R01 1 <#FROWN:R01\>Cars R01 2 WHEN I TURNED SIXTEEN, the age where I qualified for a driver's R01 3 license, driving a car became by obsession. My dad had a Kaiser R01 4 Traveler which he used for the family business and religiously kept R01 5 away from me. A car for any sixteen-year-old, I guess, was so rare R01 6 that those few among us who had access became almost magical folk R01 7 heroes. Happily my close friend Jack Krongold had a red convertible R01 8 of his own, so at least I was a backseat guy for my key teenage R01 9 years.

R01 10 When I reached twenty, I moved to New York, where owning a car R01 11 completely disappeared from my mind for several reasons; mainly I R01 12 couldn't afford to park it, let alone buy it.

R01 13 Fifteen years later I arrived in Los Angeles to be on a soap R01 14 opera for six months. Since it was Los Angeles, I had to have a R01 15 car, and since it was the first time I'd really be making any R01 16 money, I wanted to buy a Cadillac. When I was a boy growing up, R01 17 only very successful people drove Cadillacs, and even though I R01 18 wasn't very successful, I thought I had reached sufficient success R01 19 to buy a Cadillac - a used one. Besides, I probably wanted to R01 20 really make up in a big way for all my carless years.

R01 21 A friend of a friend had a used-car lot, with all kinds of R01 22 cars, and I went over there right away, looking for my Cadillac. It R01 23 was a huge place - row after row of cars covering two city blocks. R01 24 I was wandering around for about ten minutes before I saw it - the R01 25 most beautiful car I had ever seen in my life: a 1958 white R01 26 Cadillac convertible with red leather seats. I went to the friend's R01 27 friend, and he followed me out onto the lot to see what I was so R01 28 excited about. As we approached the car, he began to shake his R01 29 head. "You don't want that car," he said. Not R01 30 exactly what we're supposed to hear from used-car salesmen, but he R01 31 was a friend's friend, and I was young, without much money.

R01 32 "Why not?" I asked him as I climbed in and R01 33 started to press buttons that made the seat move back and forth. R01 34 "She's a femme fatale," he said, "a siren, R01 35 a looker who will break your heart." This guy was obviously R01 36 not your average used-car salesman. He went on: "There's a R01 37 blue Chevy over here I can really recommend."

R01 38 "Wait a minute," I said, now hitting the button R01 39 that made the seat go up and down. "What's the problem R01 40 right here?"

R01 41 He said, "I've seen it happen a million times. A kid R01 42 like you buys a car like that and tries to make a new car out of R01 43 it. It won't work, and it will end up costing you more money than R01 44 you can think of."

R01 45 Hitting the button that made the top go up and down, I said, R01 46 "How much do you want for it?"

R01 47 He said, "I'll give it to you for seven hundred R01 48 dollars, no guarantees, and I'm telling you again not to take R01 49 it."

R01 50 "Sold," I said. I wrote him a check and drove it right R01 51 off the lot, as he stood there shaking his head.

R01 52 I loved it! I got myself a fancy hat and drove it all over R01 53 Hollywood with the top down. I had more fun with it than anything I R01 54 can remember ... for about two weeks. Slowly, the problems started. R01 55 I didn't take particular notice because I was making some money. R01 56 The repair bills were dollar25 here, dollar50 there, dollar70 R01 57 there. After a few more weeks it was dollar125 here, dollar175 R01 58 there. Each time I was convinced that that would take care of that R01 59 leak or that veering of the wheels or that fairly loud rattle. It R01 60 didn't. I was doing exactly what the friend's friend had told me R01 61 not to: trying to make a new car out of it. I couldn't seem to help R01 62 myself. It always seemed like it was one repair job away from being R01 63 perfect. Three thousand dollars' worth of repairs later, I was R01 64 convinced I now had it all under control.

R01 65 That afternoon the brakes failed, and I ran into the car in R01 66 front of me. Nobody was hurt, thankfully. I had them fixed, and a R01 67 week later they failed again, and I knocked down a telephone pole R01 68 to avoid hurting anyone. I had them fixed again, but now I was R01 69 starting to get a little wary. And poor.

R01 70 One day, coming out of the place where I was staying, I noticed R01 71 a large puddle of fluid under the car. I got in with my friend, R01 72 another guy who wasn't going to win any prizes for brains about R01 73 cars, and we headed down a steep hill, looking for a garage. R01 74 Halfway down the hill the brakes failed again. We were about fifty R01 75 yards away from Sunset Boulevard at rush hour. I jumped the curb, R01 76 grazed a tree, and went right through a brick wall of a garage and R01 77 stopped. Because the 1958 Cadillac was the most powerful thing R01 78 around next to a Sherman tank, no one was hurt. I had it towed R01 79 away, repaired, and the brakes fixed for the third time. After that R01 80 I decided enough was enough. Fearful that the car would eventually R01 81 kill someone, I decided to junk it, not sell it.

R01 82 I drove it over to a junkyard and, after they promised me they R01 83 would make scrap out of it, made a deal to sell my R01 84 forty-five-hundred-dollar Cadillac for eight dollars.

R01 85 It was a femme fatale, a siren, a looker that could break your R01 86 heart - and everything else.

R01 87 Judging R01 88 I'M NOT TOO BIG on judging. Every time someone starts talking R01 89 about what's wrong with somebody I wonder and often say, R01 90 "Why don't we criticize you or me or any of us R01 91 here?" Obviously none of us is perfect, so why sit and R01 92 judge others? I mean, really extreme bad stuff I can judge as much R01 93 as the next guy, but on garden variety faults I'm not much of a R01 94 judger.

R01 95 There is one exception to all of this. There is one type I'm R01 96 constantly judging because they drive me nuts. It's the R01 97 authoritarian know-it-all, lots-of-rules kind of person.

R01 98 I first ran into one early on in school. If ever someone like R01 99 this belongs anywhere, it would be as a teacher in school, but I R01 100 couldn't handle him there either. I was regularly thrown out of R01 101 various classes for clashes with these control freaks.

R01 102 My parents weren't like that, so maybe I was just shocked R01 103 shortly after kindergarten that it felt like I had unwittingly R01 104 entered the military. In fact, later in the military it didn't R01 105 bother me at all. It was so extreme there I secretly thought it was R01 106 funny. Of course, this was peacetime.

R01 107 In my adult life these authoritarians have been my curse. I've R01 108 done everything possible to avoid them. Sometimes it's impossible R01 109 if they're in your family or you encounter them at work.

R01 110 Work is the one place I've taken these people on. Most recently R01 111 there was a producer working on a movie I did. The first time I saw R01 112 this guy he was fairly quiet. It was a big meeting, so I didn't R01 113 immediately spot what was in store.

R01 114 One of the main characteristics of these people is their need R01 115 to be right. I'm sure it's because they were once made to feel so R01 116 wrong, so impotent, probably in childhood. I'm sympathetic to that, R01 117 but I don't want to get beat up because they were subjected to R01 118 childhood villains.

R01 119 This particular producer, because of his need to win every R01 120 point about anything, had alienated about fifty-eight people by the R01 121 time the movie was over. He made haters out of some of the nicest R01 122 people I've ever met in my life. His first direct assault on me R01 123 came one morning, when we were shooting a huge train scene with a R01 124 lot of extras. When I walked on the set, this guy looked at his R01 125 watch, then at me, then announced, "I've been ready to R01 126 shoot since eight-thirty." It was now nine, which was when R01 127 I had been asked to arrive. I looked at him as though he were R01 128 speaking Swahili to someone else and went about my business. There R01 129 were other instances of this treatment toward me and everyone else R01 130 on the picture. Eventually he was discreetly asked to be around R01 131 less. That's usually what happens to these control freaks. They win R01 132 some battles and then lose the war. The problem is they never seem R01 133 to see the ultimate effect of what they're doing.

R01 134 Sometimes I can feel sorrow and not anger toward them if I R01 135 think deeply. Sadly I'm seldom that deep a thinker.

R01 136 The best thing about animals is that they don't talk much.

R01 137 - THORNTON WILDER

R01 138 Animals R01 139 I HAVEN'T DONE AS well with animals as most people. On the R01 140 positive side I find most dogs enormously touching and sweet. On R01 141 the other hand, one of these sweet guys who actually was in my R01 142 family once joined a dog pack and came after me snarling a long R01 143 time ago. Our relationship was never the same. I'd still consider a R01 144 dog in my life if it weren't for pooper-scoopers and shedding.

R01 145 Cats are out. I'm allergic - heavily. They have their moments, R01 146 but I've never quite settled in with all that back arching and R01 147 hissing. The big cats - a lion, anyway - I can't even watch on R01 148 television. Someone once said if something extremely strange for R01 149 which there is no logical explanation is going on in your life, R01 150 it's probably evidence of a previous existence. Judging by how R01 151 quickly I change the channel when one of those lions comes on, I R01 152 was once eaten by one; nothing less explains it. And if a lion R01 153 comes out of a subway as it used to on those commercials - forget R01 154 about it. I'm pretty quiet for a long time after that.

R01 155 Oddly enough, my most memorable experience with animals was R01 156 with, of all things, buffalo.

R01 157 Very late one night I was walking home from filming a movie, R01 158 and a herd of buffalo blocked my path. I was filming on the island R01 159 of Catalina, which is some twenty-five miles off the coast of San R01 160 Pedro, California. In the 1920s a movie company had gone over there R01 161 to film a western and taken some buffalo with them. When they left, R01 162 they left the buffalo.

R01 163 I was staying a ten-minute boat ride from the main location. It R01 164 was the only place near where we were filming that there were any R01 165 kind of accommodations a city guy like me would be happy. The main R01 166 location mostly offered tents and rooms with no roofs; the facility R01 167 there was a boys' camp out of season. And while there were some R01 168 rooms with roofs, all in all I said I'd take the ten-minute boat R01 169 ride to the citylike accommodations. When I said that, I didn't R01 170 know the buffalo herd lived over near my place.

R01 171 A day's filming on a movie is generally at least twelve hours R01 172 long. By the end of the day, and especially after a bumpy motorboat R01 173 ride in the sea in total darkness (the driver held a spotlight in R01 174 his hand), I was truly ready to go home. Once disembarked from the R01 175 boat, I had a walk of about two hundred yards up a hill. I was R01 176 always hungry and tired.

R01 177 Prior to this I had seen a buffalo here and there on the R01 178 island, always a fair distance away. I'd eyed them warily and kept R01 179 going. I was told not to walk up and pet them or taunt them, which R01 180 I hadn't planned to do anyway. I vaguely had heard stories of R01 181 people who had tried stuff and were sorry, but I didn't know what R01 182 they'd tried or how sorry they were. That was the extent of my R01 183 information that night when I encountered the herd.

R01 184 R02 1 <#FROWN:R02\>"No, that'll be fine, thanks," R02 2 said Tricia. "I can handle it now."

R02 3 "I can call this room number here for you if that'll R02 4 help," said the receptionist, peering at the note again.

R02 5 "No, that won't be necessary, thanks," said R02 6 Tricia. "That's my own room number. I'm the one the message R02 7 was for. I think we've sorted this out now."

R02 8 "You have a nice day now," said the R02 9 receptionist.

R02 10 Tricia didn't particularly want to have a nice day. She was R02 11 busy.

R02 12 She also didn't want to talk to Gail Andrews. She had a very R02 13 strict cut-off point as far as fraternizing with the Christians was R02 14 concerned. Her colleagues called her interview subjects Christians R02 15 and would often cross themselves when they saw one walking R02 16 innocently into the studio to face Tricia, particularly if Tricia R02 17 was smiling warmly and showing her teeth.

R02 18 She turned and smiled frostily, wondering what to do.

R02 19 Gail Andrews was a well-groomed woman in her mid-forties. Her R02 20 clothes fell within the boundaries defined by expensive good taste, R02 21 but were definitely huddled up at the floatier end of those R02 22 boundaries. She was an astrologer - a famous and, if rumor were R02 23 true, influential astrologer, having allegedly influenced a number R02 24 of decisions made by the late President Hudson, including R02 25 everything from which flavor of Cool Whip to have on which day of R02 26 the week to whether or not to bomb Damascus.

R02 27 Tricia had savaged her more than somewhat. Not on the grounds R02 28 of whether or not the stories about the president were true, that R02 29 was old hat now. At time Ms. Andrews had emphatically denied R02 30 advising President Hudson on anything other than personal, R02 31 spiritual or dietary matters, which did not, apparently, include R02 32 the bombing of Damascus. (NOTHING PERSONAL, DAMASCUS! the tabloids R02 33 had hooted at the time.)

R02 34 No, this was a neat topical little angle that Tricia had come R02 35 up with about the whole issue of astrology itself. Ms. Andrews had R02 36 not been entirely ready for it. Tricia, on the other hand, was not R02 37 entirely ready for a rematch in the hotel lobby. What to do?

R02 38 "I can wait for you in the bar, if you need a few R02 39 minutes," said Gail Andrews. "But I would like to R02 40 talk to you, and I'm leaving the city tonight."

