Dilemma

1 Ilan Herman [email protected] 530-677-8878

Dilemma

Cradling a three-olive double martini, shaken, not stirred, P reclined in the black leather armchair in front of the 64-inch plasma TV in his living room. Redwood floors shone with a recent layer of wax, benign flames danced in the electrical-powered fireplace, French doors were open to the deck overlooking the creek, and a tempered night breeze rang with a chorus of crickets. The day had been an excellent one by P’s criteria, rewarding in ways he could only dream of while attending law school ten years earlier. As the junior associate in the law firm FOS, he’d been instrumental in securing the favorable verdict handed down that morning. The case involved the death of a ten year old girl in a traffic accident. Her mother sued the car manufacturer for faulty seatbelts. In her testimony, the mother—an African American in her early twenties, with hair in weaves, and sharp cheekbones—insisted she had buckled her daughter in and had made sure the seatbelt was properly secured. The

2 vehicle suffered a blown tire while traveling at 50 mph, careened off the road, and struck a tree. The girl was thrust head-first into the windshield and died at the scene. In his defense of the car maker, P mused that even though he felt immense sorrow for the loss of life and didn’t challenge the fact the mother had secured her daughter’s seatbelt, the possibility nonetheless remained that the girl had loosened the seatbelt without her mother’s knowledge. “After all,” P said in his soft baritone as his blue eyes combed the jury box. “Kids are oblivious to risk, filled with notions of immortality, and sometimes, tragedy strikes.” The mostly white male jury, which P had secured after transferring the case from a mainly African-American district to a more affluent, Caucasian one, decided that reasonable doubt indeed hampered the mother’s request for twenty million dollars, and rewarded her eighty thousand instead. P and his legal team beamed and exchanged fist pumps. The verdict was a huge success, better than they’d expected, and had earned P a fifty-thousand dollar bonus. Now he could custom-build the Corvette he’d dreamed about since he was fifteen. His eyes wandered to the back of the courtroom, where F, the firm’s senior partner, sat with his arms folded across his chest. A big man with thick silver hair and greenish eyes, F curled his thin upper lip in a slight sneer and winked at the young lawyer. P had never been more proud in his life. His gaze shifted to the mother, who was looking at him. Her dark eyes narrowed, high cheekbones further tightened, the courtroom neon lit her angry brow. A jolt shot through and quivered P’s abdomen. Profound rage emanated from the woman’s eyes. His confusion lasted a second before he shrugged at the mother and tilted his head in you win

3 some you lose some. He then snapped shut his leather briefcase and strode out from the courtroom. As P descended the stairs to the lobby, it occurred to him that if he won a few more court battles, he could become an associate in the firm, which, with his initial added, would become FOS&P. His spine tingled with excitement when he thought about the luxuries and comforts such lofty status would afford him.

Now it was eight in the evening. Reclined in his leather armchair, P finished sipping his martini and reached for the TV remote. Set to watch the NY Yankees/Boston Red Sox game, he meant to enter the number 36 on the remote, but his index finger slipped and channel 35 appeared, one that broadcast geographical and historical documentaries, which P found tedious and irrelevant to his life. The TV screen showed an old American Indian man with a hooked nose and sunstruck cheeks plowed with wrinkles. His deep brown eyes—the tint of fertile earth, were serene. Sitting at the entrance of a cave, the Indian smiled crooked yellow teeth. The wrinkles around his mouth deepened as he nodded slowly and held up his left forefinger. “All is one and one is all,” he said in a gravely voice, somber eyes alive as though he were in the room and speaking only to P. The young lawyer chuckled. “Only when you take too much peyote,” he said and switched to channel 36 in time to watch Alex Rodriguez hit a double, two-run RBI.

P went to bed at midnight. A man of dreamless slumber and rigorous discipline, he planned to wake up at six in the morning, run six eight-minute miles on the treadmill

4 set on the deck overlooking the creek, prepare a fruit smoothie mixed with vitamin powder and three raw eggs, shower and dress in one of the ten Armani suits hanging in his closet, and drive off in his Lexus LS08 sedan—a forty-five minute drive during which he listened to CD’s of motivational speakers. As he did daily, P planned to arrive at his office at fifteen minutes past eight and saunter in with a deadly smile, ready to wage war for corporate justice.

