cain

I didn’t think I’d kiss her. It just happened. She left the stage and took a feathered head piece off and I kissed her. I’d thought about it often.
Walt saw the whole thing. I didn’t care. He said nothing. My brother stood alone.
Her breath tasted like coffee and tobacco and whiskey and fatigue. But I didn’t care.
Her lips were greasy Oriental silk.
It was a new era of electric lights and motor cars and Edward was king and I was an actor.
So was she.
She had a past: orphan from London, making her way to San Francisco on a steamer, paying her way with skin, not songs.
Her body was an island of experience, of men from every layer of society. I knew it all and I didn't care.
Walt’s eyes burned like the tip of his cigar. I knew he loved her; my brother loved her with flame in his belly that kept him awake at night, a burning spear that ignited fights in bars and on street corners. I could hear his heart beating and I stopped my ears.
Walt was her past, but he was passed. I was her now, and I led her toward her dressing room.
Inside, she was my new country, wrested from savages, tamed by my genteel hand. I felt the heat of her and I thought of my wife, I thought of Walt, I thought of a thousand things, but I pushed them from my mind. The blood in my ears was the surf on the shore of my new, uncharted continent.
I didn’t hear the door, didn’t see the knife until she was falling over me, shuddering: shaken by pain, not passion. I felt the steel and I saw Walt and he was Cain and I was Cain.

buddha on the road

It was him!”
“I don’t think so, Matt. I think he was a bum.”
Jim sat down heavily. They were in the alley behind The Mandeville Hotel, where they’d walked on their way back to Aunt Lacie’s flat. Matt walked nearly every day, hoping the air and exercise could calm his overburdened soul.
In a doorway cut into the non-descript brick of the posh hotel’s rear wall they’d seen a man sitting cross-legged on a piece of cardboard. His bald head sat, fat and lumpy, over his shirtless chest and swollen belly. He was humming. To Matt he was a statue stuck in the niche of a cave somewhere in India.
Matt had run into the hotel and bought a bunch of flowers, determined to strew the petals at the feet of the idol in the alley. Then Jim had stopped him.
Now he paced at the end of the alley, lucidity trying to swim through the swamp of obsession, glancing back and forth between his brother and the doorway.
Jim looked up. “Look, I’m in no mood for this.” He ran his fingers over his short hair. “I’m sorry. I’m just tired. Tomorrow I’ll take you to the Buddhist Centre so you can meditate, OK? But just leave that man alone. Remember, ‘Thought-habits can harden into character. Guard your thoughts.’”
Matt crouched close to Jim. His lips moved, then he nodded. “Yes. ‘The way is in the heart.’ The Buddha also said that.” He glanced down the alley. “I’m just going to look at him.”
Buddha hadn’t moved at all. Matt knelt, prostrated himself before the seated man, his lips moving in prayer. Jim moved quickly down the cobblestones. Buddha’s eyes opened slowly.
“‘A man is not a good man simply because he is an able talker.’”
Jim stopped walking. Matt sat up, eyes wide, jaw slack.
“It is you,” he whispered. “Jim, it’s him!”
“Jim nodded. “Maybe, Matt, maybe. Let’s go, though. We need to think this over, right?”
“No, no,” Matt shook his head violently. “Master Lin Chi said, ‘If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha.’” He stood and kicked in one fluid motion.
Buddha’s head snapped back and an X-shaped cross of blood opened on his forehead. He made no effort to escape.
Now Jim was running, diving, tackling his brother, whose fingers were a vise on Buddha’s throat. The impact of Jim’s body tore Matt’s hands away and Buddha simply tipped sideways and rolled away like some carnival toy.
Jim sat up, holding Matt’s hands at his side. The Buddha was gone.
Matt screamed and ran toward the street, his head full of static and his heart drained.

charlise is dead

She was a nice kid. But now she’s dead. Thought you should know. You can stop worrying about the old man.
Should have told her. Only fair. Been a hunter my whole life, after all. Sportsmanship and all that. The whole thing just seemed too damn good to be true. I really didn’t expect it would end up killing her.
I knew she was a goldbricker long before you warned me. Why else would a twenty-five year old looker like that be interested in my dried-up old ass?
That story’s been told so many times I’m tired of hearing it. If I hadn’t seen it coming I deserved to lose my money. I could tell from the day I met her. And listen, like I told you before, I didn’t mind. I was happy to change the will to let her in on a piece of my action in trade for a piece of her action. You and your sister were always well taken care of. Don’t get me wrong, she was a nice kid, mostly.
I figured she’d wait me out. Pray for the obvious: cancer, heart attack, stroke, anything. And for a while she tried. But the pressure got to be too much, I guess. First she tried to get me on the Viagra. I’m here to tell you I don’t need it. Never had any complaints, except from her.
Then she decided we needed a little vacation, you know, something romantic, just the two of us.
I could tell she was going to try to literally screw me out of the money. I was game if she was.
That first night – let me tell you – I met the challenge like a pro. Got a little winded, that’s all.
Next day, she was right back at it.
What she didn’t know was that this heart’s tough as a hound dog’s right nut. That’s what Doc told me when I started dating her. I should have told you, but it was sort of my little secret.
Anyway, she was working like a Turk to get my boiler stoked. Then she was going to stand back and watch it melt. I could see it in her eyes. Close to the end all the life seemed to drain out of them. It wouldn’t have surprised me to see dollar signs in them.
I told the police already, I didn’t know about her arrhythmia. I thought she’d eventually get tired of the game and we’d get back to “normal”.
I can truly say I’m sorry. And not only for the obvious reasons, either. She was a nice kid, except when she was trying to kill me.

haiku hiking

The sun cleans my hair,
golden fingers caressing
my scalp like liquid.

The raven calls out,
a beggar looking for bread.
He eats noisily.

Snow falls, sweet on trees
like a silky white blanket
covering giants.

Rocks have hard faces
looking out on the soft world
weary from long years.

The mountains are wrapped,
swaddled in billowing mist
like creation’s edge.

I imagine God
on the edge of creation,
the black light to him.

this storm

This storm has escaped from winter and fled
into the realm of warming.
It is insistent and demanding, a doomed tyrant,
whatever bluster he might bring.

The light is turning from dun to pale blue-grey.
Snow is falling like pellets of sorrow
as I sit wrapped in wool.
The skeletal trees are forever dancing,
bony fingers clacking icy castanets.
I don’t know if it’s the hours of murdered light,
or the desperation of the trees,
or my own heaving need,
but it reminds me of forgiveness.

nate's love

The steer wasn’t going for me, but he got me. He was tied so he couldn’t stand, but his head sure could move. I was pulling my brand, “Lazy H,” from the fire when he turned his horn. The tip ripped through my coveralls, tore a big hole in my thigh.
I’m bleeding bad and need help. I cut the steer loose, but first I brand the sumbich. I stagger to the truck, but with no strength in my left leg, I can hardly shift.
I’m feeling woozy after a mile banging through the fields. The truck lurches dead. Then I see Nate Jackson, the new neighbor. He came out here two years ago, “swept in with Kennedy,” we say at the cafe. He doesn’t know that Deadwood’s no place for a Negro.
Nate rides over on his gelding, hat back. Doesn’t say a word, just climbs in. I shove over. He drives and talks.
Says his grandfather, Roy, rode trail with Nat Love, a.k.a. Deadwood Dick. Roy took a distant second to Love’s first in the 1876 Deadwood rodeo. They drifted out of Dakota Territory together, fighting Indians and working cattle. Even got jobs together as Pullman porters, toward the end.
We finally make it to the hospital in Deadwood. I need blood. Nate donates a pint. While they’re pumping it into me, he leans over and says, “Used to be, one in four cowboys had black blood.” “This is two for two,” I wink up at him.

