North Wind - Ghapter Four

North Wind

Chapter Four

I stopped about fifty meters back from the tower so I could watch Jerry direct his helpers on the roof. He’d rigged a block and tackle from one of the larger windows on the top floor and was using it to haul the boxes, instrument packages, antennae, and dishes one by one to the top. I stood up when the cold in the ground started creeping into my ass.
“That’s the longest I’ve seen you sittin in one place since I met you.”
It was Maritza. She had two lawn chairs in one hand, and cooler in the other. She didn’t look the same as she had yesterday, or any other day I’d seen her for that matter. She had on a pair of jeans and a thick turtleneck sweater. As thick as it was there was no hiding her figure underneath.
Whatcha got there Maritza?”
“I didn’t think there was much chance you’d had anything to eat since we talked last so I made you some breakfast.” She set down the cooler and took out a thermos and a towel. Onto the towel she set out what looked like burritos wrapped in foil, and two coffee cups.
“D’you bring coffee too?”
“I cannot start my morning without it,” she said without looking up.
“Me neither. I really do appreciate all this work Maritza and you’re right, I’m starved.”
“You’ll have to thank my helper when you get a chance.”
“Your helper?”
“My daughter Marissa.”
“I didn’t know you had a daughter, I’d love to meet her.”
“I hope you like bacon and eggs.”
“I do thanks. Where’d you get the eggs and the pig?”
“There’s lots of both all over this country. All you have to do is find them and give them someplace to live.”
“Where’s that?” I asked; unwrapping a burrito.
“When you get done eating, I’ll take you over there. I’ve got one house for the pigs and one for the chickens. They stink very badly, but it’s the easiest way to have food to eat that doesn’t come from a can.”
“Maritza, I thought you were an engineer.”
“I am, but I learned many things as a girl in my country.”
“Including how to make the perfect tortilla.”
“Thank you.”
“When did Jerry say he’d be through?”
“He said he’d be done tomorrow at the latest. Jessie is already working on the cabling.”
“Shit.”
“What is wrong?”
“Tina said she didn’t want to live or work in the tower, that she wanted the cabling run to one of the bungalows.”
“She did did she?”
All I could do was nod.
“All the houses are spoken for. I can’t imagine anyone will just say, “Please just take my house.”
“She’s seems used to people doin for her what she asks.”
“So your intention is to keep doing for her?”
“It might be best for everybody concerned.”
“How so?”
“I don’t think she’s gonna be too happy to be here.”
“Then why doesn’t she leave?”
“Because the only other place she can go is to her family. There she will be forced to do what they want her to do. She may also be staying because of something I said.”
“What did you say?”
“I told her if she went south she’d probably have to life in some kind of refugee camp; that the living conditions wouldn’t be very good.”
“You are probably correct.”
“Anyway what she said was that she wanted her own place, and her own observation tower next to it.”
“She wants us to build her her own tower?” Maritza said, “you’re kidding.”
“No, nothing so involved. Just a structure she can use to make observations above the trees.”
“Wouldn’t it be better just to put all that equipment on her tower?”
“I don’t think so. We can throw up what she needs without too much trouble.”
“We?”
“We, all of us here.”
“As soon as it comes out what you want to do, I’m not sure you’ll find too many volunteers.”
“Then I guess I better get to work.”
“I will help you. The two of us can build her a two room house. By the time we get done it will be too cold to worry about her tower this year.”
“What about a pole structure?”
“Using what?”
“Telephone poles.”
“You’re thinking about just building her house in the top of a tower.”
“It’d kill two birds with one stone.”
“I never liked that saying.”
“Sorry.”
“I believe it could be done quickly but we would need much help.”
“We have twenty two people total.”
“Twenty two adults, yes.”
“Could a half dozen finish out the interior framing in the tower, and running the cables to this thing we’re building?”
“I should think so. Two at least would have to be sent to find the extra cables needed.”
I ate for a while and then had to ask the question that had been nagging at the back of my mind since last night. I couldn’t just ask it straight out, I didn’t have the courage, so I beat around the bush.
“Maritza, why would you want to help me with this? This isn’t your problem.”
She cut right through my fear and got to the point. “Because what Tina said last night was true, I am attracted to you and I’ve been wanting to get to know you better. Now, the best way for me to do that is to work with you.”
When I didn’t say anything, she continued, “I could tell from what you had said over the past few weeks that Tina did not feel anything for you, and that you were not willing to admit that to yourself. After last night I could tell that you didn’t have any real feelings for her either.”
I had no idea what to say.
“You’re surprised that I am speaking this way with you. You should not be. There’s no time anymore for the stupid games that men and women used to play with each other. I want to have a man in my life, and I want Marissa to have a father.”
Maritza, I don’t know what to say.” It was a stupid thing to say. What I should have said is “You’re scaring the shit out of me with what you’re saying.”
“Say you want to work with me.”
“I do.” All of a sudden work wasn’t the only thing I wanted to do with her.
“Good. I will go talk to Jerry and Jennifer about the needed changes in the cabling before they get too far along with what they’re doing. Why don’t you go get your truck and then come pick me up so we can scout out the material we need for this new house we’re building?”
“Tina won’t have any way to get out of the house.”
“Tina doesn’t want to get out of that house unless it’s to move into her own place. The sooner you go get that truck the sooner we can get her house built.”
“Yes ma’am.”
Maritza started cleaning up so I started helping. She grabbed my hand, looked me straight in the eye and said, “Go I’ll take care of this. If you get going now, you’ll be back with the truck in time for me to go with you, okay?” There was a kind of tenderness in her voice that hadn’t been there a moment before. “Okay?” she said again.
I looked into her eyes then and saw the same feeling I’d heard in her voice. I realized she was still holding my hand, or I was holding hers maybe.
“Maritza…”
“Don’t say anything more now; we’ll have plenty of time to talk this afternoon. Go, Jack.”
“Okay,” I said. Letting go of her hand. When I’d walked a few steps off I looked over my shoulder and saw that Maritza was looking at me. I’d have given much then to know what was on her mind.