R02 41 She seemed to be slightly anxious about something rather than R02 42 aggrieved or irate.

R02 43 "Okay," said Tricia. "Give me ten R02 44 minutes."

R02 45 She went up to her room. Apart from anything else, she had so R02 46 little faith in the ability of the guy on the message desk at R02 47 reception to deal with anything so complicated as a message that R02 48 she wanted to be doubly certain that there wasn't a note under the R02 49 door. It wouldn't be the first time that messages at the desk and R02 50 messages under the door had been completely at odds with each R02 51 other.

R02 52 There wasn't one.

R02 53 The message light on the phone was flashing, though.

R02 54 She hit the message button and got the hotel operator.

R02 55 "You have a message from Gary Andress," said R02 56 the operator.

R02 57 "Yes?" said Tricia. An unfamiliar name. "What R02 58 does it say."

R02 59 "Not hippy," said the operator.

R02 60 "Not what?" said Tricia.

R02 61 "Hippy. What it says. Guy says he's not a hippy. I R02 62 guess he wanted you to know that. You want the number?"

R02 63 As she started to dictate the number Tricia suddenly realized R02 64 that this was just a garbled version of the message she had already R02 65 had.

R02 66 "Okay, okay," she said. "Are there any R02 67 other messages for me?"

R02 68 "Room number?"

R02 69 Tricia couldn't work out why the operator should suddenly ask R02 70 for her number this late in the conversation, but gave it to her R02 71 anyway.

R02 72 "Name?"

R02 73 "McMillan, Tricia McMillan." Tricia spelled it, R02 74 patiently.

R02 75 "Not Mr. MacManus?"

R02 76 "No."

R02 77 "No more messages for you." Click.

R02 78 Tricia sighed and dialed again. This time she gave her name and R02 79 room number all over again, up front. The operator showed not the R02 80 slightest glimmer of recognition that they had been speaking less R02 81 than ten seconds ago.

R02 82 "I'm going to be in the bar," Tricia explained. R02 83 "In the bar. If a phone call comes through for me, please R02 84 would you put it through to me in the bar?"

R02 85 "Name?"

R02 86 They went through it all a couple more times till Tricia was R02 87 certain that everything that possibly could be clear was as clear R02 88 as it possibly could be.

R02 89 She showered, put on fresh clothes and retouched her makeup R02 90 with the speed of a professional and, looking at her bed with a R02 91 sigh, left the room again.

R02 92 She had half a mind just to sneak off and hide.

R02 93 No. Not really.

R02 94 She had a look at herself in the mirror in the elevator lobby R02 95 while she was waiting. She looked cool and in charge, and if she R02 96 could fool herself she could fool anybody.

R02 97 She was just going to have to tough it out with Gail Andrews. R02 98 Okay, she had given her a hard time. Sorry, but that's the game R02 99 we're all in - that sort of thing. Ms. Andrews had agreed to do the R02 100 interview because she had a new book out and TV exposure was free R02 101 publicity. But there's no such thing as a free launch. No, she R02 102 edited that line out again.

R02 103 What had happened was this:

R02 104 Last week astronomers had announced that they had at last R02 105 discovered a tenth planet, out beyond the orbit of Pluto. They had R02 106 been searching for it for years, guided by certain orbital R02 107 anomalies in the outer planets, and now they'd found it and they R02 108 were all terribly pleased, and everyone was terribly happy for them R02 109 and so on. The planet was named Persephone, but rapidly nicknamed R02 110 Rupert after some astronomer's parrot - there was some tediously R02 111 heartwarming story attached to this - and that was all very R02 112 wonderful and lovely.

R02 113 Tricia had followed the story with, for various reasons, R02 114 considerable interest.

R02 115 Then, while she had been casting around for a good excuse to go R02 116 to New York at her TV company's expense, she had happened to notice R02 117 a press release about Gail Andrews and her new book, You and R02 118 Your Planets.

R02 119 Gail Andrews was not exactly a household name, but the moment R02 120 you mentioned President Hudson, Cool Whip and the amputation of R02 121 Damascus (the world had moved on from surgical strikes - the R02 122 official term had in fact been 'Damascectomy,' meaning the 'taking R02 123 out' of Damascus), everyone remembered who you meant.

R02 124 Tricia saw an angle here which she quickly sold to her R02 125 producer.

R02 126 Surely the notion that great lumps of rock whirling in space R02 127 knew something about your day that you didn't must take a bit of a R02 128 knock from the fact that there was suddenly a new lump of rock out R02 129 there that nobody had known about before.

R02 130 That must throw a few calculations out, mustn't it?

R02 131 What about all those star charts and planetary motions and so R02 132 on? We all knew (apparently) what happened when Neptune was in R02 133 Virgo, and so on, but what about when Rupert was rising? Wouldn't R02 134 the whole of astrology have to be re-thought? Wouldn't now R02 135 perhaps be a good time to own up that it was all just a load of R02 136 hogwash and instead take up pig farming, the principles of which R02 137 were founded on some kind of rational basis? If we'd known about R02 138 Rupert three years ago, might President Hudson have been eating the R02 139 chocolate flavor on Thursday rather than Friday? Might Damascus R02 140 still be standing? That sort of thing.

R02 141 Gail Andrews had taken it all reasonably well. She was just R02 142 starting to recover from the initial onslaught, when she made the R02 143 rather serious mistake of trying to shake Tricia off by talking R02 144 smoothly about diurnal arcs, right ascensions and some of the more R02 145 abstruse areas of three-dimensional trigonometry.

R02 146 To her shock she discovered that everything she delivered to R02 147 Tricia came right back at her with more spin on it than she could R02 148 cope with. Nobody had warned Gail that being a TV bimbo was, for R02 149 Tricia, her second stab at a role in life. Behind her Chanel lip R02 150 gloss, her coupe sauvage and her crystal blue contact lenses lay a R02 151 brain that had acquired for itself, in an earlier, abandoned phase R02 152 of her life, a first-class degree in mathematics and a doctorate in R02 153 astrophysics.

R02 154 As she was getting into the elevator, Tricia, slightly R02 155 preoccupied, realized she had left her bag in her room and wondered R02 156 whether to duck back out and get it. No. It was probably safer R02 157 where it was and there wasn't anything she particularly needed in R02 158 it. She let the door close behind her.

R02 159 Besides, she told herself, taking a deep breath, if life had R02 160 taught her anything it was this: Never go back for your R02 161 bag.

R02 162 As the elevator went down she stared at the ceiling in a rather R02 163 intent way. Anyone who didn't know Tricia McMillan better would R02 164 have said that that was exactly the way people sometimes stared R02 165 upward when they were trying to hold back tears. She must have been R02 166 staring at the tiny security video camera mounted up in the corner. R02 167 She marched rather briskly out of the elevator a minute later, and R02 168 went up to the reception desk again.

R02 169 "Now, I'm going to write this out," she said, R02 170 "because I don't want anything to go wrong."

R02 171 She wrote her name in large letters on a piece of paper, then R02 172 her room number, then IN THE BAR and gave it to the receptionist, R02 173 who looked at it.

R02 174 "That's in case there's a message for me. R02 175 Okay?"

R02 176 The receptionist continued to look at it.

R02 177 "You want me to see if she's in her room?" he R02 178 said.

R02 179 Two minutes later, Tricia swiveled into the bar seat next to R02 180 Gail Andrews, who was sitting in front of a glass of white wine.

R02 181 "You struck me as the sort of person who preferred to R02 182 sit up at the bar rather than demurely at a table," she R02 183 said.

R02 184 This was true, and caught Tricia a little by surprise.

R02 185 "Vodka?" said Gail.

R02 186 "Yes," said Tricia, suspiciously. She just stopped R02 187 herself from asking, How did you know? but Gail answered anyway.

R02 188 "I asked the barman," she said, with a kindly R02 189 smile.

R02 190 The barman had her vodka ready for her and slid it charmingly R02 191 across the glossy mahogany.

R02 192 "Thank you," said Tricia, stirring it R02 193 sharply.

R02 194 She didn't know quite what to make out of all this sudden R02 195 niceness and was determined not to be wrong-footed by it. People in R02 196 New York were not nice to each other without reason.

R02 197 "Ms. Andrews," she said, firmly, "I'm R02 198 sorry that you're not happy. I know you probably feel I was a bit R02 199 rough with you this morning, but astrology is, after all, just R02 200 popular entertainment, which is fine. It's part of showbiz and it's R02 201 a part that you have done well out of and good luck to you. It's R02 202 fun. It's not a science though, and it shouldn't be mistaken for R02 203 one. I think that 's something we both managed to demonstrate very R02 204 successfully together this morning, while at the same time R02 205 generating some popular entertainment, which is what we both do for R02 206 a living. I'm sorry if you have a problem with that."

R02 207 "I'm perfectly happy," said Gail Andrews.

R02 208 "Oh," said Tricia, not quite certain what to make of R02 209 this. "It said in your message that you were not R02 210 happy."

R02 211 "No," said Gail Andrews. "I said in my message R02 212 that I thought you were not happy, and I was just wondering R02 213 why."

R02 214 Tricia felt as if she had been kicked in the back of the head. R02 215 She blinked.

R02 216 "What?" she said quietly.

R02 217 "To do with the stars. You seemed very angry and R02 218 unhappy about something to do with stars and planets when we were R02 219 having our discussion, and it's been bothering me, which is why I R02 220 came to see if you were all right."

R02 221 Tricia stared at her. "Ms. Andrews -" she R02 222 started, and then realized that the way she had said it sounded R02 223 exactly angry and unhappy and rather undermined the protest she had R02 224 been trying to make.

R02 225 "Please call me Gail, if that's okay."

R02 226 R03 1 <#FROWN:R03\>For one thing, it consists almost entirely of Japanese R03 2 people. For another thing, they don't shake hands. They bow. R03 3 They're not big on physical contact, especially with strangers. R03 4 They'd be uncomfortable at a typical American social gathering, R03 5 where people who barely know each other will often kiss and hug, R03 6 and people who are really close will sometimes have sexual R03 7 relations right in the foyer.

R03 8 The Japanese are also formal about names, generally addressing R03 9 each other with the honorary title 'san', as in 'Osaka-san', which R03 10 is like saying 'Mr.Osaka'. I understand that, even if two Japanese R03 11 have worked together for many years, neither would dream of using R03 12 the other's first name. Whereas Americans are on a first-name basis R03 13 immediately, and by the end of the first day have generally R03 14 graduated to 'Yo, Butthead!'

R03 15 One night in Tokyo we watched two Japanese businessmen saying R03 16 good-night to each other after what had clearly been a long night R03 17 of drinking, a major participant sport in Japan. These men were R03 18 totally snockered, having reached the stage of inebriation wherein R03 19 every air molecule that struck caused them to wobble slightly, but R03 20 they still managed to behave more formally than Americans do at R03 21 funerals. They faced each other and bowed deeply, which caused both R03 22 of them to momentarily lose their balance and start to pitch R03 23 face-first to the sidewalk. Trying to recover their balance, they R03 24 both stepped forward, almost banging heads. They managed to get R03 25 themselves upright again and, with great dignity, weaved off in R03 26 opposite directions. If both of them wound up barfing into the R03 27 shrubbery, I bet they did it like Alfonse and Gaston, in a formal R03 28 manner.

R03 29 I never really did get accustomed to all the bowing. According R03 30 to the guidebooks, there's an elaborate set of rules governing R03 31 exactly how you bow, and who bows the lowest, and when, and for how R03 32 long, and how many times, all of this depending on the situation R03 33 and the statuses of the various bowers involved. Naturally, my R03 34 family and I, being large, ignorant foreign water buffalos, were R03 35 not expected by the Japanese to know these rules. Nevertheless we R03 36 did feel obligated to attempt to return bows when we got them.

R03 37 This happened quite often. It started when we arrived at our R03 38 hotel in Tokyo. As I was descending the steps of the airport bus, R03 39 two uniformed bellmen came rushing up and bowed to me. Trying to R03 40 look casual but feeling like an idiot, I bowed back. I probably did R03 41 it wrong, because then they bowed back. So I bowed back. R03 42 The three of us sort of bowed our way over to where the luggage was R03 43 being unloaded, and I bowed to our suitcases, and the bellmen, R03 44 bowing, picked them up and rushed into the hotel. We followed them R03 45 past a bowing doorman into the hotel, where we were R03 46 gang-bowed by hotel employees. No matter which direction we R03 47 turned, they were aiming bows at us, sometimes from as far as R03 48 twenty-five yards away.

R03 49 Bobbing like drinking-bird toys, we bowed our way to the R03 50 reception desk, where a bowing clerk checked us in. Then we bowed R03 51 our way over to the elevators, where we encountered our first R03 52 Elevator Ladies. These are young, uniformed, relentlessly smiling R03 53 women who stand by the elevators in hotels and stores all day. R03 54 Their function is to press the elevator button for you. Then, when R03 55 the elevator comes, they show you where it is by gesturing R03 56 enthusiastically toward it, similar to the way that models gesture R03 57 on TV game shows when they are showing some lucky contestant the R03 58 seventeen-piece dinette set that he has just won.

