| Black Mountain Lady |
Jay
Dyck
Dyck
Diary of a Goatherder 10 February 1980
This morning we took a bunch of old wooden pallets that I had salvaged and wired
them together to make a pen. After some trial and error we located it in the goat pen
which we use at night. The purpose of the wooden pen is to hold the young kids safe and
together while their mothers browse. The plan is to pen them up before letting the does out
in the morning. Then at noon the does will come in and nurse the kids. Then at evening
they will all be together again. This until the kids are fast and agile enough to keep up
with the herd.
This morning we took a bunch of old wooden pallets that I had salvaged and wired
them together to make a pen. After some trial and error we located it in the goat pen
which we use at night. The purpose of the wooden pen is to hold the young kids safe and
together while their mothers browse. The plan is to pen them up before letting the does out
in the morning. Then at noon the does will come in and nurse the kids. Then at evening
they will all be together again. This until the kids are fast and agile enough to keep up
with the herd.
| Chapter Twenty-six SCUTTLE |
Vikor realized that he was listening to spirits as he came back to his awareness of his location. Talk about
murder. Suddenly he was alert, wondering what it was that had made him so. Was it only the eucalyptus branch
that scraped an eave, in what had become a sudden wind?
No matter. The time to afford to luxurious reminiscence about weird backgrounds was past. It was time to
move on.
Of course, he would have a weird background, he thought as he lowered himself and his plunder over the low
adobe wall and began the trek to the valley floor. He remembered how Ma had taught him to "scuttle," as she
called it, how to just get right into it, down on hands and knees and even bellies, to abandon pretense of walking
erect, and so to elude the brush and to find your trails and ways. "Chaparral was made for the elves. That's why
some people call it the elfin forest, but they don't know we really are here."
The "we" was Diana, referring to herself and her son.
Just an elf! Hah! Vikor thought that; his current scuttle was more of a feet first bobsled plunge beneath the
scrub oaks through a flowing carpet of leaf mold and dry leaves. In seconds he had dropped four hundred feet
and in minutes he emerged into a different world. And…
He was a different man when he emerged. Back at Gail Henderson's, may she rest in peace, there would
have been no doubt who was in what role. For the second or so that Ms Henderson herself saw Vikor, she would
have had some dawning of this, that if there was a murderer about, here he was. Vikor was dressed in duds
purchased right in San Diego since his arrival, at a thrift shop. Camouflage pants, a dull brown shirt, black
tennis shoes. His face was darkened with dirt and soot. His smile was his gleaming double-edged dagger.
Emerging now into the parking lot of an office building on the south side of Mission Valley was a business
man. The commando terrorist was gone, wiped clean with a preplanted stash of handiwipes and a towel. The pants
and shirt had swapped places in a briefcase with a suit. White shirt and tie in place, and wing tip shoes having
replaced the tennies, he was now John Fitzgerald.
John Fitzgerald was himself only just coming up missing in his hometown of St. Louis, Missouri. It would
still be some time before his body was found, by smell most likely, in the trunk of his own car, abandoned deep
in a long-term parking structure.
Vikor had written some checks against the late Mr. Fitzgerald's account while still in St. Louis. He had
chosen not to bring along Miss Henderson's check book or credit cards; he decided it wasn't worth the effort. Or
the risk.
It wasn't much effort or risk, was the temptation that nagged him. Don't be greedy, he nagged back. He had
more than forty-two thousand in cash. That in itself was a problem. But for one who daily grew more familiar
with dwelling in the actual present, the problem of economic survival was a done deal. He had best devote his
grace and cunning to eluding capture, rather than to stuffing further a bloated belly.
Forty-two thousand! Vikor had left a couple of hundred dollars in Gail Henderson's purse. That way robbery
might be overlooked as a motive altogether, since credit cards and checks were also intact. The investigation
might be expected to snoop in directions of personal score-settling for clues to the mystery. Hatred, jealousy,
anger, revenge… people who knew her. There was no connection with the young gentleman who would be
stepping from the airliner in Houston.
Ah, Houston! He had never been there before. He sat now in a restaurant high on a hill, sipped his coffee,
and looked at the city of San Diego. Why Houston?
