Part 3: The Temptation of Marsha Bates

Part 3
The trees along the highway are sleeping out the winter. They are closed off with no leaves on their limbs and they sit still and untouched by the cold. The entire landscape outside the window of the SUV is blue, with a mist made up of of fog and chimney smoke that sits low on the fields. There’s something about it that makes me feel cozy and safe and I’m unhappy that I’ll have to get out of the car once we reach the fairgrounds.
Clay has a new assistant named Damien and they both have the same phone. It’s a cyborg or a droid or something like that and they both are speaking into their own matching devices. It looks silly, the older man sitting in front of me on the left and the younger sitting on the right, both jabbering away. They drone on and on and make comments and answer questions and when I listen in and hear the conversations go to other topics besides me I get slightly irritated. Both of their lives are now committed to talking about me, or at least an idea of me. I trust them both to do their jobs.
Damien is rather ugly. He’s probably n his early thirties, hard to tell, but he has a large mole near his right nostril that is dark brown in the center and then a light brown, sort of blond, around the rim of it. He has thick eyebrows and I wonder why he doesn’t have them trimmed. It’s now excepted for a man to take care of himself and trim hair and make himself look good. I wish Damien would do something about those brows, or at least the mole. It may be a small thing but when people see him they see the campaign. God forbid that he should ever be interviewed on TV and people see his face with the words “Bates Campaign” under it. Freaking A.
The driver turns us off the highway and into the neighboring street and we only go a block before we’re at the fairground entrance. There’s a large crowd gathered near it and everyone seems to be wearing orange shirts. I’m about to roll the window down and wave before Clay explains that they’re protesters.
“Protesting what?” I ask.
“Well, these are the Agent Orange folks, the gay rights folks, so I imagine it’s the comment you made at the debate.”
“I never said a freaking thing about gays!”
“Marsha, what were you supposed to do? They asked you about marriage.”
I recall what I said but I didn’t say anything about gays. One of the people from CNN had asked me if marriage was between a man and a woman and I had said: “I believe it is. Once you step beyond that you could have people marrying their dog or even their turtle.” I have used that line many times and people think it’s funny. I never said gay though. Typical, always sensitive and thinking everything is about them.
We drive by and even though these Agent Orange people can’t see through the dark windows and spot me inside they hold up their signs and chant. I can’t hear the chants but the signs say things like “Gay rights are human rights” and “Marsha Hates”. Most of them are women which I find strange. There are even some older women, in their sixties or seventies. They don’t look like gays or even liberals. This confuses me and I hope some of these people will see me speak today. I will bring up the Lord and remind them that He is still watching and that He still has a strong opinion about the whole thing. I will separate those that are with me from those that are against me by using His name.
The SUV plods through the fairground’s cement lanes and through the dirt to a tent in the far back. A metal fence is opened by security and we enter and park behind the tent where some trailers and porta pottys are set up. I step out of the truck and there are at least nine cameras pointed at me and flashing. I see an additional five camera men shooting video for television. I nod and wave and flash the smile for a brief moment before Clay motions to me and we retreat into one of the trailers.
“I don’t exactly understand what we’re doing here,” I tell him once we’re out of sight of the cameras.
“You were asked to come here. There’s a bunch of Liberty Party people that want to hear you speak,” Clay replies defensively.
“But what is this? A rally?”
“It’s a country fair or something. It’s just something these people throw in the fall. There’s a lot of good people here and more importantly the press followed the lead and showed up. You saw all those cameras did you not? They all came because we got the word out that you were going to speak. You’re a hot ticket Marsha.”
I like the cameras but I’m sick of these kinds of events. I’ve been doing these things since I first ran for congress. All these over weight ugly people with their fat little kids running around covered in ice cream and corn dog and looking for the bathroom. Sure enough I’m observing a pie eating contest forty five minutes later. The cameras all sit focused on me in the distance as I smile and chuckle along to the grown men and boys shoving their faces into huge berry pies laid out in front of them.
I walk along the fence where they have the live stock and I look at the dirty stinking pigs and the donkeys and even the one lone llama with buck teeth and I smile at them like I find them appealing when really I want to throw up in my mouth from the stench and the flies. Clay finally beckons me into a tent where a town hall meeting has been set up. The seats are all filled but I wait for the cameras to catch up with us before I take the stage.
An old woman with thinning hair asks about what I think of the fair and a fat man with a trucker hat asks what I think of Iowa and I literally can’t remember what I replied seconds after the answer has come from my mouth. This all has become so old and routine. And for what?
A younger guy who looks bitter and sullen asks about the economy and I throw out my “get back on track” answer that I worked on with Frank. It gets a big reaction from everyone in the tent. The next person asks pretty much the same thing like a freaking idiot and I answer basically the same way and get almost the same roar of applause that came the first time. A woman asks about the president being a Muslim and I realize this is truly my crowd. I don’t reply that I agree or know anything more than she does but I tell her that it’s time to take America back for Americans and everybody gets the message. They stand up and applaud as I leave the stage.