But that night he slept badly and woke up at 3:14 a.m. after a nightmare: He was driving a 76 Pontiac Trans Am and was descending a steep hill and wanted to slow down but the brakes creaked a rusty squeak and failed to respond. The car sped downhill. The steering wheel vibrated. A sharp bend appeared. The car plunged into a deep ravine. Suspended in midair, skin crawling with the terror of the coming crash, he heard a soft voice say, “I was wearing my seatbelt.” Eyes wide with doom, he looked over to the passenger side and saw a darkskinned girl wearing a red plaid skirt and a white shirt. Her body was intact but her forehead was pried open and dripped gray brains. Her nose was smashed flat into her face. Shards of glass stuck out from her empty eye sockets. Her lips were strips of fleshy blood. Broken teeth hung by crimson threads from her crushed jaw. The girl smiled and reached out to hug him. He screamed, never more terrified, and woke up soaked in sweat, rushing heart almost ready to penetrate his heaving ribcage. P didn’t sleep for the rest of the night. The girl’s mutilated face smiled at him every time he shut his eyes. He drank a tall glass of warm milk and sat in his armchair

5 and watched Andy Griffith reruns. When the alarm clock buzzed six o’clock, P went about his morning regimen, which he performed well, except for a serious facial expression replacing his usual gleeful smile. At the law firm, F greeted him with a firm handshake. “How’s my killer doing today?” “In diligent search of prey,” the young lawyer said and finally flashed his laserwhitened teeth.

P was able to forget the nightmare while he worked at preparing the defense of a petrochemical company accused of contaminating the ground water of a rural town, but he thought several times about the old Indian man holding up a forefinger and saying, “All is one and one is all.” Although the words still rang absurd, they nonetheless stuck in his head, so much so that he found himself humming them to a simple melody, a chant of sorts. P was clueless as to where the melody came from; it didn’t remind him of any song he’d heard.

By the time P returned home and had imbibed in his double martini, he was tired and looking forward to a good night sleep. Still a bit anxious about the nightmare, he relaxed his mind by playing a CD of natural sounds—ocean waves, chirping birds, wind rustling through treetops—and fell into a deep sleep that lasted a short while before the dream—exactly like the night before—seared through his mind. P sat up gasping for air. His heart beat so fast and loud he feared he was having a heart attack. The darkened room spun before his bleary eyes. The girl’s shattered face and

6 monstrous smile loomed all around him. He showered and rinsed the sweat off his body, and then slumped in his armchair and watched I Love Lucy reruns. Fatigue soaked his bones, tingled his toes and stiffened his spine, but he could not sleep. He thought about the old Indian and his words of universal unity. What did the old man mean? P had never struggled with the morals of philosophy. He lacked the will to explore their insights, and the courage to face his own infirmities. Therefore, he was relieved when the alarm clock rang and helped start him on his morning activities that culminated when he strolled into his office and flashed his courtroom smile. That day, however, and for the first time, he labored to do so, a fact noticed by F, who tilted his thick neck and said, “Need a break?” “No,” said P and straightened his back. F swatted the young lawyer’s shoulder. “No problem if you do. Q can take the case. We owe you big-time.” P stood further erect. “That won’t be necessary.” “So be it,” said F and walked away, broad shoulders comfortable to balance the weight of injustice and greed.

