Tomorrow's Ideas

The Gospel According to Don Quixote - Chapter Two

2007-11-04T12:38:00.000-08:00

The cold air filled the forest just as the dying moon became visible through the canopy of branches far over their heads.
“The animals,” Anatak whispered over her shoulder.
“They’ve gone to their burrows and nests.”
The two lay underneath their two blankets and the hide of a tatanka beast. Nahtan had done his best to describe the animal to her but had had little success, and even less when he explain how the enormous animals were hunted, killed and butchered. She did not believe him and told him so as was her way. He promised, as they started their journey south in the morning, that he would show her the beasts when they reached their natural grazing grounds as they must eventually.
Alternating puffs of breath tinged orange by the guttering flames emerged from beneath the thickly furred hide as the temperature dropped from evening cool to mid-winter cold before the slivered moon disappeared again into the branches. Just as he finally worked up enough courage to put an arm around the woman in front of him he felt something, someone pocking him in the back hard enough to be felt through the hide, and the blankets.
“Go away,” he heard Anatak yell at whoever it was and he smiled. She grabbed his hand when he tried to pull it from her waist and said, “Ignore him. You told him it would get cold, he didn’t listen.”
“Who?”
“Khatib. He’ll be whining all night.”
“Give me a minute.”
Taking his hand and placing it in between her breasts she whispered, “You’re not going anywhere.”
Khatib was wrapped in his only blanket as was Okio next to him. “What the hell is wrong with him, I know he’s in there, why doesn’t he come out?”
“Why would he? He’s warm enough, and the gods only know if he’s ever been with a woman before. I doubt it.”
The big man took a deep breath and then watched the wind rip the cloud formed by his exhalation away into the darkness. Without a word he started gathering wood for the fire. Okio watched him from her seat next to the resurgent flames moving back bit by bit from the fire as it grew.
“Who?”
“Khatib. He’ll be whining all night.”
“I’ll just need a half a minute.”
Taking his hand and placing it in between her breasts she whispered, “You’re not going anywhere.”
Khatib was wrapped in his only blanket as was Okio next to him. “What the hell is wrong with him, I know he’s in there, why doesn’t he come out?”
“Why would he? He’s warm enough, and the gods only know if he’s ever been with a woman before. I doubt it very much to be honest.”
The big man took a deep breath and then watched the wind rip the fog of his exhalation away into the darkness. Without a word he got up and started gathering wood for the fire. Okio watched him from her seat next to the resurgent flames moving back bit by bit from the fire as it grew brighter and hotter.
Nahtan pulled back the coarse bufflo fur far enough to clear one eye. He watched the flames flicker, rising and falling as wood was added to the flames that relentlessly consumed it. Sparks exploded as the sap inside a pine knot spewed into the hot coals beneath it.
He was about to raise a hand to pull the hide back farther when he felt Anatak’s hand circle around his waist. The muscles of his stomach contracted strongly as her finger tips followed the ridges and valleys down to where his manhood already stirred and begun reaching up toward the hand reaching for it.
Cold air caught in his throat as she took him in her long fingers as her other hand pulled at his shoulder to turn him toward her. Her body was suddenly warm and soft against his, adding a painful edge to the swelling in his loins.
Rolling on her back she pulled the smaller man effortlessly on top of her. With one hand she pulled his hips toward her while guiding him into the warm wetness of her desire with the other.
Though the making of children had been explained to him many times, usually though much drunken laughter and good-natured depreciation for his complete lack of meaningful experience, his knowledge was until that moment entirely theoretical. Experience, he soon realized, was not necessary when a man and a woman found themselves, together, alone, and naked.
Though his body seemed to know exactly what to do with no input from either his mind, which could offer him not guidance at all as to what to do next, or his memory which had been up until that one moment in time devoid of any experience that he could call upon as a guide, his hips seemed to have a mind of their own and the ability to call upon the memories of generations before at will.
His world, with which he had grown to become experienced in all things natural far more than other men, seemed to, for the first time rush way from his finely-tuned senses and then finally his mind itself, always hyperactive, seemed to push away all ability to collect and sift the clues that he alone could sense and understand. All he could feel then was the woman beneath him and that part of her that had devoured him so hungrily.
All he knew, all he could sense, was how her body felt against his, what it felt like to be inside her. His mind was filled with the new sensations of being inside her, feeling the power of her body pushing itself against his seeking, he felt like she was trying to consume him entirely when her body suddenly drove itself into him and spasms took her over lifting him off the cold ground beneath her as her strength and heat pulled his seed from him.
He pushed he weight off her before she pulled him back down and held him close to her whispering a word he hadn’t heard before but somehow knew meant thank you. The word touched him in a part of his soul he’d never known existed before.
He whispered the word back to her knowing he’d said it poorly but putting into it all the emotion he was feeling into it. Finally withdrawing from her, he pushed himself up into the warm space their bodies had created together until he was face-to-face with her. He kissed each of her eyelids and her full lips tasting the complex flavors on the end of her tongue.
Rolling on his back he poked his head just far enough beyond the end of the hide to be able to see the north wind throwing the branches far above his head. He felt Anatak burrow her head into his shoulder and neck.
“She’s smart enough to stay under there where it’s warm,” Khatib thought as he watched the wind tear apart the fog of his breath.
Nahtan’s head disappeared back under the frost-covered fur a moment after Anatak’s hands found life had returned to that part of him she’d only just discovered.
The muscles in Khatib’s forearms stood out like taught ropes as he strained to break a wrist-sized branch for the fire.
“Do you think she’s nursing him in there?” he said to no one in particular. Okio appeared out of the darkness with a double armload of dead branches. Dumping them next to the dying flames, she looked at the moving furry mass at the edge of the area lit by the fire.
“If he wants to I guess, why do you care?” she asked as she began placing branches into the glowing coals. She watched the reds and oranges dance in his eyes as he stared at the bufflo hide as the growing firelight made the movements beneath it easier to see. Returning her gaze to the fire she realized it had grown hot enough to load on a few of the small logs Masoon had broken up and stacked a little too neatly for her taste.
She looked up at him again when she was sure the fire would grow on its own. The logs she’d laid in a pyramid had already begun to crackle and glow as the flames burned through the thin bark and started to consume the heartwood. He was still watching the lump that was Anatak and Nahtan though there was no longer any movement to be seen there.
She sat wrapped in her thin blanket feeling the wind blow through it and the leather coat and undershirt. She watched the cold wind blow hard enough to move even the most heavily frozen fur back and forth as she worked the hide-tough jerked venison in her mouth in slow deliberate movement practiced over more years than she’d every admit to living. She waited for the big man’s eyes to return to her from the furry lump ten steps away.
When he did look back down she met his eyes and asked, “Jealous?”
“About what?”
“Them,” she said pointing in their direction with a long piece of jerked backstrap.
His eyes narrowed as he said, “no.” He looked away from her back at the hide for a moment and then began digging around in his pack until he too found the venison jerky almost frozen, barely chewable. Working the tough fibers in his jaws he stood looking up into the treetops before walking away from the fire and disappearing into the darkness.

I'm pissed off and I've finally decided to say something

2007-11-03T11:06:00.000-07:00

What am I pissed off about? It's simple. I'm pissed off about the newest incarnation of the sky is falling fable. Global warming. That's what. Is the globe warming? Sure it is. Ice is melting here and there. The Arctic ice accumulation is shrinking at an alarming rate and polar bears may just drown for lack of ice to float on.

But I've asked myself the question a thousand times at least and always come up with the same answer. I do not give a shit if the world is warming or not. AND I am completely unconvinced that the warming is completely or even partially man made. (Take that my feminist sisters, I'll get to your cranky lot in a later post).

Okay, let's assume for a moment all these left wing wacko "the sky is falling" effete scientists are right, a loooooooooooooooooooong stretch I assure you, but let's just let them have their day for a minute or so.

This hysteria all begs a simple question and this is it:

If indeed global warming exists as posited and, also as posited, evil humans are the cause of it all, doesn't that make the true problem overpopulation?

Why the hell isn't anyone talking about the scourge upon this planet of waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too many humans burning fossil fuels and wood, eating grain and god forbid meat, and exhaling the evil Carbon Dioxide.

That's actually the problem isn't it? An unsustainable level of human infestation upon mothrt Earth?

As so as I hear the first so-called scientist take scrotum in hand and boldly proclaim that what we have here is an overpopulation problem I will continue to disregard any of their global warming blather.

