RM Ahmose Fiction Writer

from "Another Bad Seed?"

(pp. 26-41)

   Phoebe   dressed  herself  in  a  short-sleeved shirt and loose overhauls that featured the dirt of three   days   of   play   and  wandering  through woods,  fields  and  shrubs. Her golden hair she kept  cut  short  at  just  about  shoulder length, covered by a cap turned backward to help keep the  sun  from  turning  her,  literally, into a “red-neck.”  She  stood, socks-less, in tennis shoes and  stared  angrily  into  the  small refrigerator.

   “When are you gonna’ buy some more food?!” she  demanded.  Her  father,  bracing himself a-gainst  one  of  the kitchen walls with a glass of “white  lightening”  in  one  hand  and a piece of cheese in the other, slurred the reply:

   “Tomorrow  is  groceries day. That’s when the market cuts the prices of goods that is about to be throwed away.”

   Phoebe  snatched  a  bag  of  grapes from the near   empty  ice  box  and  slammed  its  door.

   “Have  you  seen  my  pistol?” inquired Jedde-diah of his daughter.

   “You  ask  me that every day!” Phoebe turned and  looked  squarely  at  her  disheveled father. “You  better  try  to get married again,” she said scornfully.   “You’re   gonna’   drink  yourself  to death.” With that she opened the screen door of the  shack’s  living  room  and  stepped out into sunny  the  day,  gobbling  down grapes as she scanned the grounds for anything that might be interesting  to examine further. The right pocket of  her  trousers  bulged  with the scrunched up plastic  trash bags that she kept to fill with any portable fortunate discoveries.

   Several  hundred  yards northwest of the Oats property  sat the well-kept home of Jeddediah’s older  sister. Margaret Oats Beecher had made herself  largely  responsible  for  Phoebe’s care and upkeep for the first seven of Phoebe’s eight years  of  life.  She  visited  her  brother’s shack regularly  preparing  meals,  tidying  up,  buying and washing and ironing Phoebe’s clothes, and making sure that her niece bathed regularly.

   She  knew  her  brother loved his daughter; he just had a disease that disallowed him to be the best  father  he  could  be. And so instead of in-sisting on adopting Phoebe, Margaret delivered services  to  her  niece  and brought the child to her home on occasion to enjoy the comfort of a comparatively  lavish  domestic  setting.  But  it was   on   those  occasions  that  some  of  the child’s  dark  characteristics  became discerna-ble.

   Margaret Beecher had begun to notice certain peculiarities  concerning  her  niece as the child approached  the  age  of  seven.  Phoebe didn’t seem  to  respond  normally  to  hugs  and  em-braces  and  sweet tones and words that adults were wont to lavish upon children, especially lit-tle  girls.  She  would kind of tense up during an embrace and typically her facial expression was one of strained tolerance of the ordeal. And then there was the matter of the missing jewelry and money  on  those occasions that Phoebe came to  visit. Her own two sons, a set of twins, com-pleting  high  school in the year before the pres-ent  one,  the  year  that Phoebe turned eight in early   August,   reported   that  they  had  seen Phoebe  surreptitiously   pilfer  items  from   the house.

   When  questioned  about  the missing money and valuables,  Phoebe  swore convincingly that she  knew  nothing  of  it;  but Margaret decided that  there  was  something  about  the  child in general  that seemed to warrant barring her from the  house  except  in those cases where Phoe-be’s activities could be monitored constantly.

   Since  that  time,  Phoebe   discontinued  her spontaneous  visitations  to her aunt’s house of-fended   by  the  atmosphere  of  distrust,  even though   it  was  diminished  somewhat  by  the twins’ absence while attending college.

   “I  want  you  to  check  back  in here in a few hours,  girl,”  Jeddediah called out to Phoebe as she  skipped  off  beyond  the  boundaries of his property,  “so’s  I  know you is alright. They still ain’t  found  them  two young’ons that’s missin’. So you stay close by where’s I can call and you can  hear  me  and  come a runnin’ back home. You hear me, girl?!”

   “Yeah!!”  Phoebe  shouted  back  irritably  and went   on   browsing  about,  spitting  out  grape seeds and unaffected by her father’s caveats. 

   “And  don’t  you  be gettin’  into any mischief, girl! You hear me?!”

   The  Oats’ shack stood on a quarter-acre plot of  land that Jeddediah owned but lately had not tended  to  as well  as he did in earlier years. A mere  quarter-mile from the shack was a landfill that  attracted  kids  from  all  over  in search of both  a  source  of  reckless  play  and items of possible use or even value.

   One side of the Oats’ shack was a good thirty yards  from a dirt road that winded its way for at least  a  mile  before  it  entered  the  little  town where  could  be  bought  most  everything from market foods to furniture. It also featured a mov-ie  theatre,  a  barber  shop and beauty salon, a few sit-in eateries, four production factories, and a  metals processing plant. A fork in the road a-bout half way to town from Jeddediah’s place in-cluded  a  “prong”  that  dead-ended, after a half mile’s distance, near an abandoned wharf and a cove  fed  by a gentle river that ran for miles into the  next county and eventually through an adja-cent state.

   On  the  northeastern  side  of  that  road, be-tween  the  Oats’  shack  and  town, was a vast woods  spotted here and there with homes built to  varying degrees of stability and cosmetic de-sign.  Land on the opposite side of the road, ex-tending  for  several miles, was private farm and pasture  land  that  was  fenced off all along the road  and grew marketable vegetation in various sections  and  supported  in other areas the fuel requirements  of  livestock.  Beyond the several miles  stretch of private farmland could be seen, at  least  from  certain  areas of the town, a gov-ernment reserve that sat on elevated terrain and which  housed  a military post and a branch na-tional security administration.

   One  of  the  plastic  trash  bags  that Phoebe kept  in  her  overhauls  pocket  was  to be filled with  aluminum  cans  that she found in her trav-els;  all other  findings  went  into a second bag. Before  long  she  was  traipsing  about near the landfill dump site anticipating the possibilities of happening  upon  some  of  the  “good stuff” that the affluent people of the outlying areas deposit-ed  there.  But  she  stopped  to  get  a  view of whomever  might  be  browsing  about that loca-tion, before the browser was provided an oppor-tunity to view of her.

   Near  the top of a pile of debris and discarded household  items,  still bearing the tracks of the landfill vehicles that overran the giant mounds of garbage from Tuesday to Friday, was that mean Bailey  boy.  At  ten-years-old, he was a lot big-ger  than  Phoebe,  whose stature was medium-small, and teased her mercilessly every time he saw  her.  She stood still so as not to present a moving figure against the background and there-by  avoid  the  boy’s  detection. But, tiring of her state  of  stillness,  she began slowly moving a-way;  and  as luck would have it, he spotted the motion out of the corner of his eye.