Random, he reminded himself. More random than he would even trust himself to be on impulse, which is to
say, he never would have come to Houston on his own. And whatever that trait, or inclination, might be, that
kept him away from Houston, it might be something that could leave a pattern. It might already be a pattern,
unknown to Vikor, but visible to the patient objectivity of a dedicated sleuth.
A dedicated and inspired sleuth it would have to be, for sure, but stranger things happen. Vikor chose not to
risk the chance that his own choices and whims might spell his name in clear strokes across the face of the
United States and the world. So he had drawn the cities in his current campaign from a hat. He had inscribed the
names of seventy-five of the nation's largest communities on separate slips of paper. Then he had chosen.
Eight cities.
Atlanta had been the start. He killed a black whore, stabbed her in an alley and pitched her body into a
dumpster. She had two hundred twenty dollars in her purse, and a VISA card. Vikor had taken the card to the
airport and used it to pay for a flight to Akron, Ohio, which was the second name drawn.
In Akron, Vikor slipped on his realistic black woman pullover mask, and took the card on a round of four
banks in less than an hour, collecting three hundred dollars from each before pitching the card for good. Along
with the mask he wore a nondescript purple sweat suit and a huge pair of sneakers, and he carried a formidable
purse. These items were all acquired at a thrift store right in Akron. Four white tellers took it all for good
enough.
Another stop at a thrift store netted him a new suit, blue, with a pink dress shirt, pink and blue tie, and a
pair of plain black oxfords in nice condition. They looked even nicer after a polishing at the Greyhound depot.
The mask and sweats were folded neatly into a briefcase. Next stop, St. Louis. St. Louis was where careless
John Fitzgerald's path crossed with that of his master. That's not exactly it; "master" implies "slave". Vikor
had no use for slaves. He hadn't even tolerance for them as a rule, and he saw most of the world as slaves,
controlled by heartless conspiracies of taxation, monopoly and control.
John Fitzgerald was never controlled for an instant by Vikor's presumption, nor was he intimidated. Beyond
the brief instant of recognition (Oh, my god, I'm dead!) he was probably not even afraid. He probably, as he
walked through the parking structure in the early evening, continued to rehearse the events of the day,
frustrations, disappointments, triumphs, what's for dinner, can I get laid…?
He probably assumed that the head of the featureless office worker that was Vikor would be as filled or as
empty as his own with similar hopes, similar anxieties, similar trivialities… had the head in question been that
of a black teenager, it would have received more cautious attention from Mr. Fitz. Had there been a group of
them, half a dozen attitudes in backward ball caps, tattoos, and sneakers that cost more than John Fitzgerald's
own wing-tip brogues, then our victim would have had the sense to turn those brogues in another direction,
perhaps back toward the security shack where the pleasant, middle-aged, overweight (and well-armed) guard had
passed him an aimless howdy as Fitzgerald had made his way along the descending causeway of the parking
structure.
He may even have done it on the run. There was no way for Vikor to know if the man whose pockets he
rifled had been smart enough to run from fast-moving African packs. He hadn't been smart enough to elude
Vikor.
The six boppers who would have sent John scurrying over to shoot some shit with security were most likely
merely on their way to a movie. A flick. The combination of circumstances that put Fitzgerald just an unguarded
dagger-thrust from a true predator was such that would never have tipped him off in a million years.
For his part, his own car was parked there. A late evening at the office was over, and John was on his way
home. Yes. Hot bath and cold beer. Beth and the kids. Supper.
His car was parked there because his job was close by, inside the office building that towered just next door
to the parking structure. So there was the combination of home, workplace, parking space that put him where
he was, along with a host of intangible realities, his quest for a raise being a primary one, leading to his working
late, and itself the pinnacle of a cluster of feelings and calculations relating to Beth and all of the other
aforementioned factors.
Fitting neatly into all of this was the brush-off that the similarly dressed young man with a briefcase whose
path approached his in the echoing concrete maze was a clone of himself. Here was just another guy plodding in
search of his vehicle. John Fitzgerald's last thought was smug. He reflected how clever, how worldly, how street-
smart he was himself to have figured out how to always get out of the elevator above the point where he had
parked his car, so as to necessitate only a down-hill walk to recover it. The same upon arriving in the morning,
rather than to struggle uphill like this poor moron, (Vikor!) climbing with a full briefcase, he went to the
elevator below the place where he had parked.
