| Black Mountain Lady |
Jay
Dyck
Dyck
Diary of a Goatherder 13 April 1980
It's been over a month since I wrote in here. I suppose the pause reflects the unsettled
condition of my mind over these last few weeks. It's hard to say whether it's more settled
now or not. Maybe it's just Spring.
I took a step toward unraveling it when I gave the goats to Bob. This surprised him a
little, as it did myself. It felt like a good decision afterward, and continues to feel like it
was the right move. After some consideration, Bob agreed to accept the responsibility, and
became quite enthusiastic about it.
For myself, I don't feel that I am entirely backing out of the responsibility. Rather I
hope to expand my responsibility beyond the boundaries to which it has become
increasingly limited by ownership of the goats.
The weather has changed. For a couple of weeks it has been warm and sunny. I've
been going barefoot as much as possible to toughen my feet so that I can really enjoy
going barefoot.
It's been over a month since I wrote in here. I suppose the pause reflects the unsettled
condition of my mind over these last few weeks. It's hard to say whether it's more settled
now or not. Maybe it's just Spring.
I took a step toward unraveling it when I gave the goats to Bob. This surprised him a
little, as it did myself. It felt like a good decision afterward, and continues to feel like it
was the right move. After some consideration, Bob agreed to accept the responsibility, and
became quite enthusiastic about it.
For myself, I don't feel that I am entirely backing out of the responsibility. Rather I
hope to expand my responsibility beyond the boundaries to which it has become
increasingly limited by ownership of the goats.
The weather has changed. For a couple of weeks it has been warm and sunny. I've
been going barefoot as much as possible to toughen my feet so that I can really enjoy
going barefoot.
| Chapter Forty KITES OR BLACKBERRIES |
Cat One did not consider herself a victim. She did not consider little Victor to be a punishment. He was
more like the jewel in her crown. Her own position as crown princess of the Devlin-Dolan clan became ever so
secure draped with the authority of motherhood.
Cat hardly paid attention to the hearings. She herself was not forced to testify in the court room. Rather, a
private, sworn deposition was the evidence from her side that Dan introduced to the jury. He did the same with
Heidi, who answered the questions during her own deposition in the company of her psychiatrist and her
attorneys.
While the purpose of the deposition in Wisconsin was merely to thrash further the reputation of Mr.
Kirkhaz, Heidi Westbocker's parents wanted to be damned sure that not a word of it would leak out. This was
California business. Heidi should never have gone out there in the first place; the Westbockers were sure of
that.
They were glad the little monster Kirkhaz was dead. Once Heidi's story had come out, once the grief over
their daughter's own victimization had cooled from fury to heartache, they were eager to see help go to assure
that the brave young lady who had sent the creep to his doom be not punished for the act.
She was a heroine to them. But it was Andrea Clare that Heidi remembered. Once she was settled in her
post as head nurse, and having called Andrea Dolan to reintroduce herself, she drove over to the farm one day.
She saw Vikor that day, but it was not a confrontation. He was to her no more than a nine year old wisp,
disappearing behind a barn as she maneuvered her car to a halt in front of the old farmhouse. It was nineteen
seventy-two.
She never did see Cat One. Over coffee with Mrs. Dolan, she heard enough. "So how is your daughter?"
"Oh, wonderful! I think Cat and Vikor are going blackberry picking this morning."
"And Vikor is…?
"Cat's boy. Excuse me. His full name is Victor William Dolan… Dad thought he would grow up to be Vic
Dolan… sounds good, doesn't it?"
Heidi nodded and sipped her coffee. Andrea went on.
"But when Vikor… when little Victor… well, when he started talking, started saying his own name, you
know, it came out 'Vikor,' and it stuck."
"I think it's cute," said Heidi Westbocker. "Do Vikor and his mom…?"
"Cat…"
"Yes, Cat… do they live close by?"
Andrea Clare was a little surprised. "Why, they live right here," she said. She wanted to tack "of course"
to the end of her answer. Wasn't it the most natural thing in the world for a daughter to face the challenge of
single motherhood in the home of her family?
"I see." Heidi was surprised, but pleased. "Does Cat have a job in town, then?"
"No. Her job is raising Vikor."
"So, she doesn't work?" Part of Heidi Westbocker's joy over hearing that Cat One and Vikor still shared
the home of Andrea and Johnny Dolan concerned the obvious bonus of built-in daycare provision.
"Well certainly she works," smiled Andrea. "More coffee?"
"Yes, thank you. What sort of work does she do then?" asked Heidi.
"Well, housework, barnyard chores, errands for myself or her dad, that sort of thing. And Vikor always
helps her; she's taught him to cook a number of recipes.
"As I said, Vikor is her primary job."
Heidi absorbed that and asked, "But he goes to school part of the year?"
"All year, with Cat."
"You mean…?"
Andrea Clare shifted in her seat. "We home schooled Cat One, and she is doing the same with her child. In
my side of the family we haven't sent our kids to the government schools in generations."
"My goodness!" exclaimed Heidi. "I've really never heard of that. I thought all kids either went to gov… to
public schools or to parochial schools, private schools… (short pause). Were you…?"
"Home schooled? Absolutely."
"And… well…" the new arrival from Wisconsin hesitated.”Were your mom and dad teachers? Or was one
of them a teacher?"
"No, no," smiled Andrea Clare. "Painter. Farmgirl. That's all."
"Well, did you have a regular teacher come in?" suggested Heidi Westbocker.
"No. That's tutoring, Heidi," Andrea Clare Dolan replied with kindness. "We teach our kids ourselves."
"How?" was the one word question. Heidi and her brothers and sisters had been shipped away on the big,
yellow bus from their own farm to the nearby town where career professionals had taken over the twelve year
chore of teaching them how to read, write and do arithmetic. This was merely the turning over of a chore to the
appropriate expert. Farmers milked cows; bakers baked; mechanics spun wrenches; teachers taught. In the
instant before Andrea responded, Heidi realized with a vague sense of revelation or disillusion that her own
mom and dad had not only milked cows and raised hay, but were fairly accomplished at baking, mechanics,
carpentry, canning, plumbing, sewing and more. There was seldom money enough in the family larder to bring
in an electrician, a painter, a carpet-layer or an interior decorator.