   “Hey!”  shouted the Bailey boy. “Dirty Phoebe! Where  you  goin’:  to  find some weeds to take home  and  cook  for food?” Seeing that she did not  answer  but  kept  moving  away,  he began picking up objects to throw at the girl.

   Phoebe hated the Bailey boy. As she moved into the brush out of his sight, she watched him with squinted eyes. “I hate you, George Bailey,” she whispered. “And one day I’m gonna’ shoot you—right in the head.”

   The  total  conviction with which the girl made the  exclamation was starkly detected by Phoe-be’s  temporal  GA,  Persephone,  and  caused that Angel, who was also a seasoned veteran of “tough”  environments  in the PW, a degree of a-larm.

   Phoebe continued her walk through the bush, partly circumnavigating the landfill to stay out of the  Bailey  boy’s  view.  A few discarded alumi-num  cans  made  their way into her plastic col-lection  bag as she continued her journey. After a  quarter  mile or so, she reached her first des-tination  of  an  uneven  plane  of reddish-brown earth where existed a roughly oval-shaped hole in the dirt, about four feet in length and two feet deep.   She  examined  it  and  then  her  eyes traced  a  path along  the ground leading to two lumpy  areas  of soil several feet apart from one another. An overnight rainfall had made choppy, uneven  settlings  of  the  soil in the form of two mound patches, and each appeared to be com-posed  of loosely packed earth as found over a newly and unprofessionally dug grave.

   Continuing  her  walk,  Phoebe  began  to ap-proach  an area of the woods displaying a thick brush and rotting trees that had been downed in a  violent  storm, and also drooping willow trees that  added  to the scene’s forbidding aura. The immediate  area  seemed  to be a throwback in time,  as if it belonged to an earlier century and it  bore  the  look  of  one  of  the last places on earth that any reasonable person would want to see visited by an eight-year-old child.

   It  was  the  kind  of  environment  that  would compel  a Guardian Angel, even an interim sub-stitute, to implement  the range of skills in influ-encing  the child  to abandon this excursion by choosing any other direction. But in spite of the GA’s frenzied implorations, Phoebe followed her own  intensions  only,  ignoring  the  vague ram-blings  of  warnings  that  barely  penetrated the iron curtain of her will. The stark inaccessibility to the child’s intention center within the brain to-tally astonished Persephone.

   Squeezing   through   small  openings  in  the brush and climbing the diagonal lengths of fallen trees,  Phoebe  reached  a  depressed space in the  wood  that  could  not  be  seen from a dis-tance but only when one had actually physically reached  the  area.  The  hidden  site featured a brief   clearing   composed  of  clay-earth,  inter-spersed  shrubbery,  and a small one-level, one-window  cabin  that  had been abandoned by its last resident many years prior. Skipping right up to the porch that creaked even under the weight of  Phoebe’s  63  pounds,  she pushed open the door  of  the  dwelling and entered with as much apprehension as one crossing the threshold of a candy store.

   Kendal  Ethan Avarill, was nineteen-years-old, six   feet   and   two   inches   tall,  two-hundred pounds  and  assessed  to have the IQ of a typi-cal   seven-year-old.  He  also  displayed  some characteristics  of  autism,  insisting, as he did, on  certain routines and responding uniformly to a number of stimuli regardless of the situation in which  each occurred. His parents, both in their sixties,  had  managed to settle into an arrange-ment  with  Kendal  that both satisfied his moth-er’s protective predisposition regarding their son and suited his father’s belief that Kendal should have  some  independent  experiences,  though limited, outside the home.

   The  pattern  that was settled upon and which came  to be acceptable over time by the family of three was a nearly daily routine involving two-hours of adventure outside of but in proximity to the  house followed by an arrival back home for an  equal period, and this pattern was repeated until Kendal’s final arrival home for the day, just before dark. He had been warned by his mother to  keep a distance from people whom he might encounter  in  the  large expanse of woods, and especially  the  children who gathered in certain areas.  The  justification  for  that addendum be-came exemplified the day he wandered near the local landfill and had debris thrown at him, once some  of  the  bolder  kids  discovered  that his mental  functioning  was  far out of proportion to his adult size.

   Kendal was an avid clock-face watcher. In his upstairs room of the family’s modest eight-room home,  Kendal  had  been  provided  a big, sun-faced  clock with radiations sculpted in the form of  twelve ornate brass spikes that emitted from the sun-face at symmetrical distances from one another.  His  ever  present  companion was the five-dollar  watch  that  was  a  gift  from his last birthday,  and  he kept  it synchronized with the great  wall-hung  time-keeper,  adjusting it every three  or  four days, as needed. His parents had taught  him  how to interpret the way the hands of  a  clock- or watch-face indicated the passing of each single hour of time.

   Six  a.m.  each  morning, summer and winter, was time to awaken from an eight-hour sleep. If his  breakfast  was not ready for him at 8:00, he would skip that meal and occupy the intervening time  until  9:00  with  imagined adventures with the figures and figurines of his room. At exactly 9:00,  on  the  first  three days of the workweek, Kendal  began  helping  his father load the fami-ly’s  large  flat-bed truck with the various metals that  the senior Avarill collected in the afternoon and  evening hours, at his leisure, and stored in sections of his land-property behind the house.

   The  second-year  retiree  found  the  extra in-come from hauling and selling various metals to his  former  employer  a  useful  addition  to the family’s fixed allotment. Young Kendal even had a  section of the yard for the occasional bags of aluminum  cans  he  brought  home and that he apparently  collected  from his excursions in the wood.  Typically,  at  either  10:00 a.m. or 11:00 Kendal  was  ready to begin his two-hour jaunts in the woods surrounding his home.

   As  her  eyes adjusted to the dimness of sun-light  that  made  its way into the two-and-a-half room  cabin, Phoebe felt at home with the fami-liar  items  with  which  she  had adorned it. The landfill  dump site had provided the cracked and broken  pictures that hung on the wall, the worn and  frazzled  rugs  that  covered  the  floor, two partly unraveled wicker chairs, and a card table with  one  wobbly  leg but stable enough to sup-port all that Phoebe was strong enough to place on  it.  A  pile  of  flattened aluminum cans filled one  of  the room’s corners. In a small compart-ment of the shack that could loosely be called a kitchen  were  a  stack of canned foods she had carried  from  her  father’s and aunt’s respective houses.  There  were  paper plates and utensils and candles and stick matches and on the floor sat   the  plastic  bag  containing  watches  and rings and necklaces and bracelets and coins.

   Upon  a  wood  block  in  the main room sat a drum   of  kerosene  that  featured  both  a  tap, which allowed small amounts to be drained, and a screw-out cap located at its top allowing refill. Phoebe had managed even to obtain, carrying it nonchalantly  from  a  neighbor’s  yard,  a small kerosene  lamp,  complete with a working wick, adding to it the required fuel from the kerosene drum in one-cup increments as needed.

