CRY FATHER: Chapter Five: Commitment

Maggie came home from the office early. She needed time alone to clear her mind. She knew John would be out most of day, having gone fishing on the peninsula with a friend. Detective Jones (who preferred the title to his given name despite the fact that he had retired years ago) had become one of his few confidants. John enjoyed calling him “Myron” just to goad him. The detective had three great loves: Shakespeare, his wife and fishing.

So once every two weeks John and the good detective crossed the sound to find their way to some obscure location that the detective uncovered from old fishing magazines. They hardly ever seemed to catch any fish judging from the fact that John would pick up the catch of the day at Fisherman’s Market on his way home. Their expeditions were not really about fishing. They were an opportunity to discuss the affairs of the world and Maggie knew exactly what the topic was today.

His plans were on hold. He would not take action until Maggie gave her final word. She was aware of this and sometimes wished it was not so. It made them seem like a married couple. They had made a choice not to marry though it did not reflect their commitment to one another. Marriage was an institution that preserved the order of a patriarchal society. It did not matter how the vows were altered, the act itself was a cultural and legal claim of possession that they did not wish to sanctify.

They were both financially secure so they needed no legal guarantees and had no desire for societal approval. Their love did not require a formal bond. They were more than married; they were soul mates. Yes, it is a phrase that strikes the ear with an awkward clang yet there were no other words that better defined what they were to each other. It was a distinct distance from the values of their parents and that was as it should be. Having gone to great lengths not to define their relationship, they had defined it in a way few of their friends or family members could understand yet they embraced it with their love. They responded to each other’s needs and desires in a way that required little thought or planning. It evolved as they did – as unique beings in a world gone mad.

Paramount in their relationship was the need for individual expression. They maintained two residences, one geared to John’s need for solitude on the rocky coast of Vancouver Island, the other geared to Maggie’s need for social interaction atop a high rise overlooking Puget Sound.

Depending on his mood and the status of his projects, John would spend days or even weeks alone on the island where the waves ran high, where the winds whipped across the sound and where the kingfishers and gulls were a constant reminder of nature’s power. It was a simple three-room cabin made of old weathered logs. The cabin satisfied his need for solitude far from the voices of media, technology and modern life. The wind and the sea spoke to him in a language he could understand. If not for his social consciousness, his obsessive need for a cause to benefit all of humankind, he might have been content to live a quiet life in the mystic wilderness.

Maggie also loved the sound and the wind and the sea but she was by nature a social creature. She thrived on the challenges that only humans could provide. She possessed a gift for understanding other points of view. She drew people in, gained their trust, formed friendships and alliances and gathered influence. She was loved by those knew her well and liked by those who knew her only casually.

Maggie’s place was in the heart of the city. She was most at home in the comfort of their spacious suite overlooking the sound. It was clean and stylish with straight lines and prominent works of art featuring an eclectic view from Edward Hopper’s modern American realism to Van Gogh’s abstractions. Maggie’s support of the art community was central to her identity. To her there was nothing more natural and fulfilling that living in an artistic environment. To John it was a little like living in a museum. He loved art as much as Maggie did but he had a problem with order. If not for Maggie and the intoxicating view of the sound and, on a clear day, the mountains of Olympus, this was not a place he would choose to live for any length of time. It was however a good balance to the natural chaos that sometimes overwhelmed him at the cabin.

Maggie was drawn to order. She was as constant as the sun and forgiving as the earth. Where John’s was scattered, her mind was geared to organizing, seeking out patterns and using them to optimize function and efficiency. Her aesthetic sense reflected order from works of art to the natural beauty of sunset on the northern Pacific. John preferred the anarchy of the unexpected, the jazz of Coltrane to Louie Armstrong, Picasso to Monet, Burroughs to Shakespeare, and Bukowski to Byron. The terrible beauty of a violent storm was worth a thousand calm sunsets.

They shared a love of jazz. It was a part of Maggie that enabled her to understand her man beneath the skin. His moods were as wild and unpredictable as the music that captured him. When he soared he was the mercurial eagle riding the winds of unbounded imagination and when he dove he dove deep like Dante on his descent to the lowest level of hell.

Maggie grew to understand his mood swings, his eccentricities and his retreats into isolation. She gave him the time he needed before she reached out to pull him back from the depths. To anyone else it might have been the burden that would break them apart but Maggie understood that it was a part of him. When he was giving he gave far more than he took. He respected her needs as she respected his. It was not a sacrifice. It was the natural flow of their lives together. It was a unique relationship that operated on a level most cannot begin to comprehend. They were blessed.


Maggie was reading in the living room when John arrived. He discarded his fishing gear in the laundry room. It was early evening. He tossed her a greeting on his way to cleaning up. She smiled and wrinkled her nose at the smell of fresh cod wrapped in brown paper, which he discarded on the kitchen counter. He took a little extra time in the bathroom, sensing that something was amiss and wondering what it might be.

She handed him a glass of wine and asked how his trip had gone.