If school hadn't been free, she realized, her folks probably would have made a stab at home-schooling
themselves.
She had asked how.
"We answer their questions," said Andrea Clare, doing just that for the young woman across the table
from her. She said no more, apparently content that the four words composed a complete answer.
Andrea Clare Devlin and Heidi Westbocker became fast friends. Andrea Clare never told the young nurse
about her other source of answers, about the old hag who was a part of her life until she was seventeen.
Agnes didn't just answer questions; she asked them. These weren't pop quizzes. These were questions that
hit like searchlights on the soul, simple questions that came at just the right time, questions that had made
Andrea Clare Devlin think, had made her understand the answer before she could voice it, so that often the
challenge that she faced was not that of finding and recognizing the answer, but of summoning the courage to
say it. These were questions that were repeated over the years, probes like, who are you, what do you want, and
where are you going, provocations like when, and how, and why.
Threats, warnings, dares… Agnes Tawny's questions had seemed like all of those and more, at times, to
Andrea. The hag's merciless force had sent Andrea home in countless tears. Home she would go, bitter with
disillusion, home to lick her wounds, to heal, to learn, and to hear the question rioting in her mind, until finally
she would return to Agnes with understanding, or apology, or retort, and usually with questions of her own, but
always with growth and change.
Heidi Westbocker had coffee or lunch with Andrea every week for six years before she ever met her
hostess' daughter or grandson. It didn't worry her. She was there to see Andrea Clare, and their relationship
bloomed.
She was collecting the eggs for Andrea one day, when she came around a barnyard corner and encountered
fifteen year old Vikor Dolan for the first, last, and only time.
Heidi was thirty-three by then. She had got, not older, but better, as the saying went. She stared back at
the shirtless country ruffian who gazed at her with the unblinking imperative of a watchdog.
Understand that Vikor had not spent six years failing to notice this frequent visitor. He had seen her from
a distance. He had chosen not to let her see him. Even now, as he looked into her startled eyes, he knew that
his mother could see the two of them from where she sat among the lilacs, a little way up the hill behind the
tractor shed. Vikor had observed the homestead from that close vantage point many times himself.
Cat One still chose to remain only a name in a sad story to her own mother's young friend. By now, Cat
was forty. Heidi was a child to her, but she indulged her own child, Vikor, and Vikor wanted to see the gal up
close.
"She's more than twice your age," said Cat with accuracy.
"That's not the interesting part," replied Vikor in such an off-hand way that Cat was left certain that the
"interesting part" was the part between the frigid Wisconsin dairy-girl's legs. In a crude interpretation of her
son's attraction, she was correct. The intangible signals that Vikor wanted to see up close were inextricably
linked with reproduction, and all of the sideshows that went along with such a crazy act. That was, at least, Cat
One's point of view, the insanity of having children, but she held it with good humor. She was intensely pleased
by her growing son. To say she was proud would be to miss it nearly altogether. She was proud, sure. But the
enjoyment, the fulfillment that she experienced when she saw her son went far beyond pride.
She had been dealt a winning card. She felt like she had mated with serendipity itself. Her prayers, had she
called them such, had been answered.
Of course, everyone's prayers are answered, which is trite comfort. The difference was that Cat knew it.
She appreciated it. She lived for the day, for the child. Whether it was to be kites or blackberries, she was
along for the ride with open eyes and heart. She loved her son.
She was not naive. Agnes had taught her too well for that. She knew that she would lose it all a thousand
times before her role as a mother was consumed. She knew that the depth of her joy was also the measure of
the sword that would stab her heart. The more she loved her beautiful son, the more the pain she would feel
when he left her. When eventually the grown man found his own trail, lured by other breasts and tables and
soft throats, she would ache in proportion.
Whatever pain the past still held, preserved in the memory of Cat One's heart, was encased by now like a
pearl. But the pain of the future she could anticipate clearly, without hesitation or fear. It wrapped and twined
with the gladness like thorns of a rose, and she accepted it all with smiling courage. Now, as she watched his
bold appearance before her mother's girlfriend, she saw how close he had grown to the threshold of loss. She
would have him for ten more years, and she would savor them. Then he would be gone; he would be the pirate,
the outlaw, the lonesome hunter, and she would be the mother who waited for calls, letters and visits.
She didn't know that she had ten more years with the spoiled urchin. Watching him now from the lilacs,
she could believe that he was already taking steps away from her.
more like the jewel in her crown. Her own position as crown princess of the Devlin-Dolan clan became ever so
secure draped with the authority of motherhood.
Cat hardly paid attention to the hearings. She herself was not forced to testify in the court room. Rather, a
private, sworn deposition was the evidence from her side that Dan introduced to the jury. He did the same with
Heidi, who answered the questions during her own deposition in the company of her psychiatrist and her
attorneys.
While the purpose of the deposition in Wisconsin was merely to thrash further the reputation of Mr.
Kirkhaz, Heidi Westbocker's parents wanted to be damned sure that not a word of it would leak out. This was
California business. Heidi should never have gone out there in the first place; the Westbockers were sure of
that.
They were glad the little monster Kirkhaz was dead. Once Heidi's story had come out, once the grief over
their daughter's own victimization had cooled from fury to heartache, they were eager to see help go to assure
that the brave young lady who had sent the creep to his doom be not punished for the act.
She was a heroine to them. But it was Andrea Clare that Heidi remembered. Once she was settled in her
post as head nurse, and having called Andrea Dolan to reintroduce herself, she drove over to the farm one day.
She saw Vikor that day, but it was not a confrontation. He was to her no more than a nine year old wisp,
disappearing behind a barn as she maneuvered her car to a halt in front of the old farmhouse. It was nineteen
seventy-two.
She never did see Cat One. Over coffee with Mrs. Dolan, she heard enough. "So how is your daughter?"
"Oh, wonderful! I think Cat and Vikor are going blackberry picking this morning."
"And Vikor is…?
"Cat's boy. Excuse me. His full name is Victor William Dolan… Dad thought he would grow up to be Vic
Dolan… sounds good, doesn't it?"
