Impulse

1 Impulse

Eagle Lake

I was moving to Eagle Lake, California, on April 2, 2005, the day Pope John Paul died. Driving the U-Haul down 80 South, I was stuck in traffic when talk radio broke the news. Programs were preempted in honor of the pope, and the media rode the story as a surfer would a wave. They did much the same the week before, when Terry Schiavo was starved to death, and W—who as governor of Texas had executed dozens of inmates, some innocent, some retarded, and was responsible for countless dead Iraqis— said, “It’s wise to always err on the side of life.” Before the demise of John Paul and Terry, there was the tsunami—an apocalyptic dance of death, soon replaced with the war in Iraq—the one the media could do nothing to cover because American TV reporters were too scared to step outside their hotel rooms, and the only way you could find out what was happening was by watching Al Jazeera. The war that had claimed, and continued to claim, many lives—gallant, precious lives snuffed out by deranged ignorant leaders—was ruthlessly being tucked away. That was the reality of my American Dream as I drove into Eagle Lake. My name is Ted Cole. There was a time in my life, forty years ago, when I was called Theodore, but as a teenager, I opted for Ted—a single, unassuming syllable, and thus it remained. My last name is Kolinovich, but in my twenty-fifth year of life, I abbreviated it in trying to escape my Jewish heritage. So, Theodore Kolinovich, became Ted Cole. As my uncle Misha would say, “You object? Sue me! See if I care!”

2 I don’t pass for a Jew. I could stand in a tobacco field in Kentucky and look Southern as can be. I have sandy blonde hair (though now hopelessly thinning and flecked with gray), blue eyes, a small nose, and I stand five-feet-eleven-and-a-half inches tall. That half inch has been a sore point. When filling out forms, I could state I was five-feet-eleven, but that would be untrue, as untrue as saying I was six feet—a towering alpha-male figure. Caught in the Darwinist-beaurocratic maze, I opted to exercise my own version of erring on the side of life, and have been parading myself as six feet.

After celebrating the sixties in all their glory and disdain, and holding hope when Jimmy Carter came to office, only to settle into the Reagan Era, I sensed my need to conform, and decided to become an elementary school teacher. Though I have none to follow from my seed, I’ve always loved children and their ability to soak up knowledge without prejudice, to innocently breathe not knowing the idiocy of adults. I received my degree in 1980 when I was thirty and, for the last twenty-five years, have been part of the educational establishment. California came to be my mainstay ten years ago. I taught in San Diego for three years, and then in Santa Rosa, but I became restless both times and am still looking for the one place I can call home. When it comes to teaching, I have learned to contain my hatred for the stifling curriculum. I search and yearn for the moments when I clarify something for a child and the look in that child’s eye is wise, but many days, I lecture about one silly holiday or misinformed historical event, my words not even skimming the surface of logic.

3 My Uncle Misha would wave me off as a self-indulgent romantic. He’s been dead a long time—I find it difficult to accept how long, for it means that I’ve lived long enough to remember him. He was a tart man, but not without grace. As a survivor of Auschwitz, Misha carried a huge ax to grind and would let it fall with a massive thud. He mocked me with his staccato, sneering laugh. “You wanna know bad? I’ll tell you bad!” I was ten when he first said that, and I grinned nervously. He described the concentration camp showers. “But instead of water, poison gas came pouring out, and everybody choked to death, and my job was to load the corpses onto carts and throw them into the ovens. And if that stench didn’t pry open the gates of heaven, nothing ever will!” I cowered in tears, but Misha ignored my pain. Eyes glowing in rage, he continued, “So don’t you whine to me about when you don’t get enough chocolate or want another toy, or I will kill you and bury you in a remote field!” Then he laughed and hugged me. I was horrified, but I also loved him. Misha boycotted my Bar Mitzvah; when I saw him next, he took me aside and said, “When I didn’t come to your Bar Mitzvah, it wasn’t because I don’t love you.” “Then why didn’t you come?” I was irate. He shrugged and ruffled my hair. By then, I was taller than he was. Three months later, he died, and I was left to decipher that last shrug. I think Uncle Misha had lost, or never had, any belief in a manmade god, one promoted by organized religion. He was upset for being fingered as a Jew. He would have preferred it if the Jews had abandoned their annoying insistence on being the chosen people and had assimilated into the Roman culture that had enslaved them. Misha carried

4 the weight of 2,000 years of diaspora by working the Nazi ovens. It upset him to be punished for nothing he did or believed in. Much of his heresy was absorbed into my own convictions—maybe by subconscious osmosis, or possibly a genetic precondition. I am vehemently anti-religion and resist displaying my cultural heritage. I have become a cultural pariah. I believe in no one format, be it religious, national, philosophical, or historical, as history books are written by the victorious who easily and continually lie.

Thus, while driving to Eagle Lake on Hwy 80, I became annoyed with the adulation heaped upon the newly dead pope—a man who believed that homosexuality and masturbation were sins, while many of his clergy molested boys without consequence. If one abandons, just for one holy minute, the notion that John Paul was closer to divinity than other men, one cannot but be horrified and dismayed both by the utter ignorance and superstition used by the church, and by the human toll it has extracted from generations subjected to its rigidity and false claim to Divinity. Some people find these views disturbing. I’ve learned to contain my outbursts of righteousness to few occasions, for they serve not in changing minds, be they mine or my didactic opponent. Under such circumstances, I withdraw by quoting John Lennon, “Whatever gets you through the night, ‘salright.”

5 Eagle Lake is located in Southern California in what’s known as the Inland Empire—home to twenty-million residents and growing. There once was a lake in Eagle Lake, but, by 1950, it had dried up, was filled with earth, and now supports three hundred condominiums. The town, established by Quakers in the late 1890s, is off the 605 Freeway, between the towns of Norwalk and Whittier. Aside from the flatlands of the former lake, Eagle Lake also has rolling hills and windy streets draped with greenery and Colonial-style homes. The one-bedroom apartment I was moving into was at 3250 Lake Avenue— halfway up into the hills and in historical uptown Eagle Lake. A trendy area cultivated by the municipality, it had restaurants, a movie theater, boutiques, nightclubs, an ice-cream parlors, a post office, several banks, and various other businesses all within walking distance. I was greeted by the manager, Suzan, a plump brunette in her thirties. We climbed seventeen steps and she opened the door to a spotless, airy, well-lit apartment. “It gets a little stuffy in the summer. Let me know if the AC is weak.” Living room rectangle, bedroom a square, I welcomed the functional simplicity. “Thanks, Suzan. This is going to be a great place.” She handed me the keys and wandered off, and I unpacked the U-Haul. If I could brag about anything in my life, I would quote my friend Danny Goldblum—a clarinet player who once, over breakfast, said, “You know what you are? You’re an anti-hoarder.” I wasn’t sure what he meant, so Danny elaborated. “Some people are hoarders, saving trinkets to give meaning to their lives. You get rid of them. You’re a minimalist.” “A minimalist? I like that,” I said.

6 Danny shrugged. “It’s cool but get yourself some furniture.” That was in Santa Rosa, three years ago, and I took his advice. Since I’ll never be able to afford a house and am content in a one bedroom, I bought furniture to grace a 15by-12 living room—a black leather couch that opened to a bed, two wicker chairs cushioned by black pillows embroidered with purple circles and blue triangles, a Maplewood coffee table with a glass surface, and a beige entertainment center that housed a stereo and a 25-inch TV. For the bedroom, I had a queen-size bed with a natural oak frame and matching nightstand and shelves. I never keep more than a suitcase full of clothes. In the spring, when winter garb is on sale, I go shopping. Upon my return home, I pack my old wardrobe in plastic bags and take them to the local Salvation Army. The annual ritual is comforting, and my clothing expenses boil down to about a dollar a day—a soothing figure for a minimalist. Along with my furniture and clothes, I unpacked two other boxes. One had bedroom and bathroom essentials, and the other had kitchen stuff. Thus, it took me but an hour (with the help of a passing teenager who earned 20 dollars) to unload the U-Haul, and another hour to set up the apartment. By nine o’clock that night, I was sitting in my new living room listening to Ummagumma and sipping beer. By ten o’clock, I was pretty burnt. I drifted off after reading a page from the Emerson essay Circles.

* * *

Taking on a teaching job in the third semester of a school year is unusual, but I was about to do so, due to the fact that second grade students in room fifteen at Jefferson

7 Elementary had recently witnessed a disturbing sight when Mr. Harris, forty-six, while lecturing about one subject or another, collapsed to the floor with a loud thud and expired on the spot from a heart attack. I had been on sabbatical, living in Sebastopol, an once hippie hangout now selling track homes for a million bucks. It was my first sabbatical after twenty-five years of teaching, and I was contemplating where to move to the coming school year when the phone call from Jefferson Elementary came, and I found it to be fortuitous. I discussed the offer with Julia Morris, the principal, and decided to take the job.

Thus, I walked to work on Monday, April 4, following spring break. The school was about a mile from my apartment—a tempered uphill stroll through streets with old Victorians and well-tended landscapes. A casual prosperity hung in the air. Also, on the way, I passed three churches. Blended into the hill, Jefferson Elementary was a small school—K through fifth grade, about four hundred students in all. Two stone staircases fifty feet apart climbed up from the street and curved inward to meet at the entrance—a narrow door that held two students at a time. A short hallway led to a narrow yard with a dozen classrooms facing each other and separated by a grass path. A staircase rose from the yard to a field tucked into the top of the hill, with a playground, and trees and grass, and ladybugs flying about. The playground had the rubber surface that protects from severe falls, and to which all teachers and parents give thanks every day.

8 Julia Morris was a morbidly obese woman filled with sweet energy. Reddish hair cut below her ears, her blue eyes sparked with intelligence. We sat in her office, and I expressed my condolences about the premature death of Mr. Harris. She sighed and shook her head. “It was a most difficult day in my professional life. The poor children knew not what to think or do, and I too was left bereft of answers.” “It must have been rough,” I said, and wondered if Julia always spoke in such proper English free of the nauseating dialect American language had become. “Indeed, it was,” she said, “but you shan’t be teaching that class, as the vacancy was filled by Mrs. Taylor, a maternal figure familiar with the traumatized children who had witnessed the unfortunate demise of Mr. Harris.” I nodded. “Of course. It’s an epicenter I’d rather avoid unless no other options remained.” Julia stood up. She had an enormous behind, maybe the largest I’d ever seen. In the USA circa 2005, such a statement should not be taken lightly. “You’ll instead be teaching the second graders in room ten,” she said. I followed her into the courtyard and up to a blue door. Through the window, teacher and students saw us approach. I followed the principal into the classroom. “Hello, Ms. Jones,” the principal addressed the teacher and then the class, “Good morning, children.” “Good morning, Mrs. Morris,” the kids answered in a soprano chorus.

9 “I’d like you to meet Mr. Cole, your new teacher,” she said. Twenty-seven students shifted their eyes to stare at me and not with great favor, I suspect, as I looked old to them. “Hi there.” I waved. “Good morning, Mr. Cole,” replied the ambivalent chorus. They sat six to a rectangular table, tiny chairs mesmerizing in their cuteness. I inquired about the lesson being taught—subtraction of single-digit numbers—an insult to any intelligent seven year old, and smiled at the substitute teacher, Ms. Jones, an attractive twenty-something blonde who ignored me. Then I returned to stand by the principal who said, “Mr. Cole will start tomorrow, but he wanted to come and say hello.” We walked out, and I said, “Tomorrow?” Julia apologized. “The schedule was askew.” “Tomorrow it is,” I said as we arrived back at her office. I reached out to shake her chubby hand. “I like the school. I’m going to enjoy teaching here.” “We would appreciate that,” she said warmly, when a man came up to the open door and rapped his knuckles on the partition. About forty, he was short and thin and had clear brown eyes; his hair was vibrant black; only his sideburns revealed flecks of gray. “Hello, Mr. Sudick,” said Julia, “this is Mr. Cole.” “Nice to meet you. Call me Paul,” he said in a soft voice, though his grip was sharp. “Nice to meet you. Call me Ted.” “Mr. Cole will be teaching in room ten,” the principal said. Paul Sudick shook his head. “What a tragedy,” he said. I echoed his concern.

10 Then he said, “Welcome to Jefferson Elementary. God bless,” and walked off. I smiled at Julia, who smiled back. “See you tomorrow at eight.” “Sounds like a date to me,” I said, and walked out. I was upset about showing up to work and then being sent home. I’d already mustered the energy to take on the youths but was now set loose to explore the day in ways I hadn’t intended. I walked home, and passed the three churches. The First Methodist Church of Eagle Lake was housed in a large stone building and had a bell tower. It chimed the Big Ben melody and then rang loudly nine times, metallic overtones somewhat pleasing. The second church was First Friends, a Quaker congregation, and the third was Saint Matteus Episcopalian Church, also housing a bell tower, if a modest one that remained silent as I walked by. My new apartment greeted me with tidy silence. The view from the window showed the street below—a mother pushing a stroller, a pair of teenagers on skateboards, a finely mowed lawn with pink and red rosebushes at its corners. A breeze coming off the ocean ruffled the palm trees adorning the sidewalks. The news headlines continued their insatiable thirst for events necrophilia. In response to the Terry Schiavo case, a new Web site sprang into action. Ringing medieval as the bells from the Methodist church, the Web site, sponsored by the Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration, advocated against gay marriage and abortion. It demanded that God remain part of the pledge of allegiance and promoted school prayer and the display of the Ten Commandments in public areas. The phonetic similarity of Judeo and Judicial had never before caught my ear, and I wondered whether it was by chance, when Uncle Misha intervened. “Who was there

11 first to claim knowledge of a monotheistic god? The Jews! Who invented the story of Genesis? The Jews! Who is making more waves in the world—though counting for only 0.004 of the world’s population? The Jews!” He was grinding his teeth with rage; the veins on his temples threatened to erupt. Anxious, I rose from the table. Wanting to love the spring before me, I drove around—up and down hilly roads, past homes lush with comfort—when I came to an intersection with a Trader Joe’s and decided to stock the empty refrigerator in my apartment.

Though I object to an increasingly corporate-homogenized world, I do admit to finding comfort in being greeted by shelves with familiar staples. My friend Danny, the clarinet player who pegged me as a minimalist, also zeroed in on my particular eating habits and said I was food phobic. “What do you mean?” I was slightly offended while carefully fishing the mushrooms out of my salad. “Why are you doing this?” he asked and pointed to the discarded mushrooms. “I don’t like mushrooms.” “What’s not to like?” He bit on a slice, then chewed and shrugged, “Tastes fine to me.” I had decided, long before, that mushrooms were superfluous to one’s diet, but was reluctant to admit that indeed I feared them, as I feared clams, oysters, various dips and sauces, any meat that was undercooked, and many other food products. “Can’t I have a choice?” I sulked.

12 Danny, who was content eating the cuisine of sidewalk vendors in Jakarta, raised his arms in resignation. “It’s fine by me, but you’re missing out.”

I filled my cart with tasty, nourishing, and safe selections, and was observing the store while standing at the checkout counter, when my eyes came to rest on the counter adjacent to mine, and where an attractive middle-aged woman—blonde and wearing a red T shirt—was smiling at me. I blushed. The concept of flirting and, more so, of being desired, had long been tucked away in my heart, which had suffered its fair share of aching. But she smiled, so I smiled back. Pushing her cart, she started to walk out. She had a sensual stride. As she walked by me, she said, “I’ll wait for you outside.” I mumbled, “Okay,” and busied myself helping the clerk pack the groceries. We met beyond the sliding doors. She introduced herself as Rachel. “I’m Ted,” I said and shook her hand. Her fingers were soft and dainty. “You have nice eyes,” the blue-eyed Rachel said. “Thanks . . . you do too.” Her eyes were clear pools of life. She pointed to the parking lot. “Walk me to the car?” I volunteered to push the cart. Rachel said she represented a company selling garden tools, and I admitted to being a new teacher at Jefferson Elementary, to which Rachel said, “My granddaughter is in second grade there.” Taken by the coincidence, I said, “Second grade? I’m in room ten.” Rachel laughed. “She’s in room ten. What a coincidence!” “What’s her name?” I asked.

