Beyond Panic

A Teachable Moment

Once I covered

a third grade class for a teacher on vacation for a week. As a substitute, you have to gain control quickly, but every now and then, there are classes that you just click with, and some you never will.

This was the former. Whenever I covered elementary, where the kids are still excited about school and eager to please their teachers and for the most part get along, I always tried to keep it fun, to be the type of teacher I wish I had.

I’ve got several notes and letters attesting to my success in this:

“MR. SMITH ROCKS, ” signed by Mr. / Mrs. _ ‘s class,

and other notes along those lines; a friend of mine once told me those were reference letters. I’ve held onto them for sentimental reasons, to remind myself that I once made children have a fun day.

Everyone should have a reference letter from a kid.

But THIS particular class, for whatever reason, just liked me, and I liked them. We were determined to make each other laugh, and they gave as good as they got, turning out to be a precocious group. But they worked, and being the adult(?) in the room, I never let it get out of hand, and they kept each other in line too. We had our quiet moments. It made them appreciate the comic stuff more.

And then one day, in the lesson plan, was an art lesson; the kids had to make something. There were instructions, and supplies, and children who were assigned to give them out. I carried out said plan with dread, because I am ham-fisted when it comes to that stuff, but the kids were into it, and I was responsible to see it done, soooo….

There they were, working quietly, when one of the girls came up to the teacher’s desk with her broken art project in her hands. She wasn’t crying or anything, but she was holding the papery thing out to me like a communion wafer.

I took it from her, looked at it for a moment, fixed it, and gave it back, and she returned to her seat, and finished the project.

Here’s the weird part: neither of us said a word.

It was almost a pantomime, except it was unrehearsed and unplanned. She didn’t know I was dreading doing anything to it, that I didn’t want to take it, and was going to send her to another teacher across the hall who was good at that stuff.

But for whatever reason, I didn’t. She brought it to me, thinking I was capable, and something in me thought that if a kid thought I was capable of something, then I should be the one to do it. And I did, and she returned to her seat with her faith unshaken in the fact that adults can fix the problems kids have; that they can be approached, that they are there to help.

I realized now why later I thought the paper looked like communion: because it was offered up in faith, and placed into my hands to fix.

She didn’t need to say anything, and she wasn’t worried because she knew I could see what she needed done, and she trusted me to do it. She didn’t know I was ham-fisted, she didn’t know I had limited knowledge; she wanted me to fix what was broken so she could finish what she had to do.

The silence between us, after all the laughter, just made the moment that much more profound.

At the end of the week, the class asked me if I would sit with them in the lunchroom. I did, and we laughed, and shared food, and stupid jokes (What’s yellow and goes click? A ball point banana; Why was the tomato red? Because it saw the salad dressing…)

And on Friday afternoon, before dismissal, they gave me a card signed by all of them:

MR. SMITH ROCKS. THANK YOU FOR BEING OUR TEACHER. YOU’RE FUN. WE’LL MISS YOU. ❤ Mrs. __’s class.

I still have that reference letter, but that one small act of faith will remain clipped to it as long as I live.

Writus Interruptus

Since I’ve moved to Jersey, I’ve had trouble finding a quiet place to write. It’s difficult because if you can’t work at home, or just want to be outside in the fresh air, unfortunately, the world is a public place, and most people aren’t considerate of the fact that you need to concentrate in order to keep your train of thought.

These are people such as: smokers ( keep reading: not judging you, just that I’m outside for fresh air; I fully realize the irony of that statement living in NJ, but it’s a relative thing), car radios, chatter, *teenage girls (*see chatter on crack), running children…. you get the point.

There are days you have the ability to zone, and days that you don’t; these days I’m finding it increasingly difficult to zone.

We all know by now, even if we’re remotely serious about it, that writing is in fact a discipline, and as in any discipline, you need to be organized, to concentrate, to focus, to think, and to adapt, if necessary; that requires, to a large degree, two ingredients: the first is being alone, the second is being quiet.

That’s not comfortable for a lot of people, and I understand. Their car radios are on from the time they get in it to the time they get out, either with music or some other media like books or language learning. They come home and immediately turn on the tv, or come home and jump on all the social media they didn’t get to at work. I’ve never known anyone who said they’ve come home after a hard day and started a book, either reading or writing one (but I know you’re out there).

Then there are the coffee shop writers, whose ranks I’ve joined, and those who think coffee shop writers are showing off. Maybe some are, and maybe the whole movement even started out that way. But here’s the thing: How much you wanna bet that the cafe’ where J. K. Rowling wrote her first Potter novel is cashing in on that reputation?

How many little holes-in-the-wall places in Spain, France, and Italy claimed Hemingway? You get the point.

I felt self-conscious the first time I set up my laptop in a corner table at my local Borders; it wasn’t crowded, and no one gave me a knowing smirk of derision. Really, no one cared; it’s just that I was aware of the perception. Then some college girls came in and set up shop next to me, and I got distracted, and not much writing got done. If I had been more disciplined, Borders could’ve cashed in on my reputation and saved their business…Isn’t it pretty to think so?

So what’s my point? Finding somewhere quiet to write is essential, but it’s not always possible, so ….

Recognize that discipline doesn’t mean inflexibility; some days, I can work at home, other days, it’s my local coffee shop, and sometimes, it’s the library, and if the weather’s really nice, it’s outside in the park, because it’s the writing that’s the discipline, not the location.