__

I met Tina about halfway back to the house, driving in the opposite direction. When she stopped I walked over to the driver’s side window.
“I didn’t expect to see you out,” I said.
“I knew I’d better come over and make sure the equipment was being installed right. Where’re you going?”
“I had to come back to get the truck.”
“Where’re you goin?”
“I need to scout out the materials for your house.”
“You already have a plan?”
“I talked about it with some people and we came to the conclusion that the only way to build you your own house and an observation tower before it gets too cold is to built your house as a tower.”
“Your kidding.”
“You don’t like the idea?”
“I’ll have to climb three flights of stairs every time I want to go in and out or didn’t that little glitch cross your architect’s mind.”
“So you can live without the tower until next year?”
She looked back out the windshield and blew out a long breath.
“I can lick that problem for you. I think.”
“How you gonna do that?”
“I’ll build your house on a hill.”
“There are no hills.”
“I’ll make one.”
“Sure. You do what you have to do. Jump in the back.”
“What?”
“You’re going back, right? Jump in the back, we’ll be there in a minute.”
To keep from pissing her off, I didn’t say what I wanted to. I jumped over the tailgate into the bed. Tina parked the truck and headed in the front door of the tower without looking back. Maritza came out the front door about five minutes later.
“That took less time than I thought it would.”
“What’s that?”
“I didn’t think she’d get over here till this afternoon.”
“I didn’t think she leave the house at all.”
“I knew she’d be over here today. Whatever else she is, she’s a woman.”
“You were up there when she got here.”
“She walked right past me with the same look she gave me last night. She then climbed right up on the roof and started asking questions.”
“She say anything to you?”
Maritza just smiled. Maritza headed for the truck and I followed right behind her. I knew Maritza and Tina would have it out someday and I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to be around to see it or not. It only took a couple hours to find all the materials we needed. When we left the site I headed directly to the phone company’s depot. There were all the telephone poles we could ever use and, luckily enough, there were just the sort of long timbers we’d need to build the structure of the house.
“That was too easy,” Maritza said sitting on top of a pile of thirty foot long redwood six by fifteen inch timbers.
“Too easy how?”
“Easy to find, hard to get them where they need to be.”
“Maybe not.”
“You have a plan?”
“Have you seen any horses in your chicken and pig trips?”
She smiled. “A few, why?”
“I’ve been thinking that even though we can use trucks or tractors to drag the poles and timbers back to the site it would be best to drag them around the site by horse one at a time.”
She smiled even wider. “I like that idea, but maybe for next year, do you think. It’s already the middle of July. I doubt we have even a month left to work in before it starts snowing too much again.”
“You must really hate this weather compared to Cuba.”
“How did you know that’s where I’m from?”
“I asked Jennifer a couple days ago.”
Again the smile. She walked back to the truck and got in the passenger side. “We need to get back so I can get everyone arranged to begin moving these materials.”
On the ride back I asked, “Maritza, Tina had a complaint about the idea of putting the house on the tower.”
“That’s not too surprising. She didn’t want to climb up and down three of four flights of stairs every time she goes in and out?”
“Exactly.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I told her that I’d build the thing on a hill. A hill I’d make.”
“She’s willing to settle for that?”
“She never did say exactly, but I did let her know that she could have the house this year but not both the house and the tower.”
“I’m interested in what she has to say about that when we get back.”
“What do you think, is there a better way to get both done this year?”
“To be honest I really don’t care if both get done this year. At the very least we could build some sort of exterior staircase up to the roof of the tower we already have if she’s so concerned about having independent access to long range observation.”
“The north wall doesn’t even have any windows on it. It’d be easier to build some sort of platform up next to the instrumentation. She’d get what she wants at least in the short term, and long term it’d make service access to the instrumentation easier.”
Maritza pulled the car to the curb. “So what you’re saying is that we no longer need telephone poles and timbers?”
I turned to face her. “Maritza, can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.’
“Would you and Marissa be interested in moving in with me?”
“Well, I guess that serves me right with all my talk of not wasting time with stupid games.”
“She looked at me seriously for a few moments and asked, “Have you ever lived with children?”
“I had a wife and two sons who were killed a year or so ago when my house was broken into.”
“I am very sorry Jack I didn’t know, I am so sorry.”
“It’s okay. I just wanted you to know that I have been a dad. I’m sorry if I’m getting ahead of things.”
She reached out a hand and held the side of my face. “Why don’t we do this, let’s let Tina move into the tower, it just makes more sense, and it’ll be ready in only a week or so. Why don’t you build you what you would like to live in? By the time we are finished with the construction we’ll have had a while to talk and get to know each other better, and maybe, if you’re lucky, Marissa will have cooked for you a few times.”
“Does she know who I am? I don’t recall ever seeing her.”
“Unlike her mother, she does hate the cold very much. And yes, she does know who you are. I have talked to her about you many times. You are a topic of conversation for most people here day to day. That is as it should be.”
“Why is that?”
“Because you are the leader of this place. You decided to build the tower and when the rest of us arrived you had the ability to get a few individuals all moving in the same direction.”
“I’ve always thought that everyone stayed because they just wanted to have something to do.”
“That was part of it for some.”
“What was it for you?”
“Curiosity about what you were doing, and having a settled place for Marissa. Before long I realized I wanted to get to know you better. I liked what I saw in you.”
What she had said embarrassed me and I realized I was looking out the windshield when she’d finished speaking. I looked back at her and said, “Maritza, you might be the most intimidating woman I have ever met.”
She chuckled and said, “Me?”
“You are very beautiful, very smart and you have a strength I have rarely seen in a woman or a man.”
It was her turn to look out the window.
“Thank you Jack. It is very kind of you to say.” She wiped at her eyes as she continued to look out the windshield. “What will you do then?”
“I would like to live in a tall structure, tall enough to see out over the trees.”
“Then, that is what you should build, you have already worked out how to build it, why don’t you?”
“There’s those stairs to worry about.”
“Build a hill.”
“I’ll get started on it tomorrow.”
“And I’ll get started on the materials tomorrow.”
“Maritza, would it be okay if I kissed you?”
She didn’t say anything for a second which worried me. I was about to start the truck when she reached over, grabbed the front of my shirt and kissed me. It only lasted a second but she got close enough that I could smell her hair as it fell around her face. She licked her lips and said, “Thank you, Jack.”
“Why would you thank me?”
“Because you were gentleman enough to ask my permission. Gentlemen have become very rare.”
“Not as rare as femininity, I think.”
She nodded looking at me, shook her hand in the direction of the wind shield. “We need to get back. I’m anxious to get started.”
“Me too, I’ll start on the drawings tonight and pushing up some dirt tomorrow.”
“Leave the area for the poles till we get them in the ground.”
“Will do. Get one of the fellas to drive back one of the auger trucks if they can get one started. It’ll make short work of putting the poles in the ground.”
“Will do,” she said imitating me. She waved out the windshield again.
I started the truck and eased it away from the curb. Maritza looked tired as she got out of the truck and walked into the tower.
Tina came out of the same door Maritza had gone through a minute earlier and walked right up to me.
“I asked your girlfriend what was going on and she said I should come and talk to you. So I’ll ask you, what’s going on?”
I expected her to be angry but she didn’t seem upset. There was very little emotion in her voice. I’d have been happier if there had been.
“I’ve been working on how to get you what you need to do your work and I keep coming up with the same answer.”
“Which is?”
“That you should live here in the tower with your stuff. That’s why we’re all here, that’s why you’re here.”
She looked over her shoulder and then back and said, “So where you gonna live?”
“I think I’m gonna build me a very tall house about fifty meters that way,” I said indicating a barren area past the last bungalow near Texas Avenue.”
“On a hill?”
“On a hill.”
“What do I need to do?”
“Is Frank inside?”
“The tall black man?”
“Yea, you need to go up and tell him where you want your walls to be. Which floor do you want to live on?”
“The penthouse of course.”
“The penthouse… Okay, tell Frank where you want your rooms to be, and tell Jennifer where you want the cabling to go on the floor below so your equipment and the electrical connections can be installed.”
“How long will it take?”
“I’ve got half a dozen people working on it, maybe two weeks to move in, three to four to get everything up and running that’ll run.”
“It’ll be snowing again by then.”
“The weather drives the scheduling on just about everything these days.”
She looked back from the building and said, “So you’re moving out?”
“Yea, I’ve got the things I need over here for now. I need to be here to work on my house anyway. Not going back and forth will save me an hour or two a day. We’re really running out of time to get everything done.”
Tina didn’t say anything as she walked over to the truck and drove off.
__

Two weeks later everybody had a house to live in, everybody except me. All I’d accomplished was getting the poles in the ground and attaching all the major timbers. Trouble was the project had evolved in my mind from a single story, four sided nine hundred square foot box to a two story octagonal twenty four hundred square foot house. Maritza seemed to take great pleasure in reminding me daily how many days we had left to work before she, despite her loyalty to the cause would have to quit for the season. She also had an annoying habit of also reminding me that this structure would be lucky to last twenty years. Every time I told her I’d have sons to build me a new one at that time she just laughed and shook her head.
The completion of construction on the project had two main benefits for me. First it freed up eight additional people, seven of whom were willing to help me out (Tina was busy with her “work”). Six of those seven were framers, exactly what I needed help with at the time. The second benefit was the freeing up of equipment; generators, compressors and nail guns specifically. Everyone seemed to feel an urgency as the weather quickly cooled and frost in the morning was followed by light snow. The day we had the first real snow fall, Jennifer, Maritza, and I were completing the shingling of the roof, a 12/12 octagonal roof that had Frank and I scratching our heads for a full two days trying to figure out how to frame it. I’m honestly not sure if we accomplished exactly that pitch, but it was darn close. I know this because we had to rig up a rope harness from the roof peak to keep up from sliding off the edge.
I remember standing on the second floor looking at the snow falling that first afternoon the building was completely dried in.
“I really wasn’t sure that you’d be able to do it,” Maritza said handing me a cup of tea. I watched the steam rise from the cup in the cold air.
“Oh ye of little faith,” I said laughing.
“No one has more faith in you than I do,” she said seriously. “I just didn’t think it was humanly possible. What’s left?”
“I think we ought to use just his top floor for now and use the downstairs to store all the materials we need to finish out the space. First thing I need…”
“We?”
I nodded to her and continued, “We need to do is to get this space insulated and walled up, get some woodstoves installed in here, and get some walls up.”
“Is that necessary?”
“What?”
“Walling off such a small space seems like a shame.”
“Whether or not it needs to be done has a lot to do with you.”
I expected Maritza to turn from where she was looking out the window. She didn’t but she said, “I’d really like that Jack, if it’s something you still want to do.”
“What about Marissa?”
“She really likes you a lot. I think you made a big impression when you told her you liked her cooking so much.”
“I really do, there’s nothing she makes that I don’t love to eat.”
She finally turned around and said, “It’s why you worked so hard to get this place done isn’t it?”
I nodded and said, “I have loved working and talking and eating and complaining and cussin with you these last few weeks. I’ve never wanted to work so hard in my life. You being right here next to me the whole way, I don’t know, I just, I loved it. It’s the first time in a long time I’ve been even close to happy. It’s my turn to thank you.” I took two steps toward her and gathered her into my arms and just held her. The top of her head just about reached my chin. She leaned her head back and kissed me. There was a hunger in her kiss that told me that she must have been feeling the same as I had. When she pulled away from me I looked into those eyes of hers. She was looking at me like no woman had ever had before. I knew at that moment that love could be seen as well as felt.
“Maybe we better build a couple bedrooms. Marissa is going to want her privacy,” I said running my fingers through her thick blue black hair.
“Her mother does too.”
_____