R03 59 "Here's your elevator!" is the message of this R03 60 gesture. "Isn't it a beauty?"

R03 61 Throughout our stay in Japan, every Elevator Lady managed to R03 62 give the impression that she was genuinely thrilled that I had R03 63 chosen to ride her elevators, as opposed to some other form of R03 64 vertical transportation. I never saw one who seemed to resent the R03 65 fact that she was stuck in, let's face it, a real armpit of a job. R03 66 If I did their work, it would turn me into a stark raving lunatic. R03 67 Within days I'd be deliberately ushering people into open elevator R03 68 shafts.

R03 69 Anyway, we got into our hotel elevator, and the E.L. stood R03 70 outside and bowed deeply as the doors closed. I bowed back, but not R03 71 too low, for fear of getting my head caught in the doors. Alone in R03 72 the elevator, I wondered if maybe all the bowing had been some kind R03 73 of elaborate prank on us, and if at that very moment the hotel R03 74 employees were all giving each other high-five handslaps and R03 75 laughing so hard that they drooled on their uniforms.

R03 76 We got to our room and seconds later the bellmen knocked at the R03 77 door, bowed their way inside, laid out our luggage, and checked to R03 78 make sure that the room was O.K. Then - this was an amazing event R03 79 to witness - they left. They just walked out of the R03 80 room.

R03 81 An American bellman, of course, stands around in a congenial R03 82 yet determined manner, waiting for you to figure out that you had R03 83 not tipped him yet. If it doesn't dawn on you right away, he'll R03 84 start telling you about some of the hotel's available special guest R03 85 services, such as breakfast; or start demonstrating various deluxe R03 86 features of the room, such as that it has electric lights, which R03 87 you can operate via switches. If necessary he will stay in your R03 88 room all night. You get up at 3:00 A.M. to go to the bathroom, and R03 89 there is your bellman, showing you where the flush handle is and R03 90 just generally continuing to be helpful until spontaneously decide R03 91 to give him a token of your gratitude.

R03 92 But there's no tipping in Japan. You just don't do it. Even in R03 93 restaurants. When people serve you in some manner, you simply say R03 94 'Thank you,' and they don't get angry or anything. In fact, they R03 95 often seem happy to have had the opportunity to serve you, if you R03 96 can imagine. This was quite a shock for me, coming from a country R03 97 where you regularly find yourself tipping people just so they won't R03 98 spit on you.

R03 99 The mysterious thing about all this is that Japan - ask anybody R03 100 who has been there - has superb service. And not just in nice R03 101 hotels. Everywhere. You walk into any store, any restaurant, no R03 102 matter how low-rent it looks, and I bet you that somebody will R03 103 immediately call out to you in a cheerful manner. This happened to R03 104 us all over. I never understood what the people were saying, R03 105 of course. They could have been saying: "Hah! Americans! We R03 106 will eventually purchase your entire nation and use the Lincoln R03 107 Memorial for tofu storage!" But they always sounded R03 108 friendly and welcoming. And they were always eager to wait on us. I R03 109 couldn't help but think of the many times I've been in American R03 110 stores, especially large ones, attempting to give somebody some R03 111 money in exchange for merchandise - which I always thought was the R03 112 whole point of stores - but was unable to do so because the R03 113 store employees were too busy with other, higher-priority R03 114 activities, such as talking or staring into space. More than once, R03 115 in America's stores, I have felt like an intruder for trying to R03 116 give money to clerks. "Oh great" is their unspoken R03 117 but extremely clear attitude. "Here we had everything going R03 118 nice and smooth, and along comes this doofus who wants - of R03 119 all things! - to make a purchase. In a store, for God's R03 120 sake."

R03 121 I'll give you another example of what I'm talking about. We've R03 122 traveled extensively in the United States, and often our son R03 123 travels with us, and when he does we always try to arrange to have R03 124 one of those folding beds for him in our hotel room. Beth always R03 125 calls the hotel in advance and asks them to please write down that R03 126 we want a folding bed. She calls later to confirm that there will R03 127 be a folding bed. When we check in, we always remind them that we R03 128 need a folding bed.

R03 129 So needless to say, there has never - not once, in ten R03 130 years, in dozens and dozens of hotels - been an actual folding bed R03 131 in our room when we got there. We always have to call R03 132 Housekeeping to ask for it, and nothing happens, so we call again, R03 133 and maybe again, and of course Housekeeping is not happy about this R03 134 - "These damned guests! Always calling Housekeeping and R03 135 requesting Housekeeping services!" - and then finally, R03 136 often late at night, our folding bed will be brought to us by a R03 137 person who is obviously annoyed about having to deliver beds in the R03 138 middle of the night to people who should have thought to arrange R03 139 this earlier. Naturally, I always give this person a tip.

R03 140 In Japan, the bed was always there, at every hotel, when we R03 141 checked in. This may seem minor to you, but to us it was a miracle, R03 142 comparable in scope to having a total stranger hold a door open for R03 143 you in New York City.

R03 144 I'll give you another minor but typical hotel example. When we R03 145 checked into our hotel in Hiroshima, I noticed that our bathtub R03 146 faucet would not produce hot water, so I called the front desk. In R03 147 America, the front desk would have told me that somebody would be R03 148 up to take a look at it, and eventually somebody would, but not R03 149 necessarily during my current lifetime.

R03 150 In Hiroshima, a bellman arrived at our room within, literally, R03 151 one minute. He had obviously been sprinting, and he looked R03 152 concerned. He checked the faucet, found that it was, indeed, R03 153 malfunctioning, and - now looking extremely concerned - R03 154 sprinted from the room. In no more than three minutes he was back R03 155 with two more men, one of whom immediately went to work on the R03 156 bathtub. The sole function of the other one, as far as we could R03 157 tell, was to apologize to us on behalf of the hotel for having R03 158 committed this monumentally embarrassing and totally unforgivable R03 159 blunder.

R03 160 "We are very sorry," he kept saying, looking as R03 161 though near tears. "Very sorry."

R03 162 "It's OK!" I kept saying. "Really!" But R03 163 it did no good. The man was grieving.

R03 164 The bathtub was fixed in under ten minutes, after which all R03 165 three men apologized extravagantly in various languages one last R03 166 time, after which they left, after which I imagine that the hotel's R03 167 Vice President for Faucet Operations was taken outside and shot.

R03 168 No, just kidding. He probably took his own life. That's how R03 169 seriously they take their jobs over there.

R03 170 I keep reading that American businesses have figured out that R03 171 they need to focus more attention on customer service, but I'm R03 172 afraid we have a long way to go before we catch up to the Japanese. R03 173 As I write these words, Beth and I are in a state of seething R03 174 semihomicidal rage resulting from our repeated unsuccessful R03 175 attempts to give money to Sears in exchange for fixing some R03 176 problems with our refrigerator. Beth called the Sears Service R03 177 Department two weeks ago and spoke to a Customer Service R03 178 Representative who agreed to schedule a Repair Technician to come R03 179 out. The Customer Service Representative was willing to tell Beth R03 180 the day this would happen, but - you appliance-owners out R03 181 there know how this works - she refused to reveal the time R03 182 that the technician would be here.

R03 183 This is because of National Security. If we knew the exact time R03 184 that our appliance was being repaired, there is the danger that we R03 185 might blurt this information out in public. We'd be in a R03 186 restaurant, for example, and we'd have a few too many glasses of R03 187 wine, and one of us would say, "Well, the Sears R03 188 Refrigerator Repair Technician is coming to our house at two-thirty R03 189 P.M. on Wednesday." We wouldn't even consider the R03 190 possibility that the bus-boy lurking just a few feet away R03 191 might be an enemy agent, and that we had blown the entire R03 192 operation.

R03 193 So when the day came, Beth stayed home all day, waiting for the R03 194 Repair Technician, who of course did not show up. R03 195 R04 1 <#FROWN:R04\>She'd hook that little old crooked-legged mule up to R04 2 the wagon and go down and cut a load of wood like a man. Could ride R04 3 a horse, bareback, like nothing you ever seen. Shoot a gun. Had her R04 4 own rabbit gums. That's right.

R04 5 I've forgotten what that little crooked-legged mule's name R04 6 was.

R04 7 She got whipped too. For all the normal things. She got where R04 8 she'd sit around behind the store and smoke cigarettes. That store R04 9 had been there since way before cars, and there was a hitching post R04 10 out in front of it. So ... see, girls didn't smoke back then, R04 11 nowhere, but she was going out behind the store and smoking with R04 12 the store-owner's daughter, who was mean. Somebody told R04 13 Papa, and he made her stand at the hitching post and smoke five R04 14 cigarettes in a row for five days in a row. Every day the crowd got R04 15 a little bigger and a little bigger. She stopped smoking, too.

R04 16 I imagine of all the people in the family, me and her was the R04 17 closest. She'd go hunting with me, and we had fights. She never R04 18 forgot some of the things that happened. One time I held up a R04 19 rabbit from one of my gums to show her, cause she didn't get any R04 20 that morning, and that rabbit jerked loose and went running off and R04 21 she fell on the ground laughing. She told about that over and over. R04 22 She could actually skin a rabbit faster than I could. That's no R04 23 lie. She was quicker than me in some ways, once she growed up a R04 24 little bit. I'm talking about when she was around thirteen, R04 25 fourteen, and I was eighteen or nineteen, before I stopped living R04 26 up there and then run off after Mama married old man Harper.

R04 27 Aw, there's a lot of different things that I could tell, you R04 28 know, about the whole entire country around in there and everywhere R04 29 from Bethel all the way back to the old mill place and down below R04 30 up the old ah, ah penitentiary place and all the way coming back R04 31 into Summerlin, where we used to go and what we used to do, but R04 32 it's hard to remember a lot of that stuff. And, that was before R04 33 World War I.

R04 34 And now here I am with my groin getting eat out. Looks like I R04 35 would be allowed to go out peaceable. They say He works in R04 36 mysterious ways. Well, I do too.

R04 37 Faison R04 38 Tate keeps his place pretty nice. I been aiming to put up some R04 39 kind of blinds, shades, in mine, something on my windows. What's R04 40 hanging in my bedroom is a poncho, and when I got back from Tate's, R04 41 I looked through the head hole to see if I could see that dog out R04 42 back that had been barking for the last two days solid. But there's R04 43 a row of bushes at the back end of the yard that hides him.

R04 44 At least I never had this problem living at the motel. Didn't R04 45 have to worry about no curtains either.

R04 46 I headed for the kitchen, got a beer.

R04 47 I was thinking.

R04 48 Few minutes later, I stood on their porch and knocked on their R04 49 screen door. I saw them moving in a couple of weeks ago.

R04 50 One window on each side of the front door. The window shades R04 51 were pulled down - gold colored. A TV was on somewhere in there. I R04 52 opened the screen door and knocked. The door come open on its R04 53 own.

R04 54 I stuck my head in. TV noises from in there in that first room R04 55 on the left. Fishing gear was on the floor of a hall that ran front R04 56 to back. I closed the door behind me, tried to see what make the R04 57 fishing reels were - one was a Penn. I knocked on the door to the R04 58 room.

R04 59 This voice from inside: "Yeah?"

R04 60 "I need to talk to somebody."

R04 61 "Just a minute." The door opened. Short, stocky R04 62 man, reddish hair, scrawny mustache - little clusters of red hairs R04 63 like. "What do you want?" he says.

R04 64 "I got a complaint. That dog out back's about to drive R04 65 me crazy. He's been barking for -"

R04 66 "It's my brother's, but he's asleep. He'll be leaving R04 67 in a week or so, and he'll take the dog with him. So you don't have R04 68 nothing to worry about."

R04 69 The guy was acting like, hey, no big deal. But for me it R04 70 was. So I said, "Well, you go wake him up, because R04 71 something's got to give here. That dog's driving me crazy." R04 72 He had already started shutting the door.

R04 73 "Hey," he said, opening the door again. "He's R04 74 got a nerve problem. I can't bother him right now."

R04 75 "Can't bother -"

R04 76 "You live around here?" He looked over his R04 77 shoulder at the TV.

R04 78 "Yeah. I live right out there."

R04 79 "Well, he's asleep now, and I ain't waking him up. He's R04 80 pretty nervous."

R04 81 "Look, man, either somebody shuts up the dog, or I shut R04 82 up the dog. I don't have to sit in my own house and be disturbed by R04 83 some dog after I give a warning. This is a warning. Okay? I mean R04 84 this has been going on two whole days and nights. It's driving me R04 85 crazy."

R04 86 This is the kind of situation where Uncle Grove would kick ass. R04 87 I been with him when he did.

R04 88 "Give me your phone number," he says. He could R04 89 see I was serious. He writes down my phone number on a R04 90 newspaper.