There’s a country band playing under the over cast sky and there’s barbecue getting served near the entrance of the fair grounds. I’ve shaken probably five hundred hands at this point and I have Pam bring an entire roll of paper towels and a bottle of hand sanitizer over to me so I can wipe off the bucolic germs. Don walks over with Pam, having just arrived and looking happy to see everyone. He is still a handsome man with his thick head of black hair having long ago lost it’s color and now a striking silver. It makes him look distinguished. He takes me in his arms and gives me a light kiss on the lips.
“You speak already?” he asks and I wonder if he even cares. I’m sure Clay had to call him at least five times to get him to even show up.
“Yes,” I reply sharply, my smile intact in case the cameras are watching.
He nods stupidly and glances around with his grin, recognizing that I’m annoyed. Sandra the intern strides up with a group of people that want to get their picture taken with me. Will Cedar is with them too and Don grins at him and introduces himself to him to which Will nods warmly. Don stares at Will as the young man explains his role in the Iowa campaign and I notice the stare is the same look he gives his patients when they have his full attention. It is a look I haven’t received from my husband in many years.
I am suddenly fiercely annoyed with Don and I interrupt their conversation to take him aside.
“I want to leave here a soon as I’m done with these people,” I tell him and I can’t help but let the smile drop away and my mouth becomes hard and unmovable.
“Nice kid there. Is he going with you guys to California?” he asks, ignoring what I have said.
“Don. Freaking A! I want you drive me out of here when I’m done with these people.”
I’ve raised my voice and it makes him snap to attention.
“But honey, why can’t Clay have one of the cars drive you to the hotel?”
“He won’t let me. He’s going to try to keep me here to the bitter end.”
“But honey, we can’t leave right now. Brad Calfston is performing in a little while.”
“Who the-. Who is Brett Calfston?”
“Brad honey. He’s a Christian comedian. He’s hilaaaaaarious.”
I can’t look at him anymore and turn over to Sandra who smiles widely as she waves an older couple over who have come equipped with their digital camera. They are both shorter than me and I feel like an oaf as I stand between them and Sandra snaps the shot. Next is some guy, a pale guy with thick pink lips, and while he disgusts me I let him put an arm around me as Sandra shoots the picture. We’re doing the fourth picture when the commotion starts over by the live stock pasture.
“What is that?” says the skinny woman next to me and I’m annoyed as she looks away when Sandra snaps the photo.
“What is what?” I ask and try to mask the bitterness in my voice.
The woman doesn’t answer but points over towards the pasture and I see the animals and the blur of orange beyond them. There is the sound of many voices, yelling together, and there is an anger and resolve to it that makes everyone around us perk up their heads and turn them in the direction of the onslaught. The blur of orange quickly comes into focus and I see it is a line of men and women, all dressed in the shirts and sweatshirts of Agent Orange, and they are making their way through the fair grounds unchallenged. They stare at the people around them, looks of hostility exchanged as they chant:
“No more Marsha Bates! All she know is fear and hate! No more Marsha Bates! All she knows-”
A short blond girl, not much more than a teenager, is the first one to spot me. She sees me and her eyes lock on and then she’s pointing a long white finger at me. The crowd of orange is suddenly shifting and coming right towards us. I automatically turn my gaze towards the camera men thirty feet away. Three of them are desperately snapping shots of the approaching mob while two of them are shooting my reaction. I look at the people I’ve just taken pictures with and they are all watching the approaching cloud of orange, stupefied, like the victims of a tsunami watching the inevitable wave roll in on their village.
Clay grabs my arm and is leading me away, running, looking around for any means of escape. There is metal fencing all around us, our only choice to run through the flap and enter the tent that the question and answer session was held. I look around for Don but he has disappeared and although Sandra was with us for a moment we seem to have lost her. We can hear the chant outside the tent coming closer. They have observed our escape and are coming fast.
Clay drags me up on to the stage and into the back where Will and a couple of fair volunteers are standing around looking alarmed.
“Who the fuck let those people in?!” Clay barks at the volunteers.
They both look at him stupidly, unsure how to answer.
“They stormed the front gate basically. Our guy said they went right through and nobody could do nothing,” one of them says and Clay dismissed him with a look while dragging me over to Will.
“You! Where’s your car?!” he demands and Will tries to focus on him while being distracted by the noise from the mob, who from the sound of it, have entered the tent and haven’t given up their pursuit.
“It’s right outside,” Will replies.
“Right here? Through the fence there?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, get Mrs. Bates in your car and get her the hell out of here. These people are out for blood for God’s sake.”
He shoves me over to Will and Will places his hand lightly on my back, coaxing me forward towards the metal fence. I can hear the chant booming out of the tent. They must be on the stage. They must be tearing the place apart looking for me. But for what? To do what? I rarely have been as scared as I am now.
Will kicks a wooden partition out of the way and leads me into the dirt parking lot towards his car. We get in and he pulls out, shooting gravel and rock in our wake. I feel safer in the car and look over at him. His eyes are wide and anxious and only become more so when we spot the small crowd of orange posted near the exit on the road. Will slows the car down, apparently thinking we can slowly sneak by the Agent Orange people without raising much notice. There’s a man in orange standing close to the parking lot, almost in our path, and as we get closer he looks over and becomes alert. I look at his scraggly beard and his long nose and his little rat eyes and I realize he is also looking into mine. The flash of recognition shifts across his face.
The man jumps into action and puts himself directly in front of us, blocking the way. Will has no choice but to bring the car to a stop. As he looks back to reverse the man in orange climbs up onto the hood and stares through the windshield at me, his face like a bearded gargoyle. I scream which causes Will to turn around and see the man and he opens the door and leaps out of the car.
He grabs the man by the back of his sweatshirt and hurls him into the dirt, and the rest of the people in orange take a step back. The bearded man gets up, enraged, staring at Will, taking him in, and then he charges head on. Will takes the man’s attack into his chest and they embrace, falling awkwardly against the car and I stifle another scream. Will pushes the man away at which point the man swings a blow towards his face which flies wild, off to Will’s right. The man is bringing his body back into balance when Will takes his own swing and cracks the man across the forehead with his fist. The man flies back into the dirt in front of the remaining Agent Orangers and Will jumps back into the car, tearing out of the parking lot and on to the main road.


We’re miles down the freeway when I ask Will to stop the car. He takes the next exit which leads to a long deserted road and he pulls over to the side of it. I get out and stare at the barren fields, trying to get my breathing to come back to normal. There is one lone tree sitting amongst miles of dead corn field. Everything looks and feels like a dream and it takes a minute before I notice that large drops of cold rain have begun to come down around me. I open the car door and Will watches me as I place myself back into the seat.
“Are you alright?” he asks and I don’t reply.
I see the look on the bearded man’s face and the expressions of the women that stormed the tent in my mind. The looks on their faces have confirmed something I have wondered for a long time and I don’t know what I think or how I feel. I don’t even really know who I am as I sit in that car and the rain crashes down around us.
“I’m really sorry,” I hear Will say. “I didn’t know what to do. That crazy bastard, that guy- I thought he was going to hurt you or something.”
I turn towards him and I see his face clearly. His eyes are big and blue and they look at me with such a worry and such a concern that I want to laugh. He is looking right into my eyes and I feel like I did when I was a young girl but without any of the doubt or worry. His face gets bigger as I lean my body into his side of the car and when I kiss him he doesn’t kiss back at first. I steady myself with one hand next to the emergency break and touch the side of his head with the other and then we’re kissing each other with the desperation of two people at the end of the world. It has been so long since I have been touched that when he does it feels like the first time and as his seat goes back I climb over to his side of the car.

To be continued in Part 4 on December 21st 2011.