It was another four weeks before the house was about as ready as it was going to get to be lived in. It was cold enough by the beginning of September for me to see my breath in the morning, inside. I’d lived alone in the house for those four weeks. Not only did living inside the house as I built it save me time for the commute, it also motivated me to get my ass outta bed every morning to get warmed up. Maritza came every day to help and even though carpentry wasn’t something she much enjoyed she worked as hard as I did. Marissa came over too; twice a day to bring breakfast and linner. Linner was a meal we ate at about 2:30 or 3:00 everyday and it was her idea. Because the days had begun to get much shorter, I usually didn’t get up till about six or seven and was through by five or six. There never was any time to eat three meals while we were working. Now that we were finished with all the coarse work there was a lot more time, time to eat, and more importantly time that needed to be filled with talking and just being together. It was very different and it started with Marissa.
“How much more is there to do before you’re finished Jack?” Marissa asked.
“Well Marissa, there’s done and then there’s done.”
“Huh?” Marissa said. She did not resemble her mother other than in how she dressed and kept her hair. At fourteen years old she was at least six inches taller than her mom, maybe more.
“Finished to move into is when all the insulation is in, the plumbing such as it is is in, the walls and floors are in, and the stoves are installed.”
The greatest resemblance between Marissa and her mother was the analytical intelligence they shared.
“So you still have to do all the finish carpentry work?”
I couldn’t help surprise showing on my face.
“What? I can read. The door on the library is wide open. I get the books I need and bring them back to the house.”
I turned to Maritza and raised my eyebrows.
“She’s very independent.”
“Do I get a vote in how my room looks?”
“You can have your room any way you want. If you like, I’ll even teach you to do it yourself if you want.”
“I think I know, theoretically, how to do trim, and I know I can paint. I don’t know where I can get curtains.”
“I can show you how to sew your own if you like,” Maritza said with a big smile. Marissa nodded, got up without a word and headed straight for her room. I was about to say something to Maritza when Marissa stuck her head out her door.
“Can we go looking for material tomorrow?”
“Sure, I could use a day off. How ‘bout you mom?”
The look on Maritza’s face was something I never will forget. It was obvious that she tried twice to say something but both times she burst out with the widest smile I’d ever seen.
“I think that means she’ll come with us.”
“Of course. Although you two don’t really seem to need my help.”
“Oh, mom,” Marissa said disappearing back into her room.
“Well look at the two of you,” Maritza said.
“Whaddya mean?”
“She wants you to like her so much; she’ll do just about anything.”
“She doesn’t have to worry about that. I couldn’t like her any more if I tried. She’s amazing; gets it from her mom as far as I can tell.”
“Jack.”
“Maritza.”
“Hey, you said my name like a Cuban!”
“I asked Marissa and she helped me. She’s also been helping me learn a little Spanish here and there.”
“Her Spanish is horrible. I tried to teach her when she was little, but she said none of her friends spoke Spanish she didn’t need to either.”
“So she was born here in the states?”
“Right here in town.”
“You never have said anything about her dad.”
Looking away out the window she said, “She’s never had a dad. The man who…, he was just…”
“It’s okay Maritza; it’s none of my business.”
“No. I came here to attend high school and had only been here for a few months. I was very lonely. I thought I was protected but I found out I was pregnant a few weeks later. He was just a man, a night I didn’t have to be lonely. Marissa has paid the price for what I did. She has never had a father, and I thought it best not to bring men in and out of our home while she was still a child.”
“So you haven’t…”
“Been with a man for fourteen years? No. I believed it was best for Marissa.”
“Believed?”
“The world is not now what it was Jack, and as you have seen Marissa is a very independent young woman. Unfortunately she no longer has the luxury of time she once had to grow up gradually.”
“Have you talked to her about us?”
“Of course. You are the first man we’ve both met that she actually encouraged me to pursue.”
I thought as hard as I could to find something to say that would change the subject. All of a sudden I was feeling a great deal of pressure.
“Should we move your things over here tomorrow?”
“All we’ll be bringing over is our clothes and some personal items. The furniture will stay in the bungalow. Jennifer and her partner were going to build a place of their own until I told them if they could hang on for another month they could have our place.”
“You told them about us?”
“Jack everybody already knew about us. Everybody except you maybe.” The smile returned to face just a little then. She was trying to smile but I could see it was an effort she was making for me.
I took her into my arms and held her as close to me as I could. She drew her arms in front of her and buried her head in my chest. I stroked the back of her head with my hand until she pulled back.
“We have to get furniture, tomorrow.”
“Yes ma’am we will.”
“Do you understand what I am saying Jack?”
“I think so.”
“I’m glad you do. I have a few things of mine and Marissa’s I need to get from our apartment, and I want to look through some furniture stores to see if there’s anything left there.”
“When will we have time to get Marissa’s material? She seemed very anxious to get started.”
“She’ll be thinking differently after she sleeps on the floor tonight.”
“If she does she won’t admit it, I’ll bet.”
Nodding I said. “Does she want new furniture or does she want what she had before?”
Really smiling she replied, “Jack you do have a great deal to learn about fourteen year old girls. They want everything new, every day.”
“Really, Marissa seems awfully mature for her age.”
“Much of what you’re seeing she’s putting on for your benefit. When she gets more comfortable around you, the real Marissa will come out, trust me.”
“I do Maritza, I do.”
“I know.”

___

Marissa wasn’t the only one who wanted a real bed the next morning, her mother and I did as well. We never did get to the lumber store but we did a great job of gathering up the furniture we needed. Jennifer and April were kind enough to move the pieces up into the house every time we brought something back. Between new things and old we had all the furniture we needed two days later. Jennifer and April were happy to have their own place and none of us were sleeping, or sitting on the floor anymore.
That first night we had all had a bed to sleep in I spent half the night finding things to put together or set up.
“Jack, are you finished yet?”
“I don’t know Maritza there’s so much I need to do.” I knew what she was going to say next.
“Jack, you can finish that stuff tomorrow.”
“Okay,” I said heading for the bedroom. I got about two steps into the bedroom when I saw her brushing her hair in front of her vanity mirror. She had it all pulled over her left shoulder brushing it slowly from top to bottom. I walked up behind her and asked, “May I?”
She looked over her shoulder, smiled, and handed me the brush. “Certainly.” She sat down on the bench, flipped her hair over her shoulder and put her hands in her lap.
I began brushing her hair against her robe for a just a minute before she said, “Gather it in your left hand and brush down.”
“Okay. I gathered her hair in my hand and was amazed at how it filled my hand. I brushed and brushed watching the lamp light reflecting off the highlights, highlights that shimmers with every stroke. I must have gone on too long because she reached around and grabbed her hair from my hand.
“What is this thing you have for my hair?” she said holding it again over her left shoulder this time in both hands.
“I love your hair.”
“Why? It’s just hair.”
“You have the most beautiful hair I have ever seen.”
“Why thank you sir.” She reached up and stroked my face. Why don’t you grow your beard?”
“Most women don’t like them very much.”
“I am not most women.”
“You certainly are not.” I said it a little more strongly than I probably should have. I couldn’t help it. Maritza was just about everything I’d ever wanted in a woman. Every time I learned something new about her, I discovered another reason to respect and desire her.”
“What does that mean?”
“Sometimes a man doesn’t know what he wants until he sees it for the first time. The first time I saw you I remember watching you for the longest time.”
“The first time you saw me I was roofing with Jennifer, I was filthy.”
“How is it that a woman always knows when a man sees her but a man never knows when a woman is looking at him?”
Maritza walked over to the bed and hopped up, sitting on the edge of the mattress. “Me madre always said that it was always this way with men and women.”
“I don’t know how to explain it, but even though I have never met a woman like you, I am attracted and distracted by everything about you.”
“Such as?” she said. I loved her accent. I swear when she wants to have her way she does that on purpose.”
“You accent really gets to me.”
“What accent?”
“Okay. You really want me to do this?”
She nodded, smiled and batted her eyelashes at me.
“You see, it’s your smile,” which, of course made her smile even more. “It’s that amazing hair of yours, did you know that you braid is as thick as my wrist at least?”
Again the smile, this time she looked down at the floor. “Anything else?”
“You’re really gonna make me say this out loud?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Maritza the first time I really saw you you were wearing a thick white sweater.”
“Very good, most men wouldn’t have remembered. Why is this important to you?”
“I remember thinking to myself that there weren’t many women in the world whose figure could still look hot through all those clothes.”
“Really?”
Raising my hand I said, “I swear.”
“So you like my figure?”
“What I’ve seen of it, definitely.”
She smiled that smile of hers again and opened her robe. “Oh my,” was all I could say. She was wearing a white bra and matching panties, very lacy, very feminine. Her skin was very dark, all over.
“You like?”
“Oh my,” I said again in a whisper.
“Why don’t you come over here?”
I did. She must have known I was afraid, women always do. She took my hand and pulled me into the bed with her. I might have been the boss of the construction, but the bed belonged to her. I thought I loved her before she took me to her bed, in the morning I had to love her.
Rarely did I sleep until the sun came up, and even more rarely still this time of year. I didn’t wake up until Marissa knocked on the door.
“Let me get that,” she said throwing the covers aside and hopping down to the floor. She walked slowly over to where she’d thrown her robe. I was hypnotized by her nakedness. I didn’t understand it totally but I was amazed that she was the same dark color all over. Some parts darker than others, but dark, mysterious, sensuous, full of passion. She was the first woman in my experience who didn’t make love silently. She reacted to me making love, demanding satisfaction, my equal in strength and physicality. I’d made love to her once and I wanted to make love to her again, immediately, right now. I’d heard that there were couples that wanted, desired each other for years and decades, but I never believed it possible. Now I did. I was sure. I wanted her, looking at her. She could see that I wanted her.
“Cover that thing up,” she said pointing to it with an evil smile.
“Sorry,” I said involuntarily looking at it.
Maritza walked over to the door and opened it just enough to talk to her daughter.
“Now is a horrible time Marissa,”
“I’m sorry Mom, the sun’s up I thought Jack would be wanting his breakfast.”
“Marissa, can you wait until I tell you when would be a good time?”
“Oh mom, did you finally?”
“Marissa….”
“Oh mom, I’m so glad.”
“Marissa…”
“Okay mom. I’m going. Just let me know when I can help okay?”
“I will.”
“Okay.”
Maritza came back into the room and grabbed her robe. I patted the mattress next to me and she dropped the robe, walked slowly to the bed and climbed back into the bed.
“I need you to build me steps.”
“I would build you anything you need. I would do anything for you.”
“Really?”
“Do you have any idea the effect you have on me?”
“Of course.”
“Why does this not surprise me?”
“Because we were meant to be together.”
“You think so?”
“I have never felt like I feel when I’m with you.”
“Thank God.”
“Thank God?”
“I was afraid that it was just me.”
“We could not feel this way if it was just me or just you.”
She reached out and took me in her hand. I reacted. I reached out and felt the weight of her breast in my hand. She leaned her head back and moaned deep in her throat before she pulled the covers over us.

