FAUXMONT with Fred BlogZ

 NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction.  Click on Archives on the right.  

Diddlie Drates is weeding her front yard. The sun is well above the tree line leaving its  electromagnetic signature in dappled shade. She kneels on a small green tarp under a wide brimmed floppy yellow straw hat with her gardening tools tossed in a bucket off to the side. Long thin purple and yellow ribbons, wound once around the top of her hat, hang across the back and flutter in the air over the edge of the brim. There’s a pile of drying weeds on her right and on her left is her wheelbarrow full of fresh cut goldenrod. I can’t see any sign of it growing nearby, but then again, Diddlie often has goldenrod, indicative of a certain mood, even when it is out of season. I walk over to her and offer her the use of my transplanting spade, which she had previously asked to borrow, if it isn’t raining, on Sunday morning.

“Thanks Fred, I want to use that to get this horse nettle out. The root can go down eight feet.”

“You need a backhoe Diddlie!”

“Yeah, this dry clay is hard as rock and you can’t pull anything up. The stems just break off. Have you got a real small one I can borrow for that patch over there?” She points out a clump of carolina horse nettle, hiding its thorns but showing off its faintly purple flowers with yellow centers. “Look at that huge bumble bee! It is weighing down the flower nearly to the ground.”

“They love solanum carolinense”.

“Are they Latin scholars, your bumble bees?”

“Fred, they don’t need Latin they have …”

“The sound of a dump truck drowns out her voice. It comes up the hill, orange, with ‘Mack’ in big polished metal letters abovethe flat rectangle of the radiator with bull dog on top. Eight wheels roll into view under its load, two more riding high, and then all stop opposite us. The driver seems lost. He has his phone up to his ear. “Dordrecht’s Group” is printed in small letters in the middle of the door bellow a yellow lion salient. The engine revs, a cloud of diesel smoke spreads from the exhaust stack behind its shiny heat shield with grab bar. The brakes exhale, and now the engine is quieter, as if it is panting rapidly from its exploding metallic lungs. Diddlie waves at the driver. She takes off her yellow leather gloves, gets up and walks over to the truck and shouts. The driver doesn’t notice. He is looking the other way with his window shut. She turns and comes over to me.

“Come on in Fred. This is too much.”

“Where are you going?”

“What?”

Diddlie, steps close, and shouts in my ear. “Come on in and have some tea.”

We go through her carport past Mr. Liddell who is sleeping through the commotion with his back to us in his hutch. As soon as we enter, the kitchen door slams shut, pulled by an old spring. The Red Queen shouts: “Get out will you? Damn you, get out!” Diddlie fills her kettle and puts it on the stove to heat. Then walks through to the living room and I can hear her tell the Queen that Fred is visiting. “He’s off his head!” replies the Parrot. I hear Diddlie close a door and she comes back to the kitchen. She stands facing me with her back to the stove. I sit at the small Formica topped table that was in here when she bought the house, along with two old chairs. The chairs have chrome metal legs and a small plastic covered seat with a matching padded back mounted on two chrome uprights. Surprisingly she holds a bunch of golden rod. There is so much it takes two hands.

“Where did that come from?”

“Oh don’t try to distract me Fred. Fred I have been reading the blog and I have a lot to say. I’m sorry Fred, but I’ve got to tell you, that the thing still doesn’t have any structure.”  There is a faint scent of lemon in the air.

“Did, your kettle is boiling.”

Her kettle is black enameled metal. The handle is in the shape of a standing cat. The head is hinged for filling while steam comes out of a vertical stump, which used to be a tail rising from the cat’s back. A plume of steam comes out like a huge bushy cloud of new tail.

“It is full of structures, Diddlie.”

“Well I don’t get it. You do seem to be getting into more of the talk though. That at least is more believable than all that transcribing you’ve been doing, without a word from you.”

“I am getting to know folks around here. There’s more to say. Have to listen at first to get to know them. Glad, at least that you find it more believable. Are you going to make tea with that boiling water?”

“No, no, no, Fred you’re trying to distract me again. Where’s the plot? I mean what is happening? It’s all loose ends.”

“Well, our knowledge of the world is scanty, though it may seem otherwise.”

“I don’t know what you mean, conspiracy theories or what?”

“No! not that, I mean we get a fragments and bits of the world from all from all sources and string them together with sentences and stories.”

The room is filled with a scent of orange and vanilla. The lemon has faded. There is a stir in the steamy air above my head and a whiff of cinnamon.

“Fragmented, like what kind of stories?”

“Diddlie, let me ask you something.”

“Okay, but that doesn’t let you off the hook from my questions to you.”

“Understood, I want to hear about your long visit to England.”

“Well, I stayed with my aunt Maria’s daughter up in Chester. Not sure how much more I am going to say.”

“Old Maria Gostrey?”

Orange scent in the atmosphere is giving way to tea, a bit smoky perhaps.

“Yes, Maria.”

“What’s the problem?” Diddlie’s small kitchen is filing with the black enamel cat’s steam tail. Nothing it seems could survive the profusion of steam, creeping in at keyholes and crevices, and it steals around window blinds and obscures a bowl of red and yellow dahlias on top of the fridge. The door to the hall is open. Nothing stirs in the living room or in the hall. The tiles behind the stove are running with condensation and the rising humidity is soaking my shirt.

“What ever I tell you will become part of your blog.”

“… and the problem is?”

“The problem is I want some privacy.”

“Diddlie are you hiding in this steam for privacy? Are we going to drink tea or just inhale?”

“I put tea in with the water you know.”

“Yes the aroma is delightful but a taste would be nice too.”

“It is Shakers’ tea, called ‘Sabbath Day Lake Herbal Tea.’

“I don’t have to write everything you say you know.”

“Well Fred, you can write the name of the tea but don’t write anything about my love life okay?”

“Okay, can I say whether or not it is still ripe?”

“You can say it was a ‘Last Tango in Chester’ and now it is over, crashed and buried, done, finished, and forgotten … I wish I could forget … anyway say that.”

“Yes, well that eliminates a promising story line.”

“What an insensitive reaction!”

“Sorry Diddlie I …” She puts the bundle of goldenrod down on the table, and adds more water to the kettle, as the clouds are thinning though still thick enough to obscure the chandelier above my head.

“… Listen Fred, you have so many other lines to tie up, you can’t complain about lack of story line.”

“Well, life is full of loose ends. That is just life.”

“Life is, but fiction isn’t full of loose ends.” I get a glimpse of Diddlie’s hair beaded with water droplets shining like tiny silver Christmas ornaments.

“I wish you’d turn the heat down under the tea kettle Diddlie.”

“Oh Fred, let kitty have his tail.”

“Any way it is getting hard to see you through this steam, besides I am not writing fiction.”

“You are too. You said you were writing me and all the rest of Fauxmont, and none of it really exists.”

“Diddlie you are so mixed up about that. But any way you want a more conventional story line I suppose.”

“I want to talk to Werner Plank and see how he is doing with that law suit hanging over him, and what about the house next door. Jake has moved out, thank God and good riddance, but what’s going on with his stinking great house, and what’s the story with the Juanita … need I go on?”

“You don’t have to.”

“Is that all you’ve got to say?”

“Um, this steam is really getting to me … I don’t know the answers yet. You know you can see all kinds of figures in this cloudy room.”

“Excuses Fred! You’re just as lost as you were before I went away and it has nothing to do with kitty’s tail. He only has a proper tail when I boil the kettle and I have been away for so long he must have forgotten what it is like.”

“Did, why isn’t the steam going into the hall? I have got to open the door and get a draft in.”

“Don’t you dare open the door, Queenie will fly out and we will never get her back.”

“I thought she was locked in the living room.”

“No she just flew in. Look up Fred.”

“I never noticed her come in. It is hard to see in this steam.” She is perched on one of the Plexiglas rods of Diddlie’s kitchen chandelier, a construction joined with fishing line she bought at a craft fair. I can smell cinnamon again and it grows stronger the longer the bird is there.

“Why is she so quiet?”

“It’s the steam.”

“What’s the steam?”

“Steam is water vapor Fred, harmless, and sterilized, just the way she likes it. It’s good for her plumage and vocal cords.”

“Do parrots have vocal cords?”

“Queenie speaks doesn’t she?”

“Well, this humidity is bad for my shirt and I am dripping, so if you’ll excuse me I’ll be going back.”

“Why Fred? … I mean I want to know. I want you to answer some questions to move the plot along.”

Steam rolls in between us in scented opacity. Its magical white substance seems both solid and immaterial both dark and filled with light from the kitchen window.

“That’s true in fiction generally, but … steam is making it hard to breath.”

“Diddlie I only find out little bits of things as … but there are themes running through it.”

“Like what?”

“What’s your address?.”

“1664 Oval street.”

“You notice all the streets in Fauxmont are named after terms in cricket and streets outside the neighborhood are named after scientists?”

“Yes but you’re inconsistent. There are some characters and details that are purely imaginary and some others that refer to something else, but there is no system.”

There’s a rush of air. Vanilla scented steam swirls around the room and I can hear the Red Queen’s wings flapping but can’t tell where she is. The Cinnamon suddenly gets stronger and fades again. Then a terrific rumbling vibration comes from outside. Is it another earthquake? Sounds as if the house might be falling over. The red Queen shrieks and flies out of the steam towards me in an intense choking cloud of cinnamon scent, only to disappear again. I get up and walk carefully towards the door, but can’t see where she landed.

“What is going on Did?”

“Oh, he’s finally figured out where he is.”

“Who has?”

“The driver of that red truck.”

“So?”

“I am getting new gravel for the driveway. Hey there, where are you going Fred? There’s lots more steam yet.”

“Goodbye Diddlie!”

Walking home, away from the cinnamon parrot and the metal kettle cat with steam tail, I am surprised to find the newspaper still in the driveway.

I had read the Sunday paper over breakfast, before walking up the hill to Diddlie’s with the transplanting spade. Could this be a second copy delivered by mistake? No, the sun is still behind the tree line. It must be Monday morning. Here’s the date printed on Monday’s paper lying in the driveway.

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction.  Click on Archives on the right.  

Early Saturday morning a strange new matte black surface takes me by surprise, like a vast perfectly clean cloth spread over more than an acre of ground. It gives off a strong smell of tar in front of the H-bar and across Huygens St. in front of Safeway. Not a vehicle in sight, not a movement, it is like a silence covering this usually bustling place. The area is marked off with orange cones. Yellow plastic ribbon stretches between them blown by gusting winds under a clear sky. Wind blows in my ear like white noise. A buck and a doe appear, standing still together with a nonchalant air in front of the H-bar. Were they there all along? As we look across the parking lot at each other it seems they want to say something, but they turn and trot away, past the big bow window of the H-bar, and disappear around the corner of the building. Several pale gray marks under the streetlights stand out like mealtime spills on clean linen, where crows gather to comment from on high. Carefully measured thin chalk lines have been drawn on the dark surface like the geometry lesson of a teacher’s chalkboard. They mark the place for thick broader white lines about to be laid down indicating parking spaces and directional arrows. The yellow DD 25 Volvo asphalt roller splashed with tar is loaded on a flatbed truck parked on Huygens St.. The lot was resurfaced only a year ago, yet it was crumbling in places and shallow gravelly depressions formed over the winter.

The old store seems empty as I walk in under the huge cement arches of the Safeway’s curving roof. Find a couple of mangos, and take a quick look at the rest of the produce, then move on along the back of the store past the pharmacy to find unfiltered apple juice. Turning the corner of the isle past the cheese and cold cuts section, I see Rank Majors holding a gallon of milk at the back of the growing express line.

“Looks like we all came at once Rank.”

“Fred, I though the place was empty. Where did this line come from?”

“There’s too many of us living around here.”

“Yeah! And, no parking access.”

“We are lucky we can walk.”

“Why isn’t this express line moving Fred?”

“I think the power just went out!”

The friendly manager walks over and tells us a fallen tree just brought down the power line. He says they will have emergency power on in a minute.

“A tree, not a terrorist huh?”

“Just a tree sir. It’s windy out there.”

The manager moves on.

“Are you going to the drill Fred?”

“The drill? What’s that?”

“Here’s what’s happening. Check out the website on this card … and bring your side arm.”

The card he hands me with red white and blue stripe across the top, is marked ‘Fauxmont Militia’ along with the website. The ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ logo from the Gadsden flag is printed on the other side.

“Okay Rank, I didn’t know you were in our local Militia.”

“Yeah! I met Frans last year at a party.”

“Frans?”

“Frans Banning Cocq, is our Militia Commander.”

“Oh yes! Albrecht mentioned him. Does he live in Fauxmont?”

“No he lives out near Culpeper. In fact I think he’s originally from Idaho.”

“So why is he commanding our Fauxmont Militia?”

“Well, he has the experience and connections to get the thing started, and he’s been helping Albrecht a lot.”

“Rank, I’d join the ‘Neighborhood Watch’ if we had one, or even “The Night Watch” but I don’t know about this.”

“Check it out Fred, just take a look.”

“Why did you join this thing Rank? Why the side-arm?”

“Fred, I am fed up with big government and big companies running my life and my country. It is time to assert our individual rights.”

“With a pistol?”

“I swore an oath to uphold the constitution when I joined the Air Force and still feel the obligation.”

“Oh, the fourth amendment …”

“Not just that …”

“What do you make of Albrecht’s ideas about corporate voting.”

“As far as that goes I think he’s nuts!”

“So do I, but he seems to think it is a viable notion.”

“Albrecht is a great energetic young guy, but he’s also goes too far.”

“Yes I have the same impression. By the way Rank, I don’t have a side arm.”

“Unlike the old days, you don’t have to own your own weapon to come to our drill.”

“Are you just anti government? I mean, do you see yourself as defending us from terrorism?”

“I’m opposed to excessive government and the present government’s excesses.”

“Okay, so how do you see the terrorism thing?”

“The terrorists are winning!”

“What do you mean? I thought we had them on the run.”

“Listen, they had no way of knowing that we would do their job for them … like shredding our own constitution … for one thing, they have pushed us into using torture.”

“True, but Obama stopped that.”

“Did he?”

“So we are told.”

“Look, we have responded to their attacks with secret laws, secret courts, and now we find out the government is tapping the Internet without a warrant.”

“Yes Snowden’s revelations have been extraordinary.”

“You know how bad thing are, when it takes a traitor to find out what our government is doing!”

“Those measures were all taken to keep us safe Rank, in an emergency!”

“Right, that emergency was twelve years ago. It has become an institution!”

“Yes, the president has renewed the Declaration of National Emergency every year since.”

“Not only that Fred, Obama’s latest revisions to the NDAA only strengthen government’s extralegal powers even further.”

“I have forgotten what NDAA is Rank.”

“Most people never knew in the first place Fred. Those who aren’t running scared are asleep! It is the National Defense Authorization Act. A very important law that is creeping dangerously towards the abyss.”

“You mean too much government power?”

“I mean too much executive power. If information is power then they now have more power and control over us than ever before! It is the Stasi’s dream come true!”

“Rank, they have more data than they can make sense of, not information.”

“That may be true now, but they will soon build better algorithms to mine the accumulated data. Not a single one of us is safe from snooping spooks.”

I see Diddlie approaching us with a mop from the hardware isle.

“Diddlie, haven’t seen you for months! What brings you here so early?”

“I might ask you the same question Fred.”

“You might, and I say, ‘Avoiding the crowd later’.”

“Likewise Fred.”

“Yeah we are the early crowd!”

“We are Rank. Are you carrying a gun? My God Rank! … you are! …What are you doing with it in the Safeway?”

“Diddlie I’m letting them know I have power too.”

“Them Rank? The Safeway? We’ve got the vote Rank. We don’t need guns.”

“Did you vote for those bozos in Congress? Tell me, what are they doing for you?”

“Well Rank, not much I guess, right now, but shooting people isn’t going to improve anything is it?”

“I am not going to shoot anybody Diddlie.”

“So what are you carrying a gun for?”

“My government is spying on me. I just lost whatever privacy I thought I had, and it is time to demonstrate a citizen’s right to protect himself.”

“But Rank, I don’t care about government spying. I don’t have anything to hide.If they can stop a bomber, God bless them!”

“Diddlie, stop for a moment! Stop and think about what you are saying.”

“Rank, I mean it!”

“You are letting fear blind you. Fear of terrorism is no reason to give up on our country’s foundations.”

“Well, the Islamic radicals are still plotting.”

“Diddlie we talked about a side arm for you before.”

“I know we did Rank. I am not interested. I think it is crazy. I also think that the government is doing its best to protect us from terrorist bombs and stuff. So they have to do all this internet stuff because that’s where they communicate along with the rest of us.”

“Diddlie, the government is too big to function properly.”

“It may be big, but this is a complex society.”

“It is Diddlie, and we are not doing a good job of managing our bureaucracies, public or private.”

“Well, that’s the truth. I see bad management and low pay all over the place.”

“That’s it Diddlie, big government and big companies have evolved together.”

“The one percent are getting most of the money …”

“ … and, Diddlie, taxes are taking too much of the rest.”

“Rank, at least we agree on something!” Diddlie pulls down a magazine from among the tabloids by the cash register where we are waiting. It is a copy of ShrinkWrap magazine.

“Diddlie I thought that thing had gone digital.”

“It has Fred, but Lark tells me corporate are trying out this monthly tabloid version. This must be the first one.”

She holds it up for Rank and me to see. It has a stiff cardboard back that folds in half for display. Unfolded one can see each page is about an eighth of an inch smaller than the next, while they are flush on the left and at the bottom. The smallest page down at the bottom left is only about 4 inches square; the exposed tops of each page have been printed to look like a single image that fragments as you turn the pages. A dramatic diagonal from top right to bottom left of the unopened magazine divides the blue sides from the red tops of the pages. Diddlie reads from the cover of the Tabloid.

“Look at this, guys. Here’s the blue part saying, ‘The Liberal Conspiracy to Socialize America’ and here’s the red part “The Corporate Right’s Conspiracy to Make us ALL Peons’. Pick a conspiracy Rank!”

Our line at the cash register has moved, and power is restored. Rank has his back to Diddlie as he pays for his gallon of milk. The cashier is waiting to get Diddlie’s attention.

“Are you buying that hon.?”

“Sure.”   Diddlie puts her copy of the new Shrink Wrap on the conveyor to be scanned, and hands over the mop.”

There isn’t a customer to be seen in the store as we all walk out into the gusting wind.

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction.  Click on Archives on the right.  

Boris Tarantula has a new exhibition at the Prestige University Arts Center.  Artie Bliemisch, Steve Strether and I are driving out to the campus together in Steve’s new car. To meet Artie’s old friend Frank Vassari, and the artist, before the official opening next week. Bel Vionnet is staying home with Lambert who has had surgery to fix a broken ligament in his left hind leg.

“I am so happy for Frank this is a quite a coup for him as the arts center director.”

“He is really going to put that place on the cultural map with this.”

“It is important work, Steve.”

“Artie, do you really think Tarantula’s work is serious?”

“He’s a contender in national competitions. Remember Fred, he may yet replace the Washington monument with his memorial to great advertisements.”

“Oh no!  How serious is that?”