Part 8: PB James and The Man at the Top

Part 8
PB splashes through the stream and back into the trees that he emerged from that morning. He runs through the darkening forest until his limbs burn and the tears run down his face. The deaths of the Australians play in his mind like a loop, the shots and then their lifeless bodies laid out on the forest floor and then the shots again. It is the second time in almost as many days that he had seen someone die violently and the horror of it spurs him on though the brush and foliage.
He doesn't rest until night has fallen completly and the valley is engulfed in darkness. He leans against the trunk of a thick pine and sweats into its bark. His breath burns in his throat but slows down and quiets in his ears until he can hear the forest again. He stiffens and looks up when he hears voices in the distance. It sounds like two men calling out to each other and the fear pumping adrenalin into his blood will not let him wait to find out who it is.
He pushes his way through low branches and leaves and one of the stiff pine limbs slaps him across the mouth and he can taste the blood in his mouth. He is tired of the forest, he is tired of running, and he is tired of living in fear. He slows down and listens to the darkness. There is nothing but his breathing for a full minute but then he sees the two beams from the flash lights coming from the direction that he has just been. He crouches down amongst the ferns, searching for a place to hide. There is nothing and he wishes he had never left the cave that he had spent the previous night. He has no choice but to crawl through the dirt and creep away through the bushes from the two lights in pursuit.
It is a clear crisp night, much less overcast than the night before, allowing the moon to illuminate the whole valley. There's a beautiful magic to it that goes unnoticed by PB who scrapes and tears through the wilderness with the wild abandon of a man half mad with fear. Schemes and scenarios make their way through his mind but go no where. At one point he is close to stopping in hopes of finding some sort of stick or club and confronting his pursuers. But he knows he is too weak and exhausted and will have no chance in a struggle. A flash of the Ranger executing the Australians shoots through his head and he plods on.
He kicks his way through a family of nettles and finds himself standing on a trail. The moon shines down on it and he can see it clearly twist and turn through the forest in both directions. All he can do is guess which leads him to going right. After battling the wilderness for two days there is something very comforting in walking along an open and clearly defined trail. He hikes at a steady pace until he glances back and spots the flash lights still shining and making their way along the trail. He picks up speed and tries to jog but his legs are weak and rubbery and he can do nothing but half walk and half jog in an awkward loping hybrid.
He knows he won't be able to keep it up, his legs will give out. He will fall into the dust of the trail and then shortly after men will walk up and shoot him. He is the most tired he has ever been in his life and the idea of death is almost a relief. But then what? What will happen to Sam? Who will stop these people?
He has only one choice and he finally goes with it, turning left off of the trail and into the denser foliage. He stumbles over stumps and battered logs and once he is a good ways from the trail, falls to the ground. He yanks up hand fulls of dirt and leaves and spreads them over his aching body. He scoops and drops until he is thoroughly covered and drags over a loose branch to place over his head. He lies under the leaves and dirt and waits for what will come.
The pursuers don't take long to follow his tracks from the trail. He can hear the cracks of the sticks under their feet and can see their flashlights in the corner of his eye. They stomp around not less than twenty feet from where he lies and then continue farther into the forest.
PB lies under the dirt and leaves for hours and hours, going in and out of sleep despite the fear, and the pain, and the cold. He waits out the entire night until light begins to slowly creep in through the trees at which point he digs himself out and struggles to his feet. It is a cold morning, winter making it's imminent arrival known by cutting through PB's coat and skin. His nose runs as he searches for the trail.
He thought it would be easy to locate but hours pass and the sun is soon up and fully awake and PB has found no sign of the trail. His stomach sits empty and angry inside of him and he soon gives up on the trail and begins to hike in what he believes may be the right direction, whatever that means. Hope is starting to elude him. Hunger eats away at him but even worse is the thirst.
He rests periodically, collapsing mid step and sitting there in the dirt until he can force himself forward again. The rests begin to happen more and more frequently as the terrain slopes upward. PB is barely conscious that he is headed up into the hills. He has no plan or thoughts of any kind really, his mind a blank.
Be touches his dry tongue to his dry lips and thinks that he hears the sounds of a stream around the bend. When he comes around the trees he finds rock and dirt but no water. He continues up the slope and thinks he hears the sounds of a falls coming from the peak above. He climbs up the rocks and roots that are jutting out of the earth until he can drag himself up to the shelf where he hears the water flowing from. It takes all his energy and remaining strength to get there and he is only disappointed to find it dry as well.
He occurs to him that his mind is playing tricks on him and can only continue to wander along the plateau. The sun beams down on him relentlessly and he feels light headed and weak. He staggers between a group of Panderosa Pines and realizes he has reached the top of one the granite dombs. The rock slants down steeply next to him and he looks out on the valley, vast and green before him. PB stares out at it's beauty and wonders if he has lived a good life. His main regret is that he couldn't help Sam. Although meeting her and getting involved in the search for her brother was most likely going to lead to his death, PB feels no resentment towards her, only regret. For all he knows she is dead as well.
He needs to rest again and PB begins to lean down so he can stretch out and wait to die when he loses his footing and is suddenly sliding down the rock face. He tries to reach for a root sticking out of the rock so he can stop his slide but it rips out and now he is tumbling head over heels down the rock. He come to a drop off and now he is out in space, like he was when he jumped off the cliff during the bear attack. His mind flashes with the question of what was the point of his miraculously surviving that jump only to die now, alone, thirsty and hungry and devoid of hope.
Before he can get an answer he's landed, crashing through thickets and loose wood after only falling fifteen feet from the drop off. A tree finally ends the journey when he smashes into it square on. He lies in the leaves and dirt and waits to die, which could be a while based on the fact that he doesn't seem to be mortally wounded. He feels deep scrapes along both of his hips, down his legs and arms, and he's pretty sure one of his ribs broke when he hit the tree.
There's a stick digging into his back so PB slowly rolls over to get free of it and suddenly finds himself looking into the two frosted eyeballs of the Russian's severed head, lying there on the forest floor next to him only a few feet away.

To be continued December 2nd 2011.