   A  small  wooden  box  held  the  bills she ac-quired  from various sources and saved. And ly-ing  on the floor, beside the bag of jewelry, was the  .22 caliber revolver that belonged to Jedde-diah, Phoebe’s father, along with a full 25-count box  of matching bullets and a second box with only  five  rounds left inside. The gun’s chamber contained  the  six  empty shells that remained after the lead filling of each had been fired, a lit-tle more than 24 hours earlier.

   Suddenly, the scene of her father, standing in the  doorway  mandating  that  she  report back home before the passing of extensive time, took center  stage in Phoebe’s thoughts. It was as if a faint voice in her mind was urging her to obey her father’s order and hurry home.

   Persephone’s time with Phoebe had drawn to the last few minutes. It was now 3:27 p.m. and the GA had seemed finally to come upon the right combination of setting, mood, and manner of appeal to convey thoughts into the girl’s mind. Persephone also was aware of the hulking figure with the blank stare, slowly slogging, step by deliberate step, towards the cabin where the child knelt, her back turned to the door, admiring her collection of valuables.

   The nineteen-year-old’s large hand was on the door  handle  of the cabin that nestled in remote obscurity  within  the  vast  woods, pushing it o-pen,  slowly,  silently. The entry of brighter light into  the  room  caught  phoebe’s  attention and she turned toward its source. And then into the room Kendal stepped.

   “Poo!”  exclaimed  Phoebe.  “We  got to hurry and  get  into  town.  You got my money for the last bags of cans?”

   “My  pa  said  we  had  four  dollars worth this time.”  Kendal  then pulled the four bills from the pocket  of  his big, blue overhauls and handed it to the girl.

   “Let’s go!”  demanded  Phoebe,  “I  swear, I’m hungry  as  all hell.” Kendal’s father compensat-ed  his  son for the work he did in gathering alu-minum  cans  to  store  in  their  yard. He never questioned exactly what his son was doing with the few dollars he earned.

   “I’ve  never  seen anything like this child!”  ex-claimed  Persephone  to  Acts  as the latter ar-rived to take over Angelic watch of Phoebe Mar-garet Oats.

   "I  hate  to cut you off, ‘Perse,’” Acts interject-ed,  “but  I’ve got to let you in on what’s up with my charge, Celeste Olumeji.”

   "Yeah, I know, you’re stalling her out until you can  sense that a main boyfriend won’t interfere with her potential destiny of playing some really major role in the Divine Plan…right?”

   "Right.  And  that time has not arrived yet. I’m worried.  Just  minutes  ago she met a man and they  got that ‘chemistry’ thing going on. A love at first sight type of deal.”

   "You  think  ol’  Pargo’s  going to let the chick run off and get married or something by the time you  get  back  to  her at 6:30? Ha! I mean, you did  lay  out  your objectives to the ‘ol boy when you released Celeste in his care, no?”

   "Of  course,  I  did. But by the time I get back there,  ‘girlfriend'  may have learned ways to de-feat my sabotages of her attempts to find love.”

   "I’m  feeling your alarm, ‘home Spirit.’ I guess you’re  just  going  to  have  to  faith  it. As  you know,  Pargo’s  no  slouch as a GA. …Well, I’d better  be getting back to Mr. Borgia, before he does something wild and crazy like choke on a Jolly  Ranger  candy.  I ‘rag’ on the old bastard, but actually I love him.

  "Oh,  and  this  ‘Phoebe’  that  you’re about to oversee,  she’s  a  peculiar  one,  just as Pargo warned  us. She has this immense capacity for ignoring  an  Angel’s  telepathic urgings—and a like  capacity  for  intense  misgiving  … hatred even. I’ve never seen anything like it. If she were older, she could be dangerous. And her mind…her  mind  is  like  a vault—extremely difficult to peer  into.  And the little thing is as nervy as all get out. Good luck with her.”

   Phoebe knew the area  woods  well  and  had taught  Kendal  much  of  it through his excursi-ons  with  her  to  town. Her first encounter with Kendal happened a week or so after the start of the summer vacation. She had been present on that  one  occasion  that Kendal ventured to the edges  of the landfill, displaying his expression-less  and  blank  stare  ahead  as  though  in  a trance.  And  she had seen the boys call out to him inquiring as to whether he was lost, Kendal displaying  an  agonizing uncertainty about how to  respond,  as he was not used to people, out-side his parents, addressing him. He was clear-ly  fearful  and appeared even to be on the verge of shedding tears.

   “He’s  just  a  big  ‘ol Poo!” the boys began to yell out, and they laughed and became embold-ened  by  Kendal’s  lack  of counter-aggression. And  it  was  Phoebe who, pretending to run to-ward  him for the purpose of getting a better po-sition  from  which  to  launch  a rock-hurling at-tack,  urged  Kendal to run. Later she saw Ken-dal again in the wood, since, as mentioned ear-lier,  she  traveled  it  extensively;  and  making friends with the gentle giant she decided to call him  by  the  name  given  to  him  by the other children,  although  unlike the others who used the  term  derisively,  to Phoebe it was like the nickname she used for a little brother.

   The road that meandered its way to town car-ried,  for  those who walked along it, the chance for  observation  by  people  who lived alongside the  path  as  well  as  by  folks  driving along it. Phoebe preferred to come and go in her wander-ings without the attention of neighbors, close or distant. Thus, she  and Kendal, on their journey to  town,  took  the  woodsy route that led them near  the cove where was featured the old aban-doned wharf with the oversized signs that warn-ed: CONDEMNED PIER  and  DO NOT ENTER as posted by the county.

   From  there, moving in a northwestward direc-tion, the two made their way, up an inclined ter-rain,  through  an  eighth-mile  of thick brush, at the  border  of  which  stretched  a  six-foot  tall “wall” of wood that almost completely surround-ed  the  sprawling metals refinery company and provided  a  single  small entrance area into the town—that  is,  once the fence at that area was scaled  and  vaulted.  For someone standing at that  makeshift portal into town, it would require a walk of more than half a mile to find, as a way into town, another easy access point.

   Of the many “T” sections of fence surrounding the  refinery,  one  separated  the  “portal”  area, used by Phoebe and Kendal as an entranceway into  town,  from  those  areas  patrolled  by the company’s    extremely   aggressive,   mongrel guard  dogs.   When  they  had  arrived  at  that point, Kendal would lift Phoebe to the top of the six-foot  tall  barrier  where  she  balanced  until Kendal,  having  climbed  and  jumped  to other side, lifted her down.

   Peter Brummel, as he gazed at the wharf and surrounding   area,   desperately  searching  his mind  for  a plan to get, somehow, his materials to  the  drop-off site,  lost sight of the overhauls-clad pair that had entered into the view of his bi-noculars  ten  minutes  earlier. But he took note of  the  direction  in  which  they  seemed  to be moving,  which  was  generally  toward town. He was  fairly certain that they were the same man and boy he had seen twice in the previous week who  wandered  into  town  from  the woods and had  even  entered  the  eatery  below his apart-ment.