when i met the devil

When I met the devil it was nothing like I expected. All my life I’ve looked at medieval paintings and thought, “Yeah, right.” The standard image is a scaly red guy with horns and a pitchfork. Evil grimace, tight goatee, pointy tail. What a cliché. It might surprise you to know that that cliché is dead on.
I was also expecting a refined and terrifying personality like De Niro or Pacino in those movies. They spoke in clipped accents, wore cool Armani clothes, and listened to classical music. That turned out to be dead wrong. The devil’s refinement is a façade; otherwise, it’s like talking to a hyena with Tourettes.
About five years ago I was hitch-hiking between Delta and Grand Junction, Colorado. It’s basically a desert out there, but it can still get pretty cold in March, which is when I was walking. I was on my way from Gunnison to Utah for a week of camping. I could feel a snow storm coming and was thinking about just bedding down out in the desert for the night when a red pick-up pulled over and the passenger door swung open. I looked in at a ruddy face framed by red hair.
“It’s about to snow like a motherfucker, friend. Hop in. I can take you as far as Moab if you want.”
I hesitated for sanity’s split second – then looked at the gathering storm and climbed in. The cab was warm and smelled like incense and something else, something feral and dangerous. It was the kind of smell that puts you on alert.
“Where you headed, bro?” I looked closer at my driver. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, his hair dreaded into thick ropes that hung halfway down his back, covering his flannel shirt. His face was elongated, kind of pushed out and narrow, but thick at the same time. He had a long soul patch on his chin, kind of wide. The overall impression was of a goat.
“Going to Moab, actually,” I told him. “I had to get out of Gunnison for a while, and I can’t afford to fly anywhere.”
“Well, it’s still going to get cold out there this time of year,” said the driver. “You got plenty of gear?”
“I’ll be alright.”
He looked at me with a strange expression, then turned back to the road. “Hope so.”
We drove in silence for a while. To the west, the sky was clear, and we watched the sky in front of us glow red and purple as the sun set.
“You got a name, dude?”
“Mike,” I said. “What about you?”
“Michael, huh? I’ve got an amigo named Michael. Don’t see much of him anymore, though.” He seemed lost for a while, long enough for me to think he’d forgotten we were talking. I was starting to think I needed to find some way to get him to drop me in Grand Junction when he said, “Rafi. Like Raphael, like the painter, I guess. Although,” and he turned and looked at me, “I wasn’t named after him.” He kept looking at me.
I glanced from Rafi to the road and back. He was still looking at me. His expression was intent, but not angry. I checked the speedometer – 70 mph. I nodded and said, “OK. OK, I believe you.”
Rafi turned his attention back to his driving. “Don’t matter if you believe me or not,” he said calmly to the windshield.
I wondered what that was all about.
He grinned into the sun and said, “Hey, you want some coffee? I could use a cup myself.”
“Sure,” I said, deciding that if this guy got any weirder during our stop I could just leave.
We pulled into the Krispy Kreme on 50. I paid for the coffee and donuts, but I don’t remember that he offered to pay or even objected at all. We sat down at a booth and he pulled a little bottle out of his back pocket. Here we go, I thought. Rafi looked at me and raised one eyebrow. That’s when I noticed the two little bumps over his eyes. They looked almost like the nubs of horns. But when he moved his head again, I saw that it was only a trick of the light: the bumps were there for sure, but much less significant than I’d first thought. More like the remnants of an old injury. Still, it kind of freaked me out.
“Bailey’s?” I tried.
Rafi pinched his chin and lips together and shook his head. “Just a little something from the Old Country. I’d give you some, but I don’t think you can handle it, bro.” He grinned. His grin drew me in, made me want to hear more about who he was and why. Crazy people have a way about them that I find irresistible. When they’re not psycho-dangerous, that is. I couldn’t tell if he was nuts like the old guys who used to come into the public assistance office I worked at in Pittsburg, or nuts like the guy who killed his entire family and a few neighbors in Lindsboro, Florida, where my Aunt Gladys lives.
“Whatever,” I said. “So, what’s your deal?”
My approach was to humor the wackos and see what happened next. They always showed their true colors after about five minutes of talking. I glanced over toward the counter where a tired looking teenage girl was sorting donuts. She didn’t look like she’d be much help if things got ugly with this guy.
Rafi looked at her and grinned even wider. “She takes karate three times a week, but you’re right, she wouldn’t be much help to you. It’s one thing to have a weapon and another thing to use it. Right, Mike?” He looked with a subtle turn of the head. “Besides,” he continued, “I’m no danger to you.”
“How do you know she takes karate?”
“Sometimes I can just tell things. About people, I mean.”
I nodded like I understood, figuring he lived around town.
We ate our donuts and drank our coffee. Rafi talked about Bob Marley and reggae and the pan-African movement. He said he wasn’t African when I asked where he was from; he just said, “Oh, here and there.” The guy seemed OK. Not normal, not without some kind of quirk I hadn’t quite understood yet, but, I thought at the time, safe enough. Boy, was I wrong.
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We were in the desert east of Moab around 5:00 that evening. Rafi asked me if I knew where I was going to camp.
“Not really, “I said, “I think I’ll check in town. Why? You got any suggestions?”
“Of course I do, bro,” Rafi was already turning off the highway onto a dirt track. “You can check this place out and if you don’t like it, I’ll run you to Moab. This place is phenomenal. You can see the town from here, but hardly anybody knows about it. In fact, you can hike into town from here. It’s only a mile or so.”
“OK, I’ll check it out.” I thought about the .38 in my pack and wondered how I could get at it if I needed to.
He wasn’t kidding. The place was a low cliff that hung just high enough to be able to see the town. The red rocks were almost surreal, and the setting sun to the west only added to the effect. I looked around and saw evidence of other campers. There were several flat spots where my tent would sit nicely, and an obvious fire ring. As though he was reading my mind, Rafi began gathering wood and stacking it in the circle of rocks.
“Thanks, man,” I said. I got my pack out of the truck and had my tent ready in about ten minutes. I also checked on that gun, just in case. By that time Rafi had the fire blazing. He went to the back of his pickup and pulled a cooler toward him. He dug around inside and came back with a six pack of beer and a package of hot dogs.
“Just picked these up this morning. They’re organic, too. You dig that, don’t you?”
I laughed and found some bread in my things.
The dogs and beer were just what I needed. Before long I was leaned against a boulder, wrapped in a blanket, fire popping and hissing just beyond my feet. Rafi sat on a log, staring into the coals.
“So, seriously, dude, what’s your deal?” I asked. “I mean, where are you from, where do you work?”
He just stared. I thought he’d forgotten by the time he answered. “Oh,” he finally said, “I’ve done a little of this and a little of that. Nothin’ you really want to hear. Tell me about yourself.”
It was easier than I thought it would be to start talking about my past, growing up in New York with a mother who adopted cats as a hobby and a father who was allergic to animal dander, my unfinished degree in classics from St. Andrews, and my current incarnation as a ski bum in Gunnison, wishing I could swing the rent in Crested Butte, but knowing that would mean working harder than I really wanted to.
It was after midnight when we stopped talking. Rafi stretched out by the fire and seemed to be asleep. I decided to follow his lead and just crash by the fire.
------------------------------------------------------
I was sleeping pretty hard, so whatever woke me must have been intense. I think. I was sitting up before I was fully awake, blinking. The fire was just coals now, glowing but not casting much light. Rafi was gone, taking a leak, I assumed.
I was laying back down when I heard a strange humming sound, almost like voices chanting, in the distance. I sat up and noticed a glowing boulder. My watch said 3:12, so it wasn’t the sun. I thought maybe it was a truck coming toward our camp. That would explain the hum.
Curious, I pulled on my boots and walked toward the boulder.
On the other side of the rock was Rafi. He was sitting down. But his entire body was glowing. I tried to focus, but my mind bogged down, slipped, couldn’t find handles for what I was seeing.
Then, slowly – I think it was slowly, the entire experience was like looking at the world from the wrong angle – Rafi started to stand up, but it seemed like he never stopped rising. As he stood, he burned red. His hair turned into flaming ropes. When I say that, I’m not trying to be poetic, I mean his hair was literally fire, like iron in a forge. Behind him huge wings, like molten steel, blazed up. The bumps on his forehead sprouted into full horns.
He was both beautiful and horrifying at the same time. When I say beautiful, I don’t mean like a woman or even like a man. I don’t mean like a sunset or a symphony. I don’t really know what I mean. It was like I’d never understood beauty until that very moment, like there was something beyond all my conceptions of beauty in that glowing figure there before me.
A heat blasted through me. The entire world had turned scarlet. My heart was racing and I was touching the top of my head to make sure it hadn’t split open. My teeth were raw, like I’d eaten acid, and ached like I’d been punched in the face. The air was suddenly alive, whirring and twisting. Power washed over me and I was nothing and I knew I was nothing. I was on my knees, then on my belly, reaching out toward Raphael’s feet in what I can only call abject worship. I was a dog in the presence of an Alpha male. The little detached part of myself, the part that watches and evaluates everything I do had shrunk to almost nothing. That part, though, finally knew what fear means.
I heard Raphael’s voice telling me to get up. It was like coming up out of water, or maybe back down into it. I stood shakily, like a marionette. I felt my head again.
“God,” I whispered.
“Hardly,” he said, sitting back down and poking the coals with his bare hands. “Now get the hell up.”
I swallowed and slumped back against my boulder. There was half a bottle of beer left beside me and I drained it. Then I looked back at him. I felt nauseous.
“If I hadn’t seen that for myself,” I began.
“Right, you wouldn’t believe it. No shit. I probably wouldn’t either, except that I’ve been seeing it all my life.”