Then, he rambled on in his head, I just look at the number and remember to get off the elevator in the
evening at the level one above. He smiled in undetectable condescension at his co-worker. Here were his last
thoughts:
What a moron…He's looking at me…
Uh oh…
Get back…
Steel, ohhh… these came rather quickly, tumbled in a bunch, and were gone. Mr. John Francis Fitzgerald
slid unresistingly to the concrete. His thought now was to flow, and flow he did. All concerns became trivial. His
breath took flight; his lungs rejoiced in the leisure of collapse. He was already cool to the touch, and only his
body stayed behind to register whatever indignation or composure. Vikor's hands slid swiftly through the clothes.
murder. Suddenly he was alert, wondering what it was that had made him so. Was it only the eucalyptus branch
that scraped an eave, in what had become a sudden wind?
No matter. The time to afford to luxurious reminiscence about weird backgrounds was past. It was time to
move on.
Of course, he would have a weird background, he thought as he lowered himself and his plunder over the low
adobe wall and began the trek to the valley floor. He remembered how Ma had taught him to "scuttle," as she
called it, how to just get right into it, down on hands and knees and even bellies, to abandon pretense of walking
erect, and so to elude the brush and to find your trails and ways. "Chaparral was made for the elves. That's why
some people call it the elfin forest, but they don't know we really are here."
The "we" was Diana, referring to herself and her son.
Just an elf! Hah! Vikor thought that; his current scuttle was more of a feet first bobsled plunge beneath the
scrub oaks through a flowing carpet of leaf mold and dry leaves. In seconds he had dropped four hundred feet
and in minutes he emerged into a different world. And…
He was a different man when he emerged. Back at Gail Henderson's, may she rest in peace, there would
have been no doubt who was in what role. For the second or so that Ms Henderson herself saw Vikor, she would
have had some dawning of this, that if there was a murderer about, here he was. Vikor was dressed in duds
purchased right in San Diego since his arrival, at a thrift shop. Camouflage pants, a dull brown shirt, black
tennis shoes. His face was darkened with dirt and soot. His smile was his gleaming double-edged dagger.
Emerging now into the parking lot of an office building on the south side of Mission Valley was a business
man. The commando terrorist was gone, wiped clean with a preplanted stash of handiwipes and a towel. The pants
and shirt had swapped places in a briefcase with a suit. White shirt and tie in place, and wing tip shoes having
replaced the tennies, he was now John Fitzgerald.
John Fitzgerald was himself only just coming up missing in his hometown of St. Louis, Missouri. It would
still be some time before his body was found, by smell most likely, in the trunk of his own car, abandoned deep
in a long-term parking structure.
Vikor had written some checks against the late Mr. Fitzgerald's account while still in St. Louis. He had
chosen not to bring along Miss Henderson's check book or credit cards; he decided it wasn't worth the effort. Or
the risk.
It wasn't much effort or risk, was the temptation that nagged him. Don't be greedy, he nagged back. He had
more than forty-two thousand in cash. That in itself was a problem. But for one who daily grew more familiar
with dwelling in the actual present, the problem of economic survival was a done deal. He had best devote his
grace and cunning to eluding capture, rather than to stuffing further a bloated belly.
Forty-two thousand! Vikor had left a couple of hundred dollars in Gail Henderson's purse. That way robbery
might be overlooked as a motive altogether, since credit cards and checks were also intact. The investigation
might be expected to snoop in directions of personal score-settling for clues to the mystery. Hatred, jealousy,
anger, revenge… people who knew her. There was no connection with the young gentleman who would be
stepping from the airliner in Houston.
Ah, Houston! He had never been there before. He sat now in a restaurant high on a hill, sipped his coffee,
and looked at the city of San Diego. Why Houston?
Random, he reminded himself. More random than he would even trust himself to be on impulse, which is to
say, he never would have come to Houston on his own. And whatever that trait, or inclination, might be, that
kept him away from Houston, it might be something that could leave a pattern. It might already be a pattern,
unknown to Vikor, but visible to the patient objectivity of a dedicated sleuth.
A dedicated and inspired sleuth it would have to be, for sure, but stranger things happen. Vikor chose not to
risk the chance that his own choices and whims might spell his name in clear strokes across the face of the
United States and the world. So he had drawn the cities in his current campaign from a hat. He had inscribed the
names of seventy-five of the nation's largest communities on separate slips of paper. Then he had chosen.
Eight cities.