I must’ve fallen asleep after because the next thing I remember is Marissa shaking my shoulder telling me to wake up.
“What time is it?”
“About two,” she said with an odd little smile I hadn’t seen before.
“In the afternoon?”
“Yes sir,” Again the smile.
“I need to get my butt outta this bed,” I said pulling up the covers and swinging my legs toward the floor. A half second too late I remembered I was naked. By the time I got back under the covers Marissa was standing next to the bed with my robe in her hand. She dropped it on the bed and said, “I made some stew for lunch. I’ll get you a bowl.”
“Thanks,” was all I could say to her back as she walked out of the room.
She waved a hand over her shoulder on her way out the door but didn’t say anything.
I was about half dressed when Maritza came into the room.
“Jack, I know you’re not used to having us living with you yet, but you have to be careful.”
“I’m sorry Maritza, I wasn’t thinking.”
“That’s what I’m saying. That thing of yours just about scared Marissa to death, the poor child has never seen such a thing before. She was mortified.”
“I don’t know what to say…..”
The serious look evaporated from her face as she said, “The best thing you can do is not to say anything. Just go in there and eat she’s been slaving over that stove ever since she woke up. She really does love you. She’ll be devastated if she thinks you’re angry with her.”
“I’m not. Why would I be? It wasn’t her fault.”
“She doesn’t know that. She’s just at that age where sex is a mystery to her that she both wants to know more about and is frightened of.”
“Have you talked to her?”
“Several times. When she has questions she comes to me to ask. And before you ask, yes I have talked to her about you and me.”
“When she stuck her head in the door this morning?”
“She was very happy. I told her to go back to her room. As usual she paid me no attention. She started fires in the wood stoves and got to work in the kitchen.”
“She is a remarkable young woman. She gets it from her mom.”
“Thank you. She is the very best thing that has ever happened in my life.”
I nodded thinking that Maritza might be the very best thing that had happened to me in my life. The thought immediately made me feel guilty. There was a time in my life when Ann and the boys had made me feel that way.
“You are thinking of the family you lost,” she said putting her arm around my waist.
I could only nod.
“Our lives happen the way they are supposed to. God always brings us what we need.”
“I can’t believe that there was any reason for Ann and the boys to be killed so senselessly.”
“I am sorry that you had to go through such pain.”
“I have to believe that you are right. Things, good and terrible do happen the way they do for reasons that we can’t know. I do know that, for me, finding you is an amazing blessing that I had no right to ever expect.”
Maritza’s eyes filled with tears. “Jack, I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything. Just having you and Marissa here, that we can be a family…”
“This is what I have wanted for many years.”
“Are you two ever gonna eat?” Marissa yelled from the kitchen.
“We better go.”
“Never before have I looked forward to going to bed at night as much as I am right at this moment.”
Maritza walked over to the dresser and got one of my aggie sweatshirts and threw it to me. I was pulling it over my head as she was dragging me out the door.
“You’ll just have to wait, you promised to take Marissa out to get everything she needs to fix her room the way she wants it, and you promised to teach her how to do the things she can’t do for herself.”
I let out a huge breath and said, “The women in my family are very high maintenance.”
“The women in your family are worth it.”
“Indeed they are, Maritza. Indeed they are.”

What is up with Global Warming?

I cannot be the only person on the planet who is starting to get really steamed (sorry!) about all this global warming, chicken little, the sky is falling crap that seems to be everywhere right now. I wish to heck someone would just step up and explain to this normal guy why it is that the newly massed left wing forces of the world want to relieve me of my car, and electricity, and meat and all kinds of other trivialities to which I have become so accustomed.

Someone please tell me this, cause I can't seem to come up with even a semi-plausible guess.

On a related note, I have another question. Why is it, with the unlimited cacaphony of voices advocating for a return to the agrarian/vegetarian utopia of five thousand years ago, why is it that there are so few voices in the newssphere, blogosphere, Internetosphere and any other sphere that you can name that have the guts to just say why it is this planet is turning into a global cat box?

In case you're wondering, the problem we face is OVERPOPULATION. There are probably ten times too many people on this planet and when you have ten cats all shitting in a cat box meant for one cat, the cat box environment soon becomes unbearably shitty. Why is there no voice calling for the predominant species of this planet to limit it's own fecundity before we're all kneedeep in catshit?

I would love to hear anyone answer either of the obove questions. Maybe a constructive dialogue might begin.....

Johnny's Prompt Answered....

Prompt:

He opens his mouth to a crack that might accommodate a communion wafer, and then closes it again

50o Word Answer (more or less!)

He'd had cause, over the last several weeks, to wonder about his manhood. Running, instead of standing and fighting, ran against the grain, but run he had, first from one part of town to another, and then from one city down the highway to the next city, and the next, and the next, always looking in the rearview mirror, or out the plate glass window of a diner, or strain to see over the crest of the next hill to see who might be in the next car approaching in the lane to his left.

Sweat collected in between his palms and the leather wrapping of the steering wheel. He rubbed it off, alternately left and right on the faded blue fabric of his jeans until their color neared that which they’d had when he’d first taken them down from the shelf of the Wal-Mart store in Ida at least a dozen years before.

He gripped the top of the wheel with his left hand and massaged the tension from the right side of his neck. It only stayed relaxed until he looked, for the god knew how many times, over his left shoulder out into the hot desert air blowing with hurricane force into the interior of the Volkswagen rabbit, its air conditioning long since blown nothing but hot air smelling of the mold and fungus that now inhabited its dark channels.

His neck snapped forward as the engine missed once, and then again, and then ran roughly until it rolled to a stop in the gravely shoulder of the road.

“Goddammit, fuck, shit, cocksucker,” he screamed at the windshield though there was no one to hear his curses. “How the fuck could I be out of gas?” he asked as rhetorically as he opened the door and walked back to the gas gap opening.

