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.

I happened to meet Bel Vionnet and Steve Strether walking Lambert, on Wicket Street.  Lambert has been preoccupied with the scent on a twig in the ditch for some time and I catch up with them up while they wait.  Steve bends down to pet him.  Lambert looks up suddenly at Steve’s touch and moves on with us.  It is nearly seventy degrees in the late morning sun, mid winter, and daffodils are showing among the snowdrops along the hillside above the roadside ditch.  Daisy comes out of Derwent Sloot’s place as I join them.  She waves at us with her bowler and as so often happens, something floats to the ground from her hatband.  Lambert runs towards it on his expanding leash, with a low growl, as if he is muttering to himself.  He sniffs it, where it lands on top of the ivy.

“Lambert, you leave that piece of paper alone honey.”  Lambert pushes it with his nose and it slips out of sight among the ivy leaves.  Lambert follows it burying his head among the tangled vines and foliage.  Daisy steps in toward him and he looks up, fur covering his eyes with a white curtain, the paper in his mouth.

“He’s going deaf Daisy.  It’s no good talking to him.”

Steve walks into the ivy too.  Lambert’s short legs are hidden in leaves and he appears to be floating in the viney green deep.  Lambert looks up at him with a dead oak leaf swinging from the fur under his jaw and some leaf fragments cling to the bushy white hair on his ears.

“When did that happen?”

“We first noticed it around his thirteenth birthday.”

“Oh, wasn’t that last month Bel?”

“That’s right”.  Steve trades the paper for a treat, which Lambert then drops.  “Daisy you need a more secure place for your money.”

“I know.  It keeps falling out.  I want to tighten the band.  It’s come loose.  Does Artie know yet Steve?”

“Know what, Daisy?”

“That Augustino Tassi is out?”

Lambert is nosing around trying to find his treat under the leaves while we all gather around to chat in Derwent’s front yard.  Steve hands Daisy the ten pound note that had dropped from her hat band. “Yuk! he really soaked it.  At least he didn’t chew it, Steve!”

Steve seems to have forgotten her question about Artie.  “No I have never known him to eat money.”

“You mean he just savors it and spits it out?”

“That is the first time he had any sterling.  He doesn’t even pick up dollar bills.”

“Who is Tassi Steve?  I remember there was mention of him at Artie’s opening, but it was the wrong moment to explain anything.”

“Fred, he’s a painter and was close to Artie in Florence when she was studying there.  We all knew him, Bel and I, and Frank Vasari who was teaching there at that time.”

“To answer your question Daisy, we don’t know if Artie has found out yet.”

“Bel, it has been several weeks.  She must know, but I haven’t seen her since the opening.  You know Tassi only served nine months and … ”

Lambert has run back on to the street and circles us following a scent trail, and also winding his expanding leash around us as we move on along Wicket street from Derwent’s.  Daisy tries to step out of the loop but he pulls hard to move back the way we came, tightening the line.  Bel reaches down and grabs Lambert’s collar to hold him still. The slackened line catches in the top of Daisy’s shoe and instead of stepping over it she pulls it taught again with her extended leg.  Steve stands outside the loop laughing at Lambert’s maneuver.  “Daisy just stand still and I’ll come around and unwind it.”

“Steve, I’m not moving.”  Daisy throws her arms out trying to regain her balance holding back on the momentum of her broken stride.  She stands awkwardly with legs wide apart.  “I think Artie had a thing going with Tassi for a while.”

“I was never sure about that Daisy.  I mean what kind of thing it was.”

“Well I wasn’t there Bel, but got the idea they were ‘an item’ from odd remarks Artie’s let drop.” Steve has got the line out of Daisy’s way.  We are released to move on.  He walks around us while Lambert protests under Bel’s restraint.

“They may have been an ‘item’ to each other but I don’t remember going out with them as a couple.  It wasn’t something she put out.”

“No Steve, Artie was discreet about her personal life.  Always has been.”

“True Bel, she was always talking about her latest discoveries.  She seldom used a guidebook and liked roaming around the city talking to people.  Remember San Miniato?”

“Yes, Minias, the old Roman Saint.  I remember those endless steps up to the basilica and the heat.  Bel, what were we doing, climbing up there in summer?”

“Steve, I remember you looking at the girls who suddenly drove up on Vespas after we got to the top.”

“I’ll never forget them Bel, all three of them, right out of Botticelli’s Primavera, with faces of Simonetta Vespucci, their blond hair blowing in wavy strands … oh and their jeans … “

“Alright Steve, its Venus’s hair that is spread out, but we get the picture.”

We are walking slowly west along Wicket Street as Steve reminisces. Slips Lane and Boundary Circle are ahead and around the corner, where the young chess players Rundstedt and Guderian live.

“Artie told us we had to see the view of Florence. There was supposed to be a cooling breeze up there too.”

“She also took us through to see the terracottas by della Robbia up in that vaulted ceiling.”

“Daisy I’ve never known her to talk about her love life and have never felt I could ask.  You must be her confidante.  Besides it is none of my business.”

“It isn’t our business Steve, but we were concerned about her.  We are now.  She was ragged that afternoon we met her in the street holding that apotropaic trinket in both hands.”

“Well I guess we were all closer back then…”

“ … and younger, Bel!   but as close as we were, it was obvious something had happened.”

“What did you say she was holding Bel?”

“A trinket, some kind of statuette I think.  Don’t really remember Daisy.”

“No I mean what is ‘apotra …’ what ever it was?

“Daisy that’s apotropaic, something that wards off evil.”

“Bel, do you mean her clothing was ragged?”

“No Daisie, her lip was swollen and she had bruises on her arms and hair all over the place.  She had difficulty speaking.  Like she was holding something back.”  Lambert starts barking and pulling ahead towards the bend in the road.  He walks along the middle where the camber is highest.  Occasionally darting to one side, to sniff, and that sometimes takes him around a tree from which Steve has to unwind him.

“Didn’t she tell you what had happened Bel?”

“No, she came over the next day Fred.  Steve left the room so we could talk, but she tried to make light of it, said something like ‘men are impossible.  I’ll go with art’.

“But you knew she was talking about Augustino?”

“I asked her about him Daisy and she looked away and changed the subject.”

“So how did he ever come to trial?”

“It was Donna Tuzia.  She had a friend on the police force and convinced her to see him that night.”

“She was rooming with Donna’s family you see Daisy.  They got very close.”  Lambert has stopped ahead at the full extent of his leash.  His ears are up, his tail points straight back in line with his body and he is still barking down the empty road.

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 walks over with the two boys both drinking from cans.  She greets Niels with a hug telling the boys to get back in the car, but they run towards the Trips’ open garage.  They are trying the doors of Jake’s Hummer, which are locked.  One of them comes out with a huge flashlight.  The other is following with a traffic cone.  They set up the cone in the middle of Oval Street opposite the driveway, and stand beside it flashing the light as if to establish a checkpoint.  Diddlie shouts at them to get out of the road.  A large SUV with smoked glass windows comes down the hill, black and slow as a hearse.  It stops and a man in a black flak jacket and baseball cap gets out, and walks towards the boys at a funereal pace. One boy standing by the cone and flashes the light at him as he approaches.  He seems to be talking to the boys but I can’t hear anything.  The other boy has moved over and stands next to the ditch on the far side of the road.  Liberty has stepped away from her van to watch and says to Niels facing away from the street looking at her.  “Niels, the boys need your help.”  Niels looks around.  “Shit a brick, what the fuck’s going on?  Who are those assholes in black?”  He bends down into his car, exposing the crack in his but above his belt, and turns off the engine.

“That’s Dad’s security service.”  Niels stands leaning on the roof of the car staring toward the road.  “How about calling off his goons, okay?”

“They are your sons Niels you deal with it.  Those guys don’t know me anyway.”  Niels yells to the boys to get out of the way.  The boy by the ditch jumps across and scrambles through the gap between the fence rails and disappears into a yard overgrown with wisteria, vines, hollies and bamboo.  A woman in a black flack jacket and baseball cap, runs from the SUV past the male guard, who is preoccupied with his phone.  She reaches for the flashlight.  He swings around to keep the flashlight from her but she grabs his other arm above the elbow, lifting him off the ground.  He tries to hit her with the flashlight while yelling in protest, but he is off balance and easily disarmed.  She starts toward us on the driveway, pulling him along.  The flashlight rolls across the road and into the ditch.  The boy says no more but tries to hold back.

“Anyone tell me whose child this is?”

“His name is Tron, and he’s my son.  Get in the car Tron.”  The woman doesn’t let him go.  “Age?”

“Tron get into the car.”

“I can’t she won’t let go!”  Tron tries to pull away but he is yanked back sharply.

“Let the kid get in the car will you!”

“Why is this boy blocking the road?”

Diddlie interrupts: “Look its okay they were just playing.”

“Are you his Mother?”

“No I’m … ”

“I need to talk to the parent.”

She addresses Niels.  “My partner has called the police.  I am holding your son until they get here.”

“Who the fuck do you think you are?”

“Irma Standov, Suburban Safety and Security Solutions.  Your name sir?”

“I said let the kid go!”

“Sir, he has been blocking the road and endangering his life and that of others.”

“The hell he was.”

Diddlie steps close to Irma, putting one hand on her arm and the other on Tron’s sholder.  “He’s been out there for less than a minute.  I mean you just turned the corner at the wrong moment.  Come on! we can take care of this.”  Tron takes hold of Diddlie’s wrist with both hands.  “Diddlie, get me away from her!”

“Tron, honey, just a minute.”

“The police will make that determination Ma’am.”  The security man has picked up the flashlight and walks over.  “The police will be here in a couple of minutes folks.”

Niels moves toward his son. The male guard moves toward Niels and stands in his way.  “Will you get the fuck out of my way!”

“Stand back sir.”

“You rent-a-cop bullies have no right to hold my kid.”

“This is private property sir and we are contractually bound to protect it.”

“Yeah?  Well when you pulled him off his feet in the road over there you were on public property.”

“You are responsible and you are standing on the property sir.”

Niels stops, and stares at him with his face so close they could kiss.  The guard doesn’t move and remains facing him, blocking his way, his eyes hidden behind wraparound dark glasses.  Diddlie breaks free of Tron and tries to get between them, pushing Niels away toward his car.  “Back off Niels.  Why are you guys calling the police over this?  Its just two kids.  There’s no crime here.”

“That’s for the police to determine Ma’am.  Our procedure is to stay in place and await proper authority.”  The male guard mutters code numbers into his phone.”

“Sir, you’d better find his brother.  The police are going to want to talk to both boys.”

“Well that’s too bad.  You scared the hell out of him and now he’s run away and I don’t know where.  “I’ll find him Neils.”  Diddlie walks off towards the fence on the other side of Oval Street.  Tron starts pulling away from Irma and shouts “Diddlie come back, get me away from her!”  She throws the cone into the ditch.  “Won’t be long now honey.  I am going to find your brother.”  The male guard yells at her to leave the cone where it is.  Diddlie steps over the collapsed rails up from where Tron’s brother disappeared, and walks behind the thicket leaving the cone in the ditch.

The guard turns to Liberty.  “Are you Miss Tripp?”

“Yes I am.”

“Welcome home Miss Tripp.  You can go ahead and unload.  We will take care of this for you.”

“So they do know who you are!  Where’s our liberty?  Miss Liberty?” Niels has backed away from the guard and moves towards his car shouting his taunt.  He sits in the car doorway with his head down, looking at the ground between his open knees, and spits.  The SUV is moving up the driveway behind his car blocking the way out.

“There’s no need.  Don’t you see how trivial this is?”

The male guard pulls a business card out of his pocket and hands it to Liberty.  She looks at it and puts it in her back pocket as he goes on.  “Miss Tripp we are following standard procedure as specified in our contract to protect your family.”

“Yes I appreciate that, but I don’t need protection from those two kids. This is a neighborhood thing, okay.”

“Do these boys live nearby?”

“No they live in DC.”

Niels looks up.  “Liberty don’t tell those assholes a damn thing about me.”

“Sir your uncooperative and abusive manner has been noted.”

“Niels, shut up!”

“No Liberty.  This is a fucking travesty and … Oh great here’s the god damn fuzz!”  Niels spits again and sits staring at the ground.

A police cruiser pulls into the driveway next to the SUV.  The cop is talking on his radio.  The male guard walks over to the car.  Tron breaks away from the female guard and runs for the fence.  She tries to chase after him but Niels jumps up and runs in front of her saying “Excuse me ma’am”, giving Tron time to get away.  Tron disappears into the thicket beyond the fence like his brother.  The cop is out of his car, and he and the two guards surround Niels.  Liberty walks over.  “Officer can we just forget this whole thing?  This is Niels Planck.  He’s a friend of mine, and a business associate.  I am really sorry about the kids in the street okay.  It was wrong, I know, but we can take care of it.”  Niels stands facing the officer but looking at Liberty.

“Liberty I said …”

“Niels keep out of this.”

“Ma’am he can either identify himself or I’ll take him into custody.”

“Like I said, I’ll talk to the officer, not these goons.  What about my boys?”

“Sir you have not been paying attention.  Your boys have run away.  They don’t listen to you.  Your friend has gone to find them.”  Irma Standov takes Liberty aside while Niels greets all questions with silence.

Liberty walks over with Irma.  “Fred, looks like this mess is going to take a while.  There’s nothing you or I can do now.”

“Are they going to arrest Niels?”

Another police cruiser pulls up on the hill with lights flashing.  Two cops get out leaving the doors open.  Their car blocks the driveway and the open doors block the narrow street.  “If he calms down she says he will probably get a citation.  Otherwise the police might take him for a while.”

“He’s going to need an attorney the way he’s going now.”

Liberty mops her hair back.  “For what?”  Irma doesn’t answer.  She is walking away toward the cruiser. “I guess he’ll be held responsible for his kids blocking the street.”

“How do they know who you are?”

“They know a lot more about who comes and goes from this house than I thought.  It’s part of their contract, not that I’ve read it.  They’ll kind of keep track of me as long as I live here.”

Walking down the hill towards home I see Rank Majors sitting in his car with the window open waiting to get by.  “What’s going on?”

“The security people have called the police on Niels Planck.”

“Are those feral kids of his raising hell again?”

“Again?  What do you mean?

“I mean Niels doesn’t control those twins.  Its good to see “Suburban” is patrolling around here.  They are the best.”

A third police car comes down the hill and parks facing the one already there with its roof lights spinning.  Two more cars are waiting behind Rank’s to go up the hill.  One of the new cops comes down and starts directing traffic away from Oval Street.  The late afternoon sun glints in his dark glasses and he casts a long shadow down Wicket Street.

“They have certainly taken control up there.”

“Those kids have been in trouble before.  You know what scares me is there’s lots more of these little crazies out there.  No parental control.  You know.”  We can hear sirens in the distance.

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.

We are standing behind Liberty Trip’s rented Dodge van in her Father’s leaf littered driveway.  There’s a dented old blue Ford Taurus stopped on the narrow slope of Oval Street opposite.  Liberty has unloaded her amps and a few boxes, and kicks one of them towards me with her snakeskin running-shoe.  “You want to buy a carton of CDs?”  A redbud leaf cartwheels on to the box, yellow as her yellow jeans.  “I don’t want any more stuff, thanks Liberty.”  The blue car suddenly turns into the driveway animated by its flashing headlights.  Her metallic silver shirt shimmers with moiré under the lights. Niels Planck opens the window to speak as she walks toward the car, still creeping up the driveway.  It bumps Liberty’s carton of CDs before stopping.  Liberty jumps aside.

“Run me over.  Why don’t you!”

“You’re too fast.  Stand still will you!”  Niels backs up the car and starts up the driveway towards her again.  He stops abruptly, well before hitting her, and the kids in the back seat are pitched forward losing hold of the I-pads they were using.  They yell, but I can’t understand what they’re saying.