“As you know Fred, that contentious issue is stuck in Congressional deadlock at the moment.”

“Oh yes Steve, Its Congressman Bean isn’t it?  He has it all locked up in the Committee on Aesthetic Crime.”

“Besides, much depends on what you mean by serious Fred.”

“Artie, I mean serious work is work that will still be valued a hundred years from now.”

“Fred, I get it, but who can tell that now?”

“Well, I can’t predict the future of course but rusty I-beams don’t seem like lasting art, and I don’t mean because of the rust!”

“Think of it this way Fred.  When Monet first exhibited his painting ‘Sunrise’ it was derided by the critic, Louis Leroy, as a ‘mere impression’”.

“Yup! I see what you mean.  Now, more than a hundred years after 1874, Monet is highly regarded.”

“Fred, French impressionist works sell for millions.  That is the measure of their acceptance.”

“What do you mean, ‘measure’?

“Fred we live in a commercial culture. The dollar value of art is the most important measure.”

“Yeah, right Artie!  That is how rusty steel can be turned into art.”

“Fred, after Dada, anything can be turned into art!”

“The market makes things into art.”

“It makes art with a capital ‘F’ Steve.”

“Come on Fred, you are getting old before your time!”

“No, that’s my point Steve.  The French impressionists were at least painting.”

The car jerks to a sudden stop along with all conversation.

“Signal would have been nice!”

A silver car cuts into the right turn lane ahead of us as we approach an intersection. Steve’s impatience grows as we stop at the light. The light is green but the silver car stays put at the cross walk.  An old man with a blue baseball cap and small white dog on a red leash crosses slowly blocking right turns. The dog stops and sits down in the middle of its trip across the road. The light turns green and traffic moves across the intersection past us, and the car now in front.  Old man and dog watch.  Our light turns amber and the silver car blasts man and dog with its horn and the dog barks back, straining on its short leash towards the middle of the intersection. The old man drags it to the curb on the other side. We resume our journey behind the silver car that cut in front of us but stop again within yards, behind a bus letting off passengers.  Steve lets out a long breath.

“So what happened to the debate?”

“I was about to say Fred, there is more to art than painting.”

“Well of course.  I mean they were working within a tradition.”

What tradition is Boris, or is it Varlan? Anyway, what tradition is he part of?”

“Fred, Varlan was his father.  You must know David Smith, Julio Gonzalez, or Mark di Suvero?”

“Gonzalez, Artie?”

“The Spanish guy who is said to have made the first welded sculptures.”

“Is their work old enough to be traditional Artie?”

“Fred, tradition is started at the second sale.”

“What do you mean Steve?”

“The first sale of a new kind of art establishes it. Especially the first sale to a big collector or museum.”

“That’s not tradition Steve.  It is more like a fashion or a fad. It is commercial.”

“Okay Steve so after that, every new sale is part of a tradition or development in that art form.”

“That’s it Artie. Call it what you like Fred. The point is that styles proliferate.”

“Nah … don’t you think it is just commercial flash in the pan stuff?  I mean the market creates and the market destroys.  What happened to William Baziotes for example, a good abstract painter?”

“What do you mean Fred?  His work is here in the National Gallery.  He’s doesn’t fetch as much as De Kooning, but he is an established American artist.”

“Okay Steve, I am trying to get at the role of hype, and marketing that is so important in the commercial world, and Art is no exception.”

“So what’s wrong with marketing Fred?  I mean I want to sell my work too.”

“What is wrong Artie, is the promotion of junk as if it is tried and tested quality work.  Look in the art magazines, or on line and see the latest sensation in New York, or Zurich or wherever.  Young artists promoted and fetching huge prices alongside old masters.”

“That’s just the market Fred.”

“Fred, you don’t like the art market.”

“Too true Steve.”

“Like I said Fred, in a commercial culture the market is all.”

“Don’t you think there is a problem with that?”

“Fred, there are lots of problems.”

“Yeah Steve!  There’s no correlation between price and aesthetic quality for one thing.”

“That’s it Artie.”

“Fred who’s to say what is good and what is not but the market?”

“Well Steve, aside from private personal judgments …”

“Don’t forget buyers Fred. They may not comment but the purchase speaks for itself.”

“Right Steve, it keeps the artist going.”

“Steve, suppose a business invests in a painting and sticks it in a vault.  What does that say about quality?”

“Fred, you must be talking about that Van Gogh right?”

“Yes Artie, I think it was a Van Gogh, bought by a Japanese bank.”

“No, it was Yasuda Fire and Marine Insurance.  They bought Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, for $38 million.”

“What ever Steve, I think it was back in the eighties and I wish they would put a few million into my work!”

“I would be glad for you personally Artie, but it would be a test for you.”

“You mean of my integrity right?”

“Artie, I know you could deal with it.”

“Thanks Steve, I would like the opportunity to try!”

“Artie, suppose you knew.  May be it would be suggested to you. That if you produce three more in your completed series of “Rembrandt Commentaries”, as you called them, you could make another three million?”

“Well Fred, if I already had three million, I could laugh!”

“Great! But, you see what I am getting at Artie?”

“Fred I do, and can only hope that it would sound like a joke.”

“Arty that joke could be inspirational itself.”

“Once again Steve, you have given me something to chew on.”

We are now waiting in a line of cars to park at the Arts Center.  Steve is looking frantically at his mirrors and out of the side window.”

“This Prius has terrible visibility.”

He moves a few feet and stops with a jerk at a blast from some one’s horn.

“Sorry about that!”

It doesn’t involve Steve after all. The car moves forward again in electronic silence, no exhaust, no stench.  He finds a place to park facing the long wide swathe of grass between the administration building and the arts center. The engine starts up as we pull in.

“How odd Steve, this thing starts up just as you are going to shut it down!”

“Battery must have drained a little in all that congestion Artie.”  He presses a button in the dash and the car shuts down, engine and all.

The trucks and cranes used to bring Tarantula’s huge sculptures in have left deep tracks in the lawn where they are installed. The grounds crew is chatting in Spanish as they fill in the depressions and put in new sod.

Frank Vasari is strolling towards us along the avenue of twenty steel I-beams, arranged ten on each side of the paved walk that crosses the grass.  The sculptures look like steel trees that might have grown in a rolling mill rather than a nursery.  Boris walks next to Frank, short and wide, with white denims and a blue work shirt.  He has shaved his head, which is globular. His exaggerated gate is due to the accident that crushed his pelvis two years ago while building the pieces on show. He tends to lean heavily to the left where Frank keeps enough distance to avoid a bump, and also Boris’s gesticulations.  He regularly takes off his dark glasses with a flourish of his left had and waves them about for emphasis, before putting them on again in a simple movement.  He doesn’t have to open them or place them carefully on his ears.  Everything lands in place at once.

The I-beam sculptures are chrome plated at ground level and dazzling in the evening sun.  The chrome fades out at about ten feet up and the rest of the metal is rust red for perhaps another twenty feet. They look ragged at the top with odd shaped bits of rusty steel of various sizes and thicknesses attached at different angles, some with bolts some riveted.  They look as if they might be scraps from a demolished high-rise. Each is topped with a length of neon light looping around it in a colorful flashing entanglement.  One spirals up in green and white like a candy cane of glass tube. Another is spiky like a colorful sea urchin living on top of steel seaweed.  The spikes flash oranges and greens at random.

Artie introduces Steve and me to Frank, though we have met before, and Frank introduces us all to Boris.  He speaks fluent vernacular English with a heavy accent.

“Thanks for coming out.  So good to meet Frank’s friends!”

“So Boris, are you happy with the installation?”

“Well, I still got a week to move them around some … and Steve, we got to hide those wires on that one … see .”  Boris is pointing with his glasses in hand.

“Boris, that will be taken care of … Artie, he’s got four more pieces that don’t fit.”

“Frank, I got more than that back upstate.”

“Leave them there Boris!”

“Okay Frank, okay, but you know I don’t want the lady to get the wrong idea.”

“I am Artemisia, call me Artie.”

‘Sure, Artie, sure.  Have you seen the Coke sign and that old Burma-Shave thing?”

“No we just got here.”

“Okay Artie, come on Frank, come on Artie, Fred, come on, I’ll show you.  This is very important!”

Boris leads us over to point out the letters from an old Coca Cola sign incorporated into the top of one of his electronic I-beam trees.  We move on and I can’t see the neon letters spelling ‘Burma-Shave’ in the second piece he leads us to, though he points them out. “Fred, Fred, look, just look carefully up there … see it, see?”

“Sorry Boris, I can’t see anything like a word up there.”

“Frank, what you bringing your friend here for if he can’t see?”

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction.  Click on Archives on the right.  

Bel moves her hand in front of her face under her wide brimmed floppy straw hat and finds a spider on her finger.

“That’s the Manstein place.”  She looks up from her finger to notice me looking across the circle at a yew hedge.

“The one hidden behind the yew hedge over there?”

Bel shakes the spider off and points to the right of a row of newly planted Leyland Cypresses where I can see a few slate rooftops and a chimney all covered in fallen oak flowers. The house is down towards the river and the driveway curves steeply before disappearing behind the trees.  It is marked by a sign, ‘Aladdin Lane’.  In addition, a prominent rectangular white sign warns us, “PRIVATE No Entry”.

“A three car garage is the thing to have these days bel.”

We are at the end of Slips lane at Boundary Circle, where mansions have replaced the original Fuauxmont homes on one and two acre lots with river views. Some are half-timbered. One is colonial. The detached garages are the size of small houses and feature big wooden doors with robust hinges painted black, fastened with prominent bolts and eight small square lights at the top.

“Bel, this nostalgia for the half timbered look appears to be the latest mark of success.”

“Yeah, along with this barren instant landscaping, turf, mulch, mature shrubs and cypresses.”
“I think the Rundstedts built first didn’t they Lou?”

“How did he make his fortune?”

“He’s a big wheel, bel, with Dodrecht Group.”

“Looks like they have a flat above their garages bel.”

“Cute little dormers above each door.”

“That mulch has a strong smell doesn’t it?”

The Guderians have only just added their garage. The fresh black arc of the long new driveway passes through their porte-cochère and spreads out before the three big doors. They saved a colossal willow oak in the middle of the front lawn by bringing in many truckloads of fill to level a ravine next to the house before construction began. Their Federal gray half-timbered mansion with multiple gables is connected to the garages by an arched breezeway.  Its stone arches are reminiscent of a monastic cloister but glazed, inconsistent with the half timbered mansion. The landscaper’s pickup is parked outside the Guderians’ with a dusting of pollen on its windows and the trailer loaded with mulch.

“Ah yes, mulch!  It covers up so much Lou.”

Lou coughs. “My mulch pile is mild by comparison.”

Bel resumes her dispute with Lou, which kept them busy as we strolled along in the cool May sun. Between sneezes she also told me Lambert had gone out with Steve to visit the Guderians earlier, and we might meet them for a walk back.  Pollen is so thick in the air every one is coughing and sneezing.

“There is no morality in it Lou.”

“Not all uses of technology are wrong, bel.”

“That’s not my point, Lou.  I mean technology itself is not a moral system and neither is commerce, well I am thinking particularly of the banks.”

Lou is frowning and looking at the ground covered in last year’s sticky balls, as we walk under gum trees on Slips Lane and further into the circle.

“Yes, but there’s more to our culture than technology and commerce.”

“Sure there are countless subcultures too, but less and less moral restraint on commerce or technology.”

“Bel, we are in the middle of a technological revolution.”

“We are, and that’s complicated.  I mean it’s creating a new culture.”

“Perhaps a global culture.”

“That I think remains to be seen, Fred.  Technology is also full of new solutions though, bel.”

“Do you mean, Lou, the so called ‘disruptive’ business models …”

“DELL, for example, started selling PCs over the net …”

“ … and look at Amazon! and for spies too there has been lots of disruption!”

“Fred, that’s a separate issue!”

“But Lou, isn’t it another case of disruption?  Spying can be a commercial proposition and must be as old as prostitution.”

“He’s right Lou, and they are closely related.”

“Bel, Snowden’s treachery has put us all at a disadvantage.”

“How, Lou?”

“Knowing enough to be alarmed and not enough to understand the full picture.”

“Lou, they know an awful lot about us, and what do we know about them?”

“More than we need to know right now, bel.”

“I think he did us all a favor Lou.”

“Favors like his would give malice a bad name, bel.  That guy has probably endangered our country more than any single person in history.”

“He broke the law Lou, and that is a problem, but he revealed that our government is breaking its own laws on a scale that’s hard to imagine.”

“Bel, we were attacked. Don’t you think that justifies extraordinary measures?”

“But Lou, it’s been ten years!”

“I agree bel.  There is no easy way to resolve this.”

“Lou, surely you are exaggerating. I don’t share your trust in that huge and powerful bureaucracy.”

“Fred, this is the ‘brave new world’ of the surveillance state, and I agree. It is scary.”

“I think it’s worth bearing in mind that the surveillance infrastructure for a totalitarian coup is all in place. Thanks to the so called ‘war on terror’.”
“We might also note that once a new kind of technological power is available.  It will be used.”

“Fred, we are in far more danger from outside this country than from within.  I am certain, our institutions will never let a totalitarian ruler emerge.”

“Lou, you must realize that Internet technology has enabled not only governments but industry to snoop more extensively than any time in history.  That too is a huge danger… I mean an internal danger!”

“ … and thank God for the NSA, or terrorism would be even more dangerous that it is now.”

“Of course Lou, terrorists have benefited from the internet.”

“Bel, Al Qaida has been able to spread its franchise, share its resources, and coordinate activities…”

“Much like any other franchise.”

“Fred, it’s a lot to tackle, and that guy has handed Al Qaida a gift and not just them.”

“Lou, Osama stopped using his satellite phone years ago.”

“Right bel, that’s why it took so long to find him.”

“Remember Fred, we are still under the state of emergency declared by Bush right after 9/11, and extended recently by Obama.”

“Fred, the threat is still dangerous, and we need those emergency powers.”

“What are they Lou?”

“A lot of that is classified, bel.”

“Yes Lou, that’s something else I think has gone seriously wrong.  There’s no place for secret laws in an open society.”

“Snowden didn’t say how the snooping is done only that it is taking place, and given the scale of it all, I think Americans have a right to know they have lost their right to privacy.”

“What we have lost bel, is trivial compared to what the enemy have gained!”

“But our privacy is a constitutional right.”

“Well, it is an implicit right Fred, not enumerated.”

“Lou, the technical details haven’t been revealed.  Snowden could have made a fortune selling them, and that would have been treasonous, but he didn’t.”

“Now he’s got a free ride in Russia, they presumably know everything and who knows how rich he’ll get?”

“Lou, the cold war is over.”

“Don’t be so sure Fred, Putin may be all set to start it up again.”

“Lou, we have plenty of folks right here in America who are doing that.”

“The Russians still have lots of nukes too and we are still potential targets.”

“Lou, Putin could say the same about ours.”

“Maybe so bel.”

“You might call it the ‘Shadow of the cold war’.”

“Snowden is of such great propaganda value to Putin right now though, I don’t think he had to give them anything more.”

“His propaganda value may be short lived.  Fred, it’s the other stuff that’s really valuable.”

“I don’t think he’s in it for the money Lou.”

“No bel, he may not be.  He may just hate the NSA out of naive idealism, but that doesn’t change anything.  Who knows what his motives were anyway?”

“Not so naive Lou, he said he blew the whistle to warn us all.”

“I read that too, but Fred, it’s hard to believe anything a traitor says just because his treachery renders everything he says morally uncertain.”

“If he did it out of idealism, then his integrity is untouched.”

“That’s a big,’ if ‘  Fred, besides, in that case he should have stayed here and faced the music.”

“Big if, but perfectly credible Lou.”

“Lou he didn’t have a chance here.  They’d have disappeared him.”

“Quite possibly bel, and that’s troubling too, but he betrayed some of his country’s most valuable secrets.  Gave away our advantage in the war on terrorism.”

“Lou I don’t buy it. The so called ‘War on Terror’ was a mistaken response to 9/11 in the first place, and our advantage lies in continuous technological innovation.”

“When my country is attacked, I think retaliation is necessary.  Not only that, it gave us a chance to go in after Saddam, and the Taliban.”

“Lou, have you forgotten that most, if not all the 9/11 attackers were Saudis? You are missing something here.”

“We can’t go after Saudi bel.  You know that.  We need their oil and their alliance is important.”

“What I am trying to point out is that we didn’t retaliate against Sadam.  We invaded his country, with no evidence that he was complicit.”

“I know bel, and there were no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq, but we did get a dangerous tyrant out of the way, a threat to Israel, and secured the oil assets.”

“Right Lou, oil is and was the real point.”

“We also strengthened Iran!”

“Now Iran is a major problem alright Fred.”

“Isn’t it interesting that no government official will say that invasion was about oil?”

“They can’t Fred.  Politics of the Middle East make it impossible.”

“There’s Steve coming out of the Guderians’.”

“Look out!  Here comes Lambert off leash.”  Lambert backs out of the reddish leaves at the bottom of bottom of a photinia.  He runs towards us across the exquisitely kept lawn, into the mulch surrounding the big oak and now he’s crossed and reached the driveway.  He’s got some leaves on his face and mulch on his legs.  He is out of breath, but barking at bel any way.  His tail is going so fast, it seems he might take off like a helicopter, butt first.

“Bel, we didn’t expect to find you out here!”

“I think Lambert’s hearing has improved a little since we put him on a bit of coconut oil with dinner.”

“Don’t know about his hearing but he does seem more himself.”

“We came up to see what the new construction over here has wrought.”

“Yes, look at it.  As far as I know these are the houses that ‘Top Secret America has built.”

“They are?  What do you mean Steve?”

“Fred, didn’t you read Dana Priest and William Arkin’s big article in the

Post?”

“Oh yes, that was the title … three or four years ago, I do remember now!”

“You can still find it on the web Fred.”

“That’s right bel.”  Steve starts pointing out houses.  “Look, Rundstedt over there is retired CIA and now consults with Dodrecht, or is he part of it?  I am not sure.  Guderian here, is retired NRO now has his own contract with Fibonacci, and Manstein down by the river, left NSA for Booz Allen and then started his own firm.”

“Steve we shouldn’t be discussing this.”  Lou’s face is tense.  The lines on his forehead have deepened like little trenches.  His eyebrows seem bigger than ever growing over his eyes like unclipped hedges between forehead and eye socket.  He looks at his feet and rubs the back of his head then looks at his hand. There’s an inchworm rearing up off the end of his thumb.

“Don’t worry Lou, we are all friends.  Discussion is always alive in Fauxmont.”

Lou is still looking at his inchworm.

“Fred, I just think it is inappropriate.”  Lou doesn’t look up until now, and now he has a look of such vulnerability I expect to see tears.  He flicks the worm off his thumb.

“Have we ever discussed this stuff in the last thirty years?”

“Lou, this is a surprising first.”

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction.  Click on Archives on the right.  

“Whois living in the old Trip house now?”

“It’s vacant isn’t it, Lark?”

“No Lou, I have seen Fed Ex delivering there.”

“That’s right Fred, I saw it too that day you were planting herbs or whatever they were.”