He looked into the black hole and seeing nothing, he looked over top the small car to find something long enough and skinny enough to plumb the depths fo his gas tank. Letting out a long breath he walked around the rear of the vehicle he strode into the sand and broke off a desiccated shoot from the top of a nearby century plant and walked even faster to his car.

Dipping the slim reed into the gas tank, he withdrew it and found the tank at least three-quarters full.

“What the fuck?” he began when the sound of an approaching vehicle. He looked at the reed once more before throwing over the car back into the sand and then began to wait for the car to cover the distance separating them.

The relief that had begun to ease the tension in his shoulders stormed back when the car approached closely enough for him to see the driver was a woman and then closer still, close enough for him to recognize her.

The screech of her tires preceded the large pickup truck sliding to a stop a few feet from him. He stuck out his chin and stood and straightened from where he was leaning against the passenger door.

Cuss words barely formed were cut short by the crack of an automatic handgun. Six shots made six small red dots in the center of his shirt from which blood began to seep into his shirt. His body, thrown by the impact of the large slugs back against the sheet metal of his battered car before gravity took over and pulled him down to the gravel.

He mouth opened to a crack that might have accommodated a communion wafer to apologize one last time , and then closed again, forever silenced.

(605 words)

Chapter Three

Looking back it’s obvious that Tina’s desire to get right to work on my idea to collect climatological data had much more to do with her need to get out of that house than her desire to get back to her research. The closer we got to getting things set up the less she noticed how cold it was, and the happier she seemed. Had I known how focused she would become I might not have made the suggestion; but I did my thing and she did hers. Occasionally my thing got in the way of hers and then the real Tina came out to play.
“Exactly how long did you say it was gonna take you to get my lab built?”
“Your lab?”
“You know what I mean; where we’re gonna live.”
“It’s coming along. If you ever came over you’d know that.”
“How far along is it coming?”
“As soon as I finish my coffee I’m goin over there to get to work, you wanna come with me?”
She took a breath to say something and then let it back out. “Sorry,” she said getting up from the table. She poured herself a cup and then filled mine.
“I know I’ve been a bitch lately. Sometimes it’s just hard to separate work from life.”
“Thanks,” I said looking up.
“So you’re pretty far along?”
“Not too bad, most of the work has been in draggin the lumber up so high.”
“So you really did go up five floors?”
“I really did.”
“This I gotta see. I’m sorry I haven’t been helping you with it.”
“I’ve actually had help.”
“No kidding, who?”
“After I’d been working about a week, a couple guys showed up and asked me what the hell I was doing.”
“Just appeared, out of nowhere?”
“Yup. Turns out they used be students over at A&M; they had no family to go back to so they stayed here. They know where things are over on the campus, and they were looking for something to do other than read all day in the library.”
“So the three of you have been working for the last two months?”
“Not exactly.”
Tina’s eyebrows went up as she shook her head. “Not exactly?”
“Well… as it turns out there’s more like two dozen of us workin away over there.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. One sometimes two a day, people would show up asking if they could work on the project.”
“Where do they live?”
“Here and there around town at the beginning, now they all live in the houses around your lab.”
“What do they want?”
“I’d say they want what you want; to work at something they consider useful. I explained what it is you wanted to accomplish, and they pretty much all wanted to pitch in and help. There’s even an EE prof whose working hard on creating a radio setup that’d do data, voice and video. He says he may also be able to uplink to satellite if we can get permission down the line.”
“You have been busy.”
“Just trying to get you the best setup I could.”
“Why?”
“Same reason everybody’s working on this thing, to have something useful to do. The busier I am the less I have time to waste worrying about how things might’ve been or should.” I looked at the calluses on the palms of my hands remembering what it felt like to use them as they were meant to be used. “You ready to go?”
“Yea, I gues.”
We walked out the back door and down Jersey to the lot I’d made by bulldozing ten old rent houses at the corner of Texas and old Jersey. Tina kept bugging me about how it was George Bush drive now, but to me it’d always be Jersey. My first idea was to build on the golf course but on the off chance it did warm up a little in July and August I figured it might be fun to try to play a little golf if the grass didn’t get too long. We started building in April when temperatures got and stayed above freezing. Mid-June was a little warmer, maybe low to mid forties on the warmer days, thirties on average. Some nights snow would fall. Mostly it would melt during the day but there were spots where the snow had not melted from the previous winter. I long ago lost count of how many times people in the group would ask, “do you ever think it’s gonna warm up?” or “Is it spring yet?”
We used tractors and wagons to move lumber and other building materials from where we found them to the Project as everybody started calling it. There were right, it was a project, one that took on a life of its own. At first it was just about building the lab and the living quarters. As more people turned up the living quarters were expanded for a while until it became obvious that there were going to be more people then could comfortably live in one building. I took off a couple days and designed a small house that could be built quickly and insulated thickly enough to be comfortable for the most warm natured among us.
As concrete wasn’t available all the structures except the lab had to be built on piers. The lab I put on a stem wall foundations built on footers that we had to mix and pour by hand, one mixer load at a time. The thing that hit me everyday was that no one complained, except about the cold and that was just everybody’s way of letting out worry about the weather and what it was gonna do next.
“So you’ve had twenty guys workin hard over her for two months?” Tina said snapping me back to the present.
“Most of ‘em are guys.”
“You’ve got women over here?”
“Four most days, sometimes one or two more will come in to help or watch.”
“Whatca been feeding all these people?” she said as she stopped and turned to face me.
“Everybody hunts, some for game, some through stores and empty houses. There’s plenty of food if you’re willing to look for it.”
She turned and walked towards the building. It was easy to see standing twenty feet above the tops of the trees. There were two people up on the roof finishing up the shingling.
When we got there Tina asked me, “Are those two people up on the roof both women?”
“They are.”
“Who are they?”
I put my hand up along the brim of my cap as I craned my neck all the way back. I already knew who was up there. “Jennifer and Maritza. They’re the only two who’ll go up that high. Doesn’t seem to bother em at all. One day showing them how to shingle and then I didn’t have to worry about it any more.” While I was looking up she walked off. I followed her over to the where the little houses were going up.
Without looking back she asked,” How many of these are there?”
“So far, six. Eventually probably twelve at least.”
“I don’t understand why anybody’d want to live in one of these little houses when there are so many really nice ones around.”
“The really nice ones aren’t insulated very well, the windows are constantly fogged, there’s bathrooms inside that can’t be used…..”
“And?”
“And it used to be someone else’s house. There’s always ghosts.”
“The people who used to live there aren’t dead for God’s sake.”
“That’s true. It’s just the way the past has of creeping in on the present.”
“Like a ghost.”
“Yea.”
“You build one for us?”
“No way. Our place is up there,” I said pointing to the fourth floor.
“You’re kidding.”
“No.” As she turned back towards the tower I grabbed her sleeve and stopped her.
“It is still our place isn’t it?”
“Wow. I really have been a bitch haven’t I?”
“We’ve all been through a lot. Everybody has their own way of dealing with that kinda pain.”
“I’m sorry I took it out on you.”
“You really didn’t want to do all this mess did you? I mean it was pretty much my idea, not yours.”
“At the beginning, no I really didn’t. All I wanted to do was get the hell outta here, back then.”
“Then?”
“Then I started thinking about what you’d said about being here and doing real work here. Then after I got ahold of the people in Africa on the radio…”
“Wait, you got someone on that old radio? Why the hell didn’t you say something?”
“You were pretty focused on this,” she said waving her arm up and down.
“You wanna go upstairs and take a look around?”
“I would.”
When we went through the front door, which hadn’t been installed yet, she immediately asked, “What’s each of the floors for?”
“Fifth floor is the lab, Fourth is living quarters for us, first through third is currently unassigned space. Maybe library and work space. Maybe space for future labs and climatological scientists?”
Each floor was an open span and nothing interior had been framed out yet.
When we got all the way up to the top Tina asked, “Why are there two windows in each opening?”
I couldn’t find any decent double pane windows so I used two cheap double paned windows with an airlock in between. I’m hopin that when the weather gets really cold again we might be able to see outside.
“Jack?”
“Yes ma’am?”
“Is there any reason we couldn’t live up here and put the lab down a floor?”
“No, why?”
“Look at the view, you can see twenty miles up here.”
“Consider it done.”
“What’s the schedule on finishing all this?”
“We should be dried in by the end of this week, maybe Saturday if the weather holds out. After that we’re gonna break up into three crews. Six of us are gonna continue working on the interior framing and rough finishing.”
“What’s rough finishing?”
“We’ll frame it out and panel it out in solid wood. Sheetrock would mold really bad with no HVAC.”
“HVAC?”
“Heating, ventilating and air conditioning.”
“We are never gonna need AC again I fear.”
“Not for cooling for sure, but this close to the coast a little dehumidifying would go a long way. I just wish I knew how to plaster. Plaster would work. Anyway it’s a lot simpler to build a house the old fashioned way. We’ll get it all insulated with Styrofoam, put in the floors and move in.”
“That’s all?”
“I figure we can decorate and all that good stuff after we’re in.”
“What about plumbing?”
“Unfortunately there isn’t much need for plumbing without a water supply.”
“What about a well?”
“As far as I know nobody here can drill one, and even if we could we’d need a pump which would require electricity.”
“Isn’t all our equipment, computers and stuff gonna require electricity?”
“It is.”
“So why can we use some for pumps?”
“We’d hafta run the generators 24/7 to maintain any water pressure. I don’t maybe we could think about building some sorta cistern. I’ll talk to Jessie about it, she’s the engineer.”
“You’re gonna hafta introduce me to all these people you know,” Tina said turning to look out the window.”
“My name is Maritza Morales, I’m one of the people you need to meet.” Maritza said climbing down the ladder from the roof. I really liked Maritza’s accent. She was Cuban, and she was a beautiful woman.
Tina strode across the room with her hand straight out. “My name is Tina, Maritza.” Maritza shook her hand and said, “We’ve heard about you.” She said it straight out.
“Oh yea, what’d you hear?” she said turning back to look at me.
“We heard from Jack that you were an expert in climatology. That we’re building this tower so you can start to figure out what’s going on.”
Still shaking Maritza’s hand Tina replied, “That’s right, I’m up here to try to figure out what going on…”
Maritza pulled her hand back when she heard Jennifer come down the ladder. Tina walked past her again with her hand out.
“My name is Tina,” she said.
“So I heard from the roof. My name’s Jennifer, how you doin?”
“Fine. Today’s my first day up here and I want to try to meet everyone. I just met Maritza, and I wanted to meet the other woman with guts enough to work fifty feet up in the wind.”
“Sixty feet more nearly. It’s not so big a deal though. It needed to be done and it was a way that I could contribute. Mostly everyone else are busy building what’s gonna turn out to be my house over there,” she said pointing out the window. “You’ll have to come by and see it when you get a chance.”
“I will, thank you.” Jennifer walked off in the direction of the stairs followed close behind by Maritza. They said something that I couldn’t hear. Neither could Tina, but she didn’t look too happy.
“Any more pretty women I need to meet?”
“Well, I don’t know if they’re pretty or not but there are a couple more.”
