kill the beast revised for scribd pubt

8/14/2019 Kill the Beast revised for scribd pubT

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K I L L T H E B E A S T

The Birth of a Radical Environmentalist

BY

DOUGLAS ARDLEY

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Copyright 1991 Douglas Ardley

FORWARD

The theme for this novel came to me after a major power line tower near mycommunity was toppled by explosives placed at its base, plunging the region into

blackness for several hours. To my knowledge, neither the motive nor the

perpetrator were ever discovered. I want to be clear hear; I am in no way, shape or manner advocating any of the criminal or violent acts portrayed in this book. Quitethe opposite, this book is an exploration into how diverse and multifaceted are themany motivations to radicalism of any form.

The characters in this novel are entirely fictional. Any resemblance or similarity to persons real or imagined is purely coincidental.

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This document consists of the first part of a three-part novel. If I receiveenough positive response I will put the entire novel up on the Scribd store for sale.Response can be sent to [email protected] .

ENJOY

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mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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THE SNAKE

The Day of the Snake, as it became known in the local school lore, began when Mark

quietly opened the cage door for Medusa, the class' pet python. Miss Ramirez, the second grade

teacher, was gone. She would return after the usual fifteen minute conference the principal

desired two to three times a week. Mark knew this was a good time to create some excitement

for the class because Miss Ramirez always returned from these conferences smiling and bouncy.

Anger was foreign to her during her post-conference phase.

Mark opened the cage door for Medusa. Sitting next to the cage allowed his secretive,

liberating movement to go unnoticed. Medusa lay motionless. Mark worried. If the snake didn't

hurry nothing would happen before Miss Ramirez returned. He dropped his pencil to the floor.As he retrieved his pencil he poked the snake near its eye. Medusa responded slowly, releasing

her slick brown-black curled form as she explored the cage entrance. Tongue out, tongue in, out

then in. She tasted the tile floor, finding it cold, but different than her cage. Her tail undulated

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out the cage entrance, following the lead of her tongue, searching for the heat to warm her cold

scales.

As Veronica completed her writing assignment Medusas tongue sensed the warmth of

her shoe, then Veronica's pink socks. Medusa raised herself vertically, coiling herself into the

warmth. Deep in thought, not expecting the cold scaly embrace, Veronica reacted quickly. Her

scream pulled Simon's eyes up, away from his paper. And as Simon sought to understand his

desk-mate's fear, Veronica's arms shot out, away from her center (perhaps instinctually enlarging

herself to foil the python's embrace). Unfortunately for Simon, Veronica was not yet finished

with her writing assignment. Her pencil, still clutched in her right hand as she threw her arms

into the air came to rest inside Simon's left eye.

The rest is school history. Miss Ramirez flew through the door, then to the floor, her skirt

wrapped around her ankles, leaving the teacher sprawled on the classroom floor. Mr. Kellan, the

principal, rushing behind Miss Ramirez, zipping his fly, saw his demise too late. Hooking his

right foot under Miss Ramirez' ankle he slammed into her raised butt, knocking her flat again,

while he still tried to zip his pants. Those children close enough to hear their teacher above the

howling Simon thought they heard her say something about his balls being larger than his brain.

Their parents denied the possibility when asked later that night.

And Mark, his green eyes bulging at the sight, resolved at the moment the pencil entered

Simon's eye to never again act without first weighing all the possible consequences of his

actions, including all the future possibilities. He blew it, big time. Just like he had blown it

when he screamed at his parents to stop arguing. His mother moved out then. She not only

moved out, she moved back to Boston, far from Mark's Golden, Coloradohome. It was his fault,

he knew it. He should have obeyed her more often. Maybe not all the time. No one could do

that, not even Dad. Now he lived with his father in their new home in the Rockies. How long

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had it been? Mark thought he remembered being six when they moved out West. His father

wanted out of life as CEO of Janus Mining. He wanted, needed to be out, to feel the pulse of his

multi-armed mining operation. Vivienne, his mother, thought the idea stank, Mark could see it in

her eyes, but it was their secret from Dad.

Mark buried his blond locks in his already muscular arms. He felt the tears run down his

cheeks onto his desk, and he waited for the shouting and screaming to go away, for the school

nurse to take Simon's pain away. He didn't want it to be. But he caused it. He knew it.

Medusa, unhappy with Veronica's trembling leg, found a calmer source of heat in Mark.

She wrapped herself around his feet and slept. When Miss Ramirez was gone, when Mr. Kellan

was gone, and other teachers restored order to the chaos, and when they began to discover (as

adults always must) how Veronica's pencil came to be in the same time and space as Simon's eye,

they found Mark caressing the brown-black python at his feet. She was so gentle.

Mark confessed. He had no choice when confronted by Mrs. Faith, the sixth grade

matriarch. He couldn't let her blame Medusa. She was only cold and looking for a warm place to

sleep.

"May the Lord have mercy on you child. You're going to need it." She stood over him

pronouncing his doom, her finger in his face and her stinking breath enveloping him like a

message from hell. And the shame he suffered licked at his psyche like fingers of the eternal

flame.

Mark had to stay after school every day for the rest of the school year, writing five

hundred times each day, "Snakes will not crawl free." He and Simon, who from the moment he

returned from the hospital with a patch over his left eye would forever be known as Capitan

Seeman, became fast friends.

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Mark had just created and passed through a moment of transformation, a peak moment.

He didn't know it; only rarely is a person blessed with the insight to understand the power of

such a moment. Mark was too young. That night Troy Janus held his silently crying son in his

arms. Troy gently rocked side to side, searching for, and not finding, the words to ease his son's

self-administered punishment. Troy Janus could find no need to punish his son, his only son, who

was already beating himself with his whip of guilt, and who would somehow find the logic to use

this disaster as one more piece of evidence of why his mother abandoned him.

Far to the south, on a jungle covered mountain side a woman groaned in the labor of

childbirth while her husband paced outside her thatch hut.

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ANGER

Alexandra is a skilled saboteur. She unconsciously perfected her skill over eight years

until, without understanding why, her parents could no longer stand one another and divorced.

Alexandra practiced her saboteur's skill with such subtlety her parent's never knew what

happened. With the finesse of an undercover agent infiltrating a terrorist group, she became part

of her family, then divided loyalties. Of course Alexandra could not have known the reasons for

her sabotage. She could never express her driving need to have her desire at all costs; even at the

cost of pitting father against mother. After eight years they loved her dearly but could no longer

look one another in the eye, face to face, and say, "I love you".

Now, three years later she applied the same skill to her father and stepmother. But her

stepmother could not be so easily manipulated. Her stepmother did not watch her own belly

grow huge with the life inside. Nor had she held Alexandra to her breast, feeling her engorged

breasts give life to a cooing innocent child. And she had not held Alexandra to her breast

through long nights of colicky screams; nor bandaged her wounded knees or caressed her injured

psyche.

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Alexandra fell asleep to the familiar sound of her father and stepmother shouting in their

bed room. Daddy would take care of her. She knew this with the certainty that lulled her into

untroubled sleep. She lay buried deep beneath her pink down comforter, surrounded with feather

down pillows and stuffed replicas of endangered species, when her stepmother stormed into her

room.

"Get out!" the raging woman screamed, flinging the pink comforter off the bed. "Get up!

Get dressed! GET OUT!" she screamed again. "I won't let you ruin my life! Get out of my

house!" The enraged woman's black hair flew from shoulder to shoulder as she snatched

Alexandra's clothes from closet hangers, throwing them at the girl. Alexandra gathered her

clothes protectively around herself, hugging them tightly to her chest. Too shocked to counter-

attack, she held her anger silently while she ran to her bathroom, locking the door behind her.

The large house echoed with the silence of the pause after the first salvo. Trembling

initially with fear Alexandra pulled her blouse over her head, shaking so that she could not easily

find the arms of her blouse. Fear turned to anger as she snapped her jeans around her eleven year

old waist, and she smashed her feet into her moonboots. Now she trembled in silent anger and

considered her options.

`Whatever she wants I won't do,' she quickly decided.

"Princess," her father's strained voice filtered through the door, "get dressed. I'm taking

you to your mom's until things get straightened out here."

"Go to hell!" she screamed. Tears streamed down her cheeks now. Tears born in anger,

tears born in fear. "I hate you," she added quietly, unsure that she really did. But it gave her a

strength she desperately needed.