Raised in a Barn

By Chuck Huffam
The metal arch stood over Ninth Street like it always had for the last nearly one hundred years and the wind blew hard against it making it shift and shutter ever so slightly. The lights of the town glimmered from beyond the haze of an autumn evening and the arch stood very quiet and lonely until a red pick up truck blew along the street going north. Inside the truck sat two young men, the driver more on the ‘man’ side of appearances in his early twenties and the passenger looking more aligned with the ‘young’, maybe just out of high school at most. The passenger looked up at the archway as his companion navigated them under it and he read the words that were lit up across it for what was probably the millionth time in his life but still could not make any sense of it. “Water Wealth Contentment Health” the archway read but what did it mean and who put it there and why?
The archway flashed out of sight and out of the young passenger’s mind immediately for the young man was already in the early embrace of alcohol. He wasn’t quite drunk but was nearing the point where nothing really mattered. It was an increasing buzz and, in his opinion, a very good start.
In the hour and a half it had taken him to scrub the cook’s dishes at the end of his shift the younger man had finished off five of the nine beers his older companion had snatched out of the walk in refrigerator. With every load of plates he put away the younger man would reward himself with a long chug of Farmer Tom’s beer. When he stopped to drag the floor mats out into the alley in the back there were four empty bottles sitting next to the sink in his work station.
When all of the younger man’s tasks were completed and it was time to leave, the older young man was found still sitting leisurely in the dining area of the restaurant working on his second beer. This had a lot to do with him spending the entire time talking into a cell phone while his younger companion hustled around, washing and putting things away.
When they finally punched the alarm code into the box, locked the doors, and pulled themselves up into the older man’s raised pick up truck, it was well after midnight. They pulled into the parking lot of a Groceries Plus and the driver jumped out. The younger one watched his companion disappear into the glow of the supermarket. The inside of the truck smelled new with a hint of Pine air freshener and the stereo had waves of light flashing out of its face that followed along with the bass and treble. Everything seemed clean and fresh and well taken care of inside the truck.
The driver got back in with a grocery bag and they drove down Ninth street, under the archway with the town motto, and into the residential neighborhoods. It was a week night and the entire town seemed dead and uninviting. The driver turned the music up in the truck so that it’s bass rattled the vehicle in open defiance of the night’s grave stillness. The houses continued to sleep around them. He grimaced until they were half a block from their destination at which point he pulled over to side of the street and shut the motor off.
They sat in the cab in silence. Truth be told they did not know each other well and had little to say. That had worked together for three days, since the younger man had joined the staff at the restaurant, and they had struck up conversations that led to their mutual approval of each other and this in turn had led to the older man asking the younger if he would like to go with him to “some party”.
The older young man lit a cigarette and handed one to the younger young man.
“Did you go to William’s?” the older asked.
“Green Valley,” the younger replied.
“We played you once in the finals.”
“I didn’t play no sports,” the younger said, some what self consciously. “Where d’ya go?”
“Casa Verde.”
“The one that don’t have girls?”
The older one took a long drag on his cigarette and grinned at his companion's youthful ignorance.
“They went to school on one side of the campus and we went on the other. I still fucked them.”
“Yeah?”
“A bunch. Swear to God.”
They sat silently puffing. The older one pulled the bottle of vodka from the grocery bag and they began to take long sips of it and pass it back and fourth.
“You know Brandon Hover? He was at Green Valley,” the older one asked.
“No.”
“Linda Grossman. She went there.”
“No,” the younger one said again.
“Fucking hot. I would’a hit it if she let me hit it.”
The older one dragged the rest of his cigarette down inside him for emphasis.
“How long you worked at Betty’s?” the younger one asked him
“Been there like, a year I guess. Jesus, a year,” the older stared out over the rooftops and took in the realization. “Time fucking flies don’t it?”
They both sipped the vodka and contemplated in their respective ways how fast time moves and how quickly a human being loses track of it and all understanding of it’s passage and texture . The younger of the two couldn’t even recall how he had spent the years between his dropping out of high-school and that night. He remembered watching television mostly. There were a few parties here and there, nothing significant. There was nothing that stood out in a life changing or substantial way of any kind that would allow him to remember it years down the line. He realized that by the time he was sixty the years would shoot by like they were minutes and this would have normally made him take pause and account for it but the vodka was doing it’s job and tricking him into thinking he didn’t care.
“I went to the fucking community college for a second,” the older one said regretfully.
The younger one nodded, not really sure what that meant. The older one lit another cigarette and looked out his window, away from his passenger.
“I liked some shit. Learning about shit. And the fucking bitches were everywhere up there. I couldn’t get enough.”
“Why‘d you stop?”
“Well shit, what’s the point? I’m not gonna be no doctor. I figured: why put it off? Start working and get some money.”
“As a waiter,” the younger one muttered, the beer loosening his tongue.
“There are worse things,” the older one pointed out and the younger nodded, agreeing.
“Dish washing. That’s worse,” the younger said with proven authority.
“No, there’s worse,” the older went on. “The guy at the porn arcade. The guy with the mop?”
The younger shook his head, confused again, and the older threw his cigarette out the window in frustration.
“The guy with the mop who has to clean all the jizz out the little video booths at the porn arcade? That’s the worst.”
This time the younger nodded, and being locked into a solid agreement they exited the truck and made their way up the sidewalk to the party. They heard the sound of voices first and then the music and then they were standing in front of a house. It was an old, worn out, ugly house, a fir tree in the yard did it’s best to cover up the chipped paint and years of neglect. Various figures were cluttered around the porch, some taking up space on an old dilapidated couch that looked to have spent a few rainy nights with out a roof over it. A constant fog of cigarette smoke made it’s way off of the porch in the coordinated result of there always being at least four people lighting up at a time.They all stood under the porch light, buzzing around it like summer mosquitoes.
The older young man recognized a few of the people outside and gave out warm nods and hand shakes which received smiles and pats on the back from people that seemed genuinely glad to see him. The younger young man knew no one, and he stood behind his elder and took long contemplative drags off his still burning cigarette. The older came across a man he used to work with that he knew well and they embraced each other whole heartily, chuckling and grunting over some secret mischief that they had taken part in last time they had crossed paths.
The older young man introduced his friend to the younger man as Jared and the younger man slapped hands with Jared coyly and observed his appearance through the fog of cigarette smoke. Jared was tall, with hair that was cut short along his bullet like head that revealed scars along one of his temples. Both his ears were pierced with thin gold hoops, and he wore a sports jersey that sagged off of him and shined in the porch light. The pallor of his skin was strange, yellow mostly with stretches of pink that looked artificial. He did not look healthy, in fact he looked to the young man like someone who had some sort of venereal disease but did not find out until it was too late.
Jared took the bottle of vodka that the new arrivals had brought and swung it back, gorging himself with it. He hacked and coughed and muttered something under his breath when he handed it over to the younger man.
“Gina here?” the older young man asked.
“I ain’t seen her. There’s a bunch of bitches though,” Jared replied.
A girl made her way out of house through the door and crept up behind Jared, putting her arms around his body. She had a round plain face with make up caked on like a mask. Her hair was a washed out brown with a red tint to it and she was big boned and curvy.
“What are you doing?” she asked Jared in a lazy drawl.
“I ain’t doing shit. Get off!”
Jared swiveled around and forcibly pushed the girl away. She staggered back and no one seemed to notice. The younger man couldn’t help but look at her with pity but her own expression had not changed. She still looked tired and bored, and without saying anything or reacting in any way she retreated back into the house.
“Can’t stand that bitch,” Jared blurted out and yanked the bottle of vodka back from the younger man. “She always up in my shit talking about some bullshit I don’t give a fuck about. I ain’t got time for you! Know what I mean? I’m trying to talk to my homies and the bitch is just gonna be interrupting and saying some shit. Ughhh!”
