The Rhythm of the Stone – Collateral Damage Read online



  The Rhythm of the Stone

  Collateral Damage

  By

  James Halister Bird III

  Rhythm of the Stone

  Collateral Damage

  By James Halister Bird III

  Copyright 2015 James Halister Bird III

  Thank you for downloading this eBook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

  Table of Contents

  Squeezing the Grape

  Denver Express

  Conquistadors and Freedom Fighters

  Monstrous Hamster

  Froggy and Beans

  The Rhythm of the Stone

  Firebird

  The Thing I Fear the Most

  World’s Greatest Grandmother

  The Staggering Man

  Means of Defense

  There was no Answer

  Manicured Man

  Generalissimo

  Fred Teller

  Letters

  About the Author

  Squeezing the Grape

  I talked to Michael Darnay a couple of days after it happened.

  Michael had remained in the hospital for nearly a week. I did not know him then. Now I do. Many people do. He feels awful, Michael says. He still gets headaches, and has nightmares after reading bad stories about himself in the newspaper about the people he killed and how many got hurt. Some were injured very badly. The news article said he was running with a bad crowd. He was not.

  They found him in a field half out of his mind after the whole thing went down.

  His best friend Anthony was there too and feels responsible, only because it was his idea. He tried to keep Michael from running into the field after it happened but couldn’t. As a result, Anthony still has a cast on his left leg. He doesn’t like the stories in the newspapers as they imply Anthony was a gang banger. He isn’t. That was the last straw. During our last conversation, Anthony said he had plans for leaving Colorado once he heals.

  Anyway… I want to tell their story and mine; after all, I was there. I’ll start with how I met Michael and Anthony and why I worked hard to defend them.

  To be clear - I’m not a lawyer or anything but did have time for a side project. I’ll also tell you how I fell in love. It happened the same day I ran into Michael and Anthony.

  Funny how things work out.

  For a bit of background: It was a lousy time for me as a freelance writer in Boulder, Colorado, working against deadlines set by a fool. I was squeezing the grape and did not like any of it. The managers wanted the writing done fast. Hard to do your best when you know the end is coming.

  It is the job of a freelance writer to do one’s best or business will dry up. The attitude changes though; lots of things change. Contractors are like company pets. I became part of the family… but now I have to leave. Kind of like looking at your goldfish, belly up in dirty water.

  To be honest, I’m not bitter. That’s how freelancing works. When you bought the goldfish you knew one day it would go belly up. My year in Boulder will be over by the end of the holiday season. That’s bad enough, now this on top of everything else. It made me sad.

  I always feel sad when I have to say goodbye. There are many sad people during the holidays. always feel a dreadful year, there will be more. This is why I was feeling lousy. And very soon, I had to once again start looking for work. At the moment, I have a couple of prospects but neither of them are terribly interesting. But it is harder now to find work. People are scared to do anything with strangers.

  Back to the story.

  I was greeted by cool autumn wind after leaving the office; it rushed through the nearly bare trees with a sound like a wave of applause. The signs of holiday sales and Halloween celebrations seem contrived now after the world changed. I used to like the fall - gusty and warm in the sun when the leaves dance in the wind. Merchants try to cheer us… but there is no cheer. This year feels different, as if I was just going through the motions. Wounds will do that.

  Still walking quickly, I crossed the red-bricked pedestrian mall littered with swirling leaves of gold, red, purple and brown. Shops, bars, cafes lined each side of the mall with unkempt planters of flowers now scraggly twigs and bare trees in a neat line down the middle. The wind burped with stop-and-start gusts, the kind that makes you walk like a drunkard after that last unfortunate drink. A line of high of slate-gray clouds tumbled down the mountain with a mutter and groan of faint thunder.

  About then, a mounted police officer rode by on a chestnut stallion. The horse’s muscles twitched when walking, his hooves landing heavily on the bricked pedestrian mall. Clomp… clomp… clomp. The cop wore a black cowboy hat and eyed everyone. The police were everywhere these days. Not in a menacing way more like the ever present guards of a sacred tomb.

  It was four o'clock, I had time before the 5:15 bus to Denver. I plodded along, hunched against the gusts, hands in my pocket, shoulder case bouncing against a hip, toward the Irish pub, a block from the station.

  I walked past nice bookstores, stopped and took a moment to critique my reflection in the windows.

  Dark side of forty still in good shape, six two in shoes, long legged, and broad shouldered. Not bad. Longish, fine brown hair fluttered in the wind. Okay… I’m on the dark side of forty, still in good shape, six-two in shoes, long-legged, and broad shouldered. Not bad. Longish, fine brown hair fluttered in the wind around a mustachioed square face, brown eyes and slanted smile. I shifted my attention to another bookstore and noticed the window was packed with new releases. Cool… I shuffled closer while putting on my reading glasses on to read the dust jackets. Long ago, flickering computer screens, website-designing, writing endless manuals and editing others’ work totally ruined my eyes. My ex-girlfriend said the glasses made me look intelligent. Whatever.

  Disappointing. The titles on display were the usual stories but outdated, written in a different time before the world changed. Not many will care much about self-help, or dieting and sugar free cookies or a dreamy fantasy.

  The newspapers and books will be about a world of reality and fantasy, something surreal. They will be a mixture of the unfathomable too-real horror with themes of patriotism and bravery and failed policy. The stories will also discuss boots on the ground, bombs and our angry new president from Texas. This is what the people want now. Sigh. I waved goodbye to my reflection and moved on.

  The Irish pub was not crowded. My ears and nose stung from the chill. I ordered a beer and a whiskey from the bartender and sat up front in an inglenook between the fireplace and a big window. Fortunately, I had this corner to myself. Irish music whispered through the house sound system. The sun shone low through the picture window withy clouds poised to chase the sun below the horizon.

  Outside, a row of small maples shook off their golden leaves as a retriever would after a swim in a lake. The blue gray Flatiron Mountains jutted up and over Boulder, framed by the big window, a storm rolling down like a slow avalanche. I wanted to climb them. From high in the air, on a clear day, Boulder looks like an accumulation of rubble that slipped down these mountains. Heaped up in neat geometric mounds, its streets are runoffs for great streams of snowmelt. I like it here.

  I settled on a high stool before an all-too familiar tall table with uneven legs, retrieved a newspaper from my shoulder case, turned the pages into the sunlight and leaned on my elbow to read. Not surprisingly, the stories were m
ore of the same grim news of that awful day nearly a month ago of airplanes crashing into tall New York buildings. I had been to those buildings. Now they are rubble. It was on everyone’s mind. The digging, constant digging, with machines now. Human touch was futile. Even the dogs gave up. Now it’s about war, showing tanks and armored personnel carriers streaming across desert sands. This terrible deed was done by the same damn people who took our embassy in 1979. Well, sort of. The attack didn’t come from any particular country, of course, but from the type of people who despise western thought and culture.

  After a while, a young waitress appeared. I had seen her many times. They know me here. I have played with the house band many times, which consists of a loose collaboration of local musicians. Usually on the banjo but occasionally on the guitar. I couldn’t carry a tune in a tote sack, so I never sang.

  “Another then, sir?” she said with a crooked fleshy grin. The stool/waitress height ratio made it such that we could see eye-to-eye.

  “Yes please, Jameson, and the bill, I have a bus to catch”, peering over my reading glasses, fumbling with my wallet while eyeing the status of my mug. Everyone is nice to each other these days. At least there’s that.

  “Awful isn’t it,” she said looking at my paper. She had a slight Irish accent. I wondered where the pub management finds these people in Boulder. The bartender has an accent, as did most of the wait staff. Dressed in white shirt, dark slacks, black shoes and white apron gave the place a European air; the whole place was thick with things Irish. There are days I stay until the last bus but not today. I wanted to write tonight. I like to write when in a crummy mood.

  “It’s horrible. Never thought that day would come,” I told her, shaking my head.

  “Just the Jameson's then?” she replied.

  “Plus, there’d be an indecency rap if I have to piss in the parking lot.” That made her smile. She left.

  I like the workers here, students mostly, I hope they don’t have visa problems because of all this madness. Two of the cafes where I eat lunch have lost people. They were just working and now they are gone. I heard their work visas had expired. Nowadays, apparently, rules are enforced.

  Denver Express

  Shortly after five, I left a tip and trudged to the station, feeling warm from the whiskey. I had no jacket and the temperature was dropping noticeably. I cursed myself for not bringing a coat. The depot was not crowded.

  Three buses parked at 45-degree angles, engines idling with a growling snore, smoke wafted up and hung under the roof. The DENVER EXPRESS was in the middle, my bus. The LONGMONT and DENVER LOCAL were getting ready to load. These two left five minutes before the EXPRESS. My bus catches them since they make more stops leaving Boulder. A cop walked by, his eyes searching, thumbs hooked in the front of his belt, gun ominously displayed. The city replaced the slack-jawed unarmed rent-a-cop with a tough member of The Force a few weeks before. The police were everywhere now. It reminded me of Europe after 1972 Munich Olympic disaster when I saw police with automatic rifles. I had to carry ID with me everywhere. I wonder if the same will happen in the States. There will be changes.

  I ambled over and sat on the short wall at the far end of the station. I lit a cigarillo and leaned against the stairwell outer wall. At my feet, leaves and wrappers eddied in the breeze. From this vantage, I gauged the progress on the building going up across the road for the past week. The workers were tearing it down all the way up to rebuild. They’re doing that now in New York and Arlington where General Lee used to ride his horse.

  The people began to queued up to the buses. Passengers with a slow shuffle, resigned expressions, lost in a momentary dream, blank stares at vague distances. The LONGMONT riders were dressed in standard workday attire. Coats, jackets and sensible shoes found in any suburban discount store. Their queue was straight, neat and orderly. The DENVER LOCAL crowd had that urban bohemianism look, young, pouty and bored. Baggy pants, dyed T-shirts, pierced facial parts and colorful body illustrations here and there. A few with hockey sweatshirts; must be a game tonight. The LOCAL crowd slouched to their seats.

  In my mind, I wrote ten-second stories on a few members of each group as they boarded. I speculated to what ends they will meet at the termination of their ride. What measures of dignity they muster to lean on when studying their residue of their day? Wondering, also, at a glance, what ten-second…

  “First and final call for the DENVER EXPRESS, now boarding at gate two”.

  That redundant announcement annoyed me. I joined the clump forming around the EXPRESS door.

  Bonnie Carton, a colleague trotted up to me as passengers were beginning to board. She had her bicycle.

  “Hi there, could ya' watch this a sec?” She parked her bike at my feet. She usually rides her bike around Boulder after work and doesn’t take this bus.

  “Sure. Do you want me to put it on the rack?”

  “Oh no. Thank you anyway,” Bonnie turned and scooted off toward the depot.

  Bonnie is a pleasant looking woman, mid-thirties with a lean build, demurring manner, easy laugh, and always smiling. Her eyes sat like sparkling Kashmir blue sapphires on light golden pillows. She was fresh-faced with milky skin, pink cheeks and lightly freckled like the bottom of a bowl of cereal. She wore no makeup. Her shoulder length straw-colored hair lapped across her face from the wind-tunnel effect in the boarding area.

  But that’s all I know. Bonnie is the type that offers no clues about their lives out of the office. She wore no rings or jewelry, displayed no pictures on her desk or mementos of excursions. She offered no conversations of exotic vacations with a lover. I imagine her living alone with a cat. Maybe she was a lipstick lesbian or asexual. I guarded her bike while she went off to pee.

  I like Bonnie. She is easy to work with when I had writing assignments sponsored by the marketing department where she works. I hardly ever saw her outside of the office except for this day.

  Two tiny and old Mexican women nervously fingered their purses for fare. They were the first to board, taking seats in the front row. A man that I’d describe as a Quasimodo’s stunt double followed them. Bonnie, back now, secured her bike in the rack on the front of the bus. I supposed she felt comfortable loading the bike herself. I let her in front of me.

  “Not riding today?” I wanted to start a simple chat thinking she may want my company on the ride downhill to Denver.