Heidi nodded and sipped her coffee. Andrea went on.
"But when Vikor… when little Victor… well, when he started talking, started saying his own name, you
know, it came out 'Vikor,' and it stuck."
"I think it's cute," said Heidi Westbocker. "Do Vikor and his mom…?"
"Cat…"
"Yes, Cat… do they live close by?"
Andrea Clare was a little surprised. "Why, they live right here," she said. She wanted to tack "of course"
to the end of her answer. Wasn't it the most natural thing in the world for a daughter to face the challenge of
single motherhood in the home of her family?
"I see." Heidi was surprised, but pleased. "Does Cat have a job in town, then?"
"No. Her job is raising Vikor."
"So, she doesn't work?" Part of Heidi Westbocker's joy over hearing that Cat One and Vikor still shared
the home of Andrea and Johnny Dolan concerned the obvious bonus of built-in daycare provision.
"Well certainly she works," smiled Andrea. "More coffee?"
"Yes, thank you. What sort of work does she do then?" asked Heidi.
"Well, housework, barnyard chores, errands for myself or her dad, that sort of thing. And Vikor always
helps her; she's taught him to cook a number of recipes.
"As I said, Vikor is her primary job."
Heidi absorbed that and asked, "But he goes to school part of the year?"
"All year, with Cat."
"You mean…?"
Andrea Clare shifted in her seat. "We home schooled Cat One, and she is doing the same with her child. In
my side of the family we haven't sent our kids to the government schools in generations."
"My goodness!" exclaimed Heidi. "I've really never heard of that. I thought all kids either went to gov… to
public schools or to parochial schools, private schools… (short pause). Were you…?"
"Home schooled? Absolutely."
"And… well…" the new arrival from Wisconsin hesitated.”Were your mom and dad teachers? Or was one
of them a teacher?"
"No, no," smiled Andrea Clare. "Painter. Farmgirl. That's all."
"Well, did you have a regular teacher come in?" suggested Heidi Westbocker.
"No. That's tutoring, Heidi," Andrea Clare Dolan replied with kindness. "We teach our kids ourselves."
"How?" was the one word question. Heidi and her brothers and sisters had been shipped away on the big,
yellow bus from their own farm to the nearby town where career professionals had taken over the twelve year
chore of teaching them how to read, write and do arithmetic. This was merely the turning over of a chore to the
appropriate expert. Farmers milked cows; bakers baked; mechanics spun wrenches; teachers taught. In the
instant before Andrea responded, Heidi realized with a vague sense of revelation or disillusion that her own
mom and dad had not only milked cows and raised hay, but were fairly accomplished at baking, mechanics,
carpentry, canning, plumbing, sewing and more. There was seldom money enough in the family larder to bring
in an electrician, a painter, a carpet-layer or an interior decorator.
If school hadn't been free, she realized, her folks probably would have made a stab at home-schooling
themselves.
She had asked how.
"We answer their questions," said Andrea Clare, doing just that for the young woman across the table
from her. She said no more, apparently content that the four words composed a complete answer.
Andrea Clare Devlin and Heidi Westbocker became fast friends. Andrea Clare never told the young nurse
about her other source of answers, about the old hag who was a part of her life until she was seventeen.
Agnes didn't just answer questions; she asked them. These weren't pop quizzes. These were questions that
hit like searchlights on the soul, simple questions that came at just the right time, questions that had made
Andrea Clare Devlin think, had made her understand the answer before she could voice it, so that often the
challenge that she faced was not that of finding and recognizing the answer, but of summoning the courage to
say it. These were questions that were repeated over the years, probes like, who are you, what do you want, and
where are you going, provocations like when, and how, and why.
Threats, warnings, dares… Agnes Tawny's questions had seemed like all of those and more, at times, to
Andrea. The hag's merciless force had sent Andrea home in countless tears. Home she would go, bitter with
disillusion, home to lick her wounds, to heal, to learn, and to hear the question rioting in her mind, until finally
she would return to Agnes with understanding, or apology, or retort, and usually with questions of her own, but
always with growth and change.
Heidi Westbocker had coffee or lunch with Andrea every week for six years before she ever met her
hostess' daughter or grandson. It didn't worry her. She was there to see Andrea Clare, and their relationship
bloomed.
She was collecting the eggs for Andrea one day, when she came around a barnyard corner and encountered
fifteen year old Vikor Dolan for the first, last, and only time.
Heidi was thirty-three by then. She had got, not older, but better, as the saying went. She stared back at
the shirtless country ruffian who gazed at her with the unblinking imperative of a watchdog.
Understand that Vikor had not spent six years failing to notice this frequent visitor. He had seen her from
a distance. He had chosen not to let her see him. Even now, as he looked into her startled eyes, he knew that
his mother could see the two of them from where she sat among the lilacs, a little way up the hill behind the
tractor shed. Vikor had observed the homestead from that close vantage point many times himself.
Cat One still chose to remain only a name in a sad story to her own mother's young friend. By now, Cat
was forty. Heidi was a child to her, but she indulged her own child, Vikor, and Vikor wanted to see the gal up
close.
"She's more than twice your age," said Cat with accuracy.
"That's not the interesting part," replied Vikor in such an off-hand way that Cat was left certain that the
"interesting part" was the part between the frigid Wisconsin dairy-girl's legs. In a crude interpretation of her
son's attraction, she was correct. The intangible signals that Vikor wanted to see up close were inextricably
linked with reproduction, and all of the sideshows that went along with such a crazy act. That was, at least, Cat
One's point of view, the insanity of having children, but she held it with good humor. She was intensely pleased
by her growing son. To say she was proud would be to miss it nearly altogether. She was proud, sure. But the
enjoyment, the fulfillment that she experienced when she saw her son went far beyond pride.
She had been dealt a winning card. She felt like she had mated with serendipity itself. Her prayers, had she
called them such, had been answered.
Of course, everyone's prayers are answered, which is trite comfort. The difference was that Cat knew it.
She appreciated it. She lived for the day, for the child. Whether it was to be kites or blackberries, she was
along for the ride with open eyes and heart. She loved her son.