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I don’t know how, but I fell asleep. Maybe it was the stress, but I slept like a baby until noon the next day. I woke up with a snort. Rafi was nowhere around: no truck, no foot prints, nothing. It was as though I’d dreamt the entire thing, except that I was definitely in Moab, and there’s no way I could have walked that far. I spent most of the day trying to believe I’d imagined the previous day.
I walked into town and kept my eyes out for that red pickup, but it was nowhere I was. I spent the afternoon hiking the desert, thinking. It was two days before I saw Raphael.

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I was cooking some instant soup when he was there. I mean, he wasn’t there, then suddenly he was there. I heard a noise beside me and looked over at his boots.
They were covered in mud and hay. The rest of him was filthy, too. He looked like he’d been wrestling pigs for the past two days. He didn’t say anything, just stood there like he was waiting for me to do something.
I held the pot toward him. “Soup?”
He broke into a grin and sat down. “Thought you’d never ask,” he said, pulling a loaf of hot French bread out of his jacket.
As we dipped the bread right into the pot of soup, we talked.
“I guess you’d call me an angel, although you people can’t seem to get it straight what we really are,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“OK, for one thing, look at me. Do I look like one of those fucking paintings or Christmas cards?”
“Well, not really,” I said. “And, you swear a lot for an angel.”
“Just sounds. You know that, dude.”
Anyway, it seems the legions of heaven don’t go around revealing themselves to mere mortals all the time. From what I could gather, angels have a lot of free time. That’s why he was out cruising around, picking up a hitch-hiker.
They’re also not as structured as you’d think. There’s definitely a hierarchy, but that’s determined by who’s willing to stay focused and not cruise around picking up hitch-hikers.
So, Rafi was called into the presence of an archangel named Mira-Bel-Yah and asked to explain why I had seen him in his purer form.
“So, Mira-Bel-Yah was steamed. She’s had to talk to me before about shit I’ve done. This was nothing. I remember once . . .”
“Hang on, Rafi. What’s this ‘she’? Aren’t all angels male?”
He looked sideways at me. “Aren’t you listening? I just told you about an angel and I called her she. So what would you deduce from that, college boy? Try and keep up, will you?” He sighed. “So, Mira-Bel-Yah is chewing me out when we get word that the enemy’s making a fast break over . . .” He paused and flashed me a sly grin. “Can’t tell you that. Anyway, I’ve been busy fighting those douche bags.”
“OK, well, I’m glad to see you back. Are you alright?”
Rafi nodded. “It was a pretty minor skirmish. I just never get used to it. I’ve seen these things all my life, but it always takes me by surprise. Those assholes look almost normal, but there’s something just slightly off, so you can’t get your bearings.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “When I saw you, it felt like the whole world was sliding off the edge of the table.”
“Well, that’s close. Now add to that the feeling that you’re going to go shit- crazy, piss yourself, and kill someone all at once. That might start to get the feeling I get when I’m around them.”
“That’s pretty much what it was like for me.”
He shuddered, but my mind was going another direction.
“All your life?”
“What?” He frowned at me.
“You said all your life. What’s that mean?”
“The hell you think it means? You know how there was a time when you were not, and there’s a time coming when you won’t be? I’m no different than you are, in that respect. It’s a different life than the one you live, with parents and all, but it’s a close analogy.”
“You mean, you’re not immortal?”
“Sure, immortal by your standards. But there’s only one who’s eternal.” Rafi bowed his head and held his first two fingers together with his thumb. Starting at his hairline, he drew his hand over his nose, mouth, and torso. I didn’t know what it meant, but an invisible wire tugged my own head toward my chest as he did so. When he was finished I could lift my head again.
He went on. “But there are rumors, you know. Rumors that everything good that’s been made will stand up again. You’ve heard the rumors?”
I frowned.
“Never mind.”
We slurped soup in silence.
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A few days later we were hiking through the desert. “Hey, Rafi,” I said, “Why’d you reveal yourself to me? Do I have some great divine purpose or what?”
“Sure,” he grunted. For an angel, he’s pretty easily winded.
“So what is it?”
“What’s what? You got that water still?”
“Here.” I handed him the hose of my Camelback. “My purpose. What is it?”
“How the fuck should I know?” he wheezed between gulps.
“You’re the angel. I think you ought to know.”
“That’s a stupid assumption.” Rafi stood up and set off up the trail. “Besides, why should I know your purpose? I hardly know mine. Look at it this way. You’re part of the universe; you must have some purpose. Shit, man, even moss has a purpose.”
We hiked. I thought about moss and its purpose and what that had to do with me.
After about fifteen minutes, I asked, “So why’d you pick me up? Don’t you have something to tell me? A message from God, or something?”
Rafi turned and looked hard at me. He shifted his eyes away. “Look, bro, I picked you up because you looked lonely and it was going to snow, maybe. I’m hanging around with you because, because I’m lonely. I like people.”
“OK,” I shrugged.
“Besides, I told you I got ripped a new one for that slip up. It’s no big deal; plenty of people know about us, but you weren’t exactly authorized.”
“Authorized? There’s authorization?”
“Not like that. I mean . . . Well, it’s hard to put into words. You’re just not supposed to be totally privy, is all.”
“I guess I can handle that. You’re not going to have to eliminate me, are you?” I grinned, but it faded when I saw Rafi’s dark look. “I’m only kidding, Rafi. OK, bro?”
He glared at me for a minute, then looked away. “Not us, Michael.”
I thought he was joking, but his face wasn’t kidding. My heart sank. In the back of my mind the image of Raphael’s power and horrible appearance was dancing. A little voice was whispering, If that’s what he’s like, and he’s a good one, imagine what the bad ones look like. I shook my head.
“You mean the devil is going to get me?” My voice was shaking.
“I’m sorry, bro.” He brightened. “I’ll tell you what, though. I’ll get you ready. You’ll be like my apprentice angel.”
He bounded off up the trail. I jogged along behind. “Wait, what do you mean apprentice? Have you had apprentices before?”
“Sure. It’s been a while, though. Couple thousand years.”
“Why has it been so long?”
“You know how those higher up types are. You make one mistake and you never hear the end of it.”
I stopped, afraid to ask what had happened to Rafi’s last apprentice. I didn’t have to ask.”
“I mean,” he went on, “who’s to say Nefesh wouldn’t have gotten eaten on his own?”
“Eaten?” I gasped. “Do you mean like eaten – eaten?”
“Hey, bro, no worries. That was a long time ago.”
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Secretly, I was kind of excited about my apprenticeship. I imagined desert meditations, long distance running, fasting, picking up burning cauldrons with my bare arms, walking on rice paper and leaving no trace. Real apprentice shit.
That very night we were sitting by the fire again, lost in the flames.
“Ready?” Rafi said into the heat.
“Yes,” I said, stiffly.
“OK. Three things to know about the devil. First, it’s a patient bastard. Well, not really, but it does have a longer view of immediate time than you do. Could wait a long time to try and get at you.
Second, the devil hates laughter. I don’t mean forced laughter, or the kind of laughing that comes from someone’s pain. I mean laughing at absurdity, the kind of laughing little kids do, for pure joy, and contagious laughter.
Three, the devil can’t stand real hatred. Everything needs to be mixed with fear, especially hate. If you can hate the devil with everything in you, and not hate because you’re afraid, it will leave you. Love does the same thing. In fact, it’s the love of God that protects you right now.”
Rafi leaned against his log and smiled. “Think you can handle that, bro?”
I frowned. “I guess. I never thought about hate being a good thing.”
“That’s because you humans are always aiming it in the wrong direction. It’s a pretty useful tool if you can direct it. And if you can keep it pure. If you shoot hate the wrong direction, it bounces back at yourself.”
“What?”
“Here’s the thing, I’ll explain this as best as I can. Think about goodness. It’s real, right? Well, evil, it isn’t real, it’s the absence of good. So, these devils we’re talking about, they were angels one time, right? Then they let more and more good out until they’re non-beings. Kind of like dark matter, maybe.”
I really didn’t understand any of that, but I figured I might if I waited. That’s been my experience, anyway.
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When I met the devil, it was nothing like I’d expected, and everything I’d anticipated. As you can imagine, I spent a little time thinking about the devil and what it/he would be like.
I was back in Gunnison – Crested Butte, actually – doing property management. It’s a hassle, but it’s a living. When my phone rang, I was almost expecting it.
“Mr. Hamilton?” The voice was cool, with just a hint of some kind of continental accent. “My name is Mr. Abyss.”
“Abyss,” I interrupted. “What the hell kind of name is that? Kind of over the top, isn’t it?”
He ignored me and went on. “I’m calling on behalf of my employer. Please don’t ask me his name right now; he’s rather a recluse and would prefer meeting you in the, uh, flesh.” He forced out a stiff laugh.
“Uh, that’s pretty original,” I said. “I think I’ve got a pretty good idea what this is all about.”
“Of course you do. You’re ever so clever reputation naturally precedes you. I’ll expect you around two pm.” He rattled off directions to a place in a pretty exclusive gated community.
I drove into the winding wooded thirty five acre lot at two sharp. The house was a typical mountain mansion, with plenty of logs and stone, huge windows, and a dramatic roof line. I noticed, though, that the building was situated on the lot in such a way that the windows were of no use for either views or solar gain. I smiled at the absurdity of it.
A man dressed like a city guy on a long weekend came down the steps to meet me: turtle neck, flannel shirt tucked into chinos, loafers. He nodded carefully and said, “Mr. Hamilton? Good, good. Come right in. He’s waiting for you.” When he said, “he”, the man, whom I assumed to be the ominously named Mr. Abyss, paused ever so slightly, as if to let me know to be intimidated.
The interior of the house was like someone’s idea of Satan Chic. The walls were covered in what seemed to be classical paintings, only every one covered with crudely drawn phalluses, some in the strangest places. Obscenities were scrawled into speech balloons over the heads of the subjects. From somewhere, what might have passed for chamber music played, softly.
I listened, trying to make out the sound, but it was tuneless, almost jarring. Then, when I tried to stop listening, the music ricocheted around my skull like a squirrel trapped in a box. I shook my head.
A throat cleared behind me, and I turned to see a man in an expensive looking smoking jacket sweep into the room. Abyss bowed low and backed out through another door.
“Mr. Hamilton,” the devil nearly growled, “How pleasant.”
His hair, nearly black, was greased back. He had a little goatee and a sharp nose.
“You almost look the part,” I said. “What do you want?”
“My dear Mr. Hamilton,” he said, holding his finger tips together in front of his mouth, “I merely want to talk with you. Do you know why I’ve called you today? Why today?” There was a tiny tremor of amused excitement in his voice.
“Yes, I think I do. It’s because you’ve got no creative juices in your entire body, right?”
He ignored me. “It’s the date. June 6, 2006. 6-6-6, get it?”
“Yes. You are so clever. Did you think of that all on your own?”
I turned to go, but the door was no longer there. The devil laughed, a cold sound
that sucked even the light out of the room.
Fear ran through me like an icicle. My lungs gasped.
Then the pain started.
I was on my knees before I knew what was happening. It felt like I was a mile below sea level.
The devil rushed at me, kicking and screaming like some old school karate flick. I turned and he slid sideways. My right foot lashed out, catching him on the side of the head. He cursed in some tongue I have never heard and hope to never hear again.
Blood erupted from his head. That’s when I felt the burning in my heel. The pain was crippling. I went down heavy, loaded with such pain that my world was reduced to a red haze.
I tried to laugh, tried to stand, but nothing worked.
“Jesus,” I gasped, not a prayer, not a curse, more like a sound remembered from childhood, a final breath before dying.
The devil spread its massive wings, black and scaly. They looked like wet leather. He fixed me with his burning stare and moved toward me. The devil gave a little hop, as if to fly at me, and flapped those wings. He gave a little growl as he landed, clearly trying to frighten me.
Despite my fear, I laughed out loud. “You can’t fly, can you?”
I laughed and laughed, and the laughter was a prayer.
I might have blacked out for a minute, because the next thing I knew there was another presence in the room, a presence I remembered.
Rafi gleamed red.
“You fucking knock-off,” he growled. “No originality, no creativity, nothing. I am so sick of you trying to steal my fucking look! Also, you can’t fly.”
“Oh, Rafi,” the devil demurred, “still whining about that, are we?”
“Let’s go, asshole.” Rafi produced a sword from nowhere and flew at the devil. The devil produced his own, and the two met in a terrible clash.
At their engagement, sparks flew from their swords. Then the devil struck Rafi on the shoulder, and the angel’s sword fell from his hand.
That’s when I started to laugh again. I laughed until tears ran out of my pinched eyes and my side ached. Around me, the sound of battle raged: clashing metal and unearthly shrieks, but still I laughed.
Finally the sounds of combat subsided and my laughter did, too. I felt a breeze and looked around. There was no house, no truck, only a clearing in the trees and a disheveled Rafi standing under a huge aspen.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“Who knows? Who gives a shit?” Rafi shrugged. “What I want to know is what was so funny down here. I’m getting my ass kicked and I hear you laughing like a little girl in a pinafore.”
“A what?”
“Whatever. You know what I mean. Anyway, thanks. Your laughter really turned things for me. What was so funny?”
“I was laughing at what a cliché it was. I mean,” I stopped to wipe a tear from my cheek,” I mean, the whole clash of the titans thing, swords and everything. Seems a little over the top.”
Yeah,” he smiled at me, “looks like you’re starting to catch on.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, “I was thinking that the battle between good and evil is a lot more subtle than that.”
Rafi walked into the trees. “Almost always,” he said over his shoulder.
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I limped carefully down the old road.