Her father's foot steps retreated down the hall. Shortly she heard the Mercedes roar into

life. And in that instant she knew she must act or her stepmother would win. She bolted out the

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bathroom door, down the hall then through the game room. Breathless, she fumbled with the

deadbolt on the back door. Then she was gone, running deep into the Ponderosa Pine forest of

Lake Tahoe's north shore.

And a man stood, far to the south, on a jungle covered mountain side, the weakening

groans of his wife's long labor, the guttural sound of urgency, of pain, of expectant joy and

unknown sadness and finally of desperation, yielded to the silence of his fear. Then he saw an

eagle fly from the full moon.

The full moon scampered from cloud to cloud as Alexandra ran through the pines toward

the shore of Lake Tahoe. There she knew she would be safe, the agate covered beach was her

special place. Patches of snow lingered around the trees, waiting for the first truly warm spring

day to finish them off. But tonight they lay frozen while flurries of snow blew past in soft

caresses. Alexandra ignored the flakes occasionally brushing her long lashes. Her blue eyes felt

only the burning salt of her tears which now ebbed in her fury.

On the rocky beach she sat with her back to a Jeffrey Pine inhaling the vanilla scent of its

sap. Beyond the curve of the lake's horizon the glow of the South Shorecasinos provided the

distraction she needed to focus on a plan. And while she watched the clouds above the casinos

grow, illuminated by the gamblers day-light her mind calmed. The random synapsing of billions

of agitated neurons slowed to allow her the opportunity to control the adrenaline racing through

her veins, and to wrest control from her survival oriented but irrational neurons, replacing what

she considered her rational mind. She needed a plan. Cassandra would help her. She could hide

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out at her older friend's house, get her advice. Cassandra was always so cool, she never let a

thing her parents did bother her, she just ignored them and went on with her life as if they didn't

exist.

Deep in thought, Alexandra did not notice the man stumbling across the beach, more or

less in a direct line toward her sanctuary.

Then he entered. Grabbing her arm he slurred, "Hello young lady. Kinda late for you to

be out by yourself ain't it?" He smiled, tightening his grip against her struggle.

"Ow, you're hurting me," she hissed. "Let go!" The sound of the slap of his fingers

across her left cheek stopped her more than the pain. His left hand still dug deeply into her arm.

For the first time Alexandra noticed the slumped shoulders, shirt, tie, and street slacks of the

owlish man.

He was talking to her again. "Now I don't mean to hurt cha young lady. An if ya min'

your manners ya just might have some fun yourself." He had pulled her to her feet by now. She

noticed the wedding ring on his finger.

"Where's your wife," she asked, hoping to distract him, or play on any possible guilt his

drunken mind might summon.

"Why she's home I hope. She don't know I just lost my job and everything we own but

the house. Fuckin casino. But that don't matter cause I got you. And God you sure are a pretty

thing. That blond hair of yours is mighty long and pretty."

"You can feel it if you want," she threw her head from side to side, waving her hair in

long arcs. As the owlish man reached out Alexandra brought her knee up in the karate kick her

mother had forced her to practice over and over and over.

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`Keep your focus,' she heard her mother's voice. `Visualize. Kick as if you want to see

the man's testicles popping out of his eye sockets.' And she did want to see them popping out his

eye sockets.

He doubled over, falling to the agate beach, his fingers still digging into her arm, pulling

her with him. On the beach struggling, it was only an instant, it could only be an instant or it

would be over, she knew. She tasted blood as her teeth sank to the bone of his vice-like hand.

She wanted, needed to puke. But not now. His blood washed through her mouth mixed with

granite sand and she kicked her mother's karate kick and kicked and kicked and looked for his

balls popping out his eye sockets while somewhere deep within her a wild beast growled,

enraged. She was on her feet, he struggled to stand. She ran down the beach, in the open as her

mother taught her and she screamed silently to herself, Daddy help me! Daddy help me!" But

she knew her Daddy wasn't there to hear. Pushing pushing her thighs harder than ever before,

planting each step firmly into the pebbly agate beach, leaping with each step she ran along the

edge of each wave's reach. Quickly Alexandra came to the rocky point cutting through the

beach. There, almost at the water's edge a deer track cut through the underbrush down to the

water. The track was hers also. She shared it with the deer and raccoons almost daily. Now, at

eleven years her head brushed the canopy of leaves, her shoulders barely squeezed through the

sides. Here the man could not follow. He could not follow her with the speed and antelope

grace she possessed in this forest.

Only now, deep into the underbrush did she dare to look over her shoulder, to even think

he might be on top of her again, or to risk thinking she might be safe. But she ran still, no longer

with the panicked desperation of out-muscled prey, flight or die, but still she ran.

Legs pumping, arms stretched forward deflecting branches from her bloodied lips she ran

along the deer track no longer caring from what or toward what she flew. And the salt of her

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tears mixed with the salt of his blood, assaulting her tongue until she found her rock, her spot in

the woods and there she stopped, succumbing to the retching upheavals of her stomach until she

had nothing left inside to offer the green sprouting grass, nothing left inside with which to

exorcise the man and the fear and her loneliness.

She lay her face against the smooth granite boulder, arms outstretched, hugging the rock

for its warmth. But even the familiar sun-soaked warmth of her boulder was gone, lost to the

night. Shivering now, compelled to move on, Alexandra moved slowly across the clearing then

into the open forest of pines. She moved through the forest without knowing where she stepped,

without feeling the ground beneath her boots. Alexandra felt only the fear, his hand squeezing,

his drunken breath. And she heard only the silence surrounding the night. Then listening to the

silence she heard the twig snap. Alexandra bolted forward, away from the sound, planting her

foot directly on a loose rock. She screamed, falling, twisting to see a raccoon fleeing through the

moonlight. Through an exhausted sigh she tried to laugh at herself, managing only a whimper.

Her right ankle throbbed while blood oozed from her knee. Lying twisted in the pine

needles, a twig stabbing her armpit, leg throbbing while she breathed the granite dust, the full

impact of her night swelled through her soul. Alexandra began to laugh, full lung bursting

guffaws rolled past the Ponderosa Pines standing vigil over the triumphant girl alone in the

moonlight. Then she spread-eagled herself in her bed of pine needles and giggled quietly to the

stars as she felt the coolness of the night cleansing her in the blue light of her moon. "I won,"

she giggled. "I beat them. I beat that bitch. And that drunken bastard. Mother . . . you'll be

proud when I tell you what I did to that guy."

Then her tear ducts opened wide, like the flood gates of a Sierra dam and quietly she

turned toward her mother whispering in her tears, "If only we could live together Mom . . .

without hating each other. Why can't we do that? Mother . . . why can't you just let me be me?"

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The cold began to soak to her bones. Standing, she limped toward the glow of lights from Tahoe

City. `When I get into town,' she told herself, I'll go to Cassandra's.' But as she stepped onto

Highway 28 at the edge of town, into the yellow light, her protector turned his spot light directly

into her eyes.

"Hey Alex," deputy sheriff Miller shouted, "What happened to you? C'mon over here

young lady."

Alexandra smiled into the light. She genuinely liked the man calling her over. When she

reached his jeep he studied her silently a moment, sighing deeply . . . "Bad fight with your

stepmother huh? When are you going to stop . . ."

"Oh stop it Don. She hates me. Nothing's going to change that. I just wish Dad would

dump her. Will you give me a ride to a friend's?"

He studied her as she yanked open the passenger door. "What did happen to you? Honey

you look devastated. What shows on you is more that a midnight walk through the forest."

"I fell from a rock . . . you know, out on the point that cuts across the beach?"

"Your face is bloody . . ."

"I must have bitten my lip. Will you take me to my friend's?"

"Not a chance Alex."

"Then I'll walk," she lowered her foot to the asphalt.

"Hold it right there Alex!" the authority of a sheriff drowned his friendly tone. "It's four

in the morning. You are out past curfew and probably a run-away. I have certain responsibilities

which you probably don't care about, but I do. I should take you in to the station . . . but I'll give

you a choice . . . only because I like your mother."

Sheriff Don Miller sat quietly for a moment considering his last statement, watching the

disappointment grow in Alexandra's eyes. "Okay," he smiled, "I like you too, a lot. I like your

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spirit. Don't ever let anybody beat you down Alex . . . you're too good for that. But I'd hate to

have to live with you! Whoo! What a pain you must be! Now here's your choice, your mother's,

your father's or the station?"

