THE NAKED ABYSS: A Song of Sojourn

By Jack Random



Vera! Vera! What has become of you?
Does anybody else in here feel the way I do?

She was a simple girl with a simple point of view.
Wanted to find a marrying man and raise a child or two.
Then the bombs came and the world slipped away with the life that she once knew.

Flames spread out like napalm dreams and the terror took root and grew.
I still remember her quivering voice as into the night she flew.

Vera! Vera! What has become of you?
Does anybody else in here feel the way I do?



Pity the poor man who dies without a name on some forgotten street corner. He was some mother’s son. He was the hope, the dream and the smile in his father’s eyes.

There was a time in life as in art and literature when civilization thrived on heroes. They were individuals ordinary and extraordinary that overcame hardship to do great good in the world. Through the tradition of story telling we lived their lives vicariously. We sought to be like them. We borrowed their strength and fortitude. We became better than ourselves by reaching beyond our self-defined limits.

Today we idolize so many people for so many reasons that we have reduced the concept of heroism to celebrity. The legacy of heroism gave way to Andy Warhol’s theory of fifteen-minute fame.

When he was only three he had bright eyes and great ambitions. He was going to make his parents proud. When he was five, he was going to show them all. They were wrong. He was going to be somebody. He was going to save lives. He was going to be a hero. He was going to be a star. When he was seven, he was going to start a band. When he was nine, he was going to join a gang. When he was thirteen he chased his dreams in the land of liquid horizons. When he was seventeen he was going to set the world on fire. When he was twenty-three he did. When he was twenty-seven he shot a man for twenty bucks. When he was thirty he looked fifty. When he was thirty-six he was lying in a pool of blood, his dreams fading, his hopes gone, his view of the world a gutter and his future over the rainbow.

We let him down.

He let himself down. He fell for it. He bought into a system that counted him out before he could discover a larger universe. We will not mourn for him. We will let him pass into the endless night, the naked abyss that awaits us all. We will not reach for him for he would pull us down with a smile of sarcasm. In his dying breath, he only wants revenge.

Vera! Vera! What has become of you?

She became a topless dancer in a jazz club on lower ninth until the inevitable day when her appeal no longer paid the bills. A spiral downward to a trailer park with overgrown weeds and a black market economy. She gasped her last breath faking orgasm with a bald man when a homegrown meth lab kissed the heavens goodbye.


He was driving down Highway 66 heading west from a pilgrimage to the sacred Chiricahua Mountains, where the face of Cochise gazes at the heavens, when he chanced upon an offshoot reading Route 666. He turned around and went back the way he came. There are odds no gambler should take.

He ended up at a dreary motel with a bar across the street. He asked for number nine but it was in repair. He asked for thirteen and she tossed him the key. He stayed for two weeks, drinking, eating salted snacks and waiting for something to happen.

She opened the door and asked him if he wanted a job. He already had one but how could he turn her down? She had dark eyes that sucked him in. They spent three days having hot, trailer park sex, doggie style, down and dirty, drug induced; he never saw it coming.

She drew a map and googled it just to make sure. She told him to meet her at the mark, seven o’clock sharp. Sure he said and drove to the next town.


These kinds of things never happened to him so he was sure it was happening to someone else, someone he could not trust. He picked up a hitchhiker outside of Tucson and began peppering her with questions.

She was on the run. A broken family, an old story, a brutal relationship and a bagful of pills: She asked if he wanted to try something and he said why not, he was going nowhere. They grabbed a six-pack at a local market and drove deep into the desert on a gallon of gas. He made his move but she showed no interest so they popped a few pills and let the barren earth swallow them.

Time cranked to a quivering halt, insects swirling, heat coming in waves, night riding in on a yellow moon and a blue-bellied lizard settled on his nose. The lizard gave him knowledge as they wandered the moonlit night, picking flowers and collecting the seeds of perception.

She placed them in a leather bag tied round her waist. She was building a new life, seed by seed, and he was her appointed guide. A dozen more and they could start their own cult. A dozen years and they could found their own religion.

How can you start a religion he wondered without sex? She folded him in her sprawling limbs and collected the seeds of creation.

He awakened on a broad flat rock, his clothes neatly folded, the sun bearing down on his reddened body. The woman was gone. The car was nowhere. He pulled on his jeans, his shirt, tied his undershirt around his head and began walking. An hour later he found her sleeping in his car: out of gas.

He told her to find another ride and walked ten miles with a gas can. She waited at the car. He came back in a pickup with a kid in his twenties, bucktooth and smiling. She was down to accessories: black panties and a maroon bra. She asked for a ride and the kid with a nod from our hero said hop in.

Later he would wonder: What ever became of his desert queen?

He was sitting in a bar in Sedona, Arizona, when a limo arrived with an entourage of security. Out stepped everybody’s hero John McCain. For a lingering moment he allowed his intellectual curiosity to roam. The old question: If you could stop the monster before he became the monster, would you do it? In the age of cell phone television you could alter history with an awkward moment. Cause him to lose balance. A moment of rage.

He quietly asked no one in particularly: What was so wrong with Ho Chi Minh anyway?

The muscles in the broad round neck of America’s hero tightened, his veins bulged as he visibly struggled not to look in our hero’s direction. He looked around to see if anyone had a cell phone. Maybe. You can never tell. He might have altered history. Then again America’s hero looked like he was down for the count. America’s hero had loser written all over him.

He finished his latte, crawled in his car and drove.


A million thoughts zigzagged through his head and he discovered the calming comfort in random chaos. Windows down and the desert heat permeating a cool breeze, he wondered why the random accelerator particle collider was considered random. If it was truly random the results would be meaningless and anything, including an all-consuming black hole, would be possible. Just a thought he thought while driving nowhere fast.


He noticed them in a flashing image bounced off the rearview mirror: Two men in dark shades and dark suits, sitting side by side in a nondescript gray Chrysler, not the kind to be driving a barren road into the Nevada desert. Something was up.

Was this the good Senator’s work? Was that stodgy old fart so uptight that he would summon the feds for a crack in the local Starbuck’s?

He noticed the cell phone embedded in the dash of his 64 Dodge van (they don’t make ‘em like that any more) and rang up the boys.

“Got some smoke in my mirror, boys, need some roadside assistance.”

Like magic he watched the scene unfold a few miles down the road. An accident, people laid out on the pavement, red lights flashing, people in uniforms. They let him pass but stopped the intruders at the gate.

“Somebody up there likes me,” he thought.

The highway was free and clear for a hundred miles. The scent of sage and melting landscape conjuring images of ancient lands uninhabited by man. He pulled into a roadside café, wondering how they made a living in such a forsaken place. Must be a front. Had to be a front. Something was going on under the hood.

The waitress was thin and oddly attractive with her painted eyes and ratted blonde hair. She asked him what was up with a wink that seemed incongruous. She was emitting some aroma that made him think of the late sixties, free love and plentiful picnics.

He ordered a cheeseburger without the beef. She laughed and gave him a grilled cheese sandwich and an order of fries on the house. There was no cook in the kitchen, no dishwasher, no one but the woman with ratted hair.