13 “Pearl.” “Nice name.” We loaded the groceries into the car. Rachel gave me her card and asked me to call on her. Casually, I said I would. She drove off waving goodbye, and I was cast into a cautiously optimistic mood. * * *

At 7:45 the next morning, I walked to the school and passed the Methodist Church when the bells chimed eight. A stream of children and parents scaled up the hill; cars came and went in quick succession—dropping students and zipping off. We gathered on the field above the classrooms, twenty rows of children led by their teachers. My future students grinned at me, so I smiled sweetly and patted a few heads, but it didn’t seem to help ease their discomfort. The principal, Julia, wearing a purple dress, came up to the microphone and greeted the children who responded in a vast chorus. “Let us say the pledge of allegiance,” she then said. “If you are wearing a hat, please remove it, and place your right hand over your heart.” Even though I’d been privy to the ludicrous custom for twenty-five years, I still cringed with anger as I watched the innocent mass comply. I refused to speak the toxic words adulating religion and nationalism, and watched my class recite what they didn’t understand. Some of my students stared at me and widened their eyes. Also staring at me was Paul Sudick, reciting the pledge, voice booming, eyes dark with contempt.

14 I had met a relentless enemy. I felt my sweaty palms and stared off at the hill. The pledge complete, Julia Morris then asked the students to recite the Peace Builder Pledge, which I found agreeable—the context centered on following the Golden Rule. I promised myself to memorize it for the next day’s gathering. Then Julia Morris said a prayer—one praising Jesus and the Immaculate Conception, and concluded by making the sign of the cross. The children followed. My blood ran cold. What was happening? There’s no prayer allowed in California public schools. I wanted to scream, “What’s going on here?” but clenched my fists, fingernails plowing into my palms. My stomach gurgled sourly; I felt the bile rise in my throat. About to heave, my impulse to do so was preempted by Uncle Misha who rushed to my side and grabbed my wrist. “Stop your whining. Don’t be devoured by their evil, or you will end up in the ovens of hell!” “There’s no hell. You told me there’s no hell,” I cried. Misha cackled receding gums. “Why do you listen to me? What do I know? God ordered me to save my life by carting corpses from the showers to the incinerator. Why should you listen to me?” “Off to class, children,” I heard the principal say. The compliant herd descended the stairs and dispersed to classrooms. I lead my students to room ten where, aware of my agony, they sat in their chairs and awaited my command. Trying to quiet my thoughts, I read and memorized the names off the chart. Children were always impressed by my ability to quickly remember names. “Pearl Wood,” I said.

15 A blonde girl in pigtails said, “Here.” I smiled and said, “I met your grandma Rachel at the store yesterday. When you grow up, you’ll be pretty like your grandma.” Pearl winced, and the boy behind her snickered. “Why do you laugh?” I asked. “She’s old.” “But she is still beautiful,” I said and asked, “Do you think I’m old too?” Silence followed. Some of the kids shifted in their chairs. Then I said, “I’m fifty-five, and you are seven. How much is fifty-five minus seven?” We launched into math, and my pupils, forgiving as children are, accepted my balding head and the wrinkles on my forehead. I relished their innocence and tolerance.

Going home for the day, I stopped by Julia Morris’s office. The large woman sat behind her desk and smiled sweetly at me. “How was your day, Mr. Cole? Have the children become enthralled with you?” “I hope so,” I said, and then asked about the morning prayer. She laughed. “Indeed. We are unique in our ways and filled with praise for the Lord. But worry not, as we are accommodating to all.” “But isn’t it illegal in public schools?” Julia shrugged and widened her eyes. “What damage could possibly come to the children from a simple prayer?”

16 My shoulders sagged, when Sudick walked in. “How was your day, Ted?” His eyes were cold. I was taller than him, but felt short and judged. “It was fine.” “That’s good,” he said flatly. “See you tomorrow. God bless.” I hurried down the stone staircase and walked home. The church bells thumped in my head. I yearned for Uncle Misha’s advice, but he was nowhere to be found. * * *

While some people who search for a constant in their drifting lives go to church or Shul, and others bow to Mecca five times a day, so I must begin most days by exercising. But the thought of joining a gym and running on a treadmill like a hamster in a wheel is unacceptable to me. No doubt, I would quickly commit suicide if I were locked up in jail and surrounded by the body odor of others. Thus, on Saturday, my first week of teaching behind me, I descended to lower Eagle Lake where I located a gem named Minnesota Park. A half-mile in circumference of well-groomed grass with workout stations at four corners, it was endowed with maple, pine, and oak trees, well-trimmed bushes, squirrels rushing about, and a variety of birds and bugs. The morning sky was cushioned by thin streaks of clouds, and a warm breeze rustled the newborn leaves emerging for spring. I relaxed into a brisk walk. Then I stretched, and then jogged for thirty-five minutes. While jogging—as I always do—I let my mind roam, but it kept returning to John Paul, the dead pope. In 1981, he was wounded by an assassin’s bullet but forgave him. He was also responsible in subtle ways for the demise of the USSR. He spoke eight languages and was the first pope to admit that the church could have done more to

17 prevent the Holocaust. I wondered if Uncle Misha would have been impressed by John Paul’s conduct, but suspected he would instead lament the fact that the assassin in ’81 was a poor shot. “John Paul was a religious radical who advocated against condoms in the age of AIDS and against contraception when the world is bulging with far too many people,” I heard Misha say. “Two guys who escaped death should have died. The pope and Ronald Reagan.” He held up two bony fingers, nails chewed down to the flesh. “Instead they were canonized, and now the church is strong and the Republicans rule. Not good, if you ask me.” I also found Reagan to be a callous, indifferent man, though Jack Straw disagreed with me. He was a teacher in the Santa Rosa school I had taught in at the time Reagan died. Jack Straw drove to Los Angeles and stood in line to bid farewell to the man he had deemed a great leader. Upon his return, we crossed paths in the teachers’ lounge, when he mentioned his pilgrimage. I smiled and nodded, “Good for you. It shows your commitment.” “You didn’t like him, did you?” he asked. I shrugged and lied. “He kept his fingers off the red button, and that’s good enough for me.” “He brought down the Berlin Wall,” Jack said and sipped his coffee. Now that is a historically wrong statement. Few care to follow the timeline of the Soviet Union’s demise, which, although it did occur while Reagan quipped his famous

18 line, “Mr. Gorbachov, tear down this wall,” had nothing to do with his speech, and would have taken place even if he hadn’t uttered a word. “No, he didn’t,” I said, also sipping my coffee. Jack Straw looked at me, squinted, and said, “Yes, he did.” So I lay into him—the only time in ten years that I opened my big mouth. I called him a corporate pig, and he said I was a commi-liberal. Finally, I caught my breath and hissed, “What ever gets you through the night, ‘salright!”

After the morning jog, I returned to my apartment and relaxed into bathroom rituals, a hearty breakfast, and working on my thesis in philosophical anthropology—a discipline that seeks to unify several empirical investigations of human nature in an effort to understand individuals as both creatures of their environment and creators of their own values. Human nature is as vast as the cosmos. And though agreements exist over some phenomena related to man’s nature, disagreements exist over many others, which to me is proof that human nature will never be deciphered beyond the obvious: man is selfish, greedy, manipulative, cruel, creative, altruistic, loving and, more than anything, prone to the knowledge of his own impending mortality. And when pertaining to the vastness of the cosmos, I have recently come to an ominous conclusion—if searching for anthropological patterns of man repeating and expounding upon mistakes of old serves as ominous, which undoubtedly it does. And though I’m in a minority because of my views, I’m glad to know I’m not alone. Critical minds from the fields of physics, astronomy, cosmology, philosophy,

19 literature, and even religion—though their loyalty is misplaced, have come to similar conclusions. The astounding fact about my finding, aside from its metaphysical implications, is proof of how rigid science can be within its dogma, how much it’s like politics and theology—arriving at a set of assumptions only to insist they are facts, and then expounding on their wrong theories and creating a domino effect of lies and rules that will fit their selfish needs. The truth I have uncovered is that the big bang theory is utter and complete nonsense, and that few are challenging its myth-based nature. The first accepted cosmic theory of Western Civilization was the Ptolemaic: The earth is the stationary center of the universe, and the heavens remain unchanged. The Indians believed in cyclic rebirth, and the Chinese believed in the Cosmic Egg theory. The Jews insisted it took only six days—a concept adapted by Christianity—and everyone argued terribly about something they knew nothing about. Then, in 1401, Nicholas of Cusa mentioned Anaxagoras, a forgotten Greek scholar who had suggested a timeless, infinite universe. Nicholas was a peculiar fellow: A cardinal, mathematician, and astronomer, he defied the papacy by stressing the incomplete nature of man’s knowledge of God and the universe. He stated those views to the Theological Council of Basel in 1432, and challenged Pope Eugenius IV by suggesting the theological council should have the authority to override the papacy on certain issues, thus implying an intimacy with God that was unacceptable. The drifting papacy solidified its ranks and, after condemning the council’s audacity, offered the heretics an honorable return to the fold—the one insisting the earth was flat.

20 Sensing the infinite, timeless universe teetering on his own very finite existence, Nicholas of Cusa joined with the rank and file and rejoined the Flat Earth Society. He shouldn’t have been scorned for his choice, as he too needed to obey the amoebic impulse for survival, while he anxiously awaited Copernicus discerning a movement in the heavens that didn’t center on Earth. And the proof came and, with it, centuries of science that produced wonders for mankind. But where and when did the universe begin? Or does it ever begin? In 1947, after the Manhattan Project unified atomic energy into mushroom clouds over Hiroshima and Nagasaki—another huge nail in the coffin of obtuse humanity—these lofty questions came to a marvel of a premise: It all happened in one trillionth of a second, fifteen billion years ago in a place far, far away—an amazing display of energy that, concentrated in the size of one single atom, once, and only once, produced what came to be the universe and, eventually, Earth 2005. The premise promised plenty of time remained for the human race to endow or destroy, but mentioned in passing, a mournful quality attached, that the universe was accelerating, and that, in about ten billion years, all that would be left would be cold, empty, dark dead space. With that conclusion, the universe was again reduced to man’s pathetic perceptions of time and space: it started back then, and will end soon, and God is dead. “Not so fast,” the church pined “You’re saying that everything was created in one moment, in one profound flash of light. Well, it so happens that the Book of Genesis says the very same thing. ‘And then there was light!’”

21 Scientists and theologians shrugged in amazement, “Go figure. Religion and science— unlike the time when Nicholas had to rescind his academics—have arrived at a happy medium. Now both can claim knowledge of man’s origins.” And thus, the message from Anaxagoras via Nicholas of Cusa was once again lost. Big Bang? Never happened. Period! End of story! But as Darwin said, “I don’t expect my peers who have been fighting for their cause to accept my premise. I believe the young who rise to evaluate my work better skilled to make that choice.” So if one is to make the choice between Nicholas—an infinite timeless universe— and the finite cold abyss described by Big Bang theorists, I choose the former. It makes more sense. It’s also safe to conclude that all participants in the above stated drama of thought and action, me included, were creatures of their environment and creators of their own values, which is what the study of philosophical anthropology is all about.

Content with solving the riddles of the universe, I watched the sphinx plunge into the abyss. Then, in boldly uncharacteristic fashion, I dialed Rachel’s number. She answered, warm sensual voice seemingly delighted to hear mine. Then she mentioned the town parade due to take place later that afternoon. “I’m not much for crowds,” I said. “But we should go,” she purred. “It would be a good way for you to meet the people of Eagle Lake.”

22 “Do I want to do that?” I asked in jest. “Now, now, Ted, of course you do.” “If you say so,” I said, resigned to her wish. “Do you like blintzes?” she asked. I laughed. “I haven’t heard that word in many years.” “How come?” “It’s a Yiddish word.” “Yiddish? What’s that?” “It’s a language spoken by Jews in Eastern Europe, a dialect mixing German and Hebrew.” A short silence followed my statement, after which Rachel asked, “Are you Jewish?” “Not in practice.” “But you’re parents are Jewish?” “Were Jewish. They’ve since passed on.” “I haven’t met many Jews,” Rachel said. “It’s okay. We’ve forsaken the horns and tail.” “What?” “Never mind.” I was starting to feel uncomfortable. “I’m Catholic, Roman Catholic,” Rachel said. “Oh. Sorry about your pope.” “But I believe in a woman’s right to choose, and I’m against the death penalty.” “Pope John Paul was against the death penalty,” I said.

23 “Do you mind that I’m Christian?” she asked. “Do you mind that I’m of Jewish heritage?” I stubbornly held to my religious ambiguity. “Why would I mind? Jews are God’s chosen people,” Rachel said and almost ruined my appetite for blintzes.

Rachel arrived in a white cotton dress that hugged her soft curves. Her blonde hair cascaded in curls; her gentle blue eyes sparkled with sexy playfulness. She hugged me, her ample breasts pressed against my chest, and then she pecked my cheek, her breath sweet with gentle perfume. She looked much younger than her fifty years. We strolled through uptown, toward a corner café with sidewalk tables, gliding across the sidewalks, our steps in unison, and I knew I was never more attracted to a woman as I was to Rachel. The blintzes, filled with finely sliced strawberries and bananas, and garnished with sour cream, combined with chocolate milkshakes to sooth our taste buds, and our conversation, flirty and funny, aroused my libido. “I don’t think there are any Jews in Eagle Lake,” Rachel said. I shrugged. “Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me.” “Do you go to synagogue?” she asked. I vigorously shook my head. “I’m not religious.” Her eyes widened. “You don’t believe in God?” “I don’t believe in religion,” I said, enunciating the last word in three syllables. “But the gospel is God’s word.”

24 “I don’t believe it is. I think the biblical god was created by man,” I said and risked the chance of ever making love to Rachel. “But how can you live without faith?” she asked. I shrugged. “Many people do. How come you’re not married?” Rachel sighed. “He died.” “Oh. I’m sorry.” “It’s okay. He wasn’t a very nice man.” “Any children?” “Just my daughter, Pearl’s mother. But she isn’t married,” Rachel said and smiled with apology. “Fornication!” I said and laughed. Rachel didn’t laugh. I retreated in my chair. Then we stood on the corner and watched the parade. Children twirling batons marched proudly while brass bands played in a clutter of trombones and kettle drums. Dignitaries from the municipality rode in white Cadillac convertibles, and police officers on horseback were greeted loudly by the spectators who took special joy when one of the horses pooped steamy manure. Then Rachel held my hand. I pretended to continue watching a float with high school cheerleaders. Our fingers entwined all afternoon, by the time we got back to my apartment, I was lit with passion. At the bottom of the stairs Rachel said, “This is as far as I go.” “Please come up,” I said, “I promise not to bite.”

25 She smiled. “Your biting isn’t what I’m concerned about.” “We’ll have a great time.” “No doubt we will, but I can’t.” Rachel caressed my cheek. “I don’t believe in sex out of wedlock. I want to make love to my husband, not my boyfriend.” “But you’ve been widowed for ten years.” “It’s been that long, but it’s worth the wait, I hope.” Rachel leaned in and her lips parted to cradle mine. I melted into her lips—the best kiss of my life, and when we caught our breath, I was ready to marry Rachel. “Think about it,” she smiled and walked off, turning to wave and say, “Call me soon.” * * *

A week passed. Every morning, following a restless night—an unusual predicament, as I am a sound sleeper—I promised myself not to be adversely affected by the school morning prayer, but nonetheless found myself in a state of panic. Passing the Methodist church on the way to school, I was leery of the bell tower. I escaped to class and taught, and was relieved to find out that the children approved of me. Julia, the principal I’d grown to respect, attested to that with her wealthy smile. I was confused about the liberty she took in doing the morning prayer, and why it was not challenged by the educational authorities, but when we crossed paths, her smile assured me all was well. But all was not well, though I didn’t know why.

26 Paul Sudick avoided me, and I avoided him. The rest of the staff was a blur of insignificant faces and painted smiles. While I jogged in Minnesota Park, vans pulled up to the curb and unloaded retarded people who sat around the picnic tables. Their confused eyes watched me jog by. It seemed the town was bent upon assisting the weak, the unfortunate, and yet….there was a disturbing, almost surreal quality to the inhabitants of Eagle Lake. A strange duo worked at the liquor store. One was short and bald, with a gray scraggly beard and a droopy face. His hands shook when he gave me change, and when he walked, always puffing on a cigarette, he wobbled and leaned to his left. I nicknamed him Clubfoot. His associate was tall and bald, and wore jeans with suspenders pulled up to his chest. The jeans earned him the nickname, Hotpants. His light-blue loomed apologetic through thick-lenses. Night after night, I came up to the checkout counter with a six-pack and, every time, Hotpants asked, speech slow and slurred, “Is this it?” Finding myself unusually irate, every night I wanted to scream, “Hey Dickbrain! This is it!” But I didn’t, as Hotpants seemed innocent in his need to know. So I grumbled yes, and he rang the cash and packed the beer. As I walked out, Hotpants returned to wiping down dusty wine bottles, his hands cradling the damp rag. In slow motion, he fondled the bottles. Much of the population seemed disadvantaged in one way or another, and many were morbidly obese. They walked by, eyes cast to the ground, and never did I see anyone smile.