Atlanta had been the start. He killed a black whore, stabbed her in an alley and pitched her body into a
dumpster. She had two hundred twenty dollars in her purse, and a VISA card. Vikor had taken the card to the
airport and used it to pay for a flight to Akron, Ohio, which was the second name drawn.
In Akron, Vikor slipped on his realistic black woman pullover mask, and took the card on a round of four
banks in less than an hour, collecting three hundred dollars from each before pitching the card for good. Along
with the mask he wore a nondescript purple sweat suit and a huge pair of sneakers, and he carried a formidable
purse. These items were all acquired at a thrift store right in Akron. Four white tellers took it all for good
enough.
Another stop at a thrift store netted him a new suit, blue, with a pink dress shirt, pink and blue tie, and a
pair of plain black oxfords in nice condition. They looked even nicer after a polishing at the Greyhound depot.
The mask and sweats were folded neatly into a briefcase. Next stop, St. Louis. St. Louis was where careless
John Fitzgerald's path crossed with that of his master. That's not exactly it; "master" implies "slave". Vikor
had no use for slaves. He hadn't even tolerance for them as a rule, and he saw most of the world as slaves,
controlled by heartless conspiracies of taxation, monopoly and control.
John Fitzgerald was never controlled for an instant by Vikor's presumption, nor was he intimidated. Beyond
the brief instant of recognition (Oh, my god, I'm dead!) he was probably not even afraid. He probably, as he
walked through the parking structure in the early evening, continued to rehearse the events of the day,
frustrations, disappointments, triumphs, what's for dinner, can I get laid…?
He probably assumed that the head of the featureless office worker that was Vikor would be as filled or as
empty as his own with similar hopes, similar anxieties, similar trivialities… had the head in question been that
of a black teenager, it would have received more cautious attention from Mr. Fitz. Had there been a group of
them, half a dozen attitudes in backward ball caps, tattoos, and sneakers that cost more than John Fitzgerald's
own wing-tip brogues, then our victim would have had the sense to turn those brogues in another direction,
perhaps back toward the security shack where the pleasant, middle-aged, overweight (and well-armed) guard had
passed him an aimless howdy as Fitzgerald had made his way along the descending causeway of the parking
structure.
He may even have done it on the run. There was no way for Vikor to know if the man whose pockets he
rifled had been smart enough to run from fast-moving African packs. He hadn't been smart enough to elude
Vikor.
The six boppers who would have sent John scurrying over to shoot some shit with security were most likely
merely on their way to a movie. A flick. The combination of circumstances that put Fitzgerald just an unguarded
dagger-thrust from a true predator was such that would never have tipped him off in a million years.
For his part, his own car was parked there. A late evening at the office was over, and John was on his way
home. Yes. Hot bath and cold beer. Beth and the kids. Supper.
His car was parked there because his job was close by, inside the office building that towered just next door
to the parking structure. So there was the combination of home, workplace, parking space that put him where
he was, along with a host of intangible realities, his quest for a raise being a primary one, leading to his working
late, and itself the pinnacle of a cluster of feelings and calculations relating to Beth and all of the other
aforementioned factors.
Fitting neatly into all of this was the brush-off that the similarly dressed young man with a briefcase whose
path approached his in the echoing concrete maze was a clone of himself. Here was just another guy plodding in
search of his vehicle. John Fitzgerald's last thought was smug. He reflected how clever, how worldly, how street-
smart he was himself to have figured out how to always get out of the elevator above the point where he had
parked his car, so as to necessitate only a down-hill walk to recover it. The same upon arriving in the morning,
rather than to struggle uphill like this poor moron, (Vikor!) climbing with a full briefcase, he went to the
elevator below the place where he had parked.
Then, he rambled on in his head, I just look at the number and remember to get off the elevator in the
evening at the level one above. He smiled in undetectable condescension at his co-worker. Here were his last
thoughts:
What a moron…He's looking at me…
Uh oh…
Get back…
Steel, ohhh… these came rather quickly, tumbled in a bunch, and were gone. Mr. John Francis Fitzgerald
slid unresistingly to the concrete. His thought now was to flow, and flow he did. All concerns became trivial. His
breath took flight; his lungs rejoiced in the leisure of collapse. He was already cool to the touch, and only his
body stayed behind to register whatever indignation or composure. Vikor's hands slid swiftly through the clothes.
| * * * |
Vikor and Chela talked. He didn't tell her the name of his home. He mostly listened, for she had been the
one who wanted to talk. "What's in New Mexico?" he had asked. She had told him it was her home.