“I think there’s a caretaker living there now.”

“Who’s paying them?  That’s what I would like to know, Lou.”

The sun comes out after an overcast day just before sunset. Gold shines through the tree trunks and gaps between structures flattening distance with dramatic brilliance and silhouettes.  It sinks behind Jake’s old house and leaves us in deepening shadow standing by the redbuds in front on the steep incline of Oval street.

“I think it may belong to one of Macadamia’s interests.”

“Lou, I heard Trip had lost his house in a foreclosure.”

“Yeah Fred, I heard that one too, and maybe that’s where they were headed at one point, but Mac. must have saved it.”

“How did you find that out Lou?”

“I think Jake told me months ago.”

“You mean you have seen him?”

“No Lark, it was a phone call.  He asked me to go over there and check on the place.  It was before the caretaker came in.”

“So you have the keys Lou?”

“Not any more.  Jake ‘over-nighted’ them to me and I only had them for a couple of weeks.”

“Have you met the caretaker? …  Who is it?”

“No no Lark, I’ve never seen them.”

“So how do you know there’s one there.  Do they live there?”

“Jake told me when they started.”

“They!  You mean there’s more than one Lou?’

“No I don’t think so, but come to think of it maybe it’s a married couple … I don’t know.”

“But didn’t you hand over the keys to them, him her whatever?”

“No I ‘overnighted’ the keys back to Jake.”

“Lou, isn’t that kind of weird?  I mean why not just hand them over?”

“Maybe they changed the locks.”

“Then you might as well throw them away!  I mean what did Jake want them back for?”

“Who knows Lark?  Its none of my business anyway.”

“Lou you are a much more trusting person than I”

“You know, Jake once called me to check in on Gale when he was away.  I was surprised as I didn’t know them very well at the time.”

“Fred, Jake is a salesman.  He sizes people up pretty fast and probably decided he could trust you.”

“I must say he sounded rather desperate.”

“When it comes to Trip, I am always suspicious.  Big money can complicate and distort people’s relationships.”

“Lark, you are such an inveterate lefty and egalitarian, I don’t think you can be objective when it comes to Jake.”

“Look Lou, first the Trips build that huge place with a lot of strange electrical work, and security lights, and rent-a-cops.  Then, Juanita disappears.  Then we hear Trip is bankrupt and will lose his home.  Now we find that there never was an eviction. His store has stayed open. The Fib. or one of Macadmia’s interests bought it.”
“Do you know who bought it Lou?”

“It is not Fibonacci.  They are listed as, “de Geer Properties”, in the tax records.  You can look it up on line.”

“Is that Macadamia?”

“I don’t know if there is any relationship there or not.”

“You seem to know a lot about it Lou.  What about his business, that big store?”

“Don’t know about the Snaz store Lark. I like to keep up with things in the neighborhood.”

“So do I Lou but … Who are they, de Geer Properties?”

“All I know for sure is that they are Gale’s people.”

“So money married money.”

“That’s history Fred.  It’s all in the family.”

“Lou tell me this, what is being delivered to a vacant house?”

“No idea Lark.”

“Don’t you find this whole thing suspicious Lou?”

“Not all that much.  There is a confluence of interests at work.”

“More like a conspiracy Lou.”

“Aw Lark, I don’t believe in conspiracy theories.”

“What do you mean by ‘a confluence of interests?”

“I mean de Geer and Jake and Macadamia all found they had an interest in keeping that house out of foreclosure.”

“There’s more to it than the foreclosure.  It’s about what was going on in that house, and Juanita’s complicated past.”

“Lark conspiracies require motive, planning, skill and luck.  I don’t think any one is smart enough, or had any reason to have plotted Juanita’s disappearance.  It would have been far too complicated. There was nothing for her to have seen.”

“Really Lou?  Whatever is going on in that house would be revealed if a bank’s agents go over it to appraise and sell.”

“It is all too easy to see conspiracies where there is a lack of information Lark.  It fills in the blanks.”

“So what did you see when you went in there?”

“Nothing special, aside from the size of the place. I checked doors and windows, and looked at faucets, and so on.  You know.  Its common sense stuff.”

“There are plenty of ‘blanks’ in this story Lou.  What about all those cctv monitors in the grand entrance?”

“Didn’t see anything like that Fred.”

“Are those two big mirrors still facing each other?”

“Oh yes Fred, I tried out that crazy infinity illusion, by standing in front of the one to look across into the other.”

“I wonder what happened to the cctvs?”

“Fred, some one cleaned the place up before Lou got in there.”

“There is nothing much to clean up Lark.  That wine cellar of his and the security system took a lot of special circuitry and machinery to move those bottles of wine.”

“So was it all in place Lou?  That is a perfect cover!”

“Cover for what Lark?  I didn’t check on his wines, or the security system.  Jake told me the security stuff is under contract.  Nothing for me to do.”

“Well Lou if he has this security system, and a contractor, what did he want you in there for?”

“Just another pair of eyes.”

“I am still thinking of what ever Juanita found out when she was so conveniently disappeared by the INS.”

“Lark there is no evidence I know of to support whatever you think is going on.  The bankruptcy was a delayed effect of the financial crash. Not even Macadamia foresaw the scale of the crash.  He predicted something smaller.  He was taken by surprise and took Jake down with him.  Now he is getting it back together again.”

“So what are Urban Safety Solutions still doing in the neighborhood now the Trips have left?”

“I imagine they are working out the time on their contract.”

“They seem to be rather close to the Fauxmont Milita.  Remember how they colluded when Juanita’s body may or may not have turned up in the gully?”

“What do you mean collusion?”

“I mean they kicked us all off the street before the police could get there and we don’t know what really happened.  Only what the local tv station told us.”

“Well, wasn’t that it?  There was no body Lark.  Remember?  It was one of Liberty Trips props from her show.”

“Maybe Lou.  I don’t know if she was abducted by the INS or murdered here in Fauxmont.  I know the lawyers are gunning for Werner, and that is just a side-show.  I think it’s being done to distract attention from something else.”

“Lark I have no way of knowing.”

It seemed to get dark more quickly than usual after the sun went down, even beyond the shadow we are standing in.

“My god it is dark out here tonight.  Look at that cloud coming in!”

“Any one got a flashlight?”

“No Fred. My phone works pretty well though.”  Lark’s phone tones sound as she opens it to demonstrate its potential as a flashlight.

She answers and walks a few steps away stands with her back to us.

The light flashes as she puts the phone close to her ear and moves it away, gesturing as she talks.

“Excuse me Fred.”  Now Lou’s phone also sounds and he walks off in the opposite direction. 

They both have a glow around their ears where the phones are pressed.  As if they might be emitting light themselves.  They talk into the dark with their backs to me.  I can’t hear what they are saying.  My phone may be ringing too, but it’s at home.  Possibly hanging in the pocket of my other jacket in the closet.

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction.  Click on Archives on the right.      

Daisy has been dog sitting Maximilian, her friend Hank James’s longhaired dachshund.  The dog ran off with its carefully combed tail streaming hair like a flag, and disappeared, after chasing Mr. Liddel around the yard.  Daisy was so anxious to rescue her white rabbit, it didn’t occur to her that the dachshund might run away. Herman Intaglio and Theo Tinderbrush and I walk among the ruins on the hilltop where Bails Lane intersects Wicket Street.

“Herman, are you trying to start another religious argument?”

“Not an argument Theo, a discussion.”

“Herman we won’t get any further than we did at the restaurant.”

“You never know Theo.  As I get older I have turned more to God and you have no God.  This worries me my friend.”

“There’s nothing to worry about buddy.  I am doing fine with the absurd.”

“What?  The absurd?  Is that your religion?”

“No, as an atheist, I don’t believe in God, or any supernatural controller, or any of that religious stuff.”

“See Theo, I think you are missing something.”

“Don’t tell me Herman.”

“No, Theo I must, life is meaningless without God.”

“Like I said, it is absurd.  Unless you have a project in life, and get meaning out of that.”

“Have you been reading Sartre?”

“Think I did, years ago.”

“Now think of this, God is the beginning and end of everything.”

“You mean there would be nothing at all without God?”

“Well, right, without the creator there would be no thing, no creation.”

“What creator?  We don’t know how the universe was created.”

“No, no one knows how God created the world or the universe and all that.”

“Say God didn’t create the universe or the world.  Suppose all these particles or strings or what ever they are, have just been there for ever, blowing up and condensing in an endless cycle.”

“That sounds absurd alright, Theo!”

“It doesn’t matter, we are here looking for Diddlie’s dog.  We have a purpose.  We are doing something useful, and helpful.  I am fine Herman.”

“Okay Theo I am glad you feel fine about it. You know you don’t have to live in an absurd situation.”

“Well, I do and I don’t.  Cosmically it looks absurd to me, but personally life is full of meaning.  I am a lucky bunch of particles!”

“You are more space than particle you know!”

“Herman you are supposed to be shocked!”

“Not shocked, not at all.  I’ve read a little about Penzias and Wilson, cosmic background microwave radiation, and cosmology.”

“As far as meaning is concerned, I find meaning in my experience.”

“Yes and God is immanent at every moment.”

“What does that mean?”

“He is with you in every moment … there to be heeded.”

“There? … in what sense?”

“Whenever you move from one thought to another, make a judgment or a decision for instance?”

“Well you never know what may come up from the subconscious!”

“Too true!”

“If I decide to drive over to the Safeway, isn’t that a matter of will?”

“It is, but what are your motives?”

“I want to buy something for dinner.”

“Okay, so what led you to the decision?”

“Look Herman, it wasn’t God.  It was hunger.”

“Sure, but you can always be open to God’s will, or not.  That is the perpetual question.”

“It is?”

“Yes, can you accept something beyond your own will?”

“Like what?”

“Like something that prevents you going to the store.”

“You mean God’s going to prevent me from grocery shopping?”

“No, well in a sense maybe so.  Say there’s a snow storm and you can’t drive.  Then you are hungry but can’t get anything to eat.

How do you cope with that?”

“Damn frustrating!”

“Yeah it is, and that’s where you can seek the Lord’s help.”

“In my frustration?”

“Sure.”

“What do you mean?”

“Say a prayer.”

“What? … pray for the snow to stop?”

“You might.”

“I might not.  Why should God stop the snow for me?”

“That’s not for us to say.”

“Oh?  but, suppose that’s what I am asking?”

“When you pray you get away from yourself and your frustration.”

“You mean I distract myself.”

“No, you could do that with a cigarette or something.”

“Well I don’t smoke, but what’s the difference?”

“The difference between a distraction and a prayer is that a prayer is a sacred conversation and a distraction is just that, a loss of attention.”

“Oh, but I would be talking to myself … that sacred stuff, incense, choirs, etc. doesn’t work for me.”

“Look, prayer takes you, moves your attention, away from your immediate concerns to God.”

“Oh, really? … but I don’t pray.”

“What about conscience?”

“What about it Herman?”

“Do you answer to your conscience?”

“Yes I have a sense of guilt when I realize I have done wrong.”

“There you are then.”

“It is part of me Herman, my conscience isn’t any thing super natural.”

“Part of you yes, and more than that too. It is not your will.”

“Suppose I just want to go to the store and eat dinner.  While I am messing around praying, the snow is getting deeper.  Where is this getting me?”

“If you are sincere you are getting to another place, you will be open to other possibilities, and know the love of God.”

“God’s love?”

“Yes his infinite love for you!”

“Well sure, if I were a believer but really, if I just take a deep breath and relax for a few minutes I’ll think of something.”

“Well if you ignore God, you will not find him that’s for sure.”

“I am not ignoring anything.  Besides Herman, watch it, you know there are those who take exception to the idea God as “him”.  I just thought I’d warn you.”

“Him, her, it, gender isn’t important here, at least to me.  Don’t think of believing … this is not so much a credibility issue …  Think of paying attention.”

“Paying attention?  I am.  In this case the damn snow has really got my attention!”

“Okay Theo, are you reliving something here?”

“Yeah possibly … this stuff drives me crazy!”

“A prayer will get you off that.”

“Finding this dog would too.  You know Herman, I think you are talking about intuition.”

“Well sort of, that could be where you will find God.”

“I thought he was supposed to be in heaven.”

“So it is said, but that is figurative language.”

“Where do you think it is?”

“I think heaven is within us too.”

“Yeah, but what about all this talk of Jesus ascending into heaven?”

“I don’t think it is a physical movement.”

“What else could it be?”

“It could be a movement from, say …. stress to being stress free.”

“Oh relaxation, a kind of Yoga thing.”

“Could be, but reached through prayer and not physical postures.”

“Wait a minute.  A man, Jesus died and ascended into heaven.  That’s what I learned, and never have been able to believe it.”

“Don’t forget the difference between figurative language and ordinary language.”

“So it can mean anything I want?”

“It means what ever your tradition says it means.”

“Oh tradition … well yes, tradition is a fine thing but it doesn’t make the impossible possible.”

“I am trying to tell you Theo, not to take it all literally.”

“So what?  It still says what it says.”

“The question is, what does it say?”

“Yes that’s it, countless wars have been fought over that and people have been tortured and martyred.”

“The history is pretty awful, but it is the history of people’s conflicts with each other.”

“Right, that is social control through religion”.

“So what are you saying?”

“Herman, what you find in your faith is wonderful for you, but I see things differently.  I am afraid the faithful have been used and manipulated all along.”

“I think you are right Theo”.

“So how can you join such an organization?”

“It’s the tradition, not history.”

We walk up through the sloping yard toward the ruins of The Ashes.  A heavy black wooden garage door has fallen off its rusted hinges and smashed the back of an old Oldsmobile Toronado with a big back window.  Reaching the old patio above the garage we look down on a sunken driveway that leads from the road into the garage beneath our feet.  A chain link fence sags from poles leaning from each side into the shadows where oak and maple leaves have collected on the driveway.  Ivy, Virginia creeper and wisteria vines wind up the trunks towards the sun.  The ivy covers two dead gum trees with winter foliage.  More debris blows into the abyss, from the ground, surrounding red oaks and the big maple at the top of the driveway.  Tree roots have burst though the crumbling asphalt, now partly overgrown with moss.

“Look there he is!”

“Where Theo?”

“He’s at the top of the driveway Fred, on the left.”

“That was a red fox!”

“It was too low slung for a fox Fred.”

“Let’s take a look!”

Theo walks off fast, snapping twigs underfoot and heading down hill, blundering past azaleas and hollies draped with vines.

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction.  Click on Archives on the right. 

Last night’s snowfall is cleared away from the pump islands at the Light House Gas station.  Customers getting out of their cars for self service find it gritty and wet.  Snow is piled around and against the old wooden oil derrick in the corner where Huygens Street intersects Maxwell Avenue beyond.  It hides those waiting at the traffic light muffling the growl of idling engines and the strange howl of the accelerating new buses.  The station sign looks as if it is growing out of a dirty white mountain range with black peaks and white hollows.  One might be looking at a satellite image from the moon of an outer planet.  The derrick’s wooden framework is boarded over from half way up, and painted white with ‘GAS STATION’ printed in red block capitals down all four sides.  Below the bottom of the big red “N” of the word station, “Independent Since 1948” appears hand lettered in black.  A lantern mounted on top makes the structure resemble a lighthouse and at night the lantern winks brighter then fainter, and a single red neon tube glows along the center of each red letter.

Snow in the streets has started melting and refrozen many times over the past week.  The sun comes out briefly during the day and streams of water run like rivers off a mountain, which freeze into glaciers of black ice overnight at the intersection.

The soft looking snow at the base of the mountain is frozen and hard enough to dent the front of a customer’s car. A tall man with long brown ponytail climbs out of his small faded cream colored car to examine the front end for damage, and starts chatting with one of the polite and helpful attendants.  Mr. Ramsay walks over toward me from the office as I fill the old Saturn with regular gas, and wave as he approaches.

“Well hi there ahh…”

“Its Fred.”

“Yeah, ah right, ahhh Fred, how you doing there?”  A strong voice comes out of the cave of his collar.  The collar of his soiled trench coat is up around his head and his belt is tied crudely to one side.  He pushes back his fedora and looks up from the curve of his bent frame.  His coat is too big.  He has the ends of the sleeves bunched up in his hands.

“Filling up before the next blizzard.”

“Didn’t we meet at Hank’s barbeque a while back?”

“Yes we did.”

“It was gusty as I recall, and Daisy brought her Wombat.”

“In the tea cozy.”

“Haven’t seen Daisy around.  Have you?”

“Yes, saw her at the party for Derwent.”

“Oh!  That son of a bitch finally kicked it!  Now I am the last of the Mohicans.  He always said he was, but I am!”

“Last of the Mohicans?”

“Yeah, well there weren’t any Mohicans around here … figure of speech of course.  It was the “Faux”, so named by the French who couldn’t believe they were Indians.”

“Why?”

“Hell I don’t know! It’s probably a pack of lies!  That’s the story though, and I am the last of the old guard, the pioneers who built this place.”

“I see, an original settler, and you started the water system I hear.”

“This area was settled in the late 17^th century.  I may look old to you but let’s not be ridiculous.  Didn’t you learn any history?  I was just a guy looking for affordable housing after the war when the government had expanded and hired me along with thousands of others.”

“That’s world War II right?”

“What else could it be?”

“Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf …”

“Those weren’t real wars for Christ’s sake!  Korea was a United Nations boondoggle and Vietnam and the Gulf were imperial scuffles.”

“Cost a lot of lives and money, just like a war.”

“Wasted money … compared with the big one, they were unnecessary scuffles.  The mistakes of political midgets like Johnson, and Bush and the rest of them.”

“Very glad you got the water system up.”

“Yeah it’s been a pain in the ass ever since.  Anyway, you were saying you saw Daisy? “

“That’s right.”

“Maybe I did see her … Yeah across the room there.  Couldn’t talk to her though.”

“The room was crowded.”

“It was, but that was not the obstacle.”

“No?”

“No, see there’s scheming going on there.”

“Scheming?”

“You know what scheming is.  You know there’s plans and then there’s schemes.”

“Well yes, scheming has a …”

“… negative connotation?  You got it.  Sloot was a god dam schemer if ever there was one.”

“He was a little rough around the edges.”

“Slippery as an eel though … For God’s sake there’s Finderelli.”  Mr. Ramsay is looking beyond me.  Turning I see an old dented Plymouth Valliant, which must date back to the sixties.  The tall man is getting out.  He has backed it away from the snow pile.

“Haven’t seen him since I interviewed him a year or two ago.”

“What did you do that for?”

“You remember the fire ants at Prestige U.?”

“Oh that was the Tripp kid’s prank.  Is she serving any time?

“No, I believe the case is settled or going to be soon.”

“Right, right, right, her rich Daddy got Shrowd in.  Yeah that guy is a real operator!”

“So I gather, he is …”

“He is the reason I can still keep this old filling station the way it is, independent, without the god dam oil monopolies taking it over.”

“So you are a client too!”

“Stick around, and you will find yourself knocking at his door.”

“Hope to avoid litigation.  Don’t have the money for it.”

“You’ll never get to court with him.”

“No I am told he works behind the scenes.”