27 Meanwhile, church bells never far away chimed people to prayer and devotion to the Lord. Reviewing the phone book, I counted forty-seven churches advertising their services.

On Saturday, Rachel and I met for dinner at a Mexican restaurant tucked away behind the movie theater. She wore black jeans and a red T-shirt, hair tucked in a ponytail. But for a touch of lipstick, she wore no makeup. “How do you stay so youthful?” I asked. “Good diet and lots of prayer.” “I see. . . . ” “What’s wrong, Ted? You seem distracted.” Rachel reached across the table and caressed my fingers. “I’m not sure. Something about this town is weird.” “How so?” The waitress served strawberry margaritas. I told her about the people I’d seen walking the streets and how no one smiled. “It’s like they’re catatonic. And I’ve never seen more retarded, crippled, and obese people in my life.” “We do have many disadvantaged people in Eagle Lake,” Rachel said. “But it’s because God has sent them here—where they can be protected.” Then she laughed, “Pearl likes you. She thinks you’re a good teacher.” “She’s the smartest of the bunch,” I said, and then asked, “How come they have school prayer?”

28 “Paul Sudick suggested it and everyone agreed.” I huffed. “I don’t like him, and he doesn’t like me. He’s weird.” Rachel frowned. “No, he’s not. He’s a good man of faith.” I frowned. “And what’s that ‘God bless’ crap he says every time he leaves? What happened to ‘Take care,’ or ‘See you around?’” “He’s only trying to share his love,” Rachel said softly. “Love, my ass,” I said. Enchiladas were served, but I suddenly wasn’t hungry. The beautiful woman across from me was far removed from my sensibilities. “Why don’t you marry him?” I said. “That’s not nice of you to say.” Rachel frowned and dimmed the sparkle in her blue eyes. “I bet if we got married, you’d insist I get baptized.” “Ted, darling,” Rachel softly said and caressed my palm. “Why are you doing this? What’s wrong?” How was I going to explain Uncle Misha’s endless morass, which continued to haunt me? How does one negate the faith of another? Then I spoke heresy: “I don’t like religion, and I don’t like people who insist they know God better than others.” Rachel was quiet while we ate. It was a sad, uncomfortable silence, one that denied me the only person in town I cared for. But in my heart of hearts, I knew our romance couldn’t work. How could I embrace her, knowing she prays to a false god? How could I share my ideas about man’s myth-based spirituality? I broke the silence. “I realize we walk different paths.”

29 “So we do. But I will pray for you,” Rachel said. “Spare me the prayer—” I said, but she ignored me, “You are an angry man, Ted Cole, but I see the beauty in your soul. One day you’ll trust me enough to join me in prayer.” Misha in my thoughts, I frowned, “Don’t count on it.” We left the restaurant and stood silently on the street. Then Rachel pecked my cheek and said, “I hope to hear from you.” She walked off, perfume lingering until it did no more.

Returning home very distraught, I walked in and stood apprehensively in the living room. A musky scent permeated the room, one I could not place. I ran down the stairs and knocked on the manager’s door. To my inquiry, Suzan said that neither she nor any maintenance or utility person had entered my apartment. I believed her and ran back up the stairs. The scent still lingered but was quickly dissipating by the breeze swirling through the open door. I checked my journal to discover that the single hair I always put under its front cover was gone. I walked throughout the apartment, like a nervous doe smelling for predators, when I decided the scent was a man’s cologne. I rushed to the drugstore and clandestinely opened every kind of cologne and aftershave available on the shelves, but could not identify the scent in any of them. I spent a very depressing evening. A claustrophobic haze engulfed me. I wanted to pack my bags and escape town, but instead walked to the liquor store, where bought a twelve-pack and then drank myself to sleep.

30 * * *

Three weeks since becoming the teacher of room ten, my reality obscured by anger and fear, my romance with Rachel but a memory, I was rescued daily by questions put to me by my students–a reflective and critical crowd, and their leader was Pearl—an inquisitive and generous child. But even that sanctuary didn’t last much longer. One day, while discussing division—a subject challenging to the fray—Pearl asked, “Why don’t you like Jesus?” Rachel reincarnated in her eyes, I was offended by her suspicious tone of voice. I bitterly recalled the demise of my love for her grandmother, and said, “Jesus was a good man, I think. But now, people are using his message to hurt other people.” The class settled into a dissatisfied murmur, but I continued, “It’s all lies! Everything is lies! None of these people who tell you to pray has a clue of what’s really happening!” My anger rose and I was about to bellow my discontent, when Misha grabbed my wrist. “What are you doing? You’re scaring the poor children.” I bit my lip and turned to Pearl. “Maybe it’s a subject we can discuss in history class.” “What’s history?” chimed the voice of a freckled boy in the back. Grateful for the line cast to rescue me, I began a discussion about history, but like a drowning man clutching straws, I felt the ground slipping away beneath my feet.

31 After the children had gone home, I retired to the teacher’s lounge where, in solitude, I sat at a table, sipped a cup of coffee, and read the L.A. Times. On its front page was a huge photo of the new pope—Cardinal Ratzinger, the first German to claim the papacy since the eleventh century, and whose name as the 265th pope was to be Benedict XVI. Seventy-eight years old, he was a staunch conservative and against condoms, contraception, abortion, masturbation, homosexuality, divorce, marriage for priests, and women becoming priests. As a teenager, in Nazi Germany, he joined the Hitler Youth movement, one that was not compulsory. Dark as the darkest ages, he claimed in writing that Roman Catholicism was superior to other religions. It was easy to picture him sitting on Torquemada’s throne and casting men women and children into dark, damp dungeons where squeaking rats and two-inch cockroaches thrived, and where the innocent languished until they died. Even his name, Ratzinger, rang malicious and rodent-like. Misha came to stand over me, his brown, tragic eyes narrowed at the photograph. Then he lunged at the page and screamed, “Let me at this Nazi rat!” I tried to pry the newspaper out of his trembling hands, but his grip was powerful and his long bony fingers ripped the pages to shreds that fell to the floor. “What are you doing?” Paul Sudick stood in the doorway, eyes narrowed at the torn pages littering the floor. God Bless bent down to pick up the pieces, when he recognized the mutilated photograph. His eyes darkened with rage. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

32 I swallowed hard and was about to walk out, when the scent that had violated my apartment tinged the air. It was coming from God Bless. I pointed at him and screamed, “You broke into my apartment.” He looked up defiantly and calmly said, “You’re out of your mind,” but I could see the slight hesitation in his eyes. “I can smell your cologne, it’s the same one. How dare you invade my home?” “How dare you mutilate the Holy Father!” he shot back. We continued screaming at each other and would have come to blows were it not for Julia Morris who came rushing in. “What on God’s good earth is taking place here?” she cried and came to stand between us. Respectful of her dimensions, Sudick and I backed off. I had never been angrier and more scared in my life. My heart threatened to leap out of my chest. I grabbed my bag and stormed out, down the stone stairway to the street below, where I took off running, my mind in desperate disarray.

In great need to escape Eagle Lake, I was packing when the phone rang. I decided to let the machine answer, but when Rachel’s sensual voice filled the air, I took the call. “Ted, is that you?” “Yes, hi Rachel.” I was happy she called. “What’s wrong, Ted? You sound terrible.” “I’m right in the middle of packing. I’m leaving.” “What? But why? Pearl is so impressed with you, and the other kids are too. Why are you leaving?”

33 “This place is weird. It’s too religious, and they say prayers in school, and there are too many churches, and it’s too much!” “Calm down, Ted, please. Don’t leave. You’re a nice man, and you have a good heart. Can I please come over? We can have coffee and talk.” Her silky voice reminded me of her soft lips and the best kiss I’d ever had.

Three hours later, after Rachel had arrived, and after we had coffee and talked, and after we kissed, and after we made passionate love, we were resting in bed, when her warm hand caressed me and aroused me once again. I was lying on my back. Rachel mounted me. Her soft thighs squeezed my hips. Submerged in passion, I yearned to kiss her when I saw the red tinge in her eyes. Her lips curled up to show the fangs of a vampire. Rachel recognized my fear and quickly leaned in to bite my neck, but I struggled from under her and jumped off the bed. “Don’t be afraid, Ted. I will satisfy you for eternity,” Rachel said in a hoarse whisper and flashed her fangs in a deranged smile. I grabbed my laptop and lunged at her. She raised her arms to fend me off but I hit her across the forehead. A gash squirted blood. Rachel collapsed on the bed. I ran to the kitchen and returned with a big cutting knife that I lunged repeatedly into her chest and stomach. Rachel was dead and the bed was soaked with blood when I cut through bone, dismembering her arms and legs and then decapitating her. All the while, I growled, Misha beside me snickering with deranged joy. “Kill them all. Kill them all!”

34 Rachel’s body lay carved up on the bed. The walls and carpets were stained with blood and peeling flesh. The stench was hideous. I heaved. Then I was calm. I showered, changed my clothes, and went to the store where I bought black plastic bags. I returned to the apartment and stuffed the body parts into the plastic bags. I carted the bags to my car and put them in the trunk. I decided to dump Rachel’s body in the hills north of Eagle Lake and then go back to the apartment where I would tear out the rugs and wipe down the walls. Then, I’d leave town, never to be seen again. It was now clear to me that meeting Rachel at the store was planned, and that she worked in cahoots with God Bless. Knowing I was about to leave town, she was ordered to stop me. They assumed that I’d be tempered by her passion, that I’d stay and be lulled into submission, conversion, and cavorting with the devil. But I was smarter and more perceptive than they’d anticipated.

It was almost midnight. I was driving on the freeway when the highway patrol came up behind me, lights flashing with impatient authority. Resigned to my fate, I pulled over. The policeman came up to my window, shone his flashlight in my face, and said, “You were swerving. Have you been drinking?” “No, officer,” I calmly said. “Can I see your license and registration?” he asked. I felt in my jacket and then said, “I left it at home.” “Sir, please step out of the car.” The officer was now tense and suspicious.

35 I stood docile as he searched me. Then he opened the trunk and shone his flashlight into it. Waiting for the officer to gasp, I held my breath and shut my eyes, but he ignored the plastic bags dripping blood. He shut the trunk and asked who I was. “Ted Cole,” I said, bewildered by his behavior. The officer searched his database and then testily inquired, “Where do you live, Mr. Cole?” “Eagle Lake.” The officer’s eyes darkened. “Eagle Lake? Never heard of it.” “I beg your pardon, officer. Eagle Lake is off the 605 freeway, between Whittier and Norwalk—” “No, it’s not, and you’re driving a stolen vehicle, so shut the fuck up. You’re driving a vehicle that’s been reported stolen two days ago.” “That’s ridiculous,” I cried. “I’ve had this car for ten years, and I’ve done no wrong.” “The car is registered to Janice Cohen,” the cop said, “and you’re under arrest for driving a stolen vehicle and driving without a license.” I didn’t resist being handcuffed and placed in the back seat of the squad car. Somehow subdued within the panic, I spent the night in the Whittier County jail. Come morning, I was eating breakfast when a stout, frizzy-haired woman with blue and happy eyes entered my cell and said, “Hello, Theodore. How are you?” Relief washed over me as I recognized her voice. “Hello, Dr. Cohen.”

36

The Asylum

Dr. Cohen pulled up the one chair in the cell and joined me. I sat on the bunk, dressed in an orange jumpsuit, a tray of jail food before me. She crinkled her forehead. “Don’t eat that,” and emptied her bag—pistachio nuts, carrot juice, and a pack of chocolate wafers. I devoured a dozen wafers. They tasted familiar. Then I drank carrot juice and settled into cracking pistachio nuts. Dr Cohen was also enjoying the nuts and asked, “Who am I?” “Janice Cohen, my therapist.” Janice smiled. “That’s good, Theodore, now tell me what happened.” Feeling at ease in her presence, I told Janice about Eagle Lake and all the frightening events that followed. Janice sipped on the carrot juice, ate a wafer, and then asked, “Do you trust me?” “Of course.” The stout woman pushed back her chair. She came to stand by the tiny window that opened to a neon-lit corridor, and asked, “Why are you here?” “Because I stole your car, but I also killed Rachel.” “The car you did steal,” Janice said, “but you didn’t kill anyone.” I covered my head with my arms and pulled on the sparse hair on my scalp, and when I caught my breath, she sternly said, “You didn’t kill anyone. Why do you think they didn’t find the body?”

37 “I don’t know,” I groaned and lay on my bunk. The room swirled around me and I needed to shut my eyes. Dr. Cohen leaned in and wiped my sweaty brow. “You hurt no one, Theodore. You hurt no one at all.” Her voice was ripe with empathy. I wept in relief. “You’re right. The officers found nothing, and now I am here. What happened?” “You escaped.”

Janice then paced the cell and explained that my name was indeed Theodore Kolinovich, but that Ted Cole was a figment of my tortured imagination, as was the whole event of Eagle Lake. She calmly insisted that, over the last thirty years, the years I believed I was a school teacher, I had really been a resident in a psychiatric hospital. I suffered from severe paranoid schizophrenia, Janice said, which I had contracted when I was a young man. I have been locked away since then. I was given electroconvulsive treatments and prescribed psychotropic drugs with no apparent success in alleviating my condition. “But two years ago,” the doctor said and stopped pacing, “we started working with a new drug that did wonders for you. I was able to release you from solitary and return you to the general population. You were even participating in group discussions.” Lying on the musty mattress, I rubbed my eyes with frustration. I couldn’t remember anything of what Janice Cohen was talking about. “What happened?” I finally asked.

38 Dr. Cohen sat in the chair and shrugged. “I’m not sure. It seems that, quite suddenly, the medication stopped working. . . .” Her eyes hardened and she fired, “Did you stop taking the medication?” Seeing the lost expression in my eyes, Janice lowered her voice and said, “Since you were doing so well, we let you walk the hospital grounds on your own. I guess you figured a way to scale the fence and steal my car—which you knew I don’t lock, and that I leave the keys in the glove compartment because I don’t carry a purse.” I groaned. “How long have I been away?” “Three days.” I sat up and cried, “Three days? How’s that possible? I was in Eagle Lake for almost a month.” “Calm down, Theodore,” Janice said and explained that I’d suffered an acute attack that resulted in hallucinations that stretch time longer than it really is. “It’s like running a video in fast forward.” I slumped on the bed. “I can’t remember anything that happened before Eagle Lake.” “That’s to be expected,” Janice said gently. “Once back at the hospital, the environment will trigger memories of your past.” I sighed. “What about Uncle Misha? Was he also a hallucination?” “No. Uncle Misha is part of your real past. He died when you were fourteen.” I was greatly relieved. I so wanted Misha to be real. I so loved his bony fingers curled with anger, his bushy eyebrows converged with rage, his tenor shaking with profound authority—judging the human race for each and every evil act committed.

39 But he wasn’t inside my head anymore and, as much as I tried to recall him, Misha stayed away. “Misha didn’t like Eagle Lake,” I told the doctor who sighed, “Misha didn’t like much of anything. Misha survived Auschwitz in body but not in soul.” I frowned. “Can you blame him? Would you survive carting corpses to the ovens and smelling human flesh burning?” “I have no answer to that question, Theodore. But I know that his malaise left you, his nephew, with profound scars.” “But I love him,” I cried. I tried to remember the rest of my family. Who were my parents? Did I have siblings? Where did I live? “I can’t remember anything!” I cried. The woman with the frizzy hair and blue eyes sat on my bunk. She patted my shoulder. “Come, Theodore. Let’s get you out of here and back to the hospital. It’s been a terrifying few days for you. I promise that your memories will return and events will clear up.” Janice handed me a pill she fished out from her purse, “Take this. It will calm you.” Quickly released from custody I found myself walking with Janice toward her car —the one I drove in Eagle Lake, the one with Rachel’s dismembered body. As we drove away from the county jail and onto the freeway, a deep fatigue came over me….