She sat down across the counter while he ate, pouring coffee, batting her eyes, waiting for some sign of interest. He asked her how she managed and she replied not well, pointing to a picture on the wall of a large man in front of a big rig named the Silver Bullet.

He went on a run six months ago and never came back. She was minding the store and biding her time, waiting for an opportunity to adventure.

“Where you headed, stranger?”

He told her he was on the road to nowhere, apologizing for the cliché, looking to discover the undercurrents of native life.

The grilled cheese was delicious. She undid the top button of her white cotton blouse. The fries were excellent for the frozen variety. She poured some catsup and joined him. Leaning over the counter his eyes traced the outline of her finely tuned breasts. She locked the door, turned over the closed sign and poured a couple of beers.

“No license,” she explained.

They drank and told stories about life, husbands, wives, families and twists of fate. He did not believe in fate but she did. It was fate that brought them together in this isolated place on the outskirts of nowhere. She opened her legs and he took her then and there on a revolving counter stool with the scent of fries and the rattle of dishes hovering about them.

She asked him if he wanted to stay and he asked her if she wanted to go. A six pack and an hour later they hit the road, headed for Las Vegas, the city of neon, games of chance, random adventures, strippers and hustlers, cheap thrills and costly addictions. The drove through the barren sage littered landscape smelling of half-baked reptilian remains looking like the dream of a cracker without a clue, talking in seamless cycles on parallel plains that never touch.

Periodically, he would take a moment, look at her and nod. She would do the same. It was not the reality of connection that mattered but the formality, the courtesy, the habit that gave mythology its teeth.

If he had been listening he would not have understood even a fraction of what she said but the rhythm of her voice was somehow pleasing. If he had been able to decode the message beneath a stream of sounds he would have understood that she was a gentle compassionate woman stuck in the particle collider of a troubled past. She rewound the dialogues that she perceived as keys to the mystery. She dissected decisions that led to the wrong choices and guided her on the wrong paths. She wondered what she could have done to deserve so little joy and so much sorrow.

He was stuck in the moment or rather a conglomeration of moments surrounding his present circumstance. His memory could only reach back so far and the incident at the Sedona Starbuck’s was as far as it reached. He kept coming back to the incredible arrogance and petty mindedness of the man who wanted to lead the world in war.

On their way to the desk at the Bellagio he plugged a silver dollar into a glittering machine, cashed out and handed it to his companion. They checked in to a room on the thirteenth floor and enjoyed an evening of varied entertainment, replete with gambling, music, fine food and sensual exploration. In the morning he got up early, kissed her gently and let her sleep. He left her cash, a credit card, keys to the van and a house in Malibu, and a message of affection. He had pressing business.

He picked up a copy of the Times, booked a flight to the nation’s capitol and caught a cab to the airport. On the ride over he felt a seizing of his heart and wondered if he would ever see her again. Hers was a giving spirit, a generous heart, and the feel of her limbs rubbing against his eased his yearning. He gazed out the window at a passing ambulance as it turned into the entryway of a local hospital. He hated hospitals. He had nothing against doctors and nurses. There were good and bad in every profession. But he felt in his gut that hospitals were cesspools of greed and disease.

He breathed in and out, a slow and measured pattern, until he sensed strength returning to his life and limbs, and contemplated the road ahead.

***

Joe the orderly reported to work every day with his bag lunch and green uniform checking in at the front desk flirting with the nurses and taking the elevator ride to the twenty-seventh floor. That was where they kept the hard cases, the hopeless, the unfortunate ones whose lives were sustained by machines, breathing machines, blood machines and monitoring devices around the clock until the insurance money ran out.

Despite the downturn in the economy (or perhaps because of it) there was no shortage of customers. It was not difficult for doctors and hospital administrators to convince loved ones, husbands and wives, parents and caretakers, that there was still a glimmer of hope when in fact it was a shot in the dark, one in a billion, the odds of finding a diamond in a trash bin.

Joe did the dirty work, moving from room to room, avoiding the rare and occasional visitor, changing sheets and bedpans, making sure the tubes were in place and the machines were operating. As he worked it was his habit to change the channels of the overhead televisions, which were invariably set to late night movies, heavy on the soft porn, by the overnight staff. He made an effort to judge what the patient might enjoy in the event that any of it seeped in to the subconscious mind, usually settling on cable news or generic music stations.

As he made his rounds he caught the nurse in room 2736 making some adjustments to the patient’s medications and cleaning his body with a wet towel. Her name was Bonnie and she was dangerously cute. The patient, an older man and a recent addition to the ward, had an obvious erection beneath his hospital gown. It was not uncommon for unconscious men and Joe wondered if it meant something really was going on in the minds of these patients.

“Why not ease his suffering?” he asked the nurse.

“Why don’t you?” she countered.

She told him about the patient. He was some kind of businessman. He choked on a giant shrimp while watching a sporting event in his apartment. He was alone and managed to call 911 but the ambulance arrived too late. He had a living will but left no instructions on what to do in the event of incapacity. His wife and family had no clue so after six months in a coma he was transferred to the twenty-seventh floor.

He changed the channel to MSNBC and sat waiting for her to finish up.

“What do you make of that?” he asked pointing to the patient’s still engorged member.

She said the common view was that it was nothing more than an autonomic response. Conscious men think of sex around the clock because their unconscious minds are wired to procreation and leaving a mark on the gene pool. Unconscious men still have the instinct even if their minds are not intact.

“Is that what you think?” he wondered.

She shrugged. She had noticed that some men responded to the sounds of sex on television and some responded to a woman’s touch differently than to a man’s – unless of course they were attracted to the same sex. The talk was making her a little uncomfortable but she let her gaze linger on the patient’s erection before she left with a wink at Joe who was concealing the beginning stages of his own arousal.

Later at break time, they worked the conversation around to the same subject. Nurse Bonnie finally admitted that if it was entirely up to her she would consider it therapeutic to relieve the patient of his pent up sexual frustration but it was not. She could lose her job and anyway no one really knew what if anything was going on inside the patient’s head.

Joe smiled at her with genuine good will and told her that if he ended up unconscious in a hospital bed, he would be pleased to be cared for by a nurse as compassionate as she was. That seemed to please her – enough so that later that evening they would make a date for the weekend. It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship in which Joe the orderly’s pent up frustration was regularly relieved by the tender attentions of Nurse Bonnie.

They met every night in room 2736 and sometimes their relationship went beyond the bounds of their profession. One night with a full moon shining through an open window, Nurse Bonnie asked Joe to wait outside and let her know if anyone was approaching.

She leaned over and whispered in her patient’s ear: I don’t know if you can hear me or if you can whether you understand but if you can I want to help you. If you’re suffering, I want to ease your suffering. I want to comfort you. If I do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable, it’s up to you to stop me.

The patient did not respond in any recognizable way but it seemed to Nurse Bonnie that his erection was even more pronounced than usual. She wondered if her words, the touch of her breath or the sound of her voice aroused him.

Keeping her head by his, her ear tuned to his voice, she reached down and slowly, gently took hold of his erection. She thought she heard him moan. She could not be sure; it was so soft it was beyond normal perception. She slowly, gently moved her hand up and down, up and down, and she heard his breathing grow slightly stronger.