“He knows who to talk to and how to make a deal.  If you can’t afford to pay him he’ll make a deal and you will never get away from the guy.  Like the Mob, once you accept a deal that’s …”

Mr. Ramsay is looking beyond me again toward the street. “Hey Finn!”  Mr. Ramsay shouts above the traffic at the tall man.  Finn strolls over. The gas pump has stopped.  My tank is full.  As I pull the nozzle out of the car Ramsay pushes my hand back down, all the while shouting to Finn, who doesn’t seem to hear. So I leave the nozzle in the car.

Bending slightly towards him, Finn shakes hands “Mr. Ramsay”, and turns to me.

“I remember you … how’s the blog?”

Mr. Ramsay interrupts our exchange of pleasantries.  Finn’s thick hair is combed back from his wide lined forehead and you wouln’t guess he has it all gathered in back.

“So you totaled that car I gave you huh!”

“Just a dent that’s all.”

“How many miles you got on that thing now?”

“I am in my fifth century.”

“Not bad for a guy who doesn’t know any history.  Just like you Fred!”

“Same old smooth charmer Mr. Ramsay!”

“Listen, I gave a young hippie my old car thirty odd years ago when no one else would have given you the time of day.”

“My gratitude knows no bounds!”

“Yeah tell me about it Flower … or should I say Doctor Finderelli?”

“Say what you like.”

“I usually do!  You still professing up at that university, what ever its called?”

“No, we came to a parting of the ways.”

“You are well out of that stinking place.  So what you doing now, smoking dope?”

“Back to building houses.”

“That’s real honest to god work.  Hell! You might have come to your senses!”

“Maybe … need to make a buck, like any one else.”

“Why did they throw you out? … or did they?”

“I had a profound disagreement with the dean, Dr. Bookbender.”

“Profound huh!”

“Yeah, it went real deep.”

“Now you can forget all your degrees, and what you majored in and all the rest of that horse shit you academics get off on!”

“What you got against P.U. anyway Mr. Ramsay?”

“That goes real deep too.”

Farouk the manager walks over and stands next to Mr. Ramsay, grinning at Finn.

“Farouk, how you doing buddy?”

Mr. Ramsay interrupts again and drowns out Farouk.  He grabs Farouk’s arm.  “Okay what have I done now?”

“Mr. Ramsay, look over there, you have customers lined up waiting to use this pump.”

“Give Fred a chance to fill up will you?”

“Mr. Ramsay the pump stopped five minutes ago.”

“Fred, what you messing around for?  Get that thing out of there will you?”

I pull the nozzle out of the car and Farouk takes it from me and hangs it back on the pump.  Finn is laughing.

“He used to pull that on me too Fred.”

“What’s that Finn?”

“Hold up the whole line and blame me for it!”

“Okay okay so I’ve got a conscientious manager.  What’s your hippie problem with that?”

“Mr. Ramsay I don’t have a problem.  You do, you are holding up the line talking.”

“Farouk, get these people moving will you!”

“Yes boss.”

I get in the car but Mr. Ramsay doesn’t move out of the way.  He is still talking to Farouk and Finn who have stepped to one side.  Now he is leaning on the right front side of the car.

Finn is still laughing.  He and Farouk each take an arm and pull Mr. Ramsay out of the way and I pull away from the pump.

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction.  Click on Archives on the right.

“Quercus alba, look at those deep sinuses.”  Bel Vionnet examines some dead leaves uncurling one with her fingers as she identifies the tree.  People are gathering to see the aftermath of its dramatic fall in last night’s icy gale.

These once prophetic leaves caught the first rays of dawn sunlight, before it came up over the hill and the roofs of nearby houses. They held on through autumn into midwinter sheltering starlings and grackles, which started their chat at first light. They rustle and scratch in the windy silence after snow, vocalizing, but what they are saying falls unrevealed to the ground. The top of the tree is now spread out across Wickett Street after tipping over from the drenched ground and upending its root ball in the air.  Though the air is well below freezing this morning and light snow sparkles as it blows out of the surrounding trees, there’s a pool of dark water filling the hole left when all the earth and roots were torn out of the ground and rose into the air. The huge ragged lump spreading out at the bottom of the trunk looks like a picture of the noise it made tipping over. Several major roots dangle with clumps of earth weighing them down.  It was about seventy feet high with scales of ash grey bark along the trunk. Thick branches with lichen growing on one side have dug into the ground like bent elbows with bare limbs sticking up holding more brittle dead leaves bunched here and there.

“What was that bel?”

“Quercus alba, or white oak, that is what’s blocking the road, one of our biggest.  Probably killed by all the machinery compacting the ground around its roots.”

“That’s really too bad, they made an effort to save this tree when they dug the new well.”

A black Humvee pulls up on the other side of the tree.

“Can you see who that is bel?”  Bel parts the branches in front of her.

“It’s Albrecht Intaglio and I don’t know who, and there’s Boyd Nightingale.”

“What did you say bel?”  A chain saw starts up after a few coughs and the exhaust blows over to us.  Diddlie coughs.  “I hate those fumes!”  Albrecht is shouting orders at Boyd who starts cutting the top most branches from the trunk. Another saw starts and the third man begins to cut through larger limbs further down the trunk from us, where it has crushed the hedgerow, and revealed the remains of a rail fence.  Albrecht shouts further directions over the noise, Boyd stops his saw and drives off in the Fauxmont Militia’s Hummer.  Albrecht comes towards us around the end of the tree.

“Keep back there.  We are throwing the brush over here.”

“What?”  Lark walks towards him.  Albrecht repeats himself.  Lark walks up close to him and says something in his ear.  He smiles and they continue in a short conversation we can’t hear.  Lark is frowning as she walks back, but grins at us as she gets close enough to be heard over the noise.

“Self important little twerp!”

“What did you say to him Lark?”

“Never trust authority Didd., remember that from the old days.”

“Is that what you said to him?”

Albrecht joins us, and Lark doesn’t answer.  “Good morning, see, here’s your community at work, not yawping for the government’s help!  You all want to pitch in and move some brush?”

Lou appears from down the hill behind us, and Rank Majors and Marshall Rundstedt drive up, squeezed into the cab of Hank Dumpty’s chalky blue F150.  They too have chain saws in the back and Albrecht walks over to them.

“This will be interesting, folks.”

“Lou, I can’t see Hank taking direction from Albrecht.”

“Look Fred, Marshall is talking to him.”

“Fred, you got a saw?”

“I’ve got a pruning saw.”

“There’s enough saws at work already.”

“There’s a lot of tree Lou.”

“Right enough bel, but they’ll end up in each other’s way if there’s too many.”

“Oh look, Hank has driven off!”

“Hank’s seen enough Lou!”

“Looks like Albrecht is trying to turn this little project into a political statement, like everything else in his life.”

“Well Lark, some one’s got to take the lead.”

“Why Didd.? why couldn’t these neighbors just come here to clear the road because they choose to, because they need to get by?”

“That’s probably what’s going on Lark.”

“The spirit of Fauxmont Lou”

“Right Fred, besides, leaders can’t take anything we don’t give them.”

“Oh no Lark?  What about tyrants?  Look at Stalin or Mao.”

“Bel they had to have a lot of people supporting them to have done what they did.”

“Yeah, and if you opposed them you were as good as dead.”

“Too true Lou!  There were plenty of enforcers and killers at work.”

“So what did the dead give them?”

“Nothing Didd. … I am talking about the followers, and those who were dragged along by fear.”

“In a sense these leaders were false gods bel.”

“Like the ancient kings who ruled by divine right, or take Nero for instance who declared himself a god.”

“So Lark, you don’t think we should follow leadership.”

“No, no Didd.  Not exactly, its more a matter of what you give them.”

“What do you mean by “give them”, bel?”

“Cooperation, willing cooperation which is a mark of autonomy because it reserves one’s will for oneself.”

“That’s what I mean bel, not blind obedience, or mindless compliance where people give up their will to another.”

“Why would any one do that Lark?”

“Maybe they are prisoners.”

“Lou, they may be in the military.”

“In the military respect for rank is obligatory.”

“The outward sign of respect is obligatory Lou,”

“Right and that’s some times all there is Didd.”

“Did you see the paper the other day?  They have a crisis on their hands now.”

“Oh! you talking about that ‘toxic leadership’ story Lark.”

“Leadership is generally so poorly understood.”

“Yes Lou, but some people want to be led.  It’s a relief.  They don’t have to make so many decisions.”

“Yeah Fred, maybe it is a relief, I guess it could be, to give up one’s responsibility to one’s self but …”

“Yeah, what’s left Lou?”

“That’s it bel, without decision not much.”

“You’re spirit can’t move you without your will.  So you are not so much a person as a slave to some one else’s will.”

“Amen bel.”

“Well Lark, ‘there’s leaders’ and ‘there’s leaders’.  Hitler told the Germans what they wanted to hear in the thirties and the majority supported him at first, even though he told a lot of lies.”

“I think the thing about leadership is really respect.  When subordinates respect their leader they’ll follow.”

“What about tyrants who force people to follow them?”

“For tyrants the respect of their subordinates isn’t as important as keeping them in fear.”

“Lark, I mean we can give our respect or withhold it.”

“Exactly bel, that’s the meaning of autonomy, freedom if you like.”

“Makes the difference between tyrants and what I am calling real or true leaders.”

“Real because they are morally true and don’t rely on fear and coercion.”

“That’s it Fred.”

“So isn’t that what Albrecht is advocating?  Less government and more independent action?”

“Lou, less government means more corporate power and I have never heard him or my son say a word about that.”

“He’s very articulate for knowing nothing Lark!”

“Fred, he’s been taken in … and he has snookered Boyd too.”

“Look out over there!”  Albrecht and the other man have started throwing brush into a pile nearby.  A chunk of rotten wood falls out of a nearby red oak into the pool under the root ball of the fallen white.  It breaks the thin coat of ice that had formed in the shade.

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction.  Click on Archives on the right.

 “Here are various parts of Derwent’s life.”

“A party of them Artie!”

“And a lot of people I don’t know.”

“Fred, I’ve never even seen many of them before.”

“A difficult time for grieving during the holiday Daisie.”

“Rosie’s tweet said this is a celebration!”

“Oh … of his life … yes Daisie let’s celebrate!

“Artie, who for instance is that guy by the Christmas tree?”

“Don’t know Fred … I think that’s Sherman Shrowd next to him.”

“Hi, Lark.”

“Artie, Fred, Daisie, are we to be happy that we are sad at this party, or sad that we are happy?”

“Is that a riddle Lark?  How can you be happy that you are sad?”

“Well, brutally speaking, you might be happy to be alive yourself and sad that Derwent isn’t.”

“Lark that is horrible!”

“Sorry Daisie, we have lost Derwent, and I feel the loss.  I am sad about that.”

“Funny, I’ll miss his rudeness …”

“Lark, talking to him was like getting rubbed with coarse sandpaper.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“It’s an observation.  I liked Derwent.  Coarse sandpaper has its uses.”

“Yeah, abrasive!”

“You said it Artie, but always interesting … who the hell is that? ….  anyway, Happy Holiday.”

“It’s okay Lark, you can wish me a Merry Christmas.”

“I like to be multicultural Artie.  Besides I don’t think Derwent was Christian.”

“I believe he was an atheist.”

“He always had a tree though Fred.”

“How Christian is that, or Santa Claus for that matter?”

“It was for Rosie as a little kid.”

“We would be better off with out these myths Daisy.  That’s what Derwent might have said.”

“Lark, myths are an important part of life.”

“Well, the fact is Santa doesn’t exist!”

“You know Derwent used to be Santa down at the preschool.”

“Daisie, are you kidding?”

“His act bought Santa into existence.”

“Oh come on Artie! How many Santas are there anyway?”

“No, I mean it.”

“You aren’t going to tell me these Santas, Derwent and all the others ride, in across the night sky from the North Pole on a fleet of sleighs are you?”

“No no no, Santa has no ground control or radar.  It would be a disaster!  No seriously, I am only saying Santa exists, not that all the stories about him are literally true.”

“Okay, so we have a real person who’s story is a lie!”

“No it‘s a mythical person, not a lie.  There’s a difference between telling myths and telling lies.”

“Yeah, telling, repeating a myth can be an affirmation Lark.”

“That’s religion Artie.”

“It can also be poetry.”

“Well Artie, Father Christmas pulls it all together through his name and posing by well decorated trees for advertizing photos.”

“You mean ‘Father’ as in God the Father?”

“Yeah I am stretching the myth Lark … look there’s Edie Carnap with Olga Hahn.”

“So what’s Derwent’s connection there?”

“Fred he was on the board when we hired the Women’s Wells Cooperative to replace the mains on Wicket Street.”

“That’s before my time.”

“Oh! way before, Fred, in the eighties.”

Daisie sports a silky lemon yellow scarf around her neck falling down her back and front.  She also has a new bowler hat on, a dense immaculate black with what looks like a yellow post-it in the band.  We are standing in Derwent’s living room.  There is a table set out in front of the living room fireplace spread with platters of food, the ceiling fan is on low agitating, tinsel decorating the mantelpiece.  An ancient looking gold mantel clock has stopped at six o’clock. Theophilus Gladstone is sitting next to Daisie in an armchair. The chair is so low, the table comes up to his armpits.  He rests asleep, his head on his arm outstretched across the table.  He is one of Daisie’s ancient Canadian uncles, invited to give a lecture at P.U.  He looks up.

“Have some wine.”

“Theo, there is no wine, only punch.”

He puts his head down again close to the punch bowl.  Lark helped herself to a glass of the cranberry drink.  She holds up the ladle.

“Any one for a red refill?”

I haven’t been in this room since Derwent and I first met here and he complained about the massive Tripp house backing on to his lot.  Rosalba’s son Serge looks taller.  He is standing beyond the doorway in the hall looking solemn talking to Rank Majors.

“Rosie, sorry about your Father.”

“Thank you Fred, so glad you could come on a tweet!”

“Glad to be here Rosie.  This is my first tweeted invitation.”

“Fred, the bird is the simplest way to get the word out, and fast too.”

“I got it second hand really, thanks to Lou.”

“Rosie it looks like Derwent’s clock has stopped at 6 o’clock.”

“Yes now he can’t wind it, and I don’t dare touch it.  So it is perpetually six in here.”

“As 6 was on your invitational tweet, that clock makes every one on time!”

“Daisie, we can party for ever.”

“How can we tell Lark, the hands are still?”

“We can watch the punch bowl empty out.  Here Daisie have some more.”

“More wine!”

“Theo, this is punch.”

Theo dropped off again.  His comb-over has flopped out, hinged along the side of his drooping head like the hood of a car, revealing his pate.

“Say Rosie, was your Dad Christian or what?”

“Lark, I don’t think he was anything.”

“Not an atheist then?”

“I have never heard him say anything like that Artie, but he never announced that he was anything around me.  He sort of found his own Divinity I think, in his work.”

Lou comes up with a tray of drinks from the kitchen.  Seeing we all have punch, he puts the glasses on the table and holds the tray by his side.

“We are going to toast Derwent in as soon as Mr. Ramsay gets here.”

“Where is he?”

“Daisie, I just called him.  He was killing time down at the gas station, waiting for a delivery.  He is on the way.”

“Looks like time has caught up with him anyway!”

“I am getting out of here folks.”

“Daisie you don’t have to leave just because of him.”

“Bye bye …”

Lark grabs Daisie’s arm.  Linked arm in arm they squeeze through the crowd, one behind the other, towards the door. Lou’s stage whisper to Lark is to try and keep her here.

Artie waves goodbye.

“Derwent was always asking skeptical questions as I remember.”

“Lou, he had no time for cant that’s for sure.”

Rosie takes the tray from Lou and disappears among the guests.

“Yeah, he was outspoken alright Lou.  He told me at my first opening that he knew I could paint but couldn’t understand why there was no evidence of it in my show.”

“How did he know?”

“I guess he may have liked something I had put in a faculty show over at P.U. back in the nineties.”

Mrs. Shrowd comes up beside Artie and grips her wrist in her long thin hand with fingers like bejeweled talons tipped in glossy red.

“Let’s talk.”

She pulls Artie aside.  Diddly brings Daisie back with Lark.

“Daisie you can’t leave just as I arrive!”

Lark and Daisie each have an arm and Daisy is no longer resisting.  Lark points out that she can’t leave Theophilus asleep at the table.  Rank Majors is now talking to the man by the Christmas tree.  Lark tells Diddlie to take over Daisie’s arm.  She acquiesces with a sigh and Lark goes over to introduce herself.  She soon comes back towards the punch bowl where I am standing with Daisie, Lou, sleepy Theophilus, and Diddlie, newly arrived.

“That guy is Santa, Daisie!”

“Lark he’s going to need about fifty additional pounds and a white beard to convince me.”

“Actually he wasn’t very forthcoming.”

“So what’s his name Lark?”

“Oh, ahhh … I have forgotten …I can never remember people’s names when first introduced.”

“Could it have been Kris Kringle?”

“Diddlie, what gifts did he bring?”

“Maybe he brought us Rosie’s memorial celebration for Derwent.”

“Ask Rosie, here she is, back already.”

“Ask me what Daisie?”

“Who’s that guy … wait a minute.  Where’s he gone?”

“That’s how it is with mythical beings Lark.”

“Daisie that was a real person.”

“Who?”

“The guy we can’t find now Didd.”

NOT E: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction.  Click on Archives on the right.

Lambert stands with a yellowish oak leaf dangling from his beard.  It swings slowly under his chin, and twists a little to the right and back to the left.  His facial fur is all cross-wise and his ears slant sideways like the horns of a steer.  A piece of moss hangs above his right eye like a loose green eyebrow.  You would think the leaf must fall at any second.  It doesn’t.  He seems to be staring at the ground, bewildered perhaps as he has just awakened from a snooze under the azaleas in front of bel’s living room window.  He shakes himself and looks up at bel and she puts his leash on.  The leaf falls.  He looks back at the ground.  He sniffs around bel’s feet and looks up again, his ears erect his attention focused. The moss is gone.  He has a second leaf hanging from his beard. It has fallen from a white oak, grey and dry and bent.  Even after shaking, his coarse long white fur holds like Velcro to any number of azalea leaves and a few twig fragments.  Leaves from white and red oaks cover the ground visually unifying, the driveway and flowerbeds and all the bald patches in the lawn with a spread of textured browns that fell, quiet as snow, in a couple of days.

“I am not raking until those hickories drop”

Bel points toward the small grove of shag bark hickories stopping at the road and continuing in the yard on the other side, with brilliant yellow leaves.  The fence zigzags among the trunks growing along her property line.  Their branches over hang the lawn.

“We got a quarter inch in our rain gauge last night.”

“No wonder all these things have come down Fred!”

Lambert is barking. He pulls hard towards the road and the second leaf falls.

“Who’s that coming down the hill Fred?  Can’t see in this mist.”

“Don’t think I know them.”

“No I haven’t seen those two Chihuahuas before.”

Two long-haired Chihuahuas zoom past twisting their leashes together and barking as they veer towards Lambert who is pulling towards them from the driveway.  The couple on the other end of the leashes walk on in conversation, and don’t look up.