"My friend's." She smiled shrewdly. "You said don't ever let anybody beat me down. If

I go to my mother's then my stepmother will have won. That's where she wants me. I could go

back to my father's, but I'm pissed at him, and even I have limits. And what would I get if we

went to the station? Child Protective Services? Juvie? Everyone knows what happens then. Do

you want to do that to me? Come on Don . . . my friend Cassandra and her parents are like

family to me. They'll help me . . . and mom, anytime."

"Alex . . . it's scary sometimes . . ." he paused to choose his words carefully, "when a man

speaks honestly, kinda opens himself up so to speak, about his feelings and what he says is

immediately used to get him to do something he doesn't want to do. Even if it's right and logical.

And especially when an eleven year old girl does it. Be careful young lady. You're too sharp.

Sometimes its better to give in graciously.

Where does Cassandra live?" Sheriff Miller turned the ignition key, let it snap back to

the "on" position as the engine groaned, then with his free hand gently shook Alexandra's

shoulder, "Be strong Alex," he whispered, "but be supple. Bend sometimes when the wind blows

hard, like these tall pines around us. I know you understand these trees.

"Hey! You're cold!" he felt her shivering beneath his palm. "How about some hot

chocolate before we wake up your friends?

"We can get you cleaned up too. Where'd you say you fell? I don't remember any rocks

you could fall from on that point."

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Slumping into her seat Alexandra mumbled, "It was more like I stumbled. I was standing

on a rock looking up at the stars, ya know? Feeling lonely, kinda small, but free. And I tripped

and fell off the rock. That's all."

Sheriff Miller pulled his jeep off the highway into Bea's Coffee Hut, radioed in to the

station and climbed out of the jeep. Alexandra remained motionless in her seat, while the sheriff

hesitated at the cafe door, his hand on the brass door knob. She didn't move. Shaking his head

he returned to her side muttering, "Something's wrong, real wrong with that girl tonight." Then,

at her door, he opened it gently, offering her his hand with an exaggerated show of gallantry,

bowing slightly he smiled, mouthing the word "Princess". And she broke. She couldn't hold it

the way she planned, saving it for her mother and only her mother to know.

Tears flooded as she pulled herself into her mother's friend's embrace stuttering, "I ran to

the beach . . . then he grabbed me real tight . . . on my arm. I didn't even see him. Then he said .

. . he said he was going to rape me Don. And . . . all I could think of was Mom and her making

me kick, always practicing kicking and she was there screaming, "Kick him! Kick him!"

Sheriff Don Miller said nothing, embracing her gently while her chest heaved, while her

voice faltered, attempting to regain control.

"I kicked him, I kicked him just like she taught me . . . I kicked him so that his balls

would come out his eyes . . . but . . ." And she shivered now, "he didn't let go and he fell on the

beach still holding me! And I couldn't get away, he was right in my face and I bit him . . . his

hand, so hard I felt his bones with my teeth . . . ." Now she shook herself slightly, inhaling

deeply, wiping her tears on his sleeve. "Then I ran and I puked my guts out and sometimes I feel

so lonely and sometimes I feel so strong right when I'm feeling lonely. And what do I do

nowww?"

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`Jesus, what do I do now?' Sheriff Don Miller hugged the girl-woman tightly, then lifting

her gently he placed her back in her seat, whispering quietly, "It's time to bend with the wind

Alex. I'm taking you to your mom's."

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REVELATIONS

Mark measured his stride to keep pace with his stepmother, following the signs toward

the Medical-Surgical Intensive Care Unit. Thirty minutes earlier she yanked him from his

varsity football practice explaining only that his father was bleeding to death. Silence engulfed

the pair from the high school to the hospital. Fear engulfed Mark, afraid to ask why or how his

father lay bleeding to death. He did not want to but could not stop creating images of his father

lying mangled by torn sheets of metal in his car.

"It's that damn uranium," his stepmother pronounced grimly, the left side of her mouth

twitching slightly. Her gray-blue eyes searched for the next sign leading through the hospital

maze, avoiding his questioning glance.

Mark stopped suddenly, grabbing her arm gently. Looking down to capture her gaze he

forced her to look up to his, "What do you mean? Uranium? He's bleeding because of

uranium?"

"It's an ulcer . . . "

"You mean you let me imagine for the last half hour that my dad was mutilated in some

accident and was still bleeding to death even in the hospital when . . ."

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"I'm sorry," she stammered. "I'm upset. They were pouring blood into him like beer

flows at one of those fraternity parties. It's not just an ulcer, they said a major artery was

probably involved . . . . He was throwing it up as quick as they could get it into him." She began

to walk quickly toward the ICU doors.

"Why uranium?" Mark persisted, blocking her path.

She stood back, her lip twitching rapidly now, then, eyes narrowing to slits she

commanded, "Don't you stand in my way young man!" and started forward again.

Mark stood his ground, planting his athletes bulk into the white tiled floor, "Look," he

pleaded, "I just want to know what's going on before I go in to see him."

"I just told you. He has an ulcer that's bleeding badly. It's from stress I'm sure. From

trying to get his hands on all the uranium deposits in this country.. Now let's go in. And be

calm!"

Troy Janus' nurse ushered them past bizarre images of semi-living humans, their beating

hearts and dormant brains hanging to the web of intravenous lines and ventilators surrounding

them, pumping them with life. Mark turned his head away, unwilling to accept the same

possibility for his father. He heard himself asking distantly, "How's he doing?" But he did not

hear the answer; Mark had just stepped into his father's room. He thought he saw a football

player with a three-headed snake coming out his nose where he expected to see his tanned

handsome father. Then he heard his father laughing.

"Oho! Wish I had a picture of that face! You're turning white kid." Troy Janus continued

chiding his son, "Here, I'll get up, you look like you could use the bed more than me!" But he

didn't move.

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Mark smiled now, his father was still good enough to razz him. And he could give it

back, "What's with the costume?" he smiled, "You look like a ghost of a Vikings player, with the

worms crawling out already."

"Is that what I got? A Viking's helmet? They gave me a choice of the Vikings or the

Rams. I said, `I don't give a damn.' Hell, if it wasn't the Broncos it was all wrong anyway."

Mark turned serious, holding his hands palms out in front of his chest saying, "Okay Dad,

what gives? What is this stuff?"

"Well let's see," Troy Janus turned his eyes in, looking cross eyed at the face guard of his

helmet. "This hose in my nose . . . ."

The three-headed snake?"

Yea. Well this head," he separated one of ends of the tube, "goes down into my

stomach. The other end has a big balloon attached to it that the doc inflated. It presses up

against my stomach wall. The idea is the pressure it creates keeps my guts from bleeding out.

Now this head," he separated another end, "goes into my esophagus and does the same thing.

And this one," still cross-eyed he fingered the third end, "I don't know what it's for, maybe

desert. I feel so full . . . like I've eaten a seven course meal."

"What's with the helmet? Trying out for fullback?"

"Interesting isn't it? Surrounded by high technology and they use a football helmet! See

how the tube is taped to the face guard? That keeps the tube in place but lets me move my head

around. Everyone should have one. It's better than being tied down!"

Troy's nurse stepped into the room, her lavender scrubs couldn't hide the flecks of blood

splattered across her breasts. Mark noticed them instantly when she stepped directly up to him.

She drew his attention away from her chest, consciously passing her hand past the v-neck line of

her scrub, a movement she had grown used to when dealing with young men in her unit.

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"Hello?" she questioned, wondering if she had his attention. "Hello. You must be Mr. Janus'

son?" she guessed, cocking her head slightly to her left.

"Uh, yes."

"Could I talk to you outside please?" she nodded her head toward the nurses desk.

At the nurses desk Mark asked nervously, "What's up?

"My name's Cindy by the way."

"Mark, Mark Janus. Pleased to meet you," he offered his hand.

Cindy took his hand while continuing matter-of-factly, "Your father has bled out more

than half his blood. We've replaced the equivalent of almost three quarts. That's a lot of blood,

but it doesn't contain the necessary parts of the blood that form blood clots. What I'm saying is

that he will probably bleed a lot more before we can heal his ulcer. This is a common problem.

We deal with this stuff all the time. So don't get too worried. Unfortunately your father has an

uncommon blood type . . ."

"What's that mean?" Mark interrupted.

"Just that we are running very low on blood that we can use with him. Which brings me

to why I asked you out here so quickly. Very often family members have what we call

compatible blood. Blood that we can use with other members of their family. We can do this

through what we call a "Directed Donor Program". You can donate blood, designating that it be

used for your father. Of course your blood has to be compatible with his, and it may not be. But

I think it's worth a try."