She was not naive. Agnes had taught her too well for that. She knew that she would lose it all a thousand
times before her role as a mother was consumed. She knew that the depth of her joy was also the measure of
the sword that would stab her heart. The more she loved her beautiful son, the more the pain she would feel
when he left her. When eventually the grown man found his own trail, lured by other breasts and tables and
soft throats, she would ache in proportion.
Whatever pain the past still held, preserved in the memory of Cat One's heart, was encased by now like a
pearl. But the pain of the future she could anticipate clearly, without hesitation or fear. It wrapped and twined
with the gladness like thorns of a rose, and she accepted it all with smiling courage. Now, as she watched his
bold appearance before her mother's girlfriend, she saw how close he had grown to the threshold of loss. She
would have him for ten more years, and she would savor them. Then he would be gone; he would be the pirate,
the outlaw, the lonesome hunter, and she would be the mother who waited for calls, letters and visits.
She didn't know that she had ten more years with the spoiled urchin. Watching him now from the lilacs,
she could believe that he was already taking steps away from her.
| * * * |
Diary of a Goatherder: 27 April 1980
The garden is growing, and the fight is on with the mice. I've killed eight or nine with traps after they
ate all my melon and squash seeds twice. But we're eating radishes, and lettuce and onions are close
behind.
I planted eleven new fruit trees in the garden, a nectarine, a peach, a plum, two apricots, two pears,
two figs and two apples.
Those are the areas that my interest is on more now, growing fruits and vegetables. This is related to
my swing to vegetarianism. The only useful product of the goats is their manure. It's not enough.
Bob, now that he has had them for a couple of weeks, says he may sell them all and split the money
with me.
Whatever happens will be fine, I'm sure.
The garden is growing, and the fight is on with the mice. I've killed eight or nine with traps after they
ate all my melon and squash seeds twice. But we're eating radishes, and lettuce and onions are close
behind.
I planted eleven new fruit trees in the garden, a nectarine, a peach, a plum, two apricots, two pears,
two figs and two apples.
Those are the areas that my interest is on more now, growing fruits and vegetables. This is related to
my swing to vegetarianism. The only useful product of the goats is their manure. It's not enough.
Bob, now that he has had them for a couple of weeks, says he may sell them all and split the money
with me.
Whatever happens will be fine, I'm sure.
| * * * |
Vikor looked at Heidi Westbocker. He was aware of the sexual attraction that his mother assumed was
precipitating his nosiness. But when he had mentioned "the interesting part" he had meant something a little
more profound.
He looked at her. She looked at him. Hearts raced in each body; glands offered their secretions; irrational
impulses volunteered to spell good sense and caution. Take a break; we're in control. We can handle it.
You would like to handle it.
But, look! Her eyes have a twinkle.
He's breathing in deep sighs.
Her face is flushed.
He is hard. His eyes are twinkling too!
And all of this at the conscious level. But Vikor had seen women before. He was in love with half the
females in the Dove Springs area. Although still a virgin, he knew what was up. His mother had always
answered his questions, and his own uninhibited explorations of his body, and what it could do, had filled in the
gaps.
But this was a little bit more. This was the enigma. He saw it only as a warning, alluring but serious, the
gorgeous highland of coastal rock that tells the navigator, if you can see me, you are already too close, and,
should you linger, the sea-swell will drop you like an egg on the hidden reef.
For Heidi Westbocker, the lean teen who regarded her with the silence of a native was trouble. Beautiful,
luscious, sexy trouble, but she was having none of it. She was perfect in her career as a nurse. She had the cold
immunity to physical charm (or repulsion) that can be called clinical professionalism. She dealt with all the
boys and girls at the university. She coached them through the mononucleosis, the colds, the flu and the clap.
She heard their complaints; she saw them at their worst.
“Hello,” she said to Vikor.
“Hi,” he said. He pretended ignorance, but he knew all about Heidi Westbocker. His mother answered his
questions, and his grandmother had answered hers. He even knew that this woman's testimony had been part
of the evidence that had helped to insure that no murder charge was ever brought against his mother, back
when he was little more than a fast-growing cluster of cells.
He even knew what that testimony had been.
The senior Westbockers would have been mortified to learn the extent to which their daughter's abuse was
known. Cat One Dolan had not attended the hearing, but her mother had, and Andrea Clare Dolan answered
her daughter's questions.
Her story was similar to that of the other six girls who testified. Professor Kirkhaz had approached her one
day as she sat in an empty classroom trying to eat and study at the same time.
"You push yourself too hard."
"Oh! Oh, Professor, I…" she stammered at the interruption.
"Oh, no, no, no, no," he soothed. "I don't mean to disturb you," he said, lying. Selabjun Kirkhaz had
learned that there was something called continental charm, and he fancied that he had it.
"You're Miss Westbocker, am I right?" he queried, knowing full well that she was.
"Yes, sir," she said.
"And how do you find Physical Science?"
"Sir?" she asked, distracted and perhaps slightly baffled by the strange way that he worded his question, or
maybe it was just his accent.
"You are in my Physical Science class, yes? I wondered only how it is for you."
"Oh, it's… it's fine. I…" and she paused, uncertain what she intended to say. She really had nothing more
to say. She had been fine with her textbook and her sandwich, but her professor's question seemed to merit
more than a two-word answer. She didn't want to be impolite.
Kirkhaz, meanwhile, having declared his intention not to disturb her, had hunkered down in the aisle next
to her seat as if to chat with and verbally assist an acquaintance who was changing a flat tire or peeling
potatoes. "If you have particular questions, or maybe if you need special help, I am available to my students…
for that," he said.
In truth he was scarcely available at all to the male students in his classes. He had had enough of the male
in his homeland, the prissy kissups who would indeed do anything to be special. Here in America, he knew,
such monkey business was not so available, and who cared? Women, girls, were everywhere, and some were so
timid, so easy.
Selabjun Kirkhaz was disappointed to find how little of an intellectual contribution was expected of him at
his exchange post. Character aside, the professor was also a serious scientist, a geologist with a passion for his
subject. The session or two that he devoted to the geology of Clark's Hill… why he could frame a two semester
course around that bit of the world of rocks alone. But the curriculum that he worked within offered students
only the familiarity with the various disciplines that would be expected of college graduates. Coffee table depth
for most subjects. The school didn't even offer a degree in geology, and if it had, there would have been no
takers.