Hank Dumpty’s pale blue truck pulls up with a rattle of his dented tailgate.  His thick arm partly covered with torn brown corduroy, reaches out of the open window elbow first.  His hand drops to the door handle and opens the door from the outside.  The engine idles roughly.  More mist spreads from the tale pipe.  He walks over as Lambert sniffs the air pulling now toward the truck.

“Bel, you seen our young radicals lately?”

He puts a big friendly hand on my shoulder as he speaks to bel.  He has a box under his left arm.

“Who might you be thinking of Hank?  How are you anyway?”

“You know that gun toting Nightingale kid and his boss, ah what’s his name?… “

“Entaglio?”

“That’s the one Fred”

“I have Hank.  Abrecht was talking to Fred and Lou outside the Pie shop the other day.”

“Bel here’s your bird. Shot it yesterday up in New York.”

“Another tasty Thanksgiving for us Hank; thank you.”

“You got a place to hang it?”

“Sure, Steve will hang it in the shed when he gets home.”

“Should be just right in another few days.”

“Is that a wild Turkey Hank?”  Lambert has caught scent of of the box and pulls towards Hank.

“Fred this is a pheasant.  Can I interest you in one?”

“No thanks Hank we are going to my Father in law’s for Thanksgiving.”

“You bought a side-arm yet Fred?”

Lambert is barking at Hank’s box.

“No I remain unconvinced Hank.”

“Yeah!  So do I.”

Bel pulls Lambert back and sits him down.  He settles at her feet with a gentle growl culminating with a grunt.

“You are pretty well armed already aren’t you Hank?”

“I’ve got a few hunting rifles, and an old Army forty five, but Fred, that’s nothing to do with those two.”

The truck engine spontaneously revs up and then stalls.

Hank turns toward it.  “It doesn’t like the damp … getting old like me.”  Lambert is roused and starts barking again.  Hank rubs his upper arm and then the large egg of his bald round head.

“You hear we lost Derwent?”

Bel settles Lambert at her feet again.

“No Hank, when?”

“He didn’t wake up Wednesday morning bel.”

“That’s yesterday Hank …”

“Yeah, Helga got a call from Rosalba and went over yesterday morning.  We ought to get a funeral date today.”

“I never knew you and Derwent were all that close.”

“We weren’t but Helga was teaching Rosalba German and they kind of bonded, a couple of years ago I guess … no more than that.  Hell! more like a decade ago … I think Rosalba was in college …  yeah that was it … helping her with college German.”

“Hank he was the last surviving founder of Fauxmont.”

“He was … don’t think he was religious do you?”

“Never heard him talk about it.”

“God bless him anyway.”

“You think there will be a wake Hank?”

“They’re not Irish are they?”

Lambert is restless and starts squeaking at bel.  She settles him once again.

“No, I am just talking about having friends and neighbors over.”

“Don’t know bel.  Derwent knew some interesting folks.”

“How old was he?”

“Fred he must have been in his nineties.”

“No Bel, he was eighty nine.”

“Who did Derwent know Hank?”

“Most of the people involved in starting this place.”

“I gather it has complicated beginnings.”

“What’s that Fred?”

“Oh something about laundered money and so on, and a character called Aaron Macadamia.”

“You’ve been listening to Diddlie!  She’s full of that hogwash, I’ve been hearing it for years.”

“So what so interests you about Faumont’s beginnings Hank?”

“I used to be a regular down at the H bar and chat with Banesh Hoffmann.  Got to know him a little.  He could write the book about this place, ‘The Strange Story Of Fauxmont’.  In fact I suggested it to him with that title.”

“So what’s the strange story Hank?”

“He didn’t tell me more than a bit of this and that.  There’s a lot of money involved alright.”

“Who’s Hank?”

“Ha!  That’s the question!”

Lambert breaks for a squirrel running across the driveway in a crackle of dry leaf litter.

Bel holds him back.

“The houses were pretty small to start Hank.  They don’t look like a lot of money was involved.”

“No, you’re right bel.  Most of the folks who moved here weren’t rich.  Derwent was a professor at Prestige U., Herman Intaglio taught there later I think, there were some lawyers and civil service types.”

“So where’s all the money you are talking about?”

“Where?  God knows where it is now.  If I knew that I’d probably be rich myself.”

“Hank I am getting back to your remark about a lot of money being involved when Fauxmont first started.”

“Somebody bought all this land for one thing.  Then soon after, they sold it to the Fauxmont cooperative in a deal that is sealed for ninety nine years.  Derwent may be the only living member of our community who knew what is in it.”

“Is that what Mr. Hoffmann told you?”

“Bel, Hoffmann got involved after that and took over the old Newton House which he renamed the H bar.  He started out in physics so the idea was obvious to him.”

“Okay Hank, go on …”

“Well, his lawyer found out about this sealed deal when he was negotiating his acquisition of Newton House.  In fact it is still listed as Newton House officially and he has a seventy seven year lease.  He doesn’t own it.  He has a lease which is up the same day the deal comes unsealed … and you didn’t hear this from me.”

“Are you sharing a secret with us Hank?”

“I don’t think Hoffmann would appreciate it if he found out that I had mentioned all this” Hank paused and rubbed his head again.  “I better stop running my mouth, and get going.”

He looks at bel and bel is slowly nodding at him and with sympathy in her expression.  Neither speaks.  He hands me the box with the pheasant in it and turns toward his old truck muttering, “See you around.”

He climbs back in his truck.  Lambert had fallen asleep and is roused again when the truck starts.  I put the box over in the shed for bel and walk back.  She and Lambert start his morning walk.  He has a reddish leaf over his right eye and another grey one on that side of his face.

“Bel, when did Fauxmont get started?”

“I think the land was purchased late in 1945.”

“The H bar’s plaque says, “Since 1968.”

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction.  Click on Archives on the right.

Soil comes moist and black in sunny yellow plastic sacks, 40 lbs or 60lbs at a time from the Snaz “Garden of Eden” plant and paving center. There’s a blond American Eve pictured on the front of the sack ‘sans’ serpent, but modestly covered by a few leaves on an intervening tree branch. She stands next to Adam with his fig leaf in place. This Eve has commercial savvy and knows how to stoke your expectations. Huge dahlias are perpetually blossoming around her and Adam gestures towards apples and pears and tomatoes, squash, broccoli and carrots piled in baskets with out a spec of dirt or caterpillar or even a fly to be seen. Each ideal platonic fruit and vegetable is displayed against the perfectly mowed green carpet of grass in front of them. The specially blended soil is registered and tested to comply with the standards of the Mulch and Soil Council, who’s website is provided. Detailed instructions are printed in Spanish English and French for best results with the product, which goes on fertilizing your garden long after you planted.

Dirt previously dug out of the clay under the dead yellow alyssum has dried into dusty sun-baked lumps like rocks. Having mixed the specially blended Snaz soil product with the dry clay, I fill in the hole for future planting. Put my spade with hickory handle beside the rake’s orange fiberglass handle leaning against the wheelbarrow nearby. Now using Snaz “Super Trowel” with saw tooth feature for cutting through roots, it is time to replace some dead potherbs with newly purchased Chrysanthemums. Lark waves from the road and comes through the gate to unburden herself.

“Hi Fred, Has Diddlie come down the hill yet? Are you getting your hands dirty again?

“Only my gloves Lark. See these pots?”

“There’s nothing but dried stalks. What are you trying to grow? Wow! I love the pots … oh yes! … the red one, it’s great!”

“That had cilantro in it and the dead brown stuff in the yellow pot was Italian parsley and this one …”

“Fred, you have to water them!”

“Lark, water is the thing alright, but they got too much

in those monsoon rains we had in the summer.”

“You mean they drowned?”

“Looks like it, but look at that.”

I point out the thickened roots on one of the dead plants I am exhuming.”

“Look like miniature parsnips.”

“I forget which herb this is, but those roots should sprout next spring so I’m reburying them over there by the hydrangea.”

“They might be day lilies.”

“No, not in the pots. They are all over the place though.”

“I thought they would just grow more with more rain, like all the other stuff in your yard. Its like the woods in here.”

“Yes the shrubs need pruning to clear the paths. Look at that Burford holly.”

Lark looks at the surrounding greenery, admires the holly berries and swats a mosquito on her bare arm.

“Fred, there’s a visitor on your neck right under your ear.”

I can’t swat it because my gloved hands are full of plant roots, so I shrug to drive it off.

“Why is UPS delivering to an empty house?”

“Where? What do you mean?”

“Look up the hill at Jake’s house. The driver just left a package up there by the side door.”

“I haven’t seen anyone move in.”

“Well I am going over to Diddlie’s and I’ll check it out on the way up the hill. She is finally back from that endless trip.”

“Didn’t she go to England?”

“Yeah that trip, which was extended by her new romance.”

“Haven’t seen her … didn’t know about … No come to think of it I saw her last week carrying a bundle of goldenrod up the hill.”

“Fred you couldn’t have, she only got back yesterday. Lou picked her up at Dulles.”

“Yes, I see what you mean.”

“Have you looked at Shrinkwrap’s latest posts?”

“No, Lark, not lately,”

“That’s what I came to talk to you about. There’s an article on surveillance both by government and corporations, and it’s about us!”

“What? … are our names mentioned? … I mean no one talked to me or anything.”

“No, Fred it’s about government contracts for surveillance and involves the incident in Fauxmont. None of us is mentioned by name.”

“Oh, dirty tricks!”

“Fulton Furray’s blog mentions the prosthesis in the gully. He’s convinced there’s a lot more to it and that Dordrecht’s Group is involved. He has a copy of a contract, showing they are linked to Fibonacci Corp. Also Fulton has been served a subpoena to appear before Judge Grackle to reveal his source.”

“What is Quiscalus P. Grackle getting involved for? He usually does the high profile cases?”

“Quiscalus! Where did you get that from?”

“I just read an article about him in a bird magazine at the doctor’s office, and here he turns up again.”

“Okay, Fred, a judge in a bird mag.?”

“That’s right he is a bird watcher and has an impressive list.”

“List of what?”

“Of birds he has seen. Serious bird watchers make lists.”

“Fred, if the story on Shrinkwrap is just about a prosthesis and bird watching, Grackle wouldn’t even know about it.”

“Yeah, he is only in on the big stuff.”

“I don’t think Fulton is going to give anything up and Grackle will try to nail him!”

“Lark, the story has already been reported on local news …”

“I know Fred. We were at the H Bar together, remember?”
“That’s right. So what is Max saying?”

“I am not supposed to, but I’ll tell you he is afraid he is going to be the scapegoat.”

“The scapegoat for what?”

“Fred, even though the police got there after the others, they are retailing the prosthesis story. I mean what do they know? Why are they are taking Urban Safety’s word for it? There should be an inquiry into what really happened before the police arrived, and the Fauxmont Militia and Urban Safety were there by themselves.”

“That’s probably twenty minutes or more.”

“Steve thinks it took the police half an hour to get there.”

“Ah, but how soon were they called?”

“That is a question. If they delayed calling, why did they?”

“Who made the call?”

“Probably Urban Safety, that’s what they are supposed to do.”

“They all know each other, these security contractors are often ex-police or army or something like that.”

“You remember the trouble about all that dirt in the gully?

“Yeah, the stuff from the failed silt fence when Jake’s place went up.”

“If the illegal dumping is taken to court, Max will be the defendant.”

“Right, that’s it. So you think the dumping case will cover the real question of what was in the gully?”

“Isn’t that what Fibonacci do?”

“Yeah … perception management.”

“How about lies, obstruction of justice, and framing an innocent man?”

“How about it, or a fertile imagination Lark?”

“Okay Fred, Fulton has shown a connection between Fibonacci and Dordrecht’s. Max worked with Dordrechts when he built the Tripp house a couple of years ago. He thought they were doing a lot of unnecessary work. So he told Jake Tripp about it, thinking Jake was getting fleeced. Tripp didn’t say much, then Max was told to mind his own business by some clown from Dordrecht’s.”

“Really? You mean they sent him a letter, or was it done in person.”

“In fact it was done over in the parking lot outside the H bar, by a guy in a business suit. Max thinks he’s an attorney from the way he kept intimating legal action.”

“Well, I remember that crazy security system with all the video screens in their huge lobby. I tried to tell Gale the system was faulty when I first moved in here, but don’t think she heard me. There were too many screens. They looked redundant to me at the time. I couldn’t make sense of it at all. It was like a hall of mirrors.”

“Yeah, that’s one of the things Max noticed. He said there were two huge wiring closets full of connections, tons more than any residential place would need, and he only saw in there once when he was inspecting his own work. Who ever left those doors open made a mistake because they were locked whenever he went back. Also, he said the closets had heavy metal doors, not like you have in a home closet”

“Could they be for the complex wine cellar mechanism with computers and so on?”

“Right, Max knew about that, but he was never shown any of the details, not even the plans. That stuff was blank on his set of blueprints and he had to work around the space.

“Did he tell Trip all this?”

“I guess he told Jake everything.”

“Did this ‘suit’ just come up to him in the parking lot out of nowhere?”

“I don’t know, maybe he called first. Max was really mad and called up Sherman but …”

“Sherman? Who’s Sherman?”

“You know the attorney …”

“Oh I see, being Tripp’s attorney, he thought …”

“Sherman Shrowd is also Max’s attorney. That’s why Max called him to give him a heads up on the dumping case.”

“Shrowd is probably in the know already.”

“That’s another reason Max called him. He’s expensive but so well connected, you know, it’s worth it.”

“Alright so there’s a contractual relationship between Fibonacci and Dordrecht’s, and Jakes place had a lot of weird electronics. What’s the scoop?”

“Fred you know, I think Juanita’s body was found in the gully, and I think there was a cover-up that night.”

“Is that where the Shrinkwrap story is going?”

“Possibly, it tags Marshall Rundstedt as being on the board of Leiden Organization and an advisor to Fibonacci”

“ … and what is Leiden Organization?”

“Supposedly they do educational programs for various middle Eastern governments, but I’ll bet that’s not all they do.”

“But what’s the connection to Fauxmont’s gully?”

“Then there’s Rank Major, he works for the Fib. I believe.

The connection is all these people who live here also work for these related companies, and these companies have something to do with the Tripp’s weird house … and Juanita lived at that house and may have known something or seen something.”

“Known what Lark?”

“That’s the question. It’s a dirty business, and that’s what gets to me about her disappearance.”

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction.  Click on Archives on the right.

Light that brightens late in the day seems to have been pilfered from some other time and pasted into the scene by the god who laughs at our plans for tomorrow.   It has been a dark dry day. Now the picture has changed and the  cross beams on Lou’s shed are highlighted against the planks.  A crooked length of dogwood branch is illuminated as if on a whim. A chickadee settles on it only long enough to be recognized and flies deeper into the autumn greens.  The sun is low and coming in through a slit in the clouds like the sweep from a lighthouse, dramatizing grey peeling trunks of the four white oaks along the property line where Lou’s shed fills the corner.  This is where he brought out the powder blue wooden trunk a few months ago. The setting sun constructs it differently now.

Having passed Lou’s place, I have walked over to the Strether’s house expecting to meet them. A low flying plane passes close enough to cast a shadow, which feels, as it flits over, like the sun has blinked in response to the rolling reverberations of jet engines.

“That was way too low!”

Bel Vionnet is poking the gravel in her driveway with the point of her umbrella.  We are waiting under low clouds for Steve to come back out after going in to the check his back door.

“I knew you had locked it Steve.”

“I don’t remember doing so.”

“It was locked though, wasn’t it?”

“Yes it was.”

Steve threw the unlit stub of his Dutch Master cigar into a thicket of azaleas.  Lambert barked twice and retrieved it before we had taken a couple of steps.  He raced ahead and dropped it.  Then picked it up again and waited for us to catch up, panting past it in the side of his mouth.

“Steve, what’s on your mind?”

“Fred I can’t exactly say.”

“Honey do you mean you can’t put it into words or that you don’t want to?”

“Of course I want to bel.”

“So what is stopping you?”

“I can’t say.”

“Is this an emotional thing Steve?  Steve if you and Fred want to go off and have a chat I can take Lambert up the hill to the Ashes.”

“No, no, no, this isn’t anything like that bel.”

Steve took off his gold wire rim glasses and looked at the lens.  He dislodged a tiny insect from the inside of his left lens and put them back on.

“So what is it Steve? Honey you have been withdrawn for the last week, ever since you came home soaked from that incident in the gulley.”

We are walking up Wicket Street towards the river, past Armond Macadamia’s place.  They often take Lambert out at dusk in keeping with his crepuscular habits.

“It’s a legal matter.”

“So Steve, are you involved in a law suit?”

“Not yet Fred.”

“Why haven’t you said anything before honey?”

“Bel, I shouldn’t even have said that.”

“You’ve made a start honey, keep going.  Fred I think you are good for him!”

“I believe some one has broken into our house, not a thief.”

“What tipped you off.”

“It was Lambert’s sniffing around.  If any one did come in, it must have been while we were all out yesterday.  I’ve been home all week reading up on Rembrandt especially “Night Watch.”

“Oh that huge thing he did of a shooting party.”

“Fred the subject was more like a local militia.  In the 1940s they removed a layer of old varnish and found it was not a night scene at all.”

“Oh I thought it is still called “The Night Watch”.

“It is, probably always will be, but any way, where was I?”

“You were talking about Lambert, honey and the fact that he was sniffing around got your attention.  But he is always doing that.”

“Not like this.  I think he followed a trail from the back door into the utility room and back.  He was single minded, going back and forth, not just mooching around.  He got excited, and growled, and I finally let him out again”

“Steve is this connected with the incident?”

“That’s what I was wondering.  Somebody did something or left something in our utility room behind the kitchen.”

“Maybe one of us tracked something in, Steve.”

“Did you look for stuff on the floor, a bit of insulation or something?”

“Yeah, there was nothing.  No I don’t think it could have been one of us.  We haven’t been out that door lately.  If they planted something it probably just fitted into place somewhere, so you’d have to be an electrician to notice it.”

“Okay, I get it. This is about Juanita’s disappearance and that thing they found in the gulley.”

“Oh the prosthesis.”

“Right Fred, if that’s what it was.”

“Are you in doubt bel?  I know Lark is.”

“Fred, I never know what to believe about that case, but I think Steve is getting too far out.”

“What’s he done with my cigar?”

“Lambert, where is it?”

“Oh I hope he didn’t eat it!”

Lambert is looking up at us with white hair arching over his black eyes and showing his incisors behind black lips.  He moves his head to the left, then to the right as Steve questions him, as if he is sympathizing with his plight.

“Did you eat my cigar butt Lambert? I hope you dropped it.”

We walk on to look out over the river to our right through the growth of Kentucky coffee trees in jagged zigzags.

“Why would any one want to plant anything in our house?”

“Bel dear, who knows?”

“So what gives you that idea?”

“Watching those klutzes getting wet and screwing around in the gulley … I mean it made no sense when the cops arrived

and the DEA arrived and people with weapons and no uniforms or IDs.  Then one of these big bruiser types came swaggering over and told me to move on.  It was insulting and inappropriate.”

“DEA, what are they doing here?  Are you sure?”