`Mark pursed his lips in momentary thought, then nodded his head, "Yea, sure. Of course I'll

give him all I got. How do I get started?"

"I already have the paper work started. You just have to go across the street to the blood

bank."

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"I'll go tell my father first."

Troy Janus' eyes sunk into his bloodless face as Mark explained his plan. He shook his

head violently, flapping his three-headed snake. "Son," his voice assumed the tone of authority

he used rarely, "I'll be fine with the blood they have already."

"No Dad," Mark stood at the foot of the bed, fingering the footboard, "they say they're

running low on your kind of octane."

"Dear," now Mark's stepmother spoke up, "let your son help you. He wants to. Damnit."

Now she was more agitated, "He may save your life."

"But it's football season son," Troysearched for the logic needed to refuse his son's offer,

his son's blood. "You need your strength to . . ."

"To hell with that! To hell with football!"

"Listen son I'll be fine. This is nothing."

Mark started for the door, "I'm not listening Dad, save it. Susan, I'll be across the street at

the blood bank, depositing my savings. Will you pick me up there?" Not waiting for her answer

he fled the sight of his ghostly father.

Susan stared at her pale husband, then started in, "Why in the world don't you want him

to give you his blood?"

"Stop! Please, not now," Troy cut her off, evading an answer.

Susan dropped into an empty chair, persistent, "I just don't understand. . ."

"Because he might not be mine!"

"What?" Susan sprang to her feet.

"You heard me." Troygrew quiet, lost in the past. "Listen," he returned to the present, to

the woman he loved dearly, "I'll tell you about it later. Okay? I just can't face it right now."

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The following day Mark stood face to face with his father's doctor. Mark noticed how

nervous the man was, wondering if he always shifted his weight so rapidly, unwilling to look

people in the eye. The doctor's black, short-cropped hair ended in a shining bald crown. He

continued speaking as Mark's attention shifted between his visual impression of the man and

what the man was saying. "So you see," Doctor Weiner continued, "we can't use your blood for

your father because your blood isn't compatible with his. Not even the same blood group." Now

he muttered, unsure if he should say anything further, but he did.

"Very unusual."

"What is?" Mark riveted his attention to the man now.

"Oh," Doctor Weiner regretted having said too much, "it's not significant, just not

common."

"What's not common?"

He shifted again, "Well it depends on your mother's blood type as well of course."

"Doctor," Mark planted himself firmly in front of the man, "what depends on my mother's

blood type?"

"It's not important. It's just very uncommon for someone to have your blood type, given

your father's blood type. I'm sorry we can't use your blood for your father. I assure you the

blood you donated will help save someone else's life. We are having a large amount of blood

sent from Denver, which will be here within the hour. Your father will be fine. We will need to

take him to surgery though. One artery is bleeding too badly to stop without surgical

intervention." Doctor Weiner left Mark standing in the visitor's waiting room. Mark didn't move.

`But it is important, it is important,' he repeated to himself over and over. The doubt, so long

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suppressed flooded through his soul again. All the clues he often wondered about: their different

body types, their very different noses, and eye formations, and mannerisms, and skin . . . .

Mark shuffled into his father's intensive care room, his thoughts and emotions whipping

around him like a wind-devil. He felt he was twisting with the wind, high above an abyss,

nauseated and about to fall deep into the nothingness around him.

"Dad . . . we don't have the same blood."

"I just heard son, we don't have the same blood type. That's different."

"Dad . . . I need to ask you something. Something very important."

From deep within the Vikings helmet Troy's voice gently welcomed his son's need. Mark

could see his father's eyes moisten has he watched his son struggle. Troy spoke first.

"I guess it's what makes humans so unique. Who knows though, maybe every animal

must know, or wonder from where it came. Come sit on my bedside here." He patted a spot

where he could easily reach his son to touch him reassuringly. "If we know our parents then we

want to know about our grandparents and our ancestors before them all the way back to our tree

climbing days, and even further back to the Big Bang. The big mystery though is why do we

begin to wonder, and why is it so desperately important that we know who our parents might

have been? So I'll tell you your story. You have a right to know. And if I die . . . . Well maybe

it will make a difference.

"I was twenty-seven, your mom was twenty-four. Martiniquewas almost a virgin island

back then. I was there on vacation. You know? Young and in my prime on a beautifully sensual

French island, single and feeling free. Viviennes parents sent her to Martinique to get her away

from her boyfriend, a young man they despised. What better place than a tropical French island

to forget old loves?

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"Son, I still remember the first day I met your mother as if it were twenty minutes ago,

not twenty years ago. There's a little horse shoe shaped bay on the leeward side, white sand,

coconut palms, and a beautiful coral reef creating a lagoon of

the bay. The place was magic.

"One afternoon I went to that beach just to enjoy the magic of the place. At the far end of

the beach, near a jumbled rock outcropping, your mom lay enjoying the last of the sun. Jesus she

was beautiful; she was stretching her long, long legs in that lazy way people do while soaking up

the sun for too many hours on the beach. She told me later that she first noticed me when a

butterfly landed on her shoulder. Turning to admire the butterfly she noticed the warm turquoise

hue of the shallow lagoon for the first time that afternoon. As the afternoon trade winds calmed

for the evening she stood to admire the small coved beach sloping between the lagoon and the

palms lining its edge. As she followed the line of palms she saw me there.

"She wondered if I was watching her. She is always quick to register her reaction to any

surprise. And she thought it odd that she didn't feel the slightest twinge of fear, being alone on

an isolated beach. Instead, she said later, she felt safe with me there watching her.

"Vivienne ran across the beach toward the water. God! She moved with the grace of a

gazelle. A gazelle in human form, tanned and strong, that's what she looked like. Then she dove

into the lagoon without so much as a drop of water splashing. She swam out to the reef and back

in, moving like she was born in the water. I was already in love.

"As she came up the beach I walked over to her. I had a coconut still full of milk which I

offered her without speaking. Your mom told me later she was still quite puzzled about why she

was happy to see me, instead of being apprehensive. While she gulped the coconut milk I

introduced myself, `Troy, Troy Janus', I said. `I couldn't help admiring how gracefully you glide

through the water'.

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"After taking a long sip she replied, "Thank you. That's quite a compliment." Then

extending her hand she said, "I'm Vivienne LeMar." Our hand shake lasted far longer than either

of us intended I think.

"We didn't stop touching each other for the entire month I stayed on Martinique. God, we

were passionately in love with each other from the moment I handed her that coconut.

"When I left I invited her to come with me to Boston. But she refused. She had the silly

notion we were just in love because of the influence of the island. She worried that we would be

completely different people in Boston, that the flame of passion would flicker and die.

"Fifteen days later she was on her way to Boston, saying she felt a black void inside

herself without me.

"Son, we were madly in love. Neither one of us could do any wrong by the other. My

only concern in life became to make her happy, and she was the same way about me. But love is

mortal son, just like anything else. For awhile though we both held eternity in our palms with

our passionate love."

Troypaused with a long sigh. The Viking helmet seemed to shudder as Mark turned

toward his father. Troycontinued, his voice soft and composed, "She always wanted to be a

writer. So I gave her all the support I could. Never made remarks about starving artists, or about

when she might get published. When she slumped I gave her all the support I knew how to give,

and then some. Meanwhile I was working like a dog with the mining company your grandfather

started. What we found in one another was a trust and acceptance that made each of us feel

completely loved and free at the same time. That's rare son. If you ever find it treasure it for allits worth. And it's worth everything. We could share our deepest fears, our deepest secrets and

know we were loved because of those weaknesses. Hell, not only loved but desired just because

we were willing to share our weaknesses.

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"We got married somewhere in there, but it didn't really matter. We were so passionately

in love the marriage was really for our families.

"I'm telling you all this so you get the whole picture. I want you to understand what your

mother and I went through, how we loved . . . Jesus we dove into each other so completely we

rarely came up for a breath. We went on like that for a couple of years. Friends envied our

perfect relationship. We couldn't keep our hands off each other.

"But maybe we were too honest. I don't know any more. Seems the older I get the less I

know. Maybe that's the key . . . ."

"What's the key Dad?" Mark interrupted his father's pause.

"Breathing. To avoid consumption we must breathe. Bring in something new. And

perhaps when we know all the weaknesses of our partners we search for an idealized strength in

someone else. Someone who, through our own ignorance represents the thread of survival.