“Great, Maggie. What’s on your mind?”

She could count on him to be direct. It was an acquired trait for her sake. Maggie was direct and honest to a fault.

She held a printed copy of his latest chronicle on the web. It was an impassioned attack on the two-party system in the name of the founding fathers and a summons to an independent movement.

“I don’t know what you plan to do. I don’t know if anything can be done but I do know that you don’t address a problem unless you’re prepared to act on it. So what’s your plan?”

“There is no plan.”

“Are you waiting on me?”

“We’re partners, Maggie. I’d like you to be a part of this but we’re moving ahead with you or without you.”

“Then there is a plan.”

“More like an idea.”

Maggie watched him sit in a chair opposite her as she tossed it around in her mind. A storm was approaching and they could see the workings of a strong wind outside their windows. Normally John would comment on the nature of climate change brought on by global warming. For a time she thought it would become his new cause but that was before the last election. Now everything was politics and everything from business to baseball was cast in political terms.

“I’m sorry but I think you’re being a little disingenuous. I sense that you’re waiting for something and I thought it might be me. Have you consulted anyone?”

“Yes.”

“And they convinced you that I should run for office?”

“That was my idea.”

“Do you have other options?”

John walked over to the windows where he stared at a dark sky over the dark waters of the sound. The sound seemed to awaken at night, waves crashing on rocky shores, reminding us that the earth was still a force to be reckoned in this technologically crazed world, a world that too often forgot its dependency on the forces of nature.

“Another storm.”

She joined him at the windows as the first bolt of lightning struck with a shiver of rolling thunder in its wake. She cradled him from behind and took comfort.

“Are you ready to hear this?”

“I know you, John. I could no more stop you from doing what you intend to do than you could stop yourself. But there’s one thing I think you should know from the beginning. It’s not the founding fathers that concern you so much as it is your own father.”

His father had been something of a hopeless idealist. Hopeless because he had never acted beyond voting or choosing not to vote. Hopeless because he never believed that anything could be done.

John remembered an occasion when his father had concluded a familiar rant on the plight of the working class and the failures of democracy with the question: How can any one person make a difference in this world? His mother replied: One step at a time.

“Well, Maggie, we can’t do much about our parents but maybe we can do something about the world.”

“What does Myron say?”

“The same thing everyone else says: It’s impossible. Then we talked.”

“You’ve consulted experts?”

“Pundits, consultants, operatives, advisers and gurus. They all say the same thing: I’m certifiable.”

“I’ve known that for a long time.”

“I’m about to confirm it.”

“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”

“The goal is the utter and absolute destruction of the two-party system.”

A clap of thunder rumbled through the walls as if to punctuate his pronouncement. It was undeniable that these violent storms were becoming more frequent and all of Seattle (if not the world) was becoming a harder and colder place. People on the streets were harsher. Clients were more cynical. Clerks and waiters were less friendly. Even those in her circle of friends were less patient and less thoughtful. Was it the weather? Was there an epidemic of ill will and foreboding? Or was it the cold, relentless winds of conservative politics? The politics of privilege and exploitation had widened the gap between the rich and the poor. Had it spilled over in the form of resentment on both sides of the gap?

“You are certifiable.”

“I know.”

“Everyone says it’s impossible but you don’t believe them.”

“Yes. No.”

“What do you believe?”

He walked over to the fireplace where he turned a knob that switched on artificial flames. No one responsible burned wood anymore unless they were poor or hadn’t heard the news. Burning wood added deadly toxins to an atmosphere already filled with industrial waste. He missed the flames of a real fire but these would do.

“I believe in wine and music.”

She joined him on the sofa where she saw the forces of destiny at work on his face. It was a constant struggle for John, a battle he felt compelled to fight though its conclusion was always the same. She came to understand that both the struggle and its effect were equally important to his sense of purpose.

“I’ve been talking to the wrong people, Maggie. They know the numbers but they lack a sense of imagination. I should have been talking to jazz musicians, artists, writers, filmmakers, poets and dreamers. If you can imagine it, it can be done.”

She held back the urge to comment. It was a process that would unfold on its own time. She knew already there was no turning back. It was his cause and it would become hers. It would surround and dominate their lives. She settled in his arms, flames dancing and a storm raging outside their windows.

“What will it take?”

“A miracle. An alignment of the stars, a million acts of faith, a convergence of events, and a desperate plan carefully orchestrated against all odds … a miracle. What could be simpler?”

They kissed and kissed again. Lightning and thunder like a thousand angry drums, rain descending like waterfalls, their bodies pulled closer and he realized that Maggie would travel with him once more. He was not alone.

She pressed her lips against his and felt the passion of the cause, the power of renewal, the anticipation of battle against unbeatable forces and the irrational sense that somehow they would prevail or at least they would survive to fight again. She drew him in and he followed to a place where no worries or rational thoughts exist. He went inside where there was no storm, no lightning or thunder, no sheets of rain and no howling winds of change.

There was only Maggie. Maggie and John.