“Yeah I over heard them mentioned on a squawk box several times.  Right after that I was kicked off my own street.”

“These security people are getting more and more arrogant.”

“It’s the terrorist threat Fred.”

“Look what happened at the Navy Yard bel!”

“Fred that was not a political terrorist from the Middle East.”

“Oh I know bel, he was hearing voices in his head.”

“Too many different kinds of violence get lumped together.  It’s the terrorist threat that is blown out of all proportion in my opinion and that has lead to militarizing law enforcement.”

“Its worth remembering bel, that a lot of people are making their fortunes out of it, and many others depend on those security appropriations for a salary.”

“Anyway, if there was a break-in, I am going to court.”

“Honey, I am not so sure there was a break-in.”

“Okay bel, an unlawful entry.  How’s that for jargon!”

“The jargon is great, but you need to identify the culprit.”

“Yes and that’s the hang up.  Some of these characters don’t need to break anything to get in.  Suppose it was an agent of my own government?”

“Then your case will gather in a media blitz.”

“Possibly Fred, more likely I will never know for sure who it was, and that’s what bothers me most.”

“Maybe no one ever came in, honey.”

“Maybe not, bel, I got your message the first time but our house overlooks the gulley.  Remember what a racket those generators made all night?”

“Oh so you’re thinking surveillance!”

“Strong possibility Fred, and more to the point who are they looking at or listening to?”

“Is that why you haven’t said anything at home?”

“It is on my mind bel.”

We have stopped at another new driveway. Bel runs the metal tip of umbrella across the surface as if she is painting.  We have been past several new driveways.  They seem to be in fashion in Fauxmont.  Some choose a light crushed stone, which drains well and shows up at night.  We have paused at a shining black asphalt driveway where a sunburst reflects in brilliant contrast to the new tar black shadow.

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction.  Click on Archives on the right.

I am sitting with Lou and Albrecht Intaglio under the awning outside the Pie Shop.  It has stopped raining for the moment.  We got nearly two inches of rain in twenty minutes the other day.  Now there is a pleasantly cool breeze blowing, with an occasional gust.  Just now several napkins blew from the table next to us across the parking lot.  They spread out into the wind like crippled white ghosts.  Flopping and unfolding, until they’re pneuma left them and they collapsed on the crumbling impasto of faded parking lines marking the puddled asphalt.

“So Boyd filled you in Fred, huh?”

“No, Albrecht, it was Daisy who mentioned your political work to me and I have been telling Lou what I can.”

“So our ‘boy’ got through!”

“What?”

“Boyd must have told Daisy about Clean Up America’s new program. I mean, I thought they were over Lou.”

“I don’t think Daisy buys it.”

“In fact Lou, I am working with CUPA on this at the national level now, and I have learned a hell of a lot from some very smart people.”

“Congratulations Albrecht!” Albrecht unexpectedly drove up in his Fauxmont Militia Hummer and joined us soon after I sat down with Lou.  Lou is interested in asking him about his, or maybe CUPA’s plan, to privatize Congress.

Thanks dude … look the idea is … I mean as it is, Congress is basically a TV show with corporate producers right?  I am just saying let’s go all the way with this thing and privatize.”

“Albrecht, Congress is not a TV show.  It is an elected governing body.”  Mrs. Rutherford stands over us waiting for our orders with out saying anything, but staring at the huge black vehicle parked two yards away with a stainless steel grin spread between the headlights facing us.  Albrecht buys us all coffees.

“I’ll be right out with your order gentlemen.” She walks out into the parking lot and picks up the soggy napkins lying on the ground where they had blown, and then she disappears around the corner of the building.

“Sure it is an elected governing body, but where would it be in the twenty first century without TV?  That’s how they get elected and that is where the public finds out what they want us to know.”

“Also what they don’t want us to know, but any way … Albrecht, how does privatization work? I mean how can it?”

“It will operate under the umbrella group ‘Congress Corporation of America’.  You need to buy, say 20 million shares to run for the Senate and maybe two million to run for the House.  Something like that, to sort the wheat from the chaff.”  Albrecht pulls his long barreled pistol out if its holster at his hip.  Spins the drum and unloads it into the palm of his hand. He puts the gun on the table in front of him and starts arranging six bullets from his hand, standing in a row with their blunt lead points up.

“Like dues at an exclusive club.”

“These are the only dues I pay.” He places the last of his six bullets in front of the row of five, like a commander in front of his troops.

“Wait a minute, no!  What about state governments?”

“Fred, they can run along the same lines.”

“What about ordinary citizens?”

“What about them Lou?  They vote for the candidate they want to run the corporation just like share holders voting for board members.”

“… and what does this corporation do?”

“It governs by market forces, buying and selling influence and confidence in various interests.  We turn the old Capitol building into a museum full of paper.  That’s where the past is, all on reams of paper. Now its time to build something more like a corporate head quarters with all the digital technology to make it work efficiently.”

“Sounds like we are electing traders not legislators. Do these people pass any laws?”

“Does CUPA have plans for the other two branches of government?”

“One at a time now, one at a time gentlemen.”  He starts cleaning his pistol with a small cloth from his brown suede waistcoat pocket. “Laws are part of the market place too.  Every word will be paid for.  You can be sure of that!”

“Albrecht, that eliminates our civil government and the constitution!”

“It’s a nightmare!”

“You think the laws we have now were written for free, Fred?  Come on folks, we all know how generous lobbyists are these days.”

“Yeah, they write the text in many cases … and they are way too generous.”

“Who’s to say Lou?  You make my point for me.  If we had a proper market place up on Capitol Hill then we would know exactly how much a law was worth.”

“Here you are gentlemen, three coffees, one black for you sir and these two with milk.” Mrs. Rutherford sent her summer hire out with our order.  “Will that be all?”

Lou turns and looks up from his black coffee. “That’s it.”  He

down at the ground, and doesn’t look at Albrecht.

“You’re right Albrecht, markets do set prices, but I think you are just selling us out!

“Like I said dude, the sale has been on for years.”

“Does the Supreme Court and President have a role in all this?”

“Well I think we could leave the Supreme Court where it is but the presidency is another question.  I think CUPA might overhaul the process.  We could replace the Electoral College by something like the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences who do the Oscars.”

“We aren’t going to be governed by Hollywood, Albrecht. The citizens elect the president.  You can’t change it.  That is a basic principle of the Constitution.”

“Fred where have you been, dude? It is already changed.  The most telegenic candidate wins with a little help from the data miners, but that stuff is too technical for me.  I’ll leave that to the market research folks.”

“Albrecht you can’t reduce our governing institutions to show biz!”

“I am not reducing anything.  It has been happening gradually for years.  Folks just don’t notice.  Harriet Beecher Stowe, for instance, did more for civil rights than the abolitionists. Her novel, made people feel what it was like to be persecuted, and that got them going. Right now, the media are gods filling us with feelings about our lives, our world and all.”

“What do you mean gods.  The media are just a business?”

“I mean let’s look at the forces at work in the 21^st century. Commercial entertainment is our religion.  The Christian Broadcasting Network have it all figured out.  But that’s old religion.  The new religion isn’t even called a religion. Look how happy people are in commercials.  It’s heaven!  The American dream realized.”

“Albrecht I thought the American dream was about home ownership, and a steady job and so on.”

“So it is Fred and the omnipresent media keep it alive. They’re invisible until you press the button, but all-knowing and constantly playing on your emotions with sensational shows. It is such a part of life people aren’t aware of it any more than they know they are breathing.”

“Albrecht most of TV is just junk it seems to me.  I hardly ever watch it.  I use the TV to watch stuff on disk.”

“That’s because you Fred, are an elitist.  What’s your favorite sport to watch on TV?”

“I don’t watch sports.”

“What about soaps or CSI or game shows?”

“No, afraid I don’t watch them either.”

“Well Fred, I hate to say so, but you are out of the main stream.  You’re kind of out of the dream, dude.”

“Albrecht, TV programming is a waste land.  Those shows are nothing to do with religion.”

“Come on Lou, you have to understand; being on TV is like becoming a god. You become the center of attention in every viewer’s mind. That’s millions of people. That is god-like power, gentlemen.”

“Yeah but Albrecht, you can’t appear on TV with out your personality becoming a product because some one is paying for your appearance.  Not so much godlike as cold commerce.”

“So you are talking about mammon’s sacred work!”

“Right Fred!  a product and personality.  Personality is the name of the game and it takes money to play. You’ve got to look right.  Isn’t that it Lou?”

“None of this sounds right to me.  So forget TV, what else you people got in mind?”

“I expect we will consolidate all intelligence under one organization and cut the budget in half at least.”

“Albrecht, now you are singing my song!  But you are going to put a lot of people out of work.”

“Why thanks Lou. We’re talking about abolishing departments such as Labor, Education, HEW, HUD and a number of others.  Merge homeland security and FEMA the FBI, with some more cuts there too.  All the people put out of work will soon find jobs as the economy expands free of government regulation.”

“You would cut the FBI budget?  No!”

“Sure, all these government organizations are too fat and need right-sizing and outsourcing.  We need a few good law and accounting firms to enforce and manage government contracts effectively, and make them compete for business too. There should be plenty because we are going to outsource a lot of stuff.”

“Albrecht I just can’t agree with you on most of this.  With no regulatory agencies business will go crazy and self-destruct.  Look what the banks just did with their freedom!”

“Regulation doesn’t work Lou.  You just get bogged down in the legal weeds, and the lobbyists get around it over time anyway. With participation in free markets, competing interests work themselves out.  The banks and all went crazy because they were still over regulated even after Glass Steagall went out.”  Albrecht puts his gun cloth back in his pocket and slowly reloads his pistol.

“Over regulated?  Look Glass Steagall was a sensible separation of regular checkbook banking from speculation in international finance.”

“I understand Lou, and we haven’t got our programs all figured out yet, but I can assure you Clean Up America will have a slimmed down and more efficient operation here in Washington DC under the Congress Corporation of America.” He puts the last bullet in its chamber and gets up from the table.  “Gentlemen it’s been a pleasure enlightening you.  If you will excuse me, I have business to attend to with our militia commander, Mr. Banning Cocq.” He strolled back to his Hummer.  His black jeans ride up on the brown leather of his cowboy boots.  He pulls a wet napkin off the windshield and climbs in with his phone chiming an electronic approximation of  “Chi il bel sogno di Doretta”, from Puccini’s, La Rondine.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xosvn2LFsWI

 NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction.  Click on Archives on the right.

Diddlie and Daisy are standing in Daisy’s front yard ready for rain. Daisy waves with her yellow souwester on, though they are talking under a huge umbrella with panels in pink, yellow, white and purple with a Snaz logo on each.  It isn’t raining yet but low cloud, thick and gray, is pressing much of the light out of the day.  It feels as if we are in pre-dawn gloom and it is well after noon.  The Fauxmont militia left me a flyer last night asking me to join, and inviting me to join a deer hunt to cull their rising numbers locally.  A link to CUPA’s web site is shown at the bottom in bold face type, prompted me to consider further exciting new initiatives explained there.  “Are you armed for self-defense yet?  Do it while you can!” said Albrecht’s handwritten note.  I had noticed Steve Strether coming towards me with Lambert, a few houses down Bails Lane from Daisy’s.  Now Lambert is backtracking so they are walking away from us as I join the two under the umbrella.

“Where are they?”

“They have grown too big.”

“What do you mean, too big?”

“Dante, Gabriel and Rossetti, they are the size of small dogs!  I had no idea Diddlie.  I thought they were going to be hamsters’ size.”

“Didn’t any one tell you when you bought them?”

“I didn’t buy them.  Lizzy Siddall brought them over from Australia as a present when she was visiting.”

“Lizzy should have told you!”

“Well, I don’t remember, maybe she did.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I have farmed out Gabriel and Rossetti to friends but Dante is here, or he was.  Now I can’t find him. Diddlie, you want a pet wombat?”

“No I don’t.  The Red Queen is enough, and I don’t know if parrots and wombats get along.”

“What about you Fred?  Wouldn’t you like a nice friendly Australian in your home?”

“Daisy, why don’t you keep him?  I can’t take Dante.  No, no, I am out too much for pets and my wife’s job leaves her with little time.”

“He’s too big!  Fred, remember how cute baby Rossetti was at Hank’s barbeque?”

“Small enough to fit in a tea cozy.  In fact I didn’t see much of him, it was such a good fit.”

Diddlie is tapping her i phone.

“You have got to see this.”

“Fred, we’ve been looking around the yard for him. Did you see anything as you walked over? Will you help find Dante?”

“No Daisy, haven’t seen anyone but Steve and Lambert down the road.”

“Lambert!  Maybe Lambert will track down Dante, Fred?

“Have you seen this site Albrecht has started?”

“Diddlie maybe we can get Lambert on this search.”

“I hear Albrecht wants to privatize Congress.”

“It is more than that Fred.  CUPA has launched a campaign to give Corporations the vote.”

“How?  They aren’t mentioned in the Constitution.  Only citizens have the right.”

“Fred, it was land owning white male citizens in fact.”

“Daisy I realize we have only gradually come to universal suffrage.”

“Not quite Fred, hear this; “corporations are effectively persons in court, says CUPA, and they should be voters too.  It is right here in the talking points.”

“Our great Corporations are the most productive organizations in history. They collectively express the will of the American people to improve the lives of individuals the world over, and should not be denied the right to vote a day longer.”

“Diddlie that is not convincing.  Are you going to help find Dante?”

“Of course Daisy … but just understand this idea.  “… to have companies issue special national election voting stock.  The wealthiest and most productive voters will be able to buy the most stock and cast the number of votes proportional to their wealth.”

“Seems they have forgotten the idea of one person, one vote Didd.”

“Yeah, it was one man one vote as the founding Dads wrote it.”

“Picky, picky, picky! so political all of a sudden, Daisy.”

“They are talking about changing things Didd.  Let’s keep it in perspective.”

“So if I buy a million dollars worth of voting stock in say Fibonacci Corporation, is that for me to vote or for them to vote?”

“It’s for you to vote sponsored by the company … but is Fib. stock for sale?”

“So corporations aren’t getting the right to vote … Fibonacci better not!”

“Boyd says it is a way of replacing political parties with companies.”

“You two are talking again!”

“Briefly, Boyd called me last Thursday to explain the idea.”

“He’s persistent isn’t he Daisy?”

“No, he’s just possessed by his ideological daemon,”

“ … or is it Albrecht?”

“Same thing Fred.”

“I’ve told him not to call again, but I listened for a while then found an excuse to hang up.  I hate politics anyway, and don’t think much of our political parties right now.  He knows it, but this isn’t the answer. ”

Lambert seems to be off leash rushing around in the undergrowth. It covers a common area along the old path between two lots that takes you down the hillside to Wicket Street, or used to, before the steps were washed out in the derecho. Lambert has stopped bounding around and started barking, one bark after another every few seconds, getting louder as he gets more agitated.  We all start walking down the road toward Steve, who is moving toward Lambert deep in Japanese honeysuckle, with wisteria growing through it and Virginia creeper and  ivy climbing it too.  As we come closer he shouts something through an intervening curtain of bamboo thicket, but we can’t make out what he is saying.

“What’s up with Lambert Steve?”  A Carolina wren answers in about six loud notes.

“Perhaps he’s found Dante!” The wren flies out of the shrubs towards the utility lines.  It seems far too small for its extraordinary high volume.

“Maybe Daisy, but wouldn’t Dante run away from all that barking?”

“Steve is asking for a phone Diddlie.”

“Diddlie waves her’s at the bamboo, “right here Steve.”

“Call nine one, one, Lambert’s found a body.”

“A human?”

“Looks like it, Daisy.”

As Diddlie uses her phone, Daisy and I follow the tangled green trail Steve had just kicked through.  Steve is standing on a tree root above a deep gully with crumbling sticky clay banks freshly eroded by the recent torrential rains.  Lambert is down in the stream bed sniffing something sticking out from the bank into the water.  The torrent that washed through in the night is now a stream rushing along only an inch or so deep. Looks like part of a leg is protruding from the mud.  Exposed from below the knee with blue denim and a foot with some of a white sock covering the lower half. Lambert is still barking and staring at the leg bumping it gently with his nose.  His ears pointed as horns are directed towards the silent limb. He stops barking and looks up stream, and then growls shifting his stance to face the new threat.  His stubby legs are wet and look thin as twigs where his long hair is stuck down against his skin. The rest of his coarse dry fur is matted with broken stems and leaf fragments.

“Look it’s Dante!”

Daisy steps into the stream near Lambert who jumps aside as he gets splashed by Daisy’s new pin striped wellingtons.  She has to pull hard to free her boot from the clay and take the step.  She calls Dante who looks at her from under his drenched fur. Daisy starts walking up the gravelly stream towards Dante who lets her pick him up and carry him back toward the street. Her wellingtons are coated in reddish yellow clay and Dante is smeared in earth tones too.

I can hear a big engine above us on the road. It’s a Hummer flying a black pennant from the antenna with an orange “don’t tread on me” logo. It pulls up with windows down releasing squawking tones from the radio.  Sounds like the long code numbers Urban Safety Solutions use.

“Fred I can’t believe this … is it our militia?”

Steve is moving over towards me, and trips on a vine as he speaks.  He catches his balance on an ironwood sapling.

The driver is looking at us from his vehicle. “You alright there sir?”

“He’s fine.”

Steve regains his balance and calls Lambert who is too excited to notice. The enquiry from the Hummer is followed by more electronic squawks.  The door opens and the militiaman nearly falls out.  His weapon caught on the doorframe.  He rights himself.  He adjusts his assault rifle strapping it on his back and follows Fred’s path towards us by the gully.

“Its okay, I just called 911.” Diddlie is watching from the edge of the road with Daisy.

“Why is that ma’am?”

“Looks like some one’s leg in the stream down there.”

The militiaman moves further down then jumps into the stream. It washes the clay off his boots, but his black fatigues are stained.

Lambert backs away, barking at the militiaman. “Call your dog off!”

“Steve calls Lambert again and then jumps down next to the militiaman to pick up the dog.

He bends to get Lambert.

“Clear the area!  Sir, you need to get back up on the road right away.”

“Lambert has relaxed in Steve’s arms dripping with watery clay like slip from a potter’s hands and Steve moves back up to the road. A small spider climbs a hair at the top of Lambert’s left ear.

“A heavy rain drop hits the polk weed next to me, then another.  Now the rain is pelting every leaf in the thicket and we are all getting soaked. The militiaman shouts at me to get back on the road and I follow Steve with our armed protector behind me.  A black suburban SUV pulls up behind the Hummer with wipers racing across the windscreen.

“Where are the police?”

Diddlie, Daisy, Steve, Lambert and I have all crowded under the big Snaz umbrella.

“I called 911 Steve.”

“I am sure you did Daisy and look who answered!”

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction.  Click on Archives on the right.

It hung down from the top of the door, in black twists and curls like ornate cast iron work.  Lou was looking for his auger when he opened his shed. The snake made a brief wet sounding hiss, as if it was spitting as it fell against his arm from above the door.  As he backed away, the door swung to, and the black snake’s tail was caught in the top.

“That will be the end of the mice in here.”

“The thing looks well fed.”