She ran her fingers through his hair, kissed him on his forehead and stroked his erection until he came. She could not sure but she thought he sighed. She thought he thanked her in the only way he could.

She cleaned his body with a wet towel and called Joe in to help change the sheets. Joe nodded his approval, gave her a hug and a kiss, and then pointed to the patient. He seemed to be smiling.

From that day forward, at least once a week, with Joe standing guard at the door, Nurse Bonnie would ease his suffering and celebrate the healing power of her touch.

***

He took a cab from the airport, picked up a copy of the Post, booked a suite at the Four Seasons and started running up a tab with room service. He bought six executive box tickets to the Redskins game and traded them straight up for two tickets to a production of modern dance at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts. He ate at the finest restaurants, attended the most elite clubs and hired an escort everywhere he went.

On the third day he approached the maitre d with an unusual request: Could he arrange a meeting with someone from the McCain campaign? He folded a couple of crisp one hundred dollar bills in her hand as she indicated that she would see what she could do.

Twenty minutes later he received her call in his room. The McCain people were sending a couple of representatives within the hour. She would notify him when they arrived. He thanked her and promised a generous gratuity on his departure.

He had been doing his homework. McCain’s main argument against his younger opponent was experience. He knew that the candidate was notoriously prone to rash decisions based on a gut feeling. He wanted to plant a seed in McCain’s mind and give him a reason to be rash. A survey of the Republican political landscape yielded one name that would appeal to McCain’s vanity and gut instinct and at the same time torpedo his claim of experience: Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska.

She was perfect. She was on the far right, a Christian fundamentalist, and McCain was desperate to please the traditional Republican base. If she had ever expressed an opinion on any issue of national or international importance beyond the sound bites of a political campaign, it was not apparent. She was attractive, confident, ambitious and completely lacking in intellectual curiosity. She was in short George Bush in a pretty package – only Bush was better prepared.

The fact that she is a woman would fill McCain with irrational joy, believing that he could steal Hillary Clinton voters on that basis alone. But as the novelty wore off and voters saw her for what she is (a political opportunist) and what she is not (prepared to lead the nation) they would hold McCain responsible for incredibly poor judgment.

When three men in suits showed up at his door, he asked two of them to remain outside. They looked at each other and deferred to the oldest of the three, a man who looked a lot like G. Gordon Liddy of Watergate fame in the Nixon era. Maybe it was Liddy. Who knows? He was here to do the dirty work. No burglary this time, no stealing confidential records for political bribery and extortion, just a little “pay for play.”

Before he sat down, he pulled out a small device and swept the room for bugs. It was a clear signal he was prepared for nefarious business. He folded his hands, leaned forward and gazed into our hero’s eyes.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“If you don’t know that already, you’re not doing your job and I’m wasting my time.”

“Fair enough,” replied Liddy. “What have you got?”

Not what do you want but what have you got. Interesting. He laid it on the table clear and unmistakable. This was a negotiation, a deal, an exchange of interests like pork bellies for shares in a coal mine. McCain’s interest was a pressing need for political contributions. What was he willing to give in return?

“I’m prepared to give six figures on one condition.”

He handed Liddy a business card with a name scribbled on the back: Palin.

“The governor of Alaska?”

“That’s right. I don’t know who’s on your list for VP but if it’s another old white guy the deal’s off. We used to be a party with balls. What have we got now? A washed up warrior, a cross dresser, a Mormon demagogue and a preacher from Arkansas, get serious! Win or lose, the party needs new blood.”

Liddy studied the card as if it held the key that would decode a secret message. There was none. It was a straight-up deal. He liked that.

“So you think Governor Palin would give the party balls.”

“That’s right.”

Liddy stood up and shook hands with a tired grin wrinkling his lips.

“I think the old man just might go for it. If he does I’ll be in contact.”

The man left and our hero contemplated what transpired. It was patently illegal to give a contribution of that size and McCain was supposed to be at the forefront of campaign finance reform. He must be desperate. Even the old money must be tired of Republican policies. They took their profits. Now it was time to restore some balance in the economy before the whole scam broke down. No one wins if the bank goes broke.

He wondered if it was even necessary to pull off this little charade. The McCain campaign was running scared. They would have to win with smoke and mirrors, the same old Republican smear tactics, down and dirty.

Well, he reflected, it worked before. No use taking any chances. He was sure McCain would take the bait. He had played his part. The rest would take care of itself.

He checked out of the hotel, fulfilling his obligation to the maitre d, booked a flight to Lisbon and flagged a cab to the airport. He felt a desire for Fado, that centuries old song of mourning and longing from Portugal and the torch singers who embodied it. He wanted to purge his soul. He wanted to be cleansed. He wanted to swim in the sorrows of ancient grief and generations lost and crumbling dreams. He wanted to be reborn in the hope that comes only from shedding his skin.

***

On the flight across the dark blue sea he felt the forces of gravity, the weight of responsibility, the betrayals of human dignity, the indifference of the powerful, the terrifying coldness of social institutions, the course of history on a troubled, choking planet pushing him to the edge of despair. He closed his eyes and felt the breath of someone gentle and sweet caressing his neck, whispering in his ear.

He awakened refreshed, renewed and invigorated as the plane descended on the European continent, the birthplace of capitalism and socialism, democracy and fascism, equality and aristocracy, feudalism and the rights of labor, the land of a trillion contradictions in perpetual shades of gray, the shadow hovering over America and much of the modern world.

He checked into a hotel, ordered room service and a hotel computer and wrote for three days. It was the kind of thing he always wanted to do but there was always someone to tell him not to, that the world was waiting, that you could not shut yourself away. It was an indulgence and now he was free to indulge.

He sent it out on the web and forgot about it. The web was the closest thing to a miracle he would ever know. You could send out your words, your thoughts and images, and as long as no one interfered (or even if someone did) they could wander about or sit still for a thousand years only to be discovered at a time and place you could never imagine.

His mind clear and free, he went down to the street and caught a cab to the nearest Fado club. It was a dark place, crowded with men and women of all ages and colors, all yearning and teaming with desire. The crowd hushed, a bright circle of light went up on a small wooden stage, and a singer poured her soul into a story of longing.

She was a beautiful woman, sensuous and strong. She talked in several languages so everyone in her audience understood the story of each song. Then she sang and grown men choked back tears. Women openly cried and returned the singer’s love with praise, a shower of roses and money.

It was an ancient art and it lifted him from time. It relieved him of a multitude of worries, pressures, resentment and regret. He remembered the love, the pain and the sorrow that always lived within his aching heart and then he let them go. He remained in his seat long after most of the patrons had left (all but the most desperate drinkers) when she emerged from backstage and cast a smile in his direction.

“Hello, stranger,” she said. “You look like you could use some company.”

He nodded and she told him of a place where they served fine food and wine at all hours of the night. It was a quiet place where they could talk, drink and feel free to explore the mysteries of existence in a transitory world. He nodded and she guided him there.

They talked to the morning hours and parted as secret lovers only to resume the play of strangers the next evening. On the third night they gave flesh to their affections, swimming in the moonlight of the only love they would ever know.

