have to ask - did you really tell your mother that you wanted to marry me?”

“I was six-years-old.”

“Yeah, I thought so.”

“No, no you misunderstand. Even though I was six-years-old I knew what I had in my heart,” Brent said. “At the present moment it happens that I am available again.”

She laughed. “I can’t believe that you really told your mother that you wanted to marry me”

“Of course I did. I mean look at you. In a heartbeat I’d still be there, on my knees begging if I thought I even had a chance.”

“You’re so sweet.” Beverly leaned over as she tippy-toed in her high heels to kiss him on the cheek.

“I am sure you hear the pickup lines all the time.”

“Not as often anymore, but it’s always nice when I know it is sincere.”

Brent looked into her eyes again. They still looked the same as when his eyes had first met them. “You are being too kind to me. I think about you ever so often. Sometimes the thought lingers and evolves into a myriad of ‘what if’ scenarios.”

“That never amounts to anything,” Beverly judged.

“Yeah, it is something like: we were so young, what did either of us know? What right did I have to think of a future with us together? It was my fault. I ruined our friendship.”

“No, Brent a lot of other things intervened and all of that ruined it.”

“History, culture, bigotry, social stigma...”

“That is just to name a few.”

“Even so we have always been friends.”

Beverly laughed but then confirmed with a gentle hand laid upon his shoulder, “We vowed to be friends forever, didn’t we?”

“It seems as if it has been deferred to a more socially tolerant time,” Brent bowed to her.

Beverly smiled. “Maybe so. You never know.”

“I never even thought to ask if you felt as strongly,” he continued. “I guess I just assumed it. It was probably one of those male things.”

“Yes, I suppose it was.”

“I should have asked you first.”

“That would have been the right thing to do.”

“What if I had?”

Beverly was silent for the immediate moment. Then the moment lingered long enough to be extended well past the next five consecutive, uncomfortably silent moments.

In response to the unexpected lapse of conversation between the two of them that had already lasted for almost a minute, Brent asked, “Did I say anything wrong?”

“No, of course you didn’t. It is just I was doing a little remembering and some reliving. I remember it so well, when we were both six-years-old. You were so cute the way you’d pout if you thought I was mad at you. Oh, and you were so innocent!”

“And now, look at me.”

“You have matured into a very distinguished man and have become a published author as well. I am very impressed and also proud of you.”

“Yeah, who’d have guessed back then that any of that would emerge from the likes of me?”

She laughed. “How can you always be like that? Anytime anyone compliments you, you turn it into something sideways and self-deprecating.”

“It is the way I am. I have never taken myself more seriously than needs to be. Some people misinterpret it. That’s okay those people are usually the ones too full of themselves to have any room left for a friend anyway.”

Again she laughed.

“I’ll venture a guess even though it is almost a given. You are still a cat person.”

“Yes, of course,” Beverly laughed. “Definitely. I always have been. I have two, now. One is Leeli, the great, great, great granddaughter of my Lulu, and a tabby to the bone. She is getting on in years though.”

“You always had a sort of attachment to tabbies.”

“Yes. That is true.”

“Two cats though. I thought you were always a one cat person.”

“The other is a relative kitten named Samba.”

“Where does that name come from?”

“It comes from the previous owner. Samba is a Seal-Point Siamese that I adopted from a friend that could no longer have pets in her apartment.”

Brent shook his head, “A tomcat.”

“What?”

“You always told me tomcats are too mean.”

She laughed, “Oh my God, you do have a good memory. Well, yeah, I used to feel that way but Samba is a real sweetheart. He has a certain kind of gentleness about him that surprised me. In fact he sort of reminds me of how you were when you were a little boy.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, really.”

Brent smiled, and then shook his head.

“What now?”

“You were always an easy mark…for a cat, I mean.”

“But not for you.”

Brent shrugged, “You tell me.”

“I guess so. I am impressed at what all you recall: my affection for cats, and other things.”

“Other things?”

“Do you remember that one morning that we went with my father to fish from the side of the bridge?”

It was Brent’s turn to blush. “Yes, of course I do.”

“What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking how pretty you were and how nice and kind you were to me and well, everyone else and your cat Lulu.”

“Really and that is why you did it?”

Brent nodded.

“Are you sure?”

“I was afraid of what might happen if I didn’t when I should have been more afraid of what would happen if I did.”

Beverly nodded, then seeing that Brent was emotionally affected by the exchange, she changed the subject as a favor to him. “Do you have pets?”