  “No, last minute plans. Plus, the weather and all,” She said this with no hint of what these plans might be. I shrugged and boarded. Last minute date I figured and let the thought drop for the betterment of my ego. I was running out of time to break the ice with her. I don’t know if she knew I was leaving. I didn’t want to run the risk of being crushed by a nonplussed response to the news. I watched her bounce up the steps, fanny pack wiggling. I thought whoever was sleeping with Bonnie was a lucky man or woman.

  A couple sat near the front. He was thin, straight and narrow frame with bushy salt-n-pepper hair and thick mustache, sunken eye sockets and transparent skin. Bony wrists jutted out from an undersized black pea coat. He looked as though he slept in a coffin. There was no difference in width between his shoulders and his waist. He sat and angled against the window. She was much shorter but well-proportioned mousy brown short hair and gray-blue eyes. Her face was cheerful, round and open with dimpled chin and plump cheeks the color of zinfandel blush wine. She wore a nametag I could not make out. She slid into the seat beside him and immediately began fumbling through a capacious sackcloth purse plopped on her lap. They could have been peasants from the Russian Ukraine.

  Several more climbed in front of me. Bonnie sat about four or five rows from the front. I followed a short, roundish, redheaded man with a goatee. He rides this line often, sometimes carrying a guitar. I thought, for the zillionth time, to ask him about that someday. He must have seen me carry my guitar or banjo case on the morning run to Boulder. A handful of others climbed aboard. I took note of no one else as I waddled d
own the aisle shoulder pack bouncing rhythmically from seat to seat. I took my seat on the back bench so I could stretch out my long frame, which does not fit the dimensions of public transportation.

  Loaded, we lurched through the streets of Boulder, the sun a golden strobe flashing through the branches, the driver negotiating traffic. She is a good driver.

  We traveled Canyon west to Broadway, skirting the university campus lined with college-town cafes, restaurants and shops, then east on Table Mesa Drive across town past old brick homes in various stages of disrepair. The street torn apart by a summer-long widening project. We snaked through barriers, cones and groups of orange-vested workers with their huge Jurassic machines. Along the way, we picked up a few students near campus at an edge-of-town park-n-ride. Fifteen or twenty passengers now. This is why I liked the 5:15. It is not a popular ride, most of the students and pros have gone home, the bar crowd still whooping it up in town.

  We cruised onto the turnpike to Denver, gained momentum, the great motor settled into a harmonic confluence of high whine and low rumble. The bus passed rolling brown fields of scrub trees and bushes and the occasional gathering of bovine nosing the ground. To me, those hills resembled undulating waves swelling against the Flatirons—like a seawall. The dwindling open space fending off encroachment, farms falling victim to developer's blade like some diseased organ.

  I watched the mountains peel away toward the west and settled down for the forty-five-minute journey. The turnpike traffic, though compacted, was moving at a good clip. I watched the traffic pass us. Then a prison bus pulled alongside, and for a few miles we rode together. I could see the occupants’ faces, hard and angry through the bars. Each wore white jumpsuits; the guards wore blue uniforms.

  They are a microcosm of a different realm. The captured army of the underworld. I made up mental stories about them like I did for the people on the boarding platform. What they were thinking. Did some want to fight in the war or did they care? Locked up in a nervous country with cops on every corner. I imagine they regretted their crimes that got them a ticket on that bus.

  They are men without a country. They are deviants of social control that standard norms set by the political state and those outside the state. The passengers on that bus are an early warning system that something is terribly wrong. Biologically, they are no different. The deviants on that bus have a different reference group from which to draw support. It is in this reference group where they form a sense of self.

  The bohemian crowd were unlikely to volunteer; prisoners cannot volunteer. Many of Longmont group are reservist or guard, weekend warriors now looking at a fulltime gig in a foreign land or here if things get worse. That has happened before - at Kent State and Mississippi when the guard killed citizens illegally. It was a case of reference groups demonstrating their sense of social norms that ran afoul of the political state and its control and got some of its members killed.

  Perhaps I could write for a Pentagon contractor as my way of serving. I’d been toying with this notion recently. I had jobs with the government in the past and still had contacts. They had survived the attacks. I dropped the idea though, the Pentagon needs guns, the pens have run out of ink.

  Finally, the road became a smooth rolling band of concrete, the sun settled low just over the tops of the Flatirons. Lumpy clouds with gray bellies hovered over the horizon. The sunset will be colorful. It may rain tonight always a good time to write when it rains.

  I was thick with weariness so I leaned back, breathed out the accumulation of the day in a long slow hiss. I tried to read but gave in, closed my eyes, burrowed deeper into that place in my mind where images and words meander, and rocked to the drone and parlay of highway and diesel engine. Shadowy flashes and reverse images painted pictures in a kaleidoscopic dance inviting a dream to chase away the involuntary twitch of mm tired body.

  Though I didn’t know it at the time, I was about to meet Michael and Anthony. In later conversations, I’d learn much more about them, so let me introduce you. Understand their connection to the awful drama about to take place…

  Conquistadors and Freedom Fighters

  “Dude come on, it’ll be cool. You and me going all over the world”, said Little T. “Besides”, he went on “With everything that’s going on, it’s something I gotta do. ¿Comprendo amigo?”

  “That’s a hard thing to argue with,” Michael said.

  “I gotta’ do it anyway Froggy, I need the dinero for school.” Little T said with a shrug.

  Signing up. Join the Marines after finishing their final year of high school this spring Not an easy decision. It was one of those life-altering moments that set in motion a chain of events that define everything from the day they took the oath. The unknown destiny from the current way of life is a shock to the mind. The boys exhibited pride when they told others they were going to kill the murderers, the ones responsible for bring down those buildings in New York. This gave them celebrity status.

  It took Michael a few days before he caved to Little T’s persuasiveness. Michael’s mother and girlfriend cried, his dad, although perplexed because he was paying his tuition at Metro State, supported him.

  Christened Anthony Timmer, his uncle gave him the nickname Little T when he was small. Anthony had been born to a white father and half-Mexican mother. Medium sized, he was compact and sinewy with smooth brown skin, sharp angular features and large dark chocolate eyes like pools of Cajun roux. He was lion-headed, coal black with a persistent lock that that reached for his right eye. By the end of the summer, he had a tan like saddle leather. Little T was constantly moving, talking, gesturing, and competing.

  He was proud of his slight Mexican heritage, occasionally using Spanish equivalents to English. He liked to say he descended from Hernando de Soto the Conquistador. Ultimately he dropped that boyish bravado after learning the cruel lesson of that harsh European conquest over the indigenous population.

  His father, while stationed at Fort Carson, met and married his mother. He had been in charge of the Motor Pool for twelve years and knew everything about engines, transmissions, drive trains and bodywork. From the duce and half troop transports to the squirrelly jeeps.

  When Sergeant Timmer left the Army his friends called him Mr. T from the television show. He opened a small auto repair shop near Erie in Boulder County. At first he worked mainly on cars of friends and friends of friends, old army buddies and their wives or girlfriends. Sometimes discounted, sometimes free except for parts but word spread—a good mechanic is hard to find.

  Five years later, the day Little T was born; Sergeant Timmer won the contract to maintain the fleet of Anytime Boulder Cab Company. The lucrative deal provided steady business. His reputation as a first rate mechanic meant the Timmer’s lived comfortably. As time went by, Little T had a brother and three sisters. They all helped with the business in some way and learned to work honestly.

  Sam Manual, the owner of Anytime Boulder Cab, was not an easy person to like. Manual was a little man, barely 5’ 5” and he treated his drivers rudely. Nobody cared much for Manual, some say not even his wife, but everyone who ever worked for him was first rate. No matter how hard Mr. T worked to ensure he attended to every detail, Mr. Manual would find fault and adjust the bill accordingly. This made Mr. T bitter at times but kept his growing staff sharp. This policy forced Mr. T to meticulously choose mechanics and fire those not of superior ability. By the time Little T was twelve he too, like his father, knew everything about cars and motors. A whiz with numbers, Anthony helped his mother keep the books.

  Michael was born to parents of English and French descent. His father, Michael Darnay, a Supervising Engineer and University of Colorado made a good living. He studied mechanical engineering at Illinois University where he met Michael’s mother. After a few jobs in places like Omaha, Tulsa and Pueblo, Mr. Darnay started work at CU in the early 80s. Michael Jr., their only child, was born about this time.

  Michael was tall, long a
nd angular; everything about him seemed to end on an edge or point. He had shaggy brown hair that was always a month overdue for a trip to a barber. He had a handsome open face with intelligent brown eyes that, in polar opposite to his demeanor, were constantly searching as if he were an explorer sizing up the next mountain. He moved slow, deliberate and with ease but was capable of tremendous bursts of energy. He never seemed comfortable just standing or sitting; he did not appear right unless he was leaning on something. His mother pestered him about posture “Sit straight! Don’t slouch!” She would say. He projected an air of laziness and of being slow, none of which were true.

  Perceptions being what they are, he would surprise teachers, coaches and friends with feats of strength, speed, endurance and intelligence.

  Michael and Anthony had known each other since the eighth grade when Little T tried to beat the hell out of Michael over a girl. Little T had amorous interests in this girl she, however, was sweet on Michael, unbeknownst to Michael. The hallway fight, in the annuals of great conflicts, amounted to little more than an energetic tumbling exercise. It landed the two in the assistant principal’s office and subsequently in detention. By the end of the long hot afternoon, the two boys cemented a fast friendship bonded by the mutual malice towards a certain Ms. Martha Vinegar, a fierce herald of justice mythical in proportion. Detention Hall was her court, over which she presided, while inflicting written wrath upon her students’ papers and exams.

  Michael and Little T were her only convicts on this day.

  Monstrous Hamster

  Ms. Martha Vinegar taught English to juniors and seniors at the high school across the street. This alone made her something of an enigma to the middle-school students, a harbinger of things to come, a glimpse into the bleak and terrifying future that lurks in the highest reaches of public education. This mutual antagonist would bind the two troublemakers in an allegiance as steady and remaining as Gibraltar. The formidable Ms. Vinegar’s hard glare through black, horn-rimmed glasses was enough to bring the most brutish of young fiends to their knees. Her raspy voice would freeze the blood of a polar bear. This was no normal woman.

  To begin with, she was huge, full six feet with a girth of an offensive lineman. When she walked, her massive bosom and ample rear end seemed to be heading in opposite directions. Her corduroy-like panty hose rubbed together while walking, making a stuttering snake-like sound. She had tiny hands attached to unnaturally short arms that swung in exaggerated arcs to counter balance her unsteady momentum. On top of this mass sat an undersized disproportionate head with scanty and irregular brown hair, ferrety eyes, round nose, small mouth and high cheekbones. When confronted by her demeaning reprimands, one got the impression that a monstrous hamster, in the league of a cheap Godzilla movie, was chastising them.

  Before the abolition of capital punishment, Vinegar’s whooping’s were legendary. Yelps from the offending youth could be heard as far away as the gymnasium as they paid their debt to society. In the post-paddle era, her detention hall inquisition evolved into psychological torment. Making her charges write detailed essays about their crimes. She would read them aloud to the other villains with condescending humiliating criticality on points of grammar, spelling and penmanship. Ms. Vinegar’s detention hall was Hard Time.

  At first the two boys sat quietly, crafting their misdeeds in the best prose they could muster. Each with heads down, pencils scrawled along ruled lines, tongues sought points that would affect the greatest wisdom. They squirmed when confronted with problems of putting events in words. Their hands holding heads fingers spread through hair. The boys wrote pleadings and treatises on consequences of aggressive behavior and detailed exposition on questions of morality and proper social behavior. A tough thesis for any middle-school student.

  “Psst, yo dude. How do ya spell regrettable?” Anthony asked under his breath.

  “R-E-G-R-E”

  “No talking gentlemen!” Ms. Vinegar cackled. Many believed she could hear people’s thoughts.

  The boys snapped their heads down, assumed the proper position of learned men of letters.

  Minutes dragged on, a clock on the wall ticked penetrating the otherwise museum-like quietness.

  Mercifully, the phone rang, jerking the boys into attentiveness. The irascible Martha Vinegar was to be called away. Briefly mind you, for she left detailed instructions, warnings and commands in vivid and unquestionable detail. Her absence would be momentary and her imminent return was to be greeted with completed essays. Failure to fulfill this expectation was unacceptable. The door shut with a solid kalump.