the cab cut through the streets

The cab cut through the streets of Berlin, headed for the airport.
“They’re yours. Do what you want with them,” Gretchen said. “I can’t look anymore.”
Their mother’s cousin Wilhelm had handed them the small bundle as they were leaving Frankfurt. That was before Auschwitz, where they’d wept with everyone else over the inexplicable inhumanity wrung out there by ordinary work-a-day men.
“How could such horror exist in an advanced state like Germany?” they’d wondered with everyone else.
Gertrude looked down at the fading photograph and small book. Its edges curled like leaves in a fire and, indeed, the felt seemed hot to the touch. “Why didn’t we know this?” she said.
The photograph showed a handsome man, smartly dressed in the uniform of an SS officer. His name was printed at the bottom in bold German script: Gerhardt Manheim, their mother’s uncle. The book was his diary, detailing the tedium of life in the barracks near Warsaw, Poland. In a precise hand he described his daily grind of paperwork, his frustration with the poorly trained recruits from southern Germany, the lack of amenities available in Poland, and the long days at the Umschlagplatz, loading boxcars with “der Juden.” Those cars, she knew, carried men, women, and children to tortured deaths. To Gerhardt, though, it was just another day.
It seemed that every other page was filled with his longing for home, his desire to see his fiancé, whom he identified only as “M,” and his fears for his younger brothers. In the weeks before Christmas, he described his plans to surprise his storm troopers with roasted goose, chocolates, and cigarettes, as well as how he ingeniously managed to trade, beg, and steal every item on his list, including a black market recording of American jazz. It was a delightful story, marred only by occasional mention of “der Juden”, how their riots in the ghetto forced the storm troopers to risk their lives to restore peace. He came to treasure the days of loading, when “the sheep” were relatively docile, meekly filing into the cattle cars.
The cab stopped. Gertrude snapped the book shut like a child who’s been caught in her mother’s dresser. She looked at Gretchen, her twin, then at the handsome man in the photograph. He was in them, there was no denying it.
She turned the picture over, reading the faded lead, “Gerhardt. Killed by bandits in the bloody Warsaw Revolt, April 22, 1943.”
Gertrude slipped the photograph into the book, which she put in her purse beside her passport, which lists, among other vitals, “Date of Birth: April 22, 1943.”
She and Gretchen walked into the airport, back to the tedious details of living.

road to aimee

Desperation will take you down roads unexpected. It will carry you like a baby in the teeth of a leopard through the jungle. It will haunt you like a ghost on a windswept moor, moaning with fear and hope. It will rock you like a boat in a tempest, threatening, threatening, always precarious. It will chase you like the very hounds of hell, and lead you like a prison guard down roads unexpected.
Sam’s road was ending, he imagined, at the newly tile sanctuary of the newly erected Angelus Temple. It led directly to Sister Aimee, her rich voice calling sinners – of whom he was chief. Her voice was dripping, wet with love and desire, calling them home.
Sam looked down at his torn shoes and filthy pants. He thought briefly of home and how things might be different, if only . . . But that was no matter now, none of it mattered, because he was here, in her Temple, in her presence.
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It was Florida where he first laid eyes on her. He was working in an orange grove, picking the green fruit all day in the buggy swamps around Gainesville. The boss man, a short Italian immigrant who sang strange hymns all day, had told the men about a tent preacher who was coming to town. “And, boys,” he’d leaned toward them, one eyebrow raised, “she’s a lady preacher.”
Amid the catcalls and whistles, Sam had felt the old homesickness he'd burried for years work its way into his throat. The mere thought of this lady preacher comforted him.
The third night of the revival he determined to go forward for prayer. He’d seen cripples healed, the blind restored to sight, and men and women speaking in new languages, tongues they called it, at a single touch from the vision in the front.
Sister Aimee seemed to grow as the series of meetings went on, and this night was the climax of all he’d seen. She sang, she joked, she shouted, cajoled, and whispered to her audience of the judgment of God and the mercy of God. Women in the closer rows fainted as they stood to receive the power of the Holy Ghost. Men shouted, “Hallelujah!” and waved their arms.
Sam stood as he sensed the message coming to a close. He was in the middle, on the aisle, and knew what he must do. His shirt was clean, as were his face and hair. He’d even brushed his teeth. Now he was ready.
As Sister Aimee began her call for those who wanted a touch from the Holy Spirit to come forward, Sam was already moving. People rose to stand in front of him, but he managed to step around them, to squeeze past sweaty shoulders and around wide hips in print dresses. Once he fell down and almost had one of his waking nightmares from the war, but he shook the phantoms out of his head and carried on.
He was at the front now, ready for the touch that would set his soul free. Her hands were cool, like ice almost, against his burning cheeks. He felt himself begin to sway as Sister Aimee looked into his eyes and began to pray. Her breath was like old milk, but he didn’t mind.
He saw something there, in those green eyes, something the others in front of him hadn’t received, he was sure. She knew him, she understood him. He could tell, through the tone of her voice as it droned over him, pronouncing salvation and healing, her love.
Then the velvet cloud overtook him and he collapsed on the sawdust floor.
He lay there, slain by the Spirit, listening to the hum of voices and the occasional shriek of women as they received power from on high and danced in the aisles.
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The war was fought in trenches. Battles contested meters of land so shot up that anything alive on it didn't stay that way for long. The trenches filled with water, rotting everything in them: boots, packs, foodstuffs, the feet and souls of the men who had dug and now occupied them.
He sat on his helmet, rolling a cigarette. Calvin Jerret slept nearby on a low platform they’d built from boxes. Sam looked at his buddy with the joyless smile of a boy who has grown up with death. They’d been through a lot, he and Calvin, since they left Haine two years earlier. The world had changed for them since then. From the farms and fields of Ontario to the muddy trenches of Ypres, everything had changed. They were men, now, merchants of death, who dealt it out to other former boys ripped by the same horrors. They were stone-hearted killers, unconcerned with living or dying, who woke each day in order to visit destruction upon the enemy, their own safety be damned. That’s what they told each other as they lay down to sleep each night.
Sam barely heard the whistle of the bomb before it exploded. He shouted, “Gas!” and scrambled wildly.
The chlorine gas filled the trench almost instantaneously. Sam’s throat constricted, his eyes caught fire. He gasped and fumbled his canteen open, trying not to breathe. He doused his kerchief with water and held it to his nose and mouth. With it across his face, he could still smell the poison, but it was a little easier to breathe.
Everything around him was green. He could hear men shouting, vomiting, crying for mothers who were at that very moment gathering eggs or folding laundry or cooking bacon across the Atlantic.
Sam fumbled his gas mask over his head and breathed shallowly for a second. Then he saw Calvin.
Calvin was crawling through the mud. Sam thought he was trying to get low enough to breathe. Sam bent toward him, shouting, “Your kerchief, Calvin! Your mask, for godsake!”
But he was too late. At the bang of the canister opening, Calvin had sucked in air as he startled awake. His first response had been to stand up, breathing in again. His lungs had filled with chlorine gas, and he jerked into the beginning of a long death.
In a panic, Sam pulled his friend up and out of the trench, into the fresh air. He was heavy and slid back into the trench twice, splashing into the muck. For a moment, he despaired of ever getting Calvin out and wondered if he kept falling just to spite his rescuer.
Finally, they both lay gasping on the lifeless ground. Calvin’s face was almost as green as the gas in the trench below. Flecks of white foam ringed his mouth. He lay so still that Sam wondered if he was dead. Then he convulsed violently, vomit streaming from his mouth. He choked as he aspirated the bile, head lashing back and forth like he wanted to break his neck. Sam rolled him over and tried to clear his airway, knowing even as he did that it was too late.