He felt the pull of tomorrow and she released him with a kiss. When two bodies have intermingled as theirs had done they will always be together. They will always be connected. They will always dance in the shadows of the mind. They will always be one.

He carried her scent with him on a train to Madrid to Paris to Berlin to Prague to Amsterdam, breathing in the sights, absorbing the land, the architecture, the ancient ruins, talking by day to familiar souls (an older woman who spoke longingly of deeds undone and dreams unfulfilled, a man whose one remaining wish was redemption, another who revered the love of friends and family), dancing and drinking by night with soulful women whose mystery was as enchanting as their beauty.

He walked along the Seine with a youthful Parisian who promised to remember. He shared an intimate moment in a dark, dank corner of a Bohemian castle with a woman in the Gothic mode. He sipped wine until dawn gazing out a window where the Third Reich once reined in horror with a companion whose empathy was without bound. He danced in the arms of velvet memories where a young Henry Miller and Anais Nin once christened their tortured love in vain. He loved them all and let them go as they did he. As he moved forward he folded his memories behind him in the dark spaces of his mind reserved for treasures. He was a pilgrim on a journey of discovery and such a man can only gaze into the prism of immediacy. There will be time for reflection at journey’s end.

Somewhere outside of Copenhagen he felt the bond of home. It was if in silence someone was calling his name. It was as if he was living under a spell. He had forgotten who he was and where his seed was sown. It was as if he had bolted from his own life, broke free for as long as he could survive beside himself. He was not lost or disoriented. He knew who he was and he knew where he belonged.

He boarded a plane and flew across the sea, over the top of the world, across the North American continent, and as he flew he dove into the deep waters of unconsciousness for the first time since his journey began. The walls of perception came crashing down. All that he knew was stripped away like flats in an elaborate theatrical production, leaving him naked and alone with his senses.

He was awakened as the plane descended in sweeping spirals to the golden city by the bay. Gazing out his window he grasped the majesty of life on planet earth, the rich textures of land and sea, the smallness of human achievement, the constant flowing motion, wind and rain, roads and traveling souls.

He walked through the bustling airport, people towing luggage and parents towing children, tearful greetings and goodbyes. He walked away from the swarm of activity into the open space outside where he tasted the sweet salt air beneath layers of gasoline, smoke and dust.

He took a cab into the city where he walked the streets crowded with hustling humanity. Men and women minding their business, never stopping to admire the scents of open air cafes, the bite of currents coursing through concrete canyons, never wondering at the generations who built these monuments to human ambition, who sacrificed their lives with the sweat and blood of labor. Couples drinking wine or savoring coffee, heads buried in books, magazines or newspapers, eyes locked to each other, thoughts folded inward while the world rushed by on the other side of a thin veil of glass. They did not hear the orchestra of city life, the purr of motion, the hum of energy, the waves of anxiety and joy carried by the sounds of voices in conversation or decree. They did not see the homeless man on a church’s steps, the bag lady and her cart, the street musician or the hustler with a plan. They did not know the miracles unfolding above, below, within and all around.

He found himself outside the Bay View Hospital, no longer tentative, no longer afraid, knowing he had reached the last stage of his journey. Peace had found him. Comfort held him in her arms. Love was waiting.

He lingered in the emergency room where the drama of life and death, of suffering and struggle was raw, clawing at his senses like vinegar on an open wound. He wondered what it would take to ease the pain, knowing from a place deep within that it was all a part of the parade, the journey, the book of knowledge, the growing, the living, the passing, the life. He walked through the afflicted like a shadow of kindness and for a moment the sorrow lifted and the suffering eased.

He entered the elevator where an orderly preceded him, pressing the number 27. Glancing at the buttons and looking twice at his fellow traveler, they rose to the twenty-seventh floor and continued in silence to room 2736.

The orderly opened the door and they both walked in: The nurse was listening intently to a visitor, an older woman and her patient’s widow. Her face was wet with tears, as she seemed to seek comfort, confirmation or absolution in the decision she had made. The nurse nodded with as much empathy as she could give and nodded again to the orderly who stood back in the corner of the small hospital room, trying to be invisible.

He understood what was happening and why he was here. He recognized the woman he loved and the woman who gave her love to him without jealousy or expectation beyond the norms of common decency.

He reached out to touch her cheek and felt her shiver. He told her he was fine and he knew she understood. He watched her reach out to touch the patient’s cheek and the tears welled in her eyes once more.

He held her shoulders and whispered in her ear: It’s time. Let me go.

She nodded to the nurse who nodded to the orderly and they went about their business of disconnecting life-sustaining devices.

She placed her hand on her husband’s as he placed his hand on hers and together they watched the dying light of a setting sun.

Somewhere in another part of the world someone was singing:

Vera! Vera! What has become of you?
Does anybody else in here feel the way I do?

It was a song of sorrow and of joy. It was a song of sojourn, of yearning and release.

He kissed her three times: One for the past, one for the moment and one for the unknown still ahead.

Jazz.

The Scenario

RANDOM TALES: A journalist is offered the story of a lifetime by a rogue CIA agent: An alternative scenario for the September 11 terrorist attack.



THE SCENARIO

By Jack Random



PART ONE: THE INFORMANT


On the drive to the rendezvous, I tried to visualize what the informant looked like. I pictured an older man with checkered gray hair, full beard, close cut, slightly unkempt, a little fuzzy around the edges. I smiled, realizing I had painted a portrait of my now retired professor of International Studies at Columbia University.

If the informant was what he presented himself to be, it was an inept analogy. The professor had been a dissident voice, a defender of civil liberties, and an outspoken advocate of civil disobedience. Rumors persisted that he was forced into retirement in the second wave of antiterrorism legislation. I had wanted to contact him, to write his story, but I was advised against it. It was easy to rationalize that decision, then as now, but it left a deep impression of regret.

By contrast, this informant was anything but a dissident. He was an insider, a political operative at best and, quite possibly, a rogue agent, a turncoat to his colleagues and secret ally in the struggle for freedom.

In the space of a few minutes the informant had accomplished what he intended; he had established credibility. His cautionary tone, almost indifferent, an air of confidence, the sense that he was offering directives to be followed without question, a game of phone tag leading to a location on the wrong side of town, all combined to convince a skeptical reporter that he was what he claimed to be: the real deal.

I cursed myself for not having insisted on a name or at least some useful contact. What kind of reporter was I? I was operating on pure speculation and blind faith. It was the kind of situation that invited trouble – as it had before in my tenuous career as a journalist. I swore it would not happen again. It was always the same thing: my weakness, my need and hunger for the story.

I gazed out the window of a yellow cab as we drove past the brownstone towers in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city, monuments to generations of poverty and a reminder of our government’s failure to address it.

When was the last time a politician referred to the war on poverty? The problem of the poor had become the assault on middle class. Like Vietnam and the war on drugs, it was better to forget.

The idea had been to combat crime on the streets, create community pride, and thereby save the urban landscape, but concentrations of poverty in high-rise buildings did not have the desired effect. Crime was more rampant than ever and the towers became markers for urban blight. Like a domestic domino theory, the government pressed on with its grand experiment long after its obvious failure. What else could they do?