Something new, not stagnant; someone strong, capable of protecting us. A new breath of life . . .

and then we are sucked into the newness. After a couple of years your mom befriended a guy. I

encouraged her. What the hell; no one can be all things for another. We invited him over for

dinner a number of times, went to plays together. After awhile your mom started talking about

finding him a girlfriend. Soon after that they started going out together when I couldn't make it

because of work. She asked me of course, to keep things open and honest. I thought it was a

great idea. . . . What an ass I was!

"Later on, a few months, she would forget to mention her plans with the guy, his name

was Bill. And I got suspicious. I confronted her with my fears; not about her having an affair, I

wasn't at all sure she was or if it mattered. But I was afraid we were losing the honesty we once

trusted each other with. I still remember that night clearly, she looked me straight in the eye

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saying, `Bill and I are friends, there is nothing more to it than that.' I said, `I'm not talking about

you and Bill, I'm asking you what is happening between us.'"

"I don't know," she answered, "Nothing really. I guess I'm just feeling a need to get to

know myself better, or again maybe. I'm questioning so many of my values lately, I don't know

what I believe, or want. I'm not sure how much of me is you and how much is really me."

Troybreathed deeply a few times then continued, "One night I came home quite late.

Vivienne wasn't home. I was surprised I guess, I don't know why in retrospect. Anyway, I knew

it was time to confront the whole mess. I knew where Bill lived, we'd been to his place a few

times. As I pulled into the garage below his apartment I saw her car . . . . The elevator seemed

to take an eternity. My heart was beating a thousand times a minute. My hands were shaking so

badly . . . . I was doing something I couldn't stop. I didn't want it to be happening but felt I had

no control over my own movements, as if my muscles were remotely controlled and I couldn't

stop myself. As I approached his apartment door I could hear Haydn playing softly. Holding my

breath, my anger, my fear I knocked gently. No answer. I tried again. No answer. The thought

of barging in on my wife, no matter what she might be doing, disgusted me. She deserved her

privacy, her own life. I kept telling myself that. But I knew she would never confront our dying

love unless I forced her to stare it in the face. I couldn't let our love die with a whimper. So I

tested the door. To my surprise it gently swung open.

Troyturned his head away from his son now, sighing deeply. Then he continued, "I'm

telling you this, these details, because I want you to understand, not the pain I, or your mother

might have felt, but the love we once had, and how love can die, and most importantly, the

commitment that love is, and the awesome control it yields over us at times.

"Her clothes were on the floor . . . . I fought to control my anger, to stop the pain, to keep

my heart from splitting apart in that room. Adrenaline pumped wildly through my veins, pushing

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me further into that apartment. They must have felt me approaching. As I entered they were

motionless, facing the door from under the covers.

"The words erupted from me like the growl of a caged lion and a man witnessing his own

death at the same time, furry and defeat, `I asked only for your honesty damnit. God damnit all I

wanted was your honesty!'

"Vivienne remained motionless, like a rock. Bill was the first to speak, softly, barely

whispering, perhaps from guilt, or more probably from fear of igniting the rage he must have

seen in my eyes. He said, `She still loves you Troy.'

"Containing a rage so intense I felt every molecule in my body exploding breathing alone

was almost too much effort, I was motionless for what seemed like forever. Then, conquering

my rage I softened, seeing her there afraid, `Love has strange ways of expressing itself,' I said.

`I'm going home. We have some talking to do. If you're not there within twenty; minutes after I

get home I'll assume that as far as you are concerned our marriage is dead.' Turning slowly,

sadly, I turned my back to the woman who possessed my soul. My life was chaos. Most

hauntingly, I wasn't at all sure she would be there to talk. I wasn't sure she cared.

"Entering our house I felt a barren coldness inside the walls I once called home. I tried to

soften the coldness by lighting a fire. Fifteen, twenty minutes passed. Thirty minutes went by.

Too numbed to feel pain anymore, I moved mechanically. Wanting only to be away, away from

that house, that capsule of memories too painful now to endure, that monument to my failure, I

grabbed my suitcase and began packing. I was half finished when I heard the door open. I heard

Viviennes measured steps enter the living room, pause by the hearth . . . . I steeled myself for

what was to come. Entering the living room I saw nothing but anger in her rigid stance. Turning

toward me she shouted, `What right do you have to break into my life like that?'

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`Don't for a minute,' I answered her, `think that I didn't find that disgusting. But what I

find even more disgusting is the fact that I had to find you in bed with another man to get you to

admit that something is dying between us. We had something special Vivienne. With promises

of honesty we opened our souls to each other. We loved so deeply, so freely because we agreed

to be honest. We agreed to trust one another with our souls. If that has changed for you, if what

you feel now seems more like slavery, then I don't want it either. More than anything else in the

world I want you to feel free, to be happy. But I have a right to know, to understand what

happened to destroy that specialness we shared.'

"Vivienne eased herself down to the hearth, lips quavering she stammered, `We weren't

making love, we were just cuddling, touching.'

"I thought she would attempt to deny the whole episode, to deny the abyss growing

between us. I hissed at her now, `So I arrived a few minutes early. My timing was off. Is that

why you are so angry?'"

`That's not what I wanted,' tears began to stream down her cheeks, Ì just wanted to be

touched . . . touched by someone who had no expectations of me. Someone who could make me

feel welcome, as I am. I haven't been feeling that from you. You're gone so often . . . . When

you are home, sometimes I feel like another piece of furniture in front of you.'

"I felt defeated, empty, as if we were speaking at a memorial service to our own marriage,

`Because,' I replied, Ì began feeling nothing from you. Listen, I wouldn't care if you were

fucking every man in town as long as your love, your affection was still there for me. But you

can't share that.'

"Then she said it, God it seemed so cruel at the time, now I don't know, her voice turned

icy when she said, Ì have enough love in me for you and fifteen men like you Troy.' Then every

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thing seemed to break loose. Your mom began sobbing, her chest heaving, and she cried so

deeply, she looked so alone.

"I felt like I'd been gutted alive. I felt a cold sheet of ice fill my heart. I only wanted out,

to be out of that house before I tried to hurt her the way I felt hurt. Grabbing my suitcase I

slammed through the door. I barely heard her pleading through her sobs, `Troyplease stay! I

need you! I love you!'"

The pale winter sun filtered through the hospital window, illuminating Troy's hidden face.

Mark watched his father struggle with his own devils. Troy's eyes were sunken deeply now, but

dry. His lips pressed tightly together. The huge rubber tube protruding through his nose waved

grotesquely as he shook his head with the memory. Mark wondered how many times his father

had lived through this memory. Troy began again.

"I drove for hours, going nowhere in particular, just driving. I followed the coast for a

while, then my anger turned to remorse and I turned toward home. I couldn't let it end with

hatred. If nothing else I just wanted to say, I love you,' and for her to believe me with her heart.

"Turning into our long driveway I instantly noticed the eerie glow of the fire. For the

second time that night adrenaline pumped through my veins as never before. The living room

was engulfed in fire, flames exploded through the windows, the roof was crumbling. Slamming

the car to a stop I raced toward the house. If she's in the living room, I thought, she's dead.

Pumping my legs harder, faster than ever before, racing to the back of the house I screamed,

`Please God don't let her die.! Please God let me tell her I love her!'

"I smashed my fist through a window of our bedroom. Smoke exploded through the broken window. Pulling myself through the window, slicing my chest and legs I moved

frantically, the house was about to go up like a bomb. I couldn't see a thing, it was pure thick

blackness. I couldn't breathe. I crawled through the room, praying she had gone to sleep, that she

would be in bed. I reached the bed, groped. Found an arm. Grabbing Viviennes right arm with31


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my bloody right hand, cradling her head with my left arm I pulled. I pulled her to my chest,

soaking her with my blood. Flames licked at the bedroom door. Fiery air scorched my lungs.

Breathing against the heat I lifted her to my shoulder and raced for fresh air. Sirens turned into

the driveway as I smashed through the back door."

The orange hue of the sunset played on Troy's face like the embers of that fire through

time. Silence endured while Mark studied his father, who faced the burning sun and watched it

die below the horizon, silently. When the orange orb disappeared Troyspoke again. Your mom

was pretty sick for a few weeks . . . smoke inhalation. The docs stitched me up with a few dozen

stitches and I was fine.

"We tried again. For awhile we were uneasy with each other. We went through the

motions. The motions of lovers reacquainting themselves with one another after a long

separation. But suspicion wormed its way between us. Not the suspicion of concealed affairs, or

of half truths, but the suspicion of concealed dreams, of concealed hope. Trust, between us, was

dead.