“Pets? Well, I had a Samoyed named Sebastian. He was a very nice dog, very good with the kids when they were very young. But he was such wimp. We acquired a stray kitten a while later that we named Sid after Psycho Sid the professional wrestler in due consideration of all the strange behavior the cat exhibited. Sid did all sorts of very unpredictable things and perhaps that was why even Sebastian was afraid of the cat. Even so it was very funny to watch a little cat chasing a big dog around the house.”

Beverly laughed as she imagined it. “You see, it is just like I always told you. Cats rule!”

Brent shrugged in response, and then added, “I have no pets now. I would do them a great disservice if I welcomed any into my humble abode. I neglect so many things when I am writing. I do not want to add a life into that mix.”

“You indicated that you have kids?”

“Yeah, I reared three,” Brent said. “They are about two years apart and they are all adults now.”

“That must have been a challenge.”

“It was at times. I guess it is better for the kids that they are closer together in age but it is harder for the parents, I think.”

“You were like a super dad.”

Brent laughed, “You’d have to ask my kids on that one. I tried very hard to be there for them but sometimes I failed. I doubt that constitutes ‘super’ but maybe there is something interim like ‘special’. I could live with being ‘special dad’.”

“Maybe it is a surprise in some ways but I always knew you had something that made you special.”

“Yeah well you should talk about being special. Maybe you didn’t always hear it but I was the one who stood in the background cheering for you.”

“I had hoped that you knew some of it,” she said as she blushed again. “You know,” she said as she noticed that the reception was beginning to break up. “We should go somewhere more private, I think. I could use a drink and I would like to have a long conversation in a quieter place with someone I knew once but never quite well enough.”

“I’d like that.”

“We need to catch up on things. Uh, before you ask me again, though the answer was, ‘yes’.”

“Yes?”

“As in if you had asked me I would have had to confess that I loved you even back then. I guess I always have and still do.”

It was Brent’s turn in the volley of blushes. He tried to look away but could not as the tears welled up in his eyes. His attention was transfixed on her deep, rich, sultry brown eyes. Her eyes shackled his mind and he could not free himself. After a few valiant attempts he submitted to the power of her eyes. She sought sincerity and he really lacked the heart to even try to lie to her even though there were many times in the past few minutes that in the background of his thoughts he had considered telling her that he had to go. He always ran away from dangerous complications. He wanted to return to the safe haven of his privacy even if it meant the continuation of his misery. He was not certain that he was ready to start over again. Whether it was self defense or self denial, this time he had wanted to stand firm, to resist the temptation to tell her the horrible truth he had hidden for all the years.

Then he looked into her eyes again and he forgot what had been so important that had compelled him to prefer running away over staying and getting reacquainted. For a moment he even forgot his own name. The jealously guarded truth fell to inutterable insignificance. He had nothing to do until the flight out the following afternoon. There was more than enough time for them to spend together. What’s more, he really did not want to spend another night in a strange hotel room all alone, regardless the quality of the accommodations.

While they were together, time did not matter. He could have died at any moment and have been satisfied that his life was finally complete in one essential way. There was a wrong done in the past that was finally set to right. It was a near perfect continuation of that feeling that might have been if only they had been aware.

Beverly had lived in the city for sometime and therefore knew all of the best places to spend an evening. She took charge of deciding the places that they might go. For his part, Brent wanted to change into something more appropriate than dress slacks and a sweater that was pulled over an open collared shirt. So he went to his room to get dressed, while her driver took her back to her penthouse so that she could change into something more appropriate for a night out on the town.

When she returned he met her in the lobby. He was early and eager; she was fashionably late and blaming it on business. Immediately she turned off her cell phone, holding it up before his eyes for emphasis to forestall any other urgency that might interrupt the two of them. They decided that since the bar in the hotel seemed mostly empty they could start the evening of reminiscing there over a few drinks.

She filled in the gaps of his knowledge of her story, beginning with the fact that she had never married. Brent responded in kind, telling her that he was divorced. Each of them had put a career ahead of all else and each had suffered but also succeeded in different ways and at different times. He confessed that he had thought about her many times and lately after the soured relationship with his ex-wife he had even lamented at what might have been. “I guess some feelings never die regardless how much they are hindered from reaching the light of day.”

“How long have you been divorced?”

“Long enough that the anger is over and my ex-wife and I are friendly enough again that we can talk and the kids believe we have each regained our sanity. There were three wonderful kids in the course of the marriage. They are grown up and amazingly well adjusted despite their dysfunctional home life.”