We drove past the pimps, hookers, junkies, and a cacophony of boom box rap before arriving at the appointed address. It was the basement of an abandoned storefront. I took note of an all night café on the corner across the street before paying the cabbie. At least there was a place I could use to get off the street while waiting for a cab to return me to the relative safety of my middle class apartment.

“Who are you?” I asked.

The informant was nothing like my former professor. He was an older man, clean shaven, white haired and crew cut, his dress informal but meticulous. The general impression was distinctly military. He claimed to be an analyst and spoke of “the agency” in tones bordering reverence. He said that for twenty year his job had been to run scenarios: What if scenarios.

“We took situations, real and hypothetical, and ran them through probability quotients. We analyzed the results and projected outcomes.”

Despite my protests, he insisted on beginning his story in Lebanon, Beirut, circa 1983. It was the year a group of Shiite Muslims attacked the American Embassy, killing dozens of CIA operatives and capturing the Agency’s station chief for Middle East operations. According to the informant, they ran a scenario that indicated any response had to be covert. They were unwilling to risk congressional inquiry.

“Our hands were everywhere,” he said. “We were supporting both sides in every conflict. We were sponsoring Islamic fundamentalists as a buffer against Soviet influence.”

The Reagan Republicans had conspired with America’s most hated enemy, Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, for the release of American hostages immediately after Reagan’s inauguration as president. The deal culminated in the delivery of weapons and spare parts in exchange for funds that, in turn, were used to arm the Contras in Nicaragua – expressly forbidden by an act of Congress.


“If ever there was a cause for impeachment,” the informant said, “this was it. Reagan consorted with the enemy to defraud an election, openly defied Congress, and lied to cover his tracks. What is the definition of treason if this was not?”

I began to suspect it was either a hoax or a trap. In my years as a reporter, I had seen it all. I once took a shot at the paper’s corporate owner, refusing to run stories that were obvious plants, and I had paid for my indiscretions. I was kicked out of the newsroom and given a desk in Metro. I was hoping that this story would give me the jump I needed to get my career back on line but I was losing faith.

“I just don’t believe you,” I confessed. “I don’t believe you were ever with the Agency. I think you’re just some radical looking for attention.”

“Did I say I was with the Agency?” he replied with a cynical smile.

Then he shrugged with an incredulity that was as biting as it was sincere.

“You’re right. You found me out.”

I was dumfounded. I wanted to be disappointed but what I felt was relief. The journalist within was dying. I had to consider the consequences. I had a wife and child. At least I still had a job. Many did not. At least I still had my freedom.

I clicked off my recorder, gathered my notes and stuffed them in my briefcase. Out of habit, I reached out to shake hands with the man who had just played me for a fool. The informant, with a sardonic pose, placed a business card in my hand: “William Sinclair, Consultant.”

“Same time tomorrow?” he asked.

I laughed but felt a rising anger that I knew was fear at its core.

“We’ll see,” I replied.

I left thinking I would toss his card in the first trashcan I saw.


PART TWO: GRAVITY

I knew someone who knew someone at the Agency. I had contacts at the Pentagon and the State Department. I could make a few calls and tap my sources – or not. I could play the part of a journalist or go back to Metro and be a good boy. Nothing was certain.

I struggled with it through the night, like a shadow at the dinner table, like a ghost in the bed I shared with my faithful wife. I did not confide in her. She would only support me as she had always done. I was a good husband and father. She was a good mother and wife. I did not want her support. I wanted a way out that would allow me to retain a sense of self-esteem. The only way was to see it through.

I made the calls and what I found was conclusive: William Sinclair was the real deal. His involvement with the Agency went back three decades. He had risen from a low level data processor to a prime analyst when suddenly, in 1996, he went AWOL. If the Agency knew why, they were not talking. They wanted Sinclair and the man who turned him in could expect a sizable reward. I could be the hero of my own story. I could get my desk back in the newsroom. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I still wanted a Pulitzer.

“I knew you’d come,” smiled Sinclair.

“The hell you did,” I replied.

A man like him leaves nothing to chance. In the vernacular of the intelligence community, he knew more about me than I knew about myself. I wondered: What did he know that made him think I was his boy? Was it a sting? Was it all a part of the domestic offensive in the perpetual war on terrorism? If so, I was vulnerable the moment I walked through the door.

I asked why he had chosen me. He replied that I was not his first choice. He had considered a number of reporters who had shown some backbone, some integrity, some degree of professional pride but none had passed the test.

I soon learned that the test involved enduring Sinclair’s lectures on the history of American foreign policy. One of his favorite themes was that Americans have no sense of history. In the world according to Sinclair, that was what distinguished America from everyone else.

“To America, Vietnam is ancient history. To the rest of the world, it was only yesterday.”

He rambled on about Operation Phoenix in the early stages of the war, when 20,000 South Vietnamese were allegedly rounded up and executed. They were supposed to be our allies. He talked about free fire zones and the commonality of My Lai. He claimed that three million Southeast Asians had lost their lives as the result of our actions.

“We don’t count enemy dead,” he said with a profound sadness. “There was a time when we did.”

He sat behind his naked desk in the sparsely furnished room and stared into space, as if he could still see their faces, their wide dark eyes, their contorted and charred bodies.

“The Vietnamese are the bravest people in world history. After fighting every empire from the Ottoman to the British and French, they turned back the most powerful military force the world has ever seen.”

I was moved by his account and wondered what role he had played in the war. It was not my purpose, however, to revisit Nam or to rewrite history according to one rogue agent. When I said as much, Sinclair poured a large glass of water and dropped it on the concrete floor, shards of glass scattering like shrapnel from an antipersonnel bomb.

“What is this?” he challenged.

“An irrational display of self righteous indignation,” I replied. He had already been through any number of reporters. I was confident he needed me as much as I needed him.

“Gravity,” he answered. “Come back when you have some sense of it.”

I went home and did some homework.


PART THREE: HISTORY

Sinclair’s history lesson resumed with Nicaragua in the early eighties. The Agency backed the Contras, a ruthless paramilitary force, against the Sandinistas, a coalition of working class and indigenous peoples. It was there that an infamous Agency Operations Manual was uncovered.

As Sinclair put it: “How to Subvert Popular Government by Terrorist Tactics.”

It openly advocated a nightmare scenario: Creating an atmosphere of constant fear with random looting, rape and murder, techniques of torture, hiring criminals to do the dirty work, assassination, and creating martyrs by killing your own leaders. He added that the Agency would not hesitate to use the same tactics within our own country if it believed it could get away with it. He connected the dots: Nixon and Watergate, Reagan and Iran-Contra, the Kennedy assassinations and Martin Luther King.

I was reluctant to consider such a wide brush for any story in the current political climate. The mere whisper of conspiracy, past, present or future, would never get past the editorial board of any major news organization, including mine.

Still, he left an impression, almost unthinkable thoughts, unspeakable possibilities that would transform my dreams to nightmares and darken my view of the world for years to come.

It was not the world I believed in. It was not the world I wanted to believe in. I was not prepared to accept such a radical transformation of reality.