  “Whew! Man she’s a perra. I've heard about her, bad things,” Anthony said staring at the closed door. “Hey. What kind of name is Darnay anyway?” The two had been properly introduced during the formal inquiry meted out by the assistant principal.

  “It’s French, my grandfather was from France.”

  “You’re a frog then huh? Ha! I’m descendant from the Spanish Conquistadors,” Little T emphasized this last word. “I am nobility!” Anthony’s bone white teeth were framed by a wide smile.

  “Frog.” Michael mulled this. He never considered himself French, his grandfather who he only met through sepia colored wartime photographs was his only connection. He looked at the beaming Anthony. “Conquistadors! Your name is Timmer! That don’t sound Spanish to me. You don’t even look Spanish, at least not much.”

  “My mother is Mexican, or part Mexican. Anyway, she says we have a Conquistador in our blood.” A now defiant Anthony went on for several minutes about his grand Spanish heritage.

  “That makes you a beaner then… since I’m a frog.” Michael’s smile was cautious. “I’ll call you Beans.” He laughed, looking Little T straight in the eye and holding his breath. He could have used a more derogatory designation, but thought beaner was as harmless, like being labelled a frog. Better than fighting.

  The image of him and Anthony rolling on the floor in mortal combat to welcome the return of Ms. Vinegar crossed his mind. That would unquestionably fall short of fulfilling Vinegar's departing instructions and bring about an extension of their sentences.

  “Hey! You can’t call me that! You…it ain’t… Why I outta…” Anthony started to rise, stopped, looked quizzically at his detention mate and slowly, thoughtfully, snickered, then broke into a hard quick laugh. “Si froggy, si”.

  “Sssst, sssst, sssst,” the unmistakable sound of Ms. Vinegar’s pantyhose rubbing together loomed upon the convicts.

  “Quiet Beans! Here she comes.”

  “Mierda!”

  Froggy and Beans

  Thereafter the two boys’ friendship solidified. They shared many things over the next several years’ baseball, football, girls and cars. Especially cars. After their sophomore year, Michael’s father bought a beat up, fifteen-year old sky blue Pontiac Firebird from Little T’s father. It hardly ran at all and when it did, the thing went through gasoline quicker than a dog could lick a dish. They spent a greasy, knuckle busting summer making the old wreck roadworthy.

  It was after the last high school football game that Little T decided on the Marines. The following winter he convinced his old friend to take the tour with him. The reluctant Michael had planned to attend classes at Metro State to prepare for the Computer Science Program at the University. He had a girlfriend in Denver and a part-time job waiting tables at a swank restaurant in Lodo, near the baseball stadium.

  Everything seemed laid out. Nevertheless, the acute restlessness in Michael prevailed and Little T’s lure was too strong. Michael had grown up in the shadow of the Great Rocky Mountains with their brooding reminder of something bigger always on the horizon. Ms. Vinegar had sensed this. Stopping the two boys in the hallway on the day before graduation, the English teacher congratulated them on their accomplishment.

  “Well boys, looks as if you have made it. So, Mr. Timmer, it is the Army for you then?”

  “Marines Ma’am.” Vinegar crinkled her nose a bit, disp
layed the obligatory hamsteresque smile, harrumphed and said, “very well” She faced Michael.

  “And you Mr. Darnay. At one time you confided in me your wish to become a writer.”

  Michael bristled at this and it momentarily hung him up. He had never made this known to anyone except Ms. Vinegar, in a moment of weakness to his formidable English teacher. In part to butter her up for a better grade and in part, well, mostly because it was true. Although he could never grasp why, other than to him it was romantic. He glanced sideways at his friend but Little T did not seem to be listening.

  “To write, Mr. Darnay, one must observe. To write well, one must listen. Observe and listen Mr. Darnay. Those traits will never fail you. To observe you must live, experience things. To listen, you must be patient and wise. Also, avoid the passive, use commas wisely and most importantly do not end on a preposition!” the irascible English teacher cautioned.

  “This, I shall not do that …” said Michael pausing, smirking. Vinegar’s eyes squinting, she straightened up to peer down at her student.

  “...Ms. Vinegar”. Michael finished, smiling broadly. “But I'll probably do something with computers,” his voice trailing off. Michael did not want to advertise his imminent soldiership endeavor. He was still a bit uncertain.

  “Well, good luck gentlemen”, the dourness of the English department said. “I wish you well in the world.”

  “Sssst, sssst, sssst.”

  The two watched their old English teacher and nemesis as she disappeared around the corner. Michael felt nostalgic towards the old woman. Her words were still fresh. “To observe you must live, experience things. To listen, you must be patient and wise.” That encounter got Michael thinking about life outside the cubicle.

  Along with the itchy feet, he owed something to his friend, to his father and, in a way he never thought possible, to his country. He inherited this patriotic lust. His grandfather had joined the underground resistance during the Second World War. For over three years he fought the Nazis and the authoritarian and collaborationist Vichy government, proudly, wearing the Cross of Loraine of the Fighting French. He fought with General LeClerc in Tripoli and was in the Syrian campaign. He’d participated in the liberation of France and the subsequent invasion of Germany General Charles de Gaulle decorated him. As the stories and legends grew around his mysterious grandfather, he knew he had a certain equivalence. Family members often remarked how Michael was the reincarnation of his father’s father.

  Michael related the story of his grandfather to Little T while driving back from the junkyard in Erie. Why hadn’t he brought up his lineage before? Because Grandfather was a different kind of conquistador, that’s why, Michael answered silently.

  “See man, it’s your predestinado, your fate man. You gotta go in with me. We're warriors’ man.” Little T was as serious as Michael had ever seen him, and for once quiet.

  “I got to do something first, but yeah let’s do it,” Michael said. They drove the rest of the way in silence.

  The Rhythm of the Stone

  That night, Michael dreamt of a foreign field, vast and dusty, lined by exotic trees dancing in shimmering heat waves. Tens of thousands of shirtless brown men toiling on a rocky field with trenches and mounds like a massive archeological dig. They wore baggy flowing pants, thick white headbands, their sweaty skin gleamed under the hot intense sun in a cloudless sky. Many slung large-handled hammers and broke harsh jagged white stones. Many still pushed over-burdened wheelbarrows or hauled stones in double baskets. The sticks bent to the breaking point over their shoulders. Large teams of men pulled huge rollers to flatten the lumpy oatmeal colored ground. A smaller group was spread sand and pounded it with heavy tamps to make crude, single-lane roads for carts and wheelbarrows.

  The scene resembled a medieval battlefield with the many silk banners rippling in a constant breeze and a smattering of black and white striped tents that provided food, water, and shelter. A patchy cloud of gray-yellow dust rose steadily upwards and away.

  Michael stood on a hill, transfixed, studied the busy field and immediately connected with the urgent work on the rocks. The men sang while they swung their hammers. Next to him stood a high-ranking officer who resembled Genghis Khan in modern military garb. He stood tall and erect, looking over the filed. Michael recognized the man but he could not remember from where.

  “Generalissimo,” Michael asked, “what do the men sing?”

  In a low pedantic voice, the man said, “The workers sing of freedom, of making large stones into smaller stones, of building a great and holy place, of honest work in their beautiful country. The men sing of making love to their wives, and of cool wine to drink. They sing of a giant bird that will come to free them from the tortures of their enemy. They sing of truly free men, who own nothing at all, who owe to no man. The men sing of conquest over evil and the holy places. Is this not what all men should sing my friend?” The man who resembled Genghis Khan said this without turning to face Michael.

  Michael looked down, he had something in his hand, a rolled up map, a rifle, he could not make it out because it changed from one to another. He wanted to give it to the man who looked like Genghis Khan. Michael seemed to be struggling against a force, a strong wind or someone pulling against his shirt. The sand began to sink under his booted feet. Then suddenly a cloud eclipsed the sun, the air chilled and the breeze ceased. All the tens of thousands of singing men stopped and stood straight up and in unison turned, facing Michael, faces blank. A small flock of blackbirds flew against the darkened sky. The General slapped himself to attention, right-faced sharply on his heels toward Michael, stared straight through him as if he were not there. Michael struggled with the object in his hands.

  With a start, Michael awoke, confused, disoriented from the foggy images; sweat drenched his neck and chest. He showered, dressed, and on the way out, for the hundredth time in a month, saluted himself in the hallway mirror. He picked up Little T at his house.

  The boys drove to the Recruitment office in Denver, signed all the papers and took the pledge. They would ship out in a few months to Paris Island, South Carolina.

  Days ticked by, the familiar became cherished and above contempt.

  Firebird

  Two days before departure, Michael and Little T spent a lazy afternoon bouncing among friends. They drank a beer at the garage and shot pool in Boulder. The boys had dates for the hockey game, then a party at a friend’s in the old Baker neighborhood in Denver.

  Michael was nonchalant as the departure date approached but Little T's energetic persona was hitting a high C note. He was a vibrating fiddle string whipped on by a relentless bow. Around five they decided to drive to Denver.

  They started around the long sweeping on-ramp from Table Mesa Drive to the Turnpike, making Michael and Little T lean to the left. Little T grabbed the handle above him. Michael accelerating through the turn gaining speed, the car’s suspension was tight wanting to drift making it hard to turn right. “We gotta work on this power steering,” Michael said. Finally straightening out, Michael gave the motor all the gas.

  Let’s go man! Woo Hoo!” Anthony was growing excited his grinning eyes were wild, his black hair flipped in the breeze. His elbow on the window frame, his hand clutching the roof just outside the door.

  Face grim, Michael gunned the motor of the Firebird and felt the car lift as it accelerated. He moved up through the gears. Michael flipped on the radar detector. They passed the city limit sign around the sweeping curve and onto the straight road. Passing cars easily, the Firebird had plenty of room to maneuver. As they made their way toward Denver they blasted by more light traffic. A left side pass then a right side pass. Michael gripped the wheel with both hands, his jaw clinched, “I’ll pass a few more cars then slow”, he said softly.

  “Hey man! Maybe we can make Denver in under thirty! A record!” Little T shouting over the wind.

  His speedometer busted, Michael estimated from the tachometer the
Firebird was running 75 or 80 miles an hour and burning high octane fuel at five miles per gallon. Climbing Davidson Mesa, shot past slower cars and trucks struggling with the steep hill. Then they swooped down the other side and over the Coal Creek bridge.

  “We’re gonna be Marines!” Little T shouted to no one. “Jar Heads Baby! Blow things up. Save the goddamn world from these assholes!” He slapped the side of the thirsty Firebird.

  They were coming up on a truck in the left lane and a small knot of cars. A train made its slow progress toward Denver, brightly lit by the westward sun. More traffic bunched up further ahead. Michael mapped out in his mind how to navigate through the traffic, settings his marks. He experienced the electric bursts of anxiety in his stomach. The power transferred through the wheel to his hands and his right foot gave him more. A mixture of thrill, excitement and fear rolled through him. He was going to be a Marine! Michael Darnay the liberator and protector of freedom. His heart raced.

  “Come on Froggy! Let’s go!” Little T’s head back, laughing, slapping the side of the streaking car.

  “OK Beans”, Michael said, inspired, “Let’s go!” He lifted off the gas, mashed the clutch and slipped the shifter into third, the power gear, popped the clutch and stomped the gas pedal. The car dug in hard. The tachometer jiggling near redline the powerful motor growling. Michael aimed the car onto the shoulder to pass, jammed it into fourth and stomped the gas again.

  The car exploded past the traffic, vibrating, floating over the rough pavement. The brown fields and silver-green sagebrush whipped by in a dizzying rush. Michael had no idea how fast they were going 95? 100? Ahead was an opening where he could slide back onto the turnpike with plenty of open road beyond the clutch of vehicles. Michael eased the Firebird onto the highway; a slight lip made the car wiggle as the left side tires moved onto the road. As the right side tires popped over the ledge, the car wiggled again. The Firebird hopped, and shuddered. Michael felt something pop through steering wheel. He turned the wheel against the sudden jerk with all his strength.