R04 91 "If I ain't heard from him by five o'clock," I R04 92 say, "I'll figure nothing ain't going to be R04 93 done."

R04 94 "I'll give him the number," he says. R04 95 "He'll call."

R04 96 So I come on back home and I'm thinking: I go out and talk to R04 97 this guy. Right? He acts like I'm the one bothering him. He's R04 98 mouthing off at me. Now ain't this something? This is the guy R04 99 with the barking dog. And who's mouthing off at who? There's people R04 100 like this all over the world. They don't think about nothing but R04 101 theirselves. They're everywhere, and when you bring it to their R04 102 attention, they go all to pieces. And a bigger problem is the R04 103 people that let them get by with it. You got jerks all over the R04 104 place that won't say nothing to these kind of assholes. They'd R04 105 rather get run all over. They'd rather avoid a little trouble. R04 106 They're what's wrong with this country.

R04 107 I got my twelve-gauge Remington automatic out of the closet, R04 108 found a box of shells, buckshot, in the top dresser drawer, got out R04 109 seven, dropped them on the bed. By god, if I did end up shooting R04 110 this dog, the dog wouldn't just be dead. He'd be dead dead. I R04 111 wouldn't do nothing like this half-ass.

R04 112 The Remington is my daddy's. Was my daddy's. He probably didn't R04 113 use it no more than eight or ten times in his life. He gave it to R04 114 me after he got sick this last time. Last long time. He took me R04 115 quail hunting a few times when I was little, but hell, I did more R04 116 stuff like that with Uncle Grove in the six months I stayed with R04 117 him than I did with my daddy all my life. Hunting, fishing, stuff R04 118 like that.

R04 119 Uncle Grove used to have a bunch of guns. He's still got that R04 120 one that was handed down - the double-barrel with the old-fashioned R04 121 hammers, handed down from his daddy, my mama's daddy - the gun that R04 122 was in a fight at a liquor still, got hit with buckshot. Uncle R04 123 Grove told me that story a bunch of times. His daddy had to pick R04 124 buckshot out of this nigger's head. Black man.

R04 125 Mama told me some stuff, too. I remember her letting me sew one R04 126 time - stick a needle with a white thread through a button hole. R04 127 And I remember her chasing me around the house one time, and R04 128 driving me to town in a car. She was pretty.

R04 129 Phone rang. "Hello." It was the guy with the dog. Okay, R04 130 I thought, let's see what's coming down here.

R04 131 "You the one wanted me to call you?"

R04 132 "Yeah. That dog has been barking for two solid days and R04 133 nights, and it's driving me crazy."

R04 134 "I think I can get him quiet," he says.

R04 135 "That's good," I said. "You want to R04 136 take him in the house, fine. It ain't my problem. But if I have to, R04 137 I'll - "

R04 138 "Where you located?"

R04 139 "Out your back door and to the left. That's my R04 140 house." No way to meet this kind of thing but head-on, so I R04 141 said, "I'll meet you out at the bushes there if you want R04 142 to."

R04 143 So I go on out there and when I see this guy, I say, R04 144 "You're the same guy!"

R04 145 "Nah," he says. "He's my twin R04 146 brother."

R04 147 "You ain't the same one?" They looked exactly R04 148 alike.

R04 149 "No way. Now look here," he says, "the R04 150 dog was just barking, that's all."

R04 151 "I know he was just barking. That's what he's been R04 152 doing for two days and nights. That's the problem."

R04 153 The dog starts yelping. Right then and there. So the guy acts a R04 154 little nervous.

R04 155 I yell, "Shut up!"

R04 156 The dog stops barking. The guy looks at me, at the dog. R04 157 "Good boy," he says to the dog.

R04 158 There was a break in the bushes - a path. "Let me see R04 159 the dog," I said. "I know something about R04 160 dogs." I do, too. I walked on through.

R04 161 The dog was in one side of a double garage. A motorboat was in R04 162 the other side, where the sun shined in, propped up on a little R04 163 refrigerator. The dog was standing in the shady part, breathing R04 164 vapor, chain running from his collar through a hole in the back of R04 165 the garage and all these cages the size of suitcases laying around R04 166 in there.

R04 167 Dog wagged his tail, pranced on his front paws. I put out my R04 168 fist. The dog licked it. "It's a Doberman," I said, R04 169 squatting down. "Or mostly Doberman."

R04 170 Another dog, a pointer - liver and white - stood up from R04 171 behind the boat. He stretched and shook off all over. R04 172 "Whose pointer?" I said. "He's right R04 173 pretty."

R04 174 "Jimmy's. I bought them both, gave Jimmy the bird dog. R04 175 He is pretty."

R04 176 "Looks like a bird dog I used to have. I was going to R04 177 give my boy a bird dog."

R04 178 "What happened?"

R04 179 "He died," I said.

R04 180 "I had a pit bull die on me three, four years ago. But R04 181 he'd been eat up pretty good before I bought him."

R04 182 "My boy died," I said.

R04 183 "Damn. I'm sorry. What happened? Or ... you R04 184 know."

R04 185 "Car wreck." I didn't want to go into all that. R04 186 "You hunt any?"

R04 187 "Used to. But I quit shooting the birds. What's your R04 188 name?"

R04 189 "Faison."

R04 190 "I quit shooting the birds, Faison. You know, got tired R04 191 of it. But Jimmy still hunts. Goes all the time."

R04 192 Right here I thought, man. Here's a bird dog - R04 193 good-looking bird dog. Here's somebody at my back door that R04 194 likes to hunt birds. I hadn't been hunting in a long, long time. R04 195 "What are all those cages for?" I couldn't figure R04 196 that one out.

"Snakes. Jimmy's a snake handler. Does shows for R04 198 schools and stuff."

R04 199 "Has he got any in there? Maybe that's why R04 200 -"

R04 201 "Naw, he's out of snakes right now. He lets them out R04 202 under the neighbors' houses."

R04 203 "What? He what?"

R04 204 "Just kidding. He sells them, lets them out in the R04 205 woods, different stuff. He's supposed to be getting some new ones. R04 206 Jimmy don't stay out of snakes long." He patted the bird R04 207 dog's head, looked at me. "He says he's going bird hunting R04 208 in the morning. Try out that dog. Dog's been broke. Think you might R04 209 want to go?"

R04 210 "Well. Yeah, I'll go bird hunting. I'll go bird R04 211 hunting."

R04 212 The pointer had good blood. You could tell. A beautiful dog. R04 213 "But we got to do something about this other one's R04 214 barking," I said.

R04 215 "We'll work something out. We'll bring him inside if he R04 216 keeps it up. His name is Cactus. Hey, Jimmy," he R04 217 yelled.

R04 218 R04 219 R05 1 <#FROWN:R05\>'I CAN'T GO ON'

R05 2 WRITER'S BLOCK

R05 3 "Yes for the last two weeks I have written R05 4 scarcely anything. I have been idle; I have R05 5 failed."

R05 6 - KATHERINE MANSFIELD

R05 7 "When I see a barrier I cry and curse, and then I R05 8 get a ladder and climb over it."

R05 9 - JOHN H. JOHNSON, JOHNSON PUBLISHING CO.

R05 10 WHAT more can afflict the unfortunate wretches who pursue the R05 11 literary dream? So much struggeling to be a writer, croaking to R05 12 sound like one, straining to soar above the crowd! And just when R05 13 lift-off seems imminent - the ground turns to quicksand. The writer R05 14 sinks up to the nostrils in muck. Crawling things awaken. The R05 15 silent screams begin. This is the nightmare they call ... R05 16 block.

R05 17 Block. What a nasty word, this combination of blah R05 18 and blechh, this icky reminder of blocked bowels. The R05 19 eversuggestible writer has only to hear the word to crumple like R05 20 Woody Allen when someone says "castration."

R05 21 WORD BLOCK

R05 22 Discussions of writer's block usually concern the flow of words R05 23 and how to get words flowing again when the brain seems to shut R05 24 down. As if a writer's brain could ever shut down or up for more R05 25 than five seconds. What the brain does is slip away from drudgery R05 26 and into the writer's preferred pastime, daydreaming. Daydreaming R05 27 inspires a literary effort and previews its glorious rewards, but R05 28 it doesn't do the coal-faced labor of research, organization, R05 29 drafting, and revising. No writer descends willingly to those R05 30 mines, where words are hacked one by one from the blackness. Facing R05 31 that dusty pit feels very much like block, whatever else it might R05 32 be.

R05 33 Maddening and debilitating, the condition strikes even the most R05 34 prolific writers. Charles Dickens described his block in terms of R05 35 "prowling about the rooms, sitting down, getting up, R05 36 stirring the fire, looking out of the window, tearing my hair, R05 37 sitting down to write, writing nothing, writing something and R05 38 tearing it up ...." But Dickens, if only to pay his debts, R05 39 got himself going again. So do most blocked writers, some by riding R05 40 it out, others by heeding the advice of others. Author Barry Hannah R05 41 views the condition simply as one more experience to file away. R05 42 "I had a terrible block against writing this R05 43 summer," he said in an interview, "and even that R05 44 I'll look at as subject matter."

R05 45 Every communications pundit can tell others how to beat word R05 46 block: Just get something down, anything the brain spews out. R05 47 You can shape and prune later, in revisions and rewrites. Passion R05 48 first, control second. Shout first, write second. Henriette Anne R05 49 Klauser splits the artist's mind in Writing on Both Sides of R05 50 the Brain: Breakthrough Techniques for People Who Write. The R05 51 brain's right hemisphere creates, the left one edits. Play first, R05 52 then work, she advises; blockage comes from trying to do both at R05 53 once. (And from thinking about cerebral hemispheres at war.)

R05 54 FLEDGLING writers want to pump greatness from the moment they R05 55 have a title in mind. They center that glorious title -

R05 56 Coming of Age in Kankakee

R05 57 - skip a space, and enter their byline. They wrestle with an R05 58 opening line. "This is the untold story of ..." R05 59 They watch the blinking cursor. The story dissolves into scenarios R05 60 of their own fame. Soon they can hear the echos from posterity - R05 61 "It was to be her greatest work" - when R05 62 in truth it was to be her biggest block until she gave up writing R05 63 and went into real estate. Indeed, William Zinsser describes how R05 64 aspiring writers set out "to commit an act of R05 65 literature," an impossible task. Journalism-trained R05 66 authors like Isabel Allende know better. "I don't think of R05 67 literature as an end in itself," she says. "It's R05 68 just a way of communicating something."

R05 69 Reckless bravado may work for some in launching a project, R05 70 particularly dramatists who thrive on the theatrical flourish. R05 71 Lanford Wilson, after winning the Pulitzer, is said to have begun a R05 72 subsequent work with the heading: "THIS IS THE NEXT PLAY BY R05 73 LAST YEAR'S PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING LANFORD WILSON." Most R05 74 writers would rise to this challenge with about nine years of R05 75 creative paralysis.

R05 76 For the average writer facing a slow start or a temporary R05 77 block, here are the more conventional approaches to making the R05 78 words flow again:

R05 79 <*_>black-square<*/>Do a 'freewrite' of unedited, unpublishable R05 80 banter on your topic. Write fast. Try not to stop. Get it down.

R05 81 <*_>black-square<*/>Write yourself a newsy letter or telegram R05 82 covering the high points; don't bother with beginnings, R05 83 transitions, or endings but just write chunks that turn you on.

R05 84 <*_>black-square<*/>Begin thusly: "What I really want R05 85 to say is ..." or "I would like to write about R05 86 ..."

R05 87 <*_>black-square<*/>Begin a difficult passage with a question R05 88 you want it to answer. Answer the question. Then delete the R05 89 question itself.

R05 90 <*_>black-square<*/>End the day's writing in midstream, with a R05 91 passage that's easy to continue rather with a sealed-off unit.

R05 92 <*_>black-square<*/>Don't get hung up on a word. Write a R05 93 strings<&|>sic! of x's and finish the sentence. Later, perhaps as R05 94 you walk around the block, the xxxxx word will come to you.

R05 95 <*_>black-square<*/>You're blocked because you're tired and R05 96 benumbed. Get away from your desk. Get some rest. Shorten your R05 97 writing sessions.

R05 98 <*_>black-square<*/>You're blocked because you hate the R05 99 particular project. Cut your losses by backing out. Spend the time R05 100 you've gained on jobs you can live with.

R05 101 <*_>black-square<*/>You're blocked because you're disgusted R05 102 with the pages you've written thus far. Don't look at them. Brian R05 103 Aldiss, who writes a novel and several short stories each year, R05 104 says he places completed pages face down and won't backtrack until R05 105 the first draft is completed. This way he sustains the necessary R05 106 "vision" and "creative glow." Later, R05 107 "creative hope mixed with critical discontent" R05 108 carries him through the rewrites.