Sinclair went on about our involvements throughout Latin America: El Salvador, Guatemala, Chile, Grenada, Panama, Columbia, Argentina, Bolivia and Peru. (In Argentina, 9-11 recalls the Agency sponsored coup that replaced Salvador Allende with the butcher Augusto Pinochet.) Everywhere it was the same story: Subversion of lawful democracies in favor of military despots. We allied ourselves with thugs, criminals and drug lords.

He lingered on the story of Archbishop Oscar Romero, the clergyman who stood up against oppression of the poor. It was hardly noted in the American press when nearly 200,000 peasants were slaughtered in Guatemala, but when six Jesuit priests, four American missionaries and the Archbishop Romero were tortured and executed, it was front-page news.

“Why do they hate us?” he asked with a twisted grin.

“They hate us for Suharto, America’s bloody gift to Indonesia. They hate us for the massacre of East Timor, where the price of opposition was one quarter of their population.

“Why do they hate us?”

He was pacing the room, gaining momentum, as he moved on to the Middle East: Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The first Gulf War was fought over the issues of cross-drilling and Kuwaiti belligerence. Saddam Hussein cleared the invasion with the American consulate but he could not have been surprised by America’s betrayal. It was an opportunity to establish dominance in a critical region. Our objective was accomplished when we refused to leave as promised after the war.

“Why do they hate us?”

“We financed Islamic fundamentalists throughout the world but especially in Afghanistan when the Soviets invaded. After the Russians pulled out, we asked the ‘freedom fighters’ to return our more sophisticated weaponry. They politely declined.”

If it was an argument, Sinclair was winning. My mind was opening to the possibility that our government was guilty of massive crimes against humanity. I was beginning to believe that we – our government, our intelligence forces, and our military – were the real terrorists but my mind stopped short, unable to make that leap.

I wondered why he left the Agency. He had known these things for years. Why would he continue to work for an agency that was at least partly responsible for so much suffering and death?

It was not something he wanted to address. His eyes grew cold; his entire body seemed to shrivel like an old man in a storm. Finally, he produced an obituary and quietly sat down while I read:

“William Randolph Sinclair, Jr., 27, of Arlington, VA, died at St. Jude’s Medical Center. He was a veteran of Desert Storm. He is survived by…”

The pieces started falling into place. His son, following the example of his father, lost his life in consequence.

“You wrote a story,” said Sinclair, “about the Gulf War Syndrome.”

I had indeed. As many as half of the soldiers who served in the first war later contracted the sickness. It began with a mild rash, headaches, nausea, but developed into a neurological disorder resembling Parkinson Disease. Whatever the cause – depleted uranium munitions, experimental vaccines – the military chose to deny its existence rather than investigate. When they were forced to investigate, their findings were always inconclusive.

“Billy walked over to the high school football field,” continued Sinclair. “He was a star athlete, you know. He walked out into the center of the field, knelt as if in prayer, and put the barrel of a shotgun in his mouth…”

His face grew ever darker and a shadow seemed to come over him. His gaze went inward as he summoned the image of his child.

“Before Billy died it was just a game. Not any more.”

The history lessons were over. It was not that I had won his trust. It was just that he no longer seemed to care. If his story had merit and I had the courage to run with it, it was mine.


PART FOUR: THE SCENARIO

Sinclair came up with the terrorist attack scenario in January 1996, ten months before his son ended his own life. It proposed a simultaneous attack by an Islamic fundamentalist group on several cities within the United States. It was an attack on both civilian and government targets – the Washington Monument, Disney World, the World Trade Center, the Pentagon – using commercial airlines as missiles. His superiors were intrigued and asked him to give the enemy a name. He did so. The name had been around for years and his face was that of the perfect enemy: Usama bin Laden.

He emphasized that none of this was the product of his imagination.

“I have no imagination,” he said. “I wasn’t a fiction writer. I was not paid to write stories. I was paid to create realistic scenarios based on existing facts. Everything is in the public record.”

He instructed me to check the official transcripts from the investigations of the African embassy bombings, the attack on the USS Cole, and the trial records of the first attack on the World Trade Center. I did so. It all checked out. Usama bin Laden, altered after September 11, 2001, to Osama bin Laden was an Agency recruit from the days of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Sinclair explained that he ran a cost-benefit analysis, projecting the cost in lives and economic loss against the “benefits” to the Agency and the powers it served: Increased military spending, congressional approval of covert operations, broad powers of domestic surveillance, control of Congress and the White House, and, most critically, a forty year “war on terrorism” – a long awaited replacement for the Cold War. It was a virtual carte blanche for the neoconservative ideologues already entrenched in the White House.

“It would have been so easy to prevent this catastrophe,” he said.

He reminded me that the director of the Federal Aviation Administration pleaded with Congress and the administration to secure the cockpits of commercial airlines long before September 2001.

“Where was the Agency then?” he asked. “Where was the FBI? Where were all those men in high office who knew what was being planned and did nothing to prevent it? It would have been so easy.”

I had always considered myself a good, patriotic citizen. Even if I did not always agree with my government, I believed my country was the best and most virtuous on the planet.

This was not a story I wanted to hear, no less report: That our leaders – those in charge of defending our nation – knew what was about to happen and failed to act.

Sinclair offered me an envelope. He explained that it contained all the evidence I would require. I hesitated. I imagined he was reading my mind: Was this really what I wanted? Did I wish to go down in history as the man who exposed the great lie? Did the facts even matter? Would I be vilified by my colleagues in the press? Would I be called a traitor? Would I lose my job and everything I valued and worked so hard to protect?

I took the envelope in my hands, held it for the length of a second thought, and tossed it onto Sinclair’s desk. I had a confession to make. I had already contacted the authorities.

“I suspect,” I said, “there are a couple of agents outside right now.”

Sinclair flashed his sardonic smile.

“Congratulations,” he said. “You passed the test.”

I looked at him with disbelief. All of his passion and conviction were nothing but smoke and mirrors, lies and deceptions, like the lies of war.

“You try to convince me that my government has betrayed the nation, its people, its founding principles, and if you succeed, I go to jail.”

“You want to work in the fourth estate,” he replied, “that’s the test. It’s the price you pay to enjoy the blessings of your profession and the esteem, the privilege and the power of serving the greatest nation on earth.”

He was wrong. The price was much greater. Beneath his twisted sense of humor, a profound sadness would stay with us both as long as we lived. For each of us, shame was the price of survival.

He winked and I went my way. I was back in the newsroom. A few months later, I was given a column and a seat on the editorial board.

I never asked my publisher if he was in on the sting. I never had to.

Dixieland Freeze (A Christmas Story)

By Jack Random


The storm hit on Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year. The snow turned to rain and the rain turned to ice, covering the sidewalks and roads, collecting on wires, limbs and branches. From behind an open window in the comfort of a warm living room, the beauty was breathtaking.

It sounded like a war zone that first night. The sudden freeze compressed metal, glass and wood, causing transformers to explode like mortars. Electrical wires and water pipes snapped, branches cracked and whole trees lost their grounding.