“Don’t be such a jerk!  What do you want Niels?”

“I’ve come to help you unload.”

“Bullshit Niels.”  The car has stopped.  Niels is grinning at us from behind the wheel.  “Such a friendly greeting, partner!”

“Niels, what do you want?”

“Just dropped by Lib.   So, are you in court yet?”  She explains to us both that the suit brought by Prestige U. against her band, Toxic Blob, is going to court.  The trial is to start next April.  Her father Jake assures her it will all be settled out of court in the end.

“Who’s your friend?”  Liberty turns to me.  “That’s Fred.”

“Peace, brother … ”  His thick blond hair is tied back in a ponytail.

Ignoring the kids who have started wrestling behind him, he gets out of the car leaving the engine running and stands with an arm over the top of the door.  “So you’re moving in with Mom and Dad.”  Liberty shrugs, and looks up into the trees where the sun is getting low, silhouetting branches and rooflines into a single shape against the sky.

“Fred, are you new around here dude?”

“Moved in last November.”

“Cool, it’s a groovy neighborhood.  You met Diddlie yet?”

Niels points up the hill toward her house next door.  “Yes she was the first person I got to know after moving in.”

“Now you hanging with Lib huh?”

“Having a neighborly chat about the ‘bug’ litigation.”

“So they are going to drag your ass into court Lib.”

She seems far off still looking into the flat expanse of distant shadows.  My question is intended to bring her back.  “Didn’t you say your Dad has one of the best litigators around?”  Liberty frowns and with a hand on the back of her neck.

“Yeah he’s hired Sherman Shroud, but you think the school doesn’t have a barracuda of their own, with all their funds?”

“Shroud will bury them, that’s his thing Lib.  No sweat.”

“‘They will be persuaded after a few weeks in court’, is how Dad put it.”  Gray-brown leaves falling from the white oaks in Diddlie’s yard are blown into the open back of the van in a sudden gust.  As she speaks, she turns and reaches into the van to throw them out, one leaf at a time.  “I don’t know how he can be so confident.”

“You’re expecting a tough contest then?”

“I just hope it doesn’t drag on for years.  I am afraid Dad could go broke.  We are all looking for work.  The band is over.  This thing has killed us, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be much help any time soon.”

“No way your old man is going broke Lib.  He’s got Macadamia behind him.  You’re talking deep pockets there baby.”

“I hear that settling out of court is Shroud’s specialty.”

Liberty has picked up a carton containing her plastic stage gear that gives her the insect look.  “That’s right, and he is very well connected.”

She stands there, leaning back slightly, holding the box in front of her.

“I thought Toxic Blob was doing pretty well.”  More yellowing redbud leaves, broad and limp, stick to the black driveway.

She notices me regarding the faint green and orange streaks in her hair pulled back and held in place by a plastic lizard shaped clip.

“How do you like the streaks?”

“They were awesome on stage baby.”

“Yeah it’s faded a little more with every shower since our last gig.”

“How did that go?”

“Not good.  We didn’t release anything but soap bubbles and got booed.”

“That wasn’t even a crowd. Your publicity for that concert wasn’t worth shit.”

“Well they were probably expecting exotic insects or hornets perhaps.”

A strand of orange hair falls across her face.  She blows it away from her mouth.  It spreads, brilliantly catching the sunlight for an instant.  Another redbud leaf falls on her shoulder in the stillness between gusts of wind.

“So what’s next Liberty?”

“Lib’s going digital dude.  I’ve got it figured.”  Niels gets back in the car and talks to his boys.

“Dad says I can work at Snaz, but I want to get away from that.”

“What are the others doing?”

“Nobody can find work.  They’ve all gone home like me, or staying with friends.”

“I think one of your members is working at the H-bar.”

Niels gets back out of the car with one of the I-pads his sons were using.  “Listen baby, pretty soon you’ll be able to download from WitheredLizzardMusic.com.”  He hands me the I-pad but the site doesn’t come up.

“WitheredLizzard?  I thought you were Toxic Blob.”

“The band didn’t change its name but we have a deal with WLM. That’s Niels’s thing.”

“Fred I want out of construction and into music.”  She lifts a box of books down from the van.  Copies of Shrink Wrap magazine are on top.  The wind fans the pages open and one copy blows onto the ground.  Niels picks it up, leafing through it.  “This is old, Lib.

We are going to have an ad in Shrink Wrap.”

“When Niels?  You’ve got to fix the site first.”

“Yeah I know.  I’m going to kick some ass.”

“You need a hand with any of that?”

“No, I can handle this.  My life is in here.  I need to unload it myself”.

“Niels look at your sons.!”

The two boys in identical orange jackets are out of the car chasing each other up the hill towards Diddlie’s.  “I’ve got some Cokes in the fridge.  You boys want to come in?”  Diddlie is standing in her doorway shouting towards them with her back to us.  The boys veer sharply tripping through ivy vines under the fallen leaves, and disappear into her open door.  Niels ignores them.  “Fred, you into the music or what?”

“Don’t know, I haven’t heard much yet.”

“You are going to hear a lot more soon, buddy.”

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.

Dead leaves have blown clear from around the picnic tables, leaving a flat dry expanse of earth. I am sitting at one of the tables, watching squirrels under the bare trees on a clear still day in Fauxmont Park. They chase each other through the complex crossings of branch shadows that look like a map projected on the smooth ground. Three squirrels run across and up the trunk of a nearby white oak. They move around to the back of the trunk out of sight.  Someone’s coming slowly, getting closer and closer.  A shadow gradually moves up the table jerking up its width, in small increments, with each step forward.

“Don’t turn around”.  It’s Diddlie’s voice.  She must have come through the woods at the other end of the park behind me.  Saying nothing further she waves two wands in the air and their shadows give the impression of her having a feathery headdress.  Looking ahead into the trees for the wrens I can hear, I don’t turn around.

“Have you seen Mr. Liddell?” she asks by way of a greeting.

“Hi Diddlie, can you see those wrens?”

“No, they’re in the bushes.  It’s too thick.”

“Why are you sneaking up on me?”

“You saw my shadow didn’t you?”

“Yes but you seemed to be moving stealthily.  I couldn’t hear your tread or anything.”

“I am not sneaking around.  I just like shadow games especially in this warm wintery sun coming through the trees.”

“Shadow games you call it.  No, to answer your question, I haven’t seen Mr. Liddell lately.  When did he run away?

“Haven’t seen him for weeks.”

“I saw a white rabbit near your house back in August or September maybe.”

“Got him back that time.  Lou caught him eating his garden lettuce and brought him back.  Said I owed him thirty bucks at the going rate for all he’d eaten.”

“You going to sit down Diddlie?”  She doesn’t answer but stays behind me slowly waving her shaggy weeds as if she were taking part in a ritual.  Ignoring my invitation she asks,  “You know why they didn’t build a house here?”

“No it hadn’t occurred to me.”

“I think some one bought the lot.”

“Isn’t it community property?”

“That’s what people say.”

“So why didn’t any one build here?”

“That’s the question.  It’s valuable land.”

“Have you been writing about it?”

“Writing? What do you mean?”

“Remember you said you were going to write because you were not happy with events in Fauxmont the way I am writing them.”

“Yes but no one can see it.”

“Why, is it written in invisible ink?”  I start to turn around but she puts a hand on my shoulder to restrain me and steps away to stay out of sight saying, “Don’t turn around okay?”

“Okay I won’t.”

“Listen, I am not ready to show any one.”

“But you are working, right?”

“I’m writing about a different place.

“Where?”

“I realize what I write isn’t going to change anything here.  If I show it to you then it will just be part of your thing.”

“It will still be yours.  I am not going to plagiarize.”

“No it won’t.  I know you’re not going to plagiarize!  You can never see it because if you do, you make it yours.  You’ll be writing it, attributing it to me, but that doesn’t really make it mine.”

“Yes it does, that’s the meaning of attribution.”

“If you quote me in your FAUXMONT blog then it is yours.  It is yours because you chose to put it there.  Same as anything else you quote.”

“Are you going to let anyone read it?”

“I’ve never written anything for an audience before.”

“Oh you mean it’s a matter of confidence and …”

“Yeah right, its kind of scary letting some one else read what I’ve written.  I am not ready yet.”

“Surely there’s some one you would trust to read it.  What about Lou?”

“No, Lou wouldn’t be interested.”

So who’s going to see it?”

“You may never know.”

“Are you saying you’re never going to show it to me?”

“Well maybe, eventually, when I’ve got the goods on you.”

“What makes you think there’s anything to get?”

“All the trouble you make around here for one thing.”

“What else?”

“Well, I’d like to know who you bought your house from.”

“Why?”

“I’ve checked around and it was never listed.  No one has lived in it for years.  In fact I don’t know who owned it before you.  Never met them.  I think there have been some renters though, but I didn’t get to know them. They didn’t stay long.  It was kind of a spooky place hidden behind all those hollies by the road, and your azaleas have grown up in front of the entrance and windows so you can’t see much of the house except the roof. Never saw any one fixing it up either.  It must have been in bad shape having been rented or empty all this time?”

“Were you trying to find out about this park at the same time?”

“I have been checking out a number of things.”

“My house wasn’t listed because I bought it from the owner thanks to Lou who introduced me.  It was a deal between us.”

“Well that explains some things and not others, such as who did Lou introduce you to?”

“The owner was represented by an agent.  Never met them in person.”

“Yeah, and wasn’t this around the time Lou sold his business?”

“It was, so what?”

“Never mind.”  I try to turn round again wondering why she is keeping herself out of sight, but she insists that I mustn’t.  Diddlie gives no explanation but goes on about who might read her work.  Maybe Daisy will read it, or Arty, but Arty is too busy.  I don’t like to ask her.”

“Is it on line?”

“Yeah but I haven’t given any one access yet.  Think of it as an alternative universe.”

“You wouldn’t be stringing me along would you?”

“Ha ha, very funny, no.  Besides I don’t think that stuff works on our scale of existence.  String theory has to do with things smaller than an atom.”

“Who told you that?”

“One of the scientists from Prestige U. who hang out at the H-bar.”

“I thought there is supposed to be a multiverse.  That is, multiple places like this in other dimensions inaccessible to us.”

“I’ll believe it when there’s experimental evidence.”

“You’re very hard nosed Diddlie.”  Her shadow has moved off the table as if she stepped away.  Turning to look it is obvious she has moved on.  The golden rod growing at the side of the field has small fluffy seeds in circular arrays on the end of the dried and dead brown stalks.  Hers is usually in full bloom.  Diddlie might have walked behind the shed on the lot next door, or did she go back through the woods the way she came?  Watching the shed I don’t see her emerge beyond it.

 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.

The Trips have invited me again to enjoy their hospitality and a tour of the new house. Being an informal neighborly visit I ignore the grand entrance on Wicket Street and as usual Mrs. Gomez lets me in through the gray painted service door by the garages. Walking up the driveway towards the massive stone blocks facing Oval Street, I feel I am about to enter a castle keep, but there is neither portcullis nor guards with pikes.

Inside two miniature silver porpoises leap from a small golden wave in the sconce over the mirror.  Mrs. Gomez greets me in dim yellow light from the small bulbs in their mouths.  “Ahhhhhh, Mr. Fred, yes ooooh! good morning Mr. Fred”.  She sings her words at a cheery high pitch, drawing out the sound and getting a little higher with each successive word of her aria ending with an “oooooooooooh” that falls in pitch with the last of her breath.  She invites me in with growing maternal warmth and closes the door after me.  We walk down a long narrow corridor with proposes lighting the way at intervals.  Mrs. Gomez’s hard sole slippers slap on terracotta floor tiles in time to her slow and careful tread.  She reaches for the dorsal fin of a metallic goldfish which turns off the light at the enterance.  Her thick black hair is graying, cut short above a round face and a wide mouth.  Her round eyes seem tired and care-worn yet they sparkle under heavy lids when she looks up at me to speak.

Mrs. Gomez opens the door at the far end onto a wide landing.  She beckons me to step past her into blinding daylight and leaves me alone, closing the door behind her with a quiet scrape as the bottom brushes along the thick pile carpet.  I am on the grand staircase that curves up the back wall of the great room over the formal entrance.  The wall around me is painted with roses and Clematis perpetually climbing their trellis and blooming in trompe l’oeil.  Together they conceal the closed door to the narrow hall with shades of green pink yellow and purple shadows behind brilliant petals and all without bees or flies or any blemish.  Only a swing of the door occasionally breaks the stillness.

From the rail on the landing I can look into the massive cylindrical aquarium on my right where sea horses rock, like animated chess men, near broad leaf weeds agitated by a column of tiny silver bubbles growing bigger as they rise.  Beyond the tall windows, hollies break the line of Derwent Sloot’s roof.  Its overhang shades his living room like a glowering brow. Gale’s voice rises from somewhere below.  “Juanita, was that Mr. Fred?”  I can’t hear any response, but Gale soon comes into view, and invites me down to the upper part of the great room.  The floor descends from there toward the deck outside in three wide curving terraces like a small concert hall.   The upper level is lined with bookshelves across the back wall.  Sports trophies are interspersed with books and framed photos.  Blues, reds, and creams glow in the pile of Afghan war rugs covering the bottom level.  Each level is arranged with white leather couches, and deep armchairs with marble and glass side tables.

We move along the upper level past the aquarium column and into the kitchen painted in tones of lavender.  Mrs. Gomez has her back to us.  She pours coffee at the island counter top, which is too high for her to work at comfortably without the convenient dark wooden step carved in the shape of an alligator.  She has changed into a lavender sweat suit with yellow and white piping and a heavy enamel Snaz logo hangs from the zip like a jewel.  “Oh la” she sings acknowledging our entrance into the kitchen.  We sit down at a glass table in the bay window looking out toward the gazebo.  She brings us coffees in white porcelain cups and saucers with the golden Glitz logo printed on the side.  She leaves a faint lavender scent in the air after ambling away with a slight limp I hadn’t noticed before.

“Juanita, Juanita, Juanita,” sighs Gale.  “I keep telling her she should retire, but she won’t.  I know that leg hurts too, we’ve had her examined at the clinic.”

“You’ve had her examined?”

“Sure we take good care of our Juanita.”

The swirling eddies settle in my coffee after it is poured, and the aroma strengthens as all hint of Juanita’s lavender is gone.

“She has a brother up in Troy NY but she doesn’t want to move up there because it’s too cold.”

“What about Mr. Gomez?’

“Hector was killed by leftists when we threw out Allende.”

“How horrible.  In the wrong place at the wrong time I suppose.”

“Yeah, he was working for us.”

“Oh, were you living in Santiago?”

“No I mean working for the U.S. against the commies.  It’s a long story but they ended up bringing Juanita home, you know … I mean she was left with nothing.”

“Who brought her home?”

“Oh the Macadamias.  They had a very nice place down there, and a vineyard too.”

“So Juanita started with the Macadamias.  What made her leave?”

“You know how it is with them.”

“With whom?”

“Hispanics”

“How is it with Hispanics?”

“I mean they flood in for jobs. It is becoming a big problem.”

“Yes working here without documentation has been dangerous since 9/11.”

“Oh they don’t care.  You know, they’re happy go lucky people.”

“I understand it is pretty grim in the detention centers.”

“Well they have broken the law.”

“Isn’t that rather a technicality these days?’

“No the problem is they are taking American jobs, not paying taxes and using our schools and everything for free.  Jake used to talk about ‘wetbacks’ and all that but we do have to watch our language now.”

“Yes it pays to be more respectful.”

“You know she could go down to our place in Beaufort and take it easy.  It’s warm down in North Carolina and we don’t have time to go there much these days.  All she’d have to do is be caretaker.”

“Sounds like a generous offer.”

“She won’t go.  Juanita prefers it here.  I don’t know why … but we’re all glad because she’s such a part of the family, and so cheerful.”