Chapter on of Novel Five - Rough First Flow Draft

2007-09-30T09:10:00.001-07:00

The Gospel According to Don Quixote
Chapter one

There’s a unique shade of green that leaves own only when they first unfurl to face the spring sun. A pure unblemished green that made Nahtan slowed from a loping run to a full stop in the middle of the ancient trail he’d followed for the last three days. Instinct rather than thought drove him into the thick foliaged to his left.
Motionless, he squatted in the thick mat of rotting leaves and began to listen to every sound surrounding him, classifying each and moving on until he’d finally focused on the one sound that had crept into his sub-consciousness and stopped him.
The sound of the wind, he knew, was by far the most complex as it slipped over, past, through, and around countless obstacles and hindrances. The wind carried as its burden sounds and scents that all can, but few actually do, sense or feel.
He resisted the urge he felt to get up and run away through the foliage though he knew he could do it without attracting the attention of the group a few yards to his north. The breeze had slowed but it still brought the scents of the group to his nose mixed with the more familiar scents of the northern forest.
His mind slowly sifted through one familiar marker after another until only the unfamiliar scents of the men and women to his northwest remained. Women, was the first word through his mind. He couldn’t remember having smelled, or seen a woman in many seasons. His body tensed as it began to rise and move involuntarily toward the source of the scent. Such had been the power of its attraction for him.
He took a long breath to relax the muscles of his legs and back as he settled to the ground again as the less powerful but more frightening smell of male sweat bullied its way into his consciousness making caution overcome the growing pressure between his legs.
Adjusting the bow and quiver on his back, he backed away without rising up and slithered through the foliage following the wind through the leaves and branches. The skins covering his feet made no mark on the earth beneath him as he covered the distance separating him from the group. They’d stopped moving he knew and had already begun gathering up wood for a fire. That they, whoever they were, had made no attempt to be silent or even careful in charging through the forest told him a great deal about them sight unseen.
His arrival in sight of their camp happened just as the first snaps and pops of a campfire that was sure he knew to grow much, much larger than it needed to be. Smoke billowed up amongst the think canopy of branches above their heads in such volume that it was sure to attract the attention of anyone from horizon to horizon who looked up.
He looked across the valley to his left and saw that the sun wasn’t much more than one or two diameters above the horizon. “Good,” he whispered barely loud enough for even himself to hear it as he crept on his belly, inches at a time, close enough to be able to see all of them.
His gasp surprised him and caused the woman feeding wood into the fire to pause and then finish dropping a small branch into the flames.
Nahtan had retreated almost two body lengths when he felt a sharp point against the small of his back just before someone took a handful of his shirt and pulled him to his feet.
His second unguarded reaction that morning was prompted by the owner of the hand that he pulled him up off the leaf mold. He looked up from her uncovered bosom, precisely at eye level for him, up to her face more than a foot’s length, at least, above his own.
She looked down upon him from two dark blue, almost violet eyes in which he saw not the slightest indication of either mercy or kindness. She said a few words as she pushed him in the direction of the camp. Her words had an odd sing-song quality as they fell upon his ear which didn’t match her massive size and strength.
Realizing that he had no other option than to go with her at the moment, he decided to do just that and then look about for a way to escape later. He couldn’t help but look now and then to his left fascinated by the graceful movements of the woman’s heavy breasts not two feet from his face. The unfamiliar pressure in his loins returned with a vengeance just as he was walked out from the forest into the small clearing where they’d tethered their animals and built a fire.
He again turned his head to the woman, watching her face as she looked about unsuccessfully for her companions. He could see from their tracks that they’d fled into the trees in four different directions. He watched as, when she shouted for them to come back to the fire, her efforts caused tiny vibrations in her breasts.
Somehow he found himself on the ground in less time than it took to realize where he was looking up at her, and then at the other four as the appeared in front of him. He worked his jaw as he rubbed the right side of his head with a callused palm finally understanding that she’d knocked him to the ground and he hadn’t either sensed or otherwise seen it coming all. The knowledge hit him hard as it had never come close to happening to him before.
Ignoring him, each of the group, three women and two men went back about the tasks of setting up camp ignoring him as if he wasn’t even there.
“I guess I’m no threat,” he said under his breath as he stood and brushing the dust, twigs and bits of leaves from his vest and leggings.
“Look around you,” a man said to him as he skillfully erected a sort of one-sided shelter from branches he cut from the surrounding trees, all of us but one would easily make two of you. Do you think you are a threat to us?”
The man who’d spoken was very dark-skinned, even for late summer and incredibly tall, though not quite so tall as the blond woman now gone back to gathering wood for the fire. His language, though hard-edged, and guttural to his ear, was understandable enough.
“I am Nahtan, teller of stories and holder of memories.”
The big man stood placing his left hand flat upon his chest and, bowing, said, “I am Khatib, and she,” he indicated the tall woman who’d just reappeared from the forest, “is Anatak, and if I were you I’d do my best to keep my gaze a little higher if you don’t want to get knocked down again.”
The small man nodded. “Can she understand my words?”
“Yes, she can,” was all he said before going back to weaving branches this way and that. Over his shoulder he finished, “She can speak to anyone and be understood. Always has.”
Nahtan walked toward the tall woman and stopped in front of her. “I ask your forgiveness,” he said just out of arm’s reach.
“Why were you looking at me that way?” She dropped the last of her branches and turned to face him.
He bowed slightly and said, “I have never seen a woman such as you.”
“What does that mean?” She took a step toward him.
“You’re beauty overwhelmed me. It will not happen again.”
She stopped, looking down at him for a moment before saying, “Help me with the fire wood.”
It was not a question, nor was it quite a command, but he took it as one and followed her into the shadows enveloping the forest still just out of arm’s reach just in case.
“What was that about?” Massoon said as he unburdened one of the pack horses.
Khatib shrugged before stepping back and looking at the shelter and, satisfied, he turned to him and answered, “I am surprised she didn’t break his neck.”
“I think she didn’t know what to think,” Okio said without looking up from the meat and roots she was chopping for the evening meal.
“Yes she did,” Alsa said as she dumped the contents of the basket in which she collected a days travel worth of mushrooms and fruit.
“Okay, she did, but she still wanted to beat him up I think.”
“I did not,” she said dumping an armload of wood by the fire. “It’s just that his eyes are right there,” she pulled an arm up horizontally at the level of her nipples. Maybe I should cover myself.”
“What for?” Okio said looking up. She too wore just a skin around her waist about a foot’s length or a little more, more than enough for the heat of summer though Alsa wore both a vest and leggings of pale deer skin and always had.
Everyone waited for Anatak to answer but she ignored them and pulled up a section of a fallen log. She sat next to the fire and stared into the growing flames.
Nahtan watched the interchange with great interest, wondering who these people were and how they’d come to be together. Questions about this and a dozen other things rushed through his mind as he watched the simple evening activities, each man and woman busying themselves with roles that were as clearly defined as they were well practiced. In his mind he began to construct a story about these people, all so extraordinary in appearance and speech, he knew he could spin a tale that would hold the attention of any audience long enough to earn a meal or two, or convince a crowd not to do him harm.
“So who are you?” Anatak said without looking up.
“I am Nahtan, teller of stories and holder of memories,” he said as he had said before. He pulled himself up his full height and looked around to see if anyone noticed. No one did.
“I am Khatib,” he said with no bow this time.
“I am Masoon,” the shorter man said with a slight bob of his head.
“And I am Okio, and you could help me over here if you wished to suddenly become useful.”
He turned toward her as Alsa introduced herself without looking up from her fruit and fungus.
Nahtan took a circuitous path keeping several feet between him and each man or woman he passed until he stood in front of the Okio woman.
She looked up at him though the most oddly shaped eyes he’d ever seen. A golden brown they were. Her face was very round and very flat with a small nose. “Do you have a knife?”
He thought that was just about the strangest question he’d ever been asked and it hurt his pride somehow. He reached behind his back to pull his prized possession from the scabbard. His hand searched his back for the half-second it took for him to realize that it was gone. His eyes sought out the tall woman, Anatak, and quickly found her. She had the leather-wrapped grip in her left hand and the tip resting on the index finger of her right hand. He knew she knew he was looking at her. He’d already sensed that in her, found some sort of kindred spirit, a fellow traveler though the shadows that seemed to consume the world from ocean to ocean.
It was then she smiled for the first time, at least the first time he’d seen her smile. In a movement almost too fast for him to follow, she took the blade in her right hand and threw it towards his head. Time dilated for him as it always did in times of danger. By the time the knife had cut through two feet of air he knew that it wasn’t going to hit him; that it would miss him by an inch or two, so he relaxed into perfect immobility and watched the blade slowly approach his face and then fly past ruffling the air near his ear.
He’d watched her the entire time, though it was only three slow beats of his heart. She had examined his face, gauged his reaction to what she’d done until the knife had buried itself inches into the tree to his left.
The smile returned to her face as he stood, she maintained eye contact with him until he turned away from her to retrieve his knife.
He turned back to find the other four pairs of eyes focused on him. He made eye contact with each until he’d returned his gaze to the tiny woman sitting at his feet. He tested the edge of his blade with what was left of his thumbnail and found it still sharp enough to split a hair. Sitting down in front of the tiny woman at his feet, he began to slice up the fruit and mushrooms she’d pushed across the broad plank at her feet.
Khatib leaned toward Anatak and whispered, “He’s not at all what you thought he was, is he?”
“Shall we take him with us?”
Khatib looked at her. “Do you think he’ll want to?”
“No man truly wants to walk alone.”
Khatib watched him carefully slicing the apples Okio had pulled from trees they’d walked under that morning. It was obvious to him that the knife Anatak had thrown at him was very, very sharp and equally obvious that she could have killed him had she chosen to do so.
“I think that it would be equally difficult for a woman to walk alone for all her days….” He followed her gaze to the small man slicing apples half a dozen paces across the fire. He had known Anatak since he’d found her, a small silently crying child, covered by her dead mother’s body in the burned out remnants of village in which the Hors had left nothing else alive.