“Too many people kill these guys without realizing how helpful they are.”

“I saw one looped around the branches of a big azalea last summer and I think that was killed.”

“Oh over at the Rundstedt’s you mean?”

“Yes, it wasn’t them though, some visitor thought he was protecting the kids.”

Lou started using his cell phone, capturing 8 megapixels of information per shot while making a faux shutter click with each.

“Your phone is trying to sound like an old film camera.”

“There’s an option to make it hiss like a snake.”

“Now it is unwinding it looks about four feet long, what do you think Fred?”

“No more than that.”

Lou used a stick to push the door open again and release the snake.  The snake pulled its head up to the extended length of its body to the top of the door and started out toward the mansard roof overhung by viburnum coming into bloom. On the other side dying pink azalea blossoms hang in rags under the lotus-like symmetry of the four-petaled Kousa dogwood flowers. The shed is full of garden tools, and things hard to identify, stacked in the dark towards the back. In spring Lou fertilizes the expansive white oak that shades his living room and iron wood trees outside the kitchen. He drills down with the auger and pours granular fertilizer in four or five holes around the base of each tree.

“The auger used to be here on the right.”  Lou is looking to the left, though pointing to the right.  Something had drawn his attention and he moves further in.

“Lou, it has probably fallen behind your shelving unit.”

“Here, give me a hand with this.” He is bending over a powder blue wooden chest covered in mouse droppings and stained across one end.

“It stinks!”

“That’s what the snake found too.”

He adjusts his gloves and gives me a pair.  We tilt it to the right far enough to get a hand underneath one side, and lift the box out of the shed and put it down on the grass. He drops his gloves on the ground and takes out his phone. An unusual looking padlock hangs from the hasp like a large brass cube. It has a small rectangular window on one side.  He puts his phone up to the window and the lock springs open.

“What do you keeping here?”

“Not the auger … “

He breaks off as he removes the padlock and opens the lid revealing a lot of small cartons and some six packs. “These look familiar?”

“Lou that looks like the blue stuff I drank at your political party.”

“The very same.  There are a few bottles of solution in here too.”

“Is that the top there?”  I pointed out the cut glass on top of a bottle shaped like an Ionic column.  “That’s it Fred, clean air solution.”

“Did you get that from Alice or do you have your own supplier?”

“Oh we have the same supplier.”

“What are those things that look like small diving tanks?”

“They are still experimental.  You might call it fog.  Once released,those under its influence believe what ever they are told.”

“Sounds dangerous.  Do they go on believing after the stuff is dispersed?”

“Probably, the results are not all in yet.”

“Where has it been used Lou?”

“I couldn’t say.”

“I mean did Romney or Obama use it in the campaigns?”

“Possibly.”

“You mean they both did.”

“Oh well, that’s possible.  This product will be sold to any one with the money to buy it.”

“Is it a gas, or what?”

“Not a gas, though it is under pressure.”

“What kind of pressure, is it a fluid?”

“No no, nothing like that.”

“What kind of pressure are you talking about?”

“Rhetorical pressure.”

“You can’t get that into a cylinder”

“Couldn’t tell you how, but it is.  This is cutting edge stuff.  I know the shape is suggestive but there isn’t anything like gas in there.”

“So what is it?”

“Something like ‘talking points’ and other stuff too.”

“So there’s an agenda bottled up in there.”

“That’s the idea Fred. Talking points enable the candidate to lead the discussion and avoid difficult questions. Also they keep every one on the same track.”

“Yes, high pressure would tend to blow away unwanted questions, but the idea of having candidates available to reporters and the public is to make them answer questions.”

“True enough, but a lot of money goes into elections now and that buys the discussion.”

“Buys the discussion?  What discussion?”

“The discussions kept in tanks like these.”

“Lou that kind of scripted talk misses my point.”

“Your point is an idealistic one, and now obsolete.  With this technology buyers can get the perspectives and opinions they want out there, on the internet, on TV where many consumers are passionately taking in every word.”

“But this kind of passion is aroused by misleading statements and outright lies.”

“That is as old as politics and there you have a point.  Nothing obsolete about that.”

“Lou what are you doing with this stuff?”

“These are just a few trophies I keep for sentimental reasons.”

He pulls out a lot more small cartons and more tanks and then as he removes the last item, the bottom of the box falls away revealing the top of a long shaft that appears to be going deep underground. “Come on Fred.”

Lou climbs down into the shaft and starts down a ladder built into the side.  I find it is a snug fit climbing down and feel no vertigo as we go down for at least ten minutes. It is like sliding down the earth’s throat. Stepping off at the bottom we are in a damp triangular chamber.  It is like being in an elevator painted powder blue with a flat finish.

“I think we have been swallowed Lou.  Is this the stomach?”

“The stomach of what?’

“Exactly Lou. Where are we?”

A metal door in the wall facing us is painted same color but gloss.  Lou doesn’t answer.  He is working on his phone again. He swipes and taps the glass a few times and the door opens. There is no visible handle or lock.  The oval shape passage beyond the door is high enough to walk down with a good foot of clearance above Lou’s six foot height. It curves to left and right of us, and he asks which way I want to go.

“How about this way”, I point to the left.

“Okay Fred, go ahead.”

We soon come to another door in the side of the passage marked “WT7” in orange light.  It is hard to tell whether it is projected onto the door or if it is somehow coming out of the surface.  I put my palm up in front of the illumination to see if there is anything projected on the back of my hand.  There’s nothing, nor anything on the palm.

“There is a strange light down here.  Why is everything blue?

“You chose to go left.”

“Right”

“These are issue the left finds important.  For instance the question as to why World Trade Center building seven collapsed on 9/11 is wide open on the left.  They point out that it wasn’t hit by aircraft, like the two towers, and nothing fell on it.  So why did it go down?  Some want to say demolition charges were set and claim there is residual evidence in dust collected from the site. Was it a false flag operation?  Had we gone to the right there would be no mention of it.”

Moving along, I notice a huge green pipe over a foot in diameter running along the top of the passage, secured to the ceiling every few feet by massive braces.  The words, “DANGER HIGH PRESSURE” move along the outside of the pipe in glowing white letters in the same strange light as the signs on the doors.

“What is in that pipe?”

“Don’t worry that’s the truth factor.  It runs throughout the system.”

“Oh really, truth factor?”

“Yes all these issues have to be processed under high pressure with truth factor so people will believe them when they are released.”

“Some of it may be untrue Lou, a lot in fact!”

“That’s not important.  What matters is that people believe things if they think they are true, or at least want to believe they are true.  That is critical.  It can be explosive!”

“What is?”

“To feed that yearning for truth in every good consumer.”

“For truth Lou?”

“Yeah, no one is going to believe something they think is untrue!”

“We are not talking about truth.  We are talking about credibility, and bias and deception and so on.”

“To be sure Fred, those ingredients are piped in as well.  You see that cable running along the side of the pipe?”

There is a thick purple cable fastened to the pipe along one side.  “Yes, it seems to be glowing.”

“That’s bias factor. That purple light moves down the fiber optic at enormous intensity and shines into the processing unit so all the information will be seen in the same light.”

“So when this stuff comes to light, so to speak, it is all purple!”

“No, it simply has a consistent bias.”

“Lou, I don’t like the sound of this.”

“As Dick Cheney famously said, ‘the facts don’t matter any more’.”

“You mean the facts can be hidden or ignored.”

“They are producing food for thought in here Fred.  That’s what the consumer needs.”

“No Lou, thoughtful people question the information they are given and examine it critically.”

“Fred, that kind of detachment is out of the question. This high tech stuff works on feeling, not abstraction or self reflection.”

The passage narrows as we move along under the threatening pipe and its attendant purple bias line.  We have to face the wall and move sideways.  Now here’s a door marked “Watergate” and further on another marked “Iran Contra”.

“These aren’t open questions.  The doors are all shut.”

“Not if you have one of these.” Lou flicks his fingers across his phone glass and taps, and the door opens.

“There’s Oliver North climbing into a helicopter … Look, Lou isn’t that Manucher Ghorbanifar?”

“I don’t know.  Who is he Fred?”

“Its getting uncomfortably hot in here Fred.”

“Things heat up as passage narrows Fred.  The rhetorical space is restricted while the heat and pressure go up.  Too much information can be confusing.  They pressurize a a little with emotional factors to keep people’s attention. ”

“Okay Lou, by the way, Ghorbanifar was the go-between selling arms from the U.S. to the Iranians to increase our influence in Iran. Money from that deal was diverted to the Contras who were fighting the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and that contravened the Boland Amendment.”

“Yeah, that’s what brought about the famous hearings.”

“That’s why we recognize the name ‘Ollie North’!”

“ I see where this is going Lou and it is too hot.  Now let’s take a look to the right.”

Using his cell phone again, he opens an unmarked door and we walk through into another passage but this one is painted red with glossy red doors.  Here’s one marked ‘Whitewater’, the next is “Vincent Foster”, and soon enough we come to “Monica Lewinsky” marked, like the others, in powder blue light against the red, a contrast, which leads to optical irritation.

“Lou, there doesn’t seem to be anything there!”

“Where Fred?”

“Right here, see!  I am touching the door and my hand goes through it.”

“That’s right Fred you are in a rhetorical structure.”

“Do you mean a virtual structure?”

“You might say they are related.”

“I thought we were in a stomach.”

“Mind and gut are intimately connected and this is all about that kind of connection.”

“Oh you mean the so called ‘gut reaction’.”

“You might say that, yes.  All kinds of controversies are kept alive down here ready for deployment at the right political moment.”

“Whose moment?”

“Whoever has the money to buy it Fred.”

“Fibonacci Corporation for example?”

“I couldn’t say Fred.”

“But Lou, that’s the good old free enterprise system at work!”

“You sound like Albrecht Intaglio Fred.”

“I must be out of my mind Lou.  What’s to stop me from walking right through there?”

“Try it.”

Stepping forward, I see the big mock orange blooming in Lou’s yard. The sky is brilliant and the wind is gusting. It is remarkably cool for late May, under 65 F with low humidity.  Mr. Liddell is crouching as still as stone in the shade of a holly.

“Lou, is that Diddlie’s white rabbit?”  As I speak Mr. Liddell hurries off with his ears down, toward the front of the house.

“Could be Fred.  He is missing again. You must have dropped off under that mock orange so I went ahead and started.”  He is using his auger to drill holes in the ground around a tulip poplar. There’s an old wrought iron gate rusting against the side of the shed, with climbing ivy curling into the decorative motive with light green runners.

“So what happened?”

“What’s that Fred?”

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction.  Click on Archives on the right.

I keep thinking of the strange story that emerged in conversation with Lou and Rank Majors last year, walking back from Hank Dumpty’s barbeque.  Rank had been an air force pilot.  He flew stealth fighters over Iraq, and later retired from a desk job at the Pentagon.  When I asked what he was up to at the moment he said he worked for a consulting firm.

“Oh”, said I.  “Sounds interesting, what field are you in now?”

“Pretty much whatever they throw at me.”

“Do you find your air force background useful?”

“Yeah, it has been, once in a while.”

We had reached Rank’s place on Bails Lane.  He said good night to Lou and me and went in.

“Rank doesn’t allow much does he?”

We walked on through the moon shadows around Bails Lane toward Oval Street.  Lou’s voice went quiet.

“I think he works for Fibonacci”.

“Yes, Diddlie said the same thing.”

“What do they do?”

“Rank was right about one thing, Fibonacci does all kinds of work.”

“Did you read that a big expose years ago, on the Shrink Rap?”

“No, Lou, was that before it became a web site?”

“Not sure, a while back. Fibonacci was a silicone valley start-up which turned out to be a front company for one of  the secret agency acronyms that we all know, CIA or something.  The front company was unexpectedly successful.  It made embarrassing amounts of money.  It isn’t clear which agency started it.  Maybe it was a partnership, but it looks like they got into a turf war over the money that then led to a leak to the press.”

“No, don’t remember reading about that either.”

“So, they went ‘legit’ to avoid further embarrassment.  They had a story which I didn’t believe but it enabled them to answer questions openly.”

“Openly?”

“Well, not all that openly I guess, but government secrets were no longer at risk.  It was taken over by a couple of retired Generals, or maybe one was an Admiral.  I don’t know.  But anyway, these guys hired a lot of their old buddies as they retired out of the service.  Some of them had valuable specialized knowledge and contacts so the company diversified into many different areas as they developed their own divisions of the business.”

“Sounds to me as if there is a lot more to be said!”

“Oh, no doubt.  It is all about relationships and money.  Once a Congressional appropriation is put into a contract with Fibonacci, the money can be ‘re-papered’ and used for anything.”

“What do you mean ‘re-papered?”

“I mean the accounting and finance people make everything look one way while the money is spent some other way.  It sounds illegal, but it often isn’t.  It all depends on how clever they are.  No one has time to follow up on this stuff anyway. Sometimes it is less than a million, but it is critical to some project.

“Less than a million?  Is that some threshold?”

“Yeah, anything less than a million tends to be overlooked by routine audits when you’re dealing with multibillion dollar government contracts.”

“You mean Fibonacci is in that league?”

“Sure is.”

“What happened to all money the front company made?”

“That’s one of the things Shrink Rap was interested in, and they got a lot of interesting leads but ended up with nothing solid on that one.  The big scoop was the front company story, but it never got into the rest of the media.  The story ended there.”

“It sounds like the sort of sensational muckraking that would be ideal for the media!”

“It does, doesn’t it?”

“So what happened?”

“The story may have been killed in any number of ways, but the thing that struck me was that the same day that the Shrink Rap broke their story, the Armond Macadamia story broke all over the evening news.

Oh yes, Armond has a place in Fauxmont, but I don’t remember which house.”

“Oh, I can show you some time.  He’s never there.”

“I remember reading that one, Lou.  Armond is, indeed our local billionaire.  He was supposed to have trucked half a trillion dollars in used green backs down to Honduras.  The big news networks all had people down there showing much the same thing.  The correspondents stood on the road beside a ravine where a truck had tumbled off into the jungle.  The lead into the story was pretty funny.  They asked if anyone had ever seen money grow on trees?  Then the footage from Honduras showed dollar bills all over the canopy below the road, and in a stream flowing down beside the wreckage.  ABC said Macadamia was planning to buy the whole country and turn it into a ranch.  Someone on CBS questioned if there was really enough money there to buy a ranch the size of Honduras.”

“Do you remember the CNN interview with that funny looking guy in a head cloth, no shirt and ragged shorts?”

“Yes, and he had no credibility to my mind.  He gestured with his machete assuring us through a translator that he had seen a whole convoy of trucks.  He seemed like he was acting or put up to it.  Then we saw a lot of low denomination bills among torn fragments in a puddle.”

“So Fred, that was the picture on television.  You know, I once asked Jake Trip about this, years back when I was talking to him about his plans for his new house.  He happened to mention Macadamia, and he told me Armand had no intention of buying anything in Honduras.”

“So why didn’t he come out and deny it?”

“Good question.”

Lou stopped.  We stood outside Derwent’s house and he seemed to be somewhere else, just staring into the middle distance.

“Excuse me, some of these memories have painful associations.  Where was I?”

“I had asked why Macadamia didn’t disassociate himself from the money spill in Honduras.”

“That’s it.  He wouldn’t answer that one when Jake asked him.  He just said a deal is a deal, and Jake assumed he made out all right somewhere.  Macadamia always did in those days.”

“Do you think they paid him off to use his name?”

“I have no idea.”

“I mean where did all that cash we saw on television come from?”

“Maybe it was dope money.”

“Those Narcos do have truckloads of used bills.”

“Fred, I would like to know how the networks knew where the wreck was in the jungle?”

“That was never divulged.”

“Those reporters keep their sources confidential.  That’s how the system works.  Otherwise no one would talk to them.”

“So, your thought is that the Macadamia scandal was cooked up to draw attention away from the Silicon Valley story.”

“Yes, that is one of the tools of perception management”.

“How do you know so much about it Lou?”

“Reading this and that.”

“Come on.”

“What?”

“Were you privy to this operation”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean do you know someone with inside information?”

Lou kicked a twig out of his path.

“I sold out, remember?”

A white rabbit hurried across the road a few yards in front of us, and stopped in the shadow of a hydrant.  Some one’s porch light made it visible, and we could see its twitching nose.  It was looking at me with its right eye, its nose pointed away.  Lou pointed.

“That looks like Mr. Liddell”.

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction.  Click on Archives on the right.

I turn left off Oval Street on to Bails Lane past Diddlie’s on the corner.  Crows keep up a lively chat in the branches of a bare sycamore outside Rank Major’s place ahead, and near the highest point in Fauxmont.  Dr. Wittgenstein’s house next door can only be seen from the road in winter, when leaves fall from pin oaks under the power lines that cross the hedgerow surrounding his property.  The power company keeps cutting the branches back and they look like old coppiced oaks.  Four square walls are visible through the branches beyond the curvy driveway, set back from one another; two stucco and one faced with vertical boards and one with horizontal boards.  Each is a different height and has its own overhanging flat roof.  A single rectangular window is off set to the left on the right hand pair and off set to the right on the pair to the left.  From here his house looks like four huts in a small village.  Diddlie calls it the ‘cross eyed house’.

Holly, juniper, and a patch of bamboo also shade his perimeter.  A pickup marked ‘Women’s Wells Cooperative’ blocks Dr. W.’s driveway.  Before the property was developed, his driveway used to be another, even narrower lane called Mid Off which led off through the woods to Wicket Street at the mid point along its length.  The old Mid Off sign can still be seen leaning into a thicket at the Wicket street end.  The truck’s right hand door is crushing juniper branches hard against the driver’s window and they hang over the dented newly painted cherry-red hood.  Lights blink on each side of the bent tailgate.  The growl and click of the diesel drowns out everything but the crows as I get close enough to notice a flat front tire.

A woman’s voice yells from the pickup at someone in the grounds.  The door slams on the other side of a big white truck with a circular logo on the door.  A  single water drop pictured in brilliant blue with star shaped highlight.  The Coop’s Vienna Virginia address is printed in a yellow semicircle beneath.  A fair-haired woman leans out the window backing the big truck loaded with drill-pipe further into the property.  Her thick hair is wound up on top of her head, flat and compact with a loose strand flying like a pennant above her ear.  Some shrubs are cleared and several small trees are cut down, and you can see from the gate how they have planned the approach to avoid cutting down a large hornbeam or any of the mature post oaks nearby.

It was announced in the Community newsletter last year; “Dr. Wittgenstein has donated a thousand square feet of ground on the old Mid Off lane, now his driveway, for a new community well.”

The pickup’s engine is turned off and the driver gets out as I approach.

“You need any help with that?”

The driver moves toward the tire and bends down to look.  “I can take care if it.”  Her faded black jeans stretch across wide flat hips as she bends down, examines the valve and runs a hand around the tire.

“We often get flats up here.  Looks like this one may be another bad valve stem.”  She gets up and looks at me with a grin.  “Hi, I am Eddie Carnap.”  She rubs her hands together.  The dirt is still there from examining the tire and she pulls back form a hand shake.  Eddie is tall with big shoulders rounding out the contour of her faded crimson hoody.  “Haven’t seen you around before.  Have you just moved in to the neighborhood?”