The initial aesthetic of a winter wonderland was lost in the grim vision of the morning after. The roads were impassable, power was down and panic was gripping the city. The rush to get supplies, food and water was on. Vehicles of every description were abandoned on the roadside, in bogs and ditches, and the usual criminal element was in action, stealing anything that was left unguarded.

That was six weeks ago, before the ice returned to snow and the snow kept falling and falling and falling. I was in the city when the storm hit, consuming my sorrow in a sea of Christmas spirits, toasting my newfound liberty. My divorce was final. I was officially alone – except for the dogs. All I could think about was getting home.

Nashville was ill equipped for snow, no less an ice storm. There were not enough salt trucks, not enough plows, and not enough experience in emergency management. I had to get home while I still could.

Home was in the country ten miles out of town. Looking back, in my little Mercury without chains, it was a borderline miracle I made it. Now, five feet of snow later, I wondered if I made the right choice. In town, at least there was a relief effort and others to share the burden. Then again, I had the dogs to think about.

The outdoor dogs, one resembling a wolf and the other the lone survivor of a litter of three, might have been able to get by but Sadie, a border collie mix with the spirit of a champion, would have been trapped inside. All had suffered some degree of abandonment. It was a common bond and I was determined it would not happen again.

There was no means of communication – no link to the outside world. It was a time for introspection, a time for contemplating the direction of my life, a time to acknowledge failures and rediscover success. It was not a time for delusions or mindless amusement. It was pointless to muse without someone to be amused.

The neighbors were of little value. They stopped by several times in the early going with the latest reports they gleaned from a battery-powered radio: endless theories on global climate change and dire predictions of a new ice age. Scientists were scrambling for explanations to the suddenness of change and its worldwide scope: A tilt in the planet’s axis, a cosmic radiation storm, solar flares, an interaction of industrial pollutants and extraterrestrial elements. As the days wore on, the explanations grew incomprehensible and all but irrelevant. The reports always seemed to end with: We just don’t know.

A back-to-earth couple a little older than me, the neighbors were making plans. In the beginning, it was all about unity and survival in a frozen wilderness but when the chill of reality set in and the prospect of a made-for-TV movie dimmed, they got out while there was still time. They were heading south but beyond that, they had not decided on a destination.

I might have gone with them but I had the dogs to think about and a vision of being stranded somewhere in a sea of snow with no one to hunker down with but them. They were good people, generous and kind enough, but they brought with them a strange mix of Tennessee country and new age communalism. They perceived themselves as some brand of spiritual leaders and I was not of a mind to follow.

In a gesture of goodwill that seemed melodramatic at the time, they left me a .22 rifle, a box of bullets and a couple boxes of canned goods. I was modestly grateful and as the snow continued to fall with each passing day, my sense of gratitude deepened.

The last word I got came from a sheriff on a snowmobile. He said looters had cleaned out all the stores in the city and marauders were beginning to roam the countryside. He asked if I had a gun and left the impression I might have to use it. He told me the law was breaking down, the officers and soldiers disbanding and heading home. When he departed, I had the distinct feeling he would not be back.

A week passed and all was quiet. The sound of a new ice age, it seemed, was silence. It was broken by the crack and thud of falling tree limbs, the howl and yap of prowling dogs abandoned by their caretakers, the whispering wind, the screaming wind and the occasional burst of gunshots.

Every episode of sound was an event that marked the passing of time. In the spaces between, I became aware of how dependent my sense of life was on the constant presence of sound: the hum of electricity, the drone of a refrigerator, the chatter of television, music on a radio, and the measured rhythm of traffic – even on a country road.

I came to realize what silence meant to me – or at least what it had meant before the freeze: Silence was death.

This was a new breed of silence, however, and it required a new definition. How long would it be before I heard the heartbeat of nature, the song of the forest, the rhythmic balance of heaven and earth? How long would it be before I sensed the force of my own being in a world that had always been indifferent? My whole life had been dependent on the perceptions of others – interpersonal relations, data transference, digital transactions, all the artificial creations of the mind, separate and distinct from the world in which I lived.

This was not just an environmental catastrophe. It was an opportunity for self-discovery. It was a chance to find out who we are and why we exist. The meaning of life had long seemed an adolescent exercise, a ritual of aging, a futile pursuit, but now it seemed the only pursuit worthwhile.

It was a world of constant wonder, perpetually transforming itself from one set of rules to another, spawning revelation after revelation, none outliving the moment.

Survival is a powerful instinct. When it comes to the fore, all else subsides. Art and philosophy, defining forces in a civilized world, are confined to idle thought. Time ceases to function on an even continuum. Past and future recede as the moment is dominated by the need for food and shelter.

Dogs were gathering in packs. People were running short of food and letting their dogs fend for themselves. They roamed the countryside, scavenging for scraps in garbage cans and dumps, fighting off rivals to protect territories, hunting for rabbits, squirrels, possums, raccoons and larger prey. The sound of a big kill filled the cold, silent air with horror for miles around.

Gunfire was becoming more frequent. Occasionally, the sound of shots was coupled with the yelp of a dog, telling a tale of the unspeakable and the unimaginable to come. People were now competing with their former companions on the hunt. How long would it be before the companion became the hunted?

I remembered the story of the Donner Party – a tale of desperation and cannibalism – that sent shivers down my spine as a child. I wondered, gazing at my little dog Sadie, if it would come down to that final, dehumanizing act. Better to die, I thought. Better to die and be eaten than to live as a beast. Even a beast will not consume its own kind.

Nearly everyone in the country had dogs and guns. It was not a comforting thought.

Taking stock of my supplies, it was not time to panic. With careful planning, I had enough canned goods to last the winter. Under a spell of paranoia, I buried half under the snow out back – just in case anyone came calling.

It was inevitable. When people ran out of food, they would come with open hands. They would come with guns. They would come with hungry children and grandparents.

What would I do when they came? How could I turn down a neighbor in need? If I welcomed them, how much would they require? How many more would come? How long before there was nothing left?

I had not shot a gun since I was teenager. I shot a jay with a pellet gun and swore I would never shoot at a living thing again. I had kept that promise but now it seemed the world had changed. I could not have envisioned a time when survival might depend on killing.

I began to obsess on the sheriff’s story of marauders. I made a plan. I buried all but a few cans of food. If intruders came, I would head out the back and up the hill to a spot I had cleared with a good view of the house and the road. They would take the few cans of food and leave – or so I hoped. If they didn’t, I would fire a warning shot. If that didn’t work, I would cover the chimney with a wet cloth and smoke them out.

It was my home and a man has a right to defend his home.

It had been snowing now for nine weeks without relief. Most of my time was spent keeping the fire going in the wood-burning stove. I had to maintain a clear path to the woodpile, find and dry a stock of kindling, select books to sacrifice page by page, keep the chute and chimney clear. It was a constant struggle but, without electricity, fire was critical for warmth, cooking and boiling water.

In my free time, I drew up contingency plans. What if the power never came back? What if the storm never broke? What if someone stole my food supply? What if the rescue teams never came?

I was a city boy most of my life. I was not well suited to survival in the wilderness. I could learn but the learning curve under these conditions was cruel. It always came back to escape. I figured my best shot was to find a sled, harness the dogs and head south. Even if we died trying, it would be better than not trying at all.