“I’m sure that is not entirely true.”

“As I said I tried to be there for all of them. I put a lot of effort into making it a good life for the kids but I suppose that while I was working on that I was sometimes ignoring my wife in the process.”

“Yeah, I hear that happens a lot.”

“Yeah, well I still have strong feelings for her. You never can just walk away from someone you loved and not still have feelings.”

Beverly said that she understood, draughting heavily from her drink and then confessed that she felt that she inherited world from her parents that she did not appreciate. The color of her skin alone made a difference to some. She could not and really did not need to change. As she matured she became proud of what she was and the potential obstructions she had obviated with her foresight and attention to detail in planning. She adjusted to the reality of the world around her even if she did not completely accept the preconditions for social acceptance of her triumphs. What needed to change was the perception in the world that anything but the quality of character should matter between individuals or groups of individuals. It was wrong that the color of her skin had even mattered at all.

Even in an altered world, the one over which she now had a modicum of control there was recognition if not acceptance of the unassailable wall. It did not matter how intelligent, talented, pretty or ambitious she was. The sum total of all that she was demanded her acknowledgment of the obvious. She wanted that to be irrelevant. What did the label matter? The fact of her race may have opened a few legally required doors but there were always at least as many others that were barred. There were also hidden agendas and unofficial quotas that frustrated and confused the overall goal of progress. She was welcome and her advancement was applauded until she reached the limits of tolerance. She even had to acknowledge another obvious truth, that she was a woman.

For a very long time she had to stay inside her world, amongst her family or her friends that shared at least one of her obvious truths. If she pushed against the seam of America’s social fabric, it was permitted only briefly and only for as long as she respected the strictest interpretation of the rules. She had to be a good role model, as unfair as that was. What offended her was the presumption that others in her community needed to pattern their lives after her example. Should they ever aspire to anything greater than their lot in life, why did they need to do as she had done? That was how those that were in Brent’s portion of the society even knew about her, though.

The enlightened accepted her without regard to either of the differences that had always dominated her self image. What if she had not been fleet of foot and pleasing to the eye? Would she have received any of the opportunities that had benefited her? What would have become of the others that the fruits of her success had assisted in attaining their aspirations?

What had happened when as a six-year-old he had spoken from his heart had separated them but it never really divided them. The division would have had roots in the intolerant fabric of the world that was beyond a child’s control. It had seemed mostly a family thing. Beverly’s mother had understood completely why the two children needed to be apart. Her acceptance of the wrong did not make it right but still it was understandable. It was the way of the world in the summer of 1962. In many places the color of skin decided whether people rode in the back of a bus or drank from different water fountains. Race was the barrier, racism was the disease and segregation was the means of quarantine lest anyone realize that in humanity there are more similarities than differences.

Beverly elaborated about her past, speculating what if things had been different. She admitted that when he moved away to attend another school it had upset her. She accepted it though the reality of it was not that different from any other of her the everyday frustrations. Even if they barely spoke to one another she felt that she had lost another friend to the insidiousness of bigotry. When her life began she was ‘colored’ or ‘Negro’, if not called something worse. There was no such thing as Black or African-American as a status for her to cling to with pride and purpose. Even if each term was more relevant and less condescending, it offered her little solace after the fact of the hatred that she had felt. Taking offense was pointless as it would brand her as a malcontent. She pretended not to hear the slurs or play dumb and not care, even though it mattered a lot to her on a very deep and privately guarded level.

What she was would always be there as a barrier or an opportunity; a hindrance or a help. She could either accept what she was in defeat or assume that it was a foundation for her to build a better life. She had decided to do as much as she could with the gifts that others kept telling her that she had. Just then the world around her had begun to change. Suddenly her inner voice was no longer the only voice that she heard in protest to the way that she was being treated. Even if the changes were marginal at best it felt to her as if a revolution had begun. She might have desired a more radical transformation or a social revolution but she would settle for the slower progress of evolution. As long as the desire to change the wrongs in the world did not perish from malaise and apathy borne of the frustration of the snail’s pace that the social reform had finally adopted, she would endure it. She would contribute whatever she could to change the way that others perceived her differences.

“I have to admit that if I had not known you I might have had different ideas,” She admitted. “I don’t know what it was but there was something about you, how you treated me and how you always looked straight into my eyes. You never feared my differences but embraced them. You respected me as a person even to appreciate my differences. I never forgot that.”

“I really didn’t see how you were all that different from me. The differences were minor and I liked what I saw, especially the part where you were not a guy.”