Selabjun still did some research; his post included funding for that pastime. But he was bored, and his
pursuit of distraction had turned sick.
At least, that was how Dan Guard phrased it. Sick. Though guarded by the safe, drawing room Latin of
words like concupiscence, phallus, fellatio and consummation, the story he read to the grand jury rang with
sickness.
The conversation between Professor Kirkhaz and Heidi Westbocker stumbled along with one-sided inertia.
"I think grades are important," he said.
"Oh, so do I!" said Heidi, as if defending her devotion to her idol. He had her attention, dangling the
meaning of life before her like a sordid crystal of some fake magic.
"Very, very important." He made a tent of his fingers and peered at her over the ridge. It was only an
imitation of wise concern, but Heidi bought it.
"Yes," she agreed.
"I have looked at your high school transcript, you know," he went on. "You are to be commended."
Heidi blushed, as much with embarrassment as with pride. She felt exposed to know that he had looked at
her records from Mary, Queen of the Angels. Her high school days had held their triumphs, all right. She had
been commended already, but she knew her weaknesses. The next remark from Selabjun Kirkhaz told her that
he knew them as well. The string of B's in the hard sciences, that one C in chemistry.
"Are you majoring then in liberal arts?" he asked her. Are you avoiding anymore chemistry than is
necessary? He could have asked that. He could have asked, are you afraid of disciplines that have their roots in
hard reality, that are subject to the rule of mathematics and observation and experiment, that are not based on
the imaginations of ivory tower poets of other centuries?
"I really haven't decided yet," she said. "Sometimes I think I will go into teaching. Maybe medicine. I
don't know."
"Ahh…" and she heard the pity in his voice. Another innocent, liberal arts female all set to go over the
precipice, trying to keep up with the men for whom science is a natural passion, and for whom mathematics is a
nimble tool.
Academic doom, followed most probably by marriage and capitulation to the homey fate of woman… she
hated the image that the tone of his voice conjured, but it was her secret fear as well. That she should fail, that
the competition should squeeze her out, that she should return to Wisconsin with her milled scrap of a diploma,
and a wedding ring around her neck, to pack her possessions and to join her budding architect, lawyer, doctor
or scientist, to make his home and bear his brood, and to support him in his triumphant quest… Heidi West-
bocker would have done anything to make the specter less real.
He called her in to his office, the day after their next test. He looked thoughtful, as she closed the door.
"Good morning, Professor Kirkhaz," she had said shyly.
"Shut the door, please, Miss Westbocker," he had ordered. "Good morning to you. May I call you Heidi?"
He was anxious to maintain what he saw as a picture of reluctant authority. He was the boss. His was the
responsibility to grade objectively. But, darn it, this student is such a nice girl; her ambitions are so high.
It would be such a shame to see her dreams dashed.
"Yes," she said. Call me Heidi, call me whore, call till you can not come no more. This doggerel leapt whole
and unbidden into her mind; she shocked herself with her own frank fantasies.
"Good," said the professor. "Heidi," and here he paused, as if to collect thoughts and attitudes. Heidi
Westbocker waited at attention.
"Heidi, sit down," he invited, and he was on his feet, proffering a chair. Heidi sat, letting him guide the
seat. Once he was back down himself they were side by side, ready to go over her exam sheet, which lay before
them on the desk.
"Heidi," he said again. His voice dripped with candor.
"Sir?"
"Heidi, may I be frank?"
"Please."
"Heidi, you have a full load this semester. I am right, no?"
"Oh, yes, you are right," she admitted. She suppressed a panic giggle. At eighteen and one half units, her
life was a three alarm fire. Not half through the semester she was neck deep in four separate position papers;
mid-term examinations were looming, and she had pimples. Professor Kirkhaz' physical science class ranked
somewhere between the pimples and her half-unit volleyball class, but it was all important, and she doled her
attention as carefully as she could to the multitude of pressures that she bore.
"I think that it is time that we did something to lighten the load," he said.
"Oh, God, that would be so good," she almost burst with relief. The possible ways to "lighten the load"
remained unexamined for the moment. She was already overcome with relief, and her professor capitalized on
it.
"Good," he went on. "I have spoken to your other instructors;" here the emphasis was on the "have": I
have spoken to them. "You are doing very well; but you know that, eh?"
"Well, I hope so," she said.
"You are too humble," he chided. "You must learn to be confident in your ability. You have… how is it
said… a lot riding on that little brain of yours."
The "little brain" twitched in annoyance, but she murmured acknowledgement.
"In this world," he went on, "you will find that success is always the result of a complex of factors.
Personality, intelligence, persistence, hard work, connections… all of these play a part, and no one of them can
do it by itself. Do you follow me?"
She did. She had heard and read this kind of advice before. In fact, she was loaded with anxiety about every
one of the "factors" that Kirkhaz mentioned. Her complex of fears at their worst painted Heidi West-bocker as
a dull, stupid, lazy and friendless quitter. That she was anything but was of no importance. The worry had its
own persistence.
"Sure," she replied. "But what…?"
"A minute," he shushed her. "Now look at this." He directed her attention with the point of a pencil to a
column in the grade book that he had opened and had laid across the yet unscored answer sheet.
"You have a paper due in my class, by the end of the term. Am I right?"
"Uh huh," she affirmed.
Across the top of the grade sheet in the little notebook was a series of column headings. There were
quizzes, one through twenty, tests, one through four, midterm and final. And there was also one column titled
"Paper." The lead point of Kirkhaz' pencil lingered at the top of that column for a moment.
"Look here," he said, and Heidi's eyes followed the tip in fascination as it journeyed to the left edge of the
sheet where the names of her classmates were alphabetized, last name first. The name at the bottom of that
column was Westbocker, Heidi. The pencil found the name, described a slight loop around it, and sailed out
across the bottom of the page to the 'paper' column once again. "Look," he repeated, in conspiratorial hush, as
the pencil made the three little slashes. 'A.'