"Nine months later you were born son. There was never any question in your mom's

mind. She would have her baby. But I had to decide . . . . I had to decide if I was willing to be

the father of a child . . . that may have been conceived by another man. You know what that

decision was. We could have done blood tests that would have given a good idea of . . . you

know, who the father was. But for me it wasn't necessary. I made the decision to love and to

cherish you. To protect you, and raise you in the best way I knew how. I made you a large part

of my life and never once looked back to wonder if your genetic makeup made a difference.

"Now the secret's out. I would have preferred to wait a few more years. You had a right

to know. We, your mother and I, had a responsibility to make sure you didn't know until you

were old enough to understand. Now, if you want, there are genetic test we can do to determine

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exactly whether or not you and I are related genetically. Whatever you decide, remember this,

you are my son and I will always love you no matter what."

Mark stood. Without looking at Troyhe paced the room, agitated, deep in thought.

Finally he stopped. Turning to Troyhe let his tears show as they welled in his eyes, "I love you

too, old man," he stammered. "I've got some thinking to do." Then he walked mechanically out

the door.

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HEAT

Mark's elbows supported his weight across the rail at the cliff's edge. A golden

sunset backlit the growing thunderheads to the west. Dark gray shades contrasted with

brilliant white cloud edges, the entire show haloed in gold. `I'm twenty-two,' he thought to

himself, `graduating from the Colorado School of Mines, and about to jump into my

father's shoes. Jesus what an asshole I am.' A hand gently brushing his shoulder startled

him from his thoughts.

"Mark Janus, what a surprise to run into you up here!" As the first syllables of her

voice beat against his ear a bolt of lightning shot down Mark's spine to his groin, then back

up through his brain stem, leaving him motionless for an instant. Then he turned as she

continued to speak, "Where have you been? How have you been?"

"Alexandra!" Mark checked his surprise. They stood at the cliff's edge through an

awkward moment's silence. The sunset glow formed the illusion of a halo around

Alexandra's head in much the same style of Michelangelos `Virgin Mary'. Each registered

the intensity of the other's gaze. Bolts of lightning rippled back down Mark's spine,

burning into his groin. He wondered if she felt the same sensation. He liked to think

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Alexandra somehow entered into his chakras, whatever those really were, and raised him

to new levels of awareness. He was melting. Somewhere, faintly, deep inside the folds of

his brain a voice warned: "Danger! Danger!". Mark closed that door tightly, not wanting to

hear. "Alexandra," he repeated, "it's been too long."

Gracious as always, she turned to the rail, facing the sunset with Mark. "Since

Dave's party," she smiled, recalling the night they met. "We danced to UB 40. Do you

remember?"

"I've remembered many times."

They both smiled, remembering. The insistent backbeat of reggae booming,

booming, booming through the house. The rhythm pounding into the mass of bodies until

hearts beat and chests throbbed in time with, in slavery to, the beat. Feet moved to the

command of the drums, people were dancing. Dave had just introduced them as the magic

of the reggae beat captured their hearts and commanded their feet to move. Forward,

backward, side to side then circling one another faster, harder, feet pounding, thighs

pumping, higher, harder, in close brushing then pumping away from each other, circling

faster, faster, thighs pounding, sweat pouring, then falling away from each other teasing.

Up and down and around they circled, two bodies moving together, wanting together, one

desire, one dance, two souls circling as if they danced this dance for all eternity.

"You're a very good dancer Mark."

"With the right inspiration . . ."

"Where have you been since that night?" Alexandra turned back toward the sunset.

Mark studied her profile, and gave in. "I've been busy; keeping my distance," Mark

smiled.

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"David and I have gone our separate ways. Just put us in the history books. Now

you don't have to be so busy," Alexandra smiled, puckering her lips simultaneously, "or so

distant."

`Danger!,' the voice whispered desperately. And Mark saw the child writing

endlessly `Snakes will not crawl free,' with Medusa wrapped around his feet while his

Viking helmeted father lay in bed telling him that hearts do break, but he couldn't

understand that love can endure. Mark shook the image away.

Now, standing at the cliff's edge, his spine on fire from Alexandra's heat, Mark

knew the time for change had arrived. He could not predict the path of the tornado

engulfing him. Avoiding it no longer seemed possible; she was at his side inviting him into

her vortex. The time to leap had come.

Mark leaped. Alexandra and Mark went to her house for dinner that night. Mark

returned to his house only once during their first month together, to collect his belongings

and bid his roommate good-bye. At the time he said farewell to his roommate Mark had

no idea just how few of his friends he would see during the next two years.

Alexandra prepared a light dinner of pan fried trout and rice for Mark their first

night together. The trout, having no idea of the role they were about to play in the future of

two human beings took Alexandra's bait the morning before Mark did. Now, as Mark

picked through the delicate bones of the trout in the warm evening air they revealed their

dreams and their fears to each other. On Alexandra's back deck, while the full moon grew

over the mountain ridge they opened their hearts to each other, and conceived a budding

trust. Alexandra, twenty-six, four years Mark's senior had a wealth of experience and pain

needing release. She wanted Mark to know the pain which gave her strength.

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"Cynthia, my step-sister, is five years younger than I am. She could never do any

wrong as far as my stepmother was and still is concerned. In my father's house there are

pictures of her and my half-brother everywhere, but not one picture of me. When I was

younger I used to put my own picture, framed of course, out in the living room. The

picture would stay out for two, maybe three days then would find its way back into my

room.

"When I was eleven I lived with my father. At that time my mother and I weren't

getting along . . . . No, I'll be honest, we were so alike we couldn't live together. So I'd

been booted over to my father's house. One night, about two or three in the morning, it

was snowing, my stepmother woke me up by tearing the cover off my bed. She was

hysterically angry. To this day, and I'm sure until the day I die, I will remember the rage in

her eyes. It was the look of a cornered animal with no route of escape. She screamed at

me in rapid fire bursts, `You are destroying my life! You are destroying my life!'

"Within seconds I was running through the forest down to the beach. There, on that

beach a man tried to rape me. I kicked him and bit him then ran. I ran down the beach,

then I ran down a deer trail . . . I like to think the deer made that trail especially for me, for

that night, because the man couldn't catch me there. When I was safe, back in the forest I

laid down on a bed of pine needles and cried and laughed. I was scared and alone, but I'd

triumphed. With the help of those deer who made that trail, who were really just part of

the earth, I'd triumphed. Then as I walked away from that moment of triumph a thought

kept coming back to me; Daddy didn't help me, Daddy didn't help me. Somehow I had

grown up with the notion fathers were supposed to take care of their children. You know?

Protect them. He didn't. Not when I really needed him. The deer, and the forest did what

my father couldn't.

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With her legs bent to her breasts, her arms wrapped around her legs, Alexandra

looked at Mark for the first time since beginning her story, silently, her eyes smiling.

Mark smiled, then shifted closer to her, taking her in his arms. "We're so fickle

aren't we?"

Alexandra held him tightly, responding with her own question, "What do you

mean?

"Just a minute ago we were laughing, joking, telling each other stories of our lives.

Then just now I watched you curl into yourself and felt a huge distance grow between us;

as if you were protecting yourself from the loneliness of your memories."

"Yea," Alexandra sighed, "little memory keys that open dangerous doors. Usually I

hate this part of dating. Telling the life story. I wish I had a biography I could just hand

over to the guy and say, `Here, read this then call me back if you're interested.' That way I

could avoid all the stuff that hurts, and still be honest."

Mark tickled her sides, making her squirm, then joked, "Hold on a minute, I'll get

my tape recorder and make you a dozen copies."

She pinned his hands tightly under her arms, forcing him to hug her, whispering in

his ear, "I don't think I'll need any more biographies. And I don't feel like I'm dating right

now. You make me feel like we've been together a long time already. I've enjoyed

exposing myself to you, really. You make me feel so safe."

He turned into her open lips with a long soft kiss. As their kiss changed into the

frantic thrustings of passion Alexandra gently pushed Mark away, half laughing, saying,

"Wait a minute, now its your turn to expose your self, but keep your pants on, the

neighbors have binoculars!"

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Then Mark leaned back into the lounge chair, holding her in his arms and watched

the stars while he relived the moment the snaked he freed caused a pencil to shatter a

friend's eye, and the guilt he lived with for so many years. Concluding his story he said,

"So I resolved to never again start anything, any kind of act, unless I could predict all the

possible consequences. Until today. Until you invited me to dinner."