He looked genuinely disgusted and poured more of the vodka back in apparent hopes of bringing that feeling of disgust back down to a manageable level. The older young man had watched the interaction between Jared and the girl with the hint of a grin, the look of glee just hiding below the surface of his face.
“What’s her name again?” he asked Jared.
“Henrietta,” Jared replied as he slit a cigar with his finger nail and dumped the tobacco out to the wooden porch. “I can’t stand her but I will say the bitch sucks a good dick.”
Jared licked the cigar paper and looked up at his companions with a twinkle in his eye, ready for a clear sign of their approval. The older younger man chuckled and nodded, grateful for the information. The younger man looked back with no expression at all. In the three minutes that he had known Jared the younger man had concluded that he really did not care for him and was not interested in him in the least. Jared shrugged off the younger man’s non response and used his lighter to dry the freshly rolled blunt he held between his fingers.
The new arrivals left him on the porch and continued past the rest of the people and smoke and into the house. There was music playing in the living room and people were dancing. Henrietta was dancing with another girl, her eyes closed and her lips still slightly smiling like the wife of a rich man in a medieval portrait. There was a cup in her hand and its contents were spilling out while she moved to the beat of the music. She had no rhythm but her body moved with confidence and a understood sensuality that made them appealing to the younger man.
A few feet from Henrietta danced a tall skinny man with a beard. He looked to be about twenty three, wore dark sunglasses, and was dancing with two young girls in a sporadic uneven way. The girls stood on either side of him while he danced, observing his movement and laughing hysterically. The tall man had no rhythm either as his body jerked around in a repulsive alien way. The younger young man tapped his finger on the older young man’s shoulder.
“Something wrong with him?” he asked over the music, referring to the the tall man.
“He’s blind,” the older one shot back under his breath and continued on, leaving the younger one in the living room among the dancers. Now that he knew the tall man with the glasses was blind it seemed obvious. The blind dancer’s arms and legs were moving to the music like they were constrained, like they would be hit by objects at any moment. The younger man stood fascinated. The bottle of vodka hung loosely in his hand while he held the still burning cigarette with the other.
“Were you raised in a barn?”
The voice was sharp and slightly hoarse and it came from the couch lying next to the young man. He looked down and was surprised to find a girl stretch out on it that he hadn’t noticed before. She wasn’t looking at him, which confused him and made him think she wasn’t referring to him. She was staring straight up at the ceiling at first and then slowly her eyes made their way down over to him, taking him into focus. The girl’s stare was steady and unrelenting and it made the young man feel insignificant.
“Me?” he asked timidly.
“Do you see anybody else smoking in the house?” she asked.
He looked around and slightly nodded at the clouds of smoke making their way into the living room from the porch.
“No,” he said.
“Right. So like I said: were you raised in a barn?”
He didn’t answer but took the cigarette outside. He stubbed it out in one of the ashtrays and took his time, allowing for the blood to leave his face. He walked back inside the house and made his way over to the couch.
“I’m real sorry. I guess I didn’t realize,” the young man said and the girl looked back at him. With this second chance to look upon it he realized how beautiful her face was.
“You even know Rachel?” she asked him and he very much wished he did.
“Is she Marty’s friend?” he asked in desperation.
“Do you even know who lives here?”
The girl sat up and smoothed out the sweatshirt she was wearing. Her hair was brown, cut short with bangs that hung down along the side of her forehead. Her eyes reminded the young man of of a cat’s eyes, brown and yellow, almost gold, and they watched him hard and sharp with an increasing irritation.
“This is my house,” she said and looked at him like she was challenging him for a reply.
“It’s a nice house,” he said and tried to smile.
“What are you doing here? You just come in a people’s home and walk around doing what you want? Totally oblivious?”
The young man didn’t know what oblivious meant and he looked around despairingly for the one who had brought him but his new friend was no where to be seen.
“I came here-”
“You just go to parties where you don’t know anybody and act like you own the place? Do whatever you please?” she asked.
“I got a new job,” he said stupidly.
He wanted to run from the house, never to return. He would take the memory of those beautiful cat eyes and they would haunt him, he already knew this. He would have them in his dreams and and in his thoughts but he couldn’t take much more of them taking him in right there in the living room and spitting him out while horribly stupid things spilled from his mouth. The cat eyes shifted to the bottle that hung loosely from the young man’s grip.
“Give me that,” the girl said.
He handed it over on her command and then stood awkwardly guilty before her.
“I came here with Marty,” he finally forced out as she swallowed a mouthful of vodka. She rested the bottle in her lap and looked up at him.
“Oh, Marty,” she said and fluttered her eyes dismissively.
She looked to the young man like she might have been a little older than most of the people at the house. There was a sophisticated air about her and it commanded his respect. She took another sip of vodka and brought the big cat eyes back up to his face.
“Where did that cigarette go?” she asked him.
“Gone,” he replied with confidence.
“You threw it out?”
He didn’t know what to say and stood silently with his hands at his sides. She rolled her eyes back in irritation and then rolled her body off of the couch and stood up. She was shorter than him but broad and solid.
“Shit,” she said and looked over at the young man with disgust.
She walked out the front door and in to the fog of smoke on the porch. The bottle of vodka was still in her grasp and as he watched her go the young man felt such a sense of loss and missed opportunity that the room seemed to get darker around him and he felt himself being encased and overpowered with gloom.
“Albert!”
The young man looked over in response because his name was indeed Albert and found the head of his older companion, who’s name was indeed Marty, sticking out of the doorway from the kitchen,
“Get the fuck up in here!”
The young man walked into the room and found a group of seven or eight young people gathered around a small dining table. All eyes were on Marty and Jared as they threw two shots down their throats in a row and grimaced in pain. The overhead light in the ceiling was bright and beamed down on the two drinkers like a spot light in a show. Jared looked up at Albert from the table, his eyes turning into two thin red slits.
“I’m getting fucked up homey,” he said and, after affectionately stumbling into Albert, leaned against the counter with his mouth open.
“Alby, take this last shit!”
Marty was holding up a bottle of Jose Cuervo like a it was the means to save mankind from it’s fate. There was a splash of translucent yellow liquid left at the bottom that sloshed about menacingly. The idea of pouring it down his throat after all the beer and Vodka made Albert’s stomach cry out for mercy. The eyes in the kitchen turned towards him and the audience waited for the next contestant to go on stage and entertain them.
Albert thought for a brief moment about turning the shot down but he looked into his new friend’s eyes and realized he had no choice. He realized he desperately wanted everyone in the room to like him so that is some mysterious way that appreciation would rub off and spread to the girl who has taken the vodka.
Marty was reaching for one of the shot glasses but Albert dramatically stepped forward and ripped the bottle from his friend’s grasp. He turned the bottle vertical over his open mouth and let the contents fall down his throat in a sudden discharge. He instantly regretted what he had done and was bent over like he’d been kicked in the guys. Everyone in the kitchen, girl and boy alike, cheered his accomplishment and the dramatic flair with which he performed them. He felt the different alcohol strains fighting for dominance in his system but he pushed the sensations from his mind and stood up with the empty bottle held above him like a trophy of war. The room spun but only for a moment and he felt confident that he would not vomit.
“Albert, this is Rachel over here.”
Marty was pointing at a young girl with long brown hair that was sitting at the end of the table, laughing with contagious sense of merriment. She looked like a kinder, skinnier version of the girl from the couch, and Albert, not knowing what the best rite of social discourse to go forward with, reached out to shake the girl’s hand. The girl looked at the hand, momentarily taken back by the gesture, but then just laughed and shook it with authentic friendliness.
“You having fun?” she asked and her face made him pine for the couch girl.
“Getting drunk,” he slurred out.
“Looks like your doing a good job.”
“Where’s that Vodka?” Marty demanded and he stood up from the table, his face overtaken with a red thirst.
“A girl took it and said she lived here. I didn’t know nothing. And she took it.”
Albert struggled to describe what happened but he became unable from the alcohol and his own lack of understanding and trailed off.
“Oh, that’s my sister. She’s a bitch,” Rachel said.
“Teresa got the fucking drink,” Marty muttered and his face became pained like he had lost a dear friend.