She had barely begun work on the patently meaningless term paper. The subject that Professor Kirkhaz
had assigned her to explore was The Color Yellow: Observations and Applications. Heidi didn't even know what
the hell that meant. Now she had an 'A?' She permitted herself to look up at Selabjun Kirkhaz. "Wha…?" she
began.
"No, no," he interjected, heading off comments and protest. "Listen. I am under a heavy load myself.
There is much pressure. Much. I will have thirty of these papers to read and grade. Now? Maybe twenty-nine.
You see?"
"B-but…"
"Shh. Look. That is not all. Do you see how easy it is," he went on, as the pencil drifted back across the
page, pausing to mark a little 'A' in each of the boxes that represented Heidi Westbocker's tests and quizzes. A-
A-A-A-A. "Now do you see?" he fawned.
"B-but…," she began her protest again, but again he stopped her.
"But, you think it is dishonest, no?"
"Well, I…"
"Heidi, Heidi," he condescended. "Think of it this way. You will get an 'A' in my class no matter what. If it
takes that, you will study, you will stay up all night, you will spend Saturday in the library, you will do what you
must, but you will get the 'A.' Yes?"
"Yes."
"Yes. And where will the time come from? All that time? It will come from hours that could have been
spent on French Literature," he said, naming another of her classes. "Or Political Science, or English 1-A,
hmm?"
She nodded.
"So, then, what have you got? Maybe you need that time to do the job you really want to do on the paper
for French Lit. Maybe you need extra study time to pull down that 'A' in Poly Sci. Maybe you just need more
time to relax, time to enjoy yourself so you don't crack up in the middle of the semester."
Heidi nodded. She worried about cracking in the middle of every semester. Life had been like that for her
since junior high school. But what was this devious foreigner suggesting?
He went on. "You know, Heidi, teaching is also very hard. Very hard. The pressure is enormous. I spend all
of my free time, all of it, grading tests, grading papers. Sometimes," and here he allowed himself a wry chuckle
of empathy, "Sometimes, I think, I will crack up."
Heidi shared a hollow laugh. He had her attention. It sort of made sense. Why go through all the
machinations, just to arrive at the same foregone conclusion?
"Do you think I am very bad to suggest this, that we make a deal?" he asked.
"No," she answered, more from politeness than from any moral attitude.
"Good. Because I think that you will get more out of your other," and here he shaded his voice with
significance, "more meaningful subjects.
"Do you see how certain shortcuts like this might actually make your education here at our school more
rewarding?"
"I do," she said. And she did. But, but…
"Look at it all another way," he went on. This time he caught her off guard with, "I will have thirty of
these papers to read; I will have thirty finals to grade, and I have three other classes besides, Heidi. What good
will it do me to get out of grading your work, when all the rest is still on me?
"Not only that," he continued, warming to her startled apprehension. "I have my research to pursue.
"What is it to me," he asked again, softening his voice a trifle, "if I give Heidi Westbocker a break?
Hmm?"
"I don't know." Now she was confused. She looked back at the book, at the delicate string of 'A's that
decorated her row like a diamond necklace. They were still there, but in faint pencil. How easily they could be
swept away.
"Nor do I," he tsked. "I want to see you succeed, Heidi Westbocker!" he said with some force. "A mind
like yours is too precious to waste.
"You know, I have other students who come to me." He left a pregnant pause.
Heidi swept a lock of hair from her eyes and looked up once more from the grade sheet. "Come to you?"
"Yes. They come to me. They want to make deals. Some of them want to help me with the grading; some of
them offer me money. You know what I tell them?"
She shook her head in silence, letting her eyes be pulled back to the string of diamond 'A's that sparkled at
the bottom of the page.
"I tell them, 'Hey! You get out of here with that idea! This is college! This is the university! Time to stand
on your own feet for a change. No more mommy and daddy helping with the homework.'
"You know what I mean, Heidi?"
She nodded. It was a miserable nod. Bought and sold, she felt the diamonds sliding from her neck, one by
one. She struggled to voice her confusion. "But, what…?"
"A minute, a minute," said Selabjun Kirkhaz, who was sweating now with the intensity of his own
monologue on student/teacher morality. His own mind was swarming with so many thoughts that he made an
effort to collect them now.
Heidi Westbocker detected the sincerity. He was getting ready to communicate something important to her.
precipitating his nosiness. But when he had mentioned "the interesting part" he had meant something a little
more profound.
He looked at her. She looked at him. Hearts raced in each body; glands offered their secretions; irrational
impulses volunteered to spell good sense and caution. Take a break; we're in control. We can handle it.
You would like to handle it.
But, look! Her eyes have a twinkle.
He's breathing in deep sighs.
Her face is flushed.
He is hard. His eyes are twinkling too!
And all of this at the conscious level. But Vikor had seen women before. He was in love with half the
females in the Dove Springs area. Although still a virgin, he knew what was up. His mother had always
answered his questions, and his own uninhibited explorations of his body, and what it could do, had filled in the
gaps.
But this was a little bit more. This was the enigma. He saw it only as a warning, alluring but serious, the
gorgeous highland of coastal rock that tells the navigator, if you can see me, you are already too close, and,
should you linger, the sea-swell will drop you like an egg on the hidden reef.
For Heidi Westbocker, the lean teen who regarded her with the silence of a native was trouble. Beautiful,
luscious, sexy trouble, but she was having none of it. She was perfect in her career as a nurse. She had the cold
immunity to physical charm (or repulsion) that can be called clinical professionalism. She dealt with all the
boys and girls at the university. She coached them through the mononucleosis, the colds, the flu and the clap.
She heard their complaints; she saw them at their worst.
“Hello,” she said to Vikor.
“Hi,” he said. He pretended ignorance, but he knew all about Heidi Westbocker. His mother answered his
questions, and his grandmother had answered hers. He even knew that this woman's testimony had been part
of the evidence that had helped to insure that no murder charge was ever brought against his mother, back
when he was little more than a fast-growing cluster of cells.
He even knew what that testimony had been.
The senior Westbockers would have been mortified to learn the extent to which their daughter's abuse was
known. Cat One Dolan had not attended the hearing, but her mother had, and Andrea Clare Dolan answered
her daughter's questions.