She flashed a smile, and then continued, “Because of your example I never lost hope. I never gave up believing that the world could change, that it could change before my eyes, in my lifetime. People could be different if they wanted to be. The changes that were happening around me were encouraging but over time they have proven to be barely negligible. Still, there were opportunities for me that even a generation before were not there. More could have been done but I accepted whatever changes were firmly imbedded in society. That established a basis for the next generation. Someday we can become one race,” she concluded.

“We are already one race,” Brent said. “The challenge is convincing everyone that we are more the same than the sum total of our differences.”

“See that is you. You have that unique way about you. You know the truth and can encapsulate a very complicated thing into a few words.”

A waitress interrupted for a refresh of their drinks and even after the drinks arrived, the subject seemed altered yet again.

As they continued to share a conversation over drinks lightheartedness finally replaced the heaviness of the social issues that had interfered with their friendship. Whether it came from the libation or the cordial atmosphere of the bar, they were laughing as they recalled the most pleasant two summers that two kids could have ever shared. Childhood had seemed idyllic as they revisited the places they had gone fishing and the feelings they had shared. It seemed just a single wish that had emerged, a resurrection of a dream lost of misplaced.

At the immediate moment their feelings were so strong that neither of them could resist the temptation to consider the irrational, unrealized destiny that over the intervening years each of them had dared to dream about in the quiet solitude of a motel room or in the loneliest hours of the cold night alone at home.

When they left the bar arm-in-arm and braced themselves raising the collars of their coats against the chill of the night. They continued on down the street in search of the nice place for an evening dinner that only Beverly knew. The owner was a man she knew from way back. He had confessed his dream to her in confidence when they were both in the employ of her former employer. She had never forgotten the twinkle that she had seen in his eyes whenever he talked about his own restaurant. Before she had left the company they had abruptly severed his employment. She had called him with the only positive words that he had received that day. She spoke of his chance to realize his dream, of her willingness to invest in his concept. At first he had declined her offer. Then she had persisted, “Look I think you can do it. It is a bet but to me it is a safe bet. You have it in you to succeed.”

As she retold the story over the most excellent Italian dinner that he had ever consumed, she had called Guido over to the table. She leaned over and kissed her lightly on the cheek, then turned to Brent, and said, “Without her you would not have a place to sit and eat. She believed in me.”

“This is the best meal I have ever had,” Brent admitted.

Guido bowed, “Your praise inspires me.” He turned to take Beverly’s hand and kiss it. “She is the Queen of New York City as far as I am concerned.”

Beverly laughed, “That is why I come here. He makes me feel better.”

When they left the restaurant they took in a show. Not surprisingly Beverly was a supporter of the arts and had invested in establishing a small company within her community, so in the theater where they went, she always had a reserved balcony box. When the show was over Beverly escorted Brent backstage and introduced him to the producer, the director and several of the actors and actresses.

It was almost midnight before they left the theater. They decided to go to a little club that she had also invested in and therefore always had a reserved table in a secluded corner off to the side of the dance floor. It seemed the perfect place for them to catch breath between dances and talk until the wee hours of the morning.

No one wanted to close the bar while she was still there. It had been years since she had brought anyone there except for business and this time she was staying well past the norm. Even so she was a class act, mindful of the lateness and respectful of others. It was past the time for the bar to close and she was cognizant of it. Beverly and Brent thanked and tipped them heavily for having put up with them for a half hour later than usual, bidding them a good night as the tow of them went outside for a long walk in the cold that they hardly even noticed.

Shortly before dawn, they went to Beverly’s place. Her two cats greeted them at the door, looking for their mommy and their food.

“No,” she scolded them both, then looking up to Brent she could not long linger her eyes upon his.

“You spoil them, of course.”

She shrugged, “Look at them. They are so cute.”

Brent laughed. “Hey they are your charge. Deal with them as you must.”

“Let me feed them so at least they will leave us alone for a while.”

Brent smiled as she looked up at him.

“What?” she asked.

“It’s nothing.”

“Look, they are my family, especially Leeli.”

“Beverly, you really do no have to answer to me at all. I fully understand. You have always been a cat person. I think that is a very cool thing for you. It serves continuity with the past very well.”

Beverly’s smile grew and she directed Brent to gather a blanket and head on out to the balcony where they could spend some more quiet time together. When she rejoined him she closed the sliding glass door behind her to prevent the cats from visiting with them. She hurriedly joined him under the warmth of the blanket and they huddled together for a time enjoying the mutual warmth of their bodies, looking at the few stars that were bright enough to rival the illumination from the city below them.