I spent the rest of the afternoon introducing Tina to everyone I could find. I watched her face as she talked to each person, men and women. She searched each face. There was no way I could know for sure what she was looking for, but I had an idea. After meeting everyone we sat down on the steps of the tower and looked around for a minute.
“What do you think?”
“I’m impressed.”
“With?”
“I’m impressed with your ability to get a group of people all moving in the same direction. What in the world did you tell them that got them all working so hard?”
“Like I said before, they were all bored basically. I had what they needed.”
“I’ll bet.”
“And that means…..”
“I saw the way Maritza looked at you.”
“I believe you’re jealous,” I said as the woman herself walked up.
“I thought you two might be cold. Here,” she said holding out a thermos.
“What you got there Maritza?” I said doing my best to sound casual.
“Hot chocolate, I thought it might warm you two up,” she said smiling and then walking away.
“Well she seems to be very concerned with how warm you are,” Tina said grabbing up the thermos and opening it.
“Now I know you’re jealous. I gotta admit I’m surprised.”
“There’s no reason for you to be surprised. She looks to be your type.”
“And what exactly might my type be?” I said, playing along.
“Pretty, a little too feminine to be real and dumb as a bag of rocks.”
“Maritza is a double degreed civil and mechanical engineer that might just be able to get the plumbing to work.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope,” I said shaking my head.
“Shit.”
“She’s attracted to you you know.”
“I did get that feeling.”
“Did you do anything about it?”
“By do, you mean?”
“Are you sleeping with her?”
“Have I ever been missing from the house at night?”
“You know what I mean, are you fucking her?”
I wanted to tell her no right then, right that second. Something in me made me wait.
“Well,” she said, “I figured you had to be fucking someone, cause you sure as hell aren’t fucking me anymore.”
“You do like that word.”
“Should I not be pissed off?”
“No, you shouldn’t. There’s no reason for you to be.”
“So you haven’t?”
“No, I have not.”
“Then why the hell didn’t you say so?”
“I was waitin for you to stop cussin long enough for me to get a word in edgewise.”
“Dammit Jack.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“That’s not the point, is it?”
“Okay, that’s not the point. What the hell is the point?”
“The point is… I don’t know what the goddamn point is. All I wanna know is what’s goin on between you and me. Is there anythin goin on between you and me or is there not? Jack I gave up my family, my life everything I had for you.”
“Wait just a minute, I woulda taken you to the airport anytime you wanted. Hell, I woulda driven you to the Mexican border or any the hell else you wanted to go so don’t go layin all that on me. I’m just the guy who found you in a snow drift on the freeway.”
“What? Do you think if I had any other choice…..”
Her mouth slammed shut. I got up from the saw horse I was sitting on and said, “I gotta get back to work. I’ll let you know when we’re ready to set up your equipment. Is there anything else that you need that wasn’t on your list?”
She just looked at me and said, “Jack, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean….”
“I know. You mind if I don’t walk back with you?”
“No, I guess not.”
“Thanks.”
She put down the cup from the top of the thermos bottle, walked across the plywood floor and down the stairs. She hadn’t said anything I didn’t already know but hearing it out loud was something I definitely coulda done without.
I climbed up to the roof to see if Maritza and Jennifer had gotten finished. They had done a very fine job, leaving only the attachment points of the antennae and the instrument package unshingled. These spots were covered in three layers of self sealing membranes on top of the load bearing point in the structure below. The sun was going down as usual but the reds and oranges outlining the clouds made a beautiful picture. It also let me know that I needed to get my ass down off the roof before it’d be too dark to see what I was doing.
“You satisfied boss?”
I turned to see Maritza’s head sticking above the shingles.
“I couldn’t have done better myself,” I said meaning it.
“C’mon Jack. It’s pretty good for a couple a rookies.
“It is an absolutely fine job. Is Jerry ready to install all the whatever it is up here tomorrow?”
“He’s been ready. I’d bet he’ll spend tonight getting all his stuff hauled up here so he can start winching it up at sunrise.”
“Really?”
“He’s been waiting and waiting.”
“I’m glad to see that somebody’s enjoying themselves.” I worked my way over to the ladder and climbed back down to the floor. Maritza had the hot thermos in one hand, and a full cup in the other which she held out in my direction.”
“Here, your lips are blue.”
“Thanks.”
Tina was right. Maritza was a beautiful woman. Long black hair, nearly black eyes, very beautiful.
“I guess she wasn’t very happy with you.”
“Huh?”
“I saw her when she left. She looked at me like she wanted to kill me.”
“She said that it was pretty obvious to her that you were attracted to me and she accused me of sleeping with you.”
“That is not what she said.”
“You heard?”
“Everybody working on the project heard, and I’d guess everyone else knows by now. What was she so pissed off about?”
She was looking up at me from where she was sitting. Waiting for an answer that I didn’t have. “She said she knew you were attracted to me and that seemed to make her angry.”
“When did you tell her that there were women working on the project?”
“Today.”
“You really haven’t told her anything about what we’ve been doing over her?”
“We haven’t really talked all that much these last couple months.”
“Why don’t you go ahead and get home? Get some sleep so you can watch Jerry do his thing in the morning.”
Handing the cup back to Maritza, “That’s the best idea I’ve heard today, thanks.”
“You’re welcome, Jack.”
I’d just about gotten below the floor when Maritza said, “She was right.”
That’s all she said. I stopped and looked back at her. She was looking right back at me before she climbed the ladder up to the roof high enough to see the work she’d finished. I had to leave then. I had to get out of there. On the walk home al I could think of was Tina and Maritza, Maritza and Tina. Analytically comparing and contrasting the two. Seeing them both, over and over. When I got back to the house the lights were on and Tina was sitting next to fire reading a book. She looked up.
“You didn’t stay very long. Did she send you home?”
“Who?”
“Maritza.” She said the name slowly drawing out each syllable.
“As a matter of fact she did. She said I needed to get home and talk to you.”
“No she didn’t.”
“You know this?”
“I know women.”
“So tell me, what’s going on? Cause I guarantee you I have no idea.”
“What’s goin on is that you, for some reason have decided that there is no longer any place for me in your life. You have your project, and all those people over there that you like to spend all your time with. Ever since we came here it’s been me over here and you over there.”
“And you wish you’d just taken that plane south when you had the chance.”
“The thought has crossed my mind a few times.”
“There’s no reason why you still can’t. I could drive you far enough south to where you could catch a plane.”
“You’d love that.”
“You know Tina I’m fairly good at figuring out how to build a wall or pitch a roofline or set a footing, but I gotta tell ya that I do not have the ability to figure out what is goin on inside your head. I don’t understand what it is that has gotten you so angry with me. Near as I can tell I haven’t done anything that would make you upset with me. So if I’m gonna understand what it is that you’ve got on your mind you’re gonna have to just tell me what it is so I can either quit doin it or start doin it, whatever the hell “it is.
“Jack, why don’t you just leave me alone, okay? If you feel like you need to ask such questions I doubt you’d have the capacity to understand the answers.”
“How will you know if you don’t try to tell me what’s on your mind?” In my head I knew then somehow that persisting in asking her such questions was a waste of time but something made me do it anyway.
“Jack, let me put this as simply as I can, okay? There is absolutely no reason why you and I would, under any other circumstances other than the ones we now live in, have found ourselves together. We have nothing in common. I don’t want you to think that I’m not grateful for everything you’ve done for me. You probably saved my life, and you’ve given me a purpose in my life that I don’t think I’ve ever had before. For that I am more grateful to you than you can know. I think in the beginning you misunderstood my being grateful to you for finding me for something more that I don’t have the capacity to give to you. I should have told you this long ago, and for that I am truly sorry.”
I let out a long breath. She continued, “I need to ask you for a favor.”
“Sure.” What else could I say?”
“Two things actually.
“Okay.”
“First, I don’t want to live in the tower. I’d like to like to set up in one of those little bungalows you designed, the one closest to the tower, and I’d like for you to set up the instrumentation and run the cabling there.”
“Okay, what else?”
“Could you please build an observatory tower next to my bungalow?”
“It’d be easy enough to do. Don’tcha think it’d be easier to have your place out on the periphery rather than right next to a tower that’s already there?”
“My thought was to try to keep from interrupting whatever little family you set up in the tower.”
“Interupting?”
“You know me marching up and down, up and down making observations when you and the little woman are gettin busy.”
“Tina…”
“Jack, I asked you a question, a simple yes or no is all I’m looking for here.”
“Right next to the tower, or out a ways?”
“You decide. Just let me know when I can get outta here, the sooner the better.”
“I’ll ah, get right on it.”
“Thank you,” she said turning away from me and picking her book back up.
Being dismissed I left the room. It took me about twenty minutes to get my things packed up and into the truck after which I drove over to the project and hauled it all up to the fifth floor and then drove back to the house leaving the keys in it. I didn’t walk directly back to the tower, I was in no hurry because I didn’t feel much like sleeping. I wandered the old golf course and found myself on the campus looking up at the dark buildings. I wandered around retracing steps I’d made twenty five years before. The old buildings were still there, there were many new larger ones. All dark. Old dirty snow drifts in the darkest corners, leaves piled everywhere the wind swirled. More than anything was the quiet, heavier than the dark it was. This place where there’d been tens of thousands of people a little more than a year before was now completely empty, it’s only residents the wind and the cold and the quiet.
I sat there next to the architecture building waiting for the sun to rise realizing that the sun rises most slowly when you’re waiting on it, wishing it would make its appearance. I got up walked around walked into a few buildings whose doors had been smashed as far as I could until the darkness drove me back out.
I thought about Tina, replayed all that she’d said in my head over and over until I realized that she was right. I didn’t have any feelings for her, never had, and therefore didn’t feel any loss. By the time the sun finally did rise the only feeling I had left was relief. I made my way back over to the architecture building just as the top floor was lit orange by the sun. I took out one of the two tools I’d brought with me, a reciprocating saw with a long metal cutting blade, walked right up to the front door and was happy to see that it was still locked. I figured it might be. I can’t image anybody would have figured there was anything of any real value inside a building where people doodled for a living.
The blade cut through the bolt of the lock in no time. I walked directly to the third floor design lab and found what I was looking for, both drafting tables and computers. I took a few notes to remind me what to get when I came back and left the building. There was more air outside, better air. Inside time had been frozen. There were still flyers and bulletins from two years ago, old yellow newspapers with the big headlines tacked to the walls.
I pulled out my drill and drilled enough holes in the door to get a hasp and a padlock set about chest high. The padlock was the biggest one I could find. There’s no way anybody’d ever cut it with a bolt cutter. I put my tools back up into my backpack and took off in the direction of the project. I could see the tower from the top of every hill in the golf course. By the time I got back to Jersey I could see what must’ve been Jerry up on the roof bolting something down.
The only thing I could think of the rest of the way was that I wasn’t sure we really needed all that equipment any more. I’d convinced myself that Tina would be leaving at her first opportunity. I couldn’t have been much more wrong. As usual I didn’t have any idea of the forces that had already been at work driving change at the project. That day was a turning point that I and everybody else would point back to for years. Changes in both relationships and in everybody’s first concern; the weather.