For the next six days, P sat in his office and labored mightily at his goal to become the junior partner in FOS, but he could not concentrate, distracted by the image of the dead girl, which continued to rob him of sleep. Was the girl’s death also his own death? What about the thousands of children who died each day from famine and preventable disease? Did their death cast a shadow on the validity of his life’s pursuit? The thoughts were new, strange, and disturbing to the point that, on the seventh day, against his will, he left the office early. He was feeling guilty, an emotion alien to him

7 and which he could not thwart. An urgency gripped his heart, one far greater than any looming legal deadline. P realized that he must confront and dissipate his guilt if he cared to continue living. Such was the intensity of his anguish and resolve. From behind closed drapes, his departure was viewed by F. “Another one bites the dust,” he muttered and pressed the intercom. “Doris, Send Q to my office.” * * *

Even though P hadn’t struggled with ethical pathways, he was nonetheless endowed with an analytical mind trained in the subtleties of the legal profession, a mind that could grab onto a fragile thread of evidence and roll that thread into a sturdy ball of yarn—a cascading waterfall of entwined facts leading to absolute and irrefutable conclusions, or, as he’d proven defending the automaker, the solid establishment of reasonable doubt. The word reasonable disturbed him. After all, who was in charge of defining what was reasonable? Could those decision makers be trusted? Only several centuries ago it had been reasonable to claim that the earth was flat, even though strong evidence emerged to the contrary. Sometimes, generations passed before a reasonable school of thought proved to be utterly unreasonable. The challenge to accepted doctrine, as when Copernicus insisted the earth was round, or Darwin declared human and ape to be relatives, started slowly but gained credibility and, seemingly overnight, reached the point of critical mass, after which the same certainty of reason that once accompanied the Flat Earth theory and the story of Genesis, now accompanied the ones promoting evolution and the planet’s round properties.

8 Thus, when P started to dissect the possible meaning behind the old Indian’s words, “All is one and one is all,” he was quickly led down a new and disturbing path. The assumption that the old Indian was right— life was connected and affected by separate yet unified components, and each life form was part of and responsible for all other life—presented P’s legal mind with options interlinked in seemingly infinite ways. The first and obvious issue centered on one human being killing another. No reason existed for such calamity. Period. No political, religious, nationalistic, social, or economic platform could justify the killing of even one human being. That fact was easy for P to accept. Wisdom, like a curling wave, washed over his soul, a liberating sensation he’d never felt before. Such liberty assured the fact he could not defend the case against the petrochemical company, but P didn’t care. That liberty of soul could possibly allow him to finally get some sleep—a crucial activity he now understood transcended all fame and fortune.

P was enjoying a filet mignon dinner at a fashionable eatery while his agile brain, like a superb athlete running a swift 110-meter hurdle race, leaped over one premise after another, when his thoughts darkened. He spit out the piece of tender beef, quickly rinsed his mouth, and stormed out of the restaurant. A dedicated carnivore throughout his life, P realized he could never eat meat again. Meat came from cows, hogs, chickens, all of them life forms, breathing the same air as he, engaged in procreation and raising their young, feeling thirst and hunger, pain and distress. He grumbled angrily. Who gave humans the right to incarcerate and slaughter millions of hogs every day? Why was herding helpless cattle into a

9 slaughterhouse, where they were decapitated, gutted, and quartered, considered acceptable and humane? It was not! Slaughterhouses and cattle farms must be abolished. Humanity could easily satisfy its need for protein through healthier and friendlier means. P was furious. And what about the countless dogs and cats euthanized in animal shelters? That too was unacceptable and must be dealt with, resolved, to create a refuge for stray animals. Doing so would cost a tiny fraction of the money spent to build a nuclear submarine, and serve to remind people of their universal unity and responsibility to each other and all other species. P’s mind swirled with rainbows of thoughts about action and reaction, supply and demand, needs verses wants, misguided entitlement rooted in insensitive ignorance, and nature’s way of retaliating when her directive was challenged. He clasped his hands nervously. How could he prevent the cruelty? How could he serve to guide humanity past its follies? His limber mind couldn’t find the answers. There are no answers, he mused, but then resisted that notion and promised to double his efforts to find the answers.

Later that night, as he lay exhausted in his armchair (he’d come to hate his bed) and watched reruns of M.A.S.H., the redemption-seeking former lawyer was seized with renewed panic, which involved his new interpretation of what a living organism consisted of. Case in point: fruits and vegetables. Were fruits and vegetables capable of emotion? Did they feel pain? What did an apple feel when it was plucked from the branch—its womb? Could a tomato protest being picked from the vine—the umbilical cord to Mother Earth?