And there are days you’re not going to be able to write X hours a day, even if you told yourself that’s what you would do, because there are days life will crash through the window, kick down the door, and grab you by the throat, and there are days you just won’t feel like it. Try to push it, and you’re just going to slog needlessly through a lot of mud.

Don’t do that to your writing, and more importantly, to yourself.

It’s okay. It evens out; the desire is there, and one or two off days is not going to quench it. When you get back to it the way it works for you for that day, you’ll be that much more productive. Go with the flow, just don’t float away.

Now go get that second cup of joe, and get back to work.

On Matters of Themes (Blogging 101)

Choices… CHOICES… choices

“Scroll through our themes…”

It looks fun. Even inviting, but here’s the rub:

‘Tis knowledge too wonderful for me; I cannot attain it. It all comes down to the words you write. The great works of our times, and the great writers of our age, were not concerned with such things. and I’d just as soon not.

I know that in the digital age of presentation, image counts, but I can’t work up enough concern to care. Eventually, you’re either going to read the content or you’re not, and that’s where the rubber of your talent meets the road of durability.

If it LOOKS interesting, but is in fact NOT interesting, who’s paying attention to the theme?

Maybe that’s a lazy excuse; I don’t know. I’m not manipulated by such things: I click on introductory phrases that pique my interests. Maybe it’s ’cause I actually couldn’t care less.

That being said, I probably will pick one …eventually.

ChOiCeS …cHoIcEs….

To My Dream Reader

I’m late with this assignment, but now that I’ve done it….

I like the world of fantasy: swords, magic, femme fatales that are great with weapons, that will bed you as soon as kill you, intrigue that you’re always a step ahead of, and the fate of a hostile, ungrateful world that eventually comes down to the final battle with your most lethal opponent, and it’s all on you.

Something in those stories resonated, struck a chord, sparked something deep within, whatever phrase you want to use, but after reading my first fantasy novel (The Once and Future King, by T.H White), it was a world I kept returning to over and over again. I guess you could call it the need to be needed. I’ve always liked to be the hero who came to save the day, even if it was just in the mundane things of life:

:”Could you pick up my kid after school?”

“I need help with this tire.”

“Got change for a buck?”

Not exactly high adventure like a journey to Mordor, but the concept is the same.

It was my escape, my entertainment, my chance to see the world in the mind that I couldn’t see in the natural.

The truth is, most of us would not likely survive in such a world, because as beautiful as it may be, it is also as deadly, and mercy is a foreign concept. It truly was survival not only of the fittest, but of the meanest, the slickest, the most ruthless, and the extremely cruel.

Children who lived to adulthood, much less old age, were a rare commodity.

That does not comprise the makeup of most people, generally speaking. Most of us are at least civil, if not loving, toward one another. And so, we have fantasy; a chance to be heroes / heroines without true danger, but we all imagine ourselves to some degree as the characters in these stories.

I believe it’s because in our hearts, we want to be heroes, we’d love to be needed, and to be able to come to someone’s rescue and say, “Don’t worry, I’m here.”

Never let that fire go out, Dream Reader.

You will one day be someone’s hero. I’ve seen it happen too many times for it not to be so.

In the meantime, we have our books, our cosplay, our nerdy, dorky fellowships that don’t fit in, but most of all, we have our writing; and the worlds we create within, with our abilities to set things right, becomes for a time, our reality.

In worlds where none of us can stay, both real and imaginary, we manage to survive, and find joy in the doing and sharing of it, if only for a moment.

Keep writing, keep reading, and keep dreaming, and you’ll come to know that “Once upon a time, (your name here)…..”

Why Beyond Panic? (My blogging 101 assignment)

My Blogging 101 assignment was already done; I just didn’t know it.

Beyond Panic

I called this blog Beyond Panic, which is not a cheerful name, and may not be something that on the surface people would want to read; I understand that, but such a title is not chosen at random, nor with the intent of discouraging people with a woe-is-me story. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

Why am I beyond panic?

The story is long and messy, but not boring. Suffice it to say that Murphy’s Law as applied to my life in PA was Murphy’s Law squared, and sometimes cubed, but it taught me some things about myself that I would not have known otherwise: I’m tougher than I ever thought I could be. I can show emotions. When people change, and especially when they betray you, they grow cold to justify their actions. Blood does not equal family. Death is closer than we know, but so is happiness.

And more…

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A Lesson in Forgiveness

My son has Asperger’s, but we pushed him to do as much as he could within the confines of his limitations, meaning, we didn’t restrict him from doing anything he wanted to try.

He rollerbladed, he rode bikes, he flew kites, he fished, he played baseball and football, but he chose basketball, and he would go to the court where they would let him play; I wanted to stay and watch, but I knew if they bullied him in any way, I’d be over there to ‘do something about it,’ and they were kids.

He asked me not to hang around, because he knew it too, so for both our sakes, I respected his wishes, but then one day it happened.
A ‘friend’ had shoved him, knocked the ball out of his hands, pushed him down, took his sneaker off and threw it out of the park.

I got on my horse, Righteous Indignation, and rode forthwith to the evildoer’ s parents’ house to ‘straighten things out’ which was a euphemism for ‘get even with this kid.’

His mother opened the door, and I read the scroll of charges. She said that she would ‘talk to him.’ I controlled my anger (somehow), and decided to file a police report (remember, I controlled my anger…) I go with my son to the police station, and the officer who hears my tale of woe says he knows the kid, the mom’s recently divorced, and they’re having a rough go of it; he doesn’t want to write a report. He will if I insist, but how about he brings the kid over to talk about things.