R05 109 <*_>black-square<*/>You're blocked because you're distracted. R05 110 Clear your desk of clutter. Write early in the morning, before the R05 111 world's distractions begin. Or get out of the house altogether if R05 112 you can find a work space elsewhere. For San Francisco writer Diane R05 113 Johnson, "home is home and writing is work." R05 114 (Better-heeled than most, Johnson chose as her workplace Villa R05 115 Serbelloni, a historic mansion overlooking Lake Como in Northern R05 116 Italy.)

R05 117 <*_>black-square<*/>You're blocked not because your mind is R05 118 blank, but because it's overloaded with all the good ideas that R05 119 have percolated during the day. Now, as you start to write, they R05 120 want to pour out all at once and seem to evaporate. If you've R05 121 written them down, as you must, take one idea at a time and work it R05 122 through. Keep a notepad handy (on or off screen) even as you write; R05 123 record the new ideas that shoot by and tend to derail you and deal R05 124 with them later.

R05 125 <*_>black-square<*/>You are blocked because it's getting you R05 126 some attention; because you (or someone close to you) romanticize R05 127 artistic failure and self-destruction. You and your enablers must R05 128 grow up. Kate Braverman recalls a time when, "for me, art R05 129 required certain elements of self-destruction. Becoming a mother R05 130 was the turning point. Then health and sanity began to have the R05 131 allure that sickness had had."

R05 132 <*_>black-square<*/>You're blocked because you've discovered a R05 133 problem in premise or structure or some other fundamental aspect R05 134 that can't be resolved. Annie Dillard's advice: "Every book R05 135 has an intrinsic impossibility, which its writer discovers as soon R05 136 as his first excitement dwindles." Accept it and keep R05 137 writing, she says. Like with a dying friend, you sit up with your R05 138 book and hold its hand and hope it gets better. Braverman agrees. R05 139 "Always finish the failure - you'll never know when there's R05 140 going to be a mutation."

R05 141 AN IDEA FROM THE BUSINESS WORLD

R05 142 The business world hates leaving anything to chance, including R05 143 creativity. Blocked creativity is money lost. So enter Edward de R05 144 Bono, a learned Brit who turned a technique he calls R05 145 "lateral thinking" into a worldwide R05 146 management-training industry. In Lateral Thinking for R05 147 Management, one of his avalanche of books, de Bono offers a R05 148 process of breaking away from the cognitive patterns R05 149 ("vertical thinking") people tend to use in solving R05 150 problems. Such patterns produce blah solutions or dead ends. R05 151 Lateral thinking gets away from choosing the next logical R05 152 step; it invites completely irrelevant ideas to "intrude" R05 153 on the continuity of patterned thinking. From these instrusions R05 154 come disconnected, off-the-wall ideas that seem unrelated to the R05 155 problem until - bong! - they generate creative and exceptional R05 156 solutions. Lateral thinking is akin to what writers call intuitive R05 157 flashes and insights, but more systematic.

R05 158 For example, de Bono uses the "random word" R05 159 exercise to introduce discontinuity into patterned thinking. You R05 160 are blocked. Every idea follows trite patterns. Now, open a R05 161 dictionary anywhere; the first noun defined on the page (no R05 162 cheating!) is your unblocking word. Play with all its meanings for R05 163 about three minutes and see what wild, unchosen connections they R05 164 might have to your original problem. In de Bono's example, the R05 165 problem is finding better incentives for a sales force, and the R05 166 word gong pops up. Instead of the traditional incentives, he R05 167 begins thinking of gonglike proclamations of top performances, loud R05 168 and brief incentives such as short-term cash prizes, and so on. If R05 169 de Bono were struggling to create a fictional salesman, the process R05 170 might be something like: Gong - Short, punchy. A son named R05 171 Bong ... Bing ... Biff! Gong - Percussion ... crash ... car R05 172 crash ... suicide ... car crash suicide and insurance for the R05 173 family!

R05 174 THERE are whole treatises on writer's block, including one from R05 175 the never-blocked advice factory called Writer's Digest. A R05 176 Wisconsin workshop offers "Twelve Ways to Smash R05 177 Block" with the cheesy promise, "You never need R05 178 suffer from writer's block or writer's blank again."

R05 179 Advice is always easy to give. Jay Parini's essay, "The R05 180 More They Write, the More They Write," quotes Iris Murdoch R05 181 and Stephen King, who knock out about a half million words a year R05 182 between them. "I just keep writing," says Murdoch R05 183 when asked about being stuck. "I just flail away at the R05 184 thing," says King. One's own block, however, feels less R05 185 like being "stuck" than like clinical depression, which it R05 186 sometimes is. This is the true quicksand, and the harder one tries R05 187 to climb out the deeper one sinks. Advising severely blocked R05 188 writers to "write themselves a letter" is like R05 189 telling depressives to cheer up by joining clubs.

R05 190 For the big blocks, each writer must find a way to reverse the R05 191 negative psychic energy that has built up. For Carson McCullers, R05 192 blocking on A Member of the Wedding at the Yaddo writer's R05 193 retreat, it was lying stomach-down on the ground and beating her R05 194 fists on the manuscript and calling "Mother! R05 195 Mother!" Cry and curse, then find the ladder that John H. R05 196 Johnson talks about (see head of chapter). Use no polite method; R05 197 borrow the techniques of sports and combat heroes. Pro football R05 198 coach Mike Ditka developed a unique method of clearing his mind on R05 199 the sidelines. As sportscaster John Madden described it: R05 200 "Now you see, you bend over. You put both hands on your R05 201 knees. And you spit. And good ideas come."

R05 202 SPITTING won't be necessary in most situations. Ordinary word R05 203 blockage is the very toil of writing. Some of it results from the R05 204 contradictions of creating literature, what Harold Bloom calls R05 205 "achieved anxiety" and what Plotnikov has described R05 206 as "controlled crying." Always the questions, Is it R05 207 too much? Not enough? Everything must be in balance, in harmony, R05 208 but something must tip the scale. The whole writing business is a R05 209 pretzel of paradoxes, from the philosophical to the technical R05 210 levels. These are some of the mixed messages that tie writers in R05 211 knots:

R05 212 <*_>black-square<*/>Just write for yourself; but write to R05 213 sell.

R05 214 <*_>black-square<*/>Just get it down, even if it stinks; R05 215 but don't settle for anything that displeases you.

R05 216 <*_>black-square<*/>Be clever and brilliant; but don't R05 217 show off.

R05 218 <*_>black-square<*/>Avoid big words; but don't use too R05 219 many little words.

R05 220 <*_>black-square<*/>Write with style; but don't let style R05 221 call attention to itself.

R05 222 <*_>black-square<*/>Write something fresh and surprising; R05 223 but don't go off the deep end.

R05 224 <*_>black-square<*/>Tell it as it is; but don't offend the R05 225 wrong people or expose yourself to libel, invasion of privacy, or R05 226 obscenity.

R05 227 <*_>black-square<*/>Know your subject, write about what you R05 228 know; but don't overwhelm the reader with detail.

R05 229 <*_>black-square<*/>Use forceful words; but not too R05 230 forceful for the thoughts delivered.

R05 231 <*_>black-square<*/>Be sincere; but remember Oscar Wilde's R05 232 admonition that all bad poetry is sincere.

R05 233 R05 234 R06 1 <#FROWN:R06\>THE PROFESSOR

R06 2 By Lydia Davis

R06 3 A few years ago I used to tell myself I wanted to marry a R06 4 cowboy. Why shouldn't an English professor say this to herself - R06 5 living alone, fascinated by a brown landscape, spotting a cowboy in R06 6 a pickup truck sometimes in her rearview mirror as she drives on R06 7 the broad highways of the West Coast? In fact, I realize I would R06 8 still like to marry a cowboy, though by now I'm living in the East R06 9 and married already to someone who is not a cowboy.

R06 10 But what would a cowboy want with a woman like me - not very R06 11 easy-going, an English professor, the daughter of another English R06 12 professor? If I have a drink or two, I'm more easy-going than if I R06 13 don't, but I still speak correctly and don't know how to joke with R06 14 people unless I know them well, and often these are university R06 15 people or the people they live with, who also speak correctly. R06 16 Although I don't mind them, I feel cut off from all the other R06 17 people in this country - to mention only this country.

R06 18 I told myself I liked the way cowboys dressed, starting with R06 19 the hat, and how comfortable they were in their clothes, so R06 20 practical, having to do with their work. Many professors seem to R06 21 dress the way they think a professor should dress, without any real R06 22 interest or love. Their clothes are too tight or else a few years R06 23 out of style and just add to the awkwardness of their bodies.

R06 24 After I was hired to teach for the first time I bought a R06 25 briefcase, and then after I started teaching I carried it through R06 26 the halls like the other professors. I could see that the older R06 27 professors, mostly men but also some women, were no longer aware of R06 28 the importance of their briefcases and that the younger women R06 29 pretended they weren't aware of it, but the younger men carried R06 30 their briefcases like trophies.

R06 31 At that same time my father began sending me thick envelopes R06 32 containing material he thought would help me in my classes, R06 33 including exercises to assign and quotes to use. I didn't read more R06 34 than a few pages sometimes when I was feeling strong. How could an R06 35 old professor try to teach a young professor? Didn't he know I R06 36 wouldn't be able to carry my briefcase through the halls and say R06 37 hello to my colleagues and students and then go home and read the R06 38 instructions of the old professor?

R06 39 In fact, I liked teaching because I liked telling other people R06 40 what to do. In those days it seemed clearer to me than it does now: R06 41 If I did something a certain way, it had to be right for other R06 42 people too. I was so convinced of it that my students were R06 43 convinced too. Still, though I was a good teacher, I was something R06 44 else inside. Some of the old professors were also old professors R06 45 inside, but inside I wasn't even a young professor. I looked like a R06 46 woman in glasses, but I had dreams of leading a very different kind R06 47 of life, the life of a woman who would not wear glasses, the kind R06 48 of woman I saw from a distance now and then in a bar.

R06 49 More important than the clothes a cowboy wore, and the way he R06 50 wore them, was the fact that a cowboy probably wouldn't know much R06 51 more than he had to. He would think about his work, and about his R06 52 family, if he had one, and about having a good time, and not much R06 53 else. I was tired of so much thinking, which was what I did most in R06 54 those days. I did other things, but I went on thinking while I did R06 55 them. I might feel something, but I would think about what I was R06 56 feeling at the same time. I even had to think about what I was R06 57 thinking and wonder why I was thinking it. When I had the idea of R06 58 marrying a cowboy I imagined that maybe a cowboy would help me stop R06 59 thinking so much.

R06 60 I also imagined, though I was probably wrong about this too, R06 61 that a cowboy wouldn't be like anyone I knew - like an old R06 62 communist, or a member of a steering committee, a writer of letters R06 63 to the newspaper, a faculty wife serving at a student tea, a R06 64 professor reading proofs with a sharp pencil and asking everyone to R06 65 be quiet. I thought that when my mind - always so busy, always R06 66 going around in circles, always having an idea and then an idea R06 67 about an idea - reached out to his mind, it would meet something R06 68 quieter, that there would be more blanks, more open spaces; that R06 69 some of what he had in his mind might be the sky, clouds, hilltops, R06 70 and then concrete things like ropes, saddles, horsehair, the smell R06 71 of horses and cattle, motor oil, calluses, grease, fences, gullies, R06 72 dry streambeds, lame cows, still-born calves, freak calves, R06 73 veterinarians' visits, treatments, inoculations. I imagined this R06 74 even though I knew that some of the things I liked that might be in R06 75 his mind, like the saddles, the saddle sores, the horsehair, and R06 76 the horses themselves, weren't often a part of the life of a cowboy R06 77 anymore. As for what I would do in my life with this cowboy, I R06 78 sometimes imagined myself reading quietly in clean clothes in a R06 79 nice study, but at other times I imagined myself oiling tack or R06 80 cooking large quantities of plain food or helping out in the barn R06 81 in the early morning while the cowboy had both arms inside a cow to R06 82 turn a calf so it would present properly. Problems and chores like R06 83 these would be clear and I would be able to handle them in a clear R06 84 way. I wouldn't stop reading and thinking, but I wouldn't know very R06 85 many people who did a lot of that, so I would have more privacy in R06 86 it, because the cowboy, though so close to me all the time, R06 87 wouldn't try to understand but would leave me alone with it. I R06 88 would not be an embarrassment anymore.

R06 89 I thought if I married a cowboy I wouldn't have to leave the R06 90 West. I liked the West for its difficulties. I liked the difficulty R06 91 of telling when one season was over and another had begun, and I R06 92 liked the difficulty of finding any beauty in the landscape. To R06 93 begin with, I had gotten used to its own kind of ugliness: all R06 94 those broad highways laid down in the valleys and the new R06 95 constructions placed up on the bare hillsides. Then I began to find R06 96 beauty in it, and liked the bareness and the plain brown of the R06 97 hills in the dry season, and the way the folds in the hills where R06 98 some dampness tended to linger would fill up with grasses and R06 99 shrubs and other flowering plants. I liked the plainness of the R06 100 ocean and the emptiness when I looked out over it. And then, R06 101 especially since it had been so hard for me to find this beauty, I R06 102 didn't want to leave it.