   Glancing  downward,  surreptitiously,  into the street,  Brummel  could see suited men, agents no doubt, standing in positions at various points around his apartment building casually watching everyone   who   entered  and  exited  the diner. They  talked  briefly  into their radio phones and glanced   at   their   watches  and  occasionally glanced  up at Brummel’s windows. They would be coming to get him soon. He could feel it.

   "You  got  to  finish diggin’ that hole,” Phoebe said  resolutely,  as  she  and  Kendal emerged from one of the yards of the metals refinery and eached  the town’s Main Street. “I got more val-uable stuff that I need to hide.”

   “O.k.  I  would  have finished it before, but the rain came down, and I have to go home when it rains.”

   Phoebe  glanced  at  the  sky and guessed a-bout  the  time.  “We won’t  have much time to-day,”  she mused. “what with you havin’ to keep runnin’  off  the  way  you do.” She looked up at him with a sort of amiable distain as she said it. Then, she continued, “But we can start digging again tomorrow.”

     Looking at his watch, Kendal noted that the “short hand” was a little past the “4” and the “long hand” was between the “12” and the “3.” When the long hand had traveled around the face and moved back up near the “12” it would be time for him to head for home, no matter what.

   As  the  two approached a public trash recep-tacle   at  the  corner,  Phoebe  whipped  out  a crumpled  up  plastic  bag into which to deposit the inevitable aluminum cans that could always be  found  inside the steel-wired baskets sitting at curbside. On the way to Phoebe’s favorite sit-in eatery, she  and Kendal knew all the corners that  featured  the public trash receptacles, and they “hit” each one in turn with as much excite-ment  as  if  it  had  been Easter and they were finding colored eggs hidden in a play yard.

   Peter  Brummel,  watched  the  streets below from his window as furtively as possible, consid-ering  the  presence  of  the agents. He spotted the  tall,  loping  young man with the vacant ex-pression  and  the  little  boy, or was it a girl, he thought,  inspecting  the face more carefully, as they  passed  a  pair  of  agents and made their way  through  the entrance  of the eatery. Brum-mel  took  note that those he took to be agents had  also  seen  the  pair  flitting from one trash barrel  to the next, gleefully collecting cans and even darting to places on the sidewalk and curb where  lay  those  objects of their desire. The a-gents,  amused,  had smiled as the two passed by  them,  Phoebe  as  proud  as pie, toting the bag  of cans that clanked and clamored like the bells of the poor.

   Brummel  wasted  not  a second in pondering the  possibilities  that  seemed to be presented with  this  fortuitous  arrival,  and his keen mind began  immediately  to  formulate the germ of a plan.

   This  was  their  third  trip to town to trade the money,  provided  by the collected and sold alu-minum cans, for a hot meal at a restaurant, and Phoebe couldn’t have been more happy and ex-cited.  Their  favorite booth taken—the one next to  the  window  painted  with images of menu i-tems and that looked out on the corner of Main Street  and  Vine Boulevard, buzzing with activ-ity—Phoebe  and  her protégé selected another that  was  adjacent  to  a  wall made of real red bricks,  not  wallpaper  with  brick designs. The red  brick wall display-ed quaint advertisements of  products  that  were popular many years be-fore  Phoebe was born but were no longer avail-able to purchase in stores.

   The  pair  assumed  their usual pattern, which was t hat Phoebe slid into the leather seat posi-tioning  herself  to  the far end while Kendal sat not across from but next to her.

   When  Brummel descended the stairs leading from  his  apartment to the restaurant below, he was  infused with the confidence and determina-tion of one resurrected from death and given an-other  chance to overcome that which had slain him.  He  appeared  as  a  little  old  man, a tad shabbily dressed, as mellow and harmless as a St.  Bernard  arriving  with   brandy.  White  hair showed  below  his  old-fashioned  hat  that was pulled  down  a  little  too far on his head; dyed, graying  eyebrow s  and  what appeared to be a perennial  smile  gave  him  the aura of a kindly and gentle old man who had come to terms with life  and  had  accepted  his  locale  in  the near completion of the circle.

 from "Schizophrenia"

(pp. 130-145

   When  came the following Friday, Larry’s day went  as  usual in its progression to the evening hours.  As  it  was now the first week of Novem-ber,  darkness  was  starting  to  fall each week conspicuously  earlier  than in the previous one. The  dusky  sky  bending in a celestial arc over Larry’s neighborhood had a solemn appearance; still  clouds  cast  a  silvery glow in the sky, the sun  departing  and  making way for a nearly full moon.  The  weather was becoming breezy and cool, and the two nineteen-year-olds standing in the back portion of the lawn of the modest, mid-dle- class  home  were starting to shiver in their thin shirts, each holding a can of beer and draw-ing periodically from a cigarette.

   “I think Mike’s about to lose his part time job,” spoke   Douglas   Zewicki,   exhaling  cigarette smoke into a brisk wind. “The head usher at the Clifton Cinemas says he spends too much time flirting with the ‘honeys’.”

   “Talking  to  the girls comes naturally to him,” Larry  added.  “He’s  had a ‘thing’ of one sort or another  with  just  about every girl in the neigh-borhood. So, what movie,” Larry continued, “did you guys watch at Mike’s last Friday?”

   “It was Freddie Kruger Meets the Wolf Man or some  shit.  We  talked all through it except for the attack and murder scenes. And we passed around  magazines  and exchanged our usually exaggerated accounts of dates we went on over the past couple of months.”

   “Everybody get drunk?”

   “Damn  right.  I  know I did. …Shit, it’s getting cold  out  here. So, what are you going to do to-night?  Mike’s  only  night off, until he gets fired, is  Friday.  I think I’ll be coming in for a ‘landing’ over there again. Free beer. Big-screen t.v. The latest ‘doll mags.’ No parental interference. Tips on  the  ‘dos  and don’ts’ of dating... Hey—what more is there to life?”

   “I  might  come  over.  But I’m also thinking a-bout going downtown, to meet somebody.”

   “Downtown?!  …Tonight?!  What  the  hell  are you  going  to  do  downtown? What is it, some-thing at the college?”

   “I  met  somebody near the school. I was able to  get  an  address.  I  may  just ‘crash in’ on…uhhh, her.”

   “Downtown?!  You’re  going downtown to meet somebody?  Are  you out of your damned mind, dude?  You  don’t  know  anything  about down-town—at  night! Why, they’ll kill your ass down there, dude!”

   “I’m thinking about taking the bus down.”

   “You  mean  your  folks  aren’t  driving  you?!!! You’re going downtown at night by your damned self?! Dude!!! Have you lost your damned mind?!

   “Hey, it’s just a thought, Doug.”