  The Thing I Fear the Most

  I sensed it first, heard a dull thump and the bus jumped and quaked; the effects delivered sure as judgment, quick as a snap of a guitar string. I startled awake with a gasp and spontaneous jerk. Harsh scraping and crunching with squeals of tortured metal and the muffled explosions of glass. The rapid deceleration tossed me forward into the seat back, then bounced hard against my own seat and eventually heaped me to the floor. On the way down, I hit my head just behind my left ear on the sill. Squeezed my eyes in pain and saw bright specks like a swarm of lightning bugs against a black sky.

  Violent shaking accompanied by a grating screech of tires against reluctant pavement, the great motor, for a moment accelerated to high RPM screaming like a jet and at once died. Screams and cries filtered through, creating a crescendo of terror. In an instant we had stopped. A dampened jolting pop and thud behind the bus. More sickening thumps and thuds further away, the sounds of metal slapping meat.

  A second of breathless silence followed by more cries and rapid excited talk. I felt the bus move slightly and begin settling, as if sinking to the bottom of a muddy chasm. Then began the sound of a slow crunch, like crushing a soda can in one’s hand.

  I lay still, taking inventory, forcing in a breath, waiting for the pain. Opening my eyes, I saw the blurry roof; my reading glasses had somehow remained balanced on my face. I dragged myself onto the bench removed my glasses. I could see now. I tended to my pack, shouldered it and stood slowly, determining my state of intactness. The bus at a peculiar angle, as if going up a curve. It made for awkward walking. An emergency exit window hung ajar, swung outward, papers, books, coffee mugs, and a bicycle helmet. Bonnie’s helmet! Was she okay? The air smelt of burnt motor oil and diesel. Thin rancid smoke of burnt rubber swirled, caught by the sun's low rays. Cars around the bus were stopped in various degrees of disarray many completely off the road and trapped next to the barrier, occupants were unable to get out. People jogged through the tangled mess. I was unable to see behind the bus, smoke veiled the view out the front windshield.

  The redheaded guitar player two rows ahead of me had jammed hard under the seat. His ankle broken. After I pulled him out to the aisle as he cursed mightily, and even more when he saw his foot pointing outward at a sick angle. He plopped into the seat. I sat his guitar case next to him.

  He sat, coughed, “What the hell! Jesus, what the hell!” He had a small cut on his right cheek from the frame of his broken glasses.

  “I don’t know yet, man. We got hit,” I looked into his angry eyes. “That’s all I know. Your leg’s broken. Don’t move. I'll be back. Gotta check on somebody.” I rubbed the back of my head where it had smacked the seat. Then I moved forward.

  Other riders leaned on their hands while squinting out the windows, trying to see the damage. I didn’t see Bonnie, not yet, but did see the lower half of a middle-aged man hanging from the emergency exit window, legs scissoring as he tried to wiggle out. A woman outside reached her arms toward him.

  I coughed at the vile taste of rubber and oil. Then I overheard excited talk and car doors slamming.

  Someone pounded on the side of the bus and car horn blared.

  I found Bonnie, about halfway toward the door of the bus. She lay across the seat holding her wrist, legs drawn to her chest. She looked down, hair covering her face. Fine so far, but… her arm cocked at an angle where no joint existed. Ouch.

  People kept bumping into me in their hurry to reach the door. I knelt. “You all right, Bonnie? Hang on, girl. Someone will be here soon.” Instinctively, I put my arm around her shoulder. She was shaking as I inspected her injury. The skin on the arm wasn’t broken. I leaned in to see if she suffered from anything else. She stirred. Color left her face. “Oh, it hurts,” she whispered.

  Uh-oh. I looked at the floor. This is tough, I sighed. It reminded me of the time I saw a teammate break his leg on the football field. I recalled the clenched stomach, as the team crowded around him. His screams made us turn our heads and cover our mouths. The stands were so quiet. They heard his screams too. I did not want Bonnie to scream like that. Okay… deep breaths. I imagined her anguish over what she must have seen. From her position, she had a clear view out the front window. Bonnie must have witnessed the incident, helpless and afraid. I looked forward.

  People were in a panic trying to get out, like people late leaving a plane for connecting flights. Heads bobbed outside the front of the bus. The driver appeared motionless, as passengers crowded around her.

  “Make room and give us some air!” said a female voice.

  I turned to see the other side. The light was better here, away from the sun’s glare. Wrecked cars looked like a crowded parking lot with one exit. I laid Bonnie’s helmet on the seat. “Can you sit up? Do you hurt anywhere else?”

  “No, umm…” Bonnie breathed hard. “God, it was horrible. That poor…” She started to cry but held it back. “My arm hurts.” Her eyes squinted hard. “Don’t ... know… umm…” She coughed and leaned back holding her arm against the waist.

  I studied the gentle curve of her jaw line, the high cheek bones and button nose. She glanced down at her arm, and I saw the neat part of her hair, just off center right. She usually had her hair tied back but not today.

  Down, boy. I now saw Bonnie as the injured woman. She looked into my eyes searching, looking for personal, perhaps. A desperate intimacy pleading in a way, vulnerable. Sad. She pursed her lips and shivered.

  “Sorry. I have no coat. I'll get help soon.” I tried to read her. I have always been a sucker for damsels in distress and usually come away with an emotional attachment. I didn’t want this, not now, not this way. I clenched my jaw. “You’ll be all right. There's a guy there with a busted leg.” I motioned with my chin. Bonnie nodded.

  Other people queued in front, forming a tight pack. Somebody bumped my foot. I rubbed the back of Bonnie’s neck. It was so warm and moist.
She sat up, and her hair draped over my arm.

  “I'll be, okay,” she said, hushed and resigned. Women are tough, I thought. They have high pain tolerance for childbirth. She began speaking in quick spurts, “I saw the wreck … what happened … it was so quick! … We hit that car really hard.” Bonnie turned toward the window. “It just disappeared. We hit the…” Her voice trailed off, head shaking. No, she didn’t want to describe what she saw, the horror of it. She glanced toward the front again, closing her eyes tightly and leaned against me. I put my arm around her again, so nervous - first date nervous.

  Bonnie was calm now and we sat silently for a few minutes. I did not want to say anything before she did. I wanted Bonnie to deflate, to know that she would be safe, that everything would be better soon. I wanted her to see what I saw: The two of us eating lunch in a café in Boulder, or having a few drinks at the Irish pub - anything but the awfulness outside, the broken people and pain. The dreadful memories she would carry the rest of her life. I wanted this moment right now to be a good memory, one she will want to keep, not be forced by events out her control. I wanted her to sense safety in my arms. I felt her head move against my chest, her body expanding when she breathed. She reached to unclasp her fanny pack.

  “Here, let me do that. You stay still.” I unbuckled it while she held on to my shirt, tugging it. She cleared her throat. I saw her face peering at me and she put an arm on my shoulder so that I could reach the pack. I put it on my lap. She reached down and unzipped the pack.

  “I can help. What do you need?”

  “That’s okay. I’ll get it.” Her voice was calmer. She kept digging in the pack as I rubbed her back. She was still probing, I detected things moving; her fingers explored her fanny pack on my lap.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to do that?” I said and rolled my hips. I rested my chin on one hand and looked out the window to take my mind off the sensation in my groin. It didn’t work. I tried to think of her entry in the employee contact sheet. I tried to think of the few projects we worked. I lost my concentration by her hand moving in the pack on my lap.

  “I need my phone… call my sister,” she said in a voice soft as a lover.

  I laid my hand on hers to help find the phone. I was sure she didn’t know what she was doing to me. If she kept at it much longer she would. I grinned at the irony. I avoided looking at her twisted arm. It was not a terrible break but bad enough to snap me back. Bonnie found her phone in time and sat.

  “All right. I'll make sure somebody comes soon. Hold your arm still in your lap. It’ll be good. They’re coming soon. I can hear them,” I said.

  “Thanks, I have a jacket on my bike.” She was calmer, color good and trying to smile. She shivered.

  “I’ll get it for you. Be back.”

  Bonnie gave me an expression I had never seen from her. It froze me for a second. She was no longer the cute mysterious woman in marketing. She was Bonnie with a broken arm, I cared for her. I desperately wanted to help her. I wanted to get to know her, to carry her off this bus in my arms and away from this mess, and most of all, to heal her arm with a magic wand and take her to dinner. I smiled at her. “Let me get out of here. Something’s going on toward the front.”

  I patted her shoulder, slid to the aisle and moved forward, throat tight, mouth dry. The aisle was blocked. I was struck by a tinge of anxiety, crooked my head to check on Bonnie; her brows scrunched together in concern. I forced my way toward the front, by stepping over the seats and got to the second row. Out the front, smoke and fading light made little sense of the carnage. Vague human forms scampered in confusion. Patches of colors faded in and out. The driver remained slumped over the wheel, not moving. As far as I knew drivers didn’t wear shoulder harnesses. She’d smacked hard and was bleeding slightly from her mouth and nose. I thought it best not to move her.

  The driver was a tall, elegant black woman, with sharp carved lines and relaxed hair. She had serious eyes and always displayed a slight mischievous cocky smirk. She was one of the better EXPRESS drivers, never ran over curbs, and was always graceful and gentle applying the brakes.

  Below me the two Mexican women were crumpled on the floor in front of their seats, their small bodies intertwined. The wine-cheeked woman who sat next to the thin man was trying to comfort them.

  The thin man staggered toward me, babbling words I did not understand at first. He held tightly on the seat back, swaying circularly a scarlet-red welt forming on his forehead. There was a small drop of blood working its way from his left ear. Someone was down on the steps trying to kick the door open.

  The thin man continued to say things like “Marty! We got to get corn, don't forget the corn! Marty!” And so on. His thick eyebrows arched in the middle, deep-set eyes piercing hard down the long thin bridge of his nose. He looked straight through me. A stuck car horn stabbed my ears. The sounds of sirens wailed the distance. I wanted this frantic madness to go away. I wanted to go back to Bonnie. She should be out for a bike ride. I should be in the pub drinking whiskey and stout and talking about football. I don’t want to pull mangled bodies out of burning cars or dealing with an underfed semi-conscience Ukrainian refugee.

  Marty, apparently the thin man's woman was still on the floor with the Mexicans. One moved gently, crossed herself, and spoke rapid Spanish through a broken and bloody mouth to the other woman, who did not respond or move.

  The driver leaned back in her seat just as the door successfully opened. Several people began moving forward. I placed my fingers on Marty’s back.

  “You might want to sit him down,” I said, pointing toward the thin man. “I believe he has a concussion.” Her eyes widened as she turned to evaluate her companion. She sprang to her feet.

  “Eric!” She held him by his left elbow. “Eric, you must sit down. You're hurt. Please, Eric, please sit down!” Eric, not showing promising signs of total comprehension, crumpled heavily onto a seat, one hand still clutching the back of a seat, eyes fixed on a point only he saw. “I’m a nurse,” she said.

  “I'll see about some water, blankets and…” I fumbled for words then regained my composure. “Okay, there's a guy with a busted foot or something back there.” I thumbed toward the rear. The redheaded man was already sitting upright in the aisle talking on a cell phone. He gave me a thumbs-up.

  Marty glanced around me. “And that girl has a messed up arm.” I pointed toward Bonnie, who sat quietly, staring out the window with a blank far-away stare, phone to her ear. “I don't know about anyone else.”

  I turned and surveyed the commuters. Quasimodo now limped between the seats, grimacing, grabbing a seat back with each step.

  “Go get help!” Marty snapped. Then more softly, she said, “Make sure the EMTs know we got hurt people here.” She swept her hand then gently grabbed my arm. “Tell them…we have…” she paused looking at the thin man then the Mexican woman. “Just hurry. Tell them to hurry!”

  I stepped around Marty toward the door. The sirens were loud, numbing my ears. A state trooper unit flew by along the shoulder. The car with the stuck horn still blared its maddening monotone. The rest consisted of shouts, smoke, noise and rushing people.

  The bus driver was moving, currently dialing a cell phone, and rubbing the side of her face. She made a gesture as if she were motioning people to get out.