40 The silencing of the engine woke me up. Janice smiled. “Welcome home.”

I saw a two-story building, lit through large windows, embraced by well-tended lawns, maple trees, and flower beds. I was reminded of Minnesota Park. I could easily see myself jogging the hospital grounds. “Do I like to jog?” I asked the therapist. “Jog? No. But that’s a wonderful idea.” “I want to start jogging.” My voice filled with longing conviction, I felt a tingling sense of self. “In Eagle Lake, I jogged every day. It felt good.” We entered the building and I was greeted with smiles from two nurses who stood behind the reception desk. “Hi, Theodore. How are you?” We walked down a long corridor. Left and right were large rooms with patients sitting at desks, playing board games. Some were clothed, others wore blue robes and pajamas. Some watched TV and a some stood by the windows over the yard and mumbled. Large men in white uniforms stood watch. We then climbed stairs to the second floor where a corridor lay, this one with individual rooms. The doors to the rooms were open, and maids were pushing trolleys stacked with bedding, towels, and toiletries. “Here we are,” Janice said as we came up to Room 32—a single bed covered with a dark blue quilt, light green curtains drawn to let in the sun casting rays on peachcolored walls, and two framed photos on the nightstand, Misha in one of them. I seized the frame with shaky hands. “Misha!” I cried to the doctor standing in the doorway.

41 Janice smiled, “See? You’re starting to remember.” The other photograph showed a man and a woman in their fifties, and a boy, about twelve. I identified myself as the boy, but couldn’t recognize the adults, who I assumed were my parents. Dr. Cohen said, “Don’t worry about it. You’ve had enough for one day.” In my room was a desk and a chair, and shelves stacked with folders and books. I opened one of the folders, filled with fastidious notations about a wide range of topics, the common thread being philosophical anthropology. “Your writings are sometimes quite poignant,” the doctor said, and I blushed with pride. I sat on the bed, opened one of the folders, and read what I had written. Janice Cohen stood by me and squeezed my shoulder. “I have work to do. Call the nurse if you need anything and take your medication. Will you be okay?” With gratitude and relief, I said, “I think I’m okay. Thanks for caring and for saving me.” “You’re welcome, Theodore.” Janice walked out to leave me sitting on my bed and reading about me:

I hate politicians, which, in today’s world is not an unusual statement or uncommon feeling. They are easy to loath, words bubbling with doublespeak and hollow rhetoric. Most people find the connection between the words ‘trust’ and ‘politician’ to be laughable at best, or outright insulting and infuriating. My disdain, however, goes far, far deeper than any description coined by words. It’s an abyss of rage that consumes me

42 daily. Unfortunately, by nature, I am compulsive and filled with self-loathing, and that abyss helps stoke the fires of my discontent. The more I hate, the more—like a moth to flame—I am drawn to the calamity and hellfire that breeds within the world of politics, feeding on its devil worshippers and charlatans of abusive power. And it’s not by chance that most politicians are lawyers—schooled in the art of twisting words. Trained to lie without remorse, their heart beats calmly as it would be they helping a blind man cross the street, which they never would unless it provided them with a photo-op to show their altruistic nature. Laws were written by men as a way to control power and wealth, and the writers of such laws navigate the labyrinth set up for them and them alone to take advantage of. With forked tongues, they swim in lawless waters, pinning down anyone with moral character. It’s really quite a catch: if someone feels responsible for people less fortunate than himself, he yearns to do something about it. Therefore—holding on to his good-willed intent and truth as a beacon, he says, “Let me run for office. That way I can instigate change, distribute funds in fair fashion, and help the common man.” Then he enters the stagnant pool of politics and has to confess, “I want to do good, and thus is my intent, and I will stay true to my vision but . . . if there is any chance for me to win—something I want to do only for the well-being of downtrodden masses— I will have to lie, for if I don’t, my opponent, one clearly supporting the devil’s horns, will win, and that will do no good, no good at all. Therefore, even though I promise what I can never keep and call my opponents by most vile of terms, I do so only for the collective good.”

43 He joins the forces he aims to challenge, needs to debase his opponent, so not to be shrugged off as a lesser candidate. “He’s too nice, and nice is weak.” The herd instinct rules as the masses converge to follow the wrong leaders. Confusing evil with strength, and lies with conviction, time and time again they fall into the same trap. And just when one nods in dismay at the lawyer-politicians, convinced human conduct could not possibly get any worse, it does, with the advent of lawyer-politiciansreligious fundamentalists, like the ones ruling the U.S. Endowed with divine conviction, they are ruthless, eyes twinkling with madness. They have tens of thousands of huge bombs, enough bombs to destroy the planet onehundred fold, but they keep making more. They have a dozen Trident submarines. Each one carries 24 nuclear missiles that, once in space, can separate and become 96 nuclear missiles. Each missile is assigned to a target, thus, one submarine can destroy the planet. But they have twelve. Submarines sail silently, nuclear engines for sails, thousands of men float beneath vast oceans, traversing pole to pole. The bombs are very dangerous, but what is more dangerous is the need to build them. They are but a manifestation of our amoebic thrust: shaped like penises, they penetrate virgin land and wreak havoc. I’d like to discuss the impulse that leads to the creation of the bombs, the one present in all men. If reviewed by any prominent psychiatrist, the analyst would quickly conclude that the Human Race was suffering from severe paranoid delusions. “For after all,” the doctor would expound, tempered and bassy voice rich with logic. “Why, as we speak, are twelve nuclear submarines traversing the ocean’s depths?”

44 The esteemed doctor would then reach for his pipe, stacked with aromatic Cuban tobacco. He would carefully light the pipe, letting the match (he would never consider using a lighter), soak into the moist herb. Satisfied with the plume of bluish smoke hazily obscuring his features, he would lean back in his chair and conclude, “Therefore, society, or mankind as a collective mind, is suffering from acute mental disease.” Proud in his statement, the analyst leans in and, with a knowing glance, eyebrows rising, admits, “There are no sane people. We’re all hopelessly insane. . . but, that’s okay, for we have no choice.”

I shut the notepad. I felt empathy for the writer, but I also knew that I—the new me, the one who’d survived Eagle Lake—could write it better. I was giggly. Maybe it was the medication, but I felt it was also because I wasn’t a murderer. I did not kill Rachel. Whatever evil and psychosis lurked in my brain they didn’t result in taking another life. I walked to the three-drawer cabinet and met with a wardrobe much like the one I had in Eagle Lake. Then I lay on my bed and watched the evening sun sparkle on the curtains. A knock sounded on my door. I tensed up at the thought of company, but the person knocked again and again, so finally I said, “Come in.” She was a woman in her mid-thirties, and I felt sad for her. I found her to be quite ugly, or if ugly is too harsh a word, I could say homely. The woman looked at me, squinty

45 blue eyes hidden behind thick lenses. “Hi Theodore,” she smiled and showed yellow buckteeth. “How are you? I was so worried about you.” She had a horse-shaped face and her pallor was deep, curly hair dry and streaked with gray. Her bra-less breasts, like ripe melons, hung down to her stomach and swooned as she walked. Although not obese like the people in Eagle Lake, she was fat and fit in comfortably with the loonies and misfits I’d seen walking the streets of uptown. I could easily imagine her carousing with Clubfoot and Hotpants. She noticed the vacant look in my eyes and asked, “What’s wrong?” “Who are you?” She pouted and sulked, “I’m Dorothy, your girlfriend.” I laughed. “I don’t think so!” Walking toward me, Dorothy froze in her tracks and started to cry. A woman crying is difficult for me to watch, but I didn’t know what to do. However crazy I might be, I decided, I’d never resort to kissing this woman. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you, but I don’t remember anything. I don’t remember ever living here, and I certainly don’t remember having a girlfriend.” Dorothy calmed a bit and wiped her tears. “Maybe I can help you remember. Come, Theodore, kiss me.” Dorothy shut her eyes and puckered her lips, but I lay on the bed and didn’t move. “Fine,” she cried. “If you don’t believe me, ask Joey.” “Who’s Joey?” Still crying, Dorothy left the room, but soon returned with a lanky and bald man in his forties. Of Italian or Spanish heritage, he had lively brown eyes. His face resembled

46 a hawk. A memory awakened, the man looked familiar. He carried a black cloth bag and nodded. “Hey, Theodore.” “You’re Joey?” I asked. The man rolled his eyes and then opened the cloth bag and took out a chess set. He placed it on the table and set up the pieces, at ease, like he’d done so many times. Then he brought out a quarter, flipped it in the air, caught it, and slammed it on the table. “Heads or tails?” I mumbled, “Tails.” Joey peeked under his palm and said, “Heads,” and quickly put the coin back in his pocket. “I pick white,” he said and pushed forward a pawn. Then he looked up at me and asked, “Are you playing or what?” “I don’t like to play chess.” I was troubled but also amused. Unlike with Dorothy whose beady eyes observed the exchange, I felt relaxed with Joey. He laughed. “Are you kiddin’ me? Stop being a yutz and play.” So I did. I knew the rules of chess, so it wasn’t completely farfetched that I could shuffle the pieces across the board, but I did so uninspired and quickly lost. Joey leaned back in his chair and asked, “What the fuck happened to you?” “I don’t know. I can’t remember. Dr. Cohen says I escaped.” “Well, we know that! But what did you do for three days on the outside?” I thought of relaying the Eagle Lake tale but knowing it was but a hallucination, lied. “Not much. Drove around, went to the beach, got laid.” “Got laid?” Joey cried with glee while the sobbing Dorothy ran out of the room. “She says she’s my girlfriend,” I snapped at the hawkish man. “Is that true?”

47 “Is the earth flat?” “Then she isn’t?” “In her mind, you’re her knight in shining armor.” “Why me?” “Because you’re Jewish or haven’t you noticed the Mogen David on her necklace?” Much like Uncle Misha felt—being fingered as a Jew, something he resented terribly—I declared, “Only my birth certificate says I’m Jewish. It was not my decision, and I rescind the ambiguous honor of being one of the chosen ones. I want to be Ted Cole.” “Who the fuck is Ted Cole?” Joey asked and set up the chess pieces. “Never mind,” I growled. Eyebrows rising, Joey asked, “Can we play now?” “Fine!”

A few days later, I remembered more about Joey’s identity—a staunch Roman Catholic. In his mind, one suffering from severe obsessive-compulsive disorder (unless taking his medication, Joey could spend hours trying to find the perfect location for salt and pepper shakers on a dinner table), there was no doubt as to the truth behind the Immaculate Conception. But he rarely discussed religion and it took my agnosticism to bring up the subject. Then he would sigh, “Let it go, Theodore. You’re foaming at the mouth again,” and I would quiet down and seethe through clenched teeth, “Whatever gets you through the night. . . .”

48 Joey could make me laugh like no one else. He had an infinite supply of jokes and powers of observation that rivaled mine, though without the cynicism. Joey was a happy kinda guy, street smarts overlapping an analytical brain, one that played chess as competently as many pros. Joey was in love with Dorothy: he longed to caress her frizzy hair and dreamed about fondling her sagging breasts. Dorothy liked Joey, but not “that way.” She wanted to be like a sister to him, and they were good friends—he forever ogling her breasts, and she, the princess in her ivory tower, ta-ta-ing the overzealous pursuant. Dorothy wanted me, and only me, to touch her, had been obsessed with me for two years, since she was admitted with multiple personality disorder aggravated by suicidal depression. “We’re like the three musketeers,” Joey said. “But you don’t remember?” Perched over the chessboard, again facing my king’s decapitation—Joey beat me every single miserly time—I said, “I’m starting to remember.”

A week passed before it seemed normal for the three of us to meet in each others’ rooms or hang out in the recreation center, watching a movie and eating chocolate wafers and crunching on pistachio nuts. My initial aversion to Dorothy was tempered. I remained physically turned off to her, but she was pretty cool and careful not to flaunt her affection for me. Dorothy was an Orthodox Jew. She spoke Hebrew and read the Old Testament. Unlike the nonjudgmental Joey, Dorothy had no respect for other forms of worship:

49 Christianity and Islam were watered-down and dangerous versions of divinity, and Eastern concepts like Buddhism never occupied her thoughts.

At the end of the first week back at the hospital, the memory of Eagle Lake starting to fade, Joey and me were playing chess in his room when he said, “You know why she won’t sleep with me?” “You’re not her type.” “Bullshit! I could rock her world. It’s because I’m not Jewish.” “Then maybe you should convert?” Joey’s hand, moving his queen, froze in midair. He looked up at me, his forehead wrinkled with surprise. “You’re right! How come I never thought of it before?”

That night, the three of us met in Joey’s room. It was softened by candlelight and Bill Evans jazzy piano. Dorothy frowned. “Why the candles?” “Because tonight is special,” the host said and offered her a chair. Then Joey knelt on one knee before her, clasped his palms and exclaimed, “I will become a Jew! For you, I shall become a Jew!” “That’s not funny, Joey,” his object of desire said and turned to me. “What shall I do with his persistent pursuit, Theodore? What shall I do?” Like Julia the school principal from Eagle Lake, Dorothy also spoke proper English, but sometimes her other personality, “Heather,” took over. Then she would

50 launch into the filthiest white-trash dialect and become a biker bitch. These outbursts had tempered off with time, and Joey liked her even then. “The man loves you,” I said. “He thinks that converting will bring him closer to you.” “But what about us, Theodore? What about us?” “There is no us, Dorothy.” It was quiet in the room; candles flickered; the open window sounded a lonesome cricket. “How can you abandon Jesus?” she asked Joey. “I’m not abandoning Jesus. He told me to do it.” “What did Jesus say?” “That I, like him, can be a Jew.” “Big deal,” Dorothy huffed, “What does Jesus know anyway? He’s a charlatan, a ripple in the divine ocean.” “Give Joey a break,” I said. “He wants to make you happy.” “And I want to make you happy,” Dorothy said, eyes clouding with tears. “Let’s play bridge,” Joey said. So we did. Combined with hot cocoa and a packet of wafers, it was pleasant enough. The evening ended without Dorothy’s consent, but neither did she oppose Joey’s foray. Joey thought it a good sign, and the next day contacted a conservative congregation and took the first step in his conversion. * * *

51

Janice Cohen removed her glasses, shaped her lips into a circle and blew on the lenses. They fogged up and she wiped them with a pink velvet cloth she took out from her desk drawer. We were sitting in her office, rather, she was sitting, and I was lying on a black leather couch. A Freudian analyst, Janice believed the patient more responsive when horizontal. “How do you feel?” She placed her glasses on the bridge of her nose, eyes shifting to adjust. “Joey’s converting,” I said. “And how does that make you feel?” I shrugged. “I think he’ll make a pretty good Jew.” “I agree,” Janice said. “And how does that make you feel?” I asked and we laughed. “Touché,” she said, “But really. How do you feel?” “I’m writing a lot.” “Good. What about?” “I wrote a story called ‘Fly on the Wall,’ about a guy who talks to a dead fly.” “I see. . . . and how does that make you feel?” “Good. It’s a decent, kooky tale.” The analyst brought out a bag of pistachios. She cracked one and asked, “Has uncle Misha been around?”

52 Misha had been conspicuously absent since my return to the hospital. Dr. Cohen attributed that to the once-again successful medication, and I suspected she was correct, but also knew that Misha found it difficult to rise from the dead to keep me company. He only came around when I was in a bind—his rage a prism to change. I trusted his judgment as to when he would elect to show up. I tilted my head back so I could look into her eyes, and asked, “Can you tell me about my past, my parents?” “I’d be happy to.” I took a deep breath and tried to relax on the black leather couch.

I was an only child to Benjamin and Matilda Kolinovich. My mother was fortytwo when she had me—an event that caught my parents completely by surprise, as they had given up on conception after trying for fifteen years. My parents were lucky enough to escape the USSR before the Germans opened the Eastern front. They arrived in the U.S. in 1939. They lived in Brooklyn, where my father, a chemist, worked in a drugstore, and my mother, a math teacher, tutored youngsters. It was a simple life, but they were thankful, knowing the atrocities they had been spared by escaping Europe. In 1946, they were joined by Uncle Misha, my mother’s brother. Four years later, I was born. I was a pampered child. My parents considered my birth a miracle. Daily, my mother cradled me in her arms and exclaimed, “Look at you! My beautiful baby boy!” Then she wiped a tear and, with reverence, changed my soiled diaper.

53 Yes. I was loved, maybe too much, the analyst said. I might have turned out okay were it not for Misha and his morass permeating my daily existence. My parents worked long hours, so he was my sitter much of my childhood. “Maybe Misha screwed me up,” I said, “but I love him more than anyone.” Janice shrugged. “Sometimes our captors become objects of adulation. It’s a way to accept and appease them.” Her eyes hardened. “Adults are so callous with children. I know Misha was a shell of a man, but it doesn’t justify anything he did to you.” Fearful of her wrath, I changed the subject. “Did you know the U.S. has more people incarcerated—726 inmates for every 100,000 residents—then any other country on the face of the earth? Sixty-one percent are ethnic minorities. Fifteen percent of all black men in their twenties are locked up.” “It doesn’t surprise me,” Janice said. “The U.S. is a cruel and greedy place.” I told her about the essay I’d written about nuclear submarines and how the White House, congress, and senate were run by white southern evangelical men—George Bush, Bill Frist, and Tom DeLay. “How come they’re not locked up? They’re delusional and very dangerous. I bet they’ve caused more damage and death than any patient in this hospital, or any poor black man who’s caught with a gram of crack and goes to jail for a year.” Janice tapped her pen three times on her desk. “Other people believe they are sane. Hitler and Stalin were deranged but were able to rule. For that matter, throughout history, most emperors and kings were clinically insane.” “How can I afford to stay in this hospital?” I asked. “I don’t have any money.”