“Didn’t she work for the Nightingales at one point?”

“Yeah, Juanita was on sort of long term loan I guess.  I don’t know.  She says she just about raised Boyd by herself.”

“Yes, he had two very busy parents.”

“Yeah, Lark is an out and out radical, kind of anarchist or something and Juanita says Harper was never around much.”

“Have you ever met Lark?”

“No, I don’t even know what she looks like.”  The phone on the wall rings and Gail gets up to answer.  “Professor who? … Tinderbrush, are you sure you got that right Juanita … I guess so ….  what does he want?  Okay Juanita you know where we are.”

Tinerbrush strolls into the kitchen stepping in front of Juanita to introduce himself. His trench coat is open, a back-pack hangs off one shoulder and he holds his brief case in both hands.  “Hi Gail, I have just got off the plane from Ontario.  Is Jake around?”

“No, Jake is away until tomorrow.”

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 and I used to hang out here a lot.”

“Used to, Daisy?”

“While Steve was away for months on some hush hush mission.”

“I didn’t know he was a ‘spook’.

“I don’t think he was spy. Come to think of it, the trick or treaters were coming round at the time. He may have been ‘spooked’ this one time. By the way, that’s an unfortunate word to use.”

“It is?’

“Don’t you know it’s racially offensive?”

“I have heard, but didn’t think it was all that sensitive.”

”Oh it can be.”

“Where did Steve go?”

“An undisclosed location.”

“There must have been quite a crowd!”

“Yeah, imagine Steve, Mr. Progressive from Woollett Massachusetts, with all those Bush/Cheney people!”

“Bel used to joke that he was having an affair.”

“A trophy girl friend?”

“No with the Neoconservatives!”

“Oh an intellectual affair, the most dangerous of all.”

I am sitting with Daisy Brisco reminiscing at a table in front of the big bay window at the H-Bar, waiting for Bel Vionnet and her husband Steve Strether to join us for lunch.

“We’d talk about the Guild a lot.  Trying to get the community together.  Once we had to reschedule an important business meeting to raise the water fee because there wasn’t a quorum.”

“It’s livening up now though.”

“Oh Boyd is stirring things up!  Why do I love that idiot?  I don’t think any one is going to take him seriously do you?”

“Yes lots of people.”

“Not in this neighborhood.”

Daisy springs out of her chair pushing it back against an empty one at the next table.  The couple sitting there doesn’t notice. Their empty dishes are pushed aside.  He is texting and she is facing away towards the window with her phone up to her ear.  Bel has walked up behind me.  Without turning around I hear Daisy exchanging high pitched affections with Bel.  Bel sits next to me without Steve, greeting me in her gentle voice.

“Hi Fred, good to meet our newest Fauxmonter.”

“No Steve today?”

“No Daisy he’s with Lambert.”

Daisy leans over the back of her chair in front of the window, looking down into to Bel’s face.  “Is something wrong with him Bel?”  Daisy’s long straight black hair hangs slightly forward down past each cheek leaving her face in deep shadow.

“We don’t know yet.  Lambert didn’t eat his floor food.”  Bel is talking through a slight smile.  Her face is round with eyes far apart.

“Floor food!  What’s that?”

“Lambert is a Westie Fred.  He likes to hunt for his food, so Steve spreads his kibbles around the Kitchen floor and puts a few in the hall.”

Daisy sits down awkwardly, first bending her long legs to the side and moving her knees around under the table without bumping into Bel or jogging the table.  “How about water?”  She doesn’t look up to speak.

“We have a bowl for him, and there’s a bowl of canned food next to his water.  He likes his branch water when we’re out in the woods.”

“Are you taking him in Bel?”

“Daisy, Steve is going to watch him for a while then we’ll decide about the vet.”

A waitress is standing by Daisy who has grabbed her hand looking up at her.  She introduces us with a slow sweep of her arm over the table pausing and  opening her hand at mention of our names. There’s a clatter of dishes and I miss the waitress’s name but she plays drums for “Toxic Blob”, Liberty Trip’s band. She nods to each of us as we are indicated by Daisy’s open hand, takes our orders for lunch, and moves off quickly.  Daisy is reluctant to let her go holding on as long as possible and leaves her arm outstretched for a moment after she’s gone.

“Daisy will you let the girl do her job!”

“I’m not thru with her yet Bel … want to hear about the band.”

“Lunch would be nice.”

“Bel it wouldn’t have taken long.”

“She doesn’t have long.  Look around.  It’s filing up in here.”

Daisy takes off her bowler puts it on the table and a small piece of paper falls out of the hat band.

“What is this?”  Bel has picked it up from the table.

“That’s my lucky ten pound note.”

“Not your usual shopping list.”

“No it’s a reminder.  I’ll spend it in London, if I get over there.”

“Are you going to visit your aunt?”

“No Aunt Agatha is long gone.  I still have her stories though.”

“I spent time in London as a kid.  My best friend in boarding school invited me to spend a summer vacation at her grandparent’s.  Funny how vivid some of it is now, and the rest most deliquescent. ”

“Deli-what Bel?”

“Deliquescent Daisy, as in melting away.  I just heard Julian Barnes use it on the radio.”

I asked about the school, and found it was in New Zealand where her Mother was born.  Her Father was from Cote d’Ivoire and worked for the World Bank. Daisy puts her hat back on.  Opening the zip on her purple leather shoulder bag she rummages for her phone, but its not hers.  The sound is coming from the next table.  She stretches a long arm around Bel’s shoulders.  “We are so lucky to have her Fred.  Here you are then face to face at last.”

“Have you been waiting long for this moment Daisy?”

“I have heard a great deal about you chairing the Guild meetings.  I asked Daisy when and where would I meet Bel?”

“Fred I am lucky to be here.  Half my Father’s family have been killed in the rebellion.”

“I am sorry, are you close to them?”

“No I hardly know them and only got this news by chance.  My Father let much of his past fade from his mind.  He joined the World Bank and regarded himself as a World Citizen.”

“You’re closer to your Mom’s side aren’t you Bel?”  Daisy released Bel’s shoulders.

Bel draws back from Daisy.

“Don’t pull me off my chair, okay!”

“You’re safe with me sweetie.”

“I am half white and wholly devoted to this community.”

They are both laughing.  Bel’s heavy breasts shake under her turtleneck and she raises her slender hands to give a single clap over her head.  Daisy does the same, which leads to a moment of solemn silence regarding Steve’s empty chair. They seem to be following a ritual shared by close friends and known only to them.

“Fred, I find a lot of folks in Fauxmont just want some one to listen to them.

It’s an important part of my job on the Guild.”  Daisy has folded her arms on the table with the rap and rattle of gold bracelets and bangles.  She leans toward Bel.

“I know you’ve spent a long time listening to me.”

“If people want to talk to me I’ll listen.  Folks talk to themselves when they talk to each other.”

“What do you mean?”

“Have you ever told yourself something new when you’re in conversation?”

“Oh yes, it can be a clarification too.  I know, but some people get into endless monologues.”

“That’s something else Daisy.”

“What are getting at?”

“When talking to other people I am also talking to myself and sometimes

that’s revealing but it’s not a monologue.”

“You make it so easy Bel.”

“I do like to ask questions. You can say a lot with questions.”

“Bel honey, that’s what therapy is all about.”

“You know I am skeptical about that.”

“I know Bel, and I don’t get it.  You’d be such a great therapist.”

“Daisy did your therapy help? Can you sum it up?”

“Oh it’s complicated, and more personal than I want to get into here.”

“I know honey and if it helped you I am delighted.”  Bel looks down at the table quietly, her face relaxed.  Lunch is served.

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.

“The Spin show with Leticia Lantern is brought to you by March Hare Brand Products.  Turn to us for things you need.  The Spin Show, the show that covers all points of view including yours.”

The TV is on in Lou’s big white living room.  I am sitting with Albrecht Intaglio and evening light fills the clerestory windows with rich yellows and deep greens in the surrounding pignut hickories. Daisy Briscoe and Boyd Nightingale are expected too.  Lou’s tells me he invited the whole Guild, but none has shown up so far.

Since Boyd is now vice chair of the Fauxmont Guild, Lou wants to get to know him better and let him share his views in discussion, watching this show together as an icebreaker.  I admire him for trying to bring those with opposing views together, but feeling runs high and I have my doubts about this working out constructively.  Lou is confident in what he calls ‘the spirit of Fauxmont’ insisting we can get beyond the ‘heat’ to find each other’s deeper common interests.  We are watching some of Albrecht’s favorite ‘talking heads’.  He thanks Lou for the opportunity to ‘educate us’.

“This week on ‘The Spin Show’ we bring you Congressman Lee Leavenworth Knox chairman of Select Committee on Aesthetic Crime.  He also leads the Congressional CUPA caucus.  That’s CUPA, the movement to Clean Up America.”

“Congressman you have said it is time for a frank public discussion about politics, the economy and CUPA.  Welcome to the Spin Show.  What is the first thing you would like to say to America tonight?”

“Leticia, it’s a pleasure to be back on your show.  I believe in a free market for  free Americans.  That is what I stand for.  Another thing, we on the Committee on Aesthetic Crime want to thank our supporters.  With your growing support we can eliminate the scourge of Modern Art that is polluting our museums, and young people’s minds.”

“Congressman your opponents are asking, how free are we going to be, living with the unregulated power of huge multinational companies?  Isn’t profit going to be more important to them than our country?”

“March Hare Products proudly sponsors the Spin Show for the new millennium. Stay tuned to the Spin Show and see where Leticia will shine her light,” says the male voice before Leticia can acknowledge the Congressman’s remarks.  Now we see a merry-go-round slowly turning, to the tune of Yankee Doodle played on a fairground organ.  The carousel displays March Hare kitchenware rising and falling in place of carved wooden horses.  A friendly animated hare is depicted dancing with a casserole as it moves up and down on its pole decorated in red white and blue windings that spiral up its length.

Lou invites us to help ourselves to iced tea in tall glasses on the side-board.  The spin show is back by the time I sit down again.

“Leticia let me add one more point to my opening remarks.  How many of you out there know of the plan to take down the Washington Monument?  How many of you have heard of the artist Tarantula who is leading this insidious attack on our values in the nation’s Capitol?”

“Congressman those are important questions, and we shall get back to them, but what about the economy?”

Yes Leticia, let me say this, even though we have had a financial crisis, more people have more goods and services all over the world than ever before in history.  I want to see that go on.”

“Don’t you think the worst of the bank failures might have been averted with  regulation and better enforcement?”

“More from Congressman Lee Leavenworth Knox after the break,” says the friendly male voice-over with his bright emphasis on the word ‘more’.

Hank Dumpty stops on the threshold and leans against the door post listening, apparently unready to join he group.  He shifts his weight and hen remarks that there must be some regulation by government to keep companies within bounds.  “I can cite historical facts to demonstrate that necessity and …” Albrecht breaks in “The facts don’t matter big guy.  You’ve got to tell people something they can believe, or better yet something they want to believe.  Just keep it simple.”

Lou looks up from the couch across from Albrecht.  “People want to believe all kinds of crazy things, have you no respect for truth?”

“The truth is what happens when America acts.”

Hank is no longer leaning.  He steps into the room, “No no no, not for this American, this is about facts not acts.  I am talking about the basis forreasonable discussion and argument.”

Lou is squeezing his jaw between thumb and forefinger looking more and more grotesque as his lips part bunching under his nose and his cheeks are stretched and distorted. He suddenly let go and mutters “Get real Albrecht, that’s nonsense.”

“Hey big guy, we make our own reality.  Listen, politics is emotional, not factual. You need that emotional rush to get attention and make it happen.  We’ve got to stoke those big emotions”

“Albrecht, my name is Hank, not ‘Big Guy’.”

“Touché, Hank!”

I ask Albrecht if he is interested in reasonable argument but he goes on.

“Timing is everything, who cares about argument.”

“I do.  That’s how disagreements are worked out.”

“Fred, this isn’t a country of professors.  America extends way beyond the faculty room.”  He sits up, and lifts and spreads out his arms bending his elbows out gradually and finally opening his hands and spreading his fingers all in one slow flowing motion.  “It’s a nation of free people.”  He brings his arms back down and pumps his fists out back and forth out in front of his chest.”  You have to keep up the momentum, get them so angry they’ll get up and vote.”  He leans forward with his hands on his knees.   “You know what voter turnout is?”

Lou is squinting. He releases both palms pressing against his cheeks.  “I know it’s low.  60% is regarded as high.”

“Right and you can’t advance liberty’s agenda without votes.”

“Liberty’s agenda?”

“The agenda for a free America with free markets and free people.”

Hank is pacing near the entrance looking at the floor.  “Lou I don’t have much time for TV as you know.  It is not the best source of information and this isn’t my kind of show anyway.”

“Wait Hank!  Don’t leave yet.  Aren’t you proud to be a free American?”

“Yes Albrecht I am.”  Hank pauses, looks up at Albrecht, without anger. “I don’t think you have any respect for that freedom whatever.”

“Listen Hank, the source is the thing.  If we can discredit the negative socialist sources, no one will care what they say … you know what Hank?  All you do is attack the personality.”

“Not me.  Don’t include me in that.  I don’t want any part of it.”

“You’re falling behind the power curve Hank.  Wake up to America and join the party celebrating freedom.”

“I don’t hear anything to celebrate here”

“Look its all personality now.  Don’t you see?  Personality and celebrity, show biz and politics are merging!”

“Albrecht you seem to be saying you want to distract people with celebrity away from the substance of sensible policy.”

“There’s nothing sensible about it Lou.  For one thing nobody’s going to listen to a lot of abstract intellectual theorizing.  Also I am telling you, government regulation is always after the fact.  It is bound to be a drag on the market.”

“There’s got to be some basic rules and enforcement from outside the system.  We learned that from the great depression.”

Albrecht ignores Hank’s remark and shouts enthusiastically, pointing to Lou’s huge TV screen.  “Listen to the man!”

We have been so intent on our own discussion that our attention has moved from the screen to ourselves.  Albrecht brings us back to the image on the screen.  Congressman Knox, still as a bust carved in stone, is sitting opposite Leticia Lantern in her red blouse, red lips, gleaming teeth and pearls around her elegant neck.

“You can’t second guess it.  A free market makes its own rules.”

“Thank you Congressman.  We will be right back” says Leticia.

An animated hare dashes across the screen towards the carousel.  As the fairground music grows louder he leaps doing a summersault in mid air and lands, sitting on a flat cheese grater.  A ski resort appears with chalets of Swiss cheese, and a yodeling voice sounding over distant cowbells.  The hare rides his cheese grater like a bobsled down a mountain of grated white cheese coming to a stop in a modern kitchen.  He gets off the cheese grater, and stands up in front of a stainless steel refrigerator smiling with his whiskers askew. He bends down and picks it up with a paw on each side, and taps the base on the floor to get loose cheese off.  Then hands the ‘sled’ to a happy blonde girl making macaroni cheese with her mother, all to the tune of Yankee Doodle on the fairground organ.  “March Hare has the right tool at the right time” says the joyful male voice-over.  The hare stands aside smiling, while mother and child put the macaroni in the oven and look up from their work, to smile at us too.  Leticia is back.

“Congressman, haven’t recent events shown unregulated markets tend towards meltdown?”

“History is full of meltdowns Leticia.  We are still here, aren’t we, better off than ever?”

Hank speaks up “Yes after many belated government interventions.”

“Yeah Hank, socialism always comes back to cause more trouble.”

Lou has folded his hands behind his head. “The social cost is too high to have another meltdown now.”

Albrecht is talking over the Congressman’s voice on TV.  “Lou, you’ve just got to see that is the inevitable cost of doing business.  There’s always going to be a lot of people who don’t make it.  That’s the free enterprise system.  More people are more prosperous now than ever in history.”