A scratching sound pulled Khatib’s attention back to her. He watched as she created designs in dark earth at her feet with a stick she must have sharpened with Nahtan’s knife before she’d returned it to him. She’d told him long ago that they were the signs of the gods that had created both her people and this earth before the long ago. Asymmetrical crossed lines in various forms, five and six pointed stars, crescent shaped moon forms, fishes and fat sitting men, she always drew them exactly the same way, the way she’d been taught since she was old enough to hold the drawing stick in her hut seated at the foot of her mother.
He’d asked her a dozen times what the signs meant, or meant to her, and had always gotten exactly the same answer, “The signs and symbols of the sacred before times are not for the uninitiated, I will share both their creation and their mysteries with my daughters when they are born, with them and only them shall I share the mysteries.”
“And when will you have the daughters of which you’ve spoken so many times?” he asked as he stood. He’d asked the question before; it was a game they’d played many times. So many times, in fact, that he was stunned when her answer this time was different. So different that he stopped mid-stride and turned back to look at her.
“What did you just say?” he asked having heard her words but not believed what he’d heard.
Wrapping her fist tightly around the stick, she drove it far into the ground before she looked up at him. “You heard what I said.”
“Him? You want him? That little man?”
“It’s not about what I want. The prophecies of my mother have all come true for me but one.”
“She foresaw a tiny frightened man fathering your children?” he couldn’t stop the laugh that boomed forth from him. All eyes were on him as he watched Anatak stand to her full height.
“No,” she said simply,” she said that she’d foreseen that I would see the man who would fill my womb in a dream of my own.”
He looked at Nahtan and than back at her. He spoke loudly not caring who heard him as he replied, “You saw that,” he said still pointing at Nahtan,” in a dream? I don’t believe it.”
Nahtan stood knife in hand.
Okio said, “I wouldn’t.”
“I’m not you,” he hissed not taking his eyes from the man across the fire nearly twice his size.
Khatib took one step toward the fire before Massoon stepped in his way.
“Massoon, you had better move.”
“You should think about what you are doing. You do not know anything about this man you seek to kill.”
“He is barely a boy.”
Khatib place a hand in the middle of Massoon’s chest to push him aside expecting him to yield easily but he did not. He took the big man’s hand in his own and twisted it effortlessly yet powerfully enough to drive Khatib to his knees dropping his blade on the way down.
Nahtan watched everyone. He had no idea what was going to happen but he was anxious to see. No one looked surprised at what had happened between Massoon and Khatib. Massoon released his hand and waited for him to get back up on his feet. He wiped both sides of Khatib’s blade on the leather of his leggings and handed it back to the tall man. Not a word was said as the activities that had been going on before the confrontation resumed as though there had been no excitement. And, as he relaxed and sank back into a crouch in front of Okio and Alsa.
Alsa pushed more apples toward him and went back to work. Okio stared at him intently.
Nahtan cut an apple in half, and then in half again before returning her stare. “Yes?”
“I watched you.”
“And?”
“You showed no fear. I would have seen it were it there, but you had no fear of Khatib that I could see though he would easily make two of you.”
“I think,” he said returning to his work, “that it doesn’t matter so much the size of the dog in the fight, as it does the size of the fight in the dog.”
A broad grin grew across Alsa’s face though she didn’t stop what she was doing she looked over at him and then at Okio.
“What?” Okio said. She looked at Alsa for a second and then stuck her knife into the wood at her feet, stood up and walked away.
“What did I do?”
Alsa turned back to face him after Okio disappeared into the shelter. “You’ve surprised her.”
“You think so?”
“Yes, and you should know that she doesn’t like to be surprised.”
“Well, no one does,” he said starting in on the haunch of meat Alsa had return with.”
“No that’s not it. Okio, I think is very good at reading people, like some can read the sky and tell when it will rain or be cold, or read the signs in the forest and tell what animals can be hunted, she can read a man or a woman. So you can see how you surprised her, and why she doesn’t like that very much.”
“What about you?’
“Me?”
“You, what’s your story?”
“My story?”
“Yes everyone has a life that is a story.”
“I have done nothing.”
“You have survived this world in which we live.” He looked around the campsite and saw that neither Okio nor Khatib had reappeared from the darkness of the shelter he had built.
“They probably won’t come back out until tomorrow morning. That’s what they do every night.”
“They are bonded?”
“What?” She looked up with a confused look.
“A man and a woman who decide to create children together over time.”
She stopped cutting and laid her knife on the plank. “Why would anyone want to do that?”
“So they can know whose children are whose.”
“What woman would not know her own children?”
“A man wants to know who his children are I guess.”
The expression on her face eased from confusion to amusement. “You’ve never had a woman have you?”
“Had a woman?”
“Buried your manhood between a woman’s legs.”
He immediately looked down and finished removing the bone from the hunk of elken meat in front of him. His knife cut through the flesh with little resistance until he had a large pile of cubes in front of him.
“You do good work.” She’d moved around behind him as he’d worked, head down, suddenly oblivious to everything and everyone around him. He started when he felt her hand on his shoulder. She leaned past him and tossed a few cubes of meat back and forth before she drew her hand back to his stomach and then pushed it down into his crotch causing his manhood to stiffen, and his face to redden even below his sun-burned face.
“We may have to keep you around for a while.”
Having again gathered his wits, he looked up to see her retrieving a basket from beside the fire. Two pots, one slightly larger than the other, both very black, had been suspended over the fire on what had to be an iron pole. Steam rose straight up from each in the still air of the campsite.
“Put the meat in this one,” she said as she set the basket down onto the earth next to his knee. He shifted his behind to relieve the pressure that remained as he grabbed one handful of meat after another until the basket was full and the board in front of him empty.
He readjusted himself on last time and then stood, checking for obvious signs of his condition as he did so.
“Just dump half in each one,” she said as she pushed everything else that had been gathered up that day into each of the pot. When she was done she began to stir one pot and then other.
He watched her slowly stir the content of one pot and then the other.
“You could help you know,” she said.
“Do you have another spoon?”
She pointed at the pack next to the shelter with the spoon in her hand. A moment later he too was stirring the pot as soon as it began to bubbling and spit its contents into the coals below. He stopped stirring and used a log at his feet to back the coals to either side of each pot. The bubbling slowed enough to keep the contents inside the blackened pots and out of the hot earth beneath them.
“This isn’t going to take very long,” he said as he resumed stirring the pot.
“No, we’ll eat first,” she said without looking up. “Anatak, Massoon, bring your bowls; get it while it’s hot.
Massoon preceded Anatak by only a step or two and both soon stood over the fire bowls outstretched to Alsa. Nahtan took a short deep breath and then reached up to take Anatak’s bowl from her hand. It was then he noticed that she’d put on a doeskin vest that she’d obviously just cut as there were, as yet, no stitching nor any kind of adornment such as he’d come to expect on the clothing of beautiful women. But she’d put it on and, though his experience was very slim, he knew that she’d put it on because of him. He thought of the quills and beads that filled his small pack still cached out among the trees and how he could take the rough cut skin and make something beautiful from it as he filled her bowl and watched her walk back to the tree stump she had been sitting on.
“What about them?” He indicated the shelter Khatib had built and then disappeared into.
Massoon answered, “They’ll come out when they’re done,” and took his bowl back to the spot upon which he’d already spread his night cloth and blanket.
Nahtan looked over at Alsa who handed him a large bowl someone long ago had scooped out from the burl of an oak tree. “Thank you.”
She bowed her head slightly and began to fill hers as he filled his. Setting the bowl down on top of the woodpile Anatak had collected; he emptied the remaining contents of his pot into Alsa’s and began looking around for someplace to wash it.
“Leave it, and come eat with me,” she said walking past him and picking up his bowl. The two of them clean up after they get finished.”
“Eating?”
“Fucking and then eating,” she said with an odd smile, “Okio is obsessed with filling her womb with as much of Khatib’s seed as she possibly can.”
“She wants to have a child?”
“Her womb is old and dry though she’s convinced Khatib she’s much younger than she is. When men think with that,” she poked him in the groin with the thin end of her spoon, “they can be very stupid.”
He followed her over to the trunk of an enormous tree more than wide enough for both of them to recline against it side-by-side.
“It’s going to be cold tonight,” he said taking the bowl from her.
“It can’t be, this is only the eighth moon of this year, we have at least two moons of hot weather to come.”
“Maybe,” he said between bites, “maybe not. The wind hasn’t been blowing at all as it should be, at least not as it has in my lifetime.
“The wind blows amongst the trees as it always has.”
He spooned the contents of the bowl into his mouth as quickly as he could out of long habit. Those who stayed long over something as simple as a meal would not last long in this world he knew, and had seen for himself enough times to take the lesson as his own. He set the bowl down in the soft earth next to a thick root and then took in his hand a clump of dry earth. “Do you remember the last time it rained?”
Her hand stopped the spoon halfway to her mouth. It hung there as she watched him let the dust in his hand drift towards the ground on the slow breeze.
Her spoon fell back to her bowl. “Where did you come from?”
“South. You going to finish that?”
“I am, there’s more in the pot.” She pointed at the fire with her spoon at the same time he moved off in that direction. “I could carve you a ladle you know.” The look on her face told him she had no idea what a ladle was. “I’ll make you one,” he said in a whisper only he could hear.
“Would you?” Anatak stood over him with her bowl thrust towards him. He took it from her hand afraid she wouldn’t release it. She did. And she smiled. “I brought your packs in from the forest. They are next to my things. I heard you say that you believe it will get cold tonight. How can you know that?”
He looked over at Alsa for a few seconds as he filled Anatak’s bowl. Handing it up to her he explained, “I spend my days alone mostly, walking the old trails, the older the better even if they are only seen once a day you can feel that they were there once and where they go makes sense somehow. When you follow them the forest itself swallows you up and you become part of it, and when it does it speaks to you and tells you its secrets.
“I have never known a man to speak of mysteries as you do.”
“The forest is only a mystery to those who will not see it.”
“Thank you,” was all she said as she took the bowl from his hand and walked back to where she’d been eating. He took a step back toward Alsa but she shook her head and then inclined it towards Anatak. When he hesitated, she mouthed the word go and inclined her head again. Finally his feet began to move of their own accord, or maybe at Alsa’s command he wasn’t sure. One step followed another until the sound of the wind in the trees above his head stopped him mid-step.
As he watched the branches far above his head sway first one way and then the opposite, he inhaled deeply through his nose once, and then again.
“Yes.”
He looked up beside him and saw Anatak standing next to him looking up into the trees.
“Yes?”
“I’ve never seen the trees do this.”
“I have,” he said and walked over to where she’d laid his packs.