54 “The German government is paying for your stay. It’s from Misha’s holocaust reparation fund.” I sat up and gaped like a fish thrashing on land. Irony so devious, I had no words to express my disgust. The doctor looked on with raised eyebrows. Sweat broke on my brow when I asked, “Will I ever be able to leave here?” Janice Cohen shrugged. “I don’t know. Do you want to leave?” I didn’t. I feared the world lurking beyond the well-tended hospital grounds, a world far crazier than any mental asylum. * * *

Perched over the chessboard in Joey’s room, I asked, “Did you meet with the Rabbi?” It had been a month since Joey decided to convert, and the process was going well. The congregation didn’t even bat an eye at the fact the request came from an asylum. The synagogue sent back reading materials regarding the necessary requirements for one to become Jewish, and Joey delved into studies. He donned a yarmulke, did his Tefilin daily, read the Old Testament cover to cover, and began to study Hebrew. Dorothy was the only one who knew Hebrew and, though skeptical of his motives, could not in clear conscious turn down a student so diligent and intuitive. Thus, the two spent more time alone than usual. “I did,” Joey said and boxed one of my pawns. “And . . . ?”

55 He grinned, hawkish face sinister in smile, “Very soon, I will be Jewish.” Joey said that Rabbi Jacob was a kind man. Hearing Joey’s reasons to convert, he agreed that finding one’s partner in life is something God wants us very much to do. He then requested, if at all possible, to meet the woman involved. A flutter in her step, Dorothy entered and addressed Rabbi Jacob in Hebrew. They carried on for a while, and even opened the Torah at a particular passage to discuss a Talmudic reference. Rabbi Jacob then said to Joey, “You are right my friend. Dorothy is indeed a virtuous woman. She understands your desire for her and is not opposed to it, provided she knows, in no uncertain terms, that your devotion to Elohim ascends the wants of the flesh.” “It does, it does,” Joey assured the Rabbi and eyed Dorothy’s breasts. “Very well.” the Rabbi rose from the chair. “Complete your reading and essays and, if all is well, we shall soon convene to welcome you into our congregation.”

“That’s great!” I congratulated my friend. “You bet it is!” He held his thumb and forefinger sparsely apart. “I’m this close to getting laid!” As for me, I was meditating on Anaxagoras, the Greek philosopher and his notion of endless time and an infinite universe—the notion that so intrigued Nicholas of Cusa, and which he had voiced at the Basel conference—only to be sternly rebuffed by the church apparatus insisting on retaining its claim upon divinity.

56 That was 600 years ago, yet, even recently, I’d witnessed the church still thriving —one pope die and another rise to prominence. I remembered his funeral, the cardinals— dressed in red satin gowns and rectangular hats. They stood in procession, lips tightly pursed, their claim to God as ambiguous as the one voiced by the first caveman barking at the stars. Every single one of the cardinals was a charlatan, a fake, an earthly attempt to embrace the Lord, an empty shell of ignorance. Benedict XVI, of shallow compassion, autocratic, and brimming with warped views of humanity, would no doubt infuriate the master. Let Jesus rise from the dead! Let him see what has been done to his love. Let him judge the men dressed in satin gowns who litter the path he tried to reveal. Let him see how wars, famine, torture, and death have taken place in his name. Surely, he would fall to his knees and once again lament. “Forgive them, father, for they know not what they do.” But that’s just not good enough anymore! I knew that Jesus’ last words were invented and written 250 years after his death, by a committee assigned by Constantine, the emperor ruling the eastern part of the Roman Empire and whose throne was in Constantinople—or what is today Istanbul. Ruling over the Middle East and parts of Europe, the emperor took a liking to the underground movement—one that spoke of Jesus, whose name comes from the Hebrew word Yeshua—salvation. But when Constantine decided to convert, he found an abysmal amount of text to back up his religious conviction, and then assigned a committee of scholars who, knowing next to nothing about Jesus, proceeded to write the gospel.

57 And it worked, except for the fact that other committees did the same, and now there are four versions, with people reading one version vehemently disagreeing with any other. So, in accordance with Anaxagoras, I vow allegiance to a timeless and infinite universe and, in doing so, reject my body—the cumbersome earthly vessel inhabited by my eternal spirit. Flimsily sheltered in the baby’s body, Spirit struggles with the earthly and sometimes becomes Hitler and Stalin, Sharon and Saddam, Pope Benedict and George W Bush. Each was once a divine child, and look what they have become: timeless, infinite souls crushed into evil flesh and bones. I will forever wonder about the source that sent me—bloody and disoriented, screaming and scared, shooting out of a warm womb—into the physical hell of life.

As per Dr. Cohen’s files, my final decent into mental disarray came on April 30, 1975. By then, I’d already become withdrawn and prone to anxiety, but no one, myself included, knew of the calamity lurking in my subconscious. Misha had been dead for a decade and little was mentioned about him around the dinner table. My mother was sixtyseven, and my father, in ill health, decades of smoking ravaging his lungs, was seventy. I had been a good student in high school but resisted formal education after graduating— opting to design my own courses while living at home, and aiding my aging parents who worried about me. They wanted me to take advantage of my analytical mind and become a doctor, or teacher, but I was weary of crowds and the pressures of academia, which I found hypocritical and manipulative.

58 My disintegration exploded with a nightmare. I was a Jew in Poland, and the Nazis had invaded. It was the dead of winter and the dead of night, and I was trudging through a field covered with a thick layer of frozen snow. My feet were freezing in torn boots; I couldn’t feel my toes. My breath labored and wheezing, I fought for air, but little came. My legs, buried to the knees in snow, I struggled for balance. Then, from afar, but closing in, I heard the dogs bark, and saw the flashlights. As much as I tried to outrun them, I could not prevent them from gaining on me—the dogs snarling, the soldiers barking in German staccato. “Where is that slimy Jew?” they yelled, and the dogs howled, and I, fatigued and cold beyond resistance, lay in the snow and awaited death. The soldiers let loose the dogs, and they attacked me. One lunged into my left calf, but I felt nothing, and the other went for my head. I shielded my head with my arms. The dog bit on my hands and elbows, its rancid breath steaming in the freezing air. The soldiers stood laughing, letting the dogs bite off chunks of my frozen flesh. Then one of the soldiers swung me up to my feet. He placed his pistol in my open mouth, and snarled, “Die, filthy Jew!” He pulled the trigger and my head exploded.

The relief that accompanies one waking from a nightmare, secure once again in one’s bed, did not come. Instead, even though I recognized my surroundings and felt my limbs free of dog bites, and even though my head was still intact, I knew the Nazis were on my trail and would soon be breaking down the door of our Brooklyn apartment. Barefoot and wearing only briefs and T-shirt, I escaped the apartment and ran down to the street where I ran and ran, my mind clenched by massive fear. I was approached by the Brooklyn P.D., a few miles away from my home, but I was certain

59 they were Germans, and when they tried to corner me, I lunged at them. Kicking and biting, I growled with rage, until one of them laid into me with his baton. I passed out on the pavement. I awoke in a jail cell. Knowing the Germans had captured me, and that I’d soon be transported to Auschwitz where I’d be carting bodies from the showers to the furnaces, was too much to bear. I decided to die, and started banging my head against the metal bars. Deputies came running and subdued me. I was sent to a facility where I remained sedated. In my foggy reality, I knew that the Nazis were experimenting on my brain. I hallucinated about Dr. Mengele who pried open human heads while his subjects were still alive and peered inside their skulls to see how the brain reacted to impending death. He smiled at me, his cold blue eyes twinkling with insanity. Thus, I remained for years in a suicidal rage, oblivious to my parents who came to visit. They died in guilty misery. Doctors came and went, drugs were administered, and then electro-convulsive treatments, as my frontal cortex was assaulted in an attempt to erase from my mind the tortured Jew lying helpless in a snowy field in Poland. ***

“And now, you’re here,” Janice Cohen concluded the account of my unfortunate life. I was lying on the black leather couch. I couldn’t remember anything, but I trusted her completely, and within that lay acceptance and hope. “So, in a way, it kinda worked out,” I said.

60 “It would be nice if you can see it that way,” she said. “You’re only fifty-five, and you’ve never been better. Maybe now would be the time to make sense of it all.” “Maybe,” I dared to agree. “I have another bit of news that may interest you,” the analyst confided. “What is it?” By the tone of her voice, I knew it was good. “You have a daughter. Her name is Naomi. She’s thirty-four and doing well. You also have grandchildren, Benjamin, or Benny, he’s six, and Sarah, she’s nine.” Holy Silence lingered as the doctor withdrew to polishing her lenses. And then I wept, like never before. God’s kindness and bliss reaching deep into my heart, I was finally one with endless time and an infinite universe.

In 1972, while living in Berkeley—a short, unsuccessful attempt I had made at mingling with academic society—I also had a brief affair with Beth Williams, an older woman of thirty-five. It lasted but a couple of weeks, maybe a month, after which I fled the West Coast to return to my parent’s apartment in Brooklyn. I left behind a pregnant woman—one thrilled with the fact. She also sensed that I was unreliable and would not make a good father, so never divulged the pregnancy to me. As Naomi matured, so did her curiosity about her biological father and, when she came of age, she went searching for me. By then I was forty-four. She visited me a few times and, though I wasn’t responsive, Dr. Cohen said that it helped Naomi understand her past and why she had been abandoned. On her last visit, my daughter held my hand and said, “I forgive you, dad,” but I could only share a confused smile, my brain twitching with anxiety. Naomi then got

61 married, had two kids, got divorced, and was now back in Berkeley, teaching chemistry at a local high school.

The analyst concluded her monologue about my daughter and leaned back in her chair. I wiped the grateful tears from my face and wondered if I could meet my family. “I don’t know,” Janice said. “It’s up to Naomi. I’ll contact her and put in a good word, and you should write her a letter.” My heart beat joyously. “I’ll do so right away, doctor,” I said and, light as a feather, sprung to my feet. “Excellent,” Janice said, and walked me to her office door. Standing in the doorway, she squeezed my shoulder and said, “We’re doing it together, Theodore. We’re doing it together.” “Yes, Doctor,” I said, and was on my way to room 32 where I sat at my desk and, with trembling hands, wrote to my daughter. It was a twenty-two page letter that underwent a dozen revisions. One version finished, it would be read by the doctor who offered suggestions, and then by Dorothy and Joey who were kind enough to take time from their intense tutoring schedule and offer their advice. For six days, I chiseled away at the most important words I had ever written and, by week’s end—though still picky about one coma or another—I was content with the results. Dr. Cohen had spoken with Naomi. My daughter promised to read the letter and respond, even if by opting not to rekindle our past.

62 I wrote to her about Uncle Misha and the profound effect his misery had had on my life, and about Benjamin and Matilda, the loving and gentle grandparents she never got to meet. I told her about the electroshock treatments and about the padded cell. I told her how finding out I was a father, even if the worst one on earth, had solidified my faith in a compassionate entity and had bridged the abyss of philosophical anthropology. I was now more humane then ever, I wrote, and have never had more reason to heal. “I now know that I will, not too long from now, leave this hospital and find my way in the real world. And I owe my recovery to you, whether you choose to acknowledge me or not—I owe it all to you.” I concluded the letter, and signed it, “Your loving father, Theodore.”

And thus began the most lucid and happy part of my life. I awakened with purpose, jogged the hospital grounds, and spend the days reading, or with my friends, or on the black leather couch. I even joined group discussions, as I realized that life on the outside would require improved communication skills on my part. Two weeks later, a letter arrived from Naomi. My letter had made her cry, she wrote, and she was thrilled by the steps I was taking toward recovery. She promised to visit soon and enclosed photos of herself and Benny and Sarah. I placed them on my nightstand and spent long minutes caressing them with my eyes. Naomi was tall and thin, with shoulder length blondish brown hair and blue eyes. She was feminine but every bit the modern emancipated woman. No words could describe the pride that welled up in my heart. And my grandchildren were the first ray of

63 sun to emerge from a long winter, striking the melting snow with warmth and hope, with life and light, smiles sweet, divinity beyond doubt. Naomi wrote that she was planning to visit the last week of June, after the school year ended. That was a six weeks away and would coincide with Joey’s final step to conversion, an event we all looked forward to.

There are three levels to the road one takes when opting to become a Jew. The first is Bet Din—religious court—as when Joey first met with Rabbi Jacob. Usually, in the conservative congregation Joey hoped to join, the applicant would be grilled by a committee of three Rabbis as to his intent. Dorothy was surprised to see only one arrive, but Rabbi Jacob assured her that, because of the unusual circumstances, the council decided that only he, Rabbi Jacob would be dispatched. Proving his academic diligence, Joey graduated to level 2 of the conversion—a very touchy subject—and I mean that in a most anatomical way: circumcision. Rabbi Jacob asserted that even though the council of elders he reported to was traditional, they all nonetheless recognized the wisdom in accepting the applicant without having to perform the procedure. After all, the Rabbi said, Joey was approaching fifty, and even the strictest of protocol should be tempered by circumstances. Having said that, Rabbi Jacob looked to Dorothy for approval. Again, as she had felt when the full panel didn’t arrive to question her beau, Dorothy was confused, maybe even upset and doubting her self-worth, but when she looked in Rabbi Jacob’s warm eyes, she agreed and said that if Joey’s love for Elohim was pure, surely a bit of foreskin shouldn’t get in the way.

64 But Joey insisted on going through with the circumcision, which in my linguistic mind correlated with the word circumstance, and I wondered if it was for any good reason or purely circumstantial. “Why?” the Rabbi asked. “It’ll help me get closer to Elohim,” the applicant lied and stayed steadfast, even after a private council with Dorothy.

“Of course it’s necessary,” Joey later told me over a game of chess and pistachio nuts. “I want to have sex with Dorothy all the time, day and night. I want her to worship my penis, but it won’t work if she’s constantly peeling away my foreskin. No. When she witnesses my penis, its head must be shaven to prove my unconditional love and the sacrifice I made to win her heart.” Though he hurt for a week, Joey was soon back to his routine—masturbating four to six times a day. Dorothy was impressed with his dedication to the conversion process, but showed her approval only in subtle ways. Maybe it would be a glance unlike any other, or the writhing of her shoulder like a fluttering butterfly. Joey soaked in each iota of her moves and knew he was ever more close to the prize. The third stage to conversion is the Tvillah, or Mikveh—the Immersion—when the applicant reclines in water, be it a stream, an ocean, a lake or, in Joey’s case, the wading pool in the recreation area. It was then, with the witnessing of three Jewish males —the Rabbi, myself, and Dr. Rubin—that Joey would complete his conversion.

65 Discussing the upcoming Immersion, Dorothy surprised everyone by suggesting that when the Mikveh was finished, Joey now a Jew, there was no point in postponing the nuptials. “After all,” she said. “The Rabbi is already witness, and friends and family will be attending, so it makes it easy for everyone to celebrate two occasions linked by Elohim’s blessing.” The Rabbi agreed, and I did too, as did Dr. Cohen. We then turned our eyes on Joey. He cleared his throat and, with Dorothy’s ample breasts but an Immersion away, said, “I think it’s a good idea.” Thus it was settled that, on June 26, Dorothy and Joey would be married. My daughter Naomi was to attend, as were Dorothy’s parents, and Joey’s nephew. Janice Cohen would be present, as would two students in the rabbinical order of the synagogue.

In the serenity of sitting across each other in a game of chess, I mentioned to Joey that I knew. “You know what?” He placed his rook where I would forfeit a pawn. “You know what! And Janice knows, too. Not that we mind.” Encouraged by Rabbi Jacob, Dorothy was advised to shed her virginal veil, if not in allowing penetration, at least in touch confirming her passion for Joey. Nodding in agreement with her unyielding and stealthy approach, Rabbi Jacob nonetheless mentioned that virtue was tied to the flesh—a ritual speared by Elohim.