“Hanky!” shouts Daisy Briscoe walking in, arms out stretched with multiple thin brass bracelets rattling along their length.  She embraces Hank with one arm around his neck as he spreads his huge left hand across her long back.  She holds her bowler hat in the other hand extending straight out beyond Hank’s shoulder. Her shopping list flops down over the band nearly falling out.  Boyd greets Albrecht with a mock military salute.  Lou gets up to greet his new guests and offer them tea.  “Sorry we’re late Lou.  Have we missed that horrible TV show, I hope?”

“Daisy you have missed an educational opportunity.”  “Oh I know that’s what Boyd said Lou, but TV is not my idea of education.”

“You are in good time.  The show is ending.”

“Catch the Spin Show Friday nights and if you miss that see us Saturday mornings.  Use March Hare products to cook something up for yourself.”

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.

Thin beams of light from countless halogen spots divide the atmosphere at the Gentileschi Gallery. Artemisia Bliemisch’s work is well lit but much of the room seems dark by contrast.  It is hard to see who’s here in this gloom.  I sign the guest book careful not to spill half a glass of white wine left next to the pen.  Artie stands nearby in a bright red shirt with black waistcoat and long dark skirt. She hunches attentively over a small woman with short gray hair moused into curved spikes. Her firm upper arm muscles are well defined as she moves under a spotlight.  Her knuckles shine white where she is fastened to Artie’s elbow with platinum ringed claws. “Artiemisia! I just love your new work!”

“Thank you Mrs. Shrowd.”  Mrs. Shrowd is thin.  Her sleeveless blouse is unbuttoned at the top and tucked into loose fitting faded denims.  Could that have been her wine I didn’t spill?  Where is wine served?

“I’ve got to have one of these for sure, Artie.”  Mrs. Shrowd slowly pulls Artie out of earshot, in front of a series of paintings stretching along the wall towards the back.  They pause before the biggest.  Mrs. Shrowd steps in close to examine the surface.

Bel Vionet stands near the front window by Artie’s “Main Squeeze” series where she introduces me to Frank Vasari.  I am told Frank ‘knows everybody’.  He represented a generation of successful young local artists at his Gallery Sforza when it was on Seventh Street.  He’s in the middle of a story about Artie when he knew her in Florence.

“Yeah I was trying to get into her pants.  Yeah I admit it and so was Steve by the way.  I mean it was no secret, but she didn’t want anything from me.  That’s why we are standing here, not at my Gallery.  So anyway we were walking over to the Uffizi.  She was studying Botticelli or something, I don’t remember … Steve Strether how you doing?”

I had been watching Bel’s husband Steve as he walked towards us through a wilderness of elbows, flabby, boney and bare, denim, rayon, tweed-covered protruding at the sides of those facing away from us with their drinks. Bel can’t see him coming.  She seems unmoved by this story, and keeps her interested smile fresh no matter how long she has to wear it. Is this “no secret” from Bel?  Haven’t seen much of Steve since last year when we first met by chance in front of the Pastry Shop, and then went on together visiting Artie in her studio.  I lost track of Frank’s long-winded story moments ago wondering what to believe.  Diddlie has told me Steve first met Artie here in Fauxmont.

The others are sipping white wine from thin plastic glasses.  All except Frank, who has a can of beer, and drains it as Steve arrives.  Crushing the cylinder in his thick fingers, he puts it down distorted on a narrow ledge along the wall at his back.  His welcoming arm wraps Steve’s neck in light tweed.  Frank’s gut sags over his belt and a white shirttail hangs out the front of his black jeans.  Steve is thrown off balance by Frank’s friendly gesture and bumps Bel’s hand spilling wine down the front of her dress.

“My God Bel I’m sorry!”

“It’s okay Frank I’ll probably live.”

“Frank that’s the only wife I’ve got.”

“Look, we can go across the street.  I’ve got friends in that house there, see.  They’ll take care of everything for sure.”  He is pointing out of the window with his free hand and hasn’t let Steve go.  A long stain is spreading across Bel’s lime green dress starting below the empire waist and bleeding down her stomach.  The fabric clings around the hollow of her navel and sticks to the belly’s contour then falls in thin pleats to her ankles.  Wine drips from the hem beading on the varnished bamboo floor.

“Whoa!  Step back Bel, I mean don’t slip on that wet floor.”  Frank has let go of Steve’s neck.  The can falls off its ledge and bounces on the floor. Frank’s hair has flopped down into his eyes and around his ears. He uses both hands to push it back from his face. He steps on the can and flattens it under a booted heel.

“How many you had Bel?”  Artie is standing next to her and whispers something else in her ear.

“Artie honey, how are you?”

They both turn away ignoring Frank, and Artie guides Bel through a white door concealed in the white wall behind the receptionist’s desk.

It feels hot in the thickening crowd.  I see the receptionist through a momentary gap, distinctively braless, under a tight white Tshirt. She serves wine and beer with long thin bare brown arms from behind an arched window in the far wall with a deep sill.  Steve is walking towards the refreshments. I catch up and reintroduce myself.

“So now you’ve met Frank!”

“Was he drunk?”

“He’s not the man we used to know on 7^th Street.  Gentileschi’s is well known for representing Woman artists.  You know Artemisia shows here because this is best for her.  It has nothing to do with Florence. Frank’s mixed up.  Since he was appointed to direct the arts center out at Prestige U. I don’t think he has anything to do but drink and schmooze.”

“Where’s the owner, I mean Gentileschi?

Steve points toward the back.  “How can it be so dark in here with all these spots? I saw her talking to Mrs. Shrowd over there.  You know, Sherman Shrowd’s wife.”

“Never heard of them.”

“He’s a big lawyer in town.  Never goes to court.  Sherman settles quietly behind the scenes.  She’s the collector.  Don’t see her now.  Gentileschi is in a black dress with big red hair like wild fire. You’ll feel the heat.”

“So why did Vasari get the job?”

“Prestige U. got millions, don’t know how many, but millions, from Armond Macadamia.  Frank is the biggest name in local art and that’s what Macadamia wants to collect.  He thinks Frank can put his Macadamia Art Center on the map.  Frank’s closed his old gallery and now he’s under the thumb of that meddling board.  I don’t think it’s working.”

“I’ve heard a lot about Macadamia.  He’s local talent isn’t he and made his fortune in stocks?”

“Freddie!”  Daisy Briscoe greets me like a beloved relative.  Bending over and folding her arms around me she brings down a cloud of scent and her silvery hardware rattles against my ears.  She presses her cheek to mine, unfolds and then engulfs Steve in the same way.  Now she has brought us into her family she flourishes a price list.  “You guys buying?”

No one speaks.  Daisy folds up the list.  Takes off her bowler and slides it into her hat-band.  I haven’t seen prices but doubt that I can afford anything.  Steve begins to say something but before a full word has come out he is distracted.  Bel reappears standing close to her husband.  She is looking up at Daisy.

“Hi Daisy, are you alone?”

“Oh Bel, have you heard?”

“Heard what?  Is it Boyd?”  Daisy is looking at Bel.

“Sweetie I’ve been looking for you!”  Steve squeezes his wife’s hand without looking at her as Daisy answers.  “Oh I don’t know where Boyd is.  He wouldn’t come anyway … but listen … they’ve released Tassi.”

“Get out of here!”

Steve puts his arm around his wife’s shoulders and gently pulls her

against his body.  She leans towards him in graceful exaggeration, raising one foot and showing off her silver shoes.  The now dry pleats unfold in a cascade from her extended leg as she rests her head on his shoulder.

“They only just put him away!”

“I know, Steve.  Who understands Italian law?”

“Does Artie know?”

“I don’t know.  Where is she?  I’ve got to talk to her.”

Bel reaches out for Daisy’s arm.  Then using both hands, she separates the multiple bracelets and closes her fingers round the narrow wrist, pulling Daisy towards her.  “Maybe now is not the time.”

“Maybe Bel, but I mean she’s got to know … I mean …

don’t you think…?”

“I think she’s got enough on her mind right now.”

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.

The first rain in two months has knocked withering leaves out of the willow oaks.  A dry front has come in quickly, clearing the sky and sun light flashes from countless puddles making the black top blinding.  I am dodging the puddles while walking towards the Safeway across uneven pavement through rows of vehicles parked across my path.  First, her voice seemed to come from behind me.  Now unexpectedly, I see Diddlie ahead of me in the ally between an SUV and a tall  delivery van.  It is checkered in large red and black squares.  ‘Duchess Bakers’ is written in flowing white script along the sides arching over a steel engraving of a woman with Edwardian décolletage.  She holds a basket full of the Baker’s goods becoming a ‘Duchess’.

“Hello Diddlie”

“What’s the hurry?”

“Nothing much.”

“I thought you were running away from me.”  She flourishes long stems of golden rod for emphasis and pollen fills the air around the ‘Duchess’.

“Didn’t realize you were there.”  We are both sneezing.

“Is that so?”

“Please stop waving that stuff around!”  Diddlie holds her weeds still.  The leaves droop from the stems while the long flowers bob in a breeze above our heads.

“We need to talk some more.”  I sneeze several times.  A yellow film has covered the once shiny black hood of the Ford Explorer next to me in the lee of the tall box like van.

“We need to get away from that stuff!”  I run a finger across the hood leaving a long black line snaking towards the windshield.  Diddlie slowly brings the flowers down, until they brush the ground between us.

“I am challenging you!”  Diddlie sneezes again.

“Can’t you leave those things aside somewhere?”

“No there’s nowhere … I mean about … ”  She is incoherent with sneezing, and I step back to get away from the pollen.

“Hey hey hey, come back”!

“I am trying to get out of the sneezing zone.”

“Don’t run away okay?  This is important.”  The toes of my right foot feel cold and wet.  Water is lapping over the top of my Chinese-made canvas shoe.

“Let me get out of this puddle too.  I am not running away.”

“Boyd Nightingale.”

“What about him? This is no place to talk!”

“Talk to me anyway.”

“Okay what about him?”

“Why is he taking over Fauxmont?”

“What do you mean, ‘take over Fauxmont’?”

“I mean he is vice chair of the Guild.”

“He won in the election along with Bel for chair.  I forget the other positions.”

“Yeah, I heard.”  Diddlie leans against the side of the van.  She looks bored, or is it sullen?

“Diddlie, no one else ran.”

”So now I have to live with that creep in the Guild.”

“Make’s life interesting though.”

“That’s easy for you to say.  I don’t need that kind of ‘interesting’. I’ve got to buy chicken for the Red Queen.”

She raises the golden rod as if she had a sword and jabs at me with it.

“Mind what you’re doing!  Not so easy really, I have to live with him too.”

“So you don’t support his views?”

“No.  I disagree with a lot of what he says.”

“Why did you do it?”  She lowers her weapon.  The tops of the blooms are dipping in the puddle.  The hood of her yellow slicker falls down over her eyes like a visor.

“Do what?”

“Give him a place in the Guild.”  She shakes the hood off her forehead with a head-toss and pulls it down from her hair with her free hand.

“Like I said, he won in the election.”

“Like I said, you wrote it that way.”

“Okay Diddlie, let’s not repeat ourselves.”

“You disagree with him right?”

“Yes.”

“It is your story right?”

“So what are you getting at?”  With every question she takes another small step towards me through the puddle, in white rain boots with red and black hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades. Oily puddle water drips from the golden flowers at about knee height.  If she waves it again, I will be splattered.

“I am saying why give him that position?  You didn’t have to.  You could have put a friendly face on the Guild.”

“Who, for instance?”

“Even Jake Trip would have been better than …”  Diddlie slowly lifts her flowers higher but off to the side, away from me.  “I don’t believe I said that.”

“You could have nominated him.”

“Very funny Fred.  Listen, I don’t think you’re ready to face up to this, but I am sorry, you have to.”  Diddlie has balanced her sodden long stemmed flowers on the seat of the open van with the blooms drooping across the steering wheel. The stems are wound with narrow purple ribbon extending about almost a foot like the wrapping of a samurai sword handle.

“Face up to what?”

“Your responsibilities.”  She spreads her arms out palms up.

“Can you explain a little further?”

“Look, putting Boyd on the Guild is wrong.  I mean why do that?’  She folds her arms.  “If you care about Fauxmont, why?”

“If the Guild is a democratic body, what’s wrong with people coming into office with dissenting views?  Besides, he was elected.”

“He’s a …”  Diddlie puts her hands up to her face.  “Excuse me … No I won’t say that … ”

“Diddlie, his day may come, who knows?”

“Get Boyd off the Guild.”

“How can I do that Diddlie?”

“I am sure you can find a way.”  Diddlie folds her arms again.

“He’s only vice chair. Diddlie, don’t get so upset.”

“Don’t tell me how to feel.”  Diddlie’s hands have become fists clenched at her waist.  “I have to live with this.”

“Thanks lady!”  Climbing into the driver’s seat the deliveryman admires the goldenrod he picks up off the wet steering wheel.  An unlit cigarette projects at a steep angle from his wide frog like mouth under sunken cheeks and bulging eyes.

“Oh they’re not for … Sorry I mean I just … ”

“Sir, are these your flowers?”

“No!  They’re not his.”

He sneezes.  The cigarette flies into the windshield and drops behind the clipboard jammed between the dash and the windshield.  Passing his fist across his face the delivery man wipes his nose on his short red sleeve.

“These yours lady?”

“He hands the flowers down to her, carefully pointing the blooms out the door first, away from her face and then angling the stems towards her.  He sneezes. “Those things are worse than pepper!”

“Sorry, I just put them there for a moment.”

“Okay lady.  You better wet them down some more! know what I’mean?”

The down cast corners of his mouth rise into a yellow-toothed grin.

She takes the flowers.  He wipes his palms on his black pants.

“Thanks, sorry about the pollen.”  We retreated from the van and the puddle into the open. The van moves off slowly and the rising pitch of its quiet electric motor runs out of earshot.

Diddlie comes towards me putting her arm in mine.

“We could collaborate on this thing instead of arguing.”

“That gets complicated.”  Diddlie tugs on my arm.

“Why are you so hostile?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“I am going to write okay and then we’ll see.”

Diddlie has the golden rod over her shoulder as if she were carrying a rake or a pike, and the blooms are behind us as we walk slowly together.  “Okay Diddlie, but that’s another story.”

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.

Out for an evening stroll, I find Steve Strether walking Lambert outside Diddlie’s on their post meridiem promenade.  He is at the top of Oval Street before it begins the steep descent past the Trips’ towards Wicket Street.  Lambert is leading from the middle of the road where the camber is highest.  Lambert suddenly doubles back to sniff the roadside.  A light in the eaves illuminates the ivy covered brick pillar supporting Diddlie’s mailbox and house number. A breeze agitates the ivy leaves and the hickory above.  Their shadows move on the road as if something in the road bed has come to life.  Lambert trots over to the base of the mail box, sniffs around for a moment, then sits down and stares at Diddlie’s house.

Steve waits for Lambert to find what ever drew him away from the mail box pillar.  A faint rhythmical female vocalization grows slowly in volume and intensity above the sound of Lambert brushing through the ivy.  It seems to be coming from the dark opening of a bedroom window on the Oval Street side of Diddlie’s.   Steve is looking at me when I look up from Lambert towards him.  He has the leash in his left hand and he is waving his outstretched right arm in time with the voice like a symphony conductor.  He brings up the hand which holds the leash as if to indicate a crescendo.  This pulls on Lambert, and he growls in protest resisting the pull at his neck.  There is no crescendo, but the beat is gradually speeding up with rising pitch and Steve skillfully stays in time, as if he were leading.  Then after a whimpering sigh, the voice trails off to be joined by a male sigh followed by silence from the black rectangle on Diddlie’s wall.  Lambert loses interest and tugs on the flexible leash like a fish drawing out more line as it fights in the water.  Lambert pushes through the dark sea of ivy leaves towards the Trips’ perimeter where there is a grass verge before the first driveway.  The sound of a door slamming from inside Diddlie’s, provokes Lambert to bark in response.  He barks only once and then stands still in the ivy growling quietly with his short white tail straight out and his ears moving in tiny adjustments. Steve locks the leash and tries to pull back.  He doesn’t want Lambert to set off Jake’s security lights and blast the newly eroticized mystery of the evening with a blinding alert.  We both thought Diddlie lived alone.  There is no vehicle but Diddlie’s in the car port.