"Do you have family there?"
She brightened immediately and said yes, and she bubbled inwardly. She had the strong feeling that her fellow
passenger was almighty curious to know if she were spoken for. She wasn't, but she left that out, just to tease.
"Yes," she said. "I have my little girls, Lillia and Bonita, and my sister is there with her kids." He was listening,
and so she went on.
"Violeta and I used to live in San Diego. We grew up there. Then she met a man, a boy more like," she went
on, remembering with some amusement the young student that Vi had dragged home from the beach one day.
Ivan Bertman was a student at San Diego State University. He was from New Mexico, a sophomore intending
to major in engineering. He was nineteen.
He was nineteen, and strong as a bull. Violeta had been overwhelmed by his muscular build, that day at Ocean
Beach. He in turn had been overwhelmed by Violeta. Together they were overwhelmed by the beautiful, raw
violence of the sun and the surf, the wind and the cliff. They appeared to one another like burnished, titian idols,
a god and a goddess, a hero and a heroine. They fell in love. They were swept away by the grandeur of their
mutual admiration.
Violeta had brought him home to feed him. Chela, who was only fifteen at the time, met him then. She was
happy for her sister and darned near jealous of the twenty-year old as well. Chela could see what a prize her
sibling had plucked from the sand.
The girls lived up on Point Loma, a hill draped in eucalyptus, cypress and acacia, not to mention acres of
green grass and thousands of little white gravestones. The Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery was on the highland
that jutted into the sea. Past the burial ground, out on the very point, was an ancient lighthouse that had once
housed a nineteenth century family in wind-battered isolation.
Just south and east of the massive hook of land was San Diego harbor, cradled in the lee of the point. To the
north, and down off the hill, down from the mansions to the seaside shanties, was Ocean Beach. The absence of
imagination that obviously went into the naming of that part of the city amused Ivan Bertman. There must not
have been much competition for such a trite combination to have stuck, he reasoned. They might just as well
have called it Sea Shore.
The coarse rowdiness of O.B. suited the New Mexico boy. He shared a home with four other guys, students
every one. They were close to the surf, close to the fun, and just down the freeway from the university.
Somebody's clunker was usually functioning well enough to get the crew to school in the morning. There was no
end of opportunities to get back home later in the day.
He was like a rough peasant, or maybe a fisherman, hat in hand in the hall of the empress, that day that
Violeta had coaxed him up the hill and into her parents' home. He walked in soft awe, fearful of breaking a
crystal vase, fearful of bumping into the polished antiques, fearful of scuffing the plush carpet.
As a matter of fact, it had been Vi and Chela's father who was the fisherman. Their father, their uncles,
grandfathers, and so on, for several generations, had been tuna fisherman. The Ferrerras were of Portuguese
descent. Years of hard work and thrift had left the family's own waterfront shacks in the past. The extended
family now owned three large and modern boats, fully equipped.
The families themselves were all ensconced on the majestic hillside now, in custom-built homes, with marine
band antennas on the rooftops, rather than widow's walks, and with shady streets complete with magnolias and
jacarandas.
Violeta and her sister had been raised there in disciplined opulence. When Ivan suggested that she abandon it
all to follow him back to New Mexico, she jumped at the chance. After their departure, Chela was never to see
Ivan again.
one who wanted to talk. "What's in New Mexico?" he had asked. She had told him it was her home.
"Do you have family there?"
She brightened immediately and said yes, and she bubbled inwardly. She had the strong feeling that her fellow
passenger was almighty curious to know if she were spoken for. She wasn't, but she left that out, just to tease.
"Yes," she said. "I have my little girls, Lillia and Bonita, and my sister is there with her kids." He was listening,
and so she went on.
"Violeta and I used to live in San Diego. We grew up there. Then she met a man, a boy more like," she went
on, remembering with some amusement the young student that Vi had dragged home from the beach one day.
Ivan Bertman was a student at San Diego State University. He was from New Mexico, a sophomore intending
to major in engineering. He was nineteen.