“Fine,” I say, rehearsing my speech full of reprimand, reproach, and recrimination.

A half hour later, my son is upstairs when the doorbell rings. I answer it, and the cop is there, his arm around the kid’s shoulders. ‘Like he’s the one that needs protection here’ I think (not bringing to mind that the cop told me, a half hour ago, that his father was not around to deal with me; wait, it gets better…) The kid looks chagrined, but I don’t buy it.

I invite them in, and call my son, who coming down the stairs, sticks out his right hand and says, “I forgive you.” Just like that. No preamble, no pointing finger, no yelling, no nothing. It’s real and pure and from the heart.

The kid apologizes.

The cop smiles, and I shrink down to an inch like Fred Flintstone when Wilma lit into him good (carbon dating myself, but there it is). I’m standing there with my mouth open like a stranded fish. My horse, Righteous Indignation, looks at me sideways with, well…righteous indignation. We were riding all around the neighborhood to get justice, and this is what my son does?

“We’re good here?” the cop asks.
“Yeah,” my son says.
“Yeah,” I say, because I’m still asking, ‘what just happened?’, and because there’s nothing left to say.
“See you tomorrow?” my son asks.
“Yeah, see ya.”
And they stayed friends.

If it’s possible to have soaring pride in a person who’s just deeply humbled you into silence, I did in that moment.

And I still do.

Making Warr (excerpt 2)

We found a vacant flyer, white with red stripes. It looked like a flying candy cane.

“You drive.”

“Me? Why me?”

“It’s girly.”

“But you guys call me Ed.”

“It’s just a nickname.”

“I’ll change it officially before I ride in this; it’s ugly,” she said. “We’ll attract attention we don’t want, and people will make fun of us. Well, you.”

We waited until another one came in, dark blue, clean lines, driven by a bureaucratic drone, who looked us over as if we were beetles on a pincushion before wiping his travel program from the hologram key map.

She programmed the key with our map, and the flyer whirred to life.

“How’d you two meet?” Ed asked.

“Candace? I met her in high school.”

“I didn’t mean Candace.”

“Oh.”

“If you don’t want to tell me, it’s okay.”

“I don’t. Not now.”

“You miss her, don’t you?”
“Now we’re talking about Candace?”

“Yes.”

“Just making sure. Every day, Ed. They didn’t have to shoot up the neighborhood to find me.”

“They were sending you a message.”

“They killed my neighbors, innocent people. Children died. What was the message in that?”

She was quiet a moment, then she said “They’d do anything to anyone to get to you.”
“I didn’t consider myself that important.”

“Well, you were wrong.”

“No,” I said, struggling against the rise in my voice, “I wasn’t. They made me that important. It wasn’t the worth the show of violence and power. I’m going to find out who did it, and why, and then I’ll take care of it.”

“And after that?”

“I don’t expect to live ‘after that.’

“So how does Lliya fit in?”

“I’m going to ask for her help; the squad will be in Nanjasi looking for Steele’s key; it might be related, it might not. I don’t know what part I play; it seems pointless for them to go through all that and then summarily suspend me.

“Something’s going on, and since I don’t have the squad’s resources, I’m going to need Lliya.”

“Can you trust her?”

I chuckled with a grim humor. “In this context, I don’t know; I guess I’ll find out.”

***************

What I’d loved about Candace was that she wasn’t part of any of this; there were times I wanted to include her, and sometimes I’d start to, but she’d put her finger to my lips to stop me; and she was right, because if she ever became a part of it, we were both in danger, and she was my refuge.

If I defiled her with my knowledge of the world’s maggot- filled underbelly, I’d have no place to go to get clean and sane again.

*************

It was a quiet Sunday afternoon, and she was rubbing my shoulders, humming softly to herself.

“What’s that song?” I asked.

“I don’t know; I remember my mother humming it sometimes when she was in the kitchen.”

“She never told you what it was?”

“I never asked. Why?”

“I don’t know; just seemed to me you would know something about it.”

She stopped rubbing. “Why is it so important to you that I know about it?”

I shook my head, “It’s not, babe. Forget I said anything.”

She resumed. “It’s that mind of yours.” Her voice deepened, mocking me. ’All data must be analyzed and re-analyzed.’ Really Warren, it’s a pain in the anal-ize.”

“Ha, you have jokes.”

She sighed, “No, just one; a big one, right between my hands.”

I reached back and pulled her into my lap as she squealed and laughed.

“I’ll put a big one between your hands.”

She wriggled her rump on my lap, and her voice grew husky as she drew close.

“Oh, yeah? Big talk, big man. Back it up.”

“I think that’s your part,” I said, slipping my hand inside her blouse.

And then she kissed me, and time went away.

*****

“Warr, you listening?”

“What?”

“Put the shields on; it’s starting to rain.”

I put the shields on, and the rain slipped off around them, keeping thing visible.

The afternoon was turning into evening.

“You’re going to have to go pack for Nanjasi soon, right?”

“Not taking much. I’m a girl, but not a girly- girl, otherwise I would’ve flown in that candy cane and talked your ear off about how pretty it looked.”

“You thought it looked like a candy cane too?”

“Yep.” She pointed. “There’s her place,” she said. “No lights on.”

“Course not.”

“You know her haunts.” Again, not a question.