Steve describes Lambert chasing something out of Diddlie’s ivy once before, setting off the lights, and Lambert’s most earsplitting bark, as his prey crossed Jake’s grass verge.  Lambert flushes something from the ivy this time too.  Steve is too late getting him out.  Bright lights flood the Trips’ perimeter with blinding intensity.  Minutes later, when our eyes have adjusted to the extraordinary new visibility, an SUV turns the corner of Wicket and goes up Oval.  Steve tries to hurry Lambert away from the scene, down hill and around the corner towards home.  The SUV stops, the driver’s window slides down and a serious official sounding voice asks if we have seen anything unusual on the hill.  Steve explains the events of his recent descent past the Trips’ without mentioning the operatic performance he conducted with such mastery further up.  Thank you sir, said the voice as a female radio voice emanates from high in the interior with bleeps and crackle.  “It’s a ‘39’, Peggy” says the driver.  His window goes up and the engine revs quietly pulling the left rear wheel close enough to the roadside ditch to cause further subsidence of the asphalt.  Lambert cautiously goes down to investigate.  Steve explains he and Lambert are a code thirty-nine.  He had heard it before.  That report to Urban Safety Solutions data center is recorded on a log with many other coded entries, showing all their responses to events at the Trips’.  Lambert stays in the ditch, his nose to the streambed with Steve walking along the side of the road above.  He keeps the leash pulled in taught along the stretch of Wicket Street that marks the end of the Trips’ corner lot so as not to cause another ‘39’.  “Wish I was thirty-nine”, quips Steve.

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 walking back from Hank Dumpty’s barbeque with Lou and Rank Majors.  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” said Rank with a grin.

“Do you find your air force background useful?”

“Yea 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?” I said to Lou as we walked on through the moon shadows around Bailes Lane toward Oval Street.

“I think he works for Fibonacci” said Lou. “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, in Rolling Stone Magazine?” asked Lou.  I had not and Lou went on.  Fibonacci was a silicone valley start-up which turned out to be a front company for either the CIA or the NSA.  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”.

“So they went ‘legit’ to avoid further embarrassment and to be able to answer  questions as openly as a legitimate business would.  Well not all that open 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.  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 doing it.  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 be overlooked by routine audits when your dealing with multibillion dollar government contracts.”

“So what happened with all money the front company made?”

“That’s one of the things Rolling Stone was interested in, and they got a lot of interesting leads but ended up with nothing but speculation 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?”

“The story may have been killed in any number of ways, but the thing that struck me was that the same day that the Rolling Stone broke the story, the Armond Macadamia story broke all over  the evening news and in the morning  papers.  I am told Armond has a place in Fauxmont but I know little more about him.”

“Yes, that I remember.  Armond is our local billionaire.  He was supposed to have trucked half a trillion dollars in used green backs down to Honduras.  The big networks all had people down there showing much the same thing.  The corespondents  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 side, and in a stream going down beside the wreckage.  ABC said Macadamia was planning to buy the whole country and turn it into a ranch.  Some one on CBS questioned if there was really enough money there to buy a ranch the size of Honduras.”

“CNN interviewed a man with a head cloth, no shirt and ragged shorts, who gestured with his machete assuring us through a translator that he had seen a whole convoy of trucks.  Then we saw a lot of low denominations among torn fragments of bills at the road side.”

“You’ve got it” said Lou.  “That’s what was on television.  You know, I asked Jake Trip about this a couple of years back when I was talking to him about his plans  for the new house.  He happened to mention Macadamia, and it turns out he’s close to the old man 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” said  Lou.”  He  wouldn’t answer that one when Jake asked him.  He just said a deal is a deal, and Jake assumed he made out alright  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 truck loads of used bills.”

“How did the networks know where to go in the jungle to find the wreck?” asked Lou.

“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” said Lou.

“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 some one with inside information?”

“I sold out, remember?” said Lou.

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 us with its right eye, its nose pointed away.

“That looks like Mr. Liddell.” I said.

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 Briscoe introduces me to the new vice chair of the Fauxmont Guild over the sound of cicadas.   It is mid afternoon and the heat is tolerable in today’s low humidity and the insects seem subdued compared to the intense roar they added to last weeks extreme heat.  I congratulate Boyd sitting on Daisy’s screened and shaded front porch.  Leggy rhododendrons stretch for light from an evergreen wall of azaleas growing between her house and the narrow street.  “Thanks Fred.  Now we can make some changes around here.”  Goldfinches visit to feed on Nyjer seed from Daisy’s carbide tube feeder.  She is enthusiastic.  “This could be big for you.  I am so glad you won, Boyd.”

“I didn’t win Daisy.  No one else ran, so how could I lose?”

“Suppose no one voted for you?”

“I don’t think I got more than about four votes Fred.”  The cicadas reach a crescendo, then all but one nearby go quiet.

“When was the election?”

“Back in May Fred.  Where have you been?’

“Out of touch obviously.”

Daisy offers me some iced tea and goes on.  ”The election was the first week in May.  I think you were out of town or something.”  Three goldfinches fly off leaving the hanging tube swinging outside the screen.  A lawn mower starts up very loud next door, and soon stops with a metallic knock.  The porch falls silent as it takes a moment to hear the wasp working against the screen above my head, the more distant cicadas and water running in the pipes somewhere indoors.

“It’s funny I haven’t heard about it though.”

“Bel is still chair, and I think its great, but Boyd keeps complaining …”

“Yeah, she’s taking her time about announcing anything and calling a meeting of the new Guild.”

“It is vacation time Boyd.  People are away.”

“That’s a lame excuse Daisy.  In fact they are trying to screw me out of the job.”

She is standing next to his chair and gives him a kiss.  Boyd holds her hand until the full length of her long arm is stretched out as she pulls away to get ice tea from the kitchen.  The lawn mower starts again and gets fainter as it is pushed around the other side of the house.

“How, Boyd?”

“Seeing as how I only got four votes, they are talking about another vote for vice chair.”

“Can they do that?”

“No, Hank Dumpty has already told them the by-laws don’t allow it.  They’ve got to find some way to live with me!”  Boyd laughs.  “We are going to shake things up, big time.  Bel, Diddlie Drates, my Mom, Albrecht’s parents, all those other liberals won’t know what hit them.  Get every one in the neighborhood involved and voting for freedom.”

“We, Boyd?  Doesn’t sound like you have much support.”

“Fred, with Albrecht, the master mind behind me, we will get all the support we need.”

“Be a good thing to increase voter turn out alright.”

“That’s just the beginning Fred.  We’ve also got to get Bel out of there, and find a real chairman.”

Birds return to feed, gold flashing so bright it seems apart from the bird, like tossed coins falling through the dappled light.  The engine’s volume grows again in the mower’s turn towards us.  The odor of dust and hydrocarbons mixes with the sweet, sour lemonade I am sipping.  A cloud rises above the intervening ferns, like visual noise, obscuring the figure of the figure behind the mower. There’s a rattle of stones and other hard stuff against the machine. One of Daisy’s pet wombats comes out the door on to the porch.  “What is that Daisy?”

“That’s Dante.  The racket must have woken him.”  Daisy’s three wombats were sleeping in their large wooden salad bowls, each with a name engraved on an attached silver plate; Dante, Rossetti, and Gabriel.  The other two sleep on while Dante walks on slowly and settles on the floor with his nose against the screen.

“Can they read Daisy?”

“What?”  I wait for the mower to pass so Daisy can hear me, but it stops again with another sudden crack of the blade.

“Daisy, I said, can they read?”

“No, they’re wombats Fred.  What do you mean?”

“I mean I noticed they have their names on their sleeping bowls.”

“Oh right, Fred!  I put those up after they had chosen the bowls themselves.”

“How do they like salad?”

“They don’t Fred, but I found Dante sleeping in my salad bowl one morning after I had left it out on the kitchen counter. I never did put it away, and then the others also wanted to sleep in it.”  She stops, waiting for the sound of a truck revving to subside.  It must have gone into reverse. We hear shouts in Spanish between the warning beeps.  Daisy is frowning.

“I hope they have finished with that mower!”

Boyd shouts as loud as he can.  “They’ll never be finished here until we seal the border.”

I remind Boyd that not all Spanish speakers are illegals.

“Okay Boyd, enough about the Hispanics!  Fred, I was trying to tell you that I went to Ikea, and bought two more bowls so Rossetti and Gabriel could sleep comfortably without a fight over one bowl.”

“What do you use for salad now Daisy?”

“Fred she’s got a ton of other bowls in there.”

Daisy had gone inside and didn’t hear my question.  She reappears with more iced tea.  “Boyd, I like Bel.  She’s been doing a good job too.”

“Daisy, who said she’s doing such a good job?  Rossetti?  You’ve been fooled by all the socialist bullshit they talk around here.  You know Fred, this is one good woman, and she’s been taken for a ride for years by these people.”

“Oh come on Boyd honey.”

“You have.  The whole big government thing takes you in.  The big daddy who’s going to protect us all, until he’s taken all our money in taxes, and all our freedoms with it.”

“I don’t see what’s wrong with the government helping unfortunate people.”

“What’s wrong is that it is the community’s job to look after its own.  Not some over-paid clown in Washington spending my tax money.”

“Do you think Fauxmont could take on such a job?  I mean where would the funding come from?”

“Fred, you don’t need funds when you got people who are organized to take care of themselves.”

“So you think it could be done by volunteers?”

“Yeah, maybe, partly, but mainly the “unfortunates” as my sweety likes to call them, need to do something for themselves.”

“Boyd, where do you get all these ideas?”

“All you’ve got to do is think about it honey.  Government is basically evil.  It is …”

Daisy was about to sit down after handing me a drink, but she strode toward Boyd’s wicker armchair and grabbed both his hands, interrupting him by repeating “Evil!  Evil! Evil Evil Evil kneavel!” so close to his face they rub noses.  She draws back laughing.”  Boyd pulls her on to his lap where she lands with her legs up over the arm an of chair, one of her arms around his neck and the other tangled in his.

“Seriously Fred.  Think about it.  We all know power corrupts and absolute power …”  Daisy interrupts again as she is trying to get up from Boyd’s lap.         “ … corrupts absolutely”.

Her voice distorts as she rolls off his lap and unfolds on the floor bumping her head.  They are both laughing and I laugh with them.  Boyd is still determined to make his point.  “The more taxes they raise, the more power they have, the less we have.  The bigger the bureaucracy gets, the more inefficient government gets, and the more wasteful, corrupt and self serving.”

Daisy looks up at Boyd from the floor.  She lies on her back playfully waving her arms and legs in the air.  She addresses the ceiling, “Professor Boyd, I am listening honey, but come on.”

“No I am not rolling on the carpet with you.  I got to educate Fred here.”  Dante has walked over to sniff Daisy’s ear.

“Our government isn’t evil Boyd.”  She stifles some more giggles as Boyd prods her with his bare toes.

“Daisy you’re acting like a cicada down there.” Dante jumps at his foot but he moves it away in time.

“Well you are going on and on like a cicada in woven wicker tree.”

Hoping to change the subject, I ask, “the seventeen year cicadas were here in 04, so who is making all the racket now?”

“Seventeen years, isn’t that about how long Bel has been in the chair?”

Daisy gets up from the floor and sits opposite Boyd, pulling her chair up so close they press their knees together.  Three goldfinches fly off the feeding tube which swings empty.  The mower starts up again but sounds muffled.  It is on the other side of the house.

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.

Boom chic chic … Boom chic chic … sounds like a dance band.  A small couple are stepping in time to a jingle, waltzing in a big empty room with a shiny hard wood floor.  I watch their tiny legs moving; legs only about as big as their teeth looked just now, when their smiles first filled the screen.

“Waltz through life with windows by De Hooch” says the commentary.  I am curious to see whether they will grow bigger or smaller in the next instant.  A woman’s voice comes over the fading sound of the jingle.

“These windows are designed to stay clean”.  Is this the voice of the dancer?  A chorus sings in the background “Created by De Hooch to stay clean”  with a long sustained note on the word clean.

The dancers have stopped.  Her face grows gradually larger as the chorus sings more of the jingle about clean windows by De Hooch, the sound rising gradually until her face fills the screen and the volume is loudest.

She seems to be the same tiny woman in a white turtleneck who was dancing just now. She has stopped growing and she speaks. The screen is filled with her fresh clean face. I can see her as an animated portrait bust, framed by the TV.  Short light brown hair curls forward informally over her brow.  How friendly she looks!  Her eyes are bright blue and moist.

Her shiny pink lips move distinctly with each word.  Now she has finished speaking, the woman is growing smaller again and I can see her standing looking towards a man, appearing magically in the background on an upbeat in the music.  It is her dancing partner looking at her with his warm smile.  He moves towards her until he is close to her, instead of resuming the dance he looks adoringly at her.  A voice says “At home with windows by De Hooch.”

Then he and the woman keep shrinking and growing, and partially appearing and disappearing, framed by different kinds of windows accompanied by the waltz string music without vocals.

Now the jingle tells me that everything will look better through his windows.  Are they his windows not hers?

They are Peter De Hooch’s windows.  The dancers have gone.  Peter owns the company.   He too looks handsome with silvery hair, perfectly aligned teeth in his smile, a strong jaw. His small blue eyes shine from his tanned face.  After a moment’s distraction I see Peter is diminishing.  The man and woman are waltzing away from Peter, and he gets smaller as they move through their big bright house disappearing into the garden.

Now Peter is back, framed by a window.

“These windows keep out harmful ultraviolet rays with such transparency you could admire a painting through them.”

He says in an enthusiastic voice, pitched to sound more sympathetic than authoritative. There is another flicker on the screen, or perhaps I blinked.  No it is not really Peter, it is a painting of Peter.

Peter has gone again.  The painting is gone.  A female voice says in welcoming tones “It is as light as day in our new living room”.  I think it is the dancer’s voice but there is no way to really tell.

The male dancer returns to the screen to hug the cheerful looking woman who reappeared opening the glass door and passing through it.  As the waltz music swells, the image of a golden retriever in the garden beyond the door grows to fill the screen.  The dog barks, but looks friendly, wagging its tail and panting, showing its teeth as harmlessly as Peter de Hooch showed his when he smiled.  The dog slowly grows smaller.  The couple comes back into to view getting larger as the dog gets smaller and disappears.

Now all I notice are their rows of gleaming teeth and their eyes, filling the whole screen.  As suddenly as the couple grew, they shrink again, waltzing across the shiny floor framed by one of Peter’s windows.

I get up from my chair.

My old friend Alice remarks on how annoying she finds commercials interrupting the news on TV.

The news is back.

“That was the chairman of the select committee on Aesthetic Crime, Congressman Lee Leavenworth Knox outside the hearing rooms this evening, after the third session of these hearings to clean up America.  Presented to you live by De Hooch’s windows.”  Says the newsman whose picture is gone in a flicker.

I can hear the theme from that famous Lutheran Hymn, “A mighty Fortress is Our God.”

Or is it?  Well, I am hearing something very much like it.  Was that the news?  There is a picture of Lee Leavenworth Knox.  His serious face fills the screen with battleship gray hair combed back in a bow wave above a square face.  His bushy graying eyebrows arching on his brow could be comic, but the Congressman is in a somber mood.

“We need to clean up America” he says as if he wishes it weren’t necessary, like having to do the kitchen after a party when you would rather sleep.