   “A   damned  stupid  thought!!!  If  you’ve  met some  college  babe  who  lives  downtown, you make her meet you out here at one of the malls or  something.  You  don’t go downtown—not at night!!  Damn! What the hell’s wrong with you?!”

   “Well, I guess it wasn’t such a good idea” Lar-ry  granted.  With that last comment, Doug just looked  at Larry, shaking his head, and then he broke into loud laughter.

   “They’d  kill  your  ass  down  there  at night!!” howled  Doug between happy, beer-fueled roars.

   Later that evening, Larry informed the parental Brightons that he planned to meet with some of “the  guys”  and  “kind’a hang out awhile.” It was with  mixed  feelings that the couple voiced their contentment  with  their  son’s  vague  itinerary, since  they  were  to  some extent aware of his friends’  also  aware of how stable and respons-ible  Larry  had always been. If he did drink with his  friends,  they  reasoned, at least they knew he  would  not  be  operating a vehicle, although that point of relief was offset by the possibility of his  riding  as  a  passenger  with an intoxicated friend driving.

   Standing  at  the  bus  stop  at 8:17 p.m. that evening, Larry could see the lights of the bus as it  made  its  wide turn two county blocks in the distance.   It  was  visible  across  a  makeshift baseball  field  and began circumnavigating that large clay lot on its way to the stop where Larry stood  with three strangers who appeared to be folks  waiting  for  transit  to their night jobs. He was insulated within a windbreaker jacket worn as  a  shield against the falling temperature out-side,  and  he was compelled by an unusual re-solve  to  investigate a matter that had taken on the proportions of a mystery for him.

   At  various times all week he had played back i n his  mind  his interpretation of the utterances in  the  recording  made  a  week  prior.  Meet…nighttime. …General Pershing statue. All along the seven miles of the rocking and swaying bus ride, he felt the thrill of anticipating his next au-dience with his mysterious interviewee.

   Larry  disembarked  the  bus at  the  stop just beyond  the  isle  in  the  intersection  of  Stone Truss  and  Monument,  still  buzzed by the few beers  he drank  while  chatting  with  his friend, Doug.  It  was  an odd sort of intersection where only  the  three  right lanes of southbound traffic on  Stone  Truss  could  continue rightward in a half  circle  around  the  Pershing monument, to reach Monument Street; the two left lanes curv-ed  leftward, allowing traffic in the left-most lane to  turn  left, after traveling a quarter-circle, on a side  street  called Brandeis Lane and the other to continue around the half circle to merge with east  bound  traffic  (if there was any) on Monu-ment.

   If  perambulating  about  downtown  during the daylight  hours  gave Larry a feeling of being out of  his  “element,”  gawking  around at night was almost  like having ventured to a different planet. In place of brightly lit building fronts, streets and sidewalks,  with  shining cosmetically designed outside  café  establishments,  and  lively, rapid stop   and  go  traffi c were  a  plethora  of  dark streets  and  shadows  and  edifices  of  varying shades of dark grey. Dimly lit street lights illum-inated only the space within a few yards radius with pale yellowish light.

   The  throng  of  busy, attractively dressed, de-termined pedestrians, rushing to their respective destinations  was gone. The late-evening “down-towners”  were  sporadically  positioned,  and to the  extent  that  their faces could be discerned, each  appeared apprehensive, or blank, or grim. At this time, 9:36 p.m., the thoroughfares could be crossed with much greater facility due to the great  decrease  in  the  volume  of moving vehi-cles,  but  these  were  in turn  transformed into fast-moving,  menacing headlights behind which roared potentially deadly machines.

   Standing close beside a corner lamppost and dowsed in its faint light, Larry’s five-foot, eleven-and-a-half-inch   height  cast  an  illusory  short shadow  in front of him as he watched the gras-sy  isle  above  which stood General Pershing’s likeness,  stony  and  austere. He wanted to be inconspicuous  but  he  also desired the relative safety inherent in illumination by lamplight.

   Pressing  against  his  side,  inside his jacket was  the r ecorder whose message had brought him to this dreadful place; it stood ready to tape again if an opportune situation arose.

   He  tolerated  the  passing of five and then ten minutes before allowing his mounting feelings of awkwardness  to spur him to consider changing locations.  Slowly,  reluctantly, he started walk-ing toward the grassy isle and the aesthetically manicured  shrubbery  and  brush that formed a circle  within  the  round-shaped plot of grass at whose  center  towered  the  memorial. Peeping through  spaces in the trimmed bushes, he saw only  a  dark  grey arc of space surrounding the statue’s base.

   Larry was feeling increasingly discouraged a-bout  the  probability  of  encountering  his  pro-spective research subject by means of this hap-hazard  approach,  as he started the first of two planned  and  nearly  snail-paced circumnaviga-tions  of  the  intersection  isle. The sudden ap-pearance of headlights from a police cruiser ap-proaching  at  low  speed  from the east that he caught  sight  of,  somehow  excited an elusory predisposition in Larry, spurring him to duck in-to a small opening in the shrubbery.

   When   the   cruiser   passed,   Larry   slowly straightened  from  a crouching position, feeling as  if the murkiness of the environment was im-posing  a  measure  if  its  dark mysteriousness and  aura  of  intrigue  upon  him; he felt creepy, like  some  sort  of  stalker. Then behind him he heard the sound of a foot trampling crisp leaves, and   before   he  could  turn  to  investigate  its source  he  heard the voice that inquired of him, “What the fuck are you up to?”

   Maurice  Jontae  Mediford  was  twenty-seven years old and an accomplished thief and a pan-derer  of  illegal substances. Of  very light-com-plexioned  skin  tone,  he was the product of an interracial relationship—one lasting only as long as  the  start  of a trimester. Social rejection by peers  during  his  early  years relative to an ap-pearance that defied easy categorization result-ed  in a sort of racial identity crisis during Medi-ford’s  adolescence.  It  was  just one among a number of factors within his life that contributed to  his  having  developed  into a very angry and quick-tempered young man.

   Mediford   was   inordinately   agile   of  mind, though,  meaning  that  he constantly analyzed particulars  both  of  his  environment and of his general   perception,  and  drew   and  compiled complex associations among the disparate ele-ments  of his analyses. When sufficiently “high” from his drug combination of choice, that is, al-cohol and the psychoactive stimulants, Maurice was  given  to  rapid  speech  that  attempted to capture and relate thoughts that seemed to whir within  his  mind  with  the  speed and energy of that  produced  by a subatomic particle acceler-ator.

   Larry  nearly  collapsed  with  shock  and sur-prise  at the coarse greeting. Attempting to spin around in a reflex response, he lost balance and fell against some shrubbery. A look of terror dis-torted  his  face as his brain tried to make com-posite  sense  of  his  blurred vision of an angry Maurice posturing aggressively over him.