“I doubt I know them all, but we’ll try what I know first.”

We split up; Ed walked one side of the street, and I walked the other.

It was dark when we finally found Lliya; she was in an aging bistro, peeling, spotted paint, dank upholstery, long past its prime, which made it great for clandestine meetings, and hiding. She was sipping something fancy and expensive from what looked like a ceramic thimble.

I signaled Ed, and she waved goodbye, mouthed the words, ‘Be careful,’ opened her coat like a flasher and smiled.

I returned it, shaking my head.

She closed the coat, turned up the collar against the drizzle, and started walking back.

I slid into the seat across from Lliya. She never looked up.

“Want a cup of this?”

“Does it come in a larger size?”

“No.”

“Pass.”

She shrugged. “What are you doing here?”

“Came to ask you a few questions.”

She sighed, looked up then. “I’ll save you the trouble: I didn’t set you up; you were happy with Candace, you were out of the life, you were out of mine, and I missed you, but not enough to do that.

“I don’t know why they took you, but if I had to guess, it was because out of all your squad, you’d worked everything. I don’t think sometimes you realize how long you’ve been at this.

“Surveillance, tech, infantry, sniper, impalement, martial arts; you’re a government agency wet dream. You’re not just a jack of all trades; you’re actually good at all of them.”

Kriley did say I was the best all around; still didn’t explain how I got caught.

“Any ideas who?”

“I know you’re thinking inside job; could be my people too. They didn’t send me after your squad. I came after you.”

“Why risk it, Lliya?”

“You’re an ass, Warr. Why do you think?”

“May I take your order sir?”

I’d been so focused on Lliya I didn’t see the waitress walk up.

“Is the food still good here?”

“They still have waitresses.”

“Something strong, with something broiled.”

The waitress smiled, her menu for savages at the ready: “Bourbon and steak?”

“I like you.”

“How do you want the steak?”

“Like a satisfied woman: well-done.”

Lliya sputtered out some of her droplet, and went into a coughing fit.

The waitress blushed and flounced away.

“Really?”

I shrugged.

“My god, how did you ever get Candace to marry you with lines like that?”

“I didn’t use lines like that on Candace.”

She sobered. “I’m sorry, Warr. I didn’t mean…”

“S’okay, Lliya. Drop it. We’re good.”

She gave us a minute to make sure I meant it. I did.

“Listen to me, okay? She can’t be a distraction, and it’s my fault for bringing her up. You know how I feel about you, but we’re on opposite sides here. You had a choice to make, and you did, and I stayed away.

“It seems that circumstances are putting us back together, and I don’t know what’s going to happen. If it comes down to it, Warr, you know I’ll kill you, and I know you’ll kill me. We’ll hate it, and we’ll mourn inside, and move on, but there’s no question whether or not we’d carry it out.”

Her voice took on a note of wistfulness.

“That’s what would’ve made us great, but it’s also what makes us impossible.”

“What?”

“Our devotion. It’s misdirected: it could’ve been for each other, but now it’s for what we do.”

“You didn’t have to be on the opposite side.”

“I didn’t choose it; I needed a job. We had history, and Kriley didn’t like it.”

“Screw Kriley.”

“Sometimes I wish I had; he would’ve left us alone.”

I looked at her.

“No, he never made a pass. Seriously, could you imagine?”

I couldn’t.

“Anyway,” she finished the liquid in her thimble, “it doesn’t matter now, does it? What do you need from me?”

I sat back, breaking the intangible tension.

“Well you’re right; I’m thinking it was inside, I just don’t know if it’s mine or yours. If it’s mine, I need someone from the outside looking in. I want you to shadow me, see if anything looks out of the ordinary, anybody I can’t see.

“Steele Industries has their own trackers on me; they’re good, but not as good as you, and they’ll be gone with nothing to report in a few days.”

“Wouldn’t Ed be better for this?”

“Don’t know, because I can’t use her. And if it’s on my side that would tip them off that I knew, though Ed is hard to track, and I think she’d do it. Anyway, they’re going to Nanjasi without me. I’ve been suspended for getting caught; the suits at Steele say I’m a liability.”

“The suits at Steele are wrong.”

“Kriley tried to say that, but they weren’t interested. Will you do it?”

She sighed.

The waitress came back with the bourbon.

“Should you be drinking?”

“Question is, shouldn’t you?”

She considered it.

“What the hell.” With that, she answered both questions.

I poured some into her thimble, but she took the glass from my hand.

“On the rocks ruins it,” she said.

“I didn’t want you taking advantage of me.”

She smiled. “We both know I can do that whenever I want.”

I reached over and brushed a strand from her eyes, my thumb brushing her temple, and she wanted to lean into my hand, and I saw the effort not to; I put my hand back on the table, and it was a little colder where her cheek would’ve touched.

“That’s what would’ve made us great, but it’s also what makes us impossible.”

She lifted the glass in a silent toast, and I lifted the thimble, and we drank.

March 3^rd 2014

Making Warr (Excerpt 1)

My name is Warren, an unassuming name, but you’d be wrong to make assumptions: They call me Warr, because it’s all I’m good at making. And I’m really, really good.

1: The room was stifling, rank with the scent of tangy sweat. Flies crawled through my blood, biting, sipping, itching, but I couldn’t scratch with my hands tied behind my back. My lips and nose were swollen from the blows, and it was hard to breathe around the stifling, stinking gag to get air through my mouth.