“As the Congressman marches down the narrow streets of this small town in upstate New York the country wonders about the progress of his hearing in Washington” says the sententious news voice, somehow speaking for all of us in the country.

We can see the banner of Knox’s “Clean Up America” (CUPA) movement carried down a narrow street in a parade.  A male voice talks from the street about cleaning up America in authoritative tones.  “That was our correspondent reporting from the town of Dyspeptic New York.  Stay tuned for the interview” the news voice tells us.  I can’t hear who is reporting.

The scene changes.  Knox is being interviewed:

“Are you going to pull down the Washington Monument?”

“I do not regard it as an aesthetic crime.”

“Congressman, what is your position on a replacement design?”

“We shall hear from all sides about aesthetic crimes in America.  That is the purpose of these hearings.”

“Do you think the Washington Monument is an aesthetic crime?”

“No I do not.”

“Okay, let’s put it another way, do you think the design or construction is or was an aesthetic crime?”

“As I said before, I do not. That is a question the committee is exploring and it would not be fitting for me to comment further at this time.”

“What is an aesthetic crime?”

“It is an offence against the good sense of Americans.”

“What do you mean by ‘good sense,’ Congressman?”

“I think that is plain to the American people.”

“Which Americans Congressman?”

“The majority of American voters.”

“Congressman, we are just about out of time.  One last question: What law does aesthetic crime fall under?”

“It falls under God’s law.”

The interview is over and teeth are back on screen along with the bright eyes of the smiling couple in a De Hooch window.

I go back in the kitchen again to get a beer and can hear the Waltz and jingle from the other room and get back in time to watch a crowd dispersing on the street outside the hearing rooms on Capitol Hill.

Now the commentator is reporting from the street looking down from Jenkins Hill, amidst the mixed evening lights.  Orange brake lights flash on and off against the constant white headlights of oncoming traffic moving slowly along Pensylvania Avenue below.  The evening’s remaining light filters through low cloud filling the background.  “That was Lee Leavenworth Knox fighting aesthetic crime in Washington,” says the commentator.

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 has cleared out her attic since the branch fell on her roof and the ceiling caved in.  She offers me a look at what she retrieved from her collection of clippings and old magazines.  There’s a carton on the dining table with a stack of old magazines next to it.

“I only take it for the pictures”, feigns Diddlie, as she hands me an open copy of “Shrink Wrap Magazine” from the top of the stack.  “Here sit down at the table.”  She remains standing and turns over the page picturing a very substantial male member.

“Oh wait, this came last week.”  She walks across the room and returns, handing me the latest edition, a lot thinner than the old ones.  “You can subscribe to the website but I still like paper.”

She points out Foulton Furey’s article about Armond Macadamia, the financial wizard, on the front page.  I have to admit that I have never seen Shrink Wrap Magazine before, or the website.

“Shrink Wrap isn’t on the rack at the drug store or anything. See that!” She points out an article.  “Armond is probably one of the richest guys in the world.  I mean billions, yet he spends part of every year here in Fauxmont.”

“Which house”?

“Oh you can’t see it from the street.  He’s got a double lot and the front yard is full of hollies and cedars.  It’s all hidden.  Armond has investments all over the place.  I heard he’s funding a big building for the business school out at P.U. and he’s way in deep with that secret company.”

“Do you mean Princeton University?”

“No, not that, P.U., Prestige University, where they had the bug incident.”

“Yeah, there’s no ivy growing there. What secret company?”

”Oh Fibernasty or something.  You know, Lou sold his business to them.”

“Are you thinking of Fibonacci Corporation?”

“Yeah, Lou calls it ‘the Fib’.”

“Do they fib Diddlie?”

“They do public relations.  What do you think?”

“They call it ‘Communications Strategy’ in the PR world.”

“Like war… Yeah right, military terminology … as in an Advertising ‘Campaign’.  Tells you something doesn’t it? God! what creeps!”

“You ever met Armond?

“Sure.”

“You seem to know a lot about this secret company!”

“Not really, but word gets around among friends.  It isn’t known much outside of here.  I think they’re dangerous.”

“Do you?”

“They do a lot of propaganda, undermining governments and that.”

“What governments?”

“I don’t know exactly, but I think they secretly support political parties overseas and influence elections right here.  It’s all for the big corporations, so they can go on with their rip-offs.”

“Sounds like CIA stuff.”

“Yeah! What’s the difference?  I mean they have contracts and hire people from there all the time and pay them a fortune.”

“How do you know?”

“I know people, hear stuff … and read Shrink Wrap.  That’s a great source.”

“But is their stuff true?”

“It’s mainly true, I think.”

“People who leak that kind of information usually have an axe to grind, or they may be deliberately given info as part of an operation.”

“Maybe, maybe not … how can I tell? I just hope the reporter can figure it out.  That’s what Lark started it for, to get the inside dope!”

“It is hard to know what to believe.”

“It’s not just governments, the CIA, or the Chinese … there’s secret people doing secret stuff together all over the place to make money.”

“So what’s so secret about the Fib?”

“I mean have you ever heard of them on TV?”

“No, it was all news to me when Lou told me about selling up.”

“I think Rank Majors works there too, but he’ll never tell you anything about

what he does.”

“Has he told you he works there?”

“No, no he wouldn’t do that.  Rank’s pretty quiet.  I just heard stuff, you know.”

I notice Shrink Wrap’s subtitle printed across the top of the cover in large yellow and orange letters resembling the texture of crinkled plastic-wrap:

“The magazine of sex, investigation, politics and opinion”

“What could be spicier?  Here, take this stack.”  Seeing my interest is growing, she slides the stack of about thirty issues across the table to my elbow.  “Thanks Diddlie.”  Turning the magazine over, I read the bottom of the page where it says in bold type:

“We Fight on Both Fronts.”

The back is designed to look like a front cover too, except it is upside-down. Diddlie looks over my shoulder as I sit at her table reading.

“See, it has no back.  It’s front to back, the beginning is the end and the end is the beginning.”

One front pictures the female bosom, the other shows off manly ‘pecs’.  At the top and bottom of each page they recommend that readers “keep turning things over…” The two ‘fighting fronts’ meet, stapled down the centerfold of the middle page, which features Mars and Venus fighting out their cosmic differences in a tabloid universe.  Male and female correspondents write out their complaints against each other, which are printed in red ink on narrow columns down each side of the page while the middle wider column carries investigative reports in blue ink.  Shrink Wrap mixes imagery of the male and the female, with short articles on sensational themes.  It is where Grant Gazburg the conservative columnist, started his famous byline “Today’s Rushes”.

“We are living the movie of our times” says Grant Gazburg in his byline, “and I am reporting the first take on it.”  One of his earliest scoops was to skewer Boris Tarantula’s bogus Dracula story.  Foulton Furey writes from the other side, discrediting the greedy and the selfish and refers to Grant’s column as the ‘Bull Rushes from Life’s Swamp’.”

Lost in this backwater of the media maelstrom, one might not know that Grant refers to Furey as ‘Furious the Fool’.  Grant’s fame on radio is now so great that poor Fulton is no real competition.  Being little known beyond his Shrink Wrap readership, Fulton’s humiliation is that much diminished.

Looking through selections from her magazine collection, I find Boris’s mother, Osiris Tarantula, had predicted his success in an interview for the Herald Tribune, quoted by Shrink Wrap.

This was part of the publicity surrounding his apparent defection from Transilvania.  Osiris is quoted as saying ‘Boris will do well in the West.  He has inherited the family’s talent for business.’

Osiris left out his true gift for public relations.  Mrs. Tarantula reportedly owns boutiques in Paris and Milan.

“New York is my son’s turf” she said when asked if she would be opening in America too.  There is no word about Osiris’s earlier defection nor is there anything about Boris’s father.  Judging from Diddlies’s archive, Boris’s career has been reported in fragments here and there.  Osiris seems to have been in Paris for some time before she appeared with her son at the Paris press conference years ago.  Diddlie says she has a picture of Osiris in the crowd at a Dior fashion show well before Boris came on the scene.

Boris’s earlier work was described as ‘little more than welded rust’ by hostile critics in the 90s.  While more discerning art lovers find merit in his innovative use of I-beams, re-bars, rust and advertising space.

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.

Herman is concerned about his son, after hearing about his provocations at the Guild Meeting.  Herman Intaglio’s son Albrecht is 23 and has been living with his parents for most of the year. He has quit Tenniel’s Art and Frame shop.  He went to art school for a while but didn’t get a degree.  He worked for the Plancks on and off, and he didn’t work at all for long periods.  He moved in with a girl, and when that broke up, he moved back home.

He also worked at the local Seven Eleven for a few months, after that Herman thought he was working for the online music service called “Prime Numbers” but his wife Dona says that never really happened.  He was just downloading a lot.

Herman had told me that much before.  I am listening to Herman as he chats with Lark Bunlush outside the door on the corner of the Cavendish Pie Shop. Dona has gone in the shop for coffees.

“Did he find God, or did God find him?”  He laughs, Lark looks puzzled and Herman goes on, “If God found him there is hope, but if he found God, this relationship may not last any longer than his others. Now he says he is a full time activist with C.U.P.A.”

Lark nods slowly, looking at Herman and asks him why Albrecht doesn’t work with the Plancks any more.

“I don’t know.  He helped me move the etching press this morning.  I have been working on some plates by the way, but I couldn’t really get much out of him.”

“You talking about those sheets of copper you were cutting the other day?”

“Yup”

“Are you going to show?”

“Well, I am doing some dry point now.  Not etching, no acid, no fumes either, just pressing the stylus into the metal, and printing.  Yeah, one day I’ll show ‘em.”

Albrecht’s father, Herman, returns to the question of where his son has suddenly found all his fanatical zeal.  Albrecht’s mother is convinced a retreat in Idaho sponsored by Citizens to Clean up America had ‘set him off’.  “I was happy for him when he left, but now… well, this shocks me.  I’m disappointed too in the way he behaved at the Guild meeting. Herman says he can only hope Albrecht will get over it before using his new gun. His wife Dona comes out of the shop with two coffees.

“Are you talking about the gun?  Lark can you explain why is he carrying that thing?”

“I can’t explain it. I’m opposed to people carrying weapons around here.”

“He was unarmed when he took off and as full of confidence as I ever saw him, but now…” Herman scratches the back of his neck, looking down pressing his chin against his throat until his half-shaved jowls bulge and finally mutters

“He told me it was the only guarantee of liberty left to patriotic Americans,”

“So there’s your answer Dona,” said Lark.

“What do you mean?”

“Dona, he has told you Albrecht’s reason for carrying the gun.”

Dona gives a cup of coffee to Herman. She and Herman sip in silence until she breaks out, as from a prison, “It doesn’t make sense.”

“At least he has found something to do,”

Dona looks at Lark and clasps her wrist, “Lark, my son has turned into a thug,”

Herman let out the words “Oh God” as if in pain.  Dona looks off towards some crows gathering in the trees across the road.  Herman sighs into the conversational lull, which extends it further.  A jet whistles over in a descending tone, adding its own sigh and banking steeply into the sun on its approach.  Lark squints at it, following its turn until she has to shade her eyes.  “Herman the way I see it, if your son is working for CUPA then he has found some direction.  Look of it that way.”

Herman lifts his chin from his throat.  “Lark you’ve been looking into the sun.”

They all laugh. Then Herman’s concern weighs on him.

“What has he found though?  Clean Up America?  I object to a lot of the same stuff they object to, but I am worried about those people.”

“Throw him out now Herman!” laughed Lark.  “Let him find trouble on his own.”

“Those people are fanatics in my opinion.  Besides I am not going to throw my son out of our home.”

“Herman you’re just a hard headed Liberal!”

“I am a progressive if you please.  Home is home and that’s my greatest family value.”

“Family what?”

“Value!”  Lark grabs his arm and puts it around her waist, tossing her hair and

laughing, she presses her cheek against his.  “Lark are you flirting

with my man again?”

“I am Dona, I am!” We are standing next to some tables and chairs arranged under the awning outside.

Dona, puts her cup down on one of the tables and pulls on Herman’s other arm.  Herman pulls his wife close, “He’s my man.” Lark breaks away, to emphasise her point.

“It’s such a fascist, totalitarian idea, ‘Clean up America’.  All those who disagree are dirt or something.  That’s the implication.”

“Lark, I don’t know about being fascist, but they are fanatics.”

“What do you mean fanatic?”

“I mean they are extremists, not interested in listening to reasonable objections.”

Herman objects, “politics isn’t reasonable.  It is about power and persuasion.”

“The implication is clear.  Dirt should be swept away.  They have no respect for argument.”

“Wait”, Dona waves her arm at the others as if to flag down the conversation. “Look, we can disagree on principles without carrying weapons and becoming mortal enemies.” She pulls out chair to sit at a table and then another.  “Why don’t you sit down Lark?

“No, I am in line, but right, that’s the whole idea of our system.”

Herman pulls up another chair and sits next to Dona, loking up at Lark. “Yes some people can argue reasonably, but not them.”

“Don’t you think it is just rhetorical heat Lark?”

“No, I think it may start that way, but it can easily become more than that.” says Lark losing her place in line but still not sitting down in the vacant chair.

Dona closes both hands around her coffee paper cup slowly distorting it into an oval taking great care not to spill any, “Okay it could be more than that, but is it?”

Herman explains that CUPA tells its membership what they want to hear.  Strong words attract media attention and that’s what CUPA needs.

“How do you tell it’s just heat?  Do they need to be storm troopers?”

“Come on Lark,” said Herman.

“I am serious.”

“What are you proposing, Lark?  A Spartacus movement?” asks Herman.

“No, and I am not trying to be Rosa Luxemburg,” Lark goes on.  “I am just saying watch carefully.”

Dona lifts her cup as if to sip, but hesitates, breaking in, speaking across the top of her cup,“Are you talking about Rome?”

“No they used the gladiator’s name, but this movement was in Weimar Germany.” said Lark. Herman gulps some coffee and leans forward.

“You mean the Commies.  Don’t lump me in with them.”

“Okay” said Lark.  “So Albrecht has joined CUPA.  Don’t worry.  It’s not personal. Feeling the way you do, doesn’t make you a Commie.  In fact I’d like to talk to him.  It’s been years.”

Dona looks at Herman who is looking at Lark and Lark breaks another uneasy silence.  ”Is something wrong?”

“No,” said Dona and Herman together, and Dona goes on.  “He’s probably home right now.  You want to come over?”  Lark is preoccupied, looking across the street towards Fauxmont behind the tall trunks of oaks and hickories and some small cypresses further up the gentle slope from the road.  There is someone standing under the huge southern red oak by the bus stop.

“Isn’t that Boyd Nightingale?” said Herman following her gaze.  A bus pulls up, red, with dark windows, the engine rumbling, under a higher hollow throaty roar.   The driver leans out of his window to greet a motorcyclist pulled up next to him.  We can’t see who gets on or off on the other side.  “Did you see that?”

“What?” asked Dona.

“That kiss!  Who is my son kissing?”

“I only saw one person and that was Boyd.”

“No, look Dona, there goes Daisy up the path, there.  See.”

“Herman that’s not Daisy.”

“It’s her, Lark.  She’s all arms and legs.  Couldn’t be any one else.”

“What is my son doing with Daisy Briscoe?”

“I don’t see anyone Lark.”

“No, she’s gone behind those evergreens.”

“Lark you might as well walk back with us and talk to Albrecht.

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.

“Say there, I’ve been looking for you!”

“Oh?  I’ve been around.”

“Haven’t seen a new post on your blog for over two months.”

“No my editor was away, and it’s time to reassess anyway.”

“Didn’t know you had an editor.”

“It is a friend who has taken an interest, and knows how to spell.”

“So what are you reassessing?”