That’s when the gunfire started. Out of the trench under the clear blue sky, Sam saw the earth explode around him. Without thinking, he flung himself behind Calvin’s form, tipping the other man onto his side to provide more coverage.
Bullets thumped into Calvin’s loose form, who screamed once, then lay still. Sam prayed his friend was dead, or that he would be soon. Then he prayed without much expectation of being heard that he would die soon, too.
His prayer went unanswered. For six hours he huddled behind the death of his best friend, waiting for night to hide him and bring the winds that would clear the trench behind him and allow him to slide into the relative safety of its wet embrace. Occasionally Calvin would stir, cough weakly, then shudder. Random bursts of gunfire reminded him of the enemy, just in case he should forget.
Finally, mercifully, the wind began to blow. Clouds rolled over the platoon’s position and rain fell. The water and wind dissipated the poison. Sam slipped on his belly into the trench, and lay in the mud, too tired to cry, too shattered to do anything.
Years later he could still see Calvin, or what was left of him, when they’d finally been able to retrieve his shattered corpse. Part of his head had been shot off, and the rest of his face grinned idiotically with white teeth and the stippled meat of his jaw hanging at a crazy angle from his loose neck.
He returned home to Haine, but every time he saw one of the Jerrets or even when he didn’t, he would remember the sight of his friend’s half face, grinning wildly with lifeless eyes. He woke up crying at night.
Sam’s father was a patient man, usually holding Sam’s hand and trying to talk him through his nightmares. But after a while Sam started to feel his father’s resentment, knowing that every night before they retired to their own rooms, the old man walked in dread. When Sam left, he told himself it was for his father’s sake, not because he hoped to finally leave everything that reminded him of the trenches and Calvin and death.
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She stood on the stage of that Temple, an angel if ever there was one, clad in clouds, her lips a cluster of pink flowers. He knew, even as the line drew him closer to her, carried him like a river to her, that she would remember him from Florida, would deliver him at last. He thought about her cool hands and his cheeks burned with it.
“She’s God’s own angel,” Sam breathed to the man next to him, “God’s own, with healing in her wings.”
The man looked sharply at him but said nothing. Sam looked again at his ragged clothes.
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For a time, after Gainesville, the prayers of Sister Aimee held back the demons. But deep within, the Great War had stripped him of himself. He began to wake again sweating and coughing on the choking blackness of it all. The memory of Sister Aimee’s touch wasn't enough to quell his anguish.
It was in Pittsburgh that everything finally broke. He was working in a mill, living in a boarding house run by a matronly woman called Mrs. Morgan. One Sunday afternoon several of his housemates decided to go fishing. Sam went along.
At the lake, he felt almost happy, remembering childhood days of fishing and swimming. Calvin was there, full faced and full of life. It wasn’t until they were walking back, laughing and joking and pushing each other that the dam broke. Bill Miles shoved Sam into a drainage ditch. It wasn’t a hard shove, but Sam tripped and slid head first into the water. Everything – the trenches and bombs, the boredom and terror, and especially Calvin Jerret’s torn-off face – everything roared back at him like some primeval beast from the muck. He screamed and screamed and screamed, as if he hoped the sound would push the horrors away. He grabbed a stick and beat his attackers, thrashing his friends bloody. Finally, mercifully, someone punched him into unconsciousness and they dragged him off to the hospital. When he came around he was discharged.
His few belongings were waiting by the curb in front of Mrs. Morgan’s. Bill sat on the porch. Sam knew what the luggage meant, and he wordlessly bent to pick up his pack.
Bill walked slowly down the steps.
“I’m sorry, Sam,” he said, sticking his hand out. “Didn’t mean for this to happen. Just playing around, you know.”
“I know, Bill. I’m not mad. Not really even surprised, actually. I don’t suppose I have a job waiting at the plant.”
“No, them bastards heard about it and fired you. They give your last check to Mrs. Morgan to take care of any expenses she got off you. Talked her into giving it to you.” Bill pulled a wad of crumpled bills from his overalls and thrust it toward Sam.
“Thanks, Bill. I don’t know what I’m going to do now. Who’s going to hire a shell-shocked maniac?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you should go west. You know, get some new perspective. Travel might do you good.”
“Yeah, maybe, maybe.”
That’s the way his journey started. It was not an intentional thing; he just boarded the first train west. The train pulled into Akron, Ohio at 6:30 that night. Sam stumbled wearily off the train and headed up the hill to the Haven of Rest Mission.
After a dismal meal of potatoes and a thin strip of something that looked, smelled, and tasted like the over-boiled ass of a dog, he slept under a bridge, afraid that his night terrors would get him tossed from the mission.
But when he woke in the pre-dawn, he couldn’t remember exactly what his dream had been, but he felt relaxed and soothed and comforted as he hadn’t been in years. There was that little buzz of contentment at the back of his skull as he set out in search of breakfast.
Sam slicked his hair back and smoothed his coat before he opened the door and stepped inside the corner coffee shop. He caught his reflection in the window as the door opened. He hardly recognized the happy man looking back at him. He whistled as he stepped to the counter.
There was a Beacon Journal lying on the formica. Sam pulled it to himself and ordered a full meal: coffee, toast, eggs, sausage – the works. He flicked the paper open the “The Nation” section, feeling just like any other man enjoying breakfast on a beautiful morning in Akron.
On page 2C he noticed a story, a blurb, really: Angelus Temple Opens. The rest of the article detailed the more than five thousand seats of the sanctuary, the airy stained glass, and the charisma of the preacher, Sister Aimee Semple McPherson.
Sam remembered his dream. He dreamt of Sister Aimee’s commanding voice and light touch, her compelling certainty.
It made sense to him, actually. The city of angels, the temple of angels. He would go there and be delivered by the Queen of Angels herself.
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In Sioux Falls, Sam spent a week in jail for fighting with a railroad bull, where he ate well and rested. In Denver his pack was stolen, and he'd resorted to stealing a blanket from a clothesline. Salt Lake's Mormons had fed him well, pressing him to consider the message of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pointing to their own temple, but he refused and slipped out of town late one night
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At last, he thought as the line for prayer carried him forward toward his destiny, at last.
Sister Aimee would deliver him, he was sure. She would remember him, too. There had been an almost electric connection back in Gainesville. His scalp tingled with the thought of it.
The choir sang like the Host of Heaven and the capitals of the pillars gleamed like theheavenly Jerusalem descending to earth. Sam moves on feet that seemed to never touch the ground.
Finally, the way was clear, and only a handful of people stood between him and ultimate completion. Several people were laying hands on the faithful, mumbling in exotic tongues and occasionally shouting. Sam carefully positioned himself so as to be close to Sister Aimee (“My Aimee,” he said to himself, then added a few other syllables to show himself that he was really just speaking in tongues). She was there, her clear voice calling down blessing upon blessing for each person she touched.
He approached the front, eyes closed in expectant rapture, ready for the sweet press of her palms against his face. Hands touched his shoulders and a voice – deep, resonant, male – filled his ears.
Sam’s eyes darted across the stage to where Aimee, his Aimee, had moved and now bowed over a man as she had once bowed over him. Her hands stretched over his oily scalp and her head tipped back slightly, her mouth moving in the ecstatic prayer of one filled with the Holy Ghost and power.
He felt the air go out of him as he collapsed to the tile.