The Fifth Essential Quality.....

I have mentally laboured long and hard to work up a way to say what needs be said as regards this last and by definition rarest of these highly refined feminine attributes we have been lately discussing. The fifth essential quality can be summed in one word: wantoness. How wanton you ask? Very, would be my only answer.

In public not very, though a man would certainly miss that practice of womanly flirtation which the female of the species has elevated to an artform. Yes, that would certainly be missed though it be directed at her man, or to others. Both practices can be, when properly executed, quite arousing.

No, the wantonness to which I refer herein is rather the expresion of a voracious appetite for orgasmic release where ever the unashamed coupling of a man and his woman, or a woman and her man take place. There is no place, whereever such extended encounters take place for the slightest expression of that which has been termed demure.

One of the many, many things that women, it seems to this writer, have yet to understand is that the most powerful things that a woman can do to arrouse or continue the arrousal of a man is to respond to sex as though a man would.

Now I know what you're thinking. what does this mean? Is the writer a latent homosexual?

What I mean is that woman, as I believe they did in centuries past, need to give themselves permission to completely lose themselves to the sensations that, if obeyed without reservation, would result in physical and emotional release which cannot be remotely approached by the today's sexually repressed woman.

This concludes my attempt at the description of the five essential qualities of the ideal woman. I am completely open to any comments about, additions to, or removals from my list!

P.S.

Of course a woman who, from her natural nurturing spirit wishes to bring a lonely female friend of hers to the communal bed for a threesome two or three times a month would also be nice!

The Fourth Essential Quality............

As we work our way through these qualities essential to the complete woman I find that I encounter each one less and less as I wander through the days of my life. While it's true enough that even the first of these essential qualities is far from common, this fourth quality is rare enough that a man might, even were he to search dilligently for it, never see a pure example of it in a woman.
I must take a long step back from the above generalization as I realize now that the distribution of these qualities that are essential to the complete woman are entirely dependent upon the culture in which one, as a man in search of the complete woman, finds one's self.

This fourth quality is currently rare but it was, if my reading of history is a reliable guide, must more prevelant in the past by far than it is today. This quality gentle reader, is femininity.

Now femininity can be observed from outward signs, beautiful long hair, dresses rather than pants, a gentle manner, a quiet strength, an unmoveable sense of self as a woman. Not some version promulgated by some organization or publication of what a woman is supposed to be. No, not at all. She knows who she is and she is the only person in this world who decides who she will be, what she will do and how she will do it. She is no slave to the comings and goings of fad and prefers the fashion that reinforces the unique image that she, unafraid, shows the world.

The feminine woman is unafraid to be a woman, and in no way wishes to ever be confused with a man in manner, dress, or ambition. Because she is sure of herself as a woman, she can allow a man to be a man.

The Third Essential Quality.........

Jealousy. Yes, you heard me right. Jealousy at a certain extent, is an essential in the kind of woman one would think enough of to limit one's self to exclusively. Now I know that too much jealousy can be a bad thing, everyone does, but too little is as bad as too much. All things in moderation, including jealousy. What you want is a woman who takes no shit from you and still wants to beat the shit outta any other woman who would try to alienate your affections.

Tomorrow, number four..........

The Second Essential Quality....

The second essential quality, in my never to be humble opinion, is edge. Edge is as easy to identify as it is difficult to quantify. At the very least, edge involves unconventionality, a certain thumbing of a woman's nose at rules she does not consider applicable to her life. She won't care, this edgy woman, whether or not others follow such limitations, she will not. This independendence may manifest itself in a brightly colored lock of hair in the midst of an otherwise homogeneous mass, or it may manifest itself in an entire head of brilliantly colored locks. The woman will never, in my experience, be a simple slave to fashion. She will rather blaze her own trail creating a look for herself that may remain constant over time or change by the hour. But regardless of her schedule, she will always be interesting to look upon and always, always looked forward to in the imagination. You see, this edgy woman, with all her endless vercissitudes is always challenging, never predictable, always exciting.