Together they enjoyed what remained of the rapidly fading night. Despite the dangerously temporary nature of their being together again there were no lingering regrets or any glaring impediments. They shared the incredible view from the high-rise’s balcony. Below them and out toward the horizon the restless city glowed yellow and as the dawn began a golden-red hue was cast out over the edifices as the first piercing rays cast the illusion of peace over the concrete cliffs and valleys of steel and glass. They cuddled in the chill of late autumn and spoke quiet promises that might have otherwise seemed ridiculous except that they were rational adults that had become like teenagers for a while as they had decided to stay out all night in defiance born of their suddenly re-established youth. In the faint fresh dawn, there was finally a peace within their reach that diminished the circumstances and consequences that surrounded their past. They were finally sharing a memorable moment in a way that no one could ever take away.

It seemed an apt epilogue for their desires to be elsewhere and to be anywhere else. The harsh truth was that their careers could not possibly mesh. Each of them cherished independence and were so set in ways that were unlikely to change in order to accommodate enduring relationship, regardless the strength of enduring desire. Their paths had converged and what they shared was intense. Yet in the light of that new day, they submitted their wills to the moment allowing the ember of a desire born in their childhood to finally erupt into a flare that would burn forever if they both wanted it to. The trouble was could they continue to feed the flame? Sadly the answer was no.

It had been a long time, Brent thought as he looked up from the water that was passing under the bridge. Only a few months had swept past him since the rendezvous with an almost forgotten past and the love of his life. He was grateful to whatever providence that had allowed him to share that incredible interlude with Beverly. He wished that there could have been a way found to make it work but too much time elapsed and too many other obligations had intruded in their lives.

Oddly it was as Beverly’s driver had said even though Brent was certain that he did not know or even intend his words to be taken in the manner that Brent received them. The driver had approached him on the street below Beverly’s apartment. Brent smiled as it was not the same driver that he had seen before, the result of an obvious shift change.

“It is time for you to go,” he said.

Her driver had taken him from her place to the airport. Just as they were pulling into the airport, Jonathan called Brent’s cell phone to tell him that he had scheduled some book signings in Ohio, in cities close to where he had grown up. All of a sudden he had received a few phone calls so it was hopeful again.

“Could you schedule some slack time for my visit,” Brent asked. “It has been a while since I have been there. I want to look around and see what all has changed.”

“And what has not,” Jonathan added, indicating that he fully understood the emotional implications of going home after a long absence.

The driver held the door open until Brent stepped out of the limousine, then he helped him bring the bags to the baggage check in.

“Thank you, really. You made this a lot easier for me.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You promise me to take care of her.”

“Who would if we didn’t?” the driver said.

“You love her as much as I do.”

“If not more,” the driver said. “I see her everyday. I feel sorry for you. You are leaving her.”

Brent smiled. “She is in good hands then. I am good with that.”

“You need not worry,” the driver said as he turned to look Brent in the eye as if to give the point that he was making the finality of punctuation. “I take care of her. That is my job.”

When he arrived at the river, it was likely to be Brent’s last time in Ohio for a long while. He pulled over to the side of the road at the bridge that spanned the Little Miami. There were memories that he had wanted to revisit and emotions that screamed to be rekindled. For a couple of summers this was the place that he had made his best memories of childhood. One midsummer morning, before it was really light enough to see all that well, behind Bill’s back he had first kissed Beverly and had begun his waiting for a second kiss that would take much of a lifetime for him to earn.

Life had spiraled away from both of them. What had seemed so inevitable to a six-year-old had turned out so strangely stretched, warped, twisted and oddly contorted beyond any recognition. He had been in a hurry to grow-up mode but now that he was an adult he lamented the loss of the simpler times, when it was easy to be with Beverly, when his life had made some sense. It was only in the idyllic past that they had created that they could be the unique minority that was once the two of them. Despite the advancement toward tolerance of the simple truths the masks and costumes that were worn still remained. For an uncomplicated moment they reconnected with their childhood. There was a special bond of ‘us’ defining everything that they desired that had progressed from an inconceivable past that had to be finally proven impossibly irresistible. They were together forever in the memories of those times and events.

For a single night in a big city in a complicated, callous world they had revisited the wonder of a misplaced time to make a memory everlasting and finding the peace to continue on each in their separate ways.

posted by Unknown @ 9:46 PM 0 comments