freedom of flight

I used to have this trick when I was a kid. I’d sneak up on wasps and tie a thread around their middles and keep them as my own. They were like living kites, buzzing around my room.
We couldn’t have any other pets. My sister, Sharon, was allergic to what the doctors called “pet dander”. My mother told me it was the dead, flaky skin that dogs and cats scratch off of themselves, floating around the house, making Sharon sick. I hated the image her words worked in my mind, but still, I’d have liked a dog.
But I was stuck with wasps. Most of my friends were afraid of them, even when we got older. Once, when I was about six, my best friend Jeffrey came over after school to play. I introduced him to Walter the Wasp. Jeffrey screamed and ran out of the room. I chased him, holding Walter by his dental floss leash.
After a while, Jeffrey got used to Walter. We remained best friends, to this very day. It was Jeffrey, in fact, who turned me on to Budapest – a place where great art could happen.
In 1998 I went to Budapest to visit Jeffrey, who, like me, had recently graduated from Concordia College. Jeffrey immediately embarked on a trip around the world, didn’t even stop to take his gown off, while I went home to my folk’s place for the summer, which turned into winter, then spring and summer again. He only got as far as Western Europe, then Hungary. He called and told me how great everything was, “like Paris in the twenties for the nineties,” he said.
Since living in my old room at Mom and Dad’s house in White Bear Lake and working at Java Junction to stay hip wasn’t really cutting it, I got a passport, packed, and took off. He was right. Everything was different. There was a sense of expectation in the air, along with a certain depression. I thought both would be good for my art.
It must have been good, because I applied for an extended Visa and stayed.
I started getting connected and finding work, real work, as an artist.
May 7, 1998, a Tuesday afternoon, I was browsing online photos in a cybercafe. I was researching an airplane book I was contracted to illustrate, looking at everything from those rudimentary wings of Leonardo to balloons to rocket ships.
When Sophia walked in the world stopped. I felt like I was floating.
Her beauty is unconventional by anyone’s conventions. She has this gap in her teeth and her nose is misaligned; her left breast is bigger than the right, and her ears stick out but she carries herself like a person who knows some shit and takes no shit.
She sang that night, and it was like my head came detached from my neck and was tethered by the slightest string.
Afterward, we talked, and talking led to walking, and walking led to the next morning, when, always the romantics, we ate crepes and drank coffee together and the vertigo of her is still here, which is remarkable, because I used to keep my wild-flying heart on a tight leash.
Last week I sat in a chair, watching Sophia get ready for a show. She was naked and casual. She smelled like shampoo and soap and spices and, riding under it all, like herself, beautiful and earthy. Whenever I see her like this, I wax poetic because I feel like I could fly. She doesn’t understand it. She thinks I’m crazy. A wasp against tapped the window pane. I thought about my wasps, buzzing around on their leashes, walking them down the street, feeding them. Sometimes my sister Christina sneaked into my room and cut them free. I hated it when she did, but she always said she couldn’t stand to see things trapped, not even wasps.
Sophia caught me watching her. Her face became suddenly serious.
"Don’t you ever tire of me?" she was asking in her spice-laden English.
"For me getting’ too much yo’ love / be like trees getting too much sun, baby," I sang in falsetto. She grinned her crooked grin.
"Do I hold you down? Do you miss freedom?" She sat on the edge of the bed and I could smell the cloves clinging to her skin.
I thought about it, and about the stingerless stringered wasps.
I said, "How could I miss what I never had? You make me free in my liberty."
Then I tried to tell her about my wasps, tied by my own desperate hand and Christina's liberating scissors but I was crying and Sophia was holding my head to her chest and I was weightless again.