  I turned to leave, surprised that I had to leap out the door; the stoop was four feet from the ground. I hopped down. The pavement was warm. There was glass everywhere, crunching like tiny sea shells as I stepped. Vapors of diesel and the sickly-sweet almond odor of coolant hissed from the cars. A noxious cocktail of steam and smoke whiffed around like cool low country morning mist. I turned around…

  Holy crap. The bus had run over a small car, now angled at the sky, poised like a missile ready to launch from the back of a military truck. The car, flattened and unrecognizable, had a sky blue roof. Its windows were invisible, tires flat, wheels pushed into the body. Black-orange visc
ous fluids trickled out in small searching streams.

  Behind the car for several yards, hideous gouging black and white scrapes dug into the hard concrete that told of this small car's final moments. The bus hunched on top, its huge tires off the ground and bowed around as if it were trying to scoop up the tiny car and carry it home. A strange maternal affect.

  I winced at the fate of the occupants remembering that crunch, realizing it was the last agonizing moments of their lives. Ignoring the quiver in my stomach, I helped several people down from the bus. A cab driver appeared and assisted the debarking process. He had been a few cars behind and able to swerve off the road. With a grunt, we both lifted Quasimodo down to the ground as though we were struggling with a futon mattress on a flight of spiral stairs. Glass and debris crunched and crackled under our feet. I patted him on his shoulder as he hobbled off, aided by the cabbie. Thin Man was next, guided by Marty from above. He had a queer empty mien.

  One of the Mexican women appeared at the door. She held a bloody cloth to her chin and clutched the doorframe.

  “Give me your hand,” I said. She reached out while I grasped her forearm firmly with my left and cradled her in my right arm and lifted her out and down. Her skin was pale brown, spotted and deeply wrinkled. Her hair white as cotton and wisped in the breeze. She was remarkably light as if filled with air, but quivered nonetheless, even as I walked a few steps and gently set the lady on her feet.

  “Gracias, Señor.” She pushed me away with her arm. I sensed she felt shame that a strange man touched her.

  “De nada. Are you all right? Stay here, por favor.” I replied. She leaned against the back of a car glancing sideways toward the bus. She began crying, holding the cloth to her mouth raising her other arm to the top of her head. Her eyes where wide and surprised. I turned and for the first time took in the magnitude of the Hollywood-like surreal scene.

  Bonnie's bike survived the impact and I drew her windbreaker from the saddle bag and a water bottle from the frame. It felt strange rummaging around in her purse, her private area. I bounded back into the bus and back to Bonnie, heart pounding against the meat in my chest. Bonnie leaned forward against the seat, head resting on her good arm. I sat next to her. She seemed small, balled up like a child.

  “Hey, you good?” I said.

  She nodded, head down. I covered her with the wind breaker and pulled the hair through and smoothed it down her back. I leaned forward. “I’ll go for help now.” I lay the water bottle beside her. She nodded again, hair moving, breathing level, her eyes without shock. “Is there is anything I can do for you?” Bonnie turned her head, our faces were even. It was like we were lying in bed. I wanted to kiss her, stroke the side of her face. Our eyes focused on that place where the soul begins, where words unspoken and knowing. She smiled, letting only the mouth corners lift. Her soft light hair framed the gentle face, those faint freckles aligned across her nose like the Milky Way on a clear night. Blue eyes moving side to side, her slow blinks that uncovered a different communication. As if she were a child sweeping a bubble wand in the spring air. The next bubble was bigger, more color reflecting from the sun and alive, a floating pulsating translucent globe, lazily drifting across the sky. Too dear a moment to speak. I tucked her hair around that small ear, laid a hand on her face. Hers was a face you wanted to wake next to forever. I was experiencing the thing I fear the most - the realization I had to give in and lose a part of myself with the possibility of no return. This picture of her face, that beautiful face, the physical touching the tension, and uncertainty the yearning mixed into one truth. That one perfect moment in a lifetime. And no matter how many times you try, it never comes again.

  “I’ll make sure somebody gets here quick.” I said, wanting to change the subject. I’d have preferred to ask what she wanted for breakfast.

  Bonnie whispered, “Thank you so much. You’re so sweet.” She closed her eyes.

  “I’ll be back. Somebody will be here soon.” I looked back at Guitar Man. He lay against the seat, arms across his forehead. “I’m going for help, stay put.” I yelled. He gave me another thumbs up.

  The bus driver knelt next to the Mexican woman. She had a medical kit next to her.

  World’s Greatest Grandmother

  I made it back off the bus, “This is no coincidence Bonnie, this terrible mess. Perhaps tragedy brought us together,” I said to myself shaking my head. The scene was a unique unreality, showing a sun as a dim orange ball pulsing through hazy gray ocean of smoke filled with the stench of burning rubber. The horizon lost to clouds of catastrophe. Cars lay burning like individual pyres. People had begun disappearing and reappearing through the sullen miasma. It was oddly, unnaturally silent.

  Ten yards ahead, a dark-colored sports vehicle lay on its side, motor running, back tires spinning, and the whole thing wobbled like a dog with an itch. Smoke puffed from the exhaust. The horn still blaring, incessantly screaming its mechanical confusion.

  The wail of sirens grew, drilling through grim air. Patrol cars, fire trucks, tow trucks, descending on our island of anguish. Overhead a helicopter circled low, a small airplane made an approach to Jeff Co airport. A small landing strip in Jefferson county.

  The sirens were loud now. I looked up. A woman in a long blue denim dress and white loose-knit sweater stood against the cement barrier just ahead of the bus. Her hands clasped over her mouth and nose. The staring eyes were red brimmed; she trembled, hands and face wore a palsy of grief. She stared into a dark blue sedan.

  The car had been caught between the bus and a small panel truck. The momentum of the bus, perched on top of a little car, had slammed into the sedan crushing it as I would an aluminum can. The trunk completely smashed and the back seats jammed forward, occupying the space where the front seats should be. There was a man frantically trying the open the driver’s side door. I walked to the passenger side and tried the handle, then looked in.

  I almost threw up. A woman, appearing about fiftyish, had been caught in a moment of ultimate surprise and terror, and crushed in a death grip. Sitting straight up and forward, the steering wheel gouged deep into her lower ribcage and abdomen, severing her nearly in two. Lap and thighs were covered in dark wet blood.

  Her milky expression captured the ephemeral moment; her eyes bulged, gaping at finality, mouth wide open as if she’d witnessed a fantastic feat of athleticism. Her hand lay limp on the seat to one side. She seemed animated, as if at any second she would snap to life and begin showing me pictures of her family. From the rear view mirror hung a gold heart on a chain, bearing the words “World’s Greatest Grandma”.

  A fire truck roared to a stop on the other side of the barrier. A rescue vehicle on its heels, rescuers deployed en masse spreading among the carnage. Several responders’ setup a triage station and establish a casualty collection point. Over a loudspeaker, I heard:

  "Anyone requiring assistance should move to the selected area."

  This does several things at once. It identifies patients not severely injured, who need immediate help. Triage it physically clears the scene, and provides possible assistance to responders. As those who can move, do so, the responders then ask, "Anyone who still needs assistance, yell out or raise your hands". This further identifies patients who are responsive, but unable to move.

  Now the responders can rapidly assess the remaining patients. From that point, the first responder can identify those in need of immediate attention, while not being distracted or overwhelmed by the magnitude of the situation. I gave the door handle a last tug and backed away, feeling wretched and dirty. A fireman scooted under the bus to inspect the little car; he shouted to another fireman who shouted into a walkie-talkie.

  Another rescue worker approached the dark blue sedan carrying a large pry bar. Of medium height, she had a small frame swallowed in a grungy yellow fireman’s coat. She had dark, large eyes. Her thick brown, braided hair hung to the middle of the back. Pretty, in a tomboy way with man-hands, vei
ned and strong. Her face sported grim determination. Her eyes, seeing the ghastly horror, widened for an instant then narrowed to confront the door. I kept backing up, and watched the golden heart twinkle in the lights.

  Down the road toward Denver, cars sat, shuffling as though tossed by a gambler throwing dice. A refrigerated seafood truck lay on its side. The prison bus had turned sideways but was still upright. There appeared to be a scuffle inside.

  A woman in a beige cowboy hat, next to a crunched animal trailer, tried to calm a horse. She pulled reins in quick jerks. Frantically snapping its head back against its bit, the creature had raised one of its back legs. My thought… the leg’s injured, and can’t take weight. The poor animal was terrified and hysterical, forcing the owner to blind the horse by putting her hat over its eyes.

  Even closer, a motorcycle lay on its side. Sitting against it was a helmeted rider pointing at jeans torn. He was bloody from knee to thigh. Two EMTs toward him.

  The whole scene was one of organized desperation with pockets of triage bordered by living statues of the dazed. Animated men and women stood next to their cars talking on cell phones. Rescue people pushed stretchers like they were on a competition shopping spree. In the distance, a dark figure flitted between gusts of the receding wind, spirals of smoke and steam that twisted and swooped. And over all, reflected a pulsating yellow, red and blue from flashing lights. The air was sharp; everything was sharp.

  But everywhere on the ground was sticky goo. I didn’t want to touch anything. I really wanted to fly away with Bonnie.

  Noise, noise, noise… motors idled and generators hummed. Then a chainsaw erupted with a shriek. Voices crackled over radios. An ambulance swooped in on the shoulder. No way to escape it.

  I motioned toward the bus and barked in a commanding voice that people were hurt. A woman in a uniform hopped out the back, retrieved gear, snapped open compartments, and extracted instruments of their grim trade. She bounded into the bus followed by another medic. Then I joined a small group of six, forming at the side of the ambulance, helpless and overcome. Nausea crept up my throat. A county deputy stood a few yards away, hand on his gun and the other keying his shoulder mic. We stood silent; someone finally disconnected that awful horn. Almost instantly, I could breathe easier and see more clearly.

  Rescue workers tossed a gray-green tarp over the truncated sedan. An EMT handed out bottled water and told us to stay. I took a drink; my hands were shaking. I felt as if I’d swallowed a tennis ball. Then I started shivering, spat a coppery taste of phlegm and leaned back against the ambulance. I wondered: Was this how people reacted a month ago in New York and Arlington? The terror, the unknowing, the shock to one’s system? They’d seen the unimaginable. They’d been part of a thing that changed everyone involved and by extension, to those who were not involved. The emotions that hit them when they opened their front doors and their family rushed to them, clinging. Staggering to consider.

  We walked back to the side of the bus. Three news helicopters circling above, and a medevac landing in a field. There was a stretcher by the bus door. The bus driver and two EMTs brought the other Mexican woman out on a back board, loaded her on a stretcher and wheeled her to the ambulance. She wasn’t moving. Her friend walked beside her.

  Bonnie came next with a temporary air cast on her arm, led by an EMT. And then she gave me a small smile. I saw that wonderful look in her eyes. My heart jumped. She stopped and I moved toward her. She looked around at the wrecked cars, the excited people and the helicopters.

  Eyes blinking from the smoke, Bonnie’s expression looked like she had emerged from a dark cave. I took her fanny pack and led Bonnie away by the arm.

  “Can you take her to a hospital? The ambulance is full,” the EMT said his voice muffled by the noise. “I don’t think it’s a serious break but she needs a doctor,”

  “Well, I was on this bus.” I tilted my head and looked at Bonnie. “Fine,” I said in a steady voice. “I’ll make sure she gets there.”

  “Good.” The EMT trotted toward the car on its side. Firemen were cutting the roof. They moved fast. A group of onlookers gathered around like at a culinary exhibition with a chainsaw, talking and pointing, squatting to get a better view. Two EMTs stood next to a gurney.

  The cabbie came and a deal was struck. The driver seemed sad, old and tired, with a leathery face and a hard gaze. I looked at his taxi. Anytime Boulder Cab Company.

  “You work for Sam Manual?”

  “Yeah,” he said in a gruff voice. “I was his first driver”. He looked me hard in the eyes. He looked tough as a street fighter or boxer. He opened the door for Bonnie. The cabbie said he would take Bonnie to the Porter hospital, for free. I retrieved Bonnie's bike and the cabbie put it his trunk. I stood on the passenger side and leaned in to talk, “You going to be all right?

  “I’m all right. My sister is there. She’s a nurse at Children’s. She knows the doctors at Porter. It does hurt so badly now… Can I call you tonight when I get home?” she said in a clear voice, face wearing a hopeful expression.

  “Absolutely,” I handed her a card. “My number and email, web address. All there.”