   “Look,”   Maurice   snapped   threateningly,  “I know  all  the  motherfuckin’ ‘owls’ in this whole area,  and I ain’t never seen your ass before. So what  the  fuck  are you doin’ around here?” The bushes behind Larry were supporting his weight well  enough, and he remained in that awkward, backward   leaning  position,  balancing  on  his heels.  His  voice  was  more  high-pitched than usual. “I, I…was…I’m from…I was trying to….”

   “What’s  your  damned  name?  You look like one  of  them  little soft, goddamn college boys. …I  been  watching your ass from a half a block away  for  the  past  ten minutes. You lookin’ for somebody  around here, ‘White Boy’?” In a ges-ture  that  surprised  Larry, the peeved inquisitor grasped  one of his arms that were outstretched in  a  defensive  posture  and  pulled  him  to his feet.

   Not sure whether he should identify himself as “a college boy” Larry managed to get it out that, “I, I  was  looking  for  someone.  I  think  he’s a homeless person.”

   “Damned college boys always studyin’ some-’em,”  Maurice  snarled,  peering slightly upward at   Larry  from  under  furrowed  lids.  He  stood grimacing  at  the  nervous  intruder  for  several seconds, neither of them speaking a word, until the  spectacle  Larry  presented began to make him  issue a cynical little chuckle and relax his expression.

   “You’re  gonna’  get  your little ass killed wan-dering  around  here,”  he warned, beholding the inch-and-a-half taller male with smirkish-smiling disbelief.  “So,  who  the  hell you lookin’ for? …What,  you  got  a cousin  or some’em whose a ‘crack  head’? What the fuck is his name? I can tell  you  everything  about  his ass, if he crawls and  falls  in  a  hole  anywhere near here. What that sommbitch do? Why the fuck you want him all  of  sudden,  that  you  willin’ to get your ass killed? …So who the fuck is it, ‘College Boy’!!”

   “Well,  see,  I  was trying to get another inter-view  with  a  guy  who looks like he lives on the streets. I don’t know his name.”

   “Well,   goddamn!   Describe  the  somabitch. You  can  do  that can’t you? Goddamn college boys!!”

   “Well,  he kinda’…he wears this…uhh…bag…that’s….”

   “What the fuck you want with Carl? How is he your goddamn cousin? Your ass is white!!!”

     “I didn’t say he was my cousin.”

   “You   did,  goddamn-it!”  Maurice   demanded with pretended certainty. “So, what the fuck you want  with  Carl?  You can’t  interview Carl. That somabitch  can’t  answer  no  questions. …You said  you  interviewed  Carl.  You’re  a lyin’ ass. You  can’t  interview  Carl.  What  the  fuck you standin’ here lying to me for? You tryin’ to ‘play’ me,  motherfucker?!!  I’ll  tear your  fuckin’ head off!!!”

   “Nooo,  I….” Larry  could  feel  himself  on the verge  of “fight or flight” panic—minus the “fight.” Racing for a solution, his mind settled on the re-corder  in  his  pocket.  “I, I, I have  his voice on tape…in,  in,  in  my  jacket!!”   The  declaration sounded panicky. As Maurice’s mind raced, he glared   at  the  college  student  whose  hands trembled in fear.

   “In your jacket? …Pull it out, let’s see it. And slow,    goddamn-it …slow.”   Larry’s    fumbling fingers  managed  to  find  the right buttons and played the recording. “I’ll be goddamned,” Maur-ice  exclaimed  with  surprise.  “That’s his ass.” Maurice laughed heartily. “You got that no-talk-in’  somabitch on tape!!! Goddddddaamn!!!  And you  figured  out what the fuck he was sayin’!!! I thought  I  was the only sommbitch in the world  who  can  understand  that no-talkin somabitch. Goddddddamn!!!!”

   Larry was finally able to be at some ease, as Maurice  actually  seemed  to  regard  him with some wonder and a hint of approval. “So, you…uh…know him?”  he  spoke lightly, hazarding a dumb question.

   “Damn   right,  I  know  him.  That’s  my ‘boy’. He’s  damned  good  people. …That sommbitch knows some shit, too. Come on, I can take you right  to  him.”  Maurice  was  about  to lead the way  out  of  the tall shrubs encircling the stone general,  then  he stopped. “Hey, what the fuck you want him for?” Maurice moved from joviality to suspicion in an instant.

   “No, see…I’m taking a class—."

   “That’s right, you’re a damned student. Damn-ed college students are always studying some-’em. …So,  you’re   studyin’  homeless  people, huh? … Why  the  fuck  you  choose him? Hun-dreds  of  homeless  motherfuckers around here to  interview  and  you  choose  the no-talkin’est somabitch in the whole damned city.”

   Maurice  and  Larry emerged from the bushes that  adorned  the  large isle where three streets converged un-symmetrically. A silver-illuminated moon  cast  its  grey light down on the intersec-tion  as  the unlikely pair made hurried tracks a-cross  an  arcing  section  of the thoroughfare to clear the street, ahead of oncoming headlights.

   Suddenly  pausing  at  the curb, Maurice gave Larry  another  once-over  with cynical eyes. He shook  his  head  half  smiling. “Goddddddamn,” he  exclaimed. Then “changing gears” suddenly he  blurted  out,  “You  know  he’s, uh…schizo-phrenic. …You don’t know nothin’ ‘bout that, do you?  One  day  I might tell you a little about it.” After  a few steps, Maurice stopped again. “You better  damn  sure  not  try to cause my boy no trouble,”  he  warned. But then as another, con-trasting, thought suddenly entered his mind, he added,  “Naw, scratch that. He’d tear your little ass all to pieces his damn self, if you so much as slobber on him by mistake.”

   The  coarse,  matter-of-fact  way  it  was  said made  Larry chuckle. Monitoring his protégé out of the side of his eyes, Maurice, after a few sec-onds, joined with hearty laughter.  

   “Godddddamn!!!”  Maurice  exclaimed  as if he had just discovered snow in June.

   The  Chardonnay  Bistro,  a rather elegant es-tablishment,  had  been locally dubbed a 3 ½ to 4  star  restaurant. Its excellent rating and loca-tion,  about five miles west of the downtown col-lege  and a little less than a mile from the home where resided the tenured college professor and his daughter, Christina, made it a favorite dining spot  for  the Norvilles, as well as the families of other  professionals  in  the  area  who  enjoyed high  social  status. The Bistro’s atmosphere of class  compelled  its  patrons  to present them-selves   in   fairly   formal  attire,  that  is,  suits, gowns  and  the  like—at the very least, a sport jacket worn with decent slacks, and, for the lad-ies,   smartly   adorned   dresses   or  skirt-and-blouse ensembles.