“There are about sixty four characters in Fauxmont so far, including a cat, two dogs and three wombats.”

“I told you there were too many characters before, like weeds in my yard.”

“So you did.  Also I need to catch up after spending last summer and fall lying around waiting for my back to heal.”

“You did that in 2009 according to the introduction.”

“Yes, too much strenuous gardening two springs in a row.”

“But you said that this whole thing came to you while you were recovering the first time.”

“This time I left Fauxmont completely.”

“Why?”

“It’s hard to say, distracted by the pain perhaps.”

“Where does that leave me?”

“You are where you are.”

“You mean the whole of Fauxmont comes to a grinding halt just because your back hurts?”

“No, what is going on keeps going on.”

“How can anything new happen if you don’t write it?”

“Fauxmont extends far beyond the blog posts.”

“Listen, I’m just so many pixels, computer bits, what ever, until a reader comes along, right?”

“The postings are just glimpses of something larger, infinitely larger!”

“Are you feeling better now?”

“Yes thanks.”

“‘Infinitely larger’?  Who do you think you are?  You don’t make sense. You sound feverish to me.”

Diddlie is carrying her groceries back from the nearby Safeway in a reusable shopping bag, with a thick bundle of golden rod spilling over the top.  She starts looking for something in the bag.  We are standing under the hickories opposite the Trips’ at the intersection of Wicket and Oval Streets.  Ivy and Wisteria are climbing the trunks thicker than ever in the wet spring.

“Are you looking for some medicine for my fever?”

“I keep wondering why you write fiction anyway when so many of us are writing on line for real?”

“I am interested in telling this story.”

“Some people assume new identities on line.  So could you.  Wouldn’t that be more like it?”

“Like what?”

“I mean a new kind of on-line novel where there’s often no way to tell who’s writing it, or the difference between fake names and real names.  Readers could write you their ideas.  You could fool lot of people, and ….”  Diddlie pauses and looks down at her bag again, switching hands.  Holding it in her left hand she reaches in, trying to find something.

“I am not trying to fool anyone Diddlie.  Fauxmont is categorized as fiction on the web.”

“Yeah right, so I am a fiction.  Okay we’ve been here before.”

“No, no, think of this, Diddlie.  On-line is instant publication not like old fashioned novels on paper where you have to wait for editors and printers and booksellers to get the book out there.”

“Look, writing fiction is fooling people into thinking stuff that isn’t real, isn’t it?

What is the difference?”

“No one is fooled by fiction, they just go along for the ride.”

Diddlie pulls a book out of her bag and gestures with it in her hand.  “You think novels are outdated?”

“No, far from it.  The net is a new medium.  Movies are like novels in many ways, but don’t replace them.”

“Movies are more like plays.  They have scripts and actors.”

“Novels have narrators.  In movies, the pictures carry you along like a narrator’s voice.”

Diddlie has put the book back in her bag, and holding the bag in front of her with both hands she says, “Yeah!  They do the imagining for you!”

“Well, you don’t have to visualize as you do when reading.”

”On the internet we can be our own narrator and actor, and even video maker, and producer.”

“So Diddlie, do you think movies are obsolete?”

“No, that will never happen.  Why don’t you do videos too?”

“Not interested.  Anyway, I don’t think the Internet has killed off novels any more than movies have.”

Diddlie steps forward to make her point in a confidential tone.  “Who wants to read about some one else’s invented worlds, when we already live in our own internet world together with friends, or any one out there?”

“You do.  You just bought a book.”

Diddlie steps back.  “This is different.”

“I think you’re right.  You might say we create a world writing on the internet.”

“You might.  I wouldn’t say that.  What do you mean?”

“I mean writing is turning thoughts into words.  It is like inventing something.”

“Well, I still read novels at the beach.”  Diddlie pulled out her book again.  “See, I got a nice romance here.”

“Okay so that’s an escape, but a good novel can tell you something about the real world.”

“I know, this writer really takes you there.”

“How?”

“You get into the emotions of the characters.  Then escape to a happier place.”

“What about the circumstances?”

“What about them? Sometimes it’s a real pain.”

“I mean a novel can tell you something interesting about experience as well as taking you into it.  It isn’t just ‘escape reading’ though it is an imaginary encounter.”

“Well maybe, but who has time to read that old stuff?”

“You can find the time if you want to.”

”It’s more fun to watch a movie or TV!  It’s like who writes letters any more now there’s email?”

“Okay, so old novels can be long and difficult, partly a narrator’s story but also like a play with the author’s cast acting in the reader’s imagination.”

“When I read, it’s like enjoying a movie in my mind.”

“Even if you are on the beach?”

“Sure, the beach is an escape too.  Maybe you don’t get it.  You are writing like an old fashioned novelist, and you need to get my character right.  Like I keep telling you – younger!”

“Unlike traditional narratives, it is all in the present tense.”

“So what?  How does that make me younger?”

“It doesn’t.  It isn’t a story the narrator recalls.  It’s more like a reporter’s work.”

“You aren’t a novelist. You’re a journalist.  No, no, wait a minute, you are a voyeur imagining you’re a journalist.”

“I am not a voyeur.  I am talking to you now.  Fauxmont is happening to the reporter on line now.”

“You are so mixed up!  We are talking about Fauxmont, your imaginary place.  This is different from your imaginary place.  This is me.”

“Okay, this is a separate story of Fauxmont in its own time.”

“Its own time?  I know mine is running out!”

“Yes, when we talk about writing Fauxmont now, no one else is in it.”

”Now, what do you mean ‘now’ anyway?  People don’t read your blog while things actually happen.”

“No I am talking about the reader’s now, not the writer’s now.”

“You mean it is ‘now’ even if I read it next year?”

“Yes.”

“You haven’t posted anything for nearly three months.  Where’s the ‘now’ in that?”

“Right, it’s taking a long time to write new material.  A lot of what I’ve posted was written a year ago or more.”

“So when are you going to post another report?”

“Soon, but it will only be once or twice a month, not every week.  I need more time for work.”

A moving van approaches us slowly like a huge shoebox.  The wide square top hits low hanging branches which catch for a moment against the front and then whip back as the truck moves forward.  Squirrels chase each other across the street in the branches overhead.  A leafy twig falls on Diddlie’s shoulder.  “Yuk!  I’ve got to get home.”  She starts shaking her head and tries to brush something out with her fingers.  “There’s something in my hair.  Now it feels like it’s down my shirt.”  She walks away.  The truck doesn’t take long to pass but there’s no sign of Diddlie when I look up the hill for her.

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.

“Hank, I’ll bet this is Helga’s potato salad,” Rank Majors speaks through coated lips.
 “It is, Rank – but listen folks I need to talk about Albrecht Intaglio, confidentially of course.  I have never seen anyone behave like that around here.  This is not an official meeting I know, but we neighbors must talk.”  He speaks quietly in a matter of fact tone, and pauses while twigs and leaves from an old squirrel’s nest rain down on our heads, into the food and clang on the metal pot lid.  Wind sweeps dry leaves and falling twigs into the fire, which crackles as if laughing at the squirrels’ ludic leaps among the boughs above.  He goes on, “I mean we can’t have another meeting with that disrespectful little brat throwing his weight around.”

Rank Majors remarks on Albrecht’s side arm, at which Diddlie yells “Albrecht must be out of his mind” and fills her mouth with venison.

“Far from it” said Lou.  “He and Boyd Nightingale have seen the light.”

“What light is that?”

“Daisy, these young men, like so many others before them, think they must change the world.”

Rank Majors takes a moment to wipe his mouth with care. “This is kind of an out of the way place to start that project.”

Rank thinks Albrecht and Boyd are two lost souls. He describes Albrecht as a “Mome.”  He has known them for twenty years.  His own kids grew up with them in the neighborhood.  He is surprised to see Albrecht walking along Wicket Street with Boyd Nightingale as he doesn’t think they have much in common.

“Yes I saw Boyd last week.”  Rossetti stirs under the tea cozy at the sound of Daisy’s voice.  “He was all dressed up in a business suit, with a buzz cut, brief case and sun glasses.  It’s his new look.”

“I heard that Boyd was camped out in Ash’s old lot next door to Dr. Wittgenstein’s.  Haven’t seen either of them around much lately.”

Mr. Ramsey looks at Daisy, offering her the diminishing plate of venison. “Diddlie, it’s the Clean Up America thing.”

“They have joined the fold and Albrecht was right.  The other night, we didn’t vote on the last motion to adjourn.”

“Lou, that’s because we were all in a state of shock.”  Diddlie passes the venison to Daisy who puts it down without taking any more, remarking that she loved the subtle tones of gun mettle blue even if it is on a deadly weapon.  “I find guns kind of fascinating.  He had it out of that strap and Velcro thing to clean and showed me how to load the chambers of the revolver.”

“We had better clean up our act.”

“For that little squirt Lou?”

“No not for him, for ourselves.”

“He’s not dangerous Lou.  I’ve been talking to him ever since he got back from Idaho.  We shared a taxi back from the airport after my Denver trip”

“You should have been at the meeting Daisy”

“I know.  Sorry I missed it.”

Hank Dumpty throws a piece of bone across the yard.“  I don’t like being pushed around like that.  It’s bad for my blood pressure, well I mean I got to tell you, I felt like disarming that kid, and … “

“I am glad you didn’t.  He knows his rights, and he is shrewd.  He has learned well.”

“Taught by whom Lou?”  Diddlie’s question is hard to hear as another gust of wind blows the leaf out of Hank’s hair.

“I’ve been to hundreds of meetings around here.  We all have known each other long enough to tell.  I mean we don’t have to be so formal and all that.  Everyone has always had their say.  I don’t see what the problem is.”

Mr. Ramsay points out that the community meetings do need formal structure, if we are to be a community of lawful citizens.  It will prevent us degenerating into a rabble.”  Lou is looking at Hank Dumpty and chuckles, waving a clean rib in his hand.  “Even a friendly rabble”

Hank Dumpty wants to nominate Mr. Ramsay to run against Bel and Boyd for the chairman’s position.  A helicopter comes over low and loud drowning out all conversation.  Rossetti grows restless in his tea cozy and I see his furry tail for a moment.  More squirrel’s nest fragments fall on the table.  Some fall in the salad.  Three squirrels chase each other across the overhanging branches and one comes down on the bird feeder.  “No way,” looking up at the squirrels.  “That just plays into his trigger-happy fingers.”

Daisy raises her arms in applause, at Diddlie’s remark.  “Let’s hear it for Mr. R.” then puts her hand down to stroke Rossetti who may be getting interested in the squirrels.

Lou tells Hank Dumpty he must make that proposal when the committee reconvenes.

“Look we are all friends here.  It’s just an idea.  Bel hasn’t been up against guns before.”  He is interrupted by more squirrels’ nest fragments falling around him, in his hair, in his plate and down his back.  “She has been dealing with reasonable people who listen and argue and maybe get mad once in a while, but so what. There’s no guns in it.”  Hank tries to reach back and shake the bits out of his collar, but they fall down inside his shirt.  He wriggles uncomfortably.

“Okay Hank, I hear that, but as you said this is not a meeting.”

Mr. Ramsey accepted another plate of venison and salad, congratulating Hank on his cuisine and his aim with a rifle.

Hank leans forward with both elbows spread out wide on the table, and his hands folded in front of him.  “If it comes to guns I can play that game too.  I know all about them.  I have been a Republican and a gun owner all my adult life and that kid is not going to reduce the number of voters with bullets.  No!”

“Oh Hank! Sweetie you are too upset.”  Daisy gets up leaving Rossetti to himself, and embraces Hank, standing behind his seated bulk and spreading her long wooly arms across his back, filling her hands with his elbows and placing her head against the back of his neck.  This bumps her bowler off.  It blows towards the fireplace.  A cloud of dead leaves surround it like a swarm of ragged insects.  The wind gets under her bowler and it tumbles across the patio bouncing into the air from its brim and lands upside down against the brickwork next to the embers in the grill.  Her hair blows around Hank’s head and into his face.

Mr. Ramsay shifts his weight, and smoothes his hair with both hands “There’s no knowing what it will come to.  Did he threaten you Hank Dumpty?”  He ignores Daisy and the distraction of the wind blowing Daisy’s hair in Hank Dumpty’s face.

“He sure did.”

“Diddlie, I don’t think it was an outright threat to kill anyone.”

“I felt threatened, Lou.”  Hank Dumpty is still speaking through Daisy’s black hair and making no effort to dislodge her from his back.  He blows some hair from his lips.  “I wish I had disarmed that kid then and there.”  Daisy remains in place mumbling Hanky oh Hanky.”

“No, no, no, your restraint was appropriate.  He said the number of liberal voters would be reduced, or something like that, if he used his gun.  Not that he would use it.  He stated a fact, he didn’t make a threat.”

Rank drains his beer before speaking “Lou, he stated it in a clever way that made it sound like a threat without being one.  How did he get so clever all of a sudden?  That’s what I want to know.”

“He’s always been smart, Juanita used to remark on how clever he was when she looked after him during Donatella’s trips to Europe.  He’s got two intelligent parents.  He ought to be smart.”   Hank Dumpty quietly asks Daisy to release him as Diddlie speaks.  Forgetting her hat, she pulls some leaf fragments out of his hair and moves back next to Diddlie and Rossetti.  Diddlie warns Daisy that her hat is about to blow in the fire.  An Irish Wolf hound trots onto the patio, picks up the hat and runs off.  Mr. Ramsay stands up and calls the dog.  I can’t hear the name.  The dog comes to him, sits down and exchanges deer bone for the hat.  Daisy walks over and Mr. Ramsay hands her the bowler pointing out the glistening drool stretching into a sunbeam from one side.  “Oh viscous drool!” exclaims Daisy, petting the dog and addressing it as if that were its name.  She wipes the drool off her hat with leaves and puts the hat back on.  The dog licks its bone quietly, lying on the ground by Mr. Ramsay’s feet.

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.

The first person I meet at Hank Dumpty’s barbeque is Mr.Ramsay, introduced by Diddlie, who calls everyone else by their first name.  The Ramsays own the Light House Gas Station on Maxwell Avenue.  He has lived in Fauxmont all his life, and was a founding member of the Water Organization.

As there were no water mains out as far as Fauxmont in the early forties when the first houses were built, Mr. Ramsay, then a teenager, and his father, James Ramsay, planned and organized the water system for the neighborhood.  Two wells served all the residents from two pump houses through a system of mains pressurized with air.  Mr. Ramsay, is widely respected, but no one seems to know him very well.  Diddlie tells me he was close to her husband, Stuart Dodgson.  When Stuart died she lost her connection with Mr. Ramsay.  He was famous for saying “We can fix it” whenever anyone called about a problem with the system.  So far, the word is, he always has.

Hank Dumpty comes over, slogging through last year’s leaves, as a gust of wind blows dry oak and gum tree leaves up from the ground to gyre around us.  It is warm in the sun under the bare trees but winter still chills the wind and shade. He greets me with his big hand, his scarred fingers are stained with barbeque sauce, and a shriveled brown oak leaf has landed in his hair, right on the wave, like a carefully placed decoration.  He suggests we join the others over by the fireplace.  We walk well away from his house where his wide brick fireplace with tall chimney stands by a patio surrounded by azaleas and forsythia.  We sit down at a long picnic bench bracing against the wind, while the fire hisses and the meat sizzles.  The nominating committee is all here.  Hank introduces me to Daisy Briscoe who had missed the committee meeting though she is on the committee.

“Daisy is an artist,” announces Diddlie, and then Mr. Ramsay calls her “The flower of Fauxmont, adding that she grows the finest lilies in the area.