*******

Chapter one of Novel Five - Rough First Flow Draft

2007-09-30T09:10:00.000-07:00

A Random Thought About Writing Style

2007-09-30T09:01:00.000-07:00

In posting this latest chapter of my second novel I can't help but be struck at how dramatically my writing style has changed over the last few years. I'll post of a chapter of my work in progress in a bit and the difference should just jump out at everyone who reads even a bit if each.

North Wind - Chapter Five

2007-09-30T08:57:00.000-07:00

Chapter Five

As monumental as it was for me it was merely the beginning of a week from which my time has been measured for the rest of my life. Marissa and I hadn’t made much progress in her room when Jennifer banged on the door scaring all of us. As soon as Maritza opened the door she began shouting, “They’ve contacted the government!”
“Whoa, Jennifer,” I said. What government, who contacted what government?”
Maritza tried to get her to sit but she wouldn’t saying, “Jack you need to come over to the lab. We’ve got them on the radio.”
“You’ve got who on the radio?” I asked putting on my coat.
“The United States government.”
“What United States government?”
“The people we’ve been talking to claim to be the United States government.”
“Where do they claim to be?”
“Tegucigalpa in Honduras. They say that they’ve, for all practical purposes taken over most of central America since most of our population has occupied it and the northern half of South America.”
“You’re kidding.”
“That’s what he said.”
“They contacted us, or we contacted them?”
Thinking for a second she said, “I don’t know you’d have to ask Tina.”
“Tina?”
“She’s been talking to them so far.”
“Why then do you need me?”
“They asked for the person in charge.”
“And Tina said that was me?”
“Everybody said it was you. Tina said she was sending for you and they said they’d stay on until you could get there to talk to them.”
I looked over at Maritza. Marissa was standing next to her and they both had grins on their faces. “Go on,” Maritza said, “they’re waiting for you. You can tell us about it when you get back. Go now.”
I got up and led Jennifer out the door, over to the lab and up all four flights of stairs to observation deck.
“It’s about time, where the hell have you been?” Tina said and then turned to the microphone in front of her.
“There’s a lot of stairs between your place and mine.”
“This is climate base to US station one. This is climate base to US station one, over.”
“Climate base, this is US station one. Is Mr. Smith there now?”
“Yes he is, over.”
“Mr. Smith this is William Beaumont calling. I am assistant secretary for science and technology in the US government in exile, Tegucigalpa, Honduras.”
“Mr. Beaumont, this is Jack Smith. What can I do for you?”
“I and my associates have been speaking with your climatologist (I looked over at Tina and then back out the window) and she tells me that you are the leader of your community there. Is this true?”
“If she says so. Mr. Beaumont I’d appreciate it if you’d call me Jack. Everybody here does.”
“Only if you’ll call me Bill, Jack.”
“That I can do. What else can we do for you Bill?”
“It’s not so much what you can do for us, as it is what we can do for you.”
“Do for us?”
“From what your climatologist has told us your community is something of a scientific enterprise, yes?”
“Yes it is. We are lucky to have gathered a few very high skilled people, who for reasons that are their own chose to stay here and fight this new climate.”
“That is exactly what we had hoped.”
“Why is that?”
“We here would very much like to have access to the data you are collecting. We have facilities here for its analysis.”
“That’s all you want? It has always been our goal to do exactly that.”
“If you think it’s feasible we’d like to support your efforts there.”
“You’re a long way from here, Bill.”
“Distance is not a problem, Jack. I have three transports being loaded as we speak with equipment and supplies for your team. To this point we have loaded the generators, radio equipment, computers and scientific equipment requested by your climatologist. What else can we send you?”
“Food is our greatest need. We have twenty two mouths to feed and scavenging the countryside is becoming less and less productive.”
“We assumed that might be the case. I will have the other two transports loaded with foodstuffs and get them in the air first thing in the morning. Do you have truck transport available to you?”
“Outside three pickup trucks, no sir.”
“That’s clear. We can airdrop your supplies if you’d rather that modality be used.”
“We are adjacent to the former campus golf course.”
“I will inform transport of this. We will contact you tomorrow when the transports are in the air. They will contact you on this frequency tomorrow when they are one hour out.”
“Roger that. It goes without saying that we appreciate your assistance.”
“In the bigger picture it may be that we here in the south are the greater beneficiaries of your sacrifice in staying where you are. And I have to say that I am looking forward to your installation of satellite communications.”
“We look forward to it sir. Is there anything else?”
“Your climatologist said that you have your own electrical engineer is she available?”
“She’s right here sir. Her name is Jennifer, and she’s the genius that has made this conversation possible.”
I could here laughter on the connection as I handed the microphone to Jennifer. She mouthed the words Now you’ve got him thinking I’m some kind of genius you turd. But she was smiling when she said it. As she started speaking I turned to April and said, “April will you please spread the word that we will all need to pitch in tomorrow morning to bring in the supplies?”
“I can’t wait to. Everyone will be very excited. What time?”
“I have no idea, maybe we should all just get up early and stay ready. If those planes take off early in the morning, I can’t imagine them getting here before noon, but who knows? We’ll know better in the morning when they let us know they’ve left. We can find out the ETA then.”
“Makes sense. You goin back home?”
“In a minute. I have one more question to ask Mr. Beaumont.”
Jennifer stopped speaking and looked over her shoulder.
“Hold on Bill, Jack has another question.”
“Yes Jack?”
“Bill, because we’ll be moving the supplies by hand is it possible that you could limit their individual blocks to what two people can lift?”
“Hold on.”
Jennifer said, “Good idea, they’d have dropped half ton cargo boxes for sure.”
“Jack?”
“Yes, Bill.”
“That won’t be a problem with the food or most of the equipment, but there are a few pieces of equipment that cannot be broken down to subassemblies that small.”
“Okay, how about sending along something that will help us pickup and move heavy cargo over a golf course?”
“We’ll have to work on that. I’m sure we can send along something to help you out with that.”
“One more thing Bill, we could use fuel, gas, diesel, kerosene and lamp oil.”
“We’d already included the gas and diesel. The other fuels won’t be too much of a problem. That all?”
“I think so. I haven’t had too much time to work out our current logistical situation.”
Tine and Jennifer both raised their eyebrows simultaneously.
“Would it be possible for you to include a couple personal items?”
“If possible.”
“I’d love some cigars, and there are many here who’d kill for a cigarette that wasn’t a couple years old.”
“Don’t forget that we’ll be sending regular supply runs going forward.”
“Thank you sir. I’ll be much more prepared for the next run.” I said handing the mic back to Jennifer. April was already gone so I grabbed my coat and headed for the door.
Tina blocked my way. “You did okay.”
“Thanks.”
“How’s the family?”
“Maritza and Marissa are fine. How are you doing?”
“I’ll be doing better once we get all the equipment I asked for up and running.”
“You’re the reason they’re interested in us at all.”
“I doubt it. If I wasn’t here they’ve sent a climatologist.”
“You know that never crossed my mind.”
“That’s because you’re not the climatologist with no name. Did you notice that he called you and Jennifer by name but kept referring to me as the climatologist?”
“That’s not what I meant. It never occurred to me that they’d send someone here in addition to the stuff they’re sending along.”
“Would that be a problem?”
“Nothing’s free. Hold on a second.”
I walked back to the radio and saw that Jennifer was still talking.
“Jennifer?” I said holding my hand out for the mic.
“Bill can I ask you one more question?”
“Certainly.”
“Are you planning to send any personnel along with the supplies?”
“Of course. You will be needing technicians to support our equipment.”
“Mr. Beaumont I hope you will believe me when I say that all we need are the necessary tools and manuals to support the equipment. No additional personnel are requested or desired here.”
“Mr. Smith, I’m not sure we can risk a million or more dollars of highly technical equipment without sending along the personnel needed to support it.”
“Mr. Beaumont if you change your mind in the future and do need our data, please contact us on this frequency and our community of highly educated and trained research one university technicians and professors are at your service.”
Silence.
“Jack, what the hell are you doing? What the hell difference…”
“Mr. Smith, Mr. Beaumont here.”
“Yes sir,” I said smiling.
“Please be prepared to receive transmission on this frequency in two hours. Do you have clocks there?”
“Yes sir, on our computers.”
“We will contact you no later than 2:15pm your time. Is that clear?”
“It’s clear sir. We’ll be here. Out.
“US station one out.”
That was it then. We had two hours to wait.
“Like I was saying,” Tina continued, “what possible difference does it make if they want to send a couple technicians?”
“Materiel and food is one thing. They’ll make life a little easier, and somewhat more interesting. Sending people here compromises the dynamic of what has, up till now, naturally evolved into a community of people.”
“What?”
“I don’t want a couple government people coming in here messin this place beyond all recognition.’
“How the hell do know that’s what they’d do?” Tina was yelling now. Everybody was staring at her.
“Tina, governments control. That’s why they exist. I don’t feel the need to be controlled.”
“What you mean to say is that you don’t want anybody else in control here, other than you of course.”
“Tina,” Jennifer said. “I’ve got to go with Jack on this one.”
“Maybe we ought to take a vote,” Tina said, her voice returning to normal.
“Mr. Beaumont is going to call us back in less than two hours. We’ll have to have an answer before then,” Frank said pointing to the radio.
“I tell you what,” I said, “April’s already going around telling people about tomorrow. I’ll go find her and we’ll get everybody to meet at my house in half an hour. We’ll have some coffee, talk it out and have a vote. Okay?”
Nods all around.
Frank looked at Jennifer and then said, “Jack, we’ll stay here. You have our vote for what it’s worth.”
“Jennifer?”
“You heard the man. We need to do a little work on this radio before we need it again.”
“Okay.”
“Jack, I’m gonna come with you.”
“Suit yourself,” I said putting my coat on and heading out.
We went from door to door, catching up to April at the third door. Twenty minutes later it was clear there was no reason for a meeting. Everyone we talked to said that if I thought it was best they were willing to go along with my condition. Everyone but Tina had a tangible distrust for anything to do with the government. Their reasons were their own.
“I guess I can assume that Maritza will vote with you,” Tina said stopping at the front door to the lab.
“I don’t know, she has a mind of her own. Either way just about everyone here doesn’t seem to find the idea of the government sending people here to be a good one.”
“And here I thought you were just trying to make me out to be the bad guy.”
“Okay, I’ll bite. Why would I want to do that? Better yet why is it that of all the people here you’re the only one who thinks it’s a good idea?”
“You wouldn’t understand Jack, forget it,” she said turning the doorknob.
I grabbed her sleeve and said, “You know Tina if you’d relax a little you’d be surprised how many friends you had you didn’t know about.”
She jerked her sleeve from my hand and said without turning around, “Sure Jack, whatever you say,” before she disappeared through the door.
I jogged over to the house and sprinted up the stairs.
“What happened?” Maritza said.
I described the last hour and a half as quickly as I could and explained I had to get back in a few minutes.
“So you really told this assistant secretary that you weren’t going to have him sending his people but he could go ahead and send his million dollars worth of equipment and food anyway, you really told him that?”
“I did, do you think I screwed up?”
“You’re asking me this?”
“I want to know what you think.”
“Everybody but Tina already said that they agreed with you.”
“Maritza, I need to know what you think.”
“Jack, I think you did the right thing. There’s no way those people would come in here and just fix things if they broke. They’d be trying to fix this place like they thought it should be or how they were told it should be working. More importantly their motivation would be to get from us what we need. Our current leader’s greatest concern is for the welfare of the people who live here and what’s best for them. This is what I think.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s important to me that you asked me what I think. No go back over there. We’ll have dinner ready for you when you get back.”
“I think I’m gonna need a pot or two of coffee. I won’t be sleeping too much tonight.”
“Neither will I then.”
“I love you.”
She stood there for a moment and then said, “That’s the first time you’ve told me.”
“I do.”
“I love you too, Jack. Since the first time I saw you I knew. Now go, you can’t be late.”
I leaned over and kissed her. She pulled my head back and kissed me again whispering, “I love you too as she pulled back.
“Now go,” she said pushing me towards the door.
When I got there Mr. Beaumont was already on the radio talking to Jennifer.
“He’s here Mr. Beaumont,” she said handing the mic to me.
“Mr. Smith, Bill Beaumont here.”
“Good to hear from you again sir.”
“I have spoken to my people here and we have no problem sending along what you have requested at this time. We are also sending along all necessary support and maintenance documentation, resources, and tools you could possibly need.”
“Thank you Bill,” I said, “so we can expect a call in the morning when the aircraft are airborne.”
“There will be no need. The aircraft will be airborne at approximately midnight and should be at your location approximately one hour after sunrise. You can expect a call from the mission at approximately six am your time to confirm a final arrival time. Is that clear?”
“That’s clear, sir. Is there anything we need to do to be prepared on our end?”
“Have your people ready to collect what we drop. We will be sending along a forklift vehicle to assist you. We have also scheduled a second drop seventy two hours after the first that will be comprised entirely of food. It has been decided that ensuring your food supply through the winter is of the utmost importance.”
“We very much appreciate that sir. More than you can know.”
“Your group is very unique amongst the twenty of so that we have been able to contact thus far. Yours is the only one that seems to have all the required personnel and to spare. Because of your success we will be sending out teams to investigate other locations that have had major university campuses in the past.”
“You’ll be sending these personnel here sir?” I asked fearing the answer.
“No sir. We will be creating and sending out overland two dozen teams to determine whether or not there are other groups extant such as yours who currently do not have access to radio or other communications.”
“Jack you wouldn’t have a list of the names of your personnel handy would you? We’ve had quite of few requests since word has gotten out that we’ve contacted a new group.”
“One moment sir.” I let go of the key to the mike. “Folks I need a list of all first and last names and approximate ages as quick as you can.”
Two minutes later I’d read and spelled all the names as well as I could and we were done.
“Do you really think anything’ll come of them putting out our names?” Frank asked.
“I hope so,” Tina said, “I’d love to know for sure if my folks made it down there all right.
“I’m not sure that was the main purpose of getting our names,” I said looking at the snow blowing past the window past tops of the trees.
“Shit, here we go with the governmental paranoia again,” Tina said getting up to leave the lab.
Ignoring her I continued, “I believe the main reason they wanted the names was to allow them to run checks on us to see if we really are qualified to run this station for them.”
Nods all around, even Tina seemed to agree.
“So you don’t think we’ve heard the last of Mr. Beaumont wanting to send his people in here,” Jennifer said shutting down the radio.
“I doubt it but that, as they say, is a problem for another day. I’ll just be glad when we get both these shipments we’ve been promised and nobody walks out from under any of the parachutes.”
“I hear that,” Frank said shaking my hand on his way out.
“I’ll see you all about six okay. Pass the word?”
“We’ll want to bring every truck and wagon right?”
“Everything we can haul boxes in.”
“Frank, do you have any firearms at your place?”
“Sure, why?”
“When these parachutes start drifting toward the ground anybody and everybody else living for thirty miles will be coming to see what’s going on.”
“You think there’ll be trouble?”
“I hope not, but I’d rather be ready and nothing happen than the reverse.”
“I’ll pass the word around about being prepared, too.”
“Thank you sir.”