   With  barely a flicker, the fire glowing from the candle wick at the table of “Norville and Compa-ny,” as the maître d' formulated it, contributed to the coziness of the setting; the white cotton ta-blecloth, crisply  starched nylon  lap towels and polished  silverware  added  to the air of sophis-tication.   Sitting   across   from  the  professor, Christina  displayed  her  usual cheerful manner and her best friend, Trish, appeared demure and self-composed. This was no novel dining experi-ence for the trio; the table was in fact their favor-ite,  and  each  had  his or her own menu selec-tions  of  choice.  Even  the blossom-fragranced smoke  from  the  professor’s  pipe  seemed  to stream  upward  in rehearsed obeisance, disap-pearing  at  eye  level, a dissipating captive of a clever ventilation design.

   The   professor   conversed   with   his  usual charm,  commenting to  his daughter, “You had quite  an  ‘athletic’  weekend with your cousins. Waterskiing and off-road bike riding--.”

   “And don’t forget that I participated in the 10K race  the  following  Sunday morning,” Christina beamed.

   “I don’t mean to be overly doting,” rejoined Dr. Norville, with a kind twinkle in his eye. “But I do have  some  concerns  regarding your trailing a speeding motor boat clinging to a rope and bal-ancing on two wooden sticks.”

   “Fiberglass, Dad, not wood.”

   “Oh,…well--,” the professor added with playful sarcasm.

   “Nooo,  Dad,”  retorted   Christina  laughingly. “Trish,  you  should  come  with  me to my aunt and  uncle’s,  some  weekend  and learn water-skiing—then  you  can  help  me  convince Dad that it is totally safe.”

   “Well,   I   don’t  know….” Trish’s  words  and manner reflected her caution.

   “You  know,  I  could  take  a  flight  with  you sometime  to  visit  your great-aunt at the retire-ment  community  in the neighboring state of U-tah,  on  the weekend, too. I know Daddy would let me. We could like…alternate? One weekend here…the next weekend there.”

   “Well…she  doesn’t take to stran…, I mean…people   she   doesn’t  know,  very  well.”  Trish watched  the  line  of  smoke rising from the or-ange glow within the professor’s pipe.

   “Well,  I  don’t  mean  to keep saying it, but it seems  a  shame  that  you  fly  there  alone on those  weekends  that  I’m discovering so many new and fun activities with my cousins.”

   “I enjoy the times I spend with my great-Aunt-ie  Cora. We  go to see plays…and many other things.”

   “Well,  as long as you’re happy. You just nev-er  seem  to  talk much about your experiences with her.”

   Dr. Norville,  puffing  thoughtfully  on  his pipe, expressed   a   remedial   proposition.  “Maybe, Trish,  you  can  convince  your aunt in Utah to venture  a  weekend  excursion  here, to be my and Christina’s guest one weekend…or perhaps to celebrate a holiday.”

   “I  can  ask…,”  Trish  commented, searching the  professor’s  eyes,  as  if  for  additional  evi-dence of his sincerity, “and see what she says.”

   Orphaned  at  six years old, Trish had been a “bone of contention” between two elderly sisters living in adjacent states, but was finally awarded custodial  care to the aunt with whom she pres-ently resided. 

   “Anyway,”  Trish added, Auntie Fran is having more and more of a problem with me visiting her sister.  She  says,  for  one,  it takes away from my  studies. I think it’s just a matter of time be-fore  she  just out-and-out…disallows the flights there.”

   “That’s  really  too  bad,”  Christina responded sympathetically . “You’ve told us how afraid she is that something will interfere with your gradua-tion from high school. Even your part-time job at the  mall--.”  Perceiving  that  the  mood  among their  troupe  was  becoming too heavy, the pro-fessor gracefully interjected.

   “Mrs.  Orbache  just  wants the best for Trish. But let’s not get all in a ‘tiff,’ and ruin our dining experience. Remember my motto, ladies.”

   “Oh,  yes, Daddy. We know,” spoke Christina smiling,  and  with  a lighter heart. And then she and  Trish,  catching  each other’s gaze, recited in  unison,  “‘Don’t stress over possibilities; pre-pare for them.’”

   “That’s my girl,” said Dr. Norville reassuringly, looking alternately at Christina and Trish.

   Navigating   through  the  back  alleys  of  two streets that crossed Stone Truss Boulevard and three  that  ran  parallel to it, Maurice guided his protégé  to  the location of the man whose voice on  tape had brought them together. Thinking to himself,  Larry  wondered  What  the hell have I gotten  myself  into?  The intense individual who had made himself a go-between for his suppos-ed  subject  and himself seemed to Larry a very unstable  fellow, even though they had seemed, against all apparent odds, to make common cause.

   Larry  felt that he had lost all control of events that  were  lining  themselves  up  before him; in fact, he surmised, this explosive ruffian could be leading  him  to  a  convenient  site  in  which to murder  him—and  he  may never be heard from again.  I don’t even know this guy’s name, Larry realized  with  alarm. Just at that moment Maur-ice  signaled a slowing of their pace, as the two emerged from an alley, passing in front of a cor-ner  dry  cleaners  establishment.  As  they ap-proached  a  red-brick  building marked by wide marble  steps,  a  pair of stone relief posts, and an   isosceles  frieze  above  its  double  doors, Maurice uttered quizzically, “What’s your name, ‘College Boy’?”

   “Uhh,  Larry.”  He  hoped  that a surname was not required.

   “I’m  Maurice.  Some  call  me  ‘Maury’, some call  me  ‘Reesy’. My women call me ‘Big-Maur’ or ‘Big Mo’.”

   Larry   regarded  the  edifice  before  him  with much   apprehension.   A  dim  light  illuminated drawn  shades  of  the  building’s front windows; windows  at  the  second-floor  level were black. “What is this place, a shelter?” he asked with a look  of dread. “I-I-I really don’t think I should go in there. I-I-I can’t do the interview in there.”

   “I’m  just  showing  you where the man sleeps and  where  he  sometimes eats, when he can’t ‘crash’ on his outside spots. Damn, you act like it’s the goddamn House of Frankenstein.”

   “No…I just--.”

   “Yeah, ‘you just’. Well, we just passed Carl in the alley, ‘College Boy’.”

   “He was in the alley? …Which alley?”

   “The  goddamn alley we just left,” Maurice re-plied,  pointing  backward.  “You’re on your own now,  Mr. Larry.  Pull  out your little piece-a-shit tape   recorder…get  in  the  alley… and  go  to work.   Oh,  and  by  the  way,  ‘College  Boy’…Carl’s  got  some…hate  issues.  That  mother-fucker hates everybody. …He’ll talk to me, now and  then…but  I  still  can’t  figure  out how the fuck you got him to talk to you.”

   “Well,  thanks.  I  appreciate your help,” Larry said,  pulling  out  his  recorder, but knowing he had  no  intention  of  doing  anything but finding his  way  back  to  an appropriate bus stop. As-suming  that  Maurice  was monitoring him after he  turned  and headed for the alley, Larry reen-tered  it. It seemed darker and scarier now than it was a minute earlier when he traversed it with Maurice,  led  along like an emotionally tumultu-ous zombie.”