The goon had his fingernails pressing into a leg wound, and I snarled, muffling through the gag, tensing against the bonds. “Tell us.” The goon pressed harder. I couldn’t help it, and cried out in pain. He let up, and the relative relief was welcome. We all sat breathing for a time. Sweat trickled into the wounds they’d inflicted, burning.

Telling began to seem like a good idea, but if I did, my squad was all dead, and I was hard pressed to believe these guys would really let me go. Goon took the gag off, looked in my eyes, and grabbed me by the neck, not squeezing, just holding it in his meaty, sweaty hand like a set of keys. The thin man sitting in the chair behind him cleaned his glasses on his tie, looking at me.

“I will ask you one more time. Your life is forfeit if you remain silent, and we will find your squad and kill them all the same.” Somehow, I managed to find a bubble of saliva to help me speak.

“Then why do you need me to tell you?” My voice croaked from my dry throat.

“To save us the time of searching, of course.” “Go to hell.” “You first.” The goon looked in my eyes and head butted me. The stars were beautiful, but the room went dark and I saw them fade like a child’s innocence.

2: When I woke up, the goon and the mastermind were on the floor, surrounded by areolas of blood, and in the chair sat the most lethal, beautiful woman I ever met, trimming her nails, expertly, with the point of a really big knife. Lliya, at times my nemesis, at others, my lover, and sometimes both simultaneously. I had no idea which one was going to kill me, and sometimes, I didn’t think I’d care.

The gag was out, but I was still tied up.

“Good morning, handsome.”

“Is it?”

“Interesting. I thought you’d say ‘Thank you, gorgeous.’”

“Really?”

She stood, walked over to me; I actually felt a little sliver of fear. Looking into my eyes, she put her hand with cool fingers and light pressure, capable of anything, on my swollen cheek

“Say it.”

“Thank you, gorgeous.”

She slinked behind me, untied my wrists, knelt, untied my ankles, her mouth close to my crotch, with a small smile on her lips.

“Having fun?”

She smiled up at me, undoing the last of the knots. Her smile dazzled, her eyes sparkled with erotic mischief.

“My dear Warr, you know I only keep you alive so I can kill you myself. But not like this. Not sporting, and all that crap.” “I agree.” She rubbed my wrists, bringing the stinging tingle of circulation back, then I took care of my ankles.

“Get up, darling.”

I did.

She wrinkled her nose. “You stink.”

“Yes, but not at my job.”

She looked back at the dead goon and the mastermind, then back at me, the point of her knife slowly twirling at the corner of her smirking mouth.

“You sure?”

Ouch.

3: It took some time for the swelling to go down. Lliya tried to stay, but that was too volatile a situation. I still remember the kiss she gave me when she left.

Captain Kriley and some of the guys came to see me, debrief me over what the squad accomplished without me, and razzed me hard for getting caught, but praised me for not cracking under the beating I took.

“We’re gonna beat your ass for getting caught, but we’ll wait til you heal.”

“You had to go the bathroom again, didn’t you?”

“Your face still looks like a catcher’s mitt.”

And on it went. I tried not to laugh, because it hurt my ribs, but they had no mercy. Soon, Kriley dismissed them all, sat across from me all serious like.

“Lliya?”

I nodded.

“Yeah.” He sat back, steepled his hands, “I’m beginning to wonder if we should’ve recruited her instead.”

“Me too. She said I stunk at my job.”

“You did get caught.”

“First time, Captain.”

He unsteepled his hands, put them in his lap. “True, but sometimes, once is all you need. There’s guys don’t come back from once. You know that. So what should we do now?”

“Let me go after her.”

“What does she know, you need to go after her?”

“Nothing. I like the curve of her backside.”

“You can go all puppy-dog about it on your time. I’m not asking again.”

“She knows who’s behind the killing.”

“She does?”

“Yes.”

“And you know this how? She told you?”

“She set it up.”

“And you know this how?”

“The little man in the wide tie told me. Somehow, she knew we were here, tipped him. I was blindsided,” I touched the swelling behind my ear, “and they got me. The rest of the squad went on without me.”

“Your feelings hurt?”

“Captain, I’m just running the facts by you.”

“Sorry. No more busting your chops. But those aren’t facts. Yet.”

I nodded. “If she knew we were here, how come she didn’t know where we went? She could’ve followed us herself and taken care of it. We never would’ve saw her, or known she was there.”

“Part of the reason I want to go after her.”

“She’s long gone, and we got better things to do.”

He let that sink in, then got up to leave. “Leave it alone, Warr. She’ll mess you up in the head, if she hasn’t already.”

That ship had sailed a long time ago, but I didn’t bother telling him that.

“Feel better,” he said, and walked out.

Maybe I should start at the beginning.

4: Flash! I remember glass breaking and the sound of copters, keen and fast, flying low over the neighborhood, and the sound of rapid shooting. Flash! My wife ran to the window to see what was happening.

Flash! In an instant she became a pile of molten skin, boiling blood, and bone shards, her head plopping on the bed beside me, looking at me with a question in her bloody, sightless eyes.

Flash! Men in black uniforms and helmets with black visors hitting me with sticks and boots and fists.

Flash! They carried me out, but as I was losing consciousness, I registered it all. People were screaming and running. The confusion was deliberate, and unnecessary. I would have gone quietly had they knocked. Women and children were lying prone in the streets, bleeding out, their husbands’ bodies vainly over them in a futile gesture of protection, family blood mingling in eternal rivulets of unison.

Flash! Tubes in and out, fluids flowing to and fro, in me, out of me, cycling through again, and men in white robes, outside of the plexiglass tank that contained me, talking in hushed tones about what I was to become. I heard them. Every word, but I never told them.

Flash! Tests, chemicals, more tests, more chemicals, straining against tight bonds, pushing, pushing, until they ripped free, and more men in black with sticks came for me. They say seven of them died before they found the tranquilizer that saw me behind thicker plexiglass. I had no idea where I was, or why. I had no clue why they wanted to turn me into a killing machine, but in the end now, it doesn’t matter. Now, they are the ones I hunt.

5: I’d lived in a quiet neighborhood, with good neighbors (mostly), and a good wife. We had no children, because I was mostly on the move, and never knew if I was coming home. I wouldn’t have liked it if Candace left, but I would have understood. She didn’t, and I loved her all the more for it.

We often went to the countryside on weekends, to a cabin I’d built there for us, our little hideaway, where we let ourselves air out the tensions of the week, and left our inhibitions in the car. I liked the mountains that took the sunset into their valleys, liked the silent, circling hawks, majestic in their flying, lethal in their descent. I liked the way the grass rippled like green water when the wind blew across it. I liked that Candace wanted to share it with me. I liked to think that we were happy, before she died.

And then, I didn’t think anymore, about anything that wasn’t my mission: find the insufferable bastards that blew her head off, or die trying.

*******************

Back on the job, still a little bruised up, but I was gonna hurt someone if I didn’t get out of that hospital bed. It was nothing a ballerina couldn’t endure. I was debriefed: we did not find what we were looking for, so we had to keep looking, except now it would involve traveling, which we all hated, so everyone was gonna have an attitude about finding it.

Kriley suspected that Llya tipped them off, but I knew it wasn’t the kind of thing she’d do, even though she lived to destroy us. Sometimes, even your enemies had codes of honor they wouldn’t break. And that meant that it was somewhere here, on the squad, working close, with access to plans and supplies, maps and computers, spy equipment, and weaponry.

It was shaping up to be a fun time.

I sighed, sipped coffee, looked at the clock, put the double frame pictures of Candice in the top drawer, sipped some more coffee, watched the clock some more, turning it over. Who could it be? Why would they do it? Money? Too simple, but simple may have been enough.

Revenge? Ambition? Jealousy? Too many questions would lead to me getting paranoid and shifty, and if someone else was thinking about this, I might be the one under scrutiny. I breathed deep to slow everything down, and reviewed what I knew of these guys in my head.

Kriley was by the book, and only by the book. His frustration with the job we did was mostly tied to the fact that everyone else, me included, was only loosely affiliated with the book. We cut corners and took shortcuts and risks, even when it came back to bite us. There wasn’t always time for the book, though Captain Kriley always insisted there was.

Colanto was stand-up too, but too eager to get home to his live-in girlfriend. If she was hoping for wife-hood, she’d be waiting forever. He tended to ditch overtime, and wouldn’t volunteer or take on extra if it wasn’t a direct order. He was a great shot though, and you could rely on him to take it when he needed to, and sometimes when he didn’t, just to expedite things. He was the obvious choice, and in this job, you never overlook the obvious, because very often, that’s what they wanted you to overlook.

Arlo was older, more settled, had seen his share of firefights, and knew what it took to survive. He was still rugged and broad, if a little more gray, but that only gave him more of an aura of authority, which he was not shy about wielding. I would be the most disappointed if it was Arlo who leaked.

Duncan, “Dark Horse” we called him, the quiet one, was the least likely. He never said much, didn’t seem to have a blink reflex, and had an unnerving intensity to be absolutely still, settling in like a big cat on the hunt, seemingly lifeless, blending in, until he was ready to strike.

The results were always lethal, and none of it fazed him. If it was him, he’d give me the most trouble, only because he was such an ex factor.

Lastly there was Eberdine, affectionately called Ed, the lone female on the squad.

She had cinnamon skin, sea-green eyes, and a body that promised heaven, and could send you there in a heartbeat with a blow, a blade, or a bullet to the temple.

She was the smallest, and perhaps, skill for skill, the most covert among us, hiding in places you wouldn’t think to look, coming back to you with information you swore was confidential, and knew there were no witnesses. She enjoyed it. “Keeps me sharp,” she always said. If she was the leak,

I was going to have a hard time catching her, and who knew how long that would take.

Tonight, He said, one of you will betray me. I learned that somewhere. It was heavy with foreshadow, simple and fearful, with a heartfelt agony of broken trust behind it, a sense of inevitability, and unmatched bravery in the way the victim stayed the course.

6: The conference room was big, manfully appointed, and too cold from the canned air that blew threw the inconspicuous vents overhead. The large monitor in the front of the room held the image of man with his face in deep shadow, track lighting glinting off the silver letters on the marbled black granite wall behind him:

STEELE INDUSTRIES

“Were we compromised?” Shadow-face asked. “No sir,” Kriley answered. “Commander Warren didn’t break, but we didn’t find what we were looking for.”

He didn’t exactly throw me under the bus, he just kind of tossed me underhand. “Commander Warren. What have you to say for yourself?”

“I’m….sorry?” The squad chuckled, but Shadow-face wasn’t amused.

“Yes,” he said, “you are.”

That brought an even bigger chuckle; first Lliya, now Shadow-face. I had to learn not set myself up.

“The mission, sir?” Kriley said, mercifully switching the conversation back to its original purpose.

Shadow-face sat silently for a moment or two. “You will proceed to Nanjasi, sans Commander Warren.”

“Sir?”

“He is suspended, effective immediately. He compromised the safety of the squad, and has become a liability.”

“But sir,” said Kriley, “he’s one of our best all around tactics operatives; I could really use him in the field. Would you reconsider, sir?”

“I already have,” said Shadow-face. “I was going to fire him, effective immediately. Meeting adjourned, Captain. You and the rest of the squad will leave for Nanjasi first light. Sans Commander Warren. “Am I clear?”

Kriley’s jaw twitched with the unsaid.

“Crystal, sir.”

The monitor winked out. He looked at me. “You’re on vacation. Where will you go?”

“I’ve always wanted to see…Nanjasi.”

“You think this guy was born yesterday? He’s probably already got tails on you.” Kriley was right.

“And no,” he said, “you will not spot them, and no again, you will not shake them.” Right again.

“You done with your vote of confidence?”

“I am.”

I left, but I didn’t go home. Not right away. Not for awhile. I went to find Lliya, but I didn’t go after her. Not directly.

“Ed, where would a woman go if she didn’t want to be found?”

“Well, certainly not the bedroom.”

I flashed a phony smile, nodded. “Good. Now where?”

“Shopping, a chick flick, lesbo book store, feminist AA meeting. Why do you wanna know?”

“I’m looking for a woman.”

“Ahem.”

“Not in that way.” “Well, now I’m insulted.”

“Hey, you said not the bedroom…”

She arched a playful eyebrow: “It’s not the only room…”

“Come on, now.” I pleaded, chuckling.

“Okay, okay,” she was smiling herself. “She doesn’t want to be found?”

I nodded.

“Women don’t disappear not to be found; they wouldn’t go off to a cabin somewhere in East Loserville to get away from the Mister. They go somewhere to think, to calm down, to get past the emotions.”

“Where would that be?”

“A park, a coffee shop, somewhere public where she could be alone among people, because she’s afraid she’ll act out if she’s wrong upstairs. So there’s someone there to call for help.

“With me?”

“Yes. Learning.”

“Indeed,” she said. “Glad to hear it. Know where to start?”

I thought about it.“No.”

“Should I come with? I’ll ditch you when we’ve found her.”

“Sure. Thanks. Why’s your name so damn weird?”

“I changed it to Eberdine. It was actually weirder.”

She laughed at my expression. “Let’s go find your killer girlfriend.”

“Well, when you put it that way…”

We walked, arm in arm, off to start my vacation, looking for a woman that didn’t want to be found.

March 3^rd

Why Beyond Panic? (My blogging 101 assignment)

Why am I beyond panic?

And more often than not, things even out with time, just by necessity if nothing else. The ups, you see, do in fact, follow the downs.

Now here in my mid-50’s, having lost everything and having to start over, I’ve never felt more free. Things are a hindrance, and when you have the wrong people added to the wrong things, you’re not just running in place, not getting anywhere, you are sprinting in oil: You fall, and slip backward, and slide forward, your arms are windmilling, and you’re out of control.

THAT is what my life in PA was like. I don’t know why; I tried everything I knew, worked jobs where everyone involved KNEW I was out of my calling, but I had mouths to feed. I can’t tell you how many times I heard the question I so often asked myself: “What are you doing here?”

Don’t get me wrong, PA was a pretty state: fresh air, open space, lots of festivals, good food, good beers, and for the most part, good people. (that’s another post). My children thrived, and grew big and strong, the way kids should grow. The first five years were wonderful: family vacations, learning to fish, summer camps, bike trips, pictures, picnics, swim lessons, music lessons, dance lessons, garage bands, and of course, sports (I was even a T-ball coach; that was an experience!) and then a crucial decision was made on a career choice my wife had to make; the stakes were high, and it was a gamble, and we lost, and then the downward spiral began, and for me, at least, it never stopped until I left. We never really fully recovered, at least not together.

I had to go back to work, but I had no idea what PA had in store. There was no internet then to job search; I knew no one who could really help, or would if they could, and we were getting dangerously close to losing all we had built, and then, one day, we did. I went into the temp service circus because it was the fastest way to find a job without applying. I tried my hardest.

It was years of wasted effort: dead-end jobs, minimum wage service jobs, lost music equipment, lost apartments, broken cars, ruined credit, and finally, never being able to get ahead anymore, which nailed the marriage coffin shut.

Getting ahead of myself:

So into the wringer I go, and… Wrong color (yes, they actually said that), overqualified (have a college degree: ‘you’re not going to stay.’ they were probably right), too slow (we need at least 300 of these an hour) incapable of learning (my trainer was flirting with the girls, and I tried to learn on my own, since they didn’t get me a new one when I asked) sleeping on the job (I was working two full time ones with an hour break in between; how I didn’t kill myself or someone else driving back and forth remains a mystery; I consider that divine interference), all of them stamped on my forehead before I was shown the door. With the first one, I never even got in.

I was not good at office politics either. I never seemed to genuflect fast enough. (That would fall under ‘too slow,’ in more ways than one). See, my resources were in my head, not my hands. I was not an electronics assembler, machine operator, fork lift driver, janitor, line worker, shipping packer, truck loader, messenger, call center salesman, etc.

I was a teacher. (say it with me: Those who can’t DO… Oh, yeah? Why don’t you teach a new poetry unit to this eighth grade class two weeks into May, buddy… can you DO that?)

Well, I’ll share with you what I learned when people hear about what you ‘was.’ ‘WAS’ is the echo of fading glory.

“Who cares? Why all this? Why didn’t you just become a teacher again?” In a word, favoritism, nepotism, sexism (a new male principal who wanted all female teachers), ageism (he wanted his fresh out of college) and politics, and in one instance, PTA involvement. Pick a word. Any word, and one or more of them will probably apply as well. In short, the reasons had nothing to do with being qualified. My reviews in NY had been good, and in my last year, it had been raised to exceptional.

Stay with me.

As the place developed, and the farmland disappeared, new people with young families began to move in, and none of them worked in PA. They kept their jobs in NY and NJ and put up with the hell of commuting because there was simply no money to be made in PA that would allow them to support their family.

I was circling the drain financially, spiritually, emotionally, maritally, and fill-in-the-ly, when this company threw me a lifeline, and I grabbed it, and began, for the umpteenth time, to pull myself back to shore. When the line was cut again in PA by the company we were contracted to, I looked around for another one to grab.

“Do you want to look at the severance package?” (I wasn’t on the job a year, and it was based on time with the company. I might’ve gotten a Happy Meal out of it).

“No, I don’t. I want to work.”

“We have something in New Jersey.”

“Where?”

“It’s kinda far.”

“Where?”

They told me.

“Go check it out for a couple of days, and if you want to take the severance we’ll go over it with you.” I went out the first day; the second day I took the job. I was so used to doing what was necessary, and I had lost so much that there was literally nothing holding me in PA anymore. I jettisoned stuff, got out of the lease, and came to Jersey.

So I left, and now I’m here, and now that i have the time, the discipline, and the equipment, I’m pursuing a lifelong dream: to become a published author, and have people spend time with my imagination, and see the images I see in their own way, and relate to my characters, fantasy though they may be, because every fantasy is anchored in some way to a reality.

I’d like them to find that reality in one of my works, as I’ve found some of mine in the works of others: like when the hero is on the verge of defeat, and can’t lift the sword one more time…, but he digs, and it’s slow and painful and everything in him wants to scream: yeah, I’ve been there. Our swords might be different, but that feeling…yeah, I know it now. Or when the woman he’s with says just the right thing at the right time, and he gets that charge…yeah, been there. Or better yet, when he can’t go on, and the giant’s in front of him, and the point of a blade pops out of the giant’s big gut, and he falls, and the hero’s girl is standing back there, looking like Halloween on a bad hair day? Man, are you kidding me? You better go to Jared…and if he’s not there, send out a search party.

Pretentious? Self-aggrandizing? Delusional? I don’t know. I hope one day you’ll read my work and see what you experience…

So, I’m beyond panic because I know this is a stop, not a destination. I no longer feel like I’m being blocked, but incubated. I feel like that Eagles tune where the line says: “So much has happened, that nothing has changed.” In many ways it’s true, but in one very real way it’s not: I’ve changed, and I have the crucible of PA to thank for it.

So much has happened, that nothing happens to me now that I cannot deal with, literally, on every level. If I can’t accomplish it, it’s because I’m the one who gave up, and if PA taught me anything, it was to NEVER give up.

I’ve told people the long, messy, not-boring story, and the usual response is: “Wow. You should write a book about your experiences there.” I don’t know. I’d like to leave it there in the dust, where it properly belongs; time is growing short, and I have other things I want to say.

But if I ever do, this would (will?) definitely be the title.

Hey, thanks for taking the time.

So I thought I’d start writing…

All through school middle school, high school and college, I was told: you should write.

I liked writing, but I was undisciplined, and a little lazy (I’m qualifying, but we know that already, right? ok.)

Over the years, efforts were sporadic, uneven, and I didn’t have a routine. I relied on ‘inspiration’ which was the equivalent of saying ‘whenever I felt like I had inspiration,’ which may or may not have been the case.

I recently found some of that writing; some of it stands up, but most of it is cringe-worthy. It had no substance, and it looked like what it was, rushed and off-the-cuff. Oddly enough, I was better at short things than long.

I did the ‘workshop’ thing, and the ‘writer’s group’ thing, and got even more bogged down and made less progress.

Then LIFE happened: Marriage, kids, moving, work, routine, trips, the whole suburban thing, and then it changed, and then it was gone.

On my own now, the excuses I had were over. There were no more obligations: The kids were grown and independent, the ex was now independent, and I was…alone.

Alone with no more excuses, alone with more time than I knew how to fill. There was music, but that was mostly on Sundays only, outside of an occasional rehearsal or mid-week thing.

The words of my teachers came back: You should write.

So much time lost….’You should write’

So much life passed by…’You should write’

I’m not where I want to be: I’ve suffered loss…’You should write’

And so, with those words in my ears, I sit down at my laptop, fondly remembering the dreck I put out on my typewriter, and my ‘electric’ typewriter, and I write my first fantasy novel (as yet unpublished) and the dam broke, and now I can’t stop.

At this time of my life, with all of that experience behind me, I feel I now have something to say that will be good, if not valuable; funny, even if true, or maybe especially because it’s true. Something to offer people that will allow them to feel, to think, to experience.

Something to enjoy, if only for a little while, until I write again.

Not everyone will like it, and that’s okay. I can say that now, and mean it.

But I always hope for the best.

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