Well, what did he say?” Marissa asked as soon as I was inside the door.
“Marissa, let Jack get his coat off.”
“It’s okay, everything went very well as long as what Mr. Beaumont said is true.”
“So he’s still sending supplies tomorrow?” Maritza set a cup of coffee on the kitchen table and patted the table. I walked over, sat down and took a sip. “He is sending supplies tomorrow along with some kind of forklift to help us load the stuff. He’s also sending an all food shipment on Saturday that he said would be enough to get us through the winter.”
“So not only did you keep him from sending people, he’s sending enough food for the whole winter?”
“It was his idea.”
“I doubt that, he just knew that you weren’t a man to be taken lightly.”
I had to smile.
“What? It’s true.”
“I am very proud of you,” Marissa said putting a bowl of stew in front of me. “You haven’t eaten anything all day so eat up.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“What’s tomorrow’s schedule?” Maritza said sitting across from me with a cup of coffee.
“Well Mr. Beaumont said that the planes should get here about one hour after sunrise.”
“That’s about eight or so.”
“That’s the way I calculated it. One of the pilots is going to call us on the radio when they’re an hour out. We can leave here about a half hour after that and go to the golf course. I hope Jennifer told them to drop it in the South east corner.”
“If she didn’t you can always tell them in the morning when they call. When you get done eating we need you to get you to bed, there’s going to be a lot of work to do tomorrow.”
“Which we cannot stop until we are finished. I don’t even have any idea where we can put six plane loads of supplies.”
“We’ve got twelve hundred feet of space downstairs, three floors of the lab, and any number of empty houses around here we can use for storage,” Maritza said.
“Well there’s nothing to worry about then,” I said between bites.
“I’ll take care getting the food stored. All the equipment will be going in the lab. Next year we’ll have time to build a warehouse facility.”
“Marissa can I have another bowl?” I said holding it out to her.
“Yes you sure can.”
On her way over to the stove she said, “Jack can I ask you a question?”
“Any time.”
Walking back she said, “Would it be okay if called you dad?”
I looked up into her eyes as she stood over me. She looked anxious, and a little scared. I stood up and hugged her as tightly as I dared. “It would be the greatest honor of my life to be your dad.” And then she cried, and Maritza cried, and hell I cried. We all ended up hugging each other for the longest time.
“Ladies I am absolutely stuffed, I’m going out for some air.”
“Where are you going?” Maritza said.
“Nowhere, just drive around with the window open for a while. I need to scout out some houses to use for storage and take a look at the ground over on the golf course. It’s only a couple hours till dark, I’ll be back by then okay?”
“Dad, lemme put the rest of the coffee in your thermos before you go.”
“Thank you daughter.”
She had the biggest smile on her face when she handed me the thermos.
“Be careful daddy.”
“I’ll always come home to my girls.”
“You better,” she said squeezing my hand.
“I will.”
Taking in the houses in the neighborhood and driving around the golf course only took about twenty minutes. I was lucky I didn’t get stuck in a sand trap I didn’t see under the snow. I took off down Texas heading for my actual objective for the trip a jewelry store I remembered and sure enough it was still there. I had to smash the door to get in and half expected the alarm to go off. Of course it didn’t but also of course there was no jewelry to be found anywhere, way too easy to transport. What I wanted was to find Maritza a ring. We were about as married as two people could get and she more than any other woman I’d ever met deserved a ring.
I went outside, sat in the truck and racked my brain where I could possibly find a ring. I figured I might as well search a few more stores while I was waiting for an idea. I broke into six more stores and found the same nothing in each one. In half of them the doors of the safes were still open which made me wonder why the others had been still locked. I had half a plan to blow those safes when I had a better idea. It occurred to me that most people keep their computer passwords on a note taped within eighteen inches of their computer so I went back to the store I was in first and started searching the sides and back of the safe, nothing. I searched the desk in the office, the bottoms of the drawers, underneath the slide out, outside the desk under the desk, damn, still nothing. Then I walked back to the truck and got my flashlight and got down on the floor and looked under the safe and there it was. I got a broom and swiped at the dust until I could run my fingertips against the steel surface. I could feel three numbers scratched into the paint. It took two dozen tries before I got the number right; before the handle turned. I actually held my breath as I pointed the flashlight inside.
Money, all there was, was goddamn money. Worthless, not even good for toilet paper. I pulled it out anyway figuring Maritza and Marissa would get a kick out of using it to start fires. I filled two paper bags with the stuff, there must’ve been at least a million dollars in cash. My jeweler friend must’ve known that paper money wouldn’t be worth much where he was going. Ergo leaving the safe locked, old habits die hard.
I reached to the back of all the compartments to make sure I had all the money and felt something at the back of one of the cubby holes, it was stuck. I got my fingers wrapped around it and pulled whatever it was tore and I heard a metallic sound. When I pulled my hand out I had half a black velvet bag in my hand. I stuck my back in and, palm down pulled out what had fallen out of the bag. I caught them in my hand as each one fell from the cubby hole. And there they were. Six diamond rings all of which had a single large diamond set in what was either white gold or platinum. One of the rings had two blue stones, one on each side of the diamond.
I searched the drawers behind the main sales counter until I found ring boxes. I got two and put Maritza’s ring in one and the other five rings in the other one; grabbed my flashlight and rushed outside. It was dark, real dark. Maritza was gonna be madder than hell at me being gone so long.
It only took five minutes to get back to the house but it seemed like forever.
“Ladies, I’m home. Sorry I’m late.”
“Jack,” Maritza said running across the room, “I was so worried, you said you would be back by dark and that was two hours ago. I was about to go get Frank to help me go find you I was so sure something had happened to you.”
“I’m so sorry Maritza, I got caught up in something and I lost all track of time.”
“What possibly could have been so important that you lost track of time for two hours?”
All I could do was reach into my pocket, pull out the box and hand it to her.
The anger left her face as she said, “Jack what is this?”
“Now that we’re a family I wanted to give you a ring, I want you to feel like my wife, and if that’s what you wanted, and if it was I wanted everyone to know.”
“Jack are you proposing marriage to me?”
“Very, very badly, but yes I think I am.”
“Well here,” she said handing me back the unopened box, “do it correctly please.”
I took the box back and was about to get down on my knee when I stopped and asked, “Where is Marissa?”
“She’s in her room. Would you like her to be here for this?”
“I’d like to ask her if it’s okay before I ask you if that’s okay with you I mean.”
“I think that would mean a great deal to her. Go get her.”
I knocked on her door and went in when she said come in.
“Did you just get back?”
“Yes I did, it took me longer than I thought it would to find what I was looking for.”
“What were you looking for?”
“Marissa for a while now I have found that I love your mom very much.”
“I know. She’s very happy. She’s told me she loves you very much too.”
“I guess what I’m trying to say is that I have decided to ask your mom to be my wife.”
“Could you two be more married than you are now?”
“I just want to your mom to know how much I love and respect her, and for me that means asking her to marry me and giving her a ring.”
“That’s what you went out to get a ring for my mom?”
“Yes but before I actually asked your mom, I wanted to ask you if you were all right with your mom and me making it official.”
“Of course,” she said hugging my neck and kissing my cheek. “Go, hurry up she’s waiting for you. Go on.”
“Thanks baby,” I said.
“Love you too, dad.”
Everything was picked up in the kitchen, which let me know that there was only one other place Maritza could be. I thought for a second about knocking on the door of the bedroom before I just went ahead and went in.
She was sitting at her vanity wearing a white negligee that was all but see through. I just stood there staring.
“Jack would you please brush my hair for me?”
I remembered with a start that I still had the ring box in my hand. “Okay.”
“I laid you out some pajamas on the bed go ahead and change into them. I want to see how you look in them.”
“Okay.” It was warm in the room. I looked over at the stove and the door was a dark cherry red around the edges. I walked around the far side of the bed and changed as quickly as I could. I wished I could’ve taken a bath but there was no time now. She handed me her brush over her shoulder when I’d walked up behind her.
“Maritza, I’ve got something I’d like to ask you.”
“As soon as you get finished.”
Concentrating on the task at hand was very difficult with such a beautiful woman in front of me all but naked. But it was the film of the negligee that heightened the sensation for me. I’d never seen such a thing before.
“Let’s see,” she said reaching around to grab the mass of black curls from my hand smoothing them with her hand.
“I might just have to give you this job permanently; you do a very fine job. Help me up on the bed would you?”
“Of course.” I held out a hand and helped her up into the bed where she sat on the edge. I couldn’t take my eyes away. She reached out a hand, grabbed my chin and lifted my face up to look at hers.
“See anything you like?”
I could not make my mouth work to say a word. I was completely captured by the way she looked at that moment. She shook my chin back and forth a little and said, “Did you say you had a question to ask me?”
I snapped back and saw her looking at me with her dark eyes. I reached behind her and grabbed the box. Getting down on one knee put me in the wrong position to be able to concentrate enough to ask Maritza what I needed to ask her.
Again she reached down to get my full attention. “Yes?”
“Maritza, I hope you know how very much I love you. I hope you also know that I want you and I to spend every remaining day that we have together. I know that together we can face anything that even life as it is now can send our way. God has blessed me greatly bring us together, and I would be more honored than any man has a right to be if you would marry me.” I opened the box and held it up to her and waited for her answer.
She drew a breath that let me know that she was impressed with the ring. “Jack come up her and get in bed with me.”
Not the answer I was hoping for. I did though, after blowing out the lamps. The woodstove was even brighter in the dark that descended on the room making red dancing lights on the walls.
“Jack, I love you so much that it scares me sometimes. I never thought I’d find a man like you who would love me so completely, so unconditionally. You love my daughter I think as much as you love me. I feel your love for her as strongly as I feel your love for me.”
She took my hand and placed it on her chest.
“Can you feel my heart beating Jack?”
“Yes, Maritza I can. Your heart beat put me to sleep last night.”
In the fire light I could see big tears welling up and running down Maritza’s face.
“Thank you Jack.”
“For?”
“Everything you’ve done for me, for your love for me and Marissa, for protecting us, for providing for us, for making us laugh, for making us feel safe and at home.
“That goes both ways you know.”
“I know, that’s why my answer is yes, of course I’ll marry you. Someday I hope we can find a priest, until then we are married before God. I am honored to be your wife.”
I put the ring on her finger and, of course, it was way too big.
She laughed and said, I knew it would be. Wait.” She dropped down out of bed and went across the room to her vanity. Even in the dark it was a sight that is carved forever in my memory. She was back in a couple minutes with yarn wrapped around the inside. “See?”
“I can fix that tomorrow.”
“You won’t have time tomorrow; we’ll all be very busy.”
“The next day then. It won’t be a perfect repair, but I can make it fit.”
“I have faith that you can do absolutely anything you set your mind to.”
“I was able to find five more rings; I can remove the diamonds and use the platinum to make you a wedding band if you’d like one.”
“I have my mother’s wedding band that I’d like to wear.”
“That would be perfect.”
She held up the ring and looked at it in the dark trying to catch the tiny bit of light in the room. She then sat up and started pulling her negligee over her head and I stopped her.
“Please don’t. I have never seen anything half as beautiful in my life as you in that, whatever it is.”
“I though you might like it,” were the last words either of us said that night.