Her story was similar to that of the other six girls who testified. Professor Kirkhaz had approached her one
day as she sat in an empty classroom trying to eat and study at the same time.
"You push yourself too hard."
"Oh! Oh, Professor, I…" she stammered at the interruption.
"Oh, no, no, no, no," he soothed. "I don't mean to disturb you," he said, lying. Selabjun Kirkhaz had
learned that there was something called continental charm, and he fancied that he had it.
"You're Miss Westbocker, am I right?" he queried, knowing full well that she was.
"Yes, sir," she said.
"And how do you find Physical Science?"
"Sir?" she asked, distracted and perhaps slightly baffled by the strange way that he worded his question, or
maybe it was just his accent.
"You are in my Physical Science class, yes? I wondered only how it is for you."
"Oh, it's… it's fine. I…" and she paused, uncertain what she intended to say. She really had nothing more
to say. She had been fine with her textbook and her sandwich, but her professor's question seemed to merit
more than a two-word answer. She didn't want to be impolite.
Kirkhaz, meanwhile, having declared his intention not to disturb her, had hunkered down in the aisle next
to her seat as if to chat with and verbally assist an acquaintance who was changing a flat tire or peeling
potatoes. "If you have particular questions, or maybe if you need special help, I am available to my students…
for that," he said.
In truth he was scarcely available at all to the male students in his classes. He had had enough of the male
in his homeland, the prissy kissups who would indeed do anything to be special. Here in America, he knew,
such monkey business was not so available, and who cared? Women, girls, were everywhere, and some were so
timid, so easy.
Selabjun Kirkhaz was disappointed to find how little of an intellectual contribution was expected of him at
his exchange post. Character aside, the professor was also a serious scientist, a geologist with a passion for his
subject. The session or two that he devoted to the geology of Clark's Hill… why he could frame a two semester
course around that bit of the world of rocks alone. But the curriculum that he worked within offered students
only the familiarity with the various disciplines that would be expected of college graduates. Coffee table depth
for most subjects. The school didn't even offer a degree in geology, and if it had, there would have been no
takers.
Selabjun still did some research; his post included funding for that pastime. But he was bored, and his
pursuit of distraction had turned sick.
At least, that was how Dan Guard phrased it. Sick. Though guarded by the safe, drawing room Latin of
words like concupiscence, phallus, fellatio and consummation, the story he read to the grand jury rang with
sickness.
The conversation between Professor Kirkhaz and Heidi Westbocker stumbled along with one-sided inertia.
"I think grades are important," he said.
"Oh, so do I!" said Heidi, as if defending her devotion to her idol. He had her attention, dangling the
meaning of life before her like a sordid crystal of some fake magic.
"Very, very important." He made a tent of his fingers and peered at her over the ridge. It was only an
imitation of wise concern, but Heidi bought it.
"Yes," she agreed.
"I have looked at your high school transcript, you know," he went on. "You are to be commended."
Heidi blushed, as much with embarrassment as with pride. She felt exposed to know that he had looked at
her records from Mary, Queen of the Angels. Her high school days had held their triumphs, all right. She had
been commended already, but she knew her weaknesses. The next remark from Selabjun Kirkhaz told her that
he knew them as well. The string of B's in the hard sciences, that one C in chemistry.
"Are you majoring then in liberal arts?" he asked her. Are you avoiding anymore chemistry than is
necessary? He could have asked that. He could have asked, are you afraid of disciplines that have their roots in
hard reality, that are subject to the rule of mathematics and observation and experiment, that are not based on
the imaginations of ivory tower poets of other centuries?
"I really haven't decided yet," she said. "Sometimes I think I will go into teaching. Maybe medicine. I
don't know."
"Ahh…" and she heard the pity in his voice. Another innocent, liberal arts female all set to go over the
precipice, trying to keep up with the men for whom science is a natural passion, and for whom mathematics is a
nimble tool.
Academic doom, followed most probably by marriage and capitulation to the homey fate of woman… she
hated the image that the tone of his voice conjured, but it was her secret fear as well. That she should fail, that
the competition should squeeze her out, that she should return to Wisconsin with her milled scrap of a diploma,
and a wedding ring around her neck, to pack her possessions and to join her budding architect, lawyer, doctor
or scientist, to make his home and bear his brood, and to support him in his triumphant quest… Heidi West-
bocker would have done anything to make the specter less real.
He called her in to his office, the day after their next test. He looked thoughtful, as she closed the door.
"Good morning, Professor Kirkhaz," she had said shyly.
"Shut the door, please, Miss Westbocker," he had ordered. "Good morning to you. May I call you Heidi?"
He was anxious to maintain what he saw as a picture of reluctant authority. He was the boss. His was the
responsibility to grade objectively. But, darn it, this student is such a nice girl; her ambitions are so high.
It would be such a shame to see her dreams dashed.
"Yes," she said. Call me Heidi, call me whore, call till you can not come no more. This doggerel leapt whole
and unbidden into her mind; she shocked herself with her own frank fantasies.
"Good," said the professor. "Heidi," and here he paused, as if to collect thoughts and attitudes. Heidi
Westbocker waited at attention.
"Heidi, sit down," he invited, and he was on his feet, proffering a chair. Heidi sat, letting him guide the
seat. Once he was back down himself they were side by side, ready to go over her exam sheet, which lay before
them on the desk.
"Heidi," he said again. His voice dripped with candor.
"Sir?"
"Heidi, may I be frank?"
"Please."
"Heidi, you have a full load this semester. I am right, no?"
"Oh, yes, you are right," she admitted. She suppressed a panic giggle. At eighteen and one half units, her
life was a three alarm fire. Not half through the semester she was neck deep in four separate position papers;
mid-term examinations were looming, and she had pimples. Professor Kirkhaz' physical science class ranked
somewhere between the pimples and her half-unit volleyball class, but it was all important, and she doled her
attention as carefully as she could to the multitude of pressures that she bore.
"I think that it is time that we did something to lighten the load," he said.
"Oh, God, that would be so good," she almost burst with relief. The possible ways to "lighten the load"
remained unexamined for the moment. She was already overcome with relief, and her professor capitalized on
it.