R06 103 I might have gotten the idea of marrying a cowboy from a movie R06 104 I saw one night in the springtime with a friend of mine who is also R06 105 a professor - a handsome and intelligent man, kinder than I am but R06 106 even more awkward around people, forgetting even the names of old R06 107 friends in his sudden attacks of shyness. He seemed to enjoy the R06 108 movie, though I have no idea what was going through his mind. Maybe R06 109 he was imagining a life with the woman in the movie, who was so R06 110 different from his thin, nervous, and beautiful wife. As we drove R06 111 away from the movie theater, on one of those broad highways with R06 112 nothing ahead or behind but taillights and headlights and nothing R06 113 on either side but darkness, all I wanted to do was go out into the R06 114 middle of the desert, as far away as possible from everything I had R06 115 known all my life, from the university where I was teaching and the R06 116 towns and the city near it with all the intelligent people who R06 117 lived and worked in them, writing down their ideas in notebooks and R06 118 on computers in their offices and their studies at home and taking R06 119 notes from difficult books. I wanted to leave all this and go out R06 120 into the middle of the desert and run a motel by myself with a R06 121 little boy, and have a worn-out cowboy come along, a worn-out R06 122 middle-aged cowboy, alcoholic if necessary, and marry him. I R06 123 thought I knew of a little boy I could take with me. Then all I R06 124 would need would be the aging cowboy and the motel. I would make it R06 125 a good motel. I would look after it and I would solve any problems R06 126 sensibly and right away as they came along. I thought I could be a R06 127 good, tough businesswoman just because I had seen this movie R06 128 showing this good, tough businesswoman. This woman also had a R06 129 loving heart and a capacity to understand another fallible human R06 130 being. The fact is that if an alcoholic cowboy came into my life in R06 131 any important way I would probably criticize him to death for his R06 132 drinking until he walked out on me. But at the time, I had that R06 133 strange confidence, born of watching a good movie, that I could be R06 134 something different from what I was, and I started listening to R06 135 country-western music on the car radio, though I knew it wasn't R06 136 written for me.

R06 137 At that point I met a man in one of my classes who seemed R06 138 reasonably close to my idea of a cowboy, though now I can't tell R06 139 exactly why I thought so. He wasn't really like a cowboy, or what I R06 140 thought a cowboy might be like, so what I wanted must have been R06 141 something else, and the idea of a cowboy just came up in my mind R06 142 for the sake of convenience. The facts weren't right. He didn't R06 143 work as a cowboy but at some kind of job where he glued the bones R06 144 of chimpanzees together. He played jazz trombone, and on the days R06 145 when he had a lesson he wore a dark suit to class and carried a R06 146 black case. He just missed being good-looking, with his square, R06 147 fleshy, pale face, his dark hair, mustache, dark eyes; just missed R06 148 being good-looking, not because of his rough cheeks - scarred from R06 149 shrapnel - but because of a loose or wild look about him, his eyes R06 150 wide open all the time, even when he smiled, and his body very R06 151 still, only his eyes moving, watching everything, missing nothing. R06 152 Wary, he was ready to defend himself as though every conversation R06 153 might also be something of a fight.

R06 154 One day when a group of us were having a beer together after R06 155 class, he was quiet, seemed very low, and finally said to us, R06 156 without raising his eyes, that he thought he might be going to move R06 157 in with his father and send his little girl back to her mother. He R06 158 said he didn't think it was fair to keep her because sometimes he R06 159 would just sit in a chair without speaking - she would try to talk R06 160 to him and he wouldn't be able to open his mouth, she would keep on R06 161 trying and he would sit there knowing he had to answer her but R06 162 unable to.

R06 163 His rudeness and wildness were comfortable to me at that point, R06 164 and because he would tease me now and then, I thought he liked me R06 165 enough so that I could ask him to go out to dinner with me, and R06 166 finally I did, just to see what would happen. He seemed startled, R06 167 then pleased to accept, sobered and flattered at this attention R06 168 from his professor.

R06 169 The date didn't turn out to be something that would change the R06 170 direction of my life, though that's not what I was expecting then, R06 171 only what I thought about later. R06 172 R07 1 <#FROWN:R07\>THE WHOLE TRUTH

R07 2 By Stephen McCauley

R07 3 She told her psychiatrist she was happily married and had taken R07 4 a lover only because she was afraid of being too close to her R07 5 husband, whom she'd wed six years earlier. If she'd been more R07 6 truthful, she'd have confessed that she'd begun her affair with the R07 7 dentist, whose office was in the same medical building as her own, R07 8 because she was bored with her husband, and that fear of intimacy R07 9 with her lover had driven her to sleep with the carpenter who'd R07 10 come to work on the front steps of the house late in the summer. R07 11 But she hadn't told her psychiatrist about the carpenter at all, R07 12 because her indiscretion with him struck her as slightly sordid, R07 13 and her psychiatrist was a gentle, bald man who sucked on sour R07 14 balls and nodded eagerly as she spoke and reminded her too much of R07 15 her father. She thought he might be upset to hear she'd fallen into R07 16 bed with a relative stranger. Mentioning her ongoing affair with R07 17 the dentist was surely enough. Besides, the steps were long R07 18 finished, and she was quite certain she'd never see the carpenter R07 19 again, let alone sleep with him, even though, in truth, she still R07 20 thought of him often.

R07 21 To compensate for her omissions, she transposed her feelings as R07 22 she spoke. Thus, whenever she wished to talk about her fear of R07 23 getting too close to her lover, she pretended she was talking about R07 24 her husband. And when she talked about the sexual excitement of her R07 25 affair with the dentist, she was really describing her fantasies R07 26 about the carpenter. If she wanted to discuss the exasperating R07 27 boredom of her marriage, she talked about a brief, boring first R07 28 marriage, which she'd invented during her second week of analysis. R07 29 It wasn't hard to keep track once she had it all down. And, she R07 30 assured herself, the essence of what she was saying was true; she R07 31 simply toyed with the names. As long as she was able to keep it all R07 32 straight in her mind, her analysis would have some value.

R07 33 It was her husband, who was kind and bald and reminded her a R07 34 little of her father - and now her psychiatrist - who'd first R07 35 suggested she seek treatment. She'd confessed to him that she was R07 36 unhappy, although she'd told him it was because, after all the R07 37 years of school and training, she was bored with dentistry. She'd R07 38 hinted, too, but only in the most gentle way, that she was having R07 39 doubts about their marriage, which, in fact, she was not. She knew R07 40 she was bored and that the marriage was simply a matter of R07 41 convenience for her and dependency for her husband. What she was R07 42 having doubts about was her affair. When her husband asked her, as R07 43 he did from time to time, what she'd told her psychiatrist about R07 44 their relationship, she'd report some of the things she'd actually R07 45 said about him, even though they were, of course, things she really R07 46 felt about her lover.

R07 47 Despite what she'd told her husband, she enjoyed her profession R07 48 and, after four years, had established a successful practice. She R07 49 and her husband lived in a university town, and many of her R07 50 patients were young professionals and academic wives, the kinds of R07 51 people who usually didn't need major dental work but who came R07 52 dutifully three times a year for a cleaning and a checkup. To R07 53 please them, she'd decorated her waiting room with old R07 54 black-and-white photographs she'd bought at antique stores and easy R07 55 chairs draped with printed cloth imported from India. The decor had R07 56 first struck her as homey, if a bit cluttered. Now, however, her R07 57 waiting room had begun to look to her like a psychiatrist's office. R07 58 She avoided subscribing to the predictable dentist-office R07 59 publications and instead kept recent copies of literary journals on R07 60 the table by the door. She'd bought a narrow pine bookcase in which R07 61 she kept story collections by contemporary writers whom she R07 62 admired, even though she didn't care much for short stories.

R07 63 Most of her patients called her by her first name, and many R07 64 felt to her like casual friends. A number of women always asked her R07 65 about her husband, and as she worked on their teeth she'd talk R07 66 about him amiably, describing a man made up of equal parts of her R07 67 spouse, her lover, and her fantasies about the carpenter.

R07 68 Her mother lived in Kentucky and was proud of her achievements. R07 69 The only regret her mother ever expressed was that her husband had R07 70 not lived to see their daughter graduate from dental school. She R07 71 was close to her mother, and they talked on the phone once a week R07 72 for at least an hour. Wanting desperately to tell her about her R07 73 psychiatrist, but not wanting to alarm her, she told her mother R07 74 that her husband, who was twelve years older than she was, had R07 75 started seeing a therapist three times a week. Therapist sounded R07 76 more benign than psychiatrist. She told her mother her husband was R07 77 having a mid-life career crisis. Feeling daring, she hinted at R07 78 suspicions that he was also having an affair. Her mother listened R07 79 sympathetically and suggested that perhaps she and her husband R07 80 should go to Bermuda together for a week and try to work things R07 81 out. She reminded her mother that her husband's therapy R07 82 appointments made such a vacation impossible. After she'd hung up, R07 83 she went to her husband and told him she thought he should take a R07 84 vacation, even though she wouldn't be able to go along.

R07 85 Her lover was also married. He was severe and serious and R07 86 driven by nervous intensity. He bit his fingernails and sometimes, R07 87 after they'd made love, would take her in his arms and weep. He R07 88 would divorce his wife if she would divorce her husband. The two of R07 89 them would go off together, set up a practice in a different city, R07 90 and start life all over. She explained to him that she was tempted, R07 91 but could not make any moves until she had resolved some things in R07 92 analysis. When her lover asked her if she was telling her R07 93 psychiatrist how much they loved each other and the passionate R07 94 nature of their sexual relationship, she told him that she was, R07 95 even though when she described to her psychiatrist her longing for R07 96 the dentist, she was thinking of the carpenter. And when she told R07 97 her psychiatrist about her desire to leave her husband, she was R07 98 really describing her desire to break off her affair with the R07 99 dentist.

R07 100 She feared that if she confessed to her psychiatrist that she'd R07 101 been unable to tell her mother about him, his feelings would be R07 102 hurt, and he would think she was resisting treatment. So instead R07 103 she told him that she'd told her mother, and that her mother had R07 104 been understanding and helpful. While she was on the subject, she R07 105 told her psychiatrist that it was her mother who'd suggested her R07 106 husband take a week in Bermuda on his own. She didn't want to sound R07 107 manipulative by admitting she'd suggested it to her husband R07 108 herself, and her mother had, after all, been the one to bring up R07 109 the subject of a vacation.

R07 110 In the middle of November her husband noticed that the floor of R07 111 the porch on the back of the house was beginning to rot, and he R07 112 called the carpenter. He told her this one night over dinner, and R07 113 she felt her heart race and sink and race and sink in a peculiar R07 114 way, almost as if she were running a fever. He told her that the R07 115 carpenter would begin work in the middle of the next week, the very R07 116 Wednesday, in fact, he was leaving for Bermuda. He apologized that R07 117 he would not be there to oversee the job. She told him that the R07 118 carpenter had impressed her as reliable and would probably need R07 119 very little supervision, and she finished her dinner hastily.

R07 120 The Monday before her husband left on his trip, she decided to R07 121 test the waters. She told her psychiatrist that a young man would R07 122 be working on their house that week, that she had met him when he'd R07 123 come to estimate the cost of the job, and that she had found him R07 124 attractive. She told him he was a craftsman who painted walls with R07 125 sponges so the finished surface looked like fine wallpaper. This R07 126 skill, she felt, made the carpenter sound as sensitive and refined R07 127 as she was certain he really must be. Her psychiatrist raised one R07 128 eyebrow inquisitively when she told him this, a gesture that she R07 129 took as a sign of disapproval. So she dropped the subject of the R07 130 carpenter quickly, and told him, as if confessing it, that she was R07 131 looking forward to her husband's departure so that she could spend R07 132 more time with her lover, the dentist.

R07 133 She canceled her appointments for Wednesday, drove her husband R07 134 to the airport, and sped home in a state of confused anticipation. R07 135 It was an oddly warm day, nearly eighty, and the November sky was R07 136 blank and murky in the Indian-summer heat. She waited for the R07 137 carpenter on the front steps of the house, dressed in a long skirt R07 138 made of thin cotton and a baggy blouse, trying to read a collection R07 139 of stories recommended to her by a patient.

R07 140 When he finally arrived, she felt embarrassed, certain that he R07 141 could read her anxiety and its source on the brow. She was only R07 142 somewhat relieved to notice that he, too, seemed uncomfortable.

R07 143 She stayed in the house all day, cleaning and arranging drawers R07 144 and cautiously looking out the kitchen window to the porch where R07 145 the carpenter was working. It wasn't until late in the afternoon, R07 146 when he was sweeping up for the day, that she asked him inside and R07 147 offered him a drink.