  “Thanks.”

  I watched the cab drive away and immediately felt lonely. Damn. Wish I was home to wait for her call.

  I leaned back against the ambulance, completely drained like after a difficult motorcycle race, where I narrowly avoided several wrecks. I wanted to concentrate on Bonnie, my feelings for her and what made sense on this horrific day. This thinking made me happy. I kept my mind there. The ambulance behind me vibrating from the engine. The air still smelled of almonds. The helicopters whump-whump-whumped above. The sirens were silent. People talked, radios crackled. Now it was only random noises made by busy people. I closed my eyes and saw Bonnie’s face next to mine.

  Funny how things work out.

  The Staggering Man

  Whump, whump, whump, a MEDIVAC helicopter landed on a bucolic field about twenty yards from the scene of the crash. I watched as it set down with a short sliding stop on its skids. Frightened cows and steers ran across the field to places wherever cows go to get away from helicopters. The side door was open, I could see the Critical Care Air Transport Team hop out from a crouched posture and rush toward a staggering man. I didn’t recognize him as a former occupant of the crippled Denver EXPRESS. He acted as if he were disoriented and confused waving his arms in jerky rotations and wobbling like a drunk. The Critical Care Team approached him as if he were a dangerous animal.

  A gaggle of cars trapped the prisoner bus, other than that it appeared it had survived the wreck.

  There was movement inside. A State Trooper, his hand on his pistol, banged on the door. I saw a light blue old model Pontiac Firebird its left front end bashed in and the roof dented, crinkled and covered with dirt and grass. It must have rolled. The car lay upright in the ditch about twenty yards behind. That’s probably what hit us. I could see someone in the passenger side clearly in distress.

  The Critical Care Air Transport Team had surrounded the staggering man.

  Then I jogged toward the passenger side of the Firebird. Flames lapped out the rear of the car. Bejebus. That close to the tank? This thing might blow! The man inside was agitated and slapping the dashboard grimacing and cursing in Spanish and English. His other hand grasping his leg. I leaned in as sparks jumped from under the dash.

  “Hey man you hurt?”

  “Yeah,” he groaned. “My leg… think it’s busted.”

  “We gotta get out of here!”

  I tugged on the handle but the door only budged a half inch. Then I tugged and rattled but the wreck impact had jammed the door. I hollered to a fireman for help but they were consumed with mass-casualty incident triage. Someone had to make some tough decisions.

  Because of the severity of injuries, some die regardless of medical care. To give medical care to people who will die anyway is care withdrawn from others who might have survived had
they been treated instead. It becomes the task of disaster medical team leaders to set aside some victims as hopeless, to avoid trying to save one life at the expense of several others. Deceased are left where they fell. Assessment is a continuous process and leaders check categories regularly to ensure that the priority remains correct.

  “The damn door is stuck!” I kept tugging but the door stubbornly refused to open. “Try opening from the inside!” I could see the car going up in a fireball any second. I felt a tightness in my chest.

  “Damn it! Push!” The door wouldn’t dislodge. The injured passenger screamed every time he slammed against the door. The fire was growing. I could see flames darting over the trunk lid. The odiferous and vile smoke made me cough. The man with the busted leg slapped the dash, his eyes were wild and unblinking. His groans and yelps from an inner source of pain and fear like an angry dog or a hungry wolf.

  “Dude! You’re gonna have to come out the window!” I reached in and started to grab him but he leaned away.

  “Come on man! You got to get out. Now!” The flames, angry fiery fingers danced like tongues from hell dogs. Suddenly, an arm appeared through the fuzzy gray veil and sparks clutching a set of keys.

  “There’s a crow-bar in the trunk,” the man said through blurts of coughing.

  I was coughing too. Then I snagged the keys and ran back to the trunk. Fire and smoke shot out from the wheel wells. I jammed a key into lock. It didn’t fit. “Damnit!!” I fumbled to the next car key and jammed that one in. I felt the heat around my ankles and knees. Now I could hardly breathe and put my arm over my nose and mouth. I turned the key. Nothing. I turned again and pounded the lid with the side of my fist and it popped open belching a billowy flume of dark gray rancid effluvium like a pulp mill. Waving my hand looked into truck. “Pry bar, pry bar… where? Yes!” I leaned through the flames and grabbed a large crowbar at the back of the truck. “Yow! Hot!” I immediately let go. I grabbed a rag, retrieved the bar then ran back to the injured man.

  “You push as I pry. Hurry.” I felt extreme heat on my belly. My shirt was burning! Crap. I patted my shirt with one hand and jammed the crowbar between the door and frame with my other. Not sure if my shirt fire was extinguished, I put both hands on the crowbar and pulled with everything I had.

  “Push Damnit! Help me. You’re gonna to burn alive!”

  Like a dam bursting, the door flung open, launching me backwards. I landed hard on the road, letting the crowbar clatter to the ground. On hands and knees, crawling over broken glass, I reached the man with the broken leg, pulled him down and out of the car. “Stand up. C’mon!” I put an arm around him. We hobbled away quickly, like two people in a three-legged race, but with arms flailing, grunts and yelps. We were not more than ten yards away when the Firebird blew up, sending us to the ground. I grabbed the man’s shirt and dragged him back when I felt two hands under my armpits, lifting me.

  “Come on, well get you out of here,” a fireman said to me. Two others, a policewoman and an EMT were lifting the injured passenger on a stretcher and hustled us to a safe distance. After a few minutes they loaded him into an ambulance. “You guys just barely got out of there. Were you the driver?”

  “Oh, no, sir, I was on the bus. I got off and pried the door open to get him out. There is another that drove. Think that’s him over there.” I pointed to the MEDEVAC.

  Then a commotion interrupted everything.

  Means of Defense

  POW, POW, POW … POW, POW. I crouched, heart thumping. What now? Had an engine or tire blown? I looked down the road. Of course. The prisoners had overpowered the guards, took their guns, and fought their way out. State police fired back as they ducked behind their vehicles aiming and shooting. One trooper was shot on the spot as the prisoners scurried out of the bus. It was the one who had banged on the bus door.

  Most of the convicts stopped, others fled. More gunfire? I was angry, “Enough of this!” I shouted hard from the back of my throat like at a football game. “First I had to wrestle with damn burning Pontiac, now this!” If I had driven today I would have had my gun with me. Armed desperate prisoners running amok in the mass confusion require desperate means of defense.

  The emergency people were overwhelmed. People were running away, panicked faces of fear and police flowing towards the gun fights. The gusts had not cleared out the smoke. I could barely see what was happening. Eight or nine of the prisoners were lying face down, hands behind their heads with officers from several departments standing over them, guns drawn. Other officers were on foot, in pursuit of the ones that fled. An odd way to separate the atrocious from the mere pernicious.

  I saw a prisoner turn and fire, holding the gun sideways like they do in television shows. “Stupid. That ain’t no way to fire a gun,” I told myself. An EMT rushed into the prisoner bus covered by a cop pointing a shotgun toward the shooting prisoners. He fired a few rounds. A fireman hurried toward us waving his hands to get back and find cover. More shots and screams, people running past us shouting, “They’re shooting! Get down! “Run!” I looked back the cab carrying Bonnie and was relieved to see it gone. Cars in the opposite lanes were stopped by police.

  More shots further away now. “A running gun battle,” I said to no one is particular. The cop backed up closer to us, hand on his holster. Over his radio sounded, “Officer down” he stared down the road toward the prisoners shooting. He fingered the trigger on his gun.

  I walked toward him. “What’s going on?” I called from three feet away.

  “Get back now!” he barked without looking at me. I backed away.

  “Surrender and throw down your weapons. Come out with your hands up,” roared a voice through the police bullhorn.

  This was answered with more gunfire.

  Quasimodo was sitting on the ground. I helped him up. We joined a little group of five or six and moved back behind the bus. Then we heard rapid gunfire - not like a machine gun more like a staccato of firecrackers. The prisoners, the ones that did not want to give up, the worst of the worst, were making their last stand. Three or four others disappeared into the distance. Fighting for a principle that only they understood. To be heroes in the eyes of others who understood. Fighting the forces who were, in their minds, evil. They grew distrustful of those outside their circle. They had a code an honor system. To attack the weak and unsuspecting. To steal for gain and cause destruction. Laws mean nothing to them except the laws of the street.

  They own no affinity to the country nor love for its citizens. They have let go of their conscience and civilized morals. They treat women roughly and with disrespect. They made their living by poisoning people with drugs to capture their minds. To bring others into the fold. Today many of them will fight to the death clawing for their only chance of freedom.

  After about ten minutes, the gun fire stopped.

  One prisoner writhed on the ground screaming.

  The group talked for a while speculating on causes and mortality rates and insurance, those kinds of things. The police had cordoned off the dead prisoners and we talked about them too. We were all sharing a thread of commonality though we did not know each other’s names nor anything else. We were standing in the middle of the turnpike having lived through a terrible accident. That bond will last as long as we stand in the middle of what is usually a busy highway. We are connected by carnage.

  After a fashion, desperation turned into methodical, as the worst had been rushed away. By 7:30, all victims were gone except the unwounded and dead. The tow trucks and roll backs pulled away mangled remains of twisted automobiles and trucks. Those vehicles that were road worthy began to limp home. An irritated small trickle of traffic began moving through, along the far shoulder. The police continued to walk through directing traffic, taking pictures and jotting things in notebooks. Television reporters yapped in front of cameras and interviewed people. I wanted to talk, but apparently I didn’t fit the demographic they were looking for. They were in a race to p
resent the juiciest story that would win them praise from the networks or journalists.

  Our little group, having been interviewed by the police, endeavored to continue our travels. A RTD van took me the rest of the way to my truck at the park-n-ride in Denver. None of my bus mates were on board by this time. Back at the park-n-ride, the lone truck in the lot was mine. Everyone else parked here this morning had ended the day as a matter of routine. They watched the news relieved they had missed the wreck. Before driving off for home, I took a long pee in the dark parking lot, onlookers be damned.

  Later that night I went to the hospital mainly to check on Bonnie but she had already been released.

  I asked the night nurse about the individuals they brought in from a bad wreck on the Boulder Turnpike. As she flipped through her chart I read her name tag.

  “Fill out the visitor’s log,” she said while pointing at a ringed book on the counter without looking up.

  “Okay.” I used an old cover name and info from my DOJ past. Comes in handy sometimes.

  “Yes. Here he is. There are two of them Michael Darnay and Anthony Timmer. …hmm. Mr. Darnay is in ICU. Mr. Timmer is in recovery. He should be getting released soon. You can see him if he allows it.”

  “I want to only want to ask him a few questions, nurse Tackett, ma’am.” The nurse gave an incredulous look and put her hand to her ample chest. I reached in my coat and flashed a government contractor ID card from a job a few years back. Never mind it was expired.

  “I work for DOJ. You know with all that’s has been going on recently. We just need to make sure.” I slipped the ID back into my jacket pocket before Nurse Tackett had a chance to examine the ID.

  “Terrorists?!”

  “We have to check everything out, Nurse Tackett, ma’am.”

  “Hmm, oh my… OK,” the nurse picked the phone and talked just out of my ability to hear her words. This was followed by a long silence. Tackett returned.

  “Mr. Timmer will speak with you. He had a fracture of the left tibia. His family is with him now.” She gave the ward and room number, the attending physician and nurse’s names. “Mr. Darnay is in an induced coma due to head trauma. He was in bad shape when they brought him in. Stammering like a crazy person. Head injuries do that to you,” the nurse checked her sign in log. “His parents or here. You might be able to speak with them.”

  I jotted down this information in my field notebook. “OK. Thank you.” Then I went to the waiting room outside of his ward.

  There was no Answer

  Sam Manual was driving down route 128 when he saw the emergency vehicles roaring down the turnpike.

  Normally he would give this a brief rubberneck and continue on home. Considering the times, he decided to make sure and picked up his cell phone and punched in the code for dispatch.

  “Yes Mr. Manual” it was Estelle, his second shift dispatcher. She’d seen Sam's number on caller ID.

  “What's all the commotion on the turnpike?”

  “Multi-car accident, according to the scanner”.

  “We got anybody out there?”

  “Number two, two, fourteen, sir. Fred Teller.”