I could not believe that this frozen horror gripped all of the south. Somewhere the sun still shined, the snow melted, and life returned to something resembling normal.

I was taking my weekly bath, enjoying the liquid warmth while it lasted, when I heard the dogs bark. I knew the difference between barking at deer or other dogs and barking to announce the arrival of humans.

Something about the best-laid plans raced through my mind as I leapt from the tub, pulled on my jeans and raced for the gun, crouching below the window. There was not enough time to dry myself, dress and climb the hill out back.

The barking intensified and a series of images ran through my mind: the dogs circling, bearing their fangs, snapping, a man raising his gun, shooting, and pools of blood in the white snow. My dogs still panting, grasping for air, blood spilling on the snow, dying.

In one motion, I jumped up, flung the door open, knelt, cocked and fired. The dogs scattered and fled as a man threw up his hands and yelled, “Don’t shoot!”

He was an older man with a full, gray beard. Next to him, a woman huddled over two small children in a makeshift sled, their wide eyes peering out of layers of clothing. They were crying and the woman comforted them.

I stared at them in disbelief, lowering my rifle.

“What has gone wrong with my mind?” I thought. Had I come to this: Firing at unarmed people, at children, without even looking? This was supposed to be a time when people pulled together, when the stronger were supposed to protect the weaker, and when the able were supposed to help the needy.

Who was I? What had I become? An irrational and frightened man so bent on protecting his territory that he would fire on a defenseless family.

They stared back at me, puzzled or pleading or both, until the man finally waved and they started moving down the road. I could hear the children’s cries, muffled beneath their blankets, as the snow continued to fall.

“Wait!” I cried.

They stopped and turned toward me, still cautious and mystified, uncertain of the man who had fired at them only moments before.

“I’m sorry!” I yelled. “Please, come on in!”

The dogs came back yapping and I called them inside, putting them in the study until they calmed down. I welcomed the visitors and excused myself to get dried and dressed. When I emerged, they were huddled around the woodstove, warm and comfortable.

“You gave us quite a fright,” said the man.

“I’m sorry,” I repeated. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Well,” said the woman, “I reckon we’ve all been out of sorts lately.”

These were good country folk, strong, hard working and grim visaged, down to earth stock, unlikely to break even under the pressure of a Dixieland freeze.

They sat on the sofa of the living room of my little house, gathering the children in their arms. It was a space that was comfortable for a man and his dogs but was instantly cramped with the addition of visitors.

I felt the sting of second thoughts. This was my chance at salvation but I felt a knot in my gut. The sad truth was I couldn’t stand to be with these people for more than a short evening in the real world – or rather, the old world, the world before the storm.

I listened to their story and it broke my heart to think that it was the story of thousands just like them. They ran out of food. He ran out of bullets for his rifle and shot for his shotgun. They ran out of dry wood, candles and kerosene for their lantern. Then the chimney caught fire, burning furniture, and the roof caved in.

“One dern thing after another,” he said, shaking his head in sorrow.

“The house next door is empty,” I offered.

“Yes, sir,” he replied. “It’s all cleaned out. Ransacked. Windows and furniture all broke and scattered. We was up there before we come here. Surprised you didn’t hear nothing.”

Maybe I had. It was hard to tell. I heard a million sounds during the night, some real and some imagined.

“The children’s hungry, mister,” said the woman. “They’s half froze.”

She bowed her head, as if she asked too much, and reached for the hands of the children, a boy of five or six and his younger sister.

“They’s our grandchildren,” said the man. “They was visitin’ when it all turned bad.”

For the first time in so long I could hardly remember, I began to see things from the eyes of another and it sobered me. I wondered what I would do in this man’s position. I was worried about my dogs. He was responsible for his grandchildren.

It occurred to me that my rifle was in the far corner of the room. The man and his family were between the gun and me.

I asked them to wait while I went outside to get food, half expecting the rifle to be pointed at me when I returned. It was not. I handed over six cans of soup and vegetables and the woman went to work in the kitchen.

I explained that there was probably enough food to last a few weeks if we were careful. I told them I had a box of bullets for the rifle and enough wood to last out the winter. I let the dogs in and introduced them to the folks they had terrorized not a half hour before, explaining that they were in my care.

“I understand,” said the man. “We had to let ours run,” he said with genuine sorrow.

Just the same, I knew it would become an issue if it ever came down to the children or the dogs. It was a bridge we would cross when we came to it.

They introduced themselves as the Coopers. The man was Perry, his wife Lily and the children were Bobby and Tess. Lily emptied the cans into a large pot, which she placed on the woodstove to warm. Perry spoke of the latest news from the outside world. He had linked a shortwave radio to a car battery and tuned to an emergency broadcast out of Atlanta. The news was all bad.

“Remain calm,” he related. “The storm will break. It’ll be over soon. But it ain’t over. Ain’t never going to be over. The Lord has come down upon the children of earth with a wrath of vengeance. Judgment day is upon us.”

“Now, now, papa,” said Lily, stirring the soup.

She passed out bowls and spoons and the Coopers ate in silence, except for the sound of smacking lips.

When they cleaned out their bowls, I asked how far south the storm went. Perry hung his head, took a deep breath, and left little room for hope.

“Snow in Macon, Birmingham, Montgomery. You got to get pert near the Gulf shore before it clears. But the roads blocked. They’s no way out, mister. No way, no how.”

“Well, now, papa,” Lily replied in a soothing voice that comforted the children, “thanks to this young man, we got us a roof over our heads and a belly full of warm food. Don’t sound like the wrath to me. Sounds like a blessing. Praise Jesus.”

“Praise Jesus,” the others echoed.

She smiled and the warmth of her smile was passed from person to person until it seemed even the dogs were smiling. I’m not much for the Jesus crowd but I decided then and there I would not mind spending my last days on earth, if it came to that, with these gentle, kind-hearted people.

When night descended, I insisted that Perry and Lily take the bed and they reluctantly agreed. I took the couch and the children laid out in sleeping bags on the floor with the dogs. It was cozy and we all slept soundly in the silent night. No dogs barking, no gunshots, no traffic, helicopters or airplanes, no electrical drone – only the soft, smoldering fire of the woodstove and dreams of faraway places where the sun still shined.

In the morning, I awakened to the sound of the children playing with the dogs. I sensed something was different – even beyond the presence of visitors. I opened my eyes and blinked instinctively to shield myself from the bright light of the sun streaking through the window.

Bright, unfiltered sunshine for the first time in all these many weeks of snow, ice and bitter cold. I looked outside and smiled from head to toe. It was not snowing. In fact, the snow was visibly melting.

I was about to wake the Coopers when the lights, the refrigerator, the television and radio, everything came on at once.

We gathered in the living room and watched cheerful news people announce in perpetual cycles that the worst was over. The storm had lifted. Power was being restored.

“God bless,” said Lily.

“God bless,” said the children.

The nightmare of endless winter, of relentless white skies and fluttering snowflakes, was finally losing its icy grip and we were among the fortunate, the chosen, the blessed.

We survived.


Jazz. 12.22.06.

Copyright Ray Miller 2006