Teresa.

Albert felt the name drum through his mind and although he was bad with names and found that they often dwindled from his mind shortly after he learned them, he had no doubt that he would remember hers. He staggered out of the kitchen and through the living room where he found Henrietta and blind John keeping the dance floor alive and animated all by themselves now that all the other dancer had vacated to pursue other interests. The faint smile had still not left Henrietta’s face but her cup was out of her hand and lying on the carpet near a young man who was laid across the carpet himself and encrusted with his own vomit. One of John’s former dance partners was entwined with a middle aged man on a recliner chair and the man was dipping a long finger nail into a baggy and bringing it up covered in a powder which the girl would sniff up into her nose.
Albert broke through the smoke and found a group of six girls holding court on the porch. A few of them eyed him disdainfully when he appeared through the door but he took no heed.
“Anyone seen Teresa?” he said and her name felt strange and important coming out of his mouth and he felt unworthy of saying it.
One of the girls looked up at him with a face filled with metal piercings that shined and reflected the porch light.
“She went down the street,” the girl said coldly.
“Where?”
“Her fucking boyfriend’s probably,” she said and the girl gave her friends a darkly amused look.
Albert felt his heart plummet deeper into the depths of despair and he almost grasped his own chest but held back due to self counsiousness. He made his way passed the girls and to the porch steps where he sat, no longer motivated or able to move. To rob a man of his drink was one thing but to then go and share that drink with another man was beyond reproach. Albert retrieved a cigarette butt off the cement below the steps, lit it, and began to puff furiously at it. He stared out at the houses across the street and felt a fresh wound somewhere in his chest that ached and bled with in him. He wanted nothing more than to be alone at that moment but he was far from home with no ride or hope. All the feelings of accomplishment that he had amassed in recent days from getting a job had evaporated and he was painfully alone in his thoughts and could see no future.
He smoked the butt to the filter and looked off down the street where he could make out a blurry white shape coming down the sidewalk through the darkness. The figure walked under a street light and his heart jumped when he saw it was Teresa. He stood up from the porch and had an insane hankering to run to her but forced himself to linger at the foot of the porch.
“Where my drink at?” he asked.
The cat eyes squinted at him like their sight was poor or she didn’t recognize him or both.
“Oh you,” she said disdainfully and he got a shudder of bitter cold down his back. “That shits gone.”
“You drank all that?!!”
Albert started to feel his face getting hot. The rumor of her departure to be with another man and the intense relief of her return were clashing together and translating into a horrified anger that he could not temper or understand.
“No. I threw it,” she said and he went dumb with silence.
She brought her hand from behind her back where she had been holding it and held up a full bottle of Jack Daniel’s. The light from the street lamp shined through it and Albert gazed at the liquid swilling around inside and was hypnotized. Teresa pulled off the top of the bottle and drank deep from it before bringing her gaze down to Albert and looking him directly in the eye.
“You going to drink with me?” she asked.
Albert was still struck dumb and could only nod in reply. She shoved the bottle over to him and made her way passed him into the house leaving him alone on the sidewalk, under the yellow autumn moon.

Flannery O'Connor: Dark, Disturbing, and Just Plain Good

It has been a while since I have been taken with a writer like I have recently become with Flannery O'Connor. She mystifies me with the worlds she shines light on in her stories and novels and she disturbs me with her raw and clear eyed focus on these worlds. The characters that you discover in her writing are made up of all kinds of half crazy religious prophets, cold blooded sociopaths and psychopaths, societal rejects, con men, freaks, and country people from strange southern backwaters. While many of the people you come across in her stories are extreme and grotesque they are never less than fascinating, fully formed, and heartbreakingly human.
I heard O'Connor's name mentioned through out my life but never read any of her work in school or out and came across her sort of by chance. I'm a reading whore and read all genres and styles and varying levels of quality. I went out on a limb and pulled a book from the library that some guy (I don't remember his name) had written about struggling as a writer and being published and blah blah. It wasn't bad but it was incredibly conservative, at times obvious, and just frigging mediocre to be honest. I gave it back to the library about half way through (if something sucks you drop it be it books, movies, relationships, etc.) but before I did I couldn't help but notice that the guy mentioned the name Flannery O'Connor over and over again. He dropped her name when he wanted to bring up a writer who was a master of the short story, when he wanted to set the bar high ("we can't all be Flannery O'Connor), and he brought her up when he mentioned the Writer's Workshop in Iowa because they were both students there.
Although I didn't care for the man's book I could tell from the things he wrote that the author himself was a fan of good writing and his outspoken allegiance to O'Connor intrigued me. I looked her up on the old internets and found that that she had lived a life marred by illness that was finally cut short by lumpus when she was thirty nine years old. She was a devout Catholic and much of her writing is awash with her beliefs as she puts together startling portraits of the "Christ haunted" protestant south. The internets described her short stories as often dealing with the "grotesque" and called some of her work falling into the horror story category in some cases. She didn't seemed to agree and was quoted as saying:
"The stories are hard but they are hard because there is nothing harder or less sentimental than Christian realism... when I see these stories described as horror stories I am always amused because the reviewer always has hold of the wrong horror."
Due to my scepticism and ever increasing disinterest in organized religions (and organizations in general) the many mentions of Catholicism in regards to O'Connor's work was a turn off for me but I was still very much intrigued. I went to the library and got my hands on her Complete Works in one thick volume and immediately was sucked in by her novel Wise Blood which is dark, disturbing, strange, and does a fancy little switcheroo in perspective towards the end of the novel that throws you for a bit of a loop that I thought was masterful. The first short story I got to was A Good Man is Hard To Find which knocked me over the head and left me sitting there staring down at the page for some minutes after I finished. I'm not going to describe what happens in the story except to say it is one of the darkest, most horrific things I have ever read, and this is something that was first published in 1955. If a desensitized thirty one year old man in 2011 can be moved like that how the hell did people react back then?
Her other novel The Violent Bear it Away is included along with all her other short stories (Good Country People is by far my favorite so far), a few essays, and 259 letter that O'Connor wrote to her friends, acquaintances, critics, fans, and pretty much anybody that wrote her. The letters are a true joy. While much of O'Connor's work is dark and deals with the physically and spiritually grotesque she herself was incredibly brave and very funny which comes through clear as day through her correspondence. She is very candid and is never afraid to discuss her faith, her thinking, her fears, and everything else under the sun. She was sill a young woman when the lumpus began to effect her body and she had to begin using crutches but her letters never reveal a bitterness or cynicism in her thinking. Plenty of sarcasm and irony in her letters but no cynicism.
I'm hoping that I might talk someone into reading one of her works and then discussing it so we can post it here on Dublin's World. So far none of our regular contributors are willing to take part. Robert Fong doesn't read fiction, Melissa Gafton is too busy with school, DJ Undacut doesn't really read, and Robert's neighbor Paul is out of town. So, if there is anybody out there that would like to read some of the work of Flannery O'Connor and then discussing it with me or at least send me a page or two of your thoughts then please, shoot me an email at dublin@jazzmafia.com.
I would like to take us out with one of my favorite bits from one of O'Connor's letters in which she shares her thoughts on bad taste. This is one that she wrote to Eileen Hall on March 10th 1956. I hope you enjoy it and have a great Thanksgiving.
"About bad taste, I don't know, because taste is a relative matter. There are some who will find almost everything in bad taste, from spitting in the street to Christ's association with Mary Magdalen. Fiction is supposed to represent life, and the fiction writer has to use many aspects of his life as are necessary to make his total picture convincing. The fiction writer doesn't state, he shows, renders. It's the nature of fiction and it can't be helped. If you're writing about the vulgar, you have to prove they're vulgar by showing them at it. The two worst sins of bad fiction are pornography and sentimentality. One is too much sex and the other too much sentiment. You have to have enough of either to prove your point but no more. Of course there are some fiction writers who feel they have to retire to the bathroom and the bed with every character every time he takes himself to either place. Unless such a trip is used to further the story, I feel it is in bad taste. In the second chapter of my novel, I have such a scene but I felt it was vital to the meaning. I don't think you have to worry much about bad taste with a competent writer, because he uses everything for a reason. The reader may not always see the reason. But it's when sex or scurrility are used for their own sakes, that they are in bad taste." Well said.