North Wind - Ghapter Four

2007-07-27T10:19:00.000-07:00

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?

2007-07-27T10:10:00.000-07:00

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....

2007-07-17T14:42:00.000-07:00

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)

2007-07-17T14:38:00.000-07:00

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.....

2007-07-17T14:15:00.000-07:00

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............

2007-07-07T13:21:00.000-07:00

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.........

2007-07-06T11:21:00.000-07:00

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....

2007-07-05T11:08:00.000-07:00

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......

2007-07-03T12:24:00.000-07:00

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.............

2007-07-03T12:00:00.000-07:00

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!

Not Bad For A Tuesday...........

2007-06-26T14:14:00.000-07:00

I've never much liked Tuesdays. On their own, they have no significance. They merely hold place between Mondays, during which I am full of energy and a weekend's rest but bereft of motivation, and Wednesday, hump day, which, usually, is as completely bereft of humping as Monday is empty of motivation.

But this particular Tuesday finds me on holiday. Holiday Tuesdays are by far to be preferred to working Tuesdays. I get up when I want, do what I want, when I want, and go to bed when I please. But, as wonderful as all that is, I've found that the purest form of bliss to be found on holiday is the complete lack of rush.

Today I stood on the curb and just felt the wind from a nearby rain shower blow past me. Time dilated, slowed, and wrapped itself around me. I lived just inside that one single moment. Life is lived inside the moments it's said. I tip my hat to whomever it was who said that first. He couldn't have been more right...................

Today Begins..............

2007-06-25T15:59:00.000-07:00

Today begins the serialization of my latest novel. I will publish one chapter a week until the work, such as it is, is complete. As it is a work in semi-progress all feedback might very well be both gratefully appreciated as well as occasionally ignored.

North Wind

Chapter One

“Explain to me again why it’s so cold all the time,” Tina said drawing figures on the fogged window pane.

I reflected for the millionth time on the fact that with the money I’d spent on triple glazed windows there shouldn’t be any fog on the inside for her to draw in.

“The current theory is that the North Atlantic conveyer shut down last year, and, even though this was predicted, what was not expected was the cascade effect the shutdown would have on other major oceanic circulations. But you know this better than I do.”

“Yea, I suppose.”

“But the kicker is that, for reasons that probably no one will ever understand, a couple months after it shut down we experienced a small but significant decrease in solar radiation output.

Basically we’re screwed and getting screweder every day.”

“Screwder is not a word.”

“True enough, but there’s not likely to be another meeting of the Committee for the Defense of the English language anytime soon.”

“True enough,” she said in her best imitation of me. “So, when are we headin south big daddy?”

“Tina, you know I hate it when you call me that.”

“I can think of one particular time when you didn’t seem to mind too awfully much. I know this because you said yes repeatedly for maybe two or three minutes.”

“Ouch, that hurt.”

“No it didn’t.”

“I’m hurt that you didn’t think that hurt.”

Tina laughed, threw her arms around my neck and kissed me. “So, what you’re saying is that you have no idea what we’re gonna do next?”

“I guess I haven’t decided that we actually need to do something next.”

“Baby it’s maybe twenty below out there without the wind. Yea, I think we need to do something.”

“It’s January it’s supposed to be pretty cold outside.”

“Not this cold, not in Houston anyway.”

“Good point.”

“Besides, practically everybody else has already gone to Mexico.”

“Only on their way to Brazil probably.”

“Exactly my point.”

“I don’t know. I never could stand summer….”

“Come on Jack.”

“Think about it. If we went south we’d wind up in a refugee camp somewhere. The natives, whoever they happened to be, would hate us and most probably treat us like shit. The food would be garbage when we could get it and we’d probably have to squat over a hole in the ground and live in a tent.”

Tina turned back toward the window. “It’s just so goddamn cold; I hate being so fuckin cold all the time.”

“Outside or in the house?”

“Both,” she said without turning around.

“Inside the house I can fix pretty easily.”

“Oh yea, how?”

“We can put in woodstoves, get any room you’re in to eighty degrees if you want.”