66 Dorothy decided to approach the subject of sex much in the same way she taught Hebrew. One evening, while tutoring Joey, she mentioned, as she would the letter gimel, “My earlobes are sensitive. Perhaps you should lick them.” A yarmulke’d Joey obliged. As Dorothy reclined on her bed, he searched for the tender spot on her left ear, and he found it. Dorothy moaned and, in that moan, the brideto-be approved of the marriage. Oceans of options became available. The rules were simple: no penetration, no violation, but within the stifling dogma lay a wealth to explore, and explore they did, neighbors privy to Dorothy’s moan reaching through the walls. Joey beamed. “Jesus has shown me the way.” Hopelessly defending my queen, I knew Jesus had indeed saved Joey. It wasn’t a Jesus I believed in, and certainly not the one associated with Benedict XVI, but it was the link—like the one I now had with Naomi—condensing body and spirit into pure love and divine worship. * * *

“Did you know that Cinco de Mayo is also the official day of the liberation of Auschwitz?” I said. It was May 5, 2005, and I was reclined on the black leather couch in Dr. Cohen’s office. “Sixty years ago Russian troops entered the camp abandoned by the Germans, and found the few emaciated survivors, ribs protruding, stomachs puffy with parasites, eyes filled with sorrow and horror beyond words.”

67 “I wasn’t aware of that,” the analyst said. “How does that make you feel?” I shrugged. “Not much.” “And how does that make you feel?” she pressed, knowing I was lying. “Not very good. I realize the inherent callousness we all possess. We all die alone.” “And how does that make you feel?” “Sad. My grandchildren won’t even shed a tear when I’m dead. Maybe Naomi won’t either.” “And?” “Do you think anyone cried when Misha died?” I asked. Janice shrugged, her narrowed eyes showing her contempt for Misha. “Probably not, except maybe you. Can you remember?” I sighed, frustrated. “Not a thing. But I remember when he ruffled my hair and apologized for boycotting my bar mitzvah.” “And how—” she began, but I cut her off. “I know you don’t care for him, but he’s the only person from my past whom I have feelings for, so can you show a little respect?” “No need to bark, Theodore, but I apologize. I’ll try to be more sensitive.” I hated arguing with her. In ways, she was my family—the sympathetic mother and demanding father, the sisterly companion and doting aunt. I even tried imagining her as my lover, but her stout physique and hairy calves prevented that. Still, I loved Janice Cohen, and she, in her clinical way, loved me. She knew that recidivism was the general

68 rule with mental patients, but kept a stoic, optimistic attitude that demanded a great deal of discipline. Janice was never married and was childless. Her ability to love her patients was genuine and unique, her compassion for humanity as a collective, sincere, but she wasn’t able to fall in love with a man. In years past, she’d go out on dates, but sitting at a candlelit table, sipping on wine, she would analyze her date and find the reasons not to fall in love. Also, because of her marginal looks and sharp mind, she was never pursued by handsome men. Janice confessed that she was unable to detach herself from the vision of being with someone like Paul Newman or Gary Cooper. The mental health field was rife with men and women like Janice. For human beings well versed in the human psyche, I thought they showed little realism and pragmatism when it came to choosing a mate. “I’m gonna be Joey’s best man at the wedding,” I said proudly. “As well you should be,” Janice said and, as if to refute my above observation, added, “I think I met someone.” To my raised eyebrows and impish smile, she continued, “His name is Antonio Sandoval, and he’s from Portugal. I met him last year at a seminar in San Francisco.” “How come you never said anything?” Janice smiled. “It’s silly for an analyst to admit, but I didn’t want to jinx it.” I adjusted the pillow under my neck. “Fair enough. I don’t care for wasted words either.” Though terribly curious about Mr. Sandoval, I didn’t badger her for details. “We’re going to Hawaii for ten days,” she offered. “I’ll be leaving next week, so I’ll be back in plenty of time to monitor Naomi’s visit and the wedding.”

69 “Hawaii? That sounds nice.” I longed for sandy beaches and turquoise water. “Maybe one day I can take Naomi and the kids. . . .” my voice trailed off, and I whispered, “Do you think that day will come, Doctor?” The therapist fondled her pen. “I’m not sure, Theodore. But maybe, after the wedding, if you’re still doing as well as you are, I can recommend you become an outpatient.” “Really?” My heart filled with fear, but also excitement. I could dare imagine— helped by my love for Naomi—breaking the chains of madness. Janice stood up. “Why don’t you think about it? Maybe write an essay about how you picture your life outside the hospital. And when I return from my vacation, we can discuss it.” I rose to sit on the couch and ran my fingers through my thinning hair. There was much to contemplate and much to prepare for. “I will, Doctor. I hope Mr. Sandoval is worthy of your humanity and courage.” “Thank you, Theodore. That’s sweet of you to say.” We walked to her office door where she squeezed my shoulder and said, “We’re doing this together, Theodore. We’re doing this together.” My soul jovial, I returned to room 32 where I began sculpting words to help enhance the vision of my impending life in the real world. * * *

70 Five days later Janice left for her vacation. The next day while playing chess, I told Joey how angry I was about the death and destruction taking place in Iraq. Joey patiently listened to my commentary and then said, “I agree with your frustration. It’s a crime for man to kill another man, but try to think about it this way. How many people are alive as we speak?” “About six billion give or take,” I said. “Six billion and three hundred and thirty nine million,” Joey said, and asked, “What percentage of that number will die of natural causes each year?” I was stumped. I had no idea. “0.883 of one percent,” Joey said. “Really?” I wasn’t sure the number made sense to me. Joey leaned back in his chair. “So if we divide the two numbers, we come up with fifty two million and nine hundred thousand dead annually. Now divide that number in 365 days in a year. Go ahead, do it.” So I did, and it came to about 145,000 people dying daily. “144,930, to be exact,” Joey said. “And how many die daily in wars and other violence?” When I didn’t answer, he did, “Maybe five percent of that? That would be almost 7,500. No. That sounds too much. Maybe one percent. What do you think?” I said that I didn’t know, and that I found the thought of so many people dying daily to be disconcerting. “You bet it is,” he cried and crowned a pawn. “Unless you know you’ll be joining the Heavenly Father.”

71 I groaned in frustration and surrendered my last knight. “But natural death isn’t insidious. It doesn’t relish in someone’s misery. Show those statistics to a mother who loses her son to war. Tell her about all the other people dying that day, that hour, that second. I don’t think she’ll feel better.” “She probably won’t,” the groom-to-be agreed, checkmated me, and excused himself to go study Hebrew and fondle Dorothy’s breasts. He left me dissatisfied almost to the point where Misha would show up and call me a softhearted unrealistic humanitarian. But Misha wasn’t around. Weighed down by the statistics of relentless death, even after bringing Naomi’s fresh beauty into account, I still fell asleep distraught.

At 2:15 A.M. the first clap of thunder shook the building. It was massive—a grumbling roar that began with a crack and then cascaded over saturated ground. I startled awake when a flash of lightning crackled and lit up my room. I saw Misha sitting on the far corner of my bed, his eyes so dark they almost appeared hollow, his long bony fingers snarled in rage. “Misha?” My voice quivered. “What’s up, Theodore? Or is it Ted?” His accent was American—gone was the broken English spoken in Slavic overtones. Another flash of lightning lit the room and I saw his smile—teeth rotting, inflamed gums receding into his jaw. “Get out of here,” I screamed and jumped out of bed. “Leave me alone!”

72 “Leave you alone?” He got in my face. “I wish I could. I’m not the one deciding when to show up. It’s you!” “You’re lying,” I cried over the rumbling thunder and the sheets of rain striking my bedroom window. “Get real, Mr. Kolinsky, or Cole, or whoever the fuck you are. I’ve been dead forty-one years. Leave me in my fuckin’ grave to rot. I have no interest in continuing this demented association.” We screamed at each other, the hatred in our eyes glowing in the dark room lit by lightning. Then the door swung open and Dr. Rubin, accompanied by two large men, came rushing in. “It’s him! It’s him,” I cried and pointed to Misha who ignored them. “Calm down, Theodore,” the doctor said and turned on the light. “It’s only a bad winter storm. There’s no one here.” Misha vanished into thin air. I stood shaking with fear and anger. “It’s okay, Theodore. Lightning and thunder are pretty scary,” Doctor Rubin said in a soothing voice. “Here, sit down.” He pointed to my bed. “The storm is over. Everything will be all right.” I swallowed the sedative he offered me. Then I lay back in bed and pulled the covers to just beneath my nose. It was silent outside but for dripping rain gutters. The clock showed 2:35, and I knew that something terribly wrong was soon going to happen.

* * *

73 “She calls it Beanstalk,” Joey exclaimed. Perched over a chessboard, I was extremely distraught from the night before. Misha’s snarl had returned to haunt me. I was once again losing my mind. The German patrol gaining on me, the dog’s bite carving me up, my toes frozen in torn boots, I labored through the snow reaching up to my stiffening knees. I was doomed. The pistol would be placed in my mouth. The trigger would fire the gun. My head would explode. I swallowed my fear. “Beanstalk? I don’t get it.” Joey winked and pointed to his groin. “She named it Beanstalk.” So we played, and I did badly, and Joey asked if I was okay. I said I wasn’t and described how Misha had reappeared and how much I needed Dr. Janice Cohen by my side. “It’s not by chance that Misha showed up while Janice is away,” said Dorothy, who had joined us while I described my setback. Though she was a good chess player, Dorothy rarely participated in a match. Rather, she relished the male rivalry—Joey and me like two caribou, horns locked. She enjoyed watching Joey beat me. It was a measure of the alpha male she longed for. And though ready, in an instant, to drop Joey for the sake of being with me, Dorothy was preparing for an alternate reality—one shaping up well with the help of Beanstalk. I could feel her love for me drain. I had lost the only unconditional love I’d had since my mother, Matilda, cooed in my ear, “You are the cutest baby ever.” “Misha knows it’s the last chance he has,” Dorothy said. “Naomi will soon come visit, and Joey and I will be married, and you can move to the outpatient program. You have to tell Misha to . . ..”

74 Then Dorothy became Heather. She stood up and gyrated her hips. “You wanna mess with me, Misha? I’ll fuck you up!” she seethed through clenched teeth. Then she threw open her robe and screamed. “You low-life piece of scum! Stop talking and eat my pussy!” She calmed and whispered, “Sorry . . . but when I’m angry, Heather . . . and she’s angry with Misha and wants him to leave you alone and never return.” “I agree,” said Joey, who’d been gleefully watching Dorothy transform. I leaned back in defeat. Suspecting my ability to withstand Misha’s assault on my tortured brain, I withdrew to my room and lay in my bed, shaking, my lips moving in prayer. The words rang rife with entitlement—believing the universe cared whether I lived or died, whether sane or deranged. No. The universe cared not for my need to unite with Naomi whom I could not face in my current state of mind. Never had I felt more alone and helpless. Dorothy came to visit and brought dinner, but I couldn’t eat. “Please, Theodore,” she whispered and took off her shirt. Blue veins like trenches zigzagged across her pale breasts, and black hairs grew around her nipples. “Come, suckle on my warmth. Let my body sooth the beast lurking in your mind.” “Please, Dorothy . . .” I turned away. Dorothy buttoned up and left the room. * * *

75

I was awakened to the sound of dogs barking in the distance. Misha was standing by the bed and shaking my shoulder. “They’re coming,” he said calmly. “We need to escape through the window. Quick. Tie the sheets together. We can dangle then through the window. We’ll have about a six-foot drop to the ground. We can do it.” The barking was gaining on us. I knotted the sheets, tied one end to the bed, and dangled the other out the window. Misha kept mumbling, “Hurry, hurry.” I scaled down the sheets and jumped to the ground. The hospital fence was fifty feet away. I crouched and ran across the lawn, scaled the wall, and dropped to the street. I took off running the desolate city streets, Misha wheezing by my side, our footsteps sounding off the tall buildings. We came around a corner. Disguised as American police, two Gestapo agents were waiting, squad car lights flashing, harsh voices ordering me to stop. I wasn’t about to stop. I’d had enough of their cowardly pursuit. I lunged at them, Misha’s screams ringing in my ear, “Kill the bastards. Show them what a Jew is made off!” I swung my fist and struck a German. He fell to the ground. I was ready to crush his skull with my foot, when I heard a shot. I turned to see the bullet scorching the air. The bullet struck my head. The blood—thick crimson drapes—obscured my vision. I fell to the ground. Slipping into darkness, I heard Misha’s final words, “Good job, Theodore.” * * *

76

The Cave

I woke up and saw a pretty young woman with dark eyes and long curly black hair. She looked at me with grave concern, then caressed my shoulder and asked, “Ted? Can you hear me?” I was in a cave, walls dimly lit by a kerosene lamp. “I can hear you,” I mumbled, groggy and confused. “Who am I, Ted?” she asked. My mind clearing, I said, “You’re Daphne.” “Yes!” Daphne clenched her fists and then looked up and cried, “He’s back! He’s back!” I followed her eyes and saw a man with wavy blondish hair and deep brown eyes. He came to kneel by me and cradled my fingers with his right hand, while his left held thumb and forefinger sparsely apart. “We were this close to losing you.” “Hi, Bruce,” I said. “Hi, Ted.” He smiled and said to Daphne. “Squeeze two lemons in a cup of water, add three spoonfuls of honey, and a scoop of powdered B12.” Daphne walked to the cave’s corner where a blanket lay, on it pots and bowls, food and bottled water. Bruce felt my forehead and sighed with relief. “The fever’s almost gone.” “What happened?” I asked.

77 “You ate something really bad, could’ve been the canned peas. You had a bout of botulism or listeria.” “How long was I out?” “Five days. I wanted to take you to the hospital, but Daphne wouldn’t let me. She said the feds would come and arrest you, and that you’d never survive captivity.” I tried to sit up but got dizzy and quickly slumped back on the mattress—a collection of blankets and towels covered with a purple quilt. “It’s not yet time yet to stand,” Bruce said and shook his head. He was the owner of the Mocking Bird Art Gallery in Sacramento, California, and a medic in the National Guard who’d recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq. He was in the same unit my younger brother Ray belonged to. Ray was killed in Iraq five months ago. His humvee was blown up by an improvised explosive device while traveling Airport Road, a murderous seven-mile stretch between Baghdad and the international airport. That was on December 2, 2004. Daphne, who was Ray’s wife and was pregnant with his baby, handed me a cup. The sour-sweet concoction tasted refreshing. I gulped it down. “More please,” I said, and handed her the cup. “But without the B powder,” Bruce said. “Add spirulina and crushed garlic.” I could feel my mind settling, my past returning in waves of memories. Bruce took my temperature and blood pressure, and handed me two pills. “Antibiotics,” he said. I swallowed the pills, helped by another cup of lemon drink. “It’s almost midnight,” Bruce said, “Get some rest. We need to build you up.” “Okay,” I said, my eyelids heavy. I slept, and I didn’t dream.

78

I woke up to the most beautiful dawn of my life. I was back in my body, back in my head, back in my life. I slowly stood up and shuffled to the cave’s entrance. Daphne and Bruce were asleep, wrapped in sleeping bags. We were in the Sierras. The meadow before me rang with chirps and chatters. I breathed the freshness of spring, Genesis, sweet, sweet air. I sat on a boulder and cried.

My name is Ted Cole. My last name was never abbreviated from Kolinovich. I am not Jewish. I’m Irish-English. I’m thirty years old, not fifty-five, and my dark hair hasn’t lost its luster. I am not a school teacher, and neither am I a mental patient. I didn’t dismember Rachel in Eagle Lake, and I never played chess with Joey or reclined upon the black leather couch in Janice Cohen’s office. My name, Theodore, was given to me by my dad Paul—a dentist, out of respect for the thirty-seventh president. My mom, Angela, was a nurse and a brilliant poet. Growing up, it was me and my brother Ray who was four years my junior, and my best buddy. We had it good, growing up in Sacramento suburbia. I showed Ray everything, I taught him a lot. And when he joined the National Guard six years before the war, it wasn’t a big deal. I thought it was a stupid idea, but Ray liked guns. I didn’t. But it was no big deal. He liked gettin’ away for a weekend, shootin’ up targets, and havin’ a few beers with the guys. He was twenty then. Party on, Dude! Then Ray met Daphne. It was a good love, and they got married, and my brother was a cappy hamper. Ray didn’t get the difference between republicans and democrats and didn’t care to inquire, though I tried hard to explain. Ray never voted. “I don’t even

79 know the guy,” he’d say, while I ran fundraisers for Dennis Kucinich, a far-left liberal who garnered only two percent of the democratic vote in the primaries that John Kerry had won, and who later lost the election to George Bush, the single most hated man in my mind. It all happened so fast. Suddenly, there was 9-11, and then a war in Afghanistan, and quickly another one in Iraq—wars based on lies, deception, and sheer cruelty. The National Guard was called in, and my brother Ray was ordered to duty to occupy Iraq. In the bat of an eye, he was on a C-5 transport to North Carolina where he joined a convoy of airplanes flying into Kuwait and a convoy of tanks and trucks rumbling across the desert north to Baghdad where, in a team of humvees, he started to patrol the greater Baghdad area, until the IED exploded beneath his vehicle and killed him. When he got his orders, I told him, “Don’t go! You didn’t enlist to go to war.” “I can’t desert my unit,” he said. Also, the army wasn’t taking shit from anyone— they were locking up deserters in military jails, which now seems like a good outcome. I didn’t believe he’d get hurt. Yeah, I was against the war, but I was sure Ray would return to tell war stories as we sat around and pounded tequila shots. But a month later, his body was delivered in a metal casket draped in an American flag. He was buried with military honors. Letters arrived from the White House and Donald Rumsfeld’s office, commending Ray Cole for the ultimate sacrifice he’d made for liberty and freedom, defending and securing the American way of life.