R07 148 She called her receptionist the next morning and canceled her R07 149 patients for the rest of the week. Then she called her lover and R07 150 told him she'd decided to take advantage of her husband's absence R07 151 by visiting her mother in Kentucky for a few days. She left a R07 152 message on her psychiatrist's answering machine, explaining that R07 153 she'd decided to go to Bermuda with her husband after all and would R07 154 therefore miss her next two appointments.

R07 155 The carpenter was five years younger than she was, dark-eyed R07 156 and appealingly stocky. He wore blue jeans and a red T-shirt. He R07 157 worked diligently on the porch for the next two days. Now and again R07 158 he'd enter the house, and kiss her teasingly and tell her she was R07 159 beautiful. When he finished work for the afternoon, he'd come R07 160 inside, sweaty and exhausted, and they'd make love, though never, R07 161 he insisted, in the bed she shared with her husband.

R07 162 On Saturday night she prepared him an enormous, complicated R07 163 dinner. After the meal, they lay together on the sofa in the living R07 164 room with the curtains drawn and a light sheet pulled over their R07 165 bodies. There had been a rainstorm that afternoon, and the weather R07 166 had turned seasonably cool, though the rooms of the house were R07 167 still warm. He told her he loved her, and she kissed him R07 168 thankfully, even though she wasn't young or sentimental enough to R07 169 believe he meant it.

R07 170 He told her he was moving to Texas for the winter. He had R07 171 friends there who had offered him a job for a few months; he'd put R07 172 his books and his furniture into storage and drive south. He didn't R07 173 really know how long he'd stay away. She was struck all at once by R07 174 how wonderfully simple it sounded, by how unentangled and R07 175 uncomplicated his life was compared with her own. It seemed pure, R07 176 clean, and enviable. Jokingly, he asked her if she'd like to go R07 177 with him She told him she would in a soft, choking voice. She R07 178 buried her face in his broad chest and began to laugh at the idea. R07 179 Her laughter fed on itself until she lost control completely and R07 180 discovered that she was weeping.

R07 181 She rarely cried. She had cried only once in front of her R07 182 psychiatrist. R07 183 R08 1 <#FROWN:R08\>Selling Whiskers

R08 2 One day Edna Sarah's mother sent her out to sell the dog. He R08 3 was not an ordinary dog, and certainly it was not ordinary in her R08 4 neighborhood to try and sell a dog by going from house to house, R08 5 but Edna Sarah, who was ten, did not have much choice; or so she R08 6 felt.

R08 7 When her mother told her what she was thinking, it was during R08 8 supper, a rather measly supper, but that was her mother's excuse R08 9 for selling the dog, which Edna Sarah knew was completely false. R08 10 The house was stuffed with food. The cabinets in the kitchen were R08 11 overflowing. The refrigerator was threatening to burst. If Edna R08 12 Sarah opened the door to the pantry, a can from the highest shelf R08 13 always fell out, so she had given up trying. Besides, her mother R08 14 had a nose that could sniff out the smallest crack in a bag of R08 15 raisins, a food Edna Sarah had not thought of as particularly R08 16 aromatic, crouched last week in the linen closet, the door suddenly R08 17 flung open, her mother there, her hand quick, no food between R08 18 meals, she snapped, the bag of raisins gone, the door slammed R08 19 shut.

R08 20 In fact, Edna Sarah had begun to think of the food in the house R08 21 as not food at all but artifacts. She knew that her mother kept R08 22 boxes of Girl Scout cookies stacked in her closet, and the big R08 23 chocolate candy bars that kids sold to make money for organizations R08 24 stuffed in her drawers, six-packs of small green Coca-Cola bottles R08 25 under her bed, and lots and lots of bags of oyster crackers strewn R08 26 around the room as though they were decorator pillows. Everything R08 27 was well-packaged and well-sealed and had a long shelf life.

R08 28 "I think we should sell Whiskers," her mother R08 29 said. They were seated at the table in the kitchen, which was bare R08 30 except for their plates and utensils. Edna Sarah was picking at a R08 31 Vienna sausage. She had two on her plate. Of course, Whiskers had R08 32 few whiskers, but her mother had wanted a cat to keep the mice R08 33 population down. They had no mice and they had no cat, but they did R08 34 have a purebred West Highland terrier with one eye; and they did R08 35 have food but it was inaccessible, a word that hit Edna Sarah in R08 36 her gut and her soul the first time her teacher defined it.

R08 37 "I don't want to sell Whiskers," she said.

R08 38 "I know you don't want to," answered her R08 39 mother. She ran her noticeably thin fingers through her sheer blond R08 40 bangs. "Who ever wants to sell their pet? Their trusty and R08 41 beloved pet."

R08 42 "Somebody, maybe," said Edna Sarah, looking R08 43 down, "but not I."

R08 44 "Why can't you say 'me'?" Her mother pierced R08 45 the remaining Vienna sausage on her plate with a fork. R08 46 "It's not normal."

R08 47 "Not me," she answered, twisting the end of her R08 48 long blond braid. "I'm not going to sell him."

R08 49 "But, dear," her mother leaned forward, the R08 50 Vienna sausage clinging to her fork, "can't you see how R08 51 we've been brought to this?"

R08 52 "I guess so," said Edna Sarah. She tapped her R08 53 roll. It made a hollow sound. She could actually remember a Sunday R08 54 morning last fall when her mother had made pancakes, the warm, R08 55 buttery smell rising into Edna Sarah's bedroom and her father R08 56 calling out for her to come. The night before, they had stayed up R08 57 late, all three of them, lying on a quilt in the grass to watch for R08 58 falling stars. But even then there were signs: three pancakes each, R08 59 no more, the rest of the batter scraped into a clean mayonnaise jar R08 60 to grow mold in the back of the refrigerator. "I haven't R08 61 lost my commission yet," her father laughed. Her mother R08 62 tightened the lid on the jar and looked at Edna Sarah. There are R08 63 never any guarantees, baby. Her father rose from the table, the R08 64 crossword puzzle in his hand. After the holidays he was gone, a R08 65 Lieutenant Commander in the Navy, away on his ship for another six R08 66 months.

R08 67 But they were fine, her mother said when the ombudsman called; R08 68 and yes, she would be at the meeting, to the Commander's wife; and R08 69 of course Edna Sarah could go to the movie with Adrienne (even as R08 70 the food disappeared from their plates, a little here and a little R08 71 there). These days Edna Sarah ate every bite of her hot lunch at R08 72 school, paid for with her allowance, and put the non-perishables in R08 73 her backpack for the weekends. To anyone who asked, she said she R08 74 was having a growth spurt, but it set her apart, the care she took, R08 75 even from her friends. She guessed she understood how she and her R08 76 mother had come to this.

R08 77 "I guess so?" Her mother's voice rose. R08 78 "I guess so? The evidence is everywhere." And she R08 79 swept her arm around the room, across the R08 80 <}_><-|>overstufffed<+|>overstuffed<}/> pantry, the burgeoning R08 81 refrigerator, and the cabinets that would not close. R08 82 "Whiskers," she called, "come here," and he R08 83 dutifully came, his ears up, his tail wagging, his nose poised, the R08 84 one good eye wide and open, the other gone, its eyelid sunken and R08 85 shriveled. He was a good dog. "Whiskers," she said, R08 86 "you are eating us out of house and home," and she R08 87 gave him the Vienna sausage off her fork. He smacked and chewed and R08 88 licked his lips, and then he came over to Edna Sarah's chair. She R08 89 looked at her mother's plate and the empty fork. Yes, her mother R08 90 had given Whiskers a Vienna sausage, although it broke all the R08 91 rules. So Edna Sarah took one of hers and gave it to Whiskers and R08 92 stroked him on the head.

R08 93 "Good God!" her mother yelled. "You R08 94 have given the dog the last bite of food in the house!"

R08 95 It was useless for Edna Sarah to point out the remaining R08 96 sausage on her plate, let alone the roll. They no longer existed. R08 97 She stood up from the table and pushed back her chair. "How R08 98 much do you want me to sell him for?"

R08 99 "Two hundred dollars," her mother answered. R08 100 "It's the least we can ask for such a fine animal." R08 101 Then she rose from the table and took her plate to the sink and R08 102 carefully scraped what was not there into the disposal. R08 103 "And, dear," she turned back, "please don't R08 104 come home until you've sold him. It's a terrible thing to ask, I R08 105 know, but we are simply that desperate." Edna Sarah looked R08 106 at her mother and saw that she believed every word she was R08 107 saying.

R08 108 So Edna Sarah went to the closet and got the new retractable R08 109 leash her mother had bought only recently and put it on Whiskers - R08 110 he wagged his tail and grinned - then together they walked several R08 111 blocks to a part of the neighborhood where nobody knew her. The R08 112 evening was warm. The light was soft. The day lilies were blooming. R08 113 She started to whistle, "She'll Be Coming Round the R08 114 Mountain When She Comes," Whiskers sniffing here and there R08 115 and lifting his leg to pee a little.

R08 116 The first house she decided to try was on Maplewood, a white R08 117 house with a red tile roof and a big yard edged with flowers. There R08 118 was a sliding board and a sandbox and a long swing hanging from a R08 119 tall tree. She imagined the lift she could get out of that swing, R08 120 especially with a decent push. In fact, she remembered having once R08 121 seen a man on his knees at the front flower bed. She rang the R08 122 doorbell. The man came to the door.

R08 123 "Yes?" he said, and smiled. He was tall and slender and R08 124 was wearing a white T-shirt and khaki shorts and looked to Edna R08 125 Sarah like someone who might like to wrestle with his children on R08 126 the floor. She had seen some fathers do this. She smiled at the man R08 127 and picked up Whiskers and held him in her arms.

R08 128 "Would you like to buy my dog?" she asked. R08 129 "There's nothing wrong with him, except one of his eyes is R08 130 missing." Whiskers was quiet in her arms.

R08 131 The man came out onto the porch. "My mother has a R08 132 Westie named Duffy," he said and reached out and stroked R08 133 the dog's head. "What's his name?"

R08 134 "Whiskers," she answered.

R08 135 "Hello, Whiskers," he said. Whiskers' shriveled R08 136 eyelid twitched and he wagged his tail against her arm. She heard R08 137 the voice of a child inside and what must have been the voice of R08 138 the mother. She strained her ears. "Why are you selling R08 139 him?" the man asked.

R08 140 "Oh, you know," she said, stroking Whiskers' R08 141 back, "sometimes people get tired of their dogs." Just then R08 142 a little girl pushed open the storm door and ran up beside the man. R08 143 She was fair and slender and had a headful of thick dark hair and R08 144 was wearing a dress.

R08 145 "Doggie!" she said. "Beautiful doggie!" R08 146 The man reached down and picked her up and showed her how to touch R08 147 the dog. Edna Sarah was ecstatic. They would buy Whiskers and she R08 148 would come back to visit him and they would all wrestle on the R08 149 carpet and push each other on the swing and she would stay to help R08 150 the mother fix dinner and eat it.

R08 151 "Look," laughed the little girl. "He's kissing R08 152 my hand."

R08 153 "I know," said Edna Sarah. "He likes R08 154 you." And she stroked Whiskers' back and smiled.

R08 155 "How much are you selling him for?" the man R08 156 wanted to know.

R08 157 "Two hundred dollars," she told him. R08 158 "It's the least we can ask for such a fine dog."

R08 159 "He is a fine dog." Then the man put the little R08 160 girl down and told her to run inside and ask her mother to help her R08 161 put on her pajamas; she stared at Edna Sarah.

R08 162 "I have a boo-boo," she said, "a very R08 163 bad boo-boo." She pointed to a Band-Aid on the side of her R08 164 knee, just below the hem of her dress.

R08 165 "My goodness," said Edna Sarah.

R08 166 "Do you want to see it?" she asked, and reached R08 167 for the Band-Aid, just as the mother came out onto the porch, tall R08 168 and slender with short dark hair. She smiled at Edna Sarah, scooped R08 169 up the little girl, and they disappeared into the house. Edna Sarah R08 170 heard the child say, "I was talking to that R08 171 girl."

R08 172 "I know," the mother answered. "You're R08 173 very precocious."

R08 174 Edna Sarah smiled at the man. "So", she said, R08 175 "would you like to buy my dog?"

R08 176 He smiled back but his eyes were tired. "I guess not. R08 177 The yard isn't fenced in. The house is small. My daughter is R08 178 unpredictable." He touched Whiskers' nose.

R08 179 Edna Sarah put Whiskers on the porch and straightened his R08 180 leash. "I have to be going," she said, then, R08 181 "come on, buddy," and down the steps they went.

R08 182 "Good luck," the man called.

R08 183 "Thank-you," she answered, but did not turn R08 184 around. She walked straight across the street to the house on the R08 185 other side, a tall yellow house with dark green shutters and an R08 186 overgrown sort of yard. Someone had left a wagon with a high, R08 187 straight handle on the front walk. Edna Sarah rang the doorbell and R08 188 a black woman opened the door. She was tall and robust and said, R08 189 "Hi," just as a little boy about the size of the little R08 190 girl across the street pushed himself around the woman's legs and R08 191 stood poised on the threshold. Edna Sarah could see that he was not R08 192 her son, his hair blond and wavy, but he was sturdy, a very sturdy R08 193 little boy.