  An electric gush of heat raced through Sam's stomach. Fred had been with Anytime Boulder Cab since the beginning. He was a vet that Sam had served with for the best five years of their young lives. They were at the 1983 suicide bombing of the Marines barracks in Beirut. They survived at least physically, but 243 others were less fortunate. That explosion started a chain of events that reverberated around the world. Fred had pulled Sam out of the rubble despite being shot in the leg. Sam knew something about Fred that the Marine Corps and FBI did not. After their discharge a while later, Sam lost touch with Fred until one day twelve years later he got a call from a case worker at a Pittsburgh VA Hospital. Sure, he could give his old Marine buddy a job and set him up a place to live quietly. Sam had just bought a limousine business that ran from the airport and special events and needed someone he could trust to start a local cab service. Boulder Colorado was a great place to keep away from the screams of the five o'clock news and maybe the screams from one horrible night.

  He put Fred in his first cab. His counselor at the hospital had warned to keep an eye on his moods and make sure he stayed on his meds.

  “Is he all…?”

  “Yes sir, I think. I talked to him when I heard. He was on airport duty. He sounded a little excited for him. Said he was stuck in the backup.” Estelle cut in.

  “Okay. Give him a call back and tell him... Never mind I'll call him.” Sam disconnected and punched in Fred's number. Fred had been hit hard by what happened in New York and Arlington. Every time something like this happened, Fred went into a blue place somewhere in his mind. He can still function but it was as if he were a robot running low on batteries. He spent more time shut up in his room instead of the garage with the other drivers. Sam usually gave Fred time off when he gets like that.

  Recently, Fred seemed to be coming out of his funk, so Sam let him back into a cab.

  There was no answer.

  “I’ll drop in and see him tonight.”

  Manicured Man

  I awoke the next morning, feeling stiff. My housemate had already left and I had planned to work at home. I rose and showered, my fingers found the sore soft spot behind my left ear. While toweling I noticed in the mirror a few bruises on my shoulder and legs, just little purple reminders of a different day.

  But I also remembered little clutches of yesterday’s unpleasantness as I dressed.

  Rather impulsively, I decided to walk to a café near the house. It was only four blocks down the path along Harvard gulch to the hospital. En route, I bought a paper then continued to the café. The gulch was dust-bowl dry and the trees had lost most of their leaves. I sat down at a table outside. It was a warm day, no wind; the café faced east. Across the street there was a gas station and a liquor store, which sat next to a fine Italian restaurant.

  I ordered a large coffee and settled in. Shortly, a fortyish man in dark business suit, blue shirt, and brightly striped red-and-yellow tie sat at a table nearby. He had a gold tie bar and gold cuff links that winked in sunlight as he placed a cellular phone on the table and hung his coat on the seat back. Most noticeable - he was meticulously manicured and too damned neat to be trusted. Obviously a salesman. A noble enterprise for those so inclined. Engagement with the salesman was imminent, I was regrettably sure.

  I sighed and unfolded the paper. Page 1, top of the fold: “Deadly Chain Reaction, Turnpike Tragedy” screamed the headline. I exhaled a short breath not sure if I was ready to read someone else’s account in a whorish attempt to sell newspapers. The picture, black, white and fuzzy, was from an unfamiliar angle. I read or skimmed the front-page paragraphs. What, where and when were adequately covered and I gathered no new knowledge. I was after who, why and how. It is always with trepidation that one reads in the newspaper’s accounts of events about which one has intimate knowledge. Every other sentence finds oneself punctuating the journalist’s statements with “No, No, NO! That’s not right. No that’s not right at all, aww damn… get it right for god’s sake!” Like reading an obituary of a friend. Stark facts about schools, jobs, family and where the memorial service will be held. Some have lifeless portraits from a year book or ID card. They present little of the human behind the picture.

  “Damn fine day ain’t it?” the too neat and manicured man said with a giggling smile. Non-morning types tend to deeply resent cheeriness particularly if one had been tossed around in a back of a bus the day before and was reading about in the morning post.

  “Umm-mmm,” I said, not looking up I said, noting that six had perished including a police officer, seventeen were injured, two seriously, and twenty-four vehicles were involved. As I read the names of the dead, I felt an odd sense of connectivity to them. It was as if I should call their families and attend their funerals. Should I say things like, “They died bravely” or “It was not an un
successful life”? No. I read about the prisoners and the gunfight. Then I read in horror one was still at large. My heart sank to the floor. In all the confusion the one they believe shot the cop dead was on the run and extremely dangerous. I looked at his picture.

  “Say, you wouldn’t work at Porter Hospital would you?” the manicured man broke through my hazy grief.

  “Nope”, I flipped to page 28A.

  “‘There is a state wide manhunt for the escaped prisoner but so far we have not turned up any leads. We believe him to be in the area. He is armed and extremely dangerous. I will provide more details when I get them.

  It is still under investigation. There does not appear to be drugs or alcohol related incident although the driver did register an insignificant level, well below the impaired limit. I don't have the number right here but it was not enough to bring any type of charge,’ said Sara Mackenzie spokesperson for the Boulder County Sheriff’s Offices.’

  Manicured man’s cell phone rang, “Hello…” he said.

  I continued scanning the article.

  “It appears that the driver of the vehicle lost control while attempting to pass.” said Sarah Mackenzie the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson, “But it is still all under investigation. We do know that he was driving at an excessive rate and probably a little out of control to begin with. Witnesses said that the car driven by a Michael Darnay of Boulder appeared to have something go wrong. He veered hard to the left and slammed into the cement barrier between the north and southbound lanes. His car, a late model Pontiac Firebird then cut back across the rush hour traffic causing the chain reaction accident.

  “Normally you would see something like this during a snow and ice storm. But those situations usually do not involved fatalities because everyone's slowed down anyway, because of the conditions. This was much different because the weather was nice. I think this traffic was moving at the speed limit when the driver lost control. Everyone was going that much faster. Nobody had time to get out of the way. This was a terrible accident,” Mackenzie said.

  Manicured man spoke into his phone, “Yeah, well tell Marsha I can’t make the two. I got a long meeting at Porter this morning and I can’t make the Springs by two. Be a dear and re-schedule me. …No, no… I’ll call …yeah… OK… yeah that’s fine. You’re a real champ sweetie, I’ll buy ya’ lunch…”

  I continued read trying to ignore manicured man.

  ‘“Preliminary reports suggest that the Darnay’s car suffered a mechanical failure forcing the speeding car across the traffic. Darnay and a passenger were both held overnight at Swedish Hospital for observation. Both are expected to fully recover. Charges have yet to be filed.

  “I think this is an entirely unfortunate incident” said Mackenzie, “six people are dead including Office Gregory Tanner, many are hurt and we had to destro...”’

  “Say you got the time there, I don’t think, wait… Has the time changed yet has…have we switched to daylight savings time?” Manicured man said to me.

  “You mean standard time.” I said.

  “Yeah”

  “No, not yet,” I said looking at my watch, “It’s a quarter to nine.”

  “Well Okay. I got an hour to kill.”

  I was not pleased at all to hear this remark.

  “Say that’s about that big wreck out on the turnpike ain’t it?” manicured man asked, glancing at the fuzzy front-page picture of my yesterday evening.

  I drew in a long breath. “Yep, bad thing.” I paused, as a patrol car passed. “I was… I was in a bus on the turnpike when it happened. I was in it”. It took all I could to muster a recant to the awfulness to my housemate the night before, getting the story out with the artificial assistance of several strong drinks. Now I was faced telling this tale to a stranger that I was sure should be hauled away on some type of public geek charge, if there was that sort of thing.

  “No shit sport! Wow. My supplier said it was a couple of drunk kids out hooting it up. Ran off the road and smacked a bunch of people. You were in it huh? Wow.”

  The caffeine took its first bite, I suddenly got the urge to roll up my paper and wop manicured man on the nose like some mongrel. The tinkling ring of his cell phone saved Manicured man from a vicious whopping.

  “Hello. Yeah. Hi there babe… I…”

  I turned back to the paper.

  “Michael Darnay Sr., the driver's father said that his son and Anthony Timmer, the passenger, were good boys, did well in school, enlisted in the Marine Corps. “They were enlisting to serve because it was right a call to duty. I talked to Michael tonight, he said that something went wrong and the car got away from him. He's awfully upset.”

  The spokesperson for Swedish, said Timmer was being held for observation and Darnay was heavily sedated. I think the driver of the car is quite a bit dazed. They found him about a hundred yards from the car in a state of shock.

  Most of the injured were taken to local hospitals and released. Two in critical condition remain at Boulder County.”

  Officer Tanner was killed during an altercation with prisoners who managed to escape the wreck. He left a wife and two children. The family has asked for privacy.

  “Most of the prisoners surrendered immediately. One was killed and five more injured none critically. I cannot comment further; it is still under investigation.” ‘Mackenzie said.’

  There was a picture of the Officer Tanner at the left corner of the article. Manicured man broke in.

  “Hey! So you were in that pile up! No goddamn way. Whew, must been something on that bus.”

  “No, not really. Just bounced around a bit. That’s all.” I stared at the page 28A pictures. There were five different shots. The one that caught my eye was taken from beyond the sideways Sports Vehicle, towards the bus. You could make out DENVER EXPRESS or at least part of it. On the ground, a few feet away from the front of the bus and slightly behind the Sports truck lay a lump, covered with a light blue colored blanket. I clutched the tablecloth, seeing in my mind the gold heart, swinging slowly. A hard pang hit the pit of my stomach like an uncooked potato.

  Manicured man said, “Goddamn drunk bastards. Rotten kids. Bunch of spoiled brats. They don’t know what they got. Just out for a … sheeesh…” He was at his own paper now, apparently looking at the photos, reading only the captions. I looked at his too-neat features: Black, perfectly slicked hair, his pressed suit, bright gold watch and cuff links, and imagined his “girl” on the other end of his plastic phone. Yep, and his shiny black wing-tip shoes and electronic day timer, all his gear and all his spit and polish… just a prop for a walking catalog of medical supplies and phony phrases. I looked across at the gas station. Some pretty, petite woman next to a large sport truck was struggling with the fuel hose.

  An attendant I knew was trotting out to help. I thought of Bonnie.

  Manicured man looked up from the pictorial section and said, “You know we outta just send all these boys off to some reform school, make them join up or something. Like they do in Israel and Europe. Teach them some respect. These little shits gotta learn that …”

  “Hey” I was weary. My head was hurting a tingling ran down my left leg. “You know.” I dropped my paper, took a sip of coffee and stood. My foot was numb. I threw a dollar on the table. Manicured man’s phone began tinkling.

  “Listen” I said. “It ain’t them boy’s fault. Not really. I mean, read the story.” Gesturing towards Manicured man's paper.

  “What day ya mean?” Manicured man looked up, phone at the ready for answering, mouth open, eyes quizzical.

  “It’s the war”.

  Generalissimo

  In room 228, Michael lay quietly in the bed staring at the tiled ceiling, running his eyes along the silver strips between sections. There was a drip tube in his right arm just below the crook in his elbow. Cool oxygen flowed through a breathing tube. He became numb and weak and somehow relieved. His father was gone, the Sheriff’s deputy and the doct
or finished probing and prodding his mind and body and then left.

  Finally, the nurse after making some adjustments returned to where ever nurses hover off in the background.

  Michael was unaware of the time of day, or what day for that matter and he did not care. He listened to the whir and clicks of little machines, and sensed the presence of another lying just beyond the drawn curtain. He did not care about that either. Shadows danced and flickered from the wall-mounted television. A slight wave of nausea swept through him. He was afraid to shut his eyes. Those ghastly images those mangled cars, torn bodies. That he… he just could not bring himself to accept it. Finally, the contents of the drip tube did its work. Michael felt as though he was slowly sinking through a mud bog, arms and legs gradually wove through the thick syrupy current. Each breath seemed to draw him deeper down, his body expanded as if being pumped full of air. His skin stretched tight and numb. The bed began shrinking. Deeper, darker, deadened until…

  Michael dreamt…

  He was back at the field with the exotic dancing olive trees and thousands of working men. There were more now than before and Michael was among them. Banners and tent flaps rippling in the quick breeze. This time he was down in the field as one of the workers, raising a large-handled hammer high over his head bringing it down hard against the jagged white stone. His billowy pants were speckled with bits of rock and sweat. There were new things Michael did not see when he was with Generalissimo the last time. In the dusty distance, he could make out a magnificent palace with golden spires jutting spectacularly up towards the sky framed by dark, cloud capped mountains off in the distance. There was a wide and thick river flowing heavily on the far side of the trees, its waters cold, dark and churning. Large ivory white crane-like birds strutted about with bright orange beaks and long graceful backward bent legs. Red Mullet jumped and swirled near the bank under overhanging branches. Young women were calling to the Red Mullet to caress and feed them. Women in flowing silk scarves, large almond eyes and wavy brown hair brought water to the singing workers.