"I'm honored," Alexandra kissed his cheek, "is that why you're such a demolition

expert? You can predict with some certainty the results of the chaos you create?

"Can you predict what will happen if I take you into my bedroom?"

As she guided him through her door he replied, "I can think of a lot of

possibilities."

In the light of early dawn Alexandra lay curled into Mark's chest; "Wow!" she

nuzzled his shoulder, "I thought we only had five senses! I think you just hit my thirtieth

sense! Whatever it was you did mister, I don't want you to ever stop! How did you do that?

You set me on fire in places I never knew I had."

"You taught me," Mark answered, kissing her gently, "and you," he kissed her right

nipple, "and you," he licked her other nipple, "and you," her navel shuddered, "and you,

and you," laughingly he kissed her thighs, "and you, and you, and you." Groaning she

managed to say, "Let's start another lesson." The mid-day sun filtered through the firs

surrounding Alexandras room. The two lovers lay motionless. Intertwined in one

anothers arms, legs locked together in an embrace so easy they could not feel where one

began and the other stopped, Alexandra broke their easy silence. Locking his gaze with

her own, her radiant eyes moistening with tears, Alexandra let go. It was not an earth-

shattering statement; "I trust you." For Alexandra it was a courageous admission of

transformation.

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Mark's reply cut straight through a life time of protective shields Alexandra thought

impenetrable; it sparked a flood-light within the darkest corners of her psyche, forcing an

understanding of her many failed attempts at love, and of her loneliness. Perpetually turgid

from the moment their lips first touched the previous evening, Mark still rested deep inside

her. "I hope so," he smiled, "you've taken me deep inside you and asked me to stay there."

They each discovered in the other a new method to taste the world; they could eat

and the platter remained full. With the insatiable appetite of two starving beggars set free

in a wedding banquet they devoured one another. From years of denial, their hunger was

not easily satisfied. The lovers craved to possess each other, to taste the sweat, feel the

heat, hear the breath, see the desire and love in one another. Through the possession they

released themselves to one another. Through the act of giving to be possessed they said `I

trust you.' Theirs was a release so complete each interlude became a return to the original

garden. The experience of safety completely free of outside threat became so instantly

compelling the two lovers entered into the garden two, three, five times a day for the first

few months of their meeting.

Alexandra attempted to describe the sensation to her friend Cassandra, "It's as if

we were two super-novas circling around each other, undulating, expanding and

contracting. We expand outward, engulfing each other, not becoming one, but becoming

part of each other. In those moments I feel such and intense heat and pleasure, not just

inside me, or in my soul, it's as if I were inside the pleasure. And it lasts! God it lasts

forever! Then we contract again, become separate again, but we're still there just the two

of us."

Alexandra poured more wine, filling her friend's waiting glass from the half empty

bottle of Chianti in her hand.

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Breaking the moment of silence Cassandra smirked, saying, "Forgive the pun

honey, but you two are going to burn yourselves up. It sounds more like a flash fire in the

forest and youre roasting marshmallows. Listen, obviously it's beautiful for you right

now. You're in love. But what happens when you both discover you can trust other people

as well? He must be a wonderful man. And I'm not saying that just because he can turn

you into a super nova. So he accepts you and says, `Trust me.' Didn't your mom ever tell

you never to trust a man who says `Trust me?' How much does he really know you?

"He'd still love me, no matter what. Maybe that's it!"

"What?"

"Isn't that what we all need? To be told, `You are perfect just as you are. I love you

as you are, no matter what?'"

"You do dream don't you honey. Sure we all want complete acceptance, that's what

trust is all about. But that isn't all there is to it.

What do you know about this guy, really?"

"Don't pop my bubble Cassandra."

"I'm not trying to pop bubbles, I just want you to be careful."

Alexandra poured herself another half glass of Chianti from the bottle her friend

proffered across the kitchen table. The late afternoon sun, as it passed through the glass,

projected a brilliant red halo around Cassandra's right hand. A gentle silence settled

between the two as they sipped.

Cassandra spoke first, "What's in this for Mark?" she gently prodded.

Alexandra's lips tightened, "You really don't want me to be in love do you?" she

replied.

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"No, you're wrong," Cassandra shook her head, "I do. It's just that you've been shut

inside a shell for so long. I just want you to be careful. If you get hurt now you'll climb so

deep into another shell you wouldn't come out even if God invited you into his arms."

"He won't hurt me. He's seen the pain of broken trust in his parents, and it still

claws at his heart."

Cassandra slumped back in her chair, surprised. She scoffed, "And you think Mark

has learned from his parent's mistakes? Hell, men can't even learn from their own

mistakes!"

Alexandra looked through the window to the fading sunlight of the afternoon, her

eyes moistening, "Please let me believe that Cassandra," she replied. "Is there anything

more important we could learn from our parents?"

Cassandra raised her glass to her friend, "Here's to love and a good memory," she

toasted, "and good sex!"

Two years later, as she watched Mark drive out of her life, Alexandra would

remember her conversation with Cassandra. Feeling the emptiness inside her she would

try to imagine the pain, the disabling pain and loneliness Mark would be feeling. And she

would wonder, `Can we learn from our parent's mistakes?'

Until then they had a life to live together. They had a world to explore together, a

love to celebrate together. The lovers moved through their days like two master dancers

coming into themselves for the first time. A step by one created the other's step. No leader

was necessary for this dance. They moved as one unit. She missed a step, he carried her

through. He stumbled, she kept the dance in step. Every day brought new understanding, a

new discovery to share.

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Some months after they met the two traveled to Grand Teton National Park in

Wyomingfor a week of climbing and fishing. This was their first trip. It was a time to

recapture the unbridled passion of their first months. Hiking through the forest they came

upon a sunny meadow filled with late blooming Western Coral-Root orchids. The bright

red claret lips of the flowers inspired a need equally sensual and spiritual in both of them.

They began carefully removing each other's packs, but were frantically tearing at the

other's underwear as the sun penetrated and the orchids caressed their flesh. There in the

meadow, on a bed of red orchids they worshipped their love, their earth, their God.

Alexandra began writing a diary shortly after meeting Mark. Accustomed to

disciplining herself in mountain climbing and hang gliding, the discipline needed to sit, to

write, without the concentration of the athlete proved far more difficult. Determined to

record her reactions, to master the discipline, to record in order not to forget, she

alternately wrote in her diary or recorded her thoughts on tape. High in the alpine forests

below the summit of the Tetons, the campfire cooling to red embers, she wrote:

Tonight I wish I had the tape recorder. I know I could more eloquently convey the

joy and love I feel right now if my voice were audible. The high peaks around our camp

are radiating a pink alpine glow so bright the peaks themselves appear as if they were

illuminated from within. The night is chilling rapidly, I can barely see to write. Mark once

again seems to be inside my every thought, inside me. I wish he was right now.

We can communicate without words. Right now, as I wrote that the night is cooling

off, he pulled his sleeping bag from the tent and draped it over my shoulders. Mark cares.

He feels the world around him and cares about what he feels. Today, while hiking on the

edge of a meadow Mark spotted a doe and her fawn. He was some distance in front of me

at the time, and he waited patiently, quietly, until I caught up. The tenderness in his touch

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and in his eyes while he pointed out the fawn was so sincere, so compelling I was

overwhelmed. Without saying a word he managed to convey to me the fragility of their

existence, we were overwhelmed by love and desire.

Without speaking we both knew we needed each other, to be engulfed by each

other, to feel the life of the other engulfing and penetrating through us. I began stripping

his clothes off while he stripped down mine. Not a word passed between us. The sun

burned into our bodies as we lay on a bed of orchids. He caressed me gently with his

finger tips, first my face then moving down my neck, circling my breasts then back to my

shoulders. One at a time he caressed and kissed my shoulders then drew his tongue down

my arms to my finger tips. Back up my arms his tongue left a trail of expectation. Mark

buried his tongue between my arm and breast, then raising my arm above my head he

made me feel so vulnerable, but so safe at the same time. Gently placing my arms above

my head he once again drew his tongue, kissing me softly down my arm, across my

shoulder, across my neck to my breasts. Circling one breast then the other with his tongue,

kissing softly. Then he began nibbling gently, then harder. Sucking, biting, kissing he

moved from one of my breasts to the other, sucking, biting, kissing. Drawing my nipple

into his mouth he began sucking. He sucked with such intensity, he centered himself so

completely on my nipple he drew me completely into that moment, into that pulling and

releasing, into the need I sensed in him. I wanted desperately to give him the milk he

wanted from my breast.