Tina turned from the window and slugged me in the shoulder with her fist. “If it’s so easy why the hell haven’t you done it already?”

“I didn’t know you were cold. It doesn’t bother me.”

“Why is it that by the way? I mean even when you go outside you barely wear a coat.”

“I don’t know. I guess it got cold gradually enough that I just got used to it.”

“Nobody gets used to that kinda cold.”

“I guess I did, something genetic probably. Good ole northern European stock.”

“Why haven’t I?”

“When was the last time you actually went outside?”

“I hate it out there. I tell you what; let’s get to work on the woodstove idea. I pretty much have to go outside to do that don’t I?”

“Yup. Why don’t we get one or two and heat up the kitchen and the living room.”

“What about the bedroom?”

“It seems plenty hot in there to me.”

“I guess I’ll take that as a complement.”

“That’s the way it was meant.”

“If you don’t put a stove in there, it’ll stay too damn cold in the morning. I hate that, it starts my whole day off cold. That’s why I’m freezin all day.”

“I can fix that.”

“Thanks big daddy.”

“Tina……..”
____

“C’mon Tina let’s get up, okay? We got a lotta work to do today.”

“It’s still dark, what time is it?”

“It’s almost seven-thirty.”

“In the morning?”

“Yea.”

“Shit. I cannot get used to the sun comin up so late,” she said getting out from under the covers. “Damn it’s cold.”

I handed her her sweats and said, “Well, hopefully today we’ll be able to get somethin done about that.”

“But won’t it still be cold in the morning? A fire’s not gonna last all night.”

“You are, as always, correct.”

She was smiling when her head popped through the neck hole.

“But, as I usually get up earlier than you…”

“Usually? Always.”

“As I get up before you, I can get the fire going when I get up so that when you get up the chill should be mostly off the room. I wish you’da said something sooner.”

She looked at me then like she’d seen something new she hadn’t expected. “Maybe I did okay.”

“Did okay?”

“Yea,” she said nodding. “What’s the plan for today anyway?”

“Well, I’ll get us together something to eat, and then we’ll go out and see if we can find two or three woodstoves.”

“Here in Houston?”

“I’ve got a couple ideas where to look.”

“How cold is it?”

“Not bad, about five above. No wind.”

“A regular heat wave.”

“Yea, I guess so.”

“You look worried, what’s goin on?”

I shook my head and turned to go to the kitchen.

“Jack, stop.”

Without turning around I said, “Go ahead and get dressed, breakfast’ll be ready in about ten minutes.”

“Sure, like I’d stand around in this freezin room in my underwear,” she said under her breath behind me.

When I installed the gas stove I’d hoped it’d be the only major change I’d have to make because of the weather. By the time I got it in, the last of the families in the subdivision had been gone more than a week driving an old pickup and pulling a new trailer just like everyone else. I guess I knew even then that things had changed so irrevocably that it wouldn’t ever be the same again.

“When’d you put in the propane stove?” Tina said putting a hand on my waist as she walked by.

Turning with a plate in my hand I said, “Just right before I met you out there on the interstate.”
“Like a day before?”

“Two at the most, why?”

“Things in life seem to work out the way they’re supposed to.”

I’d barely heard what she’d said. “What?” I was growing to hate her cryptic comments.

“I said that things work out like they’re supposed to most of the time.”

“So you runnin outta gas out on 45 was meant to happen?”

“Seems pretty obvious to me.”

“So that’s what you meant earlier when you said you did okay?”

Again she stared up at me with that same curious look on her face.

Nodding she said, “Yea, that’s right.”

“You know I always have wondered….”

“Why I stuck around with an old man like you?”

“How do you do that?”

“Know what’s goin on inside your brain?”

“Yea, exactly.”

“You’re just a man big daddy. That and the fact that without you God only knows what snow drift I’d be frozen to death in right now.”

I stared at her then. “I never have been able to figure…”

“Why a hot little piece of ass like me would wanna be with an old man like you.”

“Somethin like that.”

She must have seen the hurt on my face because she stepped to me, put her hand alongside my face and said, “It’s gonna take some time for you to get used to me. I always say what I think. Didn’t you wonder why I was by myself when you found me?”

I shook my head.

“Well, mostly it’s because the way I tend to piss people off on a pretty regular basis.”

“You don’t really seem all that bad to me. And, ah, I’m only forty-four.”

“Like I said, you have to get to know me better.”

“Wow.” I figured the best thing for me to do at that point was to change the subject, so I said, “Let’s eat, we’ve got a lot of wandering around to do today.”

“Jack, I really like you, okay? I said what I said to try to let you know that.”

I looked at her then. At her eyes. There was strength there. I could sense that she wanted me to see her strength. Her eyes never moved from mine. I smiled, and so did she.

“Jack, can I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” I said as I started to eat.

“Why haven’t you found someplace out in the country to live?”

“You mean why did I stay in the city?”

“That’s what I said.”

“I don’t know. I thought about leaving a few times. Every time I did I needed something that I’d just have to have come back here to get.”

“Like the stove?”

“Yup.”

“So what do you do for money?”

“Well….”

“Oh my God…”

“Yea I’m a thief. Burglar I guess.”

“Where’d you get it? And more important where’d you hide it?”

“I was in an abandoned grocery store about a year ago when I saw that it had one of those little banks you know?”

“Sure, what’d you do?”

“I slid my butt over the counter and went in and looked around.”

“And the sacks of money were just sittin on the floor?”

“Not exactly.”

“Well, what’d you do?”

“I went out to the truck and got some tools. I really wanted to see what was inside the locked drawers.”

“No shit?”

“Yea. But there was no money in the drawers. All I found was office supplies.”

“Where’d you find the money?” She’d drawn out the words slowly one after the other.

It was in the cooler in the back of the store with the meat.”

“What?”

“No kidding, I was just wandering through the warehouse in the back end of the store when I stuck my head in the milk cooler and there it was, just sitting on a rack in between the skim and the two percent. There was a half dozen bank deposit bags so I grabbed em and got the hell out of there as fast as I could.”

“Why?”

“At the time I was pretty sure that whoever’d left the money had just stashed it there and would be coming back to get it.”

“What was in the bags?”

“Two of em had checks that I threw away; the other four had cash in bundles, maybe fifteen thousand dollars all together.”

“That’s all?”

“Worse than that it was just cash, I didn’t even get to spend it.”

“Because nobody’d take cash.”

“Toilet paper was all it was good for after a while.”

“So what are you doing for money now?”

“Don’t need it. I get everything I need by trading. I hunt and trade meat for the other things I need.”

“Are there that many people left here?”

“I don’t think there’s that many Houstonians here any more, most of the people here are from up north.”

“Like me.”

“You never have said where you’re from originally.”

She didn’t look up or say anything. When the silence continued too long I continued, “Anyway we need to go find the stoves we need today.”

“What’re you gonna trade for them?

“I’ve got an elk hung in the garage that should be frozen by now. We’ll take it in case we find someone to trade with.”

“Elk? Are you serious?”

“Yea, the cold has driven all kinds of wildlife down from the north. Those that can stand this climate didn’t go any farther south. My worry is that if it stays as cold as this for much longer they may move on. If they do we’ll have to follow them.”

“What if we don’t find anyone to trade with?”

“We’ll take what we need and bring the elk back.”

“Won’t something like a woodstove be pretty hard to find right now with everybody freezing their asses off?”

“Maybe so, we’ll see I guess.”

“What’ll we do if we can’t find any?”

We I thought. “Good question. What do you think we should do?”

“We might have to follow the animals outta here.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

Tina cleared away the dishes while I went outside, loaded the truck and got it warmed up. Tina came outside and handed me a cup of coffee. "

“Might as well finish this up,” she said wrapping her arms around her middle.

“Thanks.”

“We ready to go?”

“Think so. You got enough on to keep warm?”

“Does the heater in the truck work?”

“It does, but you never know if it’ll break down or get stuck.”

“I’ll go back inside and get a couple more layers. You want me to make some more coffee? I saw a couple thermoses under the sink.”

“That would be outstanding. Latte with a shot would be great!”

She was smiling as she turned to go back inside the house. Twenty minutes later we were out driving down snow covered, deserted roads. Tina looked uncomfortable, constantly staring through the windows wiping at the condensation with her hands.

“Doesn’t it bother you that there’s nobody around any more?” She looked tense, worried.
“Not for me. I’ve never been all that much a fan of people.”

“You don’t like people?”

“I have liked individual people from time to time; it’s big crowds I don’t care for. I hate bein crowded.”

“Then why did you ever live here, if you don’t like to be crowded?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Look around,” she said waving a hand back and forth.

“Long story sort I had a family, a wife and two boys. They were killed by two men who broke into my house while I was gone hunting.”

“And you know it was two men because?”

“They were still in the house when I got back digging around for God knows what. The bigger one of the two came at me so I shot him. Right square in between his eyes, just like in the movies. The other one ran off when I started shooting at him.

When I found Ann she was nearly dead, bleeding on the bed. There was blood everywhere, on the floor, the walls, the ceiling for Christ’s sake. I took her to the hospital but she was dead by the time I got there. She just lay there staring up at me on the hospital bed. Her face was so messed up. All I could think of then and now was that I should have been there. I should’ve been there, I coulda done something. We shoulda left south like she wanted to.”

“Ann was your wife?”

“Yea, she was. My boys were Jack junior and Lee.

Neither of us said anything after that for hours. We checked out every big box store we could find with no luck.

“Jack there aren’t any stoves and I am seriously freezin my ass off, can we just go home?”
Home. It’s just a house I found because I couldn’t stand to be in my old house even a day more after I buried Ann and my boys.

“You’re thinking about your family.” It wasn’t a question, it was a statement.

“Yea.”

“Like I said before, I can’t figure out why you’re still in the city.”

“Where else would I go, south?”

“North, south, what difference does it make? Anywhere out in the country would be better than here.”

I stopped the truck, and turned to face her. “You got any place in particular in mind?”

“No,” she said turning to look out the window next to her.