10 Botanists had concluded that fruits and vegetables could not sense pain and were not evolved enough to possess consciousness, but P didn’t trust the scientists and believed they supplied a convenient “ethical” explanation that allowed for the continuous genocide of innocent produce. A cow, however helpless, will try to kick its aggressor, a chicken will claw and peck its assailant, but an orange or a bell pepper were truly helpless—no limbs to flail, no voice to cry out with. How sad and unjust, thought P and curled his hands into tight fists. Humanity would never listen to his reason. He’d be ostracized, an extremist, an environmental fanatic. What did the wise Indian eat? A new definition was needed for the caloric intake required to sustain life—a happy medium reached between Darwinist aggression and Universal Love. P clawed at his hair. No such balance existed. Life was based on the inherent conflict and continuous cycle of one species eating another—big fish devoured smaller ones, birds swallowed insects, plants grew taller than other plants so they could better absorb the sun’s rays. Everyone, everything, everywhere, was constantly fighting to stay alive. By its very existence, each organism believed that it deserved, at all costs, to carry on. The tangled web of life and its repercussions, and how he could or could not function within nature’s laws, caused P great distress. He couldn’t sleep.

When dawn broke, P took a walk to the lake, where a flock of nesting geese greeted him with honks and hisses. He understood completely that when it came to the right to live, to survive, no difference existed between him and a goose, both precious in eternity’s eyes. He knew that his mental ability to comprehend that axiom wasn’t proof of superiority, rather, that human intelligence ended up creating a cruel and insidious

11 imbalance which, judging by the population explosion, the struggle for resources, the environmental distress, and the ongoing religious and nationalist wars, was detrimental to humanity’s chances of survival. Was that it? Was humanity like a parasite on the body of its host, the planet, a cancer lurking within the otherwise healthy body of Mother Earth?

A grassy field once stood across the road from his office. One day bulldozers came and flattened the field and layered it with concrete and constructed a Target superstore. “They’re gonna build on the empty field across the road,” his secretary had mentioned when the bulldozers arrived. In her mind, and his, at the time, the field was indeed empty. But it wasn’t. The field pulsated with rabbits, mice, snakes, lizards, insects, flowers, grass, trees. The field became empty when it was layered with concrete, earth buried in a shallow grave. The word empty exemplified the slippery slope created by language. To most people, the field was empty even though it was bursting with life. He now understood that the field became empty when most people thought it was full.

Reflecting on the field’s demise, P was struck by an ominous thought: I’m walking on the grass covering the lakeshore. The grass was several inches thick and harbored innumerable creatures, some as big as a spider, some much, much smaller. How much death had he spread while trampling the grass? Did he have the right to squish harmless insects just because he felt like taking a morning stroll?

12 P quickly abandoned the grassy shoreline and walked on the jogging path, but that also became an issue: the path was laden with trillions of microbes—the building blocks for more advanced life forms. His mind became entangled in the word advanced, which implied progress, improvement. What criteria was used to define the word advanced, and by whom? P fidgeted his fingers with infinite frustration, imprisoned in a dark, cold, damp labyrinth from which he could never escape.

P wanted to live, to adhere to the Indian’s wise words, “All is one and one is all.” He struggled to find ways to help the mother whose child died in the traffic accident, yearned to caress cancer-stricken toddlers, wanted to save rainforests and oceans, and prayed for humanity to join hands in selfless devotion to the almighty God of Love. But how could he do so when each action he took resulted in destruction? A blade of grass was proof of universal consciousness as much as any life form, including a human being. An amoeba carried within it the genetic code of all that followed its primal footsteps. Claustrophobic tentacles wrapped around P’s throat. Consumed with his dilemma, he ran back to the house, where he collapsed in his armchair and refused to move. He decided to remain sitting in the armchair for the rest of his life. Doing so might lead to his untimely demise, but P didn’t mind. After all, what was the meaning of the word untimely within the context of infinity? At least he could rest assured he never harmed anyone or anything again. For the first time since he had the nightmare, P slept and didn’t dream.

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