"Good," he went on. "I have spoken to your other instructors;" here the emphasis was on the "have": I
have spoken to them. "You are doing very well; but you know that, eh?"
"Well, I hope so," she said.
"You are too humble," he chided. "You must learn to be confident in your ability. You have… how is it
said… a lot riding on that little brain of yours."
The "little brain" twitched in annoyance, but she murmured acknowledgement.
"In this world," he went on, "you will find that success is always the result of a complex of factors.
Personality, intelligence, persistence, hard work, connections… all of these play a part, and no one of them can
do it by itself. Do you follow me?"
She did. She had heard and read this kind of advice before. In fact, she was loaded with anxiety about every
one of the "factors" that Kirkhaz mentioned. Her complex of fears at their worst painted Heidi West-bocker as
a dull, stupid, lazy and friendless quitter. That she was anything but was of no importance. The worry had its
own persistence.
"Sure," she replied. "But what…?"
"A minute," he shushed her. "Now look at this." He directed her attention with the point of a pencil to a
column in the grade book that he had opened and had laid across the yet unscored answer sheet.
"You have a paper due in my class, by the end of the term. Am I right?"
"Uh huh," she affirmed.
Across the top of the grade sheet in the little notebook was a series of column headings. There were
quizzes, one through twenty, tests, one through four, midterm and final. And there was also one column titled
"Paper." The lead point of Kirkhaz' pencil lingered at the top of that column for a moment.
"Look here," he said, and Heidi's eyes followed the tip in fascination as it journeyed to the left edge of the
sheet where the names of her classmates were alphabetized, last name first. The name at the bottom of that
column was Westbocker, Heidi. The pencil found the name, described a slight loop around it, and sailed out
across the bottom of the page to the 'paper' column once again. "Look," he repeated, in conspiratorial hush, as
the pencil made the three little slashes. 'A.'
She had barely begun work on the patently meaningless term paper. The subject that Professor Kirkhaz
had assigned her to explore was The Color Yellow: Observations and Applications. Heidi didn't even know what
the hell that meant. Now she had an 'A?' She permitted herself to look up at Selabjun Kirkhaz. "Wha…?" she
began.
"No, no," he interjected, heading off comments and protest. "Listen. I am under a heavy load myself.
There is much pressure. Much. I will have thirty of these papers to read and grade. Now? Maybe twenty-nine.
You see?"
"B-but…"
"Shh. Look. That is not all. Do you see how easy it is," he went on, as the pencil drifted back across the
page, pausing to mark a little 'A' in each of the boxes that represented Heidi Westbocker's tests and quizzes. A-
A-A-A-A. "Now do you see?" he fawned.
"B-but…," she began her protest again, but again he stopped her.
"But, you think it is dishonest, no?"
"Well, I…"
"Heidi, Heidi," he condescended. "Think of it this way. You will get an 'A' in my class no matter what. If it
takes that, you will study, you will stay up all night, you will spend Saturday in the library, you will do what you
must, but you will get the 'A.' Yes?"
"Yes."
"Yes. And where will the time come from? All that time? It will come from hours that could have been
spent on French Literature," he said, naming another of her classes. "Or Political Science, or English 1-A,
hmm?"
She nodded.
"So, then, what have you got? Maybe you need that time to do the job you really want to do on the paper
for French Lit. Maybe you need extra study time to pull down that 'A' in Poly Sci. Maybe you just need more
time to relax, time to enjoy yourself so you don't crack up in the middle of the semester."
Heidi nodded. She worried about cracking in the middle of every semester. Life had been like that for her
since junior high school. But what was this devious foreigner suggesting?
He went on. "You know, Heidi, teaching is also very hard. Very hard. The pressure is enormous. I spend all
of my free time, all of it, grading tests, grading papers. Sometimes," and here he allowed himself a wry chuckle
of empathy, "Sometimes, I think, I will crack up."
Heidi shared a hollow laugh. He had her attention. It sort of made sense. Why go through all the
machinations, just to arrive at the same foregone conclusion?
"Do you think I am very bad to suggest this, that we make a deal?" he asked.
"No," she answered, more from politeness than from any moral attitude.
"Good. Because I think that you will get more out of your other," and here he shaded his voice with
significance, "more meaningful subjects.
"Do you see how certain shortcuts like this might actually make your education here at our school more
rewarding?"
"I do," she said. And she did. But, but…
"Look at it all another way," he went on. This time he caught her off guard with, "I will have thirty of
these papers to read; I will have thirty finals to grade, and I have three other classes besides, Heidi. What good
will it do me to get out of grading your work, when all the rest is still on me?
"Not only that," he continued, warming to her startled apprehension. "I have my research to pursue.
"What is it to me," he asked again, softening his voice a trifle, "if I give Heidi Westbocker a break?
Hmm?"
"I don't know." Now she was confused. She looked back at the book, at the delicate string of 'A's that
decorated her row like a diamond necklace. They were still there, but in faint pencil. How easily they could be
swept away.
"Nor do I," he tsked. "I want to see you succeed, Heidi Westbocker!" he said with some force. "A mind
like yours is too precious to waste.
"You know, I have other students who come to me." He left a pregnant pause.
Heidi swept a lock of hair from her eyes and looked up once more from the grade sheet. "Come to you?"
"Yes. They come to me. They want to make deals. Some of them want to help me with the grading; some of
them offer me money. You know what I tell them?"
She shook her head in silence, letting her eyes be pulled back to the string of diamond 'A's that sparkled at
the bottom of the page.
"I tell them, 'Hey! You get out of here with that idea! This is college! This is the university! Time to stand
on your own feet for a change. No more mommy and daddy helping with the homework.'
"You know what I mean, Heidi?"
She nodded. It was a miserable nod. Bought and sold, she felt the diamonds sliding from her neck, one by
one. She struggled to voice her confusion. "But, what…?"
"A minute, a minute," said Selabjun Kirkhaz, who was sweating now with the intensity of his own
monologue on student/teacher morality. His own mind was swarming with so many thoughts that he made an
effort to collect them now.
Heidi Westbocker detected the sincerity. He was getting ready to communicate something important to her.