“Might be easier to live out in the country,” I said looking past her out the window.

Turning back to face me she said, “Have you thought at all about where we could go?”

We again. “It’d make sense to go up north of town.”

“North?” she said turning back to face me. “Are you kidding?”

“Not that far. Just far enough to get out into the woods, maybe fifty, a hundred miles.”

“Why would that be better?”

“I’d be willing to guess that there’d be more wildlife up there so hunting would be better, and with all the trees it’d be easier to get wood to burn.”

I could tell she was thinking about what I’d said from the look on her face. “There’d be a lot of empty houses up there wouldn’t there?”

“Even when it was still hot here there were lots of vacation houses up there. We could probably find one that has lots of fireplaces.”

“Well, there’s no reason why we couldn’t start on this today is there?”

“You’re that ready to go?”

“I just can’t see any reason to stay to in the city any more, can you?”

“No, you’re right, there isn’t. But I’m not sure we can start today.”

“What time is it?”

“About 2:30.”

“How long will it take to get back to the house?”

“From here, maybe two hours.”

“How close are we to Galveston?”

“Thirty or forty miles maybe.”

“Can we go there?”

“You wanna go swimming?”

“Jack. I’m curious about whether or not the Gulf is frozen.”

“Whaddya think?”

“Some maybe, I don’t know how much. They only way to know for sure is to go see.”

“And when you find out what will that tell you?”

“I’m just curious.”

“So you’re not gonna tell me until you’ve seen it, and you’ve had time to process the information.”

“Well let’s go. The sooner we get started the sooner we can get on the road.” She squared herself up on the seat and waited for me to get going. I had a smile about halfway started when I realized why I was leaving the city. I put the truck in gear and started moving down the road.
We spent the rest of that day packing up clothes and food for the trip up north. As soon as I got a few things packed I was ready to get the hell out of Houston.

“Do we have the coffee pot?”

“And the coffee. Do we really need a tent?”

“I think we do. If for some reason we can’t find a house to spend the night in I don’t want to have to sleep in the truck.”

“Okay. I’ve got all the food we can possibly eat for at least a couple weeks. Hopefully we can find something or shoot something before we run out.”

“You really don’t want to come back do you?”

“No, you want to drive?”

“Sure.”

I got out and walked around to the passenger side as Tina slid over to the driver’s side. She eased the truck down the driveway and out onto the road.

“Up 45?”

“When you see an exit that looks good….”

“There’s a map on the dash in front of you. I think we oughta check out the lake first. You think it’s frozen?”

“I doubt it. It’d have to get a lot colder than this for a long, long time to freeze. Whether or not the fish that live in the lake will live much longer is a whole nother question.”

“Wow! Look at that,” she said pointing out through the windshield as she slowed to a stop.
“Elk. There’ll be more. More deer, more elk, moose, bears, caribou probably eventually.”

“And wolves, too right?”

I looked at her.

“Hey I watch the discovery channel too. I’m not as dumb as I look.”

“I never said you were dumb.”

“You didn’t have to. You seem to have a pretty poor opinion of people in general, and unless I’m wrong, and I’m almost never wrong, women in particular.”

“What?”

“You and I have been hanging around each other for what three weeks, a month?”

“That’s about right,” I said having no idea where she was going.

“And in all that time exactly how many times have you asked my opinion, asked me for my input, and God forbid asked me what we should do?”

“I did about five minutes ago as I recall.”

“What?”

“You picked where we’re goin, remember?”

“Yea, but that doesn’t nearly make up for all the rest of the time.”

“You really think I think you’re stupid?”

“Hell, half the time I’m not even sure you even know I’m around,” she said starting the truck down the road.”

“Hey stop the truck. Let’s eat.”

“Right here in the middle of the freeway?”

Digging out the coffee I said, “It’s not like we’ll be holding anybody up.”

She looked at me as she started opening a couple cans of soup. I looked right back at her. “You lettin you hair grow out?”

Tina handed me a can and said, “I guess so, I mean I really don’t have much choice.”

“Me too I guess. Unless you or I figure out how to cut hair.”

“At some point all I’ll have to do is reach around, grab it, and cut off the bottom couple inches. Cutting hair is only complicated if you want it short which I do not ever, anymore. I do not miss all the shit I had to go through every morning rolling, and blow drying. Hell, I don’t even shave any more, and I don’t miss that either, trust me.”

I rubbed my hand against a few days growth of beard on my own face.

“If you’re wondering, I don’t like beards.”

“I’ve actually never seen it.”

“What? Your beard?”

“Yea.”

“Never?”

“Nope. This is about as long as I’ve let it go.”

“Well you won’t mind getting rid of it then. Okay?”

I looked at her realizing she was right. I had no idea even what color her eyes were. She’d been around for a month, but I hadn’t really wanted to acknowledge she was there.

“What color were Ann’s eyes?”

I stared at her. Somehow she must’ve known what I was thinking, read my mind somehow.
“Green,” I said, remembering that both my boys had had their mother’s eyes. I realized a few seconds later I was staring out the window at a bull elk. I pulled myself back into the truck and saw Tina looking over at me. Her eyes were welling up. Her brown eyes. I didn’t know what else to say.

“I’m sorry for what you’ve been through,” she said. I thought I knew then what she was thinking, but as it turned out I had no idea.

____

We sat there in the median of the interstate, Tine said she just couldn’t relax in the middle of the road, eating cold soup and just warm coffee. The elk grazed about a quarter mile away, pawing at the snow to get to the grass underneath.

“We better get goin,” I said pitching the empty cans out the window.

“What’s the hurry?” Tina said screwing the top back on the thermos.

“I’m worried about the weather.”

Tina looked out the windshield up at the sky. “Is it gonna snow?”

“I don’t know, the sky’s just looked weird all day. And it’s been getting warmer since we left.”

Tina reached out and put the backs of her fingers against the glass. “You’re right.”

I started the truck, pulled it back onto the pavement and started north as fast as I thought I could get away with. There were cars and trucks every so often but with a very few exceptions they’d been pulled off the road into the median or the ditches. They were all pointed south, in both the north and the southbound lanes. We stopped and talked to a couple families heading south. They asked us why we were heading the wrong way as they looked longingly at the elk in the back of the truck. I was more than glad to trade meat, which we could easily get more of, for gasoline, which, the farther north we went would be much harder to come by. At forty miles an hour the sixty gallons of gas we had would last for as long as it took us to find more.

“Whaddya think Tina?” I said pulling over onto the shoulder.

“About what?”

“You’ve been looking at the map, where do you think we should look?”

“Well, we have three places we can go I think. We can either go down any one of these exits and get us a place in one of the millions of subdivisions, we can go on up to the lake and see what we can find there, or we can go into any of the three or four small towns around here and find us a house in old town.”

“Old town?”

“Yea, you know the part of town where all the old houses are.”

“You know that’s the one part of livin here in Texas that I never did like.”

“That towns had old houses?”

“Nah, that towns really didn’t have any really old houses, no history, no past.”

She looked at me with a curious look on her face for a moment and then said, “What?”

“I know. I’m strange.”

“No, not strange. Just different from what I’m used to.”

“What sorta guy are you used to, besides younger?”

She hit me on the side of the head and said, “I’m used to guys who are prettier than they are smart. What was your job before you became a burglar?”

“Guess.”

“I have no idea, that’s why I asked.”

“Believe it or not I used to be a professor.”

“A professor? Where, of what?”

“Architecture, up at A&M.”

“What’d you do, drive up there everyday?”

“Three days a week. I was able to get my classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.”

“So you only had to work three days a week?”

“Three long days.”

“Still, that’s a pretty good deal.”

I thought about it for a few seconds and said, “Yea, it was just about the best deal I ever had.”

“So that’s why you said there’s no old houses?”

“I just really like Victorian residential architecture.”

“Oow, there’s some big words.”

“Don’t give me that crap; you did the same damn thing up at UNT.”

“I guess I musta mentioned that, huh?”

“Yea. About twenty or thirty times on the way back to the house when I picked you up on the freeway.”

“Sorry about that.”

“I was glad that we had something in common right off the bat.”

“Me too. And by the way, I was not and never have been an architect.”

“No, you were, and I guess you still are, a climatologist.”

“Paleo-climatologist, thank you very much.”

“My apologies. Let me guess, your specialty was tropical climates.”

“Absolutely correct.”

“Anyway, on your three choices, this is what I think. I hate subdivisions, I doubt any older houses would have what we need to keep warm, and I’m afraid most of the nice lake houses, while very nice, will be too large to heat effectively.”

“So what’s choice number four?”

“There’s probably many other choices. I really want to be on the lake, so that narrows things down some.”

“Like the water?”

“Tends to have a breeze most of the time, but the most important is the fact that it’ll be the easiest place to hunt, and it limits people sneaking up on you from that direction. I guess an island would be ideal.”

“So we’re facing a real cave man and woman sorta situation?”

“Times have to change along with the climate I guess.”

“Well I’m all about change."

“That is a very good thing.”

The Onrushing Inevitability of Tomorrow

2007-06-25T15:46:00.000-07:00

It seems to me that as one year follows another and the decades begin to accumulate that it the inevitability of tomorrow that seems to weary me the most. I know, I know, I can hear you thinking out there that I should just be grateful that my supply of tomorrows has not yet run out, and to be honest, I mostly am. But, the difficulty, my difficulty with tomorrows is that they cannot be put off or delayed in any way.

The fact, now that I’ve finally surrendered to the certainty that it is a fact, is that bad days, the ones you want to go by fast don’t, and the good ones, when there are good ones, you know the ones I mean, the ones that just feel good, emotionally, physically, or on those rare occasions when all the planets align themselves, both, disappear with an unmatched rapidity that no amount of prayer, begging, or complaining can delay one nanosecond.

I will then ride the tide of time as it drives me inexorably into tomorrow which, I'm sure, will crash upon the beach of my consciousness long before I've created any new thoughts worthy of blogging herein.