no service

“No service.” I snapped my cell phone shut, a little relieved.
“Figures,” she said.
I shoved the gearshift into first, gunned the engine til it sparkled and popped, and let out the clutch slowly. The back tires spun like crazed paddle wheels.
Nothing.
“That jerk,” Stacy grumbled, “he said the four wheel drive worked.”
“Yeah, I know. You said that six times already.”
“You don’t have to bite my head off, Bill. You’re the one who talked to him.”
“AArright. Enough! I know: I’m the one who bought this thing. Fighting isn’t going to help. See if the manual is in the glove box.”
“There’s nothing new in the glove box since five minutes ago. The manual hasn’t just materialized.”
I screamed a short burst of frustration in my throat and opened the door. Water splashed in. I stepped up and out into the back of the pick-up, mine for just three hours.
Two hours earlier we pulled off the blacktop, headed up Slate River. This was why I’d moved to Crested Butte from Kansas City. All the locals were always going on and on about hiking this and skiing that. And now, with my new rig, a ‘92 4x4 (primer gray), I felt like them: local.
Hell, I looked local, and it had cost me a fortune. Bole sunglasses, Merrill boots, Carhart jeans, and Nalgene water bottle. I epitomized mountain cool. I even had a visor shielding my eyes. Before we left town we hit the post office, gassed up, grabbed a couple decaf lattes at Camp 4, and drove around, deciding where to go.
There was plenty of clearance to get across the river and start up Oh-Be-Joyful. There was plenty of clearance, sure, but I hadn’t counted on the distinct lack of power to the front of my new truck. Half an hour of rocking back and forth had gotten us nowhere, Stacy was pointing out, but turned into the current.
“I know that,” I shouted down into her open window. “I told you, I thought that if I could get turned I might get some traction.” Under my breath (I thought) I added, “Thank you, Irene.” Irene is Stacy’s mom.
Her window whirred up. At least the automatic windows worked. So did the seat movers, cigarette lighter, and that thing that adjusts your mirrors. The radio fetched stations from as far away as Grand Junction. The only thing that didn’t seem to work was the four-wheel drive.
I looked around the bed of the truck. Nothing here from the previous owner that would help get us out of this river. I bent down, pissed, to check under the spare tire that was jammed up against the back of the cab when the horn beeped its road runner greeting. MEEEPP MMEEEPP. Startled, I jumped up. There was another truck, the twin of mine, rattling along the road above us. Stacy’s window dropped and her head popped out.
Before she could shout I said, “What do you think you’re doing?” I knew what she was doing, and I didn’t like it. The last thing I needed was some dude rescuing me. She stared at me.
“I’m trying to get us some help.”
“Well don’t. I’ve got this under control,” I said through angry teeth.
“I can see that,” Stacy smiled at me.
Too late. The truck turned off the road and header down the path we’d taken earlier. I could feel the heat creeping up my neck and face. My ears burned.
The truck roared up the little bit of incline before the plunge into the river and stopped. A mangy dog with two different colored eyes barked at me from the bed. The driver swung his door wide and climbed out. From his head to his feet he was a rancher. Not like Ralph Lauren or the Marlboro Man, but like an honest to God, sweat of his brow, barbed wire, bowlegged, chewing tobacco, red face and snow white head American cowboy.
A large irrational part of me, the big kid, hated him for being there, but there was another part, a little boy, who was glad he was there. To that part of me, this man was a god, a hero, a legend come to life to rescue me. I suppressed both parts and called out, “Four wheel drive seems to have gone out.”
“Got a four or a six in that thing?” Mr. Not Ralph Lauren asked. His boots crunched on the week-old snow.
“No, just the four tires.” I tried to sound casual.
“No, I mean the engine. How many cylinders?” What made it worse was that there was no trace of humor or amusement in his voice.
“Oh, that. Couldn’t hear you over the noise out here. I think it’s a (Got a fifty-fifty shot here) four.”
Stacie opened her door. “Could you help us get out of here? We’re stuck.”
Mr. Not Ralph Lauren looked at her. At least, I think he looked at her. His photo-grays winked at me in the mid-November sun as he turned toward her. “I might be able to pull you out,” he offered. “Did you say something about the four wheel drive not working?”
“We’ve tried . . .” Stacy began.
“I think it’s not working,” I interrupted. “I’ve shifted into four H and four L, but it doesn’t engage the front.”
“Aren’t those lock-out hubs you got there?” asked Not Ralph Lauren.
“What?” asked Stacy. “What hubs?”
“On the tires.” Not Ralph Lauren was wading toward us now, his Wranglers wet up to the knees.
“On the tires,” I repeated, trying to say, ‘I was just about to try that myself’.
Mr. Not Ralph Lauren bent over and twisted something on my passenger side wheel. Holding onto the hood he crossed in front of the truck, slipping once. He did the same whatever it was to the tire on the driver’s side. Then he got in, adjusted the seat to his height, and drove us out. Stacy stared at him like she’d never seen a guy drive a rig before. I stood in the back, hugging the roof as we hit the steep bank.

stealing home

“Man, Louise, for a 43 year old guy, Bill can play some serious baseball. He could have had a career.”
“Did you know they wanted him to play for DSU, back when he graduated from high school?”
“Really? Why didn’t they take him? Did he try out and not get it?”
“Oh, they never got the chance turn him down. They really wanted him, too. Had a scholarship lined up and everything. Only thing left to do was to meet with the coach.”
“He skipped the meeting?”
“Yep. See, we were on our way out to Corvalis, so he could work in the sawmill with my cousin. We were married a month, and his mom reminded him the morning we took off that he had agreed to meeting with the coach. That was in February, before we – got married and all that. Then the coach called his mom’s house, and she forgot to tell Bill until we were in the car. Said the coach would be at the cafe in Lourdis. You been there?”
“Once. Is it that place with the rooster on the sign?”
“That’s the one. Only, the rooster was standing up back then. Anyway, his mom told him and he says, ‘No way. I can’t go to college. I got a wife and a kid to think about.’
“She says, ‘Bill, if you think you’re better off raising that kid on minimum wage all your life, you’re crazy. Think about the future. If they’re going to pay for your schooling, why not go and meet with the man? You’re going through there, anyway.’”
“So you went to the meeting, right?”
“We went. The whole drive . . .you know Bill. He kept talking about how he might be pretty popular on campus, how he might get into the Majors and have fans and all that.”
“So? Why didn’t he play?”
“When we got there, the coach was late. We had to make good time if we were to get to Corvalis by the next night, so we didn’t have a lot of time to wait around. So we left.”
“Disappointed?”
“Bill was. Couple times he wanted to call the coach and ask for another chance. They would have taken him. Then there would be the parties and all that and the girls. And I’d be home with the baby, you know. I still worry about him when the amateur team travels. You never know about some of those waitresses. At least he didn’t have to deal with all that in college.”
Her voice trailed off, and I thought I saw a little smile start to dance the corners of her mouth. Then it was gone.

a prayer while walking at night in winter

Grace pours toward me in a wave of moonlight,
breaking a halo in the clouds. Elemental poetry
surrounds me like skin encasing muscle.
Drawn from the ground
by the hand of God,
like a woman
drawing water from a well,
I am enearthed.