Then he drew his tongue over my body, lingering at my navel, he sucked. His

tongue became electrifying. He rose back up to my nipples, my whole body trembled from

somewhere so deep inside me I couldn't tell from where, it was from all over. With his

finger tips, with his tongue he followed my belly down to my mound. The sun burned

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inside me. I opened my eyes to the brightest blue I've ever seen in the sky. Every nerve in

my body was on fire.

He nibbled my thighs, drew his tongue to my inner thigh, nibbling, kissing, licking,

pinching he covered one leg with his fire. He lingered in the softness behind my knee,

then moving up, his tongue touched my vagina pushing apart my labia, flicking my clitoris

. The orgasm began somewhere deep inside my psyche. The expectation was so intense.

Then my entire body convulsed in waves of pleasure. I wanted him there, inside me. I

needed him there to fill me. He created a need only he could fill. But he wasn't done. He

drank my juices. He let me know I tasted divine. He drew himself to my other thigh.

Leaving me open, the sun shining directly into me, turned my womb on fire.

I pulled him deep inside. I wanted him, all of him inside me. I can't describe the

oneness we felt, the wholeness created while our orgasm lasted, lasted, lasted.

We lay in the meadow on a bed of orchids for a long time. He never stopped

caressing me, adoring me. He painted me with a red orchid. We slept in the meadow, in

the warm afternoon sun, with bees drinking our sweat.

They kept to the high peaks for another week. During the return drive home, silent

from exhaustion, Alexandra pulled her diary from the back seat and wrote the following:

`Mark moves through the world, through nature, separately, as an observer. I am part of

nature, part of the whole, a sister to all life.'

While Mark and Alexandra lay on their bed of red orchids a political storm brewed in the

mountains and valleys of northern Wyoming. While they held each other close to the fire

someone wrote a letter to Alexandra. And while they drove out of their high sanctuary the

letter arrived and waited for Alexandra.

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CHAINED

The storm billowed out of the courtrooms and Senate chambers of Billings,

Montana and Washington D.C., roiling into the Gallatin National Forest on the northern

border of Yellowstone National Park. From a plane thousands of feet above, the dense

green coniferous forests extend seemingly forever southward. Immense peaks, monuments

to unimaginable forces contending for supremacy just above the molting core of the earth,

cut through the center of the vast, but dwindling evergreen forest. Perpetually snow

covered, the peaks give birth to white ribbons fanning out to the north, east and west. The

white ribbons of water, containing a life and destiny of their own, over millennia too

enduring to comprehend; while oceans formed and disappeared; while protozoa became

dinosaurs which rotted under layers of dust, the ribbons cut deep scars into the flesh of the

earth. From high above the jagged peaks, the soft carpet of green, vast and unending as it

once was, shows signs of mortality. The distant edges of the forest, once dispersing

gracefully into the plains to the north and east, are now cut abruptly short. Sharp lines

following no natural boundaries, corral the forest against the spine of the Rocky

Mountains. Scars of a different nature, unnatural brown swaths erupt from the green sea of

trees.

Down on the forest floor, complex communities live in delicate equilibrium with

one another, and with the newest contender for territory. Appearing in the area less than

two hundred years ago, this new man claimed all territory as his own. Defining

boundaries, and claiming all resources, this new man forced changes. Sometimes the older

inhabitants adapted, showing signs of intelligence far beyond that which the new humans

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were willing to accord them. But most of the time the older inhabitants failed to adapt, and

in failing to adapt, perished.

Bears have adapted. Across the forest floor, following no natural boundaries, a line

exists. Unseen, impossible to smell, only the humans know its precise meaning, but the

bears understand its implications. Here, on one side of the line the magnificent grizzly is

the prey. Here the lord of the North American wilderness, imprisoned by his own chains of

DNA, bound to a genetic history of survival through strength, is a symbol begging for

defeat so man the predator may proclaim his superiority unchallenged. Yet the grizzly

knows he need but step across that unseen line and bullet stops in mid-flight. There, within

the boundaries of that line the massive grizzly will eat the predators food with impunity, or

with a mild growl send the new man scurrying to his metal cave. Other animals have

discovered the safety of Yellowstone.

The process of adaptation has one final goal . . . survival. To that end many

animals have reversed their millennia old habits according to the changes men have

mandated on their territory. The deer migrates from the lower mountain regions outside

Yellowstone to higher ground inside the park in mid-autumn to avoid the hunter's bullet.

The food is scarce in the higher regions, but surviving hunger has better odds than

surviving hot lead.

Elk are not so intelligent. Perhaps feeling stronger living in herds, unlike the

solitary deer or bear, or perhaps due to the inertia of the herd, or unable to reach a

consensus, the elk does not change. The elk migrates from the high mountain ranges to

lower open plateaus each fall along paths forged by their ancestors, and committed to

genetic memory.

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It is around this genetic memory the storm clouds over the Gallatin National

Forestbegan to thunder. Deep in one of the creases cut by a tributary of the Yellowstone

River in the flank of the Rocky Mountains, the new man discovered uranium. The uranium

lay directly in the migratory path of a genetically incompetent herd of elk. Unable to adapt

to the rigors of a new route from summer to winter home, the elk would perish if the Janus

Mining Company was allowed to develop their proposed mining operation on the elk's

route.

So Alexandra sat, letter in hand, weighing the possibilities of her future. The letter

came from the Green Wolves, who hoped to recruit her as their primary organizer of a

campaign against the mining proposal. Long a member of mainstream organizations like

the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society, Alexandra needed to feel personally

responsible, to put herself on the front lines in a continual effort to derail the engines of

destruction. Her reputation as a high energy organizer preceded her when she joined the

Green Wolves. Now they needed her. She folded the letter, stuffing it into her purse. A

decision would have to be made soon. Until then Mark did not need to know about the

letter, or her dilemma.

The aspens outside her window ignited into yellow flames against the

mountainside, then stood bare in the blowing snow. Aspens marked the movement of time

for Alexandra far better than the gold Rolex she occasionally clipped to her wrist. Her

Rolex marked the seconds, minutes and hours of human concern. The aspens marked the

coming of seasons, the changing weather patterns that forced all creatures to adjust to the

demands of the rhythm of the breath of God. The aspens burst into green buds of spring.

And the elk gathered into huge herds of genetic intransigence, then filed into mile-long

lines up mountain paths, crossing fields of uranium.

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Uranium is nothing but an almost inert mineral while she lays buried beneath the

hooves of migrating elk. But remove the elk, then remove the uranium, and it becomes

power. Uranium is fire locked inside a rock. Unleash the fire and primeval power, the

power of the keeper of the fire, belongs to the new keeper of the fire. Power, the power to

light cities; power, the power to wield unthinkable death over the enemy; power, the power

to make hefty profits brokering flame to the keepers of the new fire.

Troy Janus wanted uranium. He wanted the uranium smoldering beneath the

hooves in the Gallatin National Forest. Government inertia saved the elk's migration route

that winter and spring. Talk of nuclear disarmament treaties and greater regulation of the

nuclear power industry were like the threat of rain on the communal campfire. The fire

might be extinguished, the profit gone, no power to broker.

Without waiting for final approval of the permits Troy Janus set his excavators, his

surveyors, his blasting experts in motion. Janus Mining moved into the midst of a pack of

vicious Green Wolves.

A pack of wolves attacking its prey is a sickening sight.

Sickening because the pack will tear its prey apart with certainty. Sickening because the

frail human, defenseless if stripped of his technology, can feel his own entrails dragged

across the dust, when he watches a pack bring down moose, or elk or a great bear. The

pack will eventually bring down its prey. One by one the pack attacks, tearing at tendons,

jumping for jugulars, while the others rest. But the prey must fight and fight and run until

running is impossible, until it goes down on its knees and the pack moves in.

That is why the keepers of the fire feared the Green Wolves. That is why

Alexandra, contemplating the moment when she should tell Mark of her new involvement,

vomited for days. That is why every time she began to speak her throat dried and words

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died and she would be silent for hours without looking into his green eyes. Until finally

Mark held her gently in bed one Saturday morning, naked, he tickled her until she begged

him to stop. And he stopped only when she wrestled him playfully into submission,

locking his legs into hers and biting his ear, whispering into his bitten ear,

kill the beast revised for scribd pubt

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