80 We were all in a daze of grief and anger, and then our family fell apart. My mom, Angela, stayed in her bedroom. She couldn’t stop crying. My dad, Paul, couldn’t work. His hands shook, and no one wanted a dentist with shaky hands. After twenty-five years, he started smoking again. He sat in the living room, lighting one cigarette with the butt of the other. He was on antidepressants and sleeping pills. He gained forty pounds. My mom wouldn’t talk to him. She wanted him out of the house, but he refused to leave. Mom said it was all his fault—the father who allowed his son to go to war. She’d known all along that something bad would happen. She started writing poems about death and graves and wasted youth long before Ray was killed. She knew! Back in ‘99, when Ray joined the National Guard, my mom threw an unbelievable fit. But my dad waved her off. “Let the boy have a little fun. It’s one weekend a month.” “Yeah, Mom,” Ray said, “It’ll be cool.” “No, it won’t!” She slammed her fist on the dining room table stacked with chicken fried steaks, mashed potatoes, and corn on the cob. “Mom,” I said, “he’s a big boy now. I agree with you, but Ray won’t listen. Hey, if he survived snowboarding in Tahoe last winter, he’ll make it in the army.” “It’s not funny!” Mom yelled and stormed off, leaving her three men to cower in puzzlement. “What’s up with her?” Ray said. “It’s no big deal.” But it was a huge deal. My grief was compounded by rage I didn’t know lurked within me. All around me people walked, lived, breathed, and they didn’t give a shit. Even friends who attended the funeral and offered condolences, soon forgot about my brother Ray. They carried on with

81 life. Ray became the occasional glimpse of memory when they heard about new casualties, or when a TV ad for the marines came on. And I don’t blame them. I didn’t truly grieve for the fallen. They were statistics. And even when Jim Lehrer on PBS, at the end of each news broadcast, showed the portraits of the recently killed, and I stopped whatever I was doing and stood silently, giving honor, I didn’t feel much. I tried to imagine how the mothers felt, submerged in never-ending grief. Now, it was happening to my mother. And I didn’t know if she’d come out of it. She was sixty-five. People don’t snap out of anything at sixty-five. And my dad, like a zombie stumbled through the empty rooms of the house and remembered the laughter of his sons when they were boys. And with my rage, came hate—hate for everything—the media and it’s callous lies; each and every American flag I saw waving from a building; the self-righteous Republicans still maintaining it was good to get rid of Saddam; the decadent culture that said it was all about winning, no matter what the means; the fat people driving gasguzzling behemoths of SUVs; and the callous Christian evangelists who claimed America was fighting a “just war.” I hated all those things, but more than anything, I hated George W Bush, the infantile Lilliputian of a man—thin tight lips like a lizard, dead eyes staring blankly, forced swagger and vicious sneer.

The only one who kept it together was Daphne. “I have little Ray in the oven,” she said and patted her belly. “It’s not healthy for the fetus if the mother cries too much.” I knew she’d be all right. She had someone to live for. She was young. She’d see that Ray’s son—she kept insisting it was a boy—would grow up with the best mother

82 motherhood had ever witnessed. She locked the sorrow away in her heart and moved on. She’d stop by the house. She hoped the coming grandchild would cheer up my parents, but he didn’t. “After he’s born,” Daphne said to me, “when they hold him, they’ll be pleased.” I had my doubts. The baby would remind them of their loss. You don’t get over someone dying by replacing them with someone else, especially if it’s your kid. Three months had passed since Ray’s funeral, and things were getting worse. The life we lived was hollow, and souls can exist in a vacuum for only so long. So the time came, with great sorrow but not with great surprise, when my mother could stand it no more. She stealthily raided my father’s supply of sleeping pills. Then, with the help of a quart of whiskey, she swallowed the pills. When I came into her room the next morning bearing a cup of tea, I found her dead in her bed. Her suicide note was a short poem, at the end of which, after apologizing for her weakness to withstand grief, she wrote: “I will pour myself a fresh start, a painless one soaked in Heaven’s Grace.” After we got back from her funeral, my father resumed his position in the living room. With shaky hands, he lit a cigarette. People came to pay respects. He ignored them, but for an occasional confused smile. Daphne and I served refreshments and passed around pictures of my mother and poetry collections she had written. By nine that night, only my father and me sitting in the living room, me sipping Coke and Bacardi, he smoking his hundredth cigarette of the day, he looked at me and, through clenched teeth, fingers curled with rage, seethed in his raspy voice, “I want revenge! You will avenge the wrong done to us!”

83 “Yes sir,” I said and I meant it. His pain was deeper than mine, but I was pissed in a very fundamental way. I was mad as hell and not willing to take it anymore. My dad withdrew to the bedroom where my mom had died. She hadn’t let him in the bedroom since Ray’s funeral, but now he was back in his bed, alone, defeated, crushed, dead in his own skin.

A week later, Bruce came back from Iraq. He was the one who had zipped up Ray’s body bag. Bruce was an artist and medic, but he enjoyed shooting guns. That was before he witnessed the carnage. He was a changed man. He wasn’t about to ever be fooled again. I dredged his memory for every bit of Ray’s last days, and wept when he described what had happened. Three other men died in the attack, and two others gravely injured, limbs torn apart. I didn’t know any of them—a footnote in the news. It was midnight, and we were drunk. My life lay in ruins of anger and grief, and I said, “I’m not pissed at the people who set up the bomb that killed Ray. If someone invaded my home, I’d fight like hell.” Bruce sighed. “And they’re fighting like hell.” “I’m angry with the people who sent him to Iraq,” I said. “As well you should be.” “I want revenge,” I said, voicing my father’s wishes. “What do you mean?” “I don’t know.” I was sad, deflated. “Let’s blow up the Hummers at the GM dealership on Sunrise,” Bruce said. I thought he was kidding, but he was serious.

84 I remember the first time I saw a Hummer—a monstrous contraption rising from Neanderthal roots. It had a beastly, military, carnivorous sneer. The Hummer was driven by a fat woman, with two fat kids sitting in the back. What the fuck is that, I thought to myself while driving a Nissan Stanza. Then more appeared. Some bright yellow, some garnished with custom wheels, they traversed suburbia. Rising from the depths of entitlement, their engine grills snarled, “Don’t fuck with me!” Ray rode a Hummer to his death, his demise linked to the ignorant selfrighteousness of a fat bitch and her two fat kids, who thought that owning a Hummer was cool, that it showed the spirit of independence, be all you can be. Who the fuck were those people?! “Tell me what to do,” I said. “I’ll tell you, but I ain’t part of it, and there can’t be loss of life involved,” Bruce said. He had a wife and kids. He couldn’t become a martyr. “It’s not your brother who died,” I snapped. He raised his voice. “No loss of life.” “Okay, brother,” I said calmly and held out my hand. “No loss of life.”

With the help of the Internet and Bruce’s knowledge, I assembled a dozen bombs, each with the power of about six hand grenades. It’s ludicrously easy to build bombs. Anyone with half a brain can do it. At two in the morning on tax day, April 15, I snuck into the Hummer car dealership and planted the explosives. Then I sat in my car across the street, turned on the

85 video camera, and let’er rip. The explosion was massive, a beautiful sight to see. Two dozen brand new beasts of automobiles were reduced to twisted, smoldering metal. I drove away weeping, “This one’s for you, Ray.” I mailed the video to a local TV station, accompanied by a note saying, “Blood for oil will not stand.” Over the next week, it was the biggest story in the country. “Terrorists among Us!” the headlines screamed, and politicians—forked tongues protruding—assured the citizens that, “The culprit challenging out national security will be found.”

Bruce drove me into the Sierras where the cave, tucked away high in the mountains, awaited me. We found the cave ten years ago. In the old days, Ray and I would hike for a week at a time. We got to know the mountains pretty good. No one else knew about the cave. We set up camp. Bruce promised to bring supplies every ten days. I settled into a restful life removed from the toxic madness of man. The FBI swarmed Sacramento. Men driving black SUVs, with crew cuts and dark shades, questioned everyone. It wasn’t long before they came to question the Cole household. Grieving families were prone to revenge, and I was known as an anti-war activist. After interrogating my father who knew nothing about my actions, and after finding out I had suddenly left town, my name rose to the top of the list. My picture appeared on the six o’clock news. Then came the botulism, or listeria, or whatever it was that nearly killed me. Fortunately, Daphne and Bruce, with a well-stocked medical bag, arrived just as the bacteria hit.

86 And now, a life returned, I was sitting and crying on a boulder outside the cave, the meadow alive with chirps and chatters. A rustle sounded behind me. It was Bruce. He joined me and sat on the boulder. “Man! I thought you were going to die, but you fuckin’ pulled through.” “You don’t know the half of it,” I said. “You fought like a motherfucker.” “It’s fuckin’ beautiful. This is the first day of my new life.” And it was. But with it came Ted Cole, a.k.a Kolinovich, the school teacher/mental patient. I easily recalled my Jewish upbringing in Brooklyn, my father Benjamin, the drugstore chemist. He was the Slavic looking one. Matilda Kolinovich, my mother, who cradled me in her arms and cooed, “You are the best baby ever,” was of darker complexion and had thick wavy hair. Eagle Lake was also vivid in my mind: walking to the school and passing the churches, Methodist, Episcopalian, Quaker. I could hear the bell tower strike eight— metallic tones pleasing in perverse ways. There was an inscription above the entrance to the Methodist church: “Enter into his Gates with Thanksgiving and into his Courts with Praise.” Paul Sudick staring me down with contempt . . . I was chased by demons, the occult. I killed Rachel. She was a vampire. I escaped Eagle Lake, her body in the trunk of my car, my clothes stained with blood, but the highway patrol pulled me over and didn’t find the dismembered body. Then Janice Cohen rescued me. I fondly remembered the asylum—a generous and forgiving place. Naomi, my daughter, was about to visit me. My life was good. I missed

87 Joey and Dorothy. I never found out if they got married. And what happened between Janice and her new boyfriend? They were due back from Hawaii. I had so many questions. But then Misha returned. Who was the old Jew who survived Auschwitz by carting bodies from the gas chambers to the ovens? I had no idea. I’d read about the holocaust—a wicked time, but also a footnote to many other genocides and massacres, wars and carnage.

“Ready for some solids?” Bruce asked. I smiled. “Are you serving botulism today?” Eggs very well cooked, with dry toast, two cloves of garlic, and a lemon–honey drink—the food was, like the day, divine. Daphne was eight months pregnant, and I was in love with her. Before Ray died, and before I became ill, I was not in love with her. She was my brother’s wife, and she was like a sister to me. But not anymore, and when she handed me the plate, she smiled, and I was in love. I knew she liked me, maybe loved me, but maybe not that way. “I need to write stuff down,” I said. “I had dreams, or hallucinations, or something, and I wanna write it down before I forget.” I found a spot outside the cave, beneath an oak tree, and began to record in word my life as Theodore Kolinovich. I couldn’t stop writing if I wanted to, so many memories, so detailed. I wasn’t afraid of Misha, or maybe I was, just a bit. Misha’s bony fingers twisting with rage reminded me of my father Paul, lighting one cigarette from another, his son Ray in a grave, his wife Angela in an urn.

88 “I want revenge,” he had snarled. An analyst like Janice Cohen would ask, “Could we be on to something?” Lying on the black leather couch, a cylinder pillow tucked under my neck, I’d say, “I’m not sure, what do you think?” “I think we are,” Dr. Cohen would assure me. But Janice Cohen didn’t exist, nor did anyone else I had met during my battle with botulism.

The mountains settled my soul, and in the company of Bruce and the enchanting Daphne, I found myself content to live in the cave indefinitely. Within three days, I had two thick notebooks filled with recollections from my experiences in Eagle Lake and the asylum. I gave one notebook to Bruce and the other to Daphne and asked them to read and comment. It was after breakfast on the fourth morning of my recovery. They began to read, and I launched into filling another notebook. My memory clearer, I remembered more of my time with Uncle Misha. He suffered from migraines that left him crippled for days. He laid in a darkened room, a wet towel soaked in ice water over his forehead, and moaned like a wounded animal, mumbling in Russian, cursing God and all his creation. I stood in the doorway. He turned his back to me and pleaded, “Go away, little man. Go away.” I slithered off, shoulders drooped, mind filled with suffering I didn’t comprehend. * * *

89

I stopped writing and asked my friends, “What do you think?” “I don’t know what to think,” Bruce said. “No doubt people with high fevers can hallucinate, but I’ve never heard of anything like this.” “I believe in reincarnation,” Daphne said. “What are you saying?” My skin crawled with goose bumps. “I don’t know. . . . I’ve read about people who had memories that they were once someone else, and these stories sound pretty real.” “So you think I was Theodore Kolinovich? That I really lived that life?” “You’ll figure it out,” Bruce abruptly assured me, “but we have a situation on our hands. The Feds are closing in. You can’t go home. What do you want to do?” “I can stay here, at least through the summer. I love it here.” “And then?” I shrugged. Daphne patted her belly. “I need to get back. Little Ray is due in a few weeks.” “And I need to get back to my family and the gallery,” Bruce said. “I can come up for a day every couple of weeks, but that’s about it.” Who are you, Ted Cole, I thought, now that your brother and mother are dead, and your dad would be better off dead, and the FBI is in hot pursuit, and you have nowhere to hide but in a cave in the Sierras? “When are you guys taking off?” I asked. “If you’re good, tomorrow,” Bruce said. “I think you’re in full recovery.” I was hoping they would stay longer, but their eyes said otherwise.

90 “I need to see my doctor,” Daphne said. I had but a short time left to express my love to her. It could be months, if at all, before she visited again. “It’s a bitch of a situation,” Bruce said, “but we’ll figure it out.” Over lunch, I tried to share my experiences while I was ill, but they seemed uncomfortable with the topic, so I let it go, and we talked about Ray, and Angela, and how fucked up everything was, and how we needed to pull through. I could wait no more. “Daphne. Can we talk in private?” Bruce stood up. “Go ahead, guys, I feel a number two coming on.” “What is it, Ted?” she asked. “Do you think I’m different from the Ted I was before I got sick?” “Yes.” “How so?” Her sensual eyes smiled. “It’s like you’re older, mellower. You used to be pretty high-strung.” “Is that a good thing?” Daphne shrugged. “I don’t know. I think so. We’ve been through so much lately.” “What will you do after Ray’s born?” I asked “I’ll stay with my mom, but I don’t really have plans. After he’s born, I’ll think about it.” I clasped my palms. “Something changed in me. I don’t think about you the same way. . . like you’re a sister….I see you different. ”

91 Daphne held my hand. “Now isn’t the time, Ted. You’re like a brother to me.” The guillotine screeched down to sever my neck. “And you think maybe that will change . . . like after the baby’s born . . . ” “I don’t know. I want you to be in the baby’s life. You’re his uncle.” “Yes, I am, and I want to be part of his life . . . and yours.” “But you can’t. They’ll search until they find you.” I straightened my shoulders. “I’ll leave the U.S. I don’t wanna live here anyway, and you shouldn’t either. We’ll go to Canada, or Australia, or somewhere.” Daphne sighed, “Not now, Ted.”