When my heart is hard as the winter ground
Kindle your Spirit in my hands.
Pour your Flame into my chest.
Let me burn
Til stone is flesh.

When my thoughts spin like yellowed leaves
Let your wind come,
Swirl my dead thoughts away,
Breathe your breath into my lungs.

When my life cracks like ice
I splinter in prayer-
Bind me tight with cords of peace,
Flood the rift with deeper still,
Seal it with your patient love,
Until I am no longer breached.

It’s you in whom I live and breathe
You who opens me to see.
You are life: enormous, wild and free.

pressed ham

This is a story from my book, "Ravens and Other Stories". It's available from Amazon.com.


So it all came down to this. Mike sat looking at his hands, trying not to laugh, or cry, or rage, trying to look appropriately chagrined.
What were you thinking, Leslie was asking. (“Leslie,” thought Mike, for about the four hundredth time, “what kind of name is that for a man?”)
“I mean, did you think it was the right thing to do? Did you think it would be funny?” asked Leslie.
“Well, actually, I did. I told you, I thought Kathy was alone in the car, and she’d get a laugh over it.”
“I certainly wouldn’t find that sort of behavior funny,” interjected Carol Stein.
Mike looked around at the faces staring at him from across his coffee table, feeling a bit like the proverbial rabbit in the headlights, or the criminal in the back room, except these faces weren’t capable of instilling fear and he was still too amused at the events of yesterday to work up any real fear.
Bob Carlson, insurance salesman, Gary Simon, retired music teacher, Ralph Martin, manager of a small injection molding factory, Leslie, who had once taught school, then farmed, and was now what he called “semi-retired”, and Carol, office manager (“we used to just be secretaries”) for a real estate firm. All of them old enough to be his father, grandfather, or mother, in Carol’s case, except Bob, his junior by a year, who wanted desperately to be old, out-old-manning the others at every opportunity.
“What kind of example are we setting?” Bob was voicing his perennial question. “What are our young people going to think? When I was in school, I had good role models like Vernon McGee, and these guys.” He indicated the others with a wave of his hand.
“Pastor, can you excuse us?” said Gary, the only one of the bunch likely to find the current awkward discussion even remotely funny. “We need to talk in private.”
Thirty six hours earlier Pastor Mike Evans was riding shotgun through the arid countryside of eastern Kansas. His neighbor, Bill, was driving. Bill was not a member of the congregation, and didn’t want to be. Mike, though he wasn’t supposed to admit it, liked it that way. He and Bill shared a stinging wit and a love for old cars. In fact, they were returning from a car show where they’d browsed restored Chevys and Fords, had a few beers, and laughed over each other’s “one time in high school” stories.
Mike had just put the almost true trim on one in which he had mooned the entire football team as they traveled to an away game. Bill was gearing up to counter with his own full moon memories when Mike noticed his wife’s car in the lane ahead of them.
“Look, there’s Kathy’s car,” he said. And then, maybe it was too much beer, or too much memory, but for whatever reason he heard himself saying, “You ever press ham?”
“What?”
“Press ham. Pull up alongside of Kathy and I’ll show you.” He was already loosening his belt.
As his buttocks hit the glass and he was explaining the origin of the term “ham pressing”, breath sluiced from between Bill’s teeth, who pulled his cap down lower. “Shit, man, she’s got Gertrude Bandy with her.”
Mike went light headed. All the blood left his head and seemed to balloon his ass all out of proportion. His pants, which had glided so smoothly down to his knees, were now three sizes smaller. He slid down in the seat, turning his face toward Bill, who hit the gas as laughter geysered out of him.
“You’re in it to your chin this time, Mike!”
Gertrude Bandy. She led the Sentinel Reporter in letters to the editor. She was constantly complaining about something and when she wasn’t complaining, she was gossiping. She was one of Mike’s most frequent visitors, usually to complain. Where Kathy was taking her was beyond him. Not that it really mattered.
Later, as they neared their little town, Bill asked what he’d always wondered about his friend, “Why do you keep at it? I mean the pastor thing. These people are going to call you on the carpet, chew you up, and send you packing. How can you keep it up?”
Mike smiled. “I think it’s because I really believe the stuff I talk about. I really believe it. God, Jesus, the Church, the resurrection, eternal life, I really do believe it.”
“Yeah, well, I would say you shot yourself in the foot, but I think you aimed higher.”
And so it all came down to this. Down into the recently finished basement with Kathy for fifteen minutes, waiting for the obvious with the certainty of a dying man. Kathy sat in the corner, worrying her nails between her teeth.
“What’s wrong with you?” she’d asked him after dropping Gertrude off and apologizing profusely, knowing it was no good, watching her march into the house to begin the first wave of assault, the phone calls. “That was disgusting!” Supper had been that frozen silence of uncertainty, anger, and regret.
Later that night, lying in bed, she’d turned to face him, rising over him like a cloud. “If you’d stay in better shape, maybe Gertrude wouldn’t have been so offended,” she’d whispered, and they laughed silently until they were both choking, trying not to wake the baby sleeping in the next room.
Then this visit from the ministry committee, arranged by a painfully embarrassed Gary Simon.
Carol’s smile was gone. That sickly sweet, pitying, self-satisfied smile that normally danced across her face was gone. No, not “danced”; her smile did not dance. Dancing was first cousins with sin, a gateway activity, to be frowned on, or at least, given a pitying smile intended to wither the dance enthusiast. [“Hey, Bill. You know why Carol and Dave don’t have sex standing up? Might lead to dancing!”] Well, the smile that normally sat condemningly on her narrow, once beautiful face was gone. The smile that hadn’t faded even when he was arrested for protesting a nuclear generator site, when he’d preached for a month straight about reconciliation [knowing she hadn’t spoken to her sister-in-law in ten years], even when he’d taken the youth group to a homeless shelter and lost three kids for a few hours [they’d eventually called his cell phone, everything was all right, nothing wrong being sheltered by a few prostitutes]. Now, finally, that smile was gone.
Leslie, however, who took his faith so seriously that little made him smile, was trying out his version of a smile. He looked like a man who’d had one too many bran muffins at breakfast and would need, very soon, to excuse himself. “Mike, it’s the decision of the ministry committee to recommend to the congregation that we let you go, effective immediately.”
Gary cleared his throat, rough sandpaper in the living room’s silence. “Of course, you can live here for ninety days and we’ll provide a reasonable severance package. For while you’re looking,” he added, the red rising from his neck into his cheeks. “Do you have any, uh, questions for us?”
“No, I guess not,” he managed. The back of his throat tasted like the bottom of a pond. He didn’t think it would feel like this.
The awkwardness swirled around them during the attempts at parting pleasantries, but Mike couldn’t manage more than to stumble feebly to the door. As he stood looking through the glass, he saw Carol turn her head toward the house. Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped, making her look all the more like a grim bird. He could see, but not hear, her shriek. Every other head in the station wagon turned as well.
Mike watched them gaping at something on the side of the parsonage. Then he realized they were looking in the living room window.
As he came into the living room he saw the form of his wife, pants down, ham pressed against the bay window. With a low chuckle, he joined her.