-Dublin 11-20-11

Sexual Harassment: Ugly Guys Getting Their Mack On?

Dublin and DJ Undacut got together on November 10th 2011 and had a discussion. They were joined by Russian Literature major Melissa Gafton. This is a transcript of that discussion.

U: I thought we were going to talk about hip-hop?
D: We did that last time. We can't talk about hip-hop every time.
U: Sure we can. Who's this?
D: This is Melissa Gafton. She's a student at Contra Costa College and is the closest thing we got to an expert for our discussion.
U: Which is about what?
D: Sexual Harassment.
U: So you're studying Sexual Harassment?
M: No, I'm a Literature major.
U: Huh, so why are we talking about this?
D: People are always accusing Dublin's World of perpetually being behind the times. With all the stuff about Herman Cain in the news lately I figured we would talk about something that's getting discussed in our culture currently. Namely, sexual harassment.
U: Didn't Chris Rock break down sexual harassment perfectly when he described it as ugly guys getting their mack on?
D: That doesn't really sound right. I think he worded it differently.
M: That's not really accurate either.
U: How's that?
M: Look at the Herman Cain scandal. Here was a man in power who was trying to coerce women into trading sex for a job or a bump up in position.
D: Is that kind of how the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas thing was?
M: I'm not sure. It's interesting that was almost exactly twenty years ago.
D: Yeah. We were all probably kids then.
U: Clarence Thomas is a douchebag.
D: Herman Cain is not necessarily an unattractive man right?
M: That's missing the point.
U: Clarence Thomas is an ugly bastard.
D: What I don't understand is how long Cain expects he can keep denying all this stuff. It seems like a new woman is popping up every day.
U: What'd he do anyway? I'm not all that clear on what sexual harassment is really.
M: The only case that is out in the public is that this woman asked for help getting a job and when they were in his car Cain put his hand on her crotch and tried to force her hand onto his genitals.
D: Really? They have all those details?
M: The accuser came out in a press conference and told the whole story.
U: Daaaamn. That must have sunk him in the presidential race.
M: Not really. He's still posting high in the polls.
U: I can't really hate on that.
D: What?
U: The whole move he was making. That's how you get your mack on. You make a move.
M: C'mon.
U: I'm not trying to be devil's advocate but she just wasn't feeling him so it's sexual harassment? Why did she wait to come out with it?
M: She was probably embarrassed.
D: It is really embarrassing. For everybody.
U: I don't know. None of us were there. We don't know how it went down.
M: She did press charges. They settled out of court.
U: Let me ask you this? What if he didn't try to put his hands on her or whatever? What if he just said some shit?
D: Right. Can sexual harassment be just words?
M: Well I'm not an expert-
D: Don't say that! You're supposed to be our expert.
M: But I'm not.
U: Great. What is the point of this?
M: I will say this: sexual harassment can just be words.
U: Like what? Where's the line yo?
M: Where ever the victim begins to feel threatened. If a man keeps on making unwanted advances even after a woman has turned him down then that can very well turn into sexual harassment.
U: Great. So if a dude is is just persistent then he's a harasser.
D: Not necessarily.
U: I would still be a virgin at twenty nine if I wasn't persistent!
D: Really?
U: I would have never been born if my Dad wasn't persistent!
M: It's not an easy thing to define.
U: Sure it is. It's just when the woman says it is. Right?
M: Men can be harassed.
U: By women?
M: Sure. If a woman is making unwanted advances then it can become sexual harassment.
D: And man on man.
U: That's all bad.
D: Have either of you been harassed?
M: I've been sexually harassed almost every time I've walked down Mission street. Kidding.
U: Dude, I got to say. I've been harassed and it's no joke.
D: Great, let's hear this.
U: I had a girl but we broke up, feel me? After a little time we tried to be friends and kick it and whatever and it was cool for a minute until we would go out drinking and then she would get all grabby.
D: Grabby?
U: She would just be grabbing on me and trying to kiss me and get all up on me.
D: And you didn't want it? C'mon!
U: I didn't. I wasn't drunk enough.
M: How did it make you feel?
U: Not good. I had to stop even talking to her because she was just too.......
D: Grabby?
U: Yes.
D: So what have we learned?
M: Were we supposed to learn something? I didn't realize that.
U: What are you doing after this Melissa?
M: I have a date.
U: Lucky guy.
D: Is that sexual harassment right there?
M: No, I think that was sweet actually.
D: Well it was nice to have you Melissa. We would love to have you come be our expert in the future.
M: I can do that if you're discussing a subject I know about. Like Dostoevsky or Tolstoy or something.
D: Perfect. We're discussing Dostoevsky next week.
U: Dosty what?