R08 194 "Das a dog," he said.

R08 195 "Would you like to buy him?" Edna Sarah asked. R08 196 She picked up Whiskers and looked at the woman. "He's a R08 197 purebred West Highland terrier with a missing eye, but you would R08 198 never know it from the way he acts, and he loves children." R08 199 Whiskers' shriveled eyelid twitched.

R08 200 "I want to touch dat dog," the little boy R08 201 said.

R08 202 "Why are you selling him?" the woman asked, and R08 203 she picked up the little boy, who stretched his hand toward R08 204 Whiskers. R08 205 R09 1 <#FROWN:R09\>8 R09 2 In a few days' time, my handcuffs won me an acceptance by the R09 3 villagers I never would have earned had I simply stayed in the R09 4 village, even for the rest of my life. The handcuffs gave me a R09 5 logical occupation, that of prisoner, and a reason for not simply R09 6 spending my money and leaving. The children who kept trying to sell R09 7 me Chiclets now desisted. Now, as I stood on the riverbank, they R09 8 would come up to stand beside me and slip their slim wrists through R09 9 my free handcuff. Some would solemnly march around the village with R09 10 me as if they were doing penance. Others thought it was funny to R09 11 slip a hand into the cuff and hang from it as if unconscious. They R09 12 loved being dragged by me across the village square.

R09 13 I almost came to like the handcuffs. I found I could use them R09 14 to open bottles of beer. The drinking club found this amusing; they R09 15 made up sayings about the uses of bondage, and their discussions of R09 16 freedom became humorous and speculative. Some of them could not R09 17 look at me while they discussed my situation. They spoke to me in R09 18 the third person. "How is the prisoner today?" they R09 19 asked. For a while they called me el simbolito, the R09 20 symbol, and I got a good feeling of how totally abstract their R09 21 notion of freedom was. One night, Santiago gave the Thinkery a R09 22 beautiful twist on an old Greek myth. He asked whether the reason R09 23 the man kept wrestling with the boulder, and never quit trying to R09 24 roll it to the top of the mountain, was that the boulder was too R09 25 beautiful for him to leave it alone.

R09 26 "I have felt such stones," Blind Jorge said, R09 27 "and I know what you are talking about. They are weighted R09 28 inside with something significant. They have a heavy coolness about R09 29 them that becomes an obsession. We must be careful to choose our R09 30 obsessions wisely."

R09 31 "Our obsessions should be women," said Jesus. R09 32 "Women or nothing at all."

R09 33 This discussion reduced the drinking club to drunkenness and R09 34 tears. "Pure obsessions purify," Lieutenant Hugo R09 35 sobbed. "I know this because I am pure." Hugo was R09 36 wearing a T-shirt that said "Don't ask me. I just work R09 37 here."

R09 38 After the eruption of the volcano and the first-ever showing of R09 39 a movie in the village, the mood of the villagers had been high. R09 40 They expected good things: some sort of divine good luck from the R09 41 volcano's blessing and economic progress now that civilization in R09 42 the form of a Rambo movie had reached the little river's shores. R09 43 But when nothing obvious happened, they began to suspect a trick. R09 44 Three rumors came to town that week.

R09 45 Old man Wilson picked up on Blind Jorge's radio a report that a R09 46 massive earthquake was predicted for the capital at three that same R09 47 afternoon.

R09 48 "Who predicted the earthquake?" I asked.

R09 49 "The Star Wars people at NASA, in the United R09 50 States."

R09 51 "Impossible", I said.

R09 52 "That's what Hector says. That's what Lieutenant Hugo R09 53 says. But tell us, why then are all the schools closed in the R09 54 capital, and why is everyone sitting outside in the capital city's R09 55 parks?"

R09 56 "Because they are ignorant."

R09 57 "That's what Hector says. But tonight in the capital, R09 58 the people will all camp outdoors. And so shall we."

R09 59 And they did. They brought out their babies and blankets to the R09 60 center of the soccer field and they set up a camp. They had a R09 61 wonderful time. They danced and played volleyball, and the young R09 62 lovers were able to promenade for a while and then sneak back up to R09 63 their parents' empty houses. That evening the villagers lit cooking R09 64 fires. Somebody butchered a pig and soon an aroma of roast pork R09 65 filled the air. Some young American tourists joined the fiesta and R09 66 sang folk songs, which pleased the villagers immensely.

R09 67 Hector, Santiago, Hugo, and I stayed in the cantina, drinking R09 68 beer and watching the festivities in the field.

R09 69 "They are fools," Hector said. "I'll R09 70 tell them when they can have an earthquake."

R09 71 "They are having more fun than you are," I R09 72 said.

R09 73 Hector turned his big, slow eyes to me and shook his head. R09 74 "I'll show them fun. I've got plans for these R09 75 monkeys."

R09 76 Santiago said, "I hope we don't have an earthquake R09 77 tonight. It would mean years of enlightenment down the drain. Such R09 78 setbacks to civilization have happened before."

R09 79 "Don't worry," said Hugo. "I'll be in R09 80 charge."

R09 81 Hector belched and walked to the steps. He inhaled, filling his R09 82 huge rib cage with the savory air. Then he laughed an enormous, R09 83 evil, low-throated laugh and aimed it at the people in the R09 84 square.

R09 85 There was no earthquake that night. About midnight, it began to R09 86 rain.

R09 87 The second rumor came the next day, when some Swedish tourists R09 88 brought in the news that President Reagan was dying. He had a R09 89 cancer on his nose and it had spread to his brain.

R09 90 "My God," said Consuelo, "he must look R09 91 like those poor miscreants in the penny newspapers."

R09 92 The Swedes had read the story in a capital city tabloid.

R09 93 "You're sure of this?" I asked them.

R09 94 They shrugged their shoulders and nodded. They had read it. R09 95 Reagan had resigned and George Bush was now President.

R09 96 That evening I ate dinner at Mama Cuchara's and pumped the R09 97 tourists for information. They asked me what kind of president R09 98 George Bush would be.

R09 99 "Better," I said, but I had no idea.

R09 100 Two days later, Wilson picked up another report on the radio. A R09 101 four-engine airliner had left the capital and disappeared. On a R09 102 clear blue afternoon, it had taken off to fly down the Valley of R09 103 the Volcanoes and then had disappeared with fifty-four R09 104 people on board. The next day, the radio supplied three new rumors. R09 105 The first was that the plane had fallen into the caldera of a R09 106 volcano and the people were all alive but trapped in a land that R09 107 time had forgotten, a land complete with dinosaurs. The radio R09 108 announcer interviewed a university professor about dinosaurs. R09 109 Another rumor was that the plane had been caught in the ray of a R09 110 UFO and the passengers were all alive but trapped on another R09 111 planet. The announcer interviewed a psychic medium who had R09 112 contacted the pilot. The third rumor was that the plane had been R09 113 hijacked by Colombian drug runners and made to fly to Colombia. It R09 114 was being used to fly cocaine into the United States and the R09 115 passengers were all alive but being turned into slaves to labor on R09 116 a marijuana plantation.

R09 117 The villagers believed all three of these rumors.

R09 118 "This same thing happened before," they said, R09 119 "three years ago. And those fifty-four passengers are still R09 120 gone too."

R09 121 That precipitated a thinking club discussion on the consequence R09 122 of numbers.

R09 123 "Why did both planes have fifty-four R09 124 passengers?"

R09 125 "Maybe that is the number of seats," I said.

R09 126 "And what is the significance of that number equaling R09 127 the number of weeks in a year?"

R09 128 "There are fifty-two weeks in a year," I R09 129 said.

R09 130 "So far," they acknowledged, "that has R09 131 been the case, but that figure is arbitrary, is it not? And numbers R09 132 are arbitrary and, thus, capricious. Just look at the R09 133 lottery."

R09 134 "The lottery is random," I said. "It R09 135 has nothing to do with anything human. Arbitrary, capricious, or R09 136 personal."

R09 137 "Tell that to the fifty-two people on that R09 138 airplane," they said. "Tell that to the devil on R09 139 the day you die."

R09 140 "People who die on Sunday," Jesus politely R09 141 warned me, "do not always go to heaven."

R09 142 The next day the radio announced that the United States Air R09 143 Force had sent an aircraft to assist in the search for the missing R09 144 airliner. The plane was equipped with sophisticated sensors which R09 145 could detect the wreckage of the plane beneath the snow on a R09 146 volcano summit or beneath the canopies of the jungle trees.

R09 147 This was the report that really disturbed the villagers. R09 148 "Is this so?" they asked me. "Can this R09 149 plane see through the trees? With what? With secret R09 150 rays?"

R09 151 This time the villagers took refuge indoors, inside the few R09 152 buildings with tin roofs, which they hoped would shield them from R09 153 the rays. They kept Jorge's radio on a cardboard box just outside R09 154 the cantina, and the cantina became the scene of a Drinking and R09 155 Thinking Club marathon, a forty-eight-hour symposium which R09 156 discussed and dismissed as hopeless although interesting almost R09 157 every problem known to man. Santiago assured me he did not believe R09 158 in any danger, but he said the situation had its good aspect, the R09 159 gathering of so many fine minds for such an extended time.

R09 160 Wilson had been hurt on his motorcycle, which Hector had R09 161 mysteriously gotten back from the soldiers. Now Wilson wanted to R09 162 sue the Army for damaging his motorcycle, which had led to his R09 163 accident, which had led to his swollen ankle.

R09 164 "You need a lawyer for that," Jesus told him. R09 165 "And all the real lawyers are in the capital R09 166 city."

R09 167 "Fine. He'll go," Napoleon said. R09 168 "Wilson will press for his rights."

R09 169 "He will need proof he was hurt," Blind Jorge R09 170 pointed out.

R09 171 "I have my ankle," said Wilson, and he took off R09 172 a black rubber boot and displayed his injury. His ankle was black R09 173 and green.

R09 174 "Such evidence is circumstantial. You need an affidavit R09 175 from a certifiable physician. And for that you will need an R09 176 autopsy."

R09 177 "How much does that cost?" Wilson asked. R09 178 "Can I get it free from the Peace Corps lady at Huasipungo R09 179 Pass?"

R09 180 "Autopsies are never free," Wilson was told. R09 181 "Otherwise, they wouldn't stand up in court. The widow R09 182 Palos has an autopsy for her dead husband, Pedro. It is framed on R09 183 the wall of her house. It has more government stamps than a letter R09 184 to Lima."

R09 185 "Perhaps I could use her autopsy," Wilson R09 186 said.

R09 187 "Not a chance, dear Wilson. The widow does not know R09 188 what an autopsy is. She thinks it is a letter of condolence and R09 189 honor from the erstwhile President of the Republic, who is now R09 190 under the government's convenience of a house arrest. She would R09 191 never part with it."

R09 192 I told them that autopsies were performed on dead people, to R09 193 determine what had killed them. They looked at me as if I had R09 194 missed the whole point of the discussion.

R09 195 "Thank you for the clarification," they said R09 196 politely.

R09 197 Santiago interceded and guided the discussion toward R09 198 philosophy. "If autopsies are performed on dead people, we R09 199 must ask, Why?" he said. "And why aren't they more R09 200 logically performed on living people, to determine what is keeping R09 201 them alive?"

R09 202 "It is hope," Jesus said. "They say R09 203 that hope cannot be found with a surgeon's knife. A dead person has R09 204 sometimes died through the process of releasing hope, albeit R09 205 involuntarily. People have seen this hope releasing. It is colored R09 206 blue."

R09 207 "Why blue?" Blind Jorge asked.

R09 208 On the second day of the death rays, Napoleon left the cantina R09 209 to help Angelina provision her canoe. She drifted away on another R09 210 scientific expedition, with a group of British scientists who R09 211 looked at us as if we were fools.

R09 212 "Santiago," said El Brinco, "your daughter is R09 213 extraordinarily brave."

R09 214 At this, Lieutenant Hugo stood up. "Gentlemen," he R09 215 said. "The time for defense is past. The first barrage of R09 216 killer rays is over. It is time now to leave our bunker and find R09 217 our airliner ourselves. Our country for our countrymen. Our dead R09 218 for likewise. Our duty for the love of our mothers. Now, who R09 219 volunteers to join in the official search and rescue?"

R09 220 Everyone looked straight at Hugo and no one said a word. Hugo R09 221 took this as if he had expected it. He turned to me. "You. R09 222 I want to believe I can trust you."

R09 223 I jangled my handcuffs. "Go ahead," I said. R09 224 "Trust me."

R09 225 "It is accepted military procedure to allow prisoners R09 226 to regain their honor on dangerous missions. We march at R09 227 dawn."

R09 228 They all looked at one another and then cheered and called for R09 229 beer. El Brinco ran out of beer that night, and we left the next R09 230 day in the late afternoon to an absolute absence of fanfare. R09 231