   Maybe  the  man  known as “Carl” was some-where in the alley, and maybe he wasn’t, as far as  Larry  was  concerned about it. All he cared about  at  that  point  was  getting to the alley’s other  end  and to a lighted street as quickly as possible without breaking into an all-out run.

   When  finally  he  was  back  at  Stone  Truss Boulevard,  Larry found that he was too tense to stand  waiting  for the bus; so he began walking northward  at  nearly  a  power-walker’s pace, a pace that accelerated to a sprint at those junc-tures in his walk that put him in some proximity to   shadowy  figures  standing  or  moving  with stealth  about the Boulevard. Finally, after about twenty  minutes,  the  bus  for  which he kept a constant  vigil over his shoulders caught up with him.

   Next  door  to the shelter, at the alley’s edge, the  small dry cleaning facility’s back yard area contained two 60lb dogs, kept there to discour-age rear-entry break-ins. Within a narrow space on the side of the yard opposite the alley entry-way  was  built  a  comfortable shelter for the k-nines,  who  had  developed a pattern of staying out  of sight until someone agitated or appeared to  be  trying to scale an area of the fence—and then  they would make, suddenly, their formida-ble presence known.

   By  about 9:30 on weeknights the owners and workers all had departed, and at about that time Carl  made  the  one-foot height of cement “wall” bordering  the yard, at the far back, his personal seat.  His  back  rested  against  the wire fence that  was  anchored  behind  the short wall. And there  he  had sat, several feet back from the in-tersection  of  two alley-ways, in the dark, when Larry  and  Maurice passed by that intersection, and he was alone, except for the nuisance-like voices in his head.

   “He  has taken the first steps toward Awaken-ing—and appears to have survived,” averred one of  Carl’s  disembodied  communicants.  Within his  plastic  adornment,  he made a slight facial gesture  to  show his cynical predisposition, the dogs cloaked in shadows behind him, watching him intently.

   “What   does   it   MATTER?!!!,  sounded   the counter  voice.  “MOST  FAIL!!!...HE WILL FAIL, IF HE CONTINUES!!!”

   “Carl  has  not failed. He has been in defiance a  very  long  period. Grant him unconditional re-lease…for  he shall not succumb,” the calm one declared.

   “Carl is a STUBBORN PIG. He can have relief at anytime.”

   “He  will have relief in due time, without having succumbed.” The comment was made to heart-en Carl, but the latter remained unimpressed.

   The Norville party of three assured their waiter that  dinner  this  night  maintained  par with the score of others that preceded it, as remission of the  tab  and  a  generous tip were proffered rou-tinely.  Making  hurried  steps to the professor’s immaculate  Jaguar,  the  three  were chilled by the  cool  breezes  that  stirred,  ruffling the light fabric  of  the  professor’s wool slacks and pres-sing  the  young  ladies’  skirts  to  the  delicate curves of each girl’s legs and posterior.

   “Shall I be driving you home, Trish, or are you spending  more  of  the evening with ‘Chris’?” in-quired  the  professor,  placing the gear stick in “D”   position   and  observing  Christina’s  friend from his rearview mirror.

   “We  had  planned,” Christina cut in, “to study together  tonight,  Dad. The Physics and Chem-istry  class  is  starting to get really demanding, so  we  are  going  to  have  to  call  on the ‘two heads are better than one’ principle.”

   “Good principle, that. And at which location is this  ‘brain  storming’  to take place?” asked the professor casually.

   “Where  do  you want to study, Trish? Does it make a difference?” Christina turned in her seat beside  the professor, in order to address direct-ly her friend.

   “Well,  my  ‘Auntie  Fran  went out with some senior  friends  this  evening.  I think I should be home  when she comes in. So…maybe we can go to my house?”

   “Sure! Dad, you can take us home, and after I get some things, I’ll drive us over to Trish’s.”

   The  professor hesitated. “I don’t mind waiting for  you  and then driving you both,” he finally of-fered.

   “Oh, Dad. I know you don’t like for me to drive at  night.  But you know I’m careful. And it’s not like I’ll be driving alone.”

   “I  infer  from  that,  that  you  plan to stay the night.”  It  was  statement that bore a faint inter-rogative “flavor.”

   “You  never  mind  when  I  stay overnight with Trish and her auntie.”

   “True. It’s just that if I know you’re not coming home tonight, I may invite a new friend over.” He was  steering  from  the  far  left  to  the far right lane,  and monitoring traffic in both the side and rearview   mirrors,  when  he  caught  a  view  of Trish’s face, and he thought he detected some-thing in her expression.

   “Oh?  Is  that  ‘new  friend’ as  in ‘professional colleague’ or as in ‘lady of interest,’ Dad?”

   “Actually, it’s a prospective coauthor of a jour-nal article I have in mind.” Turning in her seat to face  her friend, Christina exclaimed, “Boorring,” playfully teasing her father.

   The  very  air  in the Brighton kitchen, on this, the 7^th day of November, abounded in the com-bined  aromas  of  hot  biscuits, sizzling bacon, eggs whipped into a cheese and tomato omelet, and  onion-laden,  pepper-flecked home-fries. A full,  early morning Sunday breakfast among the three  household  members  was  a standard. It presented a forum in which to share interesting or just downright important developments of the week past, or to discuss

prospects for the unfolding of events, prosaic or novel, to come.

   After  the  meal  and  subsequent  cleanup,  it was  time  for  changing into clothes appropriate for worship in institutional fellowship, at least for the elder Brightons, with a hundred or more oth-er  members  of  the local Episcopalian Church. Larry  had  long since reached an age where he could refuse the urging of his parents for him to take part in the services.

   Addressing his son, the elder Brighton spoke. “When  have  you  spoken to your brothers last, Larry?”

   “Not   since  the  end  of  the  summer  break, when  Gerald and Harold called from…what was it… the  Aleutian  Islands?  I  talked with Gerald for a minute, after their conversation with Mom. I don’t know when I’ve talked with the older ones; it was sometime earlier in the year.”

   “Well,  we’re  all  planning  a  homecoming for them for the Thanksgiving holiday—all six of our boys  together  again,  all  under  this one roof.” The  glow  of  anticipation  was  in  elder  man’s eyes as he spoke.

   “And not only will we have all our sons togeth-er again, but it’ll be an occasion to see all five of our daughters-in-law and all of Samuel’s and my grandchildren—your  nieces  and  nephews. It’s going   to  be  so  wonderful!”  exclaimed  Helen Brighton excitedly.

   “Wow,  yeah,  that’s  a lot of family,” Larry re-sponded, calculating the numbers.

   “Son,”  added Samuel Brighton, “we’re hoping you   can  help  us  plan  entertainment  for  the youngsters.  Your  mother  and  I  have  only  a scant  few  ideas  of how to keep the little ones preoccupied inside the house, over the planned two and half days of their stay.”