He was nineteen, and strong as a bull. Violeta had been overwhelmed by his muscular build, that day at Ocean
Beach. He in turn had been overwhelmed by Violeta. Together they were overwhelmed by the beautiful, raw
violence of the sun and the surf, the wind and the cliff. They appeared to one another like burnished, titian idols,
a god and a goddess, a hero and a heroine. They fell in love. They were swept away by the grandeur of their
mutual admiration.
Violeta had brought him home to feed him. Chela, who was only fifteen at the time, met him then. She was
happy for her sister and darned near jealous of the twenty-year old as well. Chela could see what a prize her
sibling had plucked from the sand.
The girls lived up on Point Loma, a hill draped in eucalyptus, cypress and acacia, not to mention acres of
green grass and thousands of little white gravestones. The Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery was on the highland
that jutted into the sea. Past the burial ground, out on the very point, was an ancient lighthouse that had once
housed a nineteenth century family in wind-battered isolation.
Just south and east of the massive hook of land was San Diego harbor, cradled in the lee of the point. To the
north, and down off the hill, down from the mansions to the seaside shanties, was Ocean Beach. The absence of
imagination that obviously went into the naming of that part of the city amused Ivan Bertman. There must not
have been much competition for such a trite combination to have stuck, he reasoned. They might just as well
have called it Sea Shore.
The coarse rowdiness of O.B. suited the New Mexico boy. He shared a home with four other guys, students
every one. They were close to the surf, close to the fun, and just down the freeway from the university.
Somebody's clunker was usually functioning well enough to get the crew to school in the morning. There was no
end of opportunities to get back home later in the day.
He was like a rough peasant, or maybe a fisherman, hat in hand in the hall of the empress, that day that
Violeta had coaxed him up the hill and into her parents' home. He walked in soft awe, fearful of breaking a
crystal vase, fearful of bumping into the polished antiques, fearful of scuffing the plush carpet.
As a matter of fact, it had been Vi and Chela's father who was the fisherman. Their father, their uncles,
grandfathers, and so on, for several generations, had been tuna fisherman. The Ferrerras were of Portuguese
descent. Years of hard work and thrift had left the family's own waterfront shacks in the past. The extended
family now owned three large and modern boats, fully equipped.
The families themselves were all ensconced on the majestic hillside now, in custom-built homes, with marine
band antennas on the rooftops, rather than widow's walks, and with shady streets complete with magnolias and
jacarandas.
Violeta and her sister had been raised there in disciplined opulence. When Ivan suggested that she abandon it
all to follow him back to New Mexico, she jumped at the chance. After their departure, Chela was never to see
Ivan again.
| * * * |
Gravity, bouyancy, the quiet water pressed about the dancer's temples. It washed his eyes, flowed on him
equally in every direction. His penetration of the pool inverted to a relentless probe at his every surface, following
every retreat.
He surfaced, and swam. The shadow of the brick chimney moved silently from board to board across the
wooden deck. He came out of the water.
The wood was warm, and he knelt on it. He settled his hips on his heels. In visual silence he brought his
hands together, fingers pointed upward, together against his chest. His eyes closed.
A bird sang and sang. The drops of water flew off into the light. There was a breeze; there were flowers on the
hill. A long time, a space of breath, a trail of feather warbles, a drift of sun, a chase of shadows on skin.
The world was so. He stood and walked into the garden. On the hill he moved in slow, infinite balance,
barefoot among the thorns, among pink flowers. He ate oranges and figs, sucking the juice from one, biting into
the fleshy nest of sweet seeds that was the other. He looked at red roses, lemons, eucalyptus trees. It was
Thursday, and the suburban hills vibrated to the coast, the mountains, and the highways. It was hot. He took his
sticky fingers into the house and the cool dark company of mantel and piano.
He lit a candle. The eye. Vision. Illusion. Beauty. It was a candle shared with a friend, at Christmas a year
before. It was one of two, candles, the other left cool, distinct, black on white, a wick in wax droplets. Solitude.
The flame danced.
At Christmas there had been a tree. This tree danced with them. It was free, and was gowned in wooden
angels and red bows, with a white dove on the high tip. The sacrifice of the forest, it had danced with them. A
virgin fir. But then Mantovani played Christmas carols on the radio.
On this day he chose a record from the collection and placed it on the stereo. 'Goldfinger.' A little bold. He let
it stay. Shirley Bassey belted it out.