Daisy waives Mr. Ramsay off with a long arm.  She seems long in many respects.  She goes on and on in response to Mr. Ramsay’s question about Dante and Gabriel.  “They don’t travel well.  I didn’t bring them.  I had them on the Acela to New York last year.  Dante chewed his way out and Gabriel pooped and peed and ruined that wool hat he travels in.  It had been my grandma’s, and she had worn it in Gstaad every season for years before the great depression ruined grandpa’s business.  Maybe a dormouse can’t be expected to travel on a high-speed train. They were both terrified when the train jolted over some switches.  They ran across the vacant seat next to me in a panic and it took half an hour to catch them again.  I mean, imagine if we had pulled into Grand Central with those two loose in the car!

“Good guy, good guy” she chirps as she rubs her finger gently into a blue and gray woolen tea cozy on the table beside her.  Rossetti is asleep in there.  “He travels short distances well” she remarks.  “I think he likes the tea cozy better than home.”  Mr. Ramsay nods, smiling at her as Rossetti sleeps in his tea cozy.

Daisy is wearing a purple turtleneck sweater, long and thick, reaching down over her hips to her thighs gloved in tight brown corduroy.  When I was introduced she stood up to give me a mock bow, holding on to the brim of her black bowler hat with a shopping list tucked in the band.  Her straight black hair hangs down from under the hat as if hair and bowler were one.  She asks if I remember her from the supermarket, gesturing towards Maxwell Avenue with long fingers.  “Yes I do.”  It was the other evening, in the early part of the storm during which Diddlie’s roof was hit by the tree limb.  We bumped our carts together trying to maneuver them through the door into the store, she with a shiny black slicker and yellow so’wester, smiling apologetically with deep red lips stretched around her big teeth.

Hank Dumpty distributes venison, beer, sauces and salad, and grins at us all.  He gets every one’s attention by looking in silence at those still talking until all conversation stops.  He sits on a smooth topped stump at the head of the table.  Before he could start Mr. Ramsay asks him how’s Helga?

“She is still up at the cabin.  I came back because I have things to do.”

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.

Shoveling last night’s light snow from the cement path outside the front door I notice Hank Dumpty towering over the garden gate, with the middle fingers of his bare hands resting on top of the gateposts.  He is wide enough to fill the opening, but hasn’t opened the gate and seems to be waiting for an invitation to come in – don’t know how long he has been watching me, but his ursine presence is not disturbing.  He has parked outside the neighbor’s, unsure which house is mine.  I go over to him and look up at his steep forehead shining in the sun.  Wiry gray curls spiral around his pate and dangle around his ears.  He has round eyes under a heavy brow, with a broad mouth, which seems on the verge of a grin.  He holds out a large scarred fat-fingered hand asking gently if I remember him from the Guild meeting.  His voice is surprisingly high.  One might expect a resonant baritone from such a large man, and he sounds hoarse too.  Even when he went off in anger at Albrecht Intaglio at the meeting, his voice didn’t embody his animus the way furious schoolteachers used to roar at their pupils.

I remember him clearly.  He was restrained given the circumstances of the meeting.  He goes on to invite me to a barbeque at his house on Bails Lane on Saturday afternoon.

“Bit early in the year isn’t it?” I asked, half joking.

“It’ll be fine on Saterday.”

“Yes anything is possible in March.”

“I’ve still got plenty of meat from last year,” he said.

“From last year?”

“Hunting season – you like game?”

I said I hadn’t eaten it much.

“If you like meat, you will enjoy this.  You already know some of the others.”  I thanked him and agreed to go.  “Glad you can make it.  It’s important.”

“Important?”  I open the gate to invite him in but he declines, by raising a hand palm out.  He goes on “Meet some interesting folks, and talk.”

“Yes I’d enjoy that.”

“You’ll get a different picture.”

“What’s that?”

“Our meeting the other night was unusual.  That’s not Fauxmont.”

“Disagreement and dispute can be stimulating Hank.  Don’t want you to think I was too offended by Albrecht.”

“I was offended.  That’s no way to do business.”

“He’ll learn.”

“He can do a lot of damage.”

“Do you think he might use that revolver?”

“It’s not the weapon.”

“What then?”

“He has a right to carry it, but he’s a damn fool bringing it to the meeting.”

“I found it provocative.”

“Once he’s broken it we shan’t get this thing back together again.”

“Broken what Hank?”

“The Guild”

“The discussion you mean?”

“There’s no place for weapons – strictly verbal.”

“Oh, Roberts rules of order and so one.”

“I mean serious disagreement.”

“Albrecht’s disagreement?”

“Any disagreement. He doesn’t know how to handle it.”

“He’s young and hot headed.”

“I’ve known him a while.”

“Albrecht grew up here didn’t he?”

“He did, and he’s a fanatic.”

“How does one deal with fanatics?”

“That’s it.”

“You think he might take over the Guild?”

“Not a chance.”

“No one would vote for him or Boyd I guess.”

“We need the Guild to contain our disagreements.”

“Contain our disagreements?”

“Yeah, the Guild – it’s a handling mechanism for containing disagreement.”

“Yes, and find agreement too.”

“It’s based on respect.”

“Fanatics seldom have respect for institutions.“

“Respect prevents disagreement from growing destructive.”

“Yeah, there a chance to learn something too.”

“If you’re capable.”

“Capable of learning?”

“Capable of listening”

“Its important to make the effort.”

“People tend to hear what they want to hear.”

“Oh and fail to understand others people’s views.”

“Sometimes they don’t make sense.”

“But we should try, don’t you think?”

“Understanding is different from agreeing.”

“Yes it is.”  Hank shifted his weight and paused before saying “Extremists’ win where there’s no respect.”

“… and the Guild works quietly and slowly.”

“It isn’t necessarily quiet or slow.”

“No but it takes time to work through every one’s views.”

“The result can be fast acting.”

“You’re concerned about the deliberative process right?”

“The lack of respect.”

“Oh you mean CUPA.”

“I mean that individual. I don’t know about CUPA.”

“The Campaign to Clean up America.”

“Yeah, ‘clean up’?  What’s that?”

“A slogan to get people’s attention.”

“Excited huh?”

“To get viewer’s attention on TV.  That’s where the profit is.”

“It’s a lot of noise.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning what ever you want it to mean.”

“That’s the thing about slogans.”

“TV shows – they’re killing us.”

“Slogans repeated like commercials on TV.”

“Don’t watch it.”

“Why not Hank?”

“Nothing to it.”

“Not even the news?”

“The Wall Street Journal – Helga watches – she keeps me up to date.”

“How do you like the Journal’s editorials?”

“I like the reporting.”

“TV’s both entertainment and distraction Hank.”

“There’s no respect in it – been like that since the sixties.”

“Hasn’t it been commercial from the beginning?”

“Nothing wrong with that.”

“I thought we were talking about commercial slogans.”

“That’s nothing to do with the Guild.”

“Albrecht is bringing CUPA’s slogans to the Guild.”

“I didn’t hear him use one.”

“Okay so what is it about the sixties?”

“We lost our way.”

“How Hank?’

“Drugs, war, civil rights, demonstrations, it all became a show.”

“A TV show.”

“Trivialities on a screen.”

“You mean TV reduced it all to trivia.”

“I served, lost friends, we pulled out – it wasn’t trivial.”

“Far from it. So what about the sixties?”

“We are paying a heavy price.”

“Paying, Hank?”

“Disrespect has taken hold.”

“Were you opposed to the war?”

“We should have beaten the commies.”

“They have lost now anyway.”

“Have they?”

“Who’s left Hank?  China?  Cuba?”

“I am not talking about countries.”

“What are you saying Hank?”

“Respect that’s all”

“When was there ever any respect?”

“Up until the sixties.”

“I don’t follow you Hank.”

His solemn expression hasn’t changed throughout our conversation until now. He grins, looking me in the eye.

“Later Fred, I have things to do now.”

“Okay Hank.”

He turns and walks towards his truck with a slight limp.   Something about his intonation makes me wonder if English was his first language as I watch him drive off with a rattle in the tailgate and some smoke in the exhaust.

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.

Lou invited me to the nominating meeting as an introduction to the community even though I have lived here only a few months and have yet to meet many of my neighbors.  Albrecht Intaglio and I are both at our first nominating committee meeting, preparing for an election of new officers in April to the Fauxmont Water and Grounds Guild.  The proceedings start with nominations for the Chairman’s position.  Steve Strether and his wife Bel Vionnet are the only black couple in the community.  “It is only liberal guilt that has kept Bel in the chairman’s position” says Albrecht .  He can’t deny her effective leadership, but qualifies his assent on that point by adding “You liberals are just too lily-livered to oppose her.”

The meeting falls silent until Diddlie stammers out a response explaining how Bel Vionnet Strether has kept the Fauxmont Guild on track for a decade since Mr. Ramsey stepped down.  Then Diddlie finds her stride and goes on praising Bel.  “She has the tact, the wit and the energy to run those meetings and keep us all out of too much trouble with each other.”  Diddlie is almost drowned out by rising calls from the dovecote and raises her voice.  We are meeting in the Co-op building and the dovecote is a project for the preschool upstairs.  “Bel kept the peace between Westwood North and Dick East over the expense of laying new water mains and again when Dick East and all those on Maxwell Avenue were so upset about the proposed building restrictions.  She guided us through our disagreements.  Then there are the militants in our Water Organization, with their vigorous clean water agenda and she knows how to cope with them too. I for one don’t feel any guilt at all.”

“You should.  You should have more respect for liberty, democracy and the right to vote.”

Albrecht has adopted strong libertarian views since joining CUPA, the Campaign to Clean up America.  He carries his long barreled revolver in a holster slung from his belt and strapped on his thigh.  He has applied for a job in Senator Lee Leavenworth Knox’s committee on aesthetic crime.  He doesn’t own a home in Fauxmont himself, but no one raised any objections when he joined the community nominating committee as a resident of his father’s house, although it has only been a few weeks since he returned from his latest visit out west.  Those who had known him as he grew up in Fauxmont were full of praise for his finding a direction in life after his youthful troubles, and for his taking on some civic responsibility.

“Listen Al” said Lou.  “We all respect the process, and so far the overwhelming majority of voters have voted for Bel.  In fact I think it has been unanimous for the past ten years.  Anyone in the community can be nominated, and run against her.  It is just that no one has chosen to do so.”

“That’s the problem!  Ten years!  An entire decade!” said Albrecht glaring at Lou.  For the best part of that time she has run unopposed, UN-opposed!” repeated Albrecht, growing more heated and the doves are quiet upstairs.

“Al” Lou begins but Albrecht jumps in.

“I would appreciate it if you’d use my real name which is Albrecht, not Al.  Al Sharpton is Al.  I am Albrecht, okay?”

“Fine Albrecht.” said Lou.

“How many people voted last time?”

“Sixty one if I recall.”

“Sixty one if you recall” said Albrecht “and there are over a hundred eligible to vote right?”

“A hundred and twenty three.”

“Speaks for itself doesn’t it?”

“It does?” asked Lou.  “What does it say?”

The doves start up again, and there is a shriek.  “That must be the macaw” said Diddlie.  “Let me go up and feed those birds.  Maybe they’ll settle down.”  Diddlie scrapes her chair noisily and bangs up the boxed-in wooden stairs in her gardening boots.

Albrecht watches her in silence.  When she has disappeared upstairs, he continues.  “It shows how you people here at the central committee are controlling the vote.  That is why I am the only conservative in the room.  That is why I have to fight like hell just to be heard, and by God I can make plenty of noise when I need to.”

“It doesn’t show anything of the sort” said Hank Dumpty.  There is a loud crack from his chair as he shifts his weight.  A back leg has broken off, caught on the tile floor instead of sliding.  We all jump at the sound, all but Albrecht.

Diddlie is clomping around on the old wooden floor above.  I can’t tell if Hank is shouting in anger or to be heard above the noise.  He has been shifting his three hundred pounds restlessly and his chair creaks more and more often as Albrecht’s questioning continues.

“What accounts for this reluctance to vote?”

“You’d have to ask around to find that out.  I would guess, it is because no one felt they could do any better, and saw no need for change.  People are very busy and don’t find time to get involved” answered Lou.

“I am here to tell you it is time for change” said Albrecht.  “Everyone should be involved.”  Diddlie comes down more quietly than she went up.  The macaw is quiet, and the doves’ chatter is barely audible.  She asks if he wants to make a nomination as she walks back to her seat.

Albrecht looks over towards Diddlie, “I thought you had left.  Did you hear what I just said?”

“Yes I heard you think it’s time for a change, and figure you want to make a nomination.”  Albrecht says he is nominating Boyd Nightingale.  Diddlie sighs as she sits down.

“He is a very troubled young man you know Albrecht, are you sure?” asked Lou.

“Are you going to block my nomination?” asked Albrecht, putting his hand down by his revolver.

We are sitting in a circle on straight back wooden chairs.  Lou has a stool in front of him with a pen and some papers on it.  The rest of us hold our agendas in our hands or didn’t bother to bring them.

“No, no” says Diddlie, looking at her watch.

“No one is going to block your nomination, Albrecht” said Lou.

“You’re damn right” said Albrecht with a big smile.

“I second the nomination” says Diddlie.  Looking at her watch again she suddenly excuses her self and leaves the meeting.

Albrecht nods at her and turns to Lou.  “What do you mean, no one’s going to block the nomination?  Why don’t you let people speak for themselves?  Here you go again.  This is the central committee at work.  Are you chairman Mao or something?”

Hank Dumpty’s chair creaks more as he tries to balance on it’s three remaining legs.  “You can nominate any one you like Albrecht, but don’t think you can influence my vote with that weapon.”

Albrecht pats his gun with a smile remarking that if he used it there would be one less liberal voter in the neighborhood. Diddlie, Rank Majors and Hank all speak at once.  Albrecht tries to shout over them.

Lou, as chairman of the Committee, calls the meeting to order and asks if there are any more nominations.  Rank Majors nominates Bel. Nominations for vice chairman and treasurer are taken and seconded.  Lou asks if there is any other business.  Rank Majors, moves immediately to adjourn the meeting.

Albrecht stands up and says he has plenty of other business.

“That’s fine” said Hank Dumpty.  “I move we adjourn and meet again next week on the rest of the business.  It’s five minutes to nine and we never run past nine.”

“We are going to tonight,” said Albrecht straightening his stance.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” said Hank Dumpty softly.  “Get your ass and your weapon out of here and read the bylaws before you show up again.”

Hank stands up and carries his broken chair towards the door.

Albrecht giggles and stares at Hank’s back, stroking his holster.  “I sure hope you’re going to put down the chair you broke, nice and peaceful, big guy.”

“Hank Dumpty carries on toward the door, ignoring the taunt, and puts the broken chair outside.  He comes back, stands in the doorway, filling it, and says softly and gently, “Saddle up folks.  I’ll lock the door.”

Albrecht moves slowly towards the door ahead of the rest of us, looking hard at Hank and pauses as close to him as he can get without touching him in the doorway.  He can’t move through without squeezing past Hank’s belly.  He turns back facing into the room to say “There was no vote on the last motion to close this meeting.  Seeing how the big guy here is getting over-heated.”  He gestures behind himself with a thumb pointed over his shoulder.  “I’ll let it go this time, but don’t try and intimidate me again with your commie tactics.  And you, new boy, he said pointing at me.   Don’t let these Socialist bullies put you down.  Speak up for yourself next time.  I want to hear your voice.”

Hank stands still.  He looks bored and he has one hand up behind his neck as if to ease some tension.  His upper arm looks thicker than the thigh in Albrecht’s black jeans.  If he brought it down hard in response to Albrecht’s ruction, Albrecht would go flying.

I hadn’t thought of it before, but he was right.  I had not said a word all through the meeting, only raised my hand to vote silently.  Then again, knowing so little about it, I felt more like an observer than a participant.

Hank moves out of the doorway back into the room, and moves his hand from his neck on to the door handle, waiting to close it when we are all out.

“Goodnight neighbors,” says Albrecht sweetly and walks out into the dark.