Transcription created by Peggy Menchstone on 11/11/11

Part 7: PB James and The Man at the Top

Part 7
The forest air is filled with death as dirt, leaves, rock, and bark detonate and combust. The bullets collide with all of nature and rearrange it into their own scarred landscape of violence. PB dashes like a panicked rabbit under the trees and it is only a matter of time before the rain of lead finds it's target. He can feel the moment coming, seconds remaining. He can feel the impact of the bullets coming closer behind him, spiraling into the ground, and as he runs he anticipates the piercing heat of the first one entering his back.
He staggers through a bush and the machine gun suddenly stops it's chatter as the shooter in the helicopter reloads. PB glances up into the spotlight before tripping over a bullet riddled log and and he is suddenly falling head over heals down a steep embankment. He comes to a stop in a pile of dirt and rock with leaves in his mouth and a bruise on his temple. While the spot light searches desperately in the nearby trees he notices a large rock ten feet away from him that houses a shallow hollow under it just above the dirt.
He scurries to the rock on his hands and knees and forces his body into the hollow. It is a desperate squeeze and the jagged edges in the roof of rock cut into his arms and knees. He doesn't quite fit but he holds his breath and his body is completely under the overhang. The spotlight flashes over the rock and PB keeps himself completely still. The blood bashes in his temples and down his neck. His breath is hard and stale in the tiny cave. It is like a coffin and his limbs are quickly cramped and aching.
The helicopter continues to circle and search and fill the forest with the clamor of it's rotating blades. It begins to die down as it searches farther in the distance and PB begins to breath easier until the motor rages in volume and the spotlight sweeps by the rock again. It hovers above the area for what seems to be hours. PB waits, his limbs jammed into the skinny crevasse, the pain and stiffness slowly becoming unbearable until they taper off and his body goes numb in the cold.
The helicopter makes it's way to another part of the forest and the sound of it gets weaker and weaker until it is only a quiet mutter in the distance. PB thinks about getting out of the tiny cave, he can feel insects creeping along his neck and on his legs just above his socks, but he is too tired and numb and soon he is asleep.

He awakes with the sun directly on his face. It is somehow perfectly positioned in the morning sky so that it it's full heat and power are pumping right into the crack under the rock and into his eyeballs. It's rather cold but PB can still feel the fresh burn on his face. He drags himself out of the crevasse and everything hurts. His knees, his elbows, his stomach, his feet, his toes, even his ears hurt.
He is lost, there are people trying to kill him, and he is terrorized by both thirst and hunger, but he can't deny that it is a beautiful Yosemite morning. The sun that has woken him up so rudely is shining it's Autumn light through the soft dust and leaves and lighting up all the rich greens and browns of the forest. He thinks of Sam and he suddenly finds himself plodding through the bushes and thickets with a burst of energy and a renewed sense of purpose.
After over an hour of of hiking the trees clear in front of PB and he finds himself in a wide open meadow. The open space seems less wild than the dense forest and the hope of finding other human beings pushes it's way up and sits in his dry throat. He staggers through the grass and comes upon a clear flowing stream that snakes it's way through the meadow. He collapses along it's bank and gratefully spoons water into his mouth using his hands. He let's his face fall into the cold mud and sit there, the water washing up into his scalp.
"G'mornining mate!"
PB rolls over and sits up, startled. A man stands on the other side of the stream filling his canteen with water. He is dirty and grinning with a overgrown scraggly red beard framing his face.
"Where's your camp mate?" the man asks and PB notes the Australian accent.
"I don't have a camp. There's men. From the mountain! In a helicopter. They're trying to kill me. They have my friend."
It all pops and cracks out of PB's throat and the Australian grins and nods good naturally before saying: "Sounds like you got a bit of a dilemma there mate. Why don't you come on back to our camp and have a spot of breakfast aye?"
PB trudges through the stream and follows the man back into the trees and down a slope to a clearing where two tents are set up with a fire burning invitingly from a pit in the center. The Australian explains that his name is Ben and that he has been out there for about a week and loving the country. He introduces PB to his companion Richard who is a large blond haired Australian who grips PB's hand in a vice like grip and shakes it until PB is light headed.
The two hikers cook up some food, first oatmeal and then some sweet and sour pork out of a bag, and then a desert of mixed nuts with M&M's mixed it in. PB warms himself off of the fire and explains the last few days between mouthfuls of food. Both Australian's nod and listen respectfully, the grins never leaving their faces.
"Do ya think you could spot out where that mountain base is at?" Richard asks.
"I don't know. It's not far from the John Muir trail, I know that. Maybe if I was in the same area I might be able to spot it."
"We got to bring these thugs to justice," Ben throws out.
"I want to know who's behind it all. It's got to be someone big. Powerful."
"The man at the top," Richard says.
"I woudn't mind meeting that bear," Ben says happily and his grin widens.
"Yes you would," PB explains solemnly "The bastard isn't even an animal. He's beast from somewhere else. It's like it came out of a nightmare."
"Oh I don't know mate. If it walks and breaths and can be took down," Ben says and with that he pulls out an old antique revolver and shows it to PB, his grin intact.
"What are you going to do with that thing? I told you, these guys were shooting a machine gun at it."
"But where mate? In the head? If they shot it in the head they probably would have brought down the bloody thing."
"Got to get it in the head," Richard confirms.
PB naps at the camp and awakes as dusk begins to close in from the trees. Ben lends PB his bubble goose jacket and PB makes his way up the slope and back towards the meadow in search of fire wood. He collects wood into a pile by the stream and thinks of Sam and what she may be going through. He shudders at the idea of her being harmed or tortured and pushes those thoughts away. Now that he has food in his body and feels refreshed he is determined to come to her rescue. He will talk Ben and Richard into departing at first light and together they will hike to a ranger station, gather a posse, and storm the mysterious hillside fortress.
PB is on his way back to the camp when he hears a voice float up through the trees. There is no hint of an accent which makes PB stop and place the wood down on the ground. He slowly makes his way along the slope until he can make out the camp below in the dimming light. Both Richard and Ben are on their knees with their hands in the air and the Ranger is standing over them brandishing a hand gun.
"Which way did he head out?" the Ranger asks, his tone already hinting at a lack of patience. The two Australians grin up at him.
"He just went to get some wood mate. Don't know exactly where," Ben offers him happily.
"What did he tell you? Do you know where he's going?"
"He said a lot of stuff mate. Most of it not making sense. People chasing him and girl and her brother being held captive. Kind of poppycock really."
The Ranger scans the perimeter of the camp and then looks back at the two grinning faces before shooting a bullet into each of their heads. A burst of red gas appears behind each of the Australian's skulls before their lifeless bodies crumple to the ground, both of their grins still intact.

To be continued in Part 8.
Photograph by Bob Pierce Jr.