He poured a glass of wine, the last of the fine French. It had been a gift to his brother from a friend.
Candle light reflected in the wine. He set it on the table. The table was large and white, low and square, solid,
a block of marble. The wine rested on it, cradled in glass, suspended in three dimensional symmetry. It was one
clear droplet in suspense. A potential splash of clarity. White wine.
The needle moved past the voice into a delicate instrumental. He took a sprig of dried sage and held it in the
flame of the candle. It caught. It blazed. He moved it in the air, the room, past the bricks and the wood till the
breeze of inertia carried off the flame, and smoke burst tumbling from the tip, doubling in filigree.
It sailed through the air, the fragrance. He tasted the wine. Glass to his lips.
For touching, there was herbal lotion. In the blood, sunlit fruit sugar from figs and oranges. Divine sweetness.
The body's electricity. On the skin, fingers, slippery oil.
He drank the wine. He poured lotion into his hand and rubbed his hands together, and anointed his limbs with
slickness. He soaked into the oil, like a dry leaf. His body became supple in his hands, a whip of live leather. He
took different shapes, coiled to reach himself, hips, legs in the air to be caressed and christened.
He brought all parts to the surface, lured by pleasure.
He had visions of subtle pleasure. Very real. Different. He was left alone. Returned to his cell, he finished the
wine. Taking a pen, he made an entry in his journal.
equally in every direction. His penetration of the pool inverted to a relentless probe at his every surface, following
every retreat.
He surfaced, and swam. The shadow of the brick chimney moved silently from board to board across the
wooden deck. He came out of the water.
The wood was warm, and he knelt on it. He settled his hips on his heels. In visual silence he brought his
hands together, fingers pointed upward, together against his chest. His eyes closed.
A bird sang and sang. The drops of water flew off into the light. There was a breeze; there were flowers on the
hill. A long time, a space of breath, a trail of feather warbles, a drift of sun, a chase of shadows on skin.
The world was so. He stood and walked into the garden. On the hill he moved in slow, infinite balance,
barefoot among the thorns, among pink flowers. He ate oranges and figs, sucking the juice from one, biting into
the fleshy nest of sweet seeds that was the other. He looked at red roses, lemons, eucalyptus trees. It was
Thursday, and the suburban hills vibrated to the coast, the mountains, and the highways. It was hot. He took his
sticky fingers into the house and the cool dark company of mantel and piano.
He lit a candle. The eye. Vision. Illusion. Beauty. It was a candle shared with a friend, at Christmas a year
before. It was one of two, candles, the other left cool, distinct, black on white, a wick in wax droplets. Solitude.
The flame danced.
At Christmas there had been a tree. This tree danced with them. It was free, and was gowned in wooden
angels and red bows, with a white dove on the high tip. The sacrifice of the forest, it had danced with them. A
virgin fir. But then Mantovani played Christmas carols on the radio.
On this day he chose a record from the collection and placed it on the stereo. 'Goldfinger.' A little bold. He let
it stay. Shirley Bassey belted it out.
He poured a glass of wine, the last of the fine French. It had been a gift to his brother from a friend.
Candle light reflected in the wine. He set it on the table. The table was large and white, low and square, solid,
a block of marble. The wine rested on it, cradled in glass, suspended in three dimensional symmetry. It was one
clear droplet in suspense. A potential splash of clarity. White wine.
The needle moved past the voice into a delicate instrumental. He took a sprig of dried sage and held it in the
flame of the candle. It caught. It blazed. He moved it in the air, the room, past the bricks and the wood till the
breeze of inertia carried off the flame, and smoke burst tumbling from the tip, doubling in filigree.
It sailed through the air, the fragrance. He tasted the wine. Glass to his lips.
For touching, there was herbal lotion. In the blood, sunlit fruit sugar from figs and oranges. Divine sweetness.
The body's electricity. On the skin, fingers, slippery oil.
He drank the wine. He poured lotion into his hand and rubbed his hands together, and anointed his limbs with
slickness. He soaked into the oil, like a dry leaf. His body became supple in his hands, a whip of live leather. He
took different shapes, coiled to reach himself, hips, legs in the air to be caressed and christened.
He brought all parts to the surface, lured by pleasure.
He had visions of subtle pleasure. Very real. Different. He was left alone. Returned to his cell, he finished the
wine. Taking a pen, he made an entry in his journal.