“Yes, I am, Fred Bloggs.”

“Okay you must be Lou Waymarsh’s friend.”  Eddie brightens.

“Yeah, Lou told me about you, well, that he was looking forward to having you here in Fauxmont.”

“Eddie, you seem to be well connected around here.”

“I went the Fauxmont preschool.  Do you know Arty Bliemisch?”

“Yes, Steve Strether introduced me right after I moved in.”

“We were there together.”

“She is doing interesting work.  Have you kept up?”

“We did until she went to Italy, then we lost track of each other.  We moved up to New England when I was in seventh grade, but Arty and I did email for a while.”

“Have you ever met Wittgenstein?”

“No, but I have heard a lot about him.”

“Same here, seems like no has seen him.”

“Dr. Wittgenstein isn’t really the owner Fred.  So he probably isn’t the donor of this ground, as you have may have heard.  I have also heard that he has the place on loan from a friend who is seldom around either.”

“Oh, do you mean Derwent Sloot?”

“No, but I know him too. He tried to teach me chess.  Derwent told me Wittgenstein isn’t really a doctor.  There’s a story that they used to meet at the Pie Shop all the time, and often got into heated discussions.”

“Yes Mrs. Rutherford mentioned that.  They had a falling out in the late eighties and Derwent now claims he doesn’t know the man.”

“Fred, I have also heard Derwent Sloot say Wittgenstein is a boat builder.  You may also hear he is, or was, a physician, and an architect, even a philosopher, and that he is over a hundred.”

“From Derwent?”

“Oh from various people.  Seems like every one around here has a story about him.”

“Eddie, Derwent told me Wittgenstein is bewitched.  Not like a witch, but bewitched by language, what ever that means.”

The big truck engine sputters and shuts down and within moments the sound of a blue Jay’s shriek breaks what seemed like an extraordinarily quiet.  The blond woman appears behind Eddie in gum boots, jeans and a heavy brown corduroy jacket.  She looks into Eddie’s truck, pulls a clipboard out through the open window and starts reading the attached papers.  “That’s Olga Hahn, Fred.”  Edie doesn’t turn to look at her.  Olga nods in my direction and her pennant flies up, while her eyes scarcely leave the page she is reading. She has a square face with Roman nose.  Eddie carries on as if Olga had never appeared.

“Apparenly Mrs. Rutherford heard enough of one their discussions to drive her crazy.  She got carried away telling me about it anyway, saying, ‘I never thought I would hear two grown men get so upset about whether or not there was a rhinoceros in the room’ and after that, Mrs. R. started giggling uncontrollably.  She said they were expecting another friend called Russell, but he never showed.  “I’ll bet his ears were burning.”  Mrs. Rutherford kept repeating that and got breathless.

“She must have been bewitched herself.”

“Quite possibly Fred.  I sat her down to calm her, and she gave me a free coffee. While she was making it she also told me after that incident Wittgenstein ignored Derwent and read poetry in silence when ever they sat together.”

Eddie stopped to answer her phone.  She beckoned to Olga, still without turning around.  Olga noticed and stepped over next to Eddie, without looking up from her reading.  Eddie put her hand around Olga’s head and pulled her close to listen to the phone.

“Who the hell is that?”

Olga grabbs the phone and presses it to her ear, catching her pennant in the action.  A deep frown incises two vertical lines above her Roman nose.  Having given up the phone, Eddie steps closer to me.

“Fred, you ever heard of the Fauxmont Militia?”

“No, it’s news to me. Well, may be not so new, now I think of it.  It is probably Boyd Nightingale.”

“Okay, what’s he got to do with it?”

“He and Albrecht Intaglio have bought weapons and I imagine they are the ones behind this militia.”

“That was Lou Waymarsh on the phone telling us, or was he warning us?  We shall be under the protection of the Fauxmont Militia.”

“I can’t imagine what Lou is up to.”

Olga is off the phone.  “Eddie you seen any armed men around?”

“Not yet”

“Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Not yet, they may be harmless.  Just call Tract and Arts and see if they know anything.”

Olga is on the phone again.

“What?  Tract and Arts?  Never heard of them.”

“They have managed the property for a while.  They do restorations on high end properties as well as property management.  Good people, they all talk German up at the office.  So I get a little small talk in, some consideration and practice my German,.”

Eddie lets her hood down and shakes out curly brown hair.  The sun is out warming the wintry morning air even though it is now early spring.  Last night’s snow still lingers in the shadows.

I point to the Harvard shield on her hoody.  “Are you an Alum.”

“Yeah, I was doing philosophy with Goldfarb, but left Emerson Hall, and all that ABD, to dig wells.  Are you?”

“No, no, no … How deep do you expect to go?”

“Between three and four hundred feet, if the survey is correct.  Sometimes the water table sinks.  There’re a lot of industrial users in this area.”

Olga steps over to give Eddie her phone back.

“They say they don’t know any Militia around here, but I don’t trust them, never have.” Olga ignores me and only looks at Eddie.

“They are not a problem now.”  Eddie’s tone is gentle and patient.  She seems distracted for a moment.

“Olga turns and walks back to Eddie’s truck.”

“Olga is suspicious of Tract and Arts.  They used to be two separate companies.  One of which owned a lot of land around here was known as just “Tract”, and the other was Fine Arts Real-Estate, doing antique properties.  There are as many stories about Tract and where its money came from as there are about Wittgenstein.”

“Any of them concern Prestige U. and it’s founding?”

“How did you guess Fred?”

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction.  Click on Archives on the right.

He jumped the split rail fence with the casual ease of someone accustomed to clearing four-foot obstacles.  It was a fox with a hairless tail poking out behind like a long thin pink stick.  The fox trotted on a few yards and stopped, then started shaking, as if shivering from the cold.  It has mange.  The temperature is well below freezing after days in the sixties last week had brought up daffodils and hyacinths.  It snowed a little in the night and the fox stands out against the white driveway as it crosses.  It is moving behind a curtain of stems, becoming a shadow among leafless shrubs.  It is gone from sight.

Steve and I are looking for the water shutoff valve on the Wittgenstein property.  A plumber is due to start work in the house next week and needs to know where it is.  If we could only give Lambert the scent he would find it in an instant even though it is hidden from us by a dozen square yards of ivy leaves.

Steve is looking at an old barbeque.  He opens the rusty top.

“There’s a dead mouse in here.”  He holds it up by the tail and throws the corpse into the ivy.  Lambert turns toward the sound of it splashing into the dry green sea and runs toward it.

“Steve, there’s Boyd Nightingale.”

Boyd is standing by the back door talking on his cell phone.  He notices us looking at him and waves.  Lambert has found the mouse and Steve has to run over and exchange it for a treat before Lambert eats it.

“He’ll get sick eating that thing.”

“I wonder how long it has been in there.  Might have been poisoned.”

“Fred I should have left it in there.”  He puts the corpse back.  Lambert can’t reach up to it and moves on; his nose to the ground near the base of a pignut hickory probably scenting a squirrels’ stash.  He barks sharply once.  Now he must have caught scent of the fox in the air, which he hadn’t seen with his head in the ivy, and pulls hard on his extended retractable leash, trying to bound ahead yet barely inching forward under the restraint.  Though Steve holds him back he keeps pulling hard.  Lambert suddenly doubles back towards us and over toward the fence.  Finding the trail he follows it out to the full extent of the leash, breathing hard.

We follow him into the ivy carefully looking for a short length of steel pipe sticking up from the ground.  It should be capped and lead down to the water main and valve to the Wittgenstein house.  It may be painted blue.  It may not have been seen for forty or fifty years in which case it will be rusty.  The pipes were laid in the early fifties in this part of Fauxmont.  People forget where their valves are, sometimes planting azaleas over them, or covering them with mulch, to keep some other shrub alive through a dry summer.

Boyd walks over to us from the house.  He’s wearing a light brown Stetson and carrying his black briefcase in his black-gloved hand.

“You must be the water committee.”

“We are part of it.”

“Did Daisy drag you in on this too Fred?”

“I am now a member of the search party Boyd.”

“You guys seen Edie?”

“We haven’t seen any one but a fox with a bare tail.”

Boyd bends down to pet Lambert who has giving up on the fox expecting a new person to be bringing treats.  “Haven’t got anything buddy.”  Lambert keeps sniffing the bottom of his black jeans where they hit the top of his cowboy boots.  “Hope you guys can find that valve.  Then we’ll know where to find the service line to the house.”

“Does it matter?  Thought Edie was going to start drilling the new well.”

“She is Fred, as soon as Daisy straightens out the contract payments.”

His coat swings open as he reaches into an inside pocket.  Looks like he has a pistol holstered on his belt.

Steve is kicking through the ivy as we speak hoping to connect with the pipe.  “We need to get this cut back.”

“You all bought anything to defend yourselves with?”

“What do you mean?”

“Steve, I mean one of these.” He pulls an automatic out from under his coat.  “Pretty soon Obama is going to prevent you buying them.”

“What do I need one of those for around here Boyd?”

“You never know until it happens friend.”

“I’ll just call the police.  That’s their job.”

“Steve, suppose an attacker came out of the house right now.  What could you do?  There’d be no time to call any one.”

“The house is vacant as far as I know.  The agent called us about a plumber coming over.”

“Oh I thought it was about the new well.  Anyway, just suppose someone might be squatting there.”

“I don’t feel the need for a weapon Boyd.”

“Well, Fred how about you buddy, what are you going to do?”

“I won’t be buying a gun.”

“Gentlemen, this is a Heckler and Koch P 30. “

“Oh, does that mean 30 caliber?”

“9 Millimeter Fred.  Albrecht advised me to get this thing right away after the tragedy up in Connecticut, and I am just passing on his good advice to you.  The government has got every nut case they can find screaming about it.  Taking our guns away isn’t going to stop the homicidal maniacs from finding what they need.”

“Boyd, you have a nice looking Stetson there.  Isn’t that the same kind of outfit Albrecht wears these days?”

Boyd takes his hat off.  “Yeah some one has to get the old values back, and this is a pretty good symbol don’t you think?”

“Symbol of what?”

“The real individualistic values that made this the greatest country in the world.”

“Didn’t the railroads and cotton have something to do with that?”

“Steve, we are sinking into socialism here in the East.  Pretty soon we’ll be like Europe.”

“Would that be so bad?”

“Fred, Europe is going under my friend.  You see that gigantic mosque they have built in Rome.  It’s the biggest in Europe.  That’s way the Pope is retiring!”

“I think he’s just getting old Boyd.”

“Fred, the new Muslim majority is going to take over their weak socialist governments.  The governments over there have all the guns too.  I mean you can’t own or carry over there.  Won’t happen here though.”  Boyd puts his weapon back under is coat.

“Pretty soon it will be Sharia law over there.  The Euro has been strangled by socialism already.”

“I was in England in 07, and didn’t see any signs of imminent takeover by Muslims.  They aren’t in the majority, far from it.”

“You were in England!  Daisy was going to take me over to London to look at paintings in the National Gallery.  Yeah! she’s got people over there.”

He holds his hat with both hands in front of him slowly working his way around the brim with his fingers.  I look over at Steve who looks back at me with a questioning shrug at Boyd’s sudden silence.  He takes a step towards Boyd who doesn’t notice.  He seems distracted, looking into the tangled vines of ivy.  They have covered both wheels of the old barbeque and are growing up into the bowl where they have rooted in the remains of the last fire.

NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction.  Click on Archives on the right.

Daisy is carrying an old copper coalscuttle across the room to the couch.  Sitting down under the Tiffany style standard lamp with her bowler hat balanced askew on top she hoists the scuttle up onto her knees. Its shape resembles a huge helmet with the handle as chinstrap, but its swelling sides are green with verdigris.

“These are my files.”

They are crammed in vertically and tight.  The tops of faded rose, yellow and blue folders are visible, above the graceful line of the rim.  They are hard to get out.  After some searching among the labels at the top of each folder, she pulls out two with a sharp jerk and deeper original colors show where the tight fit kept them from the air.  She coughs and sneezes as dust rises from the first one she opens on her lap, putting others on the cushion beside her.  She gently pulls the lamp string threaded with yellow and blue beads and weighted at the bottom with a large piece of purple glass cut like a gemstone.  The light comes on but the string breaks close to the lamp socket.  She has the purple glass in her fingers but the blues and yellows are scattered across the floor and couch. There’s a little wisp of string visible near the mechanism.

“I knew that had to happen!”

“Did you have a premonition?”
“No, this is so inconvenient though … I mean it’s Murphy … his law  … there’s no time to fix it … well it is lucky the boys are sleeping.”

“The boys Daisy?”

“Yes Fred, Dante, Gabriel and Rossetti, you remember Rossetti from the barbeque at Hank Dumpty’s ?”

Yes the Dormouse, of course, sorry I had forgotten.”

“No Fred he’s a wombat, all three are.”

“Okay, he was asleep under a tea cozy, or was it a hat?”

“It was my aunt’s old hat.”

She looks up at the lamp distractedly, reaching for the wisp of string and having grasped it between thumb and finger, she lets it go.

“Ahhh!  At least eighty years old.”

“Same age as the coalscuttle?”

“The lamp is probably younger than that, but they both came over from England with a bunch of stuff from my Aunt’s place.

“Oh, when did they emigrate?”

“They didn’t but their house was damaged by blast from a Nazi V2 rocket and their furnishings went into temporary storage.  I don’t know how this lamp survived.  I made a lot of repairs to that glass shade though, and the colors aren’t a perfect match, but I love it. Anyway their house in London was rebuilt after the war.  The American relatives had sent money to help and as they liked Art Deco design some stuff came over here and the rest went back into the house.”

“Daisy your files look as if they’ve been rolled up?  I mean the paper is all curly.”

“Yeah, like trying to keep an old scroll flat.”

“Why a coalscuttle Daisy?”

“Well, the file cabinet is used for stained glass storage and this was empty and convenient when I first got it from the New York cousins, plus, I needed to keep these papers handy.”

She pulls out a ragged soft toy.  Looks as if it has been chewed or possibly clawed.

“What is that doing in here?”

“You tell me Daisy.”

“It’s Rossetti’s.  Well I thought it was but Dante had it for a while too.

Maybe he hid it in here to keep it safe.”

“I felt sure the water committee folder was in here …” She stops to focus more closely.  “These are old Guild meeting minutes and bylaws from the forties and fifties.  Mr. Ramsay gave them to me to read when I joined the Guild for the first time and here they are, still unread.”

“You mean you were elected.”

“Right, and I wasn’t ready, but Mr. Ramsay talked me into running and of course, no one else ran.  I had been here less than a year and there I was trying to vote on community issues while not knowing the history; a big disadvantage.”

“I suppose Mr. Ramsay expected your support.”

“How did you guess Fred?  Then I got to know Diddlie who brought me up to date, and changed my mind about a few things and I didn’t always vote his way, so … you can imagine …”

“I have the impression you get more of his attention than you want.”

“He’s unbearable when he’s had a few drinks.  I saw him stoned once, just babbling to himself, so I used to offer him a smoke when he came around.”

She pulls out more folders and finds pages and pages of carbon copies on old-fashioned onion skin paper with rusty paper clips holding them in a reddish grip whose acidity had burned some of the paper away.  Documents in the rose folder were held together with string.  It runs through a single hole punched in the top left corner.  Daisy holds up a sheaf of documents fastened with string.

“Oh these things are called “Treasury Tags”.  See this little cross piece on the end of the string prevents it getting pulled back through the holes.”

“Good grief!  It looks like something Scrooge might have used.”

“Sure, he would have, and so would ‘the King in his counting house.’      This is all to do with my British side.  Looks like legal or financial stuff.”

She turns through several pages without unfastening the string.

“See the string is long enough to look through them!  I don’t know … Oh I have forgotten … no time to read it now.”

Daisy doesn’t use her living room much as she prefers daylight in the conservatory out behind the kitchen, but she says it is too cold out there now.  The thermometer read 27F this morning and now it is overcast there will be no warmth out there unless she lights a fire.  The living room is dark with a large picture window shaded by huge azaleas growing outside in front.  I can see numerous bookcases around the walls, but some are hidden behind the dented grey metal file cabinet.  It looks like government surplus.  A big bookcase fills the opposite wall while next to me, under the window there’s a row of small Arts and Crafts style oak bookcases.  Here’s a copy of Ten Days That Shook the World by John Read.  It’s a Modern Library edition with the red and white dust jacket nicely preserved since this reprint came out in New York in 1935.  Under the dust jacket in faded gold, the logo’s Promethean athlete has reached the center of the red cloth binding carrying his torch aloft with two flames streaming back over his head.

While Daisy is busy with her coalscuttle collection I pull out another small volume, Holinshed’s Chronicle in another well preserved red paper dust jacket from J. P. Dutton’s Everyman’s Library.  This is number 800, published in London, reprinted in 1955.  The whole shelf is devoted to these small hardbound books, all of them either Dutton or Dent and all the same size though varying in thickness.  Here’s,  The Medici by Colonel G. F. Young, with Lorenzo on the dust jacket rendered in the style of a wood block print.  Some papers fall out as I open it.  They are penciled notes.  Seven Medicis are listed from Cosimo I, 1519 -1574 to Gian Gastone, last of his house 1671 – 1737.  The old paper is still white, only a little brown along the fold.  At the top left it says “Park Otesli, Ayaz  – Pasa, Istanbul – Beyogle” in blue ink.  The Hotel stationary also provides a preprinted date on the right showing 195 with a blank space to fill in the year by hand.  A small rectangle of stiffer paper also fell out and picking it up from under my chair I see it is a map of Firenze from the Hotel Porta Rosa with a space for notes on the back.

“Whose collection is this Daisy?”

Daisy has emptied the coalscuttle and the files are now arranged on the couch next to her and surrounding her feet on the Afghan war rug.

“I can’t find any record of the new well.”

“What new well?”

“You know the one the that Edie Carnap was drilling over on the Wittgenstein property.”

“Yes, The Women’s Wells Cooperative, I met her once on the street.  A year ago, or more probably.”

“She hasn’t done much work on it since.”

“Why?”

“Ah! a number of reasons, for one thing, we haven’t paid her.”

“No, but she hasn’t finished.  In fact she was only just starting that day we met.”

“Right, and we were supposed to give her some money upfront.”

“Ouch!”

“She is feeling the pain alright.  This is disgraceful.  I promised her I would get this straightened out.”

“Why you Daisy?”

“Partly because we are friends and also with Boyd on the Guild, I thought he would help push things along.”

“I should think he’s been too busy.”

“He’s so wrapped up in Albrecht, and all that political stuff its ridiculous.”

“Why don’t you talk to bel?”

“I did, and she said get the paper work together and we can move on it.”

“Oh!”

“Those books …  Fred, were you asking about those books?”

“I was.  Looks like an interesting old collection.”

“Those are from one of the New York Uncles who spent a lot of time in Europe.  I forget how they ended up here.”

“I didn’t see any names written in them.”

“No he seldom wrote in his books, only if it were a gift.”

“Daisy, sorry I haven’t been much help on this project.”

“Fred, your time will come after I find the paper work.”