She will argue with you this one will, and you will enjoy both the argument and the passions such battles unleash afterwords. Yes, search ye for a woman with edge, the more the better. And when you find her, challenger her when you feel the courage to do so, you will be amply rewarded......

North Wind

Chapter Two

The lake wasn’t frozen like I thought it would be. There was some ice along the shore, maybe a foot or two out but it couldn’t have been more than an inch thick. The wind was what I immediately noticed standing there on the frozen sand. It was easily twenty miles an hour and maybe thirty-five or forty in gusts straight out of the northwest. Waves off the lake broke on top of the ice breaking it into smaller and smaller pieces leading me to believe that the wind hadn’t been blowing like this for all that long.
“What are you staring at?” Tina said. She was standing next to me, hands in pockets, and face buried in a scarf which was in turn buried in the hood of her parka. “And why the hell are you just standin there in a windbreaker? Aren’t you cold?”
“The bubbles.”
“The bubbles? What bubbles?”
“The bubbles under the ice. As soon as the ice gets broken up the bubbles escape from under the ice.”
“Okay….”
“Just an observation.”
“We gonna go inside?” she said pointing over her shoulder with her thumb.
“You go ahead. I get some of this wood inside for the fireplace. See if you can find some newspapers or something we can start a fire with.”
“Sure, but you need to hurry up out here. Even you can’t deal with this kinda cold for all that long.”
“I hear ya.” I went to the pickup and go my axe and started splitting up as much of the firewood as I could. It musta been sitting in the rack for years, about half of it was well on the way to rotten. It took me about an hour and a half to split what would burn. I stacked it on the deck next to the back door and went inside. Tina had a small fire going in the fireplace, and straightened the wood I dropped on the hearth.
“I was about to come and get you. D’you split wood the entire time you were out there?”
“Mostly. There was a bunch of rotten stuff out there. I separated the good from the bad and split up what I could.”
“Is there enough to get us through the night?”
“There’s probably enough to get us through the rest of the week if we bundle up at night.”
“For real?”
“Yea.” I took off my jacket and realized my shirt was soaked with sweat when the cold air hit it. “D’you bring in the clothes?”
“They’re right over there,” she said pointing at the couch.
I pulled my shirt off over my head without unbuttoning it and dug around in my duffel bag until I found another. Tina sat in what looked like a dining room chair right next to the fire.
“You gonna take off that coat any time soon?”
“Not until it warms up in here.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“Jack, you’re a nice guy, but you are a freak if you can stand in the middle of this room with only a flannel shirt on. I’m cold just lookin at ya.”
I looked at her and smiled. “Could you give me a hand?”
“With what?”
“I need to find us a mattress and some covers so we can sleep here in front of the fire.”
“That is the best idea you’ve had all day. Do you suppose the folks who built this monster left us some stuff behind?”
“Only one way to find out. All the furniture seems to still be here anyway. Depends on how much of a hurry they were in when they left.”
“Of if they even left from here. I’d be willing to bet that this isn’t where they really lived. People who are this comfortable only visit houses like this, they don’t live in em.”
I had to stare at her for a minute. A minute that became two.”
“What?”
“Lifestyles of the rich and famous?”
“My family was… comfortable too, I guess.”
“Surely they went south.”
“Actually they went to Australia.”
“Australia?”
“Australia. I told them there was no way in the world I was going to Australia and that I’d rather freeze to death in Dallas than go there.”
“So they left you here?”
“They left me my ticket. They told me I’d be right behind em after I’d been a couple days on my own.”
“Obviously you never did.”
“I meant what I said. I would much rather freeze here than go there.”
“So remind me what you were doing out on forty-five again….”
“I was coming here to see you.”
“You were coming here to see me?”
“Well, I met up with you. Isn’t that enough?”
“You were heading to Bush weren’t you?”
“No.”
“You were. You were gonna hop a plane out of Bush for Australia. What happened, did they shut down DFW?”
She sat there for a minute looking into the fire and said, “Okay, I was gonna try… I didn’t even get to the damn airport.”
“What’s the bible verse?”
“Bible verse?”
“It says something like there’s no way to figure out why he does what he does, but it’s always for the best.”
“How can you believe that?”
“I have to. I don’t have any choice.”
Tina got up on her tiptoes and kissed me on the cheek as she walked past me and up the stairs. I followed her. There were five bedrooms suites upstairs. Each had a huge bathroom and a closet that had to be twelve by twenty feet square.”
“It’s too bad the water doesn’t work any more,” Tina said staring at the shower.
“It works.”
“Not the hot water.”
“True enough. They really musta insulated this house. I can’t believe the pipes didn’t burst long ago.”
“Lucky us.”
We pulled a mattress, sheets and some comforters downstairs and set up in front of the fire place. There was food in the pantry to last for longer than we’d be staying and the elk quarters in the back of the truck. We were set. Tina worked without saying a word and I figured I knew what was going on in her head. This was the sort of place where she’d lived and socialized, where her family had been.
“You ready to turn in?” I had to say something to break the silence.
“I guess. I can’t get used to how early it gets dark this time of year.”
She was right, it couldn’t be much past five.
“We’ll go find some candles tomorrow. I’m sure there’s some here somewhere. When she made a face I asked,
“Ever thought about continuing your work?”
“What?”
“We could find you or build the instrumentation you need and you could collect data. We could also set up some sort of short wave radio station to get in contact with people down south. Surely there must be universities down there or somewhere that would give there eyeteeth for a contact here in the new great white north. She looked over her shoulder. There was interest on her face.
“You’re kidding.”
I shook my head. “Why not?”
“E…lec…tricity, is why not.”
“Gen..er…ators,” was my answer. I looked right at her, challenging her to challenge me back. She needed something to focus on something that she hadn’t lost. I knew at that moment that I didn’t have the strength then to keep on and carry her along as well.”
“Might be interesting to see what’s going on out there. You really think we could find the stuff I need? Wouldn’t that mean that we’d have to find someplace and stay there permanently?”
“We’d have to find some sorta base for your operations. Someplace that we could set up the infrastructure to allow you to collect and use the tools you need. You’d have to decide where might be a good place.”
“You’d do that for me?”
“It’s something you’d want to do?”
“I was beginning to wonder what I possibly could do any more.”
“You were beginning to wonder how you could go south, because you’d decided for a second time in a month that there wasn’t any real reason to be here, freezin your ass off.”
It was her turn to stare at me. I couldn’t let the silence go on as long as she had so I said, “It was obvious even to me that being in this house is difficult for you.”
Her head fell to her chest and I could see a tear fall from her face to the floor. I took her hand and lead her over to the bed. The tears continued to run down her face as I undressed her down to her underwear, laid her down on the mattress and covered her under all three of the comforters she’d found.
“Aren’t you coming to bed?” she said in a small voice.
“Nah, I don’t sleep all that much. If we’re gonna move outta here tomorrow I’ll have to figure out where to go.”
“We need to go up to A&M.”
“Why?”
“It’s centrally located, we can find the equipment I need and it’s about as far north as I care to live. We’ll also have to make a run back to NT so I can get my gear and computers. You said we’d have power right?”
“I think we can find generators and gas.”
“You think or you know?”
“Nothin much is for sure anymore, but I’ll do the best I can.”
She was up on an elbow now. The tears had made two wet streaks down her face. “You’re gonna hafta build me something to live in where I can be warm.
“I can do that.”
She rolled back under the covers and said, “We’ll start tomorrow.”
I’d really only meant to see what she thought about the idea; maybe talk it over for a few weeks. But, as I sat looking at the fire I soon realized that there was no time like the present. Especially since the present was the whole game these days.

The Five Characteristics of Attractive Women.............

You know, I've been thinking about women a lot lately. I mean I'm just a man and women are my chief fascination as is the case for maybe 90% of all men. So just for fun I've tried to determine, just for me, what qualities I find to be the most attractive.

There are, of course, as many attributes to be considered as there are women to be considered and this task turned out and continues to be much more challenging than I had anticipated. But, having said that I have come up with a few qualties that seem to fascinate me much more than others.

The first of these must be intelligence. I know, I know, every man who is interested in a woman of even moderate intelligence praises her mind. We do that because we men have been trained by long cultural imperative to praise characteristics of women that don't remotely have anything to do with arrousing the baser sorts of male interest. Nonetheless, a very intelligent woman can turn my head and arrouse my interest whenever she cares to do so.

Why is this so? I have no idea, but the flame of a hot burning flame of a woman's mind can attract this moth to his distruction on any day of the week.

Tomorrow's number two!