  The General was on the hill looking down at the army of holy place builders. He was looking at no one in particular, standing there, arms behind him and slowly surveying the action. He held a large rolled up paper in his clasped hands.

  Michael tried to sing along with the others but it was foreign and he had trouble. At first, his rhythm was off as he was either too fast or too slow swinging his big hammer while trying to keep up with the others. The song was difficult so Michael hummed the melody occasionally singing a word he hoped was right. The large stones wobbled and shifted when Michael tried to break them. Many times, he would miss and his hammer would glance off the big stone and Michael would lose track of the music.

  Occasionally he’d hit his foot or ankle but he did not cry out fearing he would be seen as weak. He would have to stop and start over. His hands were becoming raw and began to bleed. He looked around and marveled at the ease in which the others would swing their hammers in perfect rhythm, each blow breaking the stone into smaller pieces. Their song flowed in strong clear voices as easily as talking to an old neighbor.

  The perfect choreography between hammer slingers, basket bearers and wheelbarrow pushers. The tampers meted out the perfect beat. He could see that the workers were people from many different places and they all shouted their names and where they lived proudly, enthusiastically. Michael picked up his hammer; counted the beat to time his stoke, and tried again, and again his hammer skipped off the rock face and thumped on the ground.

  The General looked down at Michael. “My friend.” His voice, monotone and steady, cut through the din, seemed to zero straight in to Michael and no one else. His eyes were intense, black, drawing, lonely.

  “Yes Generalissimo.” Michael, drawn into the General's intensity, unable to turn away, unable to blink, mesmerized by the hypnotic gaze, looked up against the sun.

  “You must find the rhythm of the stone and learn the words of the song. Your thirst is great and your will is strong. You will learn, for you are no different than the others.”

  “I will try Generalissimo.”

  The General now unrolled the paper in front of him, and said without looking up, “Follow the others. They will teach you the song of freedom. Once you learn the song my friend, the stone will be soft and your hammer light and true.”

  Michael lifted his hammer and began singing to the rhythm of the stone.

  Fred Teller

  Fred Teller sat on the edge of his bed. It was a dark, near midnight. He clicked to another station on the television, he had seen enough of the news. They keep repeating the same stories this time of night. Always the same stories, it never changes just the names. Two-hundred and forty-three names. He should have been one of them, number two hundred and forty-four. But he ran. He was scared. A kid really. But he was a Marine Damnit! Why he did he run. He tried not to ask himself this question but it kept coming back over and over like the news. Nothing ever changes, nothing ever will. He does not like to watch the news preferring the porn channels on cable or old war movies. He found a John Wayne movie. The news just took Fred back to Beirut and the day he ran. Fred had left some of his buddies to die. If only he had not been doing that bad thing with the foreign girl. “That whore!” he hissed. Five-dollar blow job when he should have been at his station. He tried to get back but caught a piece of shrapnel in the back of the leg from the explosion.

  Fred Teller went home from Beirut in secret shame in 1983 and the world has not been the same ever since.

  They gave him a Purple Heart. President Reagan sent him a letter. Fred kept these things. He didn’t want to but if he gave them back people might grow suspicious and find out what he had done. He gave all his Marine stuff to his sister. He put all his things in a box and mailed it to her. No letters except for the one from the president. He put his medals, uniforms, pictures and a flag. The one they put on his friend’s casket that Fred helped carry to the plane that would take him home. He had died in his sleep while Fred was getting a blow job. He had not talked to his sister in years, since Christmas 1999, from the VA hospital. That is the last time he talked to anybody. He didn’t talk much to anybody because they might find out what he did. He ran, that’s what he did because he was getting a blow job from a whore in an alley when the truck blew up.

  Since that horrible day many bad things happened. Planes hi-jacked and blown out of the sky Embassies attacked. Then New York and the Pentagon and those brave ones over Pennsylvania. No would have died if he hadn’t run on the October day in 1983. If he would have stayed and fought like Patton wanted, to keep going to Moscow in World War II. Maybe the world would be a better place today. It’s all his fault – everything, because he did not stand his ground.

  Fred repeated the thoughts that had been haunting him, “We should have hit back hard right then. To not act out of fear of being wrong is weakness and we paid for the inaction. American became weaker and the world took advantage. Could I have stopped the ensuing madness?” I was weak.

  Fred looked at the television. He did not like these moods he got when things went wrong like they did a month ago and today on the turnpike. He couldn’t focus disjointed thoughts and memories snapped on then flickered away. He lit a cigarette while one was still burning in the ashtray. The Marines were storming the beach led by John Wayne. Fred already knew the ending, many would die but Americans will win and Japan stripped of its imperialist tendencies.

  He mutters to himself. “Why did I lose my nerve? Why did America lose its nerve in 1983? Did the moralist get in the way and cry about another Vietnam? Why didn’t we listen to Patten? Why didn’t we get them then instead they keep killing us? And it’s my fault. All of it.”

  John Wayne waves his men forward.

  “Why don’t they show the blood and the body parts? It’s not like that at all.” Fred is angry, “Nobody would fight if they showed that.”

  Fred got a sudden urge to throw up. <
br />
  He looked around his one room apartment above Anytime Cab. It was a mess, clothes from the Salvation Army, trash, liquor bottles scattered about. He could see his reflection in the cracked mirror. He hated his reflection. Old, wrinkled, gray hair and dull hazel eyes. His left leg had been hurting bad. That meant cold was coming. Fred took another pain pill and swallowed it down with Tequila.

  Fred Teller lit another cigarette and watched TV. He had seen this movie a hundred times. Everything was the same, nothing ever changed. He turned down the volume, he did not need it. He knew which guy was going to get it next. He said “Watch it!” “Get down!” “There’s a Jap behind that tree!”

  It never worked, of course, they died anyway. They always did. Nothing ever changes. Fred knows why Hollywood never shows much blood. People would not watch the movies if they showed what it was really like. Blood, and body parts and the screams. The crying and grown men calling for their mother. The brave and the dead and the cowards. Commanders frozen in fear. Grizzled old sergeants saving who he could, killing as many of the attackers as he could. The noise everywhere and ground shaking pieces of buildings falling to the ground. A news journalist shot in the head his brain turned into a pink mist like Kennedy’s in 1963, the year Fred was born. Another year when a generation died and the world became a different place.

  Fred put hands to his ears. He didn’t want to hear the noise he did not want to suffer the pain.

  “Damn it. Why?” He said rubbing his temples. A commercial came on about A Few Good Men.

  The Few, The Brave, The Marines.

  “Because I told you Fred.”

  “What? What was that?

  “It is me Fred. The one that died in 1983. You know Fred. Don’t you Fred.”

  “Who are you?!” Fred ached with deep anxiety, like a knot of hot electricity buzzing in his stomach. It churned so hard, his ears began to buzz. He turned up the volume, so he could listen the sounds of the war and John Wayne.

  “I’m there Fred. I will always be there Fred. I have been with you since 1983 Fred.”

  “No! They told me about you! They warned me you would come back. Go away!”

  “No Fred, not this time Fred. I’m here to stay you know that do you not Fred? Do you not know I will always be with you?”

  Fred rubbed his neck. There was nothing there but he knew it was there. Always has been. The hyena, gnawing at his neck, laughing at him, mocking him, calling him a coward. He poured himself another drink. “Maybe I can sleep tonight,” he said softly.

  “None of this would’ve happened if you didn’t run away in 1983, Fred.”

  “I know that! Stop reminding me!” Fred hissed and swallowed the whiskey in one gulp. He poured another.

  Twenty years after Kennedy a new generation was born. All the other bombings those people jumping out of those buildings. Everything was different now.

  “If I would have stayed and fought. I can’t change that.”

  “That is true. Good boy, Fred. Now you understand. We knew you would see it our way.”

  Fred Teller wanted change once and for all. Once and for all, he wanted silence.

  “Be a good Marine Fred. John Wayne will be proud. Show us what you got Fred. Go to sleep Marine.”

  The waitress from the Irish pub walked to the group house a few blocks away. She was tired and her feet hurt. She still needed to study for tomorrows examines in criminal psychology. She had heard about the accident and saw reposts on the television above the bar. Everyone was talking about it. The Colorado Buffaloes Football were pretty good this year but were relegated to minor conversations. They were playing Texas A&M at home. They had beat Kansas State last weekend were nationally ranked for the first time. Sports had a way of healing a hurt nation and bring together communities in commonality.

  She hoped that the guy that always comes in wasn’t hurt. She liked it when he stuck around. He was nice and handsome. If she were older she would like to have been his girlfriend. He seemed smart and funny.

  Something about his hands and the crooked smile.

  There was no moon and this part of town did not have as many street lights. She never worried about that. She had mace, just in case. The air was getting cold as she rounded the corner the wind braced her.

  She bundled up, put her head down and quickened her pace to get home, just two blocks away. Tomorrow will be cold, she thought. She hoped it would snow, and not be cold, miserable rain.

  She crossed the last street before the group house when she heard a shot.

  Letters

  By the time I got home from the café I was over my disgust with manicured man. Mostly I realized he was not much different than everyone else. They believed everything they read in the paper. I like to find out things from accumulation of known facts. I sat at my desk and gave the article one more read and looked up stories on line. Something bugged me about the whole tragedy. I was there, I knew that probably there was something else. Something missed. But I have distrusted news for a long time and since I was there, I wanted to know more.

  I wrote down the names Michael Darnay and Anthony Timmer. Terrorism was on everybody’s mind but I ruled that out. That left me with a joy ride but that didn’t make sense? I called the homes of numbers I found in the phone book. No answer or a machine to leave a message. I called the hospital. I knew Anthony had been released but Michael was still in an induced coma. I called the Sheriff’s Department and got the same story that the newspaper grossly misconstrued. Anthony told me the car had simply gotten away from Michael.

  Recalling the events of the previous day, and fuming over the misreporting, I wrote a letter, more an essay, of everything I knew about the accident. I spoke with the parents of both Michael and Anthony at the hospital. They provided detail about the lives and intentions of the young men. I wrote this too. I sent copies to all the major newspapers in the region via email. Several editors called me to verify my story. All of them told me they will run it either in the opinion section or as a below the fold first page article. I didn’t care much about all that, but was satisfied that the truth would be told.

  Then, on the internet, I read the story of Fred Teller. It wasn’t much, a few paragraphs. The story didn’t link him to the accident and how he stepped in to help, by taking Bonnie and others to the hospital. I was going to find out more of this man.

  Thinking of Bonnie made my stomach jump. I recalled our conversation from last night over the phone and smiled at how I leapt out of my desk chair when the phone finally rang. I reached over and snatched the phone out of its charging cradle.

  “Hello?” I said, and cleared my throat. Electric butterflies bashed against the walls of my stomach.

  “Hi. It’s me, Bonnie.”

  My heart jumped and cartwheeled in my chest. I had to calm myself and catch my breath. I had the sensation of standing in a dark room and staring out the only window at a tiny point of light far away. I wanted to grasp that tiny point of light but it was just out of my reach.

  “Hello! You called!”

  “Of course!”

  The conversation began polite and restrained as we gauged each other’s temperament like two dogs sniffing each other for a familiar scent. My face began to flush. I want to reach through the phone and caress her. I felt a strong certainty that only comes once in a lifetime and never again, as a stew of fear and longing. I kept these feeling secret. That was the fear. The undeniable euphoria. That was the longing. We made plans for lunch and perhaps more.

  Funny how things work out.