Bruce emerged from the dark. “You guys done?” “I need a new identity,” I said. “How do we do it?” “Not sure,” he said, “but let me talk to some people at the bottom of the hill. You can’t stay here. Sooner or later park rangers will come through, or hikers. You’re a sitting duck.” “Quack, quack,” I said, excited about the plan forming in my mind. It was midnight but I couldn’t sleep. I sat under the stars and let their distance soothe me. Earth is so much less than a tiny speck. How is it possible that so much pain and joy can saturate the tiny speck that it is? * * *

92

The next morning, Bruce bear-hugged me. “Finish all the antibiotics. I’ll be back in ten days.” Daphne hugged me, awkward because of her belly, and because I was afraid it was the last time I was going to see her. “I love you, Daphne,” I whispered. She pecked me on the lips and smiled. “I’ll visit as soon as I can. I like the idea of living somewhere else. Maybe a fresh start is what I need. Maybe . . .” “I’ll write you,” I said. “And I’ll write back.”

Bruce’s jeep turned the corner down the slope. It was nine in the morning. The cave awaited me in tidy silence. I reviewed my diaries. Then I turned on the transistor radio that broadcast NPR and the recent calamities. Suicide bombers in Iraq, at a rate of four to six daily, were killing hundreds of civilians. No one knew how many civilians had died so far. Two-thousand American soldiers had also died, and twelve thousand were wounded. The senate had allocated another eighty billion to fight “the war on terror,” and the defense department was already asking for fifty billion more, bringing the war’s financial cost to $400 billion. The republicans were flexing political muscle in denying democrats the filibuster about judiciary nominations. George W Bush was shoving his new nominee to the UN, John Bolton—a rabid ideologue—down the senate throat. The airlines were canceling

93 their pension plans, and the FBI was still looking for one, Ted Cole, the homegrown terrorist. It was the same old shit, same callous crap, same greedy manipulation, but no one was doing anything about it—the grip of power clamped down on the masses. I switched off the radio and listened to the meadow. Then I walked to the creek and bathed in the freezing water.

I settled into a routine that included long daily hikes, watching my diet, and writing my memories. I grew my beard. Within memories and mourning lay new resolve. I was only thirty—I had my whole life before me. I was dealt tragic and unjust losses, but I fought back from the dead to claim my body. I had Daphne and Little Ray to care for. I missed my father and worried about him, the gentle dentist who worked so hard only to be left alone. I missed my mother. I yearned to read her poetry books. I missed my brother, a very innocent, cool dude who dies needlessly. In the old days, it was eye for an eye. If someone from one tribe died at the hands of another clan, a Fatwa was declared to even the scales of justice. Complying with the Fatwa of old, I yearned for W’s blood—the one person more responsible for my brother’s death than anyone else. If I could—strapped with explosives and running with all my might—make it to his motorcade and blow myself up, I’d die a cappy hamper. I really would. It was for a good cause, and no one would be left to mourn me. They’d all died by the hands of Butcher Bush.

94 I had two people to live for—little Ray and his mother Daphne. I wanted her to fall in love with me but was content to be Uncle Ted. And if she met someone, I won’t obsess over it, and Little Ray can spend weekends with me, his uncle, and we’d play ball, like I did with my little brother Ray.

As much as I hated W, it was not my destiny to kill him. When it came to my rage, as it did with millions, Bush got away with his crimes. Surrounded by a squadron of secret service, financed by the riches of oil tycoons, padded with the humane message abducted from Jesus, the brutal and obtuse man got away with executing my brother and destroying my family.

I stopped listening to the radio. I walked mountainous terrain void of evil.

I thought about Theodore Kolinovich and decided he was indeed a reincarnation of sorts. That was, for now, the best answer for me. Had I not been a fugitive, I’d have gone to Brooklyn and traversed the neighborhoods in search of the house he grew up in, with his father Benjamin, the chemist, and his mother Matilda, the math teacher. Reincarnation—a permanent soul entwined with temporary flesh—coincided with Anaxagoras and his argument suggesting a timeless infinite universe. Accused of heresy, he quickly realized the limitations of his physical body and retreated with fear and an apologetic smile. “Timeless? Infinite? I don’t know what I was thinking! It was probably the wine. My wife says I drink too much and, when I do, the silliest ideas preoccupy my mind: silly, irrational, entirely wrong ideas!”

95 Thus, he was spared. Many years later, the answer still eludes. The lens showing afterlife has been, for some reason, hermetically sealed and, by doing so, has caused a great deal of fear and frustration that have given way to the invention of religion. Trying to embrace Divinity was good, but the invention of religion was bad, and still is, and has nothing to do with Divinity. But it’s also Divinity’s fault, I say, for not providing a clear lens for man to see the world beyond. Uncle Misha was the epitome of man’s cruelty and God’s muffled orders. No man bent down farther for the sake of inhaling one more breath; no man saw absurd evil more than he; no one so industriolously touched the hands of death. Why was he, of all souls, assigned—for he was, by God—to cart the corpses? Perhaps he was stronger than most people. Maybe his suffering had forced Divinity to finally admit error—faced with the punishment incurred by man on man. Surely, after such a display of incompetence, Divinity would exclaim, “I was really off on this one.” Or, as my Uncle Misha said, Divinity would shrug. “You don’t like it? Nu. Sue me! See if I care.” * * *

96 The sound of the jeep sent me running down the slope to greet Bruce. We hugged and he said, “You look maaaarvelous!” “Did Daphne deliver?” “Not yet, but should any day, maybe as we speak.” Bruce brought a joint. We sat at the cave’s entrance and imbibed. I hadn’t smoked weed in a while, so I got real stoned. It was a little scary. “I’m really buzzed,” I told Bruce. “I gotta walk it off.” He laughed. “Strong shit! Go ahead. I’ll be here.”

It took me a good hour to clear my head. I kept telling myself that I was really stoned, but that it would soon pass. I walked to the creek and submerged in the frosty stream and stayed there for a long time, far longer than I imagined I could. As I bathed, I smelled the cabbage soup in the Brooklyn apartment where I grew up, leaning out the ground floor window and seeing men returning from Shul, shiny Sabbath shoes sounding off the narrow streets, Torahs tucked beneath their arms. Every so often, a big fellow tagged along, tall and wide, hair long and pitch black, as were his eyes, dark but also gentle. On a Friday evening, I was walking with my mother, Matilda, when the men returning from Shul turned the corner, the giant with them. I hid behind her back. “Who is he?” “He’s the golem.” “What’s a golem?” I was eight.

97 “A golem is someone who doesn’t need to try to be good, because he already is,” my mother said. It was, and remained, a good explanation to me.

As the mountain stream cooled me down, I recalled a chess game with Joey when I’d suggested that the struggle with Christian fundamentalism in the US was much like the one engulfing Islam. I quoted writer Rafiq Ali, a Muslim Arab with a soft Oxford accent. “I agree,” Joey said, and confiscated my rook. “The war in Iraq has nothing to do with Jesus. He’d be really pissed if he was around.” “What would he do?” I cried. Joey seized one of my pawns and sneered, “He’d kill every one of those bastards!” He was kidding. Joey was the only person I knew who believed in Jesus without the dogma, the political manipulation, the economics. For Joey, it was about love and forgiveness and tolerance. Defying Benedict XVI who rose through the church ranks to become pope, Joey was every bit the portrait of Jesus. That’s why Joey was locked up. He was a true follower, and true followers don’t fare well in religious hierarchy, as documented with Nicholas Cusa. Would Joey have been a better pope than Ratzinger/Benedict? Yes he would.

I swam under water, scalp tingling, and saw Misha on one of his good days. We walked to the park and sat on a bench under a towering maple, by a path busy with pedestrians—business men in suits walking by, coattails flitting in the wind, mothers

98 pushing strollers, and high school girls walking home from school. Misha eyed every woman, pupils dilated with unrequited lust, and mourned, “So many sweet, beautiful women, but none of them want me.” He was also jovial, basking in woman and her treasures. “If women ruled the world, I would not end up in Auschwitz,” he said.

I stood up in the stream, water up to my knees, and walked to shore. I lay in the grassy banks and let the spring sun warm me. I remembered my childhood with Ray and how I taught him to hit a baseball and catch it with a glove. After he was voted MVP of his Little League team, my dad gave me twenty-dollars and said, “You’re also the winner today. Ray’s good cause you were patient and helpful with him.” It was a proud moment in my life. Lying on the grassy banks fifteen years later, I wiped away a tear. The buzz was easing. I walked back to the cave where Bruce had steeped a pot of tea. “You okay, bro?” he asked. “I’m good. How’s my dad?” “Not so good, but he’s damn proud of you. Many people in town are proud of you, and many want your blood.” We unloaded supplies from the jeep and then sipped tea and ate tuna sandwiches. Bruce had located someone who knew someone who worked for the witness protection program who said that, for fifty grand, I will have a passport, driver’s license, and social security card.

99 “Fifty grand?” I cried. “I don’t have that kind of money.” “Well, you do and you don’t.” Bruce poured more tea in his cup. “I talked to your dad. He’s into it. He’s getting a second mortgage on the house. He says it’s your share of the will. The other half goes to Daphne and Little Ray.” “Wow! My dad sounds lucid.” “He knows what’s good for you.” I fished out two letters from my bag. “One’s for him, the other for Daphne.” “And this is for you,” Bruce said and handed me an envelope with feminine handwriting gracing its surface. “I’ll read it later if you don’t mind,” I said.

Acquiring my new identity would take two months. In the meantime, I was to remain in the cave. Bruce wanted to take photos for the passport but decided against it. “Your hair’s too long, and I don’t like the beard. Shave your head and wear shades and makeup. Next time I come up, I’ll bring a razor.” It was evening when Bruce left, jeep chugging down the dirt path, and I was left to read Daphne’s letter—anxious with grief and doubt, I was unsettled but tempered by hope. Left to ponder my love for Daphne, I lived in welcome solitude. I mostly ignored the transistor radio, but when I listened—a compulsive need tying me to the herd marching to the slaughter—all I heard was the buzzing cacophony of shrill voices filled with lament.

100 The herd lived beneath me, beneath clouds that rushed in at night and lay like a thick gray blanket shrouding the mayhem below. Then the clouds dispersed. The valley emerged choking in a smoggy blanket.

Bruce returned two weeks later. Little Ray had been born without negative incident. At seven pounds, eleven ounces, he was twenty-one inches long and happily tucked away in his mother’s bosom. My father got the loan. Fifty thousand dollars were paid to the guy from the witness protection program who said we should be ready to leave when he said it was time, destination: Vancouver, British Colombia, Canada. I’ll be smuggled in a truck carrying fine furniture traveling from Seattle. Once in Canada, I was free to live my new identity. Cosmetic surgery and a very low profile were highly recommended. The contact also advised that after events settled, I should migrate to Europe. There were letters from my father and Daphne. My father’s was a two-liner: “I love you and am proud of you. Live your life with intent and grace.” Daphne’s was a bit longer. She appreciated my love and concerns, my hopes and dreams, and my commitment to Little Ray, but she was confused and needed time to reflect. She hoped that once I was settled in Vancouver, she could come to visit. I let the letter drop to the ground. “I don’t think Daphne wants me.” “Do you mind?” Bruce asked and reached for the letter. “Go ahead.”

101 “Mmm . . .” he mumbled when he was finished. “It’s a fifty-fifty chance. She has lots to figure out. Maybe you shouldn’t push too hard.” “I won’t.” “And she says she’ll come to visit you in Canada.” “No. She says she hoped to visit me. It’s not like saying I will visit you.” “Semantics,” he shrugged. “We’re both coming to visit you, but it’ll be about six months before we do. We need shit to cool down.” Then he pulled out a battery-operated razor and sneered, “I vill shave you, and you vill like it!” I’d never been bald, and it lent a sinister look. My beard was shaved but for a well-trimmed goatee hugging a narrow mustache. I was fitted with brown contact lenses. Then Bruce took the photos to accompany my new identity.

A few weeks later, I bid farewell to my mountain cave. Nervously determined I rattled in the jeep for thirteen hours on the road to Seattle. A large truck stacked with furniture awaited us. I hid inside a king-sized bed frame. We crossed the border without incident. Six hours later, on a sunny and cool morning, Bruce opened the back doors and I was a free man. My new name was Robert Jones. I was born in Chicago thirty-four years ago, on April 2. We checked into a nice hotel and Bruce hung out for a couple of days. We partied hard. Before he left, he said, “Vancouver’s cool. I wanna live here.” “Come on up,” I said. * * *

102

I rented a one-bedroom in the hills overlooking the Pacific. I had surgery done to my nose and chin. When the surgery was done, I didn’t look like Ted Cole, the terrorist on the run. It was fun living in Canada. The norm were progressive people. Watching the US from afar was like watching a spoiled fat kid throw temper tantrums. I was relieved and free to live in Vancouver.

Then the migraines began. I was reading an article when, suddenly, while reading the word “change,” I couldn’t see the letter a. I shut my eyes. The void in my cornea was replaced with a jagged pulsating light, like tiny bolts of shimmering lightning. The jagged vibrating light grew larger inside my head. Craving cool darkness and silence, I went to the freezer and dumped a tray of ice in a bowl of water. I stirred a towel in the icy water and placed it on my forehead. Then I swallowed three extra-strength Bayer aspirin and, blinds shut, room silent, retired to bed.

My mind traveled far and wide. The towel soaked with ice water cradled my feverish brow….I woke up spaced out and hungry. The jagged light was gone.

Over the next two months, I had five more migraines, none worse than the first one.

103 I remained motivated by Daphne’s upcoming visit, and was devastated when she wrote that she would not be coming. She had met a man, a good man, and was moving to Sausalito, a quaint town a stone throw away from the Golden Gate Bridge. She was very sorry to deny me time with Little Ray, but confessed she wasn’t in love with me. “It’s a difficult time for me. I need closure and, being with you, I’d never forgive and forget. I have to move on.”

I collapsed on my bed and cried. A powerful migraine attacked me. The hours passed in agony and mounting dread. Night descended. A howling and chilly wind sailed in with winter’s first storm. I was lying in bed, my brain on fire, when Misha came to stand over me. Six months had passed since I last saw him. “Painful stuff,” he said in a soft voice. “Go away,” I groaned. “Go away!” “I would if I could,” Misha said, “but they’re coming.” My body instantly drenched in cold sweat, I sat up on my bed. The dogs were right outside my door, vicious bark mingling with the howling wind. I smelled their foul breath and sticky saliva. “Quick! Through the back door,” Misha cried, bony fingers twitching. In sweats and slippers, I ran to the back door. It was raining hard. The back door led to a steep downhill trail that curved through trees and rocks. I rushed out and ran, Misha panting by my side. “We’ll outrun them this time,” he panted. “They’ll never find us again!”

104 I was running very fast when my muddy slippers gave way and I crashed to the ground. My head struck a boulder. The last thing I remembered was Misha standing over me and screaming, “Get up! Get up!” . * * *

105

The Hospital

I woke up in a hospital bed. My head was bandaged. I was hooked up to an IV. My eyes wandered the room and came to rest on a stocky woman with frizzy hair and warm eyes. “Hello, Theodore,” Dr. Janice Cohen said and smiled wearily. She held forefinger to thumb sparsely apart. “We were this close to losing you.” “What happened?” My head throbbed. “You escaped . . . again.” “I’m sorry,” I said and started crying. “There was a terrible thunder storm, and you were in Hawaii, and Misha came back, and I didn’t know what to do . . . and the police chased me. They were Nazis—” “It’s okay, Theodore,” Janice shooshed me and wiped my sweaty brow. “From now on, I’ll never leave you. We do it together. I promise.” “Why did the police officer shoot me?” “He had no choice, Theodore. You attacked his partner. Fortunately the bullet only grazed your head, though you lost a lot of blood.” “How long have I been here?” “Two days.” “I had an amazing dream. I was young, and I lived in a cave in the mountains, and I had a brother who died in Iraq, and I fell in love with his wife. . . . ”

106 “Morphine can induce some pretty strong dreams,” the analyst said. We sat quietly for a minute, when, voice trembling, I said, “I want Misha to go away and never come back. Can I do that?” “I believe you can,” Janice said, voice more soothing than a fluffy pink cloud. “I know that he loved me, but that’s not good enough anymore.” “No. It’s not good enough anymore. I’m sure Misha supports your choice,” Janice said and squeezed my shoulder. “Good work Theodore. Very good work.” I wiped the tears from my face. “I want to go home.” “You will, Theodore, very soon. Now close your eyes and get some rest.” Janice cradled my fingers when I remembered my daughter Naomi. She was coming to visit me soon. I was going to see her after all. I would make sure to be healthy when she arrived. I imagined her lively blue eyes smiling at me. “Hi dad,” she’d say casually, and I, being called Dad for the first time in my life, would say, “Hi daughter.” Then we would embrace.

One with a timeless infinite universe, I was smiling when my body